Dragon's Dogma 2 feels familiar... and that's a good thing!

 

I can't rightly voice how long I've been waiting for a follow-up to my personal 'most underrated RPG of all time' Dragon's Dogma. A game it felt like literally no one in the world had played except for me, yet one I couldn't help but fall madly in love with each time I played it for the style it possessed that no one seemed interested in replicating! The monster climbing mechanics with body part crippling, the Pawn swapping systems with dynamically learning and teaching AI moments, the sense of on-the-ground adventure in the vast swathes of travelling you were required to do, the supremely weird yet bizarrely memorable characters who under any other team would have all been classic RPG stereotypes but under the Dragon's Dogma team feel almost like winking homages both exaggerated and subverted. It teemed with possibility, life, intrigue... and all that snubbed because of a little game called Skyrim.

But times have changed! Bethesda have pretty much proven outright that they no longer have that magic spark to change the gaming landscape anymore and everyone's on the look out for the next swords-and-sorcery RPG to keep us satiated. In steps Dragon's Dogma 2, swept on wings of fury, claiming their rightly place as the it thing... at some point. We still don't have a release window and that slightly bothers me. We've gotten far too many 'forever in development' games for my liking. Still, at least Dragon's Dogma 2 is no longer an odd rumour that would pop up ever year or so hinting at the desire to 'get back to it' from the original director. We need wait no longer, gameplay and footage is here to consume! And with that we come across the big elephant in the room: It looks exactly like the first game.

Not in terms of graphical parity, mind you. Dragon's Dogma 2 is running on the latest iteration of Capcom's gorgeous RE engine, which has bedazzled the world year after year powering the stellar Resident Evil Remake series. (plus 7 and 8, obviously.) Of course liberties had to be taken on the complexity of character models, (I suspect Dragon's Dogma 2 doesn't have the budget to so much as consider facial capture tech) it all still looks good. No complaints there. What I mean to imply is that Dragon's Dogma feels like the same principal of game that the first one perpetrated. Muddy green European country beset by grandiose, if crumbling, stone edifices- vast swathes of untouched fields populated only by wayfarers and dynamic beasts. It feels like the first game but more, more alive. And that's exactly what I wanted.

Dragon's Dogma always felt like it was meant to be one of those 'sandbox style' open world games where the world doesn't care about you. Everything reinforces that from the sheer scale of the giant boss creatures, the relative stinginess of the economy, the scale of the home hubs, even the rudimentary individual relationship system wherein you built friendships (and even love interests) on a one-to-one basis rather than by becoming the celebrated hero of the world. But at the time it was beholden to tech constraints. Still, there were hoards of monsters that would spawn in the brush and attack travellers, they just happened to be the exact same creatures that spawned in the exact same places everytime you went anywhere. (Until you entered the end-game world state, of course.) That seems like a dream Capcom's DD team are finally ready to capitalise on.

As we're still in the era of only talking strictly about what was shown off in the demo footage, there's not a lot that people on the game can talk about beyond ideas they wanted to explore. For one we've heard that a point of inspiration was Grand Theft Auto 5 and the way that game made every NPC feel like they are going about their daily lives. With a map 4 times the size of the first game it's important that Dragon's Dogma 2 put a bit of effort into feeding that illusion, and that hints back to the idea of a breathing open world that I think this game is going for. Already we've seen footage showing Griffins just raiding the countryside, which were more flagship encounters in the original game that stole the show. If those majestic creatures are more of a dynamic occurrence now, that just makes me wonder what the show stealers are going to be!

One word I always come back to when it comes to Dragon's Dogma, and which is starting to populate my thoughts on my favourite games, is 'robust'. I love an engine that will allow me to bend it's rules without breaking. Being able to throw an ally at an airborne beast so they can grab ahold of it felt great in the original game and we're already seeing examples of that being built upon for Dragon's Dogma 2. That one shot of the Troll having it's balance blown out from under it, forcing the monster to fall back over a mountain gap and wildly grab the otherside of the ravine, creating a makeshift bridge for the characters to scale, is just wild levels of creative ingenuity in gameplay- I just pray that's merely a taste of what's to come in the whole game.

And then there's jank. Dragon's Dogma is far from the smoothest running video game you've ever played in your life, in fact- it's a bit of a jittery ride. AI can be confused to the point where your own team can be an impediment to success, monsters sometimes stumble off of tall buildings to their own demise. The game is silly, but in the most endearing possible way. All that roughness is very much part of the identity we very much want to see replicated, and according to the preliminary impressions it's sounding like the game is every bit as adorably off-kilter as we need it to be. Not enough to ruin the experience, but enough to colour the gameplay in a way that's memorable. Because if there's one thing that can be said about Dragon's Dogma, it sure is memorable!

Dragon's Dogma is one of those games where what we love about it only requires magnification in order to satisfy the fanbase, and as long as narrative cues were taken more from 'Dark Arisen' than from the base game of the original, I have no doubt that 2 will finally scoop off the recognition this budding franchise has been lacking. You know, unless they do a 'Horizon' and surprise release the game during a zombie apocalypse or an alien invasion or something else equally as moronic. There's magic in what Dragon's Dogma did, and that magic was alive along enough to bounce around Capcom for 10 years without abating, and I can't wait to load that up on my console once again. You know, as soon as we get a darn release date! (What is it with modern games slipping back into the 'no release date' meta? It's starting to get on my nerves!)

Yakuza 5 Remastered Review

Get that shirt off. Time to prove ya still got what it takes!

I'm finally back after all this time to put the 'wrap up' on this, my longest running exploration into a franchise of games that seems to multiply everytime I put it down. At least from here on out I can cease my bizarre journey of backtracking and move onward to newer games, better graphics, more sensible combat improvements and less loading screens! (Oh god, the loading screens!) And Yakuza 5 is an interesting send off to the original slate of games because quite unlike those that came before and even those that came after, I think this game alone might be the very first that hit me, repeatedly, with the odd sense that everything on offer was just too much. I know, right? "Who doesn't want more game?" And to try and define that myself, it's best I get somewhat into the game and break it down piece by piece for the benefit of all.

RGG clearly set out trying to recapture that special magic which made Yakuza 4 such instant fire in a bottle- namely the four-way narrative which allowed for a mystery to be weaved between four smaller tales, players to have control of four different characters with their own progression paths and themes to be further reinforced between 4 character arcs. Unfortunately this cannot just be a direct sequel to everything that Yakuza 4 built thanks to the scandal around Tanimura. The actor behind the character, Hiroki Narimiya, found himself wrapped up in ultimately fake charges of drug possession that ended up in his reputation becoming so tarnished that RGG pulled his likeness and voice from the game. Now technically this alone was not the reason for Tanimura not being included in Yakuza 5 (the scandal happened after the release of 0) but it did mean that we'd never get our 4 heroes in the same room ever again and that does kind of weigh over this entire game with all the slight references to Tanimura scattered here and there.

