Mission: Impossible - Operation Surma Review

 This game feels like the closest thing you will ever find to an amalgamation of Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell. You have the action shootouts, non lethal gameplay, and setpieces of MGS and the shadows based stealth, climbing, guard grabbing and gadgets of the Splinter Cell series. This game would funnily enough introduce the ability to takeout enemies from cover a decade before Blacklist would implement it all though unlike Blacklist and Splinter Cell in general, you have no ability to shootout lights and shadows are basically just cover points. An improvement over the MGS series this game has is that the non lethal tranq has limited ammo and finding pickups is hard to come by which means that if you want to actively take out enemies in a level without running out of tranq darts fast, you are going to have to take out enemies up close and personally, which is the way I like it. The music is also pretty good even if it remixes the MI theme a little too much but they are still well made. The game also has a super action packed setpiece driven finale that is devoid of a lot of stealth gameplay much like your average MGS game. However despite how interesting I find this game for being this weird amalgamation what prevents me from fully reccomending it and me calling it a hidden gem is the buggy nature of the game.

Examples being the AI notices you too fast, enemies can sometimes just spawn in, and getting alerted can lack any kind of consisteny, that and while the ability to cancel out an alert by scanning an alarm is cool, it's a feature that is very buggy. You can keep scanning alarms and the alarm will still activate which caused me to restart a section.

Another issue I have is that the controls can feel weird, and the takedowns can be very glitchy, which is why I stopped using them and grabbed enemies and took them out instead since grabbing is not contextual or at least is more consistently reliable. And the setpieces can be a nightmare at times, the ones where they emulate the films where Ethan is hanging on with a rope and hacking into computers while avoiding lasers being a low point. And the late game skydiving sections are also really imprecise and awkward to control.

The shootouts are while being nothing too special with guns having okay feedback and having decent accuracy and due to this, they aren't too frustrating but at the same time, the hit detection isn't that great with the enemies taking multiple headshots when the crosshair in on their head and the AI being really dumb where they just stand around or just move on occasion with no sense of tactics or self preservation, but once again, I didn't mind this too much since I would rather have dumb but workable AI than dumb AI with no tactics to exploit but it goes to show the unpolished nature of the game.

They story is your typical spy movie and Mission Impossible fare, they did a decent enough job adapting what you find in an MI movie narrative into a game, you have Ethan's teammates who is basically just his servants and nothing more, and the banter with the teammates are solid enough all though it feels like there was only 3-4 voice actors who were in this game. The villains are the kind you'd find in the genre. Speaking of voice acting, the idea of Steve Blum playing Ethan Hunt was rather amusing and I might prefer this to having a possibly bored Tom Cruise. He does a good job with the material he's given.

This game is weird in that, while it is generally playable and can be enjoyable, it feels like more polish could've elevated it a good deal. Still, I'd say the game is worth checking out as a stealth game fan and as a Mission Impossible fan.

Signalis Review

Coming from a guy who never really cared for the survival horror genre as a whole, this game was a good time overall. If the remake of the first Resident Evil, the Silent Hill games, anime like Ghost in the Shell and Evangelion and the character designs and asthetics of the Blame manga ever had a baby, you'd get this game.

It really does a good a good job gameplay wise at combining the best of both worlds of RE and SH. You got the firearms, inventory manangement and constant backtracking of RE while you have the more challenging puzzles and cryptic nature of SH. Firearms have a decent punch to them all though it feels like with how limited inventory space is, the amount of ammo and guns you get and with enemies getting ressurected after killing them, it feels like all this could be better balanced. I like that the crimson head system in REmake makes an appreance here but I did wish the game gave you the option to take them out in permanently without needing to use thermite because you get too much ammo in this game on normal difficulty and lots of guns some like the rifle and SMG I never even used since the game discourages you from killing due to the enemy ressurection. That and I also wished the game had REmake's map system of it being a certain color to know if you got all the items in the room and more inventory spaces since I was save room trekking a lot in this game, I think having one or two more slots can help. I also feel the game can be a bit too cryptic at times which fits the game but maps like Nowhere which is the worst level in the game can really frustrate me since there is no map and I have been using the map so much up until that point in the game, I did wish at the very least the game filled in a map as you were exploring it. It may sound like I am complaining a lot but I feel this game which is already very good can be utterly fantastic with some more refinements. I did enjoy my time with it.

