These will be ordered alphabetically for the most part. Any series will be grouped together obv.
AAAAAAHSHHSHAHSSGDLS SHES SO GOOD I LOVE HER. This is also the game that humbles by reminding me that i am baaad at video games. Fuck Grace and Glory. Worst enemies. The bosses are generally satisfying. The games ending feels a little drawn out.
By PlatinumGames/Sega (Promotional artwork), Fair use, Link
SHE'S BACK I LOVE HER SO MUCH 
Great game. Fun gameplay. Amazing visuals. Great music. I've been listening to Tomorrow is Mine and Moon River on loop ever since.
Bayonetta haarrrrd
I had to switch it to easy mode. The game was barely a challenge at that point. Unfortunately there's a huge leap in difficulty between easy and normal. I would not have been able to beat the game on normal.
There's also an item you can equip that basically completes combos for you. I had that switched on the whole game. Didn't really make a difference beyond changing which attack was happening. Made for a better visual experience rather than me doing the same two combos over and over.
Story is fun. I really liked Balder this time around. Rosa was also really cool.
But alSO GRACE AND GLORY MADE AN APPEARANCE. I froze up when i saw them the first time. I was shook. I was soo scared. Fuck G&G. They suck. 
Fantastic combat system. The Demon Masquerade mechanic is so much fun, and meshes really well with the existing combo system. It’s so satisfying to finish off combos with a sick finisher move.
This game has the same difficulty curve as previous. Easy mode is a joke while normal is punishing. It only occurs to me on this game that this is deliberate. Aside from accessibility, easy mode is for anyone who wants to master attack patterns on enemies without seeing a game over screen too often.
The plot was okay. I liked the plot of bayo 1 and 2 a little better. The music is fantastic. The characters were all bangers.
I didn’t really mind playing as Viola, but shes no Bayonetta. The problem is the game has an MC thats really fun to play, so switching to any character by comparison is always gonna feel like a downgrade. Playing as Jeanne was meh. Her levels weren’t bad, but they werent fun for me personally. It took me a while to get used to the sudden genre shift, so I had a few frustrations that i needed to work around.
The thing that really caught me off guard is that Luka turns out to be some sort of werewolf creature? ¯\_(σ ‸ σ)_/¯???
It’ll be interesting if they’ll make a Bayo 4, especially considering that by the end of the game Bayonetta is like, DEAD dead and Viola takes up the mantle.
Close to perfect. Mechanically, this game is perfect. Everything about the nightmare sequences feels really, really good. The controls are snappy, and losing never feels like the game is being unfair. I absolutely abused the rewind feature. Its built in the game so you can’t call it cheating.
I remember the original reception for this game claims it to be incredibly hard. I found it fairly intuitive. With a bit of practice, I can play on hard mode no problem. Just goes to show how differing game types can be a big factor in difficulty for different players.
Plot is near perfect. I dislike the "good" path boils down to self-sacrifice is always good and marriage is the be-all-end-all goal of romantic relationships. Otherwise, the addition of Rin is good. I suspect anyone who plays the Full-Body version would not be able to identify the changes and additions from the original 2011 version.
Posted: 2025-07-28
yo this game is GOATed?? squaresoft was absolutely cracked at making games in this era. ffvi. banger. chrono tigger. banger. ffvii banger. back to back to back BANGERS. whatever squaresoft was doing, they had THE SAUCE.
There's plenty of ink spilled on how good chrono trigger is. it's hard not to see mention of this title come accross your desk if you're big into jrpgs. i'm very happy i went into the game pretty blind, and i encourage anyone interested trying the game as blind as possible. its a lot more forgiving than you'd assume, given the reputation for granular changes to the ending based on your decisions.
it is well known that chrono trigger has some pretty incredible music. there is a forest early in the game that you have to traverse several times, now this would normally be pretty annoying, except this area has the best music in the game.
I played the ps1 version which really made me wish i was playing on a snes. Discs may hold a lot more data, but theres a reason Nintendo stuck with cartridges for most of their systems, and thats because of LOAD TIMES BAYBEEEE the game tends to hang up any time it needs to load a new map, entering/exiting battle or opening menus.
the spritework is incredible. square was really upping their game from previous titles and worked magic with the snes. instead of one tile tall characters, characters were roughly two tiles tall. other characters were even larger. it helped that the movement was not restricted to a grid. overall this gave the game a more expressive and fluid look. the artwork for this game was done in collaboration with Akira Toriyama and, yup, his fingerprints are all over this thing lmao
chrono trigger has a hidden karma system. game gives a taste of this early on w the trial. most memorable moment was the game accusing me of caring more about riches than being a decent person. the game logic is that i picked up an invaluable pendant instead of checking if the girl i crashed into was ok. the reason i picked up the pendant is to give it back as quickly as possible. the reason i didnt talk to the npc is because this is a VIDEO GAME i know shes going to be just fine because shes clearly a prospective party character, and this is a video game. why would i check on a character when i know she has iron tight plot armour? (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
I like that this game put a lot of consideration into its time travel. The logic is not strictly internally consistent, unless your logic is "what is most interesting thing we can do?" Before I finished the game, I discussed the time travel and plot with my roommate, and anytime we asked the question "wait, will the game let us do this?" the answer to every hypothetical has been "yes".
For example, theres a floating dungeon that is summoned by events in the past. Its retroactively added to all eras in the future. I wondered if it was possible to clear the dungeon furthest into the future, then go back one era and clear it again. Turns out that is possible! You can clear the dungeon up to three times in three different eras if you go in order from furthest in the future and work backwards. Naturally, if you clear it out in the past, the dungeon will be completed in future eras. and if you try to enter this dungeon after Lavos destoys the world, it's inaccessible.
since time travel is a core feature/mechanic of the game's story telling, there are a lot of interesting side quests to engage with especially near the end of the game. there are minor puzzles that will have clues in different eras. some story bits are only available depending on what the player has accomplished across different eras. I think my favourite piece of environmental storytelling is if you spare Magnus and bring him back into the past, his cat will still recognize him (TTATT)"
ALL the characters are great. each party member has a strong character arc and each one gets their own turn in the spotlight. the fan favourite character seems to be Frog (and rightly so) but my favourite was Marle. 
flea is best villian for gender reasons :3c
the combat is pretty great. the game does not switch to a battle screen. rather, combat happens right on the map. the locations where party members and enemies stand is not standardized like it is in a typical turn-based rpg. this game utilizes an ATB, much like other games square produced in this era. the most novel feature is that attacks will have an area of effectiveness. different attacks will have different shapes for their aoe, and is also dependant on the location of enemies relative to the attacker. this was really cool to see in a snes title! (the only game that i've seen that does anything remotely similar is infinite wealth lmaooo)
there is NO defence action. weird
The game is short. I clocked in at about 20 hrs. It seems the game is designed to expect the player to enter new game+ to unlock the various endings. most endings are achieved by beating that game earlier than you're meant to, and the endings change depending how much of the plot the player progresses through. playing through the whole game and reaching the end is mostly the same with variations depending on who is left alive and how you decide to travel to the final boss.
interesting that for a lot of the endings, the characters still follow through with their driving motivations. Frog will try to kill magnus if you dont. The gang will try to revive Crono if you dont. Magus stays the course if you dont interfere.
Kojima games are weirdTM.
The game keeps telling me im supposed to care about Amelie and I just don't. Episode 10 has a shot of the ensemble cast telling Sam to go east and those are all the people I care about. These characters were interesting and we spent time learning about each of them and they were easy to sympathize with. On the other hand, Amelie just sucks. Even Higgs was more interesting and likable and a big driving factor for me to keep playing. That guy's a freak I love it.
I was told Kojima endings/cutscenes are long but i was not at all prepared for that kind of time investment holy crap. Whatever time estimate you have in your head for a Kojima ending, quadruple it.
This review has been moved to The Bin.
Posted: 2024-12-27
Normally I wait until I see a credits roll before I review a game but I need to write about Elite Beat Agents. I've only put in maybe an hour of gameplay, and thats really all you need to see in a rhythm game.
