191 reviews liked by Bla
This review contains spoilers
For the love of god this series needs a new writer.
Kasuga gets cancelled by a Vtuber and then Joe Sawashiro (who totally didn't murder the Seiryu Clan chairman in the last game) shows up to tell him that his mother has been alive in Hawaii all along. He flies there and after meeting Kiryu who's also trying to track her down for the Daidoji faction, Kiryu reveals his terminal cancer diagnosis. The reveal is fine but they attach this goofy backstory of him working at radioactive waste facility and there being an accident, it's just pointless and ruins the impact of the scene.
For the next 7 or so chapters you run around Hawaii randomly looking for clues to Akane's whereabouts while the game constantly tosses you into lengthy tutorials for one of it's many WHACKY side activities. Not only does that negatively impact the pacing but the overall silly tone really clashes with the more serious aspects of the story. One second I'm looking at the Dragon of Dojima, on his last legs with a defeated look in his eyes and next second I'm on a random island playing animal crossing learning about furbys called "Gachapin" and "Mukku". Past Yakuza games obviously had silliness but that was usually better placed or contained to optional sub-stories you could do whenever.
It is only in chapter 9 that Kasuga has the brilliant idea to go to the place where Akane's picture was taken and ask around if anybody has seen her. This then leads them directly to her because a random Tattoo lady was hiding her on a boat all along. As anticlimactic as that may be you'd think the plot could at least move forward now but it never really gets anywhere, it just keeps tripping over itself.
The antagonists are such a complete let-down.
Dwight has this really cool and imposing design but then literally pisses himself minutes after being introduced after which he is not seen for 90% of the game. He only shows up again in chapter 13 where he is beaten twice and then eaten by a big shark.
Eiji reveals himself as a double agent for Dwight. Turns out the Arakawa family framed him and ruined his life so he joined people who are 10x more evil than any Yakuza to "destroy the Yakuza" (whatever that means since they're dissolved). When Kasuga of all people, points out the stupidity in that he just responds with his silly maniacal giggle, what an awesome character. He proceeds to threaten Akane just to torment Kasuaga so you have to run through Yamai's dungeon a second time to fight some nameless grunts while Eiji's on a skype call laughing at you. The entirety of chapter 11 is a waste of time and after that he is not seen until the final cutscene where he's randomly back in Japan, rotting in an apartment and after a talk he gets escorted to the police by Kasuga.
Yamai is probably the closest to being an interesting "antagonist" but the story fumbles his character so insanely hard. In the first half he just shows up every so often, goes "mmmmm Kiryuuuu-saaannnn...." and then you need to fight him and after the 5th time it get's a little repetitive. Once he becomes an ally he's just a safehouse until chapter 13 where you go to Japan with him. There you get a scene that finally explains his history with the Tabata Family and the scene itself is fine but it's chapter 13 out of 14 why are we learning about this guy's backstory that has absolutely nothing to do with the main conflict? He then walks off into the sunset and is never seen again.
Bryce turns out to not even be an insane cult leader, instead doing all of this simply so he could profit off Nele Island as his private island with things like waste disposal. Lani and her stupid amulet, the very thing this story revolved around from the opening cutscene, end up as a useless macguffin. Bryce straight up says they don't matter at all because he has enough influence and power regardless. LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After the fight Chitose does a goofy Vtuber stream where she exposes Bryce to the world and admits her wrong doings. I get that they try to be "trendy" with these games but all the Vtuber segments are pretty insufferable and here it's especially out of place.
Ebina's revealed to be the bastard child of Arakawa and Yuriko Hikawa and after his father massacres the Hikawa Clan he obviously grows to detest him. Unfortunately he slept through the events of the last game so now that the Tojo/Omi are dissolved and Arakawa is dead he sets his sights on the Yakuza as a whole and engineers this whole nuclear waste plan to (i think) kill Yakuza in the most convoluted way possible. He randomly renames the Seiryu Clan to "Bleach Japan" despite there being no connection to the original Bleach Japan. The public wouldn't even have a good reaction to that name after the events of the last game, it's completely pointless and comes off as some pathetic callback to a better story like they're going "Remember Bleach Japan? Yokoyama remembers." As underwhelming as all that may be you'd think he'd at least be Kasuga's final boss but no, Kiryu fights him because he is still the CEO of Yakuza.
The pacing and structure of the plot is just a complete mess.
In Chapter 12 Kiryu goes out to the middle of nowhere to fight Daigo and the gang because he needs them for a "Second Great Dissolution" since the first one in the last game just wasn't enough and we need to do it for real this time!!!! The fight itself is really cool but it's all so random and disjointed, it's chapter 12 and they're giving you an update on the aftermath of 7 and how they also got fucked over by the Vtuber.
Kiryu's section as a whole barely has anything to do with the main story. His life links seem like they were written completely separately since in all of them Kiryu is still believed dead even if they're inaccessible until after the Vtuber expose. Like Haruka would know he is alive in chapter 12. Despite that they are by FAR the best aspect of the writing.
There is an overall lack on tension, it almost feels like none of the characters even give a shit about what's going on and granted most of them have no reason to care since they have nothing tying them to the story and are only there because Ichiban/Kiryu are such cool dudes. Like in chapter 13 Joongi-han just randomly shows up in Hawaii because he's bored and feels left out so you go hang out and buy some new clothes for him. This is chapter THIRTEEN out of FOURTEEN. In later chapters you get sections that can't be described as anything other than padding like Kasuga having to "Run From Bryce's men" which translates to running across the whole Hawaii map that is now filled to the brim with enemies or when Kiryu decides to just walk around Kamurocho a bit and do optional memoirs except they're not optional now and a part of the main story now despite being completely unrelated.
The Daidoji Faction deserves special mention as they have to be single worst thing about this franchise, a comedically incompetent and inconsistent shadow government. During the Hawaii section, Kiryu not only tells everyone he meets (including japanese citizens) that he's Kazuma Kiryu, legendary Yakuza that's supposed to dead but he also straight up tells them "yea I work for the deep state". Back in Japan he is then just allowed to run around freely in Kamurocho? I guess since he's dying it's chill that he could expose their entire operation, the deep state sure is nice. Well then in Date's life link after he sets up Kiryu to meet Haruka they torture and threaten to kill him to remind Kiryu that they're a serious organization that's NOT to be messed with... sure.
The best part is Hanawa, after Gaiden spent so much time setting the character up, here he just gets gunned down by a random unnamed grunt in the most unceremonious way possible. Ichiban then video calls Kiryu and shows him Hanawa's bloody corpse only for Kiryu to have 0 reaction whatsoever, completely stone faced, he does not give a shit. It is only after the scene is over that you get one of those "memoir" pop-ups with mellow cheerful music that was obviously shoehorned in last second where Kiryu goes "Hanawa you were a cool guy I'll finish this fight for you!" to make it seem like this character mattered and Gaiden wasn't a complete scam.
Hanawa 2.0 shows up in the Finale to tell Kiryu that despite his identity being completely exposed and breaching their contract, it's actually chill and they won't shoot up the orphanage because Kiryu is such a cool and handsome agent. They even offer to protect Akane and Lani who at this point are completely useless to the story. Love how they pull a complete 180 after every scene.
In the end Kiryu is allowed to "reclaim his name" so at least we can all pretend none of this ever happened.
The ending scene is just the cherry on top.
Ichiban finally confesses his love for Saeko properly, all is happy in the world until he ruins it 5 seconds later by revealing a cliché "I LOVE SAEKO" shirt and she runs off. After so much build-up, ruining a big character moment with a shitty punchline is just disgustingly insincere.
Kiryu does get his name back but we can't even have a scene with Haruka, nonononono just a little tease!! Buy Like a Dragon 9 to find out more!!
As a side note, so much focus lying on Kiryu really undermines Kasuga as the "next" protagonist.
tldr
Past Yakuza games had their own identity with largely self contained stories while Infinite Wealth is mainly just following up on stuff from the last game like the great dissolution and beyond that it's genuinely creatively bankrupt. It's a whole lot of nothing that's stretched INCREDIBLY thin over 14 chapters only for the ending to then somehow be insanely rushed. The 2nd half especially feels so strangely chaotic and incoherent yet there's no actual substance, seems like they had a list of random trending topics they wanted to mention (nuclear waste, vtubers etc) but they don't delve into any of it and there's nothing tying them together. The endings for Kiryu and Kasuga aren't only unsatisfying, they essentially make this journey + Gaiden completely inconsequential as we're left exactly where we started.
In a way it's a masterclass in bad writing and planning.
While not tied to the main story, drink links return and they're just plain boring and forgettable, especially for the returning characters since you learn nothing new about them. Saeko had the only entertaining one because it followed up on Kasuga's confession and she had a great dynamic with Kiryu. Beyond that, if you max out a bond, you get a sort of "secret drink link" where you again meet the character at Revolve/Survive and they basically tell you "Hey you're my best bud". These scenes are literally <5 long seconds with voice acting, they're bizarre.
For this being the first Yakuza/LaD game to leave Japan, I was disappointed with their approach to language/voice acting. After the opening sequence in Hawaii with Tomizawa and the police, Kasuga's inability to speak english becomes completely irrelevant as 99% of Hawaii just happens to speak fluent japanese. Was hoping for more of a fish out of water story. Most characters that speak both japanese and english have 2 voice actors which obviously don't sound alike but I'd say it's still better than the few that only have 1 voice actor like Bryce and Tomiwaza where the VA can barely speak english despite them playing an american.
Just like every past Yakuza/Like a Dragon game, Infinite Wealth has lighting issues. Most noticeable in Hawaii during day time where the lighting is so blown out it almost looks white while the shadows are strangely dark, it can make the characters look really fucked up as well. Of course there's also no gamma or contrast settings. It's always a shame when lighting "ruins" an otherwise beautiful and detailed game.
-Gameplay
The combat improvements are what salvage the experience. Really wasn't a fan of 7's janky and overly simplistic combat and they basically did everything I wanted by adding tons of mechanics and letting you move characters.
One thing that still bothers me is the AI movement and how it relates to proximity based skills. The AI loves nothing more than to spread out as far as possible, for enemies that makes your AOE attacks, especially the "path" ones, annoyingly useless at times and for party members who also spread out when you're not controlling them, it ruins a lot of healing/buff abilities, good luck hitting Hero's heal on more than 1 member outside of small arenas. Past a certain point you're better off just calling poundmates constantly because their cost becomes irrelevant and their AOE attacks actually just hit every enemy. Would like to see them redesigned as more of a rare last-ditch mechanic rather than something you use every fight to quickly clear grunts.
The job system on the other hand still needs a lot of work. Letting you pick which skills to inherit was a obviously good change but the jobs remain unbalanced, some jobs like samurai give you so many useful skills while a good third of them are just completely pointless (breaker lol). Same thing applies to how the damage types are spread out, for non-character specific jobs there's only 2 electricity skills with both of them being magic while there's like 15 fire/water skills. No male job has debuffs or team wide ailment healing either.
Just like with the game's predecessor, there's no difficulty options apart from New Game+ (which is paid DLC LMFAO!!!!) so the game ends up being way too easy (again). There aren't even any difficulty spikes this time, it's just complete babymode.
There's not one but TWO (THREE if you count dlc) auto generated dungeons because every RPG needs them I guess, not sure why since they are downright terrible 99% of time and Infinite Wealth is no exception, in fact it might be at the bottom of the barrel. Bland layouts as well as extremely basic mechanically it's just a boring slog but my favorite part have to be the doors! Doors doors doors, I love opening doors a million times that close after an encounter!! On PC there's a mod that just simply removes them and it makes the whole experience 100x better. Wonder why they were there in the first place? You also can't fast travel to the ladder after finding it early which is something Persona 3 incorporated like 20 years ago. In terms of aesthetics and music the first 2 are incredibly bland with only the DLC being at least somewhat distinct.
The other story dungeons are passable albeit calling them dungeons seems wrong when they're generally just basic hallways with not much of anything going on.
The side activities are too numerous to mention but the 2 big ones are Sujimon and Dondoko Island.
Sujimon is like a Pokemon Go rip-off. During the introduction you're told about all the crazy suji mechanics and suji places that are all over the map. There's a lot to it but the Sujimon battles themselves are just incredibly simplistic and boring. Sujimon only have 1 normal attack and 1 special attack and for the special attack you have to spin a fucking roulette wheel where if it lands on blue the attack just misses on most targets, feels like you're better off spamming normal attacks. Doesn't help that the sujimancer job sucks.
Dondoko Island isn't even really a side activity. It's a full fledged Animal Crossing + RollerCoaster Tycoon game that has no connection to anything else with the only reward from it being some pocket change. Beyond the forced hour long tutorial that's part of the main story, it's pretty enjoyable but due to its disconnected nature I almost forgot it even existed.
tldr
Ignoring some relatively minor complaints, it's impressive just how much the writing drags Infinite Wealth down. This could've been a 9/10 even with a passable script.
Kasuga gets cancelled by a Vtuber and then Joe Sawashiro (who totally didn't murder the Seiryu Clan chairman in the last game) shows up to tell him that his mother has been alive in Hawaii all along. He flies there and after meeting Kiryu who's also trying to track her down for the Daidoji faction, Kiryu reveals his terminal cancer diagnosis. The reveal is fine but they attach this goofy backstory of him working at radioactive waste facility and there being an accident, it's just pointless and ruins the impact of the scene.
For the next 7 or so chapters you run around Hawaii randomly looking for clues to Akane's whereabouts while the game constantly tosses you into lengthy tutorials for one of it's many WHACKY side activities. Not only does that negatively impact the pacing but the overall silly tone really clashes with the more serious aspects of the story. One second I'm looking at the Dragon of Dojima, on his last legs with a defeated look in his eyes and next second I'm on a random island playing animal crossing learning about furbys called "Gachapin" and "Mukku". Past Yakuza games obviously had silliness but that was usually better placed or contained to optional sub-stories you could do whenever.
It is only in chapter 9 that Kasuga has the brilliant idea to go to the place where Akane's picture was taken and ask around if anybody has seen her. This then leads them directly to her because a random Tattoo lady was hiding her on a boat all along. As anticlimactic as that may be you'd think the plot could at least move forward now but it never really gets anywhere, it just keeps tripping over itself.
The antagonists are such a complete let-down.
Dwight has this really cool and imposing design but then literally pisses himself minutes after being introduced after which he is not seen for 90% of the game. He only shows up again in chapter 13 where he is beaten twice and then eaten by a big shark.
Eiji reveals himself as a double agent for Dwight. Turns out the Arakawa family framed him and ruined his life so he joined people who are 10x more evil than any Yakuza to "destroy the Yakuza" (whatever that means since they're dissolved). When Kasuga of all people, points out the stupidity in that he just responds with his silly maniacal giggle, what an awesome character. He proceeds to threaten Akane just to torment Kasuaga so you have to run through Yamai's dungeon a second time to fight some nameless grunts while Eiji's on a skype call laughing at you. The entirety of chapter 11 is a waste of time and after that he is not seen until the final cutscene where he's randomly back in Japan, rotting in an apartment and after a talk he gets escorted to the police by Kasuga.
Yamai is probably the closest to being an interesting "antagonist" but the story fumbles his character so insanely hard. In the first half he just shows up every so often, goes "mmmmm Kiryuuuu-saaannnn...." and then you need to fight him and after the 5th time it get's a little repetitive. Once he becomes an ally he's just a safehouse until chapter 13 where you go to Japan with him. There you get a scene that finally explains his history with the Tabata Family and the scene itself is fine but it's chapter 13 out of 14 why are we learning about this guy's backstory that has absolutely nothing to do with the main conflict? He then walks off into the sunset and is never seen again.
Bryce turns out to not even be an insane cult leader, instead doing all of this simply so he could profit off Nele Island as his private island with things like waste disposal. Lani and her stupid amulet, the very thing this story revolved around from the opening cutscene, end up as a useless macguffin. Bryce straight up says they don't matter at all because he has enough influence and power regardless. LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After the fight Chitose does a goofy Vtuber stream where she exposes Bryce to the world and admits her wrong doings. I get that they try to be "trendy" with these games but all the Vtuber segments are pretty insufferable and here it's especially out of place.
Ebina's revealed to be the bastard child of Arakawa and Yuriko Hikawa and after his father massacres the Hikawa Clan he obviously grows to detest him. Unfortunately he slept through the events of the last game so now that the Tojo/Omi are dissolved and Arakawa is dead he sets his sights on the Yakuza as a whole and engineers this whole nuclear waste plan to (i think) kill Yakuza in the most convoluted way possible. He randomly renames the Seiryu Clan to "Bleach Japan" despite there being no connection to the original Bleach Japan. The public wouldn't even have a good reaction to that name after the events of the last game, it's completely pointless and comes off as some pathetic callback to a better story like they're going "Remember Bleach Japan? Yokoyama remembers." As underwhelming as all that may be you'd think he'd at least be Kasuga's final boss but no, Kiryu fights him because he is still the CEO of Yakuza.
The pacing and structure of the plot is just a complete mess.
