The feeling of playing through Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - Reunion is comparable to the feeling of watching a bad teen anime, in which everything is so exaggerated that it is simply awkward, but not enough to truly enjoy what is happening. If it weren’t for the combat straight from the Final Fantasy VII Remake, it would’ve been a completely sad sight.

I want to yell at the people who ported this game to PC. No, technically the port is fine, no crashes, anything tied to the frame rate and all sorts of exclusive bugs that break the playthrough, but the control on the keyboard is just some kind of horror. Actively used keys are scattered throughout the keyboard, thanks for at least not touching the NumPad. Attacks and special moves are assigned to C, E, X and, suddenly, the down arrow. You need to navigate through menu items using Page Up and Page Down. Running and rolling on the left Ctrl, the left Shift is not used at all, who does that? The special move key is adjacent to the character change key, and, naturally, you will regularly accidentally press the wrong thing.

I got the impression that initially, mouse support was not planned at all and it was added at the last moment, without adjusting the layout to it (it’s not just that you can rotate the camera to I-J-K-L, it feels disgusting, by the way). In some situations you can switch between the same menu items with the mouse, but in others you cannot. The cursor consistently reminds of its existence in cutscenes and disappears only on rare holidays, and in segments where you need to point at a point on the map, it also bifurcates. If you exit the menu and immediately move the mouse, the camera begins to circle around the character. These are all, of course, little things, but they regularly catch your eye and spoil the overall impression.

The game itself is fine, not the best from this studio, but fine. Essentially, this is the same as The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, only you have to clear dungeons in real time. Exactly the same everyday life of a schoolboy who loves to run around on other people’s errands in his free time. Exactly the same bunch of well-written characters, creating the appearance of a living world. Collecting collectibles, hanging out with friends, some monsters and even one story character are not just exactly the same, but literally taken from the first Cold Steel - if you’ve already played it before, then you’ll feel right at home in Tokyo Xanadu eX+.

However, in general, Tokyo Xanadu eX+ looks better than the Trails of Cold Steel I-II. This game is more compact, there are much fewer characters in it, both main and secondary, due to which they are written better, and your head will not swell from their number. Plot and everyday episodes are distributed more or less evenly, there is no that monstrous bias towards everyday life from the first Cold Steel. And the story itself, although it uses Falcom’s favorite tropes from TLOH (miraculous rescues at the last moment; characters hiding their identities; main characters making fiery speeches at the first opportunity, etc.), but it is done much more elegantly. If in Cold Steel I-II all these cliches and conventions were dumped on you as is, head-on and without any measure, then in Tokyo Xanadu they are less common, look more appropriate and are not so obvious. Yes, the plot itself is simple, but it is well told and works quite well within the framework of this particular game. Although at some point in story claims for something more arise, but, unfortunately, they remain at the level of claims.

The combat system here is simple and competent enough so that battles do not turn into a tedious chore, but rather clumsy in order to get genuine pleasure from it. There are no less than six playable characters to choose from, each of which feels different, and you can switch between three in battle. Some heroes are useful against some enemies, others against others, combine and act according to the situation. Here’s a melee attack, here’s a ranged attack, two special moves and one ultimate. There is no block, you can only roll, learn timings and guess the enemy’s actions. There is a lock on the enemies, but you can’t switch between them, so fight the camera or attack the void. A bunch of dungeons lasting 5-15 minutes with bosses of varying degrees of honesty. Is it exciting? Yes. Is something annoying? Yes.

Quite a good action-RPG, for a strong 7/10. If you are already familiar with the games from Nihon Falcom, then you will get exactly what you expect from Tokyo Xanadu eX+. This game is just for those times when you want something from them, but all the officially localized Trails have already been completed, and you have to wait at least another six months for the next one. If not, then it’s quite suitable for jumping into games from this studio. Most likely it will not hit you to the core, but you will have a general idea.

This game has a horrible start (because the boring linear long stealth segment in the first chapter is exactly what you expect from a bloody shooter) and a horrible ending (the boss is so fat that for some time you don’t understand whether you’re fighting him correctly, because he doesn’t react in any way to your attacks and just gets angry, while there’s no special approach to him, you just run back and forth and shoot). Everything in between is pretty fun stealth action/bloody shooter, whichever you prefer. Dynamic, varied and not tiresome.

It’s kinda awkward: the name of the game includes the famous alien killing machines, but for some reason the nameless expendable shines in it. Aliens vs. Predator has three campaigns (for Alien, Predator and Marine), and the one from which you don’t expect anything special turns out to be the best. Episodes as a human is a strong budget shooter of the late 2000s, the general sloppiness of which was successfully covered up by a variety of events. In three hours you have time to survive alone with a pulse rifle in your arms and a motion detector with a signature sound, and to take part in a stubborn but unsuccessful defense against Aliens, and to fight a Predator one-on-one, and to visit a hive, and much more to do.

