Darkson
Probably the best thing about this gen is that it was the first with every move being separated between physical and special, there's also a lot of great pokémon, Infernape is my favorite fire starter and Empoleon is awesome too, Luxray is probably my favorite electric because of it's design and is also very strong, Floatzel is cool and was decisive for me to me to finish the elite 4 without grinding due to it's speed, Staraptor is my favorite Normal/Flying, and there's others i didn't used like Gallade. the Elite 4 is also challenging and Cynthia is probably the best champion. But i thought Sinnoh was the weakest region besides Kanto, the atmosphere and towns aren't memorable, and the progression is slow, the story is also very stupid even by pokémon standards and there's a lot of dialogue, poketech is whatever, and you're basically forced to have Bibarel in the sixth slot because you need HMs all the time, so i used Giratina for Elite 4 to have a good slot and that's it. Also Lucario is the coolest pokémon in this gen besides empoleon and you only get it by the endgame, don't know why. The OST isn't as memorable as the 3rd gen, but there's some great themes like Cynthia. So far my least favorite pokémon game alongside FR/LG, but it was fun beating this after having to stop it close to the ending due to technical problems 3 years ago
My favorite pokémon game alongside OR/AS so far. Region-wise i definitely like Hoenn better in terms of atmosphere and exploration, but the variety you have building your team was the biggest in the series, the move tutors give even more available options, even if it is a slog getting the shards, and it isn't hard for most of the time, but some moments like the champion caught me off guard, post-game is also very well done. The story doesn't have any particularly memorable moments like some from the first BW, and it's very goofy sometimes, but yeah that's a pokémon game. Eventually i will definitely replay with White Version on hard mode and build a different team, with camerupt because he's based. Also Samurott is still my favorite starter here but serperior grew on me as the game was going, it's fun using a tank that's also fast, and it learns aqua tail
This review contains spoilers
Pokemon is one of the most impactful game series to me, because i grew up as a pre-teen playing especially Fire Red and Emerald, as a teenager i've played Omega Ruby quite a lot, and i've also watched the anime series when TV around here transmitted, so this helps me enjoying pokemon games even to this day, even if it isn't exactly one of my favorite game series of all time, because i feel that almost every game i've played from the series could be better if they had more changes and challenges on main-game and not just on post-game, and Gen I-IV has some quality of life problems. Omega Ruby is so far my favorite, and it has nostalgia involved, but it's also because i think it's the one with most interesting exploration and quality of life improvements from what i've played at least, but i didn't played X/Y and Sun/Moon or what came after that(and honestly i don't care about Gen 8 onwards).
But about this game itself now, it's pretty good. They've finally made TMs reusable here, HMs aren't necessary all the time and they even removed the necessity of rock smash, even though strength is still necessary sometimes, and with Fly you're kinda forced to use on your main fly type pokemon or you capture one just for that if you like me didn't used any fly type, but all right i guess.
The progression is the same as any pokemon game, you go to a town, talk with people who mostly talk about how they love pokemon, battle with their gym leader and then gain a badge, progress through another route and then another town, but it's still satisfying here due to some of the gen 5 pokemon being very awesome both in style and typing/moves. Samurott isn't even in my top 3 water pokemon starters but it's very cool, Exadrill has a good design and great usefulness, and this can be said about the others i've used. It was very bold changing entirely every pokemon you can capture in this gen, and i think they managed this well, even tho some of them are very weird, especially the trash thing, i really don't know why they did that, but it's not as if past generations didn't had some ugly pokemon, so ok. I would like this more if all gym leaders felt as challenging as Elesa was with me at least, she's the only gym leader i've lost to at first, but at least elite 4 and ghetsis are very challenging if you're not overleveled.
Besides most of the new pokemon looking really good, the other visuals are pretty for a DS game, pokemon have good animations in-battle and some gyms have interesting visual concepts, and the unova region provides a good atmosphere with it's towns and music, i don't find the OST to be as consistently awesome as Emerald/OR/AS, but route 10 theme is probably my favorite route theme so far, and Driftveil town and bridge themes are mind blowing, N's castle theme also deserves mention.