In Chapter 12 Kiryu goes out to the middle of nowhere to fight Daigo and the gang because he needs them for a "Second Great Dissolution" since the first one in the last game just wasn't enough and we need to do it for real this time!!!! The fight itself is really cool but it's all so random and disjointed, it's chapter 12 and they're giving you an update on the aftermath of 7 and how they also got fucked over by the Vtuber.
Kiryu's section as a whole barely has anything to do with the main story. His life links seem like they were written completely separately since in all of them Kiryu is still believed dead even if they're inaccessible until after the Vtuber expose. Like Haruka would know he is alive in chapter 12. Despite that they are by FAR the best aspect of the writing.
There is an overall lack on tension, it almost feels like none of the characters even give a shit about what's going on and granted most of them have no reason to care since they have nothing tying them to the story and are only there because Ichiban/Kiryu are such cool dudes. Like in chapter 13 Joongi-han just randomly shows up in Hawaii because he's bored and feels left out so you go hang out and buy some new clothes for him. This is chapter THIRTEEN out of FOURTEEN. In later chapters you get sections that can't be described as anything other than padding like Kasuga having to "Run From Bryce's men" which translates to running across the whole Hawaii map that is now filled to the brim with enemies or when Kiryu decides to just walk around Kamurocho a bit and do optional memoirs except they're not optional now and a part of the main story now despite being completely unrelated.
The Daidoji Faction deserves special mention as they have to be single worst thing about this franchise, a comedically incompetent and inconsistent shadow government. During the Hawaii section, Kiryu not only tells everyone he meets (including japanese citizens) that he's Kazuma Kiryu, legendary Yakuza that's supposed to dead but he also straight up tells them "yea I work for the deep state". Back in Japan he is then just allowed to run around freely in Kamurocho? I guess since he's dying it's chill that he could expose their entire operation, the deep state sure is nice. Well then in Date's life link after he sets up Kiryu to meet Haruka they torture and threaten to kill him to remind Kiryu that they're a serious organization that's NOT to be messed with... sure.
The best part is Hanawa, after Gaiden spent so much time setting the character up, here he just gets gunned down by a random unnamed grunt in the most unceremonious way possible. Ichiban then video calls Kiryu and shows him Hanawa's bloody corpse only for Kiryu to have 0 reaction whatsoever, completely stone faced, he does not give a shit. It is only after the scene is over that you get one of those "memoir" pop-ups with mellow cheerful music that was obviously shoehorned in last second where Kiryu goes "Hanawa you were a cool guy I'll finish this fight for you!" to make it seem like this character mattered and Gaiden wasn't a complete scam.
Hanawa 2.0 shows up in the Finale to tell Kiryu that despite his identity being completely exposed and breaching their contract, it's actually chill and they won't shoot up the orphanage because Kiryu is such a cool and handsome agent. They even offer to protect Akane and Lani who at this point are completely useless to the story. Love how they pull a complete 180 after every scene.
In the end Kiryu is allowed to "reclaim his name" so at least we can all pretend none of this ever happened.
The ending scene is just the cherry on top.
Ichiban finally confesses his love for Saeko properly, all is happy in the world until he ruins it 5 seconds later by revealing a cliché "I LOVE SAEKO" shirt and she runs off. After so much build-up, ruining a big character moment with a shitty punchline is just disgustingly insincere.
Kiryu does get his name back but we can't even have a scene with Haruka, nonononono just a little tease!! Buy Like a Dragon 9 to find out more!!
As a side note, so much focus lying on Kiryu really undermines Kasuga as the "next" protagonist.
tldr
Past Yakuza games had their own identity with largely self contained stories while Infinite Wealth is mainly just following up on stuff from the last game like the great dissolution and beyond that it's genuinely creatively bankrupt. It's a whole lot of nothing that's stretched INCREDIBLY thin over 14 chapters only for the ending to then somehow be insanely rushed. The 2nd half especially feels so strangely chaotic and incoherent yet there's no actual substance, seems like they had a list of random trending topics they wanted to mention (nuclear waste, vtubers etc) but they don't delve into any of it and there's nothing tying them together. The endings for Kiryu and Kasuga aren't only unsatisfying, they essentially make this journey + Gaiden completely inconsequential as we're left exactly where we started.
In a way it's a masterclass in bad writing and planning.
While not tied to the main story, drink links return and they're just plain boring and forgettable, especially for the returning characters since you learn nothing new about them. Saeko had the only entertaining one because it followed up on Kasuga's confession and she had a great dynamic with Kiryu. Beyond that, if you max out a bond, you get a sort of "secret drink link" where you again meet the character at Revolve/Survive and they basically tell you "Hey you're my best bud". These scenes are literally <5 long seconds with voice acting, they're bizarre.
For this being the first Yakuza/LaD game to leave Japan, I was disappointed with their approach to language/voice acting. After the opening sequence in Hawaii with Tomizawa and the police, Kasuga's inability to speak english becomes completely irrelevant as 99% of Hawaii just happens to speak fluent japanese. Was hoping for more of a fish out of water story. Most characters that speak both japanese and english have 2 voice actors which obviously don't sound alike but I'd say it's still better than the few that only have 1 voice actor like Bryce and Tomiwaza where the VA can barely speak english despite them playing an american.
Just like every past Yakuza/Like a Dragon game, Infinite Wealth has lighting issues. Most noticeable in Hawaii during day time where the lighting is so blown out it almost looks white while the shadows are strangely dark, it can make the characters look really fucked up as well. Of course there's also no gamma or contrast settings. It's always a shame when lighting "ruins" an otherwise beautiful and detailed game.
-Gameplay
The combat improvements are what salvage the experience. Really wasn't a fan of 7's janky and overly simplistic combat and they basically did everything I wanted by adding tons of mechanics and letting you move characters.
One thing that still bothers me is the AI movement and how it relates to proximity based skills. The AI loves nothing more than to spread out as far as possible, for enemies that makes your AOE attacks, especially the "path" ones, annoyingly useless at times and for party members who also spread out when you're not controlling them, it ruins a lot of healing/buff abilities, good luck hitting Hero's heal on more than 1 member outside of small arenas. Past a certain point you're better off just calling poundmates constantly because their cost becomes irrelevant and their AOE attacks actually just hit every enemy. Would like to see them redesigned as more of a rare last-ditch mechanic rather than something you use every fight to quickly clear grunts.
The job system on the other hand still needs a lot of work. Letting you pick which skills to inherit was a obviously good change but the jobs remain unbalanced, some jobs like samurai give you so many useful skills while a good third of them are just completely pointless (breaker lol). Same thing applies to how the damage types are spread out, for non-character specific jobs there's only 2 electricity skills with both of them being magic while there's like 15 fire/water skills. No male job has debuffs or team wide ailment healing either.
Just like with the game's predecessor, there's no difficulty options apart from New Game+ (which is paid DLC LMFAO!!!!) so the game ends up being way too easy (again). There aren't even any difficulty spikes this time, it's just complete babymode.
There's not one but TWO (THREE if you count dlc) auto generated dungeons because every RPG needs them I guess, not sure why since they are downright terrible 99% of time and Infinite Wealth is no exception, in fact it might be at the bottom of the barrel. Bland layouts as well as extremely basic mechanically it's just a boring slog but my favorite part have to be the doors! Doors doors doors, I love opening doors a million times that close after an encounter!! On PC there's a mod that just simply removes them and it makes the whole experience 100x better. Wonder why they were there in the first place? You also can't fast travel to the ladder after finding it early which is something Persona 3 incorporated like 20 years ago. In terms of aesthetics and music the first 2 are incredibly bland with only the DLC being at least somewhat distinct.
The other story dungeons are passable albeit calling them dungeons seems wrong when they're generally just basic hallways with not much of anything going on.
The side activities are too numerous to mention but the 2 big ones are Sujimon and Dondoko Island.
Sujimon is like a Pokemon Go rip-off. During the introduction you're told about all the crazy suji mechanics and suji places that are all over the map. There's a lot to it but the Sujimon battles themselves are just incredibly simplistic and boring. Sujimon only have 1 normal attack and 1 special attack and for the special attack you have to spin a fucking roulette wheel where if it lands on blue the attack just misses on most targets, feels like you're better off spamming normal attacks. Doesn't help that the sujimancer job sucks.
Dondoko Island isn't even really a side activity. It's a full fledged Animal Crossing + RollerCoaster Tycoon game that has no connection to anything else with the only reward from it being some pocket change. Beyond the forced hour long tutorial that's part of the main story, it's pretty enjoyable but due to its disconnected nature I almost forgot it even existed.
tldr
Ignoring some relatively minor complaints, it's impressive just how much the writing drags Infinite Wealth down. This could've been a 9/10 even with a passable script.
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
I considered strongly putting together a long-form critique of this game, but the most damning statement I could possibly make about Final Fantasy XVI is that I truly don't think it's worth it. The ways in which I think this game is bad are not unique or interesting: it is bad in the same way the vast majority of these prestige Sony single-player exclusives are. Its failures are common, predictable, and depressingly endemic. It is bad because it hates women, it is bad because it treats it's subject matter with an aggressive lack of care or interest, it is bad because it's imagination is as narrow and constrained as it's level design. But more than anything else, it is bad because it only wants to be Good.
Oxymoronic a statement as it might appear, this is core to the game's failings to me. People who make games generally want to make good games, of course, but paired with that there is an intent, an interest, an idea that seeks to be communicated, that the eloquence with which it professes its aesthetic, thematic, or mechanical goals will produce the quality it seeks. Final Fantasy XVI may have such goals, but they are supplicant to its desire to be liked, and so, rather than plant a flag of its own, it stitches together one from fabric pillaged from the most immediate eikons of popularity and quality - A Song of Ice and Fire, God of War, Demon Slayer, Devil May Cry - desperately begging to be liked by cloaking itself in what many people already do, needing to be loved in the way those things are, without any of the work or vision of its influences, and without any charisma of its own. Much like the patch and DLC content for Final Fantasy XV, it's a reactionary and cloying work that contorts itself into a shape it thinks people will love, rather than finding a unique self to be.
From the aggressively self-serious tone that embraces wholeheartedly the aesthetics of Prestige Fantasy Television with all its fucks and shits and incest and Grim Darkness to let you know that This Isn't Your Daddy's Final Fantasy, without actually being anywhere near as genuinely Dark, sad, or depressing as something like XV, from combat that borrows the surface-level signifiers of Devil May Cry combat - stingers, devil bringers, enemy step - but without any actual opposition or reaction of that series' diverse and reactive enemy set and thoughtful level design, or the way there's a episode of television-worth of lectures from a character explaining troop movements and map markers that genuinely do not matter in any way in order to make you feel like you're experiencing a well thought-out and materially concerned political Serious Fantasy, Final Fantasy XVI is pure wafer-thin illusion; all the surface from it's myriad influences but none of the depth or nuance, a greatest hits album from a band with no voice to call their own, an algorithmically generated playlist of hits that tunelessly resound with nothing. It looks like Devil May Cry, but it isn't - Devil May Cry would ask more of you than dodging one attack at a time while you perform a particularly flashy MMO rotation. It looks like A Song of Ice and Fire, but it isn't - without Martin's careful historical eye and materialist concerns, the illusion that this comes even within striking distance of that flawed work shatters when you think about the setting for more than a moment.
In fairness, Final Fantasy XVI does bring more than just the surface level into its world: it also brings with it the nastiest and ugliest parts of those works into this one, replicated wholeheartedly as Aesthetic, bereft of whatever semblance of texture and critique may have once been there. Benedikta Harman might be the most disgustingly treated woman in a recent work of fiction, the seemingly uniform AAA Game misogyny of evil mothers and heroic, redeemable fathers is alive and well, 16's version of this now agonizingly tired cliche going farther even than games I've railed against for it in the past, which all culminates in a moment where three men tell the female lead to stay home while they go and fight (despite one of those men being a proven liability to himself and others when doing the same thing he is about to go and do again, while she is not), she immediately acquiesces, and dutifully remains in the proverbial kitchen. Something that thinks so little of women is self-evidently incapable of meaningfully tackling any real-world issue, something Final Fantasy XVI goes on to decisively prove, with its story of systemic evils defeated not with systemic criticism, but with Great, Powerful Men, a particularly tiresome kind of rugged bootstrap individualism that seeks to reduce real-world evils to shonen enemies for the Special Man with Special Powers to defeat on his lonesome. It's an attempt to discuss oppression and racism that would embarrass even the other shonen media it is clearly closer in spirit to than the dark fantasy political epic it wears the skin of. In a world where the power fantasy of the shonen superhero is sacrosanct over all other concerns, it leads to a conclusion as absurd and fundamentally unimaginative as shonen jump's weakest scripts: the only thing that can stop a Bad Guy with an Eikon is a Good Guy with an Eikon.
In borrowing the aesthetics of the dark fantasy - and Matsuno games - it seeks to emulate, but without the nuance, FF16 becomes a game where the perspective of the enslaved is almost completely absent (Clive's period as a slave might as well not have occurred for all it impacts his character), and the power of nobility is Good when it is wielded by Good Hands like Lord Rosfield, a slave owner who, despite owning the clearly abused character who serves as our introduction to the bearers, is eulogized completely uncritically by the script, until a final side quest has a character claim that he was planning to free the slaves all along...alongside a letter where Lord Rosfield discusses his desire to "put down the savages". I've never seen attempted slave owner apologia that didn't reveal its virulent underlying racism, and this is no exception. In fact, any time the game attempts to put on a facade of being about something other than The Shonen Hero battling other Kamen Riders for dominance, it crumbles nigh-immediately; when Final Fantasy 16 makes its overtures towards the Power of Friendship, it rings utterly false and hollow: Clive's friends are not his power. His power is his power.
The only part of the game that truly spoke to me was the widely-derided side-quests, which offer a peek into a more compelling story: the story of a man doing the work to build and maintain a community, contributing to both the material and emotional needs of a commune that attempts to exist outside the violence of society. As tedious as these sidequests are - and as agonizing as their pacing so often is - it's the only part of this game where it felt like I was engaging with an idea. But ultimately, even this is annihilated by the game's bootstrap nonsense - that being that the hideaway is funded and maintained by the wealthy and influential across the world, the direct beneficiaries and embodiments of the status quo funding what their involvement reveals to be an utterly illusionary attempt to escape it, rendering what could be an effective exploration of what building a new idea of a community practically looks like into something that could be good neighbors with Galt's Gulch.
In a series that is routinely deeply rewarding for me to consider, FF16 stands as perhaps its most shallow, underwritten, and vacuous entry in decades. All games are ultimately illusions, of course: we're all just moving data around spreadsheets, at the end of the day. But - as is the modern AAA mode de jour - 16 is the result of the careful subtraction of texture from the experience of a game, the removal of any potential frictions and frustrations, but further even than that, it is the removal of personality, of difference, it is the attempt to make make the smoothest, most likable affect possible to the widest number of people possible. And, just like with its AAA brethren, it has almost nothing to offer me. It is the affect of Devil May Cry without its texture, the affect of Game of Thrones without even its nuance, and the affect of Final Fantasy without its soul.
Final Fantasy XVI is ultimately a success. It sought out to be Good, in the way a PS5 game like this is Good, and succeeded. And in so doing, it closed off any possibility that it would ever reach me.
It doesn’t really surprise me that each positive sentiment I have seen on Final Fantasy XVI is followed by an exclamation of derision over the series’ recent past. Whether the point of betrayal and failure was in XV, or with XIII, or even as far back as VIII, the rhetorical move is well and truly that Final Fantasy has been Bad, and with XVI, it is good again. Unfortunately, as someone who thought Final Fantasy has Been Good, consistently, throughout essentially the entire span of it's existence, I find myself on the other side of this one.
Final Fantasy XV convinced me that I could still love video games when I thought, for a moment, that I might not. That it was still possible to make games on this scale that were idiosyncratic, personal, and deeply human, even in the awful place the video game industry is in.
Final Fantasy XVI convinced me that it isn't.
Oxymoronic a statement as it might appear, this is core to the game's failings to me. People who make games generally want to make good games, of course, but paired with that there is an intent, an interest, an idea that seeks to be communicated, that the eloquence with which it professes its aesthetic, thematic, or mechanical goals will produce the quality it seeks. Final Fantasy XVI may have such goals, but they are supplicant to its desire to be liked, and so, rather than plant a flag of its own, it stitches together one from fabric pillaged from the most immediate eikons of popularity and quality - A Song of Ice and Fire, God of War, Demon Slayer, Devil May Cry - desperately begging to be liked by cloaking itself in what many people already do, needing to be loved in the way those things are, without any of the work or vision of its influences, and without any charisma of its own. Much like the patch and DLC content for Final Fantasy XV, it's a reactionary and cloying work that contorts itself into a shape it thinks people will love, rather than finding a unique self to be.