But Yakuza 5 has a tendency to go that 'one step beyond' with everything it does, so not only do we have 4 protagonists this time, but they also explore, drum roll please, 4 totally distinct cities! That's right, Yakuza went from having only two locations (Kamarucho and Sotenbori) that they jumped between over and over, to having dozens set all over Japan! From a tiny rural hunting village placed deep in the snowy mountains to a totally fresh (if slightly cramped) city district in a whole new city: Nagoya! (New to the franchise, I mean. RGG didn't travel back in time to 1610 in order to found the real-life city of Nagoya just to set one of their more bizarre storylines there. I think. Actually, that does seem like the kind of thing Toshihiro Nagoshi would do. Remember: He came up with idea of 'Super Monkey Ball'. Weird guy.)

Our four protagonists have their stories split across 4 acts consisting of four chapters, and when I tell you they touch on vastly distinct narrative threads that sometimes fray as the story desperately tries to pull them together- know I'm not exaggerating. In the late game there are times when characters are summarising recontextualising twists of such rippling magnitude that I literally had to pause the cutscene and go for a walk whilst I tried to figure out what that even meant for the dozens of characters and major events I already had stacked on top of each other up in my noggin. It's all a bit of a mess if I'm being honest. But for scope, Yakuza 5 might just be the most ambitious 'Like a Dragon' game I've experienced to this date. But let's go chapter by chapter, shall we?

Kiryu

First off, we get to actually start with my boy Kiryu this time, so I don't have to spend the first three quarters of the game wondering around like a lost child at the supermarket pulling on stranger's shirts and asking after my Yakuza mother-figure. (Instead I just spent the sixty odd hours between his act and the final act growing as restless as a Meth-head outside Vince Gilligan's house. I assume he has Meth, you don't make two shows and a movie based around something you don't have a vested stake in.) Kiryu is familiar territory and a fine reintroduction to everything we love about Yakuza- that fine straight up single-target-with-versatility brawler fighting style which starts off effective and becomes more fun as you improve it. Ah, to whack fools about the face as the Dragon himself- does life hold any more violent a pleasure?

And yet, right off the bat I do have to knock some points off for a non-cohesive narrative. As the great theme and lesson of Yakuza 4 affirmed- there's nothing worse in life than not being in control of your destiny for a single second. Did you mother cook you breakfast? Unacceptable! Throw that crap back in her face and hunt your meal like a damned Yakuza! (Real Yakuza subscribe to the 'Eat-what-you-kill' grindset!) So if that is the case, and Kiryu looked damn ready to stop running away from his place in the Tojo Clan and perhaps even start his own family or, you know, contribute in the slightest to the organisation who raised him- why in the heck has he cut all ties from them and is posing as a Taxi Driver in the middle of Fukuoka called, lemme check my notes, 'Tachi Susuki'? He gave himself one of the most common names in all of Japan to go undercover? Great naming conventions, RGG, what's next- you gonna name a character Ichiban or something? Sheesh...

Of course, this ties back in Haruka and a sacrifice of his identity that Kiryu needs to make in order to ensure she can follow her dreams to become, shifting through my notes again, a pop idol... huh? You mean, like when she had that one substory relating to idols back in Yakuza... I think it was 3? That one chance encounter really had an effect on her, huh? And that's her 'dream' now? Well I guess that means it takes precedence over 'taking control of your destiny' because the theme of this game is 'Dreams' and we're going to drill that into your skull until you're in danger of brain leakage! Look, I'm swear I'm not going to break down every plot point, (We'd be here until the heat death of the next universe over if I did.) I just want to set the foundation of what I consider to be a messy plot in a franchise that is already verging on being too convoluted for it's own good. The more I truck along the franchise, the more I totally understand the need to refresh the story like they did with 7. Looking forward to that one... even if his name is 'Ichiban'...

Now the first actual gameplay point I want to bring up is actually on the progression systems. Because of the truncated chapter structure, Yakuza 5 features a rather free-form approach to combat training wherein you meet one relevant trainer, and immediately unlock their entire questlines to be squeezed in during your exploration of your 4 chapter romp before you get kicked off to the next character. It's actually quite nice to get access to improvements as early as possible. (Provided you can actually beat the training challenges, which are not easy.) As for the EXP based levelling this game brings us- crap! The stat increase bars from Yakuza 3 are back! Actually it's a mix of spirit orbs and random stat and ability improvements that you can't predict. A little better than 3, but you're still building a character practically blind. (I'm so glad they figured this out so much better in 0.)

Also, joy of joys- technology has reached the point where fights can be started without cutscenes, such as in Yakuza 0! Most still do have cutscenes, because god and RGG hate us, but you don't need to wait for one to exit combat- which makes street fights so much more bearable! There's also been an AI overhaul for the street trash to make their fights feel more interesting, such as the ability to call for back up, group on you or even run away screaming out of the battle if you freak them out by horrifically maiming their childhood friends brutally enough. ("I love being the goddamn Yakuza-man!") And yet... there's yet to be devised any method for avoiding or escaping said fights, so they still feel like tall-grass encounters in late-game Pokémon- deeply annoying. But on the plus side, we've got a lot of really great environmental heat action takedowns this time around which makes the street brawls a bit meatier to get into- so you take some you give some, I guess. Oh, and there's also a new 'Climax heat mode' to spruce combat up a bit in different ways depending on the character being controlled. Everyone gets a unique super-move that gets charged up, but Kiryu specifically has a new 'rage state' he can enter which kind of acts like his 'Devil Trigger', to borrow DMC parlance. Not only does he become 'suped up' but all of his basic attacks come with brand new animations! And he can basically teleport whilst raged. Not really sure why that last ability is a thing. Yakuza gets weird when you let it out of the collar for a bit.  

