This game rules.

Everything about the way this game looks and sounds is just perfect, and that’s saying a lot this side of PS1 town. All the 90s post FF7 Square pre-rendered goodness you could ever want, plus surprisingly sophisticated, moody 3D visuals during gameplay. The soundtrack—that is equal parts fusion, electronic and pop—combines with the visuals to create the perfect atmosphere.

The story is bonkers; I don’t wanna spoil anything, just play it.

The gameplay is what surprised me the most. It’s RPG mechanics are remarkably fleshed out for something that, on paper, reads like no more than a novel idea. Car handling feels really good, too—deceptively so for a game that, once again, sounds very gimmicky. The game also offers a diverse array of events, from street races, to rally races, to drag races, to chicken races, which might be my favourite.

It could use some refinement; for example, I got the impression from my playthrough that, despite the potential for many different builds, many didn’t seem too viable, so progression felt pretty linear. I’m also not a huge fan of having to relinquish a random part of your car upon losing a random race (and maybe the event races as well? I don’t remember). It’s such a harsh punishment, I would almost prefer a fail state. Additionally, the collision isn’t great; I never got used to the way you bounce off cars when you collide with them. It’s very jarring.

All of that is pretty minor when you consider what Racing Lagoon does achieve, however. The presentation is firing on all cylinders, and gameplay-wise, it’s far better than something with a premise this gimmicky should be.

And seriously, I cannot stress enough how stylish this game is. It’s unbelievable; worth playing just for that.

This is my favourite RE since the series’ ‘revival’ with 7.

It has a lot of variety, satisfying progression and level design, great atmosphere (perfect winter game), some of my favourite art direction in the entire series, fun characters (Ethan is still pretty boring, though), one of the better modern RE soundtracks.

Elaborating upon what I like about it will take too long, and I’m in a lazy mood, so I’ll just say I love this one, and I hope it’s a sign of things to come for Resident Evil.

I’m very much a stranger to dating sims. I went into this one attracted mostly by my fascination upon hearing that the characters were actually good, and that some dating sims are weirdly complex.

Love Plus isn’t really complex, but the first chunk of the game presents you with just enough mechanically; for better or worse, it won’t turn your brain into mush. And the characters are indeed quite well-developed, especially for something that could be interpreted as bait for desperate nerds.

I actually enjoyed that ‘first half’ of the game. Building your stats by planning out your day, and divvying up your time with each girl to learn more about them was a lot of fun. Once you finally do start dating one of the girls, however, I quickly lost interest, primarily because the game no longer gave me a clear goal to work towards—I like at least a little bit of railroading in more laid-back games like this.

This opinion may lead to some worrying implications about how I behave in relationships, but I swear I don’t feel this way in real life. You have to believe me.

Neat game. Not really for me. I may return to it someday. Who knows?

The job system does most of the heavy lifting here. Builds aren’t as flexible as they would eventually become in 7, Tactics, 12 etc. though you can get pretty creative in 5; there’s still plenty to sink your teeth into.

I would say everything else is just varying degrees of decent.

The story is serviceable (with some funny moments peppered throughout, at least in the GBA localisation), the way it’s structured is perfectly adequate, the visuals are functional, and the music is good—sometimes great—albeit not quite up to the standard that Uematsu set for himself on many other games, and there also just isn’t enough of it; perhaps it’s to be expected for a SNES game, but you’ll encounter a ton of repeating tracks.

That’s about all I have to say about FF5. I like it. I’ll replay it some day.