I feel bad for this but I cannot rate it any higher right now since this is just the experience I had with the game, as with DMC 3 I never played the franchise back when it released and I'm only getting into it now, so nostalgia and context regarding it's realease are not really that much of a factor.

The atmosphere is good and the music is great, most bosses are decently designed and the combat is okey, but it is the camera placing that absolutely drives me nuts in some action sequences, theres some encounters where you litterally cannot see where you are being attacked from and are meant to dodge some attacks that you have no way of expecting, most of the difficulty comes from the cameras sabotaging your ability to grasp what's going on and this is also true for the few platforming sections of the game, where movement is straight up frustrating because of this, some jumps even seem kind of "scripted" and are hard to get right, it all adds up to the clunkyness of the game, camera angles also serve to confuse you while navigating the map.

Level design is pretty good, even the exploration which in this kind of game I'm not usually a fan of is pretty good, the enemies have cool designs and as I said before if it wasn't for the cameras most bosses would be fine.

I like this version of Dante even if it's not my favorite, he is kind of edgy/intense but not too much, and he is serious when he needs to. After experience both the Dante from this game and the one in DMC 3 I believe I can begin to piece together how the modern Dante has evolved from here.

I like that the game treats the subject of humanity (It is a subject I enjoy after all) , like DMC 3 did, even if it's somewhat brief ( it's a 6 hour long game after all)

All in all most of my criticism comes down to how frustrating certain parts of the game feel because of the camera placement, this game separated Devil May Cry from Resident Evil and deserves credit for it, it features good level design, glimpses of the combat that is to come in future titles, great art, a decent story, great atmosphere and great music.

Damn, Square Enix once again.

Triangle Strategy gets off with a really great start, the opening chapters have a gripping narrative and present a varied cast of characters, the first decisions you make change the following chapters quite a bit, but don't betray your expectations of their impact. The final 3 chapters showcase great closure to the narrative and great character arcs, or at least it was in the case of the ending I chose, which was bittersweet, but interesting.

It is somewhere in the middle of the game that this game felt like it was being too ambitious for it's own good, promising always more than it could deliver.

Triangle Strategy (almost) always does an amazing job at presenting puzzling situations to the player, and laying a quality selection of decisions available to you regarding the circumstances. Most of the decisions symbolizing a certain ideal out of the three the game focuses on when it comes to this system, although sometimes I'd debate wether a choice or a dialogue option doesn't really fit a different ideal.

Even then, the decisions are usually cool alternatives and many times there is no right answer, which is how it should be. The characters involved present valid arguments and the game makes use of it's characteristic decision making mechanic, the "scales of conviction".

The real issue I have when it comes to the decisions is how sometimes they fail to trick you into thinking they mattered, cause yes, many of this decisions don't end up having an impact. Many serve only as momentaneus different routes that end up merging after a few chapters, ocasionally even in a way that doesn't feel organic, which is the worse part (specially a certain decision in chapter 11).

Sometimes, the issue regarding the decision comes from the stakes. The game tries to tell you that sometimes one needs make rough choices and places you on the kind of situations where a sacrifice must be made, but always gives you the chance to take the " I want it all" kind of choice and it only just causes you to have a more difficult encounter. The worse part is making a sacrifice for roleplay reasons and then getting gaslighted into thinking you are the worst piece of shit ever. This, is not the norm, but it happened often enough to bother me.

When it comes to it's characters, I think the pool is too big for gameplay reasons, so all character development is almost exclusively focused on the main cast, sadly many members of the main cast recieve very superficial treatment. However, the ones that recieve the game's full attention mostly shine, and do so during the entirety of the game.

The villains are decent, some are weaker than others but both Gustadolph and Avlora were really cool, specially Avlora's development. When it comes to Hyzante some of the Saintly seven I enjoyed Exharme, Idore and Lyla.

I really liked the character development Roland and Benedict recieved in the ending route I followed, and Roland is the best character consistently throughout the whole game and I specially enjoyed him in the final chapters (although as I said, I liked him during the whole game), and Benedict was quite good as well.

