Astlibra Revision

• Genre: Action Platforming RPG
• Time Played: 65 Hours
• Too Short/Long: The core game feels just right, but it's probably a little too long with it's Postscript in mind. Don't get me wrong, I WANTED to keep playing, but it has you redo areas, when you were likely already redoing areas over. It's not something I generally dig and usually feel could be integrated into the core game a bit better. Still, the revisit of old content is quick and abridged.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Extremely please, I think I've got a new favorite out of this one.
• Why I played: I'd been following it for awhile and even remember seeing stuff about the original version and it's always interested me.
• Recommend to others: This is a definitely recommend from me. In fact, I am about to shoot over the link to a few people I was talking about it with in person. 

Astlibra starts out as a game filled with jank, cobbled together stock assets, intermingled with art from several different artists of very different backgrounds, obvious Game Maker-esque tilesets, royalty free music, questionable animation, writing that is hit or miss at times and probably needed another pass through an editor, and game systems slapped one on top of another.

And it never stops being that. But it owns that, and is maybe one of the best games I've played in recent years. Astlibra is fun to play, fun to experience, has great characters, and overall a great story with pretty good writing, even if it misses the mark from time to time. It's convoluted as hell but it's a time-traveling story and what time-traveling story isn't? I think there are clearly some spots where time stuff just happened to work out, because it was written as so, but overall it works.

Final Fantasy VII Remake: Episode INTERmission

• Genre: Action RPG
• Time Played: 9 Hours
• Too Short/Long: I wouldn't have minded it be a bit longer. 3 Chapters would have been good.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Very pleased, I liked it more than I thought I would.
• Why I played: I wanted to get it out of the way before Rebirth came out, and I am glad I did.
• Recommend to others: Definitely. It's not a standalone product and it's technically a DLC, but... it is a stand alone little prologue for Yuffie with some other bonuses. You definitely have to play Remake first.

This is the reason I get so frustrated... infuriated even, when I see how many people cry out for what is just basically a 1:1 "Remake" of Final Fantasy 7 with better graphics instead of the Remake we are getting. The Remake we are getting which, is better viewed as series "reboot" or "sequel" really, rather than a "remake". I always say that "Remake" for FF7 is not a description, but a subtitle. I don't get why people are so against this when so many other series have gotten a kind of "reboot" to a similar degree with almost universal praise. "Fans" can be the absolute worst people.

If you want a 1:1 remake, there are plenty of high-res mods for the PC version.

Upon playing Remake I thought it was just the beginning of a masterpiece and playing Intermission only reinforced that. There are just so many nice little touches that even though I know there is a big giant behind it, I can't help but feel it's carefully crafted for/by dedicated fans.

Don't get me wrong, I kind of agree they delve a little too much into some of the more nonsensical aspects of the FF7 world in Remake and answering that by creating even more nonsensical aspects might not be the best decision, but I am here to see it through because as a complaint, that's pretty minor when considering other modern rpgs and the game is near perfection in every other aspect.

Obviously I have a level of bias as FF7 has always been my favorite game(/series), but I can't begin to express the sheer joy I experience when playing this.

Yuffie is better than ever. Originally, in FF7 she was a bit secondary - being a technically optional character, and maybe a bit annoying at times, but I absolutely loved her here, she is absolutely adorable, and very fun to play. It never felt like a real deviation from who she's always meant to be, just a more fully realized version of the character.

I loved it, and while it's status as a kind of bonus story DLC may technically make it optional to play before Rebirth. Just like acquiring Yuffie(and Vincent) in the original FF7, I don't consider it optional content.

Bat Boy

• Genre: Action Platforming
• Time Played: ~4-5 Hours?
• Too Short/Long: Feels about right to me.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I think I expected maybe a little more out of this one.
• Why I played: Looked like it took a good amount of inspiration from Mega Man games and Shovel Knight, both which I love.
• Recommend to others: Mmmaybe if you're a dedicated fan of the particular genre and really think the theming is groovy.

Bat Boy clearly take a lot of inspiration from Shovel Knight and maybe some from it's inspirations, but I definitely think Shovel Knight in particular laid the building blocks of Bat Boy's foundation. That's certainly not a bad thing as Shovel Knight is an amazing game, but I think Bat Boy leaves a little to be desired. The polish isn't quite Shovel Knight's level and it's otherwise a little uninspired as a whole.

It's certainly not a bad game, but it's just not all that special. I am kind of reminded of  Gravity Circuit, which I described as serviceable. Which this is. It's a game to play if you wanna play the kind of game it is, but I'm not gonna go out of my way to recommend it. It was fun enough and I'm glad I got to play it.

Tekken 8

• Genre: Fighting
• Time Played: ~5 Hours
• Too Short/Long: About right for a fighting game story mode, I wouldn't have minded a bit more, but I can still play through each characters little side story mode.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Very pleased.
• Why I played: Because I like fighting games, and even though Tekken hasn't always been my favorite I heard a lot of positive reception on this one, so I might have grabbed it a bit sooner than I normally would have.
• Recommend to others: Yeah, this is probably the best Tekken yet.

I haven't always loved the Tekken series. Even though I've always loved fighting games. I played a little Tekken 3 when the neighborhood kids wanted to, but just to appease them so we can also play some Bloody Roar and Ehrgeiz afterward. The first one I actually owned was Tekken 5 because it had a huge cast compared to any previous, and it added a beat em up mode where you ran around as Devil Jin. From there, I think I have gotten each Tekken, but it's never been one of my favorites.

That doesn't really change with this. When it comes time to play some fighting games my go to will always be Guilty Gear, then King of Fighters, then probably something that gets bonus points for having a real tag-team with 4 or even 6 players(shoutout DBFighterZ), whatever is the newest fighting game at the time, some weirdo random obscure fighting game... then maybe Tekken.