Recent reviews by Pmk

When people start the series with Yakuza 0 and liked the game well enough to want to continue the series, getting to Yakuza 3 represents a scary goal: it has been for many years the black sheep of the main series, because of its supposed gameplay and pacing issues. Some people decide to play it on the easiest difficulty and just for the main story, while others even decide to skip the game; either way, it is considered an obstacle and the fact that it comes after Kiwami 2, the most recent game in the original series, might make the game feel even worse.

When I played the game, it was a few months after Kiwami 2, during the summer, which is a season I love: while the game doesn't take place during that season, it has summer vibes, so my first impression was maybe already more positive than many players. Nevertheless, the playthrough wasn't smooth sailing: the gameplay was tough, I got to the ending without noticing and, when I tried to complete it, I left for last the hostesses minigame, which was way too long and left a bad taste.

Once I finished the game, I was pondering if I like the game enough to put in my favorites, like 0 and Kiwami 2; the fatigue I felt pulled me towards not doing it, but then I changed idea. It wasn't the first game I felt the same: other times I finished a game feeling conflicted, but every time it was because it made me reflect.

The fact is that Yakuza 3 is, almost, a rite of passage, not only for new fan to the franchise, but also for the series itself. It's a tough game where you can't just fly through it by spamming the buttons, you have to actually try; similarly, it is not a game where you can fly through the story, as you have to live the life the protagonist wanted, the one of a father figure to many, meaning you have to dedicate time to more than just the main objective.

In a way, people that decide to don't skip Yakuza 3 are choosing to try understanding the series's gameplay loop and its main themes more deeply. If you take the time to understand this game, you will in turn understand more the series on a whole. Some of its gameplay challenges are my most proud gaming achievements, some of its cutscene are still my favorite in the entire series and the ending will always be in my mind and heart.

Yakuza 3 is my favorite Like A Dragon game and, while Yakuza 0 might be the game that made the series explode in popularity, this game and the changes it brought to series are what lead to the franchise getting the recognition it deserves. Maybe one day this game will be remade and made more palatable to the masses, but playing this remaster is the best thing a fan of the series can do.

When I started playing this game, I was a bit annoyed: I didn't want to miss too much of the game, so I forced myself to blink as little as possible, making my eyes hurt and dry out.

Thankfully, the game is so well designed that it cleverly induces liquid secretion near the end, making my eyes stop hurting!

A lot of games come out every year and that has been true for a while. Because of this, a lot of them never garner enough popularity to not be forgotten by most: sure, some bland games maybe deserve it, but it's a fate that even good games can have.

Luckily, gaming has grown a lot in recent years and one of the consequences is the great number of remakes and remasters: for a company, releasing again old games can be a worthy time and cost investment. Because of this, old forgotten games can have a new life and get the attention of people that never heard about them before.

Gurumin is the second Falcom game I played and, both of them, are PC remasters of old games. When I played the first one, Zwei: The Arges Adventure, I enjoyed my time with it: it wasn't a particularly great game, but it was a very charming one. This is something that most Falcom games kinda have in common and Gurumin is no exception.

Gurumin's graphics are not really noteworthy given their PSP origins and the gameplay is also a bit janky and not particularly good: overall, the game still feels nice to play and engaging enough to encourage getting to the end. That said, there are also some bugs and weird design choices: for example, you can get completely cut off from a lengthy sidequest if you choose the wrong dialogue choice and getting some gear leveled up can be very grindy for little return.

The biggest charm of the game is its story and characters; it's definitely a game catering to kids, but it's also not too childish to be off putting for adults. The protagonist is a young yet strong girl with funny monster friends and foes and the story, while simple, is also pretty interesting: while most rpgs stories are about a struggle against evil, this one is more about the aftermath and has some touching implications about losing contact with old friends. It's, above all, a game about friendship and, when it ends, you can't help to not feel sad.

On top of this, the game has also some weird, but cool extras: little Christmas trees appear in the game during the end of the year, you can unlock dresses by playing the game during certain time periods and you can unlock even desktops backgrounds for your own PC; extras like that may look useless, but it's just another charming aspect of the game.

All of this was very cool and would have been enough to make me like the game. But the soundtrack is what made me fell in love with it.
The music of this game is fantastic: it has some weird tracks that might sound off putting to some (not for me!), but the rest of it is incredible and also pretty diverse. The game starts already strong when, after the introduction, you can see one of the monster dancing to an euro beat song, but then you start playing the levels and you get hit by the best tracks of the game. I advise checking out the official soundtrack even if you don't want to play the game; I listened to a lot of soundtracks, but Gurumin's OST is now one of my favorite of all time.

