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The Final Station is an atmospheric 2D-Survival game that centers around a train driver who travels through the apocalypse for an unknown reason. The gameplay is an acceptable vehicle for the outstanding worldbuilding.

Final Station is extremely atmospheric and centers around the idea of surviving in an apocalyptic world while escorting survivors to safe heavens and transporting important stuff towards something.
Russian culture has a fable for depression, but not in a sad kind of way. Russian depression is on an existential level and implies a bleakness that penetrates all aspects of life. There is nothing that can not be corrupted and ultimately everything is meaningless in the face of death. And while this stuff sounds simple, we often forget that actual humans are suffering and emotional distance to these tropes is only the case because we do not suffer from it ourselves. Losing a home seems insignificant in a game. In the real world?
It is the end of your world.
The Final Station showcases individual stories which get buried by the noise of the world, only fleeting remains are left to explore and if you are willing to understand them, it is irrelevant on a greater scope.
The biggest focus seems to be the works of Strugazki brothers which are probably the most important Sci-Fi authors from Russia. I recommend first playing the game and then reading about them/reading their books. Many dots will connect the exact moment you do this.
And that is why you should play the game.

Well, it is acceptable. The game does not have a lot of enemy variety, but it is easy to play through and has two distinctive parts.
First is the train phase:
The player needs to keep the train working via very simple mini-games, can listen to the passengers talking and have to provide them with food and medicine. This is only around 1/5 of the game.
The other 4/5 are spent exploring ruins, exploring the stories of the deceased, fending off the zombies of this game and rummaging for useful material.
The actual gameplay is the weakest part of the game, but I want to stress (yet again) that the gameplay is a vehicle for the narrative, and it forms a coherent concept.
Helping does mean that you sacrifice resources, med kits are shared for you and passengers. You are not rich and resources are limited, so sometimes important decisions have to be made. At least in theory.

The arguably biggest problem of the game is a lack of variation and difficulty. While some parts are frustrating difficulty spikes, most situations are relatively tame. The levels themselves are visually distinctive, but all feel the same as no new terrain mechanics are introduced at some point.
The pixel art also ranges from average to great and while the game has style, it switches so much that the world feels a little random at times, although this is a strong nitpick.
More significant is that the player really needs the DLC to get the greater picture. It is as if the game was made with this hole in mind and locking so much story content does not necessarily sit right with me, if it is that integral for the main story.

First I want to say that the music is superb. While there are not many tracks, every single one feels meaningful and strong, the moment it begins to play. Rarely using music is a strong power to wield, it can backfire hard, if the player becomes bored because of the lack of sound stimuli. I can say that The Final Station gracefully succeeds at this front and every situation at which music plays is something to behold of.
Worldbuilding:
The world is fully coherent. Some games take being cryptic as the pinnacle of storytelling. I disagree. Sometimes a fully understandable world with a coherent timeline that can be figured out, characters with motivations which have been explained and causality are everything a good story needs. I can not stress how much of a breath of fresh air this is an indie game, especially one that is already relatively old.

The Final Station is an ambitious game that has serious narrative depth and uses it masterfully to create suspension and a mystery to solve. The themes have fallen out of fashion nowadays, yet this leads to them being more interesting for newcomers.
Play the game and maybe the DLC, then watch this video.
Trust me, you will not be disappointed.

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Yakuza 4 is a big step up from Yakuza 3 in any possible way:
Greater scale, a plot with a lot more depth and it introduces new characters to the cast which since then have become fan favorites. Yakuza 4 is an icon of what every sequel should strive for.

After Yakuza 3 RGG was like: We have to rush out another game. Yakuza 4 was released one year after Yakuza 3. Which is way too short for such a game, if you could ignore the asset reuse.
Yakuza 4 completely reuses the whole area of Kamarucho which is the only city in Yakuza 4 but adds new areas to it which are somewhat relevant, but give the city a lot more depth and character. Always keep in mind that in Yakuza games the cities are as much characters as actual people.
In Japan every Yakuza game has a subtitle, in the case of Yakuza 4 it was:
“Successor of Legend” as they had the idea to replace Kiryu as the protagonist.
This got handily thrown out of the window, because one character could not be reused as the voice actor got accused of drug use. Additionally, RGG was afraid that not using Kiryu would alienate their audience which was probably the right call.

