Bio
- trails
- shadowbringers enjoyer
- finally understand the appeal of VNs
- not a fan of mecha but somehow keep encountering them
Personal Ratings
1★
5★

Badges


1 Years of Service

Being part of the Backloggd community for 1 year

Liked

Gained 10+ total review likes

Favorite Games

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure
The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers
AI: The Somnium Files
AI: The Somnium Files
The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki II - Crimson Sin
The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki II - Crimson Sin

031

Total Games Played

001

Played in 2024

012

Games Backloggd


Recently Played See More

Persona 3 Reload
Persona 3 Reload

Mar 10

Sea of Stars
Sea of Stars

Oct 09

Chained Echoes
Chained Echoes

Aug 17

Zero Escape: The Nonary Games
Zero Escape: The Nonary Games

May 23

The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki II - Crimson Sin
The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki II - Crimson Sin

Mar 19

Recently Reviewed See More

Persona 3 Reload captures the heart and soul of the original games (minus FEMC) and elevates it with stylistic graphics, new music tracks, and added gameplay complexity to make it a very solid overall experience.

Some pros: I enjoyed the story minus a few story beats that require you to suspend your belief in order to get to the conclusion and receive the message that the writer wanted to give in the first place. The new music tracks are amazing and add a breath of fresh air to an otherwise short and repetitive soundtrack for a 50+ hour game. The new theurgy system and returning baton pass system from P5 is a welcome addition to the combat system that separates it from P4. Voice acting is amazing, and everyone was cast very well, I have no complaints in that department. The story had a darker tone than 4 and 5, which I enjoyed, and I liked how the ending was played out.

Cons: Too many Tartarus floors. At least in P5, mementos was broken up by the palaces, but this game is all mementos style gameplay, which was my least favourite part of 5. Let me listen to or reread active voice dialogue in Tartarus because they get cut off by every little thing that happens (how does dialogue not have priority over "theres a shadow!" for the 500th time?). Pacing can be weird sometimes, and Strega kinda suck as antagonists because their motives are so shaky (they went from trying to prevent Nyx's return to actively trying to stop you from fighting it?) And small gripe, the monad passages are annoying to traverse through if you want to save between each boss, and the fact that it asks you if you want to return to entrance before you open the chests instead of after, is annoying. Lastly, the social links are a big weakness in this game. Many are quite uninteresting, and also require you to make morally questionable decisions to gain the most social points, instead of being honest or trying to set the person on the right track.

Great classic JRPG experience, although the beginning experience (first 5-10 hours) is basically all you get for the entire game. They went for style over substance in this one, and I felt myself wishing it was over past the halfway point due to the novelty of the game wearing off.

Pros:
- Music is pleasant, nothing crazy good but servicable
- Gorgeous pixel art throughout the entire game (my favourite was the food art)
- Sound design and sound effects are on point
- Charming character moments, and sprinkled in hand drawn cutscenes which were short but great

Cons:
- No speed up toggle for battles OR any "run" option
- Exploring the world is so tedious because of a lack of a convenient fast travel system (until too late into the game), which heavily disincentivized backtracking.
- Combat is too simple and slow for a 25ish hour game, and gets stale by hour 10
- Story is quite flat and lacks clear direction. It feels like they created a beautiful and bustling world and two page storyboard (which many old JRPGs suffered from, so if they were going for authenticity, they nailed it).
- Characters are largely boring except 1 or 2, and the main characters are BOTH self inserts which makes it hard to care about anyone in your party.

Overall, really wanted to enjoy this game, but was disappointed. I think it could've used another year or two to fully flesh out. Still worthwhile to grab on sale!

This game was frustrating (not in difficulty), but overall I'd say it was an enjoyable experience. For every good part of this game, there was an equally bad part to sour the mood.

I've always been a fan of the classic turn based combat system, and I think if done right, it is fun enough to last a 30+ hour experience. The overdrive system is very clever and adds a substantial level of depth to the game. There are serious consequences for not managing your gauge, especially in human battles. However, I felt that the system ended up being very obnoxious during mech battles since you have to balance so many aspects that I ended up basically ignoring the overdrive system during mech boss battles. Otherwise, characters have clear archetypes, and there is a class system that allows you to mix and match builds, but there is quickly a problem with character bloat and certain characters that blatantly outshine others. The crystal system to enhance weapons is horribly unintuitive and unfun to use, and I abandoned it for most of the game.

Music is quite good, and takes inspiration from the Mana and Dragon Quest series. As a small nitpick, the button sound during any confirmation or clicking was mixed so loud compared to other sound effects that it became very annoying for the first 10 hours until I got used to it.

My biggest problem with the game was the story and character writing. Out of the 10+ main characters in the game, about 2 get any sort of development at all, and the ending itself was unsatisfying and felt unearned. I think this can be partly attributed to the fact that the writing itself was just not that good. Understandably this was a solo developer, but I think this game could have benefited a lot from an experienced editor or writer. Every story arc's message is so spelled out for the player that there is no room for interpretation, killing the imagination and feeling more like a picture book than an emotional story.

This game had more content than I expected, but lacked polish in many fundamental JRPG features that made it feel very shallow overall. However, I am optimistic that this developer's next at bat will be greatly improved, as their ideas are definitely solid. Still a worthwhile experience for any JRPG lover.