The combat was quite good , at least on hard difficulty, specially on certain maps that gave it a certain twist, each character was quite unique and had innovative gameplay ideas, I found it to be quite good for the TRPG standard. The difficulty curve was a bit weird at the start but as you get upgrades and recieve new tools it gets better.

I also cannot finish without mention how beautiful the game looks, the game is absolutely gorgeous, maps , sprites and portraits all look incredibly good. And the OST is amazing, as expected from a Square Enix jrpg.

As I was hinting at the beginning of my review, I believe the end product is a concequence of Square Enix's modus operandi. Favoring certain development teams while misstreating others. The game is very ambitious and delivers on many aspects of the game, and achieves it's promises in both the beguinning and the end, but made some deterring mistakes through the middle that gravely affected my overall experience, specially the ones regarding the false illusion of choice and the feeling of stakes being fake in some very few scenarios. Even felt a little burnt out and some parts felt a bit sloggish. It did nevertheless deliver in both the plot and character departments and provided a good combat experience. I can't help but think that maybe if they weren't so ambitious or spent just a bit more time on certain parts of the game the final product would be twice as good, but who knows, perhaps the few mistakes it made clouded my view and affected my experience more than it should have, which is a shame, because I really felt in love with the first chapters of the game, and the ending managed to satisfy me despite my gripes.

I will 100% replay this, and follow different routes and perhaps my opinion about certain aspects changes when I see how different it really is.

Finally played this game after getting filtered by it's first true boss in the past.

Devil May Cry is a game ahead of it's time, and partly suffers from it.

Many bosses in the game make me feel like they were designed with style swapping in the dev's mind, I played most of the game with swordsman style and some bosses were really frustrating, after trying them again with trickster the difference was inmense.

Despite that, the combat is revolutionary and fluid like nothing from its time and age, surpassing many modern titles as well, features an expressive gameplay with many possiblities, but suffers from the fact that no style swapping was added in the final version, it is also weighted down slightly by scuffed camera angles ( I guess it cannot be helped) and some really annoying enemies, the combat provides you a wide variety of tools (even without style swapping) to be as expressive as you want, and at the same time forces you to face off certain enemies that have only one (and boring) way of dealing with them, reducing your options to one.

The music was unique and charming, as was the art and atmosphere, emblematic of the series. The characters are all charismatic and well characterized specially through the use of cutscenes (which are amazing), and in the case of Dante and Vergil through combat as well.

The game truly feels badass, the characters are amazing and memorable and the combat is fluid and rewarding, despite the camera angles and scuffed enemy bosses and encounters, it is a memorable game that influenced many titles on the genre, my personal highlights are all of the vergil fights and the cutscenes, specially the ending cutscene, which may even make a devil cry.

It is so clear that this game suffered issues regarding it's development.

I didn't enjoy Nero's gameplay too much, at first it seemed interesting but gets old pretty quick, specially after being able to play Dante in the second half of the game.

Nero is also kind of annoying as a character, not to the point that I actively dislike him but just not interesting at all. He is cocky and tries to be funny but seems to lack the charisma Dante does. Basicly ends up as an edgier and more boring copy of Dante.

The story is mediocre, I found the moment where a big baddy speedruns revealing his true plan to Nero very funny.

Most of the bosses are good, except maybe some of the last bosses, the problem lies in the fact that they recicle most of them not only once, but twice. Imagine facing the same bosses from the beginning of the game THREE TIMES.

The game improves drastically when you get your hands on Dante, the gameplay is fluid and an overall improvement on DMC 3, the weapons are unique and feel great. Not only the gameplay improves but Dante is as charismatic as ever and a thousand times more interesting than Nero as a character so the game as a whole improves with him around. Even if you fight the same bosses you already did before.

backtracking is annoying but I thought it would be worse.

As I said, the game starts strong with interesting new mechanics and bosses, becomes a bit stale somewhere around the middle and kicks it up again when you play as Dante only to let you down after a few missions forcing you to go back to Nero and facing recycled bosses and some annoying new ones.

It doesn't bring too much new to the table but serves as context for Nero and provides some gameplay improvements, has some nice bosses and highlights plus it's nice to see Dante again.

Probably can't state anything that hasn't been repeated over a million times already, I'm once again late to the party as i've taken almost two years to finally play this masterpiece.

