Cold Steel 1, being the first Trails game I have played thus far, was a very good time and left me generally impressed.

Since i do not have other games in the series to draw comparison to, I can't really say how i feel about it as a member of this series. That being said, I quite enjoyed my time with this game. The combat's movement point based system is a fun twist on the turn-based gameplay that so many JRPGs have, although it does admittedly still have some of the same pitfalls when it comes to enemies and boss fights. it's generally solid- but it certainly starts to get tiresome towards that latter third of the game.

Gamplay aside, the story, characters, and world, are very much the meat of this game (as they are in many rpgs) and I personally feel like all of these things hold up pretty well in this game. I liked a majority of the main and sidecast- although admittedly i can't say i love any of them either. One thing that did greatly impress me about Cold Steel is its dedication to worldbuilding. The universe of this game is very detailed and filled with believable politics of a massive early modern world, as well as a great effort put into its in-world locations. It's rare to see the same level of worldbuilding in many JRPGs, most of which opt for a more straight forward approach. That said- one thing that does hurt the world building in this game is the visual design of enemies- there are lots of very odd and unusual creatures and ghosts which really feel out of place in the world, often reminding me of a the kind of enemy design seen in Dragon Quest but less comical and cartoony. I'm personally not a fan of this, but it obviously isn't a deal breaker.

The soundtrack of this game is also very good- with a pretty nostalgic assortment of synth and traditional instruments that resembles the early 2000s era of game music.

As for the story of this game itself, I definitely enjoyed it as well as the setup for conflict later on in the plot. That said, the story of cold steel greatly overstays its welcome- it makes you think you are finished like 3 different times only to keep on going. To make this worse, the story definitely spirals out of control in near the end. The last several hours of this game is a mess of tropes and twists and cliche dialogue, only to end on a cliffhanger anyway. It certainly dampened the experience, but i still enjoyed it for what it was.

Overall, I come out of this game happy that i played it and looking forward to the next one, but Its flaws hold it back from making it into my top games.

I am very happy and thankful to have gotten a modern remake of Persona 3 since it's one of my favorite games. The quality of life and modern visuals naturally made it feel fresh and made it easier to recommend to friends than the original. It's also very faithful in terms of the story (so faithful in fact that it even maintains the same flaws the original had). The other positive thing I can say is that I very much like the several new music tracks introduced in the game, and the remastered tracks are also all good (with the exception of Mass Destruction which i think is just not as good as the original- unfortunate since this is kind of the most iconic song from the game)

That said, this remake has a lot of really small changes from the original that can't stop myself from nitpicking......For one the game's lighting is way too bright and kind of ruins the darker visuals of the original. Turning down the game's brightness helps this some but you can't totally fix it. This game also has a weird obsession with the green hues associated with the Dark Hour in the original, so all the night time scenes in Reload outside of Tartarus have too much bright green lighting going on. In general, I would say the remake simply fails to recreate the creative vision that permeates the original in terms of visuals. There are some other tiny things i could nitpick but personally I can look past a lot of the small issues. HOWEVER, there is one thing I simply could not overlook which was the removal of certain anime cutscenes from the original, which were replaced by in-engine rendered cutscenes. These scenes were very important parts of the story and the in-engine versions are a massive downgrade, seriously hurting their impact. This was by far the most disappointing aspect of the remake.

All things considered I love Persona 3 and I was happy to have experienced it again remastered and refreshed. I would consider myself mostly satisfied with this remake, I just really wish the developers put more effort into recreating the visual style that made the original unique.

A truly compelling game that makes excellent use of the medium. Beautiful story, a powerful message, incredible soundtrack, and gameplay that, while flawed, is still satisfying.

My biggest problem with Automata is that it requires the player to re-play the first half of the game before they can play the rest. While this may serve narrative and creative purposes, I think that it does more damage than it is worth. It can feel like a slog to have to repeat this first half, and it has certainly caused countless players to drop the game before finishing, never knowing how good the second act of the game really is.

Persona 3 has not aged well at all. Its dungeons become a slog pretty quickly, its story is mostly uneventful until the last quarter of the game, social links with party members are a pain (or nonexistent for the male characters), and it has many smaller issues plaguing it as well.

And yet, in spite of all this, I love this game. I love the music, I enjoy the characters, I like the persona gameplay loop, I love the darker visual design and tone, and the story really clicked with me once it picked up. I also found Aigis to be a rather compelling character that I fell in love with, which helps quite a bit, especially in regards to payoff in the game's ending. I truly hope this game one day gets a remaster or re-release to fix its major issues, because I do think a great game is sitting below the dust.

This game follows suit with the derailment of storytelling that takes place at the end of Cold Steel 1. I still like this game and its character moments, and I enjoyed the premise of traveling around the game's world on the Courageous. The upbeat music and collection of students aboard the ship felt like I was on a fun adventure and i'm fond of it. But overall, this game really turns into the anime equivalent of schlock. Character motivations and dialogue are as corny as ever and the main story is just a total mess. I enjoyed this game, but I preferred the simpler times of Cold Steel 1.

A lovingly crafted JRPG that just kept getting progressively better the longer I played it. This game has some of the best world areas I've seen from the 2000s. The story, while cheesy, is also a great time- with a solid protagonist, a likeable cast of characters, and some very touching moments. Additionally, soundtrack is WONDERFUL. I also found the gameplay side of things to be very fun and addicting (and unique for this genre, at least for the time it came out). The depth of this gameplay doesn't quite hold up long-term unfortunately, but it remains enjoyable for the duration of the main game at least. I had never played a Xenoblade game before playing this remaster when it released, and I am truly glad that I gave it a shot, because I loved every second of it.

Breath of the Wild has the single best open world ever seen in a video game to date. It is absolutely wonderful to get immersed in this game. While the open world itself is very well designed, It also makes fantastic use of everything that would make an open world engaging- with physics, environmental interaction, verticality, a great traversal + climbing system, and above all, some very exceptional sound design. That said, I actually did not click very well with the combat in this game, despite the creative freedom it offers. This is mostly a me thing though, I can appreciate it for what it is at least. My only gripe with this game is that the story is extremely lacking and the shrines are too repetitive. Not a very original complaint, but it is a problem nonetheless