Yakuza 4 builds upon the foundation of Yakuza 3, but it impresses with quality and quantity. Featuring four characters with wildly different move sets, protects from fighting fatigue as fights actually feel different and provide variation in approach.
And RGG fixed the blocking problem:
Yakuza 3 suffered from enemies that block throughout the whole fight and forced you to use throws which dealt little damage. Yakuza 4 had to do one thing, and they did it:
Enemies block less and the characters are fast enough to circle effectively.
Although this does not mean that all characters are equal. Funnily enough, they are about as strong as in the story, but everyone still feels better to use than Kiryu in Yakuza 3.
The only real flaw is the amount of grabbing going on. It is still way less atrocious than blocking, but it becomes annoying real fast. While not every character has a way to escape or counter grabs.
Combat aside: Yakuza 4 does add some new mini-games, but not enough to actually warrant a new game.
Everything got refined so that the controls are actually working quite well, but it is mostly still the same stuff as in Yakuza 3. Most of the side content is forgettable, at least the scale of Yakuza 4’s story makes it bearable.

This was probably the high point of the Yakuza series in terms of storytelling, and it really shows. The story was written with a lot of fidelity and strong characterization for the newcomers while also integrating them well into the plot.
And then it committed the crime of the dumbest plot twist in the Yakuza series which to this day is infamous by fans and gets repeatedly brought up, when discussing the most questionable decisions in the series.
In spite of that, if you can ignore this one mistake and some weak side characters, what is left, is downright epic and fun. RGG is in on the tropes, but instead of subverting them, they play it straight and add their own twists to it. Although it is not groundbreaking, it has been refined to such a degree that no one ever will doubt that Yakuza 4 had not an ambitious story.

Yakuza 4 does not have the chill vibes from Yakuza 3 and Okinawa, it is more grim and less bright. A perfect fit for the general theme of the game. If Yakuza 3 was about the bonds between people, Yakuza 4 is about responsibility.
Every character carries burdens that they have to shoulder one way or another.
It is haunting to see people who had such hard lives needing to step up for others, at one point you may ask if this is fair, yet this question is irrelevant. At some point what needs to be done, has to be done. And this is when Yakuza 4 peaks, it uses the set pieces for mature discussions about life and how one ends up in their respective situations. An effective way to showcase of how the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Then the music picks up, and the player connects with the game, feels the flow, this is when Yakuza 4 becomes untouchable.
I have to stress that the music is fantastic, it contains some tracks which are the best of the franchise.
Apart from these mature discussions, a good amount of substories is still very funny and well-written. If compared to the almighty Yakuza 0, they are still worse (on average with some outliers) though.

Yakuza 4 is the point the series became great without any doubts or questions. While there are some hiccups, it is a captivating thriller that perfectly sets the precedent of how to utilize an ensemble cast.

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The DLC is a quest line which should have been included in the base game and while the quality of these quests is higher than any other quest in the main game, it is still disappointing to see such an obvious cash grab.

Soul Hackers 2 needs variation to work, because the game severely lacks late game content.
The highest level regular enemies are around level 60 and stop giving meaningful experience points at around level 70. But the highest level regular quest (and highest tier fusions) are around the level 90 mark. This implies that the player is supposed to level with risky enemies. Which is utterly insane as risky enemies need to be exploited to be fought and take an eternity to fight. If you want to 100% complete Soul Hackers 2 without suffering from an aneurysm, this is the only way besides just buying the level and money DLC. Which provides no new battles, making it utterly useless as there are no challenges which can be tackled except for one level 90 fight (from the base game) which is on the easy side (if your stats are high enough).
This DLC is for the people who like the actual gameplay and want to see more of the world. And in that regard it succeeds.

