You are a transfer student from the big city sent to live with your relatives for a year in the sleepy rural town of Inaba.  Strange incidents start to happen with you being able to enter the TV to a world of shadows.  As the days progress you start to make friends, take on many hobbies, and even some side jobs.  While this is going on murders start occuring and you realize it’s up to you and your Investigation Squad to solve the case.  The game is a very traditional turn based RPG with you picking elements correctly in order to discover enemy weaknesses which give you another turn.  Play the cards right and you can destroy enemies without them even getting a chance to fight back.  When you’re not in dungeons, you have to manage your days because you really only get one shot, a day, to do something substantial.  This can be anything from hanging out with friends [to increase your closeness with them], building up your stats, or any of a multitude of things.  It may seem overwhelming, but it’s not.  I can’t believe I forgot the titular Persona aspect!  A Persona is your other self and, with you being Zero, you can have a multitude of Persona’s to battle for you.  You can either fuse stronger Personas from weaker ones or just find them after battle.  This aspect of the game goes pretty hard and it is rather interesting to see the designs for them.

Visuals:

P4 Golden is a remaster of the 2008 PlayStation 2 game so the visuals of the overall package are really not something to get hung up about.  The in-game character models are low detail but they get the point across.  The world of Inaba is small but it has all the hallmarks of a small town: Shopping district, river, mall, etc.  This is where you’ll find the people you’ve met throughout the game just hanging out.  And what people they are!  The characters are all fully realized and each have their own little quirks to them.  You get little talking heads during the conversations that emote depending on what the scene calls for so it’s cute in that aspect.  The real winner of the game is the presentation of the UI.  Everything is going for a television motif and it shows really well.  It doesn’t get hard to read or go too far.  It’s a nice blend of flair and subtlety.

Audio:

Most of the audio is the same from the original release but you do get new actors for some of the characters, notably Chie.  Despite that, most of the dialog is voice acted and I love how all of the voice actors play their characters.  Like their appearance, each person has their own personality.  It does get a little weird hearing them talking English then all of a sudden start spouting Japanese customs or words nonchalantly.  No biggie though.  The soundtrack, though, is fucking fire.  All the dungeons, background music, everything is just hit after hit all in a lovely little package.

Completion:

I FINISHED THIS GAME!  After about 45 hours, I can say Persona 4 Golden is done.  I’d played the 2008 game and I feel this one surpassed it in every category.  I did feel bad that I was basically dating every of my female companions with nary of a peep from any of them until Valentine’s Day when I was just getting heartbreak after heartbreak when they said I didn’t pick them.  Brutal.  I finished the main story and Inaba is now at peace, finally.  I’m glad the game is done but a part of me wishes to New Game+ it.  Maybe in the future!

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The definitive open world racing game is back and this time it is set in “Japan.”  That means you’ll get to drive all along the countryside and in major cities throughout that large country!  Naw, I’m just fucking with you.  You basically get a small condensed rendition of Tokyo and small villages.  It’s still a fun game with you getting to go practically anywhere as you’re finding collectibles, landmarks, aftermarket cars, and more.  You have your typical fair of racing modes scattered throughout the land and it just gets more and more packed as you progress.  It’s still a hell of a lot of game with any kind of mode for you to do.  Just don’t expect to get a lot of cars since that has been relegated to spins or purchases and you don’t get a bunch of either of those.

Visuals:

What more can be said about how the Forza games handle cars?  They look astounding and very much like their real world counterparts.  The world itself also looks amazing as well with the vistas it presents you.  My knock is still how small Japan is represented.  I would have expected more in Tokyo or at least multiple cities throughout the country, but alas, you just get one.  

Audio:

Like the visuals, Forza knows how to handle the audio when it comes to cars.  They sound like how they’re supposed to.  I do wish there was more Japanese in the game and less the weird fake sounding English accent.  All the characters come from the west as well as all but one radio station is Japanese.  If you’re supposed to be celebrating the culture, lean into it!

Completion:

I FINISHED THIS GAME!  Well, the main story at least.  I didn’t do all of the races as well as the after completion stuff, yet.  I feel the game is more linear than the previous iteration but it just came out.  The showcase moments all seemed rather lackluster save one.  The scarcity of being able to afford cars or homes was also kind of a bummer since being a super car celebrity made the last game super fun as well.  The characters are annoying as they’ve always been but they don’t seem to be talking your ears off.  I guess I wanted more Japan in the game and the little amounts we did get were few and far in between.  Guess that just means I gotta go back!

