ArmosNights
Had a great time, for the most part. Got upset, for the most part. Fun game but insanely hard. Beat Shara Ishvalda with my friend and we both resolved to end the story right there. Will not bother with Fatalis cause I don’t hate myself that much but am eager to do some of the side content before we put it to bed for good.
This review contains spoilers
This game was really interesting. I liked Remake quite a lot and was extremely excited for Rebirth to come out as well, since it looked like it was cleaning up the small things I didn’t like about Remake. In a relatively short time period, Square Enix managed to develop a huge, expansive open-world game with tons to do and at a fairly high production quality.
The ability to play a full party, cycling them in and out as you wish and having each character feel fully realized and unique is very impressive in a modern game. I wish more Final Fantasy games did this and still want to see more modern games follow the formula set by the Remake series with the unique blend of turn-based and action combat. The music is still quite good, as is the voice acting. Only a few side characters took me out of the game from how they did voicing, but otherwise it was quite well done. I appreciated having reasons to use most of the party, and learning how each of them does or does not contribute to my strategy as a whole. Some of them I obviously liked less, but my least favourite character might be someone’s favourite. That variety is a nice thing in a game like this.
I have mixed feelings on the open world. The game is huge. One thing I didn’t like about Remake was that some parts felt like padding to “make you experience the game more” but felt strongly like filler (e.g., the robot hand puzzles on the way to Wall Market), but overall the game was quite short so these didn’t blemish the experience. There are sequences in Rebirth where the game feels like it’s milking the moment too long, particularly toward the end of the game, and I simply want to move on at those points. The Temple of the Ancients in particular overstays its welcome, and even doing the final boss gauntlet had me wondering when I was getting close to finished as enjoyable as the combat was.
While I appreciate that with Rebirth the world truly feels big and realized, there is simply too much to do. I recognize I don’t need to do everything, but it is overwhelming to process and I don’t think every side quest is a quality experience. In fact, some of them have good or even interesting narratives and mechanics, while others are extremely repetitive. Going into a new region knowing I would do exactly 4 proto-relics that follow the same format, find 3 shrines to the regional summon, etc. got a little tiresome after realizing the pattern after Junon. The tracking system for each region was nice to know how much I still had to do, but I did not find it much more engaging than any other generic open-world format. Notably, climbing is both frequent and exhausting because the characters move somewhat slowly up and down vertical climbs, and there’s not a lot of forgiveness in the open world when you approach a minor cliff face. The first region actually made me realize this, because many of the hills are jagged and you can get stuck on them. While Horizon has restricted climbing, in the sense that you can only climb specific pathways, the fluidity of climbing in those games is enjoyable and there are ways to mitigate needing to do so altogether at points in the game. The addition of Ubisoft towers to the overworld was also pretty unnecessary. I get that it’s the established format at this point, but it was a pretty forgettable way to uncover the map in the way it was implemented. Even the original Ubisoft tower (in Assassin’s Creed) puts in a bit more of an exciting show into doing it, both by slowly revealing how high you’re going and the interesting ways to climb a building, which is sometimes lost when others emulate the format as was done here.
A notable negative point in this game is Chadley and Mai’s aggressive voiceover. In battles, Mai is tiresome and has very repetitive dialogue that I don’t really value or need past the first listen. Chadley is incessantly buzzing you like an overbearing partner, not realizing that I would like to just go around the map at my own pace and not have his annoying robot ass sending me a FaceTime every 5 minutes. I got a Pavlovian response to the world intel celebrations near the end of the game, because I knew Chadley had an 80% chance of calling me directly after.
Finally, the story was a big question mark coming in and I had mixed feelings here as well. The question of Aerith actually dying or not was on everyone’s mind (including the marketing team’s), and the development team was clearly aware of this since they toyed with scenes that mimicked the original death scene even from the very opening of the game. I am not convinced it was handled well. In the original game, it was a quick and impactful scene where you really feel that Aerith is gone for real and your party feels the loss. In Rebirth, her death(?) scene plays with the idea of if she is dead or not, and we don’t really get a satisfying resolution. Combined with the multiverse Aeriths, it almost seems like the game is afraid to say what happens one way or another, and disappointingly leaves that plot thread for the third game to fully resolve. While I think the true answer is she did die and Cloud is experiencing trauma, I was a little disappointed they played a little too loosely with it and watered it down from the impact it otherwise may have had, even knowing how it ended in the original game. The multiverse timeline thing was another interesting thing most people guessed correctly (i.e., that Zack is in some other timeline). I’m not fully satisfied in how much of the plot was left for the third game to resolve (or never resolve fully?), and my satisfaction with what this game set up is highly dependent on how the third game does or does not stick the landing. Other thoughts on the story were that it was cool seeing reference and story connections to other side content (in particular, Crisis Core, which has many many connections in Rebirth), yet I also had struggles with some moments where the plot was intentionally changed. Sometimes this subseries uses plot changes as intentional twists or to mess with the audience, and sometimes it simply changes the plot. For example, the way Cait Sith is dealt with near the end of the game, the fact that the Temple of the Ancients does not appear to collapse inside the Black Materia (which I thought was incredibly cool in the original), and the weird way Cid is introduced without Rocket Town were things where I couldn’t tell if a later twist was coming that would align things with what I expected or if we were just entirely changing what was happening in the remake. I appreciate the desire to write a new plot to not make it boring, but some of the twists and story beats are missing for me when I can’t tell what is an actual change or what is just a delayed plot moment.
Recognizing there is a lot of negative in this review, I don’t think the game is bad by any means. I had such a good time playing it and went slowly through it and methodically for a month so that I could enjoy it, knowing it was a long game. It is just another case of “bigger and messier” that I’ve noticed in most game sequels recently, and I’d like to hope that the third game reins it in a little, even though it is unlikely at this point given the positive reception to Rebirth. I’m still looking forward to the next game and hoping it can provide a satisfying conclusion to this very impressive trilogy, and hope that Final Fantasy XVII, whenever it comes out, can learn from the very complex and interesting battle system presented in this subseries.