I also think the story is intriguing from what I saw of it, I didn't understand it, but I am thinking about looking up videos where someone pieces things together since what I saw is interesting, that Ghost in the Shell homage before the fake out ending was also a good way keep my eyes glued since I am quite the GITS fan. The bosses overall are okay, 2nd boss being the most basic, and the final boss being a great way to cap off the game since it actually is a surivival horror boss that requires you to do more than just tank hits, fire your strongest weapon and hope you can kill it before your health runs out. It actually requires various degrees of recognizing patterns and moment to moment decision making of picking of healing items and ammo but having enough where you can hold a spear in your inventory.

Overall, like I said before, I am not a big survival horror fan but Signalis reminds me of how good the genre can in fact be when it's firing on all cylinders and not making questionable decisions.

Syphon Filter 3 Review

This game feels like a good return to form to SF1 after how scripted 2 was. SF3 feels like a combination of both, you have the open ended multiple objective approach of SF1 and the more scripted shootouts of SF2. This might be the most well rounded game in the trilogy. I also like how enemies wear flak jackets a lot less meaning not every shootout is a guessing game of whether or not you should use headshots. It was just so nice to see the multiple objectives approach and the open levels come back for this installment since like I mentioned before SF2's emphasis on stealth and scripted sequences felt jarring and more frustrating than anything. The map design is admittedly better in SF1 all though I did use the map a lot more due to the respawning enemies which can damper the experience of exploring some of the levels, that and the level pop in the open areas can make navigation more of a pain due to the fact that it feels like you are going through the same fields and chunks of level. That and my personal grievance of the objective style system of trying to find that one objective on the map on a first time through can be very grating since you can spend hours looking just to accidentally find the missing objective or accidentally miss it. The scripted and more linear levels with the exception of the Convoy Mission and the following mission after are much better handled than they were in 2 all though those before mentioned missions really tested my patience, I didn't mind the emphasis on escort missions but doing it with the Convoy and Ellis really tested my patience, since they force you to move at a fast pace and take out the enemies quickly or you will be in a slew of game overs, outside of those two missions, this was a solid time. I have no idea how this is even considered the worst in the trilogy.

Horizon Forbidden West Review

I did enjoy my time with Forbidden West for the most part but the whole game makes me question why it was event open world to begin with, the strengths of the game comes from it's combat and the various battles you take part in even on easy mode, the combat feels weighty and I did feel pretty good for taking down the gigantic machines and bosses. Constantly dodging out of the way and escaping every encounter with the skin of my teeth felt pretty good. Targeting weak spots with the gyro aiming, concentration and stick aiming can create a pretty unique feeling combat system especially since you are using projectile weapons and making sure the shots land instead of using hitscan guns. But at the same time, the game suffers from so many AAA open world games that has been there since Far Cry 3. Bandit camps, collectibles, simple stealth mechanics, climbing and parkour, automated grappling hooks, skill trees with only Hunter and Surivivor I put skills in, and so many other tropes that I have got sick of seeing after merely seeing it.

If the game was linear, you wouldn't need half this stuff and you can just focus on combat encounters which is what the game excels at. The main missions already feel like linear levels you'd find in a shooter campaign so I am just wondering what is the point of the open world. You don't even have the "climb anything" system like Assassin's Creed and Breath of the Wild do, so the addition of the open world just feels like a lesser version of what those games tried to do as well as the climbing in this game being sub par in it's own right with the animations feeling awkward and stilted with no sense of precesion also with 2 buttons climb and jump and to drop off a ledge which makes for a confusing system.

