Prelude:
I played the first Yakuza when I rented it back when I was younger.
I only made it halfway through the game and I never rented it again, I don't know why I didn't rent it again because I distinctly remember it being one of the most unique games I had played on the PS2, there was no other game that had its atmosphere.
Time passed by and I would always notice Yakuza in the background, occasionally seeing a trailer for the most recent entry and sometimes finding a game in a store and going "I remember playing that on the PS2" and then looking for a different game.
Eventually, I saw a review of Yakuza 0 around the time it came out, I decided "You know what? How 'bout I try a Yakuza game again?".
Cut to three years later and as of a couple of months ago, I've completed every game in the Kiryu saga and I'm here to summarise my thoughts and rank them from best to worst.
Yakuza 0:
This game is amazing.
When I started 0, I was enjoying it well enough but I didn't think it was amazing, but at a certain point after the first few hours, that's when it became great, from that point to the end.
The story is very well done with all the twists and turns and emotional payoffs, the relationship between Majima and Makoto I thought was really touching.
The gameplay was really fun with the different styles, my favourite was Majima's slugger style.
Some of my favourite moments of the game come from the substories, even after playing through the entire series, I still think that 0 has some of the best substories.
I know I'm not being very descriptive but there are only so many ways to say that Yakuza 0 is great and I don't have anything to add to the discussion when practically everyone thinks Yakuza 0 is great.
Starting the series with the prequel was an interesting experience, to most Yakuza fans this game is the backstory to characters they already know, to me, this is my introduction to these characters.
There were only a couple of times where I was confused due to not having played the other games, the part where I was confused the most was at the very end when it mentions the Millennium Tower.
Yakuza 0 is a great game, but you probably knew that already.
And one last thing before moving is when I unlocked the Dragon Of Dojima style, I decided to put on Kiryu's classic suit and went out on to the streets at night, and as I was beating up some thugs, I ended up getting flashbacks to Yakuza 1 on the PS2, it was a cool moment of nostalgia for me.
Yakuza Kiwami:
This game is a mixed bag.
Starting with the story, I don't think it has held up to time, and that's excluding the bits with Majima they added which I'll get to that in a bit.
There's a lot of sections in the campaign where the story digresses from the main plot and spends time on subplots that have very little to do with the main story.
The best way I could explain it is that the story lacks momentum, it constantly stops and starts for detours that it feels less like the story is progressing and more like events just happen.
The stuff added with Majima clashes with what was in the original game, Majima changes from how he is in 1 and how he is in the rest of the series, and considering that they're essentially two different characters, it's incredibly jarring.
I think there are two ways they could have gone, either change the story cutscenes so that Majima acts like he does in later games or don't have the Majima Everywhere system. Having Majima swap between two different versions of himself just adds issues to the story and makes the game inconsistent.
The gameplay is similar to 0, except I didn't like the bosses as much.
There were a lot more moments during gameplay where I would get attacked constantly and would have very little time to react so it felt cheap.
The Majima Everywhere system was fun because of all the different interactions with Majima, one of my favourite moments was when he busted out his karaoke outfit from 0.
The thing I didn't like about it was that after I had finished the Majima Everywhere storyline Majima would still fight me which made finishing up all the substories annoying.
My least favourite part of the game was the presentation, the cutscenes were just the PS2 cutscenes with newer models pasted over them. The low-quality animations and Kiryu's dead eyes were incredibly distracting and took me out of the experience.
I also noticed really bad tree pop-in, not sure if anyone else had that but it was very distracting during the daytime.
I've been crapping on the game for the last several paragraphs, so what did I like about Kiwami?
I liked the connections to 0 and how they felt natural and not forced.
Added substories like pocket circuit and the woman asking about the bubble period were some of my favourite substories from the game.
The line Kiryu says to Haruka, "Something bad happened there a long time ago." acknowledges the events of 0 while being subtle.
Haruka is freaking adorable.
Even though I had issues with the story, I did like the ending, it sorta made up for the story a little bit.
Overall, even though I said more negatives than positives, I didn't hate my time with Kiwami, I liked it as much as I disliked it, it's a mixed bag but I didn't regret playing it.
Yakuza Kiwami 2:
This game is way better than Kiwami 1.
The first thing I want to mention is the presentation, the cutscenes look way better than Kiwami 1, probably because the original Yakuza 2 had better animations, so they don't look half bad with newer models, there were times where I completely forgot that the cutscenes came from a PS2 game so I wasn't nearly as distracted as I was in Kiwami 1.
There were a few times where animations looked robotic but thankfully they were few and far between.
The story is a huge improvement from 1, it fixes the issues I had with 1's story, it's more focused and gets less distracted.
Ryuji Goda is probably the best antagonist of the whole series.
Overall I don't have many issues with the story except for the ending, the fake-out cliffhanger was bizarre, and the after-credits scene of Date going "Boy it sure was a good thing that bomb was fake!".
It was as if they originally intended to kill Kiryu off but they had to change it so he lived.
That's probably not the case but that's how the ending came across for me.
Other than the bizarre execution of the ending, the story was really good.
The additional content that they added to the remake, the cabaret club minigame and the Majima sidestory, are very good additions to the game.
I'd say that stuff between Majima and Makoto is some of the best writing in the series.
The moment when Makoto realises who Majima was on the airplane is great stuff, one of my favourite moments in the series.
The cabaret club was the better of the two sidestories from 0 so I was happy to see it return in this game.
Overall, Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a great game, almost as good as 0, and is a way better remake than Kiwami 1.
Now that I'm done with the remakes, it's on to the Remastered Collection.
Yakuza 3:
This game holds up surprisingly well.
I was pleasantly surprised by how good this game is, I was expecting it to be a bit dated but it didn't feel dated to me.
Starting with what I liked:
I liked the story for the most part.
I liked a lot of the new characters, Rikiya especially, shame he ends up dying, would have liked to see him in later games.
I liked the story of Kiryu becoming a sort of dad for the kids.
I don't know what the consensus on the orphanage kids are, but I liked them, I thought they were fun and well written and they didn't detract from the game for me.
Ryukyu is my favourite location in the Yakuza series, shame it never makes a reappearance, I can only imagine how it would look in the Dragon engine.
My favourite parts of the game were the Revelations, I thought they were a fun way of learning new moves, I liked exploring the world finding all the unique cutscenes.
Overall, the gameplay was fun, I thought the story was decent, the side content was also fun, but what didn't I like about Yakuza 3?
The biggest issue I had with the story was the antagonist Mine.
I couldn't understand his motivations and thought it didn't make sense, even during his villain motivation speech, I couldn't get a grasp on his motivation.
Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention but it did feel like his motivation was overly convoluted.
I think he could have been a good villain had his motivations been clearer.
The twin brother reveal, while I don't think it's that big of an issue, I still think it's a bit far fetched.
The hostesses made completing all the substories a pain in the ass, I must have spent several hours just on the hostesses, easily my least favourite part of the game.
It ends with another fake out death for Kiryu, this one even less justified than 2's.
Other than those things, I think Yakuza 3 is a solid entry that holds up surprisingly well.
Yakuza 4:
This game is terrible
Absolutely terrible.
It's kind of impressive how abysmal it is.
This game has the dumbest plot twist in any story I've ever experienced.
And it wasn't just that twist, it was also another event that came afterwards. The event was Hamazaki landing on Kiryu's beach.
It was that tag team that solidified that this game was a poorly written mess, not that there weren't signs before them, but these two events were what confirmed it for me.
First, the rubber bullets twist because I have a lot to say about how stupid it is.

1. He still would have injured someone.

Saejima at a few points sticks his guns directly into the stomach of a few of the people at the ramen shop.
Problem is, if you stick a gun to someone's stomach, you're going to put a hole in them because the force coming out of a gun is enough to put a hole in something.
So everyone Saejima did that to should have holes in their stomachs.
But what about the people that weren't shot directly in their stomachs, they should be fine right?
Neither would they be ok, because Yakuza 4 states that the rubber bullets are powerful enough to knock people unconscious.
If they're powerful enough to knock people unconscious, that would also mean that they're powerful enough to break people's bones.
What would have happened is that they would get shot, it would hurt like a bitch, then they realise that they weren't shot with real bullets.
It wouldn't take until after Saejima left for them to wake up, they would realise it shortly after getting shot.
But okay, let's try to ignore that and take the game at its word, that the bullets just knock people unconscious.

1. How would they knock people unconscious?

I don't see how shooting someone in the stomach or shoulder would knock them out, In the chest maybe you can reason it as the bullets knocking the air out of their lungs or something, I know that's a big stretch but at least it's more than what the game gives.
What would have happened is that they would get shot, it would hurt like a bitch, then they realise that they weren't shot with real bullets, just like with real rubber bullets.
So if the bullets worked as they do in real life, it wouldn't knock people unconscious, if the bullets worked like how the game describes them, it still wouldn't work.
Then there's the third point, which isn't a gun logic issue or bullet logic issue, it's a character logic issue.

1. Saejima does not aim for the head, despite having no reason not to.

Saejima knows that he is risking his life and that if he succeeds, he will go to prison.
So why does Saejima half-ass the assassination attempt?
Ueno is sitting down, he's completely powerless in this situation, nothing is stopping him from shooting him in the head, yet he doesn't for whatever reason.
Saejima isn't the only character in Yakuza 4 to make the same mistake, Arai also doesn't shoot Munakata in the head when he has the upper hand.
This is even more egregious when you remember that he shot Ihara in the head at the beginning of the game, so it's established that he does shoot people in the head, but when it came to Munakata he just doesn't for no reason.
I can't even say that this twist has faulty logic, it just has no logic.
The twist depends on guns not working how they should, rubber bullets not working how they should and Saejima half-assing the assassination attempt, had Saejima aimed for the head then the plot wouldn't even happen, and that's why it's the worst plot twist I've ever seen.
Then the final nail in this game's coffin is when Hamazaki somehow survives 3 bullet wounds to the chest, somehow doesn't bleed out, somehow doesn't drown and by pure coincidence lands on Kiryu's beach.
That was the exact moment I checked out and stopped caring about the game.
Let's list off some more issues, shall we?
Saejima by pure coincidence ends up on the beach of the person he was just told to look for, then and even though he is a wanted prisoner on death row, somehow manages to get Kamurocho undetected and the game doesn't explain how he does it.
Akiyama's life is saved due to a wad of cash that was never established.
Arai somehow escapes the police station after shooting Munakata.
The weak attempt at tying the plot of Yakuza 4 to Yakuza 1.
I could on and on about the issues the plot, if I did, I would never get to the gameplay, which isn't much better, to be honest.
The biggest disappointment was the lack of a new location, just Kamurocho for this game.
I didn't have much fun playing with Akiyama's or Saejima's combat styles in this game, I liked Tanimura's focus on parrying but because of the whole debacle with Tanimura's original actor, they couldn't build upon it in later games.
I'll always think of Yakuza 4 as "the bad one", the writing is a massive drop in quality from the rest of the series.
Yakuza 5:
This game is amazing.
While Yakuza 0 is agreed upon by the Yakuza community to be a great game, Yakuza 5 seems more divisive.
I've seen a post stating that Yakuza 5 has the worst story in any Yakuza game. I obviously disagree, but I would say that Yakuza 5 has one of the best stories in any Yakuza game.
The intro to Yakuza 5 is the best in the series in how it effortlessly sets up the main plot.
The mystery of how we ended with Kiryu as a cab driver and Haruka as an idol made it the most intriguing intro in the whole series.
From the first hour, I was hooked.
A major strength of Yakuza 5's story is giving the main characters and their surroundings time to breathe.
The game gives a lot of time to flesh out its characters and not just the main ones but the side characters as well.
For me, Yakuza 5 has the most memorable side characters in the series, I pretty much remember all of them from Kiryu's coworkers to Saejima's prison mates to the employees at the Idol agency to the citizens of Kineicho.
The finale is really good, I love how almost everything gets paid off, like how the prison mates return and save Baba from killing himself, Takasugi calling Shinada, and Watase, Madarame and Kitakata showing up to help Akiyama, it makes the whole game mean something.
Then there's Shinada, I don't know what the consensus on Shinada is, but out of all the playable characters besides Kiryu and Majima, he's my favourite.
Akiyama's philosophy is interesting but in comparison to the rest of the cast he comes off a bit bland to me, Saejima is cool but he's attached to that dumbass twist and Tanimura had very little going on except his combat style.
When I played Yakuza 5 I had no idea what kind of character Shinada was, so I was surprised when he turned out to be a sleazy goofball.
I really sympathised with his backstory, plus, he's a bit of a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass type, and I have an affinity for those kinds of characters.
Gameplay is way better than Yakuza 4, Akiyama and Saejima were better to play in this game, Shinada being a weapons based character is cool, the sidestories such as Kiryu's racing sidestory, Saejima's hunting sidestory, and Shinada's baseball sidestory were all fun.
That's everything I liked, but what didn't I like?
The Kitakata kidnapping scene is complete bull.
Aizawa being the final boss could have been set up a lot better.
The game is very on the nose with what the theme is.
Haruka becomes part of an Idol group called Dreamline, the track they sing is called dream, the final boss theme is "Battle for the dream", the Japanese subtitle is "Fulfiller Of Dreams" and I'm pretty sure every character says the word dream at some point.
Overall, despite these issues, I still love Yakuza 5, I think it's on par with Yakuza 0, to the point where I can't decide which is better.
Yakuza 6:
This game is alright.
This is the most "ok" game in the series, I did enjoy my time with it, but if there's one phrase that encapsulates my feelings on the whole game, it would be "it could have been better".
Starting with the story.
Something that I noticed is that even though the opening of Yakuza 6 takes place immediately after 5, Shinada and Baba don't even get a mention, which is weird since they were major players in 5's story but they don't even get a throwaway line.
One thing I like about the opening is Haruka facing consequences for the stunt she pulled at the end of 5.
Initially, I was annoyed at that when I was playing 5, but as I thought about it more, it does make sense that Haruka would do that.
Haruka is pure, she has an optimistic view of the world which in the opening of 6 gets shat on by reality, Akiyama even says to her, "This may not turn out the way you're hoping it will".
I've seen some people say that they don't like how Haruka is depicted in 5 and 6, but I didn't have any problems with her.
Also, it was nice seeing the orphanage kids return from 3, even if it was just for a little bit.
The game has some similarities to Yakuza 3, we're back to having Kiryu being the sole protagonist, we're in a small-town setting and a portion of the game is spent on Kiryu befriending the local yakuza.
The mystery of who the father of the baby was I did find to be intriguing and the reveal did surprise me.
Now let's go into what makes the game just okay instead of good.
The Onomichi yakuza, they're fine characters but they mostly made me miss Rikiya.
The letter scene at the very end is really bad, the father and son thing between Kiryu and Daigo was never a thing.
After Yakuza 2, Daigo was done dirty, in 3 he was in a coma for the whole game, in 4 he was a bad guy for some reason and 5 is the best outing he's had and even in that game he only had two scenes with Kiryu.
Subverting expectations doesn't work when the subversion makes less sense than the expectation.
The biggest issue that I left Yakuza 6 with is that it didn't really feel like a finale.
The only thing that makes it a finale to Kiryu's story is the ending, otherwise it's a standard Yakuza story.
Kiryu and Haruka are the focus of the story but a lot of time is spent with the Onomichi yakuza when other more important characters are relegated to cameos.
Majima, Saejima, and Daigo only appear at the very beginning and the very end.
The only other prominent Yakuza characters that have any presence are Akiyama and Date.
The game doesn't feel like the culmination of a story 6 games in the making, it feels like any other game in the series but Kiryu leaves at the end.
By itself it's fine but as a conclusion to Kiryu's story, it could have been better.
Ranking:

