Recent reviews by doing the obvious

Playing as the titular ROBOCOP felt good and eventually rewarding working with the sluggish controls & spray-and-pray approach to accuracy. Detroit Delta City and the various set pieces were memorable, faithful to the franchise and fun to explore.

The main story of this is going to be brief as...it's ROBOCOP, the story exists to be a flimsy vehicle to get to the action. This takes place after the second movie and explains all of the preamble to the third movie. It is...eh. I can take it or leave it - it was passable for setting up an excuse to shoot dudes. That is all it needed to accomplish, really. I will comment that you are allowed to explore and act like a beat cop would in downtown Delta City. Those subplots were fun and I liked them much more than the actual main campaign proper.

It isn't all positives though. I found myself annoyed by a few things that I feel bear mention. This does not tell you in the least you missed something important until you're evaluated on your assignment later. The first assignment was absolutely brutal to me because of this - there's a segment where you have to stop all of the hostages from being shot and with no points in Focus (as you will not have in a new game)? It's going to be rough times cause that time limit is very unforgiving. There are other, smaller examples too but that one was the one that stood out the most.

Another thing that I hated? This uses a autosave / checkpoint system. My previous point further cements 'why' - the last hostage situation is locked behind a checkpoint. So I have to reload and go through a cutscene that I can't just skip ad infinitum while I try to get the sequence right. I really just do not understand why it was included at all. The gameplay is not enhanced by it - it would have been much better served to keep the action fast-paced with a simple quicksave / quickload function.

The only other complaint I have is that the Auto 9 is objectively better than the overwhelming majority of secondary weapons ROBOCOP can wield.

All of my complaints can be written off as 'me' problems though. I did overall enjoy my time with this game and would recommend playing through it at least once.

Oh dear I have quite a mouthful to say with this one. I wish it were all positive too but sadly this game just never really clicked for me like Persona 3 FES or Persona 4 / Golden.

Let's get the nice things I have to say out of the way first lest it sound like I am not being as even-handed as I can manage. The interface is both easy to understand and get used to while being highly stylized in a cool and unique way. I genuinely like the concept of an optional randomized dungeon as something to do during the downtime between larger content to break up the monotony as well as handle some minor optional exposition. The soundtrack is a wonderful fusion of acid jazz and disco and I cannot get enough of it. The palaces I did complete were (mostly) very well-designed and never really overstayed their welcome. Oh and I liked the game's overall undertones of not judging books by their cover as well as rejecting unjust societal norms when the need arises.

All that said, right off the bat this felt like a overly self-indulgent victory lap for the series as a whole. Remember in Persona 1 that you had to gain personas through a in-battle negotiation minigame? Well now that's back whether you like it or not! Remember Joker from Persona 2: Innocent Sin? Now that moniker is back but you! Remember Ryoji wearing prison garb in Persona 3? Now that outfit is back but you wear it in the Velvet Room! Remember the Junes theme from 4? Now it's back in a crane minigame in Akihabara! On and on and on it goes. You can do all of those things and it wouldn't bother me if it was done in more subtle ways but it just felt like this game was allergic to not relying on cheap and easy nostalgia.

Unlike Persona 4 which felt more organic with the social links since it was a rural town setting the Confidants in this feel more coincidental than anything else. While it's true you do form a genuine bond with the Phantom Thieves the rest of the confidants (that I got through, anyways) felt very contrived. Oh I found a disgraced politician on a soapbox. Oh I found a con artist fortune teller when I was farting around. Oh I was investigating and now I am suddenly in contact with a well-connected journalist. Also unique to this version of the game were the new Confidants of Faith and Councilor. Both felt...rather flat and just tacked-on to a game that is already feeling it's length. Why add them at all when it doesn't really contribute to the going-on of the story in a meaningful way?

Also I have to mention the Spaceport Palace. Good Godzilla almighty I could go on for doctoral dissertation essay lengths about how horrid that whole experience was. I will try to boil it down to the most egregious parts. Unlike the previous palaces this one is devoted more to very narrow corridors so there's a lot more fights you have get through. The theme of it doesn't really gel well. It is trying to blend the monotony of a entry tier 9 to 5 job with...outer space? Why not just make it a factory then it's revealed at the very end the antagonist is building a rocket? Was it really necessary to put in a puzzle involving airlocks that exists to waste the player's time to sell the 'BUT IT'S IN OUTER SPACE' vibe?

