Mera'din

2.) Forspoken This one was kind of rough around the edges. I didn't hate it, and the traversal was super fun, but the story was kind of simplistic, cliché and not very subtle. The main character was only likely through the lens of her companion somehow being even less likable, and the map was about double the size it should have been and strewn about with so much random busy work that it probably made Ubisoft jealous. The story had potential, but the dialogue and a lot of the core story writing was just plain not great. I really solid writer probably could have done something far more interesting with it even hitting the same story beats. The world building was pretty decent though overall. Felt like the world had a pretty rich history that was fun to read about. I don't regret buying it, and I did have fun with it, but I honestly wish it was shorter overall. I ended up only doing enough to get the Platinum, and thank god that didn't require 100% completion because I was more than ready to be done by that point.

Mine was running great until I got past the prologue and put me into the part where all the other players are running around. From that point, I had regular, severe frame drops and a lot of rubber banding and desynch issues. Was pretty frustrating. They are looking into that and the disconnect issues people have been having though, so there's that at least. Outside of the performance issues, the game has been pretty fun. They really upped the visuals and how they present the in-game scenes. Was impressed with a lot of what they've done there. Gameplay seems suitably Diablo. There is a touch of some of the things they did in Immortal that weren't scummy and actually kind of cool, which is nice, but it also gives me pause to wonder what their endgame systems might be like. Might wait a week or two if I get it just to see what the consensus is after people have had solid time with it.

When I said I was sad that important faces/voices from my childhood were dying, that didn't mean I wanted important faces/voices from my adulthood to die instead. Seriously though, this one hits pretty hard. Especially since he was posting his usual goofy shit on Twitter just the day before.

They're doing an actual open beta (as opposed to this one which is the "early access" pre-order beta) next weekend. I plan on trying it then. It's got like half a chance to impress me before I even think about maybe buying it. XD

Finally had a chance to watch it recently with the wife. We loved it so much. Just a great movie all around.

I've watched the first couple episodes with my wife and we have really been enjoying it. I really enjoy the characters she plays (Russian Dolls was a lot of fun too), so was looking forward to this and it did not disappoint. The cinematography and colors and stuff used are interesting too. The show really stands out visually.

Yeah, it didn't stand out in Remake because you didn't hear him alot, but I just couldn't with a whole game of him. The old VA was so much better. Maybe some stuff later in the game wasn't as bad, but I wasn't willing to take the chance since the Japanese VAs have always been decent. As for Dirge of Cerberus, I wouldn't mind playing it again. I remember enjoying the story (as weird and sometimes contrived as it was), I just remember the gameplay being a bit of a chore to put up with. I'd definitely give it another go now though without a doubt.

23 games total for me last year. Same as the year before, so I'm staying consistent I guess. XD 1.) Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core - Reunion This was a fantastic remaster. The work they did on the character models was really well done, and it was still a really enjoyable story to play through. You can really tell this game was meant for a handheld system with the way the extra missions in the game worked though. Felt like a bit too much busy work for a console title, but could have been worse. The pre-rendered cutscenes could have looked better. The upscaling or whatever they did to them left them looking a bit low quality compared to the rest of the game, but it was a minor thing overall. Probably the only real fault the game had was the fact that they redid the voice acting for some reason and changed VAs. The new VA for Zack was really grating and I switched it over to the Japanese audio about 5 minutes into the game. X_x Overall this game was really well put together when it originally came out and hits some really hard nostalgia buttons for FFVII, but has enough going for it to easily stand on its own. This version let me revisit that 100% so it definitely did it's job. I wonder if they'll end up doing one of these for Dirge of Cerberus now. That wasn't nearly as good of a game, but I honestly want to play it again anyway after how much I enjoyed playing this one again.

23.) Observer: System Redux Remaster/Expanded edition of a 2017 game. Very "dark and gritty" style of Cyberpunk game. It's one of the few I picked up after playing Cyberpunk 2077 and being disappointed at how little they used the Brain Dance stuff. Story was interesting, through it veers hard into horror a few times, it was still mostly enjoyable and the investigation parts were fun if not terribly complicated. Some interesting side quests and a wild story all around, and the main character is modeled after and voiced by Rutger Hauer, so that was cool. Had fun with it overall, but there were a couple parts where you had to run and hide from a thing chasing you that annoyed the shit out of me and really threw off the experience a little. The rest made up for it overall though.

22.) The Pedestrian Short, interesting little puzzle game that I decided to play through quick as a sort of pallet cleanser after God of War. Caught my eye since I remember being interested in it and it's leaving Game Pass next month so figured I'd do a quick run through it. Most of the puzzles were straight forward until the end when the difficulty spiked pretty strongly. Overall it was fine, but I've played better, and it overstayed its welcome just slightly. I did end up wrapping up God of War faster than I was expecting after the end. Finished at right about 54 hours exactly w/ the Platinum. That last berserker grave thing was a pain in the ass. Those fights definitely reminded me of the Valkyries in the last one for sure. Jumping into the Crisis Core remaster next. Hope to finish it up before Forspoken comes out next month, but not sure if I'll manage. One thing I didn't realize with this game is they apparently redubbed it with new voice actors, and the one for Zack is really jarring imo. I remember liking the original English voice acting a fair bit so that is kind of a let down. Thank god it has a Japanese VA option. >_o

21.) God of War: Ragnarok Damn that was a fantastic game. Technically not done as there is a fair bit of after-game content, but I finished the main story. Solid amount of content for this kind of game too. Think I'm at 56 hours having done everything I could along the way. Might hit 60 by the time I platinum. Hard to say which I liked better between this and the last one, but it's close enough that it probably doesn't matter much. I think the first had the better action sequences and over the top boss fights, but I think I liked the story better in this one for the most part. Just some really solid character development and story telling going on (though the first was pretty great in that department as well).

