Heretick
2015
Considered it to be the objective best (though not my favorite) of the From games until Elden Ring came out. Still a fantastic game on its own merits that I'd argue does many things better than ER. Probably the height of From's pre-jump button level design, and FANTASTIC bosses. A certain scythe wielder is still likely my favorite boss in any of these games.
2009
Super compelling when it came out, and still one of the best in the series. The vibe has never been matched.
2011
Unpopular opinion, but this basically took all the stuff that frustrated me about Demon's Souls and doubled down on it. My least favorite in the series.
About as good of a follow-up to the original one could hope for, and that's some high praise from me. I simply haven't played as much of it because it really is SO similar to the original, and I've played that one SO MUCH.
A hidden gem. Slow as mud, but one of the all-time great SRPGs. A little Fire Emblem, a little Pokemon, a little Risk.
Hilariously incompetent game
Dual wielding, sprinting, and faces are genuinely the only things that I think are improved from Oblivion, everything else feels like a step back.
The level scaling SUUUUUCKS but the more colorful, fantasy style works great as a change of pace after Morrowind, and anyone who says otherwise is a manchild who wants every game to be gray and brown blobs. Potato people are funny to look at, the game is a meme machine, and the sidequests are the best in the series. Shivering Isles also rules.
based
2015
Making the shooting pretty good doesn't atone for what they did to the Fallout franchise, but it's still decent
2010
Somehow made the Fallout 3 shooting worth suffering through
Incredible achievement
Incredible achievement
2008
Worst modern Bethesda game (that's not an MMO)
Fite me
Fite me
1994
This review contains spoilers
Genuinely think it's pretty overrated. I understand how it was probably mind-blowing for the English-speaking world on the SNES, since V wasn't ported, but there really isn't much here that IV and V hadn't already done, aside from a few neat setpieces (the train, the opera). The "Every character is the main character!" thing is also completely overblown and just straight-up not true. The Esper system, while it has massive potential, unlocks late enough in the game to be frustrating. You're virtually de-incentivized to level up until the second half of the game.
I've seen people claim that this lesser-focus on leveling makes the first half of the game dependent entirely on "strategy" and I just entirely disagree. I dunno. Maybe it's the fact that I grew up playing and re-playing FF IV and I (On PS1 and GBA, I'm not quite THAT old), or, hell, maybe this type of turn-based gameplay just comes easy to me for some reason, but I could sleep through most every encounter in this game. There was nothing particularly engaging about the gameplay until the Espers unlocked.
Also, Kefka just sorta sucks. There's virtually no creativity in his characterization. He is almost entirely just a copy/paste of the Joker at his most chaotic/edgy. The visual design of him is great (though even that is pretty much just an Amano'd Joker), but his personality/motivation is EXTREMEMLY one-dimensional. His entire schtick is just uncaring chaos with a pinch of cruelty mixed in. He literally gains god-like power by just... moving a few statues around. "But don't you see? Those statues are basically the inanimate gods of the world! They control the laws of physics and magic! They could completely change everything or even destroy the world if you disturb them! Kefka moves them without knowing what will happen! Isn't that CrAaAAaaZyyyyy????!!!"
Sure, it's crazy. It's also just sorta stupid. It's an idea that COULD have been compelling if Square had created a villain with actual motivation or personality beyond "LOL aren't I so dark and ChAOtic????", but they didn't. Kefka's popularity will never not be entirely baffling to me. He feels like an afterthought in a game that was more concerned with trying to balance 80 party members who they try to give distinct back stories to. It's like they wrote the first half of the game (Wherein you're fighting against a vast, evil empire; standard FF stuff), then realized it wrapped up too quickly, panicked, and said, "I know! What about a cRaZY, evil clown!?". Then they made the second half and stuck a few Kefka moments into the first half for good measure, then cooked up a hare-brained, half-baked reason for the pivot to make sense. It's sorta like the Golbez/Zemus thing in FFIV, except the ENTIRE STORY hinges on it, instead of it being a disappointing twist in the last hour or two of the game.
Also, let's talk main characters. Because, despite what the game tries to make you think with its huge party cast, there are basically 3: Locke (for the entirety), Celes (for the second half), and Terra (For the first half). Then there's a tier of important characters below that that get a LITTLE more attention paid to their story (Mainly Sabin, Edgar, and Cyan), and then there's the rest. They have little bits of story, some more than others, but they're mostly just sorta... there. My level of affection for them came down almost entirely to visual design and stats, since they are, by and large, so entirely inconsequential and un-memorable.
I liked Terra well enough, though I found her fairly uninteresting. Celes was cool. Locke...
