One of the most embarrassing and creative bankrupt games to come from this decade of video games
I love Saints Row to bits especially 2 and The Third, but this was a disgrace to the franchise.

Unpolished visuals that feel like they came out of 7th gen game, numerous game bugs, horrid attempt of humor on par with Borderlands 3, poor game design.
Just a shallow game that lacks substance and fun.

Tales of Graces F proves that you dont need a necessarily great story to be a great game.
The story is chessy and kinda nonsensical in many areas, however the character chemistry, gameplay and music completely make it up.

It's truly is a game made with fun and passion that many modern JRPGs lack.
Hopefully this get released for modern consoles/PC as more people should experience this wonderful gem of a JRPG.

Compile Heart's Magnum Opus.

Compile Hearts may have a unfavourable reputation towards JRPG's fans due to low effort and repetitive nature, however every once in a while they can something exceptionally good to excellent and Fairy Fencer F Advert Dark Force is easily the best game that Compile Hearts has done.

Granted it's kinda repetitive at times, and one of the routes, writing wise isn't the best, however it's makes up for everything else.
The character dynamics and humor are phenomenal that made me care of almost every character.
Story is nicely written and engaging for the majority of it.
Good voice acting for both languages, excellent soundtrack, decent gameplay visuals.

One of the best and most underrated JRPGs to come out of the PS4.

While not as consistently funny and well written as Fairy Fencer F, Megadimeion Neptunia is still a nicely well crafted game that's fun and memorable to play.
That's saying a lot given how much Compile Hearts have fallen since 2017 onwards.

Well defined and memorable characters especially Uzume.
A soildly written storyline.
Decent visuals.
Good gameplay if a bit grindy and punishing at times.
Amazing sci-fi futuristic soundtrack.

Overall an exceptionally great and game to the PS4/PS5 library of JRPGs.

An overrated fanfiction disaster that quickly falls apart after the tutorial palace.

Characters are undercooked have little to no chemistry with each other, annoying to poorly written.

The story writing is just pathetically hamfisted and lazy.
Has no idea to handle sensitive themes in the slightest.

The Thrid Semester feels like really bad fanfiction that felt it was written by a 12 year old.

The definition of style over substance and I don't like that.

Just play Persona 3 and 4 instead of this hamfisted flashy fanfiction.

The game's story starts with such force it's incredible how flat it falls during Mechonis, it almost felt like the script jumped off a cliff, fortunately it does pick up a bit during endgame.

Visuals are outstanding, the Music is a blast, gameplay is rough around the edges but it's good enough to stick, for the Characters only Melia was notably good, Sidequests are god damn awful I didn't bother to do them and some misc things left much to be desired (such as exploration in general and the lack of rewards other than grabbing useless boring items on the field)

All in all a pretty decent game that could have been way better.

"Look how they massacred my boy"
Don Corleone.
The Godfather.

I loved Fairy Fencer F Advert Dark Force (My favourite Compile Hearts game), but this spinoff/squeal hybrid is a frustratingly disappointing poorly constructed mess of a game that lacks purpose, charm and substance.

SJRPG combat is dreadful as it's the same enemies models over and over even when their change colour at times.

Terrible leveling up progression where you can only level up, by performing actions during fights, resulting the game to be a aimless grindfeast.
Barely any strategy to the combat, most sub fairys are worthless to your arsenal.

Story and characters, one of the best aspects of Advert Dark Force, is a drastic downgrade.
The story feels like a uninspired fanfiction of it's former self and the writing took a major hit, causing plot holes and various bad writing that barely existed in Advert Dark Force.

While it's was great to see the Fairy Fencer F cast again, they were done dirty here.
Many of them are given nothing to do and they just along for the ride with barely any substance.
The new characters are all terribly written and bland as rocks.

The graphics, when it comes to combat is embarrassing bad especially on PS5.
Ugly, janky and unpolished across the board.

In conclusion, Fairy Fencer F Refrain Chord is a boring waste of time and a awful followup to the underrated Fairy Fencer F Advert Dark Force.

I may not a fan of Compile Hearts games are they filled with meandering plots, poorly executed ideas and repetitive gameplay/asset reuse, (barring the aforementioned Fairy Fencer F Advert Dark Force, which did a good job at avoiding many of those issues), but this alongside Neptunia Sister vs Sisters, have reached a new pathetic low.
They are the LJN of the JRPG gaming industry.
It's frankly baffling that this poorly produced game that has no English Dub was sold on PS5 for £50.

One of the worst JRPG games of 2023 by far.

You done f* it up!!!

Finished Both Yuito and Kasane's route as well as the Brain Eater DLC, and Scarlet Nexus has become one of my favorite games.

I'll start with the art and graphic direction, the world looks nice, it does get you to admire it while you're just vibing to it (for example on main town). There's another thing with the art direction and it's how the cutscenes are handled, most of the times they'll be "manga"~like, which imo, gives it a different identity to other 3d JRPGs.

Second, the sound and music, while at first the Dubstep is a bit of a letdown to me, I'm surprised with the amount of bangers there are, specially later on in the game where there are more orchestral tracks rather than dubstep. I still like the Main town theme despite it's dubstep.

Gameplay, IT'S VERY FUN TO PLAY, there is only one downside tho, playing on Very Hard is a damn punishment lmao, you can get killed by any mistake, I'd say is harder than Modern Ys, but easier than Ys Origin Hard (to make an example). There is only one thing I don't like much about playing on very hard, and that's because some enemies tend to feel like hp sponges, although you can pretty much annihilate them if you rip out their "crush gauge" or take advantage of their weakness as quickly as you can. There's also other features to the gameplay that maintains it fresh without the need of you becoming over powered through new mechanics, so it's very balanced.

