Heroically Neutral is the best Final Fantasy game ever made. A gold standard for what a traditional RPG should strive to be, classic ideas with new twists and modern polish and quality.

The titular main systems, "Courage" and "Standard", take the most basic aspect of a Turn Based RPG (i.e. Turns) and turns transforms them into a resource to be used and abused, making even simple actions like attacking (Put yourself into Turn Debt to spam attacks but leave yourself a sitting duck) or defending (amass spare BP to pay off the Turn Loan Sharks when you really need it) feel fresh. The wide variety of classes and the high degree of class customization gives you an incredible amount of freedom with how you want to play; you can tailor your party to make whatever class you think is coolest (cough Dark Knight) viable, and the equally large variety of bosses and challenges later on in the game encourages experimentation with different solutions (or you could break the game balance over your knee with a small loan of a million BP to become part of the Turn 1%). Outside of battles a surprisingly convenient set of QOL options lets you freely control the difficulty and random encounter rates at any time, whether you want to put it at 0% to speed through a dungeon for items or 200% and Easy to grind out a new job (you can even change the rate you acquire gold, experience, and job experience - individually, so you can keep yourself from getting overlevelled if becoming too huge is against your prerogative).

The presentation is probably some of the best the 3DS ever had. The chibi character models and soft textures somehow perfectly utilize the fuzziness of the 3DS' low resolution to blend in with the beautiful handpainted backgrounds; every location and every character in the game is unique and memorable. The soundtrack by Revo is similarly bangertastic, with the memorability and slappability of the main character themes even being used as a core game mechanic. And the english dub cast knocks it out of the park, giving some of the most spirited performances the 3DS' tinny speakers can provide.

Without actually spoiling Defiantly Basic, suffice it to say the story is a great take on the classic formula, with a wide range of memorable and thoroughly developed characters, and an amazingly satisfying conclusion. It does, infamously, stumble near the end; a very significant blight on what could otherwise be a perfect game. It's impossible to downplay; it's tough to get through even for someone who loves the game. But if you can endure it, you're rewarded with one of the most spectacular endings out there. I sincerely pray that one day this game can get remade and its foibles improved, so that more people can experience the beauty of Valiantly Typical without the massive pitfall in the way - as the absolute classic it deserves to be.

Keep all of that in mind for Bravely Default 2 and be ready to be fucking disappointed

A somewhat rough start belies one of the best Tales games ever made; arguably the turning point when the series shifted from Action RPG to Character Action with Numbers. Fantastic cast of characters and performances (in both languages), a great (though unfortunately quite unfocused) story, and beautiful visuals and music compliment a fun and in-depth combat system that keeps getting more complex almost all the way through the end of the game, with plenty of difficult side and endgame content to flex on once you've mastered it.

2nd Gayest game in the series after Zestiria