Nah. Locke sucks. It's like they wanted to put Han Solo in the game but completely fumbled on making him likeable or competent. Y'know, the two things that make Han (and any other dashing-rogue archetype character) an enjoyable, complete character? It's as if they said, "Hey, remember Edge from FFIV? What if we did that again without the character growth or charm? Cause, you know, we have such a huge cast, they can only have one strong character trait each!"
So, despite the reveal of the tragic backstory, despite the saving of the world from a crazed-idiot-god, Locke stays the bumbling, unlikable a**hole. He remains the "lame guy who thinks he's cool" without ever getting any growth or dimensional change. Edge did it better two games ago; Cloud does it better (even with the bad English translation) the game after. Hell, Matsuno barely trying and ripping off Star Wars with Balthier in XII stomps Locke into the dirt. I have no idea how they fumbled an archetype THAT stock, that badly. And he's pretty much THE main character. GREAT.
I would, unequivocally, rather play FF I, IV, V, VII, VIII, IX, or XII over this. Maybe even II and XV, too. I likely won't ever play it again. It's fine, but not much else.
I've seen people claim that this lesser-focus on leveling makes the first half of the game dependent entirely on "strategy" and I just entirely disagree. I dunno. Maybe it's the fact that I grew up playing and re-playing FF IV and I (On PS1 and GBA, I'm not quite THAT old), or, hell, maybe this type of turn-based gameplay just comes easy to me for some reason, but I could sleep through most every encounter in this game. There was nothing particularly engaging about the gameplay until the Espers unlocked.
Also, Kefka just sorta sucks. There's virtually no creativity in his characterization. He is almost entirely just a copy/paste of the Joker at his most chaotic/edgy. The visual design of him is great (though even that is pretty much just an Amano'd Joker), but his personality/motivation is EXTREMEMLY one-dimensional. His entire schtick is just uncaring chaos with a pinch of cruelty mixed in. He literally gains god-like power by just... moving a few statues around. "But don't you see? Those statues are basically the inanimate gods of the world! They control the laws of physics and magic! They could completely change everything or even destroy the world if you disturb them! Kefka moves them without knowing what will happen! Isn't that CrAaAAaaZyyyyy????!!!"
Sure, it's crazy. It's also just sorta stupid. It's an idea that COULD have been compelling if Square had created a villain with actual motivation or personality beyond "LOL aren't I so dark and ChAOtic????", but they didn't. Kefka's popularity will never not be entirely baffling to me. He feels like an afterthought in a game that was more concerned with trying to balance 80 party members who they try to give distinct back stories to. It's like they wrote the first half of the game (Wherein you're fighting against a vast, evil empire; standard FF stuff), then realized it wrapped up too quickly, panicked, and said, "I know! What about a cRaZY, evil clown!?". Then they made the second half and stuck a few Kefka moments into the first half for good measure, then cooked up a hare-brained, half-baked reason for the pivot to make sense. It's sorta like the Golbez/Zemus thing in FFIV, except the ENTIRE STORY hinges on it, instead of it being a disappointing twist in the last hour or two of the game.
Also, let's talk main characters. Because, despite what the game tries to make you think with its huge party cast, there are basically 3: Locke (for the entirety), Celes (for the second half), and Terra (For the first half). Then there's a tier of important characters below that that get a LITTLE more attention paid to their story (Mainly Sabin, Edgar, and Cyan), and then there's the rest. They have little bits of story, some more than others, but they're mostly just sorta... there. My level of affection for them came down almost entirely to visual design and stats, since they are, by and large, so entirely inconsequential and un-memorable.
I liked Terra well enough, though I found her fairly uninteresting. Celes was cool. Locke...
Nah. Locke sucks. It's like they wanted to put Han Solo in the game but completely fumbled on making him likeable or competent. Y'know, the two things that make Han (and any other dashing-rogue archetype character) an enjoyable, complete character? It's as if they said, "Hey, remember Edge from FFIV? What if we did that again without the character growth or charm? Cause, you know, we have such a huge cast, they can only have one strong character trait each!"
So, despite the reveal of the tragic backstory, despite the saving of the world from a crazed-idiot-god, Locke stays the bumbling, unlikable a**hole. He remains the "lame guy who thinks he's cool" without ever getting any growth or dimensional change. Edge did it better two games ago; Cloud does it better (even with the bad English translation) the game after. Hell, Matsuno barely trying and ripping off Star Wars with Balthier in XII stomps Locke into the dirt. I have no idea how they fumbled an archetype THAT stock, that badly. And he's pretty much THE main character. GREAT.
I would, unequivocally, rather play FF I, IV, V, VII, VIII, IX, or XII over this. Maybe even II and XV, too. I likely won't ever play it again. It's fine, but not much else.
The series has its ups and downs, but I think the entire trilogy is fully worth playing, and this is a great way to do it.
