game of the year all years

PAGE EIGHT
here are all the reviews from the last seven pages (scores are 100% adjusted to be more accurate to how i feel right now)
(also why wasn't i putting the most recent page in spoilers until now?

page 7:

page 6:

page 5:

page 4:

page 3:

page 2:

page 1:

The Assassin's Creed: Valhalla season pass
The season pass goes for a mind-numbingly whopping $40 USD. Luckily, I was able to grab it on sale for $16. That is still more than I paid for the base game of Valhalla, for assuredly less content. That's just the way these things go. Note that Dawn of Ragnarok is not included, due to not being originally planned. I'm certainly not buying that for full price. Perhaps in the future, during a sale. Maybe, possibly, we'll see, you know.
This is, of course, the first time I've bought additional content for an Assassin's Creed game since AC2*. Even though I really enjoyed Odyssey, I didn't buy the expansions due to them being full of modern-day Isu bullshit that I do not give a single fuck about. The Valhalla expansions, however, are just what I want: go to new areas and explore, then kill a bunch of people. No modern-day plot, no Isu, no bullshit.
*I did, of course, play the Dead Kings expansion for Unity, due to it being free because of the game's abysmally broken launch. I almost forgot about it.

The season pass also comes with one exclusive thing that you can't get if you buy the two expansions separately: the Legend of Beowulf mini-questline. It's fine. It's three quests that are pretty simple and short.


Assassin's Creed: Valhalla - Wrath of the Druids (2021) - PS5
The first of two expansions included in Valhalla's season pass. Wrath of the Druids takes you to Ireland.

+ Ireland is beautiful
+ The new map is full of stuff to do (checklists to conquer)
+ A few new things in the open world, for good measure (as well as some of the best old things, like alpha animals and lost drengir)
+ The trading post thing is a neat excuse to run around in the open world (as if I needed one)
+ Great-looking new armor sets (performance leaves a little to be desired)
+ The sickle weapon was apparently added in this expansion (then to the main game later), and it's a great new weapon
+ It's the most they've made me care about a plot death this game
+ Great final boss (Valhalla is now two-for-two on final boss fights)
- The three new abilities they give you kind of suck

took 16 hours for 100% completion
had fun the whole time
8/10

actual sad Assassin's Creed plot deaths:

join us next time for The Siege of Paris
unless it sucks, in which case, it may sit in my word document forevermore

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla - The Siege of Paris (2021) - PS5
The second of two expansions included in Valhalla's season pass. The Siege of Paris, predictably, takes you to Paris, France. Not Paris, Texas or Paris, Maine. Astute Assassin's Creed fans may remember that Paris was the setting for 2014's Assassin's Creed: Unity. Returning from that game is a minor stealth focus, with assassination missions with multiple approaches. This will also be the main premise of the next game, Assassin's Creed: Mirage.

+ Finding/fighting the three French nobles was cool
+ The multi-approach assassinations are still great
- The cast of characters absolutely sucks; not a single good one among them (Toka is okay I guess)
- The titular siege of Paris loves to tank the framerate (and this is on PS5; I'd hate to have played it on PS4)
- Bad final boss fight
- The new puzzles involving swarms of rats could have been left out
- The three new abilities, once again, suck
- The sword you get for completing the assassin bureau fetch quest is ridiculously useless (land five heavy attacks in a row? the fight is over at that point)

took 11 hours for almost 100% completion (no, I am not going fishing)
the "black box" assassination missions were good enough to prop up the rest of it but I'll be honest
6/10


can I be real for a second here
I want Ubisoft to do a remake of AC1 in the newer style, using ideas from AC1 and more modern AC gameplay and especially controls, as well as an open world; the area between the major cities sucked in AC1
I'm not usually a "remake this, remake that" guy, but AC1 is a game that probably needs it; they're apparently working on four separate games in the series so why not throw a remake onto the pile for the 20th anniversary in 2027
(depending on how they handle it, maybe continue with AC2 and such; I have no desire to revisit the old parry-based combat)

forgot to post this one two weeks ago oops

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 (2020) - PS4
This time, instead of covering the entirety of One Piece, PW4 opts to focus on just a few story arcs, and have multiple battles for each. I, for one, am glad that Thriller Bark has fucked off after the PW3 version of the level.
PW4 also features aerial combat strings to replace the power attack strings from PW3. The aerial strings are even more useless in most instances.
we are on the cruise

