Familiar 2

Story Positives:

1. Animations: Excellent as always, continuing the same quality from the previous game..
2. Animations: …earning two positives
3. Atmosphere: The continued Shantae charm
4. Brickwork: Desert island
5. Brickwork: Frostbite island
6. Brickwork: Mudbog island
7. Brickwork: Scuttletown island
8. Characters: Generally amusing (and actually characters this time around)
9. Cutscenes: Good usage of the animated vignette slides to portray emotion and scenes
10. Dialogue: The dialogue honestly pops more than it has any right to
11. Doodads: General
12. External Continuity: Connects surprisingly well with the previous game
13. Hub: The town slowly changing as Ammo Baron’s men alter it
14. Humor: Yeah the game got me a few times
15. Moment: Rotty’s lost soul
16. NPC Set Dressing: Some really good usage in some scenes to flesh out the areas
17. Outro: Much better than the previous games, with some good character moments despite a return to status quo

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Boss: Mother spider
2. Boss: Saliva boss
3. Controls: Controls pretty tightly, especially with the new kit
4. Enemy Variety: Surprisingly decent
5. Intro: The Intro does a lot right very quickly. Platforming, enemies, escalation, fun sequences, and an amusing boss fight…
6. Intro: …earning two positives
7. Itemization: Items are reasonably well spread out and dropped
8. Kit: The new Risky items are legit and a good replacement for the transformations
9. Level: Cackle Tower
10. Level: Frostbite island
11. Level: Generally good design throughout
12. Level: Oubliette of Suffering
13. Level: Saliva dungeon
14. Level: Tanline dungeon
15. Music: Best soundtrack in the series (so far)… easily earning…
16. Music: …the full…
17. Music: …three positives
18. Traversal: It takes a while to get there, but once you have all the main kit the game is honestly a treat to navigate
19. Tutorialization: Generally good tutorialization of concepts and new gimmicks in new areas
20. Replayability: Generally replayable
21. Outro: Okay for all the issues I have with the final dungeon, the final boss is legit. First phase is simple but fun, second phase is cool, third phase is awesome and brutal, fourth phase is just plain awesome…
22. Outro: …earning two positives
23. NG+: Pirate Mode isn’t quite a full new game plus but it’s leaning there, and having the full kit at the beginning is great

Gameplay Negatives:

1. MSQ: The Rottytops ‘minigame’… which, similar to the first game, sucks. It’s not as bad as it could be (the checkpointing is nice) but damn
2. MSQ: So the forced stealth section in Tan Line Island is… not good. It could have been, but instead they made it binary failstate with no checkpoints, so it drifts right into irritating
3. Boss: Squid Baron continues his trend of, honestly, just having way too much health
4. Itemization: Money. Even when killing almost everything at all points there just is not enough cash
5. Walkthroughitis: Getting the Death Mask and getting to the Ammo Factory
6. Encounters: Bit of an enemy spam problem
7. Boss: The Dagron is a weird boss. He’s either too frustrating, too annoying, or too easy…
8. Level: Propeller Town. Too much focus on trial and error, instant death spikes, and memorization
9. Boss: The Steel Maggot. You have to hit its buttons in the right order, which randomizes each time, then get a brief vuln period behind it, which can be eaten up by it being off screen, but on top of everything else… it’s boring (it has only one mechanic)
10. Walkthroughitis: 100%ing. Some of these are just… honestly bonkers in how hidden they are, aka the Super Metroid Negative
11. Outro: Screw this outro so hard. It comes out of absolutely nowhere with death spikes absolutely everywhere
12. Outro: Special mention to the breakable blocks room which gets its own negatives, first for the usual (instant death spikes and having to redo the whole room if you screw up) but also…
13. Outro: …because the breakable blocks don’t respawn, meaning if you screw up you have to reset completely and start over from scratch

Story Positives:

1. Cutscenes: Usual good usage of portraits
2. Atmosphere: Usual charm… but like, the adorableness
3. Atmosphere: Adorableness. So much adorableness
4. Atmosphere: I’m sorry, the transformations are SO CUTE
5. Brickwork: Town
6. Brickwork: Counterfeit mermaid factory
7. Brickwork: Desert
8. Brickwork: The Race and Ammo Baron’s fleet
9. Brickwork: Hypno Baron’s place
10. Plot: Call me weird but the micro plots as we go through each being self contained stories works for me

Story Negatives:

1. Cutscene: So Shantae is evil OH NO but no it’s okay because they knew she was inside there all along and she’s fine! In like… two minutes!
2. External Continuity: Some obvious issues, but Risky is the big one, as she’s arguably completely out of character here (stupid and pointlessly cruel)

Gameplay Positives:

1. Backtracking: The levels all vary up a bit the second time around
2. Boss: Ammo Baron is simple but very fun, with good escalation
3. Boss: Double Barons, however, is much more fun
4. Boss: Giga Mermaid is neat, fun, and visceral
5. Boss: Squid Baron is fun
6. Controls: Usual good controls but what really sells it…
7. Controls: …is the proper usage of quick select and shoulder swapping
8. Difficulty: Hardcore mode actually changes up level design and makes the game properly more difficult
9. Guidance: Pretty decent for the most part. Very few times where I felt lost, especially with the help NPCs in town
10. Intro: Starts off a bit bland but takes off very quickly, with fun and interesting platforming, good indicators, and a fun boss fight…
11. Intro: …earning two positives
12. Itemization: Much better money drop rate than before
13. Kit: Beach mode
14. Kit: Jammies mode
15. Kit: Ninja mode
16. Kit: Officer mode
17. Kit: Pirate Queen’s Quest, and all the fun from playing as Risky again
18. Kit: Some really good kit in this one with the transformations and items both…
19. Kit: …easily earning two positives
20. Level: Counterfeit Mermaids is probably the best level in the game. Starts off as a simple moving platformer which evolves into a hook hopper, and mutates later into some fun stuff on the second time around…
21. Level: …earning two positives
22. Level: Hypno Baron’s stage is short but sweet
23. Level: Some decent stuff in the desert overall, if a bit peppered and mostly interesting the second time around
24. Level: The race stage is pretty fun throughout
25. Minigame: General level design, making getting 100% decently enjoyable
26. Minigame: Pirate Queen’s Quest and the alternate playthrough
27. Music: While not quite to the dizzying heights of the previous game, the music in this game is just legit…
28. Music: …earning two positives, easy
29. QoL: Lots of little ones but they’re there
30. Terrain: Variable, but still fun terrain design
31. Enemy Variety: For essentially the same reasons as in the last game
32. Replayability: Generally replayable
33. Visual Distinction: In a first for the series, it’s pretty distinct to tell what’s what, where, and how
34. NG+: While not quite new game plus, Hero Mode qualifies for the same reasons as last time
35. Kit: Friends mode is neat but ultimately a bit too limited (one health bar with only three hearts, can’t swap in mid air or while hanging) but it’s still neat and fun to play as the trio

