I won't lie, marking XY down as something I've only just recently put on my profile feels weird. Not just because it's a game I've played on near-release over... 10 years ago (Jesus H. Christ on a CROSS, where has that time gone?), to say nothing of other runs of X and Y I've done in the intervening years, but with Pretendo only just beginning to re-build the 3DS servers that were recently shut down (Big N, I hear screams of someone not wanting MONEY), I thought now would be a good time to revise my thoughts on the Gen 6 games, because looking back at the 3ds titles as some of the best times in my life, as well as my admiration of Alola (I know this is Kalos, let me get to the point) in spite of my volatile, love-hate relationship for the rest of the series... Gen 6 was the one time in the series history that I thought I'd struggle to get a pulse on. And I'm not quite sure why...

Don't mistake me, I still think that X and Y are good games, very good games even - but the matter of 'how good' seemed to be an itch in the back of my mind that I couldn't quite scratch. Needless to say, I have more of an answer now than I did about 5 or so years ago (to say little of my revised view of creative and interactive mediums given life via the college thesis I wrote on the Xenosaga trilogy). And yes, verdicts on ORAS, as well as... possibly the Gen 4 and 5 titles (?) shouldn't be far behind. I have played them (with or without Cheats... sorry, I don't have patience for the lack of EXP. Share), and they've just never ended up on my profile for various reasons too fragmented and numerous to individually itemize. Oops?

For those that want any kind of 'short version' of my thoughts... well, firstly, you've come to the wrong place (hi! I'm Joycap! I'm British - we speak a lot, and you've been invited to my TED Talk on a fucking Pokémon game!), but secondly, a lot of what little I thought I was going to say about this game going into a re-play overlaps with my thoughts now. Most notably that I think that the series first fore into Kalos is a form of less-is-more approach to design philosophy that I think only it can do. As self-contradictory as this is going to sound, I've heard people describe other leading titles in other JRPG series described as 'sandboxes' in a far more pejorative, 'manner of speaking' sense not there to delineate to it's given genre (Several FE games, Persona 5 Royal, and even Xenoblade 2 and 3 fall in the camp of games I've heard given this observation) - and I think that little diddy right there perfectly describes an average LP through Kalos.

I should note that, before the servers fully shut down, I was given (as per request via my 'Giftlocke' series (basically glorified Egglockes, feel free to DM for Discord server)) several Eggs from a friend of mine, with the initial idea that I would do a Nuzlocke with them this run. But looking at my backlog, and the fact that I could document more games on it (I have herp derp), I just thought 'screw it, I'll do another normal run'. I am actually doing a Hardcore Egglocke of UM right now, and while I still seem to be one of the few human beings willing to give the Alolan Duology the respect it deserves... man, are self-imposed rulesets just fundamentally antithetical to how I enjoy these games.

So, as to not end this on a note of 'it is a Pokémon game' - I suppose I should carry on by saying that these games... definitely still hold up graphically, as well as auditorily. Atmospherically, stuff like the Elite 4 chambers give me a bit of a 'holy shit' vibe (even if the fights themselves are undeniably easy, which I won't lie carries into the rest of these games, although a lot of this can be explained by veterans of the series having optimised runs so hard), and I think a lot of this is thanks to that aforementioned design philosophy. It's hard to explain, it just... clicks with me, y'know?

I've also seen lesser versions of the 'linearity' and 'too much text' complaints levied just as much at XY and Kalos as I've seen at the Alolan Duology. For the former, that's as maybe, but in a way, I also find myself with this overwhelming 'do I care?' all the same. As for the latter... even if it means implicitly conceding the discrepancy in textual density between these games and SM/USUM (which in that sense, do you guys just hate story or something?) - I respectfully disagree that XY has 'too much text' (whether or not that's because Alola made me used to this much text is up in the air). Even when the game stopped me to let the rivals say their piece (which as an aside, I think the set of rivals this gen don't really deserve the vitriol they're given in modern discussions, in part because of my personal mantra of 'semi-minor characters as worldbuilding statements'), they weren't nearly as long as you've been led to believe. If the Alolan 'average text dump' is about 30s-1m, then a lot of XY's text dumps are 10-15s, if that.

That segues into narrative and, even if Team Flare are admittedly incompetent, Lysandre is an antagonist in the series I've always had a soft spot for... whatever reason. If you've heard any sentiment(s) about 'the angriest men on earth being optimists', I actually really enjoy how he plays with said sentiment in a few hundred words or less (not to mention how his attempted Omnicide and (for those in more 'conspiratorial' circles) his attempt to 'wipe the slate clean' has not only aged strangely well given those behind the 'current thing' (if you know, you know) - but also contrasts spectacularly with a man who, to both those he commands and opposes has this air of 'I'm surrounded by idiots' about him (yo, shoutouts to UD)). Is he blatantly an antagonist the second you meet him? Yes. Do I think that's an issue? In this case, no, actually, and I love how a lot of the deeper aspects of him are communicated almost without saying a word.

