Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a flawed game. I was often frustrated with its combat and story pacing. It all too often confirmed my fears about the new direction RGG Studios wanted to take this series in. I can't exactly blame them for trying something so drastically different, as this was at the time the 8th main line Yakuza game. After all the trials and struggles of Kazuma Kiryu, it was definitly time to move on. And despite all the issues I had with Like a Dragon, they actually did the impossible once again and rose up to the challenge to deliver one of the best games I have ever played.

And it's all build on the shoulders of its new main character: Ichiban Kasuga. He is in many ways similar to the series main boy Kiryu. An orphan raised on the rough streets of Tokyo, getting taken in by an enigmatic father figure with deep ties to the Japanese underworld. And while they are so similar in upbringing and the morals they stand for, along with the color of their suits literary being inverted, RGG immediately shows you the difference between them all in their introduction. In the PS2 original and Kiwami, Kyrui's intro is quiet. We follow him as he makes understated treats for a money collection job, confident, professional. Ichiban is also introduced during a job collection Money for the Yakuza. Unlike Kyrui, he is not threatening, nor is he a professional as we see him desperately chase some low life through the streets of Kamurocho before throwing himself off a balcony screaming and flattening his target with a body slam. This is Ichiban Kasuga. He's loud, he's easily excitable and above all else: Fully dedicated to whatever job he's doing for the people he considers family. Ichiban won me over hard. Throughout all the stories funniest and also the darkest moments, and this story gets fucking dark, Ichiban is here to push you along with his borderline retarded optimism. The story came together incredibly satisfying, gave me chills on multiple occasions, and the ending almost broke me. Is the pacing all over the place ? Yes, sometimes I was tearing my hair out when it decided to move along at the pace of a melting Iceberg, but just like many games in this very series, the payoff is 100% worth it. Ichibans speech at the end especially was incredible and Kazuhiro Nakaya, his Japanese voice actor, deserves all the awards in the world for what I think is one of the best performances I have seen in basically anything. I absolutely don't want to spoil anything in case you haven't played it yet, so I'm just going to move on to the gameplay and fully recommend Yakuza Like a Dragon on the strengths of the story alone.

The gameplay was a mixed bag. I don't think they flawlessly managed to transition from action combat into a turn-based rpg. I would best describe it as wide as an ocean and as deep as a puddle because despite the many options you have with the new job system, it mostly comes down to choosing between three basics options. Either targeting single enemies, doing large AOI attacks or keeping on top of your parties health. Enemies only ever become a problem whenever they heavily out level you, and even that was only an issue during one particular boss fight where the game basically kicks your ass and tells you to fuck off. Go grind, you scrub. It was certainly appropriate considering who I was fighting, but it didn't make it any less annoying that the story basically was put on pause in order for me to grind in the game's boring as fuck dungeons. And that might be my biggest personal issue with Like a Dragon. The side content seems to have been a major priority during the development. Admittedly, it's the best and most fun side content, Yakuza has ever had. Every side story and mini-game you could think of his here. From an entire management sim, a full on Mario Kart clone and even the entire arcade version of Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown. It's all great and all, but be aware that you will basically be forced to do some of those side quests at some point in the story. As one of the many people who like to play Yakuza by mainlining the story and then slowly enjoying the side content in Premium Adventure, that certainly was a roadblock I had to overcome in order to have a fun.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon still was an incredible game for me, and I'm now fully onboard with whatever insanity Infinity Wealth looks to be. RGG Studios continues to be the GOAT in an industrie that decided to increasingly suck ass, and I can not recommend enough that you get into this incredible series. RGG I love you all but also fuck you for teaching me what a coin locker baby is. That scene will probably not leave me for a while, as well as the eyeball scene. That was just fucking gross, man.

