Animaniaig
Fire Emblem Fates Conquest is a fairly interesting game to me. By every metric, to me at the very least, it should be an awful game and experience. But it's something that just kind of...works. Which is mostly because of the position FE as a series has put itself into across it's lifetime.
First things first, the main story of Conquest is undeniably bad. But I wasn't really bothered for a few reasons. Firstly because Conquest's narrative isn't bad in any way that's not the norm for Fire Emblem, and honestly it's writing is better in quite a few ways compared to games that came before it namely Awakening, as the series as a whole is generally poorly written generic fantasy stories. The Nohr/Hoshido conflict is laughable at best which is fine because Conquest doesn't focus on it too hard outside of the earlier chapters. Instead, it relegates that to the background while it focuses more on the internal issues of Nohr; which isn't the best since Garon sucks as an antagonist but it serves to give the main characters a certain degree of nuance.
I can say that one thing Conquest does well with it's narrative is pacing. Fire Emblem narrative pacing is generally quite messy and leans on two extremes. Narratives are either far too fast paced and make their conflicts, themes and arcs feel very volatile, superficial and underwritten (Awakening/Path of Radiance). Or they're far too slow and dwell on plot points for far too long dragging them out while saying or providing absolutely nothing new (Three Houses, Three Hopes). Conquest is one of the games in the series (along with Genealogy and Thracia) that nails the pacing more or less perfectly in a way that compliments both the gameplay loop and the narrative themes.
The characters here, at least within the main story, are pretty hit and miss. The Nohrian Royals are the only characters that are consistently fairly solid mostly due to their dynamics and relationships with each other that drive a lot of the plot forward. Some of the characterization and dialogue can be weak at times, basically all of the Hoshidan Royals but especially Sakura and Takumi, but I generally found the cast to be either inoffensively uninteresting or genuinely quite entertaining within the main narrative.
Supports are another thing entirely and much more inconsistent. They can either make characters more entertaining regardless of how they are in the main story or insufferably cringe.
Corrin I found to not be a bad avatar protagonist. They have some clear cut, solid characterization within the main story and their inner conflict was fairly decent. They're not as well done as Alear but not close to as bad as Kris and Byleth, since they have an actual character and dynamics, while fixing the issues I had with Robin (who's very dull in the Awakening main story but more fun in supports). The "Avatar Worshipping" with Corrin is a lot more well founded here since Corrin is family to all of the major players within the conflict and it does lend to some of Corrin's characterization.
Now for the actual meat of the game. The gameplay is the major standout point and appeal to Fire Emblem as a whole. Conquest nails this near perfectly having some of the most fun gameplay in a game I've played in a VERY long time. The map design is fantastic with every map being standout in layout and gimmicks that really allows you to play around with strategy and the mechanics of the game in fun and interesting ways. This extends to even paralogues. Characters are well designed and have interesting gimmicks/personal skills that makes them standout and highlights the pair up mechanic a lot better than Awakening did. Finally, the design around Conquest's ludonarrative harmony ties everything together to make the entire campaign satisfyingly strategic and challenging. The smart limiting of resources, paired with second generation units to an extent, (money, promotion seals and so on) adds a layer of strategy to how you build your army like who you bench, when you promote and makes allocating kills and experience that much more thought provoking.
All in all, Fire Emblem Fates Conquest is a undoubtedly a flawed game but it's a flawed game that understands Fire Emblem's major strengths and appeal. Instead of trying to rectify flaws FE has almost always struggled with, it understands and then doubles down on it's strengths showing that sometimes it's best to play your hand straight and stick to what you know.
First things first, the main story of Conquest is undeniably bad. But I wasn't really bothered for a few reasons. Firstly because Conquest's narrative isn't bad in any way that's not the norm for Fire Emblem, and honestly it's writing is better in quite a few ways compared to games that came before it namely Awakening, as the series as a whole is generally poorly written generic fantasy stories. The Nohr/Hoshido conflict is laughable at best which is fine because Conquest doesn't focus on it too hard outside of the earlier chapters. Instead, it relegates that to the background while it focuses more on the internal issues of Nohr; which isn't the best since Garon sucks as an antagonist but it serves to give the main characters a certain degree of nuance.
I can say that one thing Conquest does well with it's narrative is pacing. Fire Emblem narrative pacing is generally quite messy and leans on two extremes. Narratives are either far too fast paced and make their conflicts, themes and arcs feel very volatile, superficial and underwritten (Awakening/Path of Radiance). Or they're far too slow and dwell on plot points for far too long dragging them out while saying or providing absolutely nothing new (Three Houses, Three Hopes). Conquest is one of the games in the series (along with Genealogy and Thracia) that nails the pacing more or less perfectly in a way that compliments both the gameplay loop and the narrative themes.
The characters here, at least within the main story, are pretty hit and miss. The Nohrian Royals are the only characters that are consistently fairly solid mostly due to their dynamics and relationships with each other that drive a lot of the plot forward. Some of the characterization and dialogue can be weak at times, basically all of the Hoshidan Royals but especially Sakura and Takumi, but I generally found the cast to be either inoffensively uninteresting or genuinely quite entertaining within the main narrative.
