final boss is a troll fight. it was either not tested or intentionally unfair. it is a skill issue for sure, but ive beat orphan of kos, ludwig, ishin, demon of hatred, nameless king, sister friede, and none of them felt unfair. the boss fight just isnt fun more than anything. messmer and divine beast were great, they were both hard but fair for the most part, idk what happened this time.

i think, maybe, that everyone involved with the boss was just too focused on making the flashiest, coolest ending ever instead of focusing on making a fight thats reasonable. i think its probably my least favorite fight in any of the souls games i've played (DS1, DS3 n DLC, Bloodborne n DLC, Sekiro, this fucking game) right next to Malenia. i can either cheese them in 2 minutes or beat them in 10 hours. either way its not enjoyable, i dont fucking care if im just not good enough.

honestly i think half of the game's issues with its bosses would be fixed if the camera is moved further back for certain bosses. if the boss is too quick, or too big, just move the camera back so i can actually see whats happening. i mean that literally happens in Sekiro, idk why its not in here. like i want to enjoy messmer and divine beast more than i do but 20% of the time i cannot tell whats going on.

the leveling system for the land of shadow is also complete dog shit. if a boss is too hard because the bosses are intentionally juiced to kill you instantly, you can grind to make them easier but instead of killing mobs you just walk around and find little pieces of trash that make the bosses easier its so dumb.

im not willing to be negative overall because of the occasional poor boss design. everything else is as good as anything from has ever done. but the bosses are most of the appeal of a fromsoft game, its a problem if the final boss of the game just kicks you in the teeth without a fight.

"Pure and Radiant. He wields love to shrive clean the hearts of men.

There is nothing more terrifying."

(250+)

First of all, fuck you Malcolm. Second of all, now that falling into the Granblue pit has made it so that I no longer have the dignity to turn my nose up at any gacha game by virtue of it being a gacha, I figured I'd try another one that's had my eye for a good while. This may or may not have been heavily influenced by seeing a girl with a mechsuit doing rider kicks in a later story expansion (who I pulled on her banner just the other day hehehe) but it was enough to get me to fold. I had low expectations given the horror stories I've heard about Genshin but this left me pleasantly surprised on all fronts. Combat was the biggest thing I didn't expect to hook me as much as it did. The way characters are limited to basic attacks and one skill/ultimate move for each made it so that teambuilding required a lot of pretty tough decision making to put as much as you can into a single team of four, while inevitably sacrificing some potentially really vital boon another character might have. This is only the first story arc so I don't know if later battles will require you to lean more on higher ranked units, but as a fresh F2P player my experience mechanically has been rather smooth. Narratively Jarilo-VI's story wasn't much to write home about but it succeeded in being fairly charming. The characters are decently charming even if they don't have the most depth in the world, though there were some solid standouts like Natasha. I was kinda bored of Bronya at first but once her dynamic with Seele got explored more I started to get endeared to her more. Good stuff. The only real big hangup I have so far is that for being a huge spacefaring adventure, all of the gacha units being characters you see in the main story and this arc mainly taking place in one or two cities make the world feel rather small. Maybe it's something that'll be overcome as it goes on, but while it's not a dealbreaker it does irk me compared to something like Granblue which does a fantastic job of making its world feel vast. Overall not half bad, I'm definitely interested in catching up with this and seeing where it goes, and maybe looking at some other titles of theirs like Hi3 or the upcoming Zenless Zone Zero. Not Genshin tho, that game looks miserable.

(Note: I'm marking this as completed since I finished that planet's arc I'm assuming the updates and expansions represent the later story arcs)

I attempted to play Shin Megami Tensei V a year and a half ago but I gave up after 10 hours because the game seemed unfinished and I just wasn't really in a SMT mood. Come to now, I decided to give the Canon of Creation another chance in Vengenace after playing other SMT titles, along with the various quality of the life added to the game before playing the Vengeance specific route. This game has been a joyful experience and I am glad that I decided to revisit it, cementing SMT as one of my favourite franchises.