The story and cutscene driven nature of the game along with what I just mentioned just really makes me wish the game was linear. The story is okay even though the edition of Kryptionians was kind of jarring and the lack of Sylens was disppointing considering he had more scenes and lines in the first game. Another issue I have is the whole being "properly levelled" for missions while it could be because I played on easy mode and I didn't want to engage with the side missions, this whole system feels like a red herring like most games that feature this, since every missions I was way lower leveled for what the mission required and I was able to get past it without even dying and the game in every boss fight and story mission gives you enough resources to beat them. I am thankful the game didn't make me do them but at the same time, I got to wonder what is the point of this since time spent doing side missions robs Aloy of agency for the main quest and it could be possibly to have way more than what the game missions requires from you.

Overall, I do like the game, but I wish the open world rpg crap was just removed entirely since I consider it to be the weakest part of the whole game.

The 3rd Birthday Review

3rd Birthday is an odd game, it's certainly a solid PSP shooter and that is saying a lot considering the PSP didn't even a second analog stick, but the story in the game is certainly derserving of its bad reputation.

I'll start with the gameplay, the shooting feels solid and the overdive system surprisinginly works well here. Instead of refilling health through medkits or regen health, you will be diving into the bodies of various soldiers throughout the shootouts, if you are low on health, then switch bodies, and if a soldier dies, don't worry another one will eventually spawn into the battlefield, this does create for a unique feeling shooter, feeling like a cross between a 3rd person cover based shooter while sharing elements of tactical squad shooters, the crossfire ability really came in handy since it does a good job at widdling away at the enemy health bars. The controls work well and since I was playing on emulator, I got access to right stick controls and this might sound like this isn't in the game itself, I tried playing another PSP shooter Star Wars Elite Squadron on a controller and it still didn't control well, so the fact that this game plays rather smoothly with a 2nd stick is a testament to the controls to this game. Might as well talk about the stuff about the gameplay I didn't like, enemies are way too damage spongey, and even on easy mode, they will take multiple shotgun, pistol and assault rifle rounds to die, while I don't dislike on this on paper since it's supposed to promote the overdive and crossfire mechanics, it can feel jarring at first since enemies are damage sponge as soon as you load up the game and the tutorial explains so much to you at once and expects you to get it. I also wish overdiving into mosnters gave you some health back since it would give more options to regain health. The game also never outright explains to you how the gene evolution system works so I mostly never really bothered with it since I just kept scratching my head. The camera can also lead to awkward angles when dodging too much, I also wish I got access to some of the more powerful weapons since enemies in this game can spongey even on the lowest setting but I did enjoy this game's gameplay in spite of my complaining.

The music and remixes of the first Parasite Eve's OST is also fantastic and as someone who likes that game's OST, it was a blast to listen to them.

Now the story? This is where I am not so kind. I remember liking the first Parasite Eve and I liked Aya Brea as a character but this game's story is told very indirectly and cryptically. I am not 100% against this but the story is hard to follow and I would be more engaged but Aya's entire characterization in this game is breathing heavily like if she is getting asthma attacks or just act like a fragile scared child, while this does play a role in the game's ending twist, I found that twist to be an insult to the character and just a poor twist in general since it involves having a character show up at the end and then killing them off right after. As a guy who liked the first Parasite Eve, never played 2 and played this game, this game's entire story and ending feels on par with something like Highlander the Source. The fact you spend this whole game playing as Moe Brea just makes it feels like a creepy Parasite Eve fan fiction, Maeda's characterization in this game only confirms as such and he deserves his own part of this review for how much of a creep but I'll stop here. Do not play this game for the story Parasite Eve fan or not.

3rd Birthday, I would say is a solid game overall, but only when I am playing and not watching the cutscenes and enduring the awful writing.

