Talking about Revue Starlight is not an easy task, it’s a game I’m a bit conflicted.
As a game it’s not good at all, the gameplay is not fun, it’s a very basic turn based gameplay, PVE is piss easy, and PVP is mostly determined by power creep, so there’s no real strategy during the fights.
The gameplay parts are also poorly implemented into the game since it’s removed from the main story, it has no relevance being there, it’s just a way to unlock the rest of the story. The only strength of the fights is actually to listen to the songs you want during the activation of the climax of your characters (you can choose the song of your choice, there’s more than 50 of them I think since there are the insert songs of the anime, of the stage plays, of Re Live).
These songs give bonus to your characters, but you don’t care on PVP since it’s so easy, you just choose the song you want.

The gacha aspect is also a very serious issue, it’s a game wanting to take all your money by showing you very beautiful artworks of the characters you want to have, but there’s no way to farm gems to roll, you have to spend money on it (something I refuse to do).

The live 2D sprites are very charming and expressive, all the main characters (and there are more than 30 of them including some of them who only appears during the events and school stories) are dubbed, and it’s a bliss since it makes the game really lively. But the direction of the scenes is very poor, there is very few CG during the main story (the rare ones are good but it’s not on par with a lot of the visual novels I played).
The music is beautiful but except the insert songs, their number is too low, and that’s a shame even if I like them a lot.

But even if all the flaws I wrote about, guess what ? I JUST DON’T GIVE A F***.

Why ? Simply because Revue Starlight without hesitation has my favorite video game story by far (and overall, I only like a bit more Utawarerumono Mask of Truth in weeb media).
I had some doubts before starting the game since it’s a gacha, I’ve never played one but I had a lot of stereotypes (a lot of them were true) about this genre of games, I thought the game was only a way to make the fans spend tons of money (it’s the case but not just that), but the game really has a lovely story, central characters all are well developped (and the majority of them are wonderfully developped), and all of them have a relevance to the thematics of the game.

It probably helps that Re Live was written by Tatsuto Higuchin, the main scenarist of the anime and the movie. Re Live perfectly respects the thematics built by the anime and the movie while being its own thing, thematics regarding the importance of evolve as a person, that everything has an end but that’s okay, it’s just how life is, and also to not cling on toxic habits you can develop with other people even if they like you (or if you like them) but can hurt us, preventing us to express what we really want to be.

Of course these are common and grounded thematics, but I love how the Revue Starlight franchise express it in a really metaphorical way (using japanese theater), offering them a context (the stage) to help them express what they really feel, to break the mask they can have in their life, while showing us how they can shine. So I can say I was delighted to see the game respecting the anime and the movie.

I also need to say that the main story of Re Live is taking place after the events of the anime, so you need to watch it before playing Re Live, and the last arc of the game also has some references to the movie (I don’t think it’s mandatory to watch it to read it, but it’s better for the overall experience regarding the interactions of two characters during the last arc).

But of course, if it was only that (handling thematics already dealt with), it would have been a bit redundant since the anime and the movie already had these themes, especially given the main story is taking place after the events of anime. So I was pleased to discover a lot of new characters, the main story expands very naturally the setting of Revue Starlight, there’s now 4 schools instead of just one (Seisho, Rinmeikan, Siegfeld and Frontier).

These 3 new schools all have a different situation compared to Seisho, and their goal is also different, it gives to all these schools a very varied tone while impacting the relations between the characters. The new cast is extremely endearing, I even think some of them are even better than the original cast. There very varied situations of the characters gives a new flair to the thematics of the anime and the movie, and the greatest strength of Re Live, it’s that all of them will have their moment to shine, I never saw (in a weeb medium at least) so many characters having their moment to shine (even if some characters are more important than others).

Some characters like Aruru of Frontier (my favorite character and I didn’t even like her at the begining), Akira (Siegfeld) or Tomoe are at least on par with the original cast of Starlight.
The original cast has less development than the new cast, but I really like how their past experiences help the other girls of the schools, they feel like mentors and you really feel how they evolved during the anime, it was lovely to see how past events helped them becoming better people, while helping others at the same time.

Another strength of the main story is that it takes more time to build the relations between the characters (without having the pacing of a slice of life visual novel, I would not say it’s a slow burn reading), I think it was something a bit missing with the anime since developing 9 characters with 12 episodes was not enough. Adding that, the fact that it’s a gacha with a updated content allow introducing event stories developing even more the characters using the stage plays they are in, since they often use their outlook of life to play the characters they are playing, and there are sometimes some parallels between their past and how it will influence the plays.

One flaw is that it makes the chronology of story events a bit confusing, sometimes it’s hard to know when an event story happened, even if these event stories are mostly a addition to make the characters even more flashed out and enjoyable, there are not a lot of references to these events in the main story.