The story is okay, there's nothing really eye-catching about it in my opinion. I guess I'll incorporate the character section into this section as well, because they play a pivotal role in the story. The characters are probably one the games weakest aspects in my eyes, considering you barely learn anything about them, and consequently makes me not feel at all attached to them, and the things you do learn about them are through Vengeance-specific sub-quests that aren't mandatory to the story at all. It wasn't just the main cast, but the supporting cast as well, where much wouldn't have changed if they weren't even included in the final game. Overall, the story is solid, but the characters really let it down in my eyes.

Coming from the story, I also want to talk about the alignment choice. It sucks how this game basically made every dialogue choice you make obsolete (except if you want the True Ending I guess), considering that the only choice that matters to which ending you end up going through with is at the very end of the game. I guess you could argue that the dialogue is there for the immersion, but I enjoyed how other SMT games made your choices reflect on your allignment.

I'll stand by the fact that this game should've never been a console exclusive for the Nintendo Switch, I'm happy that I was able to play this game on PC through Vengeance. Although I don't quite remember what this game looked like on the Switch, I can say that it had environments that I fell in love with, and I love just exploring every little nook and corner around the entire map, probably one of the highlights of the game for me honestly. I could spend hours in the world just to discover loot, Miman, Glory, Abscesses, Quests, etc.

Another highlight of the game for me was battling and fusing (and technically just every mechanic in the World of Shadows), it truly is the peak of the series. Essences just made customising your demons with different skills that gave them resistances fun, Miracles allowed for Nahobino to become stronger and services to become cheaper, and fusing is just fusing, I've already talked about how much I love fusing in other reviews. I also adore the Press Turn system, and once again buffs and debuffs reign supreme, along with broken unique skills in the late game that just decimate bosses and sub-bosses.

The music also just slaps really hard. I don't think I'll be getting any of the music out of my head anytime soon, it truly is that good.

While this game does have some lows, it does have extreme highs that far outclass the lows and make this an extremely enjoyable experience for an SMT game, despite the base game feeling sort of unfinished, like performance issues and the like. If you want to play the base game again or experience it for the first time, just get Vengeance.

"The genshin killer!"
The only thing that'll kill Genshin, is Genshin itself.

This game looks and feels like a Chinese knock-off of Genshin and it's not really hiding that fact. Even the UI, keyboard shortcuts, and pity systems are almost identical.
I only played Genshin briefly, so I can only comment from the lens of a new player to the genre. This game has Genshin beat in engaging combat, but that's literally where the compliments end.
I only log in and do my dailies when I'm really bored, which only happens like once every week or two.
If you hate Genshin, but want the same gameplay loop for some reason, this is a decent alternative.
Also this game runs like shit on my 3070.

Do you see banana man
Hopping over on the white hot sand
Here he come with some for me
Freshly taken from banana tree (one, two, three, four)
Banana man me want a ton
Give me double and a bonus one
Give me more for all me friends
This banana flow never end
Do you want a banana?
Peel it down and go mm mm mm mm
Do you want a banana?
This banana for you
Tonight we dance around the flame
Then we get to play the spirit game
Spirit names we shout out loud
Shake the thunder from the spirit cloud
All the songbirds in the tree
Chant a tune to let the spirits free
Then we see them in the night
Spirits jumpin' by the fire light
Do you want a banana? (Do you want a banana)
Peel it down and go mm mm mm mm
Do you want a banana? (Do you want a banana)
This banana for you
Look you, you're too uptight you know
You can laugh and kick it back and go (we)
But without a rhythm or a rhyme
You do not banana all the time
Fly away from city on the run
Try to make a little fun
Look you come to the bungalow
African't you tell me don't you so
Don't you love the bumping of the drum
Make you shake until the bum go numb
Let the bongo play until you drop
This banana never stop (never stop, never stop)
Forget all your troubles and go with the flow
Forget about whatever you may never know
Like whether whatever you are doing is whatever you should
And whether anything you do is every really any good
And then forget about banana when it sticks in your throat
And when they make you want to bellow but you're stuck in a choke
And you forget about the yellow from the beckoning man
He'll make you take another and make a mock of your plan
Bungalay bungalo make up your mind and tell me no umm shh
Well it's nine o'clock and it's getting dark
And the sun is falling from the sky
I've never left so early and you may wonder why
Tomorrow morning on the plane
No banana make you go insane
Floating back to busy town
No banana make you want to frown
Do you want a banana? (Do you want a banana?)
Peel it down and go mm mm mm mm
Do you want a banana?
This banana for you