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A coming of age “game” (animated movie) set in the 90’s, but not really, about a group of friends who are going to disband after one killer last night together. You’ll have a soundtrack to accompany you as you search rooms for memories about days yonder and reminisce about better times. That’s basically it. I didn’t play for that long because of other reasons, but there were some gameplay things of riding a skateboard or escaping with a shopping trolley but, for the most part, I was just walking (very slowly) through a room hearing an inner monologue.

Visuals:

I dunno how I feel about this one. South of Midnight had the same look to it with the jittery stop motion look with stylized characters so I don’t see the “WOW” of it. It still looks beautiful, I guess, but I’m not impressed. The look of everything is kind of going for a weird time. I could be projecting, but the amount of “LOOK THE 90’S” stuff is borderline an orgy of evidence. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be early 90’s (cassette deck recorders) or late 90’s (burned CDs) but it’s all over the place and shit was moving fast!

Audio:

This feels, to me, like bait to try to make people feel something about the game. Put licensed music and regurgitate a Wikipedia article to make you sound smart. It’s not the music I was listening to when I was their age so I don’t feel the same emotion. It’s like the chapters in American Psycho where Bateman is droning on and on about Genesis or Whitney Houston. It’s just soulless.

Completion:

I found the game to be insufferable. The characters were annoying. The setting didn’t click with me. The music wasn’t my jam. It was just trying too hard to fit in and, to me, made it stick out like a sore thumb. I was a teenager in the 90’s and this was not me and I LOVED music and movies. Just writing about the game is making me feel icky. Blegh.

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A Final Fantasy that never originally came to the United States, FFV tells the story of four individuals on a quest to try to save the planetary crystals from shattering.  By this point this is familiar ground with a lot of the same types of tropes appearing.  Appearing also in this game are the job system which allow you to assign roles to your characters to suit your play style.  The Pixel Remaster series takes the original sprites and brings them to a higher resolution while still maintaining the charm.  There are little flourishes here and there but, for the most part, they remain true to the source material.

Visuals:

I love the way the Pixel Remaster did up the game.  I love the sprites from the original but seeing them much crisper with the little touches to the backgrounds makes this feel super fresh.  The bad thing is that the PR uses a lot of the same sprites from game to game so they look very much the same as the other iterations.  

Audio:

Gawdang!  The remastered score is amazing.  All of the songs are bangers with some of them just going hard with the score.  I really don’t know what more can be done for these games but Square Enix hit it out of the park.

Completion:

I’m still working on it and have been for quite some time.  I’ve been trying to get 100% on it but I don’t think it’s going to happen.  I did just defeat Exdeath [first time?] so I’m ready to explore more of this world.  I’m loving the game.  The translation is amazing.  The music is amazing.  Everything is amazing.  

Update: 04/07/2026

I FINISHED THIS GAME! What a lovely and amazing experience. I’ve been saying that each one of these I complete is my new favorite Final Fantasy game but they just keep outdoing one another. The story, visuals, music, writing, emotional strings pulled, and the fights are all superb.

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The 9th installment of the ongoing Resident Evil franchise, you take the reins of newcomer Grace Ashcroft as she is tasked to find clues about some murders that happened at the scene of a very traumatic incident in her past.  Also joining the frey is seasoned veteran Leon Kennedy to get to the bottom of the murders plaguing the city.  Unfortunately shit pops off from the very beginning and your ultimate goal is to survive.  The characters bring two different types of gameplay to the series with Grace being more of a hide and seek style while Leon is your traditional action hero who just mows everyone down.  You also play as Grace in first person [I switched it back to third person because of motion sickness] while Leon plays in third person.  It is a very effective shift for the series and adds a little bit of flavor to the game.

Visuals:

Every time a new tent pole game releases I’m always kind of underwhelmed by the visuals in the game.  They always look either like stylized shit or something from a previous generation.  In this case, RE9 looks amazing.  The characters look super detailed and very unique.  This goes for all the main players as well as the enemies.  The latter look particularly disgusting and I love it.  The environments are also wonderful but are not really different enough from most Resident Evil games.  Regardless, they still look incredible!

