it's... fine. Honestly, the discourse around this game has been wild to witness. I'm glad it was on gamepass so I could try it out - I needed to play it for myself to properly form an opinion. Just by looking at it, I could tell something was off. My suspicions were correct. It's mediocre in almost every aspect outside of the creature designs and some of the animations/UI presentation. Unfortunately, it's borderline IP theft due to the way the pals are designed. It's so obvious, and I don't think it should be championed. I'm all for companies ripping off other companies that do things well; but this is a step too far in that direction when it comes to lifting art assets. Maybe not -literally- but -essentially- based on the proportions, the shapes, the colours, etc. It's shameless.

Otherwise, it's a basic survival game and it's boring.

In an even more meta scenario, the devs were controlled by the black whispers to implement tons of bad design decisions in to an otherwise incredible game. The white whispers were in control for most of the development, for sure, but man - this was quite a roller coaster in terms of enjoyment. Perhaps the game that has given me the most consistent whiplash to date.

I want to give this a 10/10. It's better than Part 1 in every way. It's an incredible achievement for a JRPG in so many ways. I have so many thoughts that I must simply reduce this review to a positives and negatives list or I'll be here all day.

Positives:

- Queen's Blood is so much fun! I was constantly looking forward to every match. Honestly, I could put this partially in the negative section as this was the one aspect of the game that there wasn't enough of! I loved crafting a deck, finding new cards, and fine tuning my strategy all the way to the end.

- The combat system in this game has got to be the best of any JRPG. I don't see what even comes close at this point. I wish every game with a cast of characters played this way. It oozes production value, precise control, spectacle, and multi tasking so well that it makes other games look like a joke in comparison. It's in the same category as something like Elden Ring or Baldur's Gate 3 in this regard where it just makes other similar games seem like they're severely lacking all of a sudden, even if it felt great before hand. Remake had this effect to some extent, but it wasn't quite there. This is THERE.

- Transitioning between linear sections and more open sections was one way that this game was paced super well. As you'll read later, this goes sour in many instances - but in general it was a great idea to keep things fresh - in theory. For the most part, it worked very well. Games that are consistently open world are almost always tiring unless done right. This game tries to avoid that and mostly succeeds by giving distinct points of A to B in between the large areas.

- The characters are full of personality and depth, plus the party has a lot of great dynamics. Not only is everyone's relationship with Cloud interesting, but most of the cast have fun or unique interactions with each other, as well. This makes the crew feel like a true ensemble - it's not just about Cloud. I love that. Games that heavily focus everything on the main character and make it totally revolve around them can often get tiresome - especially if it's a long game. This focus on making sure everyone gets their time in the spotlight really helps you care about the party as a whole.

- In relation to the last point, I loved that the party was broken up time and time again and they forced you to spend some time with very specific groups of people. However, this leads to a major issue with the game, at the same time. More on that later.

- Yuffie is extremely fun to play as. This is strange for me, as I mostly played her as a ranged character which I generally dislike. For whatever reason, she had the most flair in battles and it was fun to pull things off with her. Using the lightning discharge ability paired with ATB Boost, doppleganger, windstorm, and then spamming her shuriken was so satisfying. I only played as other characters when I had to. When she wasn't available I didn't have as much fun in combat. I do enjoy playing as Cloud, though, which is good since he's usually playable.

- This is one of the funniest games I've ever played. In particular, there's one point that made me actually laugh out loud for a solid 5 seconds which never happens to me unless I'm watching something with others. Yuffie's grand introduction to the group, followed by Cloud simply saying "Cool." and walking away is possibly the greatest comedic timing I've ever seen in a game. That's the peak of the comedy, but there are tons of other examples throughout such as Red's MJ moment. Most of it revolves around Cloud's utter disregard for things going on around him which I find absolutely hilarious. Cait Sith, Red, Vincent, Yuffie, Barret, and multiple side characters have their moments though. Even Aerith got a couple smirks out of me and I don't particularly care for her character.

- The varied environments kept exploration feeling fresh, despite some issues in this regard. I also liked the different chocobo's - but it would have probably been more fun to retain the abilities of each of them instead of only having one ability per region. I know it helps make the regions topographically distinct, but moving around in the world was lackluster as is.

- A good portion of the green "side quests" are pretty great. Some of them contain things that shouldn't even be optional as they add a lot of character progression and back story that feels essential. You would think this would strictly be a good thing, as a common complaint of RPGs is that they have uninteresting or pointless side quests. (I'm looking at you, FF 16). Somehow, it's not - because there are SO MANY. I'll elaborate in the negative section.

- Some of the minigames are fun, but again - there are too many and they add to the cluttering of the map.