From the aggressively self-serious tone that embraces wholeheartedly the aesthetics of Prestige Fantasy Television with all its fucks and shits and incest and Grim Darkness to let you know that This Isn't Your Daddy's Final Fantasy, without actually being anywhere near as genuinely Dark, sad, or depressing as something like XV, from combat that borrows the surface-level signifiers of Devil May Cry combat - stingers, devil bringers, enemy step - but without any actual opposition or reaction of that series' diverse and reactive enemy set and thoughtful level design, or the way there's a episode of television-worth of lectures from a character explaining troop movements and map markers that genuinely do not matter in any way in order to make you feel like you're experiencing a well thought-out and materially concerned political Serious Fantasy, Final Fantasy XVI is pure wafer-thin illusion; all the surface from it's myriad influences but none of the depth or nuance, a greatest hits album from a band with no voice to call their own, an algorithmically generated playlist of hits that tunelessly resound with nothing. It looks like Devil May Cry, but it isn't - Devil May Cry would ask more of you than dodging one attack at a time while you perform a particularly flashy MMO rotation. It looks like A Song of Ice and Fire, but it isn't - without Martin's careful historical eye and materialist concerns, the illusion that this comes even within striking distance of that flawed work shatters when you think about the setting for more than a moment.
In fairness, Final Fantasy XVI does bring more than just the surface level into its world: it also brings with it the nastiest and ugliest parts of those works into this one, replicated wholeheartedly as Aesthetic, bereft of whatever semblance of texture and critique may have once been there. Benedikta Harman might be the most disgustingly treated woman in a recent work of fiction, the seemingly uniform AAA Game misogyny of evil mothers and heroic, redeemable fathers is alive and well, 16's version of this now agonizingly tired cliche going farther even than games I've railed against for it in the past, which all culminates in a moment where three men tell the female lead to stay home while they go and fight (despite one of those men being a proven liability to himself and others when doing the same thing he is about to go and do again, while she is not), she immediately acquiesces, and dutifully remains in the proverbial kitchen. Something that thinks so little of women is self-evidently incapable of meaningfully tackling any real-world issue, something Final Fantasy XVI goes on to decisively prove, with its story of systemic evils defeated not with systemic criticism, but with Great, Powerful Men, a particularly tiresome kind of rugged bootstrap individualism that seeks to reduce real-world evils to shonen enemies for the Special Man with Special Powers to defeat on his lonesome. It's an attempt to discuss oppression and racism that would embarrass even the other shonen media it is clearly closer in spirit to than the dark fantasy political epic it wears the skin of. In a world where the power fantasy of the shonen superhero is sacrosanct over all other concerns, it leads to a conclusion as absurd and fundamentally unimaginative as shonen jump's weakest scripts: the only thing that can stop a Bad Guy with an Eikon is a Good Guy with an Eikon.
In borrowing the aesthetics of the dark fantasy - and Matsuno games - it seeks to emulate, but without the nuance, FF16 becomes a game where the perspective of the enslaved is almost completely absent (Clive's period as a slave might as well not have occurred for all it impacts his character), and the power of nobility is Good when it is wielded by Good Hands like Lord Rosfield, a slave owner who, despite owning the clearly abused character who serves as our introduction to the bearers, is eulogized completely uncritically by the script, until a final side quest has a character claim that he was planning to free the slaves all along...alongside a letter where Lord Rosfield discusses his desire to "put down the savages". I've never seen attempted slave owner apologia that didn't reveal its virulent underlying racism, and this is no exception. In fact, any time the game attempts to put on a facade of being about something other than The Shonen Hero battling other Kamen Riders for dominance, it crumbles nigh-immediately; when Final Fantasy 16 makes its overtures towards the Power of Friendship, it rings utterly false and hollow: Clive's friends are not his power. His power is his power.
The only part of the game that truly spoke to me was the widely-derided side-quests, which offer a peek into a more compelling story: the story of a man doing the work to build and maintain a community, contributing to both the material and emotional needs of a commune that attempts to exist outside the violence of society. As tedious as these sidequests are - and as agonizing as their pacing so often is - it's the only part of this game where it felt like I was engaging with an idea. But ultimately, even this is annihilated by the game's bootstrap nonsense - that being that the hideaway is funded and maintained by the wealthy and influential across the world, the direct beneficiaries and embodiments of the status quo funding what their involvement reveals to be an utterly illusionary attempt to escape it, rendering what could be an effective exploration of what building a new idea of a community practically looks like into something that could be good neighbors with Galt's Gulch.
In a series that is routinely deeply rewarding for me to consider, FF16 stands as perhaps its most shallow, underwritten, and vacuous entry in decades. All games are ultimately illusions, of course: we're all just moving data around spreadsheets, at the end of the day. But - as is the modern AAA mode de jour - 16 is the result of the careful subtraction of texture from the experience of a game, the removal of any potential frictions and frustrations, but further even than that, it is the removal of personality, of difference, it is the attempt to make make the smoothest, most likable affect possible to the widest number of people possible. And, just like with its AAA brethren, it has almost nothing to offer me. It is the affect of Devil May Cry without its texture, the affect of Game of Thrones without even its nuance, and the affect of Final Fantasy without its soul.
Final Fantasy XVI is ultimately a success. It sought out to be Good, in the way a PS5 game like this is Good, and succeeded. And in so doing, it closed off any possibility that it would ever reach me.
It doesn’t really surprise me that each positive sentiment I have seen on Final Fantasy XVI is followed by an exclamation of derision over the series’ recent past. Whether the point of betrayal and failure was in XV, or with XIII, or even as far back as VIII, the rhetorical move is well and truly that Final Fantasy has been Bad, and with XVI, it is good again. Unfortunately, as someone who thought Final Fantasy has Been Good, consistently, throughout essentially the entire span of it's existence, I find myself on the other side of this one.
Final Fantasy XV convinced me that I could still love video games when I thought, for a moment, that I might not. That it was still possible to make games on this scale that were idiosyncratic, personal, and deeply human, even in the awful place the video game industry is in.
Final Fantasy XVI convinced me that it isn't.
I really can't think of what to say that hasn't already been said - it's fun to play, incredible visuals, one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard, etc. - and I'm not sure where I stand on the ending (guess I'll find out if the 3rd game makes all this worth it or not).
But what I CAN say is this: how dare you, Squeenix, deprive me of Vincent content. If I don't get some vaguely sexual/romantic content with him next game, my judgement will be swift.
But what I CAN say is this: how dare you, Squeenix, deprive me of Vincent content. If I don't get some vaguely sexual/romantic content with him next game, my judgement will be swift.
I didn't think Monolith could top their excellent work with the base game, but somehow they managed to make one of the best RPGs I've played that's been released in recent years. Then again, I think that's because this game champions the idea of "Less is more" in spades, and perfectly uses it's more limited runtime and scope coupled with the set up and leg works every previous game has done to make this game's scenario and setting work as effectively as possible.
Note, I will be spoiling the main story here unlike my base XB3 review since I have more to say, but I will give a warning before I do so.
Firstly, the gameplay is somehow even better here than the base game. One of my main complaints with base 3 is that I feel it's overwhelming with too much to see and do, and while it's nice to chip away at over time, if you're just trying to binge the main story while seeing a good amount of quests, it will take a long time and leave you at a loss for what to see and do for awhile, and just feel incredibly daunting, especially if you're an adult with limited free time and a job like me. This game completely nips that problem in the bud by having a good amount to do, but not be too insane in scope. I feel that shorter RPGs are very underrated these days in terms of respecting your time and being better at streamlining its mechanics, while also packing a meaningful experience into a succinct timeframe. As much as I enjoyed the base game, bigger isn't always better.
The exploration here is better than it's ever been, and that's because they learned from Xenoblade 2 Torna's DLC expansion's mistakes. While the Community Affinity system in that game was great, it's biggest problem was that it was required and not optional, and would gate you from literally beating the game for several hours of playtime, even if you worked to do quests ahead of time. Here, it's all optional, but you're subtly encouraged to do so by actually being rewarded for exploring the world via many rewards beyond just EXP and items. Growing stronger and fulfilling objectives like the returning Collectapedia from Xenoblade 1 was so satisfying and addicting. Not only that, the environments and setting being more directly connected returning ones from Xenoblade 1 was another genius way to incentivize the exploration and be good fanservice for fans, so it works doubly in the games favor.
Another great aspect of this progression system is how it's tied into the combat. Because the gameplay is more streamlined, we don't have an expansive class system with tons of options to choose from here, but that works in the combat's favor. Because everyone is limited to one class, the game goes hard on making the progression system in how they get stronger a lot more succinct and rewarding, and making the characters more broken in their roles in ways that couldn't really be done in base 3. My favorite aspect of this was the additional Accesory slot that changed up Chain Order bonuses and let you really mess around with what characters can do what effects to make Chain Attacks that much more engaging and fresh, and give you such a strong edge in racking up the damage in such cool fun ways. I got so incredibly addicted to this, far more than the base game where I felt pretty limited due to how most of the character's completion orders other than the Heroes tend to be pretty eh. Very nice improvement. I also appreciate having Break Arts that aren't solely dependent on positioning in a pinch compared to the base game, as well as having a much more convenient and reliable Smash option that wasn't hard to get like the base game. Both of these changes really helped me pull off more combos than I could in the base game and made the combat that much more enjoyable and strategic, but fair with your control over it this time around.
The music is even better here than in the base game, with generally more memorable tracks, both new and with old homages to Xenoblade 1 and 2 songs from the past in great ways, but it helps that there's less areas that you spend more time in overall in this game, which helps memorability.
Now here come the story spoilers, you have been warned.
While Xenoblade 3's main game was a pretty strong thematic sequel to Xenoblade 1's themes on the cyclical nature of war and revenge, Future Redeemed is very much a direct sequel to Xenoblade 1's narrative as a whole. FR takes full advantage of the fact that it has 3 full games (and an epilogue's) worth of build up for its story, and wastes no time just jumping into the meat of the plot from the get go, no slow burn beginning this time which I appreciate this deep into the series. We get Matthew and Na'el's backstories fed to us via flashback after the journey's already started, and the game capitilizes on addressing remaining questions left over from the base game, as well as resolving plot threads left untied from what happened after Xenoblade 1 and 2's respective endings, which was super satisfying to see finally answered. I know a lot of people think FR raises more questions than it answers, but I disagree. If you have full Xenoblade lore knowledge, FR gives more than enough in terms of overt answers and implied answers for you to piece together the full story of Xenoblade 3 as a whole and how it follows up 1 and 2. The only things left unanswered are the Xenosaga teases near the end, which is pretty clear set up for future Xenoblade games, so that's intentional and not a big deal for the moment in my opinion in terms of being "unanswered".
The cast is as strong as ever, which is great to see not toned down from the base game's quality of writing, and it helps that half the cast are returning characters who had their arcs completed and are more fleshed out as adults who've been through it all. Rex for example I think works a lot better as a character here after having seen him push through with his ideals even after losing his mentors, lovers, and children and still fight to make the world a better place as a more gruff adult. Shulk and Alvis are still as endearing as ever as well, and their bonds with the rest of the cast are so nice and truly enrich the story. Having heart to hearts be incorporated into Shulk, Rex and Alvis revisit old sights and such was a genius idea as well gameplay wise.
The themes of FR inverting the base game's while following up Xenoblade 1 and 2's themes of seizing the future and pushing through a cruel world with hope to rebuild the world better than before in the face of adversity hit so much harder now after seeing how the world has fallen into a worse state than they were in 1 or 2's scenarios. But it makes the triumph at the end all the more sweeter as a result too, and is definitely the pinnacle of Xenoblade's themes as a whole of working towards the future, endlessly. The characters and world of the series isn't stagnant, and doesn't live in an endless now of eternal peace, as that's just now how humanity is. There will always be problems, but we must work through them together for the entirety of our lives in pursuit of something better. That's how life is, and Xenoblade Chronicles as a whole captures that perfectly.
Overall, I'm incredibly impressed with this game, and I wish more episodic direct installments of shorter length were more viable in today's market sadly. Here's to hoping Monolith can do more of these going forward. Their future looks incredibly bright after this magnum opus of a work from them.
Final Playtime: 27 hours, 14 minutes.
Note, I will be spoiling the main story here unlike my base XB3 review since I have more to say, but I will give a warning before I do so.
Firstly, the gameplay is somehow even better here than the base game. One of my main complaints with base 3 is that I feel it's overwhelming with too much to see and do, and while it's nice to chip away at over time, if you're just trying to binge the main story while seeing a good amount of quests, it will take a long time and leave you at a loss for what to see and do for awhile, and just feel incredibly daunting, especially if you're an adult with limited free time and a job like me. This game completely nips that problem in the bud by having a good amount to do, but not be too insane in scope. I feel that shorter RPGs are very underrated these days in terms of respecting your time and being better at streamlining its mechanics, while also packing a meaningful experience into a succinct timeframe. As much as I enjoyed the base game, bigger isn't always better.
The exploration here is better than it's ever been, and that's because they learned from Xenoblade 2 Torna's DLC expansion's mistakes. While the Community Affinity system in that game was great, it's biggest problem was that it was required and not optional, and would gate you from literally beating the game for several hours of playtime, even if you worked to do quests ahead of time. Here, it's all optional, but you're subtly encouraged to do so by actually being rewarded for exploring the world via many rewards beyond just EXP and items. Growing stronger and fulfilling objectives like the returning Collectapedia from Xenoblade 1 was so satisfying and addicting. Not only that, the environments and setting being more directly connected returning ones from Xenoblade 1 was another genius way to incentivize the exploration and be good fanservice for fans, so it works doubly in the games favor.
Another great aspect of this progression system is how it's tied into the combat. Because the gameplay is more streamlined, we don't have an expansive class system with tons of options to choose from here, but that works in the combat's favor. Because everyone is limited to one class, the game goes hard on making the progression system in how they get stronger a lot more succinct and rewarding, and making the characters more broken in their roles in ways that couldn't really be done in base 3. My favorite aspect of this was the additional Accesory slot that changed up Chain Order bonuses and let you really mess around with what characters can do what effects to make Chain Attacks that much more engaging and fresh, and give you such a strong edge in racking up the damage in such cool fun ways. I got so incredibly addicted to this, far more than the base game where I felt pretty limited due to how most of the character's completion orders other than the Heroes tend to be pretty eh. Very nice improvement. I also appreciate having Break Arts that aren't solely dependent on positioning in a pinch compared to the base game, as well as having a much more convenient and reliable Smash option that wasn't hard to get like the base game. Both of these changes really helped me pull off more combos than I could in the base game and made the combat that much more enjoyable and strategic, but fair with your control over it this time around.
The music is even better here than in the base game, with generally more memorable tracks, both new and with old homages to Xenoblade 1 and 2 songs from the past in great ways, but it helps that there's less areas that you spend more time in overall in this game, which helps memorability.
Now here come the story spoilers, you have been warned.
While Xenoblade 3's main game was a pretty strong thematic sequel to Xenoblade 1's themes on the cyclical nature of war and revenge, Future Redeemed is very much a direct sequel to Xenoblade 1's narrative as a whole. FR takes full advantage of the fact that it has 3 full games (and an epilogue's) worth of build up for its story, and wastes no time just jumping into the meat of the plot from the get go, no slow burn beginning this time which I appreciate this deep into the series. We get Matthew and Na'el's backstories fed to us via flashback after the journey's already started, and the game capitilizes on addressing remaining questions left over from the base game, as well as resolving plot threads left untied from what happened after Xenoblade 1 and 2's respective endings, which was super satisfying to see finally answered. I know a lot of people think FR raises more questions than it answers, but I disagree. If you have full Xenoblade lore knowledge, FR gives more than enough in terms of overt answers and implied answers for you to piece together the full story of Xenoblade 3 as a whole and how it follows up 1 and 2. The only things left unanswered are the Xenosaga teases near the end, which is pretty clear set up for future Xenoblade games, so that's intentional and not a big deal for the moment in my opinion in terms of being "unanswered".
The cast is as strong as ever, which is great to see not toned down from the base game's quality of writing, and it helps that half the cast are returning characters who had their arcs completed and are more fleshed out as adults who've been through it all. Rex for example I think works a lot better as a character here after having seen him push through with his ideals even after losing his mentors, lovers, and children and still fight to make the world a better place as a more gruff adult. Shulk and Alvis are still as endearing as ever as well, and their bonds with the rest of the cast are so nice and truly enrich the story. Having heart to hearts be incorporated into Shulk, Rex and Alvis revisit old sights and such was a genius idea as well gameplay wise.
The themes of FR inverting the base game's while following up Xenoblade 1 and 2's themes of seizing the future and pushing through a cruel world with hope to rebuild the world better than before in the face of adversity hit so much harder now after seeing how the world has fallen into a worse state than they were in 1 or 2's scenarios. But it makes the triumph at the end all the more sweeter as a result too, and is definitely the pinnacle of Xenoblade's themes as a whole of working towards the future, endlessly. The characters and world of the series isn't stagnant, and doesn't live in an endless now of eternal peace, as that's just now how humanity is. There will always be problems, but we must work through them together for the entirety of our lives in pursuit of something better. That's how life is, and Xenoblade Chronicles as a whole captures that perfectly.
Overall, I'm incredibly impressed with this game, and I wish more episodic direct installments of shorter length were more viable in today's market sadly. Here's to hoping Monolith can do more of these going forward. Their future looks incredibly bright after this magnum opus of a work from them.
Final Playtime: 27 hours, 14 minutes.
