I wanna play Xenoblade X so this will be be a short summary:

- Best of the 3 by a wide margin.
- Has a much more satisfying pay-off and the whole focus on urban legends feels woven into the plot a lot better, which is the main thing I really wanted.
- Characters are better here and charming.
- Wish there was more of a focus on horror like the marketing implied but that's not a fault of the game, just go in expecting a cool detective story.
- Ost ain't as good sadly but everything else is better.

Cool game. Now I play Xenoblade.

Not got much to say on this one but it was a surprisingly fun time, I thought I was kinda done with this series and had my fill after 0 and Kiwami 1 but nah this got me interested once again in properly seeing the series through. Also you should know before playing that this game is heavily story focused so has a TON of curscenes, so be sure you're in the mood for that before starting (but this is Yakuza so you know that already).

It felt a bit jarring coming from the aforementioned games as I remember the whole style system (forgot the name) being a key part of the combat and really making those games click, so to see it absent here was weird and made the combat feel barebones at first but I found myself using weapons a lot more in this one (out of necessity). Honestly when I got into the swing of things and utilised all the weapons I stored up I didn't miss the style stuff at all, the variety you get to play with is fun and the damage buff feels real powerful. The gameplay when roaming around the map between chapters felt a bit tiring to me especially with how a lot of it felt very back and forth through the same few areas repetitively but I gotta give props to how detailed and alive the city feels - the foodie I am, I loved going and eating as much food at as many places as I could find lol.

The story is good but could feel a little uneven at times in pacing and the ending got a little silly; it's basically your typical Yakuza romp so you kinda know what to expect but it's done well and keeps you invested, even if the pacing ain't the best. Music's good. The game really shines when you do the sub-stories though so I would REALLY recommend doing as much of them as you can until you've had your fill if you want to play this game. They're all so charming and some actually had me laughing aloud, it adds so much to the experience and gives this game such a unique flair.

Played via recompiled on PC. Great port btw but sadly not enough to save this game.

Daytime stages were fantastic, probably the best we've had in terms of 3D Sonic game-play. They all felt great to play and if this made up the majority of the game I could see how replaying these to get better results would be appealing with how tightly these are all designed, like really no complaints there.

My issues come with everything else. The hubs had potential and I could see them building upon this to make really cool little areas that offer a nice break from the intense platforming stages while giving you cool locales to find secrets in; sadly these end up feeling empty and kinda pointless for now and Sonic Team never went back to expand on this so its just kinda eh. The medals felt completely unnecessary, thought the game would be long enough without them tbh and adding them just creates another annoying grind element that breaks up the flow I would keep getting into. The final boss was a big letdown and didn't enjoy how basic it was and the reliance on QTEs. This game really doesn't feel polished either, the camera worked against me in so many areas and I came across a ton of bugs or moments where it felt like the game just didn't wanna co-operate with me.

The warehog stages are even worse - honestly they reminded me of LEGO games more than anything with how basic, repetitive and easy some of the level progression mechanics were except here the levels felt endless. The combat felt really bare-bones even after leveling my stats up a ton. They all go on WAYYYYYY too long for my liking and while I was neutral on them at first as the game went on I started to dread doing them. The warehog taking up most the game really soured it as well since I just wished I could be playing the VASTLY superior daytime stages.

Uhh I think that's all for now - I really don't get the glazing this game has gotten lately and it left me disappointed. If I ever play again it'll be modded to remove medals.