1. Yakuza 5/Yakuza 0
   
2. Kiwami 2
   
3. Yakuza 3
   
4. Yakuza 6
   
5. Kiwami 1
   
6. Yakuza 4
   

Summary: I really enjoyed my time with the Yakuza series, it took a while but it was worth it in the end.
I'm excited to play Like A Dragon whenever I get it, I'm curious to see how the team handles an RPG rather than a beat-em-up.
Miscellaneous thoughts:
Favourite battle music:
Force Addiction
One Eyed Slugger
Funk Goes On (Original)
Scarlet Scar
Independence For Violence
Favourite Final Boss Music:
Fly
Favourite Receive You Variations:
Receive You The Madtype
Receive And Slash You
Favourite Box Art:
The Western PS3 Yakuza 4 Cover

After playing watching a few cancelled Vita games on a YT video, I was thinking about what games (realistically) could have worked well on the Vita if given the chance. Here are some I came up with:

1. Yakuza series - I recently played Yakuza: Kiwami on my PS4 and while the "open-world" was nothing special, the story.....WOW. One of the most emotional I have seen in awhile. I would later find out that a Free Alliances version of Yakuza 0 was released in Japan for the Vita, which leads me to the question: Why wasn't a full game released? (Rhetorical question). Seriously though, on a system starved for open-world games, I think Yakuza 0 (or any of them) would have been a welcome addition to the system and given how the FA version runs on the Vita, there is little doubt in my mind this game would have been a success.
2. Syphon Filter - For those who have never heard of this series, this was originally Bend Studio's flagship series. The Syphon Filter games were some of the best 3rd person shooters you could get on Playstation consoles. On the PSP, the SF games were arguably the best games you could get on the system period. Now granted, Bend closed the series with the final game, Logan's Shadow, but given that Bend went 3 years between their last vita game and the production of Days Gone, a prequel to the original Syphon Filter could have easily fit into the plans. A story of how Logan and Xing met and their beginnings in the Agency, maybe? As Unit 13 showed, a 3rd person shooter could work on the Vita, and given that Bend was the on-the-go maestros of shooters for Playstation consoles.....
3. Infamous: First Light - While there is rumor that there was an Infamous game on the concept table for the Vita, First Light could have been that. For those who bought this expansion to Second Son, you have my regards. This expansion wasn't bad, but not worth the price. However, as a Vita game, it would have been worth it. The criticisms for this expansion were for its short length (5 hour story/10 hours to 100%) and easy combat. Sounds like a Vita game to me (not that I wouldn't want more). Sucker Punch studios already had a history of porting games to the Vita with the help of Sanzaru games (Sly Cooper collection). With this, they could have given Fetch her own platform to stand on and fully flesh out her story. And again, "open-world" game on the Vita (which needed them).
4. Way of the Samurai - While I was tempted to go Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams here, I'm not sure that could have actually run on the Vita (criminally underrated game though). I'm also partial to Way of the Samurai's more grounded and realistic gameplay. This game is now seen as a hidden gem for the PS2, but anyone who played the game knew it was ahead of its time (hence the poor critic reviews on Metacritic, but good user reviews). This game was one of the original "choices affect your gameplay" and "branching storyline" games. Not to mention being able to customize over 40 different types of swords and a PvP versus mode and you have a game with a lot of replay-ability. Also, this game is from Acquire. The company has made many games for Sony and many handheld games for their portable systems. (NOTE: If you haven't watched the PCSX2 emulator version on YT, you should as it is a pretty good indictor of what could have been for the Vita).

What other games do you think realistically could have been made or even ported to the Vita and been met with success?
(NOTE: I left off Final Fantasy: Type-0 because I still haven't gotten over the pain Sony did to the community with that one. But yes, that could have and should have been ported to the Vita for western audiences).
(Addendum: As I was writing this, a friend texted me and let me know that Spike Chunsoft at one point had a Vita version of Way of the Samurai on the table and even had a teaser trailer for it.)

I'm not taking about diversity in terms of race, culture, religion, or sex, nothing like that. I'm talking about how diverse each game is in terms of structure, gameplay type, level design, and in some cases, story.
The reason I bring this up is because of how divided the fanbase is, usually over how different each RE game in the series is. While this might be a bad thing, personally I think that's a good thing and here's why. Growing up, one of my favorite game series was Zelda, my favorite game in the series is Majora's Mask, originally it was Twilight Princess (Still a favorite).
As I got older and kept playing each Zelda game that released, I noticed how formulaic the series was; You have Link, there is a great evil (Usually Ganon), there is a princess/girl, and there is a legendary and all powerful sword (Usually the Master Sword). Then I played Majora's Mask and loved it, because it wasn't formulaic like the other games in the series, there was a Link, but there was no great evil (Just a kid who wants to fuck shit up with a moon), the princess was only in a flashback, and there was no all powerful sword. Things were different, therefore it was much more fun to play and discover to me.
That's why when Breath Of The Wild was announced, I was a bit excited at first at how different Link looked, but upon hearing the synopsis of it, I grew very disinterested in it, it was still the same shit but different coat of paint with it's gears replaced. I probably will still play it once I get a Switch, but I did play A Link Between Worlds recently and while I did like it, it wasn't anything new that hasn't been done before a thousand fucking times (Nevermind A Link Between Worlds being somewhat of literal carbon-copy of A Link To The Past with minor differences).
Same reason why I can't get into Yakuza. I played Yakuza 0 and LOVED it, the plot, the story, the gameplay, the world-building, oh it was so good. Then I played Kiwami and liked it, then I played Kiwami 2 and liked it less, then I tried to play Yakuza 3 and lost interest half-way through. Why? Because it was formulaic (The Yakuza are up to some shit and it's up to Kiryu to beat them with his fists, again). So you can imagine my delight when Yakuza 7 got announced with a new protagonist and even a new gameplay style, but after watching the story trailer (Which pretty much spoiled the whole game), I quickly realized that Yakuza 7's story is just a rehash of Yakuza 1's with minor differences.
In other words, I don't like series that have formulaic games, I want something new and different everytime because it gives me that sense of wonder and discovery that you can't get with games that are formulaic. If I say I played Ocarina of Time, I also played Twilight Princess because Twilight Princess is basically just Ocarina of Time with a bigger budget. If I played Yakuza 1, I also played almost every other Yakuza game in the series with exception to Judgement. The stories and locations may be different, but they all still felt the same to me because of how repetitive it is.
I don't get that feeling with Resident Evil, and I love it. I know there are those who prefer the original games, those who prefer the action trilogy, and those who prefer games like RE7, but I can't say that if I played RE1, I also played RE4. I can't say that if I played RE4, I also played RE7. Why? Because no two games in the series feel the same to me, you might have some that are similar to another, but they still do things that separate them enough to prevent them from being formulaic.
So when I hear that a sequel to any game has to stick to the constraints of the original work, I say BULL-FUCKING-SHIT to that. If Resident Evil wants to ditch the traditional zombie and go with something different like infected cultist villagers, a zombie redneck family, or werewolves and vampires, let it. If Resident Evil wants to change it's camera perspective again, let it. If Resident Evil wants to put the main series lore to the side to concentrate on a brand new story, let it. Fuck if Resident Evil wants to have ghosts or at least ghost-like enemies, go with it!