The ability to play a full party, cycling them in and out as you wish and having each character feel fully realized and unique is very impressive in a modern game. I wish more Final Fantasy games did this and still want to see more modern games follow the formula set by the Remake series with the unique blend of turn-based and action combat. The music is still quite good, as is the voice acting. Only a few side characters took me out of the game from how they did voicing, but otherwise it was quite well done. I appreciated having reasons to use most of the party, and learning how each of them does or does not contribute to my strategy as a whole. Some of them I obviously liked less, but my least favourite character might be someone’s favourite. That variety is a nice thing in a game like this.
I have mixed feelings on the open world. The game is huge. One thing I didn’t like about Remake was that some parts felt like padding to “make you experience the game more” but felt strongly like filler (e.g., the robot hand puzzles on the way to Wall Market), but overall the game was quite short so these didn’t blemish the experience. There are sequences in Rebirth where the game feels like it’s milking the moment too long, particularly toward the end of the game, and I simply want to move on at those points. The Temple of the Ancients in particular overstays its welcome, and even doing the final boss gauntlet had me wondering when I was getting close to finished as enjoyable as the combat was.
While I appreciate that with Rebirth the world truly feels big and realized, there is simply too much to do. I recognize I don’t need to do everything, but it is overwhelming to process and I don’t think every side quest is a quality experience. In fact, some of them have good or even interesting narratives and mechanics, while others are extremely repetitive. Going into a new region knowing I would do exactly 4 proto-relics that follow the same format, find 3 shrines to the regional summon, etc. got a little tiresome after realizing the pattern after Junon. The tracking system for each region was nice to know how much I still had to do, but I did not find it much more engaging than any other generic open-world format. Notably, climbing is both frequent and exhausting because the characters move somewhat slowly up and down vertical climbs, and there’s not a lot of forgiveness in the open world when you approach a minor cliff face. The first region actually made me realize this, because many of the hills are jagged and you can get stuck on them. While Horizon has restricted climbing, in the sense that you can only climb specific pathways, the fluidity of climbing in those games is enjoyable and there are ways to mitigate needing to do so altogether at points in the game. The addition of Ubisoft towers to the overworld was also pretty unnecessary. I get that it’s the established format at this point, but it was a pretty forgettable way to uncover the map in the way it was implemented. Even the original Ubisoft tower (in Assassin’s Creed) puts in a bit more of an exciting show into doing it, both by slowly revealing how high you’re going and the interesting ways to climb a building, which is sometimes lost when others emulate the format as was done here.
A notable negative point in this game is Chadley and Mai’s aggressive voiceover. In battles, Mai is tiresome and has very repetitive dialogue that I don’t really value or need past the first listen. Chadley is incessantly buzzing you like an overbearing partner, not realizing that I would like to just go around the map at my own pace and not have his annoying robot ass sending me a FaceTime every 5 minutes. I got a Pavlovian response to the world intel celebrations near the end of the game, because I knew Chadley had an 80% chance of calling me directly after.
Finally, the story was a big question mark coming in and I had mixed feelings here as well. The question of Aerith actually dying or not was on everyone’s mind (including the marketing team’s), and the development team was clearly aware of this since they toyed with scenes that mimicked the original death scene even from the very opening of the game. I am not convinced it was handled well. In the original game, it was a quick and impactful scene where you really feel that Aerith is gone for real and your party feels the loss. In Rebirth, her death(?) scene plays with the idea of if she is dead or not, and we don’t really get a satisfying resolution. Combined with the multiverse Aeriths, it almost seems like the game is afraid to say what happens one way or another, and disappointingly leaves that plot thread for the third game to fully resolve. While I think the true answer is she did die and Cloud is experiencing trauma, I was a little disappointed they played a little too loosely with it and watered it down from the impact it otherwise may have had, even knowing how it ended in the original game. The multiverse timeline thing was another interesting thing most people guessed correctly (i.e., that Zack is in some other timeline). I’m not fully satisfied in how much of the plot was left for the third game to resolve (or never resolve fully?), and my satisfaction with what this game set up is highly dependent on how the third game does or does not stick the landing. Other thoughts on the story were that it was cool seeing reference and story connections to other side content (in particular, Crisis Core, which has many many connections in Rebirth), yet I also had struggles with some moments where the plot was intentionally changed. Sometimes this subseries uses plot changes as intentional twists or to mess with the audience, and sometimes it simply changes the plot. For example, the way Cait Sith is dealt with near the end of the game, the fact that the Temple of the Ancients does not appear to collapse inside the Black Materia (which I thought was incredibly cool in the original), and the weird way Cid is introduced without Rocket Town were things where I couldn’t tell if a later twist was coming that would align things with what I expected or if we were just entirely changing what was happening in the remake. I appreciate the desire to write a new plot to not make it boring, but some of the twists and story beats are missing for me when I can’t tell what is an actual change or what is just a delayed plot moment.
Recognizing there is a lot of negative in this review, I don’t think the game is bad by any means. I had such a good time playing it and went slowly through it and methodically for a month so that I could enjoy it, knowing it was a long game. It is just another case of “bigger and messier” that I’ve noticed in most game sequels recently, and I’d like to hope that the third game reins it in a little, even though it is unlikely at this point given the positive reception to Rebirth. I’m still looking forward to the next game and hoping it can provide a satisfying conclusion to this very impressive trilogy, and hope that Final Fantasy XVII, whenever it comes out, can learn from the very complex and interesting battle system presented in this subseries.