- Despite certainly being difficult to follow at times, the story presentation is quite remarkable. Especially the ending, after I did some thorough research on what probably maybe actually is going on at the end. It's a really intriguing setup for the next game, if it's what I assume to be true.

- It's beautiful. People saying the game doesn't look great are out of their mind. From the scenery to the character models to the animations to the snappy UI - everything is lovely looking. I played on performance mode, of course. 30fps is unplayable.

- The soundtrack is, as always with FF, fantastic. No surprise here. The amount of unique tracks and remixes is pretty wild, though.

Wow, sounds like a pretty flawless game. How could something have so many high points - so many things that exceed expectations - and not be a 10/10?

Well...

Negatives:

- There's just too much. Too many minigames, too many side quests, too many "points of interest" from Chadley, etc. I despise the "it's optional, just ignore it" argument because why would I want to miss out when the game has shown me multiple times that there is interesting pay off to a lot of these things? The disappointing part is that due to the large volume, a lot of them fall flat, as well. So you're left wanting to do everything because half of it is worthwhile. That sucks. This is a half-baked explanation on my issue here, but I don't want to write an entire essay just to make this point. Moving on.

- I said I enjoyed the party being broken up so you can experience all the different dynamics. However, the most frustrating part about this game is having to switch Materia back and forth manually every time this happens. Once available, my party was consistently Cloud, Yuffie, and Red. Cloud as a mixed attacker, Yuffie as magic, and Red on defense for the most part but also a physical beast. Loved the composition here. I tried to always have a similar setup regardless of the party. So when I had to use Barret I'd replace either Yuffie or Red with him. When I had to use Tifa, I was replacing either Cloud or Red with her. Aerith replaced Yuffie, etc. I had specific materia set to each of them and I had to constantly switch it up manually instead of being able to just, say, copy and paste a set from one character to another easily. I probably spent a total of 2 hours over the course of the game doing this. Just another way the game wasted my time. I ended up dreading character swaps instead of looking forward to the interesting setups they would provide.

- Like I said earlier, the pacing is mostly appropriate. Except for the many times it's not. The game is so long that there are many times where for 5-10 hours the pacing is wonderful. You go from a open area to a narrow chapter then back in to a new open area. However, all of the open areas just have way too much to do in them. Again, half of it being a waste of time. Things like Kid G, the Moogle houses, anything regarding obtaining the chocobos (or searching with them), Johnny fetch quests, etc. It got so bad that by Gongaga I just started ignoring half the side material unless it was reasonably on my path forward. This is what people seem to suggest doing if I think there's too much - but this just gives me fear of missing out. Not a good feeling to have in a game with so many cool things in it.

- In relation to the last point, I will point out that obtaining chocobo's through forced stealth sections was very irritating. I hate when games do that. It quite literally slows the game to a halt for no reason. Why is this still a thing? Didn't we learn from Spiderman Mary Jane missions? Or perhaps the many cases of this being a problem prior to that? Not only that, but controlling the Chocobo is cumbersome. The easiest way to express this is by comparing it to the horse (Torrent) in Elden Ring. That thing controls like an absolute gem, which mounts NEVER accomplish. This game is no exception. The amount of times I barely overshot being in the "correct" position to pick up a buried item while on chocoback was super frustrating and made me just not want to do it even though they lead to valuable items. Again, I felt punished by my desire to earn cool things in-game.

- Chadley is annoying, yes. What's more annoying than the bot himself is the way that his communication works. Why must we sit through unskippable and completely useless cutscenes/animations over and over again?! Just let me do the thing and move on. If Chadley MUST speak to me, just do it over comms with a his silly face appearing in the corner while I continue to walk around. Forcing me to stand there and waste between 10-30 seconds at least 50 times during the game is insane. This goes for other things, too. It's not just Chadley's fault. The simple act of popping the UI up to show you got an extra yellow dot takes forevvverrrr. It's a wild over sight to make these things drag on this much. This amplifies the other issues I have with pacing and length/bloat. Why did we need to specifically need to follow the black robes in Nibelheim at an actual snail's pace for 20 minutes?! Ahhhhhhh!

- Why are we doing these monotonous puzzles? Box pushing, vacuuming, box throwing, etc? Can we please stop doing this? Please? It's actually, literally, totally 100% pointless.

I'm probably missing things but I'm going to cut myself off here. My point is, this game is lovely in so many ways but they also very frequently go out of their way to slow you down. I spent 85 ish hours with the game. I know some people that have done everything probably spent more like 120+.

This game should have roughly 30% of it removed. It's just too much. Saying that main lining the games "golden path" is the answer is a bad excuse. I want to experience most of what the game has to offer. The good stuff, though. Not the pointless stuff. The problem is you can't distinguish which is which until you're in the thick of it.

