Fire Emblem 7 The Blazing Blade
a fun game held up high by its units while being dragged down by its final boss

The characters unit wise really make the game, character wise many feel kind of bland
I've talked about how I feel about the lords a lot, didn't change
I really enjoyed the interactions with the player character as a tactician and it makes the game feel more involved, it's just a shame they don't do it as much after Lyns story until the end of the game
The story was kind of bland
Although I liked Ninian and Nils, Ninian being kidnapped like 4 times really didn't help me enjoy the story

Unit Spoilers -----------------------------------------------------


I really dislike how at the end of the game Athos is the only really viable unit, most others doing very little to no damage against the bosses especially the final one where these master weapons meant to be absolutely insane deal like 9 damage max while Athos is doing minimum 20
I just kept giving Athos Elixirs while he wailed on the final boss

There's a lot of post game stuff I'll probably come back to but in terms of the main story it is complete.

The story is a wonderful experience
Both the minor stories that you start with as well as both how they relate to and feed into the main storyline
The game deals a lot with death and consequence in such a beautiful way
The death of towns, the death of status, the death of empires, to the death of a single person. Each touched on beautifully.
Each smaller story is so packed with love and hurt, the characters really do shine through in each of their experiences and how they deal with grief, identity, life and many times their own death
The main story is especially touching and brought me close to tears at many points, it's just a wholly beautiful and heartfelt game and story that I can't help but recommend
The music is also equally as beautiful, the score especially when dealing with the celestial aspects is hauntingly beautiful. Especially whenever it concerns Yggdrasil
My main issue with it is funny enough one I also had with FF3 which is the grind required at multiple points is actually insane. Might have been the party composition I was working with but easily the last good long part of the game is simply spent grinding for levels
But even then, the story, characters, music and boss fights are worth the grind 100%

Started it immediately after Portrait of Ruin and finished it in a day
It’s fucking good
The cast is amazing, Soma is an amazing protagonist, while short, the characters do have an impact, although you do wish to see more of them.
The movement is amazing, especially after playing the much slower DS titles, having a good base movement speed and dash feels extremely satisfying.
It has the GBA issues though, a lot of running back and forth to get to a teleporter and a bit of annoying backtracking.
It’s an amazing title, really good, really fun, the monster mechanic was really cool to fuck about with.

Spoilers~~~~

While I could see the twist a mile away it was still well deserved and just felt right, the power and mimicking of the skills Dracula has had in so many of the games and taking down the chaos that caused it to be felt like a really fitting end

It crashes, made some longer missions almost unplayable till i found a fix
Once I got that fix though
Pure Kino
Jacket's scenario peak
Biker's scenario peak
Additional missions were really fun
It seems I do like hurting people

Honestly had a lot more fun with this than I thought I would from all the fear mongering that surrounds this game
I honestly really like the more stats focused system even if I had some trouble with realising I need to grind my buffs so they actually apply and function
It hit me when I was in a grinding mood anyway so it really didn’t bother me.
The atmosphere of the world is insanely good with being able to walk most places made the later ships feel more like a bonus rather than a necessity for good and bad
I do feel like it dragged close to the end, the ambush rooms were novel at first but just became mildly annoying when it’s almost every room with little to no feeling orlf risk reward and more luck due to the few rooms that have treasures
The cast and world were really well crafted, the music and landmarks added on to the oppressive atmosphere the emperor had created in the land. With the characters and designs really making this game pop.
Although I will say the other party members felt very weak apart from minwu, especially Leon, with everyone else being at least 3k health him being 1k on joining felt very not well planned
I’m not gonna try and compare it to the other nes era games I played since I played wildly different versions of each. But I will say that this way to play the game felt perfect, but we’ll see what happens when I play the pixel remaster or the original nes

Blasphemous is gorgeous
It plays with Catholic iconography and style to make something truly remarkable.

Even with this the gameplay doesn't take a back seat, it's strong, responsive and really fucking fun to slice and slash through the dissolving world of the miracle.

I have an issue with the endgame they get a bit too trigger happy with the instant death spike pits and some of the Miriam's challenges are just unfair and took me longer than any boss to beat.

I wasn't able to 100% my first run only able to get a 99.8 due to me equiping the pure heart of the Mea Culpa leaving me unable to get 2 items needed for 100%.

The game doesn't feel like a pain to explore which is important for metroidvanias, both the level design and art make it a joy to see every inch of.

The game is wonderful and had a grip on me throughout the time I played it, I will be going back to get ending B, but I have gotten A and C