Another game in my list of “sequels that don’t live up to the tight design of the first game”. There’s a lot in this game, and it is continuing off of the excellent gameplay set by the first game, but I didn’t find the story as interesting or easy to follow. The characters are ok but veer a little into being somewhat one-note, and some of the dialogue can be annoyingly quippy, even for Star Wars. I will note there were some entertaining highlights in the dialogue and some of the encounters, which were intentionally quite funny and made me laugh. The game continues the sort of Metroid Prime-style mapping, although I found it a little harder to discern and follow, and there is a lot of trinkets to find of varying types, all of which are used for different cosmetics or upgrades. I quite honestly found the cosmetics a little overwhelming and didn’t engage with them much - I suppose I could have given Cal a dirty boy moustache and a bomber jacket but this wasn’t the main draw of the game for me. I’m not opposed to a game full of gimmick collectables (I mean, I love Assassin’s Creed) but I have trouble with them when I feel like they aren’t adding much to the game. I suppose the concept is that you’re completing tasks for your allies on Koboh, but it feels fairly tacked on and unengaging.
The game is also fairly buggy still. Part of the delay in me actually finishing the game was due to the, at the time, terrible performance and messiness. The performance mode has been fairly fixed now (mostly by fully disabling ray tracing), but there are still some game breaking bugs that more than once made me need to either restart from the nearest checkpoint or kill Cal intentionally so that he would respawn in a bug free environment. BD-1 won’t activate sometimes, I get stuck inside a fence, etc. I didn’t notice this much in Fallen Order, and I think it’s because this game tried to go a little harder and maybe wasn’t ready to do so. Falling from a large height also causes a death, but sometimes it seems like I’m falling from a vaguely inconvenient height and still die.
All of that being said, there is still much I enjoyed. The lightsaber fighting, as with the last game, is quite good and requires technique to master. I certainly got frustrated fighting some bosses and learned how to better dodge or soak attacks to avoid getting ruthlessly murdered. The depth in the lore is quite good, as is the music, which sounds ripped straight from a Star Wars movie. There is a lot of ambition in this game, even when it isn’t fully hitting. Ultimately I liked Fallen Order more as a package, but I think Respawn still gets the formula for a good Star Wars game and I am interested in playing the next one at some point.
The game is also fairly buggy still. Part of the delay in me actually finishing the game was due to the, at the time, terrible performance and messiness. The performance mode has been fairly fixed now (mostly by fully disabling ray tracing), but there are still some game breaking bugs that more than once made me need to either restart from the nearest checkpoint or kill Cal intentionally so that he would respawn in a bug free environment. BD-1 won’t activate sometimes, I get stuck inside a fence, etc. I didn’t notice this much in Fallen Order, and I think it’s because this game tried to go a little harder and maybe wasn’t ready to do so. Falling from a large height also causes a death, but sometimes it seems like I’m falling from a vaguely inconvenient height and still die.
All of that being said, there is still much I enjoyed. The lightsaber fighting, as with the last game, is quite good and requires technique to master. I certainly got frustrated fighting some bosses and learned how to better dodge or soak attacks to avoid getting ruthlessly murdered. The depth in the lore is quite good, as is the music, which sounds ripped straight from a Star Wars movie. There is a lot of ambition in this game, even when it isn’t fully hitting. Ultimately I liked Fallen Order more as a package, but I think Respawn still gets the formula for a good Star Wars game and I am interested in playing the next one at some point.
2021
This game really left an impact after I played the first one - the opening sequence alone got me invested and I was impressed at the improvement from 1 to 2 in basically every aspect. The visuals are better, the gameplay is for the most part better, and the plot is better.
The squad is full of very interesting characters with different backstories and motives, and even for the ones I didn’t like much I was interested in figuring out their background and doing their loyalty missions. The loyalty missions are satisfyingly varied which I appreciated as well.
Most of the missions in general are snappy and quick, making them less daunting than in the first game. After spending so much time driving the Mako around, I was thankful BioWare realized this part of the first game was super boring and made the Hammerhead missions quick and straightforward. The only missions where the driving took a long time was the DLC mission with the rogue VI, but that was ok in the grand scheme of the game.
The gameplay itself is more interesting than the first game, particularly the inability to power heal through bad tactics. I died a lot more in this game and it made me have to interface with the mechanics and specific talents more than I did before, which made me appreciate the game design and variety more than before as well. I do miss the quantity of skills I had in the first game, but I can appreciate the decision to focus more. I didn’t end up engaging with the customized armour or weapons as much, partly because the customized armor was really ugly and because there didn’t seem to be a lot of options to choose from anyhow. The planetary exploration part of the game was also more interesting, with the fuel and probe system, although by the end of the game I was pretty finished with that as well and left large areas unexplored.
The structure of the game orienting effectively around one large mission was very cool to me. The number of things that can change on the final mission is very cool and even though I had set everything up for success, I still was worried that I might have forgotten something or made a wrong turn and it kept me on edge, in a satisfying way.
The plot and dialogue as a whole was written really well - I was worried playing the first game that maybe the trilogy wouldn’t fully click with me, but after playing this second one I realized there are large differences in how the story is told that I appreciate.
My one main gripe with the game, which is small but still an issue, is that the auto-saves are bugged and it meant I had to spend extra time redoing missions at times which really threw me for a loop. If you die at the same time as a big enemy, which weirdly can happen somewhat often, the game deletes your old auto save but can’t then save your new auto save, meaning you have to reload your last full save or the very start of the mission you are on. While the missions are snappy, they can still be 30-45 minutes long and it was a real buzzkill when this happened. I got in the habit of manually saving very regularly because of this, but don’t think I should have needed to.
