games I played in 2023

This is where I post my thought dumps on games I completely finished in a given year. Even if it's not my first playthrough. There will be grammatical errors and run-on sentences. Happens a lot when you have moderate ADHD.

games I played in 2023

1. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart ****
2. Ghostwire: Tokyo *****
3. Destroy All Humans (2022) ***
4. Final Fantasy Origin: Stranger of Paradise - Different Futures ****
5. Yakuza 3 ****
6. Yakuza 4 ****
7. Yakuza 5 ****
8. Wild Guns *****
9. Octopath Traveler 2 *****
10. Final Fantasy Type 0 HD ***
11. Yakuza 6 ****
12. Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne HD ****
13. Advanced Wars 1 + 2: Re-boot Camp *****
14. Metroid Prime: Remastered ****
15. The Last Guardian ***
16. Enter the Gungeon: House of the Gundead ****
17. Dragon Quest 1 (Switch) **
18. Beavis and Butthead (GB) ***
19. Astra: And the New Constellation ****
20. Pac-Man World: Re-Pac **
21. Demon Throttle *****
22. Like a Dragon: Ishin ****
23. Final Fantasy XVI ****
24. Yoshi's Craft World ***
25. Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Final Mix HD ****
26. Dragon Quest 2 ***
27. Assassin's Creed Odyssey ****
28. Pikmin 4
29. Kingdom Hearts: Re: Chain of Memories ***
30. Front Mission 1st Remake ****
31. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 **
32. New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe ***
33. Captain Toad Treasure Tracker ****
34. We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie ***
35. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R ***
36. Raystorm HD ****
37. Raycrisis HD ****
38. Catherine: Full Body *****
39. No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle ****
40. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD ****
41. No More Heroes 3 ***
42. Super Mario Bros Wonder *****
43. Legend of Dragoon ****
44. Spider-Man 2 *****
45. Control *****
46. Super Mario RPG *****
47. Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name ***
48. Alan Wake II *****
49. Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope ****
50. The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails ****
51. Resident Evil Village *****

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart - ****
Ratchet and Clank is a pretty long series at this point. We're at 8? mainline games now. Graphics are stunning and the lack of load times when going from one area to another is pretty cool tech. But the tech doesn't wow as much as the hype was built up towards. The guns play well, but weaponry never really stood out. Which is a pretty distinct feature of the games. In Ratchet PS4 had some cool weaponry. This entry starts you off with a lot of abilities. Kind of like playing Metroid 2 and keeping your basic traversal tools. I don't know if this is a bad thing necessarily; but it felt that there was a lack of growth and exploration in terms of character ability development. This is hinted at early on, when Ratchet says he hasn't gone an adventure or saved the galaxy in years. This entry introduces hover boots in a way of traversal. Basically gliding across levels, which is heavily needed since some of the maps can be gargantuan. Overall, the game still plays well. The writing is still high up there and the gameplay loop is very satisfying. It's missing a half-dozen things to shine bright. But it shines bright enough to be fun and a worthwhile experience.

Ghostwire: Tokyo - *****
Ghostwire: Tokyo is a game I had completely no idea what to expect other than the fact that it was developed by Tango Softworks. Devs of The Evil Within 1 and 2. I haven't played TEW2 and I heard it went open world. Which I assume was infused into this game. Also expecting Ghostwire to be a horror game. It's more of a supernatural, action thriller. You play as a normal Japanese guy who gets special "weaving" elemental powers. Honestly, it's kind of like Avatar the Airbender in terms of power execution. It has the standard upgrade trees of most modern games for powers, abilities, and equipment. The game really shines in the fact that it's an open-world game set in Tokyo/Shibuya. And it's not just hodge-podged together. The devs went out of there way to put a lot of little things in eveyr nook and cranny and have very little glitches at the same time. The side missions have interesting stories and you are helping spirits pass on to the next life. The only issue I have with the story, is the main narrative is often vague. It doesn't explore the main characters too much, but at the same time it explains just enough. The game spooked me a couple of times, but beyond that, I never felt it was like a horror game. Being an open world game, there are trinkets and objects to collect and it was really cool to learn about older Japanese periods I hadn't particularly been familiar with, like the Jomon period. Another negative is that the game suffers from open-world syndome a little bit too much. There are too many things to collect sometimes, or too many things to do. And at the end of the day, doing most of the side-content doesn't affect much beyond getting the trophy or achievement at the end. Ghostwire shines in it's characterization, extremely strong gameplay, and it's atmosphere. So far, it's my favorite game I've played this year. Even though we're just getting started.

Destroy All Humans (2020) - ***
I've never played any Destroy All Humans games, so I don't have any nostalgia for the franchise. The game really surprised me. You play as Cryptosporidium 138 or Crypto. the 138th clone of the himself, a part of the Furon species. You have the Furon leader giving you orders the entire time, but Richard Horvitz VOs for the leader, and the writing and voice acting is top notch in this game. So, the game takes place in 1959 and there is heavy American propaganda. Like, America is the greatest country and whenever there is an alien attack, the government tries to cover it up as Communist propaganda. That they won't take our freedom so on. I found myself laughing out loud every mission. DAH is set up across multiple cities and small towns with a half-dozen or so missions in all of them. After you complete one story mission per map, you unlock free-play and there are side-missions in each. Such as racing around a level collecting orbs, or causing as much as damage as possible. Part-way through the game, the game introduces arbitrary mechanics. Such as stealth, time-limits to complete objectives, and inconsistent diffficulty spikes. The game starts off strong and gameplay-wise is a bumpy ride 1/3 of the way through to the end. The game has upgrades and different weapons, but about half the content is either not as useful or extremely difficult to find ammunition for. So, it's usually easier to just use the base weapon or 2nd weapon you get. The main character Crypto VO'ed by Grant Albrecht is also extremely talented. It's honestly worth playing this game for the story alone; it's a shame I almost gave up a few times due to the huge difficulty spikes and the stealth not working half the time. I want to play the sequel remake, but at the same time I don't based on my experience.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin - Different Futures ****
This is the final DLC of FFO. Basically a Dark Souls/Ni-Oh-like with a spin on Final Fantasy 1 in an alternate universe. DLC #2, Wanderer of the Rift, introduces a rogue-like dungeon with multiple floors and objectives to the mix and really ramps the endless customization and loot to grind. Different Futures expands on the customization and loot even more and expands the original rogue-like dungeon from 100 floors to 9999 floors. Essentially endless. The main problem to customization is the random loot drops to adjust your equipment. You could spend 10 hours and get one good drop. With a almost figurative post-game goal. The replay value declines from DLC #2. The DLC's story-based content expands on the lore and supposedly finishes and completes the current game's plot with some decent, yet expected conclusions. And the expansion on Lufenian lore is much appreciated. The DLC's strongest point is it's story-based content. While at the same time, you could finish the main story in a couple hours. The fun and story outshine the other negative aspects.