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Graphics: Town nausea… honestly what in the world were they thinking with this crap. I had to give a warning to viewers to not watch because of how nauseating and headache inducing the town scrolling is…
2. Graphics: …earning an easy…
3. Graphics: …three negatives
4. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Or lack thereof. Just… everywhere, really, leading to tons and tons and tons of redoing the whole stage… the game also likes to put instant death pits or spikes right before a transition (aka a checkpoint) because screw you…
5. Mid Mission Checkpoints: …leading to two negatives
6. Level: And some bullcrap in the desert. Just… total bullcrap
7. Outro: Final dungeon. You like flappy bird instant death spikes, right?
8. Outro: Well no problem, we got flappy bird instant death spikes
9. Outro: Final boss. So it’s a bit obtuse but what really makes it suck more than anything else…
10. Outro: …is it’s BORING
11. Outro: Final escape sequence and the lack of checkpointing
12. Camera: We’ve got the Donkey Kong Country 2 problem going on here with the camera wibbling and wobbling to try and put itself behind Shantae, which can be disorienting at best and nauseating at worst
13. DLC: General lackluster quality of DLCs across the board
14. Level: The final few Friends stages can go directly to hell with their bullcrap

Story Positives:

1. Atmosphere: Green, purple, red. The flavor this changes to your character and tone
2. Banter: Generally good banter throughout
3. Banter: Special points for Isabella and Aveline
4. Banter: Varric and… everyone
5. Brickwork: Beach and mountain areas
6. Brickwork: Kirkwall Hightown
7. Brickwork: Mark of the Assassin DLC
8. Camera: Actually some good stuff helping to flesh out the cutscenes
9. Character: The Arishok. Very well written, well acted, strangely sympathetic while never ceasing to be a villain
10. Character: Aveline is just amazing. Reliable, relatable, well presented, great quests…
11. Character: …earning her two positives
12. Character: Carver & Bethany are both halves of a positive for the game as a whole
13. Character: Fenris has his issues, but his presentation drags his character up to being overall enjoyable
14. Character: Flemeth. Brief though she is here, she is both memorable and very well done
15. Character: Gamlen is fascinating. He seems like a slimeball but ultimately he’s just a fairly normal guy, who is both loyal and friendly and is there for us when it matters… and he gets nice little backstory as the game progresses
16. Character: Generally good supporting cast (Thrask, Petrice, Prosper)
17. Character: Isabella. As per the Bioware Standard, she has a fairly coarse surface character and a lot more depth underneath that, especially in how she discusses things with other characters…
18. Character: …earning her two positives
19. Character: Merrill. In over her head but aware of it, stubbornly plodding forwards while knowing it’s a bad idea, and a good insight into blood magic and demons in general
20. Character: The characters have their own interactions and relationships one with another, including cutscenes and developing rivalries and friendships, with a lot of possible permutations…
21. Character: …for a full…
22. Character: …three positives
23. Character: Bonus points specifically for Aveline and Isabella’s growing friendship throughout the game
24. Character: Varric. What can I say, he is absolutely carried by his voice actor and practically carries the narrative on his back…
25. Character: …earning him two positives
26. Cinematics: General style (the painted stone look)
27. Dialogue: It’s intermittent, but there’s some sharp dialogue here and there
28. Humor: Mark of the Assassin DLC
29. Humor: Purple Hawke in general
30. Moment: Anders, Vengeance, Karl, and Tranquility
31. Moment: Aveline’s follow through on Leandra’s death
32. Moment: Petrice’s death
33. Moment: The Arishok finally being honest about everything
34. Moment: The blood magic mind control scene in the brothel
35. Moment: Varric’s introduction is exactly what it needs to be
36. NPC Set Dressing: There’s a surprisingly large amount of work done to make Kirkwall sound and feel like a city…
37. NPC Set Dressing: …earning two positives
38. Plot: Act 1 (mother, money, home). It’s a really good hook, keeps us invested, and explains all the sidequesting rather neatly
39. Plot: Qunari in general throughout Act 2
40. Plot: The dilemma leading to the crisis of Act 2 is honestly very well nuanced and dynamic
41. Prime Opt: Aveline & Donnic (and Isabella)
42. Prime Opt: Fenris’s quest chain
43. Prime Opt: The Tranquil Solution
44. Prime Opt: Varric & Bartrand
45. Secondary: The Magister’s son quest
46. Storytelling Mechanic: Codex
47. Storytelling Mechanic: For essentially the only good time in the entire game, the framing device of the interview is used to good effect with the Bartrand quest
48. Storytelling Mechanic: Friendship & Rivalry
49. Storytelling Mechanic: Letters
50. Storytelling Mechanic: Party member interactions throughout the game (to be specific, it’s when you can get a special interaction to deal with a conversation or encounter because a party member is present
51. Theme: The Mage Problem really comes to the foreground in this one
52. Voice Acting: Varric
53. Voice Acting: Female Hawke
54. Voice Acting: Hawke male
55. Voice Acting: Aveline
56. Voice Acting: Merrill
57. Voice Acting: Kirkwall citizenry
58. Voice Acting: Fenris
59. Voice Acting: Arishok
60. Voice Acting: General
61. Voice Acting: General
62. World Building: Chantry
63. World Building: Kirkwall
64. World Building: Qun
65. World Building: Tevinter
66. Writing: Romances
67. Writing: Corypheus is… a fascinating portrayal of an interesting character who is a great insight into lore long left forgotten in the series
68. Writing: Generally high quality across the Legacy DLC, especially including its Outro
69. Moment: Okay, you win, that last powow with the companions before the final battle is actually pretty legit

