Recent reviews by Judge Judd

Listen, it's not bad, but it needs some work

Positives:
-New item balance changes are all positive, had no issue with any of them
-Online Co-op (when it works)

Negatives:
-New item tiers make no sense. Dark arts at 1? Blue map at 1? Genesis, a literal run saver in some cases, down to 2? Void and abyss got buffed to be much better, yet also moved down to 3?
-Mods can't be downloaded unless you downgrade your version to Repentance, then re-upgrade to Rep+
-Even after that, mods must be installed manually, for some reason? They claim some mods could break with the new API, but, how? You didn't fundamentally change anything except adding online to the game. (which has actually been in the game, just hidden with a console command)
-Co-op is a little de-synced, and often feels just a little off, which makes dodging hard to dodge attacks even harder, even when I was playing with someone on the same internet as me. Mega Satan and Hush have this problem the worst.
-Achievements for playing online, which would be fine, but some players don't have an internet connection, which straight up locks them out of 100% on a game that was single player for 10+ years.
-Someone else mentioned this, but only support for English, so good luck if you don't speak English.

EDIT: Another minor thing, they haven't updated the balance around co-op, so for example you still get only one treasure room item per FLOOR, not player. Up to 4 boss items spawn, but only one treasure room item. This often leaves 2 or more players underpowered, as you aren't likely to get a quality 4 for each player. This means that the last few floors are basically a solo run because the others just don't have damage/synergy's to do anything.

Overall, unless you are dying to play online, or need the achievements for 100% (again) I would recommend staying on base Repentance. As soon as they fix the weird laggy online and modding issues, I will re-install this, and actually recommend it (unless they break something else, which is very possible lol)

According to very basic research, when Persona 3 (the vanilla version) came out it cost 60 USD. Persona 3 FES, when it released cost 30 USD.

This DLC is 5 dollars more than the entirety of FES, and you ONLY get the answer, and a few BGM tracks that you may or may not use. Plus if you bought the $100 edition (like me sadly) and this DLC, you would have spent 135 dollars total.

You could have bought FES back in the day, with the whole game and the answer included, and still had $105 left over. Even if you bought Vanilla P3 first, then bought FES, it is still LESS expensive than the base version of Reload+This DLC.

Thanks ATLUS.

(As an actual review, it's okay. The bonus tracks are neat, and the answer is a good epilogue [based of FES version, so this is assuming they don't change anything.] Just definitely NOT worth $35. Buy it on sale, or if you're a die-hard ATLUS/Persona 3 fan)

EDIT: Making an edit of this review to talk about The Answer/Episode Aigis.

Yeah, it's The Answer again. Bosses are kinda weird and annoying to fight, with them usually having an evade or dodge skill of their weakness, except for important bosses, who have no weakness like usual. Yukari changed A LOT from FES to Reload, and while I don't think it's really bad per say, just doesn't feel as heavy as the scenes in FES did. (Not mentioning anything specific to avoid spoilers). ??? doesn't literally melt his skin off, so I guess ATLUS didn't want to traumatize a bunch of people again.

Otherwise? It's basically the same thing. The returning FES fusion spells/Theurgies are cool, and the new music is great as always with Persona. Dorm interactions are neat, but I personally felt like they didn't add much. Also, thank you for the compendium, worst part of the original..

TL:DR Play this game, but the combat doesn't do it for me.

This will probably be the only Yakuza game I write a review for, because it's generally the most mixed game for me. The story is great, typical Yakuza story stuff, you get the idea (Except the Morning Glory stuff. That went on for way too long) But the combat is something that annoys me. Don't get me wrong, you should play this game if you are playing in order, but the combat is something that I personally dislike. so, if you care, here me complaining about yakuza 3 combat for what could honestly be 2 paragraphs.

The games combat is typical older Yakuza combat. If your playing in timeline order, its basically the Legend/Dragon style from Y0 and K1. Kiryu feels fine to control, and I like the dragon style so its whatever. My real problems come from the enemies. You may have heard the joke "Blockuza 3" used before, and I can see why. Enemies will block basically any (raw) attack thrown at them. Plus the dragon style is JUST slow enough so the enemies can block between hits if you try and punish from the front. Many people will claim it just "button-mashing noobs who don't know how to counter properly" This is correct in a sense, in that you can't just mash to kill people, you need to counter. HOWEVER, the quickstep in this game is bugged, and the 60fps breaks the quickstep so you gain hardly any distance. But you could always use the Komaki abilities, right? Well you don't get (most) of the Komaki abilities until chapter 4 (roughly). This makes some of the hardest bosses in the game the earliest ones you encounter, just because you can't properly counter their attacks or dodge spam (another issue that some bosses have. Looking at you, Majima) Komaki Parry essentially carries this game, as the strategy goes: 1. Komaki Parry. 2. Run around the enemy and land a full combo. 3. Repeat. The other issue is heat actions. Heat actions do so little damage its insane. A normal combo does about the same damage as a heat action with 3 different quick time events. Heat in general in this game also regenerates so slowly, and goes away very quickly, another issue i believe caused by the 60 fps.