Warning: wall of text
I apologise if this comes off as a little ranty, but these are some thoughts I've wanted to get off my chest for a long time. There's a lot I want to say and I've realised that I just can't cut it down to three or four paragraphs, so it's going to be really long. If I knew how to make videos I would do that but I don't. I was going to post this to one of the Persona subreddits but any time I've even hinted at these opinions it's been negative received. But I realise now that I just really need to get it out there because it's bugging the shit out of me.
I like remasters, ports and (sometimes) remakes - when done tastefully, they can be a great way to keep older games relevant and introduce them to new audiences. Sometimes an underlooked gem is stuck on old hardware and is hard to obtain so it'll eventually be forgotten and near-impossible for anyone to play legitimately - this is especially true in the case of some JRPGs and other Japanese games, that have only managed to break into the mainstream in more recent years, the Persona franchise being a prime example of such a franchise. However, there's something about the way Atlus handles these ports, remasters and rehashes that really rubs me the wrong way. There are other companies I'm going to bring up as well, but Atlus games are the ones I want to focus on.
For the record, I won't be talking so much about the way Atlus handles pricing and DLC, believe me there's plenty I could rant about there but that's a post for another day.
1. The inclusion of new story content
Surely a game known for its story getting more story can't be a bad thing? On paper, you'd be right. When you're invested in a story and its characters, it's only natural that you'd want to spend more time in that world and get as much out of it as you can. It's why some people prefer watching the extended editions of movies over the original cuts, for example. But what's going on here isn't exactly the same.
Atlus re-releases typically contain brand new characters and plot threads. Which again, isn't a bad thing in theory, but it's how these things are incorporated into these already existing narratives that doesn't gel with me. In addition to inserting new things into the game, they also often significantly change what's already there, whether it be creating holes and inconsistencies where there were previously none, altering the flow and pacing of the story for the worse, or sometimes even straight-up retcons. Sometimes these things may not even be intentional and happen simply through the nature of taking an existing story that was already complete and trying to jam stuff in after the fact.
A couple of months ago I finished Persona 5 Royal and for the most part, I actually had a good time playing it (please remember this because it's going to sound like I despised it which isn't true). I thought a lot of the new gameplay mechanics were really cool and some of the tweaks were for the better, but the entire time I had to keep asking myself why it really needed to exist at all. For many reasons, one being that the OG game is only three years old, but the biggest point of contention being the new story material.
To just jump right into it, all of the 'twists' in Royal were extremely predictable simply by virtue of them even existing. If you've played the original game, any new scene or line of dialogue will stick out like a sore thumb. In one of the game's first sequences you're in the car with Sojiro where a newsreader on the radio talks about the accidents that would form a big part of the game's story. Right after, he mentions that a 15 year-old girl was killed in one of these accidents. Oh gee, I wonder who that's about.
With that single line I managed to piece together the game's big twist, that Kasumi is not really Kasumi, the real Kasumi is that car crash victim and the one we interact with is someone different. If you're still unsure by that point, it's made even more obvious during one of the first interactions with her where it's revealed that she has a twin sister. They ain't even trying to hide this stuff. And yes, I was right, that's the big twist.
Had this been a completely original story, I might not have figured it out so incredibly quickly, because a 15 year old girl killed in a car accident could have been anyone, there's not enough context to make that connection right away. I didn't call all of the original P5's twists because everything was new to me. But when you have a game that you've already played before and has new stuff added into it, it's only natural to assume that anything that's new is linked and meant to build up the new characters. That's how it's been in these other Atlus rehashes. They wouldn't mention something so specific if it wasn't going to be important later.
The same goes for Maruki - when the game was first shown off they released a series of teaser trailers that showed the original game's cast in impossible situations, hinting at some kind of alternate reality where their dead loved ones return to life and their general lifestyles are much happier. Their wishes have come true, in other words. These little teasers were effective in that they were surprising for returning players and showed that the new semester wasn't going to simply a time extension. But as soon you first sit down with Maruki in the game and he talks about wanting to make people's wishes come true, it's simply a matter of putting two and two together in your head to realise that he's the one behind it. I mean, who else could the new villain be?
It kind of takes away the fun of watching the story unfold because you can see all of the twists and reveals from a mile away, while the game thinks it's being clever by dropping 'hints' about what's to come, but they're so blatant they might as well have neon lights on them. Yes, game, I noticed that Kasumi is always referred to by her surname when in the presence of people besides the MC, very clever of you.
To be honest, there were only two things that actually surprised me in my playthrough of the game, the first being Maruki having a Persona, because it directly goes against what's established in the original game - that Palace owners can't have Personas because they effectively cancel each other out - so naturally I wasn't expecting the game to break it's own lore. The second being Morgana turning into a helicopter during the climax, because well I never had any reason to think he could turn into any other vehicle. I'm not complaining about that one, I don't really care that much. To be fair, in Persona 5 the Animation, Ryuji has one line where he says "Can't you turn into a helicopter or something?" so maybe it does have some basis, I don't know.
So your response might be, "What about people who never played the original game?" I can't speak for Persona 5 Royal, obviously. I can't possibly say what the experience was like for newcomers. But I can speak for my experience with a few other Atlus titles that received expanded editions, that I played over their original versions.
First of all: Persona 4 Golden - this was actually my first Persona game and I fell in love instantly. But even as someone going into it blind, I could tell that all of the stuff with Marie (the new character) was completely superflous and tacked on. Everything about her felt out of place, from her design (which isn't bad when taken on its own) and her story which reads like something out of a schlocky young adult novel. All interactions with her feel like the devs are trying really hard to convince you that she's extremely important, but it falls flat because you know she can't be that important if she was never part of the original story. And yes, when her true significance is revealed, it's contrived and corny.
She feels like a character from a completely different game, and personally I found her a pretty poorly written character to begin with, an amalgamation of some of my least favourite anime tropes (an amnesiac tsundere who turns out to have god-like powers... yikes). She basically has no involvement in the main plot (solving the murders) and it's only until the 95% completion point of the main story (if you fulfilled certain conditions) that her arc really has any significance. If you read the manga or watch the anime, she's not present at all and the story hardly changes at all.
All that being said though, at least most interactions with her are optional and you can just ignore her if you want to have an experience that is closer to the original game while still enjoying the new gameplay benefits. Additionally, the end of her story takes place just before the final arc of the game, rather than after the story has already reached its climax and given you that cathartic feeling of reaching the end. In a lot of these rehashes you have no choice to engage with the new story material and it's mandatory to reach the end credits.
As another example, currently I'm playing through Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, my first SMT game outside of Persona, so I haven't really been able to predict where the story is going to go exactly.
As is typical for an Atlus port, there's a new character and a new dungeon to go through. You meet her (it's always a girl - but at least this one isn't simping over the MC at every opportunity) in the second dungeon and she's hostile to you, wiping your team easily. She also has her own robot companion just like you. You encounter her again in the third dungeon, the same happens, and after that, you never encounter her again in the main story, only in the new dungeon, and even then it's once in a blue moon. There's one instance where you have to avoid her while getting to a certain point, but that's it. I've put nearly 70 hours into the game and I'm on the final dungeon, and yet I know barely anything about this person. I can count the times she's appeared on one hand.
So you can imagine me feeling confused when she's the biggest character on the front cover but is barely part of the story. That entire part might as well be an elaborate side mission, and I'm treating it as such, however I fully expect that I will have to complete all of that stuff to reach the game's "true ending", even though the actual story is reaching its grand finale and I'm looking forward to seeing the end.
It's also confusing how this powerful, hostile woman is roaming the same uncharted land that your military operation is, that no humans have ever entered, has an AI helping her just like you, and yet no one ever mentions her? Why does no one acknowledge the existence of an additional dungeon that's completely different from the rest and I've been going to on the regular? It seems like a pretty significant oversight to just never bring that up. When you do eventually encounter other humans besides your team, it's a big deal and a major turning point in the story. The characters are shocked that someone else is here, as if we didn't just get our asses kicked by this woman 10 gameplay hours ago?
At this point it's obvious that the story wasn't written around her, she's just been added into this version because apparently people won't buy a remaster if it doesn't have a new character on the box?
P5 Royal does the same - the game is desperate to want you to feel attached to Kasumi and Maruki and think they're super important, but it just doesn't really work when their entire characters have to be written around a narrative that was already pretty air tight, linear and doesn't offer a lot of room for shuffling things about. It's not often that a story of any kind literally has certain events pinpointed onto specific dates, but Persona games do that. They have to shove scenes in here and there, but without directly contradicting important plot events, while still trying to develop them alongside the rest of the crew.
This leads to a lot of awkward parts where the game basically has to remind you that she exists in between the major story beats because even though her story doesn't really happen until after the original game's ending, they still have to develop her and try and endear her to the player. But for me, it just didn't really work. She rarely interacts with any characters besides the MC and she has zero chemistry with any other party members (they will still talk about her, though) and she simps over him so hard it's embarrassing to watch. They only have her talk to the MC for 90% of the game because he doesn't have any written dialogue so there's less chance of them creating some kind of plot hole or big continuity error.
It also leads to some seriously head-scratching moments where they insert important scenes for her that end up affecting the main story at large. For example, during October we discover the new Palace and Kasumi gets her Persona. It's insanely obvious that the Palace is Maruki's, but the game doesn't officially reveal it until the third semester. The only people to enter the Palace are Kasumi, the MC and Morgana. Afterwards Morgana tells MC that they shouldn't tell the rest of the team because "it would worry them". The fuck, mate? Are you telling me that my character is purposely withholding big information from the rest of the team for a flimsy-ass reason as that? And that we're just never going to investigate who the Palace belongs to? Get out of here with that bullshit.
It actually reflects badly on the characters, because I don't believe for a second they would have done that. It makes absolutely no sense that they would just never look into that until January. The game tries to dodge this by making the name hidden, but it's information that could be figured out pretty easily (simply ask Kasumi if she mentioned anyone's name before entering? Which she did) and it feels a little insulting that the game would think the player couldn't work that out. And when it is revealed, everyone's shocked and also no one cares that the MC and Morgana knew about its existence for 2+ months and elected to keep it to themselves. It's so dumb, and there are a bunch more instances like that that I'm not going to get into because this post will go way over the word limit.
Does this mean to say that I hate Kasumi and Maruki? That's the thing - I don't hate them at all. I think Kasumi's a little annoying, but she has a cute design and a fairly likeable personality. Maruki is actually great - his story is sad and sympathetic, he's entertaining and his motivations are understandable. But it's not their story, they're out of place.
Really, Maruki is a good enough character to be the star of his own game. If they'd saved him for a future Persona title and had him be the central antagonist in a story that was written with him in mind and really explored the themes of dreams and wishes a lot deeper, it could have been something really special. Don't you think he deserves that? I just can't understand why shoehorning new characters into the same game we played three years ago is more preferable to getting something brand new. For the devs, I get it - lower time and effort for a bigger payout. But the fans all love it, and it's just so bizarre to me.
Catherine was a game I really enjoyed on the PS3 so naturally I was really excited when they announced they were remastering it for the PS4. But the hype deflated almost immediately when they revealed that in addition to a series of gameplay additions, the game was going to feature a third love interest, when it was previously about a guy having to choose between two women (to put it extremely simply).
Adding a third love interest to a game like that significantly alters the narrative and arguably even makes it worse overall. Previously Vincent was a guy who fucked up and got himself into a bad situation, but now he apparently does it again with another woman? I'm just sitting here scratching my head, wondering why exactly was this necessary? That's not the game I played a few years back. This is some weird bizarro world version. I never bought it, because if you're going to mess about with the story like that in a game with a strong narrative focus, I'm not interested any more. You've fundamentally changed the experience.
From what I've heard from people who have played the game, she's just as poorly written, superfluous and awkwardly shoehorned in as I expected. There's probably some corny twist where she reveals her true identity, or that she's not actually real at all, or she's the key to the game's central mystery - whatever. It's always the same crap. The fact that such an addition to the story exists at all is enough to steer me away. It's funny reading about the devs bringing back the original voice cast so they could "preserve the integrity of the game", but the original game didn't have three fricking love interests.
This kind of thing makes the most sense when a game was clearly unfinished, or its story was lacking clarity in some areas or just generally felt uneven. Persona games are typically not like that. Their stories are usually pretty solid and well-thought out from start to finish. If I look at P5's narrative as a whole, I wouldn't change a thing. No, not even the fifth Palace arc. I'm not going to say it's perfect, but it's pretty damn good, and most importantly it's complete. There are no obvious unsolved plot threads or weird filler arcs, everything is wrapped up neatly and concisely, which is really impressive considering how long it is. I didn't finish the game thinking it was missing anything, put it that way.
By this point you must be thinking that I really hate the whole idea of expanding the story of a given work and adding things where there were previously none, but that isn't necessarily true. I think it's possible to do, just difficult.
Take Dragon Quest XI for example. About a 1/3 of the way through the story, something big happens and the team gets split up. You're separated from your trusted party and forced into an uneasy alliance with spoiler while you spend the next chunk of the game getting the band back together one at a time. However, when you meet back up with your crew, they've undergone drastic changes and you have to get them back to their senses. For a lot of them this is a big part of their respective arcs.
If you play the original version of the game, this part of the game might have you feeling confused because you only get a short explanation as to how they all got to that point, usually after the fact. Clearly a lot happened during that time but the game only really shows you the MC's perspective. The Switch version of the game fills in these blanks by actually letting you play as those characters for a few brief chapters (lasting around 1-2 hours each, though I think Sylvando's was longer) and really just adds some extra context to a part of the game that was a little vague. You don't return to playing as the hero until you've completed them all, so it reframes the original game's question of "what happened to my team?" into "what happened to the MC?".
Is it a finely crafted bit of narrative? Not really, but it's a neat little extra and there is an innate appeal in getting to control other members of your team for a while and see things from an alternate perspective. I mean shit, I wish the game did what the Tales games do and let us play as those characters in the overworld all the time. There aren't any retcons, no new characters who are somehow now the most important person in the world, and (in my opinion) they don't fuck the game's flow significantly.
All of them simply explain what happened during a mysterious period in the story and provide additional character development that actually makes sense. I mean, the events during this time are a big part of Sylvando's arc but in the original version they are skipped completely, you would think that he wasn't affected at all by what happened at the end of the first act.
The new chapters are short and have enough unique things going on that they feel fresh. Jade's chapter is essentially a series of arena battles while Erik traverses a dungeon, and Rab's is mostly cutscene-driven. Even if they were total garbage, they'd be over in a few hours and you'd get back to the game proper without any new crap forced in there.
Yakuza Kiwami is a remake of the PS2 original which added some new cutscenes throughout the game which attempt to develop Nishiki as a character. It's debatable how effective these scenes are, but it makes sense to include them because he was supposed to be the main villain of the original game but he only appeared in about five cutscenes. His betrayal didn't really make a ton of sense and it was hard to take it so personally when we barely knew him. You see him in one scene, he's apparently your best friend, you take the fall for him and next time you see him he's an evil mastermind. The remake attempts to fill in those gaps a little and illustrate his descent into evil. This doesn't mean I'm going to throw the PS2 original under the bus, to be clear, but the remake offers a bit of story expansion that doesn't feel completely hamfisted.
Let's take another Persona game as an example - Persona 3 and its expanded version Persona 3 FES. The main game's story had a powerful but also kind of strange ending, and FES includes a new epilogue chapter called The Answer that takes place afterwards and sheds light on what happened and how the characters deal with it.
Now, I don't particularly like The Answer that much in terms of gameplay or story, but at the very least, it is completely seperate from the main campaign and totally optional. You can even access it immediately if you want. And yeah, say whatever you want about the actual content, but at least it takes place after the original game is over, acting as a lite-sequel of sorts, and isn't 'replacing' the original game's story with some awkward-ass retelling full of changes and retcons. If you do want to ignore it completely, you can. How shit would it be if they tacked it onto the end of the game and made you play through it if you wanted to reach the credits?
2. Why not make a sequel instead?
Instead of creating a completely unnecessary divide between two games that are essentially the same thing at their core, why not make something new using the existing framework? It doesn't necessarily have to be Persona 6. I'm sure that game is going to be a huge update to the current formula like Persona 5 was to Persona 4, both in terms of mechanics and aesthetics. It's probably gonna be a few years away but I don't mind, I can wait. But if they're going to milk P5 in the years leading up to that, why not make a direct sequel as something to tide us over until the next big thing?
Direct sequels to JRPGs aren't super common, but they exist and they can work. Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XIII, Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Xillia, Pokemon Black & White, Bravely Default and even Persona 2 are examples of games that received sequels that continue the story instead of basically doing a soft reboot every time. There are like ten Kingdom Hearts games if you count those. Shin Megami Tensei IV got an alternate timeline kinda-sequel in the form of SMT IV: Apocalypse and Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth got a side-quel with Hacker's Memory. So it's not like it can't be done. Call it Persona 5-II, Persona 5.5, Persona Subtitle, the name isn't important.
Think about it, wouldn't it be awesome to really explore what the world is like following the aftermath of P5? I wasn't a huge fan of FFX-2 overall but I loved revisiting those old locations and seeing how they've changed following the first game's events, and catching up with all my old friends. Most JRPGs throw you into a brand new world which is great but having that continuity can be really interesting.
It's one of the reasons I'm actually really excited to play Persona 5 Scramble when/if they ever localise it, because it explores events happening months after the original game instead of rehashing them or doing some kind of alternate dimension shenanigans like the Q games. We're getting to see the characters grow further and go on new adventures, and yes I know it's only set a few months later and I don't even expect it to be the best story ever but at least it's NEW.
Doing a sequel would be a brilliant opportunity to get experimental and try out new ideas before returning 'back on track' for the next main entry, and they could still write a story that's both original and compelling in its own right, while enhancing the lore and characters of the first game. Maybe this time they could finally give us another female MC? They could bring back characters from previous games as cameos or even team mates. Maybe we could have a Pokemon-esque rival who has the same powers as us and is trying to stop us but isn't necessarily a villain, and we fight them multiple times throughout the game? The possibilities for experimentation are endless.
Wait a sec, remember in the original teaser for Royal where Kasumi says she doesn't support the Phantom Thieves and she believes that people should sort out their own problems? Remember when they did nothing with that in the actual game? There you go, there's your rival. That little personality trait only existed because they wanted to introduce her early on, but realised that putting her in the party at any point in the main story would create way too many plot divergences and they needed a reason for her to not be in the team until after the original ending.
Reusing assets and mechanics surely wouldn't be an issue, either. Persona 4 was made very quickly after the surprise success of Persona 3, and they did it by reusing a lot of stuff from that game. Sure, those are PS2 games and things were different back then, so maybe not the fairest comparison, but it's not like it doesn't still happen today.
Even outside of JRPGs, there are tons of sequels that do the same thing over reinventing the wheel and doing everything again from scratch because it's just so much more cost-effective and there's no need to fix what's not broken.
The Yakuza series has managed to sustain itself for years by reusing stuff to keep costs down and put games out faster. They've kept the same city in every game, not changed the core gameplay a great deal (until now) and they've even been reusing a lot of the same canned animations dating back to Yakuza 3 at least. The fans are fine with it, the games sell decently well and they use the budget to focus on the set pieces and big story moments where it really matters. I don't deny that I would like to see a Yakuza game where everything looks as polished and detailed as any Western AAA game, I agree that Kamurocho has gotten a little stale but the newest one looks like they've put some money into it.
Put it this way, wouldn't you rather that Kasumi and Maruki could be part of a game where the story is written with them in mind first and foremost, rather than being awkwardly pushed into one that had nothing to do with them? A story where they can really explore the themes of dreams, wishes and wanting to escape one's traumas on a much deeper level, with characters, stages, music and aesthetics that reflect that? Eight or nine new Palaces instead of one? I know I would, that's for sure.
Yes, it would take a little longer to release and be a bit more expensive to make, but as a consumer, don't you think that would be worth so much more than just replaying the same game with new bells and whistles?
3. The idea that the original version is "obsolete", "outdated" or "not worth playing"
A common sentiment I see regarding remakes in general, not just the Atlus ones, is that their existence essentially negates the original version and renders it obsolete if not worthless. This is something I have complicated feelings about and I don't want to make big blanket statements like "it's wrong" because there are plenty of instances where it makes perfect sense to retire an older version of a game.
For instance, a few months ago I played through the PS4 remaster of Yakuza 3. It now runs at 60fps instead of 25-30, all of the cut/censored content from the original Western release has been restored, and the localisation has been given a refresh to make it more faithful and consistent with the rest of the series. While I had a lot of fun playing the original game, I don't feel bad about letting it go because the core of the game is still exactly the same, it's just been given a sorely-needed refresh, and it feels so much better to play.
There are tons of older games that are no longer easily accessible and games that are in dire need of cleaning up, so it's always great when they return on modern hardware with said improvements. I'm still waiting for the day they port Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door because I never got to play it and I'm not paying those eBay prices.
There are plenty of other examples, but you get the point. Generally speaking, I'm not against replacing an older version of a game. I could even potentially get over the Atlus method if the only additions were strictly gameplay and accessibility based, but when you're messing about with the story and putting in weird and unnecessary stuff, I find that pill a little harder to swallow.
I see a lot of people denouncing the original versions of a lot of these games now that they've seen these expanded versions, and it makes me sad. I frequently see people saying that the original Persona 5 is no longer worth playing, using words like "negated", "obsolete" and "irrelevant". Saying things like the OG game is "missing" stuff. Instead of being happy that Persona 5 is being included in the PS+ Collection on PS5, they're annoyed that it isn't the Royal version. I've seen people saying they feel ripped off for buying "the crappy one" or that they should have waited the three years to get "the true experience". (!!!)
It even extends beyond just the one game too. I've read some comments saying they're not going to play the upcoming Persona 5 Scramble spin-off because it doesn't have any of the new Royal characters (it was developed around the same time). I've seen others saying the same thing about the anime and manga adaptations - to be fair, you wouldn't be missing much by skipping those, but that's not the point. It's like the original version is no longer being considered canon anymore, it's complete madness.
A while back it was announced that Catherine Classic was being included in Humble Bundle on PC and I was seeing a lot of comments saying that it's not worth the time and you should just play Full Body instead, even if it means waiting for a PC port that might not even happen. Breaks my heart, man. These great games should just be thrown in the bin now? Remember when Persona 5 came out just three years ago and it was universally acclaimed and won a bunch of awards? Guess it's just a paperweight now, huh? Nah, that doesn't sit right with me at all.
But apparently I'm in the wrong for suggesting that it's still worth playing, at the very least as a first time experience. At least right now I have price on my side, since OG is way cheaper and if you're getting a PS5 it will be essentially free. But once the price of both versions become nearly identical, it will be a lot harder to argue in defence of vanilla.
If they ever do decide to port the game to additional platforms like PC, Switch or Xbox, it's only natural they will port the Royal version, meaning that will be many people's first experience of the game and the OG will become more and more forgotten over time. I hate to see a great game getting left in the dust like that.
4. Why I'm so conflicted about it
What I'm feeling here though stems from the fact that story additions aside, these newer versions typically ARE better in a more objective, general sense. Like, if you simply put them side by side and compare them in a bullet point kind of way, the newer versions usually include a bunch of helpful and convenient changes that do make the experience a lot more fun. New mechanics, new music, new areas, new items, minigames, rebalanced gameplay, a plethora of accessibility features like new difficulty options, improved localisations, additional language support, and so on. Stuff that surely anyone would appreciate seeing. That SMT game I'm currently playing was apparently infamous for its difficulty back in 2010 and this new version made things a lot more fair and player-friendly, which I can certainly agree with from my experience which is challenging but (mostly) reasonable.
A while back my sister told me she was interested in playing Persona 5 and asked me which version she should borrow from me, money wasn't an issue but she was only interested in a single playthrough. I can't realistically expect someone to play through a 90+ hour game twice. I honestly didn't really know what to say. My gut wanted to say original because it's the "true experience", but as a game, Royal is undoubtedly better. Even now, when I think about doing another playthrough, I'm unsure which one I would play. I don't like Royal's story changes very much (when taken in the grand scheme of things), but at the same time some of those new features were actually really cool and I would probably miss them.
5. The precedent that it sets for future titles
I remember when Persona 5 was still relatively new, I was seeing tons of discussions throughout the various Persona subreddits compiling wishlists of changes and additions they all want for the "inevitable re-release" like it was some kind of guaranteed thing. The game was barely months old and fans are already talking about the enhanced edition. To be honest, I thought this was crazy talk and I couldn't get my head around it.
Perhaps naively, I didn't think they would actually make a rehashed version of Persona 5, because what would have been the point in today's digital age? At least with Persona 3, you could argue that DLC expansions weren't possible on the PS2, and if they were going to add a new chapter they might as well tweak some things in the main game too. Made sense. And Persona 4 was being ported to a brand new platform, which is something I always like. But when the game was already on PS4, it wouldn't really make sense to just release it again... also on the PS4? Perhaps I was a fool to assume they wouldn't do something so... greedy?
When you look at the success of all of these, it all makes sense. P5R broke series sales records and reviewed extremely well, pretty much all of the other ports did well too. If you were the company, why wouldn't you do that every time? Takes less time than an entirely new game, the fans are happy to buy it again for full price, you make a killing.
From this point onward though, I'm fully expecting almost every Atlus release to get an expanded version not long after its original release. When Persona 6 comes out in 2024 or whenever, they'll probably have Persona 6 Platinum waiting to go two years later. New waifu, new story arc, new features, everyone's gonna love it. As for me? I couldn't really say. I'm sure it probably would be a better game than its original version. I just wish it didn't have to be this way. I say all of this because I love these games and I respect the creators' original visions first and foremost.
TL;DR: Bringing back older games is great, but do really we need to mess about with the story while doing it?