EBA goes extremely ham. You are an agent for as military organization that using music to solve very mundane problems in an elaborate and over-the-top fashion. Your boss, Commander Kahn sends you and your 2 partners onto various missions. Im deeply pleased any time Daddy Commander Kahn tells me I did a good job. (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ) The guy even lambasts you and kicks you out of a mission if you close the DS in the middle of a song. Incredible
The gameplay is pretty straighforward. Hit the markers on time, slide at the right pace, and spin the ball at the end of every song. EBA fully utilizes the touchscreen with similar gameplay style to Osu! (Upon further research, it seems that Osu! was based on the gameplay developed for EBA. That explains why the gameplay looked so familiar. (=u=")7) The game has a decently harsh punish for missing notes. It doesnt take much to fail a song, but there is an easy mode, and like any rhythym game, the player is expected to practice a track over and over again. The downside is that this game doesnt let you preview tracks. There is a review mode, but it only lets you review your own gameplay up to the point of mission failure. You can complete a section, and then get caught totally offguard and be required to redo the song from the beginning. It also turns out reducing the difficulty starts a seperate save file, so you'd have to redo the entire story mode up to the point where ther player got stuck.
The song selection seems to be exclusively western rock produced in English. In fact, the entire art direction and style has a very westaboo slant. I find this incredibly charming and delightful. °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
I kinda understand why Osu! players went kinda hard with this style of rhythym game, you're not just hitting a button, the dynamic range touch controls offer is much more engaging tha other styles of rhythym game. Its honestly what i was hoping to get from Theatrhythym but thats not the world we live in. :3c
Solid. Holds up really well. The ability to switch between the classic and remastered engine on the fly is such a cool feature. Campaign is a little on the short side, but honestly its better that it doesnt overstay its welcome. Fighting the flood was weirdly zen. I found i prefer enclosed spaces and CQC, and tend to die a lot in more open spaces. Some segments feel like a crapshot. Literally just yolo'd my way through some fights without actually killing anything. Savepoints will sometimes skip seemingly at random. Not much of an issue when the game reloads so fast. The Library is easily the best level. 343 Guilty Spark is such an ambivalent bastard its great.
These two games blend together in my head because i played them back to back. Pretty aesthetic. Incredibly charming, cute overload adventures. Some of the solutions are a little opaque. Sometimes I tried to apply a solution to a puzzle too soon. Otherwise these games are too cute to dislike.
By Games Database, Fair use, Link
So cute!!
The game starts off super easy and has a very gentle ramp up in difficulty. Kirby games are generally designed for younger children, so this is pretty expected. There is a difficulty hike in the post-game but by that point you've probably unlocked a good chunk of the upgrades and have items you can buy with in-game currency to assist with these levels. Part of the easy difficulty is there are very few actions the player can actually do (relative to other modern triple a games). Kirby can only jump, attack, dodge, spit, use item, and float. That’s it. All the shoulder and trigger buttons do the same thing, so I had no issues with controls.
The feel of the movement and platforming remind me a lot of Super Smash Bros. This shouldn’t be a surprise considering both series are developed by the same studio, HAL Laboratory. This game has dodge tech (!!), which immediately makes this a great game for me.
This game uses the same technique as Legends Arceus, in that is reduces the framerates of assets that are really far away. This is more acceptable in Kirby, since the camera is almost always on-a-rail, and the field of view is usually pretty small. So this mostly goes unnoticed during normal gameplay.
Speaking of camera, i never tested if you can move the camera in boss fights. Generally, the camera has set positions it snaps to, and it’s very acceptable in most cases.
I was disappointed that the post-game levels are just a rehash of the existing levels, but with the aforementioned difficulty spike. Those levels are also tinted with a colour haze, which was sometimes unpleasant to look at. It also made some environment hazards harder to see. There were already purple poison puddles and some ya-hoo really though “ah, yes, what this REALLY needs is a purple fog :)))” Thanks, I love it...
I got to around 92% completed, and could probably 100% the game if i gave it one last push, but i don’t feel compelled to.
I haven’t tried co-op mode, but I'll hazard a guess that this would be a great game to play between parents and their young children.
Fantastic game overall. Cute aesthetic. Fun gameplay.
By HAL Laboratory / Nintendo - https://www.ign.com/games/kirby-and-the-forgotten-land/videos, Fair use, Link
Posted: 2025-06-06
✧ If you like JRPGs, i highly recommend playing Lost Odyssey. ✧
This one is kind of a fascinating weirdo. A JRPG made by a bunch of A listers in the game industry came together produce a lovingly crafted game... exclusive to the Xbox 360. This game wasnt exactly a commercial success. Japanese players liked the game just fine, but there weren’t many Xbox 360 owners in Japan to sell to in the first place. There was better commercial success among westerners (given that there were simply more Xbox 360 owners in the west) buuuut the game didnt resonate as well with that crowd.
I mean, a turn-based JRPG is going to be a hard sell on a machine known for games like Halo and Gears of War. This was the console that perpetuated the jokes about Xbox Live voice chat and you expect the same gamers that got THAT reputation to play a thoughtful, slow-paced jrpg? I genuinely wonder what Microsoft was hoping to achieve when a lot of jrpg players at the time were already well-fed in the Playstation economy.
To be clear, I liked Lost Odyssey. Its just easy to speculate why this game flopped. Not only was this an exclusive released on a console that wasn’t very friendly to jrpgs, its got that AAA expensive high production thing going on. I mean, the 4 discs was a dead give-away. This thing cost money to produce.
Oh, yeah. This game has FOUR discs???????
That aside, I will tell you the level of detail in this game is incredible!
Of course, Lost Oddyssey does have some incredibly high fidelity cutscene magic going on. I can only imagine a major part of the disc space going into just that. Most cutscenes are rendered in engine, and theres a lot of deliberate story telling and cinematography going on. The faces on these character models have more animation points than Ive seen even compared to games produced for more modern consoles. There are split-screen or picture-in-picture shot compositions just to give us a tight shot of a characters face. (Although there are fewer of these compositions as the game goes on.) The direction makes a lot of very subtle choices. There are plenty of shots that cut to a characters’ face even though there is no dialogue. The animation team is absolutely flexing when a character is expressing their feelings through facial expression and body language alone.
The colour pallette of the game is pretty drab. Again, this is typical for a gen 7 console game. The game is not devoid of colour, but the pallette is washed out in yellows and browns. The atmosphere of may areas is magic and/or industrial grunge, so this limitation at least matches the feel of the game world.
As much as i admired the game visually, i didn’t feel wowed by any of the music. it sort of sinks into the realm of audio wallpaper if that makes any sense.
There is also a level of attention to detail outside of graphics and animation.
To demonstrate this, i wanna describe a cutscene i found in the lategame (i think it might be disc 3) The party is looking for where the big bad parked the Grand Staff (a huge floating tower sized magic construct). Turns out, the big bad parked it back where it was originally built. There’s an early game area of a mountain pass near by. There is no reason to explore this area plotwise at this point in the game. And yet, once you reach the top of the mountain, there is a cutscene of the party spotting the Grand Staff in the distance. The characters say something akin to “yup, there it is” and speculate on what the big bad is doing/why. Then the cutscene ends.
It’s realistic that the main party would comment on it, given that they were looking for Grand Staff since it disappeared after fuckin up a major city. But the idea that the devs would go the extra mile to include a cutscene in an area that player has no business revisiting speaks to the attention and care that went into this game.
There is also plenty of detail in design and textures. Certain parts of clothes seem to be modelled separately from the bodies and layers underneath. Clothing straps tend to stand out. Instead of just painting a strap of clothing onto the model, straps will get their own geometry and will flex independently from the layer beneath them. Some outfits had trim, lace, or tassels that would sway as a character moved. The main party has some of the most elaborate costumes of any characters in-universe (as you do in any rpg). The best way I can describe the designs as “very cosplay-able”. The female characters show substantial cleavage, but the detail that impressed me most were the veins on the boobs. I dont think I’ve ever seen that detail on a female character in a video game. And. For equality, the male lead has the small of his back exposed between his armour. A very tantalizing choice. (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ)
Speaking of characters, the main party is pretty likeable. Even though 3D turn based games tend to have a much slower pace, I didnt mind so much when the idle animations were so expressive. Each character would display so much personality just from the way they held themselves.
