You know, i have a pretty negative opinion overall when it comes to Shouzu Kaga's games. He may be the creator of Fire Emblem but i've always felt that it was for the better that he left IntSys and Fire Emblem behind, because his track record is not that good. For the longest time, i thought the only good game the guy made was Mystery of the Emblem. Shadow Dragon NES and Gaiden both aged horrendously but i can't really fault it, to be fair. Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776 are an absolute mess of game design. Berwick Saga.....is fine but i just didn't click with it so i will refrain from giving any opinion on it. Vestaria Saga started out good and got really, really bad as it went on. So where does that leave TearRing Saga, the first of these "Kaga Sagas". Well, i was pleasantly surprised to find it's actually pretty good.

The game is basically an expanded version of Gaiden and as such, the structure of the maps allowed for easy completion (mostly). There is no Weapon Triangle which is pretty based. It's a fine mechanic but both Shadows of Valentia and Three Houses show that you can do well without it and TearRing Saga is another example of that. Also, there's like two axe users in the game, a Weapon Triangle would be extremely unbalanced. Anyways, because of how short maps tended to be, i pretty much blitzed through this game, which honestly felt really nice. It is a bit on the easy side, probably comparable with Blazing Blade, but that's not bad at all.

On the narrative side, while Runan is just brown Marth, Holmes is one of my new favorite Lords. Holmes is basically the closest i'm gonna get to a Fire Emblem of the Caribbean, which means i gotta take it. I honestly kinda wish this game was just about him because while Runan is fine, i was much more invested in what Holmes was doing (even if his romance with Katri is kinda rough).

I also like how the usual kingdom vs empire plot is handled in this game. A lot of the enemy generals you face are pretty honorable. You have your shitters, of course, but the game did a good job at humanizing the bigger threats and how the war is affecting them. One particular scene i like is when the princess of the enemy faction demanded Runan's head for killing her uncle and her father is like "to think my sweet little daughter would be saying things like this". Something i really liked about Path of Radiance was how it showed how the other side was thinking. But while Path of Radiance showed it from a civilian standpoint, TearRing Saga showed it from a military and nobility standpoint. Because let's be real, in most Fire Emblems, the people of the enemy nation are perfectly fine with you marching across their lands.

The game was honestly going great buuuuuuuuuuut it really dropped the ball on the last stretch. Almost after the third route split gave me no choice but to dock several points. The map quality takes a serious beating here. Literally all of Holmes' maps are warp skip maps and while warp skipping is funny, i do think if you design a map and the player's first thought is "fuck this shit, i'm warp skipping", you did a pretty bad job. Meanwhile, Runan's maps on the third route split started getting way too cute with reinforcement spam. Ch.34 in particular is honestly a war crime. So much shit is thrown at you, it started giving me war flashbacks to Binding Blade Ch.21, time-limit included (even if TRS Ch.34 technically doesn't have one). And it all culminated in an annoying but not super terrible final map.

Narratively, the game also takes a hit in this last stretch because i really, really do not care about evil cult when the kingdom vs empire plot was way more interesting, and this is made worse because the cult is directly responsible for the entire war. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the enemy generals hate the cult but i'm just tired of evil cult being the cause of everyone's problems.

There's something interesting on paper on how the Gerxel Cult was formed after centuries of oppression and there are two characters that try to humanize the cult but it all still falls flat when all the other members of the cult are presented as nothing more than demon worshippers. The main villain is particularly pathetic, mainly because he barely shows up in the story, not to mention he has zero interactions with the main heroes. I never thought it'd be possible to write a main villain in this way. He's hardly relevant, has no interactions.

Fire Emblem has never done evil cult well and while TearRing Saga isn't technically Fire Emblem, i'm still counting this as another instance where evil cult is a big blight on an otherwise good story. Although honestly, i think the only time evil cult has ever been done well in fiction is in Star Wars, because more people wanna be Sith Lords than Jedi Knights. I think that, on very rare occasion, writing an evil cult into your story is just something that will just make you wanna roll your eyes. But maybe that's just how i see it.

Oh and the music is shit btw, with Holmes' map theme being particularly bad. Not a single certified banger, only the final map theme is alright.

Honestly though, despite the flaws i talked about, this game is pretty solid. The third route split is pretty shit but at least the ending is cute (and does have a badass scene ngl). Ch.34 has pretty much guaranteed i'll never do another playthrough but if you're a fan of Fire Emblem, you'll likely enjoy this. I may not like Kaga's games most of the time but i can say this is easily his best work which admittedly wasn't that hard, his only other good game is Mystery of the Emblem.

So it being a Mega Man-inspired game, i finished Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX a day after it's release. The game can very easily be described as "short but sweet". I mean, it is a Gunvolt game so it wasn't really long to begin with but for the first time in the series, this game only has one ending. The gameplay is very quick and satisfying. While the Gunvolt series takes more inspiration from the Mega Man Zero games, Luminous Avenger is more reminiscent of the Mega Man X games. The main character, Copen, acquires EX Weapons by defeating each boss and each boss is weak to a certain EX Weapon. In terms of difficulty, while the main challenge of the series comes from trying to get the highest rank, on a base difficulty, i'd say this game is the hardest in the series because, especially early on, Copen doesn't have a lot of health. You can Prevade through attacks (Prevasion is an ability in every game where if you have enough EP (as Gunvolt) or Bullits (as Copen), you can nullify attacks. You can refill these meters at any time so you can really just Prevade through everything though you can't move if you do) but given that dashing into enemies to lock onto them uses up Bullits and you only have three (can be increased to five) and Prevasion uses up two......yeah, you might find yourself taking a bit of damage. The final boss also kicked my ass a few times. There are difficulty settings as well:

Fearless basically makes it so you lose all your points if you take a hit
Cautious gives you three hits before taking away all your points
Casual(?, i forgot the actual name) basically makes it so no matter how many hits you take, you'll keep your points

as well as optional equipment you can buy to make the game harder for you, like All or Nothing, which removes checkpoints or another part where your HP is always 100. You can even disable Prevasion if you want.

On the music front, the OST is decent with the vocal songs being bangers, as is the case for the series. There are three catagories for songs. Overdrive Songs, an Anthem Song and a Darkness song (i'll talk about those two later). Overdrive songs are triggered when you get 1000 points (and because you can lose these points if you aren't careful, you can also lose the song).

The game also has a story and it's nothing to write home about. It's mainly there to move the game along but it and the characters are nice to have around. Talking to the characters increases the chance of Lola's Anthem triggering, which basically revives you and gives you unlimited EX energy. You can still die and you won't gain any points but it's nice. Lola also has a Darkness form, activated by the EX Weapon Darkness Trigger. This also gives you unlimited EX energy and increases the power of everything but if you aren't locked onto enemies, you'll slowly take damage. The only way to deactivate the mode is to use an SP skill (by which i mean the only one) or trigger an event. The ending does leave me intrigued, though. Speaking of the story, the game does not take place in the same universe as the first two Gunvolt games so you could start here but i still wouldn't recommend it. Which brings us to....