But if I already really enjoyed the main story of Re Live, it’s the final arc (Arcana Arcadia, the last half of the main story), and it was phenomenal, it’s at least as good as the movie (and the movie is awesome to me).
Atcana Arcadia brillantly used everything built during the main story to offer an amazing pay-off regarding the characters, a lot of scenes were really emotionally resonant to me, it’s really during this arc that the build-up of the character and the plot came to fruition. The metaphorical aspect of Revue Starlight is very present (while being very clear, I think Re Live is overall more accessible than the anime and the movie), the concept of the arc is genius and make the characters really think about themselves.
This arc also warps up the story in a lovely way, the main story lands the ending perfectly, it has no flaws in my eyes and it’s a miracle since I’m someone very picky.
I would like to wrote more about Arcana Arcadia without spoiling, but the pay-off of the story is amazing, it gave me more emotions and fulfillment than any other games I’ve played.
The six insert songs used during this arc are all incredible (special mention to Yami o Terasu Mono, this song and the context broke my heart) even if it’s a shame that the game only used a small part of the song instead of playing the song in its entirety.
Arcana Arcadia makes of Revue Starlight Re Live a wonderful metaphorical journey where characters look out of themselves, are lost in what they are, are doubtful, but are also evolving and shining brightly, and it was so beautiful, nothing can give me so much vigor than Revue Starlight.

Of course there are some contrivances in the plotting, it’s nothing new, it’s Revue Starlight and it was already established in the anime, the main story sometimes ask the player a suspension of disbelief since sometimes the twists are like «just shut up, it’s magic ». But that’s also the beauty of Revue Starlight, everything can happen on stage.

Thanks Revue Starlight Re Live even if you are a sticky gacha. I was already a big fan of Revue Starlight but the gacha made me a fan even more, and I love it also for allowing other stage plays with the dubbers of the game, it’s a joy since I love the songs of the franchises, there are a lot of new songs inspired by the characters of the gacha.

I think it's the expansion that made me really love Hollow Knight since I love to optimize boss fights, finding a way to be better, see the flaws of what I'm doing.

Pantheon of Hallownest was tedious at times since it was a bit frustrating to start from the get-go after being defeated by a boss like Oblobble when I was not careful enough and just wanted to get to the end (shit boss by the way) but you really feel your progression as a player, you become more constant, and you feel the pay-off when you beat Pantheon of Hallownest.

I spend 60 hours on this dlc (a lot more than it took me to beat the normal ending) and it was a blast, it reminded me the feelings I had when I tried to beat Bloodborne with a LvL 4 character, the feeling of overcoming a really difficult challenge.

The expansion also add Pure Vessel, probably my favorite boss of the entire game, or at least my co-favorite, I can't decide between him and Nightmare King Grimm since I think Pure Vessel is more interesting since the rhythm is more difficult to master and I also really enjoyed the very melancholic mood of the fight, but Nightmare King Grimm is more spectacular and epic while being a fight giving you less creativity than Pure Vessel in the way you are playing (since it's basically a dance with him).

Absolute Radiance is also an excellent fight even if too reliant on RNG (the boss can be hell or very easy depending of the RNG), it's a very fun boss to try to master since there are so many combinaisons of patterns, you always have to adapt to the boss. I fought her countless times and never a fight was similar to another one. The Nail Masters were also a very nice addition, Sly being my favorite with the Brothers.

It's just a shame that some bosses are poorly balanced, I already spoke about Oblobbles but Markoth without floor is boring, No Eyes is not really a hard boss on P5 but the boss can be really annoying to get stuck in places you just can't hit. Sometimes I'm wondering if the dream bosses in P5 were tested before the extension was released.

I can't rate it alone (like Grimm Troupe DLC) since it's part of Hollow Knight for me, but I really loved it individually and for how it impacted my Hollow Knight experience despite the flaws I wrote about.
It's only a DLC for really dedicated players who love to tryhard, I don't think it's a fun DLC if you don't like this kind of challenge.

Monochrome Mobius was not really a game I was looking forward to play that much since the game did not look really appealing to me before it was released. But I still gave it a try since it's still Utawarerumono even if it's not mentionned in the title, since I was interested in how a prequel would work out.
The result is that in my opinion for me a very bad RPG with a nice enough story (and a lore as good as the trilogy).

