The main story is starting to pick up speed and while I already enjoyed the story of the Girl & the Monster, this act really steps it up in every possible way.

I really love the story of our new main characters, Yuzuki & Hina, and even the smaller stories that you get to explore feel more in-depth. Not only did I enjoy them more in their own right but they also have a stronger connection to the both the main story of NieR Re[in]carnation and the story of The Sun and the Moon.

Gameplay still sucks tho

The combination of Hotline Miami style brutality and fast paced stealth mechanics with layers of "PSX style" jank seems like a fun idea but it's unfortunately really not something that pans out to anything interesting. Doesn't help that any jank feels like not an especially consistent factor of the game, where aiming and moving is weird, but then the civilians seem to be a bit overly responsive and create this weird disconnect. The dissonance of systems is even more clear with the way you've got a ranking system that's based on being able to cause as much carnage as possible within a short time while also punishing players heavily for being seen and also seemingly wanting to also encourage players to use stealth by hiding in the shadows etc. It's just not a great combination because none of the elements end up being used properly and everything culminates in a very empty experience, exacerbated by very lacklustre level design. Seemed fun but missed the mark across most of the ways I was interested in, it's not even really that fun as just a slab of total brutality either.

I don't know if this will be a straight 10 for anybody, but the aesthetics and themes of this game appealed perfectly to my tastes. When an auteur like Sakaguchi throws his passions in with the talents of Takehiko Inoue and Kiyoshi Shigematsu, whatever that blender churns out is bound to be fascinating. And this is pretty fascinating for a JRPG. If you've heard anyone talk about this game you know what the basic premise is, and the short stories scattered throughout the game really hone in on those themes of immortality and the importance of life's transcience. I've seen a critique often that this game has interesting setup but ultimately falls into usual JRPG trope, which it totally does. But as someone who's used to that drama I will say that for a JRPG it's still massively solid and the backdrop of the stories is not only welcome but carves out some necessary depth to the characters, even Ming's story towards the end does a great job of this. The game still has a memorable antagonist with always clear and dire stakes, great expansion and alteration of the world as you progress, it hits all those JRPG story beats as masterfully as Sakaguchi and the team have been doing them since Final Fantasy 4.

The visuals being a sort of steampunk-Greece spin on the graphical style of Final Fantasy X, and they also lifted that game's punchy and strategic battle system. Rings and enemy types add another layer to think about, and the formation of the party actually matters for once. The game is littered with treasures and collectibles, I only missed about 3 of the Seeds but other than that I felt pretty maxed out on equipment and abilities by the end of my 60-hour run. Includes beating the superboss that feels unfair until you counter with your own game-breaking magic, which feels so rewarding when you've just been playing the game thoroughly. There's no grinding here, just an extremely tight and satisfying experience I'm glad I finally got to play after years of missing out because of my lack of xbox. Mistwalker doesn't miss no matter what budget they're working with.

The controls are both more fluid but also worse than you're expecting. Strafing and dashing feel pretty good to do, but moving your camera at all feels like a nightmare. The customization aspect is pretty good too, the UI and weapon names aren't very intuitive at all when helping you decide if you should buy something, but the fact that you get a full refund when you sell something makes experimenting pretty fun if you're willing to crawl through the menus. I don't know if it was my copy of the game or if it's always like this, but most areas had no music.

The narrative is pretty interesting, I really wasn't expecting them to be so direct about the anti-corporate themes! That coupled with the debt and human plus systems makes for a pretty immersive experience, if not a slightly miserable one. The misery increases tenfold on the last few quests, unfortunately, and not in a cool thematic way. They throw some maps and enemies at you that... kinda assume the game is more fluid and has more potential to be more cinematic than it actually does. The best maps in this game are the large open ones with obstacles to hide behind, not the long hallways and hellish mazes and ABSOLUTELY NOT the final level's vertical moving platform climb and narrow shaft arena. Would have given it a 4 if not for this last 1-2 hours of gameplay. The cutscene has that characteristically "throwing ideas at the lore until fans pick it up" From Software vibe - it was pretty funny looking up what it meant online after finishing the game and seeing someone say "they remade this game 3 times I don't think even they think it's worth figuring out".

Enjoyed this way more than I expected I was going to. While the actual mech combat is a little hit or miss for me, the depth of the customization is where this game really shines. It's got that "think of a build you wanna make, then watch as you slowly acquire the necessary parts to make that build a reality" hook to it that I really enjoy. Def a game for tuners. I didn't pay too much attention to the plot as I was too busy making a cool robot, but it did seem like the actual story and mission structure was rather open ended too. If this is the first game in the series I can't even imagine what kinda cool shit is in the sequels.

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.