New Review: Disappointingly average and incredibly repetitive, Judgment lost my interest long before its conclusion

Well, here we go again.

Another year, which marks the release of another game in Sega’s long-running and tragically annualized Yakuza series. It was a series that burst onto the scene in 2006 as a unique fusion of GTA with beat-em-up elements, along with very strong storytelling, existing within a charismatic and explorable city. Though new entries release every few years which somewhat reinvent and revitalize the formula (such as 2018’s strong Yakuza 6) the rest of them very quickly fall into the trap of treading familiar territory, often to increasingly diminishing results.

Despite being originally positioned as a new IP, Judgment in practice makes no effort to differentiate itself gameplay-wise from the series upon which the majority of its formula originates. Even with a promising start and some gorgeous visuals, it by and large comes across as a lower budget spinoff. It has moments of strong storytelling, as Yakuza games often do, but Judgment is far too eager to stop its momentum dead in its tracks for tedious filler missions that have all the presentational flair of PS2-era side content. These missions however are required to progress the story, and though not difficult, as with the rest of the game, they bog the entire thing down whenever its narrative seems to be gaining momentum.

But let’s step back for a minute. Judgment stars new main character Takayuki Yagami, a former defense attorney who left that career to become a detective after a man who he successfully defended went on to commit another murder. Joining a law office in Kamurocho, Yagami becomes involved in the defense case of a Yakuza member named Hamura, where things reveal themselves to be not quite what they seem.

Yagami and his detective partner Kaito are both likable and compelling, and though Japanese voice acting is available, the English dub happens to be fantastic, and at the start, with the gorgeous visuals of neon-drenched Kamurocho, and upon seeing Yagami’s office-slash-apartment, I was initially very excited by the prospect of where my adventures in Judgment’s world would take me.

Unfortunately, you’ll get to experience almost all of this in the first couple of hours. The detective elements are incredibly shallow and follow one of only a small handful of different blueprints. There’s the “find the object” investigative missions, a mechanic that’s almost always the least fun element of any game that it’s featured in. There’s chase scenes, which are cool but grow repetitive as they offer nothing new as the game goes on, and then there are missions where you follow someone down the street, which similarly never veer from their pattern and stretch on for far too long. Drone missions occasionally show up, but feel like an afterthought, as they only offer more “find the object” gameplay, with you simply using them to scan the environments for whatever the game wants you to find. Aside from an under-utilized camera mechanic and the occasional need to pick a lock, Judgment simply recycles these same mission blueprints again and again, with nothing happening to spice them up or to provide anything beyond what you experience in their initial reveals.

Everything else is textbook Yakuza; you’ll wander the city, which is atmospheric but in this case very small, heading from point A to B and getting in random battles along the way. The combat system features two different styles to switch between, with one being good for one type of battle and the other being good for another one, though as the game went on I forgot about the other style entirely. A new feature requires you to seek out a doctor to heal yourself from “permanent wounds” from certain enemies; it’s different, but doesn’t do much either way for the game. Battles occur when exploring Kamuracho at an alarmingly high frequency, and avoiding them, while possible, is frustrating, as enemies will follow you seemingly across the entire map before giving up, requiring you to either engage them to get it over with, or to run a ridiculous distance out of your way in order to avoid them. Most of these types of enemies provide very little EXP for your trouble. As with all Yakuza games, the combat’s fun on a basic level, and there’s an okay amount of character customization, but battles in Judgment are mind-numbingly easy and straightforward, making their existence feel like nothing more than a rude interruption as you try to head from one place to another.

It’s this area too where Judgment disappoints, as the vast majority of the story is spent wandering back and forth between the same tiny selection of locations over and over again; Yagami’s apartment, a bar, the law office, and a hidden casino. The bulk of your experience in Judgment involves traveling from one of these locations to the other, over and over again, and it’s this repetition, which carries over to all aspects of this game, that sinks it. There’s very little to see here that you haven’t seen in Judgment’s first couple hours, and the game stretches its thin storyline across well over 20.

It doesn’t take long to discover how incredibly little Judgment has to offer. The explorable world is tiny even by series standards, and the side content available to you, in the form of side missions you can take on and Friendships and Relationships you can develop, is so boring that I almost recommend skipping over it entirely. Even cool features that the game teases you with, such as the ability to decorate your apartment and a number of records you can collect for your record player, reveal themselves to be laughably limited in scope, and you’ll exhaust those possibilities after just a couple hours of playing.

But Judgment goes on and on and on. Everything offered in the gameplay department is introduced up front, with the game repeating its shallow and limited mission types and battle sequences endlessly until you fight through its long-winded but unexciting final sequences. The plot does take you to some cool areas, and Yagami’s a great main character, but the bland filler missions kill the pacing at the worst possible times, presenting some truly lame attempts at humor and never managing to take the hint.  

As long as you’re not sitting through one of the many static, text box-ridden cutscenes, Judgment looks great and generally runs well, the occasional framerate hitches (on the Standard PS4) and odd pauses aside. The presentation’s slick, giving it the look of a current gen game, something the Yakuza games in the past have struggled with. But visual competency really only goes so far. With such tired, uninspired gameplay and a world that’s so small and limited, I find it hard to recommend this game to anyone. Yakuza fans I think would be better off waiting until next year, when the inevitable Yakuza 7 will release, and those new to the series would be better served by jumping in with almost any other installment. It’s a bummer, because Yakuza 6 I thought was such a promising comeback for what’s become an increasingly tired and predictable series.

Judgment, on the other hand, is another example of why I almost lost interest in it entirely. Great presentation and English voice acting aside, the game’s so incredibly, thoroughly, disappointingly average, and the sheer repetition of its gameplay wears out its welcome long before its forgettable conclusion.

