When there was a rumor about Persona 3 being remade, I had so many thoughts about how it could go. In my head, a perfect Persona 3 remake would feature the quality of life and gameplay improvements from Persona 3 Portable, the production of Persona 3 FES, and have cut-scenes like the Persona 3 movies while including all content from prior releases to be the definitive and complete package. When it was announced to be a remake based on the original game but with new content, features, and visuals, I was a bit confused. Fast forward to today, I’ve been playing Persona 3 Reload on Steam Deck and consoles, and the end result is pretty darn amazing in most ways, but there are a few things I wish were better.

I’m going to focus on the PC port of Persona 3 Reload and how it plays on Steam Deck in this review, but I will also cover the remake itself and how I find it compared to the originals and Atlus’ recent releases. If you’ve never played Persona 3 before, but have played Persona 4 or Persona 5, you’re in for a treat. In a lot of ways, Persona 3 felt like a bridge between modern and older Persona, and was a lot of folks’ first Persona game. I loved most of the cast, the story, the music, and just living in that world. I didn’t like a few characters in the story, the main dungeon of the game, some gameplay issues compared to newer releases, and the pacing. A lot of the issues have been addressed in Persona 3 Reload which aims to bring in Persona 5 Royal-like gameplay mechanics to the fray with modern visuals and added content, but this has resulted in some of the old game’s charm being lost. It isn’t a huge deal though, but I will get into what I didn’t end up liking in Persona 3 Reload.

The gameplay improvements are across the board essentially here. You see this right from exploration, social life, and interactions. In addition to all the freedom you get during day to day life, Tartarus itself has been dramatically improved. It feels towering and actually manages to make you feel like you’re in uncharted territory while climbing up rather than just hallways like in the original releases. When it comes to combat and dungeon exploration, there are new mechanics like special chests, powerful Theurgy attacks, a baton pass-like mechanic, and more. You can of course command party members, which is something I assumed would be included, but I saw some people worry they wouldn’t be in.

Speaking of combat, Persona 3 Reload has an interface that tries to blend in Persona 3’s themes and Persona 5’s aesthetic. This has resulted in an interface that looks gorgeous, but I can’t help but think some of the original game’s feel is lost here because of that. It isn’t a dealbreaker, but some of it feels a bit inconsistent in what it is trying to do. Outside combat, everything feels and looks great when it comes to navigation and menus.

Persona 3 Reload has quite a bit of DLC in the form of cosmetics, Personas, and music. During the review period, I had access to none of the DLC so can’t comment on any of it, but I am going to try and cover it like I did the Persona 5 Tactica DLC post-launch. I’ll also discuss some of the story moments when I cover the DLC, but will avoid doing it too close to launch for spoiler reasons.

As has been the case with recent Persona PC ports, Persona 3 Reload lets you select button prompt options from PS4, PS5, Xbox, and Switch controllers. You can also have it auto-detect based on your input method. It also supports keyboard and mouse button prompts. You can adjust mouse and gamepad stick sensitivity as well from the game system settings menu here. You can also adjust and rebind controls for normal gameplay, event/movie, field/dungeon, and battle across keyboard, mouse, and gamepad.

The Persona 3 Reload PC graphics settings let you adjust graphics quality presets (low, middle, high, and custom), rendering scale (50%-200%), shadow quality (low, middle, high), background brightness, frame rate limit (30, 60, 120), and toggle reflections on or off. The options are a bit bare-bones given this is an Unreal Engine PC port, but it is what it is.

On the display side, Persona 3 Reload does not support 16:10 gameplay. The Persona 3 Reload display settings let you toggle v-sync, adjust screen mode (fullscreen, borderless, windowed), resolution, and monitor selection. The resolution options are interesting because it lets you use 800×450 or 800p by default. If you force a higher resolution on Steam Deck, you can go from 320×200 to 4K and even 3840×2400. A recent Steam Deck update has made it so the performance HUD isn’t visible in screenshots, and I haven’t figured out a way to get it to display yet. That’s why the screenshots are without any performance metrics here.

When I began testing, I decided to leave Persona 3 Reload on its default settings because it has been Steam Deck Verified for months now. I noticed the game held 60fps very well at native resolution and the default preset in the opening hour outside the protagonist’s room. It was around 40fps here. Then, it started to drop a bit more in parts of Tartarus like near the teleporter where there are a lot of effects.

At this point I started turning things down to see what it would take for a locked 60fps in Tartarus. I turned shadows to low and render scale to 75%, and it could do 50-60, but it wasn’t a locked 60. 50% render scale was enough to get a locked 60fps even in the parts I had it drop into the high 30s. The teleporter still saw the frame rate drop lower though in addition to some interactions in the Velvet Room.

It is worth noting that so far, there are no major performance issues during battles. This is all during exploration in Tartarus which is massive compared to how it felt in the PS2 and PSP versions of Persona 3. I’d recommend aiming for 75% render scale and 40hz right now unless you’re ok with drops from 60. Also it is worth noting that playing at higher frame rates than 60fps has a menu bug in the current build I have where the menus are capped at 30fps with it sticking to that 30fps even for a few seconds of gameplay when you exit out of the menu. It then shoots back up to 60fps.

I also had access to the current console versions of Persona 3 Reload. Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X target 60fps and look fantastic on my 1440p display. In its current state, I didn’t see PS5 Activity Card support, but the game’s listing mentions PS+ Game Help is supported. The DualSense features aren’t anything to write home about. On Xbox Series X, Persona 3 Reload supports Quick Resume. Despite the higher frame rate, I ended up liking Persona 3 Reload the most on Steam Deck because of how good it looks and feels on Deck even with the lesser performance.

I’d love for future patches to address some of the performance issues in Tartarus on Steam Deck so it can run at a locked 60fps, but barring that I’d love to see The Answer as actual paid DLC in the future. Barring that, I don’t really have any complaints for things that could be patched.

While I’ve praised a lot about Persona 3 Reload, the few things I dislike have to do with the changes to the English cast and the music. The music is mostly all incredible thanks to Lotus Juice, but some songs don’t hit as hard as the original soundtrack. Instead of giving us DLC for songs from the Persona 4 and Persona 5 games, I’d have preferred an original Persona 3 soundtrack option like we see in the Resident Evil remakes. The English voice cast is mostly incredible with some characters sounding better than the original cast, but some also don’t hit as hard based on the prior cast that I’ve loved for so long.

I’m obviously not going to pretend like this remake’s new visuals, content, and gameplay enhancements make up for the lack of the Persona 3 Portable’s female protagonist option and FES’ The Answer, but Atlus has done a fantastic job with most aspects of this remake bringing out a new gorgeous and modern take on Persona 3 for the current generation. Even if you played Persona 3 FES and Persona 3 Portable like I did, Persona 3 Reload has enough to justify a replay. It also feels almost perfect on Steam Deck, my favorite way to play it now.

Persona 3 Reload Steam Deck Review Score: 4.5/5

As usual, you can read all our past and future Steam Deck coverage here. If you have any feedback for this feature or what else you’d like to see us do around the Steam Deck, let us know in the comments below. I hope you all have a great day, and thanks for reading.

When Coffee Stain Publishing and Coffee Stain Malmo announced Goat Simulator 3 ($12.99) for mobile, I was excited to finally play it on a portable platform. Despite the name, Goat Simulator 3 is a sequel to the original Goat Simulator, but I think the developers added so much that they just called it Goat Simulator 3 as a joke. It launched last month on mobile as a premium release, and is one of the rare current-generation only console games to come to mobile platforms. Since around launch, I’ve been playing Goat Simulator 3 on my iPhone 15 Pro, iPad Pro (2020), and also on Xbox Series X recently to see how the game compares across mobile and console right now. I also waited for a few updates to see if there would be any fixes for the issues I ran into.

Right off the bat, Goat Simulator 3 is a lot of fun as a fan of the earlier games. If you’ve never played a game in the series before, the sandbox and hilarity in Goat Simulator 3 make it a much nicer experience than prior games. You can still do whatever you want in the game, but there’s now some structure for those who prefer direction. What stood out right from the start is how Goat Simulator 3 feels like a massive bump in ambition compared to the first game and those spin-offs. I will go so far as to say that Goat Simulator 3 feels like it already has a few Goat Simulator games worth of content included here.

The game seems to not support iCloud progress sync, so I played it very differently across my iPhone and iPad purposely. I wanted to see how it felt if you just try and do what the game wants with its quests while also checking out how much fun there was to be had if you ignore everything and just treat it as a relaxing way to destroy as much as possible. It turns out Goat Simulator 3 is very good on both fronts. Right from the start you can do things like head-butting dynamite into a person, catching fire and setting fire to the environment, dragging a house with a tow truck, playing mini-games, looking for secret collectibles, exploring a very big area, grinding on power cables, and more. As you start trying to explore and do more in Goat Simulator 3, the tutorials start popping up ensuring you know what to keep doing. I found the tutorials quite good here.

