Recent reviews by meishu

It's very good and I'm very bad
It doesn't replace the Rising Storm Vietnam 2 in my heart but that game has a fundamentally different goal
Reminds me a lot of Black Ops 1 Hardcore from back in the day

I love the TXR series and I would 100% recommend this despite it being in Early Access, right now it feels more like TXR 1 but I honestly think it might end up being like a modern TXR Zero or TXR 3 with more RPG aspects which is cool. The TXR bones are there and people who grew up on it, this is *the* game you should buy. I don't buy new games, but I bought this full price. I don't even really like TXR as much as the next guy. I'm more of an Initial D or Wangan Midnight guy. My only complaint really is the return to form idea, A LOT of reboots and remakes are doing this but I think it's really weird. Why go back to such basic foundations when you already have the experience and history to know what works? Although I'm happy to see this series get rebooted, I'll be waiting for Kaido Battle (Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift) to get rebooted eventually. It begs the question why they didn't just mix the two somehow? The ultimate Japanese racing game... One can wish, right?

Anyways, that's the review. Game is good, buy it. $30 is a steal and other game companies are robbing you of your time and money. Genki has always been one of my favorite companies for how consistently good they are, Kengo is one of my all time favorite game series for instance and I'm hoping maybe Genki would look into making a reboot for that too. I'm craving more Genki, there will never been too much Genki games in this world...

To start, this'll serve as sort of a general review of the series but go more in-depth with my favorite Hitman game and one of my favorite stealth games ever: Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. Now, people who talk about "Does it hold up?" have to understand how it was received on release to compare it to playing through it today. Codename 47 on release was mixed for various reasons, even IGN 20 odd years ago complained about no mid-mission saves in that game so hold back your video essays, it's not a new or special opinion. What is special is the sequel. Hitman 2 has the lasting impact the other entries in the series lack. Blood Money yes has the gameplay and extra cool things you can do especially creatively, but Hitman 2's aesthetics, level designs, atmosphere, story, that's where it's at for me. The Church hub world is so nostalgic to me and Vittorio is a very very powerful character narrative wise. Not to say Hitman 2's gameplay can't be fun in it's own right, but it definitely can feel overtuned at times. Really, I think this is a must play for any Hitman fan or really any stealth game fan in general, this and Blood Money. Blood Money is still G.O.A.T. just not my personal favorite. Thanks for all the fun memories on Original XBOX Hitman 2: SA. :)

Super addicting, it's hard I think because it's easy to overthink the strategy in this game.
Taking things slow and getting resources will always benefit you. Calling this game a grindfest is true, but if you like that kind of grind, this is a very fulfilling game.

I like the gameplay loop.

It's good for arcade play and training. I don't like using most emulators for solo playing because of their lack of QoL features.

The downside of this collection is no additional content. You can easily change settings and dipswitches but if you wanted trials or an in-depth challenge system, this does not have it. I wish we could see a return of 3rd Strike's Online Edition from PS3 / Xbox 360 for PC. Hopefully one day.

CVS 1&2 or BUST

I can finally stop playing SVC on my original XBOX.

"In 'Confessions of a Winning Poker Player,' Jack King said, 'Few players recall big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career.' It seems true to me, cause walking in here, I can hardly remember how I built my bankroll, but I can't stop thinking of how I lost it."

Listen, here's the thing. If you get this game and are not sucked in by the first half hour then you ARE the sucker.

one of the greatest games ever made from my childhood

good luck getting 625 zoombinis guys

fuga 2 is a great sequel with plenty of improvements and interesting changes
the story at first is a bit grueling compared to the first game, it gets better but you need to have patience with the story at first
not to say the story is bad, it's pretty good and i like it in it's own way separate from fuga 1

a lot of what i could say has been covered in my fuga 1 review because a lot of the general points still apply
fuga 2 though has new things like actually being able to shop for materials and items instead of exchanging things so the currency system is a lot more interesting than having to only sacrifice old materials / unnecessary support items
the judgement system is pretty good as well, but i would say a lot of the improvements like the currency and judgement in fuga 2 actually make the game easy for players who even think about maximizing

wappa is amazing part 2

there's a lot you can say about fuga: melodies of steel, both bad and good

firstly, it should be said that fuga and it's sequels are prequels to a larger world. the little tail bronx universe is sort of huge and explaining everything would take forever and there's multiple games set in this universe so be sure to check out solatorobo and tail concerto if you like the world.

secondly, what fuga gets right is everything i mentioned formerly. the world building, the character building, everything is firing on all cylinders here. the perfect game series to get you introduced to cyberconnect2's little tail bronx universe.
this, however, comes at the cost of gameplay for me. turn-based isn't my forte nor JRPGs in general and i would say i actually enjoy this quite a lot more than most JRPGs i've played as I tend to shy away from the genre but fuga's gameplay is so simplistic. this is both a good and bad thing, in some instances you're going blow for blow with the enemies and it feels satisfying to just number dump into an opponent, but other times the enemy is just straight up a bullet sponge and you're just ready to be done with the whole battle. fuga is so simple infact, you can play it with an arm behind your back and there's no manual saving and loading! having to quit the game entirely to desktop or flat out die to reload a checkpoint is insane to me. additionally, some mechanics like the soul cannon, are redundant. fuga 1 is pretty forgiving in general with it's gameplay but fundamentally the idea of a "get out of jail free card" at the cost of a character / dummy in a game where "get up, do it again, and do it better." is incentivized and there's a true ending relating to it, it falls flat as a mechanic imo. there's also some status effects, specifically depression and injury, being unable to cure these effects with a common item. this makes fights harder, annoying, and honestly sometimes you'd be better off restarting the whole battle to avoid it. these two effects can be inflicted by regular enemies and knowing how to fight a specific enemy is crucial. if you do get inflicted, you must know how to manage with an injured or depressed ally, there's times where i would leave a singular ally injured or depressed just to stack them up so i could heal them all at once with AP in the intermissions. if you waste too much of what you're given, you'll be difficulty walled eventually, but thankfully if you care even a little bit Fuga is not too hard to manage.

all that being said, can't recommend it enough for kemono enjoyers, the only game series ever for the most part to do it with such class and style. other gamers might wanna think about it twice since even on sale it's like $20 + $30 for fuga 1 & 2.