Now playing Yakuza as it's evolved over the past decade before the fifth entry, you're probably stamping your feet and asking "Where is the distractingly over detailed Taxi driving meta-game with dozens of customer deliveries, Taxi cab modifications and a self-contained side-narrative involving high-way drift races... in that same taxi?" And I too have shared in your pain for that one crucial omission to the Yakuza fantasy. But fret not brothers, because finally in Yakuza 5 you have all of that, and it's every bit as concerningly in-depth and devised with meaningful gameplay loops as you've been... wanting? There's Taxi XP to unlock new custom parts and colours, Taxi points to buy those parts and a musical track for the racing portions that sounds right out of the Initial D OST. So... celebrations? (It's actually pretty fun, I'm not gonna lie. I kind of wish the Taxi was capable of reversing, however. That's a bit of an oversight.)

The Taxi side quest narrative also comes with a surprising amount of character and depth to it's participants despite every one of them being side characters who will absolutely never make an appearance again. Heck, the various personalities of the Taxi office alone are worth getting to know! Wada is the old soul that everyone can see comfortable geniality within, Kiyokawa is the starstruck newbie eager to jump into his own legend and Muramatsu is the straight edged 'stick in the mud' ruining everyone's fun. The chief is kindhearted and fatherly and the receptionist, Hirakawa, acts selectively oblivious with flashes of intuition. They sound like a tight knit pirate crew but they're completely missable side characters in this ten ton game of SEGA's- it's nuts!

That is easily the most developed minigame of the Kiryu chapter, but it's far from the only one. Also back is the chase minigame that the past two Yakuza games have loved, only here it's much more forgiving and quicker paced. It's still a headache and a half to have to deal with, however, and I wish it didn't exist. What else? Oh yeah, there's a whole dang Ramen making minigame to get involved in as well. A whole mini-browser-style game they cobbled together for a side story. I swear, RGG put more work into bringing their little snippets of Japan alive than the entire CDPR team could ever even consider when it comes to Cyberpunk. Imagine any other game with as many distractions as Yakuza has! I guess that's just why we love it, eh?

This time around the side stories that we go on are erring towards the more interesting and deliberate end, with some of the stories being downright tear jerkers once you let them go all the way. 'Another Haruka' in particular straight punched me in the gut. It reminded me of the love I had for these side stories from the first time I played Yakuza 0- true condensed nuggets of emotionally charged gold. And then there's the cooking side stories. I understand that celebrity tie-ins are cool, but when I don't know the celebrity because he's a Japanese chef, and the missions he imparts is simply 'Go to every restaurant in the area and tell me about them', I get real tired of the shitck in about 5 minutes. So what a pleasure it is to know that he shows up for every chapter to annoy all the characters! Wonderful!

There's also the Victory Road meta-plotline which plays out chapter to chapter wherein each hero is beset by random encounters that add up to a colosseum tournament for all the best fighters in the world. It's a cool way to tie in the colosseum to the narrative, but it necessitates the hunting down and beating of a dozen 'contestants' across each city, which is itself a headache when these contestants dress almost identically to street punks! Running into random encounters thinking you're progressing Victory Road only to be locked into a street-side gang rush is about enough to make me want to cave in my own skull with a claw hammer. But if I did that I wouldn't be able to maintain the requisite quantum-physics level concentration to keep up with the plot of the first act alone.

You see, Kiryu has gone to ground in order to protect Haruka but Sixth Tojo clan Chairman Daigo Dojima has come to see Kiryu to ask for his advice because he came all this way to see him, actually he came to Furuoka to seal a partnership with the local Yamagasa family but he thought he might as well take a detour to see his old pal K, but then he also decides to go missing for some reason which you have to investigate but you're also being attacked by people who think Kiryu knows where Dojima is despite the fact they've not been seen together for two years and Aoyama of the Omi clan is hunting them whilst also trying to sabotage the plan and maybe commit a double assassination but maybe not because Kiryu decides to come out of Yakuza retirement again in order to stop him, only to learn that there's even more layers to the various vying factions here and maybe a shadowy puppet master playing with all of them and Watase is just a villainous Majima. They didn't even make him act different, he's just bad-guy Majima!

Did you get all that? Because I didn't. But at least in tradtional Yakuza fashion there's the illusion of some sort of narrative conclusion by the end of the act, although it does of course end on a cliffhanger which doesn't get picked up on ever because this game needs to introduce every new character from scratch as if you've never seen them before in your life. But at least the mystery of a missing Diago is enough to start with. Great.

Saejima

Majima's big bro returns to the franchise with his heavy tanky movie set that makes crowd control a breeze to go through. His shockwave-producing attacks are a decent foil to Kiryu's ever-destructive 'Tiger Drop', and this time our Saejima even has his own underpowered equivalent to the 'ultimate' technique that can interrupt and stun anyone, even bosses, if you pull it off right. He's also back to the exact same prison map from Yakuza 4, because I guess it's hard to stop reusing assets when that's been such a pivotal part of your designing process for the entire franchise's history. Although Saejima does get himself his own city and middle-of-nowhere woods map to explore, so our Tojo Tiger isn't fed the short end of the 'new content' stick by any stretch of the imagination.

Would you believe me if I told you that Saejima has his own massively complex side story just like Kiryu's taxi minigame? Would you then also follow if I were to say that it's a giant hunting-themed side game in the snowy mountains wherein Saejima learns how to brave inhospitable conditions in order to protect a small town from a enraged giant bear who threatens it? We're talking a minigame built all around survival, exploring a blizzard wildness that slowly chips away at your health whilst shooting down Deers and rabbits for pelts that you sell for upgrade materials. It, again, feels like a whole indie side project tacked onto this game, only somehow this one feels even more insane for how far removed it is from Saejima's main questline- to discover the secret behind... who killed Majima! (Oh goodness, how could one of the franchise's few characters who shows up in every game just die off-screen like that? What a crazy twist!)

Saejima's act is actually bursting with sections that, even coming to grips with this franchise like I am, I would never have expected to see in a Yakuza game. There's a Modern Warfare 2 style snowspeeder chase section, a fist fight with a bear, a imaginary dream city tour which goes on far too long but presents a fascinating concept of interactive exposition that I'd love to see explored in another game at some point. There's a First-Person-Shooter reminiscent snowball fight minigame, a scene where Saejima runs away from children whilst dressed as Santa Claus and... actually that's about it. But at least Saejima can go to hostess clubs and attend Karaoke this time around; I can finally feel whole whilst in his shoes..

For the impressive completeness of his in-depth hunting/survival minigame alone I think Saejima's chapter is a standout in an already cluttered game. But he also enjoys the least overly convoluted plotline out of the four protagonists, and he gets the chance to beat on Makoto Tokita (the absolutely unbearable student from Yakuza 4) for good measure. Good stuff, and a needed dose of familiarity given what Yakuza has next up it's sleeve.