 2.5/5

Note; this review is based on the Standard PS4 version.

New Review: While still a deeply flawed work, The Zodiac Age improves upon FFXII in ways that allow its positive attributes to shine through (Nintendo Switch)

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age was a remaster that I never thought I needed. As someone brought onboard to the series with Final Fantasy X, which became one of the most captivating and influential games I’ve ever played, I’d ignored the subscription-driven Final Fantasy XI and immediately jumped into playing the other games in the series, becoming a huge fan and looking forward to the 12th installment throughout its many years of development. Sadly, Final Fantasy XII would prove to be the first game I’d spent years highly anticipating, only for it to arrive and to truly let me down. In my review at the time I called it a “hollow and soulless installment,” and though many of my criticisms of the game remain, The Zodiac Age does a great job of improving upon the original in ways that, while still a deeply flawed work, makes the whole thing less of a grind and allows some of its more positive elements to shine through in a way they hadn’t previously.

Final Fantasy XII immediately makes an effort to differentiate itself from its predecessors by focusing on a small, politically-centered storyline, one in which the majority of the characters hardly seem to have any investment. With the party dynamics and the characters’ relationships to each other pushed far into the background, XII’s storyline focuses the majority of its time on a political conflict between multiple empires, with one essentially becoming a military dictatorship intent on capturing its neighbors. The story does have its moments, and there are places where it offers a surprise or two, but its more limited nature allows the game do what it truly seems to want to, which is to become a combat-driven slog across huge, (and I mean huge) landscapes and caverns, where beasts freely roam, and where your characters get endless time to make use of the game’s truly fun and often satisfying combat system.

Though the scope of the world’s incredibly impressive, especially for a game released back on the PS2, it was a world where exploring became marred in tedium; when it can take up to 5 hours for your characters to hop from one city to the other simply to progress the story, my motivation to venture off and explore was next to zero. The Zodiac Age’s best asset by far is the Speed Up feature, which allows you, with the press of a button, to put the game on fast-forward, speeding up not only your character’s movements but also the speed of battle, and since Final Fantasy XII’s combat system is mainly driven by programming your characters beforehand and watching them battle it out, the game’s a perfect fit for this feature in a way that something like Final Fantasy IX wasn’t. In speeding up the proceedings, nearly every single aspect of the game is improved. The sparse narrative feels more fulfilling, as the gap between cutscenes is greatly reduced. I generally played the game at normal speed, but the ability to fast forward it when needed, (something that became increasingly needed, as far as I’m concerned, the further I got in the game) proved to be a major game-changer. Now, when I see a place on the map that I haven’t been to, I can switch on the fast-forward feature and suddenly I don’t mind venturing off to explore it. I got to more fully explore the game’s towns, such as Rabanastre, without the frustrating aspect of how long it takes Vaan to walk from point A to point B across these unnecessarily large, corridor-like NPC areas. And the hours upon hours of battle that the characters find themselves in as they cross many of these areas and the game’s enormous dungeons is not only significantly reduced, but it allows the combat system to remain what it always was, which is fun.

The Zodiac Age makes other improvements as well; the License Board system, in which your characters learn skills and bonuses, such as increasing strength and Max HP, no longer allows all your characters to become clones of each other, as the original Final Fantasy XII all too easily wound up doing, as you now select Jobs in the beginning of the game, tailoring your characters’ leveling up to that job. You have the ability to add a second job to each character later in the game, and though it may occur at too late a point for it to leave the impact that it otherwise could have, it does come in handy in the event that you miss out on certain abilities, such as a way to remove Disease, one of the series’ most unfair status ailments and one of the hardest to cure.

These somewhat unfair gameplay elements from the original Final Fantasy XII are still present throughout The Zodiac Age, and though essential additions, including the auto-save feature, make these far less terrible than they once were, they still prove to be frustrating. Save points that aren’t really save points, but disguised enemies who come alive to kill your characters when they’re at their most vulnerable, enemies in the field that are nearly impossible to flee from, as they’ll continue to aggressively pursue your characters half way across the map before giving up, the fact that you can’t switch characters in battle if they’re selected by anyone or anything, not to mention the fact that doors are very difficult to open when surrounded by enemies…..these problems still remain. That the game now regularly auto-saves helps to shield The Zodiac Age from the ramifications of some of these design choices, but it’s needless to say still a problem, and a constant reminder of what Final Fantasy XII originally was.

The Zodiac Age, in the fact that its features encourage more exploring and therefore more level grinding, is arguably much easier than the PS2 original, though when the challenge does present itself, it seems to do so in the wrong ways. A frequent occurrence, as with the original Final Fantasy XII, is that the enemies in the dungeons are often far harder to defeat than the bosses at the ends of them, and these enemies aren’t difficult for any reason other than for how the dungeon design eagerly puts you in situations in which you’re surrounded and overpowered, with little means to escape and with ever-decreasing numbers of Phoenix Downs at your disposal. At such points, Final Fantasy XII will often advise you to create a second save file, knowing that you have no way to escape from the dungeon should you need to stock up on items/weapons to complete it.

As with the original, characters not participating in battle don’t gain any EXP points, and while they still receive License Board points, un-used characters eventually become entirely incapable of damaging enemies unless they’re brought back into the main party (a mere three party members,) to be leveled up. Given that this takes away valuable EXP from your Main Three, and given that switching characters during battle is so difficult to do, it becomes impractical to use all of your characters, and therefore almost a given that half your party becomes nearly useless in battle about a quarter of the way through the game. Other Final Fantasy games offer story scenarios that mandate the use of certain characters in order to prevent them from falling too far behind. Final Fantasy XII has nothing of the sort, and while a simple solution would have been to allow non-party members to receive even just 50% of the EXP of those participating, that isn’t the case, and as with the original Final Fantasy XII, half my party became useless shields, to be called into battle to quickly cast Limit Breaks (here called Quickenings, and fairly poorly explained) before being immediately killed off by the enemies.