While I love a lot of the freedom you get in Goat Simulator 3 and in how it still has some nudges to players to explore and do more in the game world, I was pleasantly surprised by how well it referenced other games and franchises. You see this right from the intro when you finally wake up. I won’t say more on that front, but the team did a really amazing job at bringing other game elements or even parts of levels into the world of Goat Simulator 3.

In addition to the ragdoll physics gameplay, you also have quite a few cosmetic options with gear to equip on different parts of the goat as you explore the huge sandbox location in San Angora as Pilgor once again. All of this with Ubisoft-style towers is even funnier together.

Goat Simulator 3 has touch controls and controller support. Both of them aren’t perfect because of camera sensitivity issues. When playing on the touchscreen, movement is too fast while it is too slow on my Xbox controller over bluetooth. I also used my 8BitDo controller on my iPad to test. I ran into a similar issue on both controllers where some actions were not possible with a controller. These range from some menus to some during gameplay. It feels like the controller support isn’t fully implemented because it does work well in parts, but falls short in others. I don’t have a Backbone One right right now to check how it feels with it on my iPhone though.

Goat Simulator 3 supports multiplayer on iOS but it is limited to up to two players in total. It does work online, and I tested it over cellular as well as wifi. It had no connection issues at all. I’m glad that the multiplayer at least works well. It is worth noting that the console versions support more players.

Speaking of the console versions, I played Goat Simulator 3 on mobile for a good amount of time before properly checking it out and comparing it with the Xbox Series X version. Goat Simulator 3 on Xbox Series X has a performance and quality mode. I used the former but also tested out the latter. It plays better than the iPhone 15 Pro version, but it isn’t perfect even on Xbox Series X with the draw distance and performance issues in parts. The iOS version has no graphics options on my devices. The load times on mobile are very good though.

When comparing the visuals, the foliage and draw distance are better on Xbox Series X by quite a bit. It also can target 60fps while the iPhone 15 Pro and iPad Pro (2020) versions don’t have higher frame rate options right now. The Xbox Series X is the most powerful console available today so it will no doubt run and look better there compared to iPhone 15 Pro, but it is worth seeing how developers scale down games for iOS. Check out the comparison image below for Xbox Series X (performance mode) versus the iPhone 15 Pro version:

The team has been responding to people saying it is looking into adding graphics options and quality of life features into Goat Simulator 3, and I hope those arrive in the coming months because this has the potential to be one of the better console to mobile conversions. I already like the game a lot, but wish the iOS version was better. Barring those things the team said it might look into, the controller support needs to be improved as well. There is no way to adjust camera sensitivity which is too high on touch controls and too low on a controller right now. In fact, I even ran into some issues with controllers (not counting the virtual controls being visible at all times), that required me to use touch controls for some actions. These need to be addressed.

On consoles, Goat Simulator 3 is priced at $29.99 usually. On mobile, it is $12.99 which is a very reasonable price given the game content, but it is a premium price for a mobile port that we usually see from the likes of Feral Interactive usually. The difference is a Feral Interactive mobile release doesn’t ship with so many issues. Once the control and visual issues potentially are addressed, it will be a lot easier to recommend Goat Simulator 3 even at full price.

The mobile version is the full game, but the visual issues even on iPhone 15 Pro are disappointing alongside the control issues. I was hoping some of this would be fixed soon after launch, but here we are. If you have access to an Xbox Series X, I’d recommend playing Goat Simulator 3 there with Xbox Game Pass or buying it on PC or PS5 over playing it mobile right now. I’m looking forward to playing it on Steam Deck when the game releases on Steam in a few weeks.

If you’ve never played Goat Simulator 3 but did enjoy the first main game and spin-offs in the series on mobile, this one is an easy recommendation with a few caveats. While it isn’t perfect even on Xbox Series X, it plays a lot nicer there compared to iOS. I hope we get updates to address the visual and control issues because Goat Simulator 3 feels right at home on a portable and suits the pick up and play nature of the platform while delivering the full game experience from the start.

Funselektor’s Art of Rally ($7.99) is a gorgeous racing game that managed to live up to the hype when I finally played it on Steam. It features superb stylish visuals, great audio design, and has a surprising amount of content in its career and other modes. Before getting access to the iOS version, I had been dipping into it on Switch and Steam Deck to get into it on portables, and I ended up enjoying it a lot on Steam Deck specifically. I had known the Switch version wasn’t amazing, but both of them made me excited to finally check out the racer on my iPhone 15 Pro and iPad Pro. With Noodlecake behind the iOS version, I had high expectations, but the game in its current state sadly isn’t as good as it should’ve been on mobile.

If you’ve not played Art of Rally before, not only does it play great with a ton of content available from the get go, but it also is beautiful across the gameplay and menus. We often see great looking and elegant gameplay but a mediocre interface. Art of Rally makes sure to cover all bases, and also deliver an amazing soundtrack. It is basically a home run of a racing game that I hope more people play, but I wish it was delayed a bit more on iOS to be a better port.

We know that the Art of Rally Australia DLC is coming alongside the Android version, but even in its base game, it is content packed and over delivers in value for its low asking price on iOS. Right off the bat, you can jump into the lengthy career, go for a time attack with various customization options for that race, create and play a custom rally with various settings, take part in the online daily and weekly events with leaderboards, and go driving in the free roam mode. Despite being a rally racer with a lot of work put into the handling, feel, sounds, and more, Art of Rally has a lot of accessibility options to make it approachable by newcomers to racing games. These include difficulty settings for the stability, anti lock braking, transmission, counter-steer factor settings, and more.

The custom modes let you adjust the AI difficulty and even disable performance damage completely while you choose your own location and stages for your rally. These settings are also present in the campaign that begins in 1967 in group 2 covering how rally racing grew in popularity. As a game, Art of Rally is constantly a delight to experience across its visuals, gameplay, and sound design. I just wish its mobile debut was better. I really wonder what state it was in last month when it was supposed to release before it got delayed because of how it feels unoptimized even on iPhone 15 Pro given the visuals and performance.

When it comes to the controls, Art of Rally has controller support and touchscreen support, but neither are perfect. On the controller side, the game sometimes just doesn’t register inputs in a specific menu. As an example, going into options and then graphics with a controller works fine. Going into advanced settings will result in the d-pad or analog stick not working so you either need to use touch or press the back button. This happens in photo mode as well sometimes, and I even had the game display keyboard prompts like E and F12 for some reason in one photo mode menu on my iPad. I’d recommend checking out the camera settings and trying out different views and disabling the screen shake if you get motion sickness like I do with it enabled in some games.

On the touch side of things, the controls are acceptable but I didn’t see any way to adjust the size or position of any controls on either iPhone or iPad. The controls work well assuming you get used to the size and positions, but you can’t do anything else right now. This is as of the latest build on the App Store on January 24th. I also had some menus not respond when I tapped the continue button using touch controls. I had to back out a few times to get it to work. I hope this can be improved at least because I just assumed the touch controls at least would be fine.

On iOS, Art of Rally lets you adjust the frame rate target between 30 and 60 (120 might be coming later I’ve been told), overall quality setting (low, medium, high), vegetation cutout (when your car is obscured), and individually adjust advanced settings. These include bloom, blur, film grain, shadow resolution, shadow distance, draw distance for vegetation, and particle quality. You can also enable a dark mode for the menus which is very nice, like in the PC and console versions. Check out a comparison below of the game on iPhone 15 Pro (left) and Nintendo Switch (right):

On iPhone 15 Pro, the only way I could get the 60fps mode to run well is setting it to the low graphics preset. Anything above caused frame pacing and stutter at points. Playing at 30fps and high settings is more or less fine, but both modes have a lot of visual popin for foliage and other things in the environment. Adjusting this manually in the settings is still not enough as I constantly see trees popping into view close to the car on either side of the road. If this is how it runs and looks on iPhone 15 Pro, I can’t imagine how it is on older phones.

On iPad Pro (2020), it doesn’t feel like it is coming close to 60fps at either high or low settings. I feel like this is a bug or it isn’t optimized for my iPad at all. I know it is an old iPad now, but this is worth noting if you have a similar one. I assume it runs a lot better on the M1 and later iPads.

In terms of iOS features, it has Game Center achievement support, but I couldn’t get the iCloud syncing (if included) to work. I always want to put a disclaimer on the iCloud aspect because of how unreliable it can be in the first place. If it does have iCloud syncing, it has not worked for me across two devices (and two others I tested at home on another account).

When comparing Art of Rally on iOS (on my devices) to Switch and Steam Deck, the iOS version is a lot better than Switch even when playing that docked. I’m surprised at how poor the Switch port looks and runs. The Steam Deck Version is superb though, and my favorite version of the game by far. If you have access to a Steam Deck or play on PC, I definitely recommend getting Art of Rally there. While the iOS version is priced very reasonably, I don’t think it is worth buying unless you are ok with the visual and performance compromises needed even on the newest iPhone to get it running well, and it still has some control issues. I’ll be revisiting this when it gets updates, but I am disappointed in the technical aspects of Art of Rally on iOS right now.