Haruka/Akiyama

No, you misread nothing. Part 3 of this story is shared with Akiyama and Haruka. You know, Kiryu's adoptive step-daughter who used to chase 'Uncle Kaz' around town making him gamble, sing and otherwise embarrass herself for her twisted sense of amusement? She's both an idol and playable now. (Feel old yet?) Honestly, Akiyama is kind of just a tag along for a section of the narrative which is largely guided by Haruka on her journey to prove herself as the breakout pop idol star of the production company Dyna Chair, whom she feels deeply indebted to despite the fact that her manager, Mirei Park, literally blackmailed Kiryu out of her life and Haruka to become a Idol in the first place. But that's water under the bridge, as it were, she's supposed to be a mother-figure now, or something. I guess it helps that she even wears her hair the same as Yumi (That's Haruka's mother, if you've understandably forgotten) did back in Yakuza 1. That's called 'Dramatic narrative repetition', I think...

Now you might be thinking how exactly one plays as a sixteen year old girl in a fighting game. And no, we don't get to see Haruka slap the ever-loving beatdown on fools. (as incredible as that would undoubtedly be) Instead we become one with the daily life of a pop star through two minigames, one a rhythm matching game and the other a competitive dance game, to represent Haruka's ability to provide showstopping performance gold! She even has her own equivalence to street thugs whereupon the various corners of Sotenbori (There we go, nice to have some more familiar returning maps) are filthy with street dancers that, similar to modern Pokemon, will challenge anyone foolish enough to strike up conversation with them. Except... only if that person is a Sixteen year old School Girl, apparently a well-aged smoker in a burgundy suit scares them all of the streets when you go exploring as Akiyama. (Fools don't know what they're missing out on...)

One credit I have to give Yakuza 5 is for taking the perspective of the franchise far outside of it's comfort zone in order to explore the distinctly novel view of the idol industry, or even the sex industry through the eyes of the 4th protagonist. (Or 5th, if we accept Haruka as a protagonist all of her own.) These really allow the range of characters we meet to expand out, not that Yakuza ever had trouble throwing colourful cast mates at us; still, learning what drives a woman of sheer determination like Park-san, a simple show-business organiser, is somewhat striking in the ways it resembles some of the most notable Yakuza members we've met over the years.  Of course, the stakes and avenue are so distinct which is what allows for a greater range of narrative- it takes balls to get as risky as this game does.

Haruka also has some of the most heartfelt and sweet substories, through which you really get to see the imprint of the noble ideals of Kiryu stamped upon her over their many years together. Some of them are also just about Haruka learning to make friends with people her age, considering she spent all her years following a giant Yakuza man or raising tiny kids in lieu of said-'giant Yakuza man'. And yet she does have the worst minigame of the entire game in the comedy side story which is practically impossible to do unless you're a fluent Japanese speaker as it requires rapid and apt responses to lead in lines that just isn't possible when you need time to read the translated transcript and the responses and then select it- maybe the one serious moment where localisation dropped the ball in my entire Yakuza journey. (I can forgive them actively changing some of Akiyama's racier Yakuza 4 dialogue, but this was just frustrating.) Fittingly enough Haruka's metagame is managing her Idol career by attending talk shows, and guesting in quiz shows about Sotenbori, as well as conducting hand-shake meet'n'greets and performing shows for local businesses- all of which come with some form of minigame attached. Unfortunately the narrative of the metagame- based around a slew of completive dance competitions, is largely divorced from the core idol work and can easily be missed in a non-attentive playthrough.

Akiyama steps into the story about halfway through Act 3 and he brings with him that deviously "Black Leg" Sanji-coded kick-centric fighting style, now coloured up with a limited-time ability to literally kick so much he suspends himself in the air for about 7 seconds of flurry strikes and a sweet little guitar battle track which is my favourite of the game. As a side-protagonist, Akiyama's purpose for being here is pretty much just to be the money-lender and a stand-in guardian for Haruka in the meanwhile, and I can't help but shake the impression he was brought in simply because the developers thought fans would riot if there was a full 4 chapters without face-beatings. But I ain't gonna complain, Akiyama is the freakin' GOAT and I'll die on that hill!

That damned man has so much charisma it just makes me wanna reach through the screen and pinch his little rugged grown-man cheeks! Even if we get to see Akiyama further cement his legacy as the only character in a franchise full of compulsive smokers who suffers the ill effects of smoking. (At least until 'Infinite Wealth' releases...) Even when he's tacked on top of someone else's story Akiyama manages to steal the show with his suave laid-back persona and his deeply moralistic centre. We even get a few of his brilliant Sky Finance Substories where he meets potential debtors, all wonderful experiences to express Akiyama's uniquely interesting philosophy on the role of money in a deeply capitalistic world. If there was ever a full Akiyama spin-off, I'd buy it. Twice.

This chapter's narrative veers more towards the confused again, introducing new plotpoints that seem to have nothing to do with what we were already following, all up until they hit us with the shocker that kind of feels a little insulting in the way they neatly slip it into an important main character's past and just pretends he never mentioned it. To anyone. Seriously though, it was around Act 3 I was starting to get suspicions that the game wasn't going to manage to tie everything together in a clean manner... not least of all because every act starts from zero and has to build itself up from scratch!

Shinada

And new-comer Shinada rounds out the pack with such an insanely specifically themed personal narrative that I honestly think he was only invented because one of the key creative leads of Yakuza 5 was an obsessive baseball fanatic. Shinada is a smut-article journalist living on the bring of poverty in Nagoya, up to his eyes in debt to literally everyone whilst he mooches off his last 'good will' sneeking free meals and free 'sessions' with his favourite soap-land girl 'Milky-Chan', on the sly. He a little perverted, but just the appropriate enough amount not to be the franchise creep. He's more hopeless lover-boy, at least on the very surface- and it's not long before we start getting into the true heart of this new wild card.

Because you see, Shinada is actually a former Baseball prodigy who has his big break 15 years back, but is now living on the edge of financial destitution whilst borrowing money from shady Yakuza-looking types. That baseball past is still painfully hanging over Shinada, however, and when he gets the chance to pay away all of his debts in return for solving the mystery of what went wrong all those years ago he jumps on the chance to clear his name and take back his life. A pretty serious sounding set-up, but Shinada is still lovably affable to be around. Which I suppose is somewhat necessary to make the story of a broken man one bad week around from street living not increadibly depressing.