Supports are another thing entirely and much more inconsistent. They can either make characters more entertaining regardless of how they are in the main story or insufferably cringe.
Corrin I found to not be a bad avatar protagonist. They have some clear cut, solid characterization within the main story and their inner conflict was fairly decent. They're not as well done as Alear but not close to as bad as Kris and Byleth, since they have an actual character and dynamics, while fixing the issues I had with Robin (who's very dull in the Awakening main story but more fun in supports). The "Avatar Worshipping" with Corrin is a lot more well founded here since Corrin is family to all of the major players within the conflict and it does lend to some of Corrin's characterization.
Now for the actual meat of the game. The gameplay is the major standout point and appeal to Fire Emblem as a whole. Conquest nails this near perfectly having some of the most fun gameplay in a game I've played in a VERY long time. The map design is fantastic with every map being standout in layout and gimmicks that really allows you to play around with strategy and the mechanics of the game in fun and interesting ways. This extends to even paralogues. Characters are well designed and have interesting gimmicks/personal skills that makes them standout and highlights the pair up mechanic a lot better than Awakening did. Finally, the design around Conquest's ludonarrative harmony ties everything together to make the entire campaign satisfyingly strategic and challenging. The smart limiting of resources, paired with second generation units to an extent, (money, promotion seals and so on) adds a layer of strategy to how you build your army like who you bench, when you promote and makes allocating kills and experience that much more thought provoking.
All in all, Fire Emblem Fates Conquest is a undoubtedly a flawed game but it's a flawed game that understands Fire Emblem's major strengths and appeal. Instead of trying to rectify flaws FE has almost always struggled with, it understands and then doubles down on it's strengths showing that sometimes it's best to play your hand straight and stick to what you know.
This game is okay. The story is an improvement over the Miles Morales game as are the characters and their dynamics which are genuinely good. The traversal, side content and diversity of powers is also fun but there's too many QTEs (this isn't 2007) and everything revolving around the combat is between passable and bad. Regular enemies are too spongy and in some cases too numerous, this goes somewhere between double and triple in regards to Symbiote enemies, the dodge/parry system is very hit and miss with some parts of it just being outright poorly designed and the boss design as a whole, excluding a single boss, is more annoying than challenging or fun.
2020
I gave this game many, many chances only to be met with poor combat (FAR too RNG reliant) and softlocks on multiple save files. The story, characters, and setting are all more than fine and there's a ton of content to be had but actually playing it or getting to a lot of this content isn't fun and doesn't feel rewarding.
2023
It's honestly kind of crazy how this game takes every step forward to be better than Genshin from the story to the aesthetic to the character design but where the combat design and gacha are concerned, it takes about 5 steps back.
Firstly, for a turn based combat system, Star Rail's combat is incredibly shallow and limiting. The emphasis on hitting weaknesses is nice in theory but the game doesn't have enough options in the form of playable characters (you don't get a free playable character of every element for some reason) or utility to make it work past the first hour or two. On top of this, the way weaknesses are actually balanced makes this problem even more egregious. Unless you're incredibly overleveled, hitting off of weaknesses makes any character basically useless. And the way they've balanced enemies in dungeons, or lack of doing it rather, makes party compositions an extreme pain. You should basically give up using your favourite/best characters in certain elements because they'll almost never be useful. Having completed the Belobog arc with Welt in my roster, I used him a grand total of maybe 3 times because the Imaginary element hardly ever appears. Meanwhile, I don't have Seele and Qingque is available for free so late, right at the end of Belobog while not being on rate up, that I basically never got to exploit the overabundant Quantum weakness.
The same goes for basic utility as basic utility that's standard for turn based games like reviving downed party members in battle or using recovery items have either been locked behind the gacha, the only character able to revive a party member is a 5 star in the general pool, or stripped entirely. Which makes me question why recovery consumables are even in the game. You never need to use them in dungeons because you're never far from the next anchor that fully heals/revives your party and you can't use them in battle. Without an actual use, why do they even exist? Stamina system is as garbage as Genshin's.
As for the actual story, it's mostly just standard sci-fi JRPG/anime fare. Nothing particularly mindblowing about it from it's concepts to it's execution. It's pretty standard with some nice comedy at times. But the presentation of the story is an actual problem. Cutscenes aren't spread evenly, consistently and a lot of the "gameplay" sections are things that could easily be done in cutscenes. There's too many "enter 5+ minute cutscene, walk 30 seconds to next destination, enter another 5+ minute cutscene" moments that are really just pointless draws for time and nothing more. The characters are mostly the same but I do appreciate the protagonist not being silent...sometimes. They're not very consistent with it but it's a lot more tolerable than Genshin with the Traveler and Paimon at the very least.
