Granblue Fantasy Relink was a lot of fun. I went into this game not knowing anything about the universe of Granblue & I was admittedly very worried that I wouldn’t understand what was going on. Luckily I had a friend who reassured me that I would be absolutely fine & that Relink does a very good job of explaining everything about the characters & their backgrounds as well as the world itself.

The story isn’t really anything special. A group of skyfarers going on a journey trying to save the world from evil. It’s very much a simple narrative that won’t blow you away or anything. However the pacing itself? Absolutely fantastic. I never felt bored & that things were moving too slow, it was very consistent in keeping my attention all the way through. The characters in itself are very likeable & I found them all to be equally endearing. And the bond that they share with each other feels so natural & man…this game’s just really charming. Despite its simplicity, it was really cozy & easy to get into. I grew to really love the crew of the Grandcypher & I wanted to learn more about them.

The main story itself took me around 18 hours to finish but the endgame is where I would say the real “meat” of the game is with some very tough quests & boss battles. And on the topic of boss battles, oh they went all out with them. Some of the best boss fights I’ve played in any action RPG. They’re grandeur, they’re intense & I always found myself amped up with so much adrenaline whenever I fought against them.

The combat in itself was really enjoyable. Each character has their own distinctive moveset & skills which you can customise to best suit your playstyle. Each of the 20 characters you can unlock all feels different & worth investing in their masteries to strengthen them & unlock their full potential in battle. As well as that you have sigil slots which you can use for your characters to increase their capabilities in battle such as having more health or attack power. The possibilities are endless for how you want to build your characters & I found myself really amazed with just how much depth there was to each party member & how you can build them. For those curious who my favourite characters to play were I would say Narmaya, Siegfried & Cagilostro were the most fun for me.

The visuals in this game too are absolutely outstanding & the artstyle is gorgeous too. This is one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever seen, it has that perfect anime artstyle almost like a painting & the character & world designs are just stunning. And how can I not talk about the music, Tsutomu Narita seriously popped off with this game’s score, especially during the boss battles.

Honestly while Granblue Fantasy Relink didn’t blow me away or anything like that, this was a really really solid action RPG. And it’s actually got me very interested in venturing deeper into the world of Granblue Fantasy as a whole. I had a very good time with this game & I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the genre.

Final score: 8/10

Now normally I would make a little preamble, going into history & whatnot but I don’t think I need to go in depth about what makes Final Fantasy VII so beloved. It’s one of the most critically acclaimed JRPGs ever made. It’s revolutionary in more ways than one & it’s a very important game in the genre for several reasons which I would just be repeating what everyone else has said about it.

Though I can talk about my own personal experience. I first played FFVII Remake back in 2020 & I found it be really enjoyable even if I did play it before the original game which I do not recommend since I see it as more of a pseudo sequel if anything. Two years later, I actually played FFVII for the first time & while I do find it to be a great game, I think it is a tad overrated by fans (I would honestly say I prefer FFIX personally) & then when I got my PS5, I decided to replay FFVII Remake & found myself appreciating it a lot more because of my experience with the original game. So many more moments just hit harder because of that prior knowledge that I now had & while Remake certainly had its flaws, I really really do love Final Fantasy VII Integrade, especially with the added on DLC called Intermission with Yuffie. So after three years, was Final Fantasy VII Rebirth worth waiting for? In short. Yeah. It absolutely was.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is everything that I wanted it to be & more. I find it really difficult to put my thoughts into words for this game. It took everything that I loved about Remake & improved on that & the things that I didn’t really like as well. If you’re wondering if you can play this before the others, yeah no do not do that. There is a recap of the events of Remake but I would highly advise playing it first if not the original as well as was stated before to get the most out of Rebirth as a whole. I do not recommend starting with this one so please for your own sake play the other games that came prior.

So let’s talk about that story shall we? The narrative is excellent. It very closely follows the original much like Remake did for the Midgar portion of the story with some minor tweaks here & there. A lot of people found the pacing in Remake to have been a issue (mainly because it was a six hour section in the original game stretched out to 25-30 hours) though I will say I enjoyed how Remake expanded on Midgar even if I will agree it did drag on a little too much. However with that being said, the pacing for Rebirth is immaculate. It never felt too slow or too fast, to me it was just right mostly. Though I will admit there were some sections that I found to be a little worse than others, there was never a moment in the story where I felt it dragged on too much. I felt a lot of emotions throughout this game & seeing moments from the original felt so much more impactful because of the incredible performances of the cast.

Oh & the main cast for this game, I love them. All of them. Cloud, Tifa, Barrett & Aerith are still fantastic but I have to give a special shout-out to Red XII, Yuffie & Cait Sith also who have so much more personality to them now mainly thanks to their stellar performances & are implemented into the game so wonderfully with their story arcs. Especially Yuffie who was optional in the original game but this time I found that her inclusion felt so much more natural & I really enjoyed the dynamic she had with the rest of the party to the point she’s one of my favourite FF characters now. Cait Sith I didn’t care too much for in the original game but Rebirth made me love the silly little cat & I found him to be so charming & a lot of fun. And Red XII who was already one of my favourite party members is now even more endearing thanks to this game. It really is impressive how not a single character of this cast I dislike, they are all so loveable & full of life now & that makes me very happy.