Audio:

I never knew that talking zombies would be so unpleasant.  To hear a zombie toiling about their past life is kind of disturbing and makes me want to avoid them.  Every enemy, so far, seems to talk which does add a nice twist when a giant blob looking creature is blaming you for everything that went wrong in their life.  The atmosphere of the game is very moody with creaks and groans happening in every corner.  Makes you dread every room you go into.

Completion:

So far I have just escaped from the Hospital and things have just got pretty bad for Grace.  Leon, on the other hand, is just dealing with his shit.  Either way, I’m loving this game but I’m having a hard time playing it because I really don’t like jump scares or scarcity of materials, but that’s just how Resident Evil games have always been.  Still a good’un!

Update: 03/15/2026

I FINISHED THIS GAME!! Man, does it go some places. It was a hell of a game and a wonderful story. It makes me excited to see what they do with the ongoing saga or if they will use this as a nice ending and reboot the franchise. Only time will tell, but I am super happy.

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I don’t know what to call this game.  A sequel, prequel, noncanon, canon, or whatever.  Either way, this game is a great continuation of the Indiana Jones fiction.  It’s not as insane as the later two moves [after the initial trilogy] are and the adventure does have all the hallmarks of an Indiana Jones flick.  The gameplay is from the first person with you globetrotting across the world trying to find relics to find what the Great Circle actually means.  You’ll fight literal giants and Nazis as you try to complete your quest.  Along the way you’ll be searching for other clues and relics to maybe make your adventure even more complete.  

Visuals:

I’m not really a fan of the visuals for the game.  They’re fine and serviceable but everything looks to have either a low budget or a last generation vibe to them.  The character models look great with the actors’ likenesses coming through really well.  It’s just everything else about the world seems rather bland.  The good thing is that it doesn’t detract too much since the world does look believable.  I just want more.

Audio:

This game nails the Indiana Jones vibe.  From the overacting of the characters, the music stings hitting at the right time, and the sounds it makes when you deck a guy it just sounds like how it’s supposed to sound.  I can’t praise the voice actors enough because they really sell the game.  The cutscenes are always fun to watch because everyone is giving it their all and it makes this kind of the third/fourth best Indiana Jones movie.

Completion:

I FINISHED THIS GAME!  It was a fun ride and brought me back into the world of Dr. Jones more so than what the last two movies did.  Maybe it’s because they actually don’t have Ford trying to reprise his role but everything around the game just felt well done.  I was invested in the story and it was just fun to play.  I don’t think I’m going to go back and New Game+ it, though, because I felt the game wrapped up all the loose ends pretty nicely.

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The world has been destroyed by the Timefall [rain which accelerates time] and by BTs [Beached Things which are dead souls bent on bringing you to the afterlife with them].  When a person dies, their body starts going through a rapid change in which they basically become a massive city destroying bomb.  Got all that?  Cool!  Now, go deliver packages from one hologram to the next.  Also, make sure you don’t fall over, or you’ll lose all your shit.  HAVE FUN!

Visuals:

Even though the premise of this game is zany it is a gorgeous game.  For something that was made for the previous generation [PlayStation 4] it looks amazing with all the characters being highly detailed and lifelike.  The only thing I really have qualms with is the world.  I understand the world is supposed to be reverted to a primordial state, but they could have done more than making it look like Iceland.  The environments do change throughout the game but never drastically going from Iceland to Jamaica or anything.  There are also some trippy stuffs that do go on in the latter portions of the game, but I can’t really explain them.

Audio:

I love the audio of this game.  The soundtrack is banging.  The environmental sounds are on point.  Everything is just as it should be.  There was a video that came out with Hideo Kojima doing an explanation of this game in which he said when you’re going to the next city, and the music starts playing he would want you to be moved to tears with it.  While this didn’t happen in the game, it did happen to me when driving home from passing one of my architecture exam tests.  A song from the end started playing and I must admit it made me super emotional.  Well played Kojima.

Completion:

I FINISHED THIS GAME!  I first tried this game out on the PS4 because why not.  I bounced off of it after an hour.  Fast forward to its release on Xbox and I bought it because I thought, “This will be a chill game where I can just deliver things from one place to the other.  It’ll be relaxing.”  And then I got hooked.  I wanted nothing more than to just deliver and build the world out.  Everything you get to improve your world just makes the game better.   When I got the roads, it was over as all I wanted to do was to build roads so I could deliver more and more stuff.  And then I got my truck, and it truly clicked.  The ending of this game was so full of emotion and bittersweet it made me super pumped up for a sequel.  