Yakuza 3 (Remaster) - ****
I have mixed feelings on Yakuza 3. It's the first Yakuza game that was made on PS3 following the PS2 Yakuza games. So, looking at the entry, it accomplished a lot. Yet, it doesn't feel it has aged well. Particularly since I've played Kiwami 1, Kiwami 2, 0, 7, Judgment and Lost Judgment. Basically, most of it's features are underwhelming compared to it's later games; as this game could have really benefited from a Kiwami remake instead of a remaster. Y3 is rarely difficult on normal difficulty and the game has a huge amount of content that rivals 0. While the game boasts 120 substories, most of them are nothing special. There are some good ones in there, but overall they aren't that great. The hostesses are brought back from Kiwami and it's a slog of dating sim. I probably spent 15 hours on the hostess events alone. The game also has limited fast travel points and save points. So, getting to either one of these can be a constant slog of running across the map. I have mixed feelings on the combat. It's fairly simple and expands well as more combinations unlock. But once you learn a few good things, there's no reason not to repeat using them. I've been overly negative thus far, but the story beats are probably some of the best in the early series. Rukiya is probably my favorite character. Nakahara and his adoptive daughter hit high points and even the childrens' interpersonal events shine well. Even the antagonists are well written and have terrific voice actors. I also want to point out that the graphics are very well done. I haven't played a PS3 game in a while, and it shows that you can push a lot of the console in terms of style and presentation. I would say that if you're a Yakuza fan, that this game is a must play, yet I wouldn't recommend someone starting the series here completely (it was likely a starting point for many). There are better games in the series to start with. Particularly, 0 or Kiwami.

Yakuza 4 (Remaster) - ****
There's seems to be a negative consensus on the PS3 Yakuza games and so far, they are still solid titles. The only difference is that 4 does a lot things different and expands the scope, while shrinking some other aspects. We're down to 62 substories instead of the previous games' 120. And there are 4 playable characters including Kiryu. Each character is fairly well-written, have great personalities, and tie into the overall story well. The biggest letdown is honestly Kiryu's arc. It's more or less a small part of the game and feels more like an epilogue to 3. The dating sim is re-included in substories, albiet at a much smaller level, but it's still a slog. There is only 2 more fast-travel points added. The game's beats are shorter. There are less bosses, more chapters; the pacing is on-and-off. Some chapters are a few minutes while others are a couple hours. When all 4 protagonists come together, the story hits some high marks. But the final boss is a major let down in terms of design and combat. It could possibly be the worst fight in the series. I actually only spent about 35 hours on this entry, which is roughly half of the time spent I put into Y3. It would be hard for me to rank this game. I would rate it about evenly with 3, but for different reasons all together. Y3 and Y4 has strengths and weaknesses that are very different.

Yakuza 5 (Remaster) - ****
Yakuza 5 seems to have mixed opinions about it. At the same time, still being a solid title. The game just has such a substantial amount of content. I did all substories in Yakuza 4 in about 26 hours, this game took me about 85 hours. Slightly longer than Yakuza 3. There are 5 playable characters in this entry and a locale for (almost) each character. The 3rd game also didn't see a physical (or Steam) release in the US until it was remastered. The positives. It has a brand new engine, being the Kiwami engine. Everything looks way better than 3 and 4. It's hard to tell it's even a PS3 game sometimes. The game is just fun. There are substories and sidestories now. Sidestories are basically sidequests that exist outside of the main game for each character. For Kiryu, it's taxi driving missions and races. For Saejima, it's hunting in the mountains of Hokkaido. And so on. Some people didn't like some of the sidestories, but they honestly all really shine well. Akiyama is introduced in the game, but his presence is muted in some parts of the game. He's shoehorned into the 3rd chapter as a secondary character. He's fully playable, like normal. But he doesn't get his own special sidestories; he gets the substories though. One point of contention is that Tanemura is not in this game. Newcomer Tatsudo Shinada is brought in and personally, he's extremely conflicting in terms of his inclusion. 90% of the time Shinada is a whiny crybaby, or a huge pervert that only cares to meet his personal desires. Which, is not to say, couldn't make an interesting character. But he's constantly in a state of why me? There are shining beacons in the game, where he doesn't take shit and is actually showing meaningful conviction. His main story arc is also very divisive; with the secondary characters, for the most part, are only slightly above being two-dimensional. The main problem also with Shinada is, he's just not a fighter. He's literally a (former) pro baseball player. The main showcase is that he specializes in weapons, but his attack power is so weak, he's excruciating painful to use. I feel like I just don't want to play as him and makes me feel like I'd rather be playing a different character instead. Another negative point is that Haruka's sidestories are extremely repetitive. Almost literally doing the same thing 5 times, like shaking hands with fans. It's a complete drag that pads out the side content. A third downfall is that the substories for this entry are fairly weak and unmemorable. Like having a conversation with someone and making some choices. None of these qualities I'm bothered too much by, but the side content is repetitive with too much padding. You could literally trim fat and still have a lot of material to work with. All in all, I've spent a lot on the negatives. The game's narrative and mystere is strong all the way up to the final chapter where it nosedives. There's a cutscene where two opposing factions have to fight for literally no reason. The final boss is completely unexpected and he has no reason to do what he is doing. Okay, for the positives. The game's combat really shines. The ability upgrade tree is fairly similar to the past couple of games and the new abilities are a welcome change. Kiryu's training really comes in handy for a lot of difficult to manage fights. Each character has a nice variety of movesets to differentiate their fighting styles. The sidestories are loads of fun outside of Haruka's. Even Shinada's baseball sidestories were fun and usually the minigames can be unfair. I loved walking around each region that each character was in. I looked at pictures online and it was really cool to see how similar to life these places were crafted for. The game is still a good game. It just teetors on the line of above average and great. I would say it's a poor entry point and would start with 0, 1, 2, or even 3. 4 and 5 I feel, you need to play others beforehand. But, most people are likely to be in the position before considering to play this entry.