“The Lost Numbers” contains a DLC quest which directly ties into the main plot, but is not essential. There are arguably some problems with the storyline and the plot is bare bones. Some good ideas exist, the new character works relatively well and is decently well characterized. The main group has a good dynamic with her and while it does get “tropey”, it is fine and serves its purpose.
The quest line actually spans over the course of the whole game. We are talking from level 10 to level 95, but it is only plot relevant until level 70.
This means that you are completely able to rush the story, if you buy the DLC after completing the base game, which is the worst option. “The Lost Numbers” is clearly something of a mystery which repeatedly hooks you in with new information which gets revealed over the course of the game and directly ties into the events which is really well done. Yet any dramatic momentum gets thrown out the moment, you can not remember what just happened.
I like the narrative and am happy that this storyline exists, but that is where it ends.

The quest line is divided into ten quests of varying length which reuse already visited locations and add a new boss to them. After a certain quest a new dungeon can be unlocked which only has one tile format which gets reused around 40 times (this is no exaggeration) and provides the hardest challenge and new enemies to fight.
Additionally, it provides new upgrade material for equipment upgrades which make them completely overpowered. There is nothing in the base game that is on the level to fight you after fully using these upgrades (and the base game upgrades).
And it is the only way to level decently enough, if one ignores the level and money DLC as the DLC includes regular enemies which are intended to be fought at level 90.
The super boss which is optional and not relevant (in any capacity) to the story, is an absolute monster and needs a lot of preparation. Fight at own risk.

This should have been included in the base game. There is no reason not to include it, except for the ones that want to generate revenue for ATLUS.
For 10 bucks, people can get entire masterpieces on sale. Persona 4 Golden on Steam costs regularly around 13 bucks. Same company, very different value.
Soul Hackers 2 already had a rough start and is targeted towards a niche audience, so then deciding to take money for absolute basics is disgusting.
And the DLC does not work as well, if you are buying after completing the base game, is the cherry on stop. This screams corporate mismanagement and I can’t stand for that.

On its own, it is fine albeit lacking. But being day one DLC which has obviously been cut to take out the late game and maybe even profit from achievement hunters (this possibly being a stretch, but we are talking ATLUS here), is honestly one of the worst practices I have ever seen. I can not bring myself to recommend it's good enough quality which carries on from the main game.

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Soul Hackers 2 is best described by being good enough, but the potential was there for an outstanding JRPG. Atlus showcases that they price their games equally, but they are not made equally.

Before I review this game, I want to stress that the patch from 17.11.2022 fixed the game in one important aspect:
Soul Hackers 2 was too slow.
Pacing of a game is difficult, and sometimes one single big change makes or breaks a game. In this particular case, the game changer was adding a fast battle function and the ability to sprint. Before that, everything was too slow in the game, it made dungeons and at times even dialogue something to endure. Forget New Game +, which becomes barely unplayable as there is so much dialogue which needs to be reexperienced.
Just to make a comparison, how much faster the game is:
How Long To Beat was saying that the main campaign needs 40 to 60 hours for the main campaign and 70 to 80 for 100% achievements. With the changes, I needed 47 hours for 100% (including the story DLC, which makes grinding easier).
There you have it, the game sucked at release. Imagine just needing to spend two times the time in a dungeon for no reason except for Atlus not adding running and fast battle speed in a modern RPG, not to forget no cutscene skips.
Soul Hackers 2 was motivated by the so typical business tactic:
Overpromise. Underdeliver.

Pretty good, actually. The original Soul Hackers and Soul Hackers 2 are only loosely connected and while the callbacks are subtle, they work out quite well. But honestly:
Who even played the original Soul Hackers or its remaster on the 3DS?
If Soul Hackers 2 could not stand on its own legs, it was doomed from the start. And well, stand it can, after being given the crutches called patch.