Firstly, for a turn based combat system, Star Rail's combat is incredibly shallow and limiting. The emphasis on hitting weaknesses is nice in theory but the game doesn't have enough options in the form of playable characters (you don't get a free playable character of every element for some reason) or utility to make it work past the first hour or two. On top of this, the way weaknesses are actually balanced makes this problem even more egregious. Unless you're incredibly overleveled, hitting off of weaknesses makes any character basically useless. And the way they've balanced enemies in dungeons, or lack of doing it rather, makes party compositions an extreme pain. You should basically give up using your favourite/best characters in certain elements because they'll almost never be useful. Having completed the Belobog arc with Welt in my roster, I used him a grand total of maybe 3 times because the Imaginary element hardly ever appears. Meanwhile, I don't have Seele and Qingque is available for free so late, right at the end of Belobog while not being on rate up, that I basically never got to exploit the overabundant Quantum weakness.
The same goes for basic utility as basic utility that's standard for turn based games like reviving downed party members in battle or using recovery items have either been locked behind the gacha, the only character able to revive a party member is a 5 star in the general pool, or stripped entirely. Which makes me question why recovery consumables are even in the game. You never need to use them in dungeons because you're never far from the next anchor that fully heals/revives your party and you can't use them in battle. Without an actual use, why do they even exist? Stamina system is as garbage as Genshin's.
As for the actual story, it's mostly just standard sci-fi JRPG/anime fare. Nothing particularly mindblowing about it from it's concepts to it's execution. It's pretty standard with some nice comedy at times. But the presentation of the story is an actual problem. Cutscenes aren't spread evenly, consistently and a lot of the "gameplay" sections are things that could easily be done in cutscenes. There's too many "enter 5+ minute cutscene, walk 30 seconds to next destination, enter another 5+ minute cutscene" moments that are really just pointless draws for time and nothing more. The characters are mostly the same but I do appreciate the protagonist not being silent...sometimes. They're not very consistent with it but it's a lot more tolerable than Genshin with the Traveler and Paimon at the very least.
1998
Having finally finished Xenogears, after originally shelving it after disc 1, I can safely say that this is the most conflicted I've ever been with anything in my life. It's a game I both have respect for due to the risks it took from a story perspective as a game from Square but also have little respect for due to it's lack of ambition or passion for itself in particular as a work outside of that.
A major issue I have with Xenogears is that it's a cobbled together Frankenstein work taking bits and pieces of 20th century philosophy, religion and classic mecha anime from the time like Gundam/Gunbuster but it doesn't take these inspirations and run with them to create it's own standout identity. Instead, Xenogears is completely content with being an imitation of them that's almost like an advertisement for these other works because Takahashi's passion for these other works vastly overpowered any passion he had creating Xenogears. So, Xenogears' story, even outside of it's other issues, is quite unpalatable as it would rather provide an extremely surface level of the concepts present it borrows rather than come to it's own conclusion from it's own exploration of them. Instead, it's watered down the messages and conclusions of it's inspirations which makes it feel a bit like it's trivializing these inherited themes either because it didn't understand them or for the sake of pointing to things that have done it better. This makes the general plot feel generally unremarkable when given any real thought as near every story beat is from another work but not really transformative or given it's own real spin and if it is, it's presented in a way that's so utterly unsubtle, almost like a brick to the forehead, that it could be seen as admirable in a way for some but for others it could be a bit insulting. This kind of shows up in Takahashi's signature poor dialogue where characters where a lot of this is showcased very artificially through very stunted dialogue. Conversations, whether revolving around these topics or otherwise, are very awkward and don't flow well. A bit of a representative of the actual game.
However, at the same time, Xenogears is such a fascinating game to think and talk about. It has interesting themes, characters, plot points and a setting that is genuinely pretty well fleshed out. The fact that Xenogears was even willing to showcase a lot of what it did, even if it failed to properly explore or flesh them out, is praiseworthy and quite respectable in it's own right as they were generally good points for me to ponder about even if very little to none of it had actually come from Takahashi nor did the game really facilitate them properly. Most of the characters don't have much relevance, not unusual for a JRPG with a larger or even standard party size, or development with only Fei and Elly really developing substantially out of the main cast. The antagonist side is a bit better and more consistent in that regard but Fei and Elly alone are generally good enough to somewhat distract from the rest of the main cast being incredibly thin and lacking substance character wise. They had some pretty stand out development and were the only ones to have an actual complete story where things are actually properly foreshadowed and not just dropped for shock factor.
After hearing about the troubled development of Xenogears, it having issues with it's gameplay isn't all that surprising but it's also not something I'm willing to excuse because of that. The gameplay is honestly like the rest of the game, it has potential but it's not followed through on. Deathblows are unique but they're implemented in the most basic way where you just have to spam your strongest with no regards of teaching the player how to use them, combine them or even obtain them. Though combos are more or less useless with the lack of design the game has so it wasn't too much of a burden in the long run, it was still quite disappointing.