In conclusion, there are better games than Gurumin, but what it does is unique enough that, if you like this genre of games, a playthrough might be well worth it. I'm glad it was remastered: only few games are this charming.

Three years ago, I played VA-11 Hall-A for the first time.
I knew nothing about the game, other than some art I saw online, one gif in particular: it had a cyber punk atmosphere, but with a cozy feeling that I usually didn't get from media of that genre. When I got a copy of the game, given the promised coziness, I planned on playing it during the fall season, but life got in the way and I booted up the game, for the first time, in December.

I didn't know the game takes place in that same month, so it was a welcome surprise: not only I happened by chance to play it at the right time, but the day by day structure gave me a reason to play the game slowly, following the days in real life. I didn't know how long it was, I didn't know what it was actually about, but this helped completely immersing myself in the game.

Now, I can't describe myself as a weeb: the word has a funny connotation, but it represents well the fans and what they enjoy. I have watched some anime series and films, but very long ago and I never cared too much about other types of media in the genre: I can enjoy many of them, but most times I find them too exaggerated for my liking. VA-11 Hall-A is not an exception: it's a weeb game for the most part and it isn't afraid of showing it.

There are other, more objective things that might be source of criticisms. The game is mostly a visual novel, which makes it already not exactly a complex game, but it also lacks depth: while it offers multiple different dialogues and some secrets to unlock, the game is linear and the player has little impact on it. Focusing on the visual aspects of the game, the game sometimes present diversions from the 'behind the counter' setting, characterizing most of the game: they are a welcome addition, but also too few and far between. Finally, sometimes the writing can feel a bit flat or have some sudden changes in the emotions portrayed, exacerbated by the excesses of some dialogues and by the randomness of the music, that only sometimes it is chosen by the game.

Yet, when I ended the game as it ended itself, late in the night of a new year, I was sad. So deeply sad. Any grievances I had with the game felt insignificant, any objective flaws not important; my only wish was that it didn't end.

Despite the surrounding craziness, the story of the game feels real; despite their futuristic traits, the characters feel real. The events it describes can be cruel, but not more than what real life can be and never too much as to deny optimism. It's a relatable and kind story, of essential empathy.

Three years ago I played this game for the first time. Every year I have replayed it and every future year I will look forward to play it again. However, this year is the most important. When I played it for the first time, it was just before 2020, and this new year might be the start of a new beginning for the world. But it's also personally important.
I'm now 27, the same age of the protagonist and I'm in a similar situation. I ended a chapter of my life and I now have to find a new way forward. I'm sad, bust most importantly scared: I don't know what the future holds, but I know I have to take action and stop going through the motions. I wouldn't say this game changed my life, but it for sure impacted me and I will always hold it near to my heart.

This isn't really a review: I started writing it late in the night and it's now morning. This game is so important to me, like only other few are, so all I've written is more for myself.
Only know this: a videogame doesn't need to be perfect or mechanically deep to be worthwhile. Gameplay is always important, but hardly the point of the this art form. This game is proof of that.

See you next year, Valhalla.

Coffee Talk is a very good game made to be played during fall: the visuals and the music are cozy, the gameplay is simple enough that you could sip coffee yourself during it and the whole game takes place during the season.
The latter is something I wish more games did: playing the game in the same days it takes place greatly improves immersion, and it also helps that, despite all the fantasy elements, the story could totally happen in the current times.

Many elements of the game are well though out.
For starters, the gameplay, while simple and easy, has a bit of depth behind it, as you have to unlock recipes and serve the right drink based on the requests of the customers; for people that are not satisfied with the story, the game even has a challenge mode, which can be pretty difficult.
Then, the ability to create your own latte art is a nice time waster where drawing isn't as simple as it would be with a pencil, which can make it rewarding, despite it serves no use.
Finally, the game has extras in the form of comics and pictures to unlock, which are a nice way to give even more character to the game.

Despite all of this, I'm a bit disappointed by the game, as I didn't feel as immersed as I would have wanted. While the game has a good bit of content, I feel like every day of the story was too short: no day took me more than half an hour to complete and most conversations felt too short, not giving me enough time to get into the characters. I also didn't like how clean slate was the player character: it makes sense, story wise and for immersion, but I wish they were more involved.
Other than that, there are more personal reasons, but I still feel the game could have done more.

