This games atmosphere is by far the best I've encountered so far the way its capable of creating errily unsettling situations is amazing, whilst also but rare creating even uplifting themes. The world nikki is best described as deciveingly massive as you start to explore more and more, even tho the main "objective" doesn't really exist spending your time wandering and encountering special events and npcs is very fun, the design of each level are vastly unique when compared. The way how this game shows how a shut-in lives and how it can take affect on ones mental state showcased how usually most of Madotsukis dreams being are far from happy gives the avid feel then even when she escapes from the outside world into her dream one she still can't be happy.

E.V.O. : Search for Eden is a really interesting game conceptually, but it's not very good in practice. The thing that ruins the game for me is the hit detection. The game feels unfinished because of how lousy it feels at times. It's incredibly hard to hit enemies, but they can hit you extremely easily. It feels like whenever I die, it's not my fault, which is when you know the game isn't very good. I love challenging games, but this one just sucks. Plus, the underwater sections are very repetitive, and the hit detection issues are at their most rampant in those parts. I'd avoid this one.

Really enjoyed Breath of Fire 2; despite being a bit of a mixed bag, it is a significant step up from BoF1. Surprisingly well-defined characters for a ‘94 SNES title, most of this game’s best moments are when it manages to deftly utilise them through meaningful interactions and mechanical nods to their personalities (like Lin desperately wanting to learn magic, but not quite having the capacity to chant the spells she learns). Felt so good to like, want to play as every single character because their roles in the battles feel tuned and identified just right. It may feel thin by today’s standards, but I’m just so impressed by how much dialogue they’ve managed to squeeze into this game. Plenty of opportunities to shuffle your party around to see how the world reacts to who, even has a townbuilding component where you can touch base with everyone in your roster. It’s very character-focused and feels so much warmer because of it. Thru tears, cursing modern gaming for insisting upon only ever rigging a human skeleton for playable characters, I want more fucked up creatures like this, we were eating good.

I often struggle with some RPGs from this era because they tend to be a little one-note. I get uncharitably bored by the droning daisy chain of sauceless overworld dungeons with labyrinthine layouts to snake around as the random battles chip away at my sanity. BoF2 is def one of the JRPGs that manages to avoid this by adopting a variety show-like format for its dungeons. Every one is unquestionably unique, often themed around a character or subquest, and fleshed out with mechanics and funny gimmicks that won’t be used elsewhere. This is kind of the key to my heart. If you want me to feel like I’m on an adventure, write a new rulebook every hour and give every point of interest their own flair. Has a few particular showstopper-grade setpieces and story beats I never predicted, at times it really does feel like you’re playing one of the best JRPGs ever. Could honestly be my new #1 spot for “most deserving of a remake to maximise potential”.

The story is peaks and valleys, sections can be cute but wear out their welcome (frog castle), or feel poorly planned yet have some rather standout character work (Highfort). The game has a “shaman system”, a couple degrees removed from FF’s job system, essentially granting new forms and buffs to your party members and it’s all a very good idea, but it feels so out of the way. By the time you’re able to make the most of it, the game is already drawing to a close. The worst wedge in the experience by far is the random encounter rate that is just dumb high and only exists to crush momentum. You're going to want to map a fast-forward function to a trigger.

Played with this retranslation patch and this rebalancing/QoL patch. I can’t exactly speak to the content or quality of either, this being my first playthrough, but they came strongly recommended to me, and I do love hatchet quality of life solutions.

Want to quantum shift to the alternative reality where the Breath of Fire franchise is as huge as our Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series. What are they up to? What are we missing out on?

Pokemon Clover is the best Pokemon game ever, and managed to recapture a long lost magic that the series had and I'm dead serious when I say this. I love this game so much I have the World Record (and only) NG+ speedrun of it, and will be improving that record again later on.

While the game's starting town seems to be funny joke game like "haha your professor is Danny DeVito and your starters are a condom, arab terrorist, and Grasshole)" it quickly shows what depths it's capable of in regards to its parodic creature designs, combat depth, and difficulty.

I'll talk about the humor first: The time capsule of internet humor is pretty funny and while I'm unsure how well the humor will age in the short term, it will be nostalgic soon enough. It's offensive, but offensive in the South Park method where it makes fun of anyone and everyone and doesn't pick sides: all sides are portrayed as selfish, idiotic morons with no one in the right. You have Social Justice Warriors that go off at the slightest unintended microaggression and Nazis that are portrayed as idiodic morons disliking things just because they are different. It has a jim crow black pers...Dark Type holding a watermelon going SHEEET that is also the ideal HM slave while also having a fat pig police officer fighting type that isn't even that good to use. The mons cover all regards and I'd say only the Sadrog->PepeREE line aged poorly but that has more to do with the Pepe meme than the mon based on it.