The few flaws this game has. For starters, this game is definitely geared more towards the veterans of the series. Not only is it the hardest game in the series but the game doesn't really teach you anything. There is a manual (which i didn't look at because i've played this series before) but even aside from that, i actually don't know what most of the EX Weapons do and i just have to make assumptions based on what i see visually because there are no descriptions apart from names. The only EX Weapon that has any sort of description is Darkness Trigger. And speaking of EX Weapons, this game has the Mega Man 2 problem where one of the weapons is objectively the best one. Unless you're fighting a boss where a different weapon is more ideal for more damage, if you aren't using Orbital Edge, you're playing the game wrong.

So where does the latest entry in the Gunvolt series compare to with the rest of the series? Well, it's a great game but i don't think it's as good as Azure Striker Gunvolt 2. That game had a better story (not that this series is played for story) but also the best gameplay. You can either play as Gunvolt or as Copen and while i personally prefer the former, the latter has a more balanced selection of EX Weapons. So my ranking would be: Gunvolt 2 > Luminous Avenger > Gunvolt 1. While i wouldn't recommend starting with this game, for series veterans, it's an absolutely worthy addition to the series and Inti Creates' library.

There are two different kinds of perfect sequels. The first kind are the sequels that take everything good about the first installment and turn it up to 11. However, that sort of sequel requires the first installment to be close to a masterpiece already. Which brings us to the second sort of perfect sequel: the kind that heavily take in feedback from the first installment and use it to create something that improves it in every regard. Atelier Ryza 2 is that second kind of perfect sequel.

I enjoyed the first Ryza game when it launched in 2019. However, while i did like it, as i played more Atelier games, i couldn't help but feel that Atelier Ryza felt kinda lacking in some areas. So here comes Atelier Ryza 2, which sets a brand new precedent for the series. For the first time ever, the protagonist of the previous Atelier game would return again as the protagonist of the sequel, instead of taking a supporting role as has been the case since the entire history of the series.

I really liked how they handled Ryza coming back. Instead of unjustifiably taking away her abilities (as many games with returning protagonists like to do), the game plays it smart by giving Ryza new equipment that is the same functionally but because it's a bit different than what she's used to, she has to get used to the new equipment to craft the items she learned in the previous game. That's where the Skill Tree comes in, nearly every recipe from the previous game can easily be unlocked from the Skill Tree with enough SP. The Skill Tree, combined with the new recipes that Ryza learns throughout the game really show how much of an experienced alchemist she has become.

The combat has seen a much needed upgrade. I'm not someone who enjoys true ATB combat. Despite that, i was able to enjoy Ryza 1's combat just fine but Ryza 2 made such a drastic improvement to it, it's genuinely gonna be hard to come back to Ryza 1. Skills are now mapped to one of the four face buttons and you can pull them up with the right shoulder button. This is genius because it means you don't have to scroll through a menu in a game where the enemy won't wait for your turn. Not only that but this method also allows chaining together skills to feel nicely satisfying. The Tactics mechanic was also revamped. Gone are the days where you would be punished for using skills. Now Tactics levels up as you use skills instead of having to sacrifice AP like in the first game. I may not enjoy true ATB that much but Ryza 2 is a strong exception.

The biggest improvement to the combat comes with items however. Atelier is all about crafting items yet in Ryza 1, item use was heavily discouraged. Item use up CC points when used, instead of using up the item itself. On paper, this is good and previous Atelier games used different methods to make sure your consumables don't actually get consumed during combat. The problem with Ryza 1 is that you only ever had 10 CC points and the only way to get more was to sacrifice an item to add CC or to return to the Atelier. As such, you never wanted to use items. Ryza 2 changes this. Now, CC is raised whenever you use skills and with the new Item Rush mechanic (being able to use more than one item at a time), this not only encourages item usage but allows every aspect of combat to flow into itself. RPGs are at their best when their combat mechanics flow into one another (bonus points if it makes the party feel like an actual team working together). Plus, outside of battle, any unused CC can be used with healing items to heal up, which lets you stay out in the field for much longer.

The exploration of the world, which was a focus of Ryza 1 as well, has been expanded so much that it kinda makes me forget these are yearly releases. For the first time ever, you can climb, swing, swim, and ride, adding extra layer to exploration. These aren't just one and done instances either (something i was admittedly afraid of early on but playing more of the game took away those fears). The other big part about the exploration is the dungeons. Each dungeon has memory fragments you can research and figuring out all of them adds quite a bit of worldbuilding. Worldbuilding isn't really something that comes to mind for this series so i gotta say, i'm impressed. The game is neither open world nor sandbox but it does feel pretty expansive and this is helped by how great the game looks.

And arguably the biggest improvement this game has made is with the character events. Now, this is kinda cheating since Atelier has always had a ton of character events and Ryza 1 just didn't for some reason. Thankfully, Gust responded to the criticism of Ryza 1's lack of character events by throwing in a lot of character events for the sequel. And having Ryza come back as the protagonist allowed for a different feel of character interaction. We get to see how much Ryza has grown and how much everyone else has grown. Previous games dabbled on this but not to the extent of Ryza 2 in my opinion. The new characters are also pretty fun too and they bounce off well the already established cast. Thinking about it retroactively, Ryza 1's significantly small cast ended up being a blessing in disguise. I wouldn't say Ryza 2 has my favorite cast in the series but it's honestly up there.

Now i know i called this game a perfect sequel in the opening paragraph but there is a difference between being a perfect sequel and being a perfect game (or other piece of media). Sure the game looks very pretty but if you look closely, you can tell that these games are still yearly releases (although like i mentioned earlier, Ryza 2 does a good job of hiding that). Like the rest of the series, there is heavy enemy recolor syndrome, leaving little in the room for legitimate variety. Although there is much more item usage encouragement, each character can only equip up to four items so you're still kinda limited in the grand scheme of things, which is odd to say in a series where crafting items is the point. And you still occasionally can't do anything about an enemy's super moves. Whenever an enemy is charging up their unblockable super, the game tells you to meet certain conditions so that you can potentially Break the enemy and stop them from doing their supers. Problem is, just because you meet said conditions doesn't guarantee that the enemy gets Break, so quite a few times i've just had to eat a super move i could do nothing about. These flaws aren't that big in the grand scheme of things though.

