With a journey that spans across time itself, with a collection of endings, memorable characters who develop and grow throughout the game and a simple, but really satisfying combat system. Not to mention being so meticulously well paced that you never need to stop and grind levels.
Favorite series: it's Devil May Cry. If you know me, this comes as no surprise. If you don't, then boy, is this a series full of great over the top action, some genuinely great fights, awesome music and the subtle storytelling of twin brothers struggling with toxic masculinity.
Also the combat is legendary. What started as a little joke among the devs while making Resident Evil 4 became the gold standard of character action games.
It has the whole package and the entire series (mostly) comes together to tell this grand story that only recently reached a satisfying conclusion in 5. And my god, it was worth it.
Little known thing known as NiGHTS into Dreams. I watched a friend play this game about a year ago and let me tell you. The way this game perfectly captures childhood whimsy and innocence in its soundtrack blows my mind to this day
It has this mysticism to it that goes so well with the fact that you're flying through dreams and fighting off nightmare creatures that intend to do harm
In the grand finale, NiGHTS is captured and the kids stranded on a lone chunk of land in the abyss. And while hope is at its bleakest, they take a leap of faith and begin to soar
With a game that has a carefully constructed soundtrack to take you back to that simpler time and remind you that there are good things worth getting out of bed for, comes a track that cheers you on while you push through absolute despair
I couldn't have discovered this soundtrack at a better time. Last year was fucking awful for me and I needed the motivation this music gives me. If it's got me tearing up just talking about it, then that means I'm due for another reminder
Favorite protagonist: I went into Bloodstained ready to think the protag would be whatever. Then a few minutes in, this woman is putting on elf ears and a pirate hat.
Imagine that. Being a breath of fresh air from the absolute dumpster fire that is Stormblood and its villains (except Fordola, who I stan to this day) is one of the smaller things that makes Emet and all of Shadowbringers so fucking amazing
And even when you consider he's one of the few villains who decides to up and talk to you instead of being Saturday morning cartoon villains (like other Ascians) or poorly written edgelord OCs (like Zenos), he expresses so much genuine interest in you and what you're doing and just...
I genuinely wished it didn't come down to fighting him, but even so, he's easily my favorite Final Fantasy villain, if not one of my top favorite villains of all time
Best story: There's probably others I love more that I can't think of, but again, the challenge kept me from reusing franchises and I was pushed to think of all kinds of games. And I found one I'm satisfied with.
The story of Shanoa and her journey to reclaim the Dominus glyphs and find out why a fellow member went rogue is so delightfully bittersweet that it's perfectly gothic fantasy
She was meant to be a champion to save the world through a ritual, but gets her memories and emotions taken away during Albus' intervention and theft of the glyphs.
Albus is your brother. He knew the ritual would kill Shanoa and interfered so he could try and control Dominus himself to spare his sister the same fate, but went mad from them because Dominus is made from Dracula's power
On the good ending path, Shanoa starts to recover her memories and emotions, learns that her master intended to use the ritual to resurrect Dracula and through grand metaphors of Shanoa functioning as Cerberus, she does battle with and defeats Dracula, but not without using Dominus to do so.
It's supposed to consume the caster's soul on use, but when she defeated Albus and took back Dominus, his soul was within the glyph. He sacrifices himself so his sister can live on, only asking that she smile for him one last time before he passes on.
Replicant goes with the OG story of brother Nier instead of papa Nier, which leaves me at the conundrum of deciding whether to play the remaster since it's much better than the original version or watch an LP of Nier Gestalt because I have a weakness for dad stories
BUT IT'S A STORY OF A MAN OVERCOMING HIS TRAUMA AND TRYING TO SAVE HIS DAUGHTER, AFTER LEARNING SHE DIDN'T DIE IN A TRAGIC ACCIDENT HE HOLDS HIMSELF ACCOUNTABLE FOR
While literally getting into the minds of deranged psychopaths and fighting them while they twist this weird hivemind virtual world into their murder playground
Some of the plot points are great. And the willingness to talk about societal issues is great. The fact that the characters have the incredibly relatable backstory of being victims of a failed system is beautiful.