Well, I suppose I've said 99% of what I was going to in less words than I was expecting (I'm guessing this wasn't as long as my reviews on SJR or Sonic Frontiers?), so I'll begin to wrap this up by saying, as far as Gen 6 vs Gen 3... which do I prefer to take the silver prize in this series? (Gold obviously being Gen 7 for... obvious reasons if you know me personally). Well... that depends on what these games offer for the sake of future games (up to & including Gen 7, mostly - people have largely abandoned SWSH and ESPECIALLY BDSP despite the ire for the former being rather disproportionate from where I'm sitting, and Gen 9 being it's own thing, and a game I have a... complicated relationship with, despite it's DLC vacillating wildly all of the same). I think of these games and their transfer systems as resources at the end of the day, and I think both offer their own value in that sense, so I'd say both are tied up there. Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm talking about G6/7 servers as if they're still being played despite being shut down, Pretendo's dev team(s) should hopefully have new servers up relatively soon. Either that, or we all die in a soon-to-be-foretold nuke strike (I mean hey, someone had to relate to a red-heads' lost faith in humanity - yes, I am suffering from an existential crisis CAN YOU TELL?!).

EDIT: here I sit 2 weeks later realising I didn't mention Megas. Don't have much to say other than megas are alright k bye.

Sonic Frontiers is, in fact, a game that exists.

Looking at all the hype this game was getting, I was reminded of the fact that, at one point in my life (at the ripe age of about 10/11/12 or so) I was in fact a Sonic junkie (in fact, I was in a bit of a chinnibiyou phase between Mario and Sonic, and then Xenoblade 1 happened to rip me away from that and leave me with indifference with both household series). And all things considered, I was expecting this game to make me feel like a kid again... only for it to fall short of that in ways that I don't... entirely think was its fault? But still left me with this abstract indifference regardless.

Let's start with the main thing that bugs me about this game - the exceedingly crude optimisation, and that shitty camera. Or rather, let's get some pre-amble out of the way as context for why those are (otherwise self-explanatory) problems. The massive hub worlds that comprise the islands of Cyber Space are... okay, overall, even if massive, MMORPG-esque areas like this are a bit tonally dissonant for a Sonic game. There's a bit of an interactive oxymoron in that Sonic (despite being a lot slower than he should be for his disposition) doesn't actually feel slow at all, it's just that the islands feel that big, and with the hodgepodge nature of the islands giving you plenty to find as far as collectables and other miniature platforming challenges (a few I accidentally cleared backwards lmao, thanks for giving us opinions, at least?), you're rarely unclear on where you need to go (even if this is the 2nd 3-star game made by either SEGA or ATLUS that feels like you're 'bumblefucking about' for a while (see my SMT IV review for more on that)).

So how do you wreck that immersion? A camera that either locks itself arbitrarily or will not stop spazzing the fuck out like the daughter of a mid-50s Karen who works at the local asylum for the epileptic, has no depth perception at times, making certain platforming challenges an utter chore, and on top of that, those same platforming challenges (most notably some of the tower climbing missions to get the Chaos Emeralds in alt story) have certain gimmicks that I swear hand to a cross only work whenever it feels like it.

There was one notable moment when fighting the 'Ghost' miniboss in DLC story (one that I didn't know was optional, but I'm going to say it anyway) where you have to jump on a lot of boxes (culminating in same over an insta-death pit) where, to accommodate for you and the boss, the game pulls the camera WAY back, and there's sod all you can do to fix it. To whichever of the devs on the desks of Nippon thought this was a good idea: you will now watch Leon Massey's "how high is this jump?" Video for the BASICS on this kind of camera design, and you will study that shit in your sleep until you're on the ground weeping for your crimes. I mean hey! The Japanese suicide rate is only a few million high! What difference is 300 of you in an office cubicle going to make?!

LowTierGod-esque salt and incitement disguised as humour aside, I guess we should move on to the story and characters, and to continue with the 'I wish this made me feel like a kid again' train of thought, the story of this game is... not something I have many thoughts on. I get this being as a result of being out of the loop for a good 10 years or so on Sonic stories, and me having not played either of the Adventure GCN games as of yet (of which I'm guessing that the Ancient's chaos species are supposed to be a nod to), but I went in expecting a neat, self-contained story as is to be expected with these games, and came out with... not a lot. The second that the Ancients tried being dramatic with their YTP forward-reversed 'state of the art sentence mixer' speech patterns, I had kinda checked out of the story. Which is a damn shame, because Roger Craig Smith is directed well as Sonic as far as the 'grittier tones' are concerned (there are even interviews he did joking about how taken aback he was about the changes in said direction), Mike Pollock is frankly hilarious as ever as Eggman, while his relationship with Sage gives him some more sombre tones that have no right working as well as they do, of which... speaking of Sage, Ryan Bartley did a great job bringing Sage's development to the fore (if you recall my opinion on Alex from Strange Journey Redux - the whole 'not that dynamic but at least compelling' thing applies equally here), and everyone else is about what I remember from when I last played Generations back in... I dunno, late 2013, early 2014 or so? I think the only time I didn't gel with a delivery was Cindy Robinson as Amy, and even that was more of a directional issue I'd allocate specifically to the DLC and not many places else off the top of my head.