To top it all off Shadow Okumura is embarrassingly bad. You have to go out of your way to over-level yourself in that palace or Mementos. How you deal with the waves of enemies is very rigid and unforgiving of anything less than the bare minimum damage output. One part of the encounter has a OTK that will force you to waste a turn guarding and wait for an annoyingly long animation to end. Oh and a supporting enemy in that will randomly throw out a debuff that might force you to waste a turn getting rid of it. I could forgive the hiccups in design with this fight if not for one small thing: the entire fight is timed. All of those annoyances as well as when characters are yammering on the timer is still ticking down.

The worst part about it is that this is a re-release. I can only imagine why Atlus did not tone down this in particular - someone must have told them that aside from it sticking to the theme of working a 9 to 5 job being soul crushingly monotonous? That this fight belongs in the trash.

I have to emphasize: I do not hate this game. It is perfectly competent at times and even had a few buttery high notes. If I had to give it a rating other than yes or no that Steam demands it would be about a 75 out of 100 passing grade. The issue is my inability to really get invested in the story and the systems that just arbitrarily bloat the overall length of the game to the point I do not want to play this any more. After only roughly 60 hours in and I'm just a hair shy of the halfway point? Thanks for the offer but no thanks.

Upon further contemplation I admit that if you can get this on sale for $6 that is a reasonable price. It is a more complete, closer to actualized version of Mass Effect (2007). The combat is still balls. The Mako still handles like a popsicle sliding around on melted butter. It's still painfully slow and boring at parts. But I respect it for what it is and how it was effectively the last hurrah for BioWare before being consumed by EA.

I was admittedly too harsh on Mass Effect 2. It is not the worst thing ever and not a bad game. I just don't like the switch to mandatory cover-based shooting, the reduction of role playing elements et cetera. Very much a 'me' problem. I appreciate the attempt to expand upon the gameplay in ways that the first game kind of floundered with. I also really enjoyed the loyalty missions (Zaeed notwithstanding).

After...ahem...experiencing (most of) Mass Effect 3 blind? It's very apparent whoever took over the game behind the scenes is all about the ~cinematic spectacle~ aspect of games. It really lacked someone who plays arena shooters on the team that could have chimed in: hey, you know violently shaking the player's camera repeatedly in a cover-based shooter? Yeah, it looks cool. But it isn't fun to play.

More than anything else the game suffers from tonal whiplash. The writers couldn't decide if they wanted to do more fun, lighthearted space opera or a gritty war story that draws a close on the adventures of Shepard and the assorted crew of the Normandy. It is a shame cause the gritty parts where you see plot threads that were hinted at in the first two games be resolved are some of the best the series has to offer.

Oh and whoever thought up that mandatory sequence of having to do mighty battle with your evil twin should be banned from writing anything ever again.

Full disclaimer: I like the PSX version of this game. I played it in Squaresoft's 'weird and experimental' era following the roaring success of Final Fantasy VII. So I cannot be completely impartial. Nevertheless I will try to judge this on it's merits as well as it's regrettable design choices.

The Romancing SaGa series has always prided it's self upon forcing the player to explore and experiment. This game doesn't stray far from that philosophy. It does not hold your hand in the least about how things work under the hood (the spark list, learning abilities for Mech, what Riki will transform into, the Combo System). In the remaster it removes just enough cobwebs to make it a hair easier to understand while still being on the obtuse side of things about forcing the player to figure things out for themselves.

The combat is simple enough if not a bit cryptic. You get weapon points for physical specials, you get jutsu points for magical specials. The Combo System is just a roll of the dice if the attacks you chose want to cooperate to make big numbers appear. I will purposefully not explain more than that. Part of this game that feels good is that 'oh...now I am starting to understand' moment that I wouldn't dare deny a new player.

Far as changes specific to the remake? The art style is...close to the original. Seems to have been upscaled and then hand-drawn over versions of the pixel art sprites. Oh and for screens they couldn't do 16:10 display for now has character concept art on both sides to fill in that blank space. I like both styles well enough but I can see someone being annoyed they didn't allow an opt-in for the old visuals. The music is completely 1:1 which is good. There are a few new tracks done by Kenji Ito which fit in well enough with the rest of the soundtrack. Other new features are a built-in frameskip toggle for both the overworld and combat, the ability to run from (most) battles, you can skip most airship animations and (as a small mercy for Riki) the inn in Tanzer now fully restores your party instead of LP only like in PSX.