The atmosphere and music is breathtaking and fits the lore and feeling of the game like a glove, at first everything feels eerie and gives the perfect feeling of a divine era crumbling down each day, where many characters live their miserable eternal lives below the leafs of the Erdtree.

Of course you need to pay attention, read items, think after some npc conversations and more in order to fully understand the lore (which will take me and the mayority of the playerbase more than one playthrough) but the payback is worth it if you are into that. Many interesting characters take a role in this story, like players of a contest to become the elden lord, each and every one of them feels unique and harbor their own motivations and it is very rewarding how each encounter and interaction gives you a glimpse into them, till you finally understand them. Learning the lore feels many times like hunting for secrets, piecing the pieces together, waiting for the ocasional plot twist or huge discovery.

Voice acting is straight up fantastic, most of the npc questlines I've played were really interesting and honestly didnt seem as cryptic as in previous titles from fromsoftware (perhaps I was just paying more attention)

It tackles many different and interesting themes and presents some of the more memorable bosses in all fromsoftware games.

I have never been that much of a fan of the combat, each day I feel more tired of attack and roll type of gameplay, but even so the gameplay has been overall enjoyable.

I was very skeptic about it being an open world at first, but it has been done almost to perfection, the exploration in this game is a real wonder, and a few complains about the last boss which was still a memorable encounter.

If anything at the moment the one thing I can complain about at the moment is how repetitive many of the optional dungeons feel.

The game is brilliant from start to finish, for different reasons but still brilliant. Starting with amazing exploration and atmosphere that molds into something truly ominous and epic in the second part of the game.

Roadwarden is a surprisingly well written text adventure that felt to me like experiencing a visual novel (A genre I have not explored too much yet), the prose striked a great balance, easy to read but complex enough and added great depth to descriptions and was (as should be in a game like this) one of the main reasons the game is as inmersive as it is.

Exploring the unnamed peninsula for the first time is a such a captivating experience, in this fantasy-like yet grounded world that forces you to plan your days ahead if you hope to achieve a good ending for your character. I found myself submerged by the incredible soundtrack and intrigued by the many mysteries of this ruthless region.

I have only played once, and my ending wasn't all that great, but I know there is a lot that I've missed and suspect that the game has a good deal of replayability.

Each place felt unique and had a different story, interesting tasks and many different characters. Conversations felt natural and it felt good to earn the trust of the village leaders.

I will keep the OST in my personal playlist , and hope to come back to unsolve the riddles I left unriddled and get a better ending for the roadwarden.

(https://youtu.be/jbL7C3Ucg_A?si=rgOpJBzWh-UtKcGc)

What of you, my mirror? Born into this world, bestowed name, bid to seek out strife and adventure...

Was this life a gift...or a burden?

I started my journey in Final Fantasy XIV around 2021, convinced by a friend to give it a try alongside another friend. Together, the three of us endured the first couple of quests A Realm Reborn had to offer. But not for too long. Only one of us remained, and he ended up convincing me to come back and pick up where I left off.

It was a real struggle, my attention span at the time could be compared to that of a brick, and I wasn't digging the worldbuilding ARR presented, the only redeeming qualities I saw were both the music and the art.

The characters were bland, the story wasn't interesting at all and the villains? Oh my god how much I used to hate the ascians.

Now,I managed to enjoy some parts of it. The ending mostly and the late patches, which surprised me.

There will be spoilers from here onwards.




Heavensward was an improvement for sure, the characters were better, even if most of the good ones were new. Estinien and Ysayle were the first characters I actually enjoyed, and Thordan was quite a good villain. It is the main plot where Heavensward shines brightest even if it suffers in its pacing in my opinion.

Stormblood I actually liked, still far from the marvels I had heard about this game from my friend, but likable. I had only heard bad things about Stormblood before playing it, so my expectations probably helped me enjoy it. When I compare Stormblood to Heavensward, I believe that Stormblood is a poorer, less interesting story done better than Heavensward's. It is clear that the development team had improved miles away from where they were in ARR, especially revisiting the dungeons and trials that this expansion offered. Some characters from ARR started getting more screen time and more personality and depth. Overall, I believe Stormblood does characters better than Heavensward, even if I prefer Ysayle and Estinien over any Stormblood character, I still believe Stormblood does better in this regard since not only they made an effort to expand upon some older characters like some Scions, who in ARR were mostly just empty shells, but also presented some new great characters, like Gosetsu and Hien.