Music's neat. I think we've all heard I'm Here (Remix), Find Your Flame and Break Through It All to know why this OST has been the subject of many Metal Gear Rising-esque memes in the past 18 months since it's release. And the game doesn't look bad, but I would note the extremely choppy draw distance (which I know seems rich coming from a Pokemon fan, and I'm not endorsing it there either), which I think brings us to... the Alt story [DUM DUM DUUUUUUUUM].

Now, you may recall my earlier salty comments about the 'Ghost platforming' incident earlier in this review, and while that is only one instance of my ire towards this mode, it is one microcosm of my issues with this free 'DLC'. If you're wondering what the big discrepancy between my 3-star rating of the main game and 1.5 star rating of the Final Horizon update is supposed to be, now you know (and that latter rating pertains ONLY to the story in question, and not the full update in the context of those who had played this game for a long time, of which I was not around for).

I'll say this now - I am in the process of brainstorming a Substack article in which I talk about bosses antithetical to game design and the... ahem 'accusation' that I somehow hate difficulty in games like this (Ft. Mem Aleph, Disciple Lorithia and Kevin Winnicott (I know you Enelcordians are hiding in the bushes, you can come out now...)), and at that point you're probably thinking 'oh boy, he's going to dunk on the remixed End fight, isn't he?' To which I say... yes and no.

Sure, Supreme + The End is piss annoying in Final Horizons if you go in blind (to say nothing of the low-to-the-ground FOV making parrying an abject headache because some pile of Asian cartilage thought it'd be a good idea to keep the camera deep in the bushes like a paparazzi hooked to the ass of a drag queen), but I think the more pressing issue is that you get the power to 'perfect parry' from the Trial before the fight... a boss rush of the other three titans not built with this power in mind, only for the Grand Master running the test to lock your stats to minimum, give you only 400 rings to ration across 3 fights unless you drop the difficulty to easy (in which you get 600, and get whatever attack stat you had going in), and basically say 'lmao, have fun suffering' with a PP window that only works if it's feeling especially generous that day (even with audio cues taken into account, it just did NOT want to respond sometimes) - ALL for a power that is only relevant for... 3/4s of a phase in what I can only describe as a 2.5-phase fight. And that's not even taking into account the fact that there are instances (this happens in main game, but especially in DLC) where you just end up clipping inside the Titan bosses and either hitting nothing, or the bosses just... do nothing, for long, protracted amounts of time.

One of the last things I'll mention here is that the the upgrade system, while at least functional, and allowing you to practice ability inputs as and when, varies in viability between using Unibeams to basically melt health bars once you figure out a specific input (and even THAT is particularly finicky sometimes), and the one or two powers that are never used (if using Cyloop to farm EXP wasn't a thing, the fact that quick Cyloop is a mandate for the Final DLC Boss would have probably made me quit).

Speaking of optimisation stuff for the player, I noticed that Koco drops on the final island are quite common, and while that's great... I feel too strongly that this only compensates the player for a final leg that feels like padding, even if the alternate playstyles with Tails/Amy and the like are appreciated, you get the sense quite early that they're only a temporary thing, so there isn't as much investing in them as there should be. You might notice that, from what I've put so far, the 1.5 star rating for Final Horizons might seem unwarranted, but as has been established, it's where the camera problems and other general issues became somehow even more pronounced, and made me go from 'OK, that's kinda annoying' to 'yeah no, this is bullshit'.

This might actually be my longest review yet next to... maybe my DDS2 and SJR reviews? (If not longer?) - so I'll wrap it up there.

I think this game is going to take a replay to give proper thoughts on, as while I did see the credits roll at the end of Turnabout Goodbyes a couple of years ago, I found Rise from the Ashes to be such a slog, that I didn't get around to finishing it off until now (in other words, I wasn't sure how or when to quantify this game as 'complete' because I was hearing conflicting reports on if Rise from the Ashes was actually canon?). And from what I recall (because my memory from then is rather hazy), that's not independent of this games... let's call it 'structure' for now. Damn shame, too, because the first two cases of this game were so strong as an introduction to the series... and then 1-3 was ultimately filler, and 1-4... look, I'm not out here about to write some dissertation on why 'Von Karma did nothing wrong' (I'm no longer a Smogon player, after all... I seem to have fallen out with all their asses), but something about how the Defence 'wins' via an only vaguely related case just didn't sit "wright" with me (pun only slightly intended).

I think the big thing that made PWAA1 such molasses to get through is that it's not really a game... it's an interactive novel, in a generation where transcripts and LPs aren't hard to come by. So it's more like you're playing alongside these resources rather than in spite of them, unlike... I dunno, the rest of the medium? And I can't count how many times the game turns around and asserts 'absolute, singular pieces of evidence', when 2/3/4 other objects of the case are just as damming, meaning that this game doesn't feel as nuanced as it should do (even if the humour is pretty respectable).