Also new to the fray is Fuse. Long short of it is he was originally meant to be the eighth protagonist who ties all the other seven stories together. Instead they took the bones of that and allow you to see Fuse's contribution to their story upon completion. It also allows you to re-fight the final bosses with Fuse and a different party with different postscript resolutions. I would have preferred his original story to just have been put in instead but this is a decent enough compromise.

So...would I recommend this? If you want a confusing and unconventional JRPG or if you liked the original then the answer is yes. If you dislike experimental JRPG then you can safely give this a pass.

This lost it's novelty to me at the end of the second stage where I had to look up what you're supposed to do to beat the boss. I got so frustrated with it I decided 'just tell me the damned answer' and looked it up on YouTube. Which is an utter failure of design that a boss's attacks are just so horribly telegraphed.

There may be better designed bosses and enemies past stage 4 but I had gotten so frustrated by what is a rythym-based input game being so harsh & unforgiving of any mistakes I just don't have the patience for it to get better.

Just watch the movie. The game is a dud.

I would not think that an open world sandbox and very on rails experience like classic River City Ransom would ever work together in one game. I was glad to be proven wrong. However, there are some things to consider before buying.

This is faithful to the original formula to a fault for starters. The hit detection is just a hair unwieldy, some attacks have very short reach, there's even more grinding than it's predecessor...that's just off the top of my head. Also it's got a lot of stuns / knockdowns that you can't really do much about except wait until the animation ends. Like I said, it feels era-appropriate but it is frustrating by modern brawler standards. Also kind of rude that there are some online only achievements - if you want to 100% this game you'll most likely need to do it locally since the public servers I tried hosting got exactly no footfall.

Those problems aside, I do like that this expands a bit upon the RCR formula. There's more than two characters to pick from and they all feel fleshed out & different gameplay wise. Getting your stats up is easier to understand than it was in the OG. The freedom to explore a charmingly nostalgic style pixel art world is something I appreciate. I like the chiptune soundtrack a lot too.

I think it's fun enough. But I'm old enough to have played the original so it's partially nostalgia speaking. I am not sure I would recommend this to someone who wants a coop brawler that has evolved (controls wise) substantially from the Famicom / NES era.

On a whim I decided to try out this game having never played any of it's predecessors. As such I can't really compare like to like but I have played other games that it borrows & refines elements from. If you took one part combo system from Devil May Cry, one part modern sandbox like (modern) GTA titles, one part minigame overload like Shenmue and one part gritty gangster story from Saint's Row 2? That is the closest I can describe it. Even at that, it isn't completely sufficient a descriptor.

It is a story set in the suburbs of Tokyo and Osaka in 1988. It revolves around a plot (no pun intended) to develop the land in the suburb of Kamurocho, Tokyo at the height of the Bubble Economy. I really don't want to explain more of the story because I did find that to be one worth experiencing as close to blind as possible. I also adored how this game has so very little faith in it's ability to resolve conflicts in a meaningful way other than dudes beating each other up when the story moments that stuck out to me? Were the slower, tension-building dialogues.

The combat is fast-paced, fluid with a low learning curve & high skill cap. The weapons felt a bit underwhelming to use but that might just be me being stubborn about not using all the tools the game gives you. I also didn't like the Breaker & Rush stances but...see my previous point.

Also while I was writing notes for the review, I wanted to include the descriptor 'neon nightmare' somewhere in here when describing Kamurocho so: Kamurocho was a glitzy neon nightmare that would probably give me a headache if I were there in reality. Top marks for picking a theme and running with it.

As a self-professed FALLOUT_README.pdf, I felt obligated to play this game. Ergo, here I am talking about a game that has been critically panned & (at times) rightly maligned.

There's a few things to point out though before I ramble on. One, I only paid $8 for this & can completely understand why people who paid retail price for it back when have nothing but disdain for it. Two, I didn't finish the main story. I will explain why later. Three, I actually don't hate this game. Sorry, but the best I can do is indifference to it's continued existence.

Mechanically the game has you start off at 1 in every SPECIAL stat and you gain 1 stat point to spend per level up and unlock a perk associated with said stat. While it's still not the beauty of a skill tree and perks like traditional Fallout titles, this is a step in a better direction than 4's Perk tree. Armor & Weapon degradation also make a triumphant return & is vastly more streamlined than it was in 3 and New Vegas. The shooting is a hair unresponsive. Not so much to make it unplayable but you are beholden to ping which doesn't ruin it, but it does bear mention. Flip side of the coin, if you like melee & unarmed then this game has you covered. e: Shotguns are actually pretty good and feel fun to use, too. VATS I only briefly used since I usually preferred slapping things to death with a dulled hatchet.

