52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

[bikingjahuty]

89. Super Mario Bros (NES)

I was a Sega kid back in the early and mid 90s, and that was despite getting an SNES towards the end of that console's life (I think I got it for my birthday in 1995...it was around then). One console I played quite a bit, but wouldn't own until well after Nintendo stopped supporting it was the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Many of my friends, neighbors, and relatives had NES consoles when I was younger and because of them, I got to experience a decent chunk of the NES' most iconic games as a kid. While all their NES collections were different, one staple of every single one was a Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt cartridge. Literally, they all had this game and because of that, I got to play a lot of Super Mario Bros as a youngster. However, one almost embarrassing reality I've lived with for nearly four decades of my life is I've never actually beat Super Mario Bros. I decided to change that this afternoon. I also want to mention I only used warp pipes to get to worlds I already beat all the way through; I wasn't skipping over 75% of the game just so I could scratch this one off quickly. I really wanted to experience the full game from start to finish and say I beat what is possibly the most iconic video game ever made.


I wasn't alive when Super Mario Bros first hit the scene, but I have to imagine how much it blew people's minds in the mid 80s. Going from Atari and Intellivision to the Super Mario Bros had to be similar to how I felt the first time playing Super Mario 64 in the mid-90s. And unlike those old late 70s and early 80s home consoles and their games, Super Mario Bros is still a game that's enjoyable and fun to go back and play. Visually, there was almost nothing that could beat it, even if it seems fairly plain by modern platformer standards. There are a fair amount of levels that look very similar to others, but again, in the mid 80s, this game was way ahead of practically everything else in terms of visuals, including those repetetive stages.


The music is also still excellent, with certain tracks from this game burned firmly in my brain since I was in elementary school.


Perhaps the only things that really can be faulted with this game is its gameplay, which while not perfect, is still pretty damn good. My main grip with Super Mario Bros' gameplay is how slippery it can feel, particularly when running. It's so easy to accidentally run into an enemy or off into a bottomless pit on accident. Another issue I have is with the more technical platforming sections which require you to do a bit of Dpad rocking to ensure you don't fall to your death. This is also true of jumping on enemies, which I found myself messing up more times than I'd like to admit. There are also some really annoying stages in the last two worlds that tested my patience more than the rest of the game combined. But they are definitely beatable and once you do, you feel like a champion.


Super Mario Bros is about as must play a video game as they come. While there are a decent amount of retro 2D platformers I enjoy more, including other Mario games, it's just such an iconic and still highly relevant game that I feel like I could recommend it to nearly anyone who calls themselves a gamer. This game is a classic if there ever was one, and I am so glad I finally beat it. (8/23/25) [37/50]

[bikingjahuty]

90. Kizuna Encounter: Super Tag Battle (PS4)

I've made it no secret over the years that I adore SNK, particularly their work during the 1990s and the 2000s. Even up to today, they still regularly release gold (mostly), but the majority of my fondness for them revolves around games made during the aforementioned time period. I've played nearly all of SNK's biggest fighting game titles, mostly from their flagship franchises like King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, and Fatal Fury. But in recent years I've tried branching out more to play some of their lessor known and more obscure fighting games that never really took off. One that I've been meaning to try out of ages is Kizuna Encounter: Super Tag Battle.


My main association with Kizuna Encounter is it's AES releases absolutely bonkers price (think NWC prices and you're looking at similar amounts for an authentic CIB copy of this game). Luckily there are various other means of playing this game, including on the PS4 which is how I played this game. I have to say, there is a lot to like about this Kizuna Encounter, however at the same time I kind of understand how this game slipped so far into obscurity. As the full title of the game suggests, the core mechanic in this game is it's tag team mechanic which requires you to periodically swap in your partner character so the character you were just playing as can rest for a moment. The first player to have one of their fighters get KO'ed loses. Adding even more to this gameplay mechanic is you can only tag in and out when you're right next to your other fighter on screen, which creates a pretty dynamic risk/reward system for trying to control where you and your opponent are at all times. Other than that, the controls and fighting system in this game feel pretty similar to something like Samurai Showdown where you can temporarily disarm your enemy in combat. Unfortunately, Kizuna Encounter falls short of most Samurai Shodown titles, and just many other 2D fighting games from the mid 90s period.