In its current state, Art of Rally on iOS is sadly not a great port. This should have been the definitive portable version of a superb racer, but it is just in between the bad Switch version and the great Steam Deck version. Performance and visual issues aside, it doesn’t even have good touch controls. I got used to them, but I’d recommend this with a controller for now. Noodlecake is usually great, so this is a rare misstep from the team. I hope it does get fixed because Art of Rally is worth owning and playing at full price, but I can’t recommend on iOS without some caveats unfortunately despite the low asking price on mobile. Hopefully by the time the Android version and DLC release, it will be in a better state.

When Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth was revealed, I was actually a bit disappointed. I adore the series, but I was hoping the team would build on Ichiban’s story to take the franchise forward rather than bringing back Kazuma Kiryu after he had a great finale in Yakuza 6. If you’re new to the games, we basically had a soft reboot in ways with Yakuza: Like a Dragon (titled Yakuza 7 in Japan) that not only brought in a new protagonist, but also was a turn-based RPG rather than a brawler like prior entries. I love Kiryu’s games and consider Yakuza 0 as one of my favorite games of all time, but Yakuza: Like a Dragon felt like the breath of fresh air the series needed.

Since then, the team released Like a Dragon Gaiden (link to review), which I ended up loving as well despite its one annoying issue. At that point, I was more or less sold on Kiryu being back, but was cautiously optimistic for where the story in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (titled Like a Dragon 8 in Japan) would go. I’ve been playing it for a few weeks now, and after putting in nearly 105 hours into the game across PS5 and Steam Deck, I consider Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth to be a masterpiece of an RPG, and one of my favorite games in a very long time. Note that the screenshots in this review are my own from both Steam Deck and PS5.

When I began the main story, it felt like a great opening, but I wasn’t ready for what was coming next. With each chapter I played, mini-game I discovered, side story I found, and more, I genuinely couldn’t believe what Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and Sega pulled off here. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is one of Sega’s best games ever, but what surprised me is how it also felt like two complete Yakuza games put together and then some. If you played Yakuza 0, you experienced a dual protagonist system there. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is a monstrous experience through its main story and all the optional content. Even after over a hundred hours into the game, I haven’t done remotely everything I wanted to in the game world.

Before getting into what I love about Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, I want to go over what I wanted fixed from Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Yakuza: Like a Dragon was the team’s first turn-based RPG, and one that felt like a brilliant first attempt from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. It did have some teething issues in its gameplay, and one massive surprise difficulty spike in the later half of the game. The team has addressed all of these issues in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth with huge combat improvements and enhancements, and the team even took care of the difficulty spike by actually giving you recommended gear and levels for specific story points throughout the story. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is basically the culmination of not only the newer games in the series, but also as chock full of quality content as Yakuza 0 was, while respecting the series’ legacy as a whole throughout. This is Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s magnum opus.

Having avoided watching most story-related trailers, I came into Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth relatively blind barring what I experienced in the demo included in Like a Dragon Gaiden last year. I was curious about how both protagonists would be handled, and I think the team did a fantastic job. After a strong opening few chapters, you start to see not only different perspectives of the story, but also some superb interactions between the new parties here. I wasn’t worried about how Ichiban’s side would be handled with the new characters introduced, but I was curious about how I’d find characters from Yakuza: Like a Dragon like Seonhee, Nanba, and Saeko in Kiryu’s party. In the last few years, there have been some strong JRPG main casts like Xenoblade 3 having one of the best, but Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth has surpassed that quite a bit. This might be one of my favorite casts in gaming now.

In addition to the banter during exploration and combat, the characters are further fleshed out not only during the story, but also for their own backstories through the Drink Links system. After you’ve raised your bond level enough through interactions, gifting them something, eating with them, or fighting alongside them, you can experience a Drink Link at the bar. This lets you learn more about a party member and even help them out with their problems. Some of these may even involve actual in-game battles. I ended up completing Drink Links for every character but one in my first playthrough, and they were all worth it.

Without getting into any spoilers or even mentioning what I saw in some of the trailers, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s narrative and the payoff are consistently fantastic. I’m curious about how not only longtime fans, but also newer players react to some moments from the mid to late game. Out of the new playable and non playable characters, Chitose and Eric are well-written, while the new interactions we see between the likes of Seonhee and Nanba with Kiryu and Kiryu’s interactions with Ichiban give this the feel of two legendary experiences coming together for a grand conclusion.

Speaking of the conclusion, there’s a big build up to how I expected things to go in the story, but I realized I was only halfway into the game. It constantly surprised me, and even baited me into thinking how specific characters would act only to do the opposite. All of this is elevated by great cut-scene direction with a mix of in-engine and pre-rendered scenes. There is also quite a bit of voiced dialogue throughout which is a huge deal for a game as long as this one.

I can’t believe I’ve not even mentioned so far that Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is set in Hawaii, the first time a game in the series focuses on a locale like this. Hawaii isn’t just some location added for a substory, but a huge, colorful, and dense location full of secrets, specialty coffee shops (a huge win in my book), powerful foes, and a ton of mini-games and NPCs. In fact some of the locations are so dense, I even noticed the frame rate drop in the PS5 version there. After knowing prior locations like the back of my hand, it felt great having a new location in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth to discover and also look for secrets and collectibles across the hidden locales.

Outside the main story, there is a wealth (I couldn’t resist) of side content through different kinds of substories, mini-games, and a few that could be fleshed out into their own game. The Dondoko Island mini-game could be its own budget priced standalone release. It has that much effort put into it, and it almost pushes the game engine too much in its scope. Then there’s Sujimon which has its own raids, battles, training, boss fights, and even a very cool thing you unlock after completing it. Barring these two, Sicko Snap and the delivery mini-games were highlights. There are the usual arcade games and more that the Yakuza games include, but I ended up spending too much time on karaoke as usual.

Speaking of substories in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Kiryu has his own set of substories and memoirs essentially that you can collect. I won’t specifically spoil what these include, but longtime fans of the series and fans of Kiryu over the years will find a lot to love here. Some of the moments here surprised even me (in a good way) with how the developers tackled certain characters. I’ll leave it at that.

A lot of elements in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s story, gameplay, and optional content had me thinking whether it would end up being a “too much of a good thing” situation, but the team proved me wrong. I only thought maybe one or two hours out of the over hundred hours I put into Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth were not fun, and that’s because I tried pushing my luck in a dungeon or story moment where I went in without gearing up.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is structured a bit differently because of the two protagonists. There are some story chapters where you play mostly with only one party, and don’t see much of the other, but most end up letting you do a bit with both Ichiban and Kiryu. The story starts unfolding perfectly the more you play, and everything slowly makes sense with character motivations, and also with Ichiban’s character coming into its own. Kiryu’s character was always going to be amazing, but the real star of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is definitely Ichiban.

When I unlocked the job (combat class) system, or the ability to change jobs in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth I was almost spoiled for choice immediately. You start out with a few jobs unlocked, but can unlock more by visiting specific locations or completing certain mini-games. I didn’t spend too much time experimenting during my first playthrough because I was very happy with my party setup for both protagonists, but I’ve been having a blast with the new jobs in the post-game.

One worry I had was how the game would be balanced around multiple jobs with the robust job system, encounters, difficulty, and also equipment. Barring having to remember to equip your best gear when you are playing the other character, I had no real issues with how anything was handled difficulty wise. I even tried pushing things by going into a story scene multiple levels below the recommendation with lower quality gear. It was doable, but definitely a wake up call. I would take those game level recommendations seriously if I were you.

When it comes to the gear or equipment in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the game features crafting, equipment per job, character-exclusive equipment you can unlock later, and also an upgrade system to enhance your gear. The materials you use to craft or upgrade are found all over the game, but some will be much easier to obtain through mini-games, especially if you’re after the ultimate weapons for each character. Ichiban’s ultimate weapon helped me out a ton during the final area of the game as an example.

At this point, you’re probably wondering if these level recommendation messages are just a warning for difficulty spikes, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. If you keep running from enemies and skip battles, you will be lower level for sure, but the game has a few ways of letting you get up to speed or even grind to be overpowered if you’d like. This is where the dungeons come into the picture. Barring a few story locations that are smaller dungeon-style areas, you have access to two main dungeons in the game. These are optional (outside of a story moment that takes you into the early areas) locations where you can get amazing crafting materials, weapons, and a lot of experience. There are checkpoints that let you save as well, so it isn’t something you need to complete in one go. I usually used to stock up on healing and stamina restoring items before doing a dungeon run as a break from the story or a mini-game.

One new feature in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth that makes dungeons much less boring than the sewer in Yakuza: Like a Dragon, is the music player. You can play a few songs from the start, but unlock a plethora of Sega and Atlus songs through exploration and mini-games. I don’t want to spoil the surprise songs they’ve included but I didn’t expect Sega to even remember two of the games featured here. I’d also like to note that some dungeons also feature traps and hazards with the usual hidden collectibles, mimic chests, and special enemies that reward more experience. A lot of the additions and improvements in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth make it feel more like a JRPG while still maintaining everything I love about the Yakuza series.