Story Negatives:

1. Storytelling Mechanic: The framing device is… more ridiculous the longer you look at it
2. Storytelling Mechanic: Limited party side, thy name is Bioware. But honestly, the banter and rivalry/friendship and additional dialogue options make it even worse than back in DA:O. Thus I have no real choice but to give…
3. Storytelling Mechanic: …the full…
4. Storytelling Mechanic: …three negatives
5. Storytelling Mechanic: And an additional for the extra lost gameplay benefit
6. Atmosphere: Over-emphasis of how awesome Hawke is
7. Moment: Carver/Bethany’s death is so token and just raced by
8. Pacing: Three days have passed… you can tell because it’s the same spot and the same day and everything looks identical. Then, minutes later, a whole year passed!
9. External Continuity: So outside of my own general lack of satisfaction with the relevance of Origins, the fact is there are several niggling issues all over the place with 2
10. Characters: Fenris has the same general problem Morrigan had; his character arc (and lack thereof) are in conflict with several of the options and preferences he has
11. Characters: So… Sebastian. He suffers from being a DLC character pretty badly (hardly any dialogue in cutscenes, and very little new banter), but what really makes him bad is the total lack of anything interesting about him
12. Spritework: So there’s no getting around it, DA2 is rather sexualized to the point where it detracts from the narrative
13. Characters: Isabella falls to this the most, but as per usual some of the relevant character arcs just… stop unless you romance them
14. Plot: So… Act 2… (and 3) why are we bothering? Excuses and headcanon can fill in the gaps but the game just sort of assumes we go along with everything
15. Plot: Okay, the previous two were debatable, but the final time skip makes the least sense by far. The events of Act 3 follow immediately after the conclusion of Act 2, and should have happened days later, not years…
16. Plot: …earning a second negative
17. Plot: Tallis is Right in classic Janeway fashion in the Assassin DLC
18. Character: Tallis… comes very close to a good character, but the specific execution just does not manage it
19. Writing: General issues in Mark of the Assassin, but most especially its very abrupt and unsatisfying ending
20. Prime Opt: So first, Isabella’s quest is built up across SIX years in lore and in almost every scene she’s in but then…
21. Prime Opt: …when we finally go deal with it it’s just resolved, like that. Just… woof, gone. It’s astonishingly unsatisfying
22. Prime Opt: So then there’s Varric’s Act 3 quest. It’s entirely too rushed, has a weird dichotomy, and establishes a point before doing nothing with it at all
23. Prime Opt: And then there’s Merrill’s Act 3 quest which is really starting to show the seams in the rushed development time and lack of polish, and boils down to a very binary choice which isn’t well telegraphed at all
24. Moment: So then we have the big ‘confrontation’ scene with Thrask and the mages and it’s just… so bad. Everybody acts stupidly, we just watch while Thrask dies, and it’s just… what?
25. Storyboarding: Then there’s the cutscenes which just get noticeably worse in Act 3. Like, way worse. Cheap PS1 era stuff
26. Plot: Then there’s Act 3’s Plot, a good idea terribly executed. The mage templar thing is a good idea, but the game is trying very hard to trim every branch other than the two extremes is left because… well…
27. Writing: …Because Plot. Act 3 is, top to bottom, Because Plot
28. Moment: So the destruction of the Chantry is… not a good scene. The effect is cheap, which I can excuse, but the scene itself is… weirdly rushed while also being ploddingly slow. The terrorist bomb goes off and then everyone just sort of stands around and debates it in this weirdly disjointed scene
29. Writing: So, uh, Orsino goes crazy… in like the worst, grossest way possible… for absolutely no reason (because the executives wanted one more boss fight). This is so tonally out of absolutely nowhere…
30. Writing: …it deserves two negatives
31. Outro: So first we have the rather empty non-ending after beating Meredith which, by itself, is so vacuous as to deserve…
32. Outro: …two negatives
33. Outro: Then we find out it was all just about finding the Champion to lead the Exalted March or whatever

Gameplay Positives:

1. Boss: Duke Prosper is easily the best fight in the game, with multiple phases, pay attention checks, kiting, and general design
2. Boss: Okay, I’ll give you that, the Rock Wraith was decent enough of a fight
3. Choices: Gifts reinforcing existing rival/friendship paths. While this is also bad, it’s still also good as it helps you to keep going down the path you’re on (assuming that’s what you want)
4. Combat: The always-useful percentage potions
5. Core Combat: And as before, the real time with pause and ability to give orders while paused
6. Combos: Combo system and cross class fun
7. Core Combat: Sustained System is back from the first game…
8. Core Combat: …earning two positives
9. Core Mechanic: Gambits. This one has an asterisk, but what’s really weird is the Gambits are even better here than they were in Origins. You have the default stuff of course (which also updates the moment you get a new ability), presets of course, custom stuff, but also a lot more options for more specific programming in the AI…
10. Core Mechanic: …making for…
11. Core Mechanic: …an unprecedented three positives for the core system
12. Core Mechanic: The additional positive for the presets
13. Core Mechanic: And a final positive for the sheer depth of the system
14. Info In Game: There’s actually a pretty decent amount of info in game for this one
15. Interface: Color and shape distinction
16. Intro: Strong Intro with good tutorialization and a quick taste of power
17. Kit: Mage is neat. While some of the mage pools are boring (looking at you Elemental) for the most part it’s good stuff…
18. Kit: …for two positives
19. Kit: Rogue is a weird one. It’s the type of class I wouldn’t enjoy because you always have to be trying, but if you are it’s got some great combos and burst potential…
20. Kit: …for two positives
21. Kit: Warrior is the best class, of course. Big, sweeping attacks and lots of ability to control the field while remaining extremely mobile…
22. Kit: …for two positives
23. Level: Most dungeons have a quick exit
24. Map: Actually useful and functional, if not 100% accurate
25. MSQ: The entire Mark of the Assassin DLC has a few issues but between the ‘free roaming’ Hinterlands, the party, and the escape sequence
26. Music: Some good stuff here and there
27. QoL: Loot all, target nearest, loot nearest, glittering loot indicators, crafting unlocking
28. Respec: They cost gold and a DLC but they’re there
29. Saves: Same good save system as before; Autosaves, quicksaves, manual saves…
30. Saves: …for two positives
31. Starting Options: Functional character creator. Not the best, not the worst, some decent stuff
32. Viscerality: Try to be shocked, but the game prizing being flashier and actionier managed it…
33. Viscerality: …earning two positives
34. Encounters: Legacy DLC enemy design and encounter design
35. Level: Actual puzzle and level design to the Legacy DLC
36. Boss: Legacy DLC’s Corypheus fight is great
37. Replayability: Differing options and paths and builds