The central tag mechanic should work flawlessly and be relatively easy to execute, however I found it to be a bit stiff and unresponsive at times. Even when I was right next to my teammate and the Tag icon was flashing to indicate I could tag the other character in, it sometimes refused to respond. Maybe I just needed to get the hang of it more, but through several play throughs I just couldn't get it right. Of course, this resulted in me losing more times than I would have liked. Pulling off special moves is fairly easy to get the hang of in Kizuna Encounter, however I could not for the life of me pull a Super off. In fact, I wondered this game even had them until my CPU opponent pulled one off against me about 15-minutes into me playing this game. I looked up how to execute as Super with various characters, but just couldn't do it. I'd like to believe I'd eventually be able to figure it out, but my main issue is with only a few exceptions across SNK's fighting game library, I typically am able to figure out Supers fairly easily and pull them off with little effort with a bit of practice. Not this game unfortunately. It makes me wonder if my difficulty with the tag mechanic and the supers may be related to control issues that are baked into this game, but regardless, the game is still highly playable and mostly satisfying for the most part.


One other grip I have, which straddles the line between the game's presentation and its gameplay, is the lack of selectable characters. There are 10 in total, which is pretty small even for 1996 when this game came out. On top of that, one of the characters is more or less a reskin with a slightly different move set, and the overall character design of 2/3 of the fighters isn't great either. When I see KOF 97's roster, or Fatal Fury 3, I see a ton of interesting, fun characters I want to try out. But this game mostly had me gravitating towards the same 3 or 4 character for every match. Even more limited than the playable characters are the very sparse amount of stages to fight in. WHile each stage does have different variations such as a night and day version, it's still the same stage. Luckily the art style in those stages is fairly good, albeit a bit more static looking than I would like. Compare them to levels in other SNK fighting games released in 1996 and you'll quickly see what I mean.


Kizuna Encounter's audio is pretty good for the most part. While there aren't any tracks that really caught my ear while playing, they all definitely sound right at home with SNK's other musical works from the mid 90s, which will always be a huge win in my book. There are also a lot of meaty sound effects when you hit your opponent or pull off a special move. And of course, each character is voice acted with limited lines as well. I don't have any real complaints about the audio other than it may be a bit too generic to really make any different in helping this game standout at all.


Overall, Kizuna Encounter: Super Tag Battle is a mostly fun, albeit fairly flawed and forgettable fighting game. Even just on the Neo Geo platform, it had so much competition in its genre that I wouldn't blame anyone, myself included, for choosing a game like King of Fighters 96 or Real Bout, Fatal Fury Special over this game. On top of that, there just isn't enough substance in this game beyond a fairly neat tag team mechanic to really draw player's in. Beyond a fun, off the beaten path distraction or curiosity, you're not necessarily missing much if you never get around to playing Kizuna Encounter. But if you can play it ever, maybe just check out out for a bit. (8/24/25) [30/50]

[telly]

Game 19 - Silent Hill Origins (PS2) - 8 Hours

Up until this point I had always accepted the prevailing opinion on the Internet that any Silent Hill game after 4 is not worth playing. And because a lot of them have become expensive, I just haven’t bothered with them. Now that I have the ability to play all of them (outside of Book of Memories) my intention is to form my own opinion about these games rather than just repeat what has been told to me from others.

So we start this journey with Silent Hill Origins: a prequel to the first game. While this game certainly has flaws, it really isn't as bad as I was led to believe. Let's start with some of the things that I liked. I absolutely loved the return to heavy exploration of the town that was missing from Silent Hill 3 and 4. I also really enjoyed the stamina mechanic because it adds a layer of strategy when you're navigating the town, although as a mechanic it's not coded very well and it doesn't really matter so much when you’re indoors. I think the visuals and audio are still great; it feels like a similar in style to previous Silent Hill games, even though it came out on the PSP.

As far as gameplay things that I didn't like I was disappointed to see that the same control scheme and camera are similar if not identical to Silent Hill 4 because this game returns to a more cramped claustrophobic level design like in Silent Hill 1. The constantly changing camera angles really screw with your movement and it became very frustrating. This game is also incredibly dark. Not in the sense of themes or atmosphere. I mean literally so dark you can’t see anything even with the flashlight on. It made exploration and overall appreciation of the level and art design (which I think is good) much more difficult.

Another aspect where I felt mixed on was the breakable weapons. To me the issue isn't the fact that your character can carry 50 to 60 different large items on their person, because the fact is that all the protagonists have always carried unlimited quantities of weapons and items (with the exception Silent Hill 4). To me the breakable weapons added additional tedium because you're constantly swapping weapons in and out as they break, and the fragility of some of them felt a little immersion breaking (haha). Like it didn't make sense to me that a sledgehammer would disintegrate after five or six hits, but Travis can punch monsters in the face 50 times over and not even break a finger. The reality that you spend a lot of combat literally slapping monsters in the face felt kind of silly to me. And it ruins the balance between the melee weapons in previous games, which had unlimited use, but you had to get close to enemies, as compared to the firearms which you can use at range yet have limited ammo.

