Would you kindly read this review…

From the start this game pulls you in and thrusts you into an underwater city that is amazing to view. You go through this world, listening to audio logs to help build the setting and story.

The gameplay features several different weapons and abilities that provide multiple unique play styles you could go with. Constantly changing your weapons based on the situation.

You become invested in the story of Rapture, slowly unraveling its mystery until you reach the big reveal. The pay off for listening to all those the audio logs, and now you have some very important context for everything.

Reaching the end the final boss is not the best, but it doesn’t falter the game for me at all, because I felt deservedly powerful and the payoff in the end was great. I loved the good ending I got and felt very rewarded for playing the game in its entirety. Which is what I love to feel after playing a game. It starts strong, and finishes strong.

It's Undertale.

It's good.

It's really good.

One of my favorite games ever.

This is one of those games just filled to the brim with personality, every way you interact with it makes it feel lively, distinct, and memorable. Almost every item does something different, to varying degrees of helpfulness. Every NPC has funny little quips about living in this weird world. Bizarre enemies will do nonsensical actions one turn, and then wipe your whole team the next. Status effects range from getting a cold or being homesick, to getting a control-interfering-mushroom on your head or turning into a lifeless diamond. Heck, even your health meter is a rolling odometer that you can reverse in direction to prevent One Hit KO's.

While the game is zany by it's nature, it never fails to take moments to stop, breath, and just enjoy the sublime atmosphere it has to offer. The music periodically shifts from its bombastic and silly nature to something more humble: long drones of a single note; the sound of a night-time walk with police sirens blaring in the distance; lo-fi beats to be introspective and drink coffee to.

While the story is overall simple and the main characters might not have much personality or interaction, this game focuses instead on experience. It's a game that subverts your expectations and keeps you wondering what the next plot beat will be like. Will it be a bustling city? A desert? A sewer tunnel? Or the end of time itself? You'll never truly know and that's what makes it so fun. And while the last stretch of the game can be a bit frustrating and brutal, its final boss is absolutely unforgettable. And at the end of it all, it feels like coming back home to a home-cooked meal after a long, long field trip.

I really don't like this game, and the fact that it's a sequel to a far greater game makes it even less enjoyable.

Everything bad in Tales Of Symphonia condensed into this very game. Add a cheap monster-collecter, watered-down fight mechanics that don't feel as tight, replace the overworld with a point-and-click map, and bring back every old character as temporary NPCs that really don't contribute anything to this incredibly shlocky story. Bad bad bad all around.

At least the character models look prettier I guess.

I remember not liking this game very much.

Granted, I grew up with HM64 and fell in love with the series. In that game, there was so much to do every single day, it would compel you to play into the next day. This feedback loop is very addicting in this way and I think it's what got so many people hooked on Stardew Valley today.

AWL is sloooow. The days are fewer and longer, but there is also just as much to do because everything else takes longer. Planting takes longer, feeding and caring animals takes longer, mining and scavenging takes longer, and the commute around town takes longer. This game does not respect your time and wants you to slow down, which would be good if it meant it ultimately amounted to something. But it kinda just...doesn't? Once you play past a certain amount of time in the game, there really isn't that much to do anymore. I know that's the case for every Harvest Moon, it's pretty much endless and at some point you just run out of stuff to do and then you just stop playing. But AWL hits that wall a lot harder and sooner. It goes without saying though, I never beat it either, despite the fact it actually does have an ending.

Some mechanics are just bizarre for a HM game too. You NEED to eat to have enough energy to do anything in the game, but the game won't tell you except for your characters own animations (that also takes up time). Getting milk from cows works the same way in real life, so you have to keep making your cow pregnant so it keeps making milk for longer than a year. You have limited barn space, so only a certain amount of cows can be kept before you have to start selling them. The game gives you a goat that's only good for 1 year too, but it only gives you 1 and no means to get more, so you just have to get rid of it I guess. Lol You're only limited to 3 bachelorette choices, which pales in comparison to just about every other HM and Stardew. They've all got distinct personalities, but if you don't really like any of them well then that's too damn bad cuz you gotta marry somebody before your first year of the game! Almost no holidays also keeps the town feeling less lively.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy some aspects of it though. Its outdoor atmosphere is greater than almost ever other HM (aside from 64). It's a more mature and realistic feeling HM compared to the more colorful and anime HMs, especially compared to the later titles. The game also has a surprising sense of humor to it too that other HMs are just too cutesy to even dare try. It's visually distinct and dared to be different in a series that eventually got way too cozy with it's formula.

So yeah, that's a 3 from me.

I was hooked from the start by the characters and the story. I love the soundtrack and how the music has such an impact on the game and story itself. Each character is very likable and develops very nicely, Noah and Mio work together so well as a duo and the leading protagonists. Every step of the story is so rewarding and well written that it leads to such an emotional and beautiful ending. It takes the best parts of the first two games and leaves behind the bad parts; the soundtrack, gameplay, characters, story, etc. are all so well designed and it is simply just a beautiful game. Easily my favorite of the three games.