Looks like I'll be doing my own investigating for a bit, I guess.

"So, what did you just play, Joycap?"
That is an excellent question, dear reader! What DID I just play?

In all seriousness, if you like 'RNG Check: The Video Game' disguised as a strategy simulator, have at it - and I guess I know myself well enough to imagine this games... weirdly hard-going OST ending up in my playlist. But the rest of it isn't for me, in the same way that those that say 'doodling is supposed to be soothing', when that's the kind of thing that just so happens to frustrate the ever-loving hell out of me.

Although I suppose I can't be too harsh. It does feel like some Japanese kids' science fair experiment, and as jaded as I am, this game is at least... unique enough to convey that.

Not much else to say. But I don't picture myself coming back to this.

EDIT: Did Task Mode out of pride. Not nearly as hard as I thought it'd be outside of a few asinine requirements.

EDIT NO.2 (28/4/24): Uh... I might be starting to settle in, actually, more than I thought I would. Just broke an in-game record for Windy City, and now I have gust SFX stuck in my head. Send help please?

EDIT 3: Yeah no this game has actually rather grown on me, as fun of a mess as it is. Got all High Scores at all stages of Try Delta, and for as many tries as it took, I do feel satisfied. Thankfully, I can now put this to bed.

"Do you still feel Human?"

Well blow me with a pitchfork, Arthur, you tell me! Because I don't think I've seen the endgame section of a game such as this eat shit as hard as Strange Journey. Even with the context that I decided to go after every single ending, using the Goblin trick to save me... what, at least 180ish hours? I still feel like I've gone through the gameplay equivalent of that one Star Trek 'This is revolting, more please' meme. Thank you, Mem Aleph and Shekinah! I hope you both rot in hell!

OK, positives for a bit:

- The character writing was fairly strong for the most part. Zelenin might have just become my favourite female character in all of mainline (?) SMT, with her plight of feeling directionless within the Schwarzwelt having just the right amount of emphasis to be relatable without coming across as overbearing. New Law is even my favourite ending from this game for the simple reason that, after Alex shoves the two fatal flaws of her future back in her face, she becomes a receptive example predicated on the being grateful to the angels like Mastema (who I will concede that temper tantrum he had was out of character when Zelenin attempted to explain the situation to him in the last dungeon), but also realising what a slippery slope the song was. The fact that she's Russian has also aged in about 10 different directions (whichever revision of Christ Putin sees as a means to an end makes certain details of both her endings somewhat humorous to think back on), but that's what makes her endearing (as well as being an acknowledgement of solutions to problems that I'm grateful to see). Jimenez is equally as compelling for the opposite, alignment-coded reason, with New Chaos ending staying true to his beliefs by cutting Mem Aleph (the strongest being in the Schwarzwelt) down, after acknowledging that Bugaboo is the reason he's even lasted this long (even if he and Alex are kinda talking past each other, because 'strength' wouldn't even be a factor if Bugaboo hadn't given him that amp). And as far as 'redux exclusive' characters, Alex... I'll concede she's not the most dynamic, but she was at least compelling - especially knowing a friend of mine that constantly likes talking about temporal concepts, it'd probably give him about 5 different things to chew on.

- The gameplay, for the most part (with the exception of what happens with the Mem Aleph fight and onwards - more on that later) has it's own rhythm to it, what with the emphasis on Alignments and that bolstering your damage. Simple enough to not need a 10-page explanation, but effective all the same.

Stuff that aren't really flaws but also aren't positives either:

- The OST and it's 'marching band' vibes are... a bit of an acquired taste, if I'm going to be honest. I think there were a couple of tracks I'm a fan of, but I don't picture that sticking for the foreseeable future.

- The way fusion was handled in this game was a bit odd, even if D-Sources make things at least workable. I mostly point fingers at the fact that initial fusion has devolved back to certain skills being automatically passed down UNTIL you apply a D-Source (if you choose to do so at all, which up to the route split, you have to be a bit stingy about applying lest you deprive yourself of alignment appropriate resources for 2 of the 3 routes), in which case all of the skills, inherent, auto-picked, and source skills are all added to a pool that you can hand pick from... which IMO is a bit silly. I think the comparison I'll make here is Essences from SMT V (which despite my ire aimed at that game, the Essence system from that game was handled fine, it was just hooked up to a combat engine that didn't really let you feel it's effects all that well) - because D-sources kinda feel like a Supermarket-brand version of that, but it's hooked up to an objectively better combat system. Not bad, but I'm kinda wondering what the devs thought process was, especially 1-2 years after IV Apocalypse and other games, where a fully manual inheritance system was in full swing.