Gameplay-wise, though, Zodiac Age is something that I can overall deem a success. With the speed up system and the auto-saving eliminating the sheer tedium of trudging through seemingly never-ending environments and enemies, along with the greatly reduced fear of dying and losing hours of progress, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age remains fun to play almost throughout. It’s a feat that the original Final Fantasy XII couldn’t manage, and arguably addresses one of the original’s biggest flaws, even though many of them still remain. Despite these features, the never-ending slew of final dungeons are a real test of patience, and while they erode some of the good will built up by the rest of The Zodiac Age, they don’t prove to hurt the game enough this time to stop me from having enjoyed it. And for a game that I originally hated, that’s a definite achievement.

Despite being greatly helped by the improved gameplay pacing, Final Fantasy XII’s storyline remains somewhat of a weird being and a bizarre contradiction. The Shakespearean dialogue is very well acted and written, but the scenario itself falls victim to some head-scratchingly poor writing choices and a complete lack of character development. We’re expected to believe early on in the game, for example, that not a single one of the main characters, or anyone who they interact with, would recognize Princess Ashe, who joins the party under a fake name and goes along with their adventure. That Final Fantasy XII opens with her very widely-viewed and celebrated wedding, one in front of the entire kingdom, makes it impossible to accept that nobody in the party or anywhere else would recognize her as she travels with them. This isn’t something that’s explained in any way by the narrative, it’s just something that we’re supposed to accept; nobody in this kingdom, including Basch, a royal knight, is apparently able to recognize their own princess when they see her walking down the streets of Dalmasca, after having supposedly committed suicide, to boot.

Contrived plot developments such as this one occur numerous times throughout Final Fantasy XII, and the game just doesn’t seem to be aware of how senseless they are. Other moments, such as the empire blocking off entire city streets to prevent the public’s access to a mine, only to have the mine’s gigantic entrance left completely unguarded (none of the main characters comment on this odd phenomenon), along with an entire major city that somehow functions despite demanding that people wander the streets doing good deeds for rich strangers in exchange for pieces of wood in order to be allowed to ride the subway system, all stretch the story’s credibility at every turn.

Setting things like these aside though, the plot, even with its sophisticated dialogue presentation and some genuinely strong political intrigue, fails to delve deeply enough into any of its themes. Vaan just isn’t allowed to be much of a main character, and he spends most of the game either not saying anything at all, or goofing around with his friend, Panelo; she too has no reason for being there. Princess Ashe tries to take the mantle as the “main character,” but even when she has a major, world-changing decision to make later on in the game, the other characters appear to be (at best) only mildly interested in what her choice might be, rendering the whole thing weightless. Even with it being seemingly the writers’ top priority, the political drama is sidestepped almost entirely in the game’s final third with a hunt for various Powerful Items, a development as predictable as it is disappointing. Various airships dot the skies of Ivalice, and air piracy appears to exist, with Balthier being a sky pirate, and Vaan aspiring to be one. But they play no role in the story, and there’s no glimpse whatsoever into what it would be like to be a Sky Pirate in Ivalice, why they’re necessary, or even why airships are used, with warping between save points seeming to be a much more efficient means of travel.

There are moments of greatness here, but even with the improved pacing, Final Fantasy XII’s storyline is only slightly better than I remember it being. It’s a bummer, because with a strong story, the Zodiac Age may have been something that I could conceivably see as being a much stronger entry in the numbered series. But those flaws remain, and though I enjoyed playing it, I don’t expect that I’ll ever feel the need to play it again, or that this world of Ivalice or its characters will remain in my mind for much longer now that I’ve beaten it.

The soundtrack does receive a bit of a facelift, with a re-orchestration that brings out the songs’ better moments. Many of the tracks are generally good, and they often head in surprising and unexpected directions, but others, including much of the dungeon music and even the music that plays in places like Balfonheim Port, can be downright annoying. Composer Hitoshi Sakimoto also seems to take the lazy route at times, with generic “combat music” playing while exploring places like the Phon Coast, rather than music that better fits the individual settings. It’s true that these songs as a result can be used interchangeably in numerous locations, but it does further take away from the world’s personality quite a bit. The English voice acting’s of excellent quality, arguably one of the best-acted games in the series, even if we’re still stuck with the hollow, echo-y compression effect used on the voices back in the day in order to fit the game onto a single PS2 disc. You have the option to change between Japanese and English voice acting, along with the ability to use the original or the remastered soundtrack; that this all fits onto a Switch cartridge along with the HD assets is incredibly impressive, even if the Switch version unfortunately only outputs at a native 876p compared to the full 1080p seen on the PS4/Xbox One versions. The game still looks great though; it’s a huge update over the original, and while it lacks the sharpness of the (admittedly much smaller) Final Fantasy X Remaster, it’s still impressive how well the visuals have held up today, how good the remastering looks, how large the world still feels, and how great the re-orchestrated OST sounds.

All in all, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age is a game that I’m glad I played. It makes notable improvements over the original, allowing for a faster-paced, far less frustrating experience. My original complaints about Final Fantasy XII still stand, and in fact many still do permeate this updated version, preventing me from putting The Zodiac Age into the top echelon of modern Final Fantasy games. But the changes made allow the game to flow a lot better, and make for a more fulfilling, much more forgiving adventure. Despite incredibly strong dialogue and top notch acting, the storyline still majorly struggles under its iffy scenario and lack of focus, with easily the least-developed main cast of characters in the modern series, and several endless dungeons too many. Still, while I can’t wholeheartedly recommend Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, I had a blast with it despite its many flaws, and Final Fantasy fans who either haven’t played Final Fantasy XII, or who have always wanted to give it another shot, may very now have a version that I can say may be worth a look. Given how much I truly despised the original Final Fantasy XII, that’s definitely a win for Square-Enix.