The dialogue trees from the first game also still, with few exceptions, encourage you to hyper focus in only one direction (Paragon or Renegade), which seems to oversimplify a lot of decision making. I found myself constantly picking the upper left or upper right options to keep my Paragon score going so that I’d have the blue options available when I needed them. I did notice a small handful of scenarios where only a blue or a red option was available, and I wish more of those were in the game to encourage some investment in both angles, and somewhat break you a little from hyper investing in one direction.
Other than those two issues, an incredibly good game that I’m impressed ran on an Xbox 360!
The squad is full of very interesting characters with different backstories and motives, and even for the ones I didn’t like much I was interested in figuring out their background and doing their loyalty missions. The loyalty missions are satisfyingly varied which I appreciated as well.
Most of the missions in general are snappy and quick, making them less daunting than in the first game. After spending so much time driving the Mako around, I was thankful BioWare realized this part of the first game was super boring and made the Hammerhead missions quick and straightforward. The only missions where the driving took a long time was the DLC mission with the rogue VI, but that was ok in the grand scheme of the game.
The gameplay itself is more interesting than the first game, particularly the inability to power heal through bad tactics. I died a lot more in this game and it made me have to interface with the mechanics and specific talents more than I did before, which made me appreciate the game design and variety more than before as well. I do miss the quantity of skills I had in the first game, but I can appreciate the decision to focus more. I didn’t end up engaging with the customized armour or weapons as much, partly because the customized armor was really ugly and because there didn’t seem to be a lot of options to choose from anyhow. The planetary exploration part of the game was also more interesting, with the fuel and probe system, although by the end of the game I was pretty finished with that as well and left large areas unexplored.
The structure of the game orienting effectively around one large mission was very cool to me. The number of things that can change on the final mission is very cool and even though I had set everything up for success, I still was worried that I might have forgotten something or made a wrong turn and it kept me on edge, in a satisfying way.
The plot and dialogue as a whole was written really well - I was worried playing the first game that maybe the trilogy wouldn’t fully click with me, but after playing this second one I realized there are large differences in how the story is told that I appreciate.
My one main gripe with the game, which is small but still an issue, is that the auto-saves are bugged and it meant I had to spend extra time redoing missions at times which really threw me for a loop. If you die at the same time as a big enemy, which weirdly can happen somewhat often, the game deletes your old auto save but can’t then save your new auto save, meaning you have to reload your last full save or the very start of the mission you are on. While the missions are snappy, they can still be 30-45 minutes long and it was a real buzzkill when this happened. I got in the habit of manually saving very regularly because of this, but don’t think I should have needed to.
The dialogue trees from the first game also still, with few exceptions, encourage you to hyper focus in only one direction (Paragon or Renegade), which seems to oversimplify a lot of decision making. I found myself constantly picking the upper left or upper right options to keep my Paragon score going so that I’d have the blue options available when I needed them. I did notice a small handful of scenarios where only a blue or a red option was available, and I wish more of those were in the game to encourage some investment in both angles, and somewhat break you a little from hyper investing in one direction.
Other than those two issues, an incredibly good game that I’m impressed ran on an Xbox 360!
2021
Finally got a chance to play this game! It’s very interesting, I played a remaster of it that was fairly recent but it was originally released in 2007. Thinking of other games released then, it was surprisingly like games that would be released recently in its general format.
The visuals are sort of ok and I can see where it has aged. The lore is neat and the overall story is decent, although a little war hero-ey which doesn’t fully jive with my energy but I respect the way to was told for the most part. The branching dialogue is neat conceptually. The Paragon and Renegade system begins to feel a little thin and it would be nice if there was more incentive to try more varied options. Sometimes the dialogue tree makes the conversation take very abrupt turns and it can feel a little rushed.
The actual gameplay is fine, the fighting is pretty good and there are different ways to attack enemies and engage with environments. I enjoyed that I could decrypt things, but the ABXY unlock sequences got repetitive over time and I would have appreciated more variety in puzzles. The game also has some whack bugs that got frustrating at times, particularly with progression or traversal.
Side quests were similar, where there was a lot of driving in the Mako to trailers and compounds that all looked identical on different planets. I think with a bit more variety I would have been more encouraged to try different things.
Generally, a solid first entry I looked forward to playing with a few faults but interesting enough to play the second game.
The visuals are sort of ok and I can see where it has aged. The lore is neat and the overall story is decent, although a little war hero-ey which doesn’t fully jive with my energy but I respect the way to was told for the most part. The branching dialogue is neat conceptually. The Paragon and Renegade system begins to feel a little thin and it would be nice if there was more incentive to try more varied options. Sometimes the dialogue tree makes the conversation take very abrupt turns and it can feel a little rushed.
The actual gameplay is fine, the fighting is pretty good and there are different ways to attack enemies and engage with environments. I enjoyed that I could decrypt things, but the ABXY unlock sequences got repetitive over time and I would have appreciated more variety in puzzles. The game also has some whack bugs that got frustrating at times, particularly with progression or traversal.
Side quests were similar, where there was a lot of driving in the Mako to trailers and compounds that all looked identical on different planets. I think with a bit more variety I would have been more encouraged to try different things.
Generally, a solid first entry I looked forward to playing with a few faults but interesting enough to play the second game.
2021
This review contains spoilers
I think this was a decent co-op game to play with my partner. I generally enjoyed the experience - I loved A Way Out and this was designed in a similar vein. The game is generally designed with quality and budget and it showed.
My main critiques are the story/tone and some of the gameplay. The story is whatever, the parents have a disagreement and it gets resolved through a very ham-fisted and guilt-driven attempt at making them fall back in love again, featuring a weird child whose parents must ignore her constantly and a perverted anthropomorphic book that is pretty tiresome. Their disagreements seem to get brushed over, particularly May’s perspective, in a way I found a little manipulative. The infamous elephant scene is needlessly torturous, almost like the game relishes in the cruelty of the moment, which set a weird and unnecessary tone in the middle of the game.