Actual flaws now:

- The alignments themselves are... not that compelling. And if you're expecting me to preach to the Choir about how 'redux ruined the OG' or whatever... you'd be mistaken, because looking at every card on the table, I don't really think the nuance was ever there to begin with (Old Law has you lobotomise all of humanity, and Old Chaos is what IV's Infernal Tokyo was taking the piss out of). The Neutral endings seem like a dead wringer for this problem in the sense that they technically shouldn't even exist on a count of there being an earlier plot point, where the UN Joint Project tried to literally nuke the Schwarzwelt from the outside - with nuclear warheads LITERALLY being specified as used, and has the joint problem of A) even if you'd succeeded, you would have just doomed mankind in the fallout (another allegory that is going to age backwards any time now...), hence B), both Neutral endings have you amp a spare nuke stored on one of the ships with the power of the Cosmic Eggs in order to say 'take 2' and evac the Schwarzwelt 'for good'. Then again, it is the UN - props for admitting that Globalists have no real world experience, I guess (even if you were just going to turn around and call them heroes for no reason). What happens with Ubergestalt (...however you spell that word) Gore is also a Deus-ex-Machina of EPIC proportions, and beyond his initial rhetoric sounding worryingly similar to the "mothers" of the Schwarzwelt, it should be obvious why I say this.

That brings me onto my second point about the Neutral endings, and that is the fact that in New Neutral (and to a lesser extent both neutral(s)), the pessimism of 'humanity sucks, and that's why the Schwarzwelt returned and fucked all of humanity within a week' has something of an Oppenheimer problem (or AoT S4H3/C139, if that's your frame of reference) in that it's not only a 'warning' that doesn't understand that a cautionary tale should never condescend an audience (a mistake that a lot of these 'contempt porn' stories tend to make), but like such, it doesn't offer a solution in the same vain as New Law or... anything, really. It's just MC being stuck on the moon until humanity decides to shag itself again. My friend feels your pain, really he does, but you don't have to rub it in!

- Endgame-based gameplay woes: Why is the Mem Aleph battle (and to a lesser extent the 'old ending' Alex fights) not just a massive difficulty spike, but also fundamentally antithetical to SJ's entire design philosophy? These are the fights that made me equip the 'March to Death' passive, and after beating MA on Normal only once with it on, I just thought 'sod this, I'll drop every other run from Normal to Easy - I have better things I could be doing'. I find myself reminded of Kevin Winnicott from Saga III quite a lot (for those who have seen the script for my scrapped Xenosaga retrospective will be made quite aware of my strong opinion on his same narrative altercation and fight), where just from the teambuilder alone, you're basically checkmated without an exorbitant amount of grinding.

As an aside, all of the above honestly makes the game a sort of Bizzaro SMT IV in a way (see my review on that for more info), in that, while that game got off to a slow start, had moments of narrative enjoyment, and then really hit it's stride in the back 45-50% of the game, SJ/SJR sets up for it's endgame quite strongly, and then you get to the 'destroyed' Elevator that would have took you straight to Mem Aleph, and that's when the game is unfortunately caught with it's pants down... speaking of which:

- As a corollary to the above, a lot of the puzzle design, while already overly cryptic for what it's set out to do (see the amount of times you basically have to sidestep to face walls to get anywhere), REALLY starts to eat it after the alignment lock. Horologium gives me 'ascent to Nirvana' vibes, and if you know anything about my stance on DDS1, that is the absolute last thing from a complement. Meanwhile, trying to figure out the last 'new ending' dungeon on my first go around nearly gave me a blinding bloody headache (whilst being speedrun-worthy on my next two attempts). To adapt yet another quote from Blizzic into something more applicable to this here medium of gaming 'your audience likes to be challenged, but it does not like to be fucked with'. And sad to say, SJ falls a bit too hard into the latter category for my liking.

Anyway, I've said enough for now. Tl;dr:

+ Fun gameplay in the moment.
+ Very good character writing.
? Serviceable enough story, with concerning implications.
? OK-ish OST
? Questionable fusion mechanics.
- Unclear and cryptic dungeon design.
- Unfair endgame decisions.

The way I'm going to review this is from the POV of a guy who had already played this game 5 years ago, enjoyed it just as much then, and decided to go from Easy to Hard for this particular playthrough, after waiting just as long to play the OG SMT IV for... some reason. For anyone who wants my thoughts on base IV, a review of the game in question is sequestered hence within my profile.

I'll frontload this review with a few quick, minor complaints - primarily the existence of compendium premiums for resist/null passives (one of my favourite ways to play SMT games to this day, and a type of skill I'd argue is just as, if not more important, than buffs), and a few other daft skill distribution decisions (iirc the earliest level you get any buff or debuff is Angel at Level 12-15 or so). So going through some of the early areas, you're liable to get your shit kicked in. I ended up dropping the difficulty for Fusion and Compendium purposes, because otherwise you're forking out about 170k+ for mid-Lv. 40ish mons with resist passives, whilst waiting for the best relic spots to respawn.

What do I like about this game?
...Yeah, well... EVERYTHING ELSE.

Once you get over the minor skill optimisation hiccups, when battles start giving you momentum, they REALLY give you momentum. While you could argue that the reworked Hama/Mudo spells are a bit of an overcorrection from base IV, given their coverage, I... honestly fail to care (especially what they can do vs hordes, and how Smirking was handled here). And (I know this isn't gameplay, but it certainly helps) it's partnered with honestly my favourite regular battle OST in the entirety of SMT (before anyone asks, DDS2 isn't far behind).