Short Game Reviews: January 2023

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II(2022):

I really wanted to enjoy this campaign I really did, but it was so awkwardly paced, while also having terrible AI on top of having inconsistent checkpoints that makes Halo jealous to the point where it sapped up much of the potential enjoyment I could be having. The early parts of the campaigns were okay, just your typical CoD hitscan shooter affairs but then you get two whole missions dedicated to the AC-130 and everything starts to get really questionable, the AC-130's gameplay is far too one note to even have 2 whole levels dedicated and as a result I feel an intense burnout from all the on rails shooting from a bird's eye view I was doing. The sniping mission while on paper is good just does the same old stuff that "All Ghilled Up" did in the past and it feels by the numbers while the later parts is interesting, the bad AI comes in and the game gives you an option to sneak past armoured guards but when you get to the places you are supposed to be breaching, the guards you choose to sneak past will spot you right away even if you use tear gas and since the games loves to shove in armoured enemies and shotgunners, the end result is a level is a lot more frustrating than it should be partner that there isn't many ways to dispatch these enemies outside of just shooting them and hoping they go down or grenades them and it adds to more frustration. It doesn't end here no, you then get an entire level dedicated to an Uncharted style covoy chase while not bad, on it's own just isn't interesting to last a whole level on due to how much the chase eventually starts to wear thin after a while due to how many vehicles you will be destroying and jumping on to, then the game has a Hitman style sneaking mission where the game asks questions on if you were paying attention to the plot, and then you get to the Hitman style sneaking but the AI being bad ruins this section this guards notice you too fast, and it's just a game of hiding, health regen and then shooting. Afterwards the game borrows from Uncharted again and you have to play a game of avoiding getting shot by hitscanners or the barges will kill you. Afterwards you get two terrible stealth missons and due to the bad AI they are a pain since moving 5 seconds in a guards' line of sight could get you alerted or not. I have gone on enough but this MW2 campaign has so many questionable design and pacing decisions that it actively hinders any enjoyment I could be having.

It's poetic really, the original MW2 is what made me lose interest in CoD and this new version of the game made me lose interest in the series again after staying away from it for so long. This could be my last new CoD release I even play.

Warhammer 40K: Shootas, Blood and Teef:

Really enjoyable Metal Slug style game, the guns feel satisfying, and it has a decent amount of situational depth with certain traps needing to avoid from time to time like flame, spikes and electricity. My only gripes is some of the difficulty spikes that I had to lower it to easy since I tend to do it with coop games that offer difficulty options. The game gets mostly smooth on that setting especially when you get the Bolt Gun, some difficulty spikes also made me lower to easy since humannoid or bosses your size tend to be really challenging and have multiple phases without checkpoints inbetween while the giant size bosses are really easy by comparison.

That and this game also made me realize why Metal Slug often made you lose high power weapons really easy because then it would be easy to become reliant on them.

Still, despite all my gripes, this is my 2nd favorite Warhammer game, first best Space Marine and third beind Necromunda Hired Gun. I had a blast playing this.

Evil West:

Evil West was a really good game, in some ways it was everything I wanted DMC5 to be in terms of easing you into the mechanics and low and behold Flying Wild Hog didn't need an entirely new character in order to justify having a grappling hook. I remember early in the game I was like, "oh god, it's one of those games where the only way it ups the challenge is by shoving in tons of enemies" but what surprised me is that Evil West gives you so many ways to dispatch the hordes that I didn't care, that there were craploads of enemies and how many enemies that were spongey. On Normal, I got to use 95% of my aresenal of weapons and it made thining out the hordes really enjoyable. I felt pretty good for killing everybody without dying once. You are given so many tools, the electricity guanlet, the revolver, crossbow, rifle, flamethrower, dynamite, and much more, most of them need to be reloaded or on a cooldown so they can't be spammed, making combat a frentic game of hoping you have something on you to thin out the hordes, I also like that there aren't many combos in the game, since a game with too many combos becomes a game of me spamming the easiest ones. The campaign also does a good job slowly giving you new tools and abilites as you slowly get used to ones you already got.