Considering that this game was pretty much made in less than a year before the previous one, it's honestly insane how much they've improved. So much so that i wish to see an Atelier game that actually had more than one year of dev time. Gust has made it clear they're taking feedback seriously and Atelier Ryza 2 set a lot of precedent for the series if you ask me so i'm very curious to see where they take it from here.

Now as of this review, the only 2D Metroid i have yet to play is Samus Returns (and Dread but that ain't out yet lol), but, i think Zero Mission might actually be peak 2D Metroid. This game is exquisite, it is sublime. Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion were already fantastic games but this one just refines the Metroid gameplay absolutely perfectly. Everything feels exactly right and it's all packaged in one of the best-looking games of the GBA.

For the first time, i feel that a Metroid game had a stellar soundtrack. This may be a hot take but while i wouldn't call Super Metroid and Fusion's soundtracks bad, i can't really call them memorable. But Zero Mission? chef's kiss.

I love the decision to show the player where to go but still letting them figure it out on their own. I love that the game can show you a nearly completed map of the area but only when you find a map room, as opposed to Fusion, which showed you most of the area at the start. And it's all done in a way that avoids the "what the fuck do i do" moments that plague Super and to a lesser extent, Fusion.

And then there's the Zero Suit stealth segment. I will admit, i was concerned at first because stealth segments usually aren't great. But not here. Zero Mission's stealth segment works wonderfully while also being perfectly tense in the times you get spotted. And then when you finally get your full-powered Power Suit back and that remix of the Brinstar theme (the theme that plays in the starting area), it's all just so fucking good.

The only real complaints i have here are that the two bosses that in tiny-ass rooms are just really annoying to deal with. Most of the bosses being in large rooms does make them much easier to fight but easy boss fights do work in favor of such a short game like this.

Metroid: Zero Mission is a masterpiece.

Man i love Fire Emblem. Fire Emblem is cool. Fire Emblem has also never been this good.

After the success of Three Houses, i'm sure the last thing anybody expected after the next game is a colorful, corny game that doesn't seem to take itself too seriously. And honestly, i'm glad. Three Houses is great, i love Three Houses, but damn i wouldn't want it to be the future of the series. So here comes Engage, proving once and for all that Intelligent Systems constantly changes up the series, even when the previous entry had a winning formula. But enough about Three Houses, that's not relevant here. What is relevant is Fire Emblem Engage and how it's so good i think it's retroactively hurting my ability to play the older Fire Emblems a bit.

Much like how Metroid Dread is peak Metroid and Azure Striker Gunvolt 3, Fire Emblem Engage is peak Fire Emblem. For the first time in the series, the Weapon Triangle actually matters and that's an insane thing to say when you consider that it's been a central mechanic of the series since 1996. In Genealogy of the Holy War, the Weapon Triangle provides insane bonuses to whoever wins the interaction. So let me correct my previous statement: the Weapon Triangle in Engage actually matters for the right reasons. In every previous iteration, the Weapon Triangle merely provided stat bonuses, whether to an insane degree (FE4) to a miniscule (FE5). Fates took it a step further by having every weapon be a part of it but the principles were the same: winner gets higher hit and avo, loser gets less. In this game, those stat bonuses are gone, instead replaced by the Break mechanic, which is an insanely good mechanic. Now having WTA means you stop the enemy from counter-attacking for one interaction. That seems broken but it allows for the game to be the most player-phase focused game in the series. It allows weaker units to get in kills without fear of being countered. It allows axe-units to....suck relatively less than in other games in the series. And most importantly, the enemy can do the same thing, so it's something you have to account for. The Weapon Triangle in this game allows for actual strategy and not "let me put the swordmaster on the choke point".

The quality of the Weapon Triangle enhances the quality the maps. The map design across the game is really damn good, even if it dips here and there. It is in fact so good that the worst map in the game is still better than most maps in the series. Other ways the maps are enhanced by mechanics is the introduction of Class-Types, which are arguably more important than the Classes themselves. Mystic-Types can ignore avo bonuses, Covert units double their own avo bonuses, Armored units can't be broken which means they are finally good for the first time in the series, they actually have a niche. In addition, the low movement across the board for all units means nobody really falls behind. While low movement seems like a negative, execution is what matters, because honestly it's going to suck so hard when the next Fire Emblem game gives Cavaliers big movement again.

The gameplay still isn't done, because then there is the most advertised mechanic in the game: the Emblems. The Emblems are so conceptually broken in combat, yet everything in the game comes together to make them balanced. Emblems allow you to do massive AoE attacks, retaliation free attacks, multiple attacks, etc. My favorite is Emblem Corrin, because equipping her on Alear allows Alear to use any Dragon Vein tile, making Alear one of the best Lords gameplay-wise.

All of this comes together to create the most gameplay-story integrated game in the series. Yeah, the funny anniversary game integrates it's story to it's gameplay better than the rest of the series. It's why Ch.17 is one of the hardest chapters in the series and i don't just mean in terms of difficulty. It's also one of the three Fire Emblem games to actually acknowledge permadeath.

Speaking of story, i know some people went into this expecting Three Houses 2 or some shit. How they did that when the game opens up with a 4Kids opening, i have no clue but here's the thing about Engage's story: it's actually one of the better ones and it's all about intent. From the developers themselves, Engage's #1 priority was to be a fun SRPG. They accomplished that. Because of that intent, Engage's narrative weight is very light. If you're wondering what i mean by that, i mean that Engage didn't necessarily need to have a good story. The fact that it's actually pretty decent all things considered is more of a bonus. To compare, Three Houses had a heavier narrative weight, so that game had an obligation to tell a "good story". Whether or not you think it succeeded is up for debate but i will say this about Engage's story: it's the one game in the series that is allowed to get with some of the usual bad tropes found in the series. Hell, it lacks any of the bullshit that brought down the previous stories. There's no dumb cult bullshit like in Judgral or the funny Blood Pact in Radiant Dawn but again, it's all about intent.

As far as the characters go, they are pretty fun. Alear is unironically my favorite Lord in the series, she's fully of personality and i even like how she reacts to the Corrupted the same way i react to the unholy demons of the inferno known as "wasps". Yunaka is also another personal favorite of mine, Ivy's character is very surprising, the Solm royals are based, etc. There's a lot to go on. They are unfortunately held back by the rather slow Support grind. It's not as bad as in FE6 and it's still way better than the absolute slog that is Personality statchecks in Persona 5 but considering how quickly they could build in Awakening and onwards, it is a bit of an odd step back. Doesn't help that Skirmishes are harder than the game itself, you will fight for your life if you do them. So bringing up weaker units later is difficult, which also means grinding Supports is difficult. A shame.

Music bangs, i don't think i need to say anything there.