Kaim is the lead male character of the party. The majority of his character growth happens retroactively. Like the other immortal characters, he has amnesia and gradually gets his memory back. When Kaim regains a memory, the game switches to A Thousand Years of Dreams. These are text-based sequences enhanced with some music and artwork. Genuinely, these are some of my favourite bits in the game. Most of these sequences centre around an experience Kaim has had during his travels from the past 1000 years. They’re usually heartbreaking stories from his interactions with mortal humans. Only a few are required for the main story, but i ended up finding most of them wandering around various areas. Anytime they came up, I was pretty happy to cozy up for story time (even if most of them were quite tragic). The more of these memories you find, the more of Kaim’s character is revealed to the player.
Seth is the other immortal you get right off the bat. Shes AWESOME!!
Jansen by far is my favourite. I might have found him annoying in another life but i ended up finding him pretty endearing. It probably helped that hes not a scumbag. He comes off as a sleaze ball pretty early on and to be clear, that is absolutely the case for disc one but he never crosses over into creepy or predatory territory. For the most part, he clearly cares for the other party members with an added dose of goofball energy. It probably helps that Jensen is more often a kind and reasonably concerned for the kids in the party.
The kids are alright. Honestly the only reason I like them is because their abilities were so useful. They otherwise function as props for the character arcs of the other party members. They’re fine.
Ming is another immortal. Her outfit is incredible and I was just glad to get another magic user on board. Her boobs had veins on them! Thats amazing!!
Hot tip; Your final party should have all your immortals absolutely yoked. Do not neglect any of them even if it feels redundant.
Tolten is really funny because i thought hes so obviously a party member when i first saw him. I mean, he was decked out in a full set of bedazzled gold armour but has the personality of a sad wet puppy.
Sed is only funny because of his dynamic with Seth lmao. Loved his intro. He’s an old man who is a mama’s boy for an immortal that looks 20. Watching Sed crying for his momma when he sees Seth for the first time since he was like 8 is both funny and endearing. Also, he has a gun. Much respect.
Okay, now to get into the actual gameplay.
The core of the game is that your party will be made up of mortals and immortals. The mortal characters have standard growth for a jrpg. They learn skills naturally as they level up. The immortal characters can only learn new skills from a mortal in the party. This puts the immortal characters at a slight disadvantage early on as the immortals will not have many slots to assign skills. Eventually, it’s clear that the immortal characters run laps around the mortal ones. If you chose to fight some optional bosses, the gap between immortal and mortal party members becomes even wider.
The party management and juggling learning skills for the immortals scratches that particular itch that makes grinding enjoyable.
The battle system is functionally basic. (This is one of those games where victory is entirely decided before you start the battle.) Despite that, this game manages to keep it interesting by throwing a lot of puzzle bosses at the player. I didn’t find it too difficult, I generally was able to beat each boss within two tries. This was certainly a relief for me, I didn’t want a repeat of ffx and those cheap ass OP boss fights ʘ‿ʘ Instead, Lost Odyssey tested the player on game observation and game knowledge. If a boss has a paralyzing attack, its the player’s job to give the party paralysis immunity. Straightforward problem solving without relying on giving a boss 500 000 hp or some other garbage like that. (TдT)
I can imagine this game bouncing a lot of players off in the first disc since the game is stupidly hard right off the bat. The lack of party members in a game designed for a full team of 5 active party members hurts in those early boss fights. It doesn’t help that grinding everyone to become immune to paralysis is basically required for one of those early bosses.
I’ve mentioned before that there are 4 discs. Previously, ff13 has left a bad taste in my mouth for more modern multi-disc games. Ff13 put strictly linear levels on disc 1 and 2. Those areas cannot be accessed when you reach the actual open world portion on disc 3. As a result, disc 1 and 2 can feel like a slog and disc 3 is the only disc with interesting exploration options. Its pretty obvious that the discs are separated by location. Once you clear a disc, its impossible to return to that area.
Lost Odyssey doesn’t feel like that at all. As standard for any JRPG, most areas in the overworld are restricted until the player either reaches/clears areas, or obtains new vehicles to traverse the world. This is true in this game as well. Some previous areas may become inaccessible for plot reasons. For one section, the party is locked to one island. Once the party gets access to more areas, the player isnt restricted from revisiting early areas and dungeons. The only time the player is restricted is because the plot called for it, and not as a contrived means to cover for a hardware limitation. This means the entire overworld is accessible on multiple discs. (✯◡✯)
(As an unrelated aside, Mass Effect 2 also has multiple discs that also separate disc 1 and 2 by location [sort of]. Mass Effect 2 has the beginning and ending sequences on disc 1, and then has all of the overworld exploration – the bulk of the game – on disc 2. If i recall correctly, its possible to start the ending sequence, get prompted to switch back to disc 1, then change your mind and attempt to access a previous area, then get prompted to switch to disc 2 again. Honestly this is a pretty elegant solution to the multi-disc problem.)
My point is, I wasn’t expecting to have access to the final dungeon AND access to the entire overworld on disc 4. It sort of makes me wonder what the heck magic Lost Odyssey was on when they printed the game on 4 discs.
I feel like I’ve hardly scratched the surface of what i love about Lost Odyssey, but I’m 2000 words deep, and I need to end somewhere.
As of this writing, Lost Odyssey was made digitally available on newer xbox consoles. It is not available anywhere outside of the microsoft ecosystem. If you are resourceful, it might be possible to play this game on PC. (>u*)b
Best battle music. Easy. Slaps so hard.
For context, I played Lufia 3 before I played this one. Lufia 3 has very different gameplay compared to Lufia 1. I was disappointed that Lufia 1 turned out to be a standard JRPG, but that shouldn’t have surprised me. I was hoping I would get more of whatever weird system Lufia 3 had. What’s worse, the opening of the 3rd game spoils the ending of this game, so I already know how it ends. Still, the characters are charming and the romance between the protag and female lead is cute.
The balancing is a little weird. Its easy to one-shot enemies early on, but bosses are incredibly stacked. I suspect the game is balanced for the mid and late-game. I think the game expects the player to use a lot of buffs and debuffs, but those aren’t available in the early-game, which makes bosses disproportionately difficult early on.
Turn order remains nebulous till the very end. I couldn’t tell you how it worked if my life depended on it.
If you’re going to play this, play this on emulator with save states. Lufia 1 has a game over penalty. You lose half your gold, AND it costs gold to revive party members, BUT not every town has a priest. You could use items to revive, but those items can’t be purchased in shops. That sounds like a recipe for softlocking to me.
Some of the event triggers needed to progress are completely missable. There are two (maybe three) event triggers needed before a gem saleswoman tells you about a ruby mine that you need to go back to. One of those event triggers is behind a different woman in the last town, who seems to be blocking a set of stairs and tells you "sorry, we're closed!" About half a dozen NPCs that have claimed to block a path have actually blocked the players path up till this point in the game. So i. Believed her. I took her word for it and walked away. They weren't closed. The game expect players to try anyways and walk right pasted her. *sigh*
There’s something really charming about the way the party characters interact and banter. Its very different from FF games, but it’s different in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on. The party has a tendency to argue about really silly and trivial things. The protag and Lufia are childhood friends and their interactions are pretty sweet. It’s hard not to be charmed by these characters.
THE ENDING The Ending My goodness the game had me tearing up from the ending. What a good and well written game ;A;
Good game. Pleasing visuals. Boss music slaps.
I know a love a game when i get close to the end and procrastinate. I do this because i don’t want the game to be over yet. I did this with basically every one of my favourite games. FFvii, BotW, Link’s Awakening, Shadow of the Colossus, Mass Effect 2 and 3 to name a few.
Lufia 2 was not a game i expected to join this list.