Silent Hill Origins marks the turning point in the series where changes and retcons were made to the lore, story, and nature of the town and nightmare, that a lot of fans were not happy with. In this game there are two clearly demarcated worlds: the normal town and the nightmare world which is now called the “Other World”. And Travis can move freely between these worlds using mirrors. While I don't hate this concept from a puzzle/exploration perspective, it's a major departure from how the nightmare world was presented in previous games, in which everything is all one world/reality rather than two distinct worlds/realities. In addition, the burning of Alessa in a ritualistic sacrifice (as first depicted in the movie) is also not the original intention and story of the first game. In fact this game borrows a lot of its enemy design, character design, and themes from the movie and from Silent Hill 2 in addition to SH 1.

The biggest disappointment for me was the use of the characters and storytelling. So much of the game is devoted to exploring Travis’s past (which again borrows heavily from SH2), and with so much buildup it was frustrating to see how little Travis actually reacts to anything regarding what he is experiencing. Painfully little is about the town and origins of the nightmare, which is what I feel like a prequel should be about. I started this game with very high hopes that these ideas would be explored. For example, what was the town like before the spiritual power became perverted? What were the lives of the characters from SH1 like before the nightmare and how are they actively grappling with the ongoing changes to their existence? Maybe there are some new characters that disappear BECAUSE of the nightmare that we don’t get to see at all in SH1. None of these themes are touched on, and any interaction Travis has with the characters from SH1 is so laughably vapid it honestly hurts. There’s a little bit about the Flauros (albeit contradictory to its nature as depicted in SH1), and some information about the soul splitting (which implies that 3 versions of Alessa exist instead of 2 and so doesn’t make sense either). The rest of the game’s cult-related information in the story is just repeated from SH1. So much wasted potential there.

I really think that from a storytelling aspect a prequel to the first game would really be an interesting way to add to the world of Silent Hill, and so I hope they revisit this concept some day. Origins just doesn’t deliver any new ideas, and is more interested in retreading Silent Hill 2 but in a less interesting and fulfilling way. However, I still enjoyed this game a lot more than I thought I would.

[dhaabi]

I really think that from a storytelling aspect a prequel to the first game would really be an interesting way to add to the world of Silent Hill, and so I hope they revisit this concept some day.

I feel like some sort of explanation will be explored in Silent Hill f considering it takes place during the 1960s, but it won't be in the ways you'd probably prefer it to (unless I'm mistaken.) There are narrative choices previously established in Silent Hill: The Short Message that seem to be taking the franchise into a different direction which explains f's Japanese setting, for better or for worse. Regardless, maybe some day there will be a more direct prequel to Silent Hill, although I think I may prefer not having all the information.

[Cartagia]

Got the Platinum on Spider-Man 2 last week.  Just an absolute blast of a game to play.  The story is a bit weaker than the previous PlayStation Spidey games, but more than made up for by general characterization and just how fun it is to swing around New York and beat up goons.

[kashell]

55. Chrono Cross Remastered

I popped it back in just to kill time, and ended up doing a full playthrough complete with the good ending. My final party was Serge, Norris, and Glenn. The added boosters were absolutely wonderful since they trimmed the fat and sped up the process of getting to all the good bits. I did about as much extra stuff as I could, too. I'm in good shape for whenever I decide to do a New Game+. I still think it's lame that you have to reacquire the final techs of all the characters that get them through side-quests or events. Also, what's the point of trying to get a summon if they don't carry over, either? I was really hoping they fixed that. Oh well! I had a great time going through this for the nth time.

[dhaabi]

54. Kutar Apple || Nintendo 3DS || 08.24.2025



When I began building a digital 3DS library last year consisting of (mostly) digital-only games, I came across a series of games called Kutar. Ordinarily, I would not have even considered spending the money to play these games, but I've decided to try them out since that isn't an issue for me now. All ten games were released at once, so I've begun playing them in alphabetical order which means that Kutar Apple was first.

First, it's important to highlight that each of the ten games within the Kutar series is a standalone arcade-style game. So, what this means is that each game has one simple objective to work toward until the player fails. For Kutar Apple specifically, what this goal is is to catch the apples while avoiding the poisonous mushrooms. At the bottom of the screen, players control the titular Kutar who's ready to catch falling apples while wearing a fruit-gathering bag. Above, some unnamed person shakes the tree with a limitless harvest. Players are required to guide Kutar left and right across a 2D plane that's as wide as the where falling objects land, so there is no safe space to avoid items altogether. In general, the player's score increases by 1 with each apple collected whereas gathering just one mushroom initiates the fail state instantly. So there is some incentive to do well as a result of the high score system. I ended up playing through four quick sessions, and my high score was 157.