3.5/5

Note: This review is based on the Nintendo Switch version

New Review: Ys VIII provided me a fun, if imperfect, JRPG to sink my teeth into

Despite being such a force during the PS2 era, high quality, quirky Japanese RPGs have become somewhat tougher to come by in recent years. Ys was a series that I hadn’t heard of before, other than from vague mentions and the occasional sight of one of the games on the shelf. Ys VIII’s port to the Switch seemed like a good opportunity to give this long-running JRPG series a shot, and though not without its flaws, all in all Ys VIII provides an enjoyable experience, and one that will definitely encourage me to check out future series entries down the line.

The game begins with series silent protagonist and adventurer Adol Christin onboard a passenger ship, setting sail for other continents. In the early minutes of the game, you’re able to wander the ship and chat with several characters, many of whom of course play a role in your journey once a mysterious monster causes the ship to crash onto a deserted island. Once a few other survivors are found, they lay the groundwork for Castaway Village, their home base from which they venture out, searching for other survivors and clues to help them off the island. 

The adventure progresses in a linear and yet nonlinear fashion. You’re given plenty of ability to explore the island and to backtrack, with new parts of the island being unlocked for you only once Adol has found enough survivors, who are then added to Castaway Village, to clear away debris blocking the path. It’s a system that feels surprisingly satisfying, as it allows the game to reveal itself slowly to you, as many linear JRPGs do, but with the full ability to return to previous locations, including with new abilities that unlock new areas within them, as well as a ton of sidequests to take on. It gives Ys VIII a linear but open world feel that manages to strike the right balance. Watching your party in Castaway Village grow, seeing the new things they each bring to the table, and watching the encampment expand as you progress is incredibly satisfying. The localization, which was so flawed initially that it prompted a full apology from NIS America upon its Western launch back on the PS4, is now fine as long as you download the patch, (this is true on the Switch as well)  with only a few grammatical errors still present. The voice acting and updated script is solid throughout. 

Ys VIII’s characters are likable enough, and plenty of dialogue takes place between them over the course of the adventure. I wouldn’t say ultimately that any character leaves too much of a lasting impression, but they’re all fun to venture with, and the whole cast has a pleasant, understated dynamic. There are times when things get intense for the group of castaways on this hostile island, and there are a few solid surprises throughout and some genuine emotional investment. 

This all comes packaged with an incredibly fun Action RPG battle system, one simple enough to get the hang of, but one which provides a solid amount of depth as the games goes on. Updating your weapons and equipment, the creation of clothing, the brewing of items, the learning of new skills, and a growing cast of playable characters keeps the battle system evolving as you progress. You can alternate between which character you control, with the AI handling the other two. Battles are fast-paced and fun, never getting in the way of exploring and not too difficult to avoid. The emphasis on the use of items (as opposed to magic) is the one aspect of combat that frustrated me, as it requires frequent trips back to Castaway Village to restock, along with the occasional need to search the island for the appropriate ingredients to brew more. This is generally not a big problem, as traveling can be done with a warp feature and is quite easy to do, but it does make some dungeons less fun than they could be, and requires items to be a larger part of my general strategy than I usually prefer.

Ys VIII does stumble in a few areas. Released initially as a PS Vita game, it was remastered for the PS4 and now for the Switch. Its Vita origins are plainly visible throughout, and while I can’t speak for the PS4 version, the Switch version at least does have a few issues that I wish had been fixed. Though graphics appear to be at a higher resolution than what the Vita could have managed, the technical limitations of Sony’s handheld shine through at numerous points. The Switch version operates at 30FPS unlike the PS4 version, which is 60FPS, so bear that in mind. Even so, there are some drops present on the Switch, even with the lower targeted framerate. The bigger issue for me though is the framerates of the enemies in the distance, which are so ridiculously low that it gives them a jerky performance and makes their movements look like a slideshow until you get close enough for the game to render them at full 30FPS. It looks terrible and it constantly took me out of the game. The music that’s here is often good, at least as far as the story events are concerned, though the few songs that exist repeat so constantly that it actually became repetitive to me. The music while exploring can be immersive, but I wish they’d done away with much of the generic, electric guitar-squealing rock jams in the combat areas and instead gone with something more atmospheric.

On a final note, Ys VIII goes on for a little too long. I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing it for much of its length, and in the final third, the plot fully kicks in. A very cool city location is revealed, and things get incredibly interesting. It’s a shame then that the game essentially becomes a dungeon crawler at this point, with far too much time spent returning to the same dungeon areas to fight endless numbers of enemies and bosses, and it feels like it goes on and on. The scenario’s interesting, but the characters aren’t quite strong enough to withstand the repetition of the game design, and for the final several hours of the game, I wanted nothing more than for it to end. Which is a shame, because I really liked much of it. 

Still, Ys VIII was a good experience for me. The action-based combat system’s great and incredibly addictive, and it’s deep enough and fast enough that exploring’s always fun, even with a degree of backtracking throughout. The map could have been better, and I wish the repetition had been cut down, especially in the game’s final act. Issues with Ys VIII’s origins as a Vita title, including a bunch of non-voiced story sequences, a high-quality but small soundtrack, and the somewhat dated visual look do leave a mark, but I’m excited to check out what this series could become going forward. The Switch version’s a solid way to check out the game, though the PS4 version likely comes closer to mitigating its Vita shortcomings. The final several hours drag, but all in all, it was great to get to sink my teeth into another addictive, high quality Japanese RPG. I eagerly look forward to the eventual Ys IX, and should they take care of some of VIII’s pacing-related issues, we might be truly looking at a gem.