Most people say this is the pokemon game with the best story, and now i know where this comes from. I still feel it could be better if going from town to town it had more world bulding instead of most people just talking about how they love pokemon, but by the end specifically there's some interesting dialogues, and ironically my favorite part here is when Ghetsis say N was being manipulated, and i mean this is ironic because it was obvious and that's a common trope, but it's handled in a quite surprising way. Ghetsis unfortunately is a generic bad guy but ok i guess, you also get to battle a legendary pokemon using your legendary pokemon, and that's kinda kino.
Overall it's a nice pokemon game, and maybe i will replay it in the future instead of just doing post game content with my current save, since this is very replayable due to the variety you have building a team. Also Reshiram probably has my favorite legendary design now
But about this game itself now, it's pretty good. They've finally made TMs reusable here, HMs aren't necessary all the time and they even removed the necessity of rock smash, even though strength is still necessary sometimes, and with Fly you're kinda forced to use on your main fly type pokemon or you capture one just for that if you like me didn't used any fly type, but all right i guess.
The progression is the same as any pokemon game, you go to a town, talk with people who mostly talk about how they love pokemon, battle with their gym leader and then gain a badge, progress through another route and then another town, but it's still satisfying here due to some of the gen 5 pokemon being very awesome both in style and typing/moves. Samurott isn't even in my top 3 water pokemon starters but it's very cool, Exadrill has a good design and great usefulness, and this can be said about the others i've used. It was very bold changing entirely every pokemon you can capture in this gen, and i think they managed this well, even tho some of them are very weird, especially the trash thing, i really don't know why they did that, but it's not as if past generations didn't had some ugly pokemon, so ok. I would like this more if all gym leaders felt as challenging as Elesa was with me at least, she's the only gym leader i've lost to at first, but at least elite 4 and ghetsis are very challenging if you're not overleveled.
Besides most of the new pokemon looking really good, the other visuals are pretty for a DS game, pokemon have good animations in-battle and some gyms have interesting visual concepts, and the unova region provides a good atmosphere with it's towns and music, i don't find the OST to be as consistently awesome as Emerald/OR/AS, but route 10 theme is probably my favorite route theme so far, and Driftveil town and bridge themes are mind blowing, N's castle theme also deserves mention.
Most people say this is the pokemon game with the best story, and now i know where this comes from. I still feel it could be better if going from town to town it had more world bulding instead of most people just talking about how they love pokemon, but by the end specifically there's some interesting dialogues, and ironically my favorite part here is when Ghetsis say N was being manipulated, and i mean this is ironic because it was obvious and that's a common trope, but it's handled in a quite surprising way. Ghetsis unfortunately is a generic bad guy but ok i guess, you also get to battle a legendary pokemon using your legendary pokemon, and that's kinda kino.
Overall it's a nice pokemon game, and maybe i will replay it in the future instead of just doing post game content with my current save, since this is very replayable due to the variety you have building a team. Also Reshiram probably has my favorite legendary design now
2000
The gameplay is improved upon the first because some characters that i felt were kinda janky in the first now feel much better, like Roberto and Roy, my complaints are about the double specials still being a bit repetitive, and they also repeated the thing when a male is paired with a female and it's still useless, the triple special is a good addition, but they could work in different ways depending on which character you're controlling is activating. Even with this, it's really really good and probably has my favorite aesthetic from the fighting games i've played, alongside SFIII 3rd Strike, the thing just looks really stylish in everything
Honestly this is kinda far from being as good as 2. The design sometimes doesn't feel too well projected, it has a lot of backtracking and some non-intuitive moments, but after the beginning at least it gets better for most of the time. I like the quick turn and choices mechanic, and ammo creation is interesting, even though i didn't created any magnum bullets, because it costs too much, and this also has even more weapon variety, but unfortunately they downgraded the grenade launcher, and the new weapons aren't as good as those from 2. The atmosphere is still well done and overral it's a good game, just not as good as 2. Nemesis is still scarier than the guys before tho
1987
Possibly the most stoned video game cover of all time
On the first few fights this game felt kinda strange to me, but after some of them i got used to it and liked a lot. Some characters i just don't know how to use well, like Roberto(south americanbro), Batsu, and Boman, but most of them just feel so good playing, like Akira, Kyosuke(also nice seeing him here after playing Capcom vs SNK 2), Edge, Hinata, and Sakura, who ironically feels much better here than on Street Fighter EX. The mechanics are pretty fun, if you have momentum you can pull off normal and double specials or other moves in the right time, and it's very satisfying. Personally i just thought that the double specials for restoring HP when a male is paired with a female are very boring, because they are harder to hit, the HP restored is way too low, and it's repetitive, but besides that the specials work very well. The blocking mechanic that is similar to the alpha counter is easier to use here, that's nice because i'm really bad at this. Also Capcom put moves list here, which surprised since most of their fighting games from these days don't have this, and that's good, i really don't like googling this.