I have been very busy with work throughout the quarantine, but was able to make time in weekends for movies and games. Itching to discuss it with fellow gamers, I thought it would be cool to make a discussion thread for the games I played in the quarantine (in actuality the entire 2020).
Anyways, here are my thoughts about few games I played this year

• Carrion - It's a relatively new Indie title. In a normal scenario, you would play as the lone scientist in a alien infested underground lab, who is the last hope of humanity. Too bad (for them), You play as the alien, the predator let loose. Your goals is to consume, infest, and kill. At 3-4 hrs the game does not overstays its welcome. Recommended for the premise, played on Xbox gamepass PC.
  
• Dead Cells - Dead cells is roguelike dungeon crawler Indie Game. But dead cells is special, because Its a very well done game. The controls are precise, and the game is fun to play. The combat is simple, but plethore of weapon to master, and different enemies to beat keep it fresh. The main goal in dead cells is to reach the top of the tower. You start with nothing but a rusty sword, collect weapons and upgrades, kill, die, restart from the bottom,repeat. The game shines in this loop only, because each time you respawn the level changes, new routes, new weapons etc. This is where you strategise to try to go as far as you can with what you can collect. Highly recommended, played on gamepass PC.
  
• Death Stranding - DS is the new AAA offering from Hideo Kojima, celebrated japanese video game auteur. And the reason shows clearly. Death Stranding is a masterpiece of a game. Though highly divisive, with its fair share of shortcomings and more. Anybody who has played a Kojima game before will recognize the Metal Gear Solid dna instantly, though it has been stripped down heavily, more than bare bones if that is possible. The game is exposition heavy and cutscene galore,thought performances by heavy wieghts such as Norman Reedus, Troy Baker, Mads Mikkelson and Lea Seydoux keep it interesting enough. Surprisingly, among such stars Tommy earl Jenkins steals the show as Die-Hardman. DS is simply breathtakingly gorgeous and lifelife. The atmosphere leaps from the screen and is supported by incredible music selection and sound design. The story is classic kojima jank, disjointed and convoluted, yet thought provoking and emotional at the same time. The Gameplay is polished and engaging, explores new methods of immersion and tries to keep things fresh. The game at normal settings is not difficult, and only if the players want they shall get a challenge. The game boasts of asynchronous multiplayer, which is what makes DS special. The feeling that your actions have affected someone else's gameplay,and other helping you in time of need is unparalled. The PC port is extremely well crafted, and performs really well on even the weakest machines. The game is definitely not for everybody, so research well before purchase. If you watched the trailers and just want to experience WTF-ness, buy Control by remedy(Max payne,Max payne2) instead.
  
• Sekiro - Sekiro is the latest game from FromSoftware, and in my opinion their best yet. Fromsoft have reputation of polished gameplay and bitchiest of difficulties, and they have broken the glass ceiling here. Replacing the slow combat from Dark souls is the posture system, which is responsive and quick. Its is still at core what dark souls was but the overhaul makes it a notch above its predecessor. The game is arguably more difficult than dark souls,but the reward of mastering and conquering a boss is a feeling unparalleled. The rush of trying to defeat the boss escalating in difficulty cannot be described. The game is well balanced, and you will never feel that the game is being unfair to you. You also have a few upgrades and choice weapons in your arsenal to master. The game is beautiful,and the sound will sell the action gracefully. Coupled with visual cues, the game guides you well to learn and master its timing. It is clear as day that it deserves the GOTY title. Highly recommended, played on steam.
  