Whats important to mention is that even though this game is numbered 2, it’s actually a prequel to Lufia 1. The trouble with prequels is that we already know how everything shakes out. Despite all that, Lufia 2 did a good job of drawing me in and getting me emotionally invested.
Im glad i played this immediately after Lufia 1. This game has a lot of self-referential content, and some of the impact would have been lost on me had I forgotten some of those finer details. My favourite moment is the party retrieving a rare, but unremarkable flower for a stranger unrelated to the main plot. Only at the end of that mission do we find out the flower is a priphea, a thematically relevant flower in Lufia 1.
The way the characters are written,,, there’s something about it. I can’t quite articulate why I find it so lovable and charming. The way the characters bicker and interact has a quality that feels more natural. Like the characters actually care about each other, rather than tolerating each other because they all have a common mission. I think one of the factors is that the game regularly shows the characters as part of the world, rather than detached saviours of it. Most of the character interaction scenes have absolutely nothing to do with the main plot. NPCs are frequently depicted as chummy with party members.
Speaking of characters, it’s funny watching Maxim and Selan rush into a marriage a month after meeting because they’re supposed to have a kid before the end of the game plot lol. The relationship is super sweet regardless and feels fleshed out. This series seems to have a nack for making their romance plots super cute and fun.
That being said, i feel super sorry for Tia. :(
This game introduces monsters visible outside of combat and can be stunned and bypassed in dungeons.
There are also puzzle dungeons similar to topdown Zeldas. Except these dungeons don’t have themes. Generally, this means new puzzle types can show up arbitrarily but the devs have been good about posting signs that give hints or objectives.
The other thing this series does is have legacy characters. Zelda and FF do this as well. In Zelda, you can usually expect to meet a character named Impa, in FF, it’s Cid. Lufia leans into the legacy characters a little more than FF, but not as much as Zelda. The same guest party members you get in Lufia 2 show up 200 yrs later as main stays in Lufia 3.
The localization of this game is. Bad. Names are frequently inconsistent between dialogue and menu screens. I got the "divine" armour at the end and was extremely confused when it didn’t show up in my inventory. Its called "pearl" armour instead. Some maps are just straight up corrupted. Some monster names are translated directly from the katakana instead of using what should clearly be the English word. The assassin is "asashin" and the hydra is "haidora". Why is it like this? Is his name Atrea or Arty? Gai or Guy?
I thought "Iris" was a pseudonym, but a line toward the end of the game suggests she was supposed to be called Erim the whole time for some dramatic irony. It took me a 3rd of the game to figure out Iris’ true identity as a result. Is this technically a spoiler? Who knows.
Unique!!! I have not seen any RPG do anything like this (granted I’m not an expert in the genre). The plot is your standard JRPG fair; a protag goes on a journey collecting a group of misfits that culminates in a final battle with a god. The overworld is mercifully small. The mechanics are something else. Like, in a good way.
Dungeons are procedurally generated maps with multiple floors. Similar room and hallway idea as a mystery dungeon game. The enemies are not random encounters, but rather sprites that can be seen on the map. You can choose to go after them or navigate around them. Walking the dungeons are turnbased, again similar to a mystery dungeon. Since this is an older game, the layouts do not change a whole lot on how they can be generated. Dungeons rely on changing enemy AI movement to keep dungeons fresh, but this largely falls flat.
The combat is another beast entirely. You can have up to nine party members on the field. How they are arranged in the nine square grid, affects their stats, vulnerabilities, and mp usage for skills. The combat is also turn based. Only one person per column can make an action each turn. The skills the party can learn are randomly generated within the dungeons. As a result, strategies remain dynamic and fresh throughout the playthrough. Managing the party both inside and outside of combat was a fun problem-solving puzzle on its own. I was altering and fine tuning my party formation right up until the final boss from picking up new and useful skills in the preceding dungeon. Combat was SO much fun as a result.
This is a bloated game. Too many actions and too many things to keep track of make this game feel cluttered and claustrophobic. This is a beat 'em up stapled to an open world. The combat has too many actions. I actually struggle to describe the experience theres so much going on. Theres combo attacks and combo streaks which build up to combo finishers but also build up a power meter that does strong attacks or heal but that depends on which two button combo press you do and theres at least 6 different two button combo while some single button press change what happens depending on whether you tap or hold so you can switch your gadgets on the fly. Try to perfect dodge when your spider sense is tingling :) :) :)
*sigh* i forget its possible to move the camera because im too busy juggling all the various actions in my head. I was excited to play a modern Sony title because theyve got really good accessibility settings including fully customization button mapping. In most games, i usually have to pick one action that i sacrifice in order to play (in most Zelda games, i can't shield very well if ever, for example). For this game, the entire left side of the controller i mostly forgot about.
This is an inoffensive game overall. It feels short and very empty. The design overall is also lacking. The open world part of the game simply gives the player all the collectable locations, which defeats the point of the overworld setting. A graphic artist worked really really hard on designing graffiti for some of the villains, which is used as an in-universe marker for item cashes. Its undercut by the game giving you all the locations upfront on the map, removing any exploration from the game. Sure, its impressive that this game basically contains a digital copy of Manhattan, but its just set dressing for what is otherwise a list of tasks. Theres no incentive to explore from a gaming perspective.
It also feels short? Even by openworld triple A standards, the main storyline takes less than 10 hours to beat. Only a few more hours to 100% the game. And I know this isnt just me, someone who is used to rpgs clocking in at 30 hours at their fastest times. Both tomb raider 2013 and rise of the tomb raider are games of similar genre and calibre, and significantly longer playtime required just to beat the main storyline.
Not to mention, this game feels like four different games stapled together. And thats not a serious exaggeration, there are at least four distinct modes the game switches between during gameplay. We have combat, traversal, stealth, and walking sim. Each gamemode has a distinct set of controls. The triangle button had at least 10 distinct actions between all the different game modes and how it is pressed. I cant get over how bonkers the control scheme is for this game. There are 4 different buttons that are some type of web sling. Only 1 of which stays as a dedicated web sling button regardless of what mode the player is in. And despite that, its still context sensitive.
Its incredible and commendable that the devs managed to make context sensitive game modes and switch between them as seemlessly as they did, but should they need to?
The original assassins creed also has stealth, combat, and an open world concept traversed with free running. It didnt need three distinct game modes for these different actions. The player is always able to do any action regardless what where or what was happening in the game. It feels weird that a game 20 years later would feel the need to do that.
The good things i can say about the game is that its beautiful to look at. The characters are compelling enough and the plot is passable. Its hard not to notice the vibe of trying to capture the lightning in a bottle that was Into the Spider-Verse. So. If you want a good looking Miles Morales story with great characters, watch that movie instead.
Its just. Anything this game does good, something else has done better.
Good game! Amazing aesthetic. Fluid controls, which is super important for a 2D platformer. Esp when some buttons are context sensitive. Game is short but it’s so dense with stuff happening and upgrades that I hardly noticed. It wasn’t until the end of the game that told me that I beat the game in under 10 hrs did I realize it was a short game. It didn’t feel short! Even with all the bosses I was stuck at for a while, it only took me 10 hrs to beat the game? Speaking of bosses-
Metroid Haaaard.
I- have trouble with skill centric bosses sometimes. Not because of skill or disability (PowerA makes shite controllers but it’s the only company that has remappable buttons SO THANK GOODNESS FOR THEM). Sometimes I get frustrated in a way that makes playing no longer fun. (-A-;) When I’m smart, I take breaks from Dread when a boss kicks my ass. Otherwise I end up stewing in resentment even when I’m getting better at the game and manage to beat a boss.
The thing about Dread is that it’s a beautifully designed game. Just about everything you need to learn to beat bosses, the game introduces to the player organically through level design. One of the key skills the player needs to learn is a mid-air dash. This is useful for most lategame bosses. The way the player learns how to do this is by solving an environmental puzzle. You have to do a mid-air dash to get through a door. Most skills are like this. The player gets a safe way to learn/practice a skill before getting tested with a boss fight. It’s so good. This game is a masterclass in level design. A lot of how I beat some of the harder bosses is finding an empty room to practice certain moves, and I wouldn’t have thought to do that had it not been for the design choices in the levels that help players learn.
