After the marathon that was Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, and before the equally long game I’m playing now, I wanted a couple of smaller games to wind down to. As if hearing my call this game was dramatically reduced to the point where it would have to be REALLY bad to not be worth the price. The “gamble” paid off, as while I wouldn’t rank the game as a great it did keep me entertained for a couple of weeks. Let’s take a look!
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Going into my first ever play through of the Kingdom Hearts series I was warned about Chain of Memories and its remake, how even some of the biggest die hard fans of the series seem to flat-out hate it, well the gameplay at least. I thought to myself “well, I want to complete all of them for this review series, so I guess I’ll just grin and bear it” but, man… hate to say it, but I’m going to have to join the many and say I really disliked the gameplay here. I was just going to play the Re:CoM edition but struggled so I heard the GBA original was easier, and it was… to a point, but the core gameplay is just badly designed. I’m sure some who played it when they were young and “forced” themselves to get good at it because it was finally new Kingdom Hearts game will get angry at my review, but for me, now in 2024? This is not a fun experience…
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After completing the reviews for the original Die Hard trilogy of films, I thought there wouldn’t be a better time than now to also review the game “Die Hard Trilogy”! It was the big game I wanted for Christmas 1996 and boy I wasn’t disappointed; the game is split into three game types, one for each film, and I LOVED the Die Hard 3rd Person shooter, liked the Die Hard 2 light gun game (especially as I actually had a PS1 light gun at the time) and was… indifferent to the driving game for “with a Vengeance”. Having these three games on one disc was crazy at the time and a great Christmas was had, but what it’s like to play now? The answer may surprise you! … Or probably not.
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Here’s a review I never really thought I’d do, or at the very least it wasn’t on my mind, but thanks to the re-release of the two “Classic” Battlefront games I thought there would never be a better time to look at these PS2 greats from my early 20s than now. The original Battlefront was interesting because most things I remembered about the PS2 era Battlefronts comes from countless hours playing Battlefront II, I mean I played this a hell of a lot, don’t get me wrong, but as soon as BFII came out the following year I naturally stopped. So I made sure to play this a bunch (including a couple of hours of multiplayer with the same friend as the first time round!) before touching its sequel to make sure this review is focused on just the original. Oh and yes, the Battlefront Classic Collection was rough on launch, but for me who just plays offline by himself or with friends/family split-screen after the first patch I’ve had no issues… Let’s take a look!
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Time to take a look at one of my most anticipated games of recent memory with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. The second part of the Final Fantasy VII “Remake Trilogy” arrived back at the very end of February and I’ve been playing it like a man possessed! Taking characters and a world I already love and not only expanding the already great combat system from the last game but also adding in fun open world exploration with great graphics and no pop ins and errors like the PS4 Remake was a recipe for greatness in my eyes, and I’m thrilled to report it lived up to those heights. So let’s take a rather unavoidably long look at the game!
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A short while ago I mentioned starting two game review features on one series I’ve always wanted to play, Kingdom Hearts, and another I’ve played many times and the Metal Gear series is the other half of that, as after the likes of Sonic and Resident Evil it’s probably the game series I’ve replayed the most across my life, and pretty much all entries to boot. Speaking of which, I went back and forth on where to start from, since I’ve already reviewed the first Solid game, but since Snake Eater is getting a full on remake in the near future I thought I’d give as much time between them as I could, plus it’s the earliest game in the franchise timeline-wise, so it made sense in that way too. Sadly it’s often considered to be the peak of the series, especially story-wise, but is it really all downhill from here? Does it still even stand up? Let’s take a look!
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Now I don’t normally review DLC add-ons separately but given this was released a while after the original and exclusively on the PS5 (well, and PC) instead of the console I reviewed the original game on (that review can be found HERE) it didn’t really fit discussing it there, so here we are! INTERmission (I guess because it’s an extra mission in Intergrade? Maybe?) is set during the latter half of Remake and focuses on Yuffie, a character who didn’t get much story in the original due to being an optional party member. Given Rebirth is just a few weeks away I thought I’d better finally get round to playing through it, so let’s get to it!
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“What’s old is new again” is the motto for Assassin’s Creed Mirage as it’s far closer to the original 7th Generation XBOX360/PS3 Assassin’s Creed games in structure, scope and a lot of the gameplay mechanics too. The only problem is the story itself isn’t very interesting, especially as our lead’s final fate was revealed in the previous game, which is especially frustrating because this is the first AC game to not have any modern day story content at all, something I’ve wanted since day 1 of the franchise… Oh well, let’s take a look!
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Over the past couple of years I reviewed one series I’d played many times (the PS2 GTA games) and one I’d always wanted to play (Mass Effect Trilogy) so I thought I’d do the same again, and in this case Kingdom Hearts is the series I’ve never played before but it’s always been on my “I’d like to try that some day” list, especially as more and more people started ragging on its apparently convoluted storyline (I do love a good convoluted storyline…) So I saw a “Story So Far” collection of most of the games on PS4 for under a tenner and thought, why not? Sora in Smash only pushed the series back into the forefront of my mind anyway. So what did I think of the original game? I really enjoyed it, actually! Let’s take a deeper look from someone playing the 2002 RPG for the first time in 2023…
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Frankly given how much I love the Persona 5 story, characters, and general vibe with the presentation and music as soon as this was announced I knew I’d be getting it day 1, even though I’m not a big fan of the art style they went with and I’ve never really played a Tactics RPG before (beyond X-COM, I guess?) and while I wasn’t as into it as I hoped I’d be I still enjoyed my time with the game. I think I was most disappointed with the storyline, which was weak compared to even fellow spin-off Persona 5 Strikers, and at the lack of challenge the game gave me. There were plus points though, so let’s take a deeper look!
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Hogan Reviews 