• DMC V - Few games carry the legacy of the gaming industry that Devil may cry carries. Fewer game survive the whims of their players over decades. And only special few get to make a comeback as spectacular as DMC V . The fact that the other franchise to muster this is resident evil indicates that capcom has mastered the craft of making great games repeatedly. After the shitshow of the last dmc:DMC(yes,that's whats it's called), director hideaki itsuno seems to be determined to ressurect the franchise and he has struck tha landing with this one. In age of games like last of us and god of war, I heavily miss the times when games were just that, a game. They knew it and they embraced it. Things were not realistic, and they were not grounded. DMC V preserves that feeling, and it cherishes it, celebrates it. The game is a love letter to its mythos and to its fans. It is a rush to play, and with the three heroes it offers such a variety in combat that the game feels criminally short. Dante is back and so is Nero, sporting a new look and a metal arm. With them is V, a character I prefer to keep in wraps. All three offer different playstyle and give you plenty of time to master them. The gameplay is crisp and precise, easy to learn and difficult to master. It is fun to try different combos and try to achieve the maximum score in each fight. The story is brisk, campy and anime-esque. The characters all well acted and voiced. Capcom's new engine from resident evil games ensures that DMC looks just as gorgeous and lifelike. Of all the games in the list, this is the one you should start with. Heavily recommended, played on steam. P.S. The Intro is pure fire, Go watch it NOW!
  
• Yakuza Kiwami - Yakuza is a highly succesful japanese franchise, exclusive to playstation. Recently Sega decided to remake the series and bring it to other platforms as well. Yakuza kiwami is the first entry in the remakes. It brings all the new sensibilities of latest entry to the first game. In gaming circle, yakuza is considered GTA of japan. I have yet to see a comparison any more stupid than this. Yakuza,on surface looks like GTA, but once you start playing it, is so much more than GTA could hope to be. Yakuza is an open world, third person game. But that is where the similarities end. The map is small but dense, feels lived in and the hustle-bustle of the city is portrayed well. The combat is deep, with four styles to master and upgrade. It is primarily melee though, weapons are spare and guns even more rare. The story reminds of an 80s melodramatic gangster movie, but the side quests are hilarious and engaging. The characters are over the top and hilarious. If you like anime and have passing familiarity with japanese culture, you will like the interaction between you and the NPC's. Highly recommended, played on gamepass for PC.
  

That's it for now, if you guys like this, I shall post more review in the future. Also, recommend games you have been playing that I should try.

Hello y'all. I was looking up the jrpg releases for 2020 last week and holy hell this year is a juggernaut for jrpgs. I have compiled a list with dates of release or TBA, a video link, and a brief description of what they are if I know anything about the game. Given how long this will be, I'm not going to be editing it for grammar so apologies in advance. Now, let's get on with this shall we.
January: Well, we are already mid way thru Jan and a few titles have already dropped but lets just list them out right now.

1. Super Robot War X (Jan. 10) (Switch/PC) (SRPG). Visually its not very impressive but the series has always had solid gameplay, not inferior to FE imo on that particular aspect. Its basically a gundam mashup, tho this one has lelouch and guren lagunn in it as well. Basically its what happens if all those gundams and gundam pilots from all those gundam animes got put into one game with some original characters and a original story. And somehow, the series have always made it work. I haven;t played this one yet, but from previous experience you dont really need to know the original anime of these characters and the series can be played standalone with each game as its own.

Original Gematsu JP announcement trailer from 2 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlW-hAwJ9ZE
2) Atelier Dust Trilogy (PC/Switch/PS4). So this one doesn't require much explanation. It's atelier dusk. It's already out I believe. Some people would argue that it is the best or second best trilogy of the series. Cute characters doing cute stuff. Pretty intense time/resource simulator if you are trying to go above and beyond but if you just want to do as much as you need/want and pass the game then it can be a casual but enjoyable experience. Light hearted story as all ateliers are mostly (cough cough iris), tho this trilogy does have a slightly gloomier setting/story. Nice place to start if you are new to the series.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9hWacAkAAA
3) Orangeblood (PC) (Jan.14). So this is a game that almost no one has heard about lol. Seems like a japanese INDIE. Retro styled turn base. Seems really interesting. I've tried looking up the devs grayfax software but I haven't really found anything substantial. It seems like this might actually be a one man job or at least that of a very small team tho I can't be sure.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNhaaJgPCD8
4) Ephemeral Tale (Jan. 14) (EARLY ACCESS). Honestly, I know nothing about this one. Its a retro style turn base game for sure, but it's just entered early access so who knows how it will turn out.
Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1204320/Ephemeral_Tale/
5) Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls (PC) (Jan 15). This is a straight up dungeon crawler, the classic kind. Nothing groundbreaking but if you want a classic styled relatively difficult dungeon crawler this may be for you. Developed by Acquire and localized by Xseed. Funny enough, gamespot had a review which said that this game lacked an automap feature. They were wrong lol. That being said, it needs to be unlocked first. The process can require some effort so I can see how they may have missed it if they were just rushing thru it for a review. Thus, some pen and paper may be necessary. Like I said, this is of that old school design choice. Just one word of advice, make sure you pay attention where you are going, its super easy to get turned around in this game.
Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5xKt_M8zGQ
6) The Alliance Alive HD Remaster (PC) (Jan 16). This is honestly a good game. It started out as a 3ds title and it definitely shows in the visuals. The super oversimplified version of the story is, the world is fucked, lets try and fix it. I know, I know, but honestly its a good story, with good characters. The battle system is interesting. Rather than focusing on getting levels for the characters, you get levels for your skills, and some skills are tied to your weapon usage. There's other stuff too like awakening talents. You basically have to do character building manually. It can be a bit jarring at first and the game can get difficult in the 2nd half but if you put in the time to learn the system there can be a lot of fun to be had.
Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSx2nEKCrQE
7) Tokyo Mirage Session FE Encore. (Switch) (Jan 17). I don't know much about this game except its a FE x SMT with a slice of persona? Honestly, you are better off asking some other redditor than me, but I do plan on getting it cause from what I've been told the gameplay is actually good and the story is satisfactory.
8) Utwarerumono Trilogy (Jan 23 and TBA) (PC): This is a very, very dialogue heavy series. Did I mention it was very dialogue heavy? Its basically a visual novel, but every chapter ends on a srpg combat map. There's also free battles. The battles aren't really that hard, and you can always grind it out on the free maps but my experience is that in the hard maps you can definitely strategize it. It's definitely a story focused, story first type of game. It has a interconnected story, politics, romance, war, some really interesting mix of fantasy and a little bit of scifi. Utawarerumono, mask of deception, and mask of truth will be ported to PC on Jan. 23, tho they have already been available in the west on ps4 for a couple of years. the two games are direct sequels of each other. Deception moves at a fairly slow pace, with a lot more slice of life moments than truth. It definitely has its high pace moments, but for the most part the game establishes the characters and the empire which the game takes place in. Truth, the sequel, builds off the set up from the first game, and goes full force. It also has more combat maps than deception, if memory serves. Is it anime as fuck, hell yeah. Is it epic as hell if you like anime and are okay with a slow paced, slice of life set up? hell yeah. Now, this a trilogy, and the two mask games are actually the 2nd and 3rd games. The first game will be releasing in the west for the first time in a remake called the Utawarerumono: Prelude to the fallen. It has a mid 2000 anime adaptation as well, if anyone's interested. This will be released for ps4 and pc. The release date is TBA but it's likely to be in early to mid 2020. There is also a full fan made eng patch for the original on pc. Prelude to the fallen happens in a different kingdom, under a different protagonist. But in game timeline wise it is contemporary to the mask games, and there is a direct relation to them. You can play the two mask w/o doing to prelude, there's no issue with that if you just want the two mask game's MC's story. Despite the amount of cute girls in the game its actually not a harem lol. You have a main female interest, and other female characters get matched off with with other male characters. Whether that's good or bad will depend on your tastes lol. Personally, I love the chemistry in the relationships whether they be friends or lovers.
Mask of Deception: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tv8qY9wAI8
9) Arc of Alchemist (Jan 30) (PS4/Switch). I don't know how I feel about this game. It sounds like it could be interesting, but that gameplay has me hesitant. Its a post apocalyptic setting, action jrpg. The western release is a expanded version with a bunch of new playable characters, a better UI, and more stuff in your base camp. I think those are there to help you get exp faster? Its not exactly something I'm hyped about but who knows, it might have a unique charm that you have to play to feel for certain people. I'm keeping my eyes on it, maybe during a sale.
Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auFS1zz1bWQ
Well, that's it for January. Now, the next few months don't have a lot of confirmed releases, so we'll get thru them pretty quickly. After that tho, we will get to the TBA category, which is going to be a LOT of titles. Some of them are more than likely to release in 2020, some are mere rumors, and others, nothing more than a glimmer of hope (cough cough SMT V), but I've included them regardless.
February

1. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics (Feb 4th) (PS4/Xbox One/Switch/PC). Some of you might remember this as that random srpg reveal in e3 2019. Well, we got a release date. The jury is still out on this one. It could be a solid srpg or it could just be a cheap imitation of a storied genre. I didn't find much detail on it overall.

E3 2019 trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx48r-xqVg4
2) Yakuza Remastered Collection (Feb 11) (PS4). Yes, I know. Me putting this here is asking for a jrpg genre debate once more. That being said, I'm trying to be inclusive as possible and I've seen people on this thread arguing that yakuza series are all jrpgs. This brings yakuza 3-5 remastered to the ps4, with all the cut content that were not available for the original ps3 releases in the west. They are not full remakes tho, so the games definitely show their age compared to the kiwami stuff.
Yakuza: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6lT28S9zM8&t=9s
3) Kingdom hearts 3 DLC (Jan for ps4 and feb for xbox). Well, here we are again. From what i've read its more of a full expansion than a dlc. 13 bosses, a full story that occurs sometime before the final battle? extra episodes and some UI adjustments? also more difficulty mods? and new playable characters. Apparently kairi will be playable at least.
March

1. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (Switch) (March 6). Its pokemon.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh9lNsUB4yY
2) Langrisser I & II (ps4/switch/pc). (March 10). Oh I'm hyped for this. I think this will be the first time langrisser 1 is getting a western release too. There was a fan patch attempt that never fully materialized. You can switch between the older and new artstyle.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahzjI9NeLTc
3) Nioh 2 (ps4) (March 14). It's Nioh. With character creation, and a few more gameplay additions. There was a demo. Its not open anymore but here's some footage.
demo clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A13OHXzK38
4) Fairy Tail (PC/PS4/Switch) (March 19-20). Honestly, for an anime game, this looks like it has actual effort put into it. It actually looks good. Shudders in tokyo ghoul tie in game, oh the horror. Any way, it seems to start at around the time skip in the original story, and has a few arcs from the anime plus an original story.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9TpEohmt7E
5) Persona 5 royale (March 31). Self explanatory.
April

1. FF7 remake - Self explanatory
2. Trials of Mana (PC/PS4/Switch) (April 24) - i think this is also another case of an old game being localized for the first time. I quite like what i saw from the trailer. Seems like a good action jrpg.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLjUkBlmKNs
May

1. Sword Art Online: Alicilization lycoris (May 22) (ps4/xbox one/switch/pc): All your waifus belong to me - kirito 2020. But honestly, again, the trailer actually looks kinda good. I am so on the fence for this. I didnt like hollow delux and fatal bullet but i had some mindless fun with holy song or whatever that one's called. I'm going to wait for a deep, deep steam sale, a few years from now.

trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJR_FJk1twc
TBA - I'm just going to do a list here, definitely missed some titles, but the major projects in dev should be on here.
Phantasy star online 2, Cold steel 3 switch and likely pc port, Cold steel 4 (ha i wish lol), SMT V (one should not lose hope after all), Sakura Wars, Azure lane Crosswave, rune factory 4 special, crystal chronicles remaster, banner of the maid, bravely default II, Cris Tales, CrossCode port to the consoles, Digimon Survive, Genshin Impact (not sure if this counts as a jrpg), is it wrong to pick up a girl in a dungeon - infinite combate, some more KH and yakuza ports to the xbone, tales of arise, tales of crestoria (mobile), xenoblade chronicle definitive edition, gran blue fantasy relink, rune factory 5, Unsung story (could be a sleeper hit or a mess, started by the creator of ff tactics and vagrant story, but it seemed to have had development issues), edge of eternity (an indie in early access but has constant updates and improves and have decent to good reviews in their later builds).
Edit: Utawarerumono Prelude to the fallen is for PS4, PC and vita, not yet ps5
Edit: Yakuza 7 TBA

Starts with a reveal of a 2.5d remake of the orignal Kid Icarus in the style of Kid Icarus uprising.
Scheduled for February 16th 2021
Xenoblade Chronicles DE DLC coming November 3rd 2020
Trailer for SMT 3 Remaster showing gameplay still scheduled for 2021.
ClubHouse 51 Worldwide classics DLC 1/3 Comes with 12 more games, launching that day.
DragonQuest 10 Western Port coming December 1st 2020.
Sakura Wars comes to Nintendo switch. Coming December 12th 2020
Smash Bros Fighter #7 will be from the company Sega will have to wait until october to find out who it is.Due to Covid-19
GB-GBA Games Coming to NSO 15 titles at launch Coming September 19th 2020
Paper mario origami king multiplayer coming as a free update later that day.
Alex Legends for Nintendo Switch coming later that day.
Overwatch 2 with a little bit of [Early] gameplay coming early 2021.
Persona 4 Golden for Nintendo switch Releases later that day.
Yakuza Kiwami Releasing January 22nd 2021
Bayonetta 3 Teaser, coming late 2021
Sizzle reel showing
Pikmin 3 deluxe,Crash bandicoot 4, Rouge Company, Smt 5, Skate Bird, Plants Vs Zombies Battle for NeighborVille, Need for Speed Rivals, No more heros 3.
Final announcement: Mario 35th anniversary
Mario 64. Mario Sunshine, and Mario Galaxy 1, and 2 all in one collection called Super mario Allstars 35th 3d Anniversary Collection coming December 2nd 2020.
And Mario 3d world and 3d land both coming out December 2nd 2020
That's all the news I have today goodbye!