Also, also, the pause menu lets you reread any tutorial which is so nice!
The ending sequence feels soooo good that suit design and ending cutscenes are going to live rent free in my brain for a good while.
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There are two versions of the game. I played the earlier version, Nier Gestalt, which has some significant difference to the more recent release Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139... The biggest difference is that the PC in Gestalt is an older man who is trying to save his daughter. Replicant is truer to the Japanese version, where the PC is a teen who is saving his little sister. I personally like the idea of an older protagonist, my only gripe is the model for the Gestalt version looks like store brand Kratos. I lied, that's not my only gripe. My other gripe is that it also changes the relationship between the MC and Kaine in a way that makes the scene where he kisses Kaine feel like it comes outta nowhere. Dont misunderstand, I like the dynamic that the older MC has with Kaine, it just doesnt match that scene. ¯\_(σ ‸ σ)_/¯ Otherwise, I’m glad i played the Gestalt version.
Best music. All the music slaps but special shout out to the music in the Junk Heap dungeon. Even though I was playing my own music for most of the late game, i went out of my way to put the music back on anytime i revisited the Junk Heap.
Speaking of revisiting, i did 100% the game and got all the endings (except ending D which would have deleted my save). Getting the other endings requires replaying the latter half of the game like 3 more times or more in case you accidentally skipped side quests like i did ljnksnkjdnlks. So when I say revisit, I mean Revisit. The game has 4 endings (5 if you play the other version, Nier Replicant). Getting all the endings requires playing the second half of the game at least 4 times. (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞ Luckily, there are some nice QOL features to smooth over any hurdles from these replays. This includes: skipping cutscenes, retaining side quest progress, and new game+ style features like retaining levels, items and upgrades. Boss fights go from a genuine challenge in the first run, to an absolute joke by the time you hit your stride on the 3rd lap. I spent more time waiting for dialogue to finish than actually killing bosses i was so overpowered by the end.
The gameplay is an extremely well polished. Fascinating that this game also included bullet hell elements that synergize well with the hack-and-slash. Beating the bosses felt rewarding. Switching weapons on the fly is near seamless. The magic has a basic risk/reward setup. More magic means youre vulnerable for a longer charge-up, and the simplicity makes it approachable and extremely satisfying to master.
Game has an amazing sense of humour. The title screen intro opens with Kaine going on a long curse filled rant insulting Weiss. For 20 solid seconds. Nothing happening on screen. Just. Kaine insulting Weiss repeatedly It’s great. It’s a well acted bit. I recommend giving it a listen. And that sets the whole tone for the rest of the game. The writing is witty and fun and characters frequently making playful jabs at each other. Its hard not to be attached to these characters. (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ)
There are also some pointed and funny commentary on video games as a medium. There are many sequences when the game changes genres entirely. The mansion plays out like a Resident Evil style horror game, complete with stationary camera angles and no colour saturation. Another dungeon has an entirely isometric view. Several segments are done as a text-based adventure. On top of it all, the genre shifts never hinder the combat.
Several side quests have interesting plots too. One quest has you tracking down a lazy son for his worried mother, only to reveal he ran away because he didn't want to continue the family business of organized crime. Another quest has you delivering love letters to a nasty old woman, only to reveal she knew the love letters were faked, and her lover died decades ago. The entire town lied to her because she was the only person who knew how to operate the lighthouse. Another quest has no reward, and the NPC calls you out for expecting a reward when all you did was be a halfway decent person. Some NPCs will talk about things you can’t actually do anything about because frankly, that's none of your business lol
Neir is another example of a well done tragedy. The driving theme is that sometimes conflict happens between people who are completely justified in their motivations, but circumstances outside of their control will make achieving their goals diametrically opposed to one another. The result is that good people (knowingly or unknowingly) hurt other good people. Sometimes there’s no way to come out the other side without serious consequences. Its heartbreaking. I love it. (TдT)
The shades are also quite sad. Their speech is incomprehensible on the first playthrough. On every subsequent playthrough, their speech has subtitles. After you get the first ending, it’s revealed that the shades you kill are humans. It becomes apparent that the shades that attack mindlessly are human souls that have completely broken down. All of the sentient shades are mostly minding their own business before the player comes in and indiscriminately kills them all. Every one of them express some form of deep grief caused by the player or simply beg for their lives. It’s worse when you realize the new cutscenes are from Kaine’s perspective. All this bloodshed happens because the main character is determined to save his daughter/sister.
This game also seems to include a subtle commentary on the tension between a player’s agency and the desire to complete a game. Video games frequently touts itself as being the medium about choice and freedom. The obvious rebuttal to this claim is that players are confined to the limits defined by the developers. However, it is still true that video games by necessity require the player to willingly participate for the action and plot to progress. By calling the first ending Ending A, this game invites the player to continue exploring and keep playing even after they’ve won. However, each subsequent ending becomes more bleak. Eventually, it is revealed that the player helped inadvertently doomed the human race to extinction. The player has the ultimate freedom to choose not to play a game. None of this would have happened if the player had left the game well enough alone after reaching the first ending. Players don’t have to reach the other endings, but many of us have this desire to keep exploring and keep playing no matter what. Even if it means making immoral choices and getting tragic outcomes in-game.
Generally i try not to let spoilers bother me. I tend to get over them eventually. But I deeply regret seeing the spoiler for ending D. Completely spoiled the experience—both in the “ruined the surprise” and “re-framed the emotional impact” sense. I wish I was able to experience the game deleting my entire save file for myself.
All in all, amazing experience. Im looking forwad to playing Nier: Automata.
Posted: 2024-07-18
I started this review partway thru the game and kept adding and adding things until i had somewhere in the ballpark of 2500 words which is a lot my dude. Genuinely thinking of scrapping the whole thing. Was having a rough go of things for a bit but decided to try editting this beast and posting anyways.
Wonderful game!
I have been sitting on this game for over a decade. Kinda glad i waited so long lol. This was my first ever ps2 game ive ever owned, having been sold to me as a recommendation at a convention by a very enthusiastic gentleman. I didnt even own a ps2 at the time (^u^")7 i asked for a space themed rpg and rogue galaxy fit the bill
The game gives a solid first impression with real-time action supported by jrpg elements.
The graphics are well polished and stylized to serve peak ps2 aesthetics. I always appreciate a brightly coloured, easy to see game The hand drawn facial features of the characters can be a little distracting when the models move at the standard 60 fps while eyes and mouth features cap out at 12 fps. This is because these features are hand drawn 2d animated textures on the 3d models.
Ultimately, this was a smart choice as the delicate details in the face allow for more expressive and appealing characters. it really works in their favour. The cinematography is not shy about closeups with character faces in this cutscene heavy game. Clearly the art team knew what they were doing. The framerate misalignment is a small price to pay to avoid some of the more uncanny alternatives.
A couple hours into the game, i started to get pretty apprehensive on what my experience was gonna be like. It wasnt just the aesthetics, but a lot of gameplay elements and mechanics bore a striking resemblance to dqviii (another game i need to move to the bin lol whoops). My suspicions were later confirmed when it turned out that both games were developed by the same studio, and given their release dates, almost certainly had overlapping development cycles.
Despite the similarities to dqviii, rogue galaxy's gameplay turned out to be much more appealing.
The genre change from turn-based to real-time makes the pace of combat feel more reasonable. Ive previously talked about how the initial switch from 2d to 3d caused the runtimes of some turn-based jrpgs to balloon, largely due to long and repetative battle animations. *cough* ffx *cough* rogue galaxy skips most of that. While the combat is action focused, there is a menu that pauses the gameplay while the player selects spells or items to use. I mean, this isnt an unusual feature by a long shot and the combat is still nice and snappy so the pausing generally helps rather than hinders. Animations for spells and unique attacks are skipable after a few seconds.
Theres also several QOL adjustments introduced for a more approachable exploration. Fast travel, skipable cutscenes, plot recaps, disabling voice chatter, and marked points of interests are welcome additions. Characters gain exp even outside of the party and save points insta-heal which drastically smooths out gameplay.