Characters: Possibly the highlight for me, character interactions and dynamics are very charming, specially through bonding and team bonding, The confrontation in the story is also a highlight I really liked. Character development is also pretty nice and well done that in a way it can be said that the story is very character driven, which makes it great. There's no petty fanservice, no outrageous tropes, no MC dick sucking.

Story: It's not the greatest story ever, but it does hold up and it's done well, I like the futuristic post apocalyptic setting it has, the lore is cool and I did enjoy the plot twists and all the conflicts that came out of it. Also, the amount of consequences in this game is very high, not just that, the stakes feel real (thanks to the game difficulty btw) because you can really feel the weight of an encounter by how hard it is, and that makes a lot of emphasis towards the story and what the characters feel, so that's a plus for me.

I did rage here and there, because some enemies specially on very hard are somewhat annoying in certain groups, and the quality of design during the last chapters were a bit underwhelming as it felt as they shoved random enemies along your way, fortunately, the final battle did pay off for that, so I forgave it.

Edit 1: I finally played Kasane's route, but first I maxed out everything I could in Yuito's post game, and it made me reconsider most of the things I disliked, like the endgame and some hp sponges enemies, turns out I did restrict myself a lot by not using certain skills that would have made the experience way better (like the multiple active SAS), it made me appreciate more the endgame and the combat as a whole, as I could get rid of sponge enemies faster.

I also really liked to connect the dots between Yuito and Kasane' story. I disagree HEAVILY with those people that encourage only to play Kasane, play both, because there are still pretty strong emotional moments in Yuito's story (alongside great bonding and character development on his side)

needless to say that Kasane's story was great too, I really liked the confrontation of the team on this one, that, and the rest of the backstories of the characters through bonding. Definitely a game I would recommend to those that want an unique setting, great characters, great story, power system, gameplay and overall anime jrpg enthusiasts.

I'll pick up some dlcs later on, like the Brain Eater DLC as it seems to be a continuation (or to add more to the story)

Edit 2: As for the Karen's DLC, it was awesome, it's sad that is behind a huge amount of grind, but the contents of the episodes are worth investing into and it also includes one of the hardest fights in the game (as a vr mission that unlocks episode 3) This dlc really enhanced certain characters and made me dead inside, it was so damn emotional...

Overall, It's a solid 9/10 (7.5 for Yuito and 8.5 for Kasane,9/10 for Karen's Story in the DLC)

Finished Yuito's story as of writting this review, will edit or set the game as mastered once I finish Kasane's route.

I'll start with the art and graphic direction, the world looks nice, it does get you to admire it while you're just vibing to it (for example on main town). There's another thing with the art direction and it's how the cutscenes are handled, most of the times they'll be "manga"~like, which imo, gives it a different identity to other 3d JRPGs.

Second, the sound and music, while at first the Dubstep is a bit of a letdown to me, I'm surprised with the amount of bangers there are, specially later on in the game where there are more orchestral tracks rather than dubstep. I still like the Main town theme despite it's dubstep.

Gameplay, IT'S VERY FUN TO PLAY, there is only one downside tho, playing on Very Hard is a damn punishment lmao, you can get killed by any mistake, I'd say is harder than Modern Ys, but easier than Ys Origin Hard (to make an example). There is only one thing I don't like much about playing on very hard, and that's because some enemies tend to feel like hp sponges, although you can pretty much annihilate them if you rip out their "crush gauge" or take advantage of their weakness as quickly as you can. There's also other features to the gameplay that maintains it fresh without the need of you becoming over powered through new mechanics, so it's very balanced.

Characters: Possibly the highlight for me, character interactions and dynamics are very charming, specially through bonding and team bonding, The confrontation in the story is also a highlight I really liked. Character development is also pretty nice and well done that in a way it can be said that the story is very character driven, which makes it great. There's no petty fanservice, no outrageous tropes, no MC dick sucking.

Story: It's not the greatest story ever, but it does hold up and it's done well, I like the futuristic post apocalyptic setting it has, the lore is cool and I did enjoy the plot twists and all the conflicts that came out of it. Also, the amount of consequences in this game is very high, not just that, the stakes feel real (thanks to the game difficulty btw) because you can really feel the weight of an encounter by how hard it is, and that makes a lot of emphasis towards the story and what the characters feel, so that's a plus for me.

I did rage here and there, because some enemies specially on very hard are somewhat annoying in certain groups, and the quality of design during the last chapters were a bit underwhelming as it felt as they shoved random enemies along your way, fortunately, the final battle did pay off for that, so I forgave it.

Edit: I finally played Kasane's route, but first I maxed out everything I could in Yuito's post game, and it made me reconsider most of the things I disliked, like the endgame and some hp sponges enemies, turns out I did restrict myself a lot by not using certain skills that would have made the experience way better (like the multiple active SAS), it made me appreciate more the endgame and the combat as a whole, as I could get rid of sponge enemies faster.

I also really liked to connect the dots between Yuito and Kasane' story. I disagree HEAVILY with those people that encourage only to play Kasane, play both, because there are still pretty strong emotional moments in Yuito's story (alongside great bonding and character development on his side)

needless to say that Kasane's story was great too, I really liked the confrontation of the team on this one, that, and the rest of the backstories of the characters through bonding. Definitely a game I would recommend to those that want an unique setting, great characters, great story, power system, gameplay and overall anime jrpg enthusiasts.

I'll pick up some dlcs later on, like the Brain Eater DLC as it seems to be a continuation (or to add more to the story)

Overall, It's a solid 8/10 (7.5 for Yuito and 8.5 for Kasane)

One of the most tragic and most impactful games I've ever played.

Aside from some dated game mechanics, Persona 3 is a masterclass of atmosphere, story/character writing and attention to detail.

I wished this was released for modern consoles instead of the very inferior portable edition.