So I'm having a trek through the generations third person cover shooters that i remember not liking much and remembered this game. Went in without much expectation and coming off the back of spec ops the line gameplay I was expecting another clunky poorly aged boring unreal engine 3 game but this surprised me.
I barely remember anything about it when it came out it kinda just came and went but I wasn't expecting something this good. Hooked from the first level the gameplay is simple yet feels really satisfying and the characters/narrative really carries the experience. Series X backwards compat version really boosts it as well with sharp visuals and smooth framerate. Didn't realise it came from the Yakuza devs
You'd think a shooter where all the enemies are robots would feel sterile and boring but they really made shooting them satisfying and visceral. You could shoot their heads and limbs off and they spew scrap particles everywhere on every hit.
The story and characters feeling very Japanese also helped it stand out from the hundreds of generic Western cover shooters clogging the market
spoiler
Unfortunately it did not help the game sell though