Final Fantasy XIII
2009
Does anybody else get exhausted of our cultural tendency to immediately lump any given piece of media into concrete categories like "good" or "bad", the latter often attributing a sort of spiritual disposability to said piece of media? Like, in a vacuum, I guess it's not the worst thing we can do, and it's something you shouldn't be ashamed of doing or something you have to stop doing outright if you just really love or really hate something, but it does tend to have this knock on effect where we don't have to engage with media once we've categorized something as either "peak" or "dogshit".
Because of that sort of black-and-white mindset, Gamer Discourse just ended up eviscerating all discussion of Final Fantasy XIII when it came out, and in all honesty probably bled into the potential enjoyment other people may have otherwise received from the game. I'm not a psychologist I can't prove that, but like, it happened to me for a long time until I broke out of that mindset! Not saying people have to suddenly like FF13, or that we have to completely flip the discourse around towards largely positive, but it's pretty cool that Final Fantasy XIII even exists imho!! Like, how many AAA sci-fi fantasy RPG epics were we even getting during that era of gaming? I won't say it's as overall satisfying or as complete feeling of a work when up against most other Final Fantasy titles, and maybe even other RPGs of similar budget and scope, but I enjoyed my time with it despite it kind of having a Wind Waker-ian malaise to it (I mean that in both a good and bad way, but mostly a good way!! btw while we're hanging out in the parentheses dimension misusing basic conventions of punctuation and general formatting, does anybody else want to eat the little spheres in the Crystarium? They look like tasty little candies to me, probably even tastier than materia).
The basic combat system is contentious for a reason, but it's kinda sick as hell in a way I both love and despise. It's like, attempting to replicate the feeling of turn-based combat -- which is a style of gameplay that typically abstracts interactions between entities for the sake of compartmentalizing actions to allow strategy to be coherent for the player -- while ostensibly (and correct me if I'm wrong about how this game actually functions) being an action game that the player only tangentially controls. Even in the event that the player has chosen to manually select abilities, the other two thirds of your party still remain uncontrollable, but they function within the specific physical minutiae of an action game that Square Enix has created but that we are not allowed to play directly. In opposition to similar systems like maybe Chrono Trigger or Dragon Quest IX, characters and enemies move in realtime, collide with other models, and can get hurt by splash damage (a particularly frustrating aspect of the combat system when afaik you cannot change the position of a character without making them perform an action that would require them to move); it's not always an immediately pertinent aspect of the game's combat, but it's something that remained on my mind consistently after I noticed it.
The result, along with its almost proto-Yokai Watch-esque approach to RPG strategy, is combat that can often make you feel like you just coached somebody else into getting a SSS rank in a Devil May Cry game, but equally ends up being probably the closest a video game has ever gotten to replicate the feeling of what it's like to drive a car in a dream? Idk if anybody else has dreams like that where you're in a dream, and you're trying to drive a car, and it is NOT working AT ALL, and you kind of just swerve all the over place and kinda noclip through dream terrain until it gets too scary and you wake up. Maybe that's just me?
Dream logic is also a pretty fuckin' apt way to describe Final Fantasy XIII's plotting and narrative delivery. Final Fantasy XIII is like an obscure OVA of itself that's been spread out across 40 hours? It's feeling abridged in this bizarre but kinda charming way like, damn I shoulda read the manga of this one before buying the VHS, I guess. So much of what happens on screen is just not explained diegetically at all, which I wasn't a huge fan of in Final Fantasy VIII either, but I heard you could go to Selphie's custom GeoCities site in-game to see what the fuck everything is and means. Never did it myself, but I love that there it's at least seemingly diegetic. To be clear, I think in-game encyclopedias are cool as hell and I'm glad it exists in Final Fantasy XIII, every game needs a Piklopedia-esque feature as far I'm concerned, but I kinda like ending up there out of curiosity and not so much obligation. Maybe it's because I have issues with authority? I don't like being told what to do? I dunno. For what it's worth though, I don't think it outright ruined my enjoyment of Final Fantasy XIII.
I probably enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII more than at least three or four other mainline Final Fantasy titles, and I think it's unabashedly one of the most Final Fantasy entries in the series. I love the character designs (Lightning and Fang in particular Appeal to My Interests), I had fun with the combat sometimes, music is sick as hell; the visual concept of Cocoon and Pulse is powerful shit, though it feels underutilized both functionally and thematically. The game overall has this really rad 80s/90s anime vibe but with those sleek 00s sci-fi aesthetic touches; it's almost like Toriyama and team were making a secret AAA Phantasy Star title. The game is way more gorgeous than it has any right to be, which is unfortunately sometimes all the game is.
I wanted to kick down the door and scream "IT'S NOT HALLWAYS IT'S NOT HALLWAYS" so badly, but unfortunately, it is definitely hallways. Which isn't inherently a bad thing, Final Fantasy VII Remake's also hallways! But I think what makes it particularly excruciating in Final Fantasy XIII is that that's kind of all it is, and many environments repeat ad nauseam (that fuckin' forest level was definitely overkill with the same exact environmental structures over and over with only a couple narrative chokepoints to break up the pace), an issue that I don't remember the other Final Fantasy with a similar structure, Final Fantasy X, really having. This isn't something that's necessarily new to Final Fantasy at least, I think my least favorite aspect about going back to the pre-PSX Final Fantasy titles is The Caves. I wanna say Final Fantasy V was probably the best about it, but it got really bad in Final Fantasy VI sometimes and that game manages to be good as hell in spite of that.
Except, Final Fantasy VI does share some other issues with Final Fantasy XIII, like awkward scripts and translation, but I suppose it's a lot more noticeable in Final Fantasy XIII when real people are speaking dialogue that no person would ever say ever. I think my favorite "this translator was maybe being overworked god I hope they paid them enough at least" moment was when a villain told one of the good guys that "the next time you open your eyes will be the last" which like, what does that even fucking mean in the context of English. Like I've taken a decade of Japanese studies so I know it's most likely a direct translation of a vaguely idiomatic expression for "waking up", but it's so fucking funny that it got to the voice actor phase and nobody questioned it. I'm not even like, clowning on it, it's just extremely interesting to me.
Either way, my point isn't to say Final Fantasy VI or any other Final Fantasy is actually the Bad Game, my point is that Final Fantasy XIII is a reflection of the games that came before it both conceptually and logistically and maybe we should give it a break sometimes because it's a decently enjoyable experience when you aren't being cranky about the parts that maybe aren't perfect. And I won't lie, I definitely got cranky a few times; ironically I got the most crankiest at the point of the game that most people claim is "when it gets good". Friend, the game was already good, putting in a Xenoblade level isn't gonna suddenly make the game worth it, you either bought into it by that point, or you didn't, honestly.
One more thing that's sorely missing from Final Fantasy XIII though: minigames or minigame adjacent activities. Like, I think in this game of all games, a little extra would've gone a long way cuz sooooo fucking much of the game is just fighting the same exact guys over and over. I don't even think there's puzzles? I hated the puzzles in Final Fantasy X, but by the end of Final Fantasy XIII I almost missed them. They also find ways to put more of the same enemies in levels that by all means should NOT have those enemies, and like I get it, it's an issue that Final Fantasy X ran into as well, at a high enough fidelity it's probably not possible to make enough unique models/enemy types to fill out an entire 40 hour RPG's worth of content, but the lack of variety is notably pretty rough in XIII. I think the best signifier of that is how early and often you fight behemoths, a mob that's typically reserved for like, the last few dungeons of a given Final Fantasy title if not the final level outright. Plus, battles end up feeling pretty exhausting like, at least in Final Fantasy X the bosses with a bajillion health points are being fought via a fully turn-based system; the battles are strategically more simple in XIII, but they always took a lot more out of me due to the relatively fast pace of the action itself and the amount of moment-to-moment babysitting you're engaging in.
I don't really feel like getting into spoiler territory for this one, not that I think it's even possible to spoil anything about Final Fantasy XIII that aren't things you'd find out in the first few chapters or so anyways, but either way, lemme awkwardly transition to a conclusion where I talk about Lightning. She's probably in my like, top 10 favorite fictional characters designs despite Final Fantasy XIII not even breaching my top 100 favorite games. She's like, if you combined Utena Tenjou with Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart. She kinda sucks really bad as a person early on, but I like that she grows from her whole "being a cop who punches people for no good reason" phase after getting scolded by a lesbian for being that way. Pretty excited to see how they simultaneously ruin her characterization and make her even cooler in the other two games in the trilogy! Half expecting Lightning Returns to end up as my favorite of the trilogy since it looks like it's the funniest, but we'll see.
Also I originally had this whole bit at the beginning about the tangential relationship being Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and Final Fantasy XIII, but I dropped it cuz I couldn't really work it into a broader cohesive point, but I think they're cool fucked up 7th gen console zeitgeist siblings, and my brain just associates them with each other cuz of that. Anyways, this discussion is pretty much pointless because we ALL know and have unanimously agreed upon as a culture that Final Fantasy XV is the actual best Final Fantasy.
Because of that sort of black-and-white mindset, Gamer Discourse just ended up eviscerating all discussion of Final Fantasy XIII when it came out, and in all honesty probably bled into the potential enjoyment other people may have otherwise received from the game. I'm not a psychologist I can't prove that, but like, it happened to me for a long time until I broke out of that mindset! Not saying people have to suddenly like FF13, or that we have to completely flip the discourse around towards largely positive, but it's pretty cool that Final Fantasy XIII even exists imho!! Like, how many AAA sci-fi fantasy RPG epics were we even getting during that era of gaming? I won't say it's as overall satisfying or as complete feeling of a work when up against most other Final Fantasy titles, and maybe even other RPGs of similar budget and scope, but I enjoyed my time with it despite it kind of having a Wind Waker-ian malaise to it (I mean that in both a good and bad way, but mostly a good way!! btw while we're hanging out in the parentheses dimension misusing basic conventions of punctuation and general formatting, does anybody else want to eat the little spheres in the Crystarium? They look like tasty little candies to me, probably even tastier than materia).
The basic combat system is contentious for a reason, but it's kinda sick as hell in a way I both love and despise. It's like, attempting to replicate the feeling of turn-based combat -- which is a style of gameplay that typically abstracts interactions between entities for the sake of compartmentalizing actions to allow strategy to be coherent for the player -- while ostensibly (and correct me if I'm wrong about how this game actually functions) being an action game that the player only tangentially controls. Even in the event that the player has chosen to manually select abilities, the other two thirds of your party still remain uncontrollable, but they function within the specific physical minutiae of an action game that Square Enix has created but that we are not allowed to play directly. In opposition to similar systems like maybe Chrono Trigger or Dragon Quest IX, characters and enemies move in realtime, collide with other models, and can get hurt by splash damage (a particularly frustrating aspect of the combat system when afaik you cannot change the position of a character without making them perform an action that would require them to move); it's not always an immediately pertinent aspect of the game's combat, but it's something that remained on my mind consistently after I noticed it.
The result, along with its almost proto-Yokai Watch-esque approach to RPG strategy, is combat that can often make you feel like you just coached somebody else into getting a SSS rank in a Devil May Cry game, but equally ends up being probably the closest a video game has ever gotten to replicate the feeling of what it's like to drive a car in a dream? Idk if anybody else has dreams like that where you're in a dream, and you're trying to drive a car, and it is NOT working AT ALL, and you kind of just swerve all the over place and kinda noclip through dream terrain until it gets too scary and you wake up. Maybe that's just me?
Dream logic is also a pretty fuckin' apt way to describe Final Fantasy XIII's plotting and narrative delivery. Final Fantasy XIII is like an obscure OVA of itself that's been spread out across 40 hours? It's feeling abridged in this bizarre but kinda charming way like, damn I shoulda read the manga of this one before buying the VHS, I guess. So much of what happens on screen is just not explained diegetically at all, which I wasn't a huge fan of in Final Fantasy VIII either, but I heard you could go to Selphie's custom GeoCities site in-game to see what the fuck everything is and means. Never did it myself, but I love that there it's at least seemingly diegetic. To be clear, I think in-game encyclopedias are cool as hell and I'm glad it exists in Final Fantasy XIII, every game needs a Piklopedia-esque feature as far I'm concerned, but I kinda like ending up there out of curiosity and not so much obligation. Maybe it's because I have issues with authority? I don't like being told what to do? I dunno. For what it's worth though, I don't think it outright ruined my enjoyment of Final Fantasy XIII.
I probably enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII more than at least three or four other mainline Final Fantasy titles, and I think it's unabashedly one of the most Final Fantasy entries in the series. I love the character designs (Lightning and Fang in particular Appeal to My Interests), I had fun with the combat sometimes, music is sick as hell; the visual concept of Cocoon and Pulse is powerful shit, though it feels underutilized both functionally and thematically. The game overall has this really rad 80s/90s anime vibe but with those sleek 00s sci-fi aesthetic touches; it's almost like Toriyama and team were making a secret AAA Phantasy Star title. The game is way more gorgeous than it has any right to be, which is unfortunately sometimes all the game is.
I wanted to kick down the door and scream "IT'S NOT HALLWAYS IT'S NOT HALLWAYS" so badly, but unfortunately, it is definitely hallways. Which isn't inherently a bad thing, Final Fantasy VII Remake's also hallways! But I think what makes it particularly excruciating in Final Fantasy XIII is that that's kind of all it is, and many environments repeat ad nauseam (that fuckin' forest level was definitely overkill with the same exact environmental structures over and over with only a couple narrative chokepoints to break up the pace), an issue that I don't remember the other Final Fantasy with a similar structure, Final Fantasy X, really having. This isn't something that's necessarily new to Final Fantasy at least, I think my least favorite aspect about going back to the pre-PSX Final Fantasy titles is The Caves. I wanna say Final Fantasy V was probably the best about it, but it got really bad in Final Fantasy VI sometimes and that game manages to be good as hell in spite of that.
Except, Final Fantasy VI does share some other issues with Final Fantasy XIII, like awkward scripts and translation, but I suppose it's a lot more noticeable in Final Fantasy XIII when real people are speaking dialogue that no person would ever say ever. I think my favorite "this translator was maybe being overworked god I hope they paid them enough at least" moment was when a villain told one of the good guys that "the next time you open your eyes will be the last" which like, what does that even fucking mean in the context of English. Like I've taken a decade of Japanese studies so I know it's most likely a direct translation of a vaguely idiomatic expression for "waking up", but it's so fucking funny that it got to the voice actor phase and nobody questioned it. I'm not even like, clowning on it, it's just extremely interesting to me.
Either way, my point isn't to say Final Fantasy VI or any other Final Fantasy is actually the Bad Game, my point is that Final Fantasy XIII is a reflection of the games that came before it both conceptually and logistically and maybe we should give it a break sometimes because it's a decently enjoyable experience when you aren't being cranky about the parts that maybe aren't perfect. And I won't lie, I definitely got cranky a few times; ironically I got the most crankiest at the point of the game that most people claim is "when it gets good". Friend, the game was already good, putting in a Xenoblade level isn't gonna suddenly make the game worth it, you either bought into it by that point, or you didn't, honestly.
One more thing that's sorely missing from Final Fantasy XIII though: minigames or minigame adjacent activities. Like, I think in this game of all games, a little extra would've gone a long way cuz sooooo fucking much of the game is just fighting the same exact guys over and over. I don't even think there's puzzles? I hated the puzzles in Final Fantasy X, but by the end of Final Fantasy XIII I almost missed them. They also find ways to put more of the same enemies in levels that by all means should NOT have those enemies, and like I get it, it's an issue that Final Fantasy X ran into as well, at a high enough fidelity it's probably not possible to make enough unique models/enemy types to fill out an entire 40 hour RPG's worth of content, but the lack of variety is notably pretty rough in XIII. I think the best signifier of that is how early and often you fight behemoths, a mob that's typically reserved for like, the last few dungeons of a given Final Fantasy title if not the final level outright. Plus, battles end up feeling pretty exhausting like, at least in Final Fantasy X the bosses with a bajillion health points are being fought via a fully turn-based system; the battles are strategically more simple in XIII, but they always took a lot more out of me due to the relatively fast pace of the action itself and the amount of moment-to-moment babysitting you're engaging in.
I don't really feel like getting into spoiler territory for this one, not that I think it's even possible to spoil anything about Final Fantasy XIII that aren't things you'd find out in the first few chapters or so anyways, but either way, lemme awkwardly transition to a conclusion where I talk about Lightning. She's probably in my like, top 10 favorite fictional characters designs despite Final Fantasy XIII not even breaching my top 100 favorite games. She's like, if you combined Utena Tenjou with Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart. She kinda sucks really bad as a person early on, but I like that she grows from her whole "being a cop who punches people for no good reason" phase after getting scolded by a lesbian for being that way. Pretty excited to see how they simultaneously ruin her characterization and make her even cooler in the other two games in the trilogy! Half expecting Lightning Returns to end up as my favorite of the trilogy since it looks like it's the funniest, but we'll see.
Also I originally had this whole bit at the beginning about the tangential relationship being Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and Final Fantasy XIII, but I dropped it cuz I couldn't really work it into a broader cohesive point, but I think they're cool fucked up 7th gen console zeitgeist siblings, and my brain just associates them with each other cuz of that. Anyways, this discussion is pretty much pointless because we ALL know and have unanimously agreed upon as a culture that Final Fantasy XV is the actual best Final Fantasy.
