PainfulAC
The start of the HOMM series is, by today's standards, fairly flawed. The art is rough and there are tons of missing QOL improvements that HOMM2 and 3 would introduce. Honestly there's no real reason to play this one if you have access to HOMM2 or HOMM3. Two is essentially a remaster, and three is different but much better.
The fire emblem that saved the entire series from disappearing. With great art, animations, and music, it led to a resurgence of interest in the series which I'm grateful for. It is, however, not the best fire emblem by a long shot. The story is all over the place, and a fair number of the cast are paper thin. A good entry, but nowhere near the best.
A remake of the original Fire Emblem, this unfortunately fails to be much fun. The battle animations and maps look terrible and the story is boring (though that isn't surprising considering the original came out in 1990). I am also not a fan of the class switching mechanic here. I'm glad they let new players experience the classic, but it's just not that fun.
2020
2015
2018
From the studio that made the time looping Stories: The Path of Adventure comes Omensight, another time loop game with a decidedly less vocal and interesting protagonist. Where Reynaldo was a fierce yet charismatic rogue, the Harbinger is a silent glowy person who can become inexplicably violent depending on the route. The supporting cast also make up the four routes you can take each time loop; they all are decently interesting, although I found Ratika grating after the 10th time looping through her prison.
Overall the story is solid, although I found it less interesting than the previous game. I would have liked a bit more meat on the bone, but this is an indie studio so the relatively short length was unsurprising. It is worth noting that originally the game had only one ending, and it caused some uproar in the community due to how depressing it was. The devs eventually patched in a "true" ending and also some quality of life changes (notably being able to go back to certain sections of the game and collect stuff you missed).
Performance-wise Omensight is passable. I noticed a few slow downs in areas with lots of fire and enemies, but it never affected the fights significantly (I played on PS5, which likely helped).
Overall the story is solid, although I found it less interesting than the previous game. I would have liked a bit more meat on the bone, but this is an indie studio so the relatively short length was unsurprising. It is worth noting that originally the game had only one ending, and it caused some uproar in the community due to how depressing it was. The devs eventually patched in a "true" ending and also some quality of life changes (notably being able to go back to certain sections of the game and collect stuff you missed).
Performance-wise Omensight is passable. I noticed a few slow downs in areas with lots of fire and enemies, but it never affected the fights significantly (I played on PS5, which likely helped).
2021
2019
As someone who has only culturally absorbed Hamlet, and not read it, this is still quite a fun time loop game where every loop's a play. Ophelia is a fun protagonist, and there are quite a few devious antagonists, but eventually it does get a little tiring fast forwarding to get to one specific point. Completionists are going to put in some work to get every single ending.