+ The new special attack system is neato
+ An actual sense of scale between the cast, with tall characters towering over regular ones
+ Some fun new characters, like Katakuri, Kid, and Cavendish
+ They actually let you unlock Shanks with enough time left to actually use him
+ Luffy gets his outfits for each New World arc
+ The increased focus on each arc works well for Dressrosa in particular
- Except the final mission in Dressrosa with destroying the provisions sucks
- The fifth mission in Whole Cake Island is bugged if you're playing as Luffy, unless Jimbei is supposed to be a big, fat retard who doesn't advance to let you complete the objective
- Sometimes, in treasure log, huge ally characters can block the screen or a path and make it annoying to move onward or fight
- Not sure I like the "in medias res" style opening for this one, because it's just arbitrary (I've never liked that "taste of power" thing some games do)
- Stop making me play as Usopp he sucks
- You can't use pre-timeskip outfits with post-timeskip movesets (and over half the Straw Hats don't even have pre-timeskip movesets/outfits)
- Other characters (Zoro, Franky, Robin, etc.) don't get other New World arc outfits, meaning they're stuck in their mediocre Sabaody Archipelago outfits
- Not enough characters have healing moves, so you're just stuck playing as Katakuri in the New World treasure log missions

7/10
it's a fun Warriors game, as one would imagine
now please give us Pirate Warriors Empires

Need for Speed: Unbound (2022) - PS5
2019's Need for Speed: Heat was a very good racing game, mostly due to the fact that you could completely ignore the terrible plot and characters and focus just on racing. Of course, that game was made by Ghost Games, and being unable to leave well enough alone, EA took them off of Need for Speed and put Criterion back at the helm instead. Whatever.
The game has a "limited time schedule!" like it's trying to be Persona, but in practice, it does not. If you can't win the big race on Saturday, the game lets you reset to Friday, and keep everything you earned on your original Friday. Meaning that you can endlessly loop Fridays, which are the most lucrative days for money anyway, and just do whatever you want. It's really nice if you're a moron and pick the Ford Crown Victoria as your starting car. (LUCKILY, on the first Friday, the game pretty much hands you a Lotus Exige that can bruteforce the first Saturday)

+ The racing is fun, especially when you figure out that drifting fucking sucks in this game
+ Takeover events are fun little "smash everything, go off jumps, have fun" events that work out really well
+ They stole the "community car wraps" thing from Forza so you don't have to fiddle with the creator for ten hours
+ The collectibles you've already collected become greyed out on the map instead of disappearing, so if you want to get those trophies, you can without much pain (should be a standard feature in games that have collectibles)
+ The avatar creation system lets you make a white guy (whoever would have thought?!), and looks a lot better than Heat's because instead of going for ugly realism, they went for Netflix Original Western "Anime"
+ The story makes you want to defeat the villain, because she's a traitorous harlot who stole our beloved '69 Dodge Charger (which I affectionately named "Doornail") and put a FUCKING UGLY body kit on it
+ It's got the bones of having good main characters (I like the idea behind the interactions between the hero, Rydell, and Tess, but it's too zoomer)
- And then they ruin it all by giving the villain a "redemption arc" ("she's not the real villain!!! LIKE HER FEEL SORRY FOR HER"); I hated this character from word one, and I will continue to hate her no matter what you do
- Having a limited number of event restarts per day is ASININE
- Every single event adds to your heat level, making some events absolutely pointless because they're simply not worth it
- Sometimes it just feels like there are too many cops in this game
- Soundtrack is bad, but not as bad as Heat
- The car wrap system features cool big squares of decals, but you aren't allowed to just take one and stretch it over the entire car (good luck matching the sides, top, front, and back with that twitchy-ass control scheme)
- Why does this "As Soon As Possible Rockwell" negroid fellow criticise me after certain events? Who is he? He just appears in-game for no reason, then chastises you if you fail to win his event (and you can't skip it)
- Everyone speaks like a zoomer/nigger (why did ""bruh"" replace "bro"? was making an "O" shape with your mouth too much movement for our fast-paced ADHD world?)
- The missions where you have to drive one of your fellow racers to a safehouse to unlock that safehouse are mostly just developer soapboxing about identity politics
- "vandalism good (: (except if you do it to anything owned by EA or its corporate sponsors, in which case, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and we may even make up completely new crimes to charge you with)"
- The idea behind having a consistent cast of characters to race against with personalities, etc. is a good idea, but executed terribly when they felt the need to make sure every single possible box was ticked to the point of being silly
- I understand black street racers, Asian street racers, hispanic street racers, but a female Muslim street racer wearing a headscarf who refuses to gamble is ridiculous and not in a good way