The most standout improvement to me personally is the weapon fusion system. This seems to be a spin on the alchemy pot in dqviii, except streamlined and way more user friendly. The alchemy pot in dqviii only allowed specific combinations of items, with only vague hints given for possible recipes. Rogue galaxy only allows players to fuse weapons, and the game is very clear on what is and isnt allowed. Even if the combo isnt a recipe, fusing weapons is generally a net positive. AND fusing weapons is instant. The alchemy pot needed like 15 real world minutes to combine things. (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞
It was easy for me to get excited to play rogue galaxy. Its that perfect balance of engaging and grindy that i like. The weapon levelling and character skill trees gave me that party management gameplay i like so much.
As of writing this bit (20 hrs in) i havent hit a boss i couldnt beat in one or two tries. Anytime i decided i needed a little more grinding, i found it was easy enough to set my goal to defogging the map or look for chests while collecting exp in the process.
I dunno if ive been playing better games lately, or if ive developed a more open heart, becauss i found it easy to like most of the cast. (Or maybe playing shite games with unhinged characters set the bar really low for me ehe ("=u=))
i especially like Deego, huge bara dog furry my beloved it really helps that Deego's character and backstory is basically Barret lmao its just Barret again i just love huge men with huger hearts (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ)
Unusual for me but i basically did my best to keep all party members on rotation. The aforementioned exp gain while outside the party really helped facilitate this. Everyones skill trees were carefully balanced and weapons constantly reforged so i never had to worry about who i took with me.
Except for Jupis. He was an annoying boss fight who turned into an annoying party member. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ I benched him whenever i could.
Generally, i find that most items in any given game is unused junk. Even if items have utility, its common for me to figure out what my favourites are and ignore everything else.
The skill trees in Rogue Galaxy require items instead of skill points to be spent in order to upgrade spells and stats. This ONE gameplay detail turned a bunch of otherwise useless novelty into invaluable assets to hunt down.
Contrast this with a game like botw/totk where most items only take up inventory space outside of extremely specific use cases. Picking up items in botw/totk sometimes feel incidental especially with items that aren't immediately or directly important to combat.
Rogue galaxy's design choice highlights how mechanics can change my relationship to finding items in the game. Every chest becomes valuable regardless of contents. Items for skill trees, weapons for fusing and of course, healing items all become valuable finds.
The factory minigame is oddly opaque on how to play correctly. It took some guidance and a lot of fiddling with the controls to get it to work once. Even after figuring all that out, the factory is a time sink with a lot of little steps. I managed to make a few of the more advanced recipes for things that had obvious or immediate usefulness. More advanced recipes had that irritating feature that some of the ingredients are vague descriptions. (=A=”) I needed a guide to tell me what ingredients I needed, and how to get through the steps the game did not tell me about. Once I got past those initial hurdles, the factory was a neat little puzzle game.
I did not play the insect minigame. Fat no thanks (*u*)
The back of the case boasts "No Load Times". This is false in the same way one-take videos are false. Its pretty obvious when the ps2 is reading the disc, and its easy to spot loading zones. This does not at all diminish what an impressive feat it is to remove loading screens on such a large game.
The game uses various techniques and tricks to achieve this. First and foremost is that the game is properly optimized. *shrug* Otherwise, you see the usual long hallways, slow elevator rides, and gates to remove line of sight. The only cutscene is travelling between planets. Overall, really impressive demonstration that more power in a console isnt needed for smooth gameplay that doesnt break momentum.
As an aside, the game explicitly forbids opening the menu near or on door thresholds. Probably to reduce the risk of bugs and exploits. I dunno, i thought it was an interesting quirk.
I mentioned that this game as a lot of QOL adjustments that give it an edge over other games in this era, but there are also things that would benefit from QOL improvements.
For example, magic skills are extremely useful in the late game. The issue is that every skill has a unique animation that plays every time it's activated. Cutscenes are skippable after a few seconds, but honestly I wish there was an option to disable those cutscenes altogether. Its not unusual in a lategame fight to activate 3 or more skills from the get go, so a lot of the battle is spent mashing (△) to skip cutscenes. (=A=") These get peppered throughout the rest of the battle as skills expire. While its a huge improvement over other games that these cutscenes are skippable at all, those handful of seconds before the skip button shows up adds up.
The majority of dungeons are a series of hallways with the occasional chest and save point.
Dont get me wrong, dungeons are visually impressive. Each one has a unique set of assets and layouts to match the setting. Most of that set dressing stops being interesting by hour 3 of the dungeon crawl.
Im not exaggerating about that time frame. Late game dungeon crawls will take hours to traverse. (TдT) At around the midgame, every dungeon was overstaying their welcome. Every single dungeon had repeating layout elements. Add this to the fact that every dungeon has an extremely linear path from start to finish, its hard not to feel put out long before reaching the boss.
To keep dungeon crawling from feeling like such a slog, Rogue Galaxy became a podcast game. Ive listened to hours of podcasts and video essays while trying to reach the end of dungeons.
The absurdly long dungeons dont seem to fit how short the game is overall. I dunno how to explain it like, the scope of the game feels pretty typical, but a lot of dungeons were really drawn out, yet somehow the actual hours in the save file to beat the game is way under what I expected.
Mind you, I didn’t engage with all the features this game offered. There were plenty of optional bosses and side quests I opted out of, but I did end up exploring every map twice over. After you find all the save points on a planet, the game reveals the map and marks all chests. (Amazing feature by the wayyy ) I spent a lot of time backtracking to open any chests I missed. I decided not to skip fights, so that also padded some of my game I was overlevelled by the time I got the final boss. I clocked in just under 50 hrs. That doesnt seem right to me. ¯\_(σ ‸ σ)_/¯
For better or for worse, there are no dungeon puzzles or mazes.
This simplification means its near impossible to get lost. The game is extremely transparent about where the player needs to go to progress. Even after pausing my playthrough for 2 months, there was no ambiguity on what my next goal was supposed to be. Rogue Galaxy is pretty excellent at pointing the player in the right direction overall.
The fact that dungeons generally dont ask the player to complete any puzzles is sort of a good thing, sort of a bad thing. No puzzles means the potential to get stuck is drastically reduced, but the lack of play outside of regular combat adds to the existing problem of dungeon monotony.
One dungeon, the Gladius Towers, looks like its gonna be a maze, but it isnt a maze. Its actually two dungeons wrapped around each other. Even though you can see the other path basically the entire time, you cannot cross from one path to the other at any point. This simplifies the dungeon tremendously, while presenting the illusion of complexity.
This dungeon also had an additional level of care for the aesthetics. The base of the towers were in terrible disrepair, partially flooded, and littered with debris. As you climb each floor, the hallways are more intact. Eventually you start seeing partial statues of the rulers of these towers, until eventually the top floor has hallways lined with near perfect statues and clean carvings on the walls. This is the only dungeon with a gradual visual progression like that. As a result, even though the path is linear, it was an improvement from the monotony I mentioned earlier.
Sometimes the linear hallway dungeon layout is just downright bad. The most egregious offender is the Labyrinth. Each section is named "Maze of X" which made me sigh and think "is this gonna be another series of identical looking rooms and hallways?" Yes. Yes, it was. Just look at the map for this place. There are two places where the dungeon has a fork, and both paths merge again later. It’s ridiculously linear for a map. Called. LABYRINTH. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Including the protagonist, there are seven party characters. They do not all get the same attention or dedication to flesh out each of their characters. Simon’s character feels the most slapped together. It’s as if his backstory was applied to him as an obligation, rather than a genuine part of the character’s story. Meanwhile, there is no doubt in my mind that Deego was a favourite during the game’s development.
I mentioned earlier in this review that skill trees rely on items to unlock skills. Pretty much ever item required for the skill trees are drops or items found in chests. There are two unique items that are received through the plot. One of these items is used for Jaster’s skill tree. He’s the protagonist with a direct connection to the main conflict. This makes sense. The second unique plot item is for Deego.
