This game is all about its novelty and nothing much else. I'm a fan of both JRPGs and DRPGs/Wizardry-likes but I find this game to be incredibly bland in everything it does. Story and combat is as generic as it gets. The final nail in the coffin for me is how the dungeons are randomly generated. I have no idea whether it will improve later on but I didn't enjoy what little I have played. Which means I'm abandoning this game for my other games in my backlog.

I knew exactly what to expect from this DOOM reboot after playing Wolfenstein The New Order: fast-paced run and gun FPS that is all about action. And I like it. In some ways, I still prefer Wolfenstein thanks to its more coherent story as well as its arguably more interesting setting. Plus the secrets in that game also very engaging and intuitive to find than in DOOM. Nevertheless, I love both gunplays just as much.

This is actually a pretty neat throwback to Chrono Trigger that is just right in length. There are just 2 little problems that I have with this game though. First of all, the game can sometime "break" above 60 FPS because the party members who follow you around reduce in speed. The battles will only start when they get into a set position, meaning battles can take a long time to start. Second, there exists a bonus dungeon that requires you to pretty much be at max level to be balanced. There are no New Game+ or any methods to go back to do this content once you enter the final dungeon, so you have to grind to max level before the final boss.
Overall though this is still a fun short JRPG with a pumping soundtrack to match.

I should've known I wouldn't enjoy this game. DOA 6 overpromised and ended up not delivering most of its hype due to being rushed. Not only is it plagued by one of the worst netcode I've seen in a fighting game, its developers also opted to add predatory microtransactions first before adding essential features to the game.

I actually started playing this at the tail end of 2018. But I think I only managed to reach ending B before 2019. In any case I got ending E in the first week of the year, making this my first game cleared in 2019. What a way to open a year, huh?

The game deserves all the hype it gets. Story was great and leaves things open to interpretation. And the soundtrack? It's nothing short of amazing. In fact I would even play the game just for it. As for the gameplay it was a nice blend between Devil May Cry, shmup and isometric shooters. While I prefer the weighty combat of the Souls series, I still enjoy NieR's combat for what it is. The only thing that I don't like about it is how imbalanced the game feels. The jump from each difficulty feels too high especially when you just started the game in my opinion. It could use nice bridging difficulties so people could get some decent challenge without getting too overwhelmed.

Things left to do:

• Collect all weapons and upgrade them to max level.
• Grind to level 99.
• Finish the ending collection.
• Play the DLC quests.

I haven't played any Dragon Quest game since the early 2010s. And I've also started to play less turn based JRPG with each passing year. Then this game came into my library and put me back on a JRPG mood. Simply put, this game managed to remind me of how much I adore DQ as well as rekindle my love for turn-based JRPGs.

One thing that surprised me the most about DQXI is how massive it is. There are multiple times when I had thought I am this close to finishing the game, only to find out it still goes on. Despite its size however the game managed to keep me hooked during my journey to platinum the game, a feat that few RPGs manage to do.

Some of you might find one aspect of this game to be comparable to the Trails series, namely the NPCs. In Dragon Quest the NPCs also change their dialogues on every major story point. While the the two long-running series seem similar at first glance, both execute this aspect differently. In Trails most NPCs tend to talk about a large event that revolve around multiple towns. Comparatively in Dragon Quest NPCs mostly react to events happening in their local town. Granted NPCs in Dragon Quest rarely ever offer deep dialogues, but I prefer it more simply because each one is lovingly crafted with vibrant personalities (and accents). Oh, did I mention you can also talk to your party members?

This was a nice chill RPG without any kinds of melodrama. It was simply relaxing from start to finish and I ended up craving for more conventional JRPGs to play.

Yuuup, this was a surprise release that nobody expected. Atlus has many great games but is notorious for being anti-PC. So I'm glad SEGA has a say in porting their games nowadays.

This one was actually quite interesting. I've known Atlus as a publisher who publishes quirky games; either quirky in terms of storytelling or in gameplay. Despite this, I still ended up getting surprised both by Catherine's overall presentation and gameplay depth. More than anyone, Atlus is able to prove a game can have both style and substance at the same time.

It's great that every level does not feel the same and requires different block pushing techniques. However I really suck at fast-paced puzzles and this game is no exception. I'll probably play this on and off instead of playing this in one go like I do for most games nowadays.

For the most part, Mirror's Edge is a pretty good platformer game. The theme parkour is rarely ever explored in games and I'll take a dystopian society premise anytime. One thing certainly ruins my overall enjoyment for the game though: the ever so nauseating camera bob. Moreover the game also ends a bit too abruptly in an anti-climatic way. While it could be a bit longer to tie loose ends, it was still a pretty unique game of its time that makes its cult classic status well-deserved.

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This game is reminiscent of the old Clock Tower games with the premise of Silent Hill. I love the hand-drawn comic book art style of the game as well as the atmosphere of the environment. Unfortunately the game's major issue for me is how it blocks you from achieving the True Ending in your playthrough just because you messed up the order of a certain action half an hour into the game. You see, the game has four requirements for that ending and three of them are obvious. But it turns out the fourth is a hidden side quest that can only be done before handing in a key item required for one of the other side quest. This is something you won't be able to know during your first playthrough and I couldn't be bothered to replay the game just for that, to be honest. Nevertheless, it's still a great game to go in blindly on one sitting.