The designs and models have a lot of personality, the specials look awesome, the game has a lot of arts in loading screens, even though they didn't translated the japanese texts in them. I didn't find the OST to be memorable, but is kinda banger. The story is very silly but at least kinda entertaining while playing, and i didn't cared too much about the extra modes on disc 2, but this was probably very cool back in the PS1 days
The designs and models have a lot of personality, the specials look awesome, the game has a lot of arts in loading screens, even though they didn't translated the japanese texts in them. I didn't find the OST to be memorable, but is kinda banger. The story is very silly but at least kinda entertaining while playing, and i didn't cared too much about the extra modes on disc 2, but this was probably very cool back in the PS1 days
Most banger OST from the fighting games i've played
1997
Would be better if it had more normal enemies, but it's satisfying pull off a 20 or 30 hits combo, and the bosses are good. If it gets a translation patch eventually i will probably revisit it
1998
I didn't finished RE1 but i will say that this is an amazing improvement anyhow. From start to finish in both campaigns the game flows really well, the level design is very well projected, you're well rewarded with ink ribbons and ammunition for exploring every nook and cranny in the areas, and you can even get some upgrades for Leon's weapons, also the weapon variety is great, especially with Claire, even if i didn't used the bow too much because it's very easy to missing. My only complaints go mostly to some aspects in Leon's, it's very easy missing two of the chess parts, and then you either see a guide or revisit every area in the police station, and the backtracking in the sewers part is kinda boring with him. Besides that in bosses especially the tank controls makes them harder than they should be, but still there's very little to complaining here. The story is very basic and the dub is PS1-tier, but does a good job giving immersion, especially because of the documents you find scattered across the map, the characters have charisma, the overall atmosphere isn't terribly scary like Silent Hill obviously, but it always keeps you on your toes, due to the threatening monsters, and there's very few songs, but they do a good job with atmosphere, and the credits song after Scenario B is one of the best capcom's credits songs. Also i played Leon A Claire B, and people say the inverted is the canon, so i don't know why capcom put Leon in CD 1, but this kinda gives me reasons to replay some other time, so ok. Silent Hill is scarier and has a stronger atmosphere, but as a game itself i definitely prefer this, it's a masterpiece
I remember 2 being a step up in gameplay, but the story here is better, especially if you get the talking guardian beast
1999
This is just lots of fun, there's some arcade bullshit that prevents it from being a masterpiece, especially the last boss, but the levels and enemies have enough variety to keep the game fresh, being very short also works well. That ending is stylish as fuck too
1998
Without a doubt one of the best aesthetics from any fighting game i've played, the OST is also a banger, and the D.F change system giving unique gimmick specials to all characters makes worth it testing all of them
1989
Played the PS1 version. This was guilty pleasure because it's very stylish, but it's also a mess
This was the first DQ i've tried to play, and i didn't take too long to stop, due to being very grindy and i wasn't in the mood for that, and it seemed to me that it didn't have a proper story. After finishing DQV i've played the first and second games in the series, and playing these two sure helps to enjoy this one more
I don't think this game has much of a story, but it does have a lot of worldbuilding, the map being inspired by the real world is very cool, and the world feels very alive thanks to NPC talkings, and the original game was from 1988, this is clearly very ahead of it's time. I gotta say i love the immigrant town part, it was funny as hell seeing what happened to my dealer, whom i've named Darkson, because Darkson is a name funny as fuck. Also the plot twist by the ending is without a doubt amazing for 1988 and obviously inspired a lot of other JRPGs, so this game really is based as fuck
This was ahead of it's time in mechanics and exploration too, the class system is very well thought even with it's issues, you have a lot of freedom in the map but most of the time you don't get lost because the NPC clues are much better here than they were in DQI and II, you can also save these clues pressing y, and the openness you gain when you get the boat is much better than the mess DQII becomes after you also get this there. But well, it still isn't perfect, the problem with the non-linearity in this part is that you must find and use shrines to teleport to specific parts of the map, but a lot of them don't show up in the map after you visit them or spot them in the overworld, i really don't know why, so when you must revisit them if you don't remember or didn't take a screenshot, you will need a guide, and due to the very open nature of the game, finding what you want in a guide can take a while. Oh and you also can't use return to some specific towns, which sucks too, and the "forget" spell had a bug while i was playing, even having the most recent version of the translation patch.