Yakuza 4 Remastered
2019
I thought the story structure and the multiple protagonists were pretty cool, but the execution itself I wasn't big on. It took the story a lot longer to engage compared to previous games and splitting the game up like this definitely makes it suffer a bit with the wider scope story it's trying to tell. The wider story isn't even something I found particularly interesting or engaging until a bit further in when the pieces start coming together.
Gameplay is fine. I appreciate the new characters and wider variety of movesets. It's fun, but I'm not big on the engine they've used for Yakuza 3 and this game. Definitely still feels a bit jarring coming off the more polished 0, Kiwami and Kiwami 2, but that isn't a fault of the developers when they originally released these games so I mean that's more of a nitpick if anything. 3 had elements that endeared it to me, but this game I feel is still a bit lacking in some departments.
It's not a bad game, just not one of my favourites.
Gameplay is fine. I appreciate the new characters and wider variety of movesets. It's fun, but I'm not big on the engine they've used for Yakuza 3 and this game. Definitely still feels a bit jarring coming off the more polished 0, Kiwami and Kiwami 2, but that isn't a fault of the developers when they originally released these games so I mean that's more of a nitpick if anything. 3 had elements that endeared it to me, but this game I feel is still a bit lacking in some departments.
It's not a bad game, just not one of my favourites.
Sea of Stars
2023
This review contains spoilers
I am not immune to propaganda. Show me a trailer for an indie JRPG featuring scripted encounters on the field maps, dual techs, and guest tracks by Yasunori Mitsuda, and I'll go "oh, a Chrono Trigger inspired indie JRPG, I sure hope they actually learned the right lessons from the classics" and drop $30 to see if they did.
They didn't.
(Full spoilers for both Sea of Stars and Chrono Trigger.)
I criticized Chained Echoes for being overly derivative of various golden age JRPGs, but to its credit: it feels purposeful in its imitation. It re-uses elements from older games wholecloth, smothering its individual identity under a quilt of influences, but I can appreciate the craftsmanship and intent behind it. It's clearly made from a place of love.
I don't get that vibe from Sea of Stars at all. I complained about some tediously self-aware dialogue in the early hours, and while it only dips down quite that low once or twice more, it colored the entire game with a feeling of self-aggrandizement. In fairness to what I wrote then (and based on a lengthy speech in the hidden Dev Room) it sounds like the devs truly did want to make a JRPG and pay homage to their childhoods. But to me, harsh as it may be, Sea of Stars feels like the devs thought making a JRPG was easy: just copy the greats (specifically, Chrono Trigger), and it'll work out. Based on sales and reviews, it is working out for them, but I'm the freak out here with highly specific ideas about why Chrono Trigger was good and Sea of Stars doesn't seem to agree with my assessment. This inherent friction lasted across the game's entire 30-35 hours.
You play as Zale and Valere, paired Chosen Ones whose innate Sun/Moon powers allow them to do battle against Dwellers, ancient beasts left behind when the villainous Fleshmancer set his sights on this plane of reality. He has since moved on to another world, but Dwellers left unchecked evolve into World Eaters, planar monstrosities that do exactly what it sounds like they do. The Solstice Warriors must hold a never-ending vigil in case previous generations missed a Dweller, battling them when their powers peak during an eclipse.
Joining them is Garl the Warrior Cook, the pair's childhood friend and the only character with anything resembling charisma; Seraï, a masked assassin of mysterious origin; Resh'an, a former companion of The Fleshmancer; and B'st, an amorphous pink cloud with almost no relevance to the plot a-la Chu-Chu from Xenogears.
Battles happen on the field map, like Chrono Trigger, and their main feature is essentially the Break system from Octopath Traveler. When a monster is charging up a special move, they gain "locks" that can only be broken by hitting them with specific types of damage; break them all, and they lose their turn. It's frequently impossible to break all the locks - you simply do not have the action economy to put out that many hits - and so you're usually playing triage regarding which special move you're willing to take to the face.
The battle system also takes a page from Super Mario RPG and includes timed hits and blocks for every attack. Tutorial messages insist to not worry about these and just think of them as bonus damage, but most of your attacks (especially multi-target spells) won't function properly unless you're nailing the timing. You'll often still do some damage, but the number of hits is the most important thing when you're dealing with Locks. There is an accessibility option (purchasable with in-game currency) to make timed hits always land in exchange for lower damage, but that only works for basic attacks.
Only a handful of skills have a message explaining when to push the button, and for the rest? Tough luck, figure it out. It's inconsistent at best and opaque at worst. And I mean literally opaque: because of how the field maps and graphics are constructed, character sprites (especially Seraï) often end up entirely offscreen or covered by other sprites when you're meant to time a press. This wasn't a problem in SMRPG or Mario & Luigi because those had bespoke battle screens with fairly consistent framing for timed hits; the concept isn't very compatible with CT style battles without a way to maintain that consistency.
I legitimately enjoyed the battle system for about the first 30% or so of the game, at which point the startling lack of variety in the battle options began to chafe. Every character has a basic attack, a mere three skills, and a Final Fantasy summon-like Ultimate attack that requires a bar to charge up. There's around a dozen "Combo" moves (read: Dual Techs) across the entire party, but the meter to use them charges so slowly they might as well only exist during boss battles. Your maximum MP caps at around 30 (at the max level, which requires a lot of grinding), skills cost anywhere between 4 and 11, and your potion inventory is limited to 10 items, meaning you're going to almost always rely on basic attacks - which recover 3 MP on a hit - for most battles. Landing a basic attack lets you imbue another basic attack with a character's inherent elemental attribute, which is the only way to break most locks once you're in the mid-game.
Play SMRPG sometime (perhaps the upcoming remake, even) and you'll figure out quick that Timed Hits are cool because if you do them properly it makes battles faster. You aren't trying to get 100 Super Jumps in every single battle because that would be exhausting and slow. Sure, in Chrono Trigger I'm solving 80% of encounters with the same multi-target spells, but that also means they're over in less than a minute. In Sea of Stars, if I mess up an early button press with Moonerang or Venom Flurry, it might not even hit every enemy, which probably means I won't break the locks I need to, which means they'll do their long spell animation. A trash mob battle will probably take two full minutes of me carefully trying to land my timed hits and manage my MP. That shit adds up.
I wouldn't quite go so far as to say Sea of Stars disrespects your time, but a lot of shit adds up. The backgrounds and sprite work are universally great - really beautiful stuff, great animations - but there are tightropes/beams scattered everywhere around the game world, seemingly placed only so you're forced to slow down and look at the backgrounds. From a purely quality of life standpoint, I don't know why you have to hold the button for so long when cooking something, especially if it's a higher-tier restorative. The overworld walk speed is agonizing. The narrative flails in several bizarre directions, only cohering in the broadest possible sense of "we need to beat the bad guy".
Comparatively, Chrono Trigger never stops moving. Your objectives in CT are clearly signposted and make logical sense, even when they string together into longer sequences. To save the world from the Bad Future, we need to defeat the big monster, and we learn the monster was summoned by an evil wizard. To defeat the evil wizard, we need the magic sword, but the sword is broken. To re-forge the sword, we need an ancient material, so off to prehistory we go!
It may sound tedious when written out this way, but the crucial element is that this only takes something like 4 or 5 hours. You're never stuck in any individual location longer than 45-60 minutes, and that's if you stop to grind (which you don't need to). Working at a leisurely pace, you can 100% Chrono Trigger in somewhere between 15 and 20 hours. My most recent playthrough - in which I deliberately walked slowly, grinded out levels, and talked to every NPC for the sake of recording footage - clocked in at about 17.
Sea of Stars doesn't stop introducing new plot elements until the middle of the end credits and makes little effort to tie them together in a cohesive way, instead relying on the inherent fantasy of the setting to smooth over any bumps. For example, take The Sleeper, a massive dragon that once ravaged the world before being sent into an eternal slumber. It explicitly isn't a Dweller, being little more than a curiosity on the overworld map. It bears no relevance to the plot other than as a mid-game side objective to earn the privilege to progress the actual story.
Zale and Valere, despite having speaking roles, do not possess an iota of personality between them; they are generically heroic and valiant and stop at every stage along their quest to help the weak and downtrodden as JRPG Protagonists are wont to do. The idea that Garl should not join them on their dangerous journey - as he is a mere normie - is raised once or twice, but ultimately disregarded due to Garl's endless luck and pluck. He barrels through any possible pathos or character development by simply being the Fun Fat Guy at all times, whether or not the next step follows logically.
No less than three times do the characters visit some kind of Oracle or Seer who reads the future and literally tells them what is going to happen later in the story, sometimes cryptically and sometimes giving explicit instructions. At one point a character awakens from a near-death experience having suddenly gained the knowledge of how to restart the stalled plot, launching into a multi-stage quest that has no logical ties to the party's objective. It's just progression, things happening because something has to happen between points A and B.
Another example: a late game dungeon introduces a race of bird wizards complete with ominous side-flashes to their nefarious scheming atop their evil thrones. They are relevant for only that dungeon, which is broadly just an obstacle in the way of the party's actual objective. I don't understand the intent. Is it supposed to be funny that this guy looks like Necromancer Daffy Duck? If so, why is the story genuinely trying to convince me of the sorrow of their plight and how it relates to the lore (in a way that also isn't relevant to the current events of the plot since it's shit that happened like 10,000 years ago)? How am I meant to react to this? Why is it here, in the final stretch of the story? I was asking these kinds of questions the entire game.
Presumably, the plot is like this because it's trying to imitate JRPGs of the time, which had a reputation for sending you on strings of seemingly random errands to defeat monsters or fetch items. You know what game doesn't do that? Chrono Trigger! The game Sea of Stars is obviously trying to position itself as a successor to!
Is it fair that I criticize the Solstice Warriors for being flat characters when Crono literally does not speak and his party consists of a bunch of genre caricatures? Yes, because CT doesn't try to be more than that. There's no need for wink-wink "did you know you're playing a JRPG? eh, ehhh?? aren't they so wacky with plots that barely make sense bro???" writing in Chrono Trigger because it knows that you know that it knows that you know you're playing a damn JRPG. It's got Akira Toriyama art like Dragon Quest! It says Squaresoft on the cover, those dudes made Final Fantasy!
You're on a roller coaster through time and space! You're here because you want to see knights and robots and cavemen do exactly what knights and robots and cavemen do. Of course Ayla the weirdly sexy cavewoman will say "what is raw-boot? me no understand" after Robo the robot shoots dino-men with his laser beams. It's comedic melodrama, it's operatic in a way that leverages genre familiarity.
Sea of Stars isn't willing to fully commit to this approach, undercutting its own pathos with half-measures and naked imitation. I'd be so much more willing to accept the sudden-yet-inevitable betrayal at the end of the first act if the game didn't then whip around and say "haha, we sure did the thing, huh?" Yeah, I saw. We both clearly know that you're not being clever about it, so why is it in the game?
The answer is usually "because it was in Chrono Trigger", without any examination of what made it work. Like, okay, everybody knows Chrono Trigger is "a good game", but do you know why it's a good game? I could see someone playing it and just thinking, "I don't get it, this is an incredibly generic JRPG," but what you have to understand is that CT is an immaculately constructed generic JRPG. Simply using the same ingredients isn't going to create the same result.
Take the most famous twist of CT: at a critical moment, silent player avatar Crono sacrifices his life to get the rest of the cast to safety, removing him from the party lineup. In the context of 1995, this is a shocking, borderline 4th-wall-breaking twist. Permanent party member death wasn't unheard of - take FFIV or FFV - but the main character? Crono was the mandatory first slot of the party, a jack-of-all-trades mechanical role akin to a DQ Hero. Even though he doesn't have a personality, Crono's consistent presence and the story's inherent melodrama lend a tangible feeling of loss.
Using the power of time travel, the player can undertake a sizeable sidequest to bring Crono back to life, replacing him at the instant of his death with a lifeless doll. He rejoins the party, no longer a mandatory member of the lineup. At this point in the game, you arguably don't even want to bring him along on quests, because he still doesn't have dialogue. Crucially, the entire quest is optional; the first time I played CT, I accidentally did the entire final dungeon (also optional!) first, assuming it was a necessary step.
Sea of Stars tries to do this with Garl. He takes a fatal blow for Zale and Valere then dictates the plot for the next two hours of the game while living on literal Borrowed Time. You journey to an ancient island floating in the sky (sick Chrono Trigger reference bro!) and split the party to pursue multiple objectives in multiple dungeons, culminating in a whole sequence complete with bespoke comic panels of the party mourning their best friend for months offscreen.
This didn't work because I, the player, had no attachment to the character. Garl is the least mechanically useful party member, dealing the same damage type as Valere but without any elemental type to break locks; his heal skill is more expensive than Zale's and his repositioning skill is unnecessary once you have all-target attacks. I dropped him for Seraï at first opportunity and literally never put him back in the main lineup.
Nor do I buy into Zale and Valere's feelings. Protecting Garl is supposed to be one of their main motivations - it's a major scene in the prologue, and leads to an entire dungeon detour in the first act - but they haven't put forth any genuine effort to prevent him from hurling himself into danger's way throughout the game. As noted, he just repeatedly barrels his way through the plot by demanding it continue, even after he's fucking dead.
The true ending of Sea of Stars requires beating the game once, then completing numerous optional objectives which lead to... can you guess? Going back in time, replacing Garl at the instant of his fatal wound with a body double (which means B'st was pretending to be Garl - someone he's never met - during that entire segment, a completely absurd notion), and pulling him back into the present. You do another lengthy sidequest to get an invitation to a fancy restaurant, and then you can fight the true final boss, again, because Garl simply demands it when you get there.
If this CT retread had to be in the game, it would have obviously been better served by Garl being the main player character; go all the way with the imitation. Any vague gesturing the narrative makes towards not having to be The Chosen One to still fight for justice would carry more weight if you weren't playing as the Solstice Warriors, instead scrambling to keep up with them as the worst party member. As things stand, it's just a big ol' reference to a better game, a transparent play for Real Stakes that rings hollow.
An even more egregious example is The Big Thing at the start of Act 3, once the cast finally sets sail upon the eponymous Sea of Stars. Leaving their world of fantasy and magic, they enter a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world, complete with a brief graphics shift into 3D and a full UI overhaul. It's intended to be a shocking twist, a mind-blowing reveal... but it doesn't work, because A) it's a blatant crib of CT, and B) it's all in service to a punchline.
In Chrono Trigger, once the game has fully established the time travel concept by sending you to 600 AD and back (about three hours of gameplay), the party is forced to flee into an unknown time gate. It spits them out to 2300 AD, a wrecked hell world in the depths of a nuclear winter. Here, the party discovers an archive computer recording that sets up their goal for the entire rest of the game: prevent the apocalypse by stopping Lavos, a titanic creature buried deep within the earth.
It's important that this happens at the beginning of the game. You're expecting some form of going to the future to see goofy robots - it's a natural extension of time travel as a plot device - but 2300 AD is a genuine shock in the moment. It serves as a constant reminder of the stakes: this is the bad future, and you're trying to stop it from ever happening. After gallivanting through medieval times, the contrast really works.
In Sea of Stars, you probably aren't expecting to suddenly fight a robot when you're chasing The Fleshmancer across worlds. It's a potentially cool swerve, but what's actually gained by having the final act be in sci-fi land other than some kind of "dang, didn't see that coming" factor? He isn't even actually in control of the robots or anything, he just hides his castle here because... well, it's unclear why, because even once you restore the sun and moon and fight him in the True Ending, he only seems momentarily inconvenienced.
But it sure is a CT reference! And it's also a joke, because your mysterious sometimes-assassin-sometimes-swashbuckler companion Seraï reveals that this is her home world, pulling off her mask to reveal her metallic endoskeleton. You see, she used to be human, but had her soul chewed up and put into this mechanical body. She is a literal Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot.
You know! Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot! Like TVTropes, lol? Wacky JRPG party members!
How do you expect to maintain any investment after that? There's like four more dungeons in sci-fi world - including aforementioned Necromancer Daffy - and I just couldn't give a shit about any of it. The post-apoc stuff doesn't add any stakes, because we already know the Fleshmancer has ruined countless worlds and we're just chasing him to this one in particular because Seraï asked us to (and I guess they want revenge for Garl). I wasn't having fun, I was just annoyed.
I'm baffled. Sea of Stars clearly knows how to outwardly present itself as a quality JRPG. At a glance, the game looks like everything I could want: beautiful artwork, smooth gameplay, fun characters. Something that gets why I fell in love with the genre in the first place, and why I hold up Chrono Trigger as its crown jewel.
But it just isn't that, at least not to me, and that's... I dunno, existentially troubling? Based on the reviews I've seen, I'm clearly in the minority for feeling this way. I do believe the dev team and all of these players also love JRPGs. But if they do, it must be in a way fundamentally different from the way I do, because otherwise I simply don't understand the creative choices in Sea of Stars. I want more than this.
Maybe one day, hopefully sooner than later, we'll get the Disco Elysium of JRPGs, but today sure isn't that day.
They didn't.
(Full spoilers for both Sea of Stars and Chrono Trigger.)