My only gripes that it's a 12 hour game that feels like it been shorter and Flying Wild Hog seems to be on Capcom levels of "we know we can tell a compelling story in our gameplay driven game", the camera can also be kind of a bitch, and the bosses kind of suck but that's it, at least you get a checkpoint on each boss phase during challenging ones which eases the frustration.

Playing this game was a really good time for me, and if you want a new Darkwatch game in terms of setting and tone, or a melee focused Serious Sam style game, Evil West is very good.

Van Helsing Movie Game:

If you ever wanted a game that felt like it carried the spirit of the first Devil May Cry more than the sequels, then this game might be for you. It has all the quirks that first DMC game has, like an interconnected gothic world strung together with linear levels with optional paths, an awkward dodging system that doesn't feel very precise much like DMC1, and a cumbersume camera all though this game uses a follow cam rather than just fixed camera angles. The difference with this game is that melee combat in general feels downplayed, I used firearms a lot more than using melee weapons since the dodging and the camera made melee more disorienting than anything especially with how much the camera likes to awkwardly zoom in when you use melee strikes. And firearms revolve around widdling away at health bars while dodging out of the way, it just makes me realize how awkward DMC could be if it had a heavy focus on firearms all though you could argue DMC2 was proof of that, this game however is better. I feel like maybe the game would've been better if it was just a straight up third person shooter and just ignored melee combat or just made melee a light part of the combat even if the game would need a new camera system to accomplish this. Another issue is how the camera during particularly with Dracula can be very bothersome and especially how the first 2 bosses with Dracula are massive difficulty spikes and the final boss with him being a pushover.

Some good about the game outside of the before mentioned interconnected gothic world is the cool "Monster Movie Universe" fan service. I haven't watched the Van Helsing movie in many years but the fan service here is as intriguing as a superhero movie tie in game having villains and locales from the comics in the game and despite not really being into the Monster Movie Universe, I do appreciate the fan service on offer here.

Overall, it's about as okay as a movie tie in game can get, all though to be honest, this game does make me curious about playing Castlevania Lords of Shadow again since it's very similar to this game in terms of premise, ideas, and feel.

The Entropy Centre:

This is a pretty well made game, and I do like how the game constantly throws in new gimmicks and mixes up previous ones and in regards to that the game works well but at the same time, I feel like I would've enjoyed this game a lot more if it was shorter and if I was more into puzzle games. I say the former is because I feel like when I got late game, my mind got really exhausted by all the puzzles by the halfway point, it reminded me how much Portal benefitted from it's brevity and I am curious about checking out Portal 2 again as a result, if that counts for anything. That and I am not super into puzzle games since I feel so much of the gameplay is finding the solution, once you look it up, then 90% of the overall gameplay is bypassed. I tend to prefer puzzle games with multiple solutions as a result something like an Hitman and it pains me to use this term but "immersive sim". I feel like the length of the game along with my lukewarm thoughts on the puzzle game genre worked in tandem to make me think while this game is enjoyable for the kind of game it is, I found it to be okay. Also, the voice acting and character interactions also helped me get through the game and the overall atmosphere of the game. There is a lot to like but at the same time, I got bored by the gameplay after a point since so much of it revolves around moving cubes in a certain order to progress. The action segments do a decent job at changing things up even if the combat can be tedious since you can only take two hits before you die. I mainly played the game since I heard it was like Portal and I am curious to see how those games hold up after playing this. Once again, this game is good for what it is, but I am ultimately lukewarm on it.

