Great review, Brad. My experience with playing Doom Eternal has been largely the same so far. Mechanically, it's incredible but the focus on managing so many different meters and weapons while barrelling around at breakneck speed does occasionally push the needle from "intense, but fun" to "stressful" and I've found myself playing the game exclusively in short bursts, one level at a time before stopping to play or do something more relaxing.
I've also developed a strong disliking for the platforming sections that break up the gunfights. I don't mind level design that demands very precise sequences of jumps and dashes when it's just to unlock a 1-up or a secret, but having to do that almost every time I need to get to the next area gets old really fast. The satisfaction of winning a particularly challenging fight is immediately lost when I go hurtling into a pit of lava because I wasn't perfectly facing towards the wall I was supposed to grab on to at the end of an elaborate gymnastics routine.
GAME went bankrupt in 2012 but were rescued when the owners gutted another chain of game stores they owned (called Gamestation) to raise the cash. Since the bankruptcy, most British gamers would agree that GAME has changed for the worse.
The prices are higher on new and pre-owned games compared to other UK retailers, large amounts of store space are now dedicated to pop culture merchandise rather than video games and the staff will pester you about signing up for disk protection and various reward schemes whenever you make a purchase.
It's interesting to hear the perspective from Alex and Ben, neither of whom finished Persona 3 and largely have P4 driving their expectations for the series. P3 had a much bleaker tone compared to P4, which I was pleased to see Atlus revisit in P5, a game that deals with some heavy real-world themes in a way that the one before it didn't. Persona fans are very torn between the earlier entries in the series, which closely match the style of the Shin Megami Tensei main series games, with Persona 3 being a halfway house and the more recent games going further in the anime-style direction.
I think that Persona 5 is an excellent, generation-defining game that is going to set the standard for future JRPGs to come in the same way that the Witcher 3 has set the standard for western RPGs. P5 isn't without its flaws, which get touched on in the spoilercast but it still manages to stand head and shoulders above most games released this gen.
Wow, glad to see that Brad didn't pull any punches with this review. With the Witcher 3 being the new standard for western RPGs to aspire to, Andromeda doesn't even come close to hitting the mark.
So glad to see VA-11 HALL-A get some love, it's a fantastic story with lots of down-to-earth and relatable characters. The story is refreshingly low-key personal for something set in a universe where huge corporate conspiracies, police brutality and what it means to be human are all regularly discussed at the bar.
My one complaint is to do with the game's marketing, which suggests a much more trashy anime style game, which does not give the game the credit it deserves. There are obvious inspirations from Japanese media as well as a fair number of pop culture references however.
@genericbrotagonist: I agree to an extent, Project Diva and Vocaloids as a whole aren't for everyone but it's a well put together rhythm game at the very least. That being said, Vocaloid music is a bit of an acquired taste and I get why people might not like it.
The story elements are really weird and just feel like padding for a game that has a annoyingly short song list. Relegating the more arcade-y free play mode to a sub-menu and making the story mode the focal point of the game was an odd choice.
I've played the game and it's trashy OTT fun. Not quite as good as the Senran Kagura series but it's fine if you find it cheap and you're into these raunchy games.
As a side note, "hentai" means "pervert" in Japanese, not pornography.
I find it amusing that all of these characters have made it into a western release as many of them are from hentai visual novels. Saya in particular is an inclusion I would not expect, she appears in a particularly graphic and disturbing VN called Saya no Uta, it's a fantastic story but it's definitely not for everyone.
dinocity's comments