All tied together in a gentleman thief aesthetic used to punish those making society awful and forcing them to not only confess their sins, but to face justice for them.
So often when touching on these societal issues, Persona 5 will go back on its word and either stan these horrible practices or pull back on any support of aberrant concepts.
The building of a genuine homosexual relationship between the protagonist and Yusuke? Fantastic. Having gay men kidnap a teenage boy and submit him to fade to black makeovers or whatever the fuck? Awful.
A rich kid building up the courage to stand up to her father to have her opinion be heard and resist the decisions he's making for her? Fantastic. To have her character arc culminate in a far less lovable, far more annoying character steal her spotlight and put her in the corner so he can talk instead? Awful.
A high school girl standing against the sexual harassment from an untouchable gym teacher and standing out as a character who not only won't put up with that, but makes herself into a symbol of female empowerment? Top tier chef's kiss
The fact that this character arc gets completely swept under the rug so she can be a vehicle for sexual harassment and flagrant, disgusting simping and drooling over a girl who's absolutely not into you and never gets into you? Absolutely disgusting.
as much as I want to love what this game tries to do, I can't forgive the chameleon walk approach Atlus takes in its Persona game story telling, especially in 5 when almost every point is followed up with a "just kidding!"
This is another game that gets so many things right and while the original release was plagued with god awful combat, the re-release, Leifthrasir, turns it into motherfucking Devil May Cry
In a game where you gain limited control over time and fight your way through a kingdom steadily succumbing to the power you accidentally unleashed upon it, all going according to the evil vizier's plan, you struggle to set things right while traveling with a princess you start to fall in love with.
You develop such a bond with her that she shares with you a magic word her grandmother taught her to say if she was ever afraid or in danger: kakolookiyam
Farah dies during the journey and as a means of setting everything right, the Prince rewinds time to before he fucked up to warn the princess of what was gonna happen and that the traitorous vizier was up to no good
What we have in this absolute chad is: - A Brazilian samurai - A man who solo'd the final boss of the game during prologue events - A man who solo'd the protagonist of the game during prologue events - A swordsman so fucking good that he stands out among one of the best despite being the only non-cyborg
- He wields a katana so masterfully crafted that there was very little modern technology could do to actually improve it - He wields said masterpiece katana alongside a gun sheathe that lets him Iaido slash his sword at impossible speeds
You do not gain an advantage when you smack his sword across the arena. He whips out martial arts that have you begging for him to pick his sword back up.
In another instance of a game having the entire package, you have gorgeous sprite work, epic music, Fun movement, cool fights, the introduction of the absolute legend, Zero....
Yes, it does have its faults and one of them is definitely the weird control placement of the dash function. And the fact that if you don't pick Chill Penguin first, you're playing levels kinda meant to have the dash function
But even while I didn't own this game growing up, it remains important to me because it was one of my first exposures to video games at all. And what a hell of an introduction.
Megaman X3 tried to use that guitar in place of almost every fucking instrument ever and created a goddamn mess. That game is kinda hard for me to listen to
Games like Dynasty Warriors scratched that itch perfectly in allowing me the power fantasy of mowing down armies by myself and being the turning point in all-out war while also not being difficult to play at all.
He's become such an unstoppable force of rage that he becomes known as the Doom Slayer, essentially becomes a god and in Eternal, the use of tools to quickly eradicate your foes is him being so familiar with his enemies, he can systematically take them down like a fucking Terminator
I swear, once I beat this game, I might regularly indulge in, like, horde mode or whatever lets me take on mass groups of demons in arena after arena, Bloody Palace style, to improve my skills and work through my own rage
Stressful game: So similar to Doom Eternal here is a game I can play to kinda relax my brain by demanding its focus go into a single point. Except the game is incredibly fucking stressful.