A fun racing game buried beneath some of the worst presentation possible
6/10

Spoiler:

Final Fantasy XVI (2023) - PS5
Modern Final Fantasy is very divisive. I played FF15 a while after it released and had a very good time in the first 40 hours, when it was an open-world broadtrip simulator. It absolutely shit the bed in act two, but whatever. I really enjoyed FF7Remake as well (two playthroughs), and am looking forward to FF7Rebirth, and the expansion they will no doubt release, Afterbirth.
FF16 is an ACTION rpg (note the emphasis) that focuses on legitimately fun combat encounters. It has a demo available that runs through the first act of the game, and then gives you another section where you're overloaded with powers you won't get until much later. It's a good approach, especially since it follows the modern trend of allowing you to import your save data to the full game. The main problem with that, of course, is it makes the demo long as fuck.

+ Fun combat
+ You can refund abilities if you end up not liking them
+ Being able to place moves from one eikon onto another is a godsend (Ramuh sucks but his Piledrive move is great)
+ If your inventory is full and you pick up a potion, the game will automatically use the new one (you can only carry four potions and three hi potions by default)
+ The "active time lore" system is great because you can just pause the game during a cutscene and it will tell you who the hell these people are
+ There's a good number of really cool sword designs, and the game lets you use whichever design on any sword you want (I'm partial to Flamebrand)
+ The hunts for optional monsters are fun
+ Small touch that goes a long way: after major battles, there's a pop-up results screen that usually says "so-and-so slain" but sometimes it changes if you don't actually kill anyone or, in one case, when your ship escapes successfully
+ Clive actually gets to kiss the damn girl (naked on a beach even) instead of the traditional kissless hero
+ And Jill is a much better love interest than Lunafreya in FF15; a nice childhood friend turned love interest is miles better than the girl who only appeared in flashbacks to spout "ye destiny" and then fucking die immediately
+ The final boss is fucking sick; it does the thing where he uses all your abilities but stronger and that's like the best thing
- Every other eikon's special ability pales in comparison to Phoenix's (I wish I could just run triple Phoenix)
- I also wish you could run more than six total moves, because there are good ones that get left in the lurch because of the great ones (put it on X dude; if I want to jump, I simply won't hold R2)
- Ramuh's special ability is SHIT, as is Bahamut's
- That intro is so shit; it fails as a spectacle because I have no idea what's going on, and seriously everyone just fucking start your stories at the beginning please
- The fight between Phoenix and Ifrit is way too long and gets really boring
- The fight between Ifrit and Titan (large form) is too long and gets a bit boring
- Story and characters are middling in quality; some good stuff scattered around, but it mostly just gets the job done
- Did making Bahamut gay really add anything
- Mid's accent/vocabulary is really fucking annoying (the kind of accent that screams "absolute retard, probably born in a dumpster")
- The long-ass series of required fetch quests to help Mid make her engine heat displacer just felt like padding (the game didn't need padding; the length is fine as it is)
- The Bahamut fight kind of sucks to play (but the spectacle is top-notch)

8.5/10
that extra .5 was from the final boss fight
better than FF15

for most of the game, my loadout looked like this:
Phoenix: Heatwave / Scarlet Cyclone
Garuda: Ignition (Ifrit) / Piledrive (Ramuh)
Titan: Wind-Up / Upheaval

Then, for the endgame:
Phoenix: Heatwave / Scarlet Cyclone
Shiva: Ice Age / Piledrive (Ramuh)
Titan: Ignition (Ifrit) / Wind-Up
generally, square was for long-range moves, triangle is for close-range moves

rating each eikon (take with a grain of salt or twelve):
Phoenix: A+, best one, first one, is everything you want out of an eikon; only problem is that it sets the bar too high
Garuda: B, decent circle move, middling special attacks
Ramuh: D-, worst circle move, one great attack but the rest is garbage
Titan: B+, nice circle move, good special attacks
Bahamut: F, does absolutely nothing right
Shiva: A-, great circle move, nice abilities, wish we got it earlier (before endgame would be nice)
Odin: C+, it's fun but not practical