Soul Hackers breaks with many SMT conventions which help the game a lot. It takes the personal interactions from Persona and makes the main character a talking and spunky woman who does extremely well in interacting with the main cast.
The problem is that there is not enough narrative depth, as most characters are one dimensional, if they do not belong to the main troupe. If the game did more with its cast and maybe allowed more varied interactions than just talking, it could make this an outstanding cast. Wasted potential, a motive which touches every facet of the game.
Leading to the big thing: main story. It is good, at times even surprising in how it acts out. There are only singular outstanding moments, but it keeps the audience engaged for the course of the game.

Atlus has two modes: Either design a complicated and skill rewarding JRPG which stands as a titan among the genre. Or simplifying it although no one asked for it.
Soul Hackers 2 is the latter, but this does not speak of the quality, which is good enough.
Instead of summoning demons like in the original Soul Hackers, Soul Hackers 2 decides to take the Persona route and every character is Joker/Yu Narugami/Jesus who can equip any demon to gain stats and their respective offensive and defensive capabilities.
If an enemy gets hit with an effective effect, a counter goes up. At the end of the round all counters are consumed and deal bonus damage.
That was it. That is everything that Soul Hackers did. And it works surprisingly well as hitting weaknesses still feels very rewarding and there are decent risk vs reward calculations in going for max stacks to finish a fight faster. At least in specific cases as there is another problem within that design choice:
The bonus damage granted by counters is extremely high. There is no reason to not hit weaknesses in any scenario. Did I mention that it is AOE? Well it is and this makes it even more broken.
Better not to speak of strength builds, they do not exist. Magic is too strong as it boosts four different elements while physical attacks only have two possible elements.
In short: Math says that magic demon is superior, because they are more likely to be able to hit weaknesses for counters.
All in all the gameplay is good, it is still an Atlus JRPG, but good is disappointing, if one considers what Atlus recently created.

No Atlus JRPG without dungeons. They all suck. Every single one. They range from miserable to okay. Boring slogs of running through corridors, simple puzzles and, not to forget, trial and error. The main story is good enough to carry the momentum and at least kept my interest, but I dreaded going through a dungeon.
There is this problem called: solution and implementation.
Solution is the step-by-step plan to solve the problem. Implementation measures the methods (and time) to implement it. In Soul Hackers 2 finding the solution is often exceedingly simple, implementing it takes too long.
Where is the creativity, smart riddles or anything like that? Even the original Soul Hackers from 1997 had better dungeon design.

In general, I go the opposite route, I list the positives for a game and then rip it apart. But Soul Hackers 2 can’t be ripped apart, because especially bad stuff is what it lacks.
Yet it need more good content.
Creative dungeon design, challenging combat which is also fair, more focus on character and environmental storytelling, more cyberpunk than just lip service.
I enjoyed my time with the game and characters like Saizo (a standout character) will be remembered, but I wish that Atlus really gave the development team more resources.
Currently, Soul Hackers 2 is too similar to the quality standard of Digimon Cyber Sleuth, a game from the PS Vita and remastered for the PS4 and PC from 2015.

Soul Hackers 2 is a game that can only described as mid. As soon as the price tag reflects the quality, it is a perfectly adequate game, but for 60 dollars and day one DLC, Atlus asks too much. A weak thumbs up of disappointment.

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Prey is a modern classic and one of these games that will be referenced in the future to showcase the potential of the immersive sim genre and when a new remotely similar title pops up, it will be compared to the quality standard of Prey.

The immersive genre lives from the first attribute in its name: immersion. Prey takes classical concepts related to science fiction and polishes them by building a believable world around those concepts. Nothing in Prey is new or unique to it, it just remixes an abundance of narrative vehicles in a fresh new mix in the form of a video game. Video game as a medium needs to be stressed: there is nothing quite like Prey in modern gaming, and actually exploring the space station of Prey is nothing short of magical at times.
This is no coincidence, an actual position within the team was to design a believable space station. Nothing less than a full success was achieved, as the form of the space station remains believable over the course of the whole game and has no immersion breaking locations. Even if Prey offered nothing else but the space station, it would have been a great exploration game. But there is more, and it is beautiful.