No More Heroes 2 is one of the most confusing game sequels I ever tried to wrap my head around. I can't decide if this is pure genius, or if they just fundamentally misunderstood what the original was about. Gōichi Suda wasn't completely hands-on with the Sequel, since he didn't even want to make a sequel in the first place. By his own admission, he didn't expect No More Heroes to blow up the way it did. Grasshoppers game before NMH, Killer 7, wasn't a mega hit, but sold just enough to make them get some amount of notoriety. So it was entirely realistic to expect NHM to play to that same small but loyal niche audience Killer 7 did. That assumption couldn't have been more wrong. No More Heroes sold way better than anyone expected, especially in the west, so a sequel was inevitable. Suda then handed over the game to this Assistant Director, Nobutaka Ichiki, while Suda oversaw the character and scenario writing. Keeping that mind, I think it's 100% more clear why No More Heroes 2 feels so confused. One side wanted to make a legitimate action game with a deeper meaning to it, while the other side, probably Suda, wanted to double down on the bonkers meta aspects. That doesn't mean there are no deeper elements to it, in fact both sides come together quite beautifully. And for all the silly jokes it makes about sequels, how gamers don't really want context, this is a very smart continuation of what No More Heroes buildt.

All the characters have evolved in meaningful ways, there are consequences for even minor things that happened in NMH, and the world has changed in a way that is in line with the events that took place around Santa Destroy. One of the biggest criticisms this story gets is that they supposedly ignore that the UAA was revealed to be a scam and a ploy from Sylvia to get rich, but now it's treated like it's 100% real. Yes, it was all a big joke in the first game, to both Travis and the player, where they thought they worked toward some meaningful goal, until it's revealed right before the end that we all been played for suckers. The game builds up to that joke, signposts Sylvia being a red flag in pretty much every cutscene, and it's completely in Travis character to fall for all of it. Travis still became Number 1 in the end, but walked away basically into self exile. And this is where the Sequel picks up. His absence and the resulting legend of “the crownless king” has now turned assassinations into a commodity, a mega popular trend. And Silvia, being the gold digger she is, takes complete advantage of that boom. What was once a small-time scam is now a legit business simply because it will make her a fuck tone more money. It all makes sense within its own framework. Travis basicly gets roped back into the game because of a revenge plot reveald by the brother of the 11th ranked assassin killed in the trailer for NMH 1, who is also the first boss. Bishop, the owner of Beef Head Video and Travis best friend, gets killed, setting him on a revenge mission to work himself up the ranking again to get the one responsible. Travis has noticeably changed though, having become a lot more reserved and looking for some kind of meaning in his life. And with changed, I don't mean what a lot of people have defined for themselves as change, aka that he has to be a completely different person now. That is not what change means, because no matter how far you go, even a real person doesn't completely change their personality as they get older. Everyone keeps certain core aspects that define them, while maturing into other directions and dropping minor things. And Travis is a fantastic example of this. There is definitely a growth in his personality. He is not as hyped up anymore, he has people he visibly cares about just as much as he is still a weeb deep down seeking the thrill of a good fight. He's not above bouncing off the wall or jerking off to his favorite Moe, but when it comes down to business, he is much more reversed. Old Travis would have probably taken advantage of Shinobu, but new Travis, while he still a horn dog, doesn't seem to care. He has much more defined goals that give him a legitimate human connection with other people and isn't just looking for fast and cheap thrills exclusively

