Recent reviews by TheMonolith

I have never cried so hard playing a video game.

Gaiden is fun, quirky, funny, gripping, exciting, heartwarming and heartbreaking all in one.
If you've been following Kiryu's story through the mainline series, this one will hit hard, and only helps to cement this series as an all-time favourite of mine.
Mechanically it feels like the Yakuza games have been perfected. Combat is smooth and flowy, but still feels heavy and impactful when it needs to.
The usual minigames are back, and feel amazing to play. Notably, the karaoke returns and for the first time in the series so far, actually plays on time with 60fps display. In previous entries, it has lagged behind and been unreliable.

The completion list is very forgiving, not requiring EVERY SINGLE facet of the game to be 100% explored to be completed. This means no more grinding Virtua Fighter, or hunting down every single pocket circuit part.

I wouldn't recommend this as an entry point to the Yakuza / Like a Dragon franchise, as much context is left out with the assumption that players are returning and understand who most characters are...

But for fans?
This is not a side-game, this is required reading.

Unpacking is a lovely little puzzle game. It is relaxing, sweet, and the storytelling across the different levels is engaging and emotional.

I really enjoyed reading into little placements and ideas, and considering what everything meant and what the "main character" was going through.

My only real gripe is length. The albums at the beginning implied to me that there would be multiple stories, and I was quite disappointed to find that they were just save selects for the single experience.

I think the price point is a little steep for a game I 100% completed in 2 sittings (and not particularly rushing through), but as an experience, I highly recommend it.
I would personally love to see more stories added in future, as it feels a little strange to be uninstalling a game not 2 days after purchasing.

TL;DR - Unpacking is wonderful, and it's biggest flaw is that there isn't more of it. Check it out on gamepass or wait for a sale, and you'll enjoy every second <3

Just got started with the first game, and it's everything I could have hoped for.

It's still the same game, but with improvements and tweaks here and there to make it accessible for current gamers. The original had some pretty nasty jank, and so far I've encountered none.

An FOV slider would certainly be nice, and some character's faces could have been cleaned up a touch, but remembering that it's a remaster (not a remake) of the game I adored? I'm very happy.

Highly recommend thus far

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Update
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Mass Effect 2 is perfect. That is all.

It's rad

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Does this soda taste dirty to you?

On launch, it flopped.
SO many broken promises, yet so much potential.

2 years on, Hello Games is back with a vengeance and absolutely KILLING it with No Man's Sky NEXT.
An incredible amount of added content, as well as almost everything promised to us from initial launch. Yes, it still has it's bugs and glitches, and no it is not perfect... but it's damn good.

-Spoiler Alert-

I'm having some seriously mixed feelings about this one.

Let's start with the positives:
Art style, 2D graphics, sci-fi setting and eerie robots on a dusty planet make for a wonderful atmosphere and this alone would make it easy to immerse yourself within 'Stranded'.
The ending has an interesting twist, and dashed my sense of hope that I was perhaps being teleported off the planet, even going with the "Lost" ending that perhaps I had been asleep or even dead through the whole experience.

Now I must regrettably move onto the negatives:
This game is far too short. The length of the game is mostly taken up by your character's clunky movement.
It took a lot of aimless wandering and pointless clicking to get to the 4 inconveniently distanced temples, 3 different times.
The ending, rushed as it was, felt cliche and a little insulting to my intelligence. I actually let out a laugh as I'd realised what had happened, and spent at least 10 minutes contemplating my character's fate.

I would recommend this game, were it not for the insulting price of $7.99 (AUD).
A more reasonable amount would be towards the $0.99 range, but even then I would feel a tad let down.

All in all, the game had a lot of potential, but the length and clunky gameplay left me very, very disappointed.

Incredible example of what indie game developers can provide to the community.
"Papers, Please" captures atmosphere and gameplay perfectly, and has provided a game with multiple possibilities end endless hours of fun.
Attention to detail and a questionable morality will make this an interesting game. Highly recommend!