It would have made way more sense if the second unique plot item goes to Kisala. She’s the other party character with a direct connection to the main conflict. Nope. Her entire skill tree uses items from drops or chests. The mechanics of the game does not give her any special treatment.
Deego’s arc is deeply personal to him, and is only loosely connected to the main conflict. He’s easily the character with the most depth. The story arc that introduces Deego to the main party even explores his relationships to the npcs connected to him. He’s the only character besides Jaster that gets a solo boss fight because it’s relevant to his story arc. The conclusion of Deego’s character arc at the end of the game is the one that has the most narrative satisfaction.
Oh, god... Speaking of the character arc endings...
Midway through the final dungeon, each character gets a scene specific to their character arc. You would think... this close to the end of the game, that this is not the time to introduce new information about this party of characters you’ve spend dosens of hours with. Sure, these final scenes are moments of reflection, but not for the player. These characters are having deep personal epiphanies before any of their arcs had an opportunity to develop or marinate.
I learned... for the first time at the END of the game... that Simon is a victim of a workplace accident that horribly disfigured him. That’s why he wore the mask? I didn’t even know Simon was supposed to be read as human???? The LAST time we learned anything about Simon before this was at the beginning of the game when he mentions... what planet he’s from???? How the hell was I supposed to connect the random mother daughter npcs that kept showing up out of nowhere to SIMON???
Not even Jaster, the main character, was immune to this treatment. In conclusion of his character arc reveals he forgot that his dream of travelling through space used to have more depth. This isnt a good reveal if the seeds of this development were never planted. Its a moment of reflection that completely bypasses any reflection of the actual events of the game. I dont think Jaster is a bad character, I just think these choices cheapen the development Jaster ACTUALLY went through.
But honestly, none of that holds a candle to the end of Kisala's character arc. She abandoned her way of life and everything she loved to claim the throne for a planet up until a day ago she wasnt even sure existed? Like, she was told she wouldnt be able to talk to the father that adopted and raised her nor her love interest?? like, wouldn't she have gone kicking and screaming??? it would have also made Jaster's post credits scene where he plans to kidnap her back all the sweeter???? Hello?????
From what i understand, Rogue Galaxy was an attempt at launching a new flagship IP for this game studio. As flawed as it is, this game had enough going for it that it could very well have launched a new series of beloved games. All of the flaws i talked about arent dealbreakers. Bungled character arcs is something that could be fixed in later titles. The sci-fi space theme is flexible enough for either a direct sequel or an anthology series.
Y'know, for a game that had a lot of good things going for it, Rogue Galaxy doesnt seem to be all that well remembered. I certainly wouldnt have heard of the game without that recommendation. I wondered why it seems to have faded from our collective memory. While researching, I found a detail that seems to sum up its place in game history pretty well.
Rogue Galaxy was released in NA in 2007, and was nominated for a "Role-Playing Game of the Year" award. It lost to Mass Effect.
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Perfect game. The horse is the only named character and you can pet him. You can pet the horse on the ground, OR while riding him. The title screen idle cycles between the opening cutscene and the horse running around for fun near the last save point. Beautiful. Bosses are incredible. Some are frustrating but nothing overly unfair. Riding around in the overworld is so good. The atmosphere of the game is a sort of, desolate loneliness that fits in perfectly with the games themes and storytelling. *chef kiss*
Game good!
This is a short game. It's meant to be beaten in one sitting in under an hour. The player is meant to replay the game multiple times to achieve high scores and unlock the not so secret levels.
It's a real shame this is basically the last good Star Fox game.
Good game! Did not expect to like it as much as I did. Esp since the action RPG battle system is somewhat an auto-battler. Wished i could turn the voice acting off but didn’t mind it too much. That being said, i traded out the better healer for the more rounded mage solely because his voice lines in battle are incredibly annoying. I hated his stupid voice after a while, announcing how much of a pacifist he was Every. Single. Battle. Fuggin give it a rest. Outside of battle, the same character was chill and had a decent personality and character arc.
Sorta wish some of the side plot stuff wasn’t so obtuse when it came to actually following through on those plots. The game laid out a lot of interesting threads but most of them wont get resolved unless I looked up a guide on how to complete them and i don’t have that kinda patience w this game. Its fairly easy to simply grind to the point of being overlevelled by taking on every encounter. Kinda wish other party members gains passive exp but the game is on the easier side anyways so it doesn’t make a huge difference.
There were a lot of weird optional crafting stuff you could spend skill points on that were otherwise unnecessary to beating the game. You can turn your party into an orchestra. Wild.
My favourite bit of the game is when the standard medieval fantasy characters get kidnapped and subsequently helped by the Not Enterprise and one of the strongest weapons is just a straight up lightsaber.
May be found at the following website: GameFAQs Amazon.com, Fair use, Link
Good entry in the collectathon Mario games.
The wii as a whole has a really floaty physics engine, and that is more than apparent in this game. The jumping doesn’t feel as snappy as it does in other 3D Mario titles, but the controls are still incredibly tight. The gyroscopic controls feel pretty good. I have definitely confused some of the levels between galaxy 1 and galaxy 2. Comparing the galaxy 1 levels to the ones i have seen in galaxy 2, i can see why people like galaxy 2 better. Although nothing can top the hub world in galaxy 1. Iconic music. Fantastic boss fights. Beating Bowser in the end was thematically appropriate, showcased the core mechanic of the gameplay, and felt really, really good.
Final boss fight is everything done right. The final boss doesn’t introduce anything new, it just presents an appropriate skill check for all the things the game has taught the player how to do. The core boss mechanic is the same as the core gameplay (the micro planet gravity blended with Mario’s jump mechanics). The three fights with Bowser is formulaic by this the endgame. Buut it aint broke, so why fix it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is another instance of a game I wouldn’t have been able to play had it not been for the Switch port. So. As much as I dislike Nintendo porting ancient games and selling them for full retail price, this port is a worth while exception to me.
The climbing feels very good but the combat feels like a crapshot. The bosses suuuuuuuck. I was only able to beat the final boss after cheesing it. Really short game. Only five hours. It’s extended by the Croft manor level which is pretty cool but i didn’t spend a lot of time there. An unfortunate side effect of retro gaming is its often too dark in some sections even at max setting on my tv. Maybe my gamma value is too low? Can i even change that on my tv? (Future Zach here: No I cannot.)
By The box/cover art can or could be obtained from Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Interactive., Fair use, Link
Fantastic. Easy game to 100%. A welcome reboot to the franchise. It’s very clearly a love letter to the previous games, while also bringing modern gaming aspects to the series. The quick time events can feel unforgiving which is true to the series, but frequent checkpoints and faster loading times undercut any needless frustration. The controls are very tight, which makes quick time and climbing sequences feel very good. The game is a product of its era, so graphics look good, but are diminished by the brown and grey colour pallet that was dominating the market at the time. It otherwise plays like a standard TPS, and plays it safe by applying the tried and true formula expected of the genre.
Good game. Its a lot of the same as the first in terms of exploration, but more expansive overworld. Love the new equipment. Climbing feels amazing. Croft Manor was a nice level. The unfourtunate thing is the final player action of the game is a melee kill. I mean, nothing can top the final moment of the 2013 game (the duel wielding pistol callback was ~divine~). Otherwise this plot follows a lot of the same beats as the 2013 game. So glad my boy Jonah is back. So glad he lived. Im so close to 100% the game but im honestly not sure if im burnt out or if i can make that last push. I think i already did the hardest quests so its probably gonna happen. (Future Zach here, I 100% the main game. Didn't play any of the other side stories tho.)
The best music is in tombs. The crescendo when you’re about to solve the puzzle is so so good what the fuck.
This game has the most Jonah of the trilogy and that makes it the best one.
What Ive realized w this series is the in game environments are very tight. Discoverables, resources, and collectables are densely packed in any given map. Mad respect to the dev team for resisting the trend towards expansive open world. d(￣◇￣)b
This game has no combat outside of the main story and i think that was a good change.
