The 25th Ward was a serviceable sequel to The Silver Case & Flower, Sun, and Rain. In terms of the story, it didn't captivate my interest quite as much as its predecessors but it was still a solid experience. My rating from favorite to least favorite parts of the game are Placebo > Matchmaker > Correctness. Gameplay wise it's an improvement though. The puzzle solving was easy for the most part and the areas where you walk around are more linear compared to The Silver Case, which prevented my dumb ass from getting lost like I did during the final part of that game. Overall this is a good game and a must for those who want to play all of the Kill The Past titles.

Never played Prime before but even 20 years after the originals release I see why it's held in such high regard. Great atmosphere and exploration.

Nintendo really undersold how much was redone for this game. It looks fantastic on Switch. The comparisons between this version and the original show a ton of work was put into this.

Only have a couple small issues with it. There's one or two areas that really could have used one more save station due to how long and filled with enemies they are (looking at you Mines). Also could use a couple more major bosses.

Good game with a great story but definitely not a game without its flaws. I enjoyed the soundtrack and exploring Lospass Island, but I did not get that DS feeling when I had to constantly go back and forth across the island to do fetch quests. Pretty sure the joke Suda wanted to tell is since video games are considered to be just time wasters, the game decides to literally waste your time by doing the former and with having to do like 30 basic math problems at the end. As annoying as some of the gameplay can be, I still had a good time with the game but think it would have benefited from having more of a visual novel style like The Silver Case did.

This game is unimaginably horrible and it's baffling it's the hill so many are willing to die on. There is no enemy variety, which is for sure a good idea for a modern open world game. There is no spell variety either (26), which again certainly was a great idea for a modern rpg based solely around it's magic set at a magic school, but hey Harry Potter has always had a terrible magic system so ¯\(ツ)/¯. For reference Final Fantasy (1987 NES) has triple as many spells (60), and Skyrim a more modern open world game for comparison has over 100 AND both those games have multiple combat classes besides magic. The game will let you use the "unforgivable curses" but it has no morality system to give any meaningful consequences to your actions because according to the devs it would be "too judgmental on the game maker's part". The world is empty, which is always a problem with open world games (not remotely a fan of the genre tbh) and every door is a loading screen. The game is also a buggy mess and anyone saying otherwise is just lying, the game literally has Denuvo lmao. But none of this is surprising, ignoring the original author for a moment, every trailer made it look lackluster and it's made by the developers infamous for Disney tie-in shovelware.

And now for the elephant in the room... The game doubles down on all the racism and antisemitism of its source material, anyone saying Terfling had nothing to do with this game is bending the truth. The official Q&A for the game on their site says they worked closely with her team so it perfectly fits her world, and that it does a little too perfectly. The main premise is squashing a goblin rebellion riddled with antisemitism. The goblin rebellions are not new to the franchise, they are a thing mentioned in the books and expanded material as something the students learn in history class. And what were all the rebellions about? The lack or basic rights like using wands, and checks notes wizards attempting to enslave them "as house elves" but we’re supposed to believe they’re still the villains throughout the franchise?
Which brings us to the next topic, the house elves... As in the source material Hogwarts is run by slave labor and the franchise doesn't want us to look deeper into what that means, waving it off with "well they like it". But if wizards can attempt to enslave goblins as “house elves” what does that actually mean, what exactly is a “house elf” and why doesn’t the series creator want us to examine it? The head house elf at Hogwarts becomes a companion, so you don't actually get to own a slave but you still get one by proxy. The game also lets you decorate the Room of Requirement with mounted house elf heads, with how controversial this aspect of the books has always been idk who on the dev team didn’t think “maybe we shouldn’t keep the mounted head of a sapient creature decoration item”. Again none of this is surprising given the source material where they decorate houses with elf heads and the kids put little hats on during christmas, oh isn’t it so cute and whimsical? And the fact that one of the lead devs was a gamer gate youtuber (them stepping down was never going to divorce the game from these elements). The game is also a prequel set in the 1800s so it can't actually effectively deconstruct the issues with the source material, the goblins are still the anti-semetic bankers, the house elves are still slaves, and the ("good") wizards are still the good guys that have every right to oppress them. Just like Terflings own politics and the politics of the source material the game's message is about preserving the status quo, nothing meaningful can change and it shouldn’t cause we have a continuity to uphold damnit!
The game also throws in the series "first trans character" who they named "Sirona Ryan", this is a name of a Celtic goddess (as many people will point out in an attempt to ignore criticism, despite the origin not being the issue with the name) but just like "Cho Chang", "Anthony Goldstein" and "Kingsley Shacklebolt" it's certainly a choice out of all the Irish names to deliberately use that one for your first trans women. Sirona was also very obviously thrown in last minute in an attempt to save face and say the game was divorced from Terflings and her raging transphobia, but as you can see the game is quite the opposite.
But you know despite all that 9/10 IGN-ostalgia am I right!