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Backtracking: There’s a combination of problems here. First, available quests are not labeled, only existing ones. Second, some quests only show up after other triggers, meaning having to re-go over areas repeatedly. Third and finally, a lot of these quests require one to backtrack ANYways simply to cover the same ground again now that it’s available
2. Boss: The Arishok fight honestly isn’t that great. He’s very basic and just has a giant pile of stats and health
3. Choices: Friendship & Rivalry. So… you’re kind of locked into one or the other at a certain point, except it’s very easy to end up ‘evening out’ depending on your choices, and gifts barely make it better (or actively make it worse depending), meaning you’re disinclined to pick the choices you want and instead end up trying to guide your responses purely to help ‘farm’ those points
4. Choices: So DA2 makes a mistake that ME1 also made; an NPC can ‘presume’ a romance with the PC which then leaves you with only two choices; go along with it, or shut it down hard
5. Choices: TOR Effect (not as bad as it could be, but it’s there)
6. Encounter: Battle positioning decided for you after dialogue… again
7. Encounter Rate: Dragon Age 2 Syndrome… yeah it’s called that for a reason, and it’s really bad in this one. I was already tired of combat by Act 1…
8. Encounter Rate: …so we’re giving it the full…
9. Encounter Rate: …three negatives
10. Graphics: Blur of Depth! But you’re probably wondering why this is triple negative. First is the obvious, it’s headache inducing, but what really shoves this into triple territory is it cannot be fixed. No, really. No toggle in game, no combination of settings, no manually editing the INI files, nothing. So that makes…
11. Graphics: …for…
12. Graphics: …three negatives
13. Graphics: Untoggleable headache-inducing Fade effects
14. HUD: The choices dialogue wheel is… weird, inconsistent, and doesn’t include things like numbering options or like how Mass Effect 1 would always put similar style of choices in the same ‘slots’ on the wheel. But worst of all, the game has zero indication of which dialogue options you have already picked or not
15. Interface: Multi-party inventory juggling is a colossal pain. You have to swap party members, then check inventories, then swap, etc.
16. Interface: The gambits, and occasionally some aspects of the menuing don’t do tunneling properly and/or are inconsistent in how they control
17. Interface: There are inconsistency issues with item colors, labels, and irritations with figuring out what does what
18. Launch: So if you buy the game on Steam and buy the DLCs there it won’t ‘decrypt’ those DLCs and as a consequence you will have no access to the DLC you just bought. This is a byproduct of the decryption step being tied to older servers and sites that do not exist anymore but that does nothing to prevent this from being…
19. Launch: …a full…
20. Launch: …three negatives
21. Level: So I hope you like repeat dungeon design, because they sure do! This is… it’s so bad, I can’t even put it into words, so instead I’ll just give it…
22. Level: …the full…
23. Level: …three negatives
24. Map: So while you’re doing the repeat dungeons the minimap shows the entire dungeon, not the part you can currently access, which not only gets in the way of navigation but renders the minimap functionally useless for said dungeons
25. Overly Skippable Cutscenes: Mostly with banter
26. Padding: So in some cases it’s fine and in others it is turbo not, so there’s a padding problem with fast traveling thanks to having to reach a fast travel node here and there
27. Starting Options: Starting class determines Bethany vs. Carver
28. Walkthroughitis: Friendship & Rivalry, same issue as listed above in Choices
29. Sound Design: Occasional audio balancing issues
30. Padding: So… the enemy health starts to get padded to hell and back in Act 3, to the point where even ‘trash’ fights suddenly take too long, and that’s before you take into account the waves of enemies
31. Controls: Combat targeting can get wonky
32. Guidance and Flow: Act 3 is, spontaneously, missing a lot of the previous markers, indicators, and other ‘flow’ that helped to know what to do when and where
33. Encounter Rate: So Act 3’s encounter rate feels like it’s gone up due to related factors, which just… makes Act 3 (a short Act, all things considered) drag
34. Choice: So in Act 3 you pick Meredith or Orsino and it… has no substantial variance at all. Same quests, same areas, same encounters
35. Choice: And a special bonus negative for Choices gameplay in Act 3
36. Traversal: Walk walk walk
37. Choice: So throughout the game there’s options to try to make peace between the two sides… aaand then you are absolutely, no really, forced into picking a side, a choice even the developers think shouldn’t be
38. Boss: So you fight Orsino. He’s… tremendously boring, he just stands there
39. Outro: The entire Outro is… the exact same barrage of random corridors and encounters the entire rest of the game has been
40. Graphics: Spiders! One of the few, the proud, the negatives
41. Enemy Variety: If you can even call it that

Story Positives:

1. Animations: Some truly excellent motion capture which always adds to the scenes…
2. Animations: …for a full…
3. Animations: …three positives
4. Babylon 5: Tutorialization intro flashback thing
5. Background Lore: A lot in the news bits, but really the Life Invader posts
6. Brickwork: Beach
7. Brickwork: Beach
8. Brickwork: Beach
9. Brickwork: Desert
10. Brickwork: Desert
11. Brickwork: Desert
12. Brickwork: Downtown
13. Brickwork: Downtown
14. Brickwork: Downtown
15. Brickwork: Franklin’s House
16. Brickwork: Michael’s House
17. Brickwork: Not rich district
18. Brickwork: Not rich district
19. Brickwork: Not rich district
20. Brickwork: Rich district
21. Brickwork: Rich district
22. Brickwork: Rich district
23. Camera: Aside from the wobbliness, the camera is always used very well in cutscenes…
24. Camera: …for a full…
25. Camera: …three positives
26. Character: Franklin
27. Character: Jimmy
28. Character: Lester
29. Character: Michael
30. Character: Michael
31. Character: Michael
32. Character: Supporting cast
33. Character: Trevor
34. Character: Trevor
35. Character: Trevor
36. Cutscene: Dynamic cutscenes in general
37. Cutscene: Establishing moments during Franklin’s early scenes
38. Cutscene: Michael’s initial rant about his life establishes so much not only about his character but also how awful things are for the world and in general
39. Dialogue: The dialogue is impeccable, again across the board…
40. Dialogue: …for another…
41. Dialogue: …three positives
42. Doodads: City
43. Doodads: City
44. Doodads: City
45. Doodads: Desert
46. Doodads: Desert
47. Doodads: Desert
48. Doodads: Franklin’s House
49. Doodads: General
50. Doodads: General
51. Doodads: General
52. Doodads: Michael’s House
53. Doodads: Trevor’s House
54. Foreshadowing: Lots of it, most the kind you’ll never even notice unless you’re looking, some incredibly overt
55. Humor: Internet in general
56. Humor: Okay so… Princess Robot Bubblegum is a bit much but holy crap that Midwest joke really, really got me
57. Humor: The Grain of Truth Organic Food Market and… all the food stuff really
58. Humor: Weasel News
59. Internal Continuity: The game keeps a pretty tight internal timeline through most of itself
60. Intro: Really great Intro; the heist gone bad, the beach, the shrink session, the first boost…
61. Intro: …easily earning…
62. Intro: …three positives
63. Lighting: Some truly excellent lighting design to really accent the scenes, world, and set pieces…
64. Lighting: …for another…
65. Lighting: …three positives
66. Moment: Character introductions (especially Trevor)
67. Moment: Lamar and Trevor’s ‘therapy’ session
68. Moment: Michael and Trevor and their standoff
69. Moment: The end of Debra and Floyd
70. Moment: The first confrontation between Trevor and the family is honestly one of the best scenes in the game. It starts off as another day in screwedupville, then Trevor shows up and the temperature changes instantly, Michael goes to protect Jimmy while everyone else quietly cowers, and then shifts again when they find out about Tracey…
71. Moment: …great, great scene
72. Moment: The Poleto Heist is, for all its stupidity, really awesome
73. Moment: Trevor, the proto-hipster
74. MSQ: Franklin meeting Michael and salvaging the yacht is an astonishingly well done mission. Franklin cuts through Michael’s BS immediately, Michael sort of naturally slips into the fatherly/don role for Franklin, we establish that Jimmy is both a victim and a slimeball, and all while chasing a damned yacht down I-5…
75. MSQ: …for two positives
76. MSQ: LifeInvader mission
77. MSQ: Lots of little details in the gas stealing mission, not the least of which being that great last scene with Trevor and Ms. Madrazo
78. MSQ: The entire torture sequence. It could have failed so hard, but nothing about it is glorified or romanticized. This is something awful happening to someone for no good reason, and it’s made very very clear that Haines AND Weston just sadistically enjoy torturing in general, and the whole sequence is just properly awful…
79. MSQ: …for two positives
80. MSQ: The family finally bailing on Michael, even with Jimmy being awful
81. MSQ: The first few missions are some absolutely fantastic stuff. Characterization, dialogue, world building, brick laying
82. MSQ: The first jewelry store heist
83. MSQ: The first Solomon quest, Michael coming in to his own, and the sheer happiness he has for it
84. MSQ: The nuke heist is neat, tense, and fun but really what sells it is how well it characterizes Trevor and his desperate need to prove himself
85. MSQ: The pebble. One tiny little thing and the whole story starts because Amanda was sleeping with her tennis instructor in Michael’s bed
86. MSQ: The ‘rob Michael’ mission is fantastic. It does more characterization for the entire De Santa family (Jimmy is cussing people out, badly, while playing the most generic FPS game ever, badly… Tracy is negligent and casually is okay with her boyfriend cheating on her while also accidentally ostracizing her friend for being ‘ugly’ and just shrugs it off… and the mother is sleeping with her tennis instructor, all while Michael is waiting for said tennis instructor in the car with a gun), and then it does SO much for Michael (he takes absolutely no crap, but pays Franklin for his troubles… and beats up Simeon rather than kills him because this is about sending a message)…
87. MSQ: …earning it two positives
88. MSQ: Trevor initial missions and establishment of him, Wade, Ron, and the lay of the land out in the boonies
89. Music Direction: Usage of licensed music
90. NPC Set Dressing: Tons and tons and tons of NPCs fleshing out the world, with their own comments, routines, appearances, lives…
91. NPC Set Dressing: …earning it…
92. NPC Set Dressing: …three positives
93. Pacing: Act 1
94. Pacing: Act 1
95. Pacing: Act 2
96. Pacing: Act 2
97. Secondary: Amanda’s robbery and the subsequent characterization for her and their marriage, Rampages, and a few other miscellaneous ones
98. Secondary: Nigel’s chain is just… so awful. Hilarious, but awful
99. Sound Design: Soundscape Coastal areas
100. Sound Design: Soundscape Desert and boonies
101. Sound Design: Soundscape Downtown LA
102. Sound Design: Soundscape Wilderness regions
103. Visual Storytelling: Floyd’s House
104. Visual Storytelling: Franklin’s House
105. Visual Storytelling: Michael’s House
106. Visual Storytelling: Trevor’s House
107. Voice Acting: Dave
108. Voice Acting: Franklin
109. Voice Acting: Lamar
110. Voice Acting: Lester
111. Voice Acting: Lester
112. Voice Acting: Michael
113. Voice Acting: Michael
114. Voice Acting: Michael
115. Voice Acting: Trevor
116. Voice Acting: Trevor
117. Voice Acting: Trevor
118. Writing: Franklin and his life… before and after
119. Writing: Michael and just how his life has gone
120. Writing: The dominos from Trevor languishing until pushed
121. Themes: Money
122. Themes: Therapy
123. Themes: Loyalty
124. Moment: Michael, Tracey, and Lazlow’s dick on dick
125. Moment: Okay yeah that big confrontation of the feds, the feds, the feds, and Merryweather was great
126. Story Sequencing: Acts 1 and 2
127. Outro: Okay yeah, Ending C does kinda hit. It doesn’t really earn it, but at least the pay off is legit, and it is quite satisfying taking down Haines and Weston
128. Banter: For all my issues, Lamar and Franklin’s banter is legit
129. Moment: One final, fantastic moment of killing our damned therapist
130. World Building: The game really does build up the awful… awful world that this setting really is