I criticized Chained Echoes for being overly derivative of various golden age JRPGs, but to its credit: it feels purposeful in its imitation. It re-uses elements from older games wholecloth, smothering its individual identity under a quilt of influences, but I can appreciate the craftsmanship and intent behind it. It's clearly made from a place of love.
I don't get that vibe from Sea of Stars at all. I complained about some tediously self-aware dialogue in the early hours, and while it only dips down quite that low once or twice more, it colored the entire game with a feeling of self-aggrandizement. In fairness to what I wrote then (and based on a lengthy speech in the hidden Dev Room) it sounds like the devs truly did want to make a JRPG and pay homage to their childhoods. But to me, harsh as it may be, Sea of Stars feels like the devs thought making a JRPG was easy: just copy the greats (specifically, Chrono Trigger), and it'll work out. Based on sales and reviews, it is working out for them, but I'm the freak out here with highly specific ideas about why Chrono Trigger was good and Sea of Stars doesn't seem to agree with my assessment. This inherent friction lasted across the game's entire 30-35 hours.
You play as Zale and Valere, paired Chosen Ones whose innate Sun/Moon powers allow them to do battle against Dwellers, ancient beasts left behind when the villainous Fleshmancer set his sights on this plane of reality. He has since moved on to another world, but Dwellers left unchecked evolve into World Eaters, planar monstrosities that do exactly what it sounds like they do. The Solstice Warriors must hold a never-ending vigil in case previous generations missed a Dweller, battling them when their powers peak during an eclipse.
Joining them is Garl the Warrior Cook, the pair's childhood friend and the only character with anything resembling charisma; Seraï, a masked assassin of mysterious origin; Resh'an, a former companion of The Fleshmancer; and B'st, an amorphous pink cloud with almost no relevance to the plot a-la Chu-Chu from Xenogears.
Battles happen on the field map, like Chrono Trigger, and their main feature is essentially the Break system from Octopath Traveler. When a monster is charging up a special move, they gain "locks" that can only be broken by hitting them with specific types of damage; break them all, and they lose their turn. It's frequently impossible to break all the locks - you simply do not have the action economy to put out that many hits - and so you're usually playing triage regarding which special move you're willing to take to the face.
The battle system also takes a page from Super Mario RPG and includes timed hits and blocks for every attack. Tutorial messages insist to not worry about these and just think of them as bonus damage, but most of your attacks (especially multi-target spells) won't function properly unless you're nailing the timing. You'll often still do some damage, but the number of hits is the most important thing when you're dealing with Locks. There is an accessibility option (purchasable with in-game currency) to make timed hits always land in exchange for lower damage, but that only works for basic attacks.
Only a handful of skills have a message explaining when to push the button, and for the rest? Tough luck, figure it out. It's inconsistent at best and opaque at worst. And I mean literally opaque: because of how the field maps and graphics are constructed, character sprites (especially Seraï) often end up entirely offscreen or covered by other sprites when you're meant to time a press. This wasn't a problem in SMRPG or Mario & Luigi because those had bespoke battle screens with fairly consistent framing for timed hits; the concept isn't very compatible with CT style battles without a way to maintain that consistency.
I legitimately enjoyed the battle system for about the first 30% or so of the game, at which point the startling lack of variety in the battle options began to chafe. Every character has a basic attack, a mere three skills, and a Final Fantasy summon-like Ultimate attack that requires a bar to charge up. There's around a dozen "Combo" moves (read: Dual Techs) across the entire party, but the meter to use them charges so slowly they might as well only exist during boss battles. Your maximum MP caps at around 30 (at the max level, which requires a lot of grinding), skills cost anywhere between 4 and 11, and your potion inventory is limited to 10 items, meaning you're going to almost always rely on basic attacks - which recover 3 MP on a hit - for most battles. Landing a basic attack lets you imbue another basic attack with a character's inherent elemental attribute, which is the only way to break most locks once you're in the mid-game.
Play SMRPG sometime (perhaps the upcoming remake, even) and you'll figure out quick that Timed Hits are cool because if you do them properly it makes battles faster. You aren't trying to get 100 Super Jumps in every single battle because that would be exhausting and slow. Sure, in Chrono Trigger I'm solving 80% of encounters with the same multi-target spells, but that also means they're over in less than a minute. In Sea of Stars, if I mess up an early button press with Moonerang or Venom Flurry, it might not even hit every enemy, which probably means I won't break the locks I need to, which means they'll do their long spell animation. A trash mob battle will probably take two full minutes of me carefully trying to land my timed hits and manage my MP. That shit adds up.
I wouldn't quite go so far as to say Sea of Stars disrespects your time, but a lot of shit adds up. The backgrounds and sprite work are universally great - really beautiful stuff, great animations - but there are tightropes/beams scattered everywhere around the game world, seemingly placed only so you're forced to slow down and look at the backgrounds. From a purely quality of life standpoint, I don't know why you have to hold the button for so long when cooking something, especially if it's a higher-tier restorative. The overworld walk speed is agonizing. The narrative flails in several bizarre directions, only cohering in the broadest possible sense of "we need to beat the bad guy".
Comparatively, Chrono Trigger never stops moving. Your objectives in CT are clearly signposted and make logical sense, even when they string together into longer sequences. To save the world from the Bad Future, we need to defeat the big monster, and we learn the monster was summoned by an evil wizard. To defeat the evil wizard, we need the magic sword, but the sword is broken. To re-forge the sword, we need an ancient material, so off to prehistory we go!
It may sound tedious when written out this way, but the crucial element is that this only takes something like 4 or 5 hours. You're never stuck in any individual location longer than 45-60 minutes, and that's if you stop to grind (which you don't need to). Working at a leisurely pace, you can 100% Chrono Trigger in somewhere between 15 and 20 hours. My most recent playthrough - in which I deliberately walked slowly, grinded out levels, and talked to every NPC for the sake of recording footage - clocked in at about 17.
Sea of Stars doesn't stop introducing new plot elements until the middle of the end credits and makes little effort to tie them together in a cohesive way, instead relying on the inherent fantasy of the setting to smooth over any bumps. For example, take The Sleeper, a massive dragon that once ravaged the world before being sent into an eternal slumber. It explicitly isn't a Dweller, being little more than a curiosity on the overworld map. It bears no relevance to the plot other than as a mid-game side objective to earn the privilege to progress the actual story.
Zale and Valere, despite having speaking roles, do not possess an iota of personality between them; they are generically heroic and valiant and stop at every stage along their quest to help the weak and downtrodden as JRPG Protagonists are wont to do. The idea that Garl should not join them on their dangerous journey - as he is a mere normie - is raised once or twice, but ultimately disregarded due to Garl's endless luck and pluck. He barrels through any possible pathos or character development by simply being the Fun Fat Guy at all times, whether or not the next step follows logically.
No less than three times do the characters visit some kind of Oracle or Seer who reads the future and literally tells them what is going to happen later in the story, sometimes cryptically and sometimes giving explicit instructions. At one point a character awakens from a near-death experience having suddenly gained the knowledge of how to restart the stalled plot, launching into a multi-stage quest that has no logical ties to the party's objective. It's just progression, things happening because something has to happen between points A and B.
Another example: a late game dungeon introduces a race of bird wizards complete with ominous side-flashes to their nefarious scheming atop their evil thrones. They are relevant for only that dungeon, which is broadly just an obstacle in the way of the party's actual objective. I don't understand the intent. Is it supposed to be funny that this guy looks like Necromancer Daffy Duck? If so, why is the story genuinely trying to convince me of the sorrow of their plight and how it relates to the lore (in a way that also isn't relevant to the current events of the plot since it's shit that happened like 10,000 years ago)? How am I meant to react to this? Why is it here, in the final stretch of the story? I was asking these kinds of questions the entire game.
Presumably, the plot is like this because it's trying to imitate JRPGs of the time, which had a reputation for sending you on strings of seemingly random errands to defeat monsters or fetch items. You know what game doesn't do that? Chrono Trigger! The game Sea of Stars is obviously trying to position itself as a successor to!
Is it fair that I criticize the Solstice Warriors for being flat characters when Crono literally does not speak and his party consists of a bunch of genre caricatures? Yes, because CT doesn't try to be more than that. There's no need for wink-wink "did you know you're playing a JRPG? eh, ehhh?? aren't they so wacky with plots that barely make sense bro???" writing in Chrono Trigger because it knows that you know that it knows that you know you're playing a damn JRPG. It's got Akira Toriyama art like Dragon Quest! It says Squaresoft on the cover, those dudes made Final Fantasy!
You're on a roller coaster through time and space! You're here because you want to see knights and robots and cavemen do exactly what knights and robots and cavemen do. Of course Ayla the weirdly sexy cavewoman will say "what is raw-boot? me no understand" after Robo the robot shoots dino-men with his laser beams. It's comedic melodrama, it's operatic in a way that leverages genre familiarity.
Sea of Stars isn't willing to fully commit to this approach, undercutting its own pathos with half-measures and naked imitation. I'd be so much more willing to accept the sudden-yet-inevitable betrayal at the end of the first act if the game didn't then whip around and say "haha, we sure did the thing, huh?" Yeah, I saw. We both clearly know that you're not being clever about it, so why is it in the game?
The answer is usually "because it was in Chrono Trigger", without any examination of what made it work. Like, okay, everybody knows Chrono Trigger is "a good game", but do you know why it's a good game? I could see someone playing it and just thinking, "I don't get it, this is an incredibly generic JRPG," but what you have to understand is that CT is an immaculately constructed generic JRPG. Simply using the same ingredients isn't going to create the same result.
Take the most famous twist of CT: at a critical moment, silent player avatar Crono sacrifices his life to get the rest of the cast to safety, removing him from the party lineup. In the context of 1995, this is a shocking, borderline 4th-wall-breaking twist. Permanent party member death wasn't unheard of - take FFIV or FFV - but the main character? Crono was the mandatory first slot of the party, a jack-of-all-trades mechanical role akin to a DQ Hero. Even though he doesn't have a personality, Crono's consistent presence and the story's inherent melodrama lend a tangible feeling of loss.
Using the power of time travel, the player can undertake a sizeable sidequest to bring Crono back to life, replacing him at the instant of his death with a lifeless doll. He rejoins the party, no longer a mandatory member of the lineup. At this point in the game, you arguably don't even want to bring him along on quests, because he still doesn't have dialogue. Crucially, the entire quest is optional; the first time I played CT, I accidentally did the entire final dungeon (also optional!) first, assuming it was a necessary step.
Sea of Stars tries to do this with Garl. He takes a fatal blow for Zale and Valere then dictates the plot for the next two hours of the game while living on literal Borrowed Time. You journey to an ancient island floating in the sky (sick Chrono Trigger reference bro!) and split the party to pursue multiple objectives in multiple dungeons, culminating in a whole sequence complete with bespoke comic panels of the party mourning their best friend for months offscreen.
This didn't work because I, the player, had no attachment to the character. Garl is the least mechanically useful party member, dealing the same damage type as Valere but without any elemental type to break locks; his heal skill is more expensive than Zale's and his repositioning skill is unnecessary once you have all-target attacks. I dropped him for Seraï at first opportunity and literally never put him back in the main lineup.
Nor do I buy into Zale and Valere's feelings. Protecting Garl is supposed to be one of their main motivations - it's a major scene in the prologue, and leads to an entire dungeon detour in the first act - but they haven't put forth any genuine effort to prevent him from hurling himself into danger's way throughout the game. As noted, he just repeatedly barrels his way through the plot by demanding it continue, even after he's fucking dead.
The true ending of Sea of Stars requires beating the game once, then completing numerous optional objectives which lead to... can you guess? Going back in time, replacing Garl at the instant of his fatal wound with a body double (which means B'st was pretending to be Garl - someone he's never met - during that entire segment, a completely absurd notion), and pulling him back into the present. You do another lengthy sidequest to get an invitation to a fancy restaurant, and then you can fight the true final boss, again, because Garl simply demands it when you get there.
If this CT retread had to be in the game, it would have obviously been better served by Garl being the main player character; go all the way with the imitation. Any vague gesturing the narrative makes towards not having to be The Chosen One to still fight for justice would carry more weight if you weren't playing as the Solstice Warriors, instead scrambling to keep up with them as the worst party member. As things stand, it's just a big ol' reference to a better game, a transparent play for Real Stakes that rings hollow.
An even more egregious example is The Big Thing at the start of Act 3, once the cast finally sets sail upon the eponymous Sea of Stars. Leaving their world of fantasy and magic, they enter a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world, complete with a brief graphics shift into 3D and a full UI overhaul. It's intended to be a shocking twist, a mind-blowing reveal... but it doesn't work, because A) it's a blatant crib of CT, and B) it's all in service to a punchline.
In Chrono Trigger, once the game has fully established the time travel concept by sending you to 600 AD and back (about three hours of gameplay), the party is forced to flee into an unknown time gate. It spits them out to 2300 AD, a wrecked hell world in the depths of a nuclear winter. Here, the party discovers an archive computer recording that sets up their goal for the entire rest of the game: prevent the apocalypse by stopping Lavos, a titanic creature buried deep within the earth.
It's important that this happens at the beginning of the game. You're expecting some form of going to the future to see goofy robots - it's a natural extension of time travel as a plot device - but 2300 AD is a genuine shock in the moment. It serves as a constant reminder of the stakes: this is the bad future, and you're trying to stop it from ever happening. After gallivanting through medieval times, the contrast really works.
In Sea of Stars, you probably aren't expecting to suddenly fight a robot when you're chasing The Fleshmancer across worlds. It's a potentially cool swerve, but what's actually gained by having the final act be in sci-fi land other than some kind of "dang, didn't see that coming" factor? He isn't even actually in control of the robots or anything, he just hides his castle here because... well, it's unclear why, because even once you restore the sun and moon and fight him in the True Ending, he only seems momentarily inconvenienced.
But it sure is a CT reference! And it's also a joke, because your mysterious sometimes-assassin-sometimes-swashbuckler companion Seraï reveals that this is her home world, pulling off her mask to reveal her metallic endoskeleton. You see, she used to be human, but had her soul chewed up and put into this mechanical body. She is a literal Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot.
You know! Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot! Like TVTropes, lol? Wacky JRPG party members!
How do you expect to maintain any investment after that? There's like four more dungeons in sci-fi world - including aforementioned Necromancer Daffy - and I just couldn't give a shit about any of it. The post-apoc stuff doesn't add any stakes, because we already know the Fleshmancer has ruined countless worlds and we're just chasing him to this one in particular because Seraï asked us to (and I guess they want revenge for Garl). I wasn't having fun, I was just annoyed.
I'm baffled. Sea of Stars clearly knows how to outwardly present itself as a quality JRPG. At a glance, the game looks like everything I could want: beautiful artwork, smooth gameplay, fun characters. Something that gets why I fell in love with the genre in the first place, and why I hold up Chrono Trigger as its crown jewel.
But it just isn't that, at least not to me, and that's... I dunno, existentially troubling? Based on the reviews I've seen, I'm clearly in the minority for feeling this way. I do believe the dev team and all of these players also love JRPGs. But if they do, it must be in a way fundamentally different from the way I do, because otherwise I simply don't understand the creative choices in Sea of Stars. I want more than this.
Maybe one day, hopefully sooner than later, we'll get the Disco Elysium of JRPGs, but today sure isn't that day.
Final Fantasy XIII
2009
This review contains spoilers
how ironic is it that a game about challenging an unjust fate is also one of the most unfairly maligned games i've ever played? final fantasy xiii is not a perfect game, as i'll get into later, but playing it with an open mind and divorced from the zeitgeist of it's release makes it very clear just how hard this game got screwed by circumstances surrounding it. FF13 isn't exactly a bold step away from franchise tradition; playing it you can see echoes of game design lessons from FF10, or story decisions from FF8. what is new here, though, is the game's willingness to allow it's narrative to take control of all aspects of the experience. to me, JRPGs often feel like a genre dependent on abstraction, games that need you to recognize their gaminess and accept that the "game part" isn't supposed to do the same things as the "story part". i don't think this is a bad thing, my favorite franchise of all time is dragon quest, which lives and breathes abstraction, but when playing FF13 i really respected how much they try to avoid this feeling. entering combat is near-immediate and despite the combat being turn-based, it feels incredibly fluid and not contrived at all. exploration is even better at weaving in story. frequently FF13 communicates things going on around the player, rather than simply because of them, which makes the journey you're on feel far more real. characters chatter about, story events go off in the background, monsters fight each other. in interviews, the development team for 13 stated that this was influenced by western shooter games, such as call of duty and halo, which actually really does show. this type of storytelling does call for a more controlled environment for the player to progress through, but 13 doesn't really struggle with this either. criticism of this game often revolves around complaints about it being a "hallway simulator" or "taking 30 hours to get good", but i feel it's important to recognize why these decisions were made. it's not that the team thought players were too stupid to explore, or didn't have time to make bigger environments, it's to further the sense of connection with the story. in FF13, for almost the entire game, you're on the run. cocoon is a world that is actively hostile to your existence, which is unfortunate, because it's also the world you have to save. characters exposit about how open genocide of potentially tainted people has a 90% approval rating among the populace. logically there is absolutely nowhere for you to go but forward; towns would be more dangerous than the wilderness in cocoon. it's no wonder that you're "running down hallways", because a major point the game is trying to make in regards to cocoon is that it's sealed off, shut in, overpopulated, and sheltered from reality. the party is not in this journey by choice, but because their choice has been robbed from them at this point in the game. then there's gran pulse, which is sprawling, empty, and retaken by the wilderness. i think it's no coincidence that not only does the game open up at this point, but the story starts emphasizing the cast's ability to choose a better fate and find hope in themselves. yes, there's no npcs, but the ci'eth stones paint a solid picture of how desolate and barren this world has become. oerba does the same, showing signs of where life once was but isn't anymore. FF13 wants the player to understand the contrast between these two worlds, it wants the player to realize that they solve each other's issues. what better way to communicate these things than through experience? it sounds silly, but i teared up a bit reading all of the flavor text in oerba, and i just don't think those feelings would have been as real if FF13 took a more traditional approach to how it handles it's gameplay. it's not a model for jrpg exploration that i would want in every game, but it's well-justified here.