Travis is growing from a snooty teen into a man. The way he goes off on Sylvia on multiple occasions for disrespecting Assassins he has legitimately grown respect for is beautiful. They are my favorite moments of Travis character's arc, and Robin Atkin Downes does a phenomenal job as Travis. You completely buy every line from him. In a game overflowing with mediocre bosses these are the highlights and I think it's not coincident that they are what give Travis life. He is not tired of violence, he is tired of meaningless violence. The endless waves of goons and tired retreads of bosses he already fought. It's another fun reflection on Video Games itself, and I think it no coincident that the longest, most draining level is the one right before the fight with Alice Twilight. The final straw for Travis character arc. The level before you fight her is this endless kill march through a somber sunset. You start the level walking by a giant graffiti mural of Travis face plastered on a building, which I think perfectly represents not what he sees himself as, but what the world sees him as. This giant icon, adored by everyone but himself. The following level has enemies just pour in wave after wave to the point of exhaustion while remixes of the main theme play, only to be interrupted by this beautiful melancholic melody that could have come straight from Silent Hill. And the music for No More Heroes 2 was in fact created by Akira Yamaoka, who was working for Grasshopper at the time after resigning from Konami in 2009. His soundtrack is phenomenal and blows the original games OST out the water. His music is a big part of what makes moments like I just described work so damn well. It's my highlight of the game, no doubt. Contrasting that is the ending, which left me downright confused. I think it's supposed to represent Travis and Sylvia finally breaking free from the cycle of video game violence hinted all throughout the story and becoming actual 3 Dimensional characters having a real human connection with each other beyond being cardboard cut-outs exchanging funny quips. After all, the game's actual framing device is a conversation of a mysterious man, totally not Travis, talking to a stripper, totally not Silva, in a shady sex phone booth where she poetically describes what happened in Santa Destroy. They then ride into the sunset together on Travis Motorcycle as the credit's role. But I could also be totally overanalyzing it, and it's all just incompetent storytelling, very possible.

And if you actually read this far, first of all thank you so much, that's not all a given. Secondly: I think I made it very obvious that I'm of the opinion that everything surrounding the game is far more interesting than its actual gameplay. So to finally close off this insane ramble, I'm just gone quickly say what I thought of the gameplay. It's basically the first game, but heavily streamlined for the worst. Combat is mostly the same, except for different weapons this time like the double beam katana, which is really awesome, and being able to store your special powers instead of them being activated immediately. Most of the bosses are awful this time, and the addition of Shinobu and Henry as playable characters does not help. They control really stiff and combat is even more limited than it already is with Travis. The Open world is entirely replaced with a menu now, which is a shame because Santa Destroy had so much potential. They just didn't bother and scrapped it entirely. Side missions are much worse across the board, since they replaced the gym and jobs with very bad NES style minigames instead of the variety we had before. Where before I wanted to play at least some of the better ones for extra cash, I now never want to engage with them again. And since there is almost no point to money anymore I have no reason to do them anyway. The combat missions were hit with the same unfun stick as well. You can debate how fun they actually were before, but at least we had some variety in the challenges. They are now called revenge missions and there are only two types. Kill Everyone or Kill the Target. You would think at least you'll get some kind of cutscene, since these are the guys who basically kicked off the plot. Nope, just kill the same boring assholes over and over again. I dropped all the side content pretty fast, only forcing myself to do them for the 4 Combat upgrades you can buy, then entirely mainlining the story. Which makes the game so much shorter than the first game, just by virtue of most of the content sucking. I suppose if you're a big fan of No More Heroes like me, you will at least get something out of it, but overall I much prefer the first one over this gameplay wise.

Resident Evil 0 is not as horrible as its reputation. The kind of game you play when you exhausted every other main line RE game. A hard, often infuriating climb up a mountain. The View on the top is pretty satisfying, but you are going to question many times why you're even doing this. It looks beautiful, sometimes even better than RE Remake imo and the soundtrack is fantastic. I really like the dynamic between Rebecca and Billy as they make their way through the abandoned Umbrella recruitment center. The fact that you have two main characters working side by side isn't a problem at all. For me, there are two other giant Problems towering over Zero, that more or less combine themselves into a big pile of shit I need to rant about.

First: The complete removal of the item box. You now have to drop items on the floor. Which leads to either your items being all centralized into one room that you have to backtrack to across the entire map, or you accidentally scatter important items around the map and go scavenger hunting once you need them. The entire system only leads to frustration, as you won't know when you have to fight bosses or enter a point of no return, at least on your first go. And there we are at my second big complaint: The game's scripted sequences. Resident Evil 0 loves to throw you into situations that completely fuck you over, with barely any warning. One might say some unpredictability is part of REs identity, but at least the other games somewhat signpost when there's a particular difficult section coming up. RE 0 says fuck you to that and it's the mainline RE game I had to reload saves the most, as well as create multiple save files because I couldn't reliably plan ahead. I always play Resident Evil with one single hard save where I roll with the punches, but here I quickly threw that rule out the window because I felt the difficulty spicks were just bullshit.