Fire Emblem Engage is peak Fire Emblem. It clears the entire series but the real question is how does it compare to Sparks of Hope, the best SRPG. Honestly? Very close. I'd give the smallest edge to Sparks of Hope because of the sheer versatility of that game. But Engage is a damn good game, it goes hard, and i do consider it peak fiction. I want to replay it immediately but i did spend nearly a week on the final battle because life and i really need to finish that Zelda-thon before Tears of the Kingdom comes out. But one day i shall be back. Yes i shall be back. When Wave 2 of the DLC drops.

Edit: Wave 2 wasn't supposed to drop today God damn it

Man, what an improvement this game is. Every single flaw the first game had is fixed here while improving on the skeleton of the first game. Characters now have their own individual skill bar instead of tying everything to a universal XP bar, allowing maps to be cleared far faster. The maps themselves completely remove the enemy bloat of the first game. Only the last two maps in the game dip the enemy count into the 40s but by then, you've got enough equipment and upgraded each character enough time, along with multiple skill applications, that high enemy counts become a non-issue. And most characters unlock their AoE multi-attacks long before you reach the late game, allowing you to weaken or clear large groups of enemies, significantly reducing the amount of time it takes to clear a map. The improvements to the gameplay here are so great that i was able to clear multiple maps in one sitting, something that became impossible starting in the mid-game of the first game.

The presentation of the game has also seen a major buff. The sprites are the usual top-tier quality of course but the animated cut-ins for specials and assists just so neat to look at now. The UI is improved, giving you a much clearer picture of what's going on. Really, this whole game's an improvement.

The story is just dumb fun like last time and that's fine, i didn't come into this game expecting Shakesphere. Though my experience with most of these characters is still limited to just these crossovers, i was still able to enjoy them and their interactions although no doubt i would enjoy it a lot more if i had played those games. Speaking of characters, there seems to be a trend for Monolith Soft characters to improve when in a crossover. T-elos saw a massive improvement in her crossover appearances compared to her original appearance in Xenosaga Episode III. And now, Fiora has gotten a huge boost to her character and the main reason is because Shulk is not in this game, and so it gives her more freedom for her character. Seriously, i feel like there's a big gap between how Fiora is written in this game vs how she's written in Xenoblade Chronicles.

The music for the most part is just cheating because it's just remixes from existing songs. Not all of them are as good as their original versions but oh well, what are you to do.

Admittedly, this game does occasionally get repetitive at times and it's pretty long so that might definitely be an issue for some. But as long as it's not the only game your playing, the repetitiveness shouldn't sting too much. Besides, the very cool spritework and attack animations this game has can distract you from the occasional repetitiveness.

This game has given me even more appreciation for Monolith Soft, because if there's one thing they are consistently good at, it's improving tremendously with sequels. Even on the very rare times they make a bad game, the chances are high that should a sequel ever come, it'll be a tremendous improvement and it just shows how good Monolith Soft is at improving.

The item versatility of Super Metroid. The boss fights and tone of Fusion. The fluidity of Zero Mission. The combat of Samus Returns. The best aspects of each of the 2D Metroid games was refined and improved to a point so perfect, i did not think it was possible. Metroid Dread is a masterpiece, the best Metroid game and quite honestly the best Metroidvania i've played period (and i don't know if that will be topped for the foreseeable future).

Honestly this review will be pretty short because words alone cannot describe just how good this game is. Like honestly i could've ended my review with just the first paragraph and it would've told you everything but imma keep writing for a bit more. This game accomplished everything it set out to do, to the point where i'm having trouble coming up with any criticisms with it. In fact, much like Super Mario Galaxy 2, i don't think this game has anything i'd consider a flaw. I can say something about how the music didn't stand out that much (i say this about every Metroid that isn't Zero Mission or Prime 3) or how the Chozo Solider fights can get a little repetitive.......but none of these are a detriment is the key thing. If there are indeed any flaws in this game, MercurySteam did such a fantastic job masking it that it honestly doesn't matter if it's there.

I knew this game was a masterpiece early on. From the movement and speed of the game (they made Shinespark a command and the Speed Boost is the best it's ever been), to the level design that's a new spin on the series formula (no Morph Ball for the first hour made things so much more interesting), to easily the best bosses in the entire series that are the perfect level of challenge without being too difficult, to the dreadful (heh) EMMIs that are actually more terrifying when you're playing the game and not just seeing gameplay footage. All of this made it a solid candidate for my Masterpiece Club. But what actually pushed this game to the top 5 was the finale. And i obviously won't talk about that but if you know, you know. But while i won't talk about it or any other part of the story really, I will say that while this game can be enjoyed independently, you'll get so much more out of it if you've played the previous 2D games. Not even in order, just save Dread for last. It'll be worth it, promise.

I tip my hat off to you MercurySteam. If you're gonna be making Metroid games for the next few years, then this series is in good hands. See you next mission, because the future of this series has never been so bright.

PLAYED VIA ZERO/ZX COLLECTION ON NINTENDO SWITCH

Mega Man ZX is a game that takes place 100 years after the events of the Mega Man Zero series, which is a little weird because Zero and the Four Guardians get referred to as "ancient heroes" when 100 years isn't that long ago but then again people in the Star Wars universe just forgot Jedi existed after a mere 20 years so i guess it's not that unbelievable. Anyways, the moment to moment gameplay of Mega Man ZX is very fun, which is to be expected. Nice fluid controls make moving around and shooting things feel very nice and it somehow feels even more refined than Zero 4 in that aspect. New to this series is the ability to change forms because this game is just Mega Man power-rangers. You get to pick between a male and female protagonists (for the record, i went with Alie because i'm pretty sure this is one of two times where the franchise called Mega Man has a female protagonist) and over the course of the game, you get to merge with Zero, X and the Four Guardians in fun power ranger forms......except for the part where honestly, most of the froms that weren't ZX form just weren't that fun. HX form is neat because you get double jumps and air dashes and LX form is hilarious to obliterate one specific boss but other than that, there's no real reason to use the other forms. Yes you could use them to exploit boss weakness but charge shot from ZX was just the better solution. Compared to Zero 4's EX Weapons, this is definitely a step in the lower direction. At least the bosses themselves were still pretty fun to fight and combined with the decent level design, it made for a pretty good time.

....so why am i giving the game a 6/10? Because one element legitimately hinders this game to warrant it: the Metroidvania design. Metroidvanias are fun but an important aspect of them is a good map screen. This is subjective but while some people love getting lost in Metroidvanias, i don't. Exploring is good but if it feels like i'm just running in circles, that's not a good thing. Which is the problem with this game. Do me a favor and look up the Mega Man ZX map and you will see how it is the worst thing. The worst part about said map is that the position of the areas don't even line up with where they actually are so it's all misleading. And then we need to talk about how despite being structured like a Metroidvania, the progression isn't. The progression is still the standard Mega Man deal except this time you have to physically make your way to where the levels actually are. You're not exploring in this Mega Man Metroidvania, you are simply taking the long way around and it does not help that you are not at all told where the areas you need to go to actually are. I had to use a guide to figure out where everything was located and to be honest, you probably will too after taking one look at that atrocious map screen.