Midnight Suns (2022) - PS5
A Marvel crossover game, featuring some of your favourites, from Spider-Man to Wolverine to Doctor Strange to Iron Man. (no Daredevil, Ant-Man, or Moon Knight though sadly)
Midnight Suns is a strategy game featuring a deck-building card mechanic. I was skeptical, but the gameplay was actually cool as hell. Shame about the rest of it.

+ Fun combat where every character feels different and (mostly) useful (which is good because the game forces you to use pretty much all of them)
+ The game does a good job of handing out upgrades at a pace that isn't overwhelming, but makes you feel like you're always getting stronger
+ Exploring the abbey grounds is interesting (not really rewarding, but whatever)
+ Johnny Blaze is cool as hell (as expected)
- You can't pause cutscenes, even by pressing the menu button (what the fuck is this shit? this should not be an issue in current year)
- The story sucks
- Dialogues can feel overly long and repetitive
- Lilith's voice/accent is annoying
- The game feels like it drags on for a long fucking time because it never feels like you succeed at anything and everyone spends more time arguing than doing anything, so the villains have more time to ruin everything
- It also feels like the plot gets distracted a lot and things would have gone a lot more smoothly if the team could stick to one thing at a time
- Also having to do filler missions between every main mission FURTHER bloats the runtime
- The interactions with certain characters fall flat when Agatha is literally in the next room over as a ghost and your guy can't say 'go talk to her yourself idiot'
- Nico has one of the worst character designs ever, and, after looking it up, everything that makes it terrible is not in the comics at all (also, her voice is annoying)
- Nico is an absolute retard but you have to go along with all her retardo schemes (also, her personality is annoying)
- The Midnight Suns and the Avengers argue and argue all the damn time, and no one takes charge until halfway through the game, and then they start arguing again almost immediately
- And despite having a big "the player is the leader" scene, Caretaker is still in charge, and Nico is the only character allowed to have agency
- You can't always hang out with people at night, meaning some nights are pointless, and some hero requests like "hang out with me within the next three days" simply can't be done

A fun game with a poor story and character writing. If they'd only hired a good writer to make an actually good story (and cut Nico), this could have been a legitimately great game. As it sits, unfortunately
6/10

I didn't bother finishing it because I got to the third act and just got tired of the story and characters. Maybe I'll come back to it, maybe I won't. The rating probably won't change much either way.

EDIT:
22 Jan 2024
I finished the game
the score doesn't change but I have a couple more things to say pertaining to the end

+ The final mission is legitimately sick as hell, and makes the abbey sections feel more impactful
- The Hulk fucking SUCKS and you don't get him until the last mission
- The final mission gave me a friendship level up with Blade so that overlayed onto one of the last cutscenes

Assassin's Creed: Mirage (2023) - PS5
I thought it would never happen. Here I am, actively looking forward to an Assassin's Creed game, and it's for the damn plot. Whatever weird voodoo shit they pulled with Valhalla has made me 100% want to know what happens in Mirage.
If you know Assassin's Creed, and who doesn't at this point, you know that it's split between modern-day garbage and the part you actually want to play, the historical assassin bit. I am going to spoil the ending of Valhalla, because the game cannot be discussed otherwise. In viking times, Eivor banished Basim to some crazy land where time doesn't pass, but it does in the real world. In the modern day, Layla (the modern-day protagonist) finds Basim and traps herself in his place, allowing him to leave. Basim is an assassin, but he is also the vessel/reincarnation of Loki. Valhalla never goes into how Basim became Loki's vessel, so I am hoping that Mirage will shed some light on that. Also, for fun, Basim is now both our past/animus protagonist AND our modern-day protagonist. He will relive his own memories, which is new for the series.