Octopath Traveler 2 - *****
I really enjoyed the first game and was super hype when the second one was announced. Octopath Traveler 2 is a near-perfect game and a great representation of an evolution of old-school 2D based RPGs in modern times. Everything is amazing. The pixel art. The orchestrated soundtrack. The tight and improved gameplay. The dense and touching stories. And it's damn fun. They added a "limit break" to each character. Skills have been improved. More story content rounds out the tale better. And a nice epilogue. The story reminds me of Trails games in how dense it goes into the background characters and overworld lore in great detail. When I rolled the credits, my favorite part was all the people involved with the orchestrated soundtrack. They listed all the instruments and there were probably an equal amount of people that worked on the soundtrack and the game content itself. The only downsides I had were: there were a few chapters that didn't really capture my attention. And when the game was announced I was hoping different based jobs would be used. But instead, all 8 jobs were re-used. Which is fine, I guess. To keep a theme going. I can see this becoming it's own franchise. I could definitely go for another entry every 5 years or so.

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD - ***
Final Fantasy Type-0 is a fairly dark game the focuses on war and death. It was developed as part of the Novus Crystalis subseries with XIII and loosely XV. The game features pretty bad writing in terms of character interaction. The story is often convoluted and the systems are little spread out. Overworld traversal is cumbersome and take too long. Everything is spread out, even at the main school area. The games story becomes more clear on a second playthrough as the second one is tied directly into the lore with additional story reveals. It's hard to grind in this game effectively. You can grind harder monsters, but exp points can vary depending on difference in levels. And it still takes too long when compared the main story missions. Leaving me felt a little silly to play the game beyond the easiest difficulty. There are over 10 playable characters and they don't gain experience points when not in battle. The game really shines in it's combat and varied characters' play styles. Each character plays completely different and has their own weapon-specialized combat. In fact, the combat is so fun, it elevates the other aspects of the game. Type-0 isn't a bad game. I think it just needs more focus. It released to high reviews, so maybe I just didn't find it as engaging.

Yakuza 6 - ****
Yakuza 6 is Yakuza in a new engine, upgraded combat system, and more depth to story and cutscenes. Substories are more engaging and satisfying to complete. It's not all over the place in characterization and lore compared to it's predecessor, while introducing some familiarity in it's character interaction similar to Yakuza 3. This is a negative to the series overall, but the games frequently take on plot point and drag it out over multiple chapters. While some plot points are succient and to the point. Yakuza 6 dances around this weird political plot point around 3/4 into the game and is somewhat uninteresting and feels kind of lodged in. They do tie it into the main theme of the game. Which, at least to my interpretation of it, is "family" or "bonds." As Yakuza 5 was focused on dreams. Another disappointed theme is despite Kiryu's regrets in the story, he continues to make decisions that will negatively impact other characters by hurting their feelings. But it almost seems like this is the only way he can do things based on living his life as a Yakuza or that following a specific method of rules, while sticking to that process, is culturally rooted in Japan and Japanese culture itself. It's also interesting that they are going to release a Kiryu focused side-game 7 years after this game came out that will tie together 6, 7, and 8. This entry also had the most engaging and fun mini-games. Some previous entries had a slog for some things to do. Like golf in Yakuza 3. You had to play like a golf god. This is apparently the end of the Kiryu saga of games, particularly since 7 stars Kasuga. If I were to rank the first seven games I'd have to go Kiwami 2 = 0 > Kiwami = 6 > 3 = 4 = 5, with 7 being higher than Kiwami 2 and 0.

SMT3 - ****
I was on the edge of rating this a 5 star. I guess I downgraded it because the overall map design and direction can be so convoluted. Maybe it's because I have ADHD, but I'd forget where to go sometimes right after I finished an area. This is my first mainline SMT game and there is a lot of jargon and context to acclimate to, but the world is so mysterious. All these small characters with quirks. And the purpose of what happens with the story... is just really neat. I didn't even really notice the graphics were cel-shaded and have a very distinct look. I enjoyed the originality, the concept, and core gameplay features. There are minor hiccups here and there. But overall, the package is an extremely solid title.