I suppose this is a good transition to talk about the mons and their designs, both visually and functionally. Visually due to how they were compiled (the Fochun dex was roughly the first 151 designs they recieved with slight tweaks and alterations) but still have so much thought with what they have. Some like Haremit and Anaconduke could be real Pokemon and while others like Sprucifix and Unjoy would never fly, they fit right in a parody Pokemon game incredibly well. There are veryfew bad designs but they do exist, like DIEZNUTS, but it's forgiven by the surplus of good ones. They even had the right mind to drop Pokfusa before 1.0 and replace it with the much more fitting Militant. Functionally they all are exactly as they seem, and with quality and balance in mind too: Militant for example is a Deoxys lite, while there are tons of fantastic mons like Marleyzard that are designed to use Toke, a fire type Shell Smash, to set up and sweep. Their abilities also add to their jokes, like Marleyzard's White Smoke that also aids it in combat. With two exceptions that are getting nerfed in the near future (lol), the in-game balance is on point and nothing feels free while nothing feels truly unfair either.

This leads to the main campaign which if played blind really recaptured that feeling of playing Pokemon for the first time, only on an adult level: I saw a creature I didn't know of before, and had no clue what it was, what it did, how it played, until I dealt with it enough or tried it on my team for myself. The enemies weren't slouches either: You aren't just going to beat Brock because you chose the non-arab starter. You can't spam items either: The game has a hard limit of 4 item uses per battle. On the other hand, one-use items (like Berries and Sashes) will come back at the end of major battles, so there's no need to hold back on using those for big fights allowing you as many tries as you need. And you will need them, as battles only get more complex from there, Snoop and Freddie being notable hurdles in the Gym department while the rivals and Carlito also caught me off guard a couple of times. Your rival also changes depending on your gender, as does their strategy: Viol the male rival plays a very meta style strategy, while Keksandra plays like a massive shitposter who wants to mess around more rather than win. It adds that extra bit of replayability. The Elite Four (and especially the champion) also add their own surprises to shove your shit in and make you rethink your strategies.

And it doesn't end there! Pokemon Clover has a massive post-game: First there's the top of the Fochun region, followed up with 5 more gyms in the Ebin Islands with much tougher trainers using more intense strategies! This world is simply massive and with a whole new national dex, rightfully so! They're no slouch here either, filled with a life and sidequests of their own, like buying a house that can eventually lead to in my opinion the most powerful mon, Adesign! There are also plenty of bonus bosses including Adolf Hitler, Chris-Chan, some literal who named Moot, and more! The only bad part is Polany, the weakest area of the game, which is not only unfunny (just like the board it's based on!) but is also redundant with Outkast Island already existing and worst of all being unfinished. But with that out of the way, Mt. Moot is its final dungeon, and that's it.

And now I should talk about the story, so stop reading and play it right now if you wanna avoid: The first part up till the Champion is relatively standard Kanto fare with the evil team. The boss is obvious but it wasn't made out to be a big mystery. It's in the postgame with Neo Team Karma that reveals that the team you faced at first was merely a front so they could do their real misdeeds in the shadows. I actually like this as it's a small shake-up. However, the real boss has no build up and kinda dumps his entire character and motive in the final 10 minutes. Vyglass is just like you, only he hated his life despite having a wife and kid and retreated further and further into his imaginary world he created with Clovenix. It's only after beating the shit out of him, his mechs, and his mons that he apologizes for sperging out and goes back to his reality, leaving anything else in Fochun in your hands. It does its job but if Vyglass was built up better or shown once he would have been better, but he still leaves an impression just because he uses the Master Ball on the Legendary like we do and then proceeds to try and kill you with a mech.

I have no good segway into the music but they're all bangers and it's the best Pokemon soundtrack. The remixes like Darude's Sandstorm, POMF POMF POMF, Megalovania...are all translated beautifully to the GBA sound font, while the original compositions like Viol's theme, Champion's theme, Demiwaifu, Karma Admin, Neo Team Karma, Vyglass theme, they're all so good!

Long story short Pokemon Clover is the best Pokemon game and likely always will be so playing it should be required for any Pokemon fan regardless of your views and beliefs I don't care about those just play Clover.