I still recommend the game, despite all: it's a well designed game and, while it missed the mark with me, its story still has a lot going for it. Just try playing it during the right season, it's the best way to enjoy it.

Coming from Yakuza 0, Kiwami can feel strange: it's a remake of the first game in the series, but it feels more like an extended version of Yakuza 0. The game is in the same engine, which means that a lot of the side content is exactly the same, but more than that, the combat is almost a carbon copy of the previous game, with the only exception being one of the combat styles being deeper and more refined.

The game is also relatively short: it still can take dozens of hours, but it has a shorter story and less, simpler substories. This is a consequence of the faithfulness of the remake, which changed very little of the original game, beyond the different style of gameplay: this remake added new stuff, sure, but it also has removed parts of the original release, so it still resulted in a game way shorter than most, if not all, games in the series.

The faithfulness of the remake is also reflected in some of the characters, which can appear strangely unfamiliar. However, a considerable effort was put in the remake to reduce that feeling: most of it is relegated in side content or in inconsequential additions to the story, but the main story was also affected, by adding some great new cutscenes to the game. These cutscenes are the best addition to the remake and their importance can't be overstated.

Despite its weaknesses, the potential impact this game's story can have on fans of Yakuza 0 is powerful and a huge positive aspect of the game. Its shorter length might sound like a better start for people new to the series, but it actually makes it work better as a part of 0's experience. Not only is the true ending of Yakuza 0's story, but it's also the beginning of Kiryu's story.

If you liked Yakuza 0's story, Yakuza Kiwami is a must play; it's a game that works well as an ending and as well as a new beginning. It could be considered the weakest game in the main series, but its still fundamental importance it's proof of the strength of the series.

Before I started playing Kentucky Route Zero, I was worried: I knew it was an 'artsy' game with many references I would never be able to comprehend and, being a point and click adventure game, I also wasn't expecting the gameplay to be particularly engrossing. However, I always appreciated games as an art form and, given that the game was only recently finished with the release of act V, I decided to give it a go. Even then, once I started playing the game, I felt intimidated: immediately from the start, the game feels strange, almost scary. Despite intriguing me, I didn't felt ready to play it, so I put it down, with the promise of getting back to it in the near future.

Few months after, at the end of summer, I played it again: I was determined to finish it, but I was still a bit worried it would bore me. I didn't expect it could impress me so deeply.

The whole game feels magical: every act feels special in its own way and every new chapter is different from the one before in surprising ways, not only by adding more to the story, but by also changing some parts of the gameplay. I was constantly in awe at every new situation.

Still, the game also maintains the intimidating aura I felt when I first played it, by being 'almost' scary: you are never threatened, you always feel something wrong, but it never makes you outright uncomfortable. It's some sort of 'cozy horror' that intimidates and reassures you at the same time. It reminds me of old games, where the primitive graphics left the players to fill the gaps with their imagination, which most times resulted in giving scary undertones; after all, the game itself is made of 3d models with few polygons and flat colors, with the most definition reserved to the text, which is displayed with a eerie flair of its own.

I played it slowly, only for 1-2 hours every time and always in the dark: not only to enhance the experience, but also because I didn't want it to end. I might haven't got any of the references, but, in some ways, I'm glad I didn't. And I'm glad it stuck with me.

From the outside, this game is hard to understand. Looking at screenshots doesn't help much and even when just starting playing it the confusion can remain. However, it won't be long before any such feelings will fade away...

In Other Waters is a videogame that closely resembles a book. Books are very simple, as they are just a bunch of words string together (some say a monkey with a typewriter could write any book, given an infinite amount of time), so, much like videogames, they require a lot of work from the reader: if videogames require action from the player, books require imagination; the book just guides the reader mind to create the world it's describing.

In Other Waters is very simple mechanically and doesn't require much action from the player, but like a book, it requires imagination: it's an exploration game that shows very little of the world to the player, by using simple contour lines for the terrain and dots for the living beings you'll encounter. So, the main job of the game is to immerse the player to enhance their imagination and this is a job that it does very well: the intricacies of the controls make every action feel more impactful and the simple, yet beautiful, color palette changes based on the environment, with the accompanying music following suit. After playing for a bit, the controls will feel like second nature and the deeper the world is explored, the deeper will be the emotions felt.