3/5
Note; this review is based on the Nintendo Switch version.

New Review: A beautiful game that doesn't come close to hitting the heights of its predecessor, but Red Dead Redemption 2 still manages to entertain

It’s been over 5 years since Rockstar Games’ last major title, the hugely popular GTA5, and for fans of the ambitious studio’s massive, story-driven open world games, it felt like a very long wait for their next big adventure. This is especially true with that adventure happening to be a sequel to Red Dead Redemption, which proved easily to be among the 7th generation’s best games. Red Dead Redemption 2 was always slated to be a massive project, with Rockstar essentially merging all their many studios together and working almost exclusively (DLC and remasters aside) on the title for the past who-knows how many years.

Red Dead Redemption 2 does deliver, at least, in a certain sense. I have to say, I don’t consider it to be one of the studio’s better games, and certainly find it to be a notch or two below its excellent predecessor. But the world crafted here has been brought to life with painstaking detail, and the size of the seemingly endless map available for you to explore is very much out of this world. As a prequel to Redemption 1, RDR2 stars new character Arthur Morgan and tells the story of the Van der Linde gang of outlaws, which includes RDR1 protagonist John Marston in a larger role than I expected, as they attempt “one last heist” which will allow them to escape the dying Old West for good.

Arthur Morgan grew on me fairly quickly. I was a little concerned after seeing the trailers, which depicted him almost as an evil Trevor-like character, but much like John Marston, Arthur’s actually incredibly likable and has at least somewhat of a conscience and a level head, especially as the gang around him becomes more and more desperate. A plot development that admittedly arrives a little later than I’d have liked further helps to cement Arthur as one of Rockstar’s great main characters.

The story he’s saddled with though just isn’t that great by the studio’s standards. As with GTA5, a game that I, unlike seemingly everyone else, struggled to get into, the plot here mainly takes the form of a series of heists, each one presenting differing circumstances but still managing to feel very similar to each other, both narratively and from a gameplay perspective. Upon arriving in each new town-like area and establishing your hideout nearby, Arthur undertakes a series of missions which build to the various attempted robberies. Until much later in the game, including a very cool and innovative epilogue, the story seems a bit aimless and doesn’t feel that it’s building to much. Outside of Arthur, most of the characters don’t manage to leave a mark, and this is despite seemingly endless hours of dialogue as you traverse on your horses from one area to the other.

Still, Arthur Morgan’s journey is enough to carry the day, even if it doesn’t live up to those that preceded it. It’s a lot of fun to arrive at each new location, watching as the gang’s hideouts develop, and getting to explore and become acquainted with the towns (and the one large city) that you find yourself in. Visually, Red Dead Redemption 2 really pulls out all the stops. Other than the lack of interaction with the foliage (something which has stuck out to me in each post-Breath of the Wild game I’ve played) and a few framerate drops in towns here and there, the visual presentation is nearly flawless. It’s so photo-realistic, in fact, that it’s hard to imagine where things can go from here in this graphics style. The snow areas in particular are stunning, and the draw distance, as you stand atop a hill and survey your surroundings, is incredible. Many of the towns you explore are a little on the small side, but the level of activity, detail, and visual effects squeezed into them is excellent. The time spent in the city of Saint Denis easily proved to be my favorite part of the game, and I wished far more time was spent in this huge, vibrant, life-like city.

Exploring the world proves seamless, with no load times to speak of as you traverse from one end of the map to the other, including watching the barren environments gradually become urban centers as you approach the towns. Other than when you die, or fast travel, or when you first boot up the game, it just doesn’t need to load. And that’s an amazing thing. These aren’t empty, deserted fields either, as you’ll encounter numerous NPC activity along your way; from people who ask for your assistance, to those trying to rob others (and even you), the world feels alive at many points. Granted, while I eventually began ignoring much of these entirely, as the rewards they offer you don’t usually feel worth the effort, it’s always something I appreciate when trekking from one area to the other, the sense of activity and vibrancy.

The gameplay is oddly enough a mixed bag, as it replicates RDR1’s strong foundation, which is a lot of fun, and remains fun here, while building on top of it new features that frankly just miss the mark. As with RDR1, you traverse with your beloved horse across various gorgeous environments, completing missions for people as you dig yourself deeper into your story, and engaging in many Wild West gun battles along the way. The crazy bullet time-like shooting system from RDR1 sees a return here, and it’s always satisfying to bring out in the heat of battle. Unfortunately, in a misplaced effort to appeal to the art of “realism,” everything in Red Dead Redemption 2 incorporates simulation aspects that just feel unnecessary, and actually bog the game down when you try to make use of them. It’s possible to spend 15 minutes traveling across the world for a sidequest, only to get there and find that it’s time-specific and no longer available, giving you little choice but to either set the controller down for a long period of time, or to simply travel all the way back. You can hunt and skin animals to either donate to your hideout or to sell, with these animals degrading over time should you not return immediately with them. You’re encouraged to eat food or drink/smoke to regularly to recharge your various “cores” which affect how much your health regenerates, your stamina, etc. Guns have to be cleaned regularly to improve their performance, your horse is supposed to be cared for, your hideout is supposed to be donated to regularly, with the the list going on and on. I just never found any of this to be especially rewarding, and as the game progressed I wound up entirely ignoring almost all of it, and frankly I think the experience is better for it. It doesn’t help that every action feels so belabored; even picking something up off the ground requires you to stand there for a few seconds holding X and watching as Arthur stoops down, grabs the object, and slowly stands up and pockets it. This sense of realism is impressive at first, but after a while I grew tired of it and just wanted the game to speed up. This is something that carries through all aspects of RDR2. Going to a gun shop to purchase guns requires you to watch Arthur lean over a catalogue and methodically flip through each page, reading the nearly illegible handwriting or opting to pull up a text description. I wished numerous times that I could just push X in front of something, read it, and be on my way, but Red Dead Redemption 2 tries so hard to be realistic that every time you have to interact with objects in the environment or in shops, it all feels tedious and not worth bothering with. The Wanted Level system also feels like more trouble than it’s worth, and I made it a point to completely avoid playing Arthur as the “villainous” character, in part because it’s such a pain to remove your wanted level, which can take place from something as simple as brushing up against an NPC when riding your horse through town. Like many games today, Red Dead Redemption 2 makes an overt effort to be cinematic, with missions and large parts of the gameplay seemingly focused on simply pressing the buttons that the game prompts you to press, watching as cinematic things happen. It’s something that seemed cool back when Uncharted 2 came out, but now that we’re several years into the 8th gen, it’s something that I wish developers would just move on from, as I find it increasingly difficult not to feel detached from the proceedings when the majority of control over my character is constantly being ripped away from me to show me “cool stuff.” And unlike regular cinematics, you can't even put the controller down and enjoy them, as you're often asked to push the prompted buttons.