Mega Man ZX is alright. It honestly fails at being a Metroidvania but at least the moment to moment gameplay is good enough to make up for it and this is the one and only time you'll ever see me use the "good x but bad y" way of describing something maybe i should just deduct another point and call the game bad.

I played this game for so long and i really wanted to finish it but i just. can't. do it anymore.

To start with the positives, the game visually looks really neat. It has some of the best spritework i've ever seen and this adds into the attack animations, which are basically just the GBA Fire Emblem crit animations on super steroids. The gameplay itself is decent early on but obviously the best part about the game is the character interactions. While i had never played most of the games featured, the character interactions were still very fun to watch. The best pair in the game is Frank West/Hsien-Ko because they took the irony of this pairing and pumped it with amazing chemistry. It's great.

The character interactions kept me going even when the game started to slog. But by chapter 30, it was no longer a slog. It was Brawl lag. Because the chapter start dumping so much shit on to you that i could rarely complete chapters in one sitting. And this was the mid-game too but the late-game is just an entirely different beast. One map took me three days to clear because of how much there was on it. And there's more to it. Because everything that isn't items or standard attack uses up the universally shared XP meter, that meant i had to be very conservative with skills and specials. Heck, even countering wasn't always viable and all this added to the length. I only have 11 more chapters left but hearing that Ch.39 takes everything i hate about this game and multiples it, i just don't wanna anymore.

I hear Project X Zone 2 makes very significant improvements to the formula and pretty much invalidates this game. Perhaps that's true. I wanted to play it because i want to play every Monolith Soft game but as much as it hurts to say, i gotta say it: this is one of Monolith Soft's very few Ls.

Oh man, where do i even begin with this? It's been such a long time since i've felt this way. I've had mixed opinions on games before but man, Persona 5(R) really just....takes it to the next level. I wanted to like it and there's stuff i did like but just....the overall experience, especially towards the end, just made me like the game less and less. There's way too much to unpack here but it's got to be done.

When I got a PS4 Pro last year, Persona 5R was one of my most wanted games for the system. I didn't get around to it last year but it was a game i had always wanted to play ever since the original version popped off a few years ago. Joker being in Smash Bros further enhanced this desire. Because yeah, Joker looked pretty damn cool and Persona 5 looked pretty damn cool in general. Of course, there were the options to try out Persona 3 and 4 but PS2 emulation being uh, inconsistent with my current setup and 4G being on the Vita meant those options were not viable. Even when P4G eventually got ported over to the PC, it had dumb Denovo anti-piracy shit, which caused official releases to slow down performance so that wasn't a go for me either. So i waited and i eventually finally got the chance to play Persona 5 and since i had never played the game before, i figured i might as well start off with the Royal version, despite me criticizing the practice of releasing the Royal version so soon after the original. It would be the second MegaTen game i played, the first being the solid Tokyo Mirage Sessions. I expected to like the game at least decently and my track record is pretty good at that. Most games i play are ones i end up liking, sometimes there are bad ones but what can you do about that? If P5R good, great. If P5R bad, oh well. But i could've never have imagined the experience that awaited me.

To kick things off, the start of Persona 5 is actually pretty damn good. That whole casino escape sequence is pretty neat and serves as a good basic tutorial of the game's mechanics. It was an obvious use of In Medias Res, even if my initial thoughts was that it wasn't necessarily a good one (thoughts i especially have since i have beaten both 13 Sentinels and Odin Sphere prior to this, two games with great usage of In Medias Res). If anything, the opening sequence here is very reminiscent of Fire Emblem Awakening, Fates, and Echoes' opening scenes, for better or worse. Then the whole interrogation room thing happens and we flash back to the start of the game. Fairly standard stuff. But it was around here that a little seed began to form, a seed that would become at least part of one of the game's biggest issues. See, at points, the game flashes forwards to the interrogation so that Sae Nijima can tell us stuff that we just learned, for some reason. I didn't think too much of it at first but i couldn't have imagined at the time how frequent that would become.....and how annoying it would be. It would turn this game's implementation of In Medias Res from an inconsequential one into a bad one. Anyways, the general first act of Persona 5 is pretty good. Things are slow but i didn't mind it, as the game was taking it's time introducing me to mechanics and a few of the characters as well as setting up this first conflict. Your initial party of Morgana, Ryuji and Ann are pretty neat and as a whole, i will say i liked the characters. I wish i could've liked them more but more on that later. Kamoshida is also a good first villain and on that note, while the villains in this game aren't compelling in any narrative way, they did work well in the context of the story. Normally i would've deducted points for one-note villains but sometimes people in life can just be that messed up. In Persona 5, the villains are: a pedophile and physical abuser, a plagiarist and verbal(?) abuser, a mafia boss, Jeff Bezos and Senator Armstrong But Not Funny. These villains didn't need to be deeply complex villains for them to work.