So, I've just finished the Chaos ending a few minutes ago. Dungeons are still ass but everything else has been massively improved. As for the story, it's corny as fuck sometimes and a certain point near the end was so goofy that it wraps back around to unironically being Peak Fiction, and I'm kind of undetermined on how I feel about the utilisation of the Qadistu. I'll probably make an updated review after beating Godborn and doing all the sidequests and shit. But currently, yeah it's a pretty good game imho.

I’m mainly going to focus on my personal enjoyment of the lore as ER is pretty much DS4 in terms of gameplay lol. All that’s different is you got legs that finally works, a horse and caves. Woot, woot!

But I’ve always enjoyed FromSoft’s method of storytelling. They’ve made it abundantly clear in of their games that they won’t baby you or tell you what’s going on. You’re dropped in a giant jigsaw puzzle, and all of the vital pieces are spread all over the goddamn map and you gotta run all over the place to figure out what’s going on. At most, the plot is a few line of dialogues telling you do to this, then this, then that, and boom claim your greatness. Everything else is told in the items description, and not a single game document in sight. And that’s kinda fucking cool, imo. To tell a story in only a few sentences, all hidden in mundane looking objects.

Dark Souls games and Bloodborne were a little more… contained, so it’s easier to understand the universe and lore. But Elden Ring is a different beast. At least for me, anyways. It’s all one big steamy pile of messy family drama but you just can’t help but get a piece of the gossip! There’s a fuck ton going on simultaneously in the lore, and admittedly, sometimes it’s a lot. There’s tons of the pieces of the puzzle, and you gotta figure out which sides or angle it works from. This game, for better or for worse, is less… explicit about the story. ER universe is vast and very complex, which leaves a lot of room for predictions and conjecture that sometimes feels like you need a PhD to break everything down. There’s just a lot of room for multiple sides to be right and ngl, it’s nice to see what the communities come up with. When you sneak vital lore that interweave in items all over the map—sometimes in optionals dungeons—there’s bound to be lots of missing answers.

But I’m cool with that.

I dont really fuck with fromsoftware to much they make difficult games really difficult 😡😡 but yeah I hate dark souls and bloodbourne and not saying they bad or nun I'm not fucking stupid I just legit don't have the patience or skill most of the time to truely enjoy them but this game I felt that way but there was just a lil but more sauce that kept me going like once I found out I could be a samurai and have Vergils AND septhiroths sword sign me up ... I procided to get my ass whooped for 2 whole fucking months straight and barely made any progress without using other people for help and and having a literal fucking child be in my party as my fuckint guide towards the end of my game who told me the new to me that I wasn't built for this and just continue to get carried to get it over with is fucking insane but yeah top 10 video game experiences for me def made me hate souls like games even more but yeah someof the coolest enemies and world designs I've ever seen in anything ever and I just remembered know I actually did fight alot of bosses by myself I remember a weird spider skull dude name like natural born starborn sum and I spent deadass five hours straight grinding to kill em and even getting a archer I think named latena so shout it here top 10 boss fights for me and Blaidd but that's make me sad and speaking if Blaidd this game got me back into werewolves like I was a kid again but uhh not for the same reason cus ion think child me wanted to plow a 8 ft tall wolf man in the ass so yeah pretty good game 8/10