Holy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥.

As someone who put countless hours into Champions of the Continent, Octopath Traveler 0 is everything I could've wanted out of a PC version of Champions of the Continent and SO much more.

The Octopath Traveler franchise continues its tradition of blowing my socks off with how perfect its entries are. The original CotC's dark, and sometimes gruesome storyline is left practically intact (in a good way), aside from a few additions made by the inclusion of the new protagonist, and it is accessible in the sense that the story bosses aren't as frustratingly difficult as they were in the original CotC, while still allowing for some challenging fights in the game's side content.

Having eight party members at a time, allowing any of them to equip both active skills and passive effects, alongside the tried-and-true Break/Boost system works wonderfully for this game, allowing for strategizing both in and out of battle, letting players swap out travelers in and out of the party to prepare for specific encounters, or letting them focus on making an end-all be-all A-Team that could handle everything the game throws at them. My point is, the game allows the player to be sky's-the-limit creative with their teambuilding.

The OST is once again beautifully crafted by Yasunori Nishiki, who I genuinely hope will be remembered as one of the GOATs of videogame music, peaking once again with every new composition that had you thinking "surely it can't get better than this". His tracks from the original CotC and his new material for this entry are absolutely marvelous, and I'm sure I will have the new tracks on repeat constantly, just as I've had for the CotC ones.

I also really like the townbuilding, it's a nice reprieve from the action and super duper comfy :3

Do I wish this game had difficulty options for those who wish to relive the brutal story boss fights of CotC, specifically in the middle and later half of the game? Yeah.
Do I wish a certain puzzle towards the end of the game had been touched up to account for language differences between Japanese and English? Yeah.
Do I wish Surpassing Power wasn't an equippable passive and instead an unlockable global effect after finishing Master of All (and that, naturally, enemy health was scaled up to account for this)? Yeah.
Do I wish the audio mixing had been given some extra work, as some party members are simply too loud or too quiet at times? Yeah.

Do I still think this game is an absolute masterpiece? Abso-♥♥♥♥♥♥'-lutely.
Hats off to you, Team Asano, you've done it again.

You will certainly not regret playing Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake on Draconian difficulty with a full party of Gadabouts.

Imagine a game that improves on quite literally everything from the original Hades, like the gameplay, visuals, and soundtrack.
Actually, you don't need to. That's just Hades II.

The narrative is engaging throughout, there's not a single weapon I dislike from the protagonist's array, the addition of an additional route helps break the monotony of runs, and there's a very whimsical set of keepsakes that you obtain after reaching the ending that make the game so much more fun. The character design remains stellar as ever, with my favourites being Melinoë, Nemesis, Artemis, Selene, and Prometheus.

The "make your own difficulty after your first completed run" Heat mechanic from Hades returns as Fear, which makes runs even more interesting as one finds what difficulty options works for them. They feel a lot more fun and fair than the original Hades' modifiers, except for maybe Void, but it's as simple as "just don't select that one" unless you're masochistic enough to run 67 Fear.

Every single track in Hades II's soundtrack is an absolute banger. The second major zone specifically has a whole album of bangers, with more chill-sounding tracks for the stage itself, and more energetic ones for when you fight the boss. I'm still bopping my head to tracks like Doomed City, Moonlight Guide Us, Song of the Isles, and Rock and a Hard Place, which are constantly on repeat while I'm doing other stuff.

I truly have no negatives to say about this game.
It is, in my opinion, the ultimate culmination of the roguelite genre, and my GOTY 2025.

My favourite part was when the main character said "What are we, some sort of Time Stranger?" and the Olympos XII erupted into thunderous applause.

Absolute cinema.
10/10 no notes.

Easy contender for Best Soundtrack, can you believe this album comes with a whole turn-based RPG?

Jokes aside, yeah this game deserves all the hype it gets. The combat is a ton of fun (I played on Expert difficulty), the story is engaging, the artstyle is gorgeous and distinct, and the cast is very enjoyable. And gosh the soundtrack. THE SOUNDTRACK.

There isn't much to say that already hasn't been echoed thousandfold, so I'll just briefly touch upon my minor issues with the game. The controls outside of battle can feel a little awkward at times, no manual saves is a weird move and can cause you to lose progress on occasion, the lack of a minimap in dungeons is annoying (especially given these are expeditioners, I would've taken a Hollow Knight-like "make your map as you go" approach), and the endings can be somewhat unsatisfying. I didn't experience any crashes once I fixed the settings, but I did experience one softlock after beating an overworld boss. I thankfully lost no progress, but it was a proper scare given it was a long, tough fight at my level.

