New Review: It isn’t without its flaws, but Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is by far the best Like a Dragon game in many, many years.

 

 

If you’d told me back in 2006, when the first Yakuza game had released on Western shores, that I’d not only still be playing new installments nearly 20 years later, but that the series would achieve a major resurgence in worldwide popularity in the 2020s, I’d have never believed it.

Though it initially struggled to find a foothold in Western markets, success in Japan has enabled the Yakuza games (where the series is named Like a Dragon) to release on an almost annual basis for its entire lifespan. The previous installment, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, which was known as Like a Dragon 7 in Japan, saw the series shift from being a brawler into being a turn-based RPG, and with that, a renewed effort to re-establish the series worldwide took place. Featuring a new main character, an entirely new battle system, and a brand new setting, Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon also saw the return of English voice acting for the first time since the original, along with the retiring of the Yakuza name in favor of bringing the Japanese Like a Dragon title worldwide.

Though I loved new main character Ichiban Kasuga and thought the turn-based battle system demonstrated a surprising amount of promise, I wasn’t a big fan of Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon, which devolved into hours of dull level grinding, a plot that took forever to go nowhere, and a new city that frankly showed almost no sense of life compared to the series’ iconic Kamurocho. But the game proved to be an incredibly successful series rebirth, and Sega was riding high on its success when Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth released at the beginning of 2024.

As someone who’s been playing this series from the beginning, through what I’ve seen to be its many ups and downs, I’m extremely happy to report that Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth not only improves upon its predecessor in every possible way, but it’s by far the best game this long-running series has seen in many years, establishing itself not only as a must-have JRPG, but as one of the best games of the year.

Taking place in 3 massive cities, including the brand new and aesthetically vibrant Honolulu, Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth also includes the city of Yokohama from the previous game, along with series mainstay Kamurocho.  The hilarious and charismatic Ichiban leads his party on their adventure in Hawaii, while longtime main character Kazuma Kiryu leads his party on their adventure through Yokohama and Kamurocho. The two parties initially meet in Hawaii, but split after a series of major events, and the game alternates between the two as the series’ typically action-packed Yakuza-driven storyline propels things forward.

The characters and the often-hilarious dialogue are the true stars of the show here, along with the vibrant cities and the vastly improved turn-based battle system. Though it feels like the never-ending dialogue sequences have been scaled back slightly from their truly excessive lengths in Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon, it’s true that like with all modern entries in this series, the cutscenes and dialogue sequences go on for far longer than they need to, and the storyline becomes hard to focus on and follow as a result. Similarly, the number of things to do while exploring these gigantic cities is never-ending, and wandering off the beaten path of the storyline is not only very easy to do, but encouraged. By the end of the game I admit I had little idea what was going on in the story, which has the series’ usual twists and turns and large cast of villains and near-death encounters. But I cared so much about main characters of Kazuma and Ichiban that it drives the story enough where I saw it through to the end.

Helping with this is a truly reinvigorated turn-based battle system, which remains one of the most action-packed turn-based battle systems I’ve seen probably since Final Fantasy XIII. Depending on your bonds with your party members (which increase through interacting with them in the cities and at the 2 bars which serve as home bases in Yokahama and Honolulu, respectively) new team-driven moves are unlocked, and your party members will run up and attack an enemy when they’re knocked down, or respond when you knock another enemy into them, hitting them a second time. Battles are relatively quick (especially when compered to its predecessor) and almost always exciting. Infinite Wealth also includes a great feature, wherein enemies you encounter when wandering the city who are at levels lower than yours can be essentially skipped, with you still awarded with the EXP for engaging with them. Kazuma also has his own series of moves, and his own gameplay mechanics, such as recovering his memories throughout the cities he visits, that differentiate his side of the story from Ichiban’s, and his battles from Ichiban’s. This is a seriously massive game, and it always manages to keep itself fresh and interesting.

In terms of difficulty, while Infinite Wealth has its share of challenging fights, I almost never felt the need to level grind, even though a dungeon exists similarly to the previous game for that purpose.  I got the necessary EXP from the storyline’s main events and through wandering around town, which is how it should be and which makes a huge difference in terms of pacing. Grinding for cash is gone, and the game also helpfully lets you know the recommended Level you should be at before progressing through the story at various points, which is always a good thing.

As has become customary in many modern RPGs, Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth also warns you when you’re about to enter a lengthy series of battles, or when you’re about to enter a bunch of story sequences where it’ll be a while before you get to save your game. Though it’s certainly helpful to know what’s coming ahead of time, I can’t help but wish that this series would do away with these extended sequences where you can’t save your game. It adds nothing to the difficulty, as dying simply restarts you back at a checkpoint or the beginning of the boss, but the fact that you can’t save adds stress to certain situations that I don’t think needs to be there. The same goes for slightly unforgiving dungeon design towards the end of the game; once you arrive at the bosses at the ends of the final two dungeons, the game thankfully allows you to save, but doesn’t allow you to backtrack through the dungeons to level up, if necessary. It gives you no warning before hitting this point of no return, and though reloading a previous pre-dungeon save file is I suppose always an option, it’s not something that people should have to worry about, and all that it does is create a potential roadblock that stands between someone finishing the game, and I don’t think design choices like these are necessary or add anything to the adventure, just frustration.

Aside from those thankfully rare issues, the only glaring weak point to an otherwise fantastic combat system is the Job System; as with Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon, characters begin with their own jobs and move sets, and eventually these can be swapped out for others; since doing so essentially starts you back at 0 in terms of your character’s development, I really don’t understand the appeal at all of doing this. The good news is that Infinite Wealth, unlike its predecessor, doesn’t expect you to do this as a means to beat the main story, so at the very least it’s not something I had to bother with. It is though frustrating that, when buying equipment for your characters, you need to scour the map for stores that sell equipment for your character’s particular Job, as opposed to them all being located in one Equipment Shop. It’s time-consuming, feels unnecessary, and really only further adds fuel to the idea that these games would be better off without the Job System entirely.

With those flaws out of the way, though, it’s almost impossible not to acknowledge everything that Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth does so well. The game has a truly great sense of humor, and it’s something that carries over to everything; from the dialogue, to the battle system, to the characters and situations that you encounter. Humor has always played a role in this series, and this element has only increased in prominence as time has gone on. Gone are the days when Like a Dragon presented itself as a gritty crime thriller, though of course the plot still contains many deadly-serious moments. Instead, Infinite Wealth is a laugh-out-loud comedy, and though it’s been a jarring change, it’s where this series has been heading for many years, and it’s hard to argue with it when the resulting game is so entertaining. Though I continue to feel that Yokohama is by far the least interesting of the 3 cities here, it’s improved from its predecessor, while Honolulu and of course Kamurocho more than make up for its blandness. Honolulu in particular is dripping with atmosphere, beautiful lighting, tons and tons to do, and just a really fun, established sense of place. Each of the 2 parties has their own home base in the form of a bar, (Revolve Bar in Honolulu and Survive Bar in Yokohama) where Drink Link sequences are unlocked with your party members; the dialogue drones on an on, but the combat benefits for developing your bonds with your characters are important and addictive, and the two bars are ridiculously atmospheric, so it’s a really great addition to the Yakuza formula.