There are some other minor details to clarify too. First, there is no penalty for missing apples. In time, an onslaught of food rains down which will make it impossible to collect every apple anyway which only adds some chaotic tension to the simple task. This also means that there is no penalty or effect when players come in direct contact with falling items, including mushrooms. And alongside apples and mushrooms, other food types will randomly fall too which are fine to gather and are even worth more points. Another way to amass more points is by bouncing items on Kutar's head or edge of the bag. Falling apples must be placed perfectly in the bag's small opening which, in time, becomes somewhat of a challenge. Lastly, difficulty does increase. As more and more apples are collected, the rate and speed of falling items greatly heightens.

Based on the game's quality and depth, I already know what to expect from the other games, Perhaps if they were a part of some arcade mini-game collection instead of being sold separately, I can see these games having been worth purchasing for the right player if it was priced appropriately. Regardless, Kutar Apple achieves at what it sets to accomplish, which is really just to provide some basic game task for players to pass idle time. I think that, randomly, I will come back to this series despite not having high expectations for it.

[bikingjahuty]

91. AquaPazza: Aquaplus Dream Match (PS3)

Back in the early 2010s, there were a few simple things that would motivate me enough to buy a game without knowing much else about it. Some of these things included anime style characters on the cover, 2D fighting games, and games published by Atlus. AquaPazza: Aquaplus Dream Match happened to check all three of those boxes, and despite me knowing absolutely nothing about the characters featured in this game or the games they originally came from, this was an easy buy for me back around the time it first came out on the PS3. And aside from my then girlfriend, now wife and I spending a few hours checking the game out back then, I haven't really played or thought of this game since. However, this game's spine on my PS3 game shelf has been staring me down for the better part of the last few years and I decided to finally give AquaPazza a go again and see what I thought of it nearly 15-years since originally playing it.


AquaPazza is a mostly...fine game. For the past decade and a half, I could barely remember anything about this game and now I kinda know why. The game doesn't do anything particularly good or particularly bad; it just sort of exists. The gameplay feels familiar and intuitive as it borrows popular combo, super and assist character mechanics from much more well know (and much better) 2D fighting games released over the past 30-years. Unfortunately, the implementation of those tried and true features doesn't execute itself into the fun, fast, and dynamic experience of a game like King of Fighters 2000 or Marvel vs Capcom. Characters mostly control somewhat stiff and heavy, which seems like the antithesis of what you'd want in a vibrant fighting game like AquaPazza. Still, it's fairly easy to figure out the controls, how to pull off various combos, and to pull off each character's specials and super specials. It all comes across as slightly better than being just okay in the end.


As for the visual presentation of AquaPazza, the game heavily uses anime style characters as both the in game models and the stills of those characters between fights in story mode. The story mode illustrations look fairly detailed and good, but unfortunately I can't say the same for the in game models. The in game representations of the various AquaPazza fighters look somewhat flat and lack the same level of detail. This is not the came is games like Guilty Gear, Blazblue, or King of Fighters. To add insult to injury, the animations of the characters when fighting are fairly limited and lack the same fluidity and polish they do in the aforementioned franchises, as well as most others being released around the early 2010s. Backgrounds of stages are also somewhat in the same boat; while I'd say they possess slightly more detail and polish than most character models, the animations of what is occurring comes across as a bit more slideshowish rather than having highly detailed, fluid animations. One final gripe I have about AquaPazza's visuals is that there's a genuine lack of variety in the fighter roster. Maybe fans of the series would be able to see more nuance in each character, but as an outsider it's pretty much just busty waifu, busty waifu #2, loli waifu, valkyrie waifu, busty waifu #3, loli waifu #2 and so on. I think there are only 2 or 3 selectable male characters, which certainly made them a lot more memorable to me given their limited representation in this game. I do have to give some credit when it comes to the roster in that there are two separate rosters of selectable characters; one roster is fully controllable fighters, while the other roster is just assist fighters. This definitely makes the selectable characters in this game more memorable, but not enough to make me feel any better about the overall visuals.


Finally, the audio in this game is fairly good, I'd say even better than the visuals or gameplay. The music in AquaPazza is fairly catchy and certainly fits with the visuals of the game. Characters are also all voice acted competently in Japanese, although some of the female characters I have a hard time differentiating from some of the others given many of them have similar super cutesy baby voices. Overall though, the audio definitely helps this game stick out slightly more than what its visuals and gameplay would otherwise allow it to.