After such a vigorous campaign, you expect something at least at the same level from the remaining two, but in the end you are left disappointed. In episodes as the Predator, you have to engage in clumsy aggressive stealth and even more clumsy platforming, and when playing as an Alien, stealth ceases to be aggressive, because a representative of a terrifying species, whose embryo is capable of making everyone present in the same room with him piss out of fear, dies almost instantly in an open fight, and therefore he has to shamefully crawl along the ceiling, hide in the shadows and cut out people one by one. This could even be fun if the levels were designed for this type of gameplay, but they aren’t. The absence of any interesting situations and the short duration of both campaigns does not really help.

Even if this game did not have a beautifully told semi-detective story in which all the shots are fired, in which the comedic and dramatic elements are well balanced, in which the narrative is perfectly maintained, never gets lost or sags, and in which there are no frankly unnecessary characters, but there is the most outstanding Pomeranian in the industry

Even if this game didn’t have logical puzzles with simple but fun mechanics to solve them

Even if this game didn’t have amazing smooth animations, outstanding visual style and memorable soundtrack

Even if this game did not have any of the above, but there were chicken-eating animations in the form in which they are present now, then Ghost Trick would already be worth checking out just for them.

However, the game has all of the above, so there are many more reasons to get acquainted with Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. Great game, don’t ignore it.

This is not Dead Space. Yes, there are similarities in many small details, but their core mechanics are different. If Dead Space is a more or less classic survival horror with an emphasis on action, then The Callisto Protocol is more of a third-person beat-em-up with one-on-one combat.

This is a normal game, just above the level of a strong average, but it is very easy and modest in mechanics. The combat system does not change at all from the beginning of the game, you can learn a couple of additional techniques and that’s it, so once you get used to it, all battles become very easy and develop according to the same scenario. There are also stealth segments in the game, and the stealth here is completely broken, the enemies are literally blind and seem to react to sound, but at the same time they don’t give a damn about killing their relative a meter away from them, despite the fact that both the monster and the main character grunts loudly when killed. There are practically no bosses, except for the final one; one fat enemy takes the rap for them, the battle with whom is repeated four times throughout the game. But the ordinary opponents are quite diverse, and in general the game is well staged, keeps the pace well and doesn’t become boring in the 10 hours it takes to complete it. It’s fine.

Definitely not the worst Call of Duty I’ve played. Decent campaign, passable plot, fine antagonist, more or less varied missions. A decent CoD for a couple of evenings.

It would be better if The Man Who Erased His Name remained DLC, there would be less demand for it.

Cons:

• a very filler and frankly drawn-out story with a protagonist who does nothing but grumble displeasedly about everything;
• bland side stories (with a couple of exceptions), which either rely on blatant fan service and “do you remember, there used to be such a character and there was such a scene with him? Soooooo”, or are lazy jokes, or offer to gather fighters into your team to participate in the tournament;
• mini-games taken from the previous entries with a minimum of changes;
• a new style of combat with gadgets, which is fun in itself, but feels quite strange in combination with the main character;
• a very bland soundtrack, which is kind of nonsense for the series;
• easy difficulty is broken, the game starts playing itself on it.

Pros:

• some good moments in the storyline and a couple of big side stories;
• a new fighting style, which, again, is quite fun in itself;
• large-scale battles on the level of that fight from the Yakuza 5, when twenty people are rushing at you at once, only here there are real opponents, and not whipping boys who fall with one blow;
• a coliseum with crowd-on-crowd team battles.

In general, the impressions are more negative than vice versa. The first Yakuza, in which you don’t want to finish the side content at all. It would have been much better if it had been a small, story-focused expansion like the Kaito Files from Lost Judgment. Play only if you really miss the series.

I played in story mode with auto combat enabled, so I can’t say anything about the combat system and will leave the game without rating. As a story-based game with constant need to make decisions, it’s okay, but it has a very uneven narrative. The authors change the style of dialogue on the go. There are a very large number of characters, and, as a result, many are given very little time. Some events remain behind the scenes and are not even mentioned (for example, at some point part of your team leaves you, and you will notice this only before the start of the battle). The setting is not bad and the story itself is interesting, but it could have been told much better.

I liked adventure games about main characters more. Colossus Down is clearly not the best beat-em-up I’ve played, and I just can’t imagine playing it in permadeath mode (by default, when you die, you return to the same place as if nothing had happened). Perhaps the game feels better in co-op mode.

