Final Fantasy V's greatest strength has, and will always be, its immense and impeccable array of tools and concoctions thanks to how its Job system works, but far too often have I seen its story massively downplayed. "Just a means to the end", "it isn't really the focus", and "it's more to be comedic than anything serious".

While I wouldn't dare to suggest the story is deeper and insightful than the other titles I've tried, I do think there's perhaps a bit too much tossed aside. Even from the first Crystal hunt, it's clear that the moral is largely about the old passing the torch onto the hands of the young; important figures pass on through one mean or another while those beneath or younger scramble to find a new way to progress in life, Cid and Mid serve to help bolster the intelligentsia and provide new methods of progression, the quartet of yore are teaching the quartet of now how to best handle against the rise of the once great evil, and the mechanical tie of experiences from several different classes all come together back under the starting Freelance job to bookend both the character's growth, as well as your own. Galuf and Krile are the two best exemplars of this, with the former not only having one of the rawest and kino scenes of any RPG you'll ever play in your life, but the latter's pickup and transitional period is the culmination of damn near everything you could have ever imagined at that point, and even in the future.

Also, Bartz is awesome. We need more protagonists who's whole thing is just Being A Bombass Adventurer.

Perhaps it's fitting that the Bungie Halo closest to a black sheep, is the fact that it plays more closer to the Doom-centric arcade style. Large main hub, each separate mission being quick in both action and setpieces, and it brings in all the hallmarks of before into one big package.

Perhaps this is why I can't help but feel 3ODST is merely good, then. I appreciate a grand Greatest Hits bundle, but the shortened length means not a whole lot of it sticks out in comparison to, say, the midpoint of Halo 2 or the Final Lap of 3's campaign. On that note, by the time the initial formula runs dry and you're thrust straight onto the rails to the end, the quality noticeably dips as it tries to imperfectly balance this new direction with The Old Formula. I dunno, I can understand why some call it one of, if not their absolute favorite entry, but you can tell Bungie was starting to slip, which would explain why their next and final outing was a tumble.

Easily the most contentious aspect of LiS is the writing. Most have criticized the last two episodes for largely spitballing themes and ideological symbols without any real ties or depths connected to the main crux of the narrative and bigger picture (largely true!), there's been vocal discontent regarding Max and Chloe's relationship and how their dynamic is toxic (somewhat true, be careful to not run into a misogynist though!), but these two largely make up my biggest sticking point and why I just find it to be Not Good: There's not only an absence of any iota of bites, but its bark also feels largely phoned in.

This dishes out so many obvious or implicit references and influences, yet it largely feels like DONTNOD never really engaged with these well enough to incorporate, or even twist, their material for the story. It's obviously in love with Twin Peaks, yet it made the mistake of prioritizing the below average murder spiel when Lynch and Frost belligerently used the death of Laura Palmer as the backdrop to explore the avenues of a being's dualistic nature/intent - this is especially jarring since Rachel being the centerpoint gives way to explore the then-now mantra LiS is clearly setting up, since her life mimics Max Caulfield's in different ways, most importantly Chloe's position and how Kate is nearly a flip of the demise. There's also the fact It's trying to be a COA archetype, but Max's starting point, and hell most of Arcadia Bay for that matter, aren't all that interesting, and rarely feel radically altered from what she ends up doing despite the steps taken to reach it (perhaps this is cause I have never read Catcher In The Rye, its most obvious pull). This is probably why some people go to bat for Warren since he at least has something, as well as the step-dad who likely has the best turn of events in this entire package. This references several different dystopic novellas too, and it genuinely feels like a "see, we know THING guys! We get it!!!" when like, no, you don't even need to do that, why bother?

I once saw baldur's spoiler-heavy review when browsing the page several months back, and rechecked it when writing this down. I found it to be powerful in how they shared their experience, and while I don't want to step on their toes too much, their analysis about the ending as a symbolic fork of teen naivety or bitter reality is something I didn't even begin to think of until I saw that. It's a conceptually drastic and bittersweet note, It's just unfortunate that I can't appreciate it since everything else gets in the way so hard for me to really care and get smitten by it.