I probably could have spent 30-40 hours with the game and rushed through, but I would have missed out on so many cool things! The 85 hours I spent should mean that I did everything the game has to offer. Instead, I missed out on a lot despite being burnt out by the end. I would love to get back 20 of those hours and not have had to sift through nonsense during it. All it did was drag the games quality down a couple pegs.

Oh well, this seems to be a trend nowadays - at least with AAA games. It's not unique to this one.

I can't wait for Part 3. It's going to be a wild ride. Here's hoping it's not as densely packed with things wildly varying in quality.

I like going in to games blind these days. It really does make them better experiences. This game was getting a lot of attention and I love Metroidvania's so I knew I had to check it out. After about 3 hours, I decided to put it down for good.

It's just puzzles. Puzzles are my least favourite type of game mechanic. They're the weakest part of every game they're in, and this game is almost nothing but them. I can be totally cool with them if they're well-paced in a game about other things, but that's not the case here unfortunately.

Don't get me wrong, I actually loved the way they implemented some of the items here and were going for a "just figure out how this works, we're not telling you" attitude. Love it.

I also love the theme of it being about animals.
I love the way it looks and sounds.
I kind of liked the sense of exploration, but at the same time it felt WAY too easy to get lost. That's no fun.

The absolute biggest red flag for me, which I realized quickly is...

no combat. Can't do it. If this game had a fun way of either fighting the animals or protecting them from other creatures, I'd probably have stuck with it til the end. Especially because of how inventive the tools you're given are! They're really cool, and could have doubled as fantastic weapons!

I know this is totally a 'me' thing and it's not going to matter to a lot of people, clearly, based on the other reviews. But I'm just pointing out my honest experience with it.

It's incredible that this is made by one person, and I'll probably still end up recommending it to people with an asterisk pointing out that there's no fighting, or real way to test your skills. It's all reliant on problem solving - which I'm sure is totally fine for many.

For me, after a few hours, the flow of this game was as follows:

1. Find something weird
2. Puzzle time.
3. Test some things to figure out how to do it
4. Get it right immediately because it's intuitive (happened often) OR fail to understand and just leave - it's important to note here that because this game is so obtuse it's hard to determine when you CAN do something but just don't understand and when you CAN'T because you don't have the right tool. That's a major issue for me. It's too vague. I like vague, but this is too vague.
5. Wander around some more, see something cool, but then realize you don't know where you are. The map barely helps with this.
6. Puzzle time.
7. Stumble upon a new item
8. Puzzle time.
9. Try to figure out how to get back to that one spot that may have required this item. This could take 1 minute, could take 20.
10. This one's important - potentially redo a puzzle (especially if you happen to die) because for some reason, certain switches reset and others don't.
11. Repeat

Again, the platforming is great. Comparable to other great Metroidvania's. It's just poorly paced because the reward for clearing a puzzle is having another one right afterwards. Let me breathe!

If this game was identical, but had Guacamelee or Hollow Knight combat, it would probably be incredible. I know that probably sounds stupid, but I really do feel like it needs it.

Anyways, I'm glad most of you are enjoying it. It's certainly an incredible accomplishment for one person. I wish I could enjoy it more!

I didn't have very high expectations for this. Honestly, I wouldn't have played it if it weren't on PS+. I'm glad I did, though.

Games like this don't usually hold my attention for long. It seemed as though it would be leaning too hard on the gimmick of it being "cute". It seemed like clear internet-people bait.

There's a little more to it, though. It's actually quite charming. I appreciate how they tell a short, thoughtful story in a way that actually makes sense (for a video game, at least). It doesn't rely entirely on the fact that you're controlling a cat to make it interesting. It's an quaint little world they crafted for you to explore. The cat-like gimmicks are subtle and can once in a while actually get a quick "aww" out of you.

A couple of the puzzles were a little unclear to me, which can quickly become frustrating. For the most part they were just clever enough that I felt good about solving them, though.

Overall, it's certainly worth the few hours it takes to complete. Normally with a game like this, I would say it's not for everyone. I think this game is special, in a way, though. It's unique enough to warrant most people giving it a chance even if you normally aren't in to slower-paced games (like myself).

I did not play Alan Wake 1. I played Control for 5-10 hours and didn't like it much so I gave up. I had zero interest in Alan Wake 2 throughout all of its pre-release trailers and such.

Then the reviews came out and the word of mouth spread fast. Apparently this game was awesome in plenty of unique ways. I decided to bite.

