Alan Wake II is incredible. It was the only game this year that kept my attention until the end (well also Diablo 4 but that game isn't very good and is more that I am addicted to ARPGs), in a time where my brain no longer functions correctly and I lose focus/interest in things that are great for really no reason. Like sometimes tuning on the PS5 is just too much, or thinking about going through the intro of the game is too taxing...or I am just to tired to play anything that requires paying attention.
Here are a list of games I have that I did not come close to finishing despite greatly enjoying all of them:
Final Fantasy 16, Tears of the Kingdom, Fire Emblem Engage, Baldur's Gate 3, Armored Core 6, Dead Island 2 (actually am really close to finishing this one), Starfield, probably a few I'm forgetting. I never purchased Jedi Survivor or Spiderman 2 even though I want to play them because I just couldn't justify buying them when I have 20 other games to play. I still haven't finished God of War Ragnarok or Horizon Zero Dawn 2. I'm still working on Cyberpunk 2077. But here I am playing Magic the Gathering and Clash Royale...
I am still in the middle of cyberpunk 2077 (playing it right now) and the game is now legitimately great. It is such a shame how it launched and that we are not getting a second DLC now because they had to spend so much time fixing the game. Night City might be the best designed open world I've played? It looks and feels like a real city and it actually packed with people. I always drive to missions instead of using the fast travel because I love to look at the world and listen to the awesome soundtrack. I am excited for cyberpunk 2078 which we will probably get in 2034.
The best part about the PS5 has been the controller, followed by the loading, screens, and the modern day download speeds! Just wish sony had a gamepass equivalent.
Awesome post! Change is just such a difficult thing to deal with. The beastcast is the only podcast I regularly listened to without missing a single episode, for years, up until the pandemic, so its very strange to think that its going to be over forever. And while I do hope GB can continue in some new way, its very hard to imagine the site with only 1 original member being a part of it. Even when all those other big changes happened, Jeff, Brad, Vinny, and Alex were always a constant. So even if GB does continue it can never be the same thing it was...but this day had to come eventually I suppose.
I'm glad you liked it, the combat looks really fun. I enjoyed the combat in Hyrule Warriors as they did a great job of making it still feel like playing Breath of the Wild. This seems like they made the action even better. I am glad you get to use Makoto's motorcycle, the best part of Persona 5.
Good write up. I keep thinking about buying the game because, while it does seem to be extremely repetitive and mediocre overall all I unfortunately might be into that sort of thing at this point in my life? I mean I constantly struggle to stick with one or two games until I beat them, I bounce around to playing 7-8 different games and maybe finish 1 of them if I'm lucky. Somehow though, I stuck the Ghost of Tsushima all the way until the end and I almost have the platinum, despite that game being incredibly repetitive and in some aspects quite mediocre.
It's nice to have a good mindless game to turn your brain off with for a few hours a night, but I haven't picked it up because my brain keeps telling me to stop wasting my money. There is not a ton coming out this year though so who knows, maybe I'll buy it later in the year!
I'm glad you enjoyed the game. I really loved parts of the game, getting to know the characters, building your relationships, the music, the art. Makoto was my favorite character because I found her story to be interesting, she had the least annoying characteristics (in my opinion), and her Persona was by far the coolest.
The combat is fun, but was also one of those things that by hour 70 or so, I was ready to be done with it. And that was my main problem with the game. I think that there is hours of greatness in this game but also hours of mediocre to bad parts as well. In the 100+ hours it took me to finish it I felt like the last 20-30 were a real chore, particularly with the combat. The game was just too long for me.
My other issue was with the game mirrors all the stuff you mentioned in regards to the "creepiness", for lack of a better word. A teenage boy dating adult woman, teenage girls continuously weirdly sexualized, adult characters doing and saying deplorable things...I know this game is VERY anime and this is unfortunately a lot of common tropes in in the genre but many scenes in this game made me feel like I would be embarrassed if someone who didn't know about the game saw me playing it.
As for the terrible adults, I appreciate how "real" the game attempts to be, but I also remember feeling like the writing chops weren't good enough at times to properly portray the very serious issues the game tries to address. At times it was done well, at times it made me feel like they were using very serious issues just to create another villain for a goofy anime heist. I'm kinda just writing this off my memories of how I felt 3 years ago when I played, so maybe I'm a bit off base.
I'd certainly still be interested in a Persona 6, and maybe with 4 just released on Steam I'll give that a shot at some point.
I was incredibly disappointed by the story and lore in Eternal and agree with every point you made. Giving the Slayer a voice was so cheesy and lame, but not cheesy and lame in a good way. The codex entries are boring to bad, and the entire main plot is very difficult to follow. I remember DOOM 2016 ending with robot Hayden locking the Slayer up again? But then in Eternal hes just riding around on his floating Slayer ship still fighting demons? And the whole back story of how he got his powers was something I did not need or care to know. I liked the fact that he was just a nameless, faceless being that only cares about killing demons.
I also agree with you on the gameplay. I absolutely loved it, it is one of the best playable, most satisfying FPS games I've ever played and I easily think it's more fun and more challenging than DOOM 2016, but I still don't think it's a better game.
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