Dungeons, exploration, bosses, and more all revolve around Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s combat system. This time, you can move around in a fixed radius to plan your attacks with the interface highlighting when you’re near an object you can pick up, given a proximity bonus, and even see the direction an enemy will be knocked into letting you strategize on the go. The game is still turn-based, but this level of movement and the interface prompts give you quite a bit of freedom to strategize in your directional attacks, area of effect skills (with their own highlights), and also in environmental interactions. Selecting skills usually has short quick time events like mashing Y/Square or perfectly timing your X/Triangle button press to get a damage increase. Guarding against attacks by timing a press of A/O lets you lessen the impact of attacks.

This movable area for the character you’re controlling now removes the randomness of the prior main entry. You also don’t need to worry about enemies blocking your path while you try and do a basic attack against an enemy further away. My only complaint with the combat system is in how the camera sometimes does not reposition quickly enough on an enemy attacking. This means you don’t get a chance to try and do a perfect guard in time. I’m not sure if this will be fixed for launch, but I hope it is addressed at some point.

One aspect that really elevates the whole combat experience is the new party members and also the party structure across the game. Having Seonhee playable is amazing, and I’m glad it happened, but finding your own synergies with the job system and parties to eventually get to a point where you wipe out high level enemies in a few turns before they can even act never gets old. I enjoyed Seonhee’s whip attack that uses a powerline to do area of effect damage, and followed that up with another area of effect attack doing fire damage basically melting enemy health bars.

The demo gave the impression that Kiryu can just use brawler style combat as his ultimate ability at any time, but keep in mind that you don’t just get access to it immediately, and you can’t just spam it and play with Kiryu as a brawler. This is a turn-based experience through and through, but Kiryu can get into brawler mode after a specific point in the game, only once his special bar fills up. The way you unlock it is also one of the best surprises in the game.

While you can fast travel to taxi points across the map once you’ve unlocked them by walking by, the real joy of the experience is running around and discovering a random powerful item in a briefcase just lying in the curb or picking up a useful item from the bin. You can of course use the new segway-like device to speed around town. I love that you can even customize the color and particle effects for this and it requires its own charges and upgrades. By about the middle of the game, I worried how I’d even keep track of all of this with the many upgrade and crafting systems included, but it all comes together really well. You just need to remember to upgrade your gear and buy healing items often.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s combat also features poundmates which are this game’s summons, and they are even more over the top than the prior game. I ended up unlocking so many optional ones through substories and mini-games that I forgot to use many of them by the end, and only remembered this during the final area of the game where I let loose and just enjoyed the spectacle of the poundmate animations for some encounters.

I mentioned Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s Dondoko Island mini-game already being very in-depth, but I was surprised at how much time I was willing to put into it. For mini-games like Sicko Snap, I stopped playing after doing it enough times to unlock the gear I wanted, but here I was just using Dondoko Island like I do karaoke in Yakuza games, as a way to take a break from the main story. It helps that Dondoko Island was great to earn money and something special at the end as well.

If you played Like a Dragon Gaiden, you’d know that Sega added VTuber Kson to the game as a hostess in the mini-game, and I was glad to see that. In Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, she’s a bartender, but the VTuber presence doesn’t stop there, and I found it very interesting how the developers and writers handled that aspect in the story. Who knew adding VTubers and more coffee shops would help this much? But jokes aside, I definitely enjoyed that aspect of the game.

Despite playing the game a lot daily for a while now, I still didn’t end up seeing everything it had to offer, and will be dipping into it slowly aiming for 100% completion over the coming weeks. It really is a monster of a game in just about every way, and I was surprised at how it never felt like it had padding. You even get a wealth of save points and items in the late game locations that throw enemies at you constantly.

Visually, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth looks mostly gorgeous. There are some elements that feel a bit unpolished, but it is a nice step above past games in its scope and visuals in Hawaii. The dynamic weather system is also very well done. Character models are fantastic, and the team definitely stepped up with the production for story scenes. Performance will vary in parts depending on what you’re playing on though.

I played Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth on both PS5 and Steam Deck for this review, but will focus on the Steam Deck portion for the technical details. On PS5, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth targets 60fps and I only noticed the frame rate drop considerably in one in-game location with a ton of NPCs and also in two late-game boss fights during attack cut-scene animations or during attack animations only.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is Steam Deck Verified already which is always a good sign, but Valve sometimes marks games that don’t run well as Verified. Thankfully, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is actually really good on Steam Deck, and you will likely already know what to expect if you played the demo or played Yakuza: Like a Dragon on the handheld. On Steam Deck, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth lets you adjust display mode (borderless, fullscreen, windowed), resolution (with 16:10 and 800p support), refresh rate, toggle v-sync, use graphics presets, adjust FOV, frame rate target (30, 60, 120, unlimited), and adjust advanced settings.

The Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth advanced graphics settings on Steam Deck let you adjust texture filtering mode, shadow quality (which I set to low as usual), geometry quality (Medium for me), realtime reflections, motion blur, SSAO, render scale, depth of field, reflection quality, and a few upscaling techniques. This includes AMD FSR 1.0, FSR 2, FSR 3, Intel XeSS, and also the game’s default anti-aliasing. I ended up using either FSR 2 or FSR 3 during my time with it on Steam Deck. While I obviously couldn’t test this on Steam Deck, if you were wondering about DLSS, Nvidia announced that it will be supporting it.

After testing the final game’s most recent build as of this writing, a locked 60fps isn’t really doable on Steam Deck without the game looking a bit too blurry for my liking. I’d recommend aiming for 40hz or 30fps if you’re ok with that with much better visuals. Turning shadows to low, leaving geometry on medium, and using motion blur if you like it, while playing around with render scale and FSR 3 are your best bet for a smooth experience right now. You could get much better performance by lowering the render scale below 100 to say 80, but I’m not a fan of how it looks. I’d rather stick to a 40hz target with some compromises given this is a turn-based game after all, or 30fps with better visuals. Keep in mind that while the opening of the game might seem to run at 60fps for you, Hawaii is more demanding in many parts with how dense the locations are with many NPCs walking around. Also be warned that one more crowded mall area and two boss fights seem to be quite a bit heavier than the rest of the game.

On the audio side, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth has amazing music throughout its upbeat battle themes, catchy themes played during mini-games, excellent new and old karaoke songs, and memorable boss themes. Two of the later boss themes are amazing, and I can’t wait to see the reaction to them when my friends play Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth also happens to use a nice arrangement of some older songs from the series, but I won’t say where that happens. I know some previews have shown this, but look forward to some nice surprises in the game’s soundtrack.

While I expected Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth to have excellent Japanese voice acting, I want to highlight Kazuhiro Nakaya, the Japanese voice of Ichiban Kasuga for his performance here. It is probably my favorite protagonist performance in any RPG alongside Ben Starr’s Clive in Final Fantasy XVI and Harry McEntire’s Noah in Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Kazuhiro Nakaya delivered something beyond special here. Not to say the other cast members didn’t do a great job, but his delivery really stuck with me throughout even days after I hit certain story beats.

If you, like me, were considering getting Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth on PS5 or wondering what that version offers over the Steam Deck barring the visual and performance upgrades, the DualSense features are very nice. The developers added proper haptic feedback for many small things like ukulele strum attacks or for the segway while exploring. I expected some basic adaptive trigger support, but I’m very happy with the DualSense implementation here. It is a shame that this seemingly isn’t available on the PC version.

Barring some performance improvements in parts I had issues in, the only thing I’d like to see improved is the camera in some encounters. The game shouldn’t have enemies attack while the camera hasn’t adjusted yet. I also would like Sega to add an option to the PC port to force the display of specific controller button prompts rather than have it auto detect. The Persona ports let you select or force Nintendo and PlayStation prompts regardless of your input method. This is a minor issue, but since the PC port is so good in just about every other way, it would be a nice addition.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio at its peak. It feels fresh while still bringing together the best aspects of my favorite games from the studio. Not only does it manage to deliver a compelling story with twists and turns throughout the massively long main story run time, but the sheer quality of its optional content and mini-games puts some of the best entries in the series to shame. We finally have a modern Yakuza game that matches not only the quality, but also the quantity of Yakuza 0’s awesomeness. It gets my highest possible recommendation. I can’t wait to see what the studio does for the next game.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth Steam Deck Review Score: 5/5

You can read all our past and future Steam Deck coverage here on our main page for all things Steam Deck. If you have any feedback for this or what else you’d like to see us do around the Steam Deck, let us know in the comments below. Thanks for reading.