I didn’t understand the combat system of this game at all. It seems that it is designed for one-on-one battles, but it seems like a slasher, where hordes of enemies attack you. I tried to play carefully - they quickly clamped down and broke my face in a crowd. I tried to play aggressively, but the crowd still broke my face. As a result, I felt more comfortable fighting bosses than ordinary opponents, because in boss fights I at least understood what I needed to do. I couldn’t master the combat and somewhere in the middle of the game I gave up, lowered the difficulty to minimum and started tanking without much effort. I played on a keyboard and mouse, perhaps it would have been easier with a gamepad.

Despite the above, I still enjoyed the game. It is well staged (the action without cuts is simply mind-blowing; the last time it was just as good was in Dead Space 2); very cool snow to roll around in; obscene Kratos who constantly says “cum”. It’s fine.

Great concept: putting the player in stressful situations, the way out of which must be found using logic and trial and error. Everything is spoiled by the great randomness, on which too much is tied in this game. Gods Will Be Watching itself is already quite evil and unforgiving of mistakes (its creators don’t even hide this), and the randomness here looks like an outright mockery. For example, in the second chapter you and your partner must endure several days of torture, and at one point you are forced to play Russian roulette. Bad luck, well, it sucks to be you, start over. And it’s one thing to replay an episode because you did something wrong, and quite another because the game wanted you to.

This addon fixes some of the mistakes of the original, but not in the same way as the DLC did. There are again very few interesting game situations, but the opponents and locations have been diversified, plus the game keeps a good pace and is played fairly quickly. A good addition for those who didn’t get enough of the first Alan Wake.

The best game about SCP that is not directly related to SCP. It is especially good for its side quests, many of which are dedicated to some kind of anomaly with their own unique gameplay and narrative gimmicks. Quite a fun game.

This game is absolutely broken. If in the first The Evil Within stealth did not work at all, then in the sequel you can cut out entire levels just by sitting behind one cover. The main character has become very impressionable in his old age and is loudly surprised at literally everything. The quality of the script ranges from “bad” to “so bad it’s good.” Strange game design decisions. A ton of small bugs. But despite all of the above, The Evil Within 2 manages to be a pretty fun game with a lot of cool ideas and moments, and its junkiness, to some extent, even provides additional entertainment.

A good story that would have been even better if it had been told properly. Most of the dialogue in the game is monologues, and often these monologues begin completely spontaneously. A lot of things are chewed over so thoroughly that it really seems like Kojima thinks you’re an idiot. Retelling the plot of the entire game with its explanation in the end credits is something new.

What I definitely liked was the social part with buildings, likes, transfer of packages, etc. You really feel the interaction with other players, you really help each other even though you never meet each other in the entire game. Fixing a road with five Chinese people and thereby making life easier for dozens of other players is very satisfying.

Also, Low Roar and Silent Poets are wonderful.

I rushed this game. Apparently, this puzzle tells a sad and heartbreaking story, but I played with my ass and missed everything, and therefore I will refrain from rating it. But I liked the concept.

Basically the same as the main game, but with a couple of new abilities. I was especially pleased with the relative intimacy of the story with one main antagonist, because in the first game there was a strong overkill with the number of villains pulling the blanket over themselves.

I really like the aesthetics of this game, even though I don’t have any nostalgia for the American 90s. I like the style, I like the music, I like the lightness of the narrative and the atmosphere of a certain carelessness. Something responded to me as soon as I started playing, and only let go at the end credits. A very warm little indie that goes by in one breath.

An okay attempt to depict one night in a typical cyberpunk city through the eyes of a simple courier. It would be even better if it didn’t have problems with the narrative: some moments have a lot of narrative water, others, on the contrary, are quite rushed, the pacing periodically sags, and at times everything comes too easily to the main character. Nevertheless, it turned out well enough for me to become interested in the DLC, which, apparently, contains enough content for a full-fledged sequel.

It’s as if they started developing this game back in 2010, froze it, returned to it in 2015, updated the graphics, froze it again, remembered it again in 2019, gave it to young interns to rewrite the script, didn’t touch it for another couple of years, after which this Frankenstein monster was brought into a more or less acceptable form and sent for gold. Everything here is exactly the same as in the previous games, and at the same time not a single component reaches either SR2, or The Third, or SR4. There are good moments, but overall it is very shallow and boring.

It doesn’t just work.

A primitive hand-drawn point-and-click game that can be completed in 15 minutes. It’s supposed to be a free game, but for some reason they ask for money for it.

Battlefield 3 looks best in those moments when it doesn’t lead you by the hand, doesn’t show you cutscenes and doesn’t force you to fight a rat using QTEs, but simply tells you to break through with your squad to a specified point. The game has spectacular sound design, amazing interactive environments, and if the enemies weren’t so stupid it would be a great shooter. But even so, it’s pretty good.