In conclusion, I did have a decent time with it and think it's worth experiencing if you're a hardcore RE fan, but I also really felt the tedium of this one. I'm sure my second play through will be much smoother when I do it someday, maybe. On the plus side, I still think this is better than 6 and Code Veronica, and the remaster has maybe the coolest unlock ever, which I don't want to spoil. A really awesome surprise.

How do you even judge a game like No More Heroes ? The brainchild of weirdo author Gōichi Suda, better known as Suda 51. No More Heroes is on the surface just another typical action game original released for the Wii. You play as Travis Touchdown, a young hot head Otaku rising through the ranks of an assassin organization to become number one. Everything from the box art, to the marketing and the opening cutscene presents itself as a prototypical action game. If you happen to be only slightly familiar with Suda 51, you will quickly pick up that everything on the surface is a lie. No More Heroes is in fact a both a giant love letter to nerd culture as well as a middle finger to how serious we tend to take that culture.

Travis Touchdown itself is the thematic center. Both a skilled swordsman that can dispatch his foes effortlessly, and at the same time the biggest loser you could think of for an action game. A sexually immature nerd, living in a shitty Motel, getting by with low rate jobs and hopelessly chasing a sexy blonde who's clearly only stringing him along for his money. Quite frankly, Travis is pathetic and on all accounts, is hard to sell as a relatable main character. But why do people like Travis ? To the point that No more Heroes has endured as Sudas most popular series with 4 full games. I think its the genius fact that you embody Travis in every aspect of his life. You see his most badass moments, at the same time having to commute to his shitty jobs every day. You can hang out in his tiny apartment, play with his cat Jean, then head over to Naomi's Lab to get the most powerful Beamkatana in the game. The entire game is build around being Travis Touchdown, warts and all.

And the gameplay also consists of this daily routine. Drive around the dead end beach town of Santa Destroy, get a job, go to your favorite stores or go to the Gym. The hub itself is probably the game's biggest criticism, and I'm not sure if its meandering nature is intentional or not. What can not be denied is that the frequent commute between places tends to slow down the game's pacing to a crawl. Between Rank fights, you need to pay large sums of money. That money comes from doing less than fun odd jobs and assassination missions. Its original release on the Wii had to of course simplify the controls. There is a skill level here with high and low sword stances, perfect dodges and wrestling moves, but overall it's not a deep enough system to carry the 10-hour story mode. The go-to strategy seems to be to grind the Death Match 100 mission as soon it becomes available. A pretty easy 100,000 rewarded from it, that will carry you through to the end, getting you to eventually max out all of Travis stats/gear and fight the secret final boss.

The bosses of course are the highest high point of No More Heroes. Always interesting and flashy, they will push you through the worst parts of the game just so you can see what's next. You'll be hard-pressed to find a game that is less predictable than No More Heroes. I love pretty much every one of them for how widely different they are in both gameplay and tone. Some are completely despicable like the insane Harvey Moiseiwitsch or Destroy Man and then others seem like they could have been allies in a different life like Holly Summers or Shinobu Jacobs. Of the 12 bosses, I can say only 2 didn't do anything for me: Speed Buster and Bad Girl. They really felt like empty filler with levels that seemd to have been short-changed on the budget side, although Bad Girl at least has a great design.

In the end No More Heroes remains maybe the most unique 7th Gen game and by the time that you're face to face with the final boss it has fully shattered the 4th Wall with a planet size sledgehammer. I'm still kinda shocked just how bold it's willing to mock both itself and its audience. Art is the only word I have to describe it, and I implore anyone interested in video games as art to play No More Heroes.