Despite this, the game also does a good job at not feeling too obtuse. While the game can be played with just a mouse, there are some keyboard shortcuts that can make the game easier to control and, overall, the game is also designed to be lenient in deaths and with some actions. Also, the game rewards the player with sketches of the living beings you studied to completion, catering to players that could want some more substance.

Finally, the game's story ties everything together, with many questions for the protagonist to answer and parallels for the player to find with the real world, with its themes of environmentalism that, despite not being the first time they have been presented by a media, are still foreign to a frighteningly major part of human beings.

In Other Waters is a unique and imaginative game that any person with a fervid imagination and/or a love for nature deserves to play.

Yakuza 0 is one of the best example of introduction to a series in videogames.

Yakuza has three core characteristics: a greatly written story with outstanding voice acting, an abundance of side content and a plethora of substories that best showcases the funny side of the series. Yakuza 0 nails all three: it has many unique minigames, some of the funniest and craziest substories in the series and one of the best stories you can find in videogames.

But another reason why it is a great introduction is its presentation: it takes places during the '80 and the game's lighting tends to the warm side of the spectrum, characteristics that make the game feel nostalgic from the start. This, coupled with the fact that the stories of the following titles take place years after in the life of the protagonists, makes playing the game an experience that can potentially leave a deep mark in the player. Few games can do that.

Yakuza 0 is a special game: if you end up liking it, not only it will open the gates to the rest of the series, but also be a constant source of nostalgia that you will treasure forever.

I've enjoyed my time with Ikenfell: it has nice battle mechanics, rewarding exploration and a charming story with characters that you will dearly miss once you finish the game; it also has a nice amount of side content that can lengthen an already moderately long adventure, so, overall, it's a very good game worthy of your time.

Despite this, the game never achieves true greatness, as most of its aspects have issues which stop the game from reaching the full potential it could have had. They are not that negative, but their impact is still important.

The story of the game is a bit simple, but it mostly serves as a a base for the interactions between the characters: this is a fine approach, because if the characters dialogues are well written, it can still result in a deep and meaningful story. This is where the game partially fails: while it never completely fails, the game could have been written better.
Some characters are written a lot better than others and some fails in critical moments: for example, the protagonist has a cool moment when the story's stakes suddenly turn for the worse, but it is resolved way too quickly; it's an important turning point for the protagonist, but it fails to feel as impactful as it could have been.
There are also some strange scenes that feel either too basic or to different respect the rest of the game, but there also a scene with a sudden conclusion, like it was missing a part, and even one with a continuity error. All of this makes the script feel amateurish in some sections, which, coupled with the fact that the rest is solid, indicates that just more effort could have solved the issues.

The gameplay also presents some issues, in part with the basic mechanics and in part with some enemies and moves design. The time based execution of attack and defense is mostly nice, but it can soon start to feel too demanding: the effects between the three levels of execution (oops, nice, great) feel too apart from each other, especially between 'nice' and 'great'; a single attack can be the key to success or a fatal error just by how it is executed. To add to that, stats changes like an increase in attack often fail to be impactful, which make using not-healing item useless.
These flaws are more evident in the long boss battles, which can start to exhaust the player and increase the risk of failing attacks, but these battles also point out some design issues. Too many bosses in the later parts of the game starts to summon lesser enemies constantly: not only it's annoying, but it also makes the battles way too long and unforgiving. At the same time, the enemies moves are usually just better than the characters moves: most of the characters move have a limited executable distance and some of them are just not worth using respect others. Overall, it's not too bad and the game is actually a bit too easy, but it all concurs to make the spikes in difficulty way worse.

Finally, the game has some very nice accessibility features which are very welcome, like the option to remove the possibility of failing moves or even removing completely the need for timing: it doesn't fixes the problems with it, but it's a nice option for when battling starts getting tiring. There is also an option to enable auto wins, but I wished it was less automatic and its success depended from the player level. Despite all this accessibility options, there a baffling absence of maybe the most important option, controls customization: if playing on keyboard, you are forced to use arrow keys, which, in some layouts (especially in laptops), they are cramped in very little space; I know that it's not always easy to put the option in games, but it's maybe the only strongly objective flaw in the game.

In conclusion, Ikenfell it's a game that failed to achieve its best possible form, but that still resulted in a good game: it's a bit of a shame, but if the developers decide to improve it, its issues could be easily ironed out. I hope it happens so, as game like it, especially by being LGBTQ+, deserve more recognition.