I'm very glad I did. It's fantastic, and mostly for reasons that other games don't even attempt to pull off. In some weird way, I'd describe this game as a Naughty Dog/Capcom game that for some reason Kojima was given creative control over. It's a strange mix of TLoU, RE, and a Kojima game. I guess that's just kind of Remedy's thing, but I don't think they've pulled it off til now. To be fair, I have only attempted playing one other game by them. But Control seems to be the one people claim is their best work (until this?), so I think this is a massive step in the right direction.

First, I will get a couple of my issues out of the way. I think it's odd that you are given the freedom to switch between the two characters for the majority of the game. I think it should be streamlined and forced a bit more. It might be a little more coherent if it was told in a more specific order instead of leaving it up to the player to figure out the timing of. I understood what was going on (to an extent) but it was always in the back of my mind... "should I be switching to Alan now?" and vice versa. I didn't like the added stress knowing I had to interrupt the flow I was in. I played most of Saga's story back to back to back because I preferred playing as her. Then I had to revisit Alan's story near the end and it was a bit of a weird transition. To sum that up - the pacing is a bit strange because it is self-dictated in a way. It would probably still be strange even if they made it more linear, but it would be less distracting that way.

The controls are just... fine. Fighting things didn't feel fantastic but it also worked well enough that it never really bothered me. I'm also glad they kept the combat to a minimum. I assume they knew it wasn't a strong point and wasn't going to be why people were engaged. The spooky atmosphere and the way everything draws your eye and attention is what is engaging. Heck, even the story itself is engaging which I can't say for a whole lot of games. I will say I constantly had way too many resources, though. For the last third of the game I literally couldn't pick things up because my inventory AND my storage box was full. I think they messed up on the balance in that regard. The game felt too easy, despite it also feeling stressful due to the way the enemies worked. Never really knowing when you're going to be attacked (or straight up jump-scared) kept me on the edge the entire game, which was great. Like I said, though, I was never afraid of actually dying, so that was a bit of a weird juxtaposition. Perhaps I should have played on Hard, if that was an option. I don't remember, but probably.

Those are really my only gripes. Now on to the good stuff.

I touched on it already so I'll expand on my thoughts. The plot(s) held my interest all the way through. This is a very difficult thing for a game to do for me. I generally don't care, unless the game really excels in this category. Even though I didn't play the things that lead up to this game, I fully enjoyed the story here. (I did watch a couple recaps, at least, so I kind of knew what I was getting in to.) Those claiming Alan Wake 1 must be played before hand are simply incorrect, because I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Some highlights are:
- Saga's Mind Place - it was oddly enjoyable piecing together the evidence on the board. It made it easier to keep up with all the aspects of the story.
- The way Alan narrates things while you play to help you understand what's going on without it breaking immersion because it actually makes sense in context. This is VERY noticeable in contrast to most games where protagonists talk to themselves for no reason. I hate that shit.
- Most of the characters are very well acted and memorable such as Saga, Alan, Ahti, Casey, Mr. Door, Tor and Odin, The Koskela Brothers, Rose, and plenty of other smaller characters. This is where I feel that Naughty Dog feeling creep in.
- For the most part, I enjoyed solving the puzzles. There were a decent amount and I never really got tired of doing them. I'd say there were 2 or 3 where I looked up a solution because I totally did not get it. Otherwise, they're pretty fun to figure out. A little more sensical than the way RE deals with things. Sticking random objects in random places is not intuitive.
- This might be the scariest game I've ever played. Or, at least... the most unsettling. I loved it. I always felt a sense of dread despite what I said earlier about not actually being afraid of dying due to the difficulty. It just makes you feel like you constantly need to be looking over your shoulder, especially when playing as Alan.
- The maps were the perfect size, and the game is the perfect length. I never felt as though there was too much ground to cover. I loved exploring every inch of each area and making sure to find everything there was to find. The game didn't overstay its welcome and I was satisfied when it ended.

All in all, it's a wonderful package. This game does a lot of special things that I hope Naughty Dog, Capcom (RE) and Kojima Productions take note of. Sure, other studios have a lot they can take from here as well, but those 3 specifically stand to benefit a ton if they took some cues from this.

OH, I FORGOT THE MUSIC BREAKS.

Man... I loved the musical interludes in between the chapters. It was always a pleasure to just sit and listen to each one as you reflect on what just happened. Specifically, a couple chapters in when "Follow you in to the Dark" played, this game solidified itself for me as one of the greats. I've listened to it many times since. Listening to it now and getting goosebumps again. I do think the game peaked early with the music but it was still great afterwards.

