Otocky is one of those games that's really special as you see it isn't just a shmup with a music theme. You actually give your own notes to the song with your own weapon and despite how awful that may sound, it works wonderfully with the added sound used for the Disk System.

Your objective is to collect enough notes for the boss at the end to show up and by the end it can get a little annoying but it's simple enough. The bosses are a little too repetitive for my liking but I'll take that over being frustrated.

Once you beat the game you can do a BGM mode and Music Maker to relax and think about how splendid the music is in this game and you can even set what instrument you want your weapon to sound. It's really nice.

It's a game that I feel like deserves more attention as it's one of the best games on the Disk System. Granted maybe my score is a little too low but it was still a joy to play regardless. Play this game if you haven't, it's worth an hour of your time.

one of the most endearing games i've ever played, with beautiful art direction and such a genuine feel to everything, from the coming-of-age themes to the littlest of details scattered around the world. there's a great sense of adventure upheld by many unforgettable scenes and the surprises and gimmicks that you come across from quest to quest and level to level. the game also offers a pretty damn big cast of characters and almost all of them are very memorable, thanks to the witty dialogue and the great localization.

crazy psychedelic visuals and weird ass soundtrack (which is a major plus) too id just like to reinforce that

the key issue with earthbound, though, is that it's a very old jrpg, so the gameplay is quite rough around the edges and dated. many QoL issues (scarcity of save points, bad inventory management) and a pretty stiff, lackluster combat can make the game frustrating at times, but it's fair to say that literally everything else compensates for that (and goes beyond).

My 9th or 10th playthrough, probably one of my personal favorite games. Has some flaws, mostly the fact that it was unfinished. Hopefully it gets remake and adds a bit more to the ending, but besides that I personally don't have a flaw I can point out. Many people dislike the combat, whereas I really enjoy it for some unknown reason. It's very relaxing to me and getting to the end of the game and killing everyone in a single turn makes me feel great and that my character has really progressed. If Obsidian had a few more months to work on the game I think the rating would be even higher,

Completed: July 24 2021
Time to beat: 26 Hours
Platform: Mac OS

So despite how much I loved the original as a kid, I never got around to finishing KOTOR II until I was well into my early teens, and to this day I've only finished the game 3 or 4 times. This is really the first time I've thought about the game's themes and style and writing from more than a "wow I like that" standpoint, and it's been extreeeemely rewarding. This game's got a lot to give, and it doesn't hide anything at all. You're going to feel what the game wants you to feel, or you're gonna stop playing. What does the game want you to feel? Well......

This is a game about scars. The scars of war, on the people who took part, on the placess ravaged by the destruction, and the scars we leave on the people closest to us, the unconscious influence we have over them.

Even the rushed, kinda broken ending of the game reflects that, however unintentionally. It had ambition, and it bears the scars of that weight.

It's rare that a piece of art is so hampered by the circumstances of it's creation and yet still retains every ounce of power and emotionality that it strived for. They might've gotten lucky with that, since they made a game about broken emotions and people, and the game just happened to be rushed and broken in the same way as the characters.

You can feel the seams straining to hold together while you play, the sweat that went into trying to get this game out the door on time, and it feels in step with what the game's depicting in it's fiction. Not that there was any death and destruction from the development of this game but it definitely feels like it left its scars on the artists and developers who created it.

Anyways I'm gonna be honest, even though I love this game, there's a lot of parts of it that just plain aren't fun.

(MINOR SPOILERS)
The (previously cut but re-added) droid factory's a slog, nar shaddaa's a gauntlet,
(END SPOILERS)

and just in general the game lacks polish of any kind. It's definitely due to the rushed creation of the game, but even with fan patches it's still a little buggy. Not unplayable by any stretch of the mind but it's very noticeable and occasionally frustrating. Not to mention all the places where you can tell content had to be removed, leaving holes between quest lines, or at the end of character arcs. But that's the trick, right. Those holes feel like craters on the many scarred battlefields of the game, so it just kind of fits. Empty wells left bby cut content never took me out of the game, even if I noticed them.

So the themes still come across perfectly, the atmosphere still feels like it's gonna come leaking outta your screen, and the nihilism and hatred at the core of the game, for star wars and heroes and war, still comes across like a searing blade pressed against your forehead.

(MAJOR SPOILERS)
The final planet of the game is the ultimate summation of everything on display, the good and the bad, the old and fresh scars both. It's the origin of your character's trauma, the point where they commited genocide essentially, a decade before the game opens. It's a ravaged, scarred, claustrophobic world, and it's your fault. The terrain is jagged and broken, seemingly having pushed the engine to it's limits and just waiting there. Your companions' stories mostly fall away (mostly because they were cut and unfinished), but like the other unfinished edges of the game, it kinda fits in my opinion. Everyone else falls by the wayside until it's just you, grinding through masses of Sith, on your way to the end, or maybe the center, of the game.
(END SPOILERS)

That dual commentary, the raw anger at the effects of wars, and the criticism of star wars and similar narratives (see also: the hero with a thousand faces and any media influenced by it) is not only at the core of the game, but permeates every single facet of it. The shape of the quests, the transformed versions of planets from KOTOR 1, all of it points right where they want it to. Obsidian and Black Isle's games tend to do this quite well when they want to, for example Planescape: Torment and Tyranny similarly marry themeing to setting to dialogue. Granted, those games' themes take a much more personal angle, but its got the same building blocks in the same places.

Despite the fact that KOTOR 2 is a less personal and a less finished take on this style than either of those games, it's the one that resonated with me the hardest, and by a pretty wide margin. Maybe I just like star wars a lot as a setting, and watching it get dismembered and sacrificed in front of me just entrances me for the duration of the game? Maybe I just like the novelistic character writing, particularly with Kreia and Bao-Dur, where the game asks you to meet it, sit down, and read paragraphs of beautifully written prose. Maybe I just think Darth Sion is metal as fuck, and have since I was in like 5th grade.
Actually yeah it's definitely that last one.
THE DUDE CAN'T DIE AND KEEPS HIMSELF ALIVE WITH HATRED
like it's cool thematically and all but also HELL YEAH METAL AS FUCK

Anyways, if the original KOTOR feels like being the hero in your own star wars trilogy, KOTOR II feels like being a war criminal, from the winning side, on trial in the aftermath. The adventures aren't swashbuckling or energetic or even particularly fun. They're about coming to terms with what you've done and moving on. Owning up to the consequences of your actions. It's fantastic and affecting as hell, and that's why this unfinished game is without even a shred of hesitation my favorite game of all time. It's not the best game, the prettiest game, or the most soundly constructed game, but it makes me feel sad, and really that's all I want out of games apparently

what the hell that's a depressing note to end on