The CAMP system takes some getting used to. If you did any kind of town building in 4, the controls for it are a hair on the unwieldy side. It's far more optional now (at least, it was for the small stint I played the game) which is a welcome improvement over it being tied into the main story e: like it was in 4.

Now, I mentioned I didn't finish the main story. I probably will, eventually & make an addendum for it. For the time being I happen to love open world exploration & there is indeed quite a large and inviting map to explore. I do feel like the B team they had on this did the best they could with the very strict restraints they had imposed on them. I will mention I love the amount of effort they put into adapting folklore from that region into the enemy design as well.


I found it fun enough to explore Appalachia. There are some interesting subplots here and there and I enjoyed the amount of customization allowed in weapons (strange that in 4 the armor customization was good, here they took the opposite tack). I liked that caps actually felt important and a bit more scarce a resource, too. Still didn't finish the Overseer main quest but my interest in it has effectively waned.

I still would not recommend this for those positives aside. I felt I got my money worth, yes, but as previously mentioned, I only paid $8 for this. Appreciate the continued effort to make a bad idea good after the disaster that this was on launch. Turns out this kind of game just isn't my scene.

Also ditch the stagger on hit effect in any future (lol, yeah right) titles, please and thanks. That doesn't add anything but utter frustration to players in a game that so heavily encourages using ranged weapons.

I will go ahead and make this a brief addendum wherein I mention the update the game received in December as well as the Dimension Shellshock DLC.

The update added in a lot of quality-of-life improvements and balance changes. Cross-platform play was made more streamlined, thankfully. On top of that, grappling now gives you iframes once you've initiated the animation, e: you can no longer to more than 1 special gauge, only for the first, I forgot to mention that. Groundchuck's e: Dirtbag's holes are harder to fall into, Statue of Tyranny is MUCH harder and Super Shredder is also no longer a pushover. The last two changes (mostly Statue of Tyranny who now has an OTK) are a hair too much, but that's just my opinion.

Moving on to Dimension Shellshock. It added in Survival mode which is, as it's namesake might lead you to believe, a gauntlet to see how many waves of enemies you can defeat before running out of lives. I like the concept well enough but I really dislike how much grinding you have to do to unlock all of the features for all of the characters. Is it awful? No, not even close. But for anyone who feels compelled to 100% things you have a lot of grinding ahead of you.

It also added in Usagi Yojimbo who was revealed relatively early on. He is like a better Leonardo with a worse double jump attack. Karai has an insanely good standing special, a bad taunt and overall above average stats.

I would recommend Dimension Shellshock, granted it's lower price. It isn't as enthusiastic a recommend as the base game but it's still a recommend. And hey, who knows? Maybe they will address the issues I talked about in later updates.

I will go ahead and admit it needs some work here and there. Just to get the few negative things I have to say out of the way. Grappling needs some fine tuning. While you are mid throw animation you can still take full damage which makes grappling really risky and unappealing on Arcade Mode. Also the cross play needs some cobwebs removed here and there.

That aside? In 1992 (30 years ago) TMNT 4: Turtles in Time (SNES) was released. In between now and then a lot of insanity happened including but not limited to: a software titan being reduced to making cynical pachinko machines in Japan, the game licensing changing hands multiple times, a bad re-release of TMNT4 (cabinet), and the IP eventually being purchased by Nickelodeon. Regardless of all that insanity, now we effectively have TMNT 5: Shredder's Revenge.

As a side-scrolling brawler it is fast paced, easy to pick up and learn and has a very high skill cap. Unlike TMNT 1 and TMNT 4, it put in a lot of effort to make the hitboxes more forgiving, it shifted away from special attacks draining health to specials having a dedicated gauge, a dedicated dodge button and a back attack that can be initiated mid-combo. Just off the top of my head, those are the quality-of-life upgrades this has.

To me the best part is the attention to detail and concerted effort to make this feel somewhere between a SNES and PSX game graphically. Mock ups of sprite limitations, color limitations, throwbacks to chiptune music...you name it, it's all there. Not in a way that feels like it's trying too hard, either - it all feels like a genuine love letter to the series and similar brawlers / kung fu movies.

The most clever part of this is that it is well-made enough I genuinely cannot tell if it was meant to take place in 1992 or 2022. There are retro things like a mall, a coin op arcade and of course Coney Island...but it feels like it could just as easily be in modern time. A lot of care, effort and thought was put into this. All and all one of the better games I have played as of late. Cannot recommend it enough.