...also... that music video sequence with Alan was insanity. Seeing a few people on Twitter write about "that sequence" when the game released without spoiling it was one of the reasons I caved and bought the game. The insistence everyone had to ensure that was kept a secret but also the insistence on saying something about whatever "THAT" was sold me. It really is THAT wild as a concept in a mostly serious video game.

I guess that's my final thought. They did a GREAT job of making a game that is simultaneously very serious and very funny. They also don't let these two things step on each others toes... ever. This game is funny, scary, introspective, creepy, sensory-overloading, unsettling, and a little bit wholesome all rolled in to one very unique experience that I don't think will be replicated for a while.

Remedy just rose way up the ranks for me. Before this game, I didn't care about them at all, really.

...why did I convince myself there was a chance I wouldn't enjoy this? From Software just won't miss.

It's unbelievable to think they made giant metal beasts that both feel like giant metal beasts AND also control extremely well simultaneously. How is this possible? Whether it be sliding along the ground, soaring through the air in ANY direction, gliding to a specific location, or dodging at the last second over and over... these metallic machines make movement maximally magnificent.

Not only that, but all the weapons are super fun to experiment with. From canons to lasers to shotguns to snipers to grenade launchers to swords to machine guns to pistols... everything has a use, and everything feels good. It's wild. Having 4 weapons on you at once seems overwhelming but once you get use to the flow of combat it feels natural. I loved getting up close and using swords and shotguns. Sometimes that really did not work though, so I usually had some cannons or lasers on hand to deal with enemies further away. Also, one of the sniper-like rifles was a big part of my toolkit, as well.

This game is easily a 10/10 in the game-feel department, but it also shines when it comes to the management of your parts. This was the area I was concerned about not enjoying. At first, it was absolutely overwhelming and I was doing my best to ignore it and force my way through without editing things too much. Bad idea! About half way through the game there are some major roadblocks that require you to rethink the way you've played up until that point. It wasn't until then that I realized how special the game was. I was actually interested in switching up my build, and did so for most missions in the second half of the game.

The mission structure is such a breath of fresh air. I could totally see this game for some reason being open world and you having to traverse to different objectives. Being kicked back to the hangar where your mech rests makes things so much more snappy. There's no forced down time. Quick conversations, quick menus, and quick mission breakdowns that lead to mostly quickly completed missions. I love it. This game is very respectful of your time. That's something I saw more in 2023 than I have in the past decade - I think a lot of developers are catching on to the fact that "padding" and "filler" is very noticeable nowadays. From Software has always been good about this, imo, but it shines here even more so.

The voice acting is surprisingly awesome! It's probably emphasized due to the fact that you never actually see any human faces - just voices attached to a codec call or a mech. It made the voices shine even more because they had to do some heavy lifting to get you to appreciate the characters.

It's very grey, but it's actually quite nice looking. The theme of red throughout the game really pops. Also, the colour customization of your own mech is extremely detailed - possibly more detailed than the combat customization! I rocked a bright orange/cyan mech the whole time and loved every second of it. The designs of some of the other mechs are really cool, too. Visually, despite being literally 90% grey - this game stands out. The massive scale of the game and some of these fights certainly plays a part, too.

It's not my preferred genre, and I like their Souls games better, for sure, but this is still an absolutely fantastic video game.

Listen, you've read enough praise of this game already.

I was super excited about this because I adored Divinity Original Sin 2 despite having a general distaste for games that use a perspective like this and are generally PC-centric. I played it on PS4 and it was one of the best games I've ever played.

This game shares basically all of the praise I gave DOS2. It's a fantastic achievement - and I also played it entirely with a controller. They made using a controller even more intuitive here which is greatly appreciated. Loved the wheels and the UI.

The writing and characters are full of charm. The performances in particular by the main cast are top tier.

Honestly, I just love everything about this game. Exploring each area to its fullest, finding every quest and completing them all never felt like a chore. I'm sure there are plenty I didn't come across because this game is so dense and that's perfectly okay. My journey went exactly how I wanted it to.

I love these games because of the combat, mostly. Manipulating the environment to achieve crazy outcomes is always a blast. The amount of things you can do is seemingly never-ending, and it's very rewarding to come up with your own unique plans and then execute them. I played very similarly to how I played DOS2 (although that was co-op with my girlfriend). Two melee classes + a magic user + a ranged attacker. I like the set-up and I ended up using it here again.

I will say I actually prefer the combat mechanics/the leveling up/stat systems of DOS2. I think the only things that detract from my enjoyment of Baldurs Gate 3 are the parts that are directly taken from Dungeons and Dragons. I could do without the literal dice rolls, the D&D naming conventions, and the advantage system. All of that, to me, made the game slightly less enjoyable for me. It's absolutely a better game that has way more polish, production value, and options in every way (except the leveling system).

