15 reviews liked by Nelav


A lot of people shit on this game but this was the second coming of Christ for me. I built like thirty thousand cars and helicopters in every conceivable shape and size, this was Garry's Mod to me before I knew it existed. That skeleton guy talks your ear off too, I played it so much he was basically my dad for a while

many happy songs performed beautifully, though sometimes i think there is a profound sadness in her heart

more like Spyro 2: Rip My Balls Off because this shit is great. these were the best days of my life, when i loved playing outside more than anything else and having to come in and play spyro was like a worst case scenario. i didnt know how good i had it back then

Imagine a game called Chuck E. Cheese's Modern Warfare. You'd probably think that was some dumb shit and wonder who it was for. Last Bible Special is the same deal. The point of Last Bible was to distinguish itself from mainline SMT and provide a different experience than first-person dungeon crawling, but with similar mechanics.

Naturally, they made this a hardcore dungeon crawler with almost no relation to Last Bible. It has a very cool class system with dozens of options for party building, and a neat Middle Eastern setting - but just about everything in this game relies on random chance, from recruiting team members, to getting critical quest items, to having weapons break, and even reviving fallen allies. It's a messy and cumbersome game that doesn't respect your time whatsoever, and definitely leans more towards luck than skill. To top it off, the soundtrack is reminiscent of slamming piano keys underwater, and I'm not saying that to be funny.

raaaa yaaay i love observation duty/exit8-likes raaa
love how anomalies interact back here, overall good fun

I bought a sun-bleached copy of this game laying outside on the ground at a yard sale. For some reason it's in French. One of the best NES games out there - it might as well be a modern game, that's how polished it is. Fun stages, great soundtrack, cool characters, neat power-ups.

this game aggressively sexualizing women (and young girls) at random points is a jumpscare within itself but what saves it is the protagonist never even cares. he has no time for titties he’s fighting demons.




for a game with a subplot about japan carrying out secret biological warfare experiments on innocent people during ww2 i was utterly blown away at how hard this game danced around the topic of unit 731

solitaire is the fishing minigame of adventures/puzzlers and i will not hear it otherwise

This review contains spoilers

This is a weird game. A lot of the time I feel very strong or very weak, but I finally had an in-between. The good definitely outweighs the bad, but I will list them as normal.

(Negatives)

This game is definitely more story driven than character driven, which is fine, on paper. But the villains aren't on screen nearly long enough to get that point across. It's supposed to be this large scale political drama but it doesn't feel like Vayne himself does much. Cid carries the antagonist super hard.

This game's story feels like a zelda-game at certain points. Get item to help beat bad guys --> get new item to adjust to situation --> get new item to adjust adjust to situation --> finally fight bad guys. It leads to these deadzones in the story because the characters can't hold the story together because of lack of focus towards them.

Basch has a great foundation for a character but it doesn't feel like he gets to do anything until super late into the game. He barely even feels like Ashe's "Knight" because Vaan and Balthier do all the talking for him. Was pretty disappointed in him honestly.

Penelo and Larsa should certainly get more screentime together. They are definitely trying to show the gap between classes but there's only 1 main scene that shows this. I wish there was just something inbetween.

Vaan is alright, but I do agree with the majority, I have absolutely no clue why he is the vocal point of the story. They could of done it with Penelo. She narrates the ending, and builds a connection with a super major character in the story. He actually has enough for a supporting character. He feels quite contrived at times as they were trying to force a supporting character to be a main character. It feels very messy.

The traps are just irritating. I have no clue why this game has an obsession with them. They just make progression 10 times more annoying unless you consistantly float your party. Or remove all of the AIs to make sure you don't want into them.

The dungeons are pretty weak, especially Great Crystal, Pharos. Insanely tedious. Or just mazes.

There's a ton of walking because there isn't some teleport crystals in some points where there definitely should be.

And this is more personal but I think there is a little too much status spam, and bosses that just become immune to certain moves which slow certain battles to a crawl. Since this game doesn't have the Xenoblade mechanic of enemies ignoring you if you're higher leveled.


The chest system is really, really stupid. Along with the Bazaar system, I would put them in the same catagory. Very frustrating and grindy mechanics, that are basically impossible to utilize without a guide. There are some spells that are just completely luck-based, you really have no reason to collect most chest blind because 90% of them have basic potions that scale horribly, or like 10 gold. The Bazaar not holding the items you already sold is pretty damn baffling.

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Positives:

Balthier, Ashe, and I actually think Penelo are all pretty great. Penelo got sold completely to me by the ending but I think that alone justified her pretty meager role in the plot. Ashe and Balthier are actually just complete characters. They fit under the standard that I expect from this series.

The guest party members are fantastic. Hell, even better than most of your actual party members. Most of them have at least a few scenes that are genuinely impactful, and stay for quite a long time. I think being able to do side-content with them really adds to them feeling like main-stays. I would love to see more games experiment with guest party members like this.

The writing really gets it together in the last 2 dungeons. It feels like it regains the direction that it is periodically messing throughout the game. The definition of a slow-burn.

The ending sequence is fantastic.

The Gambit system and class system are both pretty incredible. I do have a few minor issues here and there, as I think the AI relies too much on gambits sometimes (They will just keep spamming shit if the enemy is immune to it or absorb it, and there's no real gambit around it unless you set a new guide in-battle.) But it's definitely a highlight of the game and you can be pretty exact about what you want the AI to do. It sets up for a ton of really good optimization and it's entertaining to watch builds (the building is super flexable) just absolutely desimate the main story as it is piss easy.

The music and world are both pretty damn solid.

The hunts can be pretty fun, and are a great challenge. I will note a lot of them have really annoying requirements and gimmicks in mid-game that are definitely not fun though. But the late-game and early game ones are pretty great.
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In-all, pretty good game, but it definitely can overstay it's welcome sometimes.

(I am sorry for my terrible formatting I just write what is in my brain oopsies)

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