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| Nintendo 3DS (Virtual Console) | January 4th | Shantae was a frustrating game to play, as someone who really doesn't vibe well with platformers. I thought the enemies were annoying to fight, the backtracking tedious and the zoomed-in view awful when it came to having an idea of your surroundings. It was a game that I only had less patience with over time, and in turn made the whole thing even more frustrating the more I played it. The convoluted ways in which the game progresses at a few points made me use a FAQ for the first time since... like, playing the original Resident Evil. I think those were good enough reasons for me to stop playing Shantae at literally any point, but there was always something that encouraged me to keep going. It could have been a cute squid enemy with beady little eyes, or learning how to transform into a tiny monkey, or the part where you end up in a town populated with adorably friendly zombies and you race a sporty zombie girl through a spooky track so she doesn't eat your brains. I guess what I'm trying to say is that in spite of its many frustrations, I love Shantae. I love this game, and it's big ol' adorable heart. I love so many things about it. I think it has gorgeous graphics with really great animation for a Gameboy Color game. The writing and the game's whole tone are both super adorable; the kind of light-hearted Wayforward style where people call each other mopheads and go "hi ho!" and "ho ho ho!" all the time. The music and sound effects are all-around stellar with some songs straight up reminding me of Caveman Games (that's a compliment) and like... cool, weirdly wobbly Commodore 64 SIDs. I love the dancing, the little characters, the story-- gosh, I especially love the part where that one nameless pirate lady says that Shantae should cut her hair because she'd look super cute in a bob. It's... a weirdly small moment to single out, but it was so cute to me that it went a real long way. Though I just wish it was a better playing game, the highs in Shantae are so above and beyond that just thinking about this game makes me happy. It feels like a little platformer made by a tiny team with lots of charm and love at nearly every step. I could have stopped playing Shantae at any time, but it was that charm that I wish I saw more often that made me wanna keep going. I'm really glad that I did.
| PlayStation 4 | January 4th | 4:49:55 clear time | Oops. I woke up today and accidentally spent the whole day in bed playing Risky's Revenge. I think that kinda says it all, really. This game is what the original Shantae should have been: silly writing, nice characters, pretty graphics and-- here's the best part: being fun to play. All of my issues with the GBC game are fixed here; really fun combat, better perspective of your surroundings and better communication to the player of what's going on, both in terms of what to do next and what the dangers are in the level. Plus, the music rules and I like that the story actually goes somewhere. Time well spent. It was all seamless, too. While I didn't have to force myself through Shantae on the GBC, my conflict with how it played led me to thinking that I could have been playing something else. With Risky's Revenge, everything came together and I was totally invested. It's rewarding to see Wayforward improve on the original's flaws, too. It's exactly what a sequel should be: stronger focus, improving on flaws and keeping what made the previous game so great. Nice.
| PlayStation 4 | January 5th | 09:29:35 clear time | Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is the product of Wayforward settling in on the solid foundation they made with the first two Shantae games. It brushes the dust off some ideas from the GBC game; tougher gameplay, the mechanics of the how items / upgrades work and distinctly themed levels and refines them up to snuff with the gameplay from Risky's Revenge. In essence, Pirate's Curse feels like how I wanted the original Shantae to be. That's a very, very good thing. It might be understated in that last blurb so I'll just put it like this: I absolutely adore Shantae and the Pirate's Curse. It's just that everything I love about it has already been said when I talked about the other Shantae games. The platforming is great, the music is better than ever, it's gorgeous, the writing is silly (good silly) and to my own surprise, I really liked the story. I wish they had gave Risky less vague exposition, but it fits with her character. Now that Shantae has a well-established cast of characters, they're all finally given room to breathe and it's super fun to see them all stand-out past their tropes. In particular, I just, really like how this game ends. It wraps up nicely in a way that I wish more games did. My only issue is that I have no reason to play it more. I wish that it had a ton more post-game unlockables, modes and costumes or some sorta NG+ at least but the appeal post-game seems to be geared towards speedrunning which is... definitely not my thing. Please, I want to play your game more. I'm running out of Shantae games to play and it's starting to bum me out.
| PlayStation 4 | January 13th | 08:52:25 clear time w/ 100% complete | Shantae: 1/2 Genie Hero is so good. Ugh. I think the Shantae formula had been perfectly tuned for this game. The difficulty finally found its sweet spot, they ditched pixel art for gorgeous, crisp hand-drawn sprites and the collectables and secrets are just well-hidden enough to encourage tons of exploration without feeling impossible to find. Purely in terms of of how 1/2 Genie Hero plays, it's totally the best Shantae game yet. I felt like it kinda fell short in a few ways, namely the story which doesn't really go anywhere for the whole game and a buzzkill of a final stage with crappy boss battles and a lame sliding sequence that suffers from the whole deflated momentum thing that video game set pieces normally suffer from. It's a bummer because these two things in particular were nailed so well in Pirate's Curse. New characters come and go with no purpose, and though I do love Shantae's cast of characters, I think they leaned a little too heavily on familiarity this time. Though I think that Pirate's Curse is still my favorite Shantae game overall, 1/2 Genie Hero rules. The writing and (returning) characters are still great even if I don't think they were done proper justice, the soundtrack is better than ever (especially the new boss battle theme) and... y'know, it's a Shantae game. It has tons of heart. ...but what do I do with no more Shantae games to play? Pirate Queen's Quest | PlayStation 4 | | September 9th | 3h31m playtime w/ 100% completion | I will take anything I can get to play new Shantae content. This one was alright; it was nice to use the weapons from Pirate's Curse again but having to play through the same stages and bosses again was kinda lame. I did not like the boss fights very much the first time around and Risky without all the upgrades means those same boss fights are soooo much longer and repetitive. Still, though it was off to a rocky start, I did enjoy revisiting Half-Genie Hero's catchy music, colorful stages, pretty art and great writing. It was a lot tougher this time around, too but thankfully a fully upgraded Risky trivializes all the platforming when revisiting stages. I... could still play more Shantae. I am still excited for the new costumes and friends DLC, but I just hope it offers a little more than different takes on the same content.
