Recent reviews by Zakov

Might just be the best game ever made.

Fix Act 3 (more cohesion + ending slides) and it'll be 11/10.

Unironically the best game I've played in a long time.

I've been anticipating this game for what feels like an eternity, and when I got the notification that it had finally released, I bought and played it within the hour. I wanted to love this game, but I can't in good conscience recommend it to anyone. Minor spoilers will follow.

Let's start with the pros:
- Great artwork (though some character portraits end up looking janky as hell)
- Diverse cast of characters (with non-binary people!)
- Fun dungeons and weapon mechanics
- Easy to understand interface

As for the cons, I'd rather go into them in more detail than put them in bulletpoints, because they're a lot more significant and impactful to this review than the pros. I'll section them off for ease of readability.

Lack of dungeons

For a game calling itself Boyfriend Dungeon, you get to play all of TWO (short) dungeons and a final confrontation with the game's "boss". If you were expecting a lengthy rogue-lite experience with dating sim mechanics on the side, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Hades this ain't. You barely get any time to even play with the mechanics that you unlock for each weapon because you clear the dungeons so damn fast. The only benefit to diving back in there is to quickly raise your weapon's love points to advance their storyline, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but there's absolutely no point in your more advanced abilities, especially considering you can mash your basic 1,2,3 combo to victory on each floor as long as you heal smartly. The game feels unfinished in this aspect, and I'd hope Kitfox will add some (free) DLC to rectify this in the future.

Inability to refuse dates

This is the big one. The game touts that being friends with people is just as great as romancing them, and gives off the impression that you can follow a friend route with each of the weapons if you so choose. I wasn't interested in a polya(r)morous playthrough but I was essentially forced into one for daring to explore each weapon's personal path. Mind you, I was choosing all the options that would logically lead you down a friendship path, such as refusing advances and straight up TELLING them that we were just friends. And yet, everyone but me seems to be under the impression that I, in fact, am currently dating the weapon that I explicitly rejected multiple times and simply asked for friendship. When that weapon eventually came by to break up with me, I sat there thoroughly confused as my entourage came to comfort me over the loss of this relationship, one that I had never consented to being in, in the first place. I felt extremely uncomfortable throughout the entirety of my playthrough, because no doesn't mean no in this game.

Your stalker

The game warns you at the beginning that there are references to stalking, essentially serving as a trigger warning for those who might be sensitive to the topic. What the game fails to mention is that it's not simply a reference to stalking, but an actual stalker. I'll applaud them for their excellent writing in this particular area, as I've never felt so deeply uncomfortable receiving fake texts from an imaginary person until now. The conclusion to this character's arc, however, is complete nonsense, and a slap in the face to victims of actual stalking and harassment. I won't get too deep into it, but let's just say that person gets little more than a slap on the wrist and absolutely no legal or moral repercussion for all of their sociopathic actions. Which leads me to...

The plot

Trash. Absolute trash. The game initially gave off a Persona 4/5 vibe, with you spending a summer abroad from your home to stay with/near a family member (your cousin), and your summer job involves exploring dunjs (dungeons) that manifest physical apparitions of your deepest fears. Cool, right? Why are these dungeons popping up? Who's responsible for these monsters? How deep do my deepest fears go? As it turns out, it's all pretty shallow. As stated before, you get to play two whole dungeons throughout the entire game, and a final confrontation that feels like it was supposed to be more of a challenge than it actually was. If you were expecting a grand mystery plot and a deep delve into your character's psyche through these fear-based apparitions, as I did, you're going to be sorely disappointed. All the plot amounts to is your character becoming slightly less awkward and more comfortable with intimacy, and you date some weapons too. That's it. No grand finale, no real plot hook, nada. I swear I wouldn't have even noticed if the game just had no plot at all. If anything, that might have made it better than this sorry attempt at a story.

"Surface level" is the best description I can give to this whole game. What you see is what you get, and what you get feels unfinished, bland, and downright disrespectful. Kitfox needs to add a buttload of free DLC to fix what they've pushed out if they ever hope to redeem their product, starting with giving the player the ability to say no. Add more dungeons and an actually compelling villain, and you'd have a decent game on your hands. As it stands now, your money is better spent on games that actually respect your time. Try Hades.