The combat in this game isn't great. It's basically Yakuza 4's combat but with the issues I mentioned before. Now you might have noticed "This guy sure has a lot of issues with the combat, why is this a positive review?" Well, because of the story. It basically carries this game. Sure, some of the substories are a little lacking (especially when there is over 110 of them. Y0 had 100 split between two characters) but man the story is to die for. Whatever you do, do NOT skip this game. Play it on easy difficulty if you are really worried about the combat, then sit back and enjoy the story.

Tech demo with the love and feel of a AAA game. If only Valve could release a new game with quality like this.

(Stupid long review, so get ready)

I love this game, it seriously became one of my favorite games of all time, and when I first got it, I just couldn't put it down. This is still to this day the only game I 100% on Playstation, and was hyped to hear that it was coming to Steam. So, is it as good as the original? Yeah, I can say so. The original Persona 5 Royal was capped at 30 fps, which has now been raised to 60 fps. People will say it doesn't matter, but as someone with over 200 hours on Playstation, I noticed the difference in the first battle. Again, as with every Persona game, the characters are great, and so is the story. Persona 5 does a little bit to shake up the gameplay from Persona 4, adding a few new attack types, and other special moves, which are very flashy and don't really retract from the gameplay too much. One problem I do have with this game is the difficulty. Some sections of the game are stupid easy (I won't say where, spoilers) and others are stupid annoying and are actually EASIER, on the games hardest difficulty. (Again, spoilers, but if you know, you know) Other than that, this game includes all of the DLC, most of them being costumes, which do nothing more than change your look and the BGM playing, but others are Persona DLC, usually personas of previous protagonists. Some of these, break the whole game, and can one shot bosses with EASE. (Looking at you, Myriad Truths) Other than those few issues I have with the game, this is 100% worth buying if you enjoy JRPGs. (I didn't mean for this to be so long. Whoops.)

EDIT: I want to take a little bit of time to address what some people are writing about in negative reviews. You will find counterpoints here.
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1: The game runs poorly, and my PC isn't even bad!/The Steam Deck has performance issues, even though its verified!
Answer: I've literally never had a problem with performance, on this or the Steam Deck. I'm not sure what seems to be the issue, but people claim that they have lag in areas with lots of NPCs and also in certain areas with lots of effects. I walked around all of the school, where there are a lot of NPCs, and didn't experience frame drops. Many people say its the Denuvo, but its seems fine to me. And if it is Denuvo messing with their game, why doesn't it also mess with mine? It just doesn't make sense to me. But people wouldn't lie on the internet, would they?

2: The DLC is always on, and this breaks the game!
Answer: Ignoring costume DLC, which changes literally nothing combat wise, the only other thing I see is the DLC personas you get and the bonus items. The items I can understand, there is no way to not get them if you want the costumes, but the personas? Just don't use them. None of them are forced onto you, and you can literally beat the whole game without ever using the compendium. I don't recommend it, but you can literally never see the names of these personas, ever, if you just don't check the compendium. Plus, the DLC personas are fun for a second play through, and you don't have to pay extra for them, so I see this as a benefit. The items, though? Yeah, I 100% got through some areas while abusing these, so they can be a pretty big buff.

This game is pretty fun! As a fan of Persona 5 Royal, and having never played a hack and slash before, I thought I'd give this a go. As a preemptive warning, this game does spoil the ending of Persona 5, so play that first. Combat can get repetitive as with any game if you play it for long enough, but the Persona flair adds a lot to the combat. The only part I dislike is they bumped the SP cost of every skill in the game compared to its Royal price, and so that made it much harder to regenerate that SP, so you will need to leave dungeons pretty often. Luckily, since this is a spin-off, there's no calendar system to deal with, so it won't affect game play in any meaningful way other than a loading screen. Other people also claim that they are running into performance issues, but I've never noticed any major stuttering or lag at all, and while my PC isn't super low end, it's 100% not high end. If you're a fan of Persona 5/Royal, give this a try. If your a fan of hack and slashes, this game isn't a bad option for you either. Overall, 8/10. Little rough around the edges, but an overall fun experience

Japanese font is 10 times better than English font. Too bad I can't read Japanese.

I have multiple friends with 100s of hours on this game, and have spent IRL money on this game. They all hate it. Spare yourself the misery, and spare your bank account.

EDIT: Wow, this aged well. Like literally not too long ago they decided to increase the grind and decided to make it harder to gain SL in ALL tiers, basically forcing you to pay Golden Eagles to get a tank. Glad I decided to not become a dedicated warthunder player and didn't spend any money on this game, because here we are today. I'll just stick to, literally anything else, thanks.

This game holds the record for the most hours played in a row of any game I own, being 12 hours straight. I didn't regret a single hour. This game might be my favorite game of all time. The characters are great, the story is great, and the combat is fun, but can get repetitive for some people. If you enjoy JRPG games or games of a similar manner, I highly recommend you buy this game. Normally I would recommend people buy a game on sale, but this game is so good I would have bought it at full price if I knew what kind of game I was getting into. 10/10, this game has earned its spot as my favorite game on Steam.

Started playing this first on the Xbox 360, and its still the greatest zombie game I've played. The campaigns are great, the characters are great, and the zombie design is great. The A.I director makes sure that every replay of a campaign is different, and there is 4 different difficulties for each level of skill. There are multiple gamemodes, include 2-3 PvP modes, Co-op modes, and everything in between. Honestly, just grab some friends, or team up with the bots and play this game. It's 100% worth it