Of course, with Baseball being such a big part of his life you'd naturally assume that forms a large part of his fighting style, which might naturally lead you assume he plays something like Yakuza 0 Majima, who had an entire style dedicated to his use of Bat-play in combat. But you'd be wrong. In actuality, Shinada fights more like a grappler in a swinger, in a manner I'd associate more with American Football or Rugy than Baseball. His signature move is to tackle the midriff of his foes and slam them against walls for big damage, and he utterly refuses to use a Baseball Bat in combat because he respects the sport too much to degrade a symbol representing it. I'm not joking, if you pick up a Baseball bat he undergoes a lengthy animation which sees him regard it sadly and then set it aside gently for fear of harming the thing. I just want to know why he tackles, it's been bugging me all week now- did the gameplay designers just forget what Baseball was? 

Shinada's metagame is based around his visits to the local swing centre and becoming something of a local celebrity for the quality of his Batting game, of course by a public who have no idea of his secret big-time Baseballing past. The Batting minigame has been overhauled just for Shinada to be an RPG timing minigame that demands focus and reflexes in order to catch a ball at the right moment to score a homerun. As you become better, train and purchase second-hand batting equipment you'll unlock bigger margins of error in timing and the ability to slow-down time using your Heat. (However I found the slow down mechanic to be deeply temperamental and sometimes scuppered an otherwise perfect Homerun for seemingly no reason whatsoever. I recommend ignoring it.)

Seeing as how Yakuza 4's Akiyama narrative revolved around the idea of what one does with an abundance of wealth, it's clever to explore the opposite end of that with Shinada and what a challenge a life without means can be. (They even have almost opposite trajectories from one another going from a place of considerable fortune to rock bottom and vice versa. Although Akiyama also has his prologue of being a banker and losing that, but I'm trying to make connections- stop ruining them!) Shinada's is a pretty down-to-earth character such that he almost feels the most human out a cast of otherwise icons. He's fending off a small group of citizen-turned bad whilst Kiryu is facing off against twin rocket launchers vanguarding a small army of Yakuza- the scale variance is near laughable: but I enjoy the perspective variance.

Shinada's storyline focuses heavily on conspiracy and secrets, an as such feels the most satisfying to dig into because we're far enough along in the story for events to start revealing themselves instead of just rising to more annoying cliffhangers before passing things on to the next rube in procession. However the mystery of his Baseball misfortunes is seeped in such heavy Baseball jargon that I literally had to back off and look up definitions just to follow things. I'd never heard of 'Sign Stealing' before this game, and that's a huge element of the story they kind of just expect you to know about when they throw it about. There's some genuine Baseball passion deep in the writing of Shinada's narrative, and it alone almost confuses the otherwise traditionally Yakuza-styled narrative irreparably. Still, when you stick it out and take the take to learn what everything means, you get rewarded with one of the most insanely powerful batter versus swinger showdowns outside of a sport movie ever. I don't know how they did it, but for brief fleeting moment I cared immensely about a sport. RGG do strange things to my chemicals, I'll tell you what. 

Final Part

The last act attempts to bring everyone together to Tokyo, Kamurocho, in order smash every conspiracy plotline together into one and as I've alluded several times already- the results are rough. Everytime a character sat down to summarise events for the other I felt the need to pull out a pen and paper to try and follow along with the four separate stories worth of character, events, factions and motivations. On one hand it creates a vastly rich canvass of story to shift through, but on the otherhand it means you see a name you can barely remember and attribute it to the wrong character and loose track of everything because then the twists start. Oh, the twists! You might remember me lambasting the narrative of Yakuza 2 for overusing the whole "Aha! You did this thing but that was part of my plan the whole time!" twist set-up- well I'm afraid that's literally the entirety of the Final Part but on steroids.

There was effort put in to try and recapture the magic of Yakuza 4's converging narratives at one point. That tingly moment when everyone met on the rooftop of Millennium Tower and had their four way standoff against the various badguys... and then switched up to fight other people's badguys for some reason. (Still don't understand why they did that.) Unfortunately, the story kind of trips over itself this time around. They couldn't find a feasible excuse to get everyone up on the same rooftop so we only get Kiryu and Saejima, and they couldn't give them a good enough foe to fight so we're left with one of the most pathetic excuses to fight since Yakuza 4's "I'm pretty sure you're not the bad guy, but I'm going to fight you anyway." This time around it's "I think the bad guy brought all of us up here in hopes that we'd literally all kill each other. Somehow. He literally expects us to all punch each other to death in the same moment. And if we don't do that, he'll never show his face, so we need to do that in order to make him show up!" I'm not kidding, that is literally the reasoning. It's so stupid...

Yakuza 5 manages to keep it's final villain a secret until the penultimate chapter, but if you didn't immediately guess who it was the second they shambled into the narrative back in Act 1 with pathetically little explanation as to who they are and what they wanted, then you're a far more trusting man then I. Although, even I couldn't have predicted how embarrassingly cartoonish the bad guy would be, both in his motivation and conduct. First off, and I have to spoil his name and motivations in order to make fun of them so skip to the next paragraph if you want to spare yourself: what the heck is Kurosawa's problem? He's basically just upset that there's less thuggish Yakuza out there and is planning a mass conspiracy/assassination plot in order to clean the Yakuza of niceness? Aren't there like, 30,000 men in the Tojo clan? Do you think he profiled every one of them to find any he considers idealistically objectionable? I think that's an objectively poor villain motivation, imma just say it.

What's more, everything changes when the twists attack! Now a twist is a useful tool for recontextualising exposition and unveiling hidden motivations and plot-threads. Typically you have a twist which effects a certain aspect of the plot so that the audience doesn't feel like the time developing everything else was utterly wasted. Now obviously Yakuza 5 doesn't care about stuff like, the audiences time, they designed 4 ludicrously in-depth meta-games for all the acts: if you've made it this far your time must be worthless! So they twice pull out twists that utterly destroys all previously built context and totally shatters seemingly established motivations. The second of which, the one they leave on, I think genuinely doesn't make sense. If the main villains plan was, indeed, what they pretend it was at the end of this game- his actions throughout the story must be damn-near schizophrenic! Why the hell try and destroy Madarame's Clan if- AH! There's no point getting into it, we'll be here all year. The point I think is worth bringing up though, is that when the final boss of the game is revealed they are asked the question "What are you doing here?", to which the answer is "I don't really know myself." If the final boss doesn't even know why he's the final boss, how the hell is the audience supposed to?