The gameplay is overall decent, although can be oddly punishing at times. Because you’re constantly switching between areas and gameplay mechanics, it seems like the game suffers a bit from going for quantity of mechanics and not really excelling in many of them, nor giving you the opportunity to master them. The Diablo-inspired section, for example, was not executed very well and could have been cut. Other parts are quite fun, like the magnet section and the space section.
Toward the end of the game I sort of felt like each area was overstaying its welcome, not necessarily from a gimmick perspective but just the area itself taking a weirdly long time to finish. The four final areas in particular have sequences that seem to just go on a little longer than needed, and I would have been happy to trim out a little bit of each of those settings.
I will caveat all of this by noting it is a solid couch co-op game that I came back frequently, and if you put aside the dumb story and some of the over-long portions, it was satisfying to go through and I had a decent time.
My main critiques are the story/tone and some of the gameplay. The story is whatever, the parents have a disagreement and it gets resolved through a very ham-fisted and guilt-driven attempt at making them fall back in love again, featuring a weird child whose parents must ignore her constantly and a perverted anthropomorphic book that is pretty tiresome. Their disagreements seem to get brushed over, particularly May’s perspective, in a way I found a little manipulative. The infamous elephant scene is needlessly torturous, almost like the game relishes in the cruelty of the moment, which set a weird and unnecessary tone in the middle of the game.
The gameplay is overall decent, although can be oddly punishing at times. Because you’re constantly switching between areas and gameplay mechanics, it seems like the game suffers a bit from going for quantity of mechanics and not really excelling in many of them, nor giving you the opportunity to master them. The Diablo-inspired section, for example, was not executed very well and could have been cut. Other parts are quite fun, like the magnet section and the space section.
Toward the end of the game I sort of felt like each area was overstaying its welcome, not necessarily from a gimmick perspective but just the area itself taking a weirdly long time to finish. The four final areas in particular have sequences that seem to just go on a little longer than needed, and I would have been happy to trim out a little bit of each of those settings.
I will caveat all of this by noting it is a solid couch co-op game that I came back frequently, and if you put aside the dumb story and some of the over-long portions, it was satisfying to go through and I had a decent time.
Solid DLC, if a little short considering the price. You can get through this whole pack in maybe 4 hours, but it’s quite good. It’s basically a small side quest series with a new dungeon, and a very good boss. Lots of the fighting in this pack reminded me of 14, in a very good way
This game has been a triumph for me to finally beat. When I was younger I was stuck on Agrabah forever and it was a mental block to me ever finishing the game. Now I’ve beaten it effectively three times over the last couple weeks and have a much more complete perspective on the game.
The atmosphere is the key draw that constantly pulled me back to wanting to finish it over the last couple decades. The music is incredible and sets tone perfectly. The first minutes of the game where you’re navigating the stained glass platforms in the darkness are incredibly memorable. Each of the worlds are memorable. The final sequence of the game is memorable. In this respect it’s very well crafted.
The integration of Disney characters is done somewhat well. A lot of the world plots are basic retreads of whatever was in the movie it’s based off of. The characters for the most part are animated well (although Peter Pan somehow looked unsettling to me). It’s ultimately cool to see the blend of Final Fantasy energy and Disney characters and I expect as I play the next games this will continue to be interesting for me.
Some of the voice acting is good, some is weirdly wooden. In battles their vocalizations will repeat so often that they become memes (“GET ME OUTTA HEREEEE”, “COME GUARDIAN!!”, etc.). Sora sort of has this dead-in-the-eyes expression that doesn’t pair well when he’s trying to express himself vocally, but I blame some of that on the game’s age. Their eyes will also do some unusual movements that are a bit upsetting.
The gummi ship is somewhat tiresome but an interesting mechanic. The item synthesis chain is an interesting way to get you to engage with most of the game areas, as is filling out the rest of Jiminy’s journal.
The main knock I have against this game is it’s very obtuse sometimes. It will drop you in a random location and give no context as to where to go next. Some bosses can only be damaged through specific mechanics. It’s not a bad format necessarily but it’s a little too hands off for me I think and too punishing to be enjoyable to play with those theories.
Ultimately, I think I like it in the end but it could be a little less obtuse and has aged a bit. Interesting enough to keep me invested to the end!
The atmosphere is the key draw that constantly pulled me back to wanting to finish it over the last couple decades. The music is incredible and sets tone perfectly. The first minutes of the game where you’re navigating the stained glass platforms in the darkness are incredibly memorable. Each of the worlds are memorable. The final sequence of the game is memorable. In this respect it’s very well crafted.
The integration of Disney characters is done somewhat well. A lot of the world plots are basic retreads of whatever was in the movie it’s based off of. The characters for the most part are animated well (although Peter Pan somehow looked unsettling to me). It’s ultimately cool to see the blend of Final Fantasy energy and Disney characters and I expect as I play the next games this will continue to be interesting for me.
Some of the voice acting is good, some is weirdly wooden. In battles their vocalizations will repeat so often that they become memes (“GET ME OUTTA HEREEEE”, “COME GUARDIAN!!”, etc.). Sora sort of has this dead-in-the-eyes expression that doesn’t pair well when he’s trying to express himself vocally, but I blame some of that on the game’s age. Their eyes will also do some unusual movements that are a bit upsetting.
The gummi ship is somewhat tiresome but an interesting mechanic. The item synthesis chain is an interesting way to get you to engage with most of the game areas, as is filling out the rest of Jiminy’s journal.
The main knock I have against this game is it’s very obtuse sometimes. It will drop you in a random location and give no context as to where to go next. Some bosses can only be damaged through specific mechanics. It’s not a bad format necessarily but it’s a little too hands off for me I think and too punishing to be enjoyable to play with those theories.