Inconsistency had been the norm of the game, honestly, up to Shadowbringers.

Now, I don't want to talk too much about Shadowbringers. I've already cheated a little bit by talking about the previous expansions in an Endwalker review, so I'll try to be brief about it.

Shadowbringers had an amazing presentation, right from the start. It presented you with a whole new world and a conflict on a greater scale than any before, and while it could have abandoned so many stuff that was done wrong in ARR, it worked with it. To this day, I still can't comprehend how they managed to make such shitty villains like the Ascians so good, how they managed to incorporate so many pieces of ARR worldbuilding that weren't at all interesting to me back into the narrative in ways that not only made sense but that I liked. Primals, ascians and such things were back to the main scene as interesting pieces of the narrative, and I never could have believed that before seeing it. They even made a remaster of the most dreaded ARR character, minfillia.

And it presented to us the best villain in the game so far.

Almost every good thing that I have to say about Endwalker, we owe it partly to Shadowbringers.

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ENDWALKER


Already at the start of Endwalker I could notice their efforts on giving more depth to every single member of the main cast. And it was much appreciated.

I really wasn't convinced by Fandaniel and Zenos being the main villains, I found both of them to be one dimensional, repetitive and boring. We had such a good villain in Shadowbringers that this downgrade was very disheartening. Zenos we already knew, and the whole "I want to die and take everyone with me" stuff , along with Fandaniel's antics was getting on my nerves.

But the rest was quite good, the worldbuilding on Sharlaya and Thavnair was interesting, specially Vrtra and then Garlemald came.

Garlemald followed the same rules, woldbuilding and characterization wise but then lead us headstrong into the main narrative of the expansion. Quintus's arc was perfect and exploring the devastated Garlemald was one of the best arcs I've seen in any expansion. All along those three places, the true meaning of Endwalker arised from time to time, timid, but hopeful. In the sharlayans and their duty to Etheirys, In Garleans and their pride, In thavnairian and their motto:

To live is to suffer. To drink of calamity and drown in anguish. To toil and be tested, always and ever.
(Quite similar to what Nietzsche believed).

In the midst of calamity, we bore witness: People either succumbed to anguish or, with heavy hearts, moved forward across desolation.

But it is in Elpis that the theme is truly explored.

Hermes fulfilled his destiny, as his name declared, as the messenger of the gods.

So little do they think of life? Not only of the ones they create, but of their own? To celebrate the death, or to even wish it upon those we love? What a wretched reality had the ascians created, so many things did they forget that Hermes had to reach out to the stars in search of the answer.

But he did not find it.

Venat agreed. The people she loved had forgotten what was important to them. They had created a place they deemed perfect, but in so doing they rid themselves of what made them truly live.

Perhaps she saw the final days as an oportunity. Maybe she thought that the ascians would find a way foward among the pain and suffering inflicted upon them and survive.

But she was disappointed. Instead of suffering they chose to give away their existance. The sorrow that befell them made them question their existance.

Why must we suffer so?
We can't accept it! We won't accept it! It will be ours again─a world free of sorrow!

And they found the wrong answer, for them, living and suffering had no meaning, after all, they never had to experience it before. Yet she chose to believe that one day mankind would learn to live again.

From that temptation I sunder us. No more shall man have wings to bear him to paradise.

The ascians failed because they had not suffered. They failed because they were inmortal. They failed because they had wings. And so she transformed mankind. She transformed mankind to the one we know, both in the game and in real life (to some extent).

We are mortal, we suffer, we despair, we feel sorrow and regret, we err...
We hear, we feel, we think and dream. We embark upon the never ending quest of finding happiness, each and any of us.

And to deny suffering is to deny happiness, to fall to despair is to let happiness go.

Final fantasy XIV radiates love to all of it's players with a hopeful message and tries to convince them that all we have to do, is to find hope amidts sorrow. Your suffering made you who you are, and your pain forged you to carve the path onto happiness.