After finishing Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth, I have to say that I was blown away. The ending may be somewhat anticlimactic and underwhelming, and the unannounced “points of no return” during the final two dungeons are unnecessary frustrations, but I genuinely didn’t want the game to end. Filled with humor, a ridiculously entertaining turn-based battle system, no shortage of vibes and atmosphere, two compelling main characters, and 3 massive, mostly-memorable cities to explore, this is, quite simply, one of the best Yakuza (or Like a Dragon, whatever you want to call it) games ever made, and definitely the best in many years. It demonstrates why the Like a Dragon series has slowly, over time, become an Iconic Sega Series, and after this installment, I couldn’t be happier for it. There are areas for improvement; cutscenes and mini-games are in desperate need of dialogue editors, and I wish that optional mini-games (such as Dondoko Island) weren’t introduced with such lengthy, mandatory tutorials, especially for those of us who have no interest in re-visiting the mini-game to begin with. But after being burnt out by the snooze-inducing Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon, it’s not only a relief to see how great Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth turned out to be, but also a promising sign that this series could be heading to truly great places going forward. Definitely recommended, both to Yakuza fans, as well as to fans of Japanese RPGs and Japanese games in general.

4/5

Note; this review is based off the PS5 version.

New Review: Even with some extremely iffy writing and stagnant gameplay, Life Is Strange: Double Exposure still has enough personality and intrigue to go around

 

It’s now been around 9 years since the Life is Strange series first debuted back in 2015. Originally created by French studio DontNod Entertainment, these adventure games have been known for their warm and nostalgic vibes, character-driven storylines, dark and often intriguing plots, highly interactive environments, and of course the key decisions you make and their consequences.

Now firmly in the hands of Colorado-based studio Deck Nine, who previously worked on Life Is Strange: Before the Storm and (the incredibly good) Life Is Strange: True Colors, the series has never quite managed to live up to the first installment, which remains by far the deepest from a storytelling and gameplay perspective. Even with that said, the games since have remained enjoyable in their own ways; each one features a unique new power that the main character is bestowed with, and though the series has evolved very little over the course of its existence, the immersive vibes of each game’s world, some great soundtracks, and the intrigue offered by the storylines keeps things interesting and has kept me coming back for more.

Life Is Strange: Double Exposure makes the somewhat bold decision to return to Max Caulfield, the main character from the 1^st game, albeit many years later. Now she’s a graduate student at Caledon University in Vermont, where she studies photography. And though her character’s now much older, Deck Nine has managed to write her in a way where she still feels familiar to the high school-aged Max who we remember from the original game. Aside from some minor references to her adventures in Arcadia Bay, Double Exposure largely tells its own new story and features an otherwise entirely new cast of characters.

As it would turn out, this latest Life is Strange game is somewhat of a mixed bag; it’s clear here that Deck Nine is struggling to evolve the series much at all from the formula successfully established by DontNod’s Life is Strange and (to a much lesser extent) Life is Strange 2. True Colors saw them come the closest, with the game really reaching towards its own distinctive identity and emotional core, while Double Exposure on the other hand feels like somewhat of a step back, with an even smaller world than previous entries, and with the choices you make feeling like they have less impact than ever before.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Life is Strange: Double Exposure begins with a slightly strange sequence, with Max and her friend Safi having broken into an abandoned bowling alley to take pictures. The dialogue between the two characters suggests that they might be love interests on some kind of date, which turns out not to be the case. But it’s an immediate example of one of the more puzzling quirks of Double Exposure, which is that it’s often difficult to discern what the writers were attempting to portray with the characters in any given scene. Oftentimes I’d find myself staring at the screen, confused as to why the characters were behaving the way they were behaving, and what their relationship to Max was supposed to be.

Afterwards, Max, Safi, and their friend Moses are hanging out up on a campus rooftop at night to stare at the stars, though the night ultimately ends in tragedy.

I’m going out of my way not to spoil specifically what happens, though the game’s marketing quite frankly doesn’t seem to care too much about keeping the secret. Regardless, Caledon University finds itself gripped in the midst of a murder mystery, with Max finding out that she has the ability to switch between alternate timelines: one where the murder has taken place, and one where it hasn’t.

The setup’s strong, and the mystery and atmosphere, along with the possibilities offered by this new power, keep things pushing forward for probably about 2/3s of the adventure. Though where it ultimately ends up leading is a lot less interesting than where it begins, getting there’s an atmospheric and fun ride for the most part, with the core Life is Strange gameplay and world remaining fun, unique, and accessible for gamers and non-gamers of all skill levels.

As illustrated in the opening sequence, where Life Is Strange: Double Exposure struggles quite a bit is in the writing; as with the other Deck Nine-developed entries, many of the choices you make feel like they’re monumental, but in reality have very little impact on the direction that the story goes. Even the big choice you make at the end of the game only seems to result in a different line of dialogue; never in a game like this have the choices seemed to make such little difference. Double Exposure’s sometimes odd dialogue and occasionally strange behavior of the characters often made it hard for me to understand what the game was asking me to decide, with the results of my choice feeling completely disconnected from the choice I thought I’d made. Ultimately I was able to get myself to just go along for the ride, but the writing in Double Exposure, more than in any other Life is Strange game, stands out as an area that really needs work, especially in terms of character dynamics, which are all over the place.

One area in particular that proves to be disappointing is the “romance” aspect. As with the main character in many of the Life is Strange games, Max is bisexual, which theoretically opens her up for romance options with either male or female characters over the course of the game. That said, she has almost 0 chemistry with any of the male characters, all of whom come across as awkward or even (in the case of Vinh) a little creepy, while it seems like almost every female character Max comes across is bubbly, flirty, and personable. It’s so abundantly clear which direction the game wants you to go that it doesn’t even seem worth it to go out of your way to explore any other option. Though I ultimately ended up enjoying the dynamic between Max and the person who I ended up with, this (like so many other aspects of Double Exposure) only makes a very surface-level difference in the plot and fades so far into the background that it sadly doesn’t leave much of a mark.

The world of Caledon University is pretty but definitely on the small side; Double Exposure only contains a handful of explorable locations, and while the campus feels big at first glance, it becomes clear pretty quickly how limited it is. Though the snowy quad and the Snapping Turtle Bar are beautiful and truly feel alive, a lot of your time is spent going back and forth between two dreary academic buildings, which gets old. The ability to leave campus and explore a nearby town (or anywhere else) would have provided some much-needed variety.

Max’s new power to flip into the alternate timeline and back again is the series’ most prominent since the first game’s truly innovative Butterfly Effect-like time travel ability; the world pre-murder feels vibrant and lively, while the world post-murder looks and feels more somber and eerie. Flipping between them is jarring (in a good way) and provides for a handful of really cool moments. While this power is ultimately relegated mainly to fetch quests and truly mindless puzzles (door won’t open, switch to the alternate timeline, door now opens) the times where it’s used well are really interesting, which led me to wish that its implementation was for more exciting purposes than opening doors and collecting objects.