As someone who grew up with the first three Tekken games on PS1, I didn’t enjoy Tekken 7 much at launch on PS4. It was quite a disappointment in many ways despite having competent gameplay, but I was hopeful for Tekken 8 when it was announced. I won’t lie, I was skeptical about it, but the demo got me excited enough to want to cover the full game. With Tekken 8, the team has delivered an excellent and gorgeous fighting game packed with great features right from day one. Now that I’ve had enough time to properly test it online across a few network conditions with friends and randoms over the last few days on all platforms, I’m glad to see the team actually deliver in a great netcode experience here as well. I’m going to focus on Tekken 8 on Steam Deck, but will also be adding thoughts on the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions since I’ve been playing it there as well both online and offline.

If you haven’t played Tekken in a while, Tekken 8 feels like a proper generational leap in its production and in the quality of the modes offered in the launch package. I’ll cover the visuals in a bit, but Tekken 8 has a lovely main story mode titled The Dark Awakenings, character-specific episodes that play out separately from the main story over five battles, a new Arcade Quest mode that serves as a fun single player mode and also an interactive tutorial in many ways, a normal arcade mode, versus mode, practice mode, and Tekken Ball (I was glad to see this return) when it comes to the offline modes included. This is a lot more than I expected, though I hope we see more added in updates and seasons.

Without getting into spoilers for the story mode, I liked almost all of it through the cut-scenes and battles. I was surprised at how varied some of the situations were in the story as well, but mostly impressed by how good it looked throughout. While playing this main story mode, you can quit and resume from any chapter as well. It does a good job of making you play as quite a few characters from the roster, but does focus on Jin and Kazuya as expected. As for the end of the story, I like that it managed to surprise me despite where I thought things were going. It is full of great voice acting, some amazing QTE moments, and superb music. I’ve now played the story mode on Steam Deck, PS5, and Xbox Series X. Barring replaying one part in the middle, I continue to love it. I can’t believe a Tekken game delivered in a big production cinematic story mode more than every other fighting game I’ve played in years.

If you do finish the story and I highly recommend playing it through till the end, make sure to check the character episode menu for something later. It definitely feels like the team put a lot of work into the offline and story modes here. I also like how the story battles aren’t just all 1v1 with some interesting changes and additions of cinematic QTEs in specific story moments. I won’t spoil the later moments but I couldn’t believe how well the team nailed the final fight in the story mode. I haven’t tried out all the individual character episodes, but loved the ones I did end up playing with Azucena being my favorite.

Out of the offline modes, I spent a lot of time in the practice mode which I found quite good. It includes various display options like damage info, startup frames, status, frame advantage, and more. You can also do combo challenges, view sample combos, punishment training (which was very good), and adjust the usual settings. One thing you will notice from the start in Tekken 8 is the ability to enable Special Style by pressing L1 or LB. This is the game’s equivalent of Street Fighter 6’s Modern controls which is a more accessible control option for newer players. It makes things quite a bit easier, but I need to spend more time with it compared to the regular controls to see how I feel about it with new characters. You can disable this as well if you don’t want to use it. It displays whether you’re using this control option online so your opponent is aware.

I haven’t played Tekken 4, 5, and 6 yet, so I can’t comment on how things have changed compared to those games, but I can say that Tekken 8 feels fresh yet familiar with its aggressive focus in gameplay. I never found myself annoyed with how the game felt or any technical aspects like I was in Tekken 7. I can see myself playing Tekken 8 quite a bit over the coming months, and I’m glad I waited to do a new feature covering the best fighting games on Steam Deck to see how Tekken 8 and Under Night 2 play. Getting comfortable with the stage interactions and the Heat System have been interesting to see as I’ve been slowly trying to learn better combos with Reina, Azucena, and King.

Over the 45 or so hours I’ve spent with Tekken 8 on Steam Deck (handheld and docked) pre-release (default Proton) and now (Proton Hotfix picked by Valve to fix the online), I’ve been playing against the CPU in arcade mode, trying different graphics options, playing the entire story mode, multiple character episodes, and many hours of online play, the only issue I’ve run into is the keyboard needs to be manually invoked for text entry. Barring that, it even supports 16:10 aspect ratio during gameplay with black bars for cut-scenes but fullscreen support most other places.

After the recent Proton Hotfix update from Valve, Tekken 8’s online modes work perfectly on Steam Deck. I played docked on the Steam Deck Docking Station with ethernet and also over Wi-Fi to test with friends in different countries. Gone are the disconnects I used to have, and I can safely recommend Tekken 8 even if you exclusively play on Steam Deck. Not only is it a great portable version of the game, but a great version of Tekken 8 in general.

Before the PC demo, I expected poor results from Tekken 8 on Steam Deck given it is an Unreal Engine 5 fighting game and we’ve had some games using the engine not perform well on Steam Deck. As a fighting game, Tekken 8 requires 60fps, and thankfully it is achievable quite easily on Steam Deck. The default preset when you play on Steam Deck is a bit too conservative with how it sets everything to low. The PC port of Tekken 8 lets you adjust screen mode (borderless, windowed, full screen), resolution (1152×720 being the lower bounds), toggle v-sync, toggle variable rate shading, adjust rendering quality preset, adjust render scale (I left this on 65 in the end), upscaling method (XeSS, NIS, FSR 1.0, FSR 2, Catmull-Rom Bicubic, TSR, TAUU), adjust anti-aliasing quality, shadow quality (I set this to low), texture quality, effect quality, post-processing quality, background quality, display the frame rate, and restore default settings.

Tekken 8’s visuals and performance on Steam Deck can vary. I initially didn’t spend too much time with TSR, but thanks to John from Digital Foundry doing a video and posting about how good TSR is, I ended up sticking with that through the end. I also replayed the story mode later chapters too see how it felt. This is marked improvement visually over other upscaling methods. With a mix of medium and low, you can get a great 60fps experience in the actual fights. The character select and some story fights can drop frames though, especially when loading in new locations. The story mode in particular uses a mix of pre-rendered cut-scenes, in-engine scenes, and transitions to actual battles. Some of these transitions don’t run at a smooth 60fps so keep that in mind. I was ok with a few drops in story mode to have everything else look as good as it could be on the handheld screen. It is a shockingly good experience, especially after how middling Mortal Kombat 1 was at launch.

In terms of other features I value on Steam Deck, Tekken 8 supports 16:10 resolutions and has Steam Cloud support. The 16:10 support or 800p needs to be manually selected if you play docked at another resolution and then play handheld at 800p. If you just play handheld, there isn’t an issue here, and it does 16:10 support well through gameplay and menus. Some cut-scenes are 16:9 though like the opening video (which plays perfectly with audio). I also tested playing with a bluetooth controller for the story mode and my Razer Kitsune wired at the same time to swap between them sometimes. The game detects all inputs correctly.

I also installed Tekken 8 on my Steam Deck SD card rather than internal since it is a massive install of nearly 87GB. Some transitions that I expected to be seamless in story mode have a bit of loading, but it isn’t remotely as terrible as things were in Tekken 7 on PS4 back in the day.

If you play docked, it obviously is nowhere near as nice as the game is on console. Having played Tekken 8 on PS5 and Xbox Series X, it is plain gorgeous on my 1440p monitor. I also appreciate how well implemented the DualSense haptic feedback is in Tekken 8. This is felt during supers, story mode cut-scenes, and special battles. The team did a fantastic job with it, and I enjoyed experiencing the story once again here. It even has haptics for raindrops in one particular battle. If you are curious how the game runs on your own console or PC, a free demo is available. It doesn’t have online and isn’t up to date for the PC build, but is worth trying to see how it can run on your platform of choice. On the Xbox Series X side of things, there isn’t anything of note barring Quick Resume. The game runs and plays great and I used my 8BitDo Xbox stick there.

Right now, the online modes let you choose connectivity options, view your opponent’s connection type, disconnection ratio, and more when you find an opponent, and you can also adjust connection quality and toggle cross platform restrictions when you get into matchmaking. The connection information also displays different levels of wired and wi-fi quality, delay frames, rollback frames, and also processing load for PC resources being used to know whether there’s slowdown because of your PC or your opponent’s PC. My one complaint is not being able to add friends on other platforms easily within Tekken 8. I’ve had to go to the same online hub as them to add them manually. For the same platform, you can just add each other through a tab in the menu.

One aspect I didn’t get to spend much time with pre-release was the replays in Tekken 8. Tekken 8 has some features we already saw in Tekken 7, but the implementation of replays with the ability to pause and try things out for 10 seconds is superb. You can use this to already view tips for what would’ve been better by going through each round in a replay, but the ability to take control and try out things is great to see. This coupled with the ability to use save state-like functions to improve combos makes Tekken 8 feel a lot more welcoming not only to newcomers but also veteran players looking to get the best experience with learning long combos. I don’t think any fighting game in the last few years has added the ability to take control during replays like this. The screenshot below is from the PS5 version:

Tekken 8’s soundtrack is superb. That will not be surprising to most given the series’ history, but I am glad to have enjoyed almost every theme I heard in-game with Twilight Party Cruise being my favorite song so far. There are other great tracks like Volcanic Bomb, Hangar Rules, and The Decisive Blow as well. One more notable thing is how the Jukebox feature is not restricted to just one platform in Tekken 8. Tekken 7 had it only on PS4 but Tekken 8 has it on Steam as well as Xbox. You can use this to make custom playlists or replace songs from the series’ library. I’ve not played Tekken Tag Tournament before so being able to hear its great music has been amazing here.