QUICK EDIT: something I neglected to mention was that on the overworld, you actually have an idea of where the hell you're going this time. QoL and all that.

Now, let's touch on the story and characters. "There's too much power of friendship!" So I've heard. "It's not nuanced or fleshed out enough!" (even though base IV's approach to the topic was kinda :kek:).

OK, and?

For one, I fundamentally disagree with the lack of nuance. For as much as I'd love to deconstruct individual examples (Danu remaking Dagda, and a lot of aspects of the Divine Powers come to mind), I'd argue that this is one of the better narratives in the series, and I do mean that. And yes, my BOI Hallelujah is a personal channel mascot of mine for a reason.

Something else I want to tip my hat to before we end off, and one thing I don't think people give Apoc' enough credit for, is how genuinely funny this game is. Dagda is a no-nonsense middle finger to existence that I actually find genuine refreshing, not to mention Xander Mobus capturing his personality so well I'd make the claim it's among his best, if not his best, voice work. Yes, even better than Joker, Stocke, or even DBa Superman. It's damn close to my favourite, that's for certain. I also caught myself laughing for minutes on end at stuff like Navarre getting brutally roasted (ftr: I disagree with Nam's Compendium that his character only 'existed for jokes at his expense' or whatever, mostly for reasons of ludonarrative dissonance (him being one of the best partners from a gameplay standpoint) as well as Sean Chiplock sounding like he was having a lot of fun playing the role).

I'll admit I didn't have as much to say about this game as I thought I would. But all's fair in love and war, I suppose.

So... that was a thing that I just cleared off the smoker.

I want to kick off by saying that the reason that this game was stuck on my backlog for 2 years and some change is that this games' start, up to the first Gabby twist (the one where Lilith is actually executed) has all the haste of freeze-dried molasses (and if it isn't that, yes, Medusa and the Minotaur are just as obnoxious to deal with as you might have heard, basically boiling down to Sukukaja cheese or you die). The initial trip into Tokyo is where I point my finger to most primarily, which ended up as directionless in where you were supposed to be going, and what you were meant to be doing (not to mention what little indication there was that you had to tape down acceptance for Challenge Quests before entering a given area) - or as I said to myself several times when playing: 'a lot of bumblefucking about'.

Were it just the above, I would have to feel especially generous to give this game any higher than a 2-Star rating. Thankfully, after said Gabby/Lilith twist, the game gets noticeably better. Like... probably a 4-Star mid-end game. Hence, I split the difference, and here we are.

On the note of said Gabby twist: it's actually pretty neat stuff. I was tipped off to something like this happening after lurking BTVA and noticing that Gabby and Yuriko/Lilith have the same English VA. Hence I found it conspicuious when Gabby wasn't initially around for Yuriko's execution, only to turn around and have everyone say 'that's a spitting image of Gabby, not Gabby herself'. Basic Chekov's gun dictates something had to happen, and as someone cynical to 'foreshadowing' excuses, I'll hold the L just this once. Oh, and... then Gabby becomes Gabriel of the Four Archangels... which I should have also seen coming, but still.

This probably isn't the best time to say this, but I did dig out a guide for the Neutral/True ending (and if you're wondering, I do plan to replay Apocalypse at some point very soon). One of my mantras when playing games like this is 'whatever you call spoilers, I just call doing my homework' - and this is one of the reasons why.

As for Character Writing, I'd say it's respectable... until it isn't. I'm aware that probably sounds a bit harsh, so let's really break this down:

- Jonathan: His patriotism to Mikado is compelling, until he hears about the plan to 'purge the filth' (cue the memes), in which case he ends up looking like an idiot for taking all of the Church at face value. His means are fine up to that point, but his ends are pretty dippy because of it, mostly on an account of being an ambassador for a belief system he doesn't believe in, even after seeing shit like Pluto from the Blasted Tokyo timeline.

- Walter [Post Lilith visit]: "Hey so I found about about this cool thing called Globalism for the first time, so I'm going to transform into literal Satan to achieve my goals." (/sarc). Oh well, he's at least chill before then, and Matthew Mercer sounds like he was having fun with the role.

- Isabeau: Basically what a restraint check should be, even if there are instances where she's not as proactive as she should be. Reserved, reasonable, and (if the 'Manga' subplot that supposed to lead to Lilith's motivations are any indication) a TOTAL dork (although the through line between said literature and Lilith's motivations are... a bit more disjointed than I would have liked).

As for the Neutral ending in question... yeah, your mileage will vary. Tony4You has an excellent video on Alignment Issues that is a part of what could be considered part of the problem with this game's lack of moral complexity ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoALN7HnvxA ), yet at the same time, while I see why Nyarly thinks that Neutral is the 'worst ending in SMT he's ever seen', as someone who thinks this game in general levelled out to 'kinda mid', I do at least feel impartially towards said ending. I know the wording of this paragraph sounds kinda confused, and I think it's worth talking about in more detail elsewhere. All I'll say for now is that the people trying to use the CU as an explanation for the uninitiated (or otherwise unexplained) will not offer the implication that Isabeau managed to evac the entirety of Mikado the same curtsey.