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Man this story makes no sense in the Remake.  Maybe it’s because, back then, anytime we saw an FMV we were just immediately awed.  Now, we can’t tell if something is FMV or gameplay but it all just seems uninteresting.  I think there is a civil war happening in some kingdom and it’s up to me to stop them.  Me and MY TRUST DRAGON!  This is a rail shooter with you targeting enemies and then blasting them with a super shot.  Enemies are all over you so you have to adjust your view to your cardinal directions to make sure you take them all out.

Visuals:

Ugly.  This game just looks so ugly.  The original one on the Sega Saturn was a powerhouse for that system showing that it could compete with the Sony PlayStation but, here, it just looks like trash.  Everything just has no character and looks so generic.  The enemies are bland.  The main character and your dragon look hella bland.  The world just looks uber bland.  As said in the hit sitcom of the 90’s, My Brother and Me, it’s not ugly it’s OOGLY!

Audio:

Same with the audio on here.  The remastered tracks are just boring and lackluster.  Not really much to say.

Completion:

I FINISHED THIS GAME!  It really wasn’t that long with only having a few chapters [levels].  Once you beat it you unlock all sorts of cheats to help you achieve more in the game but it really is too little too late.  I have this game for the Saturn and over the decades I would try out the first level and think, “Man, this is a cool game!”  But after playing the Remake I think it was just me deluding myself.  Maybe Zwei or Orta will be better, but who knows!

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Joanna Dark is a master spy in the future who’s trying to take down the [I think] sinister DataDyne corporation.  Little does she know they have an armada of baddies and, eventually, aliens at their side to try to stop her!  It’s a first person shooter game that was initially released for the Nintendo 64.  Microsoft eventually rereleased it for the Xbox 360 then again for the Xbox One in the Rare Replay collection to be played on future consoles.  AND THAT’S JUST WHAT MY FRIEND AND I DID!

Visuals:

I may be a sucker for nostalgia and old graphics but this game still looks great.  For this rerelease they upped the resolution to 4K, made the framerate smooth, and enhanced the textures.  It may not look super modern but it doesn’t look fuck ugly.  The animations are rudimentary but that’s about it.  Everything just looks amazing.  Not bad for a late gen Nintendo 64 game.

Audio:

Again, the nostalgia is hitting me hard.  All the background music as well as the sounds just bring back stupid sessions with that same friend from my high school days.  What a wonderful game this is.

Completion:

Over 20 years later and I still haven’t beat this game.  I get to the same level and stop and it happened this time as well!  It’s always the mission where you have to snipe the people holding the lady hostage so I’ve never seen anything beyond that.  The first couple of levels are amazing and there’s a reason why this game was so beloved.  It’s a shame that, as of 2025, the Perfect Dark franchise is dead.

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It’s the future and democracy is at stake from all sorts of “monsters.”  You got crazy bugs and angry robots who all want to kill you and, when they do, they do it pretty easily.  Helldivers 2 is an online game in which you can try to solo missions but, eventually, you’ll get other players to join your quest to help you do the objectives or exterminate the baddies.  It’s been said before, with good merit, but this game is just Starship Troopers [the movie] in disguise.  The crazy amount of nationalism and how everything is for liberty and democracy is rampant.

Visuals:

It’s not really that much of a looker of a game.  The effects and everything is competently done but there isn’t something that is trying to wow you.  The character design and, especially, the enemy designs are really nice.  The worlds, though, are super bland.  You’ll get used to seeing them as they are the only places you’ll see over and over again.  I also wish the ships had more character or something else to them because you’ll spend a lot of time there as well.  Most of the differentiation is in your own character but that’s just because you’re encouraged to spend credits to trick them out.

Audio:

Like the visuals, there really isn’t anything to write home about in terms of audio.  Everything is pomp and circumstance and overtly patriotic.  I know it’s the theme of the game so I’m not ragging on it, it just gets tiring after so many hours.

Completion:

I’m not done with the game since it’s an ongoing multiplayer game but I feel I got a pretty good grasp on what to expect.  It’s a fun game and I will keep playing it as every match is different but pretty much the same.  I wish there were more things to do outside of the game but this is what the game is.  My dude will keep leveling and I’ll keep decking him out.  As well as my super destroyer.  For democracy.

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