20.) The House in Fata Morgana - A Requiem for Innocence Decided to grab this one since I enjoyed the original visual novel so much. Most of it is an expansion of the origin story of the witch in the first game. As such, it's a pretty dark and depressing story, but they had some extra "episodes" after you finish the main game that add on to the ending of the original game that were kind of nice and helped balance out the depressing stuff. Was enjoyable overall, and a hell of a lot shorter than the original which was also appreciated. XD

Now I'm looking forward to the rest of God of War even more. It's definitely a fun game so far. Finding it very hard to put down to do other things. 19.) : Vampire: The Masquerade - Sins of the Sires This is the last of the "interactive novel" games that were put out for VtM, but unfortunately far from the best. Technically speaking, I liked it better than Out for Blood since that was less Vampire and more Hunter feeling than anything, but it was a better "game" regardless. This one felt really rushed and a lot shorter than the others. Very little choice, and what there was did not feel meaningful. You get railroaded through most the story before you even really get a grasp on what's going on, and it ended way faster than expected as well. There was some interesting stuff going on, but it felt very rushed and half assed compared to all the other ones. Unfortunate note to end on with this particular run of games.

These last couple have really hit me in the feels. Both were absolutely massive chunks of my childhood and it feels really weird knowing they're gone. Especially since neither was particularly old.

Finally saw it. Movie pacing felt a bit slow, but appropriately so for what they were trying to convey. Barring the fact that it just couldn't be what it would have been without Chadwick Boseman, I actually enjoyed it more than the first one I think. Though I didn't really find the whole Killmonger storyline interesting so that's probably a big part of my feelings there. The way they worked with Boseman's death was well done and the movie felt like almost as much of a memorial to him in the trappings of the MCU as it did a movie. Where it wasn't that, it made interesting use of new characters. - Still not sold on the actress for Riri, but will wait until I see more to judge. Think I would have preferred them keeping her younger. - Angela Basset really stole the movie. The whole UN scene was absolutely fantastic. - Really like how they did Namor too. Felt a little iffy from the trailers, but it was well done. Honestly wasn't sure how the winged feet would go, but it worked really well. XD

18.) Horizon: Forbidden West Bought this when it came out, but kind of fell by the way side because of Elden Ring. Finally picked it back up so I could finish it before God of War: Ragnarok came out. Didn't quite manage, but got close. XD Game was pretty good. Great story which was expected. The bland, Ubisoft-style open world shit got a bit tiring about half way through (figured I was in trouble when I was about 10+ hours in before the games title popped up. ). Main and side quests were all fun and pretty interesting, but the random shit all over the place that it wants you to do got pretty dull pretty fast. Especially when you couldn't even do everything you came across until you had generic special tool to do this specific thing from the main story and had to treck back to everything later to finish it. More than once. Despite that, the main game itself was good enough to forgive most of that. They definitely set things up for another game as well, so that might be interesting if they can reign their bullshit in a little bit. Definitely some specific things I'd like to see in the next game too since the world building has great in these games too. The Platinum trophy was nice and straight forward at least and the game had absolutely fantastic accessibility options. Only better ones I've seen at this point were probably Last of Us Pt. 2

I work the next seven days in a row so have to wait until the 19th to see it. ?

They finally gave us a look at She-Hulk. Looks like it might suffer a bit on the CG budget end and looked a little hinky in places, but still seems like it will be pretty entertaining.

Been looking forward to this. Looks really interesting. May try to make some time for it tonight.

I was wondering if that wasn't what they were going for when the rumors popped up about them getting him for something a week or so ago.

Yeah, a rewind of that scene would have been good. It was a pretty short episode all things considered so I don't think it would have hurt the pacing, but it kind of played in the the "that's too expensive" joke they set up with the scene transition, so I'm not super hung up about it. Everything about that was just fantastic though. I loved almost everything about this series and it's easily one of my favorite MCU entries at this point. Only a couple little things where I was like "...what?" that didn't really matter in the long run. Wonder if we haven't seen the last of Josh since they kind of left that whole thing hanging.

It was interesting. Fun little side thing. Glad they stuck Man-Thing in it too. He was probably the best part. XD

Was kind of fun to see her really Hulk out for just a bit. It would be cool if they did a storyline similar to Hulk Vol. 4 at some point. Grey She-Hulk was scary.

Yeah, that was a fun one. I'm almost disappointed we're going to hit the inevitable "oh yeah, this is actually a super hero show" part since I could just keep watching her be a lawyer for dumb ass powered people forever. XD

I think my only complaint past not being able to even read the subtitles half the time isn't necessarily about the anime itself. Which is: Ifeel like they really squandered Adam Smasher in the game. Between the talking up he gets, and what you see of him in Edge Runners, I've been retroactively let down by the fight with him in the game. XD