And ultimately that’s what turned out to by my main takeaway from Life Is Strange: Double Exposure. The series’ gameplay is back and is as fun as ever. The world feels alive, the soundtrack’s ambient and really takes me to a place, the characters are generally likable and fun to get to know (some truly iffy moments aside) and it’s just impossible not to be absorbed into the unique universe that is Life is Strange. It’s what keeps me coming back every time, and it doesn’t disappoint. At the same time, Double Exposure struggles quite a bit in other areas; the writing at times feels borderline incomprehensible, especially in terms of how characters act and how they interact with each other. This makes it hard to discern exactly what choice the game is asking me to make and what the results of that choice will be. The eventual realization that the choices I did make had almost no impact on the proceedings is a big issue, and the plot really sputters out in the final chapter. Max’s new power to alternate between two timelines similarly offers potential and some cool moments, but ultimately that too feels more often than not like a superficial layer over some pretty mundane fetch quests and “puzzles.”

But Life is Strange: Double Exposure is a game filled with personality, as this series has always been known for, and though it’s one of the lesser entries, and it though it falls short in numerous other areas, (especially the writing) I still found it to be an enjoyable, often intriguing ride that I hope will stick with me for a while. 

3.5/5

New Review: Despite a catastrophically bad ending, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is easily the best Final Fantasy we've seen in at least 15 years

 

Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is a game that I had no idea Square-Enix was still capable of making. It feels, in many ways, like a modern, next gen version of the Squaresoft Final Fantasy games on the PS1, and easily the best Final Fantasy game that we’ve seen in at least 15 years.    

I say this as someone who never quite connected with the original Final Fantasy VII the way so many people seemed to, having played it for the first time many years after its iconic release. Rebirth, the 2^nd part in the trilogy remaking Final Fantasy VII, shares some of the same weaknesses with the source material, and makes an extremely unfortunate series of storytelling choices during the game’s ending. But the game leading up to the disastrous final bosses/ending is so incredible, beautiful, and memorable that it’s almost impossible for me not to recommend it to anyone who’s ever considered themselves to be a Final Fantasy fan.

Picking up from where the first part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy ended, Cloud, Aerith, Tifa, Barret, and Red XIII escape from the city of Midgar, resting in a hotel in Kalm, a flat and uninteresting locale in the original now remade into a large, truly bustling town. After Cloud fills the group in about his history with the game’s villain, Sephiroth, the group sets off into the open world to look for him and to stop Shinra, the corporation responsible for the slow destruction of the planet.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this; for years, this development team’s Final Fantasy games have been linear, corridor-like experiences, with only tiny amounts of exploration or a sense of freedom. The original Final Fantasy VII, of course, featured a world map to explore, and open world games have come such a long way since then. But Final Fantasy VII Rebirth succeeds in bringing the “world map” concept into the modern era in ways that I wouldn’t have thought possible. Combining a strong, character-driven narrative with the ability to venture off the beaten path and sink your teeth into a world brimming with things to explore, quests to take on, and sights to see is a format that the series largely abandoned after Final Fantasy IX, and to see Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth modernize this concept so beautifully is something to behold.

Each region you visit is gigantic and brimming with things to do. Exploration is encouraged at every turn, with Towers revealing quests, which often lead to other quests and to yet other quests. It’s easy to keep track of all of this, and each Region has its own summon to unlock, providing an incentive to explore each region as thoroughly as possible. Visiting Chocobo Stops unlocks fast travel as well as a place to restore your HP/MP, and unlocking each region’s Chocobo gives you not only a fast means of travel, but also Chocobo abilities unique to each region that allow you to explore them fully.

Certain regions are a little more frustrating to explore due to their emphasis on tricky terrain; for example, areas accessible only by having your Chocobo fly over specific gaps. These mechanics feel tedious and dated in a world where Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom exist, games which allow you to climb up any wall and reach any areas you see without having to find the exact “right path” or “right gap” to access them. This is by no means unique to Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, but it’s a design choice that I really wish open world games would find some way to do away with the way Nintendo has so successfully done. 

That said, the rest of the game’s regions have very minimal use of this type of thing, and even when they do, exploring’s always beautiful and interesting. The combat system has been pretty dramatically overhauled from where it was in Part 1 of the Final Fantasy VII Remake, and battles are fun, exciting, and addictive from almost start to finish. Your bonds with your characters and your party unlock cool Synergy moves, allowing you to link up with your party members to pull off major attacks. Limit Breaks, summons, and staggers are equally satisfying to pull off, and character movement feels fluid and natural. The frustrations I remember encountering in Part 1 seem to have been fixed here, and though it’s still frustrating that you can’t even use items while your ATB gauge is charging, it’s an issue that came up far less frequently for me this time around. As with Part 1, the AI characters remain pretty useless outside of basic attacks; these games are really designed for you to switch your controlled character repeatedly in battle when you want to use their special moves, magic, items, and limit breaks instead of relying on the AI. Thankfully though, Rebirth has a nice addition in the form of Materia that cause the AI characters to, for example, heal automatically. It’s definitely a nice touch. The new Folio system for unlocking abilities is also miles ahead of its confusing weapon-based equivalent from Part 1 as well. Only the radar system remains iffy; as with Part 1, you have the choice between the GTA-style radar in the right corner of the screen or the Elder Scrolls-style compass at the top of the screen, and multiple times I had to switch between the two to get a grasp of where I was supposed to be going. 

Despite containing a fully modern, impressive open world built into the experience, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth also puts a major focus into its characters and storytelling, similar to the PS1 Final Fantasy games. From the beginning, the plot is front and center, with the characters interacting incredibly frequently with each other in the many cutscenes and action scenes that occur along the way. Doing away entirely with the myth that you can’t tell a strong story in a fully explorable setting, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth provides what should (hopefully) be the blueprint for Final Fantasy games going forward, because it’s what they should have continued being all along. The characters, as with Remake, are portrayed in ways completely faithful to the original game, bringing them to life in ways only glimpsed in the original. Their personalities, their dynamics as a party, and their motivations are all brought to life here incredibly well. Moments where the game makes major changes to characters are incredibly rare, but in one particular instance (Cait Sith) Rebirth makes a major improvement to his portrayal in a key scene, and it not only makes a lot more sense than in the original, but it makes his character far more likable.

Unfortunately, other changes made to the narrative don’t work nearly as well (at best) and feel like a complete train wreck at worst. Despite its reputation for revolutionizing story-driven games back in 1997, Final Fantasy VII was actually pretty thinly-plotted; Sephiroth spends almost the entire game offscreen, with the main characters setting off from one location to another searching for him with very little emotional drive pushing them forward. Other than the handful of main, iconic set pieces, (usually happening at the end of each disc) not much really takes place in the story. This is a problem compounded by the decision to split the Remake Trilogy into 3 parts, even further necessitating the developers having to introduce new story elements to fill in the empty space. Sephiroth shows up repeatedly in fairly strange scenes, and though they make sense given Cloud’s often unreliable state of mind, they get old pretty quickly and I can’t help but feel that they should have left Sephiroth’s minimal presence the way it was. Rebirth also repeatedly cuts to playable flashback scenes featuring Zack Fair, a character who had only a minor (albeit key) role in the original Final Fantasy VII; though it’s cool to get to experience Midgar again, these flashback scenes are incredibly confusing and serve seemingly zero purpose. Evidently, they take place in a “separate timeline,” but the game never quite makes that clear, so a lot of the potential fun of these was ruined for me because I spent much of my time in them trying to figure out what was going on.