2012
This is a game that requires a recalibration of expectations. A lot of people have tried to figure out exactly WHY people hated the ending so much, and the most people could come up with is "You're choices throughout the trilogy don't matter in the ending!!" Which is true. And it sucks, but I think it's deeper than that. I don't think the ending would have been so massively controversial if it weren't for the rest of the game. I believe that the rest of the game, through many of it's choices, was building a sort of resentment in most players, subliminally. Most people wouldn't notice, but the ending ended up being the straw that broke the camel's back, as it were. Let me explain.
Mass Effect 1 and 2 had conditioned players to the idea that their choice mattered. More importantly than that, it conditioned players to the fact that no matter what choice they made, they could still make everyone pretty much happy. Whether Paragon OR Renegade, you really had to go out of your way to burn any bridges permanently and miss out on content. Everything could be a happy ending, regardless of most choices you made, or how much of a boyscout or POS you were.
ME3 committed two fatal flaws. They not only had the gall to make choices ACTUALLY have huge irreparable consequences where there was no happy endings in this game for the first time in the franchise, but they also made it clear that the big choices you made in 1 and 2... mostly don't matter. This was a problem endemic to the entire game, not just the ending. I think there's one big reason for this: Money. Expectations. Mass Effect 1 garnered a cult following, and Mass Effect 2 became a surprise hit overnight. Expectations for 3 were huge, and EA wanted Bioware to make this franchise a juggernaut. And it was damn close to happening. But in trying to sell as many copies and onboard as many new players to the franchise as possible, They had to make 3 as accessible to new players as it was to old players. The way they did this was by homogenizing as much as the content as they could between playthroughs. That means every scenario had to be as middle of the road and non-1-and-2-choice dependent as possible, simply to be friendly to new players. Yes, the motion comics existed for players to fill in big choices from previous games before starting 3, but without the proper, full context of the games themselves, most new players wouldn't understand what they were picking anyway. So it ultimately wasn't just the ending that was railroaded, it was the entire game. Which ran counter to everything the franchise had not only been promising, but EXECUTING on up until that point. Conditioning players for. Perhaps a defter hand could have pulled off that transition of expectation versus reality in a more satisfying way, but a AAA game from a studio who traditionally made niche RPGs? With massive expectations? With EA breathing down their necks? No shot.
So why does my review have 4 1/2 stars? Recalibration of expectations, and a healthy dose of DLC. I was an ME1 and 2 fanatic before this game came out. I think I had played through them both 7 or 8 times already. I was eating it up. Then 3 came out, and I HATED it. I wasn't able to properly articulate it at the time like I am now, but the whole thing just felt WRONG. I didn't even see the ending. I got to Priority: Thessia and gave up out of frustration. I didn't touch a Mass Effect game for years afterwards.
But then the itch came back. I thought It'd be fun to play the first Mass Effect (my favorite) again. So I did, and I had a great time... So I decided to play through 2. And then 2 was over, and I wanted more Mass Effect, so I did the unthinkable: I booted up 3. I have a very good memory, so I could remember everything I had played in 3 all those years ago. That was key. The parts I found disappointing couldn't disappoint me again; I knew they were there. And I was shocked to find... I was actually having fun? Crazy, I know, but the combat felt REALLY good. Far better than 2, actually. The level design was better, too. More thought put into them to make fun shooting areas. And the disappointments weren't disappointing, because I had already gone through them once. Some parts were still a shame, I thought, but I was having too good of a time to care with my lowered expectations. I actually finished the game this time. And yeah, the ending kinda sucked, but I had fun. It was a weird thing to try to reconcile in my brain for a while. I actually thought, despite the obvious flaws, that the game was good.
Then about a year later, I got the itch again. Full trilogy. But this time, I'd get the ME3 DLC, as well. I didn't have high expectations, since ME1 and 2's DLC had all been... pretty bad, actually. The character DLC in 2 was good, at least, but that was about it. Imagine my surprise when I found out that ALL of the ME3 DLC was actually... Really good. REALLY good. I loved Leviathan and all it's lore, Omega was super well designed and fun, and Citadel actually succeeded in being kinda funny and heartwarming, and allowed for a lot more time spent with the characters you came to love in 1 and 2.
The DLC, in a weird way, made the flow of the game make more sense. Yes, it's bad that you had to PAY to put the content there, but once the meat was on that game in all the right places, I was having even more fun. An astounding amount, really. I think around my third full trilogy playthrough, I realized it had become my second favorite in the series.