Hi there,
When I see gameplay footage of Yakuza games it seems perfect for me, I love mini games and I enjoy 2D beat em ups quite a lot.
Yakuza Kiwami was free on PSN some time ago and I decide to try it. I ended up playing for just a few hours, hating following the story, felt like I was dragging through a soap opera.
But hey, that's not the game's fault, it's just not for me! It was free anyway, so no hurt feelings :)
Fast forward to today and Yakuza Zero is 75% on Steam, a game that is already somewhat affordable. I'm still tempted to play all those mini games that I see on trailers to be honest.
So here's my question: Can I play the game skipping cutscenes and just "have fun" around the city? Is it a bad idea? I basically want to play it as my AAA 3D WarioWare game :D
P.S.: Please, don't take it the wrong way, I'm not criticizing the game!

PC Gaming E3 June 11th, 2018
Satisfactory

• By Coffee Stain Studios
• Gameplay trailer shown
• First person sci-fi factory building game
  • Gather resources from the world to build a self-sustaining factory on an alien planet
• Play as an engineer sent form Earth to an alien planet
• Use vehicles to explore for further resources
• Factories will grow to be enormous
• Singleplayer or co-op
• Closed alpha in the coming months (sing up now)

Neo Cab

• Gameplay trailer shown
• Play as a cab driver in the future
• Dialogue options with your various passengers

Mavericks Proving Grounds

• By Automaton Games
• Battle royale with 1,000 players
• Trailer shown
• More realistic setting (i.e. more like PUBG than Fortnite)
• First person
• Sign up for closed beta
• Made on Cryengine
• Persistent social hub in the world called The Capital (more of a full world than just a map)

The Forgotten City

• Gameplay trailer
• First person puzzle exploration game to solve a mystery of what is corrupting the city
• A re-imagining of the mod
• Coming 2019

Star Control Origins

• Trailer shown
• Sci-fi
• Explore thousands of planets that you can land on
• Focus on discovery and exploration using your spaceship
• Open universe action RPG
• A full story
• Ship to ship combat
• Fully open, simulated universe
• Create your own ships, planets, or adventures with mods
• Multiplayer Fleet Battles mode
  • Ship combat PvP
• Preorder and play the beta today
• September 20th release

The Hunt Showdown

• New trailer
• New weapons
  • Crossbow, throwing knives, handheld crossbow, sticky bombs

Archangel: Hellfire

• Multiplayer, off-rails mech combat
• 4 maps, 6 mechs, 13 weapons
• July 17th release (Early Access out already)
• Trailer
  • Destructible maps
  • Free roaming PvP
  • TDM

The Sinking City

• Third person, Lovecraftian open world action mystery game
• Gameplay demo shown in background
• Investigations are the focus of the game
  • No handholding, no objectives or markers
• Takes place in fictional Massachusetts city
• Sanity mechanic
  • Choices or seeing disturbing things will affect the player’s character’s sanity
  • Cause hallucinations, disturbing sounds, etc.
• Different monsters that the player must defend themselves from using weapons (scarce ammo), traps, etc.
  • Reiterated that investigations are still the core of the game, not combat

Warframe

• Trailer for The Sacrifice (story expansion)
  • Coming this week on PC
• Umbra Warframe being added
• Trailer for Tenno Live 2018 (Warframe convention)
  • July 7th
  • Already sold out, will be streamed on Twitch

Sega Games coming to PC (shown in compilation video)

• Shenmue I and II
• Shining Resonance Refrain
• Yakuza Kiwami
• Valkyria Chronicles 4
• Yakuza Zero
  • Releasing this August

Killing Floor 2

• 4 major updates this year
  • First came in March
  • Summer sideshow coming back
  • Weapons upgrade system
• Trailer for The Summer Sideshow Treacherous Skies
  • Steampunk style
  • New map is a steampunk airship
  • New robot enemies
  • New guns
  • New character (Ms. Foster)
  • Coming tomorrow with a free weekend coming up

Tripwire stepping into publishing

• Publishing Road Redemption

Man Eater

• Made by creator of the original Killing Floor mod
• Made by Blindisde and Tripwire
• Trailer shown
• Play as a shark
• Open world action RPG where you play as a shark who hunts humans
• Full single player campaign

Untitled Publisher (that is actually their name)

• Bravery Network Online
  • Trailer shown
  • Turn based fighting game
  • Cartoon art style
  • 2019 release
• Morningstar
  • Trailer shown
  • First person farming game with some sort of dark twist
• Overwhelm
  • Trailer shown
  • 2-D platformer shooter
  • Art style reminiscent of Downwell
  • Available now

Jurassic World Evolution

• Out tomorrow (June 12th)
• New trailer
• Jurassic Park building/management game

Stormland

• Made by Insomniac Games and Occulus Studios
• Trailer (same one that was released last week)
• First person shooter open world VR game
  • Play as an android
  • Ability to fly and climb
• Focus on fluid movement
• World is ever changing
  • Entity called the Tempest rearranges the world every week

Night Call

• Trailer
• Noir game set in Paris
• Play as a taxi driver who gets involved in a world of Crime
• Black and white drawn art style

Sable

• Open world narrative focused exploration game
  • Think Journey
• Trailer
• Unique shaded art style
• Pre-alpha gameplay shown

Star Citizen

• New trailer
• Alpha 3.2 coming soon

Acer came on stage to talk about their new monitors
Genesis Alpha One

• Randomly generated universe
• Build your ship out
• Explore planets in first person
• Splice alien DNA with your crew
• Fight off alien attacks
• September 4th

Don’t Starve Hamlet

• Trailer
• Looks like more Don’t Starve
• Coming this December

Just Cause 4

• New trailer showing off the new Apex Engine
  • HDR, Interactive weather, improved draw distances and lighting, Physics based aerodynamics, improved destruction systems
• Reworked combat model
  • New weapons, AI, guns, etc.
• Improved grapple system
  • Grapple is now customizable

Overkill’s The Walking Dead

• Set in Washington DC
• New gameplay trailer
• 4-player co-op shooter
• November 6th release

Telltale’s The Walking Dead: The Final Season

• Pre-release footage shown in background
• Unscripted combat being added
• Story starts after the time jump from the comics
• August 14th release

Noita

• Action roguelike where you play as a wizard
• Pixel art, but every pixel is physically simulated
  • Allows for mechanic interactions and full destruction

Two Point Hospital

• Gameplay shown in background
• Hospital building game
  • Comedic tone (certain diseases include Turtle Head)
• Cure patients
• Improve you doctors and nurses
• Investigate cures
• Releases this Fall

Realm Royale

• Battle Royale game with fantasy RPG elements
  • Different fantasy classes with different abilities
  • Forges can be used to craft gear, but will show the forge as being lit up, making it a target
• Its been out for a bit (Free to Play) (Currently in Alpha)

Ooblets

• New trailer
• Farming and building game where you also collect Pokemon style creatures
  • Inspired by Pokemon, Harvest Moon, and Animal crossing

Anno 1800

• Trailer
• RTS
• Looks like more Anno
• City building, economy, and naval warfare

Rapture Rejects

• Top down, cartoony battle royale by TinyBuild
• Trailer
• Cyanide and Happiness art style
• Sign up now for the alpha

Hitman 2

• New trailer
  • Shows mission set in Miami
• November 13th release
• Even bigger crowds than last game
  • Player can hide in crowd to evade pursuers
• Sniper briefcase is back and can hold more than just your sniper rifle now
• Elusive targets (limited time events) coming back
• Preorder for access to co-op sniper mode

Overall: A fun little conference that was completely free from bloated PR talks and only focused on games (except for the brief segment from Acer). Both of the hosts were great and took any slip ups in stride. Only complaint really is how long it was. And since it's the PC Gaming show, there aren't any massive title reveals, but that's to be expected.
Favorite Moments

• Good to hear more about The Sinking City. I really want a new Lovecraftian game.
• Man Eater; You play as a shark who eats people and its an open world RPG. It's crazy enough that it might work.
• Genesis Alpha One sounds really awesome. Definitely on my radar.
• Two Point Hospital looks like a fun twist on the building/management genre. Plus, the host perfectly handled the mic not working situation.
• Rapture Rejects; I'm a sucker for Cyanide and Happiness. The really funny trailer grabbed me.

Let me know if anything is missing/wrong and I will fix it.
Other Conference Breakdowns
EA
Microsoft (Xbox)
Bethesda
Square Enix
Ubisoft
Sony (Playstation)
Nintendo

Game Information

Game Title: Yakuza Kiwami 2
Platforms: PlayStation 4
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5hYkTD-2as
Publishers: Sega
Review Aggregator:
OpenCritic - 89

Reviews

COGconnected - Patrick Anderson - 85 / 100

Quote not yet available

Destructoid - Peter Glagowski - 7.5 / 10.0

For my money, it is the best way to experience this particular story and improves enough of the game to make for a great time sink. Maybe certain aspects could have been tweaked to be more faithful to the source material, but the worst thing that could happen is you end up wanting to play the original to see the changes firsthand. That isn't such a terrible outcome.

Digitally Downloaded - Matt Sainsbury - 5 / 5 stars

Quote not yet available

DualShockers - Giuseppe Nelva - 9.5 / 10.0

While Yakuza Kiwami 2 isn't the best point of entry in the Yakuza series compared to Zero or Kiwami due to being a sequel (even if it comes with an extensive recap to catch you up on the story so far), it's a masterpiece that no fan of Japanese games should miss. Even those who typically tend to prefer Western titles might very well discover in the remake of Yakuza 2 a great way to broaden their gaming horizon.

Eurogamer - Malindy Hetfeld - No Recommendation

Yakuza continues its good run with a fine - if a little lumpy - retread of a modern classic.

Game Informer - Javy Gwaltney - 9 / 10.0

Kiwami 2 is more than a great remake: it's the best this strange, wonderful series has to offer and it shouldn't be missed by fans of action or RPG titles

Game Revolution - Jason Faulkner - 5 / 5 stars

Quote not yet available

Gameblog - Romain Mahut - French - 8 / 10

Yakuza Kiwami 2 is clearly the update Yakuza 2 deserved. The very talented people over at Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios recreated the riveting Yakuza 2 plot while adding new side quests and activities. Even if a couple of elements from the original game are now missing, Kiwami 2 has more than enough content to keep players glued to their scree to their screens. It must also be noted that the Dragon Engine looks and runs better than it did in Yakuza 6. All in all, Kiwami 2 another great Yakuza game that fans of the series should not miss.

GameSkinny - ElConquistadork - 9 / 10 stars

Whether you're new to the series or just want to see what goofy problems you can get into this time, Yakuza Kiwami 2 is another brilliant entry into the franchise.

GameSpew - Richard Seagrave - 10 / 10.0

Honestly, Yakuza Kiwami 2 is the best Yakuza game to date. Its story is gripping and has a brilliant pace, its combat is tighter and more engaging, and there's such a varied range of sub-stories and side activities to absorb yourself in that it offers great longevity

Gaming Gamma - Gammalad - 9.3 / 10.0

Yakuza Kiwami 2 has easily become one of my favorite games in the Yakuza series. From the action packed story, to the overabundance of side content provided, to the ability to play as Majima again, I honestly have a game that keeps me wanting to come back for more and more, and never want to put the controller down.

GamingBolt - Pramath - 9 / 10.0

Of the four Yakuza releases in the last year and a half, Yakuza Kiwami 2 truly stands as the best of them all, and is the definitive Yakuza experience.

GamingTrend - Nathan Anstadt - 85 / 100

A story of loyalty and honor, it is peerless in the crime fiction genre. The gameplay is so varied and exhaustive even if you tend to simply solve all your problems with your fists.There are some kinks to work out about how it deals with its more lascivious content, but what this game does well, it does so well that all I want to do is get right back in to see what I missed.

GaminGuardian - Alberto Morales Palencia - Spanish - 9 / 10.0

Yakuza Kiwami 2 has been a pleasant surprise for me. We have a good story of intrigues among families of yakuzas to rise to power, with charismatic characters, lots of humor and action, as well as a lot of mini-games and side quests. In case it was not enough, audiovisually fulfills in a remarkable way.