+ They finally FINALLY cut down the modern-day shit to bookends rather than interrupting whenever the animus story gets good
+ Legitimately perfect mission structure ("eh here's a mission or whatever, do it whenever I don't care")
+ The intro is perfect; short, sweet, and to the point (does not meander in Basim's pre-assassin days; tells you exactly what you need to know and doesn't keep you defenseless for too long)
+ After the first big assassination, you get to choose one of three to do next
+ The throwing knives and smoke bombs are sweet
+ It gave me a nice new video for my long-neglected YouTube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjkArm_PZb8 )
+ The Forty Thieves is a fun little bonus mission if you have the deluxe edition
+ The twist is pretty well-done, even if it is a little obvious if you've played Valhalla and are actively looking for Loki
- Needing to find specific blueprints to upgrade gear is kind of shit
- You have to zoom the map in all the way to see collectible locations

ACMirage successfully combines the best elements of classic-style Assassin's Creed and the new RPG style. The game is short, sweet, and to the point, and when you can inevitably pick it up for $20 later this year, I would actually recommend it. Against all odds, they made a good game.
8/10
(I am just as surprised as you are)

AC rankings:
ordered in each tier by release order because I don't care enough to rank futher (note that "top dogs" for Assassin's Creed is an 8/10)
the top dogs: Odyssey, Mirage
the upper dogs: AC2, Revelations, Valhalla
the medium dogs: AC1, Black Flag, Rogue, Unity, Origins
the lowdown dirty dogs: Brotherhood, Syndicate
lol: AC3

Tekken 8 (2024) - PS5
Tekken 7 was a game I didn't fully appreciate until relatively recently. I was initially disappointed at the (admittedly godawful) story mode and lack of a proper arcade mode with individual character endings. The only decent single-player mode was treasure battle, which is fun enough, but I've always wished Tekken had better single-player modes. Namco's second fighting series, Soul Calibur, tends to deliver on that front (SC4/5 being outliers), but Tekken hasn't.
Tekken 8 changes this, by improving the story mode from Tekken 7 (making it not boring as sin) and adding arcade quest, which is basically the same thing from Virtua Fighter 4/5, except you have to walk around and deal with a generic plotline. I'm not complaining.

The demo for Tekken 8 came out back in December, and managed to get me even more excited than I was previously. Jin Kazama was always a character I thought looked cool as hell (he has pants WITH FLAMES ON THEM) but never liked playing as. The limited character selection for the demo got me to try all four characters (Jin, Kazuya, Nina, Paul), and they actually made Jin fun to play as for once, while keeping his moves recognisable from previous games.
This softens the blow that my top two from Tekken 7 are completely missing. R.I.P. Lucky Chloe, R.I.P. Bob; hope to see you in the character pass

+ Revamped movesets keep the key moves as they should be, but makes characters more fun to play as (Jin and Kuma actually feel good to play as for once)
+ Legitimately, Kuma is extremely improved here
+ Best newcomer: Victor; fun to play, pretty good interactions with the cast, good style (Reina is cool too though)
+ A proper single-player mode in Tekken?! Whoever would have guessed
+ Every character gets a short five-round story mode with some unique dialogue and a unique ending
+ Lee's ending is 10/10 EXCERRENT
+ Super ghost battle is overall a better treasure battle from Tekken 7 (though I wish it had low-rank ghosts so that whenever you play as a new character, you don't have to trawl the arcades)
+ Jukebox mode has pretty much all the tracks from every game, meaning you can replace the bad main menu music
+ The start of chapter 10 of story mode is actually pretty fucking sweet; they finally figured out how to make Tekken Force work as a mode (really hoping for a full-on Tekken Force mode now)
+ That weirdo fusion style Jin uses in chapter 15 is pretty sick (half T4-7 Jin, half T3 Jin, half Jun, but the best half of each)
+ Nice touch: the pictures during the secret ending are different (and thematically-appropriate)
- Weird decision to lock off arcade boss rematches until after you clear the entire mode (it's not like they increased their rank/AI to endgame levels either)
- The gimped version of Jin they make you play in story mode just does not feel good to play at all
- Story mode chapter 5 has a serious issue: you have to play as five characters out of the blue who you may never have even attempted before, and you can't pause the game to get a movelist or anything (I don't know how to play fucking Lili)
- The Azazel fight in chapter 6 is goddamn bullshit (true to his first appearance in Tekken 6 I suppose)
- The chapter 14 boss fight is such absolute bullshit (unavoidable attack that takes off a quarter of your health (if you block) that he does twice, heals himself up twice)
- Tekken 6 still has the best customization
- Azucena
- But seriously where's Lucky Chloe and Bob (and how did they once again not put a Chang in the base roster? literally the only Tekken 1 moveset excluded, twice in a row (on home release))