By Hara, Ramon (April 27, 2018). "The Box Art and Screenshots for Shadow of the Tomb Raider Revealed". GameTyrant. Fair use, Link
Posted: 2024-04-28
Playing xenoblade has been an experience that shows being in the right mindset is important to enjoying a game. More on that later.
Xenoblade is right up my alley. It has a lot of what i like in an RPG. Good cast, a decent combat system, an earnest plot and some pretty good music to top it all off.
The voice acting is fantastic. i dunno what it is, but I seem to prefer American accents lately. I think they sound more like home and i like that. As much as I appreciated the voice acting in this game, I’m sooo happy there’s an option to disable voice chatter during the gameplay. "hup" "hup" "alioop"
My biggest draw to the game is the aesthetic. A co-worker has described the look of the game as “looks like battlefield in smash bros” and he’s not too far off. The game aesthetic is not shy about using deeply saturated colours for their environments. The grass is cartoonishly green but it works. For one, it makes the game easier to see, as the original release for the 3DS has small screens. It’s also an artistic choice as the game takes place in a lot of grand, high fantasy environments. The large sweeping landscapes in xenoblade are worth stopping and enjoying the scenery every now and then. The day/night cycle introduces alternate pallets with a lot of bioluminescent assets for many of the outdoor areas at night. In short, the game is gorgeous.
The aesthetic and cinematography was designed for the 3DS and its readily apparent on a television. Characters are proportioned with big heads, hands, and weapons. Cutscenes tend to have really tight closeups. It does look a lot better in handheld mode, but man is it goofy seeing Shulk’s face take up 2/3 of the screen on the TV.
The characters themselves tend to wear over-designed, goofy anime armour. This isnt a dig, I think its funny as hell
The combat has an auto-battle element, but this mostly takes a backseat to the real time combat the player engages with. Each character has up to 9 abilities they can use, and each one is on its own cooldown timer. By the time the midgame is in full swing, there aren’t a lot of moments when the player will be idly waiting for actions.
For whatever reason, i had some trouble getting a handle on the combat. I think a combination of the visually noisy particle effects and jumping into a 3D game after a long time made for a disorienting introduction. Combat is otherwise pretty trivial. There is the occasional plot moment where combat becomes nigh unbeatable until the player follows specific instructions. As long as you read and be patient these sections pass by with little trouble.
Once thing i did not like about the difficulty scaling is that there seems to be a level gap between a dungeon and the resident boss. This usually forced me to leave and go off questing to gain exp. I didn’t like that the game was scaled in a way that made side quests almost mandatory in this way. Side quests, imo, should always be opt-in. Eventually, I needed to be choosy with which quests i complete bc early game quests were not worth the time/effort by that point. Xenoblade had hundreds of quests overall, and dosens of quests on the list at any given point and it was a headache having to comb through them to figure out what ones will actually benefit me. (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞
Have you ever had a type of media ruined for you because you associate it with someone unpleasant? (I promise I’m going somewhere with this.) For me, this is bionicle. An ex roommate was so unpleasant and utterly obsessed with bionicles and lego. Ultimately my problem with her is that she was a true NEET. She never spoke to anyone socially aside from me, and then made me out to be the bad guy when i tried to teach her basic skills like respect my goddamn boundaries and maybe fucking shower more than once a week. she would also take advantage of my kindness and underpay her share of rent, cry crocodile tears anytime i criticized her lack of financial knowledge, and then spend literally thousands of dollars a yr on legos. Make it make sense (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ Needless to say, I don’t have an amazing impression of bionicles now.
The reason this is important is that xenoblade takes place on a giant, continent sized dormant organism standing in the middle of a vast, endless ocean called Bionis. There’s a parallel in bionicle lore, which also takes place on a continent sized dead bionicle. So, as cool as the idea is for a fantasy setting, it was hard to appreciate when all it would do is remind me of some of the most unpleasant living conditions I’ve ever had to endure in my adult life. That experience ended less than 6 months as of the time of this writing, so i really had to work hard to get past all that and be able to think of the Bionis as a genuinely cool setting.
It eventually became a lot easier to admire the expansive maps and beautiful atmosphere of the game. The problem with these grand settings is that. You have to walk across them. (@A@) Sprawling fields and massive caverns are nice and all until you have to trek the entire distance on foot. This is usually tempered by exploration bonuses and fast travel but those are few and far between. Revisiting areas to grind out a quest item or find a specific npc requires dedicating a lot of time to traversal.
Most monsters are aggro’d by either seeing or hearing you. That doesn’t stop them from being stupid as hell lmaoooo Their vision cones and hearing radiuses are tiny and laughably easy to dodge in most cases. Even the huge fuck off monsters are functionally blind. Although it is pretty funy to watch the huge ones amble by at a majestically slow pace and then turn on a dime. So there is a small risk when walking behind the big ones that they whip around unexpectedly and spot you.
I liked most of the main cast. I must me mellowing out because a lot of these characters are archetypes that i often find annoying. Shulk’s motivating drive is revenge, but he’s honest about this motive and repeatedly demonstrates an ability to set this aside for more urgent and noble causes.
Reyn is a perfect himbo.
Riki sucks. Full stop. I have a suspicion he’s more tolerable in the original japanese and whatever localization efforts were in play turned Riki from what was probably a perfectly fine character to an irritating tag-along. I ended up benching him and then finally decided i may as well try him out deeeeep into the lategame. Turns out he’s great! Riki is a fun character to have in the party for gameplay, but remains an annoying extra anytime the plot kicks in. ¯\_(σ n σ)_/¯
I love melia! Shes the best! Top tier mage! I don’t know why i imprinted on her like a goddamn baby duck but i did and shes my favourite character. Genuinely, i struggled to keep playing when she was temporarily removed from the party. This was one of the factors that turned me off from playing xenoblade for a good two months. (This was also around the time is was stuck in the MapleLegends hole.) You don’t fully get her back until you’ve played through a long side plot with plenty of long cutscenes and a couple of small dungeons. Y’know, the normal thing to do when you hit a wall is to go around completing quests until you’re levelled enough to beat the next boss. I didnt have a problem w that up until that point, here i was grinding while desperately thinking how much id rather be playing as my missing mage. (TTATT)
Sharla basically never left my party being the dedicated healer of the game. She really comes in clutch. I’m not entirely sure how the logic of the AI works in this game, i think they’re under the same restrictions as the player. If that’s the case, the AI in this game is solid enough for me not to worry too much about healing if Sharla doesn’t manage to get to it in time. I also liked her chemistry with Reyn.
I’m surprised i didn’t like Dunban all that much. He’s a fine character, but I’m mostly ambivelant to a character who was otherwise my type.
ROBOT GIRL FIORA IS BEST GIRL. (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ)
The UI gave away some of the plot. The plot leads the player to believe the climax of the game will occur at the top of the Bionis. Even when the plot makes out that you’ve met all the party members and in a way, you have it’s obvious the game is going to introduce a new party member late into the game. There’s also a conspicious area left blank on the affinity screen, meaning there is one more town to discover.
At a certain point, all of the Alcamoth quests are marked with a time limit symbol. This means these quests will no longer be completable after reaching a certain point in the plot. It doesn’t take much to connect the dots and realize the city will be destroyed.
Fiora suffers from this same problem. Nevermind all the death flags she carries all over the early plot. She only has maybe a handful of cosmetic outfits compared to Reyn and Shulk’s several dosen.
Other times the game straight up warns you when an area will no longer be accessible nice and all but man is it a bitch to farm for items after losing certain areas, and this is WITH some improved QOL in the definitive edition.
Big preesh that the end boss is a classic god with a fat hubris that gets defeated we the power of friendship :3 The ending had a lot of imagery of space and the solar system, as well as a bit of background on how the world came to be. I’d be interested to see how the sequels would expand on that.
Overall, this was a pretty good game. I didn’t like how padded the game felt with the difficulty jumps, but i came around to that if i was willing to play in handheld while watching/doing something else. Keep in mind it is an 80 hr game. There is an afterstory episode that i played for a few minutes. I might revisit for that bc Mel is in it
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