Advance Wars 1 + 2: Reboot Camp - *****
I haven't played the originals since they came out and this is one of the best games I've played this year. I'm not the best at strategy or strategy-grid-based games. But the maps are so finely tuned and designed so well that I felt challenged at every point. In fact, the final battle of each campaign was so difficult and asymmetrical, that I couldn't fathom how I possibly won. Wayforward developed this remake and it's incredibly well done. The stylized graphics work great, and the animated COs look right out of Shantae. Even the music is Shantae-like. The soundtracks for each character, when in-use is superb. And the variety of play styles of each CO is awesome. The gripes I did have with the game are very minor. When I fast-forwarded gameplay, I felt like the game would tear or glitch a little. The 2nd game's campaign also only unlocks one new unit, which is hidden as well. Sometimes too hidden. But the 2nd campaign makes up for it with new COs for each army and new enemy weapons that really make me have to think. Like lasers firing off, not getting in their path, cannons firing, and avoiding enemy's tracking path of attack as well. I made a lot of mistakes in the 2nd campaign. But playing was just so satisfying. The whole package is so well done.

Metroid Prime Remastered - ****
Metroid is one of my favorite games series, although I've mostly only played the 2D ones. I've played Prime in the past a couple times. Played a little of 2. And 3 about 10 years ago. Prime's remaster is beautiful. From textures to polygons. It looks 3/4 of the way to a remake. The particle effects don't seem to upgraded, but this is a very minor gripe. I felt very challenged in this game. Even very early on I felt like I had to think of how to progress through some rooms as the world is designed very well to hide or not make it obvious where to go next. I got stuck early on a few times and had a fairly easy progression the rest of the game. Prime features very cool 3D versions of 2D movesets. But doesn't particularly introduce anything new. The space jump is nerfed into a double jump. Which I would have rather seen a high jump. And the screw attack is absent. Which seems kind of like a staple to the series. My only particular gripes are: some of the later maps are very long and don't have too much branching to other shortcuts. And a few of the artifacts can be extremely difficult to find without a guide. The pacing also speeds up fairly quick at the end of the game. So you go from hours of collecting stuff to an hour of a couple boss battles and the final area.

Enter the Gungeon: House of the Gundead - ****
It's hard for me to rate this game. It's near perfect. Basically plays like House of the Undead with small Gungeon elements included. The pixel art is stunning. The gun-controller feedback is amazing on what gun you use in-game. The room-to-room gameplay is pretty straight forward. There are on set of doors you can branch out in each level. And the dodge system is implemented to shoot targets during enemy attacks to "dodge" attacks. Which is pretty cool. The major issue I had was you had to aim in corners a lot and the cab targeting system just wouldn't really allow it. The game has been out a few months, so it just seems odd that it's like that. I did play on a cab with unlimited continues, but if I lost money because of that, I'd be upset.

Dragon Quest (Switch) - **
This game is a port of the mobile remake as far as I can tell. It's beautiful, basic, mildly fun, until it starts showing it's archaic and grindy roots. One dungeon was extremely obscure to find, unless I missed a hint to find it. And the game literally requires you to grind in multiple sections to make progress. I'd say I probably grinding about 1/3 of my total playtime, which isn't too long. But, it's interesting to see where the series started and evolved from. But I don't see anything particularly amazing about the first game other than being a product of it's time. I've now played 1, 4, 5, and 11. And I've been told the series hits it's stride on the 3rd one, so we'll see. I'll probably play some other stuff before tackling 2.

The Last Guardian - ***
I have very mixed feelings about this game. The game has beautiful graphics reminiscent of Ueda's previous two games; wonderful style/atmosphere; two characters to get attached towards; and really interesting life-like animal AI and animation. You could tell that the major thing that was likely in development was the AI. Trico acts like a really animal. And this is one of the not as good parts. Trico is so good at acting like an animal, it's hard to manipulate him to solve problems. Team Ico's games always had some jank, but it actually subtracts from the experience here. Sometimes I manage to get Trico to go the opposite direction of where I point him towards, or he doesn't know what I want him to do sometimes. Almost like it was intentional to program him that way. The only other major thing I have with the game is it's puzzle-solving/direction. The puzzles aren't that bad. I genuinely had a good time trying to figure out how to solve most of the puzzles. But know where to go or what to do sometimes is so obtuse or just not apparent, made me think of Castlevania II where you require a guide to make actual progress. I enjoyed The Last Guardian. Mostly the beginning and end. Ueda's really good at making you feel attached to his characters and I love(d) his games for that. But this entry could have benefited from being 1/3 or 1/2 shorter. Like his other games.

Beavis and Butthead (GB) - ***
I don't know how much I have to say about this game. It's fairly solid for a licensed retro game that is fairly accurate to it's source material outside of traditional game stuff. It's an overhead exploration game. Basically find items to progress and fend off enemies. The charm comes from it's source material. And a couple of the negatives are that 1) there's a fair amount of backtracking in the game and 2) it's a little on the longer side hovering around 1 to 1.5 hours (if you have a decent idea of what to do). The game's sewer is reminiscent of Blaster Master when you jump out of the vehicle to me. Which I thought was interesting as the rest of the game is not like that.

Astra and the Last Constellation - ****
The PICO-8 game platformer game, made for speedrunners, made by speedrunners. It's pure fun, plain and simple. Each stage adds a new mechanic that actually adds value to the platforming. There are collectibles in each stage that increase the time value and challenge. You can complete the game in 40-90 minutes, give or take. It's main gimmick is in it's varied jumping. Outside of the graphics and gameplay, the story is barebones. But what is there is solid.