So without wings, man suffered and found the answer to the question, and chased oblivion to the edge of the universe, which stood no chance, of course.

One of the most impressive achievements of Endwalker is the usage of "Answers", the main theme of the game. I do not know how much they had planned when they made the song, but I believe making a game such as this from the seeds that ARR sowed is one of the greatest challenges in gaming history.
After Endwalker, I see Answers in a whole different light. Not only because of it appearing in the best cutscene in the game, but because of how much Endwalker embodies every single word of it.

Another impressive achievement is how they redeemed both of the villains, Zenos and Fandaniel.

Thanks to Elpis and The Aitiascope, I ended up liking Fandaniel, even being able to recognize how Fandaniel and Hermes weren't all that different.
As any who claimed that the answer to the question was to cease to exist, Fandaniel was aware of being wrong, and deep inside probably hoped to be proved wrong.

Zenos... Zenos took longer, but it was in your last visit to Garlemald where he shows to finally have developed at least a little bit. He finally learned that he would not get what he desired by forcing himself upon you. That you were not the same as he was, for you found meaning in helping others.
It was there, when Jullus and Alisae confront him that I began to enjoy him.

And then he appeared, at the end of everything, where nothing but despair awaited, he found you.

It is funny that in a sociopath such as Zenos we can observe the answer to the question before anybody else, and he is the embodiment of Endwalker's message in a wretched hedonistic way.
One would imagine that someone such as Zenos is devoid of any will to live. He is not loved nor loves, he does not enjoy anything other than battle, and not just with anybody, only with the mightier foe.
Only in this few minutes of his life has he truly felt alive, only in those short duels did he feel bliss. Wouldn't someone such as this surely wish for his death more than any other? And yet he dedicated his life to the only few moments that mattered.

So when he found you, struggling against hopelessness incarnate , he said:
I assumed you would be above something so banal as despair.

The trial was a total masterpiece, the Endsinger was not the final boss, it was you. Final Fantasy XIV teaches a masterclass on encounter storytelling with its interphase and the song "With Hearts Aligned". I genuinely thought we had lost to a DPS check mechanic or something, because of how hard the first phase was, but suddenly the music kicked in and you and the rest of WoL litterally destroy the Endsinger.

I really liked how the final conversation with Zenos went, he finally acknowledged that both of you are different, even if similar, and so the WoL decides to indulge him, since after all you are an adventurer.
And in the end it talked directly to the player.

Was this life a gift...or a burden?

Yes, even if I had to swallow ARR, it was worth it. Playing this game is like living after all, isn't it? We had to endure despair and sorrow in ARR, but we didn't surrender to it, and at the end of the path we found Endwalker. Don't get me wrong, the highs in Endwalker are amazing, but it has a few horrend lows , many of us seem to have decided tho, to look past them. I may still be in the honeymoon phase but I still acknowledge how flawed of a game this is, after all I believe this game is an MMO who struggles to be one, and that still repents for the sins commited in ARR up to this day. The pacing is horrible, providing us with lows that undermine our experience right after being delivered spectacular moments by this game's brilliant highs, which are higher than ever in Endwalker.

But still, even with it's flaws it is after all an unforgetable experience, I'd rather have this flawed experience with such brilliant highs rather than a better rounded experience that doesn't reach the same highness. Who knows, maybe even the lows help the game reach the height that it does, just like life itself.

Some elements of the plot may seem dumb when looked upon with an analitic lens. I choose to overlook most of this details as most serve just as metaphors in favor of the message.

And what would this game be without it's music? We can find many of Uematsu's best works in this game, and we owe much to his succesor, Masayoshi Soken. I believe this game has the best OST I have ever listened to, it empowers each feeling the game tries to convey and makes all the highs much more special, each encounter breath taking and engraves every experience the game has to offer deep within us.

Endwalker is a tale about hope in despair, about light in darkness, about reklinding the flames that light the lives of others as they do to the same for us.About helping each other endure the suffering that life grants us. A tale of acceptance of this suffering, of it's existance as a constant companion in our never ending path to happiness.

Similar to how the WoL accepted Meteion, by accepting that suffering exists, we move foward.

So henceforth, we shall walk.

To find light, everlasting.