Part of me is somewhat disappointed I didn't enjoy AquaPazza more, however part of me is not at all surprised I didn't. As I said, I pretty much forgot everything about this game since the last time I played through it and there's a very good reason for it. This game just isn't very memorable or really that fun. It has some things going for it, and undoubtedly someone who's a fan of games like To Heart or Tears to Tiara will likely get way more enjoyment out of it than I did, but for me, this game has likely seen its very last time in my PS3 and will soon grace someone else's shelf of games after I sell it. (8/27/25) [29/50]

[telly]

Game 20 - Paper Mario: The Origami King (Switch) - 25 Hours

This is honestly the best Paper Mario game since Thousand-Year Door. Bringing origami to a world focused on paper was honestly a genius decision, and makes the most sense than the sticker or paint based ideas that formed the basis of previous games. It’s a little inconsistent on whether being in origami form is a good or bad thing, but I really liked the implications for both enemy and world design. There are also so many wonderful moments both in the boss fights, side characters and general dialogue which is what Paper Mario continues to deliver on even to this day. Even though the bosses are office supplies, I thought they were used in genius ways. Throw in lots of collectables to keep you exploring the gorgeous worlds, alongside a charming soundtrack, and you have a game that is generally very enjoyable to experience.

This game even brings back some staples from previous Mario games that fans have been clamoring for for years. The return of sidekicks that can help you in battle was appreciated, though they don’t provide a ton of impact in combat. There are actually some new all-original enemies towards the very end of the game!!! That was shocking :0 (even though it really shouldn’t be). Lastly you can customize Mario’s weapon and accessory loadout which adds a little bit more roleplaying to the series. All of these changes were tiny, baby steps, but at least steps in the right direction.

Even with these welcome changes, Origami King continues to stubbornly cling to having as little actual traditional RPG combat as possible, which really started with Super Paper Mario. This time around, the combat gimmick is based around lining up enemies within a rotating target to get more hits in and increase your attack power. Truthfully, I liked this mechanic as it added an additional layer of unique puzzle solving to fights. What holds it back from being great are the lack of an exp/leveling system, and the inclusion of breakable weapons which are required for the tougher enemies (it felt awfully familiar to the expendable stickers/cards from previous games). So frustratingly, just like the previous few games, Origami King really doesn’t provide you with a reason to fight enemies. They only thing you get is money and confetti, but you can get plenty of these things in other ways through just interacting with the world.

Other aspects of the previous two games that reared their ugly heads yet again are the instant game overs from making tiny mistakes with environmental setpieces, and the lack of any original characters. The story, with all the promise it gave with the worldbuilding, wasn’t explained until the very end with a paltry motivation for the villain which felt really unsatisfying. I also feel like it should be a standard feature to be able to run from any fight in current games. Running away is so frustratingly tedious.

Origami King made a lot of great steps in the right direction, but still falls short in some important ways. I still enjoyed it, and I think people who have been turned off by the previous few entries in this series may want to give this one a shot.

[bikingjahuty]

92. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater (PS5)

First and foremost, this is my first experience with the Metal Gear Solid 3. In fact, prior to this year, I'd never beat a mainline Metal Gear game before. Leading up to me playing MGS Delta, I had played and beat MGS and MGS2 earlier this year. On a side note, I had beat Metal Gear Rising years ago when that game first came out, but as most people know, Rising is an entirely different animal and is technically a spinoff title in the Metal Gear franchise. With all that said, most of my feelings and experience with Delta will be based on my previous experience with MGS and MGS2, especially the latter. There are many things about Delta that outshine anything I've experienced in the previous Metal Gear games I beat, however there are also a fair amount of shortcomings I ran into as well. The end result was a game that I absolutely enjoyed, but unfortunately did little to increase my overall adoration or personal investment into the Metal Gear franchise.


For the past 20-years, I've heard almost unanimous praise and love for MGS3. In fact, prior to me jumping into the mainline franchise earlier this year, it seemed like a large chunk of self professed Metal Gear fans would definitively place MGS3 as their favorite in the series. I'd even go as far as to say, easily a third of fans seem to feel this way. So to say my expectations for Delta were high would be an understatement. Perhaps I should have tapered my expectations a little before starting since MGS Delta fell short in a lot of ways that really mattered to me. I'll start with probably the biggest one which was the game's story and writing.