Anyway, that was a long and disorganised first thoughts. I'll end off by saying that the OST and Graphics are also great. I mean, I enjoyed Apocalypse, so I enjoy this. Simples, methinks.

[FOR THOSE THAT WANT MY OPINION ON DDS1 - SEE DDS1 PAGE]

So, after slogging my carcass against DDS1's narrative folly for 50+ hours, I had low hopes going into DDS2. So how did she fare? It's... complicated, and I guess I should frontload this by saying that, unfortunately, I think of the DDS duology as a failed experiment for that reason.

To focus on what has been improved:

GAMEPLAY:
I noticed immediately how the Mantra system got re-balanced, with essential skills like Mind Charge becoming noticeably cheaper (not to mention sellable Plants meaning that the system would have worked even with DDS1's economy) - but also how the hexagon-based system means that you're no longer bottlenecked into one build / end up with as many excess skills you don't need (you can get Bufula without needing to go through Mabufu/Ice Boost, for example, which is a nice QoL nod, same going to how inactive party members still gain Mantra without unlocking the respective passive).

Unfortunately it leaves the system feeling rather directionless, and despite those aforementioned efforts to allow the player to cut down on inventory clutter - there were a fair few times where I'd have to change directions on the Mantra grid to actually get the skills I wanted for a (at the time, anyway...) reasonable price. It's hard to explain, but for those who have played this game, you probably get what I mean.

I should add that because of the way Seraph works (having the highest unlocks and stats of Serph and Sera combined, encouraging the player to diversify both their kits), a valiant attempt was made to appeal to 'lets view end-game spoilers and the Final Boss out of context' junkies like myself. But in that same vain, I think there were some rather fundamental misteps, such as (when Serph takes a long sabbatical around 30% of the way into the story (more on that later)), your underleveled party members... don't actually struggle that much against mobs they have no business surviving? Oh, and Heat inherits Roland's moveset despite being unrelated characters (didn't he use Chi Blast against us during the first EGG visit? Couldn't we have had that unlocked for us at least, and save us 5-6 hours of grinding him Power Charge?)

As for the dungeon design, it's... sort of better? I had a lot better luck with the encounter rate this time around (until the Sun, anyway... I had Estoma spray taped down the entire time and I still got hassled), and the actual dungeon designs have either some semi-neat ideas (the EGG re-visit comes to mind for some reason), or don't over-extend in the same way DDS1's decided to. Although it's done in such a way that I can't really tell if the dungeon design is so infinitely better it's worthy of this praise... or if I'm developing Stockholm Syndrome.

Karma rings and the 7/8ths+ Solar Noise 'Berserk mode' are aspects of DDS2 that I feel as though could have been in DDS1, but they're here now, and they do what they say on the tin. Bit of a 'bare minimum' inclusion, I know, but eh.

STORY:
"Delicious, finally, some actual fucking substance for once" I thought initially, as Roland decided to give us a lore dump that wasn't just obscurantist platitudes. Alas... 'initially' is the key word here.

Let's start with the character writing, and while I think a lot of the cast aren't done as dirty as DDS1, there's still a bunch of problems. Argilla, for example, isn't nearly as belligerent here as she was in DDS1, but the writers have replaced that behaviour with... absolutely nothing (keep that thought in the back of your minds, 'kay? Bitchin'). Meanwhile, Heat's rivalry with Serph, for as much as 'stuff' was actually done with him (including 'recalling' a previous timeline where Serph was actually your garden-variety brand of 'I'm a Atheist Scientist playing god'), the one thing I find distracting is how little transition is given between Heat coming off the fight with Jenna Angel, and a tenuous alliance with her and Margot Cuvier in regards to the affairs of Sera (even as Jenna has Madame shot around the same point Serph leaves the party for the first time). Speaking of Jenna - she gets decidedly little beyond deciding to double-cross both the Karma Society and the party. But suddenly (and as a corollary to all of the above) when everyone becomes Solar Data in order to save the world, tensions between Jenna and Margot Cuvier are just sort of... forgotten about, even though Jenna had Madame... oh, I dunno FUCKING SHOT IN THE BACK?!

Gale and Cielo, despite having a miniature Bert and Ernie routine, also serve as a microcosm of this narrative direction. Gale is also stretched in two different directions between his own 'previous life' with Jenna, and finding Lupa's son (the latter of which is closed prematurely after the Kumbhanda minigame (which as an aside, that minigame is hilarious)), and what do we get out of Gale and Jenna stabbing each other? Absolutely goddamn nothing my friend! Cielo's arc is cut off just as prematurely, after slagging off what Robin & Zephyr fans will call 'James of Team Rocket' that there's more to life than an obsession with strength.