In addition, Yuffie, a bonus character in the original Final Fantasy VII who I hardly even remember encountering, is elevated here to being in the Main Cast, and she dominates almost every scene she’s in. Though it isn’t that I necessarily hated her character, her extremely cheerful personality and endless “comic relief” results in a major shift in tone from the dark, subdued, depressing original game. I suspect people will either love her or hate her, depending on their views of this type of character. Similarly, Red XIII goes through a change mid-game, including his voice actor entirely altering the character’s voice; while faithful to the original, I couldn’t help but wish that the actor had found a way to portray the character’s new personality in a way that didn’t make him sound, well, kind of annoying. 

The final point I’ll make in terms of narrative missteps in Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is in its ending, with the game coming to a close shortly after featuring (and then entirely butchering) arguably the game’s most iconic scene. I won’t go into detail so as to avoid spoiling it, but the changes, aside from being terrible by any storytelling standard, effectively ruin what was originally meant to be conveyed, which was a sense of cold, true, indisputable finality. What it was replaced with is, for lack of a better word, awful. It not only destroys the spirit of the original game’s groundbreaking plot twist, but it even goes as far as to spoil what’s going to be the ending of Part 3. It’s difficult to say what Square-Enix was attempting to accomplish with this, but whatever it was they failed, miserably.

This comes after an hours-long gauntlet of final bosses, ones which were challenging but completely beatable, before Rebirth pulls a “gotchya” at the very end of the final one that requires an extremely specific way to beat the boss in a very specific amount of time. If you don’t have the right Limit Breaks, you’re totally out of luck. Even switching to Easy Mode (which you can do and which will probably enable most people to beat the final boss) requires you to start all the way back at the beginning of the slate of final bosses again, as does the ability to make any changes to your party or equipment. Yeah, really.

Thankfully however, and I can’t stress this enough, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is so good that a nearly disastrous ending and final boss doesn’t come close to ruining it. There’s something so surreal and magical about getting to explore a fully open world version of Final Fantasy VII’s planet, and there are parts of it that will stick with me forever; Cosmo Canyon with its tourist traps and beautiful views, Costa Del Sol’s beautiful beach scene (annoying mini-games aside), the energetic Gold Saucer, and just getting to immerse myself in this huge, mysterious, and incredible world.

Some flaws from the original carry over in terms of an over-abundance of mini-games, frustrating moments from the characters, and a villain who feels more like a random annoyance than a key part of the journey, while featuring new additions that either work or fall completely flat on their face. But with one of the best combat systems I’ve experienced, an amazing world to explore, a solid cast of characters, and a great soundtrack and voice acting, there’s no question that Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is the best RPG I’ve played in years, or even possibly decades. It’s unfortunate that being the Part 2 of a Remake of a game from 1997 may have limited its audience, but I genuinely hope that with Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, we’re seeing the blueprint for what will be the future of Final Fantasy. And if so, what an incredible future it could be.

8.5/10

New Review: Super Mario Bros Wonder delivers a creative, unpredictable, extremely weird and very fun 2D platformer

I never thought I’d see the day when a 2D Mario game would win me over to this extent, but Super Mario Bros Wonder is not only a fun, immersive, inventive, and at times awe-inspiring adventure through the brand new Flower Kingdom, but it even tops Super Mario Odyssey as the best Mario platformer this gen.

The Switch has seen a creatively-rejuvenated Nintendo release one incredible game after another, and their latest take on 2D Mario, their first since New Super Mario Bros U in 2012, proves to be one of the best 2D platformers of the year, if not in recent memory.

Nearly every decision made in the development of Super Mario Bros Wonder was the right one; the plot doesn’t feature Peach getting kidnapped yet again but instead tells a story in which she gets to be a part of saving Flower Kingdom with all the others. Freed from the constraints of having to take place in Mushroom Kingdom, and freed from the philosophy that 2D Mario has to play it safe and closely mimic games from 30 years ago, Wonder from the start feels fresh, invigorated, and genuinely unpredictable and delightful from level to level.

Flower Kingdom is an expansive one, with something like 15 hours of playtime awaiting. Each “World” you visit features plenty of levels to complete, along with a boss or two. The world map, a hybrid between 2D and 3D, has sections where you can free roam in 3D from one level to the next, which opens up all sorts of possibilities not only in terms of finding hidden secrets and levels, but in giving off a true sense of scale, atmosphere, and immersion completely missing from the previous several 2D Mario installments.

The levels themselves are creative, varied, well-paced, and just the right length. The powers are fun to use and frequently entertaining. The best new feature by far though is the Wonder Flower, which transforms each level into a psychedelic, Alice in Wonderland-like trip, in which your goal is to find each level’s hidden Wonder Seed. These sections are totally chaotic and crazy, unlike anything I’ve seen in a Mario game, and many offer a good amount of challenge to the proceedings.

Super Mario Bros Wonder offers a pretty decent amount of difficulty, with it only rarely devolving into frustration. The game maintains the Lives system, something which other modern games of this type have been doing away with, but it’s a good choice here and one that I still prefer over the various alternatives to it. The levels provide just the right amount of challenge, while still being designed to be beatable with only a limited number of lives, creating the difficulty balance that (so far) really only the Lives system delivers.

The visuals are gorgeous throughout, with the worlds appearing sharp, distinctive, and very smooth. Nintendo often has a strong command of their hardware’s strengths and limitations, and Super Mario Bros Wonder is a great showcase for that. Character animations and facial expressions are also a major improvement from any previous 2D Mario outing.

The only areas where things fall a little short are in terms of World number and the bosses; the boss battles are pretty underwhelming; though they’re generally fun, and none are frustrating to the level seen from those in Sonic Superstars, for example, I do wish that a little more was done with them. They lack the creativity seen in other aspects of the game and often feel like an afterthought.

Super Mario Bros Wonder also only features 6 main Worlds (plus an additional World-ish for the Final Boss segment of the game) for a total of 7. Though there’s still a ton of content here, along with plenty of post-game content, it’s similar to Nintendo’s shorter games during the Wii U era, which often also only had 6 Worlds, as opposed to the typical 8. My guess is that the developers just didn’t have the time, as the Switch, now having been on the market for almost 7 years, is nearing the end of its lifespan, and Super Mario Bros Wonder likely had to release in 2023.