Ultimately, I think I like it in the end but it could be a little less obtuse and has aged a bit. Interesting enough to keep me invested to the end!
2023
An incredible game brought into the modern era. The care into recreating the former game is very well done - sometimes I felt like I was still navigating the original game. There are some interesting quality of life changes: party members can now swap in and out of battle, items and special healing moves can be used without entering the menu, there’s a bestiary, a little scrapbook feature recording notable parts of your journey, and fast travel to other locations in the game. The most well-known and marketed change is the introduction of Triple Moves, which are different depending on what character combo you use. Different moves have different effects, which encourage you to play with different combos of characters. The bestiary is also filled using Mallow’s newly retitled Thought Peek ability. This combination of changes mixed with hot swapping party members meant I actually used a wider variety of the party compared to how I played on the SNES, and I really liked that change. It did make the game even easier than it already was, so having some increased difficulty to counter it while still letting me engage with the mechanic would have been nice.
Visually the game strongly evokes the original, and it worked pretty well. There are smooth cutscenes now at most major story beats and boss battles, which are pretty well done. The only odd part is that there’s not a lot of sound or vocalization when the characters talk in these new cutscenes, instead showing subtitles (some of which have weird fonts). I don’t think it needed voice acting but the normal Mario “ya” and “ohhh” style vocalizations may not have hurt here, or the sound of text being added like in Paper Mario. Similarly, the text could have been displayed a bit more intelligently. The cutscenes when you get the star were cute but I think miss some of the charm from the original game because they aren’t as tailored to the scene as they used to be.
The musical refreshes are very well appreciated and for the most part sound very good. I actually like that they veer a little more off the original game’s soundtrack at times, and that they took some steps to try to freshen up with a new style of arrangement where it was desired.
The game overall is quite short and easy, but there are parts in the short but newly added post game where I required more thinking than usual. A little more of the content in post-game would have been nice but I do appreciate they kept the scope fairly reigned in.
Generally I think the game was treated with the appropriate amount of care considering its popularity, and enough was changed to freshen it while still giving people a similar experience to what was on the SNES. This game is still great a couple decades later and I’m honestly just happy more people get to experience it again in a more modern presentation. Hopefully between this and TTYD next year there will be a good renaissance of Mario RPGs
Visually the game strongly evokes the original, and it worked pretty well. There are smooth cutscenes now at most major story beats and boss battles, which are pretty well done. The only odd part is that there’s not a lot of sound or vocalization when the characters talk in these new cutscenes, instead showing subtitles (some of which have weird fonts). I don’t think it needed voice acting but the normal Mario “ya” and “ohhh” style vocalizations may not have hurt here, or the sound of text being added like in Paper Mario. Similarly, the text could have been displayed a bit more intelligently. The cutscenes when you get the star were cute but I think miss some of the charm from the original game because they aren’t as tailored to the scene as they used to be.
The musical refreshes are very well appreciated and for the most part sound very good. I actually like that they veer a little more off the original game’s soundtrack at times, and that they took some steps to try to freshen up with a new style of arrangement where it was desired.
The game overall is quite short and easy, but there are parts in the short but newly added post game where I required more thinking than usual. A little more of the content in post-game would have been nice but I do appreciate they kept the scope fairly reigned in.
Generally I think the game was treated with the appropriate amount of care considering its popularity, and enough was changed to freshen it while still giving people a similar experience to what was on the SNES. This game is still great a couple decades later and I’m honestly just happy more people get to experience it again in a more modern presentation. Hopefully between this and TTYD next year there will be a good renaissance of Mario RPGs
Finally a proper follow up to Super Mario World. Happy to see a proper 2D artstyle, a good sound scape, clever secret exits, misleading exits, worlds that aren’t just “desert world”, and a cohesive presentation that’s full of life. This is how Mario should feel and play. I’m pretty impressed overall and has a great time playing with my partner. It doesn’t always fully work in two-player but for the most part it worked.
Some things I wouldn’t mind seeing improved in future iterations:
- Figure out a better way to do crown switching. On some stages it literally flickers back and forth and it is awful when you’re trying to be precise
- I don’t love how central the talking flowers are
- Boss variety could be improved. The airship ones in particular are a huge miss IMO and weren’t that interesting
Some things I wouldn’t mind seeing improved in future iterations:
- Figure out a better way to do crown switching. On some stages it literally flickers back and forth and it is awful when you’re trying to be precise
- I don’t love how central the talking flowers are
- Boss variety could be improved. The airship ones in particular are a huge miss IMO and weren’t that interesting
This review contains spoilers
This game could be best described as a Final Fantasy Warriors-like with one character. Zack has a pretty repetitive moveset and the combat is fairly quick and action oriented. Using the DMW (the brain wave slot machine of characters and numbers in the corner of the screen), Zack can get buffs, level up, watch story cutscenes, or use limit breaks at regular intervals.
The story is not that great - Zack is a lovable himbo that keeps everything surprisingly light hearted for the most part, but Genesis’s obsession and constant recital of the in-universe play LOVELESS gets tiresome. Sephiroth and Cloud have good arcs that flesh out their past. The ending of the game in particular is surprisingly bloody and visceral and might be the most gruesome sequence I’ve ever seen in a Final Fantasy game. The tonal shift at the end was a little odd. Going first person into Zack’s perspective, getting shot in the face point blank, and then seeing all the bullet holes in his body - then later seeing Cloud covered in Zack’s blood was a lot. Definitely left an impact though! Otherwise there’s a lot of weirdly stilted dialogue that gets increasingly confusing toward the end, like the game is trying to tell you a moral or theme but you can’t quite figure out what is happening nor what it’s trying to tell you.
The missions are where it most feels like a Warriors game to me. There are a few hundred missions to complete which is where the bulk of the game takes place, and they’re over only a handful of map varieties with mildly varying mission objectives. It’s a bit of a slog and can be fun if you turn your brain off, but there are quite a few to get through.