As for the class system, i like how it can be very useful, but you can also ignore if you just want to finish the game. I've gone with the recommend group, a warrior, cleric and mage, and the only change i've made was mage to sage, because i've saw that the sage got a lot of useful skills. But i also would've made my cleric a fighter by the ending of the game, after learning revive, but i did a backup save, to return if i regretted, and i did regretted, because i've gained 11 or 12 levels with the now fighter, and i didn't gained any MP, and even if i wanted another unit for physical damage, the main purpose was still to heal. As for other classes like thief and dealer, they didn't seemed too useful to me compared to the most recommended ones, but maybe in the future i will replay this and go with a fighter instead of a warrior and turn him into a mage of something, or maybe do something with a thief too, but my issue is that it seems that if you want to make a mage a fighter or warrior late-game it won't go well, since it doesn't gain any MP.
This game like any good RPG rewards you well for exploration, but sometimes exploration in dungeons can be tedious, due to the high encounter rate and some of them being very annoying, especially the ones in the last part of the game with the floor gimmick, fuck this gimmick specifically, so like most old RPGs this works better with fast forward. Also i don't know why this and also the DS remakes don't got MP restore items. I don't find the OST to be as memorable as from other snes JRPGs like final fantasy 6, breath of fire 2 or earthbound, but the visuals are some of the best from the console
I don't think this game has much of a story, but it does have a lot of worldbuilding, the map being inspired by the real world is very cool, and the world feels very alive thanks to NPC talkings, and the original game was from 1988, this is clearly very ahead of it's time. I gotta say i love the immigrant town part, it was funny as hell seeing what happened to my dealer, whom i've named Darkson, because Darkson is a name funny as fuck. Also the plot twist by the ending is without a doubt amazing for 1988 and obviously inspired a lot of other JRPGs, so this game really is based as fuck
This was ahead of it's time in mechanics and exploration too, the class system is very well thought even with it's issues, you have a lot of freedom in the map but most of the time you don't get lost because the NPC clues are much better here than they were in DQI and II, you can also save these clues pressing y, and the openness you gain when you get the boat is much better than the mess DQII becomes after you also get this there. But well, it still isn't perfect, the problem with the non-linearity in this part is that you must find and use shrines to teleport to specific parts of the map, but a lot of them don't show up in the map after you visit them or spot them in the overworld, i really don't know why, so when you must revisit them if you don't remember or didn't take a screenshot, you will need a guide, and due to the very open nature of the game, finding what you want in a guide can take a while. Oh and you also can't use return to some specific towns, which sucks too, and the "forget" spell had a bug while i was playing, even having the most recent version of the translation patch.
As for the class system, i like how it can be very useful, but you can also ignore if you just want to finish the game. I've gone with the recommend group, a warrior, cleric and mage, and the only change i've made was mage to sage, because i've saw that the sage got a lot of useful skills. But i also would've made my cleric a fighter by the ending of the game, after learning revive, but i did a backup save, to return if i regretted, and i did regretted, because i've gained 11 or 12 levels with the now fighter, and i didn't gained any MP, and even if i wanted another unit for physical damage, the main purpose was still to heal. As for other classes like thief and dealer, they didn't seemed too useful to me compared to the most recommended ones, but maybe in the future i will replay this and go with a fighter instead of a warrior and turn him into a mage of something, or maybe do something with a thief too, but my issue is that it seems that if you want to make a mage a fighter or warrior late-game it won't go well, since it doesn't gain any MP.
This game like any good RPG rewards you well for exploration, but sometimes exploration in dungeons can be tedious, due to the high encounter rate and some of them being very annoying, especially the ones in the last part of the game with the floor gimmick, fuck this gimmick specifically, so like most old RPGs this works better with fast forward. Also i don't know why this and also the DS remakes don't got MP restore items. I don't find the OST to be as memorable as from other snes JRPGs like final fantasy 6, breath of fire 2 or earthbound, but the visuals are some of the best from the console