A breath of fresh air after the entire Cold Steel arc with a narrative structure built around clear, unbreakable patterns. Three storylines that develop in parallel and intersect at certain points; practically absent side quests and other content that distracts from the main story; a good pace, taken from the very beginning - due to all this, an adventure for 40-45 hours rushes in one breath and does not even have time to tire.

All additional material has been moved to a separate dungeon, similar to that of Trails in the Sky 3rd, which can be played both during and after the main campaign. A lot of side content was provided, here are additional stories, and mini-games with varying degrees of interest and duration, and challenges, and clearing the dungeon, which is wrapped up here in a separate small storyline. Both the main campaign and side stories do not play a special role in the big picture of things and serve rather as an epilogue to all previous games and a small bridge to the next arc, introducing new characters. The epilogue, by the way, turned out to be satisfying enough to turn a blind eye to moments that are strange even by the standards of the series - the farewell to the beloved characters turned out to be very pleasant.

Just don’t play Trails into Reverie right after Trails of Cold Steel IV, you’ll be in a lot of pain and discomfort. The control scheme has been changed almost completely compared to CS IV, while reassigning everything as it was is a very dreary and difficult process.

VA-11 Hall-A at home.

Very weak visual novel. The features of the fictional setting are practically not used in the stories of the characters (replace all these fantasy creatures with people, and nothing will change at all, except for a couple of exceptions); the barista lacks his own personality, despite actively participating in conversations; background music is too background. The visual is beautiful, though, and it can be completed quickly, at least. Not my kind of game.

Awesome spectacular beat ‘em up that doesn’t make fun of you, with a well thought out exciting combat system focusing on dodges and parries, with fair difficulty and a great sense of your own progression. I really liked both the main campaign and the arenas (a re-creation of the battle with a bunch of Smith agents from The Matrix Reloaded is just rad). A very satisfying game.

I recommend that you start playing on normal (original) difficulty, regardless of your experience in “hard to master” games, and only if it doesn’t work out at all, switch to easy. The easy mode makes the game VERY easy.

Katana ZERO started out as a good game about planning a spectacularly effective cutting out of opponents, ended up as some unbearable stifling, where crowds of enemies with firearms and shields are stupidly thrown at you. But the first half is good, yes. The visuals, music, and dialogues pull the whole game through.

It’s been a long time since I’ve played a game that captivates you so much that time flies by, and one hour before going to bed at nine in the evening ends at half past three at night. A great story-driven RPG that I strongly advise all fans of the genre to play, as well as those who miss large-scale and expensive RPGs, and those who just passed by and became interested, but not right now. BG3 still has a lot of small bugs of varying degrees of harmfulness that can spoil the impression of the game; the third act especially badly needs additional polishing. But even now it’s still a great RPG, and games like this are sorely lacking right now. Especially the AAA grade. Oh, if Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous had a Baldur’s Gate 3 budget…

A game that crushes you with fan service (but you don’t mind). A pretty decent ending to a frankly weak arc in terms of plot. The characters from Cold Steel I-II are still background furniture, the characters from Cold Steel III are still good and develop further, the antagonists for the most part still have a minimum of character, or they just exist because you already know them from past games, so why bother. Definitely the best game of the entire Cold Steel arc, albeit mostly because of the fan service. But it was good fan service.

In some incredible way, this game combines both the features of the best remakes and the features of the worst. There are chapters here that very carefully transfer the source material with a minimum of changes, which is good. There are chapters here that completely rework the source material, which is great. There are chapters that have been slightly expanded, which is good (for example, the introduction in Black Mesa, where much more interactions with the environment are added for the player). There are chapters that are slightly expanded, which is bad (for example, developers really like to turn some puzzles into finding valves, which further drags out the already stuffy levels). The updated appearance of the levels improves the original in some cases, and spoils it in others (a lot of visual noise that can interfere with finding the solution to the puzzle and navigating the level). The redesigned AI of human opponents in some chapters causes only irritation, while in others it generates exciting combat situations. Certain chapters pissed me off, others I simply adore. The levels in the complex before the exit to the surface suck ass, the chapter on the surface is amazing, Xen is very good, despite the noticeable delay, the half-hour staged boss fight with Gonarch is just mind-blowing in its awesomeness.
I hate this game, I love this game - it was definitely an interesting experience.

I didn’t get it. This game tries to be both humorous-parody and dark at the same time, and it doesn’t succeed very well. The gameplay is clumsy, but you can enjoy it. I don’t regret the time spent, but if I had not played it, I would not have lost anything.