Another game that takes the formula of an old game; this one is really similar to the old arcade racing games in the likes of Outrun or Road Rash. The only downside to this is its relatively short playtime length.

This visual novel/puzzle game can be a hard sell. In This Starry Midnight We Make, you help other people by making constellations using the Japanese traditional cosmology onmyou. It presents itself as a star making simulation game, while the story is told in visual novel format. The latter is nothing special to write home about. It's the former that makes the game divisive to the already niche audience; either you hate it or you like it.

There are some puzzle elements involved in the star creation that you won't be able to know without tons of trial and error. For instance, you have to give energy to the stars to grow them properly. As the game doesn't explain this process thoroughly, I was fumbling around for hours confused why my stars stopped growing. And once you do grow those properly, you still have to figure out how to influence the stars' growth by using a certain type of star. All in all, the concept of the game is interesting, but the gameplay is confusing without proper guidance.

Basically it's Ghost Busters set it in Tokyo. Story is presented in a visual novel format while the gameplay bit is an SRPG (think FF Tactics or Disgaea). The visual novel part is more unique than most VNs; character sprites are fully animated, and there is an action wheel that will influence your in-game actions during dialogue. The same wheel is also the first major issue I've had with the game. There are two action wheels: emotion (love, friendship, anger, investigation, and sad) as the first and the second as the five senses. Choosing the correct combination can increase characters' affinities, make them join your party, or trigger a special flashback about the ghosts dubbed "Sixth Sense". On paper it seemed amazing, but the problem is the game only shoved you the wheels without even slightly explaining how they work. There is also no set actions even when choosing the same combination. One time your character can act like a total jerk, a psycho, or even a player. Great concept, bad execution.

The gameplay part is also not blemish free either. At first glance the gameplay part of this visual novel plays like most Strategy RPG; the movement is made on a grid map. But then they made a twist on this formula which made it difficult on the first place. You and your enemies move at the same time when the turn ends. As a result you have to predict where the enemies are going to successfully attack them. While a guessing game can be done as the enemies' movement range is visible to you, their chosen action is always random if you don't use traps. During the battle preparation you can place these traps to influence your enemies' pathing. Problem is there are just loads of traps with a multitude of different effects. You don't want to just place everything randomly as you have a limit on the amount of traps which can be placed in a map, plus each one of those will reduce your potential reward money. Forcing this strategy segment on top of the guessing game just makes the learning curve for beginners steep. Oh, did I mention that since your enemies are ghosts they can go through walls and also damage you if they move to the same grid as your unit?

Many elements in this game are designed to stack against you, from the ghosts' advantage to the limited turn limit. Not to mention there's quite a lot of stats and terms that you also need to learn without the game's aid. The complexity of this game made me drop it after I played about one third of it. It's a damn shame as I liked the concept, aesthetic, and the premise of the game. Unfortunately they are ruined with the execution.

Another one of those difficult runners which force you to do numerous retries. The only thing that single-handedly saves this game is pretty much the soundtrack to be honest.

This iOS port tries really hard to emulate Super Mario 3D Land, from the UI, to the gameplay elements. Ultimately the game felt terribly bland not only because of its mobile origins but also thanks to its numerous gameplay issues. For starters, power ups are rare and felt really uninspired. There is also a notable lack of variety, Among 5 available powerups in the gane, one is your standard Mario mushroom, one is a coin magnet, and the other is the Invincible star. Only the two remaining 2 spruce up the platforming sections, making it felt really half-assed. Next, the bosses are the same enemies over and over again only with reskins. There's also some weird input lag on the game especially when trying to activate the power ups. And finally some of the collectible stars are obscure. Some of those in particular are located on a hidden platform that require you to willingly jump to a bottomless pit. Overall this game is only designed to cash in the the 3D platformer crowd in the mobile market and has nothing worthwhile going on.

Despite not as content-heavy as the other MH games that I've played, I did have fun playing this game with my mates. What I didn't like about MHW though is how the event quests are delivered. They are time limited, basically forcing people who don't want to miss out to keep on playing. On one hand, it's great that they keep on making the game fresh with free content updates. But I'm never one who likes Games as a Service model especially if the game is never an MMO in the first place. The number of my backlog also makes it hard to keep up with the limited content. Comparatively, older MH titles make the event quests downloadable permanently even long after the update drops.

At the moment I'm playing MHW on and off every time there's a new limited event but I'm not sure how long I'll be doing this for.

I know I was on a wild ride for preodering both Yakuza 0 and MHW on the same month. This game was much, much better than I thought it would be. The town felt so lived in with tons of content. Lots of side quests, story is very lengthy and combat is also very great without being a button masher. The combat can be a hit and miss to some, but I actually enjoy its arcade-y feel as it suprisingly has so much depth and options. Furthermore, I also like how the game can shift from a serious tone to being goofy depending on the content you're doing. It's very lengthy though, and I haven't finished it yet. 27 hours in and I'm just stuck playing bowling, baseball, RC toy racing, and old SEGA arcade games.

Planning to continue it again as soon as my burnout from lengthy games is gone.

This game was a pretty decent loot shooter but falls flat in the end. Some of the weapon types are unbalanced. The enemies also hit quite hard and can even one hit KO you. Coupled with the awkward teammate AI, this game can be frustrating at times. It's rare for me to say this, but this game is way too expensive for what it's worth.