It's probably ridiculous to read, considering how much I love this game - but I don't like the direct D&D inclusions. My least favourite part of the game is that it's a D&D game. That probably doesn't make sense - maybe to some of you it will. I guess what I mean to say is that this exact game, minus the D&D license, would be better to me. It would be somewhere in between BG3 and DOS2, and I hope it's where Larian goes next.

Anyways, this game deserves all the praise it has gotten. Believe it.

It's fantastic. Having already played the game a decade ago, I decided to put it down half way through this version despite it clearly being the best version of the game now. There's too much else I want to play, but I love what they did here. All of the improvements to the visuals, the UI, the navigation, and the battles are greatly appreciated. I hope they do it to Persona 4 as well.

Persona 3 probably has the strongest overall tone/atmosphere of the three games. I appreciate how dark it feels. The cast as a whole is really strong, too. I just don't particularly care for any of the characters individually as much outside of Mitsuru and Akihiko being awesome. Persona 3 feels more mature in its writing than 4/5. The characters come off as older even though they aren't.

Regardless, I still think it's the weakest of "the 3" Persona games. 4>5>3. It's still a 10/10 though.

My actual rating of this game would probably be a 1.5/5.

However, fuck Tencent. Don't support them. They're horrible. If you don't know why they're horrible, do some research. They're "directly" tied to the Chinese goverment.

First of all, MOBAs are just bad. Also, microtransactions are bad. Also, mobile games are bad. Also, games that pretend like they're not just mobile games because they got slapped on to the Switch are bad.

Secondly, this game would have gotten zero attention if it wasn't a Pokemon game. The ACTUAL only redeeming quality is that it's "a Pokemon game".

I had some fun playing it with friends when it came out but it is so repetitive and monotonous that it got boring after a few weeks.

It really doesn't have any redeeming qualities.

There are SO many cool ways that Pokemon games could expand in to different genres, but they choose to go the simplest and most offensive route. Why? Oh yeah, it's easy money. Don't fall for it. There's no passion here, it's just a cash cow.

TL;DR - Fuck Tencent

This game is cute. This game is wholesome. Those are two things that usually don't do it for me. SM RPG pulls it off. Bring back Mallow and Geno! They're great characters. Upon playing this, it occurred to me that Mallow is really under appreciated and Geno is kinda over appreciated.

I played the original somewhere between the ages of 4 and 10, on and off. Not sure when I actually played through all of it, but I did. With this version, I recognized every level as I got to it, so that was cool. Otherwise my memory of the game is/was pretty hazy.

Although I think this is obviously just a better, cleaner version of the original... I'm rating it lower than the original because it just doesn't impress me much in 2023, compared to how groundbreaking it was back then.

The music is awesome. I actually switched back and forth between modern/classic. I never really mess with that setting when it's available; I always go with whatever the new version is. I appreciate that the option was here because both OSTs are great.

I love the updated visuals. Mario looks weird to me, but the rest of the cast looks fantastic. Always good to see over-animated Bowser back in action. Love his expressions so much in all of the RPG games. The cinematics for the "ultimate moves" were really cool to see. I loved the one with Peach and Bowser. Mario flip-kicking Bowser's star-infused shell never got old.

Another thing that's partially related to the visuals is the much, much improved UI. It's beautiful, clean, and organized in a lovely way. This is something that's a deal breaker for me when it comes to revisiting old games. Menus are slow and un-optimized. Things like being able to equip new equipment immediately after purchasing them, then selling the old item within a couple seconds is huge. I have no patience for wasting time dealing with clunky UI anymore. We're past that as a society. Quick access to items/special moves when walking around is also appreciated. Somewhat unrelated but its another quality of life improvement, so screw it. Run being the default movement option is fantastic.

The enemy variety and how creative the enemies designs and attacks are is really cool. It's crazy to think that this is probably the peak in terms of that. Where are all the crazy new designs in more recent Mario games? Until extremely recently (Wonder) I feel like they've been playing it pretty safe for decades now.

This game is way too easy, though. I remember this game being difficult and confusing. I get the confusing part (as a child), as some aspects of this game are not very straight-forward (and I can tell there were a few things put in place here to make things easier to understand). The difficulty though... perhaps it was just because I was young and dumb. I assume the plentiful nature of the items in this game was not the case in the original, because that's the main thing that kept this game a breeze throughout.

I do appreciate the length of the game. It absolutely doesn't overstay its welcome. I think I only spent about 10-12 hours with it. Realistically, I would have liked it to be a bit longer - but at the same time I was totally rushing through the last 20% of the game just wanting it to be over. If the game was more dynamic and challenging, I would've wanted more for sure.