Story Negatives:

1. Camera: Shakey cam, quittit
2. Atmosphere: Vulgarity, good lord
3. Moment: The torture scene is… a bit much. It’s very, very well done, but it’s also exactly as horrible as it’s trying to be. And of course, there’s no opt-out
4. Prime Opt: The final middle finger to the player for finishing the Epsilon chain (there’s actually two, so hey)
5. Atmosphere: Gross. Just… a very, very gross game
6. Internal Continuity: So from Act 3 onwards the story starts having trouble keeping track of and with itself, leading to issues that only get worse the longer it drags out
7. Consequence Storytelling: Similarly, Act 3 and onwards has serious issues with how things just kind of… happen without much regard
8. Fake Drama: God, so much Fake Drama, in general
9. Plot: Poleto Heist. This is one of the most ‘because plot’ moments in the game. They need a helicopter so, naturally, they go to rob a bank to give money to the feds for them to buy a helicopter. Sure
10. Fake Drama: Also Brad. They just keep bringing him up to add to fake drama
11. MSQ: Burying The Hatchet is honestly one of the worst missions in the story
12. Fake Drama: Not getting paid is a recurring element of Act 3 and onwards and it gets worse the longer it drags on
13. Pacing: Everything about Act 3 onwards is so badly paced it’s hard to even properly vocalize…
14. Pacing: …earning two negatives
15. Plot: Family
16. Writing: Family
17. Characters: Family
18. Characters: Franklin’s crew
19. Writing: The game weirdly tries to frame Franklin’s crew as if they’re right which is just… what?
20. Story Sequencing: Acts 3 and onwards
21. Story Sequencing: Everything about the threads leading to the Outros
22. Fake Drama: I’m really tired of Trevor in the Outro
23. Outro: Ending B, top to bottom. It’s trying really hard to be this big, serious thing but fails at it miserably to the point of bad comedy, and basically every characer in it is completely out of character…
24. Outro: …earning it two negatives
25. Outro: Ending A is very flat and very vanilla and honestly pretty unsatisfying all around

Gameplay Positives:

1. Controls: Driving. Good lord it feels so smooth and fun and fluid to drive in this game…
2. Controls: …easily earning…
3. Controls: …three positives
4. Controls: Movement in general
5. Controls: Shooting, especially with mouse and keyboard
6. Core Combat: Shooting and combat in general is pretty legit, and fun to do, and with a decent variety…
7. Core Combat: …for three positives
8. Core Mechanic: Driving is just so, so good in this game I can’t even put it into words. I love just driving around in this game, whether racing, going full tilt, or even just driving normally…
9. Core Mechanic: …earning it…
10. Core Mechanic: …three positives
11. Core Mechanic: Personal cars. Having one, locked-to-you car which always respawns and occasionally shows up in missions (fully repaired) is honestly a great feature, allowing you to fully upgrade it and keep all those pricey upgrades and customize the hell out of it and enjoy it through the whole game…
12. Core Mechanic: …earning it two positives
13. Difficulty Curve: Decently smooth
14. Difficulty Options: Optional gold requirements, and the additional variety they add…
15. Difficulty Options: …for two positives
16. Enemy AI: General
17. Enemy AI: Reaction to shots and injuries
18. Guidance and Flow: So many, many little tiny details the game does to put you near things or facing things or next to optional missions and so on and so on…
19. Guidance and Flow: …earning a full…
20. Guidance and Flow: …three positives
21. HUD: General. Clean, easy to see, useful
22. Hyperbeam Moment: Poleto Heist. Good lord, hahaha
23. Interface: General
24. Interface: GPS
25. Intro: Good variety of gameplay and nice pacing and intensity, without outstaying its welcome
26. Intro: Tutorialization
27. Kit: Guns in general
28. Lighting: The lighting design in this game is bonkers good, some of the best I’ve seen in gaming…
29. Lighting: …earning an easy…
30. Lighting: …three positives
31. Map: Generally good and useful map
32. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Very good mid mission checkpoints, not just having good placement but good ‘resetting’ in some missions (and usually refilling your health too)…
33. Mid Mission Checkpoints: …for an easy…
34. Mid Mission Checkpoints: …three positives
35. Minigame: Tennis
36. Minigame: Golf
37. Minimap: Useful in general
38. Minimap: And also dynamic
39. MSQ: Agency infiltration mission
40. MSQ: First Solomon mission; Drive, stealth, fight, fly
41. MSQ: Longshoreman mission
42. MSQ: Madrazo’s plane crash
43. MSQ: Prep work in general (very dynamic in many cases)
44. MSQ: Robbing the kids’ supercars
45. MSQ: The final bundle of Michael’s quests, up to and including the drug trip
46. MSQ: The first ‘mission’ as Franklin; Great tutorial for driving, special abilities, losing cops, and the GPS system
47. MSQ: The jewelry store heist is a bit simple compared to later ones, but still good and still fun
48. MSQ: The mid air nab
49. MSQ: The Nuke heist
50. MSQ: The second mission as Franklin. Shooting, tension, dynamic driving run-down, again good tutorialization
51. MSQ: The train heist has a lot of little details to make it better
52. MSQ: The Yacht mission. Very, very well designed for such a scripted mission, lots of ways it can go thanks to the dynamic stretch of events
53. MSQ: Three’s Company and rescuing the poor guy from the Agency
54. MSQ: Trevor and torching the meth lab
55. MSQ: Trevor’s initial missions do some good tutorialization for his ability, and the style of missions he leans on (shootouts against large numbers of enemies)
56. Music: Great music for missions, scenes, moments, even some individual vehicles…
57. Music: …for two positives
58. Dynamic Music: Also the dynamic music, which changes based on tempo, action, or scene…
59. Dynamic Music: …for another two positives
60. Options: Generally good options
61. Overworld: City, Center
62. Overworld: City, Center
63. Overworld: City, Center
64. Overworld: City, Middle
65. Overworld: City, Middle
66. Overworld: City, Middle
67. Overworld: City, Outer
68. Overworld: City, Outer
69. Overworld: City, Outer
70. Overworld: Desert
71. Overworld: Desert
72. Overworld: Desert
73. Overworld: Hills
74. Overworld: Hills
75. Overworld: Hills
76. Pacing: The game is just brilliantly paced front to back, with different types of missions, built in breather segments between missions, most sequences not taking too long or too short to start the next one…
77. Pacing: …effortlessly earning…
78. Pacing: …three positives
79. Penalty For Failure: Same as usual, but still decent
80. QoL: General
81. Replayability: I mean I love replaying this game in general
82. Save System: Hard saves, quicksaves and autosaves as per usual…
83. Save System: …for two positives
84. Secondary: Adrenaline missions
85. Secondary: Bridges
86. Secondary: Paparazzi
87. Secondary: Races
88. Secondary: Rampages
89. Secondary: Stunt jumps
90. Secondary: Tow missions
91. Sound Design: Very, very good sound design…
92. Sound Design: …for two positives
93. Traversal: Bike, truck, plane, boat. These all play and feel and work a bit differently than each other and all feel very fun to go through…
94. Traversal: …for a full…
95. Traversal: …three positives
96. Traversal: Cars are above and beyond. Traveling is just a treat in this game…
97. Traversal: …earning it…
98. Traversal: …three positives
99. Tutorialization: Mostly unobtrusive and built into the game
100. Viscerality: I mean, yeah
101. Visual Continuity: Lots and lots of great landmark and camera design to always help you navigate even if you have no map, no minimap, and no GPS…
102. Visual Continuity: …earning itself…
103. Visual Continuity: …three positives
104. Visual Distinction: Very, very good visual distinction, very rarely does it make things difficult to distinguish…
105. Visual Distinction: …for two positives
106. MSQ: It’s a simple, set piece chase mission, but chasing Molly around the airport is very fun
107. MSQ: The Bureau Raid is one of the best missions in the game. Best part is, it’s TWO missions. We either go in super hard, or super quiet, and both are brilliantly built…
108. MSQ: …earning it two positives for one
109. MSQ: And then there’s the other two Bureau mission positives…
110. MSQ: …for another two positives
111. MSQ: Another fantastic mission with escaping from the feds… and the feds… aaand the other feds… and Merryweather
112. MSQ: The Big One is, just like the previous Heist, is really great mission… or rather, two missions. I can’t possibly do them justice in text so just trust me that the ‘loud’ option is great…
113. MSQ: …for two positives
114. MSQ: Then the ‘quiet’ option is just as awesome…
115. MSQ: …for another two positives
116. Outro: The final shootout in the steel mill is very well designed. Good layout, all three people, great positioning, good events…
117. Outro: …easily earning two positives
118. Outro: I also love the way the final three assassinations let you approach them however you want to
119. Cosmetics: It’s not much but the car cosmetics are still pretty good

Gameplay Negatives:

1. MTX: Shoving GTA Online into our faces right up front on the start page
2. Secondary: Hang outs are dull, dreary, and boring…
3. Secondary: …and worse, are near mandatory for some fantastic story elements
4. Secondary: Robbing cars is also pretty damned dull…
5. Secondary: …for another two negatives
6. Graphics: Blurry blurgh (rampages, focus modes) which leads to wonderfully headache inducing moments
7. Bug: Occasional Taxi issues (just not showing up or saying it will but then cancelling and so on)
8. Secondary: Collectathons (Playing Cards, Spaceship Parts, Letter Scraps, Submarine Parts, Peyote). They’re just plain not fun, and there’s way too many of them in way too large of an area and it’s just… awful…
9. Secondary: …earning it…
10. Secondary: …three negatives
11. Prime Opt: The entire ‘wait 10 days’ quest is absolutely awful for a lot of reasons. You cannot switch characters for extended periods of time, cannot do activities or missions, and just sitting and waiting takes eight HOURS of real time, or of course you just sleep… 40 times… in a row…
12. Prime Opt: …earning it…
13. Prime Opt: …three negatives
14. Info In Game: Accidentally starting missions. It happens infrequently but more than a few times
15. Walkthroughitis: Good luck finding all the content without one
16. Prime Opt: So then there’s running through the desert for 5 miles. It took about 30 minutes real time. Do I even need to explain this nonsense? This quest…
17. Prime Opt: …earns an easy…
18. Prime Opt: …three positives
19. MSQ: Getting on the damned train (and some related issues in that mission)
20. Difficulty Curve: While only periodic, here and there the (semi-forced) lack of armor and the ‘low health’ problem can be an issue
21. Secondary: The real estate side quests (especially those damned signs)
22. Permanently Skippable Content: There’s plenty
23. Overly Skippable Cutscenes: Same issue as in previous GTAs, if less so
24. Outro: So Ending B is the first mission in the game that’s railroaded in a bad way, and it’s not great
25. Outro: Ending A honestly suffers from the same general problem

Story Positives:

1. Banter: Mid-air banter, middle tier
2. Brickwork: City
3. Brickwork: Countryside
4. Brickwork: Desert
5. Character: Tabloid, Count, Princess Cosette
6. Cutscene: The Mission 16 briefing by itself is some fantastic visual and audio storytelling
7. Cutscenes: Briefings
8. External Continuity: There’s a couple of cool usages of previous points (most notably Stonehenge)
9. Level: 10… “Not that it was a load worth protecting”
10. Level: 16. The tone and atmosphere of mission 16 itself is just great
11. Moment: (sand storm, the Arsenal Gear’s reveal, the squad beating the misinformation
12. Plot: War campaign
13. Voice Acting: When it’s good it’s good
14. World Building: Comes close to really developing the world a lot, but still close enough for a positive
15. Plot: I actually like the dynamic between the princess, the granddaughters, and the evil scientist
16. Outro: Okay I do like bits of the Outro narratively. Not the ending, but the build up, final mission, and final climb up the elevator are great moments
17. Character: Captain Torres and his voice actor are honestly pretty good, selling the madman
18. Doodads: Generally good doodads, especially in the cityscapes

Story Negatives:

1. Character: The penal base commander. He’s already abrasive, but could have worked with a bit more polish, and instead he’s Udina or any other Obstinate Bureaucrat all over again
2. Consequence Storytelling: Okay so we’re being accused of killing the (former) President Cargo
3. Cutscenes: In betweens (bad narration, bad editing, lack of relevance)
4. Dialogue: It’s either dialogue or localization but there’s several issues here
5. Empty Text: Top tier mid air banter
6. Plot: Way too many concurrent plots. Feels a bit kitchen-sinky and each one loses focus and interest as a result
7. Theme: Did you know that information and misinformation ruuule the battlefield?
8. Writing: So everything about the penal squadron doesn’t really work as written. They need to do something with them (of which there’s a lot they could do) but instead we’re just regularly abused and then on to the next mission
9. Plot: Why in the world is the junk yard queen even in this game?
10. Cutscene: The entire Cosette ‘dies’ missile cutscene is weirdly contrived (and then undone!)
11. Outro: The game whitewashes… a lot because it’s trying to wrap things up, and Mihaly and Dr. Evil getting ‘good’ endings is… not great. This is in addition to several other weird decisions at the end (Tabloid dying almost ‘off camera’, and trying way too hard to wrap up too quickly among other things)
12. Writing: DLC All the weird nonsense surrounding the two ‘bat’ rival aces

Gameplay Positives:

1. Controls: Honestly controls just as well as 5 and 0…
2. Controls: …earning two positives
3. Enemy AI: Usual good stuff
4. HUD: When it’s visible it’s good
5. Interface: ACMR
6. Intro: Good opening sequence of missions
7. Kit: Parts are a nice additional customization option
8. Kit: Planes, as per usual…
9. Kit: Weapons continue to have good variety and kit
10. Kit: …for the usual two positives
11. Level: 11 is a bog standard points mission which could be improved in several ways, buuut it does have that core destroy mechanic which rewards precision with mass kills and points
12. Level: 12 is a fairly simple mission but the ground troops actually being worth a damn and the encounter with Arsenal helps keep things varied
13. Level: 13 and the bombing, followed shortly by the high-paced IRBM missile chase
14. Level: 16 and the blackout. It’s one of the more memorable missions in the game and does some good stuff with unit placement
15. Level: 17. More blackout, but better spread of objectives
16. Level: 3, and the first assault on the Arsenal Bird
17. Level: 4, radar dodging (and shortcuts), ground, and drones
18. Level: 5, swarm for a bit, then take on the bombers
19. Level: 7. While it has frustrations, it’s well checkpointed and the gimmick of the wind, clouds, and lightning is actually pretty neat
20. Level: 8. The initial is a milk run to set you up for the follow-through; chasing down targets in a dust storm
21. Level: 9. Starts off as a tense gradient avoidance canyon mission and then turns into a nice moment followed by super weapon avoidance shots
22. Minimap: Still good stuff
23. Music: Yep…
24. Music: …yep
25. NG+: Usual
26. Sound Design: Combat barks
27. Viscerality: The game finally feels, sounds, and looks visceral
28. Song: Daredevil
29. Boss: The second Arsenal Bird boss fight is awesome
30. Outro: Okay yeah that final encounter wasn’t too shabby, and I rather liked the final trench run
31. Core Mechanics: New buff/debuff mechanic with DLC
32. Level: DLC 1, with the massive dogfight that develops and evolves as it goes
33. Level: DLC 2, with the free for all doom
34. Level: DLC 3, which is both unique and contains…
35. Boss: …an awesome boss fight
36. Replayability: Generally replayable, plus unlocks and optional stuff

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Audio Spam: Missile. Missile. Missile
2. Boss: The first super drone. The thing shrugged off 40 missiles like it was nothing, and is bullcrap on every level, but good luck dealing with it if you weren’t prepped, and apparently is designed around using the gun sight which also didn’t work at all
3. Bug: Crashes
4. HUD: Related to the lighting
5. Interface: The entire tech tree has lots of issues with control and readability
6. Kit: So the tech tree is… not well designed top to bottom. Pricing is wrong, layout is wrong, unlocking per plane is wrong, and no resell / rebuy / respec is wrong
7. Level: 14 and binary difficulty (instant pass/fail on both halves of the mission) and the arbitrary time limit in the second half
8. Level: 6. Not a super well designed point mission, and built to screw you over if you over-spec or build the wrong way, and even with a good setup it’s easy to fail and have to start the entire mission over
9. Level: Points missions in general are juuust irritating enough to, as a group, qualify for a negative
10. Lighting: Good lord
11. NG+: Mandated new game plus
12. Options: Lack thereof (rebinding in particular)
13. MTX: Overpowered drone microtransactions which are available from the beginning (and for multiplayer)
14. Boss: The duel boss with the bats is legitimately headache inducing; prolonged fight up in very bright areas while constantly having blinking irritation
15. Mid Mission Checkpoint: The DLC specifically has long, long stretches between checkpoints