Tekken 8 is the best Tekken game since the PS2 era. Roster quibbles aside, it is a straight upgrade from Tekken 7. I thoroughly enjoyed this game, and will continue to thoroughly enjoy it as more characters and content come out in the future.
9/10

jukebox:

content wishlist:

Like a Dragon (Yakuza): Ishin (2023) - PS5
A double-edged sword of a thing. The Yakuza series fell on some rough times here in the states back in the early 2010s. People had to beg to get a release of the best game in the series, 2012's Yakuza 5, over here, which came out as a digital exclusive in 2015 (on PS3, when the PS4 had already come out). The series became relatively mainstream with 2017's release of Yakuza 0, but there was one game we missed that I desperately wanted.
Yakuza: Ishin (Restoration) came out on PS4 in 2014, exclusively in Japan. It's a samurai story, which uses the cast of the Yakuza series in various different contexts, basically allowing for character interactions that could never have happened in the mainline series. Ishin used mostly characters from Yakuza 5, with a sprinkling of 3 and 4, due to that being as far as the series had gotten.
Enter 2023, and Sega decides to do a remake of Ishin, and actually release it in the west for the first time. Sunshine and roses, right? Wrong, because all those Yakuza 3/4/5 characters? Replaced with Yakuza 0 and 7 characters. Depressing. I wish they'd just have released the game on PS4 in the west in 2018/19 instead.

+ Fun and irreverent side content, as usual
+ Having a gun at all times means assholes holding couches are no longer an issue
+ The scene with Ryuji and the dog
+ At least they kept in Mine and Aizawa (and Mine even gets to be a hero)
- The plot relies on everyone other than the hero being stupid or incompetent (Date's character in particular can only exist if Joon-Gi's character is incompetent)
- Replacing Kugihara, a bald sadist with a massive scar, with Joon-Gi Han, a metrosexual Korean guy with white hair (I like Joon-Gi and all, but he does NOT fit here in the slightest)
- How the fuck can you replace Baba?! Baba is the soul of Yakuza 5, for fuck's sake; AND FURTHER, why is his replacement a Chinese guy? It makes no sense for the setting for this character to be Chinese
- Some of the replacement characters are just as forgettable and irrelevant as the people they replaced, just more recent; does anyone care about Mabuchi? Does anyone even remember Koshimizu without looking him up?
- Replacing a completely original character with Shibusawa is just silly and does not fit in the slightest (he's supposed to be Kiryu's brother but he looks twice his age)
- The ending falls a bit flat when Yodo has only been mentioned before in passing, and I've completely forgotten who he is
- Combat is just okay (this originally came out after Yakuza 5, which has the absolute best version of Kiryu's gameplay in it, and the remake just after Lost Judgement, where the only thing that game did right at all was the combat)
- Friendships are extremely repetitive
- The memoirs substory chain (which is new to the remake) sucks and only exists because the "all substories" trophy wasn't tedious at all without it
- Repaying Haruka's debt is a pain because the landlord only shows up after doing irrelevant trade missions, even if you have ten times the required amount of money
- Battle dungeons are bland in both content and color pallet, and are a bit boring to play (and giving every enemy armor in the second and third dungeons makes your guns almost useless, taking away a full third of your combat options)
- FUCK ninjas
- The trooper card system sucks (and I hate how they added it to the rest of the same outside of the battle dungeons in the remake; another point where I would have much preferred a port over a remake)
- The only way to obtain specialty rounds for the gun is to craft them, but the prices are fucking ridiculous for something that isn't really all that great anyway (you can buy flame rounds but not the other five types)

Disappointing. The lack of a western release of this game for nearly a decade put my expectations very high, but the game isn't great. It's just good. Unfortunately, it's the best of the most recent three games in the series I've played.
7/10

Spoiler:

GAME CRASHES:
1. after a fight by the big temple in the northwest corner (17 hours in)