Traveling the world, as gorgeous as it is, occupies a huge portion of your play time. You travel far on horse to reach the missions, then travel far on horse during the missions, and have to travel back on horse afterwards. There’s a fast travel option hidden within the game that can be unlocked, but once I did, I found it to be so incredibly limited that I only used it around once or twice before forgetting about it entirely. Train stations do exist throughout the world for quick travel, and these are helpful, although similarly, they have to be painstakingly traveled to. Unlike the vehicle in, say, Final Fantasy XV, horse travel just isn’t all that fun, requiring you to constantly either tap the X-button or, if you switch to cinematic mode, holding it. The world’s huge, but you’re very much encouraged to stay on the various roads, as environmental objects such as trees and shrubbery can easily throw you from your horse should you venture far from the beaten path. Even when during the missions, and compelling dialogue takes place among the characters as you move, the traveling aspect feels almost entirely devoted to demonstrating the insanely gorgeous environments to you, and this is nice, but there’s only so many times I can be impressed by that across this very long game. Red Dead Redemption 2 feels like the first game from Rockstar where visuals were designed to be the star of the show. Being the developers of typically fully open-world adventures, their games were rarely the prettiest-looking on their respective systems, often going with cartoony and stylized visuals to make up for it. This is really the first time I felt a game from Rockstar fall into the modern day trap of attempting to be too cinematic, becoming too much about immaculate presentation while the gameplay just kind of sits there. The missions all follow a very predictable pattern; ride your horse with others to a location, where all sorts of dialogue takes place. Get to the location, something or other happens, which often leads to cover shooting gameplay that very quickly blends together; it’s hard not to notice a surprising lack of imagination as to how the characters get out of most situations. This is the format for easily the majority of the missions you’ll come across in Red Dead Redemption 2, and it’s unfortunate that the same amount of attention that went into creating the gorgeous world hadn’t gone into the mission design. Rockstar also sadly does the Horizon: Zero Dawn thing, where you’re stuck in a linear and cinematic “opening mission” for the early hours of the game, something that’s always frustrating in what you know will eventually be an open world adventure, which makes the opening hours, so crucial for pulling me into a game’s world, a chore that I’m eager for to end so I can finally begin exploring.

I know it sounds like there’s a lot to be disappointed with, but it’s important to note (and I can’t stress this enough) that despite the endless horseback riding, the less-than-inspiring mission design, the unnecessary emphasis on realism, and the unenjoyable new features, Red Dead Redemption 2 does deliver something special, and I was always eager to switch my PS4 on to dive back into its world, flaws and all. Even with the frustrating new additions, the strong foundation established in the previous Red Dead Redemption remains compelling even to this day. The level of quality and care that Rockstar almost always brings to the table in terms of the overall experience is impressive, even when the individual parts may not be all that great, as is the case here. It’s a world brimming with character, quests to take on, beasts to hunt, and gorgeous, bustling towns and cities. The voice acting’s excellent, and the music sets a cool, subdued mood as you venture through the wilderness; the atmosphere’s almost top notch, second only to something like Breath of the Wild this gen. Red Dead Redemption 2 is very much a game where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, in that for all its very “workmanlike” elements and issues, when I beat the game and put the controller down, it was an adventure that I’m truly glad I went on, and saw through to the end. It leads into Red Dead Redemption 1 perfectly, with an epilogue that’s just narratively a work of genius, even though it too drags in places. It takes a long time to get there, and the early hours of the game often feel painstakingly slow paced. But once I managed to sink my teeth into the story and ignore many of RDR2’s unneeded new simulation elements, I got to enjoy what’s a memorable, if imperfect, adventure. I hope that future games from Rockstar don’t take so long to develop, and don’t feature such an emphasis on graphics and cinematics over pure fun factor and inventiveness. But hey, they know how to develop a game, and issues and all, this is definitely one heck of a game.

3.5/5 

Note; this review is based on the PS4 version.

New Review: It’s a shame that Shenmue I and II isn't what it could've been, but experiencing these iconic games one more time is a gift that shouldn't be missed

With the abrupt cancellation of the Sega Dreamcast, which was gaming’s first 128 bit console and Sega’s final effort in the hardware business, we saw many incredibly promising games and potential franchises relegated to the dustbin of history. Few have gained as much notoriety as the Shenmue series; due in part to their notoriously high development costs and Shenmue II’s legendary cliffhanger ending, along with Sega’s apparent policy not to so much as speak of them for what became something like 15 years, what was a series that many thought would never be finished has finally been given the chance to continue on.

