Cerb
2019
This review includes the DLC
With all of Game Freak's cards on the table it becomes very clear that they have no clue what they want this game to be. It's very easy to say that they were lazy but that misses the point of the fundamental disconnect that Game Freak has with their audience. Disregarding the omissions compared to prior games in the series, there is no clear vision for this game. The base game touts an open world area that the developers are clearly proud of when it permeates so many aspects of marketing and gameplay with the many endeavors towards co-operative player raids and the like, but clearly the focus was misguided at best when there are so many crippling design issues that limit what they can even do with what they have.
This is no more prevalent than the game's swan song, the Crown Tundra which boasts a legendary hunt, the best open world section to date, and a new type of co-operative content, and all three of which managed to exhibit the same type of flaws as their base game. They all share the same level of mismanagement and misunderstanding of the concepts behind good co-op design of their content often times making their nature of group content a hinderance more than anything, and this kind of example is emblematic of the entire Pokemon Sword and Shield experience. Honestly, even as a casual Pokemon fan I can't even imagine recommending this game when there are so much better Pokemon experiences out there and this game won't offer you anything new.
With all of Game Freak's cards on the table it becomes very clear that they have no clue what they want this game to be. It's very easy to say that they were lazy but that misses the point of the fundamental disconnect that Game Freak has with their audience. Disregarding the omissions compared to prior games in the series, there is no clear vision for this game. The base game touts an open world area that the developers are clearly proud of when it permeates so many aspects of marketing and gameplay with the many endeavors towards co-operative player raids and the like, but clearly the focus was misguided at best when there are so many crippling design issues that limit what they can even do with what they have.
This is no more prevalent than the game's swan song, the Crown Tundra which boasts a legendary hunt, the best open world section to date, and a new type of co-operative content, and all three of which managed to exhibit the same type of flaws as their base game. They all share the same level of mismanagement and misunderstanding of the concepts behind good co-op design of their content often times making their nature of group content a hinderance more than anything, and this kind of example is emblematic of the entire Pokemon Sword and Shield experience. Honestly, even as a casual Pokemon fan I can't even imagine recommending this game when there are so much better Pokemon experiences out there and this game won't offer you anything new.
2019
Persona 5 Royal improves on Persona 5 in every way, unfortunately this way is so disconnected storywise that it almost acts as an entirely seperate experience to the main game, being thematically an almost condemnation of the main game's storyline due to how disjointed the two narratives are. However, it is a superior storyline in almost every way, discarding many of the awful villains employed before in favour of one that had some pathos and connection to the themes of the Persona series as a whole of the exploration of the self, rather than the exploration of society the original Persona 5 opted for.
Gameplay takes a simultaneous leap in interesting ideas and a large stumble in difficulty due to said ideas, the new systems at play all make an easy experience absolutely trivial, an example being Persona traits add a lot more customisation to personalising a Persona's playstyle and ability usage but it becomes apparent this system isn't balanced at all, like giving Alice the ability to make instant death spells cost no SP, resulting in Alice killing every encounter that doesn't have an immunity to death instantly and cancelling out most late game random encounters. Ultimately, Persona 5 Royal shines in what it doesn't share with it's predecessor, and what it does share looks even worse in comparison.
Gameplay takes a simultaneous leap in interesting ideas and a large stumble in difficulty due to said ideas, the new systems at play all make an easy experience absolutely trivial, an example being Persona traits add a lot more customisation to personalising a Persona's playstyle and ability usage but it becomes apparent this system isn't balanced at all, like giving Alice the ability to make instant death spells cost no SP, resulting in Alice killing every encounter that doesn't have an immunity to death instantly and cancelling out most late game random encounters. Ultimately, Persona 5 Royal shines in what it doesn't share with it's predecessor, and what it does share looks even worse in comparison.
No one really remembers Baten Kaitos in spite of the huge fame the studio behind it gets for their much lauded Xeno series of games, either because of the platform the game is on or the unbelievably bad voice acting and utterly bizarre combat system acting as an, admittedly, high barrier to entry. However, what this game lacks in modern values such as accessibility in gameplay (and a respect for the player's time) is an utterly unique and beautiful transitional JRPG that iterates upon the last generation of JRPGs by taking advantage of what new hardware can bring and managing to take off as a distinctive game even to this day. No other game does a card battle RPG system quite like it, nor do any other card battle RPGs being anywhere near as good.
Baten Kaitos retains, or possibly births given it's release date, a lot of storytelling quirks that would be present in future Xeno games too, taking an utterly unique premise with its world, and giving you story beats that twist and turn in fantastic ways as the story progresses with an endearing cast of characters. It really should be experienced for yourself, and nowadays there are a good number of ways you can play this game not on the original hardware so I highly encourage anyone to check out this game and not let it be lost to a wikipedia article or some dude's reddit post or backloggd review.
Baten Kaitos retains, or possibly births given it's release date, a lot of storytelling quirks that would be present in future Xeno games too, taking an utterly unique premise with its world, and giving you story beats that twist and turn in fantastic ways as the story progresses with an endearing cast of characters. It really should be experienced for yourself, and nowadays there are a good number of ways you can play this game not on the original hardware so I highly encourage anyone to check out this game and not let it be lost to a wikipedia article or some dude's reddit post or backloggd review.