Preys gameplay loop can be broken down into two components: exploring and surviving.
The first one is obvious, you need to explore to gather resources, find new equipment and continue the story. But surviving?
Yes, encounters in Prey are not matters of killing your enemies, as your resources are limited and not every enemy drops bullets or loot to create health packs and other useful stuff. This leads to the question, if the player should even try to fight, as saving resources could be the smarter way, if the enemies are not patrolling a relevant route.
And that is exactly what Prey goes for. If survival is your goal, going in guns blazing is not always the smartest option. Additionally, the player character is believably weak in some aspects, and this leads to the player weighing their potential investment in a situation.

Prey has a decent amount of techniques for the investigated player as the game respects the intelligence of the player and their ability to solve problems. This leads even to the ability of sequence-breaking, for which Prey accounts for, as Arkane studios did expect that their players could find new and smart ways to trick the system.
Another big thing that Arkane studios did extremely well, are the quest system and rewards for exploration.
There are no arbitrary puzzles, but reasonable security measures related to the protection of a space station. But there are a lot of environmental quests which are either directly given and because of that more obvious or tricks that the player can anticipate, if they keep a watchful eye.

Prey is somewhat unbalanced in its experience as there are different builds which can make the game laughably easy. Other builds are laughably useless, and their strengths can be imitated with items which are available in large quantities.
Another fact is that Prey feels like a stat check at times, and it becomes almost impossible to dodge damage. In general, any damage in a game such as Prey should be preventable, if the player knows what they are doing. But the necessary level of understanding dodging all damage sources implies that the player has either luck or already knows every position of every enemy, and that feels just unfair.
Last but not least: There is a specific sequence in the game that breaks immersion and is a chore to play through, especially as the part is close to the end of the game and takes a lot of time, if the player is uncoordinated and Prey punishes the player extremely hard for playing uncoordinated. While the end of Prey is worth it, I can assure you that, it is a bummer that such a low note clangs before the high note ending.

Arkane Studios has made an excellent piece of the immersive sim genre and understands how players think to invisibly create a coherent world which begins to make sense, the more the player engages with it. And when it clicks, the gameplay loop becomes addicting up to the end of the game.

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Do not start this game, it is actually unhealthy, as most idle games are. The best case scenario is that you wasted some time, learned the basics, and then start to not actively play the game anymore. Especially if you are a completionist.

You know Cookie Clicker as most people do. You saw it and thought to yourself: That game is too simple, and I do not even like chocolate. I want RPG heroes in a cartoon art style.
Or maybe you just need to kill time and think: Yeah, I want that dopamine kick.
We all have been there. Don’t do it, man, love yourself.
What would you actually do?
Click on a screen for some rewarding neurotransmitters. Do this for a while, and you start to pavlo yourself. A quick explanation.[en.wikipedia.org]
Which then leads to a downward spiral of wasting time for some EXP which have been acquired by clicking on a screen. For what? For more exp and gold to spend, to get more gold and exp. There is no real group aspect. And the skill ceiling has been reached by a simple clicking algorithm. You want proof?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldaescGA1dY
Code Bullet made the code.
And it would still take to run the program for 3 months to finally reach the endgame.


I mentioned Pavlo. In this case, I want to stress that Clicker Heroes rewards short term interaction and rewards and kills any patience. Additionally, it makes you jittery. When do I get my next dopamine reward. If I clicked faster, I could get more. Idling is just not as efficient. And finally, not to forget:
You keep running your PC and wasting energy for these short dopamine kicks that offer no real reward for you as a person.
I would even say that Clicker Heroes is even actively damaging for any person, as it encourages you to not grow as a person. Sometimes we need to be challenged, need to learn and adapt. Clicker Heroes is ultimately the opposite of this. Anything you do is irrelevant in the greater scheme, only efficiency is getting influenced and how long you need to reach the goal. And to be fair: any idle game can be seen like that.
But the skill ceiling is so low and well analyzed that you will not try to do your own research and copy the results of others. This is the lowest hanging fruit imaginable. It is arguably as bad as playing a puzzle game while watching an LP that showcases the situations.