A major issue I have with Xenogears is that it's a cobbled together Frankenstein work taking bits and pieces of 20th century philosophy, religion and classic mecha anime from the time like Gundam/Gunbuster but it doesn't take these inspirations and run with them to create it's own standout identity. Instead, Xenogears is completely content with being an imitation of them that's almost like an advertisement for these other works because Takahashi's passion for these other works vastly overpowered any passion he had creating Xenogears. So, Xenogears' story, even outside of it's other issues, is quite unpalatable as it would rather provide an extremely surface level of the concepts present it borrows rather than come to it's own conclusion from it's own exploration of them. Instead, it's watered down the messages and conclusions of it's inspirations which makes it feel a bit like it's trivializing these inherited themes either because it didn't understand them or for the sake of pointing to things that have done it better. This makes the general plot feel generally unremarkable when given any real thought as near every story beat is from another work but not really transformative or given it's own real spin and if it is, it's presented in a way that's so utterly unsubtle, almost like a brick to the forehead, that it could be seen as admirable in a way for some but for others it could be a bit insulting. This kind of shows up in Takahashi's signature poor dialogue where characters where a lot of this is showcased very artificially through very stunted dialogue. Conversations, whether revolving around these topics or otherwise, are very awkward and don't flow well. A bit of a representative of the actual game.
However, at the same time, Xenogears is such a fascinating game to think and talk about. It has interesting themes, characters, plot points and a setting that is genuinely pretty well fleshed out. The fact that Xenogears was even willing to showcase a lot of what it did, even if it failed to properly explore or flesh them out, is praiseworthy and quite respectable in it's own right as they were generally good points for me to ponder about even if very little to none of it had actually come from Takahashi nor did the game really facilitate them properly. Most of the characters don't have much relevance, not unusual for a JRPG with a larger or even standard party size, or development with only Fei and Elly really developing substantially out of the main cast. The antagonist side is a bit better and more consistent in that regard but Fei and Elly alone are generally good enough to somewhat distract from the rest of the main cast being incredibly thin and lacking substance character wise. They had some pretty stand out development and were the only ones to have an actual complete story where things are actually properly foreshadowed and not just dropped for shock factor.
After hearing about the troubled development of Xenogears, it having issues with it's gameplay isn't all that surprising but it's also not something I'm willing to excuse because of that. The gameplay is honestly like the rest of the game, it has potential but it's not followed through on. Deathblows are unique but they're implemented in the most basic way where you just have to spam your strongest with no regards of teaching the player how to use them, combine them or even obtain them. Though combos are more or less useless with the lack of design the game has so it wasn't too much of a burden in the long run, it was still quite disappointing.
This is really boring. It's ugly, even for an old game, gameplay systems and battles are very boring, the story barely exists, maps are boring, battles aren't paced well and the dialogue is very awkwardly written. I got about 10 chapters in and couldn't take any more. I might continue it later down the line but there's nothing keeping me playing right now.
2023
I went into Fire Emblem Engage expecting to dislike it after the absolute disaster Three Houses was and I am genuinely surprised at how great this game is as a whole.
Getting the obvious out of the way, this game looks pretty great. Unlike Three Houses, this game actually has the production value and visual effort of an AAA first party game. Models are better, animations are better, it handles it's aesthetic better, colour design is better, textures are better, character design is better and there's an actual diverse amount of areas you visit with unique architecture. It's actually shocking that this and Three Houses were in development at the same time considering how much more personality and identity this game has over it. The Switch doesn't do the visuals much justice what with the low frame rate and dynamic resolution but Three Houses had this problem much worse than Engage did.
Narratively, this game was never going for anything particularly amazing and it shows. There's not much depth or complexity in it's world setup or story beats as the plot of this game definitely boils down to "beat the evil dragon" for almost it's entirety. Even it's major plot reveals are obvious with how heavy handed the foreshadowing for them is. But the game wears it's heart on it's sleeve. It's really campy and the game doesn't take it's narrative too seriously making it just fun beyond anything else. This being said, I was engaged enough in the serious story moments; especially around the finale where it felt a lot like a Tokusatsu show.
Character wise, this game was a lot more consistent than Three Houses was. It didn't reach the same highs as Three Houses did with it's cast, but I think the consistency that it provided was far better. There were no actively terrible characters that I hated or disliked. At most, there were characters I was indifferent towards like Jade and Goldmary. Alear, however, was probably the game's highest point character wise. The disparity between Alear's status as a Divine Dragon Deity and their personality of just being a normal person made a lot of their interactions both in supports and the story very endearing along with making their actual character arc in the story compelling and easy to root for. Alear is humanized really well, especially compared to Byleth who had that as their entire character arc across FOUR stories and failed at it, and I was very happy that Alear wasn't silent.
Gameplay was probably the biggest improvement from the last game. From beginning to end, there's actual map design. Maps aren't rehashed and they stand out from each other both aesthetically and mechanically. This is especially true in the later portions of the game. The maps are challenging but fair and the reworked class system is much better for unit balance.
This being said, the game does have some growing pains in all it's success with it's gameplay. Namely that this game has very convoluted UI that it does nothing to attempt to help with navigating. Why is reclassing in the inventory screen? Why does it not tell you that it is? Why can you not look over the map before entering battle to help strategize? Aggro lines don't really do anything this time. They say who CAN be targeted but not who currently BEING targeted. And so on. The game is missing a lot of more or less essential quality of life compared to other SRPGs like it.
