PolaroidJack
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(Finished on November 8th. Funny how the biggest gap between beating expansions so far has been Stormblood)
POST-STORMBLOOD
Earnestly a bit more interesting than the proper Stormblood package, although extremely back and forth in its mission structure. Wasn't a big fan of the amount of times you have to go back to the Doman Enclave, a place I don't think is on the maps? I don't know why a lot of locations in FF14 are like this. At least you can go through the teleport menu to quick travel there but I primarily go through the map to fast travel.
Maybe its a bit of a cop out to have certain characters just resurrected from their supposed death in the main expansion but I thought their presence here was still pretty enjoyable, and one of said characters’ leads into what occurs later in Endwalker from what I’m gathering at the moment so it makes sense.
4.3 onward is when the bar gets raised, a lot of great quests, a fun trial and one of the first main quests putting you in the shoes of another character- Alphinaud. These duties are really weird at first- swapping out your moveset for a much smaller preset that relates to what these characters’ classes are vaguely, while giving you enough resources to not outright perish. These pop up frequently later on in ShB and I think they improve upon your options a bit over time because controlling Alphinaud at first was very weird. Maybe its because I never played an outright caster? Idk.
Shadowbringers
After all this time, finally- the big one. While Final Fantasy 14 had certainly been met with critical acclaim before this point, it was never quite as...explosive as when Shadowbringers was coming out. Personally this is when I started paying attention, and kept a better mental note about character names', plot beats, general thematics, etc. whenever passing discourse. Nothing too specific, but it definitely helped plant the seeds of intrigue in my head.
I'll want to let some of this digest as I'm going through Endwalker- however this is by and far the best expansion thus far in the game. Not infallible, but way more consistent and focused on its cast and paying off on the more ‘lore’ oriented matters of Eorzea.
ARR obviously feels like a cleaning of the slate and a proof of concept as to how a Final Fantasy MMO after XI should have looked, while setting up ideas for later storylines.
Heavensward branches off into ideas that feel a bit more grounded into the world of Eorzea- looking back on it felt a tad weird as a sequel to ARR but it definitely felt more like a story that wanted to be told- more tangible than what ARR's was promising.
Stormblood recenters the focus on the empire as the main conflict and bolsters them with way more interesting figureheads, although much of it still feels like 'Lyse's' character arc, so your mileage varies with how much you care about her struggle in particular.
What I'm trying to summarize is that the first two expansions- while continuing the main storyline in a meaningful manner and branching into other nations of Eorzea- do feel somewhat distant from A Realm Reborn in their arcs. Much of what ARR sets up will pop up from time to time throughout the last two expansions but it's somewhat hard to keep track of where exactly these lines lead at first. Maybe it’s just because I’m downing the MSQ