I can not stop you from playing Clicker Heroes, but I dare say that this game is almost as bad as using drugs. Cut that, it may be even worse, depending on the situation. I rarely regret having done anything. But Clicker Heroes were the most wasted 30 hours of my life and a time I look back in disgust. I am happy that I stopped it relatively early and will never return.

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Tales of Arise is a well-crafted JRPG, having a more mature approach towards anime tropes and setting that leads to an above-average game.

The "Tales" series was not mainstream, and no AAA production before Tales of Arise. Arguably, "Tales" is still not mainstream, but it is on its way to becoming a mainstream franchise in the west.
Not to imply that the Tales series is a low-budget JRGP. It has been very successful in Japan and continues to grow as a franchise. While nowhere near the size and success of Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, it does pretty well for itself.
For Tales of Arise Bandai Namco finally scratched a relatively big budget together and stopped reusing assets on an aging engine. A successful endeavor such as Tales of Arise finally feels like a quality game that can stand up to those other major franchises.

Tales of Arise is downright beautiful to explore at times. This quality gets complemented by the good art direction and focuses on the basics.
Whenever a world gets too large, it can become a hassle to explore. Arise circumvents this by having created a linear, quality experience that captures the magic of games like Final Fantasy X:
Visually different biomes with clearly different esthetical styles that correspond to their respective population.
Admittedly, it lacks somewhat in variation and suffers from protagonist design syndrome (other characters are sidelined in terms of visual competence).
While exploring, an extremely competent orchestral soundtrack follows the player and always supports the atmosphere of the environment. Cohesion is something important and Tales of Arise creates cohesion by combining the visual and sound elements with the banter of the group which never cease to comment the current situation from every angel.
Despite that, I want to stress Arise does not reinvent the wheel. Every situation can be broken down into the following scenario:
1. Introducing the environment
2. Showcase the problem
3. Introduce a new “theme” which the heroes need to overcome
4. A dungeon with a final boss that tests their determination
While there is some decent variation, there is nothing that breaks the Heroes Journey.
If you are fine with some relatively predictable story lines, there is nothing to worry about, as they competently told. The “how” weighs more than “what” in Tales of Arise.

I want to stress that Arise favors “how” more than “what” which leads to the problem that most of the time Arise is not too surprising. But the execution of some scenes is downright terrific, and it can not be overstated how many Tales of Arise polished to such a degree that most JRPGs can not compete.
Another point that is somewhat problematic in JRPGs:
Their tropes suck.
Arise breaks with the classical issues like fan service and ridiculous dialogue.
Cringy dialogue is difficult to suffer through and while I have grown accustomed to anime tropes, it is a breath of fresh air to see something with the aesthetic which does not make my ears bleed. There is still some sense of grandiose and over the top moments, but they feel earned relative to their story progress. It is an epic after all and definitely feels like that.

If there is something that Tales of Arise struggles with, it is keeping the player engaged with its battle system. While all the possibly playable characters feel distinct and are fully developed, the main character of the game is so much stronger that I can not see the majority of players not using him.
This lack of gameplay variation combines with another problem:
An abysmally low amount of regular enemies. The game introduces mechanics to make enemies vulnerable and easier to finish off. Variation makes such an idea extremely cool, as it implies that the player has to find out these weaknesses and will be rewarded accordingly.
But Arise keeps throwing the same recolored enemies from the first area against you in the last area.
There are more different bosses (which are well done) than regular small-fry enemies. While the quality is good, it could imply that Tales of Arise got rushed in some regards or that budget ran out. Which then lead to cutting corners.
Nothing is a dealbreaker, and it is by far the best combat out of any Tales game I played (Symphonia and Berseria), but it is lackluster in comparison to everything else and starts to feel repetitive at some point.

Tales of Arise has risen (pun intended) to challenge the almighty JRPG gods and managed to secure a safe position. While there is definitely some room for improvement (as always), it turned out quite great. It is just a safe bet for a quality game which is relatively uncontroversial in most aspects.