The whole first act of Persona 5 is pretty good but it is at the end of that where the issues begin to form. Because once i conquered Kamoshida's Palace, i began to realize what the true evil of this game was. The thing mainly responsible for my very complicated feelings about the game: The Calendar System. I did not pay attention to this at the start but when i beat Kamoshida like two weeks before the deadline and realized the game was deadset on making me wait until that deadline to see the plot progress.....well let's just say at the time i wasn't truly aware of how much of an issue it would become for me. And the thing is, while the calendar system is at fault, the real issue lies in it's pacing. I will now break down the average day-to-day life in Persona 5: You go to school and overhear conversation about something that may or may not matter (sometimes, a character will walk up to you instead) -> in the morning, you answer a dumb quiz question that doesn't really matter -> in the afternoon, you do the same thing (if there's plot, the characters will talk about this instead). Only after that is done can you finally move around and do whatever it is you want to do. Except it doesn't stop there. You are initially limited to one free action a day, later two. These free actions can be anything: raising Personality stats, working jobs, hanging out with friends, exploring dungeons, etc. Everything i've just described is the issue: the pacing. I have to watch like four pointless scenes just to be able to do something and when i do get to do something, i become severely limited in what i can actually do. I know Persona games (at least 3 and onwards) are time-management games but if you ask me, this is not the way to do it. I will now compare it to another time-management RPG with it's own deadlines: Atelier Escha & Logy (tbf quite a few Ateliers but E&L is the best comparison here, i feel). Like Persona 5, Atelier E&L has the story split over chunks and you have deadlines at the end of these chunks. Even if you complete the primary objective, you still have to wait before you can advance to the next chapter. The difference between Persona 5 and Atelier E&L is how that time is paced. E&L does not put focus on any particular dates....and even if it did, it doesn't force you to live out each day. You are not limited to one free action per day and while some actions may take several days, there is no actual restriction. There's no you having to watch pointless scenes of you commuting and going to school and whatnot, you simply do things while being watchful of the time. In Persona 5, this is not the case. The fact that the game wants you to live out each day and the fact that the game restricts you on how many actions you can take in a day really hurts the pacing. The pacing in this game becomes honestly abysmal and it does way more damage than you'd think. In short, the difference between Persona time-management and Atelier time-management is that the former makes everything feel like a chore. Even stuff i would normally like doing, like watching character events, became a chore. Hell, Rune Factory has better time pacing and that's a series where not only do you live out each day but you also quite literally do chores. And because i was going to be restricted, i began devoting time to developing the characters that didn't exist inside the main story. Because i figured, if i have to pick and chose, i'd rather see the characters who aren't in the story vs the one's i'd be seeing every day. But even that had it's own issues, because Personality statchecks would come out of nowhere and then i'd have to sluggishly grind out those stats in a system that makes everything feel like a chore, and it did not help that every time i did meet a new character, i'd have to flash forward to Sae telling me about what just happened. Xenoblade 1 Affinity and FE6 Support building, i'm sorry i was too harsh on you. Honestly, i am baffled as to how this game became an "RPG for people who don't like RPGs". If you like this game, that is totally fine, we are all entitled to our opinions, but i'm just curious. If there's one thing that people who don't like RPGs love to complain about, it's how slow things can be, and that can be a valid complaint tbf. That's why these people make exceptions for stuff like Paper Mario and UnderTale and whatnot. So how did Persona 5 become that? I feel like a crazy person for saying P5 is a massive slog when it's an RPG even people who don't like RPGs seem to enjoy.

The actual best part of the gameplay is exploring the dungeons, specifically the Palaces. The Palaces are pretty neat. The game's combat is good, even if a bit basic (Tokyo Mirage Sessions combat better tbh) but what i really liked was the game's stealth system. Stealth in a turn-based RPG sounds like a recipe for disaster but to my genuine surprise, it actually works really well. It is up there with Metroid Dread, Zero Mission, and the Insomniac Spider-Man games as the few games to get stealth right. And the stealth allowing you to do ambush strikes were something i'd always do, as Take Over is an absolute banger. Persona 5 OST is actually really damn good and Take Over is definitely one of my favorite normal battle themes of all time. The boss fights themselves also have their own unique gimmicks and while i didn't like all of them, it was neat overall. My favorite boss fight was against Shido, both because it had been set up since the beginning of the game and because Rivers in the Desert is a very good song and i'm honestly upset it ended up getting overused. It should've been only used for the Shido boss fight. After slogging through the game, that would've been a great way to end things but alas, it didn't. But before i get into that, i do want to talk about a small gameplay criticism: Persona fusion. Specially, i'm talking about Alarm Fusions and Accidents. During an Alarm Fusion, you have the opportunity to change a Persona's skills but there's no telling what these skills actually are until you do it: sometimes it's worse. Fusion Accidents follow the same deal and while i get that you aren't supposed to know what it'll be in that case, i would've appreciated it more if i didn't get two Accidents in a row where a Persona's skill set up all got changed to evade passives.

Anyways back to the main point: after the climax with Shido, the game didn't end right away. Obviously it couldn't, there were still some plot threads to be resolved. But it just kept going....and going....and going. Keep in mind, at this point i had already hated the calendar system and it's sluggish pacing so now it got to a point where i just wanted the main story to end. I won't give any spoilers but i honestly was not a fan of those endgame developments. But while the main story was done, Royal wasn't. But the Royal storyline is it's own can of worms. I fully expected the main story to end, roll credits, and then Royal starts. But no, Royal just starts. As a result, even though it's only a month, that pacing issue that plagued the whole game carried over to Royal. That feeling of wanting to be done with the game carried over to Royal and it culminated horribly in one of the worst final bosses i've ever had the displeasure of fighting.

The end result of all this is a game that leaves me very conflicted. There's a lot of good stuff to like here: the characters are neat (I especially liked Kasumi's character, even if i didn't like the Royal storyline as a whole, and she was one of three characters whose Confidant i maxed out, not counting characters who get that through the story). The music bangs, the Palace designs are great, the combat is good. But the calendar system really does infect everything. Everything that wasn't part of the gameplay or story itself gets affected by the calendar system's destructive touch. Plus, there's an issue that i couldn't really fit in before but i can talk about it now: while i did like the characters, there is one i didn't like: Joker. Cool, badass Joker is not a character, he is a blank slate. Yes, i know this is the case for MegaTen protagonists as a whole but after playing CrossCode and seeing how well that game wrote a character who is silent because they are canonically mute and playing Xenoblade X, a game that handled a blank slate MC way better, i just can't accept something like Joker Persona 5. The way he's presented in the menus and cutscenes to me feels like an obvious overcompensation for his lack of character.

I wanted to like Persona 5 Royal, i really did. And there is a lot of good stuff to like about it. But the experience i had with it just snowballed into a not good one and for that, i cannot give it a good score. And that experience has long-reaching consequences. I don't want to play Persona 3 and 4 anymore, games i previously was interested in (P1 and 2 are a different tale because age). Maybe i might play P5S if i get it for cheap, since, like i said before, i do like P5's characters.....but right now, i don't want to see Persona. Right now, i feel like i've had enough Persona for a lifetime and whether or not this feeling ends up changing is really not something i will know at this time.

Zelda Team......I kneel.

I'm not even sure where to begin for this one. Aounuma and Zelda Team really just put out peak fiction like it was nothing. Tears of the Kingdom expands on all of Breath of the Wild's strengths, as well as strengthening the main story tropes found throughout the series.

Like in BotW, you can do anything you want, except this time they mean it. The Zonai Arm abilities are far more flexible than the Sheikah Slate abilities and not one of them manages to feel useless (RIP Cryonis lovers). Ultrahand is just Better Magnesis, Fuse creates one of the greatest gameplay loops ever while simultaneously improving on the durability system from BotW. Recall at first looks lamer than Stasis and while it has virtually no application in combat, it makes up for with sheer versatility. With unlimited range and no cooldown, there is so much you can do with this ability, especially when combined with others. Ascend is basically the Wall Merge from A Link Between Worlds but vertical instead and just like it, it completely changes how you approach the landscape and how levels are designed. Autobuild just ties back into Ultrahand, allowing you to recreate anything you've built (and i mean literally anything) in exchange for Zonaite, which i'm about to get into that.