Like a Dragon Ishin - ****
A remake of a Japan only released PS3 title. Like a Dragon is the renamed Yakuza franchise and this title is the 2nd in-line a samurai game. It basically plays like a traditional Yakuza game, but with some of it's own spin on things. The game takes place at the tail-end of the Tokugawa Shogunate (mid-1850s) feudal Japan and you play as Ryoma Sakamoto. A man that goes undercover to get his revenge. The cool thing about this title is that is has 4 distinct combat styles. Brawler, gunner, swordsman, and wild dancer. The last of which is a combination of both gun and sword. The negative part is, at the end of the day, brawler, a common fighting style of the main-line Yakuza series, is weak in this game. Sword and Wild dancer are going to be used the most. Gunner is alright, but only when you have a strong gun. If you're constantly getting attack, gun by itself is useless. Sword is the most powerful, while slower, but also gives you more versability with blocking attacks. Dancer is great for mobs and dodging attacks. The cutscenes are much longer in this game than other titles as well and some chapters just kind of linger too long. The story is good for the most part. But can be a little directionless. The historical accurate side content was often more interesting than the main story itself. The side stories are a little weak in this title. A vast majority revolve around a friendship with a character in the city and that means constantly visiting the character to progress the side content. And a couple of them require like 50 visits. So it was more of a hassle to do some substories than other titles. Particularly since this is a feature that RGG studio typically shines. The game is fun overall, the atmosphere is really good, and some of the side-content shines well in creativity. I still love the Yakuza/LaD series, but this can be one of the weaker ones.

Final Fantasy XVI - ****
I've said a lot about this game in multiple online social circles. This game was well-planned and directed. Ambitious. And has very little technical issues for a modern game with so much content. I 100%'d the main game in terms of main quests and side quests. The game feels like what XV should have been. It's not open world, but somewhere in the middle. You can explore, but there are no more useless vast amounts of areas with nothing or things that aren't important. The story shines very bright and the boss battles are the meat and potatoes of what the combat system trains you for leading up to them. The crafting is meh. I would rather them just have traditional, get a weapon from a chest or battle. The crafting could be taken out and nothing would be worse off. And the abilities take way too many points to upgrade. At the end, I only masted a handful of abilities. The side content is very mid. Fleshing out the side characters extensively is great a la Trails series. But they're all fetch quests or go here and wipe out a mob. And it gets old. The game would stand out better without them. It's also one of the most beautiful games I've seen. While this was taken as a criticism for development. The characters are a little bland. As in past titles, characters tend to stand out more, had more stylized art-styles and designs, or had more unique personalities to them. In this game, everyone is too serious. There is no joke characters, which kind of sucks. It's a dark medievil fantasy at it's core and less Final Fantasy overall. Like, when I look back at the series, I could feel a connection to each title. While there were jumps in evolution and fantasy styles. This one just kind of feels, separate. Like, not a final fantasy game. I mean, the summons are there, magic, chocobos and moogles. But I guess it's just more on the too realistic side this time. I would say play the game a second time just doing only the main game and experience it. The game is overall better without it's extra content.

Yoshi's Craft World - ***
Yoshi's Crafted World doesn't feel like a sequel or spiritual sequel to Yoshi's Island until you progressively play through the game. The game has charm with is graphics, but it's really cool how the design some levels and create some of the set pieces using it's construction paper, yarn, and stationary theme. It's not as good as Yoshi's Island in art design, but it does it well. One of the things that particularly is a let down is the music. There's maybe 4 songs and the soundtrack just isn't that great. It's below mid and they just repeat too much. The game does get progressively better the further you get into it. And the bonus levels are downright brutal in difficulty, but very satisfying. Much more so than the rest of the game. The only big negative about that, is that the post-game levels are locked behind collecting flowers. And one level costs 30 flowers. Even getting 1, 2, or 3 flowers can be tedious. Especially with each world's bonus flowers. Which you can only really get one at a time. Overall, it's above an okay game.

Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Final Mix HD - ****
This is a replay, but I haven't played it since it's PS2 release. I would say the game starts off very rough and primitive. Almost like a square, disney, zelda game with bare bones meat on it. The intro stage is a slog to get through with it's odd platforming and scavenger hunt. The good thing is, as you progress through the game, level up, and unlock additional abilities, the game does shine a lot. It's just the basic movement and combat is stiff and honestly, the game is pretty unforgiving if you get surrounded. I don't have any particular attachment to Disney properties. But for a first title in the series, they definitely pulled out all the stops and included long-time favorite properties. With the exception of Tarzan. That's more of a B-level Disney movie. The game is fairly well designed for it's time. Really making me think on where to go to next. Although some triggers to progress are a big question mark. The pacing is well done though. Some worlds are short and 30-60 minutes and some are a couple hours. Nothing really overstays it's welcome and the game isn't too long. You can complete most of it in about 20 hours.

Dragon Quest 2 ***
Dragon Quest 2 is a large improvement over the first one. It has multiple playable characters, it has multiple monsters in battle. A larger world to explore with better traversal. Outside of that, it's not too much different from 1. But these changes alone make it a much better title. Having a party and coordinating attacks based on their strengths feels so much better compared to just having only one character in the first game. The story isn't too high level. You play as 3 characters all descended from the legendary hero Erdrick and you make your way to defeat the evil demon king that is terrorizing the world and killing people. Other than that, most characters in the game don't have more than 1 or 2 lines of dialogue and your main objective is to complete goals and gather items that allow you progression in the main game. The game is really hard to figure out what to do without a guide, and that's something it still shares with it's NES counterpart.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey - ****
Already some differences from Origins, even though it's been 3 years since I've played AC:O. Odyssey is meant and developed as an epic quest. You live as a spartan in ancient greece. You start alone and with nothing. You sail the seas and fight a cult from controlling the world. You experience real life recreations of greek history. The graphics are great. Even the idle and talking animations are leagues better than Final Fantasy 16, where that title's characters looked like Bethesda NPCs. The thing everyone is going to talk about it the content bloat and lack of variety of content. Largely at the end of the day, you're going to do a mission, go some place and kill people. It really boils down to that. Sometimes you'll steal an item. You'll sneak around. But you'll be killing people. Wild animals. If you stray off the path and explore, each area has an objective list. Which will comprise of killing individuals, stealing treasure, or freeing slaves. That's about it. There's probably over 500 of these areas you can knock out. It's kind of necessary to do a good chunk of stuff to progress through the game at a certain level as well. So, it's got it's own grind. It's probably too bloated and has one of the largest maps of most games. I've clocked in about 90 hours doing all of the main game content. Literally every main and side quest. I could've cut that time in half if I didn't do every single thing. My other gripe is that the story just is up and down. Some parts are really good and some parts are just okay. The real world stuff actually starts to get interesting and it's a surprise that the developers have actually pushed progress in that regard after like 20 games.