Save your money and give it another year. For all the praise that The Witcher 3 got, this is not only a step in the wrong direction, it's entirely off the map.

I'm going to do my best to keep playing and finish it, because I've been waiting too damn long for this game, but this is not the experience they promised.

None of my criticism is related to the ungodly amount of bugs, either. The game ITSELF is flawed and hollow.

An incredible game that I never thought I'd get to play again. I remember when this was first released, I was in a panic because I didn't have a PSVita to play it on (and honestly, who did?). Luckily my brother did and I borrowed his for a solid week in order to play this enhanced version of one of my favorite games. Golden does everything that the original P4 did and better. Two more social links, new dungeons, events, a skip feature (thank god) and much more. Admittedly, some of the additions felt useless, such as the Shiroku pub at night, but nothing actively harmful was changed about the game.

One downside to all Persona games in general is, if you want to get the most out of it, you have to follow a guide. I recommend playing at your own pace for your first time and exploring the game for yourself, but you'll likely not see the true ending and the full extent of the game until you rely on a day-by-day guide, which can suck the fun out of it. However, if you don't care too much about maxing out all the social links, then here's one tip for you: Make sure to max out all your party members' social links as well as the Aeon one in order to get on the path towards the true ending.

Gameplay-wise, it's a classic PS2 JRPG with a decent amount of depth, with over a hundred persona to capture and fuse. It's entirely possible to get overpowered and trivialise the game, but if this is your first time playing, it's doubtful that you'll get there without looking it up. As mentioned before, make sure to nurture all your party members' relationships as they grow stronger the higher your social link is. You'd be doing yourself a disservice otherwise.

The voice acting can be a little cringy and the plot/writing is definitely a product of its time. The characters can be very sexist and the fanservice is a little too prevalent, but it's easily forgiven in favor of everything else the game does right. It's essentially a murder mystery Pokemon-esque game with dating sim and social elements. It sounds ridiculous, but it all flows together nicely to deliver a satisfying and lengthy experience.

If you've ever been a fan of JRPGs, do yourself a favor and pick up P4G. And for such a low price tag with over 50 hours of gameplay, you'll be getting your money's worth.

Emily's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

I'll get you next playthrough ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Without going into spoilers, the game's story is unfulfilling and leaves you with too many questions. Sure, it doesn't broadcast needless information to you every five seconds, but you'll be left feeling empty once all is said and done, and I can't recommend a game that can't even give its player closure. It's rushed and not worth the ~20 dollars for its 6-8 hour experience, longer if you go out of your way to collect things, but there's no point in even doing that. You don't unlock anything extra, unless you count headaches.

It's not a bad game by any means, but you could easily spend its asking price on much better and longer experiences. 6/10

I've decided to revisit this game after playing it years ago on the PS3. It's an excellent port, to say the least, and feels like it was made for PC. If you're hesitant about playing this because it's a port, don't sweat it. It controls great. Just don't use your mouse to turn your tank or your action points will go down faster than your date on prom night.

It's a cheesy anime game, so don't expect groundbreaking writing or a lot of depth to the characters. They are, however, all uniquely voice acted and each character has their own biography that unlocks more information the more you go on. You'll feel invested in your units, as you should, since letting them stay unconscious for 3 turns kills them. Permanently. For an anime game, the character designs are pretty tame and they almost feel like real, genuine people in a real, genuine war, which I find charming.

My biggest issue is how around mid-game you can cheese the missions with the "order" mechanic and a certain scout unit that you have. It made all my other units essentially worthless save for a few gimmicky fights and gave me no reason to deploy more than 1 or 2 units at most during every mission. A difficulty setting for the main story would have given this game a lot more depth and replayability, but it's a minor issue. There's still plenty to do in the game and plenty of challenges, including the DLC and hard mode skirmishes. If you're looking for a challenge, play those. If you want to cheese a stage in 1 or 2 turns, give your scouts a lot of love.

I won't go on and on about the sound, graphics and everything else. They're great except for the occasional hiccup here and there with the sound.

All in all, 8/10. Very pleased with my purchase, sale or not.