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While Yakuza 3 massively improved as a successor to the original Yakuza 2, it feels outdated, especially with the Kiwami treatment the first two games had. But it has some serious heart and contains a microcosm of the Yakuza series themes.

Yakuza 3 is honestly pretty skippable. While the story advances and some important stuff happens to characterize Kiryu further, it is self-contained, having no direct consequences.
Addressing the elephant in the room:
Yakuza 3 is the oldest "original" game on Steam. It is a remaster but not a remake. Many players start Yakuza 3 after having played Yakuza Kiwami 2. And this is the single largest time difference within the series between two chronological titles (on Steam):
Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a modern dragon engine game from 2017.
Yakuza 3 is PS3 title from 2009.
Ryu Ga Gotoku studios is a fast learner, and each entry improved massively in terms of quality. The exception is maybe Yakuza 6, as it was the first dragon engine to be released and shows clear signs of being rushed.
Yakuza 3 is the poster boy of the series for any growing pains.

Yakuza 3 has the single worst combat of any not remaked Yakuza. Enemies block too much, making battle too long to be enjoyable. Consider that damage in Yakuza 3 is relatively low: Most attacks are not impactful, leading to tiger drop and parry spam.
Even worse: Both skills have to be unlocked, and entire boss fights become unplayable without them.
I can not stress how underwhelming most boss fights are and how many random battles become a chore.
Improvable and unfinished is a theme that permeates all facets of Yakuza 3. Minigames are not working to such a degree that players have to cheese many activities to reach a win:
Billiard and darts are barely functional because of an oversensitivity bound to the right joystick. Do not even get me started on bowling. The margin of error is utterly ridiculous.
And mahjong...
Mahjong remained the same. Still, it pisses me off.
Even karaoke has some questionable design choices:
Why do new verses have instant button presses?

Yakuza 3 ties many of the themes together and showcases Kiryus softer side. His stoicism has become a famous quality of his character.
Yet Yakuza 3 shows him at his most vulnerable and directly ties it to interact with the orphans he is raising. It is controversial for Yakuza fans how much time Yakuza 3 "wastes" on these orphans.
I agree that they are annoying, especially on subsequent playthroughs. But when Yakuza 3 hits its respective highs, it sets the bar high.
And they are a part of it. Kiryu is a good guy who chose a bad hand.
Had he given up on being a Yakuza like was told him in the past, he would not have had to endure so many hardships.
But when does a human earn absolution?
Yakuza 3 has an answer to this problem:
It does not matter if someone has earned absolution.
One mistake can and sometimes will haunt your life and penetrate every aspect. There are only some moments we get to decide what kind of person we want to be.
Making Kiryu a vulnerable human is the single greatest achievement of Yakuza 3 and impossible to overstate.

Yakuza 3 is objectively a worse title than any other Yakuza title on Steam (as of writing this review in 2022), maybe even including Streets of Kamarucho.
But it contains story segments of the Yakuza series that have payoff unique to this game and makes me sincerely happy to have pushed through.

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Guilty Gear is janky, unfair, and fundamentally broken. There is nothing about this game that could justify a competitive scene. And the story contains some of the most ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ enemies in the history of fighting games.

So, you probably saw Guilty Gear Strive and the praise it received. And now you are wondering: maybe I should start the series at the beginning?
Yes, that sounds like a good idea.
It is not.
The Guilty Gear series is about the gameplay first, music and visuals second, and story last. Do not get me wrong: Guilty Gear has some decent lore that is incredibly fun to explore.
But even the developer of the game, ArcSystemWorks, realized that no one in their right mind should need to spend hours of their life playing old fighting games surpassed by newer titles.
Link to a great story summary series.
These videos were endorsed by ArcSystemWorks and have all the juicy lore you want, presented to you in a great format.
So there is no sensible reason to play the original Guilty Gear.