Getting the obvious out of the way, this game looks pretty great. Unlike Three Houses, this game actually has the production value and visual effort of an AAA first party game. Models are better, animations are better, it handles it's aesthetic better, colour design is better, textures are better, character design is better and there's an actual diverse amount of areas you visit with unique architecture. It's actually shocking that this and Three Houses were in development at the same time considering how much more personality and identity this game has over it. The Switch doesn't do the visuals much justice what with the low frame rate and dynamic resolution but Three Houses had this problem much worse than Engage did.
Narratively, this game was never going for anything particularly amazing and it shows. There's not much depth or complexity in it's world setup or story beats as the plot of this game definitely boils down to "beat the evil dragon" for almost it's entirety. Even it's major plot reveals are obvious with how heavy handed the foreshadowing for them is. But the game wears it's heart on it's sleeve. It's really campy and the game doesn't take it's narrative too seriously making it just fun beyond anything else. This being said, I was engaged enough in the serious story moments; especially around the finale where it felt a lot like a Tokusatsu show.
Character wise, this game was a lot more consistent than Three Houses was. It didn't reach the same highs as Three Houses did with it's cast, but I think the consistency that it provided was far better. There were no actively terrible characters that I hated or disliked. At most, there were characters I was indifferent towards like Jade and Goldmary. Alear, however, was probably the game's highest point character wise. The disparity between Alear's status as a Divine Dragon Deity and their personality of just being a normal person made a lot of their interactions both in supports and the story very endearing along with making their actual character arc in the story compelling and easy to root for. Alear is humanized really well, especially compared to Byleth who had that as their entire character arc across FOUR stories and failed at it, and I was very happy that Alear wasn't silent.
Gameplay was probably the biggest improvement from the last game. From beginning to end, there's actual map design. Maps aren't rehashed and they stand out from each other both aesthetically and mechanically. This is especially true in the later portions of the game. The maps are challenging but fair and the reworked class system is much better for unit balance.
This being said, the game does have some growing pains in all it's success with it's gameplay. Namely that this game has very convoluted UI that it does nothing to attempt to help with navigating. Why is reclassing in the inventory screen? Why does it not tell you that it is? Why can you not look over the map before entering battle to help strategize? Aggro lines don't really do anything this time. They say who CAN be targeted but not who currently BEING targeted. And so on. The game is missing a lot of more or less essential quality of life compared to other SRPGs like it.
Still waiting for Team Ninja to make a good soulslike.
I am utterly convinced that people only like this game for sunken cost/time. Even on the second major expansion, it never improves or goes anywhere. The story is still bad, the characters are still bad, the gameplay is still bad, the presentation is still bad and the UI is still godawful. There is literally nothing to be liked here.
Xenoblade Chronicles is a very uninspired game lacking in any real kind of ambition or passion about it's story telling. In fact, this story is far more like reading an generic anime trope manual that doesn't bother to flesh itself out beyond said manual.
The story is predictable and the pace of said story is all over the place. The setting is incredibly barebones as there's next to no world building and it even goes as far as to omit basic world building in order to set up totally shocking and not predictable at all plot twists that amount to nothing in the end. Somehow, this game made people living on giant titans suspended in battle an uninteresting setting which is an achievement in itself.
The characters however, are among the worst parts of this game as they're incredibly awkward unintentionally. Their characterization is incredibly shaky and sometimes even forced in that it feels actively unnatural for a lot of the characters to act and speak the way they do which makes a lot of their dialogue, scattered character moments and dynamics feel incredibly off in an uncomfortable or sometimes even stupid way. But the biggest offence about the cast is that none of them are remotely interesting by themselves or as a group. At best they're a meme because of their voices and at worst they're caricatures of tropes that don't mesh together in the slightest.
The worst part about this game however, is the script. The script writing of this game is absolutely shot to bits in both English and Japanese. Dialogue is awkward and conversations don't flow. Objects of interest in conversation are strangely glossed over sometimes whilst in others they're repeated on end completely unnaturally and make the cast act completely out of character compared to how they were before. The characters in this game don't speak like actual people but like characters reading off an incomplete script that consistently has them adlib to remind the player of certain things in case they forget. This causes the game to either overly dwell on certain scenes for too long or end others too early which makes the pacing an incredibly uneven, inconsistent slog.
The game design for this game is odd. It's technically sound and very well optimized but there are glaring flaws in the game design. The affinity system is unintuitive and poorly implemented. It feels tacked on and awkward. The side quests, as someone that absolutely adores doing side quests in games, were incredibly bland and didn't add anything. They didn't even feel rewarding just really hollow and almost randomly generated.
The actual gameplay is...unique. The world is fine. It looks fantastic for a Switch game but it's very barren, not rewarding to actually explore and generally just lacks mechanics or really anything. It's just pretty to look at. The battle system is unique which is the extent of my praise. It's not very fun to play around with and doesn't allow much freedom in terms of player input, tactics or customization while also being quite unresponsive at times. It's just shallow and honestly kind of a chore.