The materia system is good - you can master them, fuse them, and otherwise improve them to make huge improvements to your character. I’m effectively at the point where I melt any main story bosses and I was able to push past a soft barrier to deal incredible amounts of damage.
Visually, the upgrade has been quite nice in most scenes. Characters looks like the models from FF7 Remake, which is a good visual upgrade, and the menus are quite slick. Some cutscenes are still FMVs from the PSP era and they stick out quite a bit. Many characters also have very stiff animation which I assume hasn’t changed much since the PSP version.
Overall, it’s a game I can only play in doses but it has some charm and it was interesting to finally experience. Not sure I would fully recommend to everyone but for people who want the plot from this prequel it is a solid game to run through.
The story is not that great - Zack is a lovable himbo that keeps everything surprisingly light hearted for the most part, but Genesis’s obsession and constant recital of the in-universe play LOVELESS gets tiresome. Sephiroth and Cloud have good arcs that flesh out their past. The ending of the game in particular is surprisingly bloody and visceral and might be the most gruesome sequence I’ve ever seen in a Final Fantasy game. The tonal shift at the end was a little odd. Going first person into Zack’s perspective, getting shot in the face point blank, and then seeing all the bullet holes in his body - then later seeing Cloud covered in Zack’s blood was a lot. Definitely left an impact though! Otherwise there’s a lot of weirdly stilted dialogue that gets increasingly confusing toward the end, like the game is trying to tell you a moral or theme but you can’t quite figure out what is happening nor what it’s trying to tell you.
The missions are where it most feels like a Warriors game to me. There are a few hundred missions to complete which is where the bulk of the game takes place, and they’re over only a handful of map varieties with mildly varying mission objectives. It’s a bit of a slog and can be fun if you turn your brain off, but there are quite a few to get through.
The materia system is good - you can master them, fuse them, and otherwise improve them to make huge improvements to your character. I’m effectively at the point where I melt any main story bosses and I was able to push past a soft barrier to deal incredible amounts of damage.
Visually, the upgrade has been quite nice in most scenes. Characters looks like the models from FF7 Remake, which is a good visual upgrade, and the menus are quite slick. Some cutscenes are still FMVs from the PSP era and they stick out quite a bit. Many characters also have very stiff animation which I assume hasn’t changed much since the PSP version.
Overall, it’s a game I can only play in doses but it has some charm and it was interesting to finally experience. Not sure I would fully recommend to everyone but for people who want the plot from this prequel it is a solid game to run through.
This review contains spoilers
I’ll start by saying Mirage is definitely a step back in the right direction for the series. The social stealth is much more similar to older games and you are generally strongly incentivized to stay out of combat where possible. This alone is with noting because Valhalla was probably the complete opposite, where true stealth was exhausting to pull off and never really landed.
The combat is much simpler than in Valhalla but I think it worked to the game’s benefit. Enemies don’t wait for other enemies to finish attacking you, so if you fight multiple enemies at once you have to keep track of what all of them are doing. Enemies glow yellow when you should parry and red when you should dodge, and generally it happens quickly enough that I don’t always press the right one, which I think is the right level of challenge. Some tools help Basim manage these fights - of note are the smoke bombs which will turn the tides quite quickly. The tools are limited, which balances well with the game combat, ensuring you use them when you need to and not as a crutch. In this way, I think the combat represents a nice medium between the more complex RPG combat if recent games and the counter based system of older ones. It was certainly a highlight.
The story is interesting enough to follow along. The primary targets are generally straight evil yet also have no presence and I found that a little disappointing. I find Assassin’s Creed’s best targets tend to have either complexity or an intimidating energy that radiates from them. Many of the earlier ones in the series (the Borgias, Charles Lee, etc) are clearly awful people but also manifest it well and have presence. The black box style format of the assassinations was a pleasant return and I was happy that there were genuinely multiple ways to approach the enemy. The ending is interesting (and expected, if you’ve played Valhalla). The twist at the end was something I actually didn’t expect and was pleasantly surprised I managed to be surprised. And most importantly, we are once again actually playing a Hidden One/Assassin, which we haven’t really done since Origins technically and honestly Syndicate. Feels good!
The parkour is as good as it can be on Valhalla’s engine. I was impressed at how nice it ended up feeling, especially after switching the controls to better match earlier games in the series. The music is generally good, except for some weird edgier sounding tracks (particularly the credits). Baghdad is nicely realized and was lovely to wander around. The game doesn’t overstay its welcome and is quite enjoyable generally. The length is basically perfect.
Some critiques that knock it down a bit. The cutscenes do not look good and needed some work. It’s almost like they’re FMVs done in the style of the renders. The game still is missing a little magic that some of my favourites in the series have (Syndicate, Black Flag, etc). The character models sometimes look good but also look somewhat dated for 2023. Some bugs that got irritating and odd crashes that need to be fixed.
In short, it’s not perfect, but it is an excellent shift back to the right kind of Assassin’s Creed and I’m aware of the limitations placed on the game. Considering it was a relatively young studio with a smaller budget, working off an expanded DLC of a larger game, with a lower price, I’m impressed with what they came up with and would like to see them further iterate on this style to get closer to how good the best in the series have felt.
The combat is much simpler than in Valhalla but I think it worked to the game’s benefit. Enemies don’t wait for other enemies to finish attacking you, so if you fight multiple enemies at once you have to keep track of what all of them are doing. Enemies glow yellow when you should parry and red when you should dodge, and generally it happens quickly enough that I don’t always press the right one, which I think is the right level of challenge. Some tools help Basim manage these fights - of note are the smoke bombs which will turn the tides quite quickly. The tools are limited, which balances well with the game combat, ensuring you use them when you need to and not as a crutch. In this way, I think the combat represents a nice medium between the more complex RPG combat if recent games and the counter based system of older ones. It was certainly a highlight.