Well, I was not exactly telling the truth. There is one reason to play the original Guilty Gear: Being fundamentally broken makes the single player less of a fair fighter, but more of a cheese simulator.
Every fight is complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, the enemies input read and can block within milliseconds, yet this is the last remaining reason to play the original Guilty Gear:
Trying to find out what works in a game before over-sanitization
set in, and developers started to realize how to balance everything.
If no fight is fair, and you are supposed to lose in many scenarios, the victory becomes more fulfilling. Against the odds, with the back against the wall, Guilty Gear dares the player to try again and create their own ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to counter the game until you finally beat it.
While the gameplay loop is monotonous and frustrating, it never feels like the game is unbeatable, just a little out of reach.
And when you finally beat these input reading, scum of the earth, spamming and hyper-armoring, frame perfect enemies, this is when Guilty Gear peaks, and you start to feel like a god.
Only to pick the next character and start getting trashed again.

A small selection of things that are wrong with the game and make it unviable for competitive play:
Instant-Kills are actual match-enders and "destroy" any fun for starting players
Most of the cast has at least one infinite combo
After losing 50% HP, supers do not cost meter
Justice and Potemkin are a menace to society
Potemkin completely sucks
You know what, watch this video

Terrible game, objectively broken mechanics, yet any enjoyment stems from that. You want to understand what design principles shaped the series in the future?
Then go for it, and try not to break your controller.

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Nier Replicant feels like a lesser version of everything that Automata did. While this is understandable for the remake of an older title within the same series, Nier Replicant feels dated despite being reworked.

Nier Replicant is the predecessor to Nier: Automata and is technically another sequel to the Drakengard series and was released originally on the PS3.
Nier Replicant is not only known as Nier Replicant, Nier Gestalt is Nier Replicant minus one change:
Square decided that (to appeal to a western audience), the main character is not a teenager but a father. The story is the same(except for some dialogue). Only Replicant got remade. Gestalt got lost in the annals of history.

Fundamentally, Nier Replicant sqrt(1.5) is a more polished version of the PS3 title with additional content and numerous changes, aiming to make the game less miserable:
Auto-Aiming, parries, fluid evasion, and quick-switching weapons are some of them. Elaborating more is unnecessary: Nier Replicant will not play better than that.
Additionally, the developers added some content that had to be cut in the past and created a new scenario that ties into Nier: Automata.
A true blessing as this is the best content in the whole game, by a fair margin. Words can not describe how much better the new content is than the old content. Sometimes the remake even breaks the immersion:
It feels like two games of different quality are being duct-taped together.

Nier Replicant is rotten to its core. A harsh statement, to be sure.
Justified, I dare say. While it is unfair to compare products, Nier Replicant and Automata share too many similarities. One can not get discussed without the other.
Nier Replicant lives and dies by its unique story, a strong cast of characters, and creative ideas. All of these qualities are "one-hit wonders". The moment a player knows what will happen, the game loses the majority of its appeal.
And Nier: Automata and Replicant share so many narratives beats that, after playing one of them, you will know what happens in the other.
Not because of covering the same story but because of a bankrupt idea vault, containing no new twists.
Replicant created, Automata refined.
Only one of them is fun to play, and it is not Replicant. Replicant is clunky, has boring and spongey enemies that are not challenging, and takes gimmicks for engaging fights. Even Platinum Games, the masters of hack and slash, were not able to salvage this ship.
After playing Nier Automata, Nier Replicant does not provide anything of worth.

Yoko Taro is a free spirit in terms of game design, this being his biggest strength while being his biggest weakness. This ambivalence becomes more apparent the longer you play any of his titles.
I have the theory that he wanted to make the game a chore to play, just like he did make Drakengard 1 feel bad, to invoke the feeling that killing is not fun. Replicant references multiple times how bothersome it is to help people and makes it intentionally tedious to get the message across.
A message that does not contain anything noteworthy. Maybe this is the point, but Nier Replicant creates anti-entertainment for a unique experience for a niche audience.

I can not recommend Nier Replicant for anyone. Just play Nier: Automata and never look back. While some qualities may draw you in, for your own enjoyment and sanity:
Just watch a walkthrough. You are not missing out on much.

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