That said, though an 8^th World would have been nice, ultimately what’s here is more than enough to warrant a purchase. Super Mario Bros Wonder was one of the most pleasant surprises of 2023, a game I didn’t expect to love nearly as much as I did given my lifelong preference for 3D Mario, and the very standard, uninspired feel that 2D Mario’s had for well over a decade. But Wonder breaks through, delivering a creative, unpredictable, extremely weird and very fun 2D platformer, one with a sense of freedom and innovation that I felt even Super Mario Odyssey held back on. The Nintendo Switch continues to be a source of some of Nintendo’s best 1^st party efforts in a very long time, and Super Mario Bros Wonder is no exception.

4/5

New Review: Despite a genuine and noteworthy attempt at quality storytelling, Final Fantasy 16 also suffers from uninspired, repetitive gameplay.

 

Final Fantasy, a series that played a key role in defining the “modern RPG” multiple times since its creation, has struggled, like many long-running franchises, to find its footing in the modern era. With each new installment, it’s evident that Square-Enix is desperate to once again re-invent the RPG franchise into something that will truly define what a Final Fantasy game should be.

Setting aside the Final Fantasy 7 Remake project, it’s been nearly 7 years since the last numbered entry, Final Fantasy 15, came out, itself an intended spinoff that had been branched out into a numbered entry in its similarly excruciatingly long development process. We’re many, many years now from when this series was at its most creative and most influential; with a growing number of years separating main installments, and with these new games generally being solid, if somewhat forgettable, adventures, it’s been hard not to feel like the last several entries have struggled, with varying degrees, to capture the same magic.

Final Fantasy 16, in the end, doesn’t quite get there, despite its best efforts, and while numerous aspects of the game show major promise for the series going forward, others have me scratching my head as to what exactly Square-Enix is attempting to achieve with its long-running, iconic RPG series.

In terms of narrative and direction, Final Fantasy 16 gets off to a very promising start. Producer Naoki Yoshida, himself having saved Final Fantasy 14 from complete disaster, expressed his disappointment with the fully open world Final Fantasy 15’s storytelling, and wanted to assure fans that 16 would once again tell a truly memorable, compelling tale.

His efforts to bring storytelling back into the forefront are noticeable from the moment the game starts. The dialogue’s extremely well-written, the voice acting as close to perfect as anything I’ve heard from a Japanese translation; cutscenes put the characters and their interactions with each other and their personalities front-and-center, and a few hours into the game, I remember expressing that I hadn’t felt this way with a Final Fantasy game in well over a decade. Main character Clive is incredibly well-developed and likable, able to demonstrate not only ruthlessness (this is the first M-rated Final Fantasy game and without a doubt earns it) but also a sense of humor and unwavering determination that makes him genuinely compelling. Even during Final Fantasy 16’s often extremely bland gameplay quests, Clive’s dialogue and his interactions with others manage to provide enjoyment. His past relationship with his younger brother, Joshua, is in many ways the heart of the story, and both characters come across so well. 

Others come and go throughout; unlike many Japanese RPGs, Final Fantasy 16’s combat system is purely action-driven and is focused so much on controlling Clive that his companions in combat are swapped in and out all the time and often barely register. Still, considering this, the other party members do as good a job as they possibly can in leaving an impression given their somewhat reduced role in the game. Special mention definitely goes out to Final Fantasy 16’s version of Cid, easily one of the best and most entertaining Cid characters that this series has seen, and that’s quite a legacy to live up to. Jill makes for a strong female lead as well, and Torgal’s a great example of how games can always benefit from introducing a main character who happens to be a dog. 

Though the characters are compelling and entertaining enough on their nature alone, it has to be said that Final Fantasy 16 does stumble a bit in its other storytelling aspects. The main scenario feels hazy and hard to understand from the beginning, and doesn’t really manage to ever make itself clear. It feels similar in this sense to Final Fantasy 13, which similarly threw you into the action and setting, hoping you could pick up on what was happening without much explanation. Until I completed 16 and read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia, I never felt that I had much of an understanding of what the Mothercrystals were, what purpose they served, why the world was the way it was, and why the main characters were doing what they were doing or treated how they were treated. It doesn’t help that the plot, in what often feels like an attempt to extend playtime, sends Clive on meaningless, truly boring sidequest-like main quests that lead nowhere satisfying and break the flow of the narrative often at key moments.

Had Final Fantasy 16’s scenario and its presentation of it met the excellent caliber of its characters and their incredible dynamics, it’s possible that the game could have found a way to compete with the true classics in the series in terms of narrative: instead, it falls short. At times, 16 feels like a page-turner, with me not wanting to put the controller down in order to see what was next, which is something I haven’t felt from a Final Fantasy story in a long time. While it’s unfortunate to say that it doesn’t quite follow through, the genuine attempt to refocus on storytelling is a huge step in the right direction for this series, and one that I hope it continues to attempt going forward.

The gameplay, on the other hand, ultimately comes across as yet another failed experiment, though it too isn’t without its charms. It has to be said first and foremost that while Final Fantasy 16’s combat system is indeed more along the lines of Action Games like God of War, the game itself is still very much an RPG, and still offers far more exploration, freedom, and sidequests than the extremely linear Final Fantasy 13, which was actually turn-based. So it’s important to understand that there’s varying degrees to all these things.

In terms of looking at straight up combat, the system is simple and fun on a basic level, and quite frankly I liked it much better than the attempt at an action system featured in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake. You have basic attacks and more powerful attacks to Clive himself, much of which is done by mashing the Square button and Dodging, though the more powerful attacks can be triggered by holding it. Much of your combat variation however comes down to Eikons, 16’s version of Summons, which you break out with a button press, and whose moves you use after they’ve spent several seconds charging up. You unlock more Eikons as you go, and while you can only equip 3 at a time, you can reset the Ability Points you’ve spent on one if, later in the game, you want to use those to upgrade a new Eikon you’ve acquired and like better. I personally just stuck with the initial three I acquired, and Final Fantasy 16 isn’t even remotely challenging enough to require you to seriously consider your strategy, or to consider switching these up for any reason, but the option’s there. 

There’s not much in the way of health recovery; some Eikon moves recover health after being used, and Torgal can be instructed to revive an almost useless amount of Clive’s health as well, but for the most part, Final Fantasy 16 relies on Potions and High Potions. You carry a handful of each, and after dying in battle, the game gives you more. Bosses contain Checkpoints within the boss fights, so at some point I realized that it was best to go all out with using my limited selection of Potions/High Potions, knowing that if I manage to reach the checkpoint, I could die, continue on from there, and have them replenished.

It becomes pretty clear early on that Final Fantasy 16 is simply afraid to challenge the player. It’s something that I’m conflicted about, being someone who doesn’t like Action games very much, and as someone who rarely finishes them, it’s likely that had Final Fantasy 16 been a difficult game, I’d similarly never have reached the end of it. So it’s in that way that I’m happy that the game is the way it is, but I wish something was done to lessen the mind-numbing repetition of mashing the Square button, dodging, and Using Summon Powers, which, once established, continues for basically the game’s entirety. You can make some strategic use of the Stagger Gauge, but really only a couple battles towards the end required me to do anything to break even slightly from how I was fighting, or to modify my strategy in any way. Playing Final Fantasy 16 becomes, as a result, a mind-numbing exercise in repetition. 