So yes, It still has those big problems, but a shift in expectations and some thoughtful DLC revealed a VERY fun game. In fact, I may even look forward to it the most in trilogy playthrough these days. I just love getting my hands on it. Once you dig in, it really plays (and is designed, at least from a gameplay perspective) exceptionally well. I now can see why Bioware thought they could shift away from RPGs and make Anthem. I mean, it was a huge mistake, but ME3 feels so satisfying, I could see where they were coming from.
Ending still sucks, tho
Mass Effect 1 and 2 had conditioned players to the idea that their choice mattered. More importantly than that, it conditioned players to the fact that no matter what choice they made, they could still make everyone pretty much happy. Whether Paragon OR Renegade, you really had to go out of your way to burn any bridges permanently and miss out on content. Everything could be a happy ending, regardless of most choices you made, or how much of a boyscout or POS you were.
ME3 committed two fatal flaws. They not only had the gall to make choices ACTUALLY have huge irreparable consequences where there was no happy endings in this game for the first time in the franchise, but they also made it clear that the big choices you made in 1 and 2... mostly don't matter. This was a problem endemic to the entire game, not just the ending. I think there's one big reason for this: Money. Expectations. Mass Effect 1 garnered a cult following, and Mass Effect 2 became a surprise hit overnight. Expectations for 3 were huge, and EA wanted Bioware to make this franchise a juggernaut. And it was damn close to happening. But in trying to sell as many copies and onboard as many new players to the franchise as possible, They had to make 3 as accessible to new players as it was to old players. The way they did this was by homogenizing as much as the content as they could between playthroughs. That means every scenario had to be as middle of the road and non-1-and-2-choice dependent as possible, simply to be friendly to new players. Yes, the motion comics existed for players to fill in big choices from previous games before starting 3, but without the proper, full context of the games themselves, most new players wouldn't understand what they were picking anyway. So it ultimately wasn't just the ending that was railroaded, it was the entire game. Which ran counter to everything the franchise had not only been promising, but EXECUTING on up until that point. Conditioning players for. Perhaps a defter hand could have pulled off that transition of expectation versus reality in a more satisfying way, but a AAA game from a studio who traditionally made niche RPGs? With massive expectations? With EA breathing down their necks? No shot.
So why does my review have 4 1/2 stars? Recalibration of expectations, and a healthy dose of DLC. I was an ME1 and 2 fanatic before this game came out. I think I had played through them both 7 or 8 times already. I was eating it up. Then 3 came out, and I HATED it. I wasn't able to properly articulate it at the time like I am now, but the whole thing just felt WRONG. I didn't even see the ending. I got to Priority: Thessia and gave up out of frustration. I didn't touch a Mass Effect game for years afterwards.
But then the itch came back. I thought It'd be fun to play the first Mass Effect (my favorite) again. So I did, and I had a great time... So I decided to play through 2. And then 2 was over, and I wanted more Mass Effect, so I did the unthinkable: I booted up 3. I have a very good memory, so I could remember everything I had played in 3 all those years ago. That was key. The parts I found disappointing couldn't disappoint me again; I knew they were there. And I was shocked to find... I was actually having fun? Crazy, I know, but the combat felt REALLY good. Far better than 2, actually. The level design was better, too. More thought put into them to make fun shooting areas. And the disappointments weren't disappointing, because I had already gone through them once. Some parts were still a shame, I thought, but I was having too good of a time to care with my lowered expectations. I actually finished the game this time. And yeah, the ending kinda sucked, but I had fun. It was a weird thing to try to reconcile in my brain for a while. I actually thought, despite the obvious flaws, that the game was good.
Then about a year later, I got the itch again. Full trilogy. But this time, I'd get the ME3 DLC, as well. I didn't have high expectations, since ME1 and 2's DLC had all been... pretty bad, actually. The character DLC in 2 was good, at least, but that was about it. Imagine my surprise when I found out that ALL of the ME3 DLC was actually... Really good. REALLY good. I loved Leviathan and all it's lore, Omega was super well designed and fun, and Citadel actually succeeded in being kinda funny and heartwarming, and allowed for a lot more time spent with the characters you came to love in 1 and 2.
The DLC, in a weird way, made the flow of the game make more sense. Yes, it's bad that you had to PAY to put the content there, but once the meat was on that game in all the right places, I was having even more fun. An astounding amount, really. I think around my third full trilogy playthrough, I realized it had become my second favorite in the series.
So yes, It still has those big problems, but a shift in expectations and some thoughtful DLC revealed a VERY fun game. In fact, I may even look forward to it the most in trilogy playthrough these days. I just love getting my hands on it. Once you dig in, it really plays (and is designed, at least from a gameplay perspective) exceptionally well. I now can see why Bioware thought they could shift away from RPGs and make Anthem. I mean, it was a huge mistake, but ME3 feels so satisfying, I could see where they were coming from.
Ending still sucks, tho