I want to immediately throw out the disclaimer that I didn't think the writing, story, characters, or dialogue was bad in any way. But unfortunately it did fall short for me in a lot of very meaningful ways when compared to both MGS and MGS2, especially MGS2. The plot and twists were not nearly as interesting to me personally; MGS2 did a much better job at creating misdirection and flipping everything upside down as the story progressed. That game literally had me questioning my motives as the one playing, and also actually made me side with the villain of that game at the very end of the game. Meanwhile, Delta's story, while filled with its own plot twists, just didn't carry the same impact. I did appreciate Snake's connection with The Boss and how much of the story revolves around that, but The Boss just wasn't nearly as compelling of a villain or character as Solidus was, or even arguably Liquid Snake in MGS. This really dampened the emotional impact of various events in MGS Delta, particularly towards the end of the game when it should have mattered the most. Likewise, I felt like characters like Eva, Major Zero, or Volgin just didn't do it for me the same way various other similar characters did in MGS and MGS2. And I might get some hate for this, but I felt like the dynamic between some of the villain characters was all over the place and even didn't make a ton of sense at times. With all that said, MGS Delta's writing was good, just nit as good as it was in the previous two MGS games.


I feel like when it comes to gameplay, Delta did various things which are undoubtedly superior to MGS2, but there were other things which were undeniably inferior as well. BTW, I'm not even going to mention the original MGS when discussing gameplay since that game is more or less completely inferior to both Delta and MGS2. For starters, Delta excels at its non-stealth gameplay well beyond what is offered in MGS2. Delta is the first game in the series where I didn't feel like a defenseless mouse in a house of starving cats when I spring from my hiding place or accidentally blew my cover. Especially with the new additional of third person over the shoulder shooting in Delta, combat mostly felt like a breath of fresh air and I was often easily able to get myself out of a firefight and back into hiding with little issue. This also extends to most of Delta's boss fights as well, which are among the most enjoyable I've experienced in the series thus far. Unfortunately, it's while in hiding where I feel like Delta didn't do as good a job as MGS2.


The stealth mechanics in Delta certainly work for the most part, but I ran into frequent issues that sometimes worked in my favor, and other times worked against me. I lost count of the amount of times I should have been spotted, but was surprised to see I was still undetected by nearby enemies. Likewise, there were other times where I was clearly hidden, but I still alerted nearby enemies for reasons unknown to me. This produced more frustrating situations that I care to admit, and at times certainly lowered my enjoyment of playing Delta.


Another aspect of Delta's gameplay which got in the way of me enjoying MGS Delta as much as I would have hoped was the game's stamina mechanic; I feel like I was pretty much constantly having to eat food to keep my stamina up since it is always decreasing, especially when engaging in more strenuous activities like swimming or hanging from a ledge. Luckily, the game does a great job of providing you with sustenance, often in the form of local animals you can hunt and eat. I just found the mechanic of micro managing my stamina and health to be more of an annoyance than an engaging, dynamic feature.


To conclude my thoughts on MGS Delta's gameplay on a high note, I definitely commend Delta on greatly minimizing the amount of tedious back tracking required to progress through the game. While there is some backtracking, it's not excessive like it is in MGS and MGS2, and I didn't find any particular section of the game outstayed its welcome. Luckily, there were a pretty nice, diverse range of areas to sneak through and explore in Delta, which brings me to the game's presentation.


MGS Delta is a damn good looking game. Between Silent Hill 2 remake and this game, Konami has been killing it with their recent remakes of their classics. Characters models and environments all look excellent and show of an incredible amount of detail you'd expect in a big AAA game like this. I feel like there is a lot of standard enemy cut and paste, but luckily this doesn't blemish the visual appeal of this game too much. The diversity in terrain and settings is also commendable and keeps Delta looking fresh and interesting throughout the game. There are also some really cool local damage effects on Snake, which also coincide with a first aid system that I forgot to discuss when going over MGS Delta's gameplay. Overall though, I have very few complaints about the way this game looks and it is likely not going to disappointment anyone used to pretty, high budget modern games.


When it comes to the audio in MGS Delta, it is mostly very good, albeit a mixed bag at times. The voice acting in Delta is mostly superb. While there is a fair amount of appropriately cheesy lines of dialogue and typical Metal Gear exaggerated delivery of lines by certain characters, it's all pretty good, impactful stuff for the most part. I guess where I felt like MGS Delta falls short, especially compared to MGS and MGS2 is its soundtrack. There are many instrumental tracks that play at various points throughout the game and these are fit in well for the most part. It's the main theme and few other tracks, mostly with vocals in them, that I just thought weren't that great. I'm sure some people will passionately disagree with me on this, but I just didn't feel like Delta's soundtrack hit in the same way as its older MGS brethren.