I hope the team adds a larger font size option for the menus in a patch soon. While it isn’t too bad when I play on my monitor on the desk, playing on TV or on the Steam Deck’s screen is painful with the tiny font size. Barring that, I hope the keyboard input on Steam Deck can be sorted because this feels like a fantastic modern fighter on the platform, and it doesn’t struggle like Mortal Kombat 1 did on Steam Deck at launch.

One more oddity is the fact that the game mentions support for DualSense controllers in one of the menus, but only seems to display Xbox button prompts regardless of how I connected the DualSense controller with and without Steam Input enabled. I’d love to have this added because the PS5 demo had good haptic feedback. The screenshot below is from the PS5 version:

Before finishing this review, I want to touch on how detailed the customization options are in Tekken 8. I’ve heard this isn’t as impressive as some earlier entries, but I’ve been blown away by how cool or goofy you can make characters look here. Dress them up in gold and add a bread slice around their faces to annoy your friends like I do. Beyond that, you are also incentivized to unlock more through specific battles and by earning currency through other modes.

Having now spent enough time online and offline with Tekken 8 across Steam Deck, PS5, and Xbox Series X, I can safely say that Bandai Namco Studios hit it out of the park with this one. It is a universal improvement over the last game and delivers a superb package right from day one. While it has a few things I’d like to see fixed in updates, Tekken 8 gets my highest possible recommendation right now. I can’t wait to play more. It feels great to not only enjoy playing a new Tekken game, but also have it actually push visuals once again. Tekken 8 has great gameplay, awesome music, superb visuals, a brilliant replay system, and one of the best story modes in a modern fighter.

Tekken 8 Steam Deck Review Score: 5/5

Updated on January 30th: Added review score and updated text after playing online modes over the last week.

You can read all our past and future Steam Deck coverage here on our main page for all things Steam Deck. If you have any feedback for this or what else you’d like to see us do around the Steam Deck, let us know in the comments below. Thanks for reading.

Alright, let’s do this one more time. Not the last time, mind you. We still have Garou left. But the age of my comparison reviews between ACA NEOGEO re-releases and the pre-existing (and still available) Dotemu-developed versions is just about at its end. Metal Slug X ACA NEOGEO ($3.99) is the latest release in Hamster and SNK’s mobile Arcade Archives initiative, and one that I know a lot of folks have been waiting for. I mean, I even told you to wait for it when Metal Slug 2 ACA NEOGEO hit. Took a little longer than I thought, but here we are. Let’s go into the details.

If you’ve read any of previous reviews of ACA NEOGEO releases that ostensibly replace the decade-old Dotemu versions of the same games, a lot of this is going to be familiar. I will go through it anyway, because some of you might be new. Feel free to head on to the next paragraph if you deem it necessary. So, the Dotemu version of Metal Slug X. It was quite good for its time, but its time was when Iron Man 3 was ruling the movie screens and everyone was doing the Harlem Shake. Things have marched on, and despite receiving updates over the years those original mobile versions are in rough shape now. While you can still buy the Dotemu version and save a buck by doing so, you should not. The ACA NEOGEO version is superior in every meaningful way. There, that’s all settled.

Metal Slug X is a strange game in the context of its series. While Metal Slug 2 had been very well-received and was a big success, it was hard to deny its technical issues. It suffered from severe enough slowdown that even a generation of players who had been raised on NES slowdown found it jarring at times. Developer Nazca Corporation had started work immediately on Metal Slug 3 after finishing up the second game, intending to make it the biggest and best run-and-gun action game that SNK’s NEOGEO platform would ever see. Fair beans to Nazca – the developer did more or less pull that off.

Still, those intentions meant that the third numbered installment would take two full years to finish development, which was a very long time for a company that was in dire financial straits and needed every hit it could muster. Egads! SNK’s 1999 fiscal year was ruined! But what if… Nazca Corporation were to make some adjustments to Metal Slug 2, shift it over to the more advanced Metal Slug 3 engine, and disguise it as a new game? Oh ho ho ho ho ho! Delightfully devilish, Shin Nihon Kikaku.

I’m being a little cute here to force the reference, but there’s no getting around the fact that Metal Slug X is a meal slapped together from the leftovers of last night’s Metal Slug 2 dinner. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course. This is a safe space and I think we can all admit that hot turkey sandwiches are usually better than the roast turkey the night before. It happens. And that is what happened here, too. I feel bad for people who were buying the extremely pricy AES cartridges, as they basically got Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3‘d here, but they were probably rich anyway. Metal Slug X rules. It’s a better game than Metal Slug 2 in every single way, and it’s just different enough to justify picking up even if you already own the game it’s based on.

It’s better on a technical level, with considerably fewer instances of slowdown and substantially lower severity when it does occur. There are more enemies about, owing to the freedom the Metal Slug 3 engine offered. Aesthetically, while the stages themselves use the same themes and layouts, the time of day has been changed in most of them to make things feel fresher. The music has been arranged and altered in some stages, and the Metal Slug 3 announcer has been added. There are some new sound effects, and an improved credits sequence.

Over on the gameplay side, there are a lot of little changes that add up to a big difference. New bosses, new enemies, new vehicles, more P.O.W.s and power-ups to find, new weapons, improved versions of existing weapons, and new behaviors for various objects and gimmicks. It’s a more difficult game, but not egregiously so. Indeed, I think the difficulty is just right in this game, with the extra heat compared to Metal Slug 2 proving to be most welcome. The pacing is really good too. I love Metal Slug 3, and it’s certainly a towering achievement in its genre. But I can’t argue with anyone who says that the last stage drags out far too long. You won’t have that issue with Metal Slug X. It’s all killer, no filler.

My heart struggles to choose between this game and Metal Slug 3 when I’m asked which is my favorite game in this series. I can’t pick, but the point is that if you’re into this genre at all you might as well own both of them. Four dollars? Yeesh. I threw way more quarters than that into this game back in the day. I think its snappy nature also makes it more well-suited to mobile than Metal Slug 3. Now, this game does suffer from the same issues we’ve seen with all the other Metal Slug ports to mobile. If you’re not using an external controller, you’re stuck with using touch controls in a game that can be quite demanding in terms of precision. But you have unlimited credits, so it doesn’t particularly matter if you die a lot. You know, if you just want to have fun and tour the game. The other issue is that to play multiplayer, you’ll need enough controllers for everyone and a display you feel comfortable enough crowding around.

Otherwise, it’s smooth enough sailing. You get both the Japanese and international versions of the game, tons of options to mess around with, a handy save state feature so you can stop and pick up at any point, and the usual extra modes every Hamster game comes with. The timed Caravan mode is decent here, and the score attack mode is a good challenge. There are online leaderboards to compete on as well, which can add some replay value to the game if you need more. Everything is emulated well, but there’s no surprise there. NEOGEO has been a solved problem for Hamster for a very long time now.

If you have an external controller or don’t mind the idea of playing with touch controls, Metal Slug X is about as good a run-and-gun experience as you’re liable to get on mobile. It’s a tightly-paced, action-packed tour through some wild and wacky stages that will keep you on your toes the whole way through. One of the best games on the NEOGEO, and I’m glad we’ve got a fresh version of the game to enjoy for the next ten years.

The biggest successes SNK had in the early years of the NEOGEO platform were in the fighting genre. With Capcom’s Street Fighter II rocketing the genre into the stratosphere, even middling entries were enjoying disproportionate popularity. SNK had a few of those, but it also had one extremely powerful ace up its sleeve: Takashi Nishiyama. He had started his career at Irem before moving to Capcom, where he had created Street Fighter. While he had left the company before its far more popular sequel arrived, he soon found a new home at SNK. Indeed, the NEOGEO was partly his idea, and for his part he offered up his own spiritual successor to Street Fighter in the form of Fatal Fury: King of Fighters.

Of all of the fighters SNK offered up on its new platform, Fatal Fury was the biggest success. It had a very different feel from its cousin Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, but it certainly wasn’t lacking in mechanical depth or interesting characters. It’s not hard to figure out why SNK fast-tracked a sequel for release in the following year, though it would have to make do without Nishiyama, who was already on to other responsibilities. Fortunately, Fatal Fury 2 would benefit from being able to borrow some ideas from Capcom’s ground-breaking title. The result was a fusion of the elements that made the first game so interesting and aspects that were quickly becoming codified within the genre.

The sequel addressed the biggest shortcoming the first game had when stacked against Street Fighter II by expanding the roster of playable fighters from three to eight. Among the new characters was a kunoichi named Mai Shiranui, whose bouncy personality and, er, other bouncy elements made her a big fan favorite almost immediately. Other major additions include the taekwondo master Kim Kaphwan and a new big bad named Wolfgang Krauser. It was another big success for SNK, but there were more lessons to learn from Capcom that would be picked up for the following year’s Fatal Fury game.