The game’s quests don’t help much either; sidequests all follow the same blueprint of accepting a quest from someone, going to exactly where the radar tells you to go, fighting some enemies, and then Fast Traveling back. It’s bland, but something at least expected, but this design carries into the main quests as well, after a point, and in the second half you spend far less time discovering new locations and seeing new things as you do wandering back and forth from one mindless series of enemy encounters to another.

Some of Final Fantasy 16’s environments are jaw-droppingly beautiful (such as the desert and its explorable town) but the majority are, by design, dark, grey, dreary, rainy, and just not all that visually interesting. Many of the environments are large, and certain ones link to each other where they can be traversed between on foot, allowing for exploration and backtracking. But unfortunately, Final Fantasy 16 makes use of a mandated Fast Travel system, which majorly distracts from the feeling of this being a unified world and takes away a lot of the sense of exploration and adventure. 

Your characters have a hideout, which serves as a home base of sorts. Once you leave the hideout, you find yourself on a fast travel map, where you have to select the next location you want to go to. There’s no way to walk from the hideout to any other location, and no way to walk between locations that aren’t grouped together, without warping back to the Fast Travel map and selecting it from there. I’ve never been a fan of fast traveling in video games, and though I understand that at times it’s useful, I find that in games that mandate its use, it always detracts from the proceedings. At one point, the main characters supposedly embark on a “long journey” to get to a distant desert; it takes 2 seconds to select it on the Fast Travel Map, then it cuts to them walking through the desert. They spot a town and say that they need to stop there to rest, as if they’ve been journeying for days. None of this translates to the player, who was just with the characters back at their hideout 2 seconds ago.

To Final Fantasy 16’s credit, I certainly felt like I was more a part of the world than I did in the towns in Final Fantasy 15, which were big but felt dead and un-related to the narrative, and certainly more so than in Final Fantasy 13, which removed the towns and explorable areas almost entirely. Still, many times upon arriving at a beautiful, personality-filled town, I wish the game would slow down a little bit and allow the characters to spend more time there. Often, it only takes talking to one specific character before it’s time to immediately venture off to the next location, though thankfully a bunch of sidequests all then open in the town for you, should you choose to hang around. Just don’t expect any of them to be particularly exciting. Many of the game’s big cities remain off limits, visible only in cutscenes, but without a question Final Fantasy 16 has explorable towns with NPC interaction and sidequests, and it has areas with nice amounts of exploration. So for those worried that FF16 has gone full-on action game, rest assured that this applies mostly just to the combat system, not the rest of the gameplay.

Visuals are incredible, as is to be expected from this series. The visual effects in relation to the Eikons are stunning, with some of the best lighting effects I’ve ever seen attached to some pretty spectacular cutscenes and even playable sections as well. The setting, while unique to the Final Fantasy series, doesn’t otherwise feel especially original, with its dark, dreary medieval vibes not my particular cup of tea, but it does look nice for the most part. Characters look great and animate well, and the framerate proved not to be an issue for me at all throughout. The true beauty to behold is the almost complete lack of any load times to speak of, something that feels almost unheard of, especially after the previous generation of gaming, but it’s an incredibly nice touch. The only thing I found myself slightly missing is this series’ famous use of elaborate CG cutscenes, which Final Fantasy 16 seems to have done entirely away with. The in-engine cutscenes of course look amazing, but some CG cutscenes too could have added additional weight to a few of the big moments, and could have provided the story with a little more punch. 

The music, sadly, is entirely forgettable; as I type this, I can remember only the 2^nd “hideout theme” and almost nothing else, which is such a bummer after the incredible soundtracks that this series used to be known for. Throughout the game it’s generally pleasant, but nothing that I’d ever really have much of an urge to listen to again.

It's with a heavy heart that I regard Final Fantasy 16 as such a mixed bag, but there it is. It takes some incredibly promising steps for the series towards having a compelling narrative with memorable, truly human-like characters, and though it ultimately falls short on that promise because of a vague story, it comes closer than any Final Fantasy in recent memory. The combat system is fast and fun, but ultimately repetitive and almost mindless, a description that can also be applied to many of the missions you do in the game, both those that progress the story and the side missions. It took me a good while into this 40+ hour adventure for the repetition to truly set in, and for the first half of the game I was fully onboard for the ride. Sadly, as Final Fantasy 16 goes on, and on, and on, I grew more and more tired of it. 

I’m genuinely confused as to what Square-Enix is attempting to do with this series; any fan of Action Games is going to find the combat to be shallow and incredibly easy, while RPG fans will likely mostly be wishing for a return to battle systems that aren’t so reliant on constantly hammering the Square button. It’s a direction that ultimately won’t please anyone, and at some point I think the various developers and producers are going to have to take a look and figure out exactly what is it that they’re trying to accomplish with this action-driven approach, of which this is now the 3^rd iteration, and decide whether it’s even within their capabilities to achieve it.

Final Fantasy 16 though, isn’t a total bust; it has its fair share of fun, and a great cast of characters along with an (at times) very compelling narrative. The battle system and gameplay mechanics are fun before you begin to get tired of them about halfway through, and the visuals are a feast for the eyes. Probably worth a shot for Final Fantasy fans with their expectations set in line, but for everyone else (and I had to say this with Final Fantasy 15 too) I’m just not sure that there’s ultimately enough substance here to carry you across the finish line. 

 

3/5

New Review: Better than I ever expected it to be, Sonic Frontiers is a fun, addictive, and fully-realized Open Zone Sonic concept that easily approaches greatness

 

Even after over thirty years in existence, Sonic can still manage to surprise. Taking bold cues from modern open world games and incorporating them firmly with boost-style 3D Sonic gameplay, Sonic Frontiers is a game that, despite numerous cut corners and odd storytelling, is a real crowd-pleaser of an action-adventure game. After the almost shockingly underwhelming Sonic Forces, it’s a pleasant surprise to see that Sonic Team is, thankfully, still capable of developing not just a competent entry in the long-running series, but a nearly great one.

The game begins with Sonic and his friends becoming separated, with the blue mascot finding himself alone on a deserted island, and it’s easy at first to spot Frontiers’ obvious Breath of the Wild influences, from the somber piano music to the atmospheric flourishes that hit you almost from minute one. While I feel it would have been better and helped Frontiers feel more original to have had a graphics style and art direction more in the style of the Sonic Universe than the Legend of Zelda, the game still finds a way to differentiate itself in a pretty major way from other open world titles, and a couple hours in, I was fully able to understand what Sonic Team was attempting with their “open zone” concept, and it’s one that, for the most part, completely won me over.

There’s something so addictive about the flow of gameplay with your arrival on each of Sonic Frontiers’ five islands, four of which are fully-realized massive open world playgrounds. (One of them is a bit of a cop out, but is at least pretty fun as far as cop outs go.)  A mission marker guides you to where the game suggests you go next to progress the story, but you can explore the islands and accomplish your goals however you see fit. Similarly to the likes of Breath of the Wild and Immortals: Fenyx Rising, there’s a lot of inherent fun in the idea of completing an objective to fill in a portion of your map, allowing you to see what each area has to offer and exploring it. In the case of Sonic Frontiers, you complete bite-sized puzzles, most of which are simple but fun exercises, and the feeling of satisfaction upon then seeing your visible map expand is hard to put into words but it’s one thing that makes this formula so compelling. Frontiers goes a step further by then changing the world itself, adding a series of roller coaster-like grind rails to the areas that you Reveal, making traversing the island as you fill in your map even faster.