I never played the original game, probably won't do this justice so I'll keep it short.

I feel I've figured out quite some things about life, as someone in their mid twenties. Even so, sometimes one cannot help but waver about what do they truly want, what truly is important to them and many other questions that strike our minds from time to time.

This game delves into these uncertainties and much more, on what gives us purpose and what keeps us going foward, what it truly means to be alive. It tells us that to live is to suffer, to bond, to forge memories that will make us what we are and we will keep forever, to accept what we cannot change and to change what we can. Always accompanied with the fateful reminder that to live is to die.

I feel like deep down most of us know this, even if we struggle to come to terms with it which is even harder in modern society, we are constantly told that only success regarding your ambitious career path or job can lead to a truly fulfilling life, but our hearts know otherwise.

In this game, you will accompany many people on their journey to find one's purpose and meaning, and while doing so finding your own. Rushing your way through days and months with an addictive calendar system, making sure to make the best out of every afternoon and evening to max every social link and social stat so you can enjoy the wonderfull characterization that this game offers. The soundtrack is breathtaking and I cannot overstate how much I appreciate how varied it is and how it accompanies so well the state of the game you are currently in.

The gameplay is fun, played it on hard difficulty even if I was playing on easy for a while, which made it boring, so I ended up going back to hard not to regret it.

The themes are all over the place, everything fits them in the game even if some style may have been lost with the remake.

I have always struggled with the concept of death, the death of others and my own. This game resonated with me on a very personal level and I will cherish my memories of it.

"The arcana is the means by which all is revealed. Celebrate life grandeur, it's brilliance, it's magnificence."

My only regret is not having played this back when i was a teenager.This game truly is an ode to life, and it's absolutely beautiful.

My first metroidvania.

I have never been a fan of platformers and I still think this is not really my kind of game, regardless of that I have been able to enjoy it.

It is hard to believe that this game is 30 years old, the ambience is unbelievably well achieved thanks to the visuals which make each area iconic and is supported by an outstanding sound design.

The level design is remarkable, but I will say I didn't enjoy when the game forces you to backtrack. Arriving at an area that you have already explored earlier with a newly revealed shortcut and having to go all the way there just by backtracking are two completely different things. Super Metroid sometimes manages to make interesting shortcuts with it's upgrade system, but forgets to do so in some scenarios, forcing you to go all the way back where you came from (not just a few rooms away) a copious amount of times.

Some rooms where platforming was needed seemed to drag for too long, specially when provided with some foes and proyectiles along the way for increased anxiety.

The movement was smoother than I expected overall, but I struggled with the jump, specially with wall-jumping and using the space suit roll jump.

Despite all that, the exploration of new zones always feels fresh, and the upgrade system not only provides with a sense of progression of Samus's power level but also providing a variety of tools to delve deeper into each area and progress towards the next one.

Many of the upgrades seemed very advanced for the time where this game came out, for example , the grappling hook feels surprisingly smooth. By the end of the game Samus's arsenal has changed so much that it almost feels like another game, also making dealing with enemies much easier and satisfactory. I had one huge issue with the arsenal tho, and it's swapping between weapons, which felt incredibly clunky probably because the console lacked enough buttons or maybe because I played this with an Xbox controller.

I have also tried practicing some techniques like bomb jumping and wall jumping, although they were useful to me in a small number of situations as I'm not any kind of speedrunner, I can begin to see and appreciate how this game influenced the world of speedrunning and how the developers took care in making it possible.

My favorite part of the game were the first few zones, I feel this is where I enjoyed the exploration and ambience the most, every area felt unique and I really like the abandoned and hostile planet it helped to picture, I enjoyed the wrecked ship as well. The ending was pretty cool and the areas were visually impressive but having to backtrack and getting stuck not knowing how to progress kind of worsened my overall experience (I probably should be more patient with this kind of games, can't help it tho it's my first metroidvania). I have the feeling that I will appreciate this game much more when I come back to it in the future after tackling some other games of the same genre. With my platforming skills honed and the patience required to tackle the genre ( I was looking foward to other titles that I mean to play in the following days, which stressed me to finish this one faster).

Overall this game surprised me and helped understand how ahead of it's time it truly was, I will surely come back to it in the future.