But those are honestly nitpicks compared to the praises I could sing about this game. It's brilliant, and for the price? Very worth it. I did get this as a gift from my girlfriend but at its price point, you're getting more than your money's worth. Definitely one of the best games I've played this year.

Automatically better than Rivals 2 because it has Absa in it

Actually now that I think about it they should put Añi in Rivals 2 as well

Also I would unironically buy DLC for this game

This is my first MH game so my experience is not tied to previous entries.

I really enjoyed my experience through the Low and High Rank story segments. The character creator is really, really good, and I liked pretty much every character from the main cast. The story, which I've been told is usually not the forefront of the franchise, is quite gripping and easy enough to follow. The various monster designs are really cool and unique, each hunt feels special. The soundtrack is phenomenal, I don't get sick of the normal hunt themes in each region, and the Apex themes, especially Rey Dau's and Uth Duna's, are superb.

I've only properly messed around with one weapon (Light Bowgun) and it's an absolute blast to play with, popping wounds in one explosive fell swoop from range is so satisfying. I played through most of the game alone, without SOS Flares, but the multiplayer experience is also unlike anything else in a very positive way, plus it made some of the trickier hunts that I replayed later, like the Black Flame, way more fun by not having the monster constantly focusing fire on me the entire time.

At this point in time, the reviews for this game are flooded with mentions of performance issues, but I personally didn't experience too many of them. That said, I do have a pretty strong PC and I play on High settings, without the High Res Texture Pack. I only had one hiccup during the intro cutscene and a few during some Rathian hunts in the Scarlet Forest when I tried the game on Ultra settings.

Anyways after LR, HR, and 50 Rathian hunts to become Wyvern Princess, yeah I'd recommend this game. I will definitely keep playing through updates, especially given some of my friends also also super into this game.

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Final Fantasy XVI is a pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥' good entry in the FF series.

Story is fantastic. Gameplay loop is solid with new Eikons keeping the fighting fresh and allowing for fun and sometimes kinda broken combos. Boss fights are absolutely spectacular and easily the peaks of this game. Soundtrack is literally Soken at his best, don't know how that man does it but he sure as hell *does* it. Personal favourite track is "Away", which is like one of the first tracks you hear in the game. DLC is really good too, both new major boss fights are amazing (and one of them will flare up trauma if you're a serious FFXIV player).

There were some performance issues (especially at Martha's Rest) but nothing that couldn't be fixed with a quick reload. Highly recommend.

S2: Tired of writing paragraphs. Rocket sucks to play now. For some reason they nerfed Susan again. QP is matchmaking hell. This game is still terrible.


S1: Two months in, game unfortunately still sucks. Cloak and Dagger everywhere with an ult that charges every minute or so, Hawkeye still oneshots you from across the map, and while newcomer Susan is fun, there is zero grace period on her invisibility, which means that if you take damage the moment you become invisible, you actually DON'T become invisible.

No meaningful balance changes other than on the day S1 rolled around, which has kept the entire first half of S1 consistently frustrating and made its flaws pop even more. The only thing the devs are consistently keeping us updated on frequently... is the newest $20 gooner skins they release every other week or so. This game is just a lame cash grab.


S0: Strategist player here. Can't recommend in its current state.

No role queue forces people to play roles they don't want to play, especially given that 90% of Duelist players in my experience can't flex Vanguard/Strategist to save their life. Teamups, while a cool concept in theory, are in practice a stupid way to make some characters objectively worse unless you have a specific hero in your comp. Seasonal buffs to characters feel incredibly mobile game-esque in the worst way possible. Community is toxic as hell, both in the sense of Duelist players spamming for healing while across the map/not in line of sight, and in the fact that racial/queerphobic slurs are frequent in both text and voice chat.

At least it's kinda fun exclusively with friends when you're not getting jumped by the entire melee squadron (Spider-Man, Black Panther, Iron Fist, Wolverine, etc) as a Strategist with no help from your team and no way to fend for yourself if you miss your one ability to be able to stop one of them every 15 seconds, or instakilled/twoshotted by Hawkeye/Hela headshots that genuinely have you question if the game's Anti-Cheat even works.

Can only hope that future updates make this game more bearable to play. It has loads of potential, like I can look past the community being a cesspit given that's not really the game's fault and I can just mute those chats, but the game itself is just... not quite there. I can only hope that updates are plentiful and impactful.