The controls feel great and very fluid, and while Frontiers still uses the boost mechanics that have become fairly tiresome in other recent modern Sonic entries, somehow the open zone setting suits them very well, and getting around, solving puzzles, zipping across the islands on speed boosts and grind rails, along with fighting the various enemies, all feels, for the most part, nearly perfect.  Though the traditional Sonic “levels” exist in the form of the Cyber Space segments (more on those a little later) they’re a fairly small portion of what Sonic Frontiers has to offer, but I was surprised to find that I didn’t miss them as much as I thought I would. In a sense, the world you explore feels almost like a giant Level, and though you follow the same formula upon arriving on almost every island, the feeling of progression, from defeating mini-bosses, to completing the Cyber Space levels, to filling in your map, to leveling up your character, to talking to your friends to progress the story, it all flows very well and feels not only addictive but truly fun.

Cyber Space levels are the closest Sonic Frontiers comes to featuring your typical end-to-end Sonic stages, and though many of them are fairly short, and they all use the same (re-used) visual templates, their platforming is surprisingly fun and very well-paced, with your goal not only to just reach the end of the stage but to complete various objectives, none of which feel like a chore and the short length of the stages works very well in this sense. The music, too, during many of these stages, is almost unspeakably awesome.

Upon collecting all the chaos emeralds, you fight a massive boss encounter before clearing the island and getting to move to the next one. These bosses are huge and are generally fairly fun to play, though there are some frustrations associated with them that I wish had been addressed. You fight each boss as Super Sonic, which means you have a time limit, as the amount of rings you have depletes second-by-second. It’s important therefore to go into each boss battle with a full collection of rings, and dying on a boss and having to retry it doesn’t save this progress, forcing you to collect the rings (and then having to journey back to the boss encounter) all over again. The bosses also include something that I really wish video games would abandon by now, which is the Sudden Death QTE. Yes, failing those dumb QTEs will cause you to lose the boss fight and have to start it all over again, which is as frustrating as it sounds.

As far as puzzles are concerned, most of those featured are quick and fun, though there’s a very difficult puzzle towards the end of the first island that needs to be completed before you can fight the boss, and it’s such a tedious puzzle that I could easily see many, especially younger fans, quitting the game right there and never going back to it, which would be a real shame because it’s the only such puzzle in the whole thing and it happens so early in the story.

As far as the story goes, it’s pretty nonsensical and difficult to follow, eventually reverting to a strange series of flashbacks in a made-up language starring characters who you really don’t get to care much about. The moments with the Sonic characters interacting with each other at least fare a little better, and the series really has come a long way from the days of amateurish voice acting and strange dialogue that used to hamper the modern entries. Oddly though, while the acting’s mostly solid, some of the key roles were recast for unknown reasons, and even the voice actors who stayed on (such as Roger Craig Smith as Sonic) seem to have been instructed to give subdued, “more serious” performances. It all sounds a little weird and had I not known that Roger Craig Smith reprised his role, I’d have assumed that Sonic was being voiced by someone else, given how different the character now sounds. That said, the frequency of the cutscenes and the presence of the overall narrative itself is much greater than I was led to believe from the trailers, which is a good thing and keeps things interesting and well-paced, even if the story being told is, frankly, pretty bad. And the lack of a single boss fight against Eggman is also a little weird, though the character does play a big role in the storyline.

Really Sonic Frontiers’ only major stumbles (aside from the somewhat frustrating boss mechanics) are the obvious development short cuts. Whether budgetary or because Sonic Team didn’t have the time that they needed, evidence of cut corners rear their heads pretty regularly. One of the chaos emeralds you have to collect is basically given to you by each boss, while the enemy types and mini-bosses you face are limited to only a couple per island that you fight over and over again. You’ll fill in Sonic’s skill tree long before the game ends, and the Cyber Space zones aren’t given identities of their own, re-using assets from Sonic Generations and only having a couple variations (Chemical Plant, Green Hill Zone, etc.) It’s too bad because the Cyber Space zones are a lot of fun, and it’d have been cool if they were differentiated from each other by being fully-realized Levels, instead of re-using tired backdrops. Four of the islands look very similar to each other, even though they all play quite differently in terms of exploration, with only the desert really standing out from the pack on a visual level. The fourth island, as mentioned earlier, is basically filler and not at all like all the other ones in terms of things to do and exploration. Pop-in and framerate hitches are pretty rampant (on the PS4 version) and though not as big a deal as I thought they’d be, they do make the game feel a little rough around the edges. The ending, too, really disappoints, with a forgettable final boss that’s far easier than all the others, while the final cutscenes feel incredibly rushed as well. The ending does save itself in literally its final 10 seconds before the credits roll, with an emotional moment that comes across as meaningful, even if everything else feels like it’s on fast-forward.

It should be noted that playing on Hard mode unlocks an additional little “boss fight” during the final boss, but other than the game bizarrely cutting away from the fight on Normal and Easy and jumping right into the ending, I think people who would rather play Sonic Frontiers on Normal or Easy should rest assured that the Hard Mode-exclusive boss is more of a mini-game than a boss, doesn’t add much of anything to the game, and can be played after the fact by switching to Hard Mode after beating the game and trying the boss again. Still, the whole concept and execution of a “final boss” fight exclusive to one difficulty setting comes across as lazy and poorly thought out.

But gripes aside, Sonic Frontiers is a game that’s so much better than I ever thought it would be. It controls like a dream 90% of the time, the mechanics of bouncing around the environments and the Cyber Space levels feel refined and nearly perfect, and the wide array of things to do on each island and the freedom you’re give to do them, not to mention some incredibly good music and solid (if repetitive) graphical presentation, make Sonic Frontiers a near-great game. Had the Cyber Space levels been fully-realized levels and given their own identities, had the game not cut so many corners in terms of mini-bosses and visual design, and had the final boss and ending not been such a (mostly) let down, we’d be looking at a true Sonic classic. But Sonic Frontiers comes close enough and, I have to say, is such a near-great game in its own right, that it’s one I’d fully recommend to fans of the series and one that I’d even encourage non-fans who might be interested to check out. This iteration might not get the critical recognition that it deserves, but next time, if Sonic Team continues down this path, we might have something even more special.

4/5

Note; this review is based on the PS4 version.

New Review; Correcting the record on Grand Theft Auto V, a game I was wrong about all those years ago

 

There have been times where I’ve been completely wrong with my opinion on a video game, especially a video game that seems to be beloved by the rest of the world. In certain cases, my opinion changed upon giving the game another chance in the form of an HD Remaster, where various graphical boosts and quality of life improvements, along with maybe reduced expectations, have allowed me to love games that I previously struggled to get into.