| PlayStation 3 | January 20th | 48h 52m clear time | Yakuza 5 is... a lot. That's nothing new for the Yakuza games. They're all a lot, but that's their thing, right? Snail-paced exposition, tons of side stories and meticulously detailed mini-games. Plus, the stories are always super complex and overly convoluted with a billion characters, all of which have motivations that change on a dime. Yakuza 5 has all of this, but the Yakuza games tend to nail all of these things more often than not. The stories get messy, and confusing but by the time they wrap up, everything makes sense. All the loose ends are tied up and the stories conclude in ways that feel both complete and satisfying. As if we wouldn't need another Yakuza game. For the first time, Yakuza 5 feels too bloated. There's simply too much going on-- too many characters, too many plot points and character threads, too big of a story for what the game ends up being. The plot suffers from a bad pacing problem: the story gains momentum, then wastes it all by coming to a complete stop in favor of excruciatingly slow development for new characters. Normally, I adore Yakuza's deliberate pacing, but in this case it's erratic and comes at the cost of the excitement that the game tries to build up. Saejima is legitimately one of the best, most well-written characters in the entire series but his part of the story is a brick wall for all the intrigue and excitement built up at the end of Kiryu's chapter. Shinada, the only brand new protagonist's very slow introduction was super frustrating to deal with after the story started to get really, really exciting at the end of Haruka / Akiyama's story. Being that Shinada is, like the rest of the cast, really fascinating, it really wasn't cool that the placement of his part killed the momentum. And look, when Yakuza 5 does things right, they're fantastic. The cutscenes look amazing, the combat is completely over-the-top and substories are a whole of fun to see through to their ends. Most of the finale is really fun; seeing all the protagonists working together (excluding Haruka, disappointingly) is really just an excuse for giddy, non-stop fanservice. The characters are so good, and there are some moments where I was just straight-up screaming. Most of my time spent playing Yakuza 5 was really, really fun. It's just that for a game that spends so much of its sweet time paying close attention to its story and characters, I just don't think it does enough justice to all the time they spend creating all of it. At some points, it feels like the writers themselves had forgotten half the plot points-- or outright disregard the meaning that those plot points had. I mean, the ending is just... bad. Despite what it seems, I liked Yakuza 5 a lot. I never spend this kind of extensive time with a single-player game, but I just wish that the pay-off was better than what I got. It deserved better.
| PlayStation 4 | February 7th | I vividly remember downloading the Alien Shooter demo some time in 2005-ish and asking my brother if 20 mb (the size of the demo) was a lot. He told me that it wasn't a lot at all; around the size of 3-4 songs. Ever since then, Alien Shooter, in one way or another pops into my head when I think about MP3 file sizes. I remember Alien Shooter being kinda fun, too. If I didn't have that bit of history, I would have otherwise never purchased Alien Shooter on PS4 for 4$ because it looks like junk. With that said, Alien Shooter is, um... kinda junk on the PS4. With no aiming reticle and no damage feedback from enemies until they're dead, you really can't tell if you're hitting anything or doing any sorta damage. It's really only playable if you switch on the auto-aim function but at that point, what are you _really_ doing in a twin stick shooter if not even aiming your weapon? I kinda warmed up over time, though. At some point, there are like, a hundred enemies on screen and the levels are painted all over with alien blood. I, at least admire the way it commits to just making the levels messy with gun shells, explosions and alien guts. I... kinda want to play the expansion levels? Gosh, must be why I never video games that are actually good.
| Mac | February 7th | 100% completion | This cute, little bullet-hell game was lots of fun to play. The premise is really sweet; wandering around to heal people of their mental and/or physical sicknesses makes for lots of adorable, appreciative characters and a silly, endearing sense of humor. Though the gameplay is super simple, Princess Remedy is just short enough for the dodgy shooty stuff to not get old. Neat boss battles, too.
| PlayStation 4 | February 17th | Yakuza 0 is like the antithesis of Yakuza 5. It's approachable, clear, focused and crafted with the sort of care and precision that Yakuza 5 so badly missed. It's not only way better, but it's the best Yakuza game since Yakuza 2. I adored the story, the exposition of its characters, the acting, its many stellar moments, the relatively deep and engaging side businesses and... really, just everything this game had going on. It made me feel like how I did with every other Yakuza game sans 5; enjoying every single moment, dreading its eventual end. This will probably be one of the best, if not the best game I play this year.
| Mac | March 7th | Long story short: I bought this when it came out, but wanted to wait for the full game to come out. Full game came out, and it hit too close to home, so I avoided it. I wanted to play this tonight, because it felt about time and I liked it a lot. The drinking mixing stuff is okay, but I'm really just interested in listening to people, real or otherwise talk about what's on their mind. Along with a great atmosphere, a bit of cool world building and a snazzy soundtrack, this was a really soothing way to spend a bit of my time.
| Xbox 360 | March 8th | Ending A | I... I thought that I finished Nier, but apparently there's more? So, I guess I'll keep playing... | March 9th | Ending B | Nier is kind of tearing me apart. | March 10th | Ending C & D | Nier is one of the most conflicting games that I have ever played. I don't know how I feel about it. I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to write here.