Hobby Consolas - David Martinez - Spanish - 91 / 100

Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a great adventure, full of details, minigames and wonderful characters, and it gets a new Goro Majima campaign for this PS4 remaster. Combat system is not as deep as in the first Kiwami, but still, it is one of the best entries in the franchise.

IGN Italy - Alessandra Borgonovo - Italian - 9 / 10.0

Yakuza Kiwami 2 continues to stick to the franchise's strengths, making Kiryu's world deeper.

Just Push Start - Unknown - 4 / 5.0

Yakuza Kiwami 2 might not be perfect but it's a fantastic example of why some things should be remastered. Not only does it perform better than it's PlayStation 2 counterpart, it looks good enough to be within this generation's standards. Add in a fantastic story about honor, family and doing what's right and it's a solid choice for fans of open-worlds. Some sticklers might be put off by some minor issues and newcomers should really consider playing Yakuza Kiwami, despite there being a recap, first, but for everyone else it's a fantastic game worth (re)experiencing.

PlayStation LifeStyle - Paulmichael Contreras - 9 / 10.0

Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a faithful return to a PS2 classic. Whether it's taking in the town, interacting with the people, or running into random restaurants, there's always plenty of things to stay busy doing when not playing the main campaign. Combat still feels a bit stiff, but this should be manageable and overcome with ample inventory room for health items at any rate. Yakuza Kiwami 2 is an easy purchase for anyone who has even a passing interest in the Yakuza series.

PlayStation Universe - John-Paul Jones - 9 / 10.0

An assuredly robust and spectacular remake of the PS2 original, Yakuza Kiwami 2 learns from the lessons of Yakuza 6 to create one of the best entries in the franchise to date.

Push Square - Robert Ramsey - 8 / 10

Adding to a growing list of great PS4 remakes, Yakuza: Kiwami 2 is up there with the best games in SEGA's series. While PS2-era design does rear its ugly head now and again, another brilliantly dramatic story steals the spotlight. Throw in some superb optional content, and you've got a prime Yakuza package that's ultimately very difficult to fault.

Spaziogames - Gianluca Arena - Italian - 8.5 / 10.0

Graphically-wise, Yakuza Kiwami 2 is the best in the franchise so far, but it's not only the Dragon Engine that shines: an array of mini-games, an amazing campaign and improved combat system are the stars of the show.

TechRaptor - Georgina Young - 9 / 10.0

As a remake of a sequel, it's no surprise that Yakuza Kiwami 2 has a lot more on offer than the first title. However, the choice to stick with Yakuza 6's convoluted stats system is an unfortunate blip in what could have been an ideal remake.

VGProfessional - Mazen Abdallah - 8.1 / 10.0

Yakuza Kiwami 2 totally revitalizes an underrated gaming classic and applies the lessons Sega learned throughout the series’ evolution. It’s still unique and even weird at times, and it can still be a little rough around the edges, but few series manage to take you deep into a criminal underworld and tell such compelling stories.

Wccftech - Kai Powell - 9.1 / 10.0

A new antagonist and rippling implications of gang warfare once again drag Kazuma Kiryu back into the action. Between exploring Kamurocho and Sotenbori, ultimately players are going to find out that there's only room for one Dragon in Yakuza Kiwami 2

We Got This Covered - Todd Rigney - 4.5 / 5 stars

Yakuza Kiwami 2 offers the best Yakuza experience money can currently buy, not to mention a story that wouldn't seem out of place in an old Kinji Fukasaku flick.

WellPlayed - Kieron Verbrugge - 8.5 / 10.0

What better way to remake one of the earliest games in a series than by smashing its various pieces together with those of the newest entry? The Yakuza franchise truly is the gift that keeps on giving

Otwieramy majową edycję tematu (około)growego, gdzie zachęcamy do dzielenia się Waszymi wrażeniami z ostatnio (bądź i nie ostatnio) ogranymi grami. Pogoda dość w kratkę w ten majówkowy weekend, kto został w domu i cieszył się grą? Kto zagrał planszowo ze znajomymi?
W wątku oczywiście zapraszam również do rozmów na temat Gier Wyobraźni / RPG (DnD, Warhammer etc), Gier Bitewnych (Warhammer, 40k, Warmachine), Karcianek (MTG), Planszówek - oraz wszystkiego podobnego co umila Wam spędzanie wolnego czasu.
Kilka wybranych zwiastunów, bądź też innych materiałów reklamowych:
Otwieramy Kwietniową edycję tematu (około)growego, gdzie zachęcamy do dzielenia się Waszymi wrażeniami z ostatnio (bądź i nie ostatnio) ogranymi grami.
W wątku oczywiście zapraszam również do rozmów na temat Gier Wyobraźni / RPG (DnD, Warhammer etc), Gier Bitewnych (Warhammer, 40k, Warmachine), Karcianek (MTG), Planszówek - oraz wszystkiego podobnego co umila Wam spędzanie wolnego czasu.
Kilka wybranych zwiastunów, bądź też innych materiałów reklamowych:
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order — Official Reveal Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GLbwkfhYZk
Mortal Kombat 11 - Official Launch Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQFZC6dzauM
Days Gone | Gameplay Launch Trailer | PS4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRqk7ukVEIw
ANNO 1800 - Official Launch Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XI_RcfWLCI
Yakuza Kiwami 2 PC Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULDccp-vKhs

Co tam u Was w co graliście ostatnio, nowego bądź nie, podzielcie się opinią!

We're getting closer and closer to the end of the year. One of my favorite parts of my year in gaming is to just look back on all of the great games (and the not so great ones) I've played since January. My "Year in Review" post next month should be fairly long, should you be interested in reading those kinds of posts. Here is my post for the end of 2018. One of the "Awards" I give out is the "Boss Fight of the Year" Award. Last year, the winning boss fight was in God of War between Kratos and Baldur. The fights between the two were brutal, epic and actually had me at the edge of my seat. The presentation and the set pieces were just superb. Unlike any boss fight I've encountered, though definitely not the "best one" from a gameplay perspective. As I've just mentioned, I was more impressed by the cinematics.
This year's potential winner (still got a few games I'm planning to finish before the end of the year) will win for non-gameplay reasons as well and I encountered it in one of the games I've beaten this month. Keep reading to find out which one it is. :)
----------
Games I've Quit/Abandoned - 4

• Crash Bandicoot
• Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
• Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
• Homefront: The Revolution

Disclaimer: I've never played the Crash Bandicoot games back in the day. I went into the game with very little expectations to actually be blown away or find it to be endearing or anything. Ultimately, I felt bored while playing the first one. Looks like 2 and 3 are more of the same more or less, so I'm good. I'll try the Spyro trilogy some time soon, let's see how that will work out.
Homefront: The Revolution started off really well, like reaaaally well. Check out a video for the first 5-10 minutes or so, I thought the presentation and the introduction to the game were both excellent. Even the first couple hours of playing this game were fun. Didn't expect that since I've heard so many bad things about the game. Then it hit me. This is it. This is ALL the game has to offer. You just do it over and over and over again. And it's not the gameplay loop of the good kind. The checkpoint system also is terrible and your companions just WON'T GET OUT OF YOUR DAMN WAY! They just block the door and you have no way of moving past them. The game felt really broken in same areas but I guess you could still have your fun with it, if you're into that gameplay loop. I love the Far Cry games, which I felt this game copied in a lot of aspects (gameplay loop, map opens up as you free communication towers), but those I guess had better and more mission variety and feel better to play. Though the idea of North Korea being world leaders is kind of cringe worthy, it still presented a unique setting, just a shame that this sucked gameplay wise.
----------
Games I’ve Added – 11

• 11-11: Memories Retold
• Crash Bandicoot
• Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
• Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
• Nioh
• Pokémon Sword
• Ruiner
• Spyro The Dragon
• Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage
• Spyro: Year of the Dragon
• The Outer Worlds

11-11: Memories Retold, Spyro Reignited Trilogy and Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy all were in last month's Humble Monthly. Nioh and Ruiner were both freebies by way of PS Plus and Epic respectively. My brother actually wanted to try out Pokémon Sword (first time both of us ever play a game in the series), even though I personally would have been fine not owning it. Still, he got it, so I chipped in. I also subscribed to the Xbox Game Pass for PC for 1 € and am using that to play The Outer Worlds. Amazing game, definitely recommend it everyone, especially Fallout fans. It's basically the same, only under a new IP and with the amazing writing skills of Obsidian.
----------
Games I've Beaten - 4

Celeste

Owned Since: March 5th, 2019
Beaten: October 21st
Platform: PC
Playtime: 7 hours
Celeste is one of the most popular games that have been released in 2018 and after finishing my playthrough, I can definitely see where all the praise is coming from. You play Madeline, a girl who is determined to climb Celeste Mountain. Along her journey, she meets new characters like Theo, who is also climbing the mountain, an elderly woman who lives there and at first glance, seems to have gone insane, a hotel manager, who definitely has gone insane and Madeline's own reflection, so Madeline has also gone insane?!
And so you begin the climb, which means you basically traverse a bunch of areas with more and more difficult platforming sections in an 8-bit art style. The controls are pretty simple. You can jump, dash and climb. The game does such a great job of finding so many different ways to challenge the player and having each area have a different theme, with different puzzles, enemies and challenges. SPOILER: I love, how in the final chapter, all of these puzzles are combined and you're meant to show the progress you've made with dealing with these areas.
And the game is tough, for sure. Though, and I don't say this often, the difficulty level is actually perfect. If you suck at video games, you will have a harder time than me obviously, though I'm nowhere near great, but in my humble opinion, you will master the game eventually. It's not like Dark Souls, where it's going to take you dozens of hours. The game took me 7 hours and it should not take you more than 10 to go through the A-side. (Then there is the B-side, which is supposedly even harder). I found that every time where I was like "this is impossible", I'd get past the level about 5 minutes later. You don't have to think about 100 different moves you can do. As I mentioned, you can only dash, jump and climb. Combine those moves and find your way through the area and trust me, after giving it a bit of time and thought, you will persevere.
Throughout your journey through the mountain, you will have a lot of conversations with Theo, and find about that he is climbing the mountain to take cool photos for his Instagram page. The elderly woman laughes at your determination to climb the mountain and so does your own reflection and with that, the game starts to delve deeper into the character of Madeline, her own motivations, her insecurities, her determination being tested by tougher and tougher challenges, not just in the way of platforming but also in the way of being comfortable with the uncomfortable, with the fact that she is on this mountain, essentially alone and is being doubted by the elderly woman and most importantly, by herself. I thought the whole journey taught something that we could all learn a thing or two about from, or at least I did. Help others in tough situations, ask for help from others, if you're in a tough situation and just challenge yourself, constantly.
And yeah, the soundtrack is awesome. Definitely recommend the game to everyone!
Rating: 9/10

Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle

Owned Since: March 11th, 2019
Beaten: November 4th
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Playtime: 20 hours
I never would have expected to encounter my favorite boss fight of the year in this game out of all the ones I've played. I don't think even the ones out of you who have beaten this game know which one I'm talking about because there was this specific thing that I loved about it. The boss is called "Phantom" and is, just like all boss fights in the game, a mix of a rabbid and some kind of object. This one has been mixed with a phonograph, so it turned into an opera singer. Apart from the human girl from the intro of the game (literally the first scene), as far as I remember, the Phantom is the only other character who actually talks. His presentation basically turns into this EPIC roast of Mario and I just found it hilarious. It was so unexpected because it was a scene unlike any other in this game and to see this rabbid to just completely obliterate Mario verbally was easily the funniest thing I've experienced in a game this year. "You think YOURS is a real mustache?" That's how it starts and it just gets better from there. Enjoy for yourselves. That's really I got to say really. I loved the game up to that point, loved it after that boss fight and can wholeheartedly recommend it to Switch owners.
Rating: 8/10

Mark of the Ninja

Owned Since: March 5th, 2019
"Beaten": November 6th
Platform: PC
Playtime: About 8 hours
I suck at stealth games. I guess I'm not in the minority, when I describe this situation: The level starts. You are determined. "This is the level that I will beat undetected." A noble goal. You enter the first room. Two guards are standing right under a chandelier. You throw a dart precisely at that chandelier and it comes down crashing on top of them. Perfect. Another guard arrives at the scene to investigate what happened to his two colleagues. He leans over to check on them. "Yep, they're dead", he proclaims. Just as he wants to alert his fellow guards who are still standing, you grab him from behind and slice him up with your katana. "I'm too good at this.", you say to yourself inside your head, your glasses glaring as you creepily smirk. Oh shit, another guard just saw me. Let me climb this ledge. Oh shit, I misclicked. He saw me. Ah fuck this, let me just kill everyone...
You start the next level. "This is the level that I will beat undetected." Yeah alright, just keep telling yourself that.
So yeah, long story short, I suck. BUT! It doesn't detract from my enjoyment of stealth games. I love the Dishonored series for example. There is, of course, more to stealth games than just hiding. I thought the cartoony art style of this game worked for me overall. It's not my favorite one but I guess it gave this game a different vibe and feel. The stealth elements were pretty basic mostly. You can hide behind objects. Kill guards from behind. Throw smoke bombs, so that the enemy can't see you. Use objects in the environment - this was cool actually, especially since you didn't have every level filled with dozens of chandeliers, so every time you had the opportunity to drop one on top of enemies it felt pretty satisfying. You can sneak through vents. And so on and so forth. They didn't really break new ground here in terms of new stealth mechanics but the mechanics they did use worked well here. All features were pretty simple in their use in my opinion and yet the game still offered enough of a challenge through clever placement of enemies within the levels, laser beams that you need to either turn off or block temporarily by throwing a smoke bomb and a few puzzles here and there that never were too difficult to solve but made you think just a little bit.
What I didn't like, however, was the upgrade system. It felt so unnecessary, because just about every useful item was given to you for free, so there was almost no point in buying different ones I felt like, especially since you can carry only two next to your darts. The whole upgrade system didn't really make me feel satisfied or make me feel like I'm progressing as a ninja, though some of the character upgrades (lowering noise levels, being able to kill from above) were useful overall. Still, it never felt like my character improved substantially and I never really had that feeling of looking forward to getting to that upgrade screen.
Also, the story was very average for a ninja/assassin game and one that was very forgettable, at least to me. Doubt that I will remember much of it come November 2020.
And again, I suck at stealth games. I also haven't played a ton of them, so genre veterans might feel different about this game and its mechanics, they might have similar feelings on it. I do recommend you to check it for yourselves however, should you already own the game. If not, it's available for very cheap a lot, so if you're looking for a stealth game, this is a pretty good option in my opinion.
Rating: 7/10

