I finally got around to playing Final Fantasy II, but I didn't like it that much. The story has more to it than the first game, but it's still pretty simple and forgettable. That isn't even a problem though. The problem is the extremely grindy gameplay, and enemies that spawn way too often. It becomes a chore just to play through this game after a while. It was pretty fun at the start: magic and weapons level up as you use them, but in the later stages of the game, it takes forever for magic to level up. Also, you do a lot of the same stuff over and over again. Talk to the princess, walk to objective while fighting a bunch of enemies, navigate overly long and samey dungeons with way too many encounters, then return to the princess. It gets very repetitive. Still, the music and atmosphere are pretty good, but I would say this is probably my least favourite Final Fantasy out of those I've finished. I will give it a positive review though, because the Pixel Remaster makes it a lot better. You can turn of encounters if you feel like you've had enough for one area, you can speed up leveling and/or battles, and you can even switch to the original soundtrack if you want. For those reasons, it barely gets a nod from me.

As a review from a person who wasn't alive in the 80s and is playing this for the first time in 2k24, this is an ok game. Very simple story, spells, characters, and little depth to anything. I did enjoy the scope and can only guess at what this would have been like to play when it first came out.
I'll say that if it weren't for the quality of life features for the pixel remaster, I would have never finished this. Being able to turn off random encounters and take control of your own pace through the game is entirely necessary to prevent it from becoming a major grinding slog of an rpg.
I finished it in about 12 hours with a guide because I just don't have the time to waste right now and there's 15+ more of these I need to get through now. Most of the grind is at the end because the final boss is a massive difficulty jump from anything previous. CHAOS doesn't mess around, and requires a very specific strategy to beat which I found irritating.
The rest of the enemies are mostly a breeze and you can just level up as you beat enemies along the main story.
I wonder what it would have been like to sit around the crt tv for hours on end making little numbers go up on pixelated sprites as your only source of entertainment for the entire winter.
What innovative features are going completely over my head? Who knows.
On to Final Fantasy II.

Sometimes, there is a thing as too much immersion, and ludonarrative harmony can sometimes work to the detriment of the overall experience. This game, for example, is hellbent on making you feel exactly what your character is going through, and your character is in a state of perpetual irritation, exhaustion and a quiet burning hatred for bureaucracy and incompetent political figures. The experience is quite miserable lol

All of this lies in the gameplay. I'll summarize as quickly as possible: you walk around VERY slowly and talk to people who don't solve anything and only mess things up, all the while having to deal with survival mechanics (hunger, disease, tiredness and immunity). Oh, and you have a Majora's Mask-ish timer going on and you'll get harshly punished for not doing the right things on time. I would like to stress that only FIVE PERCENT of players on Steam beat ONE of the three campaigns in this game. Not because the game is hard, but because it redefines tedium and sets a whole new bar for it. I think doing nothing at all is legit less boring than slogging through this.

Playing this game felt like scraping my face with sandpaper, so I, sneaky little crook that I am, just cheated the shit out of it with console commands. Gave myself 1000 of each resource, sped up the walking speed 2x while slowing down in-game timer. I strongly recommend you do the same, because every other aspect in this game is top-notch.

And by every other aspect I mean the atmosphere, story, setting, architecture, OST and, first and foremost, dialogue. It all feels so strange in a very unique, dreamlike way. I don't know any other piece of media that feels alien in this particular way. Surely the Soviet cultural background combined with Tim Burton-ish creepy/cute aesthetics and the weird, out there artsy framing brewed up something that hasn't been replicated yet, at least to my current knowledge. It's a great and very unique experience that's unfortunately chained down by awful gameplay.

Bravely Default is a JRPG with a super unique battle system. In battle you can stock up actions by using a defensive move called 'Default' mid battle to block attacks and store up 'Brave Points' to then use 'Brave' and unleash multiple different skills, items, or attacks all within a single turn depending on how many Brave Points you have.
As you progress and defeat bosses you will gain new classes or 'jobs' you can change your party members into to completely change how you strategize and go about battles.

The menu and battles screens can be navigated super fast with the snappy controls and helpful built in optimization that keeps things aware from being a chore. The game also has on the fly toggleable difficulty and the ability to disable enemy encounters if you want to back track without wasting time.

The gameplay is amazing, but its also carried by its music, voice acting, and characters. The music is consistently absolute bangers from the start to the end of the game. The final boss theme is one of the best I've ever heard. The voice acting ranges from just entertaining and funny to actually really impressive, it never got annoying and was enjoying to listen to throughout the whole game. The 4 main characters can be stubborn, annoying, and questionable at first in how they work together, however as it picks up and progresses they actually do grow and change in meaningful ways and its great to see how far they go. The villains and side characters are hilarious and amazing, with outlandish designs and voices that kept me wanting more of them.

The only real downside this game has (Besides for random encounters in general) is the horrible late game pacing. The gameplay pacing suddenly gets really weird later in the game and forces you to do a lot of the task you've already done over and over again countless times if you want to achieve the 'true ending' the game has. A lot of end game side quest also have little rewards or incentives unless you just want the challenge and the chance to interact with the characters and villians more. The story can also be questionable especially in the later half of the game as it becomes more convoluted with the pacing.

However for me the story, characters, voice acting, incredible music, and minute to minute gameplay kept me going even through the tedium (and entirely on hard mode) through all the side content and all the way to the true ending of the game. which felt like one of the craziest things I've ever accomplished in a game.

An okay introduction to the Uncharted Series.

Maybe that’s just me but this game was soooo long. The settings are boring most of the time which really makes it a „quest“ to play. The game also drags extremely, at some point I was like "Just end already". The pacing is combined with a rather lackluster story and probably the worst boss fight I’ve ever played. Moreover, the combat is just so uninspiring somehow. Pair that with clunky controls and you get this rather uncomfortable gaming experience.

I give the game three stars because the characters, especially Nate, at least make the game more bearable and because it kicked off this otherwise great series.