Super Mario Odyssey:

I enjoyed my time with this game the more I played it, that's the best way of describing my time with Mario Odyssey. I have beaten the game twice now and I always found the early parts of the game kind of dull while everything from Metro Kingdom and onwards to be pretty enjoyable. I do like how this game isn't so much an open world game in the traditional sense but more of a collectathon platformer you'd find in the late 90s and early 00s stuff like Banjo Kazzoie, Spyro and Jak and Daxter. It's not about doing missions to progress the story but more so exploring the world and finding collecticles in order to progress to later parts of the game, and while the early sections aren't bad, they were kind of boring especially Sand Kingdom which can have have way too much empty space for my liking, but Metro Kingdom and onwards has enough open space and enough collectibles to find on the beaten path or if you explore casually while on the beaten path to the point where exploring the open worlds with your move set can feel rewarding and enjoyable. I might prefer Bowser's Fury attempt at an open world Mario but this game was also pretty solid. I do personally prefer Mario Galaxy's linear level based approach but I prefer linear games in general but Odyssey executes it's open world gameplay well enough due it to emulating a style of game I do enjoy. The bosses and overall difficulty is pretty easy, and I have seen a number of people criticize the game for that but I am glad the lives system is gone since lives systems in games are basically just red herrings don't add much to overall experience. The bosses are also pretty easy, you might die maybe once or twice to figure out their patterns even if that but I do like the overall easy but not too braindead easy difficulty to be make a game for a rather relaxing experience. Not for everyone especially those demand challenge out of their platformers but for me, I did like there was nothing that was hair pullingingly difficult.

I had a good time with this one even if it did take a while to get into the groove regarding the level design.

The Legend of Tianding:

What if you had the Guacamelee games but remove all the metroidvania aspects? You basically get this game. And what is here is pretty good, the platforming and combat all feel as satisfying and prececise as the above mentioned games. All though what makes me not reccomend this game highly as I could be is the structure of it. When the game lets you partake in the various dungeons the platforming and combat all feel solid, well made and has a fast lighting fast pace to them, when you are in them, it feels fantastic. The combination of traps, obsticles, enemies and combat encounters makes for gameplay that is so seemless when going from platforming to combat feels so smooth and is hard to put down when you are in the groove. But here is the problem, there isn't that many dungeons or at least not as many as I would like, I was shocked to know that this game has a lot of story and cutscenes while I didn't outright dislike the story, I just found it dull when compared to the platforming and combat, and there are some lengthy dialogue and downtime sequences in this game, a bit more than I would like. I feel like if the game had maybe 2 more dungeons and lowered the amount of story and downtime in the HUB world than I would enjoy this game way more.

Other issues is that the RPG elements feel very tacked on, about as tacked on as it gets, you get various pickups from fallen enemies or npcs from the HUB world that don't really do anything, and the amulet feature only had 3 active slots being used and the rest I didn't even bother. I am glad it's not on reliant on rpg stuff elements over actual skill but everything about it feels tacked on. I also wish the game has a middle difficulty since I have a hard time telling which is the intended difficulty when there are two options. I assume the first one was for the first time player since you can take more damage and I eventually went with that since bosses wipe out your health bar super fast on anything higher.

Overall, it depends on how much you don't mind the heavy emphasis on story and downtime. If you don't mind them, then you might enjoy this game a lot, but if you don't you enjoyment might be that high. Keep that in mind if you want to try this game.

Dragon Ball GT Review

Finally, everything has been leading up to this point, I watched the original Dragon Ball earlier this year and then Z afterwards and GT is a show I have vague memories of since I watched it as a kid back when the Blue Water Dub was airing many years ago. Most my actual memories of GT was with the DBZ games when they would cover GT. So watching this series after so many years, how does it hold up? Honestly? It's not that great, not the worst anime I have ever seen and it's not 100% deserving of the bad rep it gets but at the same time, there are a number of issues with DB GT that prevents it from being consistently enjoyable for me. The best way of describing GT is that it feels like an anime where the writing staff was getting fired every couple of episodes and as a result the whole show feels like an oddly disjointed experience and the show does eventually reach a point where I can sit through an episode without asking questions every 10 seconds but at the same time, GT's underlying problems still persistent. I will be going over the series Saga by Saga and rating them individually and then giving the series an overall score like past DB anime reviews.