When it's all said and done, the real tragedy of Yakuza 5 is the smothering of the true intentions of the final boss, to feed his repressed homosexual urges. Twice he forces rippling muscled men to rip off their shirts and grapple sweatily for his amusement. He even gets impatient the second time as everyone stays clothed for too long and urges them to undress at literal gunpoint. Then he stands there smiling like an Otaku at Comic Con, grinning dumbly as he forces half-naked men to slap each other around whilst standing around awkwardly. Someone needs to guide my man out of the closet, poor fellow got himself lost down there!

Summary

I've never really thought of Yakuza games as being safe slacker style games, but they do have a certain style and cadence they stick to. Yakuza 5 is a trailblazer that attempted to be more ambitious then most every other game in the franchise through sheer amount of distinct gameplay ideas alone. The number of minigames unique just to Yakuza 5 is so mindboggling I didn't even have time to try all of them. (I wanted to try Chicken Chasing, but I had already crossed the 100 hour mark!) But under the weight of all that content the usually slim and sleek body of the game contorted and squashed. I wouldn't say I dislike Yakuza 5, I just think it stumbles over itself too much to be ignored. It's still every bit as fun as you'd expect a Yakuza game to be in content, it's just longtoothed to the point of becoming ungainly in it's latter hours. Still, I would recommend this game just for the variety of gameplay experiences alone. And slap a respectable -B Grade, as befitting my arbitrary reviewing scale's demands. From here on out it's Dragon Engine powered games ahoy, as move into the modern age of Yakuza and pray it's less annoying than Kiwami 2 was. Time to wrap up the story of Kiryu once and for all, because 6 is absolutely his last game and there's no way he'd make a return in literally the very next after they promised 6 would be his finale! They wouldn't do that to us. That would just be disrespectful. And Yakuza is all about being respectful. Just like Sensei Logan Paul said before deciding to film a body in the suicide forest. Or like Kojima literally everytime he makes any game ever before immediately jumping on the sequel. It's the final one guys, I don't know what to tell ya. That's it. Fintio. All she wrote. The fat lady sung. Tata. Farewell. Auf wiedersehen. Adieu. Adieu to Kiryu, because he is done. He's out. No more Kiryu guys. Not again. New franchise, new hero. Right? Tell me I'm right. PLEASE TELL ME I'M RIGHT!

Unity's other shoe drops

 You've fallen into my trap card!

Square Enix's woes

 Is Square Enixed?

Difficulty Must Die

 Stylin' on fools!

So how is Phantom Liberty?

 "Think we can find in our hearts to forgive each other?"

It's all over.

 The Dark Side wins...

The allure of Live Service

You activated my 'Uno Reverse' card!

Kiryu has WHAT?

 Umm... 'Infinite Wealth' spoilers, I guess

How excited I was to tune into Like a Dragon's very first direct-style event, touching on the two brand new Like a Dragon games flying at us in the coming few months. I'm nowhere near ready to play either of the two games mind, I've a metric ton of Judgement and Yakuza games to get through first, but that just makes me even more excited about what I have awaiting me. One of these games is, of course, the action-based side series starring Kiryu as Agent Joryu, and the other is the next mainline entry: Like a Dragon 'Infinite Wealth' taking the franchise out of Japan to Hawaii for the first time... perhaps ever. I remember hearing that title 'Infinite Wealth' and trying to relate it to all the usual themes Yakuza might have. "'Wealth' could refer to something ephemeral like happiness, love and friendship- I wonder which way they'll go this game!" And then the bombshell landed and the clouds kind of parted.

To be clear, those looking to go into the next Yakuza game with no information don't want to carry on reading this blog and they don't want to watch the new story trailer for 'Infinite Wealth'. They should take my word that it looks like an incredible entry in a franchise that doesn't have any right to go on this long and still drop such consistent bangers- and if you want to see something than watch the gameplay trailer, that one is safe. As for those that already committed and are currently utterly flabbergasted at what the trailer-team decided was safe to reveal before the game was out, then I'm right with you. Who in their right mind thought the little plot point that Kiryu had damned cancer would be a fun little spicy warm up for those waiting for the game?

That's right, the Dragon of Dojima himself- the god like being of infinite mortality who solves all of his problems by punching, (and that's no exaggeration. Remember that in Yakuza 3 his solution for teaching the main villain the importance of friendship was to beat it into him) has been given the one foe he can't just Tiger Drop... unless... unless he Tiger Drops the back of his own head! (Imagine if that's how this plot point resolves itself...) Yes, like Arthur Morgan himself, Kiryu has been given a death sentence and it's bad enough to have the man coughing blood in the middle of the trailer, hamming home the themes of impermanence and the trickling sands of time in a narrative otherwise about...  Kasuga finding his mother? Damn, I totally forgot that was the lead-in; his mommy issues are overshadowed like they're nothing, I hope the game itself does a better job balancing his story.

It's a jarring position to put a character who is representative of so much strength in the face of adversity that he is being brought into stories nearing his mid fifties and the man still looks totally ready to kick some ass. It's not like a 'Sam Fisher' situation in the latest Ghost Recon where the man looks like he's been dragged out of an old folks home and thrown into an exoskeleton- Kiryu seems to be in the twilight of his fighting years and even his most beloved fans knew these next few games would be the last before ultimate retirement. I just... don't think we expected that 'ultimate retirement' to be a cancerous death like what seems to await our man. I don't think this is being introduced as a spectre to hang over Kiryu for the last few of his games either, the way it's being treated makes this sound like his big struggle throughout 'Infinite Wealth'; introducing the startling possibility that Kiryu might not actually survive through to the end of the  credits. (Let my man get back with Kaoru, dammit! He's suffered alone long enough!)

Cancer is, of course, quite the large bombshell to drop into any story, let alone the story of the man who seems to have transcended his mortality altogether through his sheer passion of beatdowns. Kiryu has been shot, stabbed, blown up, beaten to a pulp, tortured, mauled, hit by a car and everything else inbetween- yet through all that it was the damn cigarettes that got him! (And yet Akiyama is still okay enough to cameo through the Poundmates app? How does that make any remote sense?) In truth, I guess this really was the only way to further humble the character of Kiryu after the man faked his own death for the second time. I mean, there's only so many times you can cut to credits with Kiryu in a perilous state before it doesn't work anymore. You could have him be abducted by aliens just before the credits and I'll assume he'll beat him way before the end credits scene.