Away from the main story though, each region on the map is expansive & filled with so much to do. I was actually impressed with just how massive each of them were & the amount of content that was packed into each area made it feel like one of the most rewarding open worlds I’ve ever experienced in a JRPG. And just comparing them to the original, seeing locations with so much detail like Junon, Cosmo Canyon & Nibelheim gave me so much serotonin it can’t even be described. Oh & there are SO many mini games. My personal favourite being the new card game Queen’s Blood which I would be fully on board with Square making it into a full game because it was just that addicting & I swear anytime I got the chance to play it, I always made sure to search for new players in towns & cities.

Also this game is absolutely gorgeous. And what’s even more impressive to me is even with how big these areas are, I saw absolutely no pop in whatsoever. That is truly incredible for a game of this magnitude (really putting that massive 145GB file size to good use Square Enix) the attention to detail is just immaculate & it’s one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played on the PS5.

The combat in this game is once again incredible. It’s pretty similar to Remake but with a number of quality of life improvements & gameplay tweaks which make it a lot more fun. You have synergy skills now where you & another party member can pull off a special team move whether it’s a power attack or a buff to increase your ATB gauges. Each character has their own defining gameplay style & it definitely is good to experiment with different team combinations so you can play to their strengths & weaknesses. Other than that though there’s not a whole lot new but as they say “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” & I think this is one of my favourite battle systems when it comes to combining strategy & action combat.

And of course I have to mention the soundtrack for this game cause it is once again absolutely fantastic. Misuto Suzuki & Masahashi Hamazu knock it out the park once again with their score & I loved hearing tracks from the original game with a much more modern feel to them, it truly put a huge smile on my face. I also really loved how each region of the map had its own unique battle theme, I don’t know things like that are just really fun to me & it makes the world feel so much more alive as I said.

Honestly FFVII Rebirth really is special. I didn’t think for one second this game would be anything short of amazing & yet it still managed to surpass all of my expectations. Even if I do have my issues in places, I can’t deny for one second that I wasn’t having a good time with Rebirth for a majority of my 60+ hour playtime.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing what they cook up for part 3 in this trilogy because I feel like after this game, we’re gonna be in for an absolute rollercoaster. And I’m gonna be on board for it all the way to the finish. Play FFVII. It’s well worth your time.

Final score: 10/10

Crystar is an interesting game. It has admittedly been on my backlog for the better part of a year & I finally decided to play it recently & it took me around 30 hours to finish the main story in its entirety. And honestly I admit I’m a little conflicted on it.

Now I won’t waste too much time talking about this game’s mechanics cause I’m pretty sure most people have done that several times. I have always been one who prioritises gameplay over everything else cause well this is a game. I’m not saying everything else is unimportant it’s just if you can’t make a game fun to play? Then you’ve already failed. Doesn’t matter how incredible your story is, if I’m not enjoying playing I’m unlikely to keep going. So that already marks a couple points off Crystar right off the bat cause this game? It’s dull. It’s repetitive. And its combat lacks any sort of depth. The dungeons are incredibly samey & don’t have a lot of variety to them at all. Most encounters you resort to the same tactic mashing the same buttons over & over. Several hours in it really did get mind numbing & yeah it’s just not very fun at all. So with all that in mind you’d think I don’t like this game very much

However despite its majorly unsatisfying gameplay loop, I can still say I liked Crystar. It’s an extremely compelling story about grief & loss & I think it handles those themes really well for the most part. The art & characters are also pretty fantastic. There’s a lot of depth to the cast I feel & the performances in the English dub are pretty solid. Though I will say I found some dialogue…very cringe inducing (looking at you Kokoro) but I’d say that I did really like the bond of the party as you go through Purgatory the main area of the game. There’s a lot of complexity to the cast with my favourites being probably Rei & Sen. And the way the narrative explores the trauma of each of the girls is incredibly compelling. I think there’s a lot to be said about this game’s narrative & how much it pulls on the heartstrings especially in the latter chapters.

Now while yes I enjoyed the narrative for the most part…I’m going to say the endgame? What the fuck. This entire section was absolutely mind boggling since you need to repeat several chapters multiple times just to get all the endings. It felt like padding for the sake of extending the length. And while yes I will say the combat does improve slightly around that point, it’s still mostly the same throughout. I’ve never been much of a fan of multiple endings with exceptions going to games such as NieR Automata. However I will admit on the true ending path, all these different outcomes really did make the journey worth it. Even if I also will say that the true ending left me feeling a little…underwhelmed.

Honestly if you trimmed this game by 10 hours & fixed up the gameplay to make it less tedious? This would be a pretty easy recommendation from me but no matter how much I enjoyed Crystar, I can’t really recommend this title to anyone without first warning them about its many flaws. It was a good game though, one I definitely am glad I persevered with even despite the repetition.

Final score: 7/10