Grand Theft Auto V on the Xbox 360 was a game that, for whatever reason, I majorly disliked upon its release in 2013, and for nearly 10 years, was the only modern Grand Theft Auto game that I’d never finished, my Xbox 360 Red Ringing as I neared the end of the game resulting in me having to watch the rest online. It was weird, as a huge fan of Rockstar Games and their iconic GTA series, that I didn’t like GTA V, and though my thoughts at the time were undoubtedly sincere, I have to admit, upon finally giving the game another shot nearly 10 years later, that I had no idea what I was talking about.

GTA V is of course a great game, one that has been beloved for nearly a decade and has remained a top-seller for nearly a decade. It still has its flaws, and though I haven’t gone back and re-read my review of the 360 version of the game before writing this one, I do remember some of what I wrote, and those flaws are still intact. But Grand Theft Auto V is an atmospheric, exciting, incredibly fun, and visually striking game that presents its city of Los Santos and its wild surroundings in a loving, very detailed way. Though it carries several of the weaknesses common in games from the 7^th generation of consoles, it in many ways stands above its fellow open world adventures from that area and largely holds up incredibly well today.

Grand Theft Auto V is unique so far for the series in that it stars 3 playable characters who you can switch between on the fly. You can do this when exploring the open world, each character often having their own available missions at any given time, even if the game more or less dictates which character ultimately needs to be selected in order to progress through the main story. During the missions, which often take the form of multi-part heists, the characters can also be switched between, all of this putting a fun spin on the typical GTA proceedings. GTA V may not really rock the boat in any major way in terms of the series’ famous formula, but changes such as the multiple playable characters and the frequent heists and setups help it to stand out, while returning a lot of the craziness and wackiness that was in short supply in the far more grounded Grand Theft Auto IV.

The game begins with three characters in the middle of a heist mission, something along the lines of a tutorial, and admittedly offers a less-than-impressive first impression; the grimy interior corridors, lack of awareness as to who the characters are, and the lack of ability to save for something like the first 30 minutes of the game feel like just as much of a bad start as they did to me on the Xbox 360. Once you do get set loose into the open world though, the magic of Rockstar’s incredible visuals and art direction, along with their great talent for immersive music and atmosphere, takes immediate center stage.

You play as Michael, a retired bank robber-turned family man, along with Franklin, a young man who repossess cars in South Los Santos, and of course Trevor, a deranged and truly psychotic individual who does have a certain charm to him that was completely lost on me the first time I played through the game. Each character is given their own fairly comprehensive setup before they all eventually team up, but admittedly the narrative doesn’t treat them all equally, with Trevor and Michael having a history together that ultimately plays a big role in the game’s events, while Franklin gets, without a doubt, the short end of the stick. His character’s likable and I was generally interested in his life and his friends, but unfortunately every time I switched to him, his map always seemed almost empty, without much to really do, and it becomes clear pretty quickly that GTA V’s really Michael and Trevor’s show.

Certain flaws like that do exist throughout Grand Theft Auto V, and they aren’t flaws that ruin the game in the same way that I once thought they did, but they come across as development oversights that I’m surprised this massive team didn’t catch. The driving controls and physics are all over the map, with driving greatly sped up from its sluggish handling in GTA IV, but cars still spin out with alarming frequency, and there’s no consistency whatsoever as to which types of objects you can run over and which ones will stop you completely in your tracks. It’s a true testament to the quality of the rest of the title that frustrating driving controls, despite cars playing a huge role in the proceedings, don’t hurt the overall game too much, even though they have the potential to.

Simple actions that could be done with the press of a button are instead given multi-step control prompts, leading me to constantly have to remind myself how to shoot from a vehicle, or how to check the current radio station, or how to change my weapon. It’s something that was common in the 7^th console generation and GTA V definitely reminded me of it. Other little things, like character conversations while driving continuing on long after you’ve reached your destination, feel surprisingly sloppy, as it forces anyone who wants to hear the whole conversation to sit at the location and wait for it to end before exiting the car and proceeding to the mission, making me wonder why they didn’t better match the length of the conversations to the expected drive time. The game can also be frustratingly unclear as to what exactly it wants you to do, especially during any section that involves flying a plane or a helicopter, and Rockstar seems to under-estimate how difficult certain things are, such as in a particular mission where you have to land a plane, and in another where you have to drive a motorcycle on top of a train. That the game isn’t more forgiving during missions like these makes them frustrating in a way that I don’t think was intended by the development team.

The characters, though, I found to be genuinely likable this time around. Michael and his horrible family are a constant source of laughs, while Trevor, terrifying as he is, managed to win me over, at least in a sense. Franklin’s under-utilized but he serves as a decent anchor between his two crazy cohorts, and the way they all function together is compelling. The argument can certainly be made (and I’m sure it’s one I made back in 2013) that the cartoonish characters are a step down from the more realistic, human casts of GTA IV and GTA: San Andreas, but I find myself able to appreciate the entertainment value of GTA V’s characters too. Maybe as I get older, it’s becoming easier for me to appreciate things for what they are instead of wishing they could be something else, or maybe I didn’t appreciate them with an open mind back then, it’s hard to say. But I did feel a genuine affection towards these characters by the end of the game, though it has to be said that one of the three available endings is significantly better than the other two.

Where GTA V shows its age is mostly in the size of its world. The size of the map is absolutely huge, but the portions that exist outside of the city of Los Santos dwarf those of the game’s signature city by such a huge margin that it has the effect of making Los Santos feel so much smaller than intended. The game as a result takes you outside the city so frequently that it makes it feel less developed than the cities in other Grand Theft Auto titles, whether or not that’s actually the case. It’s a design choice that makes sense in what was a notoriously difficult generation for open world games, and it undoubtedly made it possible to release the game before that generation ended, but it’s the one thing that stood out the most to me as someone revisiting the game all these years later. If you have any familiarity with the city of Los Angeles it’s hard not to notice how much smaller Los Santos feels than the real thing, with the omission of the San Fernando Valley entirely, along with your ability to clearly see the Downtown skyline from the Santa Monica Pier, both standing out in a pretty major way.

Otherwise though, GTAV does a great job at capturing the set and setting of LA, or at least, the LA as it existed in 2013, when the game originally released. Though Los Santos feels quite small by today’s open world standards, it still leaves a great impression by the game’s end, as do at least two of the three main characters. It may not have the emotional weight of some of the other GTA installments, but its over-the-top craziness and top-notch atmosphere, along with many incredibly fun missions, help GTAV stand out despite its occasional frustrations and strange game design oversights.

This is obviously not a review that’s going to get much attention now in 2022, as almost everyone’s played the game by now, but it’s a review that I felt compelled to write, if for no other reason than to correct the record left by my review of the original GTAV back in 2013, a game which I was entirely wrong about. Though it’s always better when studios focus on new releases as opposed to remasters, the beauty of remasters is that they can give games second chances, and in my case, more often than not, the second chance has allowed me to appreciate a title that I just didn’t back when it originally came out.

Not a perfect game, but truly a great one.

 

4/5

Note; This review is based on the PS4 version