Of course, it's pretty surprising that such a perception destroying narrative as Kiryu facing death itself, a very concept designed to throw everything in one's life into perception, should occur without Haruka present. Literally the little girl that Kiryu devoted his entire life to raising, the love child of the woman he decided was the love of his life literally two seconds before she died. (Seriously Kiryu, I understand playing it cool, but you played that entire game damn near glacial towards Yumi!) You think that spending his time with Haruka would be the only thing on Kiryu's mind right now, but something has him tied not only to Honolulu, but to Kasuga and, eventually, the Tojo clan again! Isn't that the very life he's been trying to distance himself from since... literally the first Yakuza game? What on Earth could supersede his desire to be with his daughter, even if he faked his death in order to 'protect her' or whatever nonsense he came up with at the time. (I don't know, I haven't played that game yet.)

My guess? Kiryu won't die in this game. I don't think they'll magically cure his cancer, but I suspect it to go into remission. The only reason I say that is two-fold. Firstly, I can't possibly see them letting Haruka go on thinking her father figure is dead and not being there at his death bed. Sure, there's a possibility that she sneaks her way in at the end, but I just don't think Japan is going to be featured in this game much at all. Secondly, no self respecting proprietor of this franchise is going to let Kiryu die alone, not after all he's been through. How deeply disrespectful would it be for the character to have him die in the gutter coughing out his guts? This isn't that sort of franchise! If Kiryu's going out, it's going to be out into retirement in order to live surrounded by the people he loves most. And I'm not sure Haruka is going to be in this game and I know that Kaoru isn't going to be. (The made her a Poundmate but that isn't anywhere near enough, dammit!)

Still, at least this confirms that the franchise is adamant about their desire to move on from this being the 'ongoing story of Kiryu', despite that being severely questionable when it was revealed they couldn't go a single full game without bringing the ol' zombie back. I was waiting for Komaki to confer upon Kiryu the secret of his own inexplicable immortality, but unless that ol' bugger knows the secret technique for banishing Cancer I guess our man is on his own. I've always believed that Like a Dragon has had it in itself to expand it's horizon, and now they've lit a fire they can't put out it seems they're going to have to prove that with action in the years to come. Just like everyone else I can't wait to get my hands on the game and cry those darn ugly tears that Yakuza always tries to get out of me. (And sometimes does!)

Devil May Cry 5 Review

Don't you dare say it -

Onwards to the end. It's actually a little surreal to think that my first real desire to play the famed and beloved Devil May Cry franchise was spawned the very first time I played the demo for Devil May Cry 5- and now I've finally had the chance to satiate my curiosity for What lay beyond that small snippet I played and what context defined it to begin with. Whilst speeding through over 2 decades of video game history I can finally deduce that the answer to one of those questions is at least- nothing, never once has this franchise ever deigned us worthy to learn why it is that Demons just populate the world every now and then. I mean sure, we can blame the Qliphoth but why? Why does a demon tree mean demon summons? Why did the events of DMC 4 suddenly summon demons? Why were they summoned in the prequel Vergil cutscene? DMC 3 one's kind of make sense, there was specifically a portal to the underworld mentioned- but otherwise: are demons just a natural thing that people of the DMC world deal with?

Questions that shall go an unanswered because at this stage in the game no one involved in this franchiser was interested in deconstructionism, especially not after their last game, just named 'DMC' was lambasted for attempting exactly that through a reboot of the franchise. Casting a younger Dante, reframing the elements of the story in order to tell a founding narrative that was a bit more constructed and deliberate in the style of DMC 4 ended up slightly erasing all the things that fans loved about these games, the history they shared with them. As well as the personality quirks of post DMC 2 Dante by some people's reckoning. The result was that when time came around to do Devil May Cry once again, the team decided to abandon the new universe and do their best to return to what DMC fans wanted in such a hard U-turn that they low-key kind of just retold DMC 3 in broad strokes- albeit in a totally new fashion.

In many ways DMC 5 is an amalgamation of everything I've wanted from a DMC game up until now; it tells a active and fairly engaging story with properly written characters that have actual stakes in the plot's events, (Weep harder: DMC 2) and it brings memorable set-pieces, decent missions and fun bosses. Unfortunately it never quite catches the level of difficult intensity that DMC 3 boasted, but on the flipside the combat this time around was so smooth, flashy and brimming with character, (between the three playable characters. 4 with DLC) that I never got bored. Despite being about 4 years old now, Devil May Cry 5 looks pretty enough to put most modern games to shame both in cutscenes and in the heat of battle, which might be a comment on how we're reaching the edge of the visual fidelity arms race, but I just like to appreciate the pretty looks.

I quite like the effort that went into the visual design of both gooey bubonic terrain of the demonic tree which has infected the world called the 'Qliphoth', (Yes, it's another random word from mythology that the team borrowed and used without any thought put into it's potential thematic significance.) and the red-phone boxed streets of a demolished city called 'Redgrave' which that tree is growing out of, a city I would have found instantly identifiable as this universe's version of London even if I didn't already know that because I'd see a making of video years ago. The solid design work, much stronger than this franchise's earlier days, actually persists to the various monsters and bosses you'll encounter and stops only short of the main bad guy, who is back to being a sludge monster. (What the hell is it with this franchise and sludge monster main villains?) At least his final form for the last two missions is more... shall we say... palatably familiar. 

In gameplay Devil May Cry 5 is exactly what you would have come to expect by now only refined to it's flashiest and, in my opinion, best feeling. Of course, now that we have three protagonists there are some curious points to each hero that makes their playstyle tantalisingly unique. Nero, for example, features a collection of robotic 'Devil Arm's' that replace the one he lost, all providing new functionality to the 'B/O' button (Some much more useful than others) and each will break if Nero takes damage whilst using them. A curious risk and reward style mechanic that can spice up your combo chain in a manner that feels flowing and dynamic depending on whatever arm it is you have lined up, making Nero's playstyle feel just that little more than 'Dante without the variety'.

Dante plays much the same as he did in 4 with the insta-switch melee weapons, ranged tools and styles to back up a movement set that has never quite gotten old. He's still perhaps one of the most utilitarian fighters in this genre-type, made even more accessible with the modern simplification of his 'Royal Guard' stance making dodge play obsolete if you know how to time a quick switch or two. (It can make those more frantic boss fight moments flow like wine when you catch that perfect block/retaliate combo.) He almost feels like the Kiryu of the franchise, the baseline you just can't go without. And with the focusing down on Dante's close combat tools rather than ungainly briefcase canons- there is an unparalleled smoothness which makes his levels a blast.