The music for this game is solid and most of the English VA performances are okay. There was a major problem with voice direction but that's really it. The actual sound design and sound effects could have used some work however.
Overall, Xenoblade Chronicles is a very generic and unexceptional game. There's no real actual appeal here beyond it being a AAA first party game but there's no actual ambition or anything standout about it. It doesn't even attempt to explore itself thematically and there aren't any enjoyable or interesting dynamics here. Everyone just clumsily goes through the motions. It's incredibly passionless.
The story is predictable and the pace of said story is all over the place. The setting is incredibly barebones as there's next to no world building and it even goes as far as to omit basic world building in order to set up totally shocking and not predictable at all plot twists that amount to nothing in the end. Somehow, this game made people living on giant titans suspended in battle an uninteresting setting which is an achievement in itself.
The characters however, are among the worst parts of this game as they're incredibly awkward unintentionally. Their characterization is incredibly shaky and sometimes even forced in that it feels actively unnatural for a lot of the characters to act and speak the way they do which makes a lot of their dialogue, scattered character moments and dynamics feel incredibly off in an uncomfortable or sometimes even stupid way. But the biggest offence about the cast is that none of them are remotely interesting by themselves or as a group. At best they're a meme because of their voices and at worst they're caricatures of tropes that don't mesh together in the slightest.
The worst part about this game however, is the script. The script writing of this game is absolutely shot to bits in both English and Japanese. Dialogue is awkward and conversations don't flow. Objects of interest in conversation are strangely glossed over sometimes whilst in others they're repeated on end completely unnaturally and make the cast act completely out of character compared to how they were before. The characters in this game don't speak like actual people but like characters reading off an incomplete script that consistently has them adlib to remind the player of certain things in case they forget. This causes the game to either overly dwell on certain scenes for too long or end others too early which makes the pacing an incredibly uneven, inconsistent slog.
The game design for this game is odd. It's technically sound and very well optimized but there are glaring flaws in the game design. The affinity system is unintuitive and poorly implemented. It feels tacked on and awkward. The side quests, as someone that absolutely adores doing side quests in games, were incredibly bland and didn't add anything. They didn't even feel rewarding just really hollow and almost randomly generated.
The actual gameplay is...unique. The world is fine. It looks fantastic for a Switch game but it's very barren, not rewarding to actually explore and generally just lacks mechanics or really anything. It's just pretty to look at. The battle system is unique which is the extent of my praise. It's not very fun to play around with and doesn't allow much freedom in terms of player input, tactics or customization while also being quite unresponsive at times. It's just shallow and honestly kind of a chore.
The music for this game is solid and most of the English VA performances are okay. There was a major problem with voice direction but that's really it. The actual sound design and sound effects could have used some work however.
Overall, Xenoblade Chronicles is a very generic and unexceptional game. There's no real actual appeal here beyond it being a AAA first party game but there's no actual ambition or anything standout about it. It doesn't even attempt to explore itself thematically and there aren't any enjoyable or interesting dynamics here. Everyone just clumsily goes through the motions. It's incredibly passionless.
2022
A poorly designed, buggy mess. The literal worst mainline Pokemon has ever been. Somehow they topped Sword and Shield in poor and lazy game design.
Got past ARR. Not really any better. Still a terrible story, still archaic with game design, dungeons are still poor, characters and setting are still boring, the music is still mediocre and the community still hardly interacts or does anything even after buying the game. Genuinely do not understand the appeal of this game as my first MMO.
To say that Fire Emblem Three Houses is a disappointment is the understatement of a century. There is a solid foundation of a setting and potential ambitious narrative pieces to be told here but almost everything surrounding it's execution is beyond dreadful. First things first, it does not understand how to handle it's own story structure. There are 4 routes, 5 if you play the DLC, but two of those routes are utterly worthless and retread the exact same plot threads, events and themes with nothing but slightly different endings which even then just comes down to one of them having a cutscene chopped in half. Silver Snow and Verdant Wind are the exact same story with a different lord that does the exact same thing anyway. On top of this, there's a ton of artificial padding from them not being able to balance the pacing of the gameplay and the story. The Monastery seems cool at first but when you realize that there's nothing to do across the 200+ hours this game will take you, you get so burned out of the social aspect of this game and how worthless most of it is. Especially when almost everything in the Monastery, besides recruiting which only matters for pre-skip anyway, is accessible in menus outside of it and other things like character dialogue or cooking can only be done once every 4 times you visit. And although this is a Switch game that I don't expect The Witcher or Elden Ring level visuals, this game is extremely ugly to look at. Half of the character designs are poor, the art style is poor, there is a HILARIOUS lack of portraits that detract from the story, the graphics look horrible, the colours are bad and the art direction/architecture is very uninspired.