FF13 also really excels when it comes to combat. i mentioned earlier that combat is fast-paced, but honestly, that's underselling it. FF13 is really the first time ATB felt like it was truly designed around. everything here is dependent on time, to the point that this game has legitimate animation cancels and ATB bar refunds if you get your timing right. it's super fun, especially since you get graded on how quickly you finish combat ala panzer dragoon saga. the larger emphasis on timing and playing fast means that a lot of the attrition-based design elements typical of JRPGs have been done away with. you get healed after every encounter and mana doesn't exist. you might think this makes FF13 an easy game, but you'd be very wrong. instead, this choice invited the development staff to go quite a great deal heavier on the balance compared to previous games, with a much wider variety of valid tactics depending on the enemy. in this game, i feel like i have to really figure out each and every enemy formation, going all-out in every battle. boss fights are noticeably more difficult, of course, but even most bosses are susceptible to status effects and oddball strategies, which is very unusual for final fantasy. it's really impressive to me how much they want you to figure out these little puzzle encounters, and the more controlled progression compliments this aspect of the combat well. paradigms are a pretty cool concept, basically being switchable flexible job classes, but they're nothing too new for the franchise, so i won't get too deep into them. i appreciated the way they're handled in the crystarium, where even once your progression opens up and anyone can do anything, the differences in each character's trees gave reason to focus on one character for a specific role over another. the crystarium also being added to in spurts throughout the game helps the puzzle encounters as well, as the player can't overlevel to get past obstacles, they have to actually learn what they're doing. overall, 13 has my favorite combat in the entire series. it's really excellently designed, and makes me excited to see how it could get iterated upon in the other games.
13 isn't without it's pitfalls, though, as i alluded to at the beginning of the review. pacing is not this game's strong suit, with many plotpoints after chapter 9 (around the halfway point) feeling rushed and a bit haphazardly implemented. barthandelus in particular feels somewhat like a rough draft for a villain, with much of his dialogue and moment-to-moment decisionmaking feeling indecipherable at times. fal'cie are intended to be above human comprehension and extremely manipulative, but it feels as though the game wants to write excuses to make everything he does planned, rather than setting those plans up properly. occasionally it feels as though events are skipped or characters aren't properly explained, as well; many of the secondary characters are lacking in screentime and could have used better introduction to the plot. 13 does a great job of slowburning it's character moments throughout the first half, but with the greater emphasis on player freedom comes a lot of missable cutscenes on pulse, which made me miss the cast. i felt the found family storyline here with the party was very engaging and sweet, but i do understand why many people would be put off by how divided the party is for much of the game. the payoff is very good, and i cared a lot for all of these guys by the end, but i get why the cast is so often a point of criticism.
overall, i think FF13 is really one of the better installments in the franchise. i don't feel that the narrative quite reaches the highs of 8 or 6, and this game certainly will never appeal to everyone, but i found it really engaging all throughout. it's such a beautifully realized and original game, in a way that only final fantasy can really do. hopefully the sequels keep it up!
FF13 also really excels when it comes to combat. i mentioned earlier that combat is fast-paced, but honestly, that's underselling it. FF13 is really the first time ATB felt like it was truly designed around. everything here is dependent on time, to the point that this game has legitimate animation cancels and ATB bar refunds if you get your timing right. it's super fun, especially since you get graded on how quickly you finish combat ala panzer dragoon saga. the larger emphasis on timing and playing fast means that a lot of the attrition-based design elements typical of JRPGs have been done away with. you get healed after every encounter and mana doesn't exist. you might think this makes FF13 an easy game, but you'd be very wrong. instead, this choice invited the development staff to go quite a great deal heavier on the balance compared to previous games, with a much wider variety of valid tactics depending on the enemy. in this game, i feel like i have to really figure out each and every enemy formation, going all-out in every battle. boss fights are noticeably more difficult, of course, but even most bosses are susceptible to status effects and oddball strategies, which is very unusual for final fantasy. it's really impressive to me how much they want you to figure out these little puzzle encounters, and the more controlled progression compliments this aspect of the combat well. paradigms are a pretty cool concept, basically being switchable flexible job classes, but they're nothing too new for the franchise, so i won't get too deep into them. i appreciated the way they're handled in the crystarium, where even once your progression opens up and anyone can do anything, the differences in each character's trees gave reason to focus on one character for a specific role over another. the crystarium also being added to in spurts throughout the game helps the puzzle encounters as well, as the player can't overlevel to get past obstacles, they have to actually learn what they're doing. overall, 13 has my favorite combat in the entire series. it's really excellently designed, and makes me excited to see how it could get iterated upon in the other games.
13 isn't without it's pitfalls, though, as i alluded to at the beginning of the review. pacing is not this game's strong suit, with many plotpoints after chapter 9 (around the halfway point) feeling rushed and a bit haphazardly implemented. barthandelus in particular feels somewhat like a rough draft for a villain, with much of his dialogue and moment-to-moment decisionmaking feeling indecipherable at times. fal'cie are intended to be above human comprehension and extremely manipulative, but it feels as though the game wants to write excuses to make everything he does planned, rather than setting those plans up properly. occasionally it feels as though events are skipped or characters aren't properly explained, as well; many of the secondary characters are lacking in screentime and could have used better introduction to the plot. 13 does a great job of slowburning it's character moments throughout the first half, but with the greater emphasis on player freedom comes a lot of missable cutscenes on pulse, which made me miss the cast. i felt the found family storyline here with the party was very engaging and sweet, but i do understand why many people would be put off by how divided the party is for much of the game. the payoff is very good, and i cared a lot for all of these guys by the end, but i get why the cast is so often a point of criticism.
overall, i think FF13 is really one of the better installments in the franchise. i don't feel that the narrative quite reaches the highs of 8 or 6, and this game certainly will never appeal to everyone, but i found it really engaging all throughout. it's such a beautifully realized and original game, in a way that only final fantasy can really do. hopefully the sequels keep it up!
Final Fantasy XIII
2009
2024 long review:
Score justification at the bottom:
I think that it makes all the sense in the world for FF13 to be seen in its two polar opposite reactions. At release, it was largely maligned by fans, and in today's internet, we are seeing a resurgence in its re-evaluation in a more positive manner. This is my attempt to do so through focusing on its most important parts which are the writing, game design, and Aesthetics.
Characters:
I play rpgs and most media primarily for the writing mostly seen with the characters, plot, and themes that entertain and engage me. You can see this reflected in my top games list. Final fantasy 13 does not make the cut but it does offer a strong attempt. When first starting the game, you are viewing in-media res beginning throwing you immediately into a dramatic combat sequence. I do not mind this decision as one can pick up on what is occurring. People have shared criticism that the terminology is a barrier to entry, and this is rather disingenuous as by the end of the prologue you should be able to pick up on it. Though it is fair to say it's not naturally explained. We do not have a slow pacing in ff13 such as FF10 does with Tidus asking about the terminology and setting to explain to the audience and the character himself. Outside of Vanille who's a very poor attempt at this type of character for exposition. The issue of writing though is most prevalent with pacing. The whole narrative is a fast-moving entry with characters that develop almost as fast outside of a few characters. The prologue is where we set up most of the characters and the early chapters see a lot of development for the main character lighting and her foil Snow.
Both come to realizations over their motivation in the plot early on which fails to give them a feeling of pay off. Though the question remains open of if it does work. It mostly does for me; these characters are interesting in how their flaws and strengths are reflected by each other. Their motivation is also shared by a npc called Serah, the sister of Lighting and fiancé of Snow. The two do not get along largely due to Lightings realistic shortcomings with communication and ability to support Serah. I truthfully found these two and the dynamic the most interesting part of the game which makes sense it's a unique circumstance for video games to go into this family focused conflict
In comparison Hope is a very fleshed out character that has his development spaced out over the course of the prologue to chapter 8. He seeks revenge against snow, gets development from lighting, and attempts to do so, while his understanding and personality changes. He's the most naturally written character who due to the rather cliche and melodramatic nature of his story is very hit or miss. All of this can be dismissed by a player due to these two very real and common reactions to his character. Especially since we know his motivation is based on a misunderstanding that a new player knows of from the start.
The others left have their own issues but the most frequently enjoyed by players is Sazh. Sazh is simply a father dealing with his own NPC family member being his son. His arc revolves around understanding the truth of what happened to him and how to go forward. His development is largely relegated to chapter 8 with Vanille. As such he is an enjoyable character with motivation and development that is arguably the most natural in the game. He simply is not just as relevant as the others sadly, but his presence and character are very appreciated. I do not mind that he stops developing or having major scenes after this point of the game as this can be said to have happened to everyone except one. As you may have noticed I brought up a character called Vanille, and this is now me opening a huge can of worms.
Vanille dominates the second half of the game. In fact, her presence with the plot and cast at large frankly makes her one of the most involved and important in the whole game. Her early sections are mostly her lying or having memory loss that I imagine on replay would be enjoyable to catch. (Which one might be able to do early on already). She is someone that at times feels unnaturally crammed into character dynamics such as one late game reveal with a certain NPC and with Sazh's backstory. Vanille though as a character is constantly trying to do the right thing in the circumstances she's placed within while wearing a girlypop facade. Shes the archetype of knowing more than she lets on and this will either annoy or entice you. Furthering a divide to the reaction of this contentious title, guiding your thoughts on her character and game. For me, like with the rest of the cast, I'm more charitable to her and the game.
She was fun to watch as she genuinely does a good job at being funny and has plenty of dramatic scenes that work due to the aforementioned circumstances and writing. Another example of her importance is with Fang. The reason you haven't heard fang in this review yet is because she's best understood as an extension of Vanille. Fang and Vanille are both connected to the late game plot and Fang particularly has an investment in Vanille. Fang's development as you can tell involves Vanille. Now I do enjoy Fang a lot. She is a rather mature character that is self-confident and a net positive to the game, but she is the weak link in terms of prevalence. I assure you that isn't an indictment though as with any form of media it's ok to have likable characters that offer dynamics & moves the plot forward. Sadly, they are both used in the end to resolve the plot in a rather unnatural way but in terms of how they function as two characters they are rather wholesome and inoffensive unless you place far more value on the plot of the game than their dynamic.
The plot:
Is also another well talked about part of ff13. It's a lighting fast story that only spares time for flashbacks needed to explain plot points or the bare minimum needed to flesh out the cast. This does mean anyone who is not a playable character is sidelined, underutilized, left largely unknown, and the main antagonist, while met multiple times throughout the game, is too busy explaining the plot and lore to leave an impression. Outside of his gameplay presence of being a challenging boss each time you fight him. Yes, the plot is directly spelled out for you. This goes along with a feeling of exhaustion too due to how long and how much information is given to you. Other times you'll feel that character and plot scenes move bizarrely too fast where there is hardly anything to hold on to or enjoy. I finished this game about 13 days ago and I can hardly name 2 out of 4 named antagonists. Will all this being said ff13 does do enough for the plot of fate and freedom to be taken seriously to a point. The game does enough to understand the stakes and the characters having moving moments, but the pacing removes the impact and potential of it. As it stands ff13 I feel is weak in this regard.
The Pacing:
deserves its own section in this review genuinely. It's not just an issue with the writing because the actual experience of playing the game is largely hindered by its pacing. The talk of its world design is also infamous for being all hallways. This is important to bring up as the game, being all combat encounters in limited environments without respite with towns or the like, creates an exhausting gameplay loop. Sometimes the game will be walking down a line in a pretty environment, fight enemy encounters, watch a cut scene, rinse repeat for the first half of the game. It negatively impacted my understanding of the story as it felt as though the scenes watched especially early on weren't grounded in a natural way. I am not alone in this experience either considering how many players throughout the years expressed a lack of understanding of the story. The pacing being so extremely jarring causes a disconnect from not having the time to be accustomed to the characters & the plot. As the game goes on this stop and go design decreases thankfully, but the first half of the game is where the character arcs are placed. So, the negative impact is felt from the characters to eventually surprisingly the gameplay. Doing long stretches of only enemy encounters was absolutely draining. Due to the overall challenge of them & the repetitiveness once the thrill of new encounters wares of you find yourself just wanting the boss encounter to start so you can move on already. Wanting a section to end with an hour left to get through is simply frustrating and a time sink.
Battle system:
The ATB combat has reached a new peak with ff13. Anyone who says otherwise is a bit delusional with the beautiful implementation of its role system that is paradigms. You are tasked with building a party of 3 that utilize paradigms that can be understood as roles, classes, or jobs in other rpg systems. Commando is a physical attacker, revenger is a black mage, white mage is a medic, etc. etc.
This is the context needed to understand that your objective in most combat experiences is to stagger enemies to deal maximum damage, stun lock enemies, juggle them, & quickly apply any and all status aliments you can think of. You do this by maxing enemy stagger gauges to stagger them and this is where the gameplay really shows its strength. As many enemies and bosses alike force you to play around how their individual gauges work. If an enemy deals massive damage you'll want a tank role selected, a role for debuffs, and attacking. If an enemy comes with a lot of adds you'll probably want a commando or revenger to deal aoe damage. Different gauges have resistance rates to reach which diversifies the gameplay experience. This system opens up about halfway into the game where you're able to give any character any role. In my experience, I enjoyed this freedom and seeing how different the party building was done to use characters I personally wanted to use. It's interesting to see the developers actually put some effort into part of the gameplay such as how Snow a tank focused character has one of the fastest casting speeds but one of the lowest magic stats. This might sound awful but due to the stagger system it's perfectly viable to use him as such.
The negative though is the equipment system that doesn't adequately give you the information needed to make the most out of it. Such as upgrading your weapons or armor. You might try to do so early but due to balancing of the game you are genuinely better off saving that till the halfway point. (This issue of lacking natural information is sadly a thing even if minor in both cases of writing and gameplay) You'll want to look up a guide that explains added effects when certain equipment is used at the same time. Though this is rather minor as you can absolutely playthrough the title without peering this deep into the systems. Once you have the information you will be able to make the most out of it as well. Again, this is just another example of a flaw that can impact others while being fun to others. Regardless I feel it is important to mention in any review of a game the gameplay.
The gameplay has been critiqued for not allowing full control of the characters and I feel this misunderstands the title in its design. Turn based games I feel can be split into 2 categories reactionary and contemplative-based designs. SMT, notable for its challenge, is best enjoyed via creating strategies and builds that are contemplatively created to overcome its challenges. It's much alike to a puzzle that requires thought to succeed in. Like the previous entry in Final Fantasy with 12 its gambit system is most enjoyable in this context with its harder boss encounters. In comparison persona 3-5 and ff13 are reactionary games that tests the players understanding of its systems on the fly. You have limited control of the build of your party members in the aforementioned titles, but the fun is found in utilizing the characters strengths and abilities against the challenges you encounter. While you absolutely can put focus into their builds and set up, you are more often than not putting more time into actively engaging in combat and realizing strategies or methods in the flow of battle. You can use auto battle where actions are quickly supplied to the controlled player but doing so is never as effective or fun as inputting more efficient and impactful options. As a whole the gameplay is the strongest part of Final Fantasy 13 by far. And forcing the player to input commands for every character would ruin the system as it stands or would require a complete overhaul of its system.
Normal encounters are something I do want to touch on as they are a rarity in RPGs due to offering some challenge. The game also handles this challenge due to having no limitation of magic via mp or spell use and having your party wide HP refilled every time you exit the gameplay. This allows one to explore different strategies, understand new abilities and skills, party composition, and in general you are actively being engaged by its challenge throughout the game. It prepares you for the harder challenges and this can only be a net positive to me unless burnt out by the length of the gameplay sequences. Which again is a factor outside of the battle system.
Aesthetically:
Final Fantasy 13 continues and pushes squares bourgeois desire to create the most graphically beautiful and impressive game ever with the series. Final fantasy over 13 years later holds up to the test of time. The environments as mentioned are beautiful, the AMV cut scenes look as fresh as ever, the in-game animations and models hold up so well. It reminds me that even though we are 2 new console generations ahead in the future graphically the industry isn't far removed from this. Outside of graphics the music is of course stellar, though a bit repetitive by the end. Of course, this isn't a major issue you are listening to blinded by light or Saber edge which genuinely can stay on repeat for hours with their composition and production without being overplayed. As a whole, much like every other FF entry, it stands the test of time here.