By the time I got to the final boss encounter in MGS Delta and watched the fairly lengthy ending cinematic, I felt like I had just played a great game, but certainly not one of the best games ever made. I will never tell someone who is madly in love with this game that their intense enjoyment of the game isn't justified, however I just didn't see this game for the masterpiece so many make it out to be. Is Delta a very enjoyable game? Very much so. Is it perfect or nearly perfect in every single way? No, definitely not. Delta is a great, very faithful remake to the original MGS3, but despite this, I doubt I'd have enjoyed it any more, or less, than I would had I played OG MGS3 prior to Delta. As it stands, I still prefer MGS2, albeit by a fairly small margin. The first MGS sits at number 3 on my top Metal Gear games list so far. The main aspect of MGS2 that elevates it over Delta for me is its writing and story really. Other than that, there are enough benefits and drawbacks to both games to where the rest is almost pretty much a draw. I guess what you can take away from that is Delta is absolutely worth the time, effort, and money to play through and I have no doubt some people will feel the opposite of me when comparing this to other Metal Gear titles. I certainly wish I'd have been able to like Delta more, but even with how much I did end up liking it, MGS Delta is a pretty damn good game and one I can understand fully why some people absolutely love it. (8/31/25) [38/50]

[dhaabi]

55. Persona 3 Reload || PlayStation 5 || 08.25.2025



After experiencing a Persona game for the first time a few years ago in a couch co-op setting, enough time had past to where wanting to play through another entry was something that that same person and I were wanting to do in the same way. So, we decided to play Persona 3 Reload (P3R), a remake. Generally, I prefer playing through games in their original adapation if possible and easily accessible to me, but I knew that playing the remake would be the most optimal option since I'm not playing alone. Also, I eventually learned only after we completed the game that there are certain quality-of-life updates to the remake that I think I greatly prefer, so that was good information to learn.

In short, P3R is a save-the-world adventure that's only able to be accomplished by a ragtag group of cast-aside high school students known as S.E.E.S. Their goal is only possible because these individuals are able to harness some greater power in the form of their individual Personas, which are a physical manifestation of their personality and identity. What they all fight for is to end a phenomenon referred to as the Dark Hour, which is a hidden time taking place every night at midnight. During this time, ordinary people are oblivious to what's going on as they stand still, and monsters known as Shadows work toward intruding our world to overcome humanity. While going through the game's opening hours, I was actually surprised somewhat by the game's narrative structure, as players are more-or-less just thrown into action without much knowledge while a lot of story exposition is just skipped. A major reason for why this seems to be is that the player-controller protagonist is a newcomer to an existing group and their organization's covert operations. So, instead of everyone involved figuring out what's going on altogether, what happens is that these other individuals explain a lot of introductory information for much of the game's early segments.

Despite P3R being a narrative-driven game, I found myself not being able to engage with it as much as I had anticipated. And a large reason for this is the characters themselves. For far longer than one would expect—at least half of the game's total playtime, which the game is of considerable length—there are virtually zero meaningful interactions between the protagonist and supporting cast on an individual level. In fact, even amongst the team, there are few party developments pertaining to the characters themselves and not the events they're involved in. Besides the characters, the story itself did not really seem to separate itself from others adopting the same end-of-the-world scenario, though its themes and tone do set it apart. Seeing that this is the game where characters literally shoot themselves with a gun to engage in battle, I actually would have liked to have seen its mature writing taken to an even higher degree, but what's present, such as topics like suicide and self-harm, is still commendable.

I'll now mention that the game is divided by its two kinds of gameplay: social simulation and turn-based RPG. I'll first discuss the former. Taking place over the course of one full school year, P3R's story is experienced day-by-day with a myriad of social interactions available to pursue at any given time. However, players are forced to prioritize what actions they take and when they take them, as most days limit players to two actions (which also includes deciding to engage in combat) alongside certain actions being time-specific. With that understanding, there are all sorts of non-player characters which the player is able to develop relationships with. While there are plenty of opportunities engage with non-party members whom make up the secondary cast, the aforementioned little engagement available for players to share with those closest to them made it seem like party members were the ones without much character depth. Eventually, though, opportunities to connect with party members on a deeper level do appear, though these moments are few and far between. There are very specific times when this sort of relationship-building can be experienced that's presented at random, whereas the secondary cast can be socialized with a much higher frequency while adopting a predetermined schedule. However, relationships will only grow as a result of accumulated social points between you and that specific individual, and the best way to gain these points are by selecting the most favorable dialogue options among several to choose from. Unfortunately, what's deemed as most favorable almost always is the option that avoids all conflict and nuance. And as a result, most social interactions were a bore and monotonous. This problem also seemed to affect the characters themselves, as I personally found many of them to be uninteresting or outright unlikable.