What we have here is a restaurant sim, first and foremost, that has you preparing marathons of food orders through Warioware-esque minigames that demand perfection or else you'll lose your combo.
like, when I need an immediate escape from my own head or else I'm gonna spiral, I'll turn on Robot Roller-Derby Disco Dodgeball. the combination of adrenaline from the gameplay and loud music is a HUGE help
Sometimes hyperactivity is needed to mellow out the crazy brain and you know what, when playing these kinds of games leave me spent enough to be ready for bed, I consider them successes
Minecraft's modding community is absolutely insane and I can only respect these mad lads who not only inject fucktons of creativity into this game, but brave the untamed wilderness known as Java to do so
More often than not, I come back to the game whenever a friend wants to start up a server with a modpack of their choosing (or making) and I get to relearn the game every time, so it's like a fresh start each time I pick it back up
And that's before including trying out all the different mods. I recently played through most of Astral Sorcery and holy fuck, no wonder its creator has a Patreon. They absolutely deserve the money after making that mod.
It's gorgeous, I love the aesthetic, it encourages exploration and while you can make some of the most overpowered shit I've ever seen in Minecraft, you have to work really hard to get to that point, which makes getting and using that stuff actually pretty fair
I hate that they made the fatal flaw of getting Disney in on the loop because they strip away more and more of the creative liberties of the game while imposing their will into it, dictating what they can use, how they can handle things and never allowing the good writers to actually have fun with all of these properties
I hate that this series is spearheaded by Tetsuya Nomura, who can't write to save his life and continues to get high off of his own farts with an increasingly complicated storyline that doubles back on itself almost as much as Persona 5 does while pretending to be a fucking philosopher for understanding it all
while he's a misogynistic piece of shit who can't get over the fact that his shitty bosses are shitty bosses who stiffed him away from his passion project
I hate that this series was made so complicated growing up by releasing all of these different, yet very much canon games, across a bunch of different platforms and while the older ones are bundled together now, they botch several key things (like with the 358 movie) and continue to release canon games across multiple platforms
Not to mention Kingdom Hearts 3's resolution was such a flaccid disappointment that I walked away from that game furious as they attempted some of the weakest asspulls I've ever fucking seen in a game.
Fuck the story, if I ever play any of the new games, it's gonna involve skipping every cutscene to get to the gameplay as Nomura declares war on Squeenix and Disney by slowly Norting this franchise into the game he wanted to make a decade ago
it was the best possible place to end it. Xehansemnort whoever was defeated, Kingdom Hearts is still light, the kids are safe, home, and reunited. Even Roxas and Namine got their little moment of closure!
The characters can be genuinely fantastic with visible growth you can track throughout the entire series, when the Disney characters are freed from the mouse's shackles, they can have these profound moments and influence the regular characters who keep coming back
I've said it before and I'll say it again: The most [if not the only] clever part of Nomura's writing is his ability to keep tricking the fandom into thinking he'll let Kairi have agency
A series I keep coming back to, one of my favorite series, both a relaxing and stressful game, every hunt is a boss fight (and there's some killer hunts in this series), arguably a childhood game since I got into it as a teenager, this specific entry being my favorite game out of every Monster Hunter ever made...
Monster Hunter World, especially the Iceborne expansion, is such a high point in the series that I can't enjoy the newest game, Rise, as much as I want to
Among many things, they made a brand new engine and actually had to make shit from the ground up instead of reusing thousands of assets like they were owned by Koei Tecmo
Granted, no Monster Hunter game can ever escape the jank and World is no exception. There's tons of it, even with the new things Iceborne introduced. And even some problems from older games that transferred over to this one like egregious hitboxes
And the fact that Sony with all of its insecurities clung tightly to this exclusive for a while and I hold them responsible for the sabotage of the PC version
i have a Miriam journal collecting dust for when I finally finish the dang gameAnd I think a Shanoa toostill a bit salty there's so little in the way of Castlevania/Bloodstained crossover fanwork but I digressI am going to try to do this tomorrow. I don't want to boot up my laptop right nowunderstandable, this took a whileTHE TRUTH GOES UNSPOKEN
I'VE EVEN FORGOTTEN MY NAAAAAAME
OR WHAT IS THE REASON
I'M STANDING HERE, HOLDING MY BLAAAAAADE
- A Brazilian samurai
- A man who solo'd the final boss of the game during prologue events
- A man who solo'd the protagonist of the game during prologue events
- A swordsman so fucking good that he stands out among one of the best despite being the only non-cyborg
- He wields said masterpiece katana alongside a gun sheathe that lets him Iaido slash his sword at impossible speeds