Score justification:
1 full point for its gameplay
1 full point for its use of aesthetics
0.5 for good characters that are mishandled
It's ultimately a game I enjoy. Sadly, it's flawed enough to where I can understand why people don't enjoy it, but its strengths shine through to where I can easily agree with its fans loving it. I did enjoy it a lot more than this score might make it seem like. It's a complicated title with takes ranging from scoring highs to spiteful 0s. FF13 does just enough to be good and not enough to be great. For each reason to love it one can have a reason to hate it. This is where I'm settling after trying to meet it where it's at.
Score justification at the bottom:
I think that it makes all the sense in the world for FF13 to be seen in its two polar opposite reactions. At release, it was largely maligned by fans, and in today's internet, we are seeing a resurgence in its re-evaluation in a more positive manner. This is my attempt to do so through focusing on its most important parts which are the writing, game design, and Aesthetics.
Characters:
I play rpgs and most media primarily for the writing mostly seen with the characters, plot, and themes that entertain and engage me. You can see this reflected in my top games list. Final fantasy 13 does not make the cut but it does offer a strong attempt. When first starting the game, you are viewing in-media res beginning throwing you immediately into a dramatic combat sequence. I do not mind this decision as one can pick up on what is occurring. People have shared criticism that the terminology is a barrier to entry, and this is rather disingenuous as by the end of the prologue you should be able to pick up on it. Though it is fair to say it's not naturally explained. We do not have a slow pacing in ff13 such as FF10 does with Tidus asking about the terminology and setting to explain to the audience and the character himself. Outside of Vanille who's a very poor attempt at this type of character for exposition. The issue of writing though is most prevalent with pacing. The whole narrative is a fast-moving entry with characters that develop almost as fast outside of a few characters. The prologue is where we set up most of the characters and the early chapters see a lot of development for the main character lighting and her foil Snow.
Both come to realizations over their motivation in the plot early on which fails to give them a feeling of pay off. Though the question remains open of if it does work. It mostly does for me; these characters are interesting in how their flaws and strengths are reflected by each other. Their motivation is also shared by a npc called Serah, the sister of Lighting and fiancé of Snow. The two do not get along largely due to Lightings realistic shortcomings with communication and ability to support Serah. I truthfully found these two and the dynamic the most interesting part of the game which makes sense it's a unique circumstance for video games to go into this family focused conflict
In comparison Hope is a very fleshed out character that has his development spaced out over the course of the prologue to chapter 8. He seeks revenge against snow, gets development from lighting, and attempts to do so, while his understanding and personality changes. He's the most naturally written character who due to the rather cliche and melodramatic nature of his story is very hit or miss. All of this can be dismissed by a player due to these two very real and common reactions to his character. Especially since we know his motivation is based on a misunderstanding that a new player knows of from the start.
The others left have their own issues but the most frequently enjoyed by players is Sazh. Sazh is simply a father dealing with his own NPC family member being his son. His arc revolves around understanding the truth of what happened to him and how to go forward. His development is largely relegated to chapter 8 with Vanille. As such he is an enjoyable character with motivation and development that is arguably the most natural in the game. He simply is not just as relevant as the others sadly, but his presence and character are very appreciated. I do not mind that he stops developing or having major scenes after this point of the game as this can be said to have happened to everyone except one. As you may have noticed I brought up a character called Vanille, and this is now me opening a huge can of worms.
Vanille dominates the second half of the game. In fact, her presence with the plot and cast at large frankly makes her one of the most involved and important in the whole game. Her early sections are mostly her lying or having memory loss that I imagine on replay would be enjoyable to catch. (Which one might be able to do early on already). She is someone that at times feels unnaturally crammed into character dynamics such as one late game reveal with a certain NPC and with Sazh's backstory. Vanille though as a character is constantly trying to do the right thing in the circumstances she's placed within while wearing a girlypop facade. Shes the archetype of knowing more than she lets on and this will either annoy or entice you. Furthering a divide to the reaction of this contentious title, guiding your thoughts on her character and game. For me, like with the rest of the cast, I'm more charitable to her and the game.
She was fun to watch as she genuinely does a good job at being funny and has plenty of dramatic scenes that work due to the aforementioned circumstances and writing. Another example of her importance is with Fang. The reason you haven't heard fang in this review yet is because she's best understood as an extension of Vanille. Fang and Vanille are both connected to the late game plot and Fang particularly has an investment in Vanille. Fang's development as you can tell involves Vanille. Now I do enjoy Fang a lot. She is a rather mature character that is self-confident and a net positive to the game, but she is the weak link in terms of prevalence. I assure you that isn't an indictment though as with any form of media it's ok to have likable characters that offer dynamics & moves the plot forward. Sadly, they are both used in the end to resolve the plot in a rather unnatural way but in terms of how they function as two characters they are rather wholesome and inoffensive unless you place far more value on the plot of the game than their dynamic.
The plot:
Is also another well talked about part of ff13. It's a lighting fast story that only spares time for flashbacks needed to explain plot points or the bare minimum needed to flesh out the cast. This does mean anyone who is not a playable character is sidelined, underutilized, left largely unknown, and the main antagonist, while met multiple times throughout the game, is too busy explaining the plot and lore to leave an impression. Outside of his gameplay presence of being a challenging boss each time you fight him. Yes, the plot is directly spelled out for you. This goes along with a feeling of exhaustion too due to how long and how much information is given to you. Other times you'll feel that character and plot scenes move bizarrely too fast where there is hardly anything to hold on to or enjoy. I finished this game about 13 days ago and I can hardly name 2 out of 4 named antagonists. Will all this being said ff13 does do enough for the plot of fate and freedom to be taken seriously to a point. The game does enough to understand the stakes and the characters having moving moments, but the pacing removes the impact and potential of it. As it stands ff13 I feel is weak in this regard.
The Pacing:
deserves its own section in this review genuinely. It's not just an issue with the writing because the actual experience of playing the game is largely hindered by its pacing. The talk of its world design is also infamous for being all hallways. This is important to bring up as the game, being all combat encounters in limited environments without respite with towns or the like, creates an exhausting gameplay loop. Sometimes the game will be walking down a line in a pretty environment, fight enemy encounters, watch a cut scene, rinse repeat for the first half of the game. It negatively impacted my understanding of the story as it felt as though the scenes watched especially early on weren't grounded in a natural way. I am not alone in this experience either considering how many players throughout the years expressed a lack of understanding of the story. The pacing being so extremely jarring causes a disconnect from not having the time to be accustomed to the characters & the plot. As the game goes on this stop and go design decreases thankfully, but the first half of the game is where the character arcs are placed. So, the negative impact is felt from the characters to eventually surprisingly the gameplay. Doing long stretches of only enemy encounters was absolutely draining. Due to the overall challenge of them & the repetitiveness once the thrill of new encounters wares of you find yourself just wanting the boss encounter to start so you can move on already. Wanting a section to end with an hour left to get through is simply frustrating and a time sink.
Battle system:
The ATB combat has reached a new peak with ff13. Anyone who says otherwise is a bit delusional with the beautiful implementation of its role system that is paradigms. You are tasked with building a party of 3 that utilize paradigms that can be understood as roles, classes, or jobs in other rpg systems. Commando is a physical attacker, revenger is a black mage, white mage is a medic, etc. etc.
This is the context needed to understand that your objective in most combat experiences is to stagger enemies to deal maximum damage, stun lock enemies, juggle them, & quickly apply any and all status aliments you can think of. You do this by maxing enemy stagger gauges to stagger them and this is where the gameplay really shows its strength. As many enemies and bosses alike force you to play around how their individual gauges work. If an enemy deals massive damage you'll want a tank role selected, a role for debuffs, and attacking. If an enemy comes with a lot of adds you'll probably want a commando or revenger to deal aoe damage. Different gauges have resistance rates to reach which diversifies the gameplay experience. This system opens up about halfway into the game where you're able to give any character any role. In my experience, I enjoyed this freedom and seeing how different the party building was done to use characters I personally wanted to use. It's interesting to see the developers actually put some effort into part of the gameplay such as how Snow a tank focused character has one of the fastest casting speeds but one of the lowest magic stats. This might sound awful but due to the stagger system it's perfectly viable to use him as such.
The negative though is the equipment system that doesn't adequately give you the information needed to make the most out of it. Such as upgrading your weapons or armor. You might try to do so early but due to balancing of the game you are genuinely better off saving that till the halfway point. (This issue of lacking natural information is sadly a thing even if minor in both cases of writing and gameplay) You'll want to look up a guide that explains added effects when certain equipment is used at the same time. Though this is rather minor as you can absolutely playthrough the title without peering this deep into the systems. Once you have the information you will be able to make the most out of it as well. Again, this is just another example of a flaw that can impact others while being fun to others. Regardless I feel it is important to mention in any review of a game the gameplay.
The gameplay has been critiqued for not allowing full control of the characters and I feel this misunderstands the title in its design. Turn based games I feel can be split into 2 categories reactionary and contemplative-based designs. SMT, notable for its challenge, is best enjoyed via creating strategies and builds that are contemplatively created to overcome its challenges. It's much alike to a puzzle that requires thought to succeed in. Like the previous entry in Final Fantasy with 12 its gambit system is most enjoyable in this context with its harder boss encounters. In comparison persona 3-5 and ff13 are reactionary games that tests the players understanding of its systems on the fly. You have limited control of the build of your party members in the aforementioned titles, but the fun is found in utilizing the characters strengths and abilities against the challenges you encounter. While you absolutely can put focus into their builds and set up, you are more often than not putting more time into actively engaging in combat and realizing strategies or methods in the flow of battle. You can use auto battle where actions are quickly supplied to the controlled player but doing so is never as effective or fun as inputting more efficient and impactful options. As a whole the gameplay is the strongest part of Final Fantasy 13 by far. And forcing the player to input commands for every character would ruin the system as it stands or would require a complete overhaul of its system.
Normal encounters are something I do want to touch on as they are a rarity in RPGs due to offering some challenge. The game also handles this challenge due to having no limitation of magic via mp or spell use and having your party wide HP refilled every time you exit the gameplay. This allows one to explore different strategies, understand new abilities and skills, party composition, and in general you are actively being engaged by its challenge throughout the game. It prepares you for the harder challenges and this can only be a net positive to me unless burnt out by the length of the gameplay sequences. Which again is a factor outside of the battle system.
Aesthetically:
Final Fantasy 13 continues and pushes squares bourgeois desire to create the most graphically beautiful and impressive game ever with the series. Final fantasy over 13 years later holds up to the test of time. The environments as mentioned are beautiful, the AMV cut scenes look as fresh as ever, the in-game animations and models hold up so well. It reminds me that even though we are 2 new console generations ahead in the future graphically the industry isn't far removed from this. Outside of graphics the music is of course stellar, though a bit repetitive by the end. Of course, this isn't a major issue you are listening to blinded by light or Saber edge which genuinely can stay on repeat for hours with their composition and production without being overplayed. As a whole, much like every other FF entry, it stands the test of time here.
Score justification:
1 full point for its gameplay
1 full point for its use of aesthetics
0.5 for good characters that are mishandled
It's ultimately a game I enjoy. Sadly, it's flawed enough to where I can understand why people don't enjoy it, but its strengths shine through to where I can easily agree with its fans loving it. I did enjoy it a lot more than this score might make it seem like. It's a complicated title with takes ranging from scoring highs to spiteful 0s. FF13 does just enough to be good and not enough to be great. For each reason to love it one can have a reason to hate it. This is where I'm settling after trying to meet it where it's at.
Anonymous;Code
2022
I've been following the Science Adventure series (SciADV for short) for the last 4 years now, ever since I checked out the Steins;Gate anime, read some of Chaos;Child, and read the Chaos;Head NoAH spanish translation in full, which made me a diehard fan of the series for a time, and I even helped work on the Committee of Zero Translation and QoL improvement patches for a good while too. That said, while I will still always be grateful to NoAH for putting my own shut-in lifestyle into perspective and helping me get out of that hole I dug myself into, as I've gotten older and graduated college I've come to realize that I've drifted away from this series, and don't like a lot about it in retrospect. I've found the series more often than not is more plot-driven and really chokeholds the potential of its characters to be more compelling due to heavy plot devices and fast pacing in a good amount of entries, with the only real exceptions being Robotics;Notes and Chaos;Child. I've also really grown to not care for the heavy fanservice and objectification of women in the series, there's a lot of misogyny that goes on in the series that feels like it's done for otaku bait, among other fanservice things. For these reasons and a few more, I'm not the biggest fan of SciADV anymore, and I planned to make Anonymous;Code be the final game I check out in the franchise, and I think I might still stick to that. That said...
I have to stay I was pretty impressed with A;C itself. I don't plan to spoil the plot in detail, but I will say some general things. Firstly, I think this game truly is meant for those long-term SciADV fans first and foremost. The game explains enough that newcomers can enjoy and understand a decent bit of the plot, but I think most of the returning SciADV concepts really make a lot more sense and hit much harder in terms of impact if you're already familiar with the series. I'd really recommend most people read Chaos;Head NoAH, Steins;Gate, and Steins;Gate 0 at the minimum before playing this, to get the full impact.
The game is very plot-driven and only really fleshes out its two lead characters, but the main appeal of the game really is the worldbuilding and payoff to long term SciADV plot points and themes in my opinion, and it does a fantastic job of that. So many things I'd theorized and figured out on my own beforehand were finally vindicated after so many years, so that was nice. The very brisk, thriller-esque pacing of the plot was very welcome too, after dumping so many hours of time investment into this series with its earlier entries that are more slow burn plots. I didn't really want another slow burn story with SciADV after this much time investment, and I'm really glad A;C delivered there. I was able to beat the game in 4 days thanks to that.
The OST is also amazing, definitely one of Takeshi Abo's best. Also, after seeing SciADV's horrible decline in quality following Chaos;Child, it's nice to see that Naotaka Hayashi, the original scenario writer for NoAH, S;G, and R;N come back to return the series to form was very nice. Also, thank goodness that they FINALLY got rid of the fanservice crap aspect this series is infamous for. There's next to no fanservice in this game which was super refreshing.
That said, as an Orthodox Christian, this game is pretty blasphemous to my beliefs, but I wasn't too surprised as I said, because a lot of those aspects of the story were already foreshadowed and built up to long in advance in previous games. So I won't hold that against the game itself, even if it's another reason I probably won't revisit this series or read later games.
Overall, the story was good for what it was going for. It's far from perfect, lots of missed opportunities with better character writing and portrayal, some kind of one-dimensional views of religion and other concepts, but I think the game succeeds in what it was trying to be: a full realization of SciADV's overarching themes and sci-fi concepts, and shows them taken to their natural extreme to answer enough of what the narrative's been leading up to all these years. I enjoyed it enough, and I think this is a great place to end my time with Science Adventure.
It's been a fun ride, and may the delusions you wish for come true.
Total playtime: 18 hours.
I have to stay I was pretty impressed with A;C itself. I don't plan to spoil the plot in detail, but I will say some general things. Firstly, I think this game truly is meant for those long-term SciADV fans first and foremost. The game explains enough that newcomers can enjoy and understand a decent bit of the plot, but I think most of the returning SciADV concepts really make a lot more sense and hit much harder in terms of impact if you're already familiar with the series. I'd really recommend most people read Chaos;Head NoAH, Steins;Gate, and Steins;Gate 0 at the minimum before playing this, to get the full impact.
The game is very plot-driven and only really fleshes out its two lead characters, but the main appeal of the game really is the worldbuilding and payoff to long term SciADV plot points and themes in my opinion, and it does a fantastic job of that. So many things I'd theorized and figured out on my own beforehand were finally vindicated after so many years, so that was nice. The very brisk, thriller-esque pacing of the plot was very welcome too, after dumping so many hours of time investment into this series with its earlier entries that are more slow burn plots. I didn't really want another slow burn story with SciADV after this much time investment, and I'm really glad A;C delivered there. I was able to beat the game in 4 days thanks to that.
The OST is also amazing, definitely one of Takeshi Abo's best. Also, after seeing SciADV's horrible decline in quality following Chaos;Child, it's nice to see that Naotaka Hayashi, the original scenario writer for NoAH, S;G, and R;N come back to return the series to form was very nice. Also, thank goodness that they FINALLY got rid of the fanservice crap aspect this series is infamous for. There's next to no fanservice in this game which was super refreshing.
That said, as an Orthodox Christian, this game is pretty blasphemous to my beliefs, but I wasn't too surprised as I said, because a lot of those aspects of the story were already foreshadowed and built up to long in advance in previous games. So I won't hold that against the game itself, even if it's another reason I probably won't revisit this series or read later games.
Overall, the story was good for what it was going for. It's far from perfect, lots of missed opportunities with better character writing and portrayal, some kind of one-dimensional views of religion and other concepts, but I think the game succeeds in what it was trying to be: a full realization of SciADV's overarching themes and sci-fi concepts, and shows them taken to their natural extreme to answer enough of what the narrative's been leading up to all these years. I enjoyed it enough, and I think this is a great place to end my time with Science Adventure.
It's been a fun ride, and may the delusions you wish for come true.
Total playtime: 18 hours.