Just when you think you discovered everything worth playing on the PS2, there is yet another gem on this console here to brighten your day. Your telling me there a western themed samurai action game where you matrix dodge bullets at insane speeds while slashing cowboys into bloody bits on the PS2 ? Sign me up. Its not perfect of course, there is plenty of jank and I threw away my controller in frustration on more than one occasion because of bullshit enemies. The tommyguners in particular can die in dirty ditsh whenever they decide to gang up on you and there is nothing to do except to sit there and be air juggled to death by gunfire until your health hits 0. The camera is a nightmare and there are like 5 actual locations recycled across its 15 Levels. But again this game is called Samurai Western and it delivers everything I want from something called Samurai Western. It has all the classic trops, the classic music, the action. I even to get customize my badass samurai with silly shit like a giant Ninja star on his back or an Afro. The cherry on top was the Trigun vibes it gave me and the second to last boss only confirmed my suspicion that atleast one person on the dev team had a thing for Yasuhiro Nightows cult classic series, wich made me very happy. Man, why did they cancel Planet Gun Smoke, wouldnt have been so cool.

Have you ever wanted to play a cozzy management sim where you run your own item shop in a colorful fantasy world, only for the harsh reality of crippling debt to strolle around the corner to haunt your very existence ? Then dont worry, Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is her to fulfill that dream.

Recettear is an Item Shop management game where your the one taskd selling all but the most important items to the heros of a fantasy world. Its a game I had my eye on for a long time. The kind of game where it keeps popping up in various gaming magazines, youtube videos or in barging bin sales. For whatever reason I never picked it up through out the various stages of my life despite always beeing curious, mainly about its wonderful sprite work. Well now I sat down and gave this odd niche title a chance to see if the actual game is a good as word of mouth has lead me to believe.

You embody Recette. A naiv Anime girl and recent owner of an item shop because her father just went up and dissapeared, leaving her with a truck load of financal debt. Soon the debt collectors of course come knocking and your tasked with paying back every penny owed or face beeing evicted from your own home. Fun. And thats pretty much the big picture. There isnt much of a plot aside from your main goal of not becoming homeless. Slice of life is the best word for Recettear. You will of course met tons of quirky characters that all have unique personalities. Comedy is very much the focus of the writing. That can be a problem if the jokes dont land, but luckily the translation, however accurate it might be for 2007, has more hits then misses. My favorite thing beeing the sometimes way too real news messages on top of the screen. There is nothing like stocking up your cute store with scarfes and ham sandwiches, only to be informed in passing that “The race war is still going on in the north”.

Of course the big hook is the management side of the game. To Recettears credit, under the anime exterior, there is quit a complex economie under the hood. You will be selling items to different customers, both named and unamed. They all have unique wants and budgets that have to be considered. As you progress through the months their wallet size will increase and you will learn at what price range everyone will buy. You can all also crash the economie if you happen to flud the market with too many cheap items, wich is always a treat. The more you sell in a row, the more you will build up a combo in order to gain merchant levels. Your Merchant level will allow you build out your store or stock more inventory. Basicly if there is a task you would have to consider when opening a real store, Recettear has you do it. Saying all this: The game does a real poor job in breaking down all those systems.

I can see an argument in how its simulating Recettes real inexperience in handling a bussines but thats not a enough for me. Some basics are explained, others are explained wrong and then again very important stuff is not told to you at all. Like how the combo system works or how a price increase in the market will allow you sell items for a mark up of 250% pretty much everytime. Information like that is vital to not hit a game over. Although a Game Over is ironicly not the end of the world. The image of your cute anime girl sleeping in dirty carboard box may be harsh but you will just be set back to day one. Reseting any events that happened but kepping all your store progress and inventory. A Game Over is still enough of a punishment but the devs made sure that your not completely back to 0, keeping motivation high. There is also a dungeon you can hire different heros for in order to scaving for rare items. The Dungeon is a trap I tell you. Its a waste of time and money in wich you will not get enough out of to make a real dent in your debt. Aside from the dungeons beeing really boring, its a activity best suited for the post game. Focus on selling and buying items until you repayd your debt. I do recommend some light reading on the wiki too, making your journey a bit less confusing once you take your first steps.