Fuse is one of the best gameplay loops in the game. It turns out there's a second gameplay loop that's also just top-tier. The world is far more expansive than in BotW obviously but what's truly impressive is how they all connect to each other on a gameplay level. Transitioning between the Sky, Surface and Depths is completely seamless and they all have things that feed into the other. On the Surface is most of your adventure. This is where the main story primarily takes place. On the Surface you can find Skyview Towers that launch you into the Sky while filling in the map. From there, it's easy access to the Sky Islands. The Sky Islands is where most of the Zonai Dispensers are, literal gacha machines that give you Zonai Devices that you can use to build machines that violate the Geneva Convention. But to use them you need Zonai Parts and to use the Zonai Devices themselves, you need Energy Cells and Zonaite if you want to recreate them via Autobuild. So you jump into a chasm on the Surface to reach the Depths, which is basically just it's own video game down there. It's pitch black save for very few lights, so to see you need to bring Brightbulb Seeds that are found in caves on the Surface. As you explore the Depths, you'll come across Lightroots that are directly below the Zonai Shrines on the Surface, their names being mirrored too. The Depths is where you'll find Zonaite deposits, which you can mine and then head to the.....mines to exchange them for Energy Crystals and Zonai Charges. You then return to the Surface to exchange those Energy Crystals for Energy Cells, which allow you to use the Zonai Devices you get from the Zonai Dispensers that take your Zonai Charges as payment longer and that is a sentence i just wrote. Oh and any Zonaite you have left with you can then be used to replicate those war machines you just built. Actual genius gameplay loop, it just works.

The Surface in particular gets extra points for how it's used. Yes it's the same map as in BotW but there's quite a few geographic changes here and there and i love how the game uses previous knowledge to it's advantage. Central Hyrule Field felt completely new because i hardly spent time there in BotW on account of Guardian threat. Other locations challenge your expectations of what you thought they were, some big, some small. It just works.

The Zonai Shrines are a massive step up from the Sheikah Shrines, both aesthetically and mechanically. While there's more, there's also a greater ratio of Shrines that are actually good and practically all of them can truly be solved however you see fit. The only limit this game has is your imagination. Nothing is impossible. The mechanical complexity of the Zonai Shrines was reminding me of CrossCode which means i really have nothing but praise in this department (keep in mind with the comparison i am comparing a 3D game to a 2D one).

The main story dungeons are improved from the Divine Beasts in every aspect, and i say this as someone who likes the Divine Beasts. What i really like about the Temples in this game is that they all feel like big events rather than just "thing you do because plot". In most Zelda games, accessing the dungeons is fairly quick and easy. Usually it's talking to an NPC for directions but in the 2D games especially, you really just....walk in. In this game, the dungeon sequence feels like a proper story arc, focusing on each of the Sages. From a gameplay perspective, the companion system allows you to use each of the Sages' abilities when you need them while they also fight for you. It feels like an expanded version of the Wind Waker companion system. This time, the Sages actually feel like your companions, more on that later.

Of course at the end of each Temple is a boss. And the bosses are so good. Wind Temple boss legit one of the best in the series while the only boss in the game that i don't feel too strongly on is the Water Temple boss. What's great is that in this game you can refight the bosses in the Depths, of which at least one of them drops exclusive parts that you can Fuse (there's that gameplay loop again). The optional bosses you can find in the world are about the same as they were in BotW, except this time Taluses get cheesed so hard by Recall. On the other hand, Gleeoks and Flux Constructs can prove to be a great fight. And of course, the man himself, Ganondorf. Actually the best final boss in the series and it's not even a contest. Bro he broke my Hylian Shield. Ganondorf can Flurry Rush your Flurry Rush. For the first time ever, Ganondorf is actually on Link's level, Link doesn't just curbstomp him like he does in the other games. I was reminded of the fight with Demise in Skyward Sword and this was that but like 10x better.

As for the story, well, which one? Like BotW, TotK does have it's memory flashbacks that you have to find. It's both better and worse executed here. On one hand, it makes a lot more sense contextually, as it feels like another side to the story as opposed to just the story. On the other hand, they definitely shouldn't have let you see these out of order. Ultimately however, the way it's executed allows the main story to still feel like it's happening, which is something that BotW lacked. As a whole, the story is pretty good and at worse, you could just argue there's just a storytelling issue.

But wait, there's more! This game has sidequests that actually matter. I didn't think they'd do it again. It's the thing Majora's Mask did and no other Zelda game did......until now! The sidequests are so good in this game, fleshing out the world for real while tying into the game's main theme: cooperation. In the main story, the Sages fight alongside you but even before then, the four affected regions dealing with their problems are being handled by the people already there. Think about how many times some monster caused chaos in a Zelda game and the people affected by it just go "oh well nothing we can do". Not here, the people are already working to solve their own problems before Link gets there. You see this in the main story but even the sidequests as well. Monster Control Squads patrolling various regions of Hyrule, journalism uncovering secrets and rumors, a musical troupe travelling around bringing joy, an entire town figuring out their future, etc. The Upheaval was a massive event that unleashed hordes of monsters into Hyrule and Ganondorf himself is at his most terrifying in this game and yet, people don't give up. Unlike basically every other game in the series, the people of Hyrule are not sitting around wallowing in misery until the Hero arrives. No, they all do their part. For the first time in the entire series, the people of Hyrule fight back and that makes this version of Hyrule easily the one that i give a shit about the most. It is the most lived in version of Hyrule and it makes this the most lived in game in the series since Majora's Mask (albeit for different reasons, MM admittedly still had Link be the sole savior of the land). Even the Yiga fit into this theme, granted they are working against you instead of with you but they feel like an actual organization now as opposed to just a throwaway group. With all that, plus the actual greatest Master Sword pull in the series (it legitimately feels earned in this one), plus other narrative beats that i won't talk about, i can pretty confidently say that this game has one of the best stories in the entire series.

Oh and the music? It's pretty good. Most of it is minimalistic like in the last game but when the music hits, it hits. Especially in the Temple themes.

If there's any criticisms i have about this game, it's minor stuff. I did a mostly no fast-travel run of this game but leaving the Depths without fast-travel is very rough. The storytelling could've been done better. The Depths could've had more visual variety and Combat Trial Shrines suck because they slowly teach me things i already know. Why are there like 8 Combat Trial Shrines when there was only one in BotW? At least the Proving Grounds (this game's version of Tests of Strength) are way, way, way better.

I spent 110 hours on this game before i beat it. There is still a lot for me to do left. But now that i've beaten it, i am confident in one thing: this game dethroned Majora's Mask for me. Majora's Mask held on to it's "best Zelda game" spot for almost a decade and Tears of the Kingdom surpassed it. What made me sure of that, after all those 110 hours, was the climax and ending. Actual peak.

Crazy how the two best games in the series are both asset flips.