I must say, though - I don't think this game is nearly as incredible as people generally deem it as. I think upon its original release - absolutely. Over time, it's been outdone by various other games. Other Mario RPGs, sure - but also things like Sea of Stars. Playing this in 2023 is a nice little nostalgia trip, but it's also a reminder that the game is overly simple and has a lot of room for improvement - which it has gotten via decades of "sequels". Something this game does better than all of its predecessors is the dynamics of its ensemble cast. I love the variety and the way they interact with each other. This is something I want expanded on even further. Bring in DK, Wario, etc. and make this cast as wacky as possible.

Overall, it's a nice and cute lil' package. The reason this game excites me is less about the game itself and more about how this succeeding could affect their desire to make more Mario RPG games, since they've generally left that whole aspect on the table for a while now.

Here's hoping.

Man, am I a sucker for snappy and responsive UI. Rarely is that pulled off well in the first place... but add in colourful and flashy bits to the mix and it is STILL quick? That's a job well done.

This is probably the second best take on roguelike deck builders so far (though it could also be Cobalt Core). There are plenty of ways to continue to challenge yourself as you "ascend" through the difficulty levels. After beating the game once with every deck and then beating gold rank (or whatever the highest one is) on one deck, I was content. I put the game down after about 60 hours of play or so.

I think something that became apparent after I understood the game well enough was that this game feels a bit too luck based to be a truly fantastic game like Slay the Spire. In StS, I always feel in control of my destiny. Here, it feels as though I can get screwed super early over and over. Not only that, but late in to a run you can just get stonewalled suddenly. The difficulty curve is very strange.

The first few antes are hard unless you get great synergy immediately. If you can get past ante 3 you're likely going to easily get to ante 7 or 8. But then.... there's a good chance you're gonna lose. It just kinda feels strange in that way.

Outside of that, I loved my time with this game! It's very satisfying learning how things work together and how to position your cards.

I was moderately excited for this. I loved Fallout 3. Enjoyed Skyrim a decent amount. Fallout 4 was just kinda whatever. It felt dated. I didn't have many expectations for this and didn't know what to expect. I had avoided all trailers, as I do with most games.

I finally got around to trying it a couple weeks ago. After an hour with it, I decided I wasn't going to continue.

It still feels dated. The controls are loose. That's something I can sometimes get past. The dialogue in the first hour wasn't interesting me at all and it felt like the characters had no soul, as with past Bethesda games.

What really broke me was being put in to a space ship, shown some dials and shit on the screen. I sat there for a minute playing around with it and then I felt compelled to exit the game. It's just not going to be for me.

This is not a fair judgement of the game, I am aware of that. But I'm still going to put my review in here. I'm not going to "score" it because I barely touched it. Based on what I've heard from others + my minimal experience + the fact that I really don't care for sci-fi settings generally - I'm out. I can't be bothered to mess around with ship building and space exploration. Not my thing at all, but I figured I'd at least try.

I must admit, if you asked me before this game released what I thought I'd be giving on this site, months later, it would be a 5/5. That's how excited and confident I was going in. I'm as devastated as a plumber who forgot his utility belt. I can't believe I don't care for it.

I have always felt Strikers was the best of all of the Mario Sports games, easily. Baseball comes close, as does Tennis on Gamecube. Heck, I even thoroughly enjoyed Mario Tennis Aces on Switch for months. It was a great online game.

First, let's get a couple of the good things out of the way. This games art style is unmatched. I LOVE how they draw the characters. If only they actually looked that cool in-game and it wasn't just for promotional art. I also LOVE the colour schemes and the way the UI looks. This game is one of the best looking games, art-style wise, that I've ever seen. It's hilarious because I feel like if I worked at a video game company, I would literally make a game that looked similar to this in a lot of ways. It's 100% my style.

I also really like the base gameplay of this game, but that's something that I could say for the previous two games. Not much has changed here regarding the core of how it plays.

The gear system is cool and it would have been something to appreciate in the long run as new gear was added, but... there is no long-run, here. They had a great idea: make characters more customizable to make up for the smaller roster. Make it so that small characters can be powerful, or the tough characters can be agile. However, this brings up the main problem of the game. People quickly realized there were only a few "feasible combinations". Aaaand, your system is pointless.

That's about where the good things end...

The items are pretty poorly balanced. The way stars are rewarded for being down in points is frustrating.

After hearing/reading a lot of comments online regarding this game, I must say I do not fall in line with the general critiques it seems to constantly get.