I had a lot of fun with Recettear, it really satisfied my inner number cruncher. If your only in it for the action rpg part, Recettear will dissapoint you but it often goes on sale for almost nothing and there is never a bad time to widen your horizon. Overall the charming presentation and gameplay loop is worth a look. There is lots of post game content too and I still have an urge to play more of this cute existential nightmare. Capitalism ho!

This is a though one to judge. I really like the vibe and concept but its gameplay is nothing more than a glorified visual novel. There really is nothing to the card game or the AI for that matter. I suppose its ok for a 10 Dollar game but I fell like been cheated out of an actual ending. The characters are interesting and it feelt like it was building to some kind of conclusin but then it just ends. Like no resolution, nothing. There is a post credit endless mode with additional story bits. The Problem is that the main showcase are the characters and with nowhere for them go in a game where there are no deeper gameplay systems there really isnt any reason to keep playing. I recommend Sunshine Shuffle if you see it on sale and have an afternoon to kill but really temper your expectation, beacuse theres not much here.

Its 2024 and Im still trying to finish GTA V. What is it with this Game ? The driving sucks, the shooting feels like ass and the characters all blow chunks. Franklin is just a boring version of CJ, Trevor is an unlikable homeless crackhead and Micheal is a winy fkn bitch. Do I really wann play as these guys for the next 30 hours ? The answer is clearly No. I really like GTA, I have finishd all the previous games but V just makes me question the absolute state of humanity. Im super pumped for VI and hopefully I will not be gaslight anymore into thinking this is in any shape or form a good game until then.

Miles Morales is all in all a game split right down the middle between improvement and glorified DLC. General gameplay is better across the board but there was no attempt at making the boring as fuck side missions any better. Same old shit, different suit.
I like the conflict between Miles and Phin. I bought their emotional connection and in the end I see Miles as having earned his place as Spider-Man. At the same time: Phin gets to die a heros death after endangering innocent lives with her gang of thugs and almost nuking the entirety of Harlem out of pur spite and arrogance. No fuck off, frankly I dont care if the pilot that dropped little boy over Hiroshima had trauma, you dont get to ride of into the sunset. Phin is not a tragic hero, she is a piece of shit.
Do I recommend Miles Morales in the end ? Yes, if you liked Spiderman PS4, then you will generaly have a fun time. Its a short and sweet Campaing with a great soundtrack at the very least. Definitly get it on a sale if you can.

Born from a Techdemo, soon abandoned by its original Team until it was eventually picked up by a lesser branch of Platinum Games, it is a miracle this even exists the way it does. Metal Gear Rising : Revengeance is the pure spectacle distillation of everything Metal Gear. As a character action itself I can best describe it as flat and shallow. Its mechanics are neither deep, nor do they require much skill beyond mashing X and Y, with the occassional parry. Often combat stears itself into a clunky pit of frustration as the game trys to keep up with its own pace and thumbels what can generously be described as the "handling" of secondary weapons. And those are problems the developers seem to be aware of, as they often resort to showering the player with health items in order to patch any frustration out of the game.