Black Star Dragon Ball Saga - 5 out of 10. Jumping into GT right after DBZ and things get jarring right away. So many odd inconsistencies and random jumps from point a to c rather than smoothly transitioning from point a to b to c. First of all, Dende forgets that he has the ability to heal people and literally asks Mr. Popo to give Goku first aid. Then even more questions I start asking, like how did Pilaf and his crew know where the Lookout was? The Lookout was a closely guarded secret and you would have to be an A class detective to figure out where it was, and Pilaf magically knows where it is and even finds the means to get there with everyone smoothly getting past security to boot. This is like the Joker or a Batman villain figuring out where the Batcave was, knows Batman is Bruce Wayne and is able to bypass security with ease and it's all done off screen. It doesn't even end there, oh no, it turns out Kami had a dark secret with the Black Star Dragon Balls and he never once told Goku or Mr. Popo about it and they are super dangerous yet so easily accessible that Pilaf is able to find it without even looking hard. I know Dragon Ball was never was the most planned series throughout it's run but this is just stretching it. Then Goku becomes a kid again because Red Shenron did not know what a figure of speech means. And it doesn't end there, after this Roshi is in the city for some reason and Goku decides to randomly eat food instead of going to his family about his problem. What truly annoys me about this Saga is the fact that the whole idea is actually sound on paper but the writers find a way to screw it up with the Z fighters going on a intergalatic space adventure to find them even if the whole story is lacking in agency since no one seems to be that concerned that earth will blow up in a year. Vegeta has to drag Goten and Trunks to go and no one seems to be that concerned overall. But the set up is still there, but the writers lazily write Goten, Vegeta and Gohan out of the story since they didn't know how to write a dynamic with 6 characters so they have Pan magically hit the launch button on the ship as if it was easily accessible because someone would design a ship that way. Okay, I ranted on the early episodes of GT enough, but it is so bad to the point where I consider it some of the worst content DB has ever produced. This Saga does get better after this but not by a whole lot, the lack of agency still persists with the show never once keeping track of time to when the earth will explode and they spend multiple episodes wasting time on other planets not even knowing if a year will slowly past by. The adventures themselves are okay and the character interactions are decent enough to get me through it, but the lack of agency still persists. That and I am not a fan of how the series has done the Star Trek and Star Wars thing of having aliens be stand ins for human civilizations like a Space Middle East or Space Native Anericans, it's not enough to ruin the series for me, but it tends to be grating when stories do this. The story does start to have more tension and agency when they get to Giru's home planet even if General Rildo's plan which is really Trunks and Giru's plan to figure out Dr. Myu's plan can be rather convoluted when you think too hard about it. Goku's fight with Rildo was also pretty enjoyable. And well time to time to move on to the next Saga. 

Baby Saga - 6 out 10. This saga starts off as promising but GT being GT finds a way to make this an idea executed awkwardly. This 6 out of 10 is a generous one. We get introduced to first major overarching villain through Baby, and his abilities are pretty interesting with him being a body takeover parasite, and the early episodes with him are okay even if Baby does come off as a bargain bin Imperfect Cell since they both have a horror gimmick and need to outwit their enemies before they can get stronger, but after the episode where Baby fails to take over Trunks at the Space Hospital, the writing goes downhill almost immediately. After this, Baby manages to learn mind control, get a power increase AND learns where earth is entirely off screen, it almost feels like these episodes were cut out because this can be bizarre, and comes back to my issue of GT feeling it never smoothly transitions from a to b to c. Not only that but while Baby's backstory of him being connected to the Sayain race is interesting, it feels like a retcon of sorts because the Tuffles was never mentioned when Dr. Myu was trying to keep Baby alive, and it's never explained where Dr. Myu fits with Baby's grand design and how he came up with Myu's schemes, this is what I mean when GT's writers were getting fired every few episodes. Not only after all this Baby manages to take over Goku's friends and family and take over the world in a short period of time off screen as well. And my issues don't even end here either. Remember how I made a big deal about Dragon Ball's use of the worf effect and how important it is to establish how threatning villains are? Well GT, takes this concept and takes away any of the balance Z had. Every character Baby fights gets beaten very easily, Piccolo, Vegeta, Goten, Trunks, and Uub get beaten with ease and it rarely ever feels like Baby could even loose where Frieza, Cell and Buu got push back from the characters I mentioned minus Uub, Baby never once even has a challenge, this is everything people assiocate Z for having but miss the point. As a result everything in this Saga before Super Saiyan 4 gets introduced is dull. I might as well get to that, what pushes this Saga to a 6 and not a 4 or 5 is Super Saiyan 4. I will admit, when Goku transform into the Giant Ape and then Goku realizing he has family and friends to fight for to get him to snap out of it was well done. It's one of GT's better moments up until that point. Super Saiyan 4 is also one of the better moments of GT because Baby actually is faced with a challenge. From here on out the writing is actually okay, even if it has GT's bad habbit of having one sided fights and of course GT's really bad habbit where the series even has a on he nose metaphor, of the other characters besides Goku getting "buried" in the ground. The ending of the Baby Saga while sound on paper lacks any impact since Piccolo dies in his second appreance and he no showed in the story for quite some time. It lacks any kind of emotional core since Piccolo got one shotted by Baby the last time he was seen before the scarifice. This Saga is saved by Super Saiyan 4 mostly. 