V is the newcomer to the rooster bringing with him a quite unique take on 'Summoner gameplay'. V himself isn't capable of hacking or slashing, but his retinue of demons, including a tiny version of Griffon, a panther and a special rock golem, all fill different roles of combat in his stead. However as individuals, each creature has a certain amount of health before they get knocked out of the fight for a bit, and V himself is helpless if all his critters are knocked out at the same time, so there's a curious aggression versus defensive rhythm to get into whilst playing his levels which is quite unlike any other character in DMC. It can hardly be disguised that his levels are slower and can be somewhat frustrating even if you have a decent hand of the basic moveset of the game, but for the change of pace alone I rate V's levels as adequate. 

Now as I've teased, this time around the team actually tried to tell an evolving narrative in the vein of where DMC 4 went and in doing so created a very straight forward and digestible campaign with memorable story beats- only this time starring a plethora of well performed and distinctive personalities to breath life into the sillier moments. I particularly am a fan of the fact that Dante's constantly breathy performance now perfectly fits since the character is getting a little older, and the fact that newcomer Nico is just... the best. She seems designed from the ground up to seem like she's going to be a forgettable and unlikeable character but she just... isn't. I really like her. More so than the other reoccurring girls who, with all due respect, were utterly superfluous throughout the entire game. I have no idea who the girl opposite of Trish is, but she ain't the badass character Lady we got to know back in DMC 3. For Nico's sake I hope she managed to stay away from the core team lest she get her personality sapped dry until she's just a mindless valley girl archetype eye-candy waste of screentime.

Devil Trigger is back and being useful in this game, with a brand new extra mode tacked onto the late game called 'Sin Devil Trigger', which adds a new game changer transformation capable of stunlocking and performing just gross amounts of damage. It takes a while to build which is supposed to be the trade-off, but when you go SDT it's practically like you take over the entire fight for a brief few seconds of unbreakable carnage. You don't even heal during SDT, nor are you invincible, because either would be too broken. Honestly, and this might be the first time you'll ever hear this said about the franchise, I might actually prefer how DMC 2 did it's alternative Devil Trigger. Desperate Devil Trigger only activated when you were on the last slither of health and that would change a losing beatdown into a heroic resurgence anime-style. However, Desperate Devil Trigger didn't come with the Devil Sword Dante, now did it? And I love the summon sword powers of the Devil Sword Dante. Finally Dante feels as cool as Vergil to play as, it only takes half the game to unlock it.

And finally there is the music, which is indeed good enough this time around to deserve it's own shout-out because wow- this game has the best soundtrack without any serious competition. To be absolutely transparent I did actually know about both 'Devil Trigger' and 'Bury the Light' before I played the game to experience them, but what I didn't know was that both of those insanely catchy, great tracks were standard battle music! Most games would save epic handbangers like those for epic character moments but not Devil May Cry! They want the desire to hear the songs themselves to be enough to dry you into each fight, and you know what? It absolutely is! I will prolong fights as Vergil just so I can absolutely annihilate alongside announcements of how "I am the storm that is APPROACHING! PROVOKING black clouds in isolation!" Nero and Vergil got down right by this game's soundtrack, which I suppose is fighting when you think about it...

Summary

I've reached the point in reviewing these games wherein I know them all well enough to be arguing semantics. They're all some baseline version of good (apart from 2) so rating always comes down to splitting hairs and personal preference over what I think makes the better action hack'n'slash. Or rather, whatever features bring the experience closer to Metal Gear Solid Revengence, which is objectively the best action hack'n'slash game that exists. (That's just a fact.) Still 3 presents the most interesting challenge experience, and 4 takes you on the best feeling journey. But 5 looks the best, brings the best characters and now, I can slip this accolade off of 4's shoulders, feels the best to control by a country mile. I once speculated that 4 might be the game I keep installed on my Xbox to come back to when I'm feeling the need for "Motivation", but 5 supplanted that. In many ways, 5 is the experience I was kind of looking for out of this franchise, and I'm glad it rose to this point. That final fight could have laid on the fire a bit more, but I came out wanting to jump right back in and that's the kind of excitement these types of games are born to engender.

So of course I'm going to be recommending this game. You already knew that was coming just from how I'm talking about it. But what you didn't know was that I loved this game enough to slap it a solid A grade on my arbitrary grading scale. That's right, this game manages to be as fun to me as Metal Gear Rising is, thus earning the exact same grade. That is as high praise as I can dish for a game like this, because I absolutely loved my time and I'm still playing even now because of how kick-ass of a game it is. Coming to this franchise I was expecting slightly more at times, especially out from the characterisation of characters which the gaming world have told me are untouchably iconic, but I can't deny that the level of reverence this franchise has enjoyed feels just about well earned by the time I reached 5. And it was the general overall quality of this game which pushed me over the edge, because I was shaking on whether we'd ever reach the 'A' bar until now- but 5 just brought the whole package, in pristine wrapping, and solidifying the Devil May Cry games as one's I will try to trick people into becoming helpless addicted to in my years to come. 

Now I've finally put this behind me, it's time to get back to a franchise I was right in the middle of so I can finally get around to capping off- what do you mean there's been 5 Yakuza games either released or announced since I stopped reviewing them? And the franchise changed name? Oh god... I'm never going to catch up...

Jackpot!

A change of plans for the Exclusivity industry?

 Of Execs and Exclusivity

Determination

It's quite filling, I'm told

Konsole Kombat

 Switch it up, Boon!

The all-digital future

 Are friends electric?

Tetsuya's Nomura's dream stretches on

 Somebody stop this man

Unity done lost their minds!

 Up in here, up in here!

I need to talk about Immortals of Aveum

If I can even remember it...

Overwatch- how to ruin everything

 Then they came for our lore, and there was no one left to speak up for it

One piece is good?

 I'm a different kind of Netflix adaptation

Mexican Aliens, huh?

 This one feels familiar...

A new gaming franchise is born

"Waku Waku!" Read in the voice of a disturbingly Spy-obsessed kindergartener. 

Starfield Review

What's out there?

Peter Molyneux is 'Sorry', everyone!

 That just makes it all better!

'Commercial Success'

 Never heard of her

Starfield and the saga of paid modifications.

 'Unity' indeed...

Bloodlines 2 again again

 I've just been in this time before...

Skull and Bones: The invisible game

 Go away Spectre! We gave you a Beta, what more do you want?

About the ending of Starfield...

 New beginnings

I guess I hate Assassin's Creed

 What happened to us?

The bow on the Baldur's Gate cake

 If I could ask but one more boon.

The art of the cut

 I may have gone a bit far in a few places.

To steal a Starfield

 Phantom Thief of Games

I want to live

The clock won't stop and this is what we get...

There goes Volition

Pour one out

Entering the Starfield

First impressions don't always tell the whole picture