I'll start with the good (since I have way more bad things to say than good) :

- The plot is interesting, it start with something really classic (finding the truth about a disappeared father), it really feels like a journey since the game make you visit a lot of places of the universe (a lot of them are new even to the Utawarerumono fan). But very fast, it takes this basic plot of finding your disappearing father to add a lot of elements to the lore, some of them are already known by the players since it was already spoked during the Mask duology, but it gives more details to it. I think any Utawarerumono fan would be at least satisfied by this aspect of the game.
- The music is nice enough, nothing breathtaking (comparing to the trilogy) but it's still nice to hear the composers working for a RPG this time. I'm a bit sad that the exploration OST are so few though.
- The dynamic of the main party is good (mostly between Mikazuchi and Oshtor), it feels like a real group, with no one being out of place (something I can't even say for the original trilogy since some characters were mostly just there, not that it's a major flaw to me). It really helps that the game only has 4 playable characters (a bit like Trails From Zero). I don't really like her but Shunya is still a solid character, with enough development (part of it is pretty subtile, so it's nice).
- The last scene of the game is really good, it opens some really interesting points for a sequel (if it's released, the game will probably flop, and the sales in the first week in Japan were really weak for a newly released game).

For the bad (of the things I didn't enjoy) :
- While the story is still interesting and the lore is rich, I really disliked how shonen the narrative structure was.
Of course it make sense but for me, it was executed in a bland way, with a lot of tropes I've already seen in other JRPG/animes (the game has some scenes with similarities to Kimetsu no Yaiba, and it's not a compliment to me). I'm not against shonens at all (I'm a Xenoblade 2 fan after all) but I was a bit disappointed by it since the Mask duology had some shonen scenes/aspects but it was less invasive.
- The game was honestly a pain to play, the gameplay is dull and balanced poorly, the game forces you to kill a lot of enemies (and there are a lot of them in the dungeons) and to complete a lot of (bland) sidequests to keep your characters at a decent level. I found myself being underleveled before the final boss even though I completed 20 sidequests, I don't think it was a good decision given how the fights are tedious in the long run for me.
- The game is also quite ugly for me, it's their first JRPG so I could have forgiven, but for a game of 2022 it's really ugly, the characters models are lacking in charm in my eyes, the graphics are really poor, and the map is really bland. And frankly, the NPCs without a face are shameful, I've never seen that in a recent JRPG (some titles at least are more elegant about that), they didn't even try to mask it a little bit. It's not an issue for some people but I think immersion is still something important in a JRPG, and the towns of the game felt really hollow and lacking in life because of this. It was also annoying to see these NPCs during some cutscenes, it was hard to take the game seriously at times because of that. But it's not the only issue with the towns, they are quite empty with nothing to do, you just go there to start some (uninspired) sidequests and to buy equipement and items. There are also a lof of invisible walls, with part of the towns you can't even access, while the towns are already very small.
- The exploration is not satisfying to me, there are some little secrets but they have nothing really worth to give to the player except nice items, sometimes it reward you with "viewpoints" but frankly it did not feel rewarding since the game has poor graphics and the art direction is lacking (even if sometimes it has nice ideas, like the final dungeon).
- There are also some aspects of the characterization of Shunya and Munechika I really disliked, but it's hard to speak about it without spoiling for Shunya. Regarding Munechika, I really didn't like how tropey her character was and how they wrote her "feminine side", it felt a bit cringe and too clichey (even if it's probably a persona).
- The cutscene direction was horrendous, the game really has poor animation and it's even more visible during the cutscenes, it was often hard for me to take the game seriously during the "hype scenes" since the characters feels really static, it was honestly worse than Cold Steel 3 and Cold Steel 3 was not good in this aspect (while being a game of 2017).
- The main "antagonist" of the game is unique in some aspects (with a good character design), but fails to be really compelling because of a lack of presence during the game, it's a shame since the motives of this characters make a lot of sense in the story/lore of the game. Regarding the other antagonists, one of them was okay, nothing really that interesting but at least his character was cohesive, but the other antagonists were just annoying and very clichey, it's a shame since the game point out that no camp is really evil, but the game still has some really cartoon evil characters. The antagonists were never the main strength of Utawarerumono but I was expecting them to improve a little bit regarding this aspect, but it did not happened.
- The visual novel sections are really poor, with not enough sprites, all the characters have like 5 different sprites. I would have forgiven this if it was fully a JRPG but these sections are separated for the rest of the game, so it's hard for me to ignore. The rare CGs of the game at least are good, even if I think the chara design of the visual novel sections is way below the style of the Mask duology and Prelude of the Fallen.
- The pacing of the game suffer because of the lengths of the dungeons, and I think the game is a bit too long for what it wants to tell, even if the story of the game is not really complete.

TL;DR : I did not enjoy the game at all even if the plot was nice (with some underwhelming aspects in my eyes) but it was not enough for me to appreciate it since it's in my opinion a bad RPG, Aquaplus should have sticken to visual novels in my opinion, even if I can still respect their wish to release a RPG. I also had no real expectations as a RPG but it was worse than I thought it would be, and I thought the story would also be better.