Super Android 17 Saga - 5 out of 10. Not a whole lot to say on this Saga, it's the shortest Saga of GT, and it features all of GT's questionable writing antics from the start. How did Gero and Myu was able to hypnotize 17 on Goku's earth to being evil? He wasn't evil in Goku's time and he never killed innocent people, so you would need something great to have him turn evil, and it comes back to GT's underlying issues from not smoothly transitioning from point a to b to c. Also, how was Gero and Myu able to build an Android in Hell with recources they had and with Hell being on tight security? How is two 17s stronger than Perfect Cell? I still never understood that. Outside of those issues, the whole Saga feels like a rehash of the DBZ movie Fusion Reborn and it's not even handled as in that since it's GT being GT, all the characters besides Goku are useless and all they can do is beat up characters that are bigger jobbers than they are. And out of all the villains who come back get beaten really easily and Vegeta's reunion with Nappa is less than a minute, if this is supposed to be "fan service" it's not handled that well. Goku's fight with Super 17 is okay and Android 18 does get decent closure here but that's the only praise I can give this Saga. 

Shadow Dragons Saga - 7 out of 10. What? What is this? After all the complaining about GT thus far I am giving it some praise, yes, this Saga is by far GT's magnum opus and is the thing that prevents me from calling GT completely "unwatchable". The Saga at the start was decently foreshadowed with negative energy making the Dragon Balls crack which already is writing above the standard that GT has shown thus far. I also love the concept on paper, and it feels like the writers were doing a decent job at understanding how overused the Dragon Balls were and how it erased any permanent consequnces the DB series ever had. There is a weird meta involving this Saga and I like it all the more for it. I also like how each Dragon gave Goku a challenge and he had to outsmart all of them in order to win. And while a bit too OP for my tastes Omega Shenron does a good enough job at feeling like the series "final boss" of sorts which is rather fitting since much of my exposure to GT was the DBZ games. It does suffer from GT's problems of every character besides Goku being one note jobbers, and aspects of it feel rushed like how the Shadow Dragons took over the world, learn their abilites and got personalities in the span of a few hours, but this I can ignore this the actual overall writing feels competent now even I wonder why Bulma couldn't make a new Dragon Radar for Goten, Gohan and Trunks to use to help Goku and even Vegeta needing to use Bultz Waves to catch up to Goku was decently foreshadowed and is about as close to interesting characterization for Vegeta GT will ever give. 

Overall, I get why GT gets it's bad reputation but I do feel the Shadow Dragons Saga somewhat saves it and the ending is a better conclusion than what Z provided and it's brevity compared to other DB shows is one big reason why I was able to finish it at all. The show is mediocre but not completely unwatchable.