Inti Creates returns once again with another Classicvania. This time it's not Curse of the Moon 3 but it is instead Grim Guardians, a game that, of all things, is a GalGun spin-off, which makes this game one of the funniest games out there conceptually. Just the simple thought that the ecchi rail shooter series put out a pretty banger Classicvania with a surprising amount of (pixelated) blood is hilarious. It's also worth noting that the game isn't anywhere near as degenerate as actual GalGun, though it's association does still show. Just way less.

If you ask me, this game easily clears both Curse of the Moon games in basically almost everything. It is visually more appealing, level design is better, combat is better. It even does the "second loop" thing better, which is surprising because i would've normally taken off points for that. Combat is the main thing though, both Shinobu and Maya just click and the game is well balanced between the two of them (Penguin V2 kinda breaks the game but whatever). I really like that you gain additional subweapons after each boss, which sounds standard, but in both CotM games, you could only have one subweapon and some characters lived and died by which one they had. Like Robert was ass unless you found the rapid fire pistols. Stuff like that isn't the case here, although Maya does have the better sub-weapons (but Shinobu does have a really good hookshot). Bosses are cool.

Unlike most Classicvanias i think, this game allows you to backtrack inside a level most of the time. This is necessary, especially in the second loop if you want to see everything there is. I liked finding additional upgrades and the missing students and i especially liked that the missing students hang out later in the game and they each have their own name and design. What i don't like is that this game is a Classicvania that kinda tries to be a Metroidvania. The only map you get is the area previews at the start of each one. So when you consider that there is shit to find here, it makes you wonder why you can't just pull up a map in-game. There's a compass and it's actually pretty damn useful when combined with taking a screenshot of each map but honestly, it's not ideal. It's not as bad as it sounds though. I was frustrated with that aspect at first but i mellowed out. It's not that deep. I am not 100%'ing the game tho lol.

Because of that though, i think this may end up being one of the longer, if not longest Inti Creates games. Going for the normal end can probably be done in one day but if you want to get at least all the upgrades and items and save every student, you'll be here for a bit longer. Only other Inti Creates game i can think even lasted that long was Blaster Master Zero 1, which required you to find all the upgrades if you wanted the true end. "Long" by Inti Creates standards is like 10 hours at most lol.

Once again, Inti takes another W.

(updated review)

As a fan of RPGs, i've been feeling that sci-fi RPGs are kinda uncommon, or at least in terms of what i'd like. Most are either fantasy, modern times or is post-apocalyptic. And as sci-fi is probably my favorite genre, i feel the uncommoness of sci-fi RPGs more than most would. Of course, Xeno being my favorite video game franchise of all time makes up for it but i've been wanting a sci-fi RPG that wasn't Xeno for a while now. Final Fantasy exists but i've never really been interested in it or the Square Enix big three for that matter. I tried Star Ocean but it plays like a typical Tales game so i was turned off pretty early on. Anything else, i hadn't really thought about.

So here's where CrossCode comes in, a game i've had my eye on for a while on after it was recommended to me. Sci-fi Zelda-esque RPG with a main lead that looks like KOS-MOS? Yes please. There's a lot to like about CrossCode. The combat is cool, feels a lot like Ys (specifically the top-down games). The spritework is very appealing, the puzzles are very cool and then there is Lea, the best part about the game. I never expected to like Lea as much as i did but damn, she's such a good character. If you had told me before a silent protagonist would rank among my favorite video game protags of all time, i would've called you a dumb dumb because while i don't usually have anything against silent protags, i prefer characters that actually talk. But somehow the guys over at Radical Fish Games did it. Made the perfect blend of a protagonist with a lot of personality while also being silent (most of the time). Lea is so expressive that you can basically fill in the blanks to what she says. She has a few words she says that the game explains by saying they are preset words hardcoded into her and these few words still add a lot of character to her. Lea is so good that she is the reason the story works in the first place. Changing any aspect of Lea's character would make the story just fall apart because Lea is the story.

The other characters in the game are nice but nothing too special. They're all pretty static in comparison to Lea but it's fine, it works for this kind of story. But i do need to talk about Emille. Emille is Lea's first friend and this is very important because out of all the characters Lea befriends, Emille is definitely the closest friend she's made. There's this one cute scene where Emille is talking about her dislike of bugs and she's clearly exaggerating it but Lea takes it 100% seriously and gives her a comfort hug because Lea cares about Emille that much. Lea is so good guys.

Moving onto the gameplay, the combat and puzzles are great. As i've mentioned before, combat feels a lot like Ys, perhaps a bit more involved due to the multitude of skills you get. And i really like how each of Lea's modes has different stats, not all of it is just a raw power boost. Although i will say i wasn't a fan of Elemental Overload. Basically, using one of the modes too much causes it to stop working. Problem is, Overload is universal so if one mode is close to that, all modes that aren't normal mode are. This is pretty annoying, especially with bosses that can only be hurt by a certain element. I can't really think of a reason for Elemental Overload to exist, certainly it's not to prevent spam because SP does that already. But that's my only gripe, combat is cool and the Lv.2 and Lv.3 Arts are very based. The boss fights also make good use of the modes you've unlocked and it all culminates into the absolutely incredible final boss. That second phase is one of the coolest final boss fights i've ever played.

The puzzles in the game are very cool conceptually but it's kinda hard for me to talk about them in detail. You just gotta see it to believe it. That said, the first two dungeons simply have too many puzzles and in that regard, those two dungeons are basically gonna be an endurance test for some people. Get past it, and it's all smooth sailing after that (and honestly, the first two dungeons feel much better on a repeat playthrough). That said, slow-mo puzzles are bad, there isn't a single good one.

I will say that as good as the spritework is, the depth perception kinda fucks with you sometimes. It was at it's worst in Sapphire Ridge in my experience, due to the area being in eternal night.

Now it is worth mentioning that the ending of the game is a little bit underwhelming.....which is where A New Home comes in. I won't go into too much details because spoilers but A New Home is the epilogue DLC that might as well be packaged with the game itself because it is that vital. The real ending to the story is found here, after completing the true final dungeon, which also happens to be the best dungeon in the entire game. It's super long compared to the others but the mechanics in it are so damn good that i didn't mind. It took me three days but it was worth it. And the boss at the end chef's kiss.

All this and i'm not even taking into account New Game+. I'm of the belief that CrossCode has the best New Game+ in any game i've ever played as it gives you a bunch of different options to spice up your next playthrough. It even allows you to get rid of Elemental Overload, for example. And then there's Sergey Hax, which turns the game into a hilarious comedy as Lea takes out enemies in a single hit.

Honestly guys, CrossCode is a masterpiece. It ain't every day a new video game studio puts out a masterpiece as their first project but RadicalFishGames did it.