Capcom had hit it big with Street Fighter II, and it seemed hesitant to slap a new number on any follow-up. At the same time, there was money on the table and Capcom wasn’t about to leave it there. Thus, four iterative follow-ups were produced to keep the quarters flowing, each one taking what had already been built and adding a little extra on top. This was the approach SNK would take for 1993’s Fatal Fury Special ($3.99). This game uses Fatal Fury 2 as a basis and makes a number of improvements and additions. The boss characters from the previous game are now playable, and the three characters cut from the original game have been restored. The gameplay speed has been increased, and a new combo system has been implemented to bring things ever closer to the Street Fighter II standard.

There was also an interesting secret in Fatal Fury Special. The main character of one of SNK’s other popular fighters, Ryo Sakazaki of Art of Fighting, made a special guest appearance in the game. Should the player beat all fifteen opponents without losing a single round, they’ll face off against Ryo after felling Krauser. Defeating him added him to the playable roster, and it was this fun little trick that served as the seed for The King of Fighters ’94, a mega-crossover of SNK characters that kicked off SNK’s bread and butter series from then on. That was all in the future, of course. In the present, Fatal Fury Special was the most successful game yet in the Fatal Fury series.

In the here and now, I would argue there are better games in the Fatal Fury franchise, but Fatal Fury Special is certainly a great one. I’d certainly recommend it in a general sense. Of course, we have to deal with the usual Arcade Archives issues when it comes to fighting games. I’ll go through them again for the benefit of anyone who is new to these reviews, but if you’ve read one of these before you know what I’m going to say.

Using touch controls with any of SNK’s fighting games is always going to be a bit of a challenge. You can have some fun with it, but it’s less than ideal. If you have an external controller and don’t mind using it, then you have nothing to worry about. The game plays very well that way. Multiplayer is also limited to those who have the right set-up. You’ll need a couple of external controllers, plus a display you feel comfortable enough having you and a friend crowding around. No wi-fi multiplayer and certainly no online multiplayer.

As a result of these demands, I imagine most people who buy this game will be playing against the CPU with touch controls. It’s hardly the best way to enjoy a game like this, but I won’t say you can’t enjoy it. You can turn down the difficulty all the way if you like thanks to the robust set of options Hamster has included here, and you might get some extra enjoyment out of the usual Score Attack and timed Caravan modes. And hey, if you can beat Krauser with touch controls then you have my respect. That and a buck won’t even get you a can of Coke these days, but you’ll have it.

Anyway, that’s where we’ll park this one. Fatal Fury Special isn’t the very best fighting game we’ve seen in the ACA NEOGEO line so far, but it’s certainly in the upper tier. It unfortunately has to deal with all the usual problems that come with fighters in this line, but I didn’t exactly expect Hamster to solve that problem at this point. If you’ve found some entertainment in prior NEOGEO fighters adapted to mobile, you’ll likely get some here as well.

Back in September last year, Gameloft released Disney Dreamlight Valley on consoles and PC platforms as an early access release only available as a purchase with different tiers of founder’s packs. It was initially planned to be a free-to-play release when it exited early access, and has been getting updated quite a bit on consoles and PC. I played it on Switch, Steam Deck, and Xbox Series X last year, and dipped into this year again before it was announced for Apple Arcade. A lot has changed since, and Disney Dreamlight Valley finally exited early access and is available as a premium game on PC and consoles. Alongside that standalone release, Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition released on Apple Arcade, and it is one of the more interesting additions to the service for a variety of reasons.

Before getting into the differences and platform-specific details, if you’ve never played Disney Dreamlight Valley in any form or even heard of it, think Animal Crossing meets Disney and Pixar. Yes, that’s reductive since Disney Dreamlight Valley has a ton of quality of life features over Nintendo’s massively popular series, but I’m sure more folks have played Animal Crossing than not by now. If you haven’t, Disney Dreamlight Valley is a life simulation and adventure game that lets you create your own avatar and then jump into the magical world. The core gameplay gives you quite a bit of freedom, and is very relaxing. You can fish, cook, harvest items, decorate your house, use magic, and so much more.

There are enough guides and articles on Disney Dreamlight Valley itself since the game hit early access last year. Instead of going into detail about them, I’m going to focus on whether Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition is worth your time as an Apple Arcade subscriber, whether it is the game that will push you to try out the subscription, how the Apple Arcade version compares to the premium release, and more. I’m approaching this as someone who isn’t a huge fan of Disney and Pixar, but I know enough about the characters included, and I also love Animal Crossing on 3DS. Animal Crossing New Horizons on the other hand disappointed me, so I was glad to see other life simulation genre games deliver on what I wanted, including Disney Dreamlight Valley.

You can play Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition offline, but since it supports cross platform play with other non Apple Arcade platforms, I recommend playing with online support. I was curious how it would feel to control with touchscreen controls, and Gameloft did a great job here. After a few minutes, I had no trouble playing it on my iPhone 15 Pro. When using a DualSense controller to test, it also showed PlayStation button prompts. I didn’t try it much on macOS yet with keyboard and mouse controls, but it felt fine.

Being on Apple Arcade, Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition comes with some huge advantages, but also a few caveats. The good news is there’s no extra purchase needed. This is the full Disney Dreamlight Valley experience with the paid expansion, A Rift in Time, which sells for $30 on other platforms all included for Apple Arcade subscribers. There is no premium shop or star path here, so that means some cosmetic items might not be available yet or at all. I’m not sure how this will be handled, but I imagine we might see some content released slowly through free updates like we do in other Apple Arcade games. Either way, Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition offers stupidly good value for newcomers. It also supports cross platform play.

The downside is that there is no cross progression outside the Apple Arcade ecosystem. Your progress is on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and tvOS, but you cannot bring your old progress or take this progress to other platforms. This might not be a big deal for some, but I’m worried that someone’s potentially hundreds of hours long save file might not carry over to something else if Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition ever leaves the service. Some developers have made it so progress is still usable on non Apple Arcade versions, but this is something to keep in mind before investing a lot of time into a fantastic game, when you might be better off getting it on another platform.

Speaking of another platform, how does Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition compare with Disney Dreamlight Valley on PS5, Xbox Series X, Steam Deck, and Nintendo Switch? Based on what I’ve played last year and this year, I’d say my favorite version of Disney Dreamlight Valley is the PC version on Steam Deck followed by Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition. I love playing life simulation games on a portable, and the Steam Deck version of the full game runs and looks excellent. The Switch version is not as good with much longer load times, worse performance, and menu lag. It looks fantastic on my high resolution display when I play the Xbox Series X version, but the cross save means I never lose progress there. I’ve been jumping between Xbox, Switch, and Steam Deck already.

Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition on iPhone 15 Pro has a few issues. I was surprised to see it not run at 60fps, and I hope this can be added in an update. The only other issue is the text size might be a bit too small for some people in a few menus, and some of the touch targets are too small on the phone screen. These need to be tweaked for touchscreens. It runs at full screen on both iPhone 15 Pro and iPad Pro (2020) thankfully, and progress syncs seamlessly between them and my MacBook Air.

The Apple Arcade version, like the main game, is a bit buggy though. This is in a much better place compared to the early access release, but still worth noting with some things seemingly being stuck in the ground, a character being out of bounds until I reloaded the game, and things like that. Nothing gamebreaking, but keep this in mind.

Disney Dreamlight Valley’s A Rift in Time expansion is pretty amazing so far. I haven’t played much of it on Apple Arcade, but have been checking it out on other platforms. If you enjoy the base game which you bought on other platforms, Disney Dreamlight Valley A Rift in Time is more of the good stuff with some notable upgrades. I would definitely grab the bundle with the expansion if I was looking to buy Disney Dreamlight Valley outside Apple Arcade. The new locations, characters, Royal Hourglass tool, and more just work so well together. I feel like the bar has been raised so much with this expansion that I don’t know if potential future ones will match.

Since Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition is basically an Apple Arcade Original release, it will get updates, and I hope the bugs and interface issues can be addressed soon. Beyond that, I’d love for high frame rate support on newer devices at least. I’d even opt for turning down some settings to play this at 60fps on iPhone 15 Pro. One other thing I want fixed is with character naming and how it is handled in this release compared to the game on other platforms. I’m not sure how it works exactly, but it seems like you get locked into a name or no name based on whether you agree to play online or not in the start.

If you have Apple Arcade, Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition is one of the best additions to the service in a long time despite a few issues. The game itself is great, and while I hope some aspects can be tweaked on iPhone and iPad, I have no hesitation in recommending you play it assuming you’re ok with the ecosystem lock in for progress. If you’d like some more flexibility on that front, I recommend buying it on Steam Deck or any other platform you prefer. In an ideal world, I’d be able to bring my progress over to Apple Arcade instead of having to start over, but this won’t be an issue for newcomers. If you’re new to it, Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition is excellent.