That in turn leads to even more sensless button mashing and the player basicly beeing unable to game over at all. Those problems all casaded into me brezzing through most of the game only for the inevitable late game fight with Jetstream Sam to be a wall made of pur concret. I was basicly expected to learn all the games most vital mechanics during one very late boss fight or else get scrapped of the pavement. Ok now I got all the serious criticism out of the way: Yeah this game fucking rules.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance had one Mission: pur fucking spectacle and it damm nails that. Its one the most badass action games I have ever played. From the opening of you slicing a Metal Gear Ray clean in half to delivering the final blow to Senator Armstrong, its one intense dopamine hit after another. Who needs good enviromental design when you can slice cyborgs in to 500 Meat cubs while Rules of nature assaults your ear drums. It maybe violent and edgy but its the good kind: 100% sincere and commited. I also would do it a disservice not mentioning how well it functions as a Midquel between MGS2 and MGS4. All the themes of a future ruled by digital missinformation are here. A future where the same missinformation leads to a global proxy war, turning innocent people into fooder for the war effort and the dehumanising effects for those on the frontline. I know its basicly not cannon and the clifhanger will never be resolved but damm if Raidens journey isnt a blast I want to recommend to every Metal Gear fan out there.

Way back in the distant year of 1996, in a time where Mario wasnt so heavily brand protected, Nintendo teamed up with Square to give the Super Nintendo one last late goodbye. What came out of that team up is still beeing described as one of the best rpgs of all time. A timless classic many europeans like me never got to experience due to it never beeing released outside Japan and North America. But now as the christmas time and the remake just came out, I thought I finaly look into what so many describe as their favorite game. Does it hold up or is it just childhood nostalgia ?

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars follows the most basic JRPG story you can get. Mario is fighting Bowser as usuall but suddenly a giant sword falls from the sky, releasing an army of weapon themed badguys that reck havoc upon the World. Thats your evil empire, que the quest to collect the 7 Stars to save the world. Its a formula many old school rpgs used and one Mario RPGs specially would reuse in every game to come. And its a good formula for stringing a lot of fun vignietts together, not so great for a compelling story, but thats not the focus for Mario. The Journey really is the destination and youll be amazed how creative Square got with all the places you get to visit. The great writting and wacky situations keep the game running at an enjoyable jog as you visit Molle people, go up the clouds or fight shark pirates in a sunken ship. All with a party of companiens who arent at all deep, but lovable enough that your gona remember your time with them. Everyone has their little story arc with wich you come to appreciate them.

In terms of pressantation Square chose a isometric 3D Render style. It admitly looks kinda cheap in pictures, but I was seriously amazed of how it looks in motion. Their are so many little animations and different sprites they managed to crame into a tiny Cartridge. Although much like the enviroments, not everything is a hit. Theirs realy neat locations like Boosters Towers and Nimbus Land, while places like the Lands End and Kero Sewers drove me kinda nuts in their saminess. That and the enemie color swaps at the end make the visualls 50/50 for me.

Luckily all the enviroments have very disticnt Musicals tracks. Square really treated this like a reall rpg in all aspects, so you get everything form the big orchestral tracks, upbeat cartoon vibes and the occasional 90s techno midi during boss fights. Its all fantastic except the main battle theme for me. Great at first, but long battle gauntlets had it seriously get on my nerves. And the battle them is sadly the main music track you will hear.

The battles are as one would guess turn based. Each of the face buttons correlate to a specific action. Attack, Magic, Items, Run/Defend. This set up is kinda genius. You really dont have to scroll through any menus and actions are right at your finger tips. The battles managd to hold such a fast past, so they almost never get stale. Mana is also shared between all party members so thats also a lair of complexity you dont have to worrie about. I wouldnt say its a bad system at all, but its very simple. Perfect for beginners tbh.
In addition you get a lot of Luck based bonuses and the now famous action button commands. I personally could never figure out the timing for perfect hits and blocks, mostly because of the perspective. The perspective also snaps the games kneecaps in half whenever theirs a sudden platform segment. For me climbing the beanstocks or platforming across lava is akin to water toture, by far the worst aged part.

In the end I still pushed through and Im glad I did. As the credit music plays and the stars you collected show you little epilogues of the places you traveld to, it all seems so worth it. Beyond its age, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars still delivers a one of a kind adventure. And if Im looking for anything in a JRPG, its that feeling of warmt, that I just completed a journey. I now get why this is so beloved by many and Im excited to someday play the remake.