Spoiler:

series tiers (in release order within the tiers):
10/10: Yakuza 5, Yakuza 0
VERY GOOD: Yakuza 3, Yakuza 6, Yakuza Kiwami 2
GOOD: Judgement, Like a Dragon: Ishin
OKAY: Yakuza 2, Yakuza Kiwami
BAD: Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon, Lost Judgement
TERRIBLE: Yakuza 4

haven't played: Yakuza 1 (cough), Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth

note:

One Piece: World Seeker (2019) - PS4
Last year, I began actually watching the One Piece anime, my only prior exposure being the Pirate Warriors games. It's kind of great, so my passing interest in this game returned. It's an open-world action game, which is right up my alley. The PSN sale price of $6 was also right up my alley.
In World Seeker, you can only play as Luffy, but the world was clearly designed with his abilities in mind. The villain is edgy Stu Pickles.

+ It's fun to use Gum-Gum Rocket to fly around everywhere
+ Gum-Gum Pistol's headshot sound is extremely satisfying
+ You can wear the (first) Strong World outfit (and a bunch of others, oddly no Dressrosa, though)
- Everyone else is stuck in the ever-present Return to Sabaody outfits (at least they gave Franky his original hairstyle back)
- The other Straw Hats basically do nothing
- Observation mode is useless (and you can't do Gum-Gum Gatling in armament mode)
- Snipers exist to make sure you aren't having fun in Steel City
- Fighting the robots is annoying
- The mission where you have to tail Ichiji is annoying (and let's be real, silently tailing a guy isn't in-character for Luffy at all)
- Some of the requirements for raising karma are just ridiculous (use every special move against every boss! fun!)
- Karma events mostly boil down to enemies telling Luffy "if only you knew what was ACTUALLY going on around here; bye"
- Why the absolute fuck do they call the Marines "sailors"? What possible fucking reason could they have to do that?
- The first phase of the final boss is absolute bullshit and I'm still not sure what I was supposed to do, then the SECOND phase is piss-easy

6/10
there's fun to be had (mostly if you're already a One Piece fan), but it's not a great game

Unicorn Overlord (2024) - PS5
There is a demo for this game on all major systems that allows you to play the first five hours of the game. This may seem excessive, but it's truly brilliant. This game is a hard sell; a real-time strategy game, with turn-based combat in which you have zero control over your characters, and they operate entirely on pre-defined parameters, FFXII-style. It's about creating a bunch of teams for all the different situations, and if your team is underperforming, it's back to the drawing board until you find something that works.
The options the game gives you in terms of where to go and what to do means that your five hours and my five hours could be completely different after the initial tutorials. The map is huge, but lends itself well to many playstyles. You can simply choose a direction and do whatever you come across, or you can zip around the entire map and find every little thing there is to do, then decide. I got it on sale for $40 on Amazon a month after release, so I'm pretty happy, especially if the physical copies are shortprinted like I suspect.

You remember last year, when I reviewed The DioField Chronicle? Unicorn Overlord is the game that DioField wanted to be.

+ The customization of your troop units with actual named characters within those units feels pretty satsifying when you find a combination that works
+ ESPECIALLY when the anti-cavalry unit stops fucking dying so much
+ Exploring the overworld is perfect
+ Good cast of characters, overall
+ Really good ending
- The very intro, with the queen, is pretty bad because you have no idea what's going on in combat until after the proper tutorial
- I wish Melisandre's class wasn't godawful
- Bowman of the Setting Sun fucking sucks; the elf bitch is pointless because she's the third elf archer you get, PLUS she acts suspicious as fuck the whole time for no reason at all; the whole mission is just dumb as hell (easy though)
- The game lets you not recruit all kinds of side mission characters by just saying "stay here and leave me alone" (or even imprisoning a few), but the one singular time I actually wanted to say no, there was not an option to
- Some late-game enemy types veer dangerously close to "no fun allowed" territory
- Something about the owl lady is unsettling
- Manually milking goats (for milk, which is required to rebuild some Albion towns) is tedious
- The mining minigame CAN FUCK RIGHT OFF (needing to find twenty maps is fucking ridiculous)
- The final secret map giving you all those characters you wanted in your army all along is cool and all, but then there's nothing left to do with them

hard game to explain, but it's got a demo and i really really recommend playing it

total playtime: 53 hours, platinum trophy
8.5/10