Now, you might recall me saying I'd remind you of a similar narrative mistake when bringing up Argilla - and this applies to basically every character. In other words: the whole 'everyone dies but is actually alive as Solar Data in order to save the world' thing in the endgame. I get that a lot of this is the game using Hinduism as a frame of reference (a lot of SMT games seem friendly with Hindu lore, and... no, I'm not judging), and while the game does do it's best to cushion the blow after Brahman's defeat - I can't help but feel as though this is another instance of the game sacrificing narrative consistency for the sake of a nod to 'symbolism'. I even dedicated a page-long anecdote to my issues with 'symbolic references' in my hence-scrapped Xenosaga retrospective (Tl;dr if I had a quid for every pseudo-intellectual who decided to jack themselves off to Carl Jung in place of an actual narrative explanation because "ThAt's wHaT THe gaMEs aRe BasED oFF oF", I'd make Elon Musk bankrupt) - and it's an issue in the case of DDS2 because the whole 'they're dead but also not at the same time' trope and similar like it is something you have to handle with extreme care. Sure, we get Seraph and Ardha's designs out of the deal, but what is that supposed to mean when, in your attempts to curry favour with your cultural Indian cousin down the way from Japan, you've landed yourself with another instance of 'the power of friendship'? I'm not accusing this of cultural appropriation or anything (I'm too red-pilled to make that accusation...), but (at the risk of sounding like I'm talking in circles) it is distracting, and the narrative stakes take a hit as a result.

MUSIC & GRAPHICS:
Divine Identity and the standard Battle Theme are just as much the bangers I expected. Not much to say here, either. Oh, and a bunch of the clipping issues in cutscenes are gone (or at least lesser, although I did notice with the first 'Team Rocket' cutscene, Jessie was inexplicably glitching in and out of the Matrix as she went to run). Not to mention UI touch-ups and the like.

Y'know - whenever Atlus do anything SMT, god quite literally flips a coin. It can be modern classics like P3FES/P5R, and legitimately underrated titles like Soul Hackers 2 and SMTIVa... or it can be pig slop like SMTV and Persona 4.

But even with that said, after around 50 hours here... I don't know how you make a game as bad as this. I really don't.

I don't generally write reviews for this site (hell, if I wasn't short on time today, this would be a Substack article on one specific aspect like SMTV's (as I called it) 'dyslexic' alignment system). But hey, I feel like a change.

Gameplay:
WOULD be standard SMT fare (sans the whole transforming into a customisable demon thing) if the in-game mantra economy wasn't completely bollocked (good shit like Elemental resists will set you back around 700k in in-game money, and while you do get sellable cores, it's not something you often come across). Other characters are stuck grinding out weaker mantras just to kill time.

As for the dungeon design... oh Christ all-bloody-MIGHTY, the dungeon design. Too many gimmicks, and the backtracking makes me want to get caught in a NATO-Russia nuke strike on a count of an encounter rate that will not leave you alone. Say what you will about Xenogears and Saga 1 having similar(ish) issues, at least their combat systems allowed you to get in and get out quickly (especially Deathblows). Oh, and the difficulty curve is either Mudo spammers going 'better pick the right side of this weighted coin, ya' brummy pillock!' or a complete steamroll on your end - it's whatever the game feels like, and there's no consistency. Sure, you have options, but that's in the same way that Multi-billionaires have money, you're either on autopilot (not auto-battle, although the game occasionally has that problem too), or you're getting Stoned (looking at you, Jatayu!).

Story:
Any AoT fans familiar with Squad Levi? Well this is a Squad L, let me explain... if I could because NOTHING HAPPENS.

Long and short of it is 'there's an egg that gives your tribes demon powers, you get fucked around by them for a bit, and then some Woman in a white robe claiming to be your restraint check's mum shows up out of basically nowhere'. There's scarcely what I'd call any worldbuilding (on a count of precious little dialogue), Heat and Argilla are the worst on a count of going into the personal Agency and Accountability test wanting to flunk it (no, cautionary tales don't count here) and everyone else is just kinda... there (except Cielo, he's kinda cool ig).

EDIT: I should add that Lupa is a microcosm of the 'Squad Levi' comparison. He seemed fine for a while, but then Cerberus goes out with naria wimper. To paraphrase a quote from Blizzic 'It's not the death of someone you care about, it's the death of the potential to care about them'.

OST:
I heard DDS2's OST is kinda cool! But that doesn't count for DDS1... tonally inappropriate at worst, and repetitive and rather droning even at it's most benign. Not much to say here.

Graphics:
The 'point' of the Junkyard aside, it looks like benefits street in Bolton, and that is NOT a complement. Constant clipping, janky animations, low-health animations for enemies just aren't there for some reason (?)... oh, and this is the first time a PS2 game has ever crashed on me running off FreeMCBoot and a respective Hard Drive, so... take that for what you will. Shame, the game runs OK otherwise.

But... Oh, look at the time, got places to be. Hoping DDS2 is better than this, but I'm tampering my expectations.