Pikmin 4 - *****
Pikmin 4 is almost a perfect game. It's just very satisfying. The base game is there. Befriend pikmin. Collect shiny treasures in each map. The underground is back from the second game and while the maps are a good size, they're not super massive like 3. The underground really expands each map by five times. Then there's the dandori levels which are fun to figure out an optimization. Literally levels for speedrunners. The dandori fights are pretty cool, but the higher difficulties are pretty brutal to try to platinum star. I rolled the credits for the base game in a fair amount of time and it's clear there's a good amount of post-game content. My only gripe is all the stuff they added is modern-bloat. You have side quests now. Now, for every thing you do there is a side quest for it. And there's upgrades too. It just feels like the game would've been fine without either one of those. Especially since the previous 3 games didn't have either one of those and they were great games at their cores.

Kingdom Hearts: Re: Chain of Memories - ***
I've never played the GBA version, so I don't know the story or prior version at all. It's interesting to say that this game is not necessarily a requirement, but has major plot points that fill in between the 1st and 2nd game. Key Organization members present and what happens to Sora and Riku. It's kind of surprising to put that much information into a side-game that is not particularly mainline. But you could probably say that about all the non-mainline KH games. Re: Chain of Memories is fairly similar to Kingdom Hearts 1, except all your attacks, spells, and abilities are tied to cards you form in a deck. You gain cards from battles and you can even combine cards to perform unique abilities called Sleights. The main unfortunate thing is the difficulty spikes for some boss fights are completely random and it gets to the point that sleights are required to combat certain bosses. Each world is revisited from 1, except, each room is designed around a Map card. It's an interesting concept, at first, but eventually, I saw myself rather just be exploring a world in general. My time with Re: Chain of Memories was worth it though. And the 2nd playthrough with Riku was more enjoyable combat-wise. Although I am ready to watch the 358/2 Days movie and start KH2 in the weeks to come.

Front Mission 1st Remake - ****
Front Mission 1st originally came out on the SNES. And while reviews online felt the game was average, I did enjoy it. I like the mech customization, the targeting of certain parts on the mechs. I felt the story was dark, unforgiving, and interesting. The game has a fairly high difficulty spike at the beginning and it gets less difficult as you unlock more parts and weapons to upgrade. If you maximize efficiency though. You end up with mechs that are pretty much the same. Some battles can be unforgiving if you don't play it extra safe. And the game has some archaic design to it that doesn't age that great. The studio has some interesting art direction on the character portraits. Some of them were so amateur, they were just REALLY bad. Especially towards the end of the game. Almost as if some of them were done in less than an hour. Makes me wonder if there were quality concern reasons on the delay of the 2nd remake.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 - **
I love super heroes. Played all the alliance and x-men legends games on PS2. And I guess, time doesn't age games well. The 3rd entry plays just like the old games, but it's not necessarily a good thing. The game is a basic hack in slash with some unique abilities you can upgrade. There's a very large roster to play as, but as a DPS player in games, I maximize characters that are the strongest with the strongest abilities. The story is pretty good, but the game can be a slog of just walking from point A to point B and fighting mobs over and over again. It's not horrible. It just is very okay.

New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe - ***
I enjoy Mario games, but I honestly don't think the New series is that great. I really like the music, but I don't care for the graphics too much. They just feel very basic. I also don't care for the physics that much either. It's just very floaty and slippery. Other than that, this entry is pretty good compared to New 1 and New 2. The bosses weren't anything special and were more on the easy side. But I did feel the game was hard to play sometimes. I just felt it was a little uninspired. I felt a lot of the levels just kind of run together. While here and there, there is 1 level that just really shines, design-wise.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker - ****
I'm not big on puzzle games, but this game doesn't have puzzle elements that are too frustrating at all. I love the art style. It's closer to Odyssey and Galaxy with it's own shine. Obviously, this game is a spin-off to the Galaxy mini-games. But on it's own, the levels and variety really make it stand out and I had a lot of fun on most of the levels. Very few complaints. I honestly wish the game spawned a new game every few years, but I suppose content and pulling from the games it is inspired from could be troublesome in terms of assets and ideas.

Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie - ***
I played this on PS2 but never finished it. And I remember why. I didn't like the very few levels that had weird goals. Like roll up the biggest bear. Cause I would always accidentally roll up the small bear and the level would end. The beauty that comes from the first game is that you roll up everything. Once you create these arbitrary goals, the game just kind of becomes much less fun. This title seems to have a decent following, but it just is not as good as the first entry in almost all aspects. The levels, the story, the music. Even the bonus levels in Royal Reverie are just okay. I liked what I played, but if Damacy is 5/5 this is definitely a 3/5. IMO of course. I'd still play a re-release of Beautiful and Forever.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R - ***
I actually owned the PS3 version and sold it before it went up in price for a while. I'm also not a big fan of fighting games (as well as puzzle games), but I am a fan of Jojo. I played arcade mode and was able to beat every boss just fine. But I found the game to be a little barebones on abilities. Which I guess is not a big deal when there are just so many characters to play as. My other larger gripe is Part 7 and 8 are barely represented. Considering this game is a re-release or whatever you want to call it. There's no characters to fight or play as beyond Josuke in Part 8. Kind of a big bummer.