The story is interesting enough to follow along. The primary targets are generally straight evil yet also have no presence and I found that a little disappointing. I find Assassin’s Creed’s best targets tend to have either complexity or an intimidating energy that radiates from them. Many of the earlier ones in the series (the Borgias, Charles Lee, etc) are clearly awful people but also manifest it well and have presence. The black box style format of the assassinations was a pleasant return and I was happy that there were genuinely multiple ways to approach the enemy. The ending is interesting (and expected, if you’ve played Valhalla). The twist at the end was something I actually didn’t expect and was pleasantly surprised I managed to be surprised. And most importantly, we are once again actually playing a Hidden One/Assassin, which we haven’t really done since Origins technically and honestly Syndicate. Feels good!
The parkour is as good as it can be on Valhalla’s engine. I was impressed at how nice it ended up feeling, especially after switching the controls to better match earlier games in the series. The music is generally good, except for some weird edgier sounding tracks (particularly the credits). Baghdad is nicely realized and was lovely to wander around. The game doesn’t overstay its welcome and is quite enjoyable generally. The length is basically perfect.
Some critiques that knock it down a bit. The cutscenes do not look good and needed some work. It’s almost like they’re FMVs done in the style of the renders. The game still is missing a little magic that some of my favourites in the series have (Syndicate, Black Flag, etc). The character models sometimes look good but also look somewhat dated for 2023. Some bugs that got irritating and odd crashes that need to be fixed.
In short, it’s not perfect, but it is an excellent shift back to the right kind of Assassin’s Creed and I’m aware of the limitations placed on the game. Considering it was a relatively young studio with a smaller budget, working off an expanded DLC of a larger game, with a lower price, I’m impressed with what they came up with and would like to see them further iterate on this style to get closer to how good the best in the series have felt.
2023
Very mixed feelings about this game. The plot, characters, and script are all quite bad overall in my view. The battles themselves were quite interesting and I think a return to the challenge that older games were able to provide. One mid-game chapter sequence in particular is almost designed like Intelligent Systems was like “oh, Fire Emblem is too easy now? Lol good luck” and I felt so satisfied when I managed to beat it.
I have mixed feelings on the Emblems - generally I am quite tired of the constant summoning of earlier characters in the series since Awakening and wouldn’t mind the series moving on from this gimmick. I love Ike but I don’t need him in every single game I play as a cameo. Mechanically, they add an interesting twist to the characters you join them with, although they can sometimes verge on being a little OP and seem like they are highly targeted toward being paired with specific characters.
Alear is an avatar again, but the only thing you can customize is their name and gender. Why? The avatars in this series have never been compelling and Alear is no different. Alear does come closer to approaching the importance of non-avatar characters, but I hope in future games we can finally just make the hero a standard character with predefined characteristics and a standard name. I don’t need them to be my analogue.
Some of the character designs (particularly for the women) are whack. Why does Celine have a wedding cake dress that she can barely move in? Hortensia looks like a walking lollipop. Timerra wears play pit balls all over her body in what could be a cool dancer outfit, but can’t even be classed into Dancer. A bit more restraint and complex character design wouldn’t be minded in future games and, similarly, real personalities that are past one note memes. Some of the supports get a little tiresome because it’s just Merrin saying “I wish I was cool” and Alfred responding with “I heard EXERCISE makes you cool!!!”. They rarely talk about anything else other than their gimmick. I did enjoy some of the better designs in the game and will give those credit.
Overall, decent tactical strategy with a bunch of weight on the ends that made it harder for me to want to finish it, but I have hope that a future game might reach the peaks of Path of Radiance that I enjoyed so much.
I have mixed feelings on the Emblems - generally I am quite tired of the constant summoning of earlier characters in the series since Awakening and wouldn’t mind the series moving on from this gimmick. I love Ike but I don’t need him in every single game I play as a cameo. Mechanically, they add an interesting twist to the characters you join them with, although they can sometimes verge on being a little OP and seem like they are highly targeted toward being paired with specific characters.
Alear is an avatar again, but the only thing you can customize is their name and gender. Why? The avatars in this series have never been compelling and Alear is no different. Alear does come closer to approaching the importance of non-avatar characters, but I hope in future games we can finally just make the hero a standard character with predefined characteristics and a standard name. I don’t need them to be my analogue.
Some of the character designs (particularly for the women) are whack. Why does Celine have a wedding cake dress that she can barely move in? Hortensia looks like a walking lollipop. Timerra wears play pit balls all over her body in what could be a cool dancer outfit, but can’t even be classed into Dancer. A bit more restraint and complex character design wouldn’t be minded in future games and, similarly, real personalities that are past one note memes. Some of the supports get a little tiresome because it’s just Merrin saying “I wish I was cool” and Alfred responding with “I heard EXERCISE makes you cool!!!”. They rarely talk about anything else other than their gimmick. I did enjoy some of the better designs in the game and will give those credit.
Overall, decent tactical strategy with a bunch of weight on the ends that made it harder for me to want to finish it, but I have hope that a future game might reach the peaks of Path of Radiance that I enjoyed so much.
(Review from Mar 2021) Amazing game. I was actually going into it expecting it to be meh, and was really pleasantly surprised. It pulls a lot from many genres, mostly Metroid Prime for the style of adventure. Great story, characters, and mostly cinematic presentation. Only downside for me really was the final boss battle was calibrated a little too hard I think: it took me 3 hours to finally beat them which was way longer than other bosses in the game.
(Review from before 2016) Literally couldn't get through the first half hour this game is so bad. Also only so many times I can hear "FUCK YOUUUUU" screamed at me before it's like "No Ninja Gaiden, fuck YOU"