The announcement a couple years ago that Yu Suzuki was planning to finally develop Shenmue III was a momentous occasion that took the industry by complete surprise. With the long-awaited 3rd installment finally on its way, Sega has, for better or for worse, decided to deliver HD remasters of the first two iconic open world games, and Shenmue I and II is the result.

The Shenmue games were almost unheard of in how they upended what seemed possible in gaming back when they released in 1999-2002. You play as Ryo Hazuki, a teenager who returns home one day to find a sinister man, Lan Di, confronting his father. Lan Di demands a mysterious object called the Dragon Mirror before killing Ryo’s father and departing in a black car. Ryo vows to take revenge, and sets off into the fully realized open world setting of Yokosuka, Japan, talking to people and looking for clues that eventually leads him to China, where Shenmue II continues the story and pulls Ryo much deeper into the criminal underworld.

Released at a time when many video games still didn’t have voice acting, Shenmue lets you talk to anybody you see; 100% of the characters are voice acted. In something that’s still incredibly rare even today, the Shenmue games allow you to enter almost any single building, complete with their own shopkeepers, their own music, and other NPC characters entering and exiting the stores, restaurants, and bars that you find yourself in. Every time Ryo gets a clue that pushes the story forward, a notebook icon on the screen glows, and reading the note tells you your next objective. It’s a system that’s incredibly satisfying, and the numerous different ways you can arrive at the same conclusion (say, by talking to one person instead of another, setting off a different chain of events) means that even having played these games more than a dozen times over the years, I still managed to witness scenes that I’d never seen before when playing this remaster, which really goes to show just how much they had to offer.

Though much of the Shenmue experience consists of wandering through ambient, beautifully-scored worlds and interacting with locals, friends, and business owners who all operate on their own schedules, there are fights and action scenes that break things up. Despite featuring a form of the complex Virtua Fighter fighting engine, the fights only rarely offer much of a challenge, but they’re always fun when they do show up. QTEs, which the Shenmue games helped to popularize, are also cool, especially when they involve chasing people through the streets and dodging obstacles, or slamming someone across a bar counter or into a food stand.

Shenmue I is hurt a bit more by the passage of time than its sequel, mainly in that its fights and QTE sequences feel short and simple by today’s standards. As a result, these action scenes lose a bit of their punch, making Shenmue I feel slower-paced as a whole than Shenmue II and its far more exciting action sequences and encounters. That said, neither game is designed to be a thrill ride; wandering through town (or in Shenmue II’s case, wandering through the city) and looking for clues is certainly no Call of Duty or Uncharted, so those going in expecting an action game or even a beat-em-up similar to the Yakuza series will likely be disappointed. And that was true back when Shenmue first came out, as well; gaming at the time was still very arcade-driven, so even back then, the Shenmue series was somewhat divisive in that you either loved it or hated it.  Shenmue II does greatly up the ante in the action category, its occasionally slow first half aside, and Shenmue I has its thrilling moments as well, but generally speaking these are not action games, or fighting games, and were never intended to be. Instead, the beauty of the Shenmue series has always been immersing yourself in their environments: watching day turn to night as snow begins to fall on the quiet neighborhood of Sakaragaoka, arriving home and noticing Ine-San dusting the house, swinging by the local arcade and playing some video games or some darts to kill time, or wandering into a hidden warehouse on Fortune’s Pier to gamble your money away. The number of activities to do in the world may no longer be unsurpassed when compared to the open world games of today, something especially evident when playing Shenmue I, but the atmosphere and the level of interactive detail that exists, I’d argue, remains almost unprecedented to this day.

Both Shenmue I and Shenmue II were games that I’d considered the best I’d ever played back when they released and over the years, and they remain that way today. There was simply nothing like them at the time when they released, and though many of their mechanics have since been adopted by others, there really still isn’t anything that looks, feels, or plays like Shenmue. That’s not to say that the games don’t have their faults, something worth bearing in mind especially now that these are older games, having been released over a decade and a half ago. Some of these faults could have been smoothed over had this remaster been even slightly more ambitious (more on that later) but without a doubt there are genuine faults in the game design that haven’t gone away with age. Shenmue I locks you onto a more linear path in its final act, as Ryo attempts to infiltrate a gang and gets a job moving forklifts in a crime-ridden harbor. This part of the game is still a lot of fun, but having your character automatically teleported to work in the morning and then keeping you in the harbor until nightfall felt like it took away a lot of the freedom that you’d previously been given, and that remains something that I’m not thrilled with today. Similary, the original Shenmue can feel frustrating at times as you struggle to find “the right person” to talk to in order to progress the narrative, an issue that doesn’t happen often, but when it does come up it can be fairly tedious. Shenmue II largely fixes the latter issue but struggles with its pacing in the first half, though it more than makes up for it as it goes on. Still, the first few hours of that game can feel even a little boring at times, with a mandated mini-game involving airing out books in particular stopping its early hours dead in their tracks. I hope it doesn’t prevent people from continuing with what, all said and done, turns out to be an incredible experience, as it’s true that playing these games does require a bit of patience at times.