Gameplay, for a strategy RPG, is genuinely pathetic. I have played visual novels with better gameplay balancing and design than this. Maps in this game are utterly worthless. There's about 10-15 at a stretch that are already just reskins with barely anything unique about them scenario wise or mechanically then to get rehashed to oblivion being used in quite literally every kind of battle to the point that you get sick of all of them by the time you're done with your first route. That is genuinely pathetic.
I also think that this is the first game I've played where permadeath genuinely does not matter. The units, both allied and enemy, are so poorly balanced on any difficulty that they game just becomes "send Byleth and your Lord to solo it" after you reach about level 10. Every enemy is a straight up joke due to the freedom you get.
Narrative wise, Three Houses flops between barely passable with some good characters and moments scattered between to dreadfully pathetic. The world building is poor. Things integral to a lot of the themes they attempt to showcase aren't fleshed out at all like the class system, social systems and the general status of each nation's commonfolk as well as how they're affected by the events.
Verdant Wind is supposed to be focused on geopolitics in the midst of a civil war as well as overcoming xenophobia except other nations exist in name only. They have absolutely zero impact on the plot of the route whatsoever and only ever get brought up in support conversations and a single Paralogue. On top of that, the actual main theme and goal is never actually achieved in the story making the whole thing incomplete. They never actually get to a point to solve or even confront the issue of geopolitics and xenophobia. They just throw it in a single sentence summary before the credits.
Azure Moon is a step up but suffers in it's own way. It's repetitive, poorly paced and is full of plot conveniences that serve to defecate on the themes and subject matter present in this route along with horrendous gameplay/narrative cohesion that they abide by or ignore at their own convenience really making integral turning points of the story not hit at all.
Silver Snow I can't even justify as it being a separate route. It is quite literally Verdant Wind with a few extra cutscenes tacked onto it. There is no reason why the two had to be separate routes besides just being a lazy way to pad out the game to make it seem even bigger and more ambitious.
Crimson Flower is the route with the most drastic change but is also the one impacted the worst by the lazy writing. It's the shortest, the one with the most conveniences and probably the laziest one in terms of writing. The entire concept that this route stands on is misrepresenting the others to try and parade itself as a "true" or "correct" route while also doing everything it can to avoid confronting it's subject matter head on in a thought provoking way. It honestly feels like the Lord's romanticized echo chamber more than anything else. On top of this, there are numerous plot holes created by the ending either not explaining certain plot elements or just outright contradicting itself.
Characters are a mixed bag which is unsurprising coming from a cast as big as this one and a game with writing as clumsy. The good characters are very good with great interactions and supports with good thematic exploration but generally have no place in the story because they're "expendable;" made to be removed with as little impact as possible due to permadeath. The great ones that I personally enjoyed were Linhardt, Lysithea, Seteth, Flayn, Sylvain, Felix, Cyril and Hilda. Some were pretty middling despite great setup like Ingrid who dwells on the waifubait aspect of her character far too much in her supports and Paralogue. The bad ones are horrible. Marianne and Bernadetta are genuinely insulting. Bernadetta makes a complete joke out of her subject matter while Marianne completely trivializes it in the most insulting way possible.
The Lords aren't really mixed though as I didn't like any of their characters. They all had potential but were extremely underexplored. Dimitri's character is lazy and the depiction of his mental health issues are frankly terrible from both a narrative and dialogue standpoint. The potential dynamic with Edelgard is pretty solid but Byleth, and ironically, Edelgard get in the way of it. All of his other dynamics and supports besides Dedue are very incomplete.
Claude is probably the Lord with the most potential but also the least explored. He's characterized as charismatic and shrewd with a very particular social detachment as the game's token master tactician but none of this is actually elaborated on or confronted. He does a few morally detached things in search for his goals but we never actually see his goals to fruition and they're never actually made a talking point.
Edelgard is...a thing. And not a good one. The main story bends over backwards to remove her agency and accountability to anything she does making her seem like a bumbling idiot but also glorifying her and, to put it crudely, sucking her off at any opportunity. Never letting any of her morally reprehensible actions actually be morally reprehensible because there must always be someone else to blame whether it's the victims or the people she's fighting against. Her trauma isn't explored they just make a point that she HAS trauma that drives her with very little actual elaboration, exploration or anything to help her progress and overcome her trauma.
Rhea is honestly a solid character in anything but Crimson Flower which very much mischaracterizes her in an attempt to drive Edelgard's point across. She's morally reprehensible but they do actually confront that and make it a talking point in routes she gets a direct focus while giving her a bit of nuance.
All in all, Fire Emblem Three Houses is a mess of a a game that has potential but suffers from very lazy/sloppy writing and extremely poor game design that has very little effort put into it. I went into this hoping for a great time but came out of it with very little to like. Do yourself a favor and play a good SRPG like Valkyria Chronicles or even Utawarerumono. If you enjoy lazy world building, mostly half assed character writing/drama, terrible game design and the most underexplored themes I've experienced in a singleplayer game, you'll like Fire Emblem Three Houses.