In conclusion this game is truly the “Legacy” of this franchise and I can see why fans say “this is everything I ever wanted in a Harry Potter game” because this is all the franchise really truly is. I certainly hope everyone who bought the deluxe edition for the sole reason to spite a minority the author is actively harming daily love their overpriced shovelware and fuck off. Remember yall were the same people in the 90s who hated and wanted to boycott the books for being “satanic” and "progressive". (spoiler alert they never were)

And for anyone who can’t let go of the franchise because of “childhood” and cause “it’s so magical”, let me recommend “Earthsea” by Ursula K. Le Guin, “Discworld” by Terry Pratchett, and “Percy Jackson” by Rick Riordian. None of those series are perfect and have their fair share of problems, but they were written by authors who actually cared, who actually took criticism and grew from it. You can let go and grow too.

this DLC is fucking phenomenal and i cant stop thinking about how good this is

in my head this is a Final Mix add-on and its divided into 3 sections so i will be exposing them accordingly

the remind stuff is basically a rehash of the final story beats of KH3 and what a great rehash that is it adds some insights into the story events and i LOVED THEM they added so much to the scenes and i wish they were in the base game but whatever and also the ability to play as specific characters in some parts and i can say confidently that playing as roxas was the best thing to ever happen in my life to be honest i love him so much my sweet little baby and yeah you can play as other peeps even tho theyre kinda weak compared to sora but its fine ok its fine i love them i birthed all of them

tho this also means you have to go through the same bosses you fought in the base game but for me it wasnt that much of a pain because i loved those battles maybe playing this right after finishing kh3 isnt the best choice but i am me

also clearly i cried again for the roxas axel xion reunion lmaooo

after the boss rush you get to a segment that i loved which is exploring scala ad caelum which is something that i wanted to do in kh3 but couldnt because of how it played out so having this amazing landscape to run through is absolutely breathtaking

also theres a part where you fight with every single keyblade wielder as one youll get what i mean if you play it and a super badass moment from king mickey himself ? damn everybody got a spotlight in this

and then final boss with kairi FINALLY i can see (and play as) kairi fucking beat some asses i needed that in my life so bad

boom FINALE explaining more stuff that happened

great stuff

final cut is basically kh2 data battles and theyre fucking majestic but also incredibly hard so downside is you got to play the base game get to like level 99 get ultima get good gear and then you go do these fights without tearing your hair out

theyre kind of a greater and harder and more showy version of the final fights in the game and i wouldnt want them in any other way and possibly my fav one is the fight against xion that one is absolutely stunning and also v difficult and vector to the heavens is some of the best song ever in kh3 so yeah thats great

cool stuff

then theres a secret episode where you fight against sexy yozora and that ones a REAL HARD ONE hes fucking insane but also the best combat in the entirety of kingdom hearts so thats a +
you get some kind of mysterious ending that fan theorists will have a blast thinking about and hearing sora (+yozora) say ive been having this weird thoughts lately like is any of this for real or not kind of made me mentally backtrack the whole series and wow its just a mindblowing cliffhanger and yeah

GOAT addition

i think im finally done with kingdom hearts and probably i shouldve left these considerations in the kh3 review but i dont think there will ever be something that feels quite like kingdom hearts i have no idea what is it about this series that bewitched the entire world and me too but its just idk it feels like a series so personal and with a lot of love put into it that even with all the high highs and low lows i just cant help but enjoy it abundantly be it the characters or story or music this series is something that everyone should experience and im happy to have finally completed this fucking marathon and i beg everyone to at least get to kh2 to decide what to do next but i assure you that at that point you will already be hooked

i will miss it for a while and will be waiting for kingdom hearts 4 or whatever comes out before of that

peace nomura goated

damn first thing on re mind is gon just be luxord way to make me horny again after a good cry

i know that the master of masters is hot as fuck please take your coat off

PLAYING AS ROXAS IS SOMETHING ELSE I SWEAR PEOPLE IN THE BACK

exploring scala ad caelum is something else I swear

ven complimenting roxas just made my day tbh

that mickey sequence tho was cool af

ok sora you hugged kairi in outer space but you still got a bf waiting

THEYRE MAKING ME PLAY AS KAIRI LETS GOOOO that flower keyblade is sending me

I just noticed how cute kairi looks with short hair

also noticed how ugly axel looks with his new clothes and how cute xion looks with hers I was too busy crying last time

oh no leons really hot

OH NO CIDS HOT how are his shoulders so big umh sorry this is not the place to thirst