A Way Out

Owned Since: October 22nd, 2019
Beaten: November 23rd
Platform: Playstation 4
Playtime: About 6 hours
[This will be a long review of the game. I hope it explains what my issue with Josef Fares' games is and my problem with A Way Out in particular]
A Way Out is the second game by Hazelight Studios after Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (2013) and was directed by Josef Fares, probably known to most of you thanks to his appearance at the 2017 Game Awards that went viral. In A Way Out, you follow the story of Vincent Moretti and Leo Caruso. The former has just been incarcerated at the start of the game and during the first part of the story, both plan on escaping prison. The game can be played in local coop, with you and your friend each controlling one of the protagonists. I've played it with my brother.
A story with big potential and even bigger plotholes
Leo wants to escape to kill the guy that is responsible for his imprisonment in the first place. Leo and his partner, Harvey, acquire a diamond in a drug deal. While money is being exchanged, Harvey shoots the dealer, takes the diamond and drives off without Leo, who is left behind and caught by police. Vincent also has a grudge against Harvey, which is why he wants to help Leo with his escape plans.
Both players have to work together (if you play in coop) to escape the prison and make their way through a dangerous journey to exercise revenge on a man who has ruined both protagonist's lives.
This all sounds great. You have great potential for gameplay, as both players are dependent on each other throughout the game and can bond in the process. The story has a nice revenge angle and those always offer a lot of potential for many epic moments. But the bad writing, poorly designed gameplay (especially the puzzles, bot more on that later) and two characters who don't seem to have good chemistry all adds up to ultimately disappoint.
There were countless times where I was left shaking my head while playing the game. For example, after you start executing your breakout plan, there is a moment where Leo and Vincent have to climb a shaft but don't have a ladder to do so. So they lean on each others backs and put their feet against the wall to climb their way up. After this very exhausting act, they reach the top of the shaft, only to realize that a hatch above them is closed. They can't proceed without opening it. From the other side! So they do the back-on-back again and go all the way down, only to repeat all of this tomorrow, once they manage to open the hatch. The pacing is off, this whole plot is stupid and the whole excitement of escaping prison evaporates.
A long time after the whole escape, Leo wants to give his wife a visit. So him and Vincent make their way there, Leo talks to his wife and explains his goal of killing Harvey and.. hold on. How does the police not understand that a fugitive would want to see his family first? That's like the first rule to catching one. Have police watch their families at all times. The police are portrayed as downright idiots in this game and it happened on way more than one occasion.
For a game that has the ambitions of being as cinematically impressive as movies and TV shows, the whole plot falls flat. I can't imagine this game as a movie. It would be terrible. The whole relationship between Leo and Vincent feels contrived, they just don't have the necessary chemistry together. In a lot of cut scenes, there are so many awkward silences when a character says something, only for the other to say "Yeah". It doesn't help that Vincent Moretti is probably one of the most boring characters I've ever had the displeasure to play in a game and Leo Caruso, while cringy in a lot of moments, at least has his big nose and some funny one-liners going for him.
There is one big sequence in a hospital that was actually awesome though and the cinematics were really superb in that scene. Shame it was a one-time deal throughout the game though.
What to do in a hospital? Let's try balancing on a wheelchair as long as possible!
Gameplay consists of the following things. Engaging in dialogue with NPCs. Solving puzzles. Driving cars. Shooting people. QTEs! Competing in minigames against each other. Out of all of this, I had the most enjoyment out of all the minigames scattered around each new area you are in. You can balance on wheelchairs, play an arcade game, hit baseballs, play instruments, throw horseshoes, play boardgames etc. These were all a lot of fun actually, though of course not really fitting into the games story, especially if you're supposed to do something and do it quick. But let's not get bothered by that. I'd like to delve into the other gameplay features though.
Most areas are filled with a few NPCs that both characters can talk to. It doesn't have any effect on the story but rather has the purpose of adding to the atmosphere and also helps with the character development of the protagonists. You talk to other NPCs about their problems a lot. When Vincent talks to them, he has more serious and helpful things to say. When Leo talks to them, he usually doesn't take them seriously or is brutally honest with them. Said Leo to a homeless person: "Man, you look like shit. What happened to you?" I found these short conversations to definitely add to the experience and Leo's responses were very funny a lot of the time.
In a lot of sequences, you drive a cabike/boat to either simply get from A to B or to try to escape your chasers. Especially when driving at higher speeds, the vehicle control is really poor. The physics evidently didn't get paid much attention to, as you can just drive into a wall without any damage on the car or any visible impact. The rare shooting sequences also weren't really any fun, as no gun really felt good to use.
Solving puzzles rarely included thinking and usually boiled down to QTEs. Sometimes you had to time a prompt on your own, sometimes both of the players had to press a button at the same time. In one sequence during the escape, Leo and Vincent need to open a locked door without making any noise. Two guards are nearby. A storm is going on during that time, so you need to wait for a thunder (because it's loud, you know) to press a button so that both guys try to ram the door open. Do this three times. Mission successful! Most puzzles were at this level. Not realistic at all, QTE-based and extremely easy. Expected a bit more here out of this feature based on the trailer, ultimately was left disappointed.
Other thoughts

• Some areas actually looked really good, especially when you are out in the nature.
• The music is nothing special. Don't really even remember most of it and I've just finished it a few hours ago.
• The ending was very disappointing and like most of the plot, felt contrived and forced
• Leo Caruso's nose definitely deserves a sequel just for its origin story.
• I would love to have a movie out of this game's story just to see if I'm correct with my assumption that it would be terribly received by critics and audiences.

Rating: 4/10
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What I'm Playing in December
PC

• The Outer Worlds: Almost 30 hours into this and just reached Byzantium. Doing every quest there is and really taking my time. Amazing game. It's the game I expected Fallout 4 to be and I already can't wait for more out of this new IP by Obsidian.
• The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine: This game has been on my "Currently Playing" list for too long, need to get on with it.

Playstation 4

• Detroit: Become Human - Played it a little bit in November, looking to beat this before the end of the year.

Nintendo Switch

• Pokémon Sword: My first foray into the Pokémon series and I like it so far actually. Don't know how I'll feel about the battles after about 20-30 hours but after about 5, I'm still excited for the rest of it.

------------------
12in12 original list - Progress: (5/12)

• Batman Arkham City
• Beyond Good & Evil - DONE
• Bioshock Infinite
• Deponia Doomsday
• DmC: Devil May Cry - DONE
• Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
• Persona 5
• Red Dead Redemption 2 - DONE
• Resident Evil 5 - DONE
• SOMA
• The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine
• Yakuza Kiwami - DONE

I've failed my 12in12 challenge! (gasp) I had this nice list of sequels and some exciting new IPs planned out and for some reason never got to most of these. I'm still playing The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine and I'll probably restart Persona 5 at some point in 2020, but I never touched any of the other games. Shame.
------------------
My Yearly Stats:

• Games Added: 88
• Total Price: 78 €
• Games Removed: 35
• Games Finished: 28
• Games Left in the Backlog: 81

Goal was to go below 70. No chance now, so let's aim for below 80? We'll see, I doubt it.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to start typing on my "End of Year" post, hope to read plenty of others as well. :) Best of luck for the final month of the year!

Another year, another E3 with a million threads to list!
This is a place where we'll consolidate all of the Megathreads posted daily as a quick and easy way to catch up with all of the news at a glance.
Here is the E3 Schedule for anybody that is curious!
Here is a countdown to all the major conferences!

Saturday, June 9th (EA)

• EA Conference Megathread
  
• Battlefield V Official Multiplayer Trailer
  
• Battle Royale is coming to Battlefield V
  
• FIFA 19
  
• Origin Access Premier: Official Trailer
  
• Jedi: Fallen Order
  
• EA Confirms Clone Wars in Battlefront II
  
• Unravel 2 surprise release and megathread
  
• Sea of Solitude
  
• NBA Live 19
  
• Madden NFL 19
  
• Command and Conquer: Rivals
  
• Battlefield V Gameplay: Grand Operations
  
• Game Informers Anthem Cover story
  
• 4 Minutes of Anthem Open World Co-Op Exploration Gameplay
  
• Anthem
  

Sunday, June 10th

Microsoft

• XBox Briefing Megathread
  
• Halo Infinite
  
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps
  
• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
  
• Fallout 76
  
• The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit
  
• Crackdown 3
  
• Metro: Exodus
  
• Kingdom Hearts 3
  
• Forza Horizon 4
  
• Sea of Thieves E3 Trailer
  
• Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition
  
• We Happy Few
  
• The Division 2
  
• Microsoft Acquires PlayGround Games, Undead Labs, Ninja Theory and Compulsion Games
  
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
  
• PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS
  
• Session
  
• Devil May Cry 5
  
• TUNIC
  
• Jump Force
  
• Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course
  
• Dying Light 2
  
• Just Cause 4
  
• Battletoads
  
• Gears of War 5
  
• Gears Tactics/Pop
  
• Cyberpunk 2077
  
• ID@Xbox E3 Games Montage
  

Bethesda

• Bethesda E3 Showcase Megathread
  
• RAGE 2
  
• Doom Eternal
  
• Prey: Mooncrash
  
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood
  
• Skyrim: Very Special Edition
  
• Fallout 76: Bethesda Conference Edition
  
• Quake Champions: Play For Free!
  
• Starfield
  
• The Elder Scrolls VI
  

Devolver Digital Conference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4ytFiRVMwg&has_verified=1

Monday, June 11th

Square Enix

• Square Enix E3 Showcase 2018 Megathread
  
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
  
• Dragon Quest 11: Echoes of an Elusive Age
  
• Babylon's Fall
  
• Kingdom Hearts 3: Square Enix Conference
  
• The Quiet Man
  
• Just Cause 4
  

Ubisoft

• Ubisoft Conference Megathread
  
• Beyond Good & Evil 2
  
• Just Dance 2019 Confirmed at E3 2018
  
• Trials Rising
  
• Trials Rising Beta Signup
  
• The Division 2
  
• Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle - Donkey Kong Adventure
  
• Skull And Bones
  
• Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
  
• For Honor: Marching Fire
  
• For Honor Starter Pack being given away from June 12 to June 18th
  
• Starlink: Battle For Atlas
  
• The Crew 2
  
• Transference
  

PC Gaming Show

• PC Gaming Show Megathread
  
• Satisfactory
  
• Mavericks Proving Grounds
  
• Yakuza 0/Yakuza Kiwami PC EDITION
  
• Warframe Story Update: The Sacrifice. Coming this week
  
• Maneater
  
• Jurassic World Evolution
  
• Valkyria Chronicles 4
  
• Sable
  
• Star Citizen - Alpha 3.2 Teaser
  
• Don't Starve Hamlet
  
• OVERKILL'S The Walking Dead
  
• Star Control Origins
  
• Realm Royale
  
• Rapture Rejects
  

Sony

• Playstation Showcase Megathread
  
• The Last Of Us Part II
  
• Ghost of Tsushima
  
• Destiny 2: Forsaken Story Trailer
  
• Control
  
• Resident Evil 2 Remake
  
• Trover Saves The Universe
  
• Kingdom Hearts 3: Pirates of the Caribbean Trailer
  
• Death Stranding
  
• Spiderman
  
• Nioh 2
  
• Deracine
  

Tuesday, June 12th

Nintendo

• Nintendo Direct Megathread
  
• Daemon X Machina
  
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2 DLC: Torna, The Golden Country
  
• Super Mario Party
  
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses
  
• Fortnite
  
• Overcooked 2
  
• Killer Queen Black
  
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
  
• Octopath Traveler Trailer
  
• Dragonball FighterZ Trailer
  
• SNK HEROINES Tag Team Frenzy - Knockout Duo! Luong & Mian!
  
• Hollow Knight Launch Trailer