Gameplay, for a strategy RPG, is genuinely pathetic. I have played visual novels with better gameplay balancing and design than this. Maps in this game are utterly worthless. There's about 10-15 at a stretch that are already just reskins with barely anything unique about them scenario wise or mechanically then to get rehashed to oblivion being used in quite literally every kind of battle to the point that you get sick of all of them by the time you're done with your first route. That is genuinely pathetic.
I also think that this is the first game I've played where permadeath genuinely does not matter. The units, both allied and enemy, are so poorly balanced on any difficulty that they game just becomes "send Byleth and your Lord to solo it" after you reach about level 10. Every enemy is a straight up joke due to the freedom you get.
Narrative wise, Three Houses flops between barely passable with some good characters and moments scattered between to dreadfully pathetic. The world building is poor. Things integral to a lot of the themes they attempt to showcase aren't fleshed out at all like the class system, social systems and the general status of each nation's commonfolk as well as how they're affected by the events.
Verdant Wind is supposed to be focused on geopolitics in the midst of a civil war as well as overcoming xenophobia except other nations exist in name only. They have absolutely zero impact on the plot of the route whatsoever and only ever get brought up in support conversations and a single Paralogue. On top of that, the actual main theme and goal is never actually achieved in the story making the whole thing incomplete. They never actually get to a point to solve or even confront the issue of geopolitics and xenophobia. They just throw it in a single sentence summary before the credits.
Azure Moon is a step up but suffers in it's own way. It's repetitive, poorly paced and is full of plot conveniences that serve to defecate on the themes and subject matter present in this route along with horrendous gameplay/narrative cohesion that they abide by or ignore at their own convenience really making integral turning points of the story not hit at all.
Silver Snow I can't even justify as it being a separate route. It is quite literally Verdant Wind with a few extra cutscenes tacked onto it. There is no reason why the two had to be separate routes besides just being a lazy way to pad out the game to make it seem even bigger and more ambitious.
Crimson Flower is the route with the most drastic change but is also the one impacted the worst by the lazy writing. It's the shortest, the one with the most conveniences and probably the laziest one in terms of writing. The entire concept that this route stands on is misrepresenting the others to try and parade itself as a "true" or "correct" route while also doing everything it can to avoid confronting it's subject matter head on in a thought provoking way. It honestly feels like the Lord's romanticized echo chamber more than anything else. On top of this, there are numerous plot holes created by the ending either not explaining certain plot elements or just outright contradicting itself.
Characters are a mixed bag which is unsurprising coming from a cast as big as this one and a game with writing as clumsy. The good characters are very good with great interactions and supports with good thematic exploration but generally have no place in the story because they're "expendable;" made to be removed with as little impact as possible due to permadeath. The great ones that I personally enjoyed were Linhardt, Lysithea, Seteth, Flayn, Sylvain, Felix, Cyril and Hilda. Some were pretty middling despite great setup like Ingrid who dwells on the waifubait aspect of her character far too much in her supports and Paralogue. The bad ones are horrible. Marianne and Bernadetta are genuinely insulting. Bernadetta makes a complete joke out of her subject matter while Marianne completely trivializes it in the most insulting way possible.
The Lords aren't really mixed though as I didn't like any of their characters. They all had potential but were extremely underexplored. Dimitri's character is lazy and the depiction of his mental health issues are frankly terrible from both a narrative and dialogue standpoint. The potential dynamic with Edelgard is pretty solid but Byleth, and ironically, Edelgard get in the way of it. All of his other dynamics and supports besides Dedue are very incomplete.
Claude is probably the Lord with the most potential but also the least explored. He's characterized as charismatic and shrewd with a very particular social detachment as the game's token master tactician but none of this is actually elaborated on or confronted. He does a few morally detached things in search for his goals but we never actually see his goals to fruition and they're never actually made a talking point.
Edelgard is...a thing. And not a good one. The main story bends over backwards to remove her agency and accountability to anything she does making her seem like a bumbling idiot but also glorifying her and, to put it crudely, sucking her off at any opportunity. Never letting any of her morally reprehensible actions actually be morally reprehensible because there must always be someone else to blame whether it's the victims or the people she's fighting against. Her trauma isn't explored they just make a point that she HAS trauma that drives her with very little actual elaboration, exploration or anything to help her progress and overcome her trauma.
Rhea is honestly a solid character in anything but Crimson Flower which very much mischaracterizes her in an attempt to drive Edelgard's point across. She's morally reprehensible but they do actually confront that and make it a talking point in routes she gets a direct focus while giving her a bit of nuance.
All in all, Fire Emblem Three Houses is a mess of a a game that has potential but suffers from very lazy/sloppy writing and extremely poor game design that has very little effort put into it. I went into this hoping for a great time but came out of it with very little to like. Do yourself a favor and play a good SRPG like Valkyria Chronicles or even Utawarerumono. If you enjoy lazy world building, mostly half assed character writing/drama, terrible game design and the most underexplored themes I've experienced in a singleplayer game, you'll like Fire Emblem Three Houses.
Fairly mediocre.
The horrible release here in Europe sucked all motivation that I had so I can't be bothered to complete it.