Visually, the Shenmue series really pushed the Dreamcast hardware to its limit when it originally released, and it’s still mindblowing that Sega’s final console was able to deliver these incredibly demanding games during what was still essentially the PS1/N64 era. Shenmue I and II features the same visual assets but presents them in full 1080p. Certain textures do show their age, especially on the characters, and the pop-in/pop-out of NPCs hasn’t been fixed, but in terms of sheer detail and atmosphere, both games hold up well today, and the improved lighting system presents a noticeable improvement. Probably the biggest night and day difference between this remaster and the originals is the removal of the load times, something the original releases understandably struggled with, which is a huge boost to this version and alone makes a major difference in the fluidity of the experience.  Unfortunately, the audio of the voice acting, especially in Shenmue I, sounds incredibly compressed by the standards we’ve become used to, and it made toying with the audio settings necessary for me to find a volume that I liked. This is the type of thing that could have and should have been smoothed over. That said, for the first time in series history, Shenmue I and II allows you to toggle between English or Japanese voice acting, which is a great addition, despite the somewhat legendary notoriety of the English dub. I personally feel that Shenmue I still plays better in English; the quality of the NPC voice acting varies wildly from the acceptable to the strangely awful, but the main characters’ English voice actors actually bring a distinctive and memorable flavor to each of them; maybe it’s nostalgia, who knows, but there’s a strange charm to Shenmue I’s English dub that actually made it hard for me to enjoy playing it any other way. Shenmue II, on the other hand, saw a bit of a step down from even Shenmue I’s inconsistent dubbing; Corey Marshall returns as Ryo, and despite doing a good job in Shenmue I, and despite him being a huge fan of the series, he sounds utterly bored throughout Shenmue II, something he hopefully manages to fix with his work in the upcoming third installment. Shenmue II still has its good English performances (Yuan and Ren, especially) but if you’re going to play one of them in English and one of them in Japanese, I’d recommend Shenmue I in English and Shenmue II in Japanese, personally. Regardless of which you choose, the option is always there and can be changed on the fly, which is a wonderful thing and a lot of fun to mess with.

Unfortunately, my praise for the quality of the Shenmue I and II remaster ends there. It’s great to get to experience these incredible and unique games again, so in a sense, the somewhat sub-par quality of the porting is something that I’m ultimately willing to live with, even knowing how much more this remaster could have been with a little more time and a higher budget. On launch day and for months after, both games were riddled with glitches and bugs; not even just minor technical glitches, but objects meant to be interacted with that were completely non-functioning, the existence of major audio bugs, and even full on lighting systems being completely missing in action.  A couple patches (which sure took their time to arrive on consoles) fixed many of these problems, though a few still remain. It was sloppy and rushed and, given how long fans have been waiting for this, completely unacceptable that Shenmue I and II was allowed out the door in the state that it was in. While I’m glad these issues have ultimately been almost totally (but not completely) patched out, their existence really took a toll on my enjoyment of playing through these games again. The lack of significant graphical updates is also disappointing, given the potential that was offered by today’s hardware. Thankfully, both games were technical powerhouses back in their day, so the fact that their visual assets (such as textures) weren’t upgraded whatsoever here (aside from the bump in resolution) is not a deal-breaker, though every poorly-textured tie and strange-looking face serves as a constant reminder of what this remaster could have been had it been given less of a lazy treatment by UK developer D3t and publisher Sega.

The improvements that are made are inconsistent; Shenmue I now allows you to save anywhere you want like its sequel did (the original only let you save in Ryo’s room) which is good, but D3t didn’t see fit to import Shenmue II’s time jump mechanic or its ability to let you skip cutscenes after losing a fight or QTE, both of which seem like no-brainers but still for some reason remain Shenmue II exclusive.  Both games still feature a 4:3 ratio in the cutscenes rather than enhancing them to 16:9 like the rest of the game; Shenmue I’s are tolerable, but Shenmue II’s are squeezed into such a small portion of the screen (due to part II’s additional letterboxing) that it really takes some time to get used to. The slowdown that still exists here and there in Shenmue I, especially in the harbor area, is noticeable, as the game shouldn’t be doing much of anything to make the PS4 hardware sweat. Shenmue I’s newly-designed title menu looks and sounds cheap, and the revamped in-game menus are cumbersome and take up far too much of the screen. The music, which is incredible and a gigantic asset to both games, experiences inconsistent sound quality on modern TV speakers, with some songs sounding a little strange while others come across as outright glitchy.

Thankfully, the price is at least right. With a $30 price point, Shenmue I and II is a steal, as you get two unique and incredible games with plenty to explore and to experience, while bumped up to a modern resolution and with the removal of load times. Throw in the ability to switch between English and Japanese voice acting, and there are definite merits to this remaster, even if they aren’t quite what I’d expect for such an iconic release from a major publisher. Without a doubt, further visual and audio improvements would have been nice, and some aspects of these games of course haven’t aged as well as others, but it remains the case that as long as you download its post-release patches, Shenmue I and II is easily the best way currently to experience these games in all their glory.

You can read my more in depth thoughts on the two games if you check out my past reviews of both, (Shenmue I and Shenmue II) but each offers incredibly distinct experiences. Shenmue I’s small town setting is wonderfully realized.  You run into neighbors and shopkeepers you know as they go about their day to day lives, while heading home from Dobuita’s shopping street takes you through the quiet, beautiful residential neighborhoods of Sakaragaoka and Yamanose as the snow begins to fall, something so peaceful that it feels so incredibly real. Shenmue II sees Ryo leave his home and friends behind as he travels to the massive city of Hong Kong, where environments are less detailed but far larger and packed to the brim, providing so much more to explore, your adventures taking you from a sketchy Pier and the bustling streets of Wan Chai to both the dangerous and intriguing Walled City of Kowloon and the forests of Guilin, resulting in a much larger and more thrilling, if a slightly less immersive and character-driven experience. Both games provide very different yet similar journeys, and if you’re new to them, the ability to jump into Shenmue II immediately after finishing Shenmue I is an amazing thing that I'm incredibly envious of. This isn’t how I would have chosen to port these games. But accepting the bare-bones nature of this port for what it is, if you have the patience for their occasionally slow paces and really allow yourself to be absorbed into their worlds and brought along on their adventures, then the opportunity to try these games out (or to replay them) shouldn’t be missed. In many ways, Shenmue I and II served as the basis for much of what we see in both modern day open world and cinematic gaming, and it’s great that many more people will have the opportunity to check them out.

3.5/5

Note; this review is based on the PS4 version.