Raystorm HD - ****
Raystorm is an arcade title that got ported to PS1 that got a re-release in a collection on pretty much every major platform. It's also a shmup. I'm not sure if I have much to say about this and it's sequel. It's sci-fi. Has great music. Level design is fairly easy for the most part

RayCrisis HD - ****
The sequel to Raycrisis. The graphics seem a little worse and the game is much shorter. About half of it's predecessor. What's really cool is this game has a mechanic where you can force the final boss to appear.

Catherine: Full Body - *****
Again, not a fan of puzzle games. But the entire package is so good, even the puzzle elements are good. Catherine is a one-of-a-kind game and experience. Part of the game is chilling in a bar and talking to people, part of the game are cutscenes beautifully animated by Studio 4C, and part of the game is climbing boxes. As mundane as it sounds, it's actually really fun and thought provoking. Almost like reverse-tetris. Catherine deals with an individual that comes to a point in his life where his girlfriend is putting pressure on him for marriage, dealing with a new job, accidentally cheats on his girlfriend. It's kind of like a really dark slice of life, but it embeds itself so deep in reality, the characters are very believable. I can't really think of any aspect of this game that is bad or negative. I suppose the final boss is hard as heck and the pacing at the end is a little long. But I don't really have complaints.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle - ****
This is a difficult game for me to judge. There's a theory that Suda51 purposely designs portions of his games to troll the player and I definitely feel that here. The mini-games are, for the most part, fairly bland. For something you have to grind for in-game money. The training games to increase health and power are extremely frustrating. And the story is fairly basic. Literally everything else about the game is fantastic. The style, the writing, the personalities, the unique boss designs. But all the side-stuff, honestly, sucks.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD - ****
This Zelda has such a slow start. Where Twilight Princess takes about 1-1.5 hours to kick off, this one takes 3. It's just such a long introduction. And when you do get to the first dungeon, the game really shines. I have a lot of mixed things to say about this game. It's areas between dungeons are long. They kind of shove a bunch of activities to do in each area before each dungeon, when, I really just want to play the dungeon sooner. So I felt like the game just kind of forces you to explore these areas with some items or tasks throughout. Then later, you have to do menial tasks to satisfy the elemental gods. And the last dungeon is kind of hardcore when literally the dungeon itself is a puzzle. While the dungeons are way different than past 3D Zelda games, they actually are designed super well. And the puzzle solving element really racked my brain a lot, and not in a way that was too frustrating. The lore was overall pretty good. The musical elements felt kind of forced due to the continued use of a weird control scheme. And the last dungeon, just isn't that great in terms of overall design. The 2nd to last boss was a bit too easy. And the final boss was hard as nails, but doable after a few tries of acclimation, yet it was also fairly short. I liked the ending a lot and overall enjoyed the experience.

No More Heroes 3 - ***
I love Suda 51's games. There more of an experience than a game sometimes. And this entry has so much style and references, it was hard to not like every second of these sequences. Unfortunately, I felt the inclusion of an open world like NMH1, really dragged down the experience. Setting up for the fights requires going to point A, B, C and fighting mobs before then going to fight the boss. The pacing is just really off. NMH2 pacing was honestly just right. It wasn't perfect, but it did it really well. There's some cool things to collect in the game by exploring the world, but the only real way you'll find these is to literally walk around the map. This game gameplay-wise is a mish-mash of pacing, difficult, and tedium. The the whole outshines the parts it makes up of.

Super Mario Bros Wonder - *****
The best 2D Mario game since Yoshi's Island. It's sad to say, the New Mario series feels more like series takes the original games and goes about 75% of the way there but doesn't particular innovate too much. More present the 2D games in a 3D art style and push out similar themed levels. Wonder pulls no stops. It goes, gives you the new power-up and shows off the main feature. The Wonder Flower. Once you find the Wonder Flower in each level, the whole level changes. You could change into an enemy. The water could go towards the ceiling, you could get invincibility, or the enemies will sing and dance. You never really know. And what's really neat, is that beyond maybe using each feature twice, there is just that much variety. Given over 90 levels and you have just an immense amount of content. Brought back in a way from SMB3 are these mini-levels, they call break time. Only similar to that over fighting a couple enemies, you could be solving a quick puzzle. Knocking out a few enemies. Or even playing a tune. These are usually less than a minute (outside the mind wrapping search stages). Then you have the badge stages. Each badge has two stages in the game, a beginner stage and an expert stage. While the badges are cool, I honestly just used the parachute hat the entire game since it saved my butt more times than I could count. Possibly the only other downside is that bosses do lack a little variety in terms of who you are fighting. But the boss fights themselves are unique and cool to complete themselves. My only other downside, is that we don't get a Mario Wonder 2.

Legend of Dragoon - ****
An RPG with really good pre-rendered graphics, decent pacing, an involved combat system, and an alright story. Legend of Dragoon is a really good game, at least I think so. The story and writing isn't the best. But the turn-based battle system has a combo-button press attack system that keeps you really engaged. The upgrade system is modest and not too over-encumbering and the game has Dragoon transformations that add a nice little diverse element to the gameplay. The game is fairly traditional in it's gameplay outside of combat for it's time, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. And the story is kind of wishy-washy in the last disc. But overall, I'd say I really enjoyed my time with Legend of Dragoon.

Spider-Man 2 - *****
Spider-Man 2 is almost the best superhero game ever made. It has amazing gameplay, writing, pacing, a great multi-layered story. It just falls in a couple parts where you play as MJ and it turns into a 3rd person cover shooter. The side missions have excellent lore and feed into an unending machine of possible future titles. The seamless gameplay from the two Spider-Man and the new abilities granted add some cool and less annoying quality of life features from the fighting in the first game. And the expanded lore from the symbiotes being involved. There is just so much to say and where they could go. I'm interested to see if they do DLC for this entry. Or even a standalone titled for the teased character at the end.