After Apple Arcade and Netflix, Crunchyroll entered the game subscription service party (?) with its Crunchyroll Game Vault for mobile bringing premium games to mobile as value adds for subscribers. The launch games included some older titles now a part of the Crunchyroll Game Vault, and also WayForward’s River City Girls (Free) which saw its mobile debut through this service. Shaun already reviewed the game on Switch here, and I agree with basically all of that. For this review, I wanted to cover how the game has aged with the sequel out on other platforms, and how the port is through the Crunchyroll Game Vault.

If you’ve never heard of River City Girls, it is actually a new entry in the Kunio-kun/River City franchise from Arc System Works, but one that has you playing as Misako and Kyoko instead of Kunio and Riki. It excelled for its style, music, voice acting, and most of the gameplay when I played it on Xbox a few years ago. The Switch version was plagued with some performance issues, but is in a better place right now. It did have co-op, and I always felt like the game was balanced around that rather than being accessible to solo players.

There’s quite a bit of freedom in River City Girls through its open-esque locations with shops, enemies, and more. As a beat ’em up, it isn’t as polished as something like Streets of Rage 4 if you’ve played that, but I still think fondly of how much I enjoyed River City Girls and still love its characters. Moving from location to location and eventually getting to memorable boss fights (some sadly aren’t fun), and upgrading and unlocking more for your characters. This is one area I wish the team went back to balance better. If you play solo like I did both originally and now, the game feels too tedious with enemies having what feels like inflated health pools. After unlocking and upgrading a bit, things become a lot more fun, but it is still challenging even on normal difficulty. I couldn’t test the online on the mobile version, but the game itself only supported local co-op. I hope if WayForward does bring River City Girls 2 to mobile, it includes the online multiplayer as well with cross platform matchmaking.

Now, River City Girls on iOS on my iPhone 15 Pro and iPad Pro (2020) has performance issues. It also looks excellent in most parts. The few issues I ran into have to do with how the aspect ratio of certain things has been handled causing cropping or elements hidden behind the home bar in parts. Some of the touch targets are also too small with tiny text in menus. These usually are the tabs you’d swap between in the menu using the shoulder buttons on the controller, but they need to be tweaked for iPhone and iPad. One more thing I’d like to see is proper cloud save support. I logged into my account on both iPhone and iPad and my progress did not sync across for the game.

Speaking of controls, River City Girls has controller support, and it works great. It does only show Xbox button prompts in my testing at least. When using touchscreen controls, you sadly cannot adjust the positions or size of these touchscreen buttons unless I missed something. They work well on iPad, but feel a bit cramped on the phone. I hope a future update can add options to adjust these like we’ve seen in the Hitman: Blood Money – Reprisal release.

Barring the few control and interface issues, River City Girls still has the flaws of the original game with regards to balance for solo play and some bosses not being as much fun. This version is updated though, so you don’t mistakenly end up changing location when you’re attacking enemies near a door or something. I did enjoy revisiting it a few years later though, and still prefer it to the sequel in many ways.

Whenever I review a game that’s only in a subscription service, it is worth looking at whether the game offers enough value to warrant subscribing to said service. River City Girls is priced at $29.99 on Nintendo Switch, and while it being “Free” for subscribers is fantastic, it isn’t enough to justify subscribing. Maybe when there are more games, but right now this is a good value add for existing subscribers. If you don’t have a Crunchyroll membership, details about subscription pricing are here on the official website. You need the Mega Fan tier ($9.99 per month) or the Ultimate Fan tier ($14.99 per month) to also access the games in the Crunchyroll Game Fault.

If you already have River City Girls on another platform, there isn’t anything of note with this release to warrant replaying it. If you don’t, and have a Crunchyroll subscription that includes the Game Vault, it is absolutely worth playing. I always liked River City Girls despite its flaws, and while I hope the iOS version gets patched to improve controls and its interface, it is a good port. River City Girls itself is gorgeous with an amazing soundtrack, and I still prefer it to the sequel.

I almost gave up hope on Rockstar Games’ remake/remaster of the classic GTA trilogy ever making it to mobile after multiple delays. When it was confirmed for mobile through Netflix Games, I thought Netflix would finally have its killer app despite the release’s issues on PC and consoles. Fast forward to a few days ago, and Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition hit mobile as three individual games available through Netflix and also as premium standalone releases priced at $19.99 each. I’ve been playing them on iPhone 15 Pro, iPad Pro (2020), and I also redownloaded the games on Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X to see how this new release compares. I’m surprised by how much better Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition is on mobile despite a few annoyances. I’m going to be covering all three games, and this review will focus on GTA: Vice City – Definitive ($19.99) and GTA: Vice City – NETFLIX (Free).

The original GTA: Vice City is one of my favorite games of all time. I’ve played it on everything, and own almost every version of it including multiple regional variants like the PS2 Japanese release I got a few months ago. I adored it when I played it years ago, and loved revisiting it on iPhone through its 10th anniversary edition. I still get chills with that trailer. I love the game so much that I even bought that awful PS2 on PS4 version they released when Sony was trying to get developers to bring PS2 classics to PS4 with trophy support. So when the trilogy was announced to get a remake, I was excited but nervous.

The collection hit PC and consoles including Nintendo Switch back in 2021, and it wasn’t great. Read my review of the trilogy on Switch here. Since then, the games have improved, but many issues still remain. For the mobile release, I didn’t expect much, but this release surprised me. When I launched GTA: Vice City – Definitive on Netflix and finished the 1.27GB download in-game, I thought I was imagining things, but the actual game looked different. I played a bit more and wondered why it looked better than I remembered from my time with the Definitive version on Xbox and Switch. I booted up those versions and forgot the lighting was different there. Then I noticed GTA: Vice City – Definitive has a new Classic Lighting option which looks so much nicer. GTA: Vice City – Definitive now felt like GTA: Vice City. I was ecstatic to have the vibe back, but there were some issues I noticed.

Without looking into the game’s settings, I was surprised at how blurry it looked on iPhone 15 Pro. I checked the options and found a setting for the resolution. I turned it up to max, and it looked a lot nicer. For some reason, this doesn’t save and you need to turn it up manually each time you boot up the game. Barring that, the game seems capped to 30fps which is disappointing. I hope both of these can be fixed in future updates. The graphics tab is where you can enable or disable Classic Lighting. I recommend trying both options if you’re familiar with GTA: Vice City. Once you manually fix the resolution, GTA: Vice City – Definitive looks excellent with fullscreen support on all iOS devices I tested it on.

On the control side, GTA: Vice City – Definitive includes the new modern control options, and I tested it with both touch and controller. I used my DualSense controller, but the game seems to only have Xbox button prompts. The touchscreen controls work well, and the game is responsive enough. There are camera sensitivity options, movement options to play with modern or classic controls, and more here. I was glad to see a haptic feedback option here.

Since these are a huge part of the experience for me after I finish the story, I wanted to highlight how GTA: Vice City – Definitive includes cheat codes. You can either use a controller and input the controller cheats with button combinations, or go into accessibility and input the PC cheat codes. Both work.

Yes, I know I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the port and features, but GTA: Vice City itself is incredible. I don’t care what you use to play it, but it is one of the all-time greats, and right up there with GTA V and Red Dead Redemption II as Rockstar Games’ best. The story is amazing, dialogue memorable, radio stations despite cuts are still excellent, and it has gameplay that remains fun even today thanks to control enhancements.

I don’t own GTA: Vice City – Definitive on Steam to test on Steam Deck, but GTA: Vice City – Definitive on Netflix and iOS is massively better than the Switch version. Not only does the Classic Lighting option drastically help, but the game loads much quicker on iOS compared to Switch while looking a lot better. The Xbox Series X version runs at a higher resolution with 60fps support though, but I still don’t see myself going back to that until we get the mobile improvements. Speaking of improvements, I’ve been noticing little things like some models being better on mobile, animation improvements, and more.

The only real issues GTA: Vice City – Definitive has on mobile now are the frame rate cap, resolution not saving for some reason on iPhone 15 Pro or iPad Pro on the Netflix version, and the few issues I have with the game like the one super annoying mission that remains the only annoyance in GTA: Vice City itself. While this game (and the trilogy in general) deserved better, I think we are finally at the stage where the Definitive part of the name is actually applicable. This mobile version of GTA: Vice City – Definitive is great, and can be even better with a few updates. The screenshot below shows the Classic Lighting (right) versus the PC and console lighting (left):

While I’d say the original mobile release on modern iPhones and iPads is the best version of GTA: Vice City even now, GTA: Vice City – Definitive complements it nicely and is something I see myself dipping into for years to come, just like the original. GTA: Vice City – Definitive is worth buying, but I think this is the first actual killer app Netflix has to get people onboard its games initiative. Having the original GTA: Vice City would have been enough, but this release is actually better than the PC and console versions in almost every way. I don’t even think I’ll go back to those versions without the Classic Lighting option. The original game is a timeless classic, and my favorite GTA game, so I’m glad we now have a great version of the remake on mobile alongside the original which is still available.