At least once per in-game month (though likely two or three times in total), the player and their fellow S.E.E.S. teammates will explore past the human world into a Shadow-filled dungeon which takes the form of a monumental tower where nearly all combat initiates. Exploring the tower one floor at a time, the player navigates the area while slowly ascending to the top until roadblocks are periodically met. However, Shadows roam the environment alongside players, which means that players themselves can decide whether they want to engage in battle or not. While the tower itself is divided into six sections with some environmental differences, each of the tower's 264 floors share an uninteresting level design that limits combat exploration by being a modern take on traditional dungeon-crawling. Of course, this does make sense given the series' history, but the decision severely diminishes players' ability to have fun while exploring and instead makes exploration be a race to the top as there is very little beyond battles to engage with.

With that said, the game's RPG mechanics offer a much more fast-paced foil to the slower social elements. With a party system that supports up to four, P3R is designed with a traditional turn-based RPG system which has each person or monster engaged in battle acting on their own. Unlike many other RPGs, Persona in general is a series which places great emphasis on buffs and de-buffs during battle, and P3R is no exception. At the same time, exploiting enemy weaknesses is also crucial, as it will allow for follow-up attacks in the same turn or, when exploiting all enemies present, allow players to unleash a powerful group attack. Alongside basic gameplay moves, there is also a special skill meter referred to as Theurgy that I think is designed well. In order to select these special skills, the meter needs to completely fill, but the criteria for this to happen varies between party members. I suppose I'll also mention that Persona games are known for being on the more difficult side, but I did not feel that way. During my ~120 hour playthrough, the only times I ever reached a game over (that is auto-triggered when the protagonist dies) was when auto-kill attacks were successful. But even then, the game provides several options for what players do upon dying, such as restarting the fight or restarting the save file. Lastly, the spoils system when winning a battle is designed quite effectively. Instead of one predetermined reward, players are able to choose what they gain from several options. As the game progresses, what's gained, the effectiveness of what's gained, and the amount of what's gained increases, and this alone system out of everything felt like it most valued players' time.

Besides utilizing standard attacks, player party members greatly rely on the use of their Personas in battle which grant them varying special skills. And as party members gain experience and level up, so do their Personas. As one would expect, new battle actions do regularly become available, though the amount of skills any Persona can use at any given time is limited to eight. So, balancing which skills are active by sacrificing older ones is necessary to progress forward in the game more easily. Exclusive to the protagonist, players may also fuse Personas which is the act of combining two or more Personas to create a new one. These fused Personas are almost always more powerful than what was relinquished, and certain skills held by the ones lost may be inherited to the one gained. Because of that one aspect alone, fusing was a crucial act so that powerful abilities, that are sometimes even specific to individual Personas, can be retained. However, I would have liked for this process to be more involved and strategic. While playing, I never felt forced to be that forward-thinking and methodical with what I make and what sort of actions they wield. Even when I accidentally lost a certain kind of ability that would have been useful, I still always managed to win battles.

It's common knowledge that Persona games are lengthy, including P3R. And as much as the two gameplay halves excel, I don't think the balance between them is done particularly well. How exactly players progress through the game is ultimately their decision, but it's incentivized to divide the two gameplay sections fully from another with each passing in-game month. Personally, I found myself going through hours upon hours of dialogue and other social mechanics, or hours upon hours of combat exploration without a break in-between either. For the former, all sorts of activities are available to pursue that are expected for a high-school student in the city to engage in: going out to eat, participating in school clubs, studying, shopping, being with friends, working part-time, or pursuing other leisurely activities. Of course, all these activities are technically optional but are meant to be engaged with, and for good reason too because they directly increase other mechanics tied to the combat exploration. While I could have avoided being invested in certain sub-plot narratives or shortened the time commitment by avoiding reading altogether, those decisions felt counterintuitive.

Having now completed Persona 3 Reload, I feel conflicted. While the game's upstanding quality is undeniable, it's not a game that values the player's time. Apart from this issue, the game's themes take on a more mature tone that I was anticipating, which I do commend. They regularly coincide with more lighthearted elements to be expected from a typical high school setting and cast. However, the story did become a bit boring as the game neared its end. It felt a bit generic and, unexpectedly, very similar to the only other game in the series I've played, Persona 5. So, this makes me question if other entries and future ones will follow this trend, which is a disappointing thought to have. I'm sure that I'll play other games in the franchise, or those similar to it also by developer Atlus, at some point, but I need a long break before then.