Control - *****
Control is a game. It's like experiencing David Lynch movies in game form. Everything means something else. And when you think there will be a big lore drop somewhere, it never happens, but the game drip feeds you constant info over time that you just kind of adjust to this weird twilight zone of world-building where the in-game reality becomes standard and you are just a part of the bigger picture. Gameplay-wise - it's a 3rd person shooter with additional reality controlling mechanics. Throwing objects with telepathy, levitation, etc. The gameplay is solid and plays kind of like half-life. Where you get to a room that throws a mob at you and you have to deal with them until you can move on. A lot of the lore is fed through collectable items and correspondence you pick up on the ground. Literally hundreds of pages of lore. But it's not that bad of a thing. With Sam Lake being attached to the lead narrative and on how well this and Alan Wake was written. I'm pretty much sold on any future Remedy game. The only thing that seems a little disappointing to me is that they seem to have more multiplayer focused titles in the pipeline and a couple single player focused games. Which I feel, their solo player stuff is their strong point.

Super Mario RPG - *****
Super Mario RPG is a remake of the SNES game of it's namesake. It's basically the same game with some quality of life features. You can open the map at any time and select a location. The characters can be swapped out mid-battle (which is essential for post-game fights). And there are some cool cutscenes added to introduce bosses. At the end of the day, it's a pretty 1:1 remake for the most part. But the graphics are done well and get the job done. The music is where it really shines. You can swap to the original or the re-imagined music. But the new tracks do really shine. Not really much else to say about it. Still a really good game. Albeit on the easy side.

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man With No Name - ***
It's hard to rate this as I am. It's Yakuza. It's Kiryu with a cool new fighting style. It's 95% Sotenbori, which is fine. It's just missing the oomph. The silliness of the substories is mostly missing. The plot is kind of not as good as the other games. The sub characters aren't bad, but some of the new sub characters to the story try to make it all about them, and I just feel maybe they're missing a little bit of depth; which obviously will likely come to light in the next game. Seeing it all connect together was really cool. The coliseum was pretty fun. Pocket Circuit was still fun with some new things included. I'm kind of ready to have the series reboot itself with Ichiban as the focus. even though it technically already has. I'm also hoping Judgment gets another title as well. As it may be the best Like a Dragon game to date.

Didn't finish:
Saints Row (2022) *
Metal Max Xeno ***
Immortals: Fenix Rising **
The Tick (SNES) ***
Home Improvement **
Bayonetta **

Saints Row (2022) - *
I'm a huge Saint's Row fan. I played all of the Saint's games except the original. 3 being my favorite and 2 and 4 being my equal 2nd favorites. I'm a person that always gives games a chance. I have a wide variety of taste in gaming from: retro, rpgs, open-world games, to first perso shooters occasionally. Even if a game reviews mediocre-ly, I still want to play it. This reboot is just...bad. And not in any really good-bad way. It's like ordering a coffee and getting a luke-warm brown liquid that was sitting in the pot for 8 hours. The graphics are fine. It seems to be put together fine. The gameplay is a little more rigid, where the previous entries were more fast and loose. Like, I could open fire on an enemy and it would flow naturally. This entry I feel the game wants me to duck behind cover (and still get shot at) and run up to enemies and do finishing moves. The game tries to be cool in a young "gangster" why, but it misses the mark. The voice acting is great, but the writing is horrid. The make all these jokes and one-liners that would only be funny to someone drunk at a comedy show. So, Saint's Row 2 was easing the franchise into a silly undertone, which got really fleshed out in Saint's Row 3, which was met with some cricitism. The problem with the reboot is that they toned the game down completley and it's neither fun or funny, or even serious like GTA, the game it originally took after. It takes a lot for me to not want to play a game, and I found myself bored with the characters and story, and annoyed by the gameplay mechanics, that I just couldn't keep going. No wonder you can find it for around $15-20, 6 months after release. Saint's Row ended at 4 (actually Gat out of Hell), but you don't have to keep making games in a franchise. Sometimes it's good to end on a good note.

Metal Max Xeno - ***
I peronally don't think this game is that bad. It just has a lot that doesn't retain the interest to want to finish the game. Primarily the game takes place fighting in a tank. You fight monsters on the battlefield, upgrade your tank, change the parts out, rinse and repeat. There's ground traversal, combat, and level ups too. But the ground exploration feels half-baked. The main complaint reviews have about this game is that the graphics are PS2 quality. Which, to me, isn't a bad thing. The bad thing is that it has PS2 dungeon design, where you wander aimilessly. I did every dungeon (which is optional) and picked up every gear and still barely beat bossed by the skin of my teeth. The game has a decent variety of cast, but they're all two-dimensional. The only thing you ever get to know about the main character is that monsters killed his mother and call he cares about is destroying every monster. That's pretty much it. I put a good amount of hours into it. But at the end of the day, I decided I just don't care enough about the game to keep going.

Immortals: Fenix Rising - **
The strongest thing Immortals has going for it is the writing and it's characters. But the game is a big world of a lot of nothing and collectables. The game unfortunately just feels like a generic Ubisoft game. The entire time I spent with it I just wished it had more linear-designed level-based gameplay. Enemies were very sparse and I was loaded with a lot of learned abilities attained in the first 30 minutes. Just a very strangely developed game.

Bravely Default 2 - **
I should've seen this game as I forgot my memory of the first game that I didn't care for. I know some people that love BD games. I just can't get into the battle system and characters. I can see why you can load up on attacks and finish battles quick by braving. But it gets very tedious. Enemies and bosses often require specific set-ups with specific jobs and I just felt it was more complicated than it needed to be. I don't mind British voice acting. The Xenoblade series is one of my favorite RPG series. But I think the writing is just a tad too silly. I couldn't empathize with any characters. And the story about 4 magic crystals just seemed it was going to be Final Fantasy-like. It's a meh from me.