The problem with this game is NOT how much "content" it does or does not have. The problem is that it does not feel very replayable. It doesn't matter if there "aren't enough characters". What matters is that within whatever amount of characters you have to chose from, you don't have fun/varied matches. Every match ends up being similar. Regardless of your skill level, people found a few ways to go about winning and those methods are repeated over and over. There's not a lot of room for creativity or experimentation. After I got really good at the game, it felt trivial to continue to win. It was easy. Sure, I moved on to playing people better than me and got wrecked because they knew of a better formula. But... it just doesn't go any further than that.

This game feels like there's a "correct" way to score goals. It reduces the game in to a pretty stale pattern of both teams trying to accomplish the same simple task. The goalie is stupid and can be easily manipulated.

Stop using "lack of content" as a reason a game is bad. This game absolutely did not "need" more than 10 characters. It could have been totally fine with those 10. It's just no different from match to match, and that's just not fun after a while.

I say that as someone who frequently uses Daisy in Mario games, and I was very upset she wasn't included (at first). Roster size does not make or break a game. Different stadiums literally don't matter. Don't keep pushing the narrative that every game needs to suckle from the teat of Fortnite and cram new things down your throat every week.

I thought this game was gonna be my second favourite of the year. For the first couple days of playing it, it actually kind of was. I loved it until I realized there was no reason to keep playing the same match over and over. Turns out it's not even gonna be in my Top 10 games this year. :(

I'm sad.

This is quite a pleasant little game. It's rare nowadays for me to get hooked on a turn-based RPG. In general, they tend to lose my interest. They're just not consistently interactive enough. Perhaps this is why I found myself drawn to the various Mario RPGs when I was younger. This game does a lot of things right.

I love how the battle system encourages you to constantly be engaged. You "don't have to" time your attacks and blocks, so says the game, but it felt necessary to keep yourself in a healthy position in fights. I died about 2 or 3 times but it was never overwhelming. I feel like it was balanced perfectly. I frequently felt as though I was in danger, but always managed to get through fights. I like how carefully crafted the enemy placement, XP gain, and progression felt. It's a nice change of pace to what is usually necessary grinding. Learning new attacks or getting new party members and figuring out how to time their actions was always rewarding.

Your team member died? Well, you just need to hang in there for a couple turns until they come back. Perfect.
Your attacks and magic all have specific properties that allow you to break enemies' concentration and prevent them from using their more powerful attacks? Perfect.
You can switch out party members on the fly at no penalty to your turn order? Perfect.
You can use regular attacks as a way to power up your own future attacks or the attacks of your teammates, plus that's also tied to your elemental output in regards to breaking enemy concentration? Perfect.

I love the Moonerang attack. So fun - every time. It never got old. Also, using Serai's kick that would delay an enemies turn? So satisfying when you are able to perfectly execute an enemy by making use of it at the right time.


The writing was corny at times, but I generally cared about the characters and the overall story. I also liked how short and sweet the dialogue felt. I didn't feel overwhelmed by fluff. Usually there's just too much exposition in RPGs of this nature, but they really held back in that department and it kept the pace of the game moving quickly.

It is absolutely beautiful. One of the best looking games in this "style". The colours were always popping and the animations were very fluid. I loved how the Ultimate attacks looked as well, although after a couple times using them I did wish I could skip the animation.

The music is top tier. From upbeat, foot-tapping battle themes to peaceful town themes, it has a wide range of songs that I had stuck in my head for days.

I will say, despite it being fairly linear I did have to look up where I was supposed to be going next a couple times. In a lot of circumstances, if I didn't quite catch the next destination or the "goal" someone just described to me, speaking to them again would not repeat the message. In that regard, the game was a little vague.

I loved the way you could explore areas you were in - playing with the perspective every so slightly to let you move in and out of what appeared to be the foreground was cool. The sense of depth was a joy to move around in. I especially LOVED how you had a climb button and could climb up somewhat tall ledges + be able to fall a significant distance to get back to places quickly. The verticality is something that is not only rare but usually completely absent from games that use this perspective. I REALLY appreciated how they took advantage of this constantly. It's probably my favourite aspect of the game.

However, as I was alluding to before - the more grand sense of the "exploration" was pretty lackluster. I didn't like the traveling system, and it felt like a lengthy/difficult task to go somewhere outside of the linear progression of the game. In more than one instance I had a desire to revisit an old area (with good reason) but decided not to when I realized how inconvenient it was to return. This is where the (mostly great) linear progression of the game clashes with the lackluster overall travelling system.

Overall, I highly recommend this game. It was a surprising hit for me that stayed engaging throughout despite being the kind of game that usually puts me off for being too slow/boring. Its snappy combat and dialogue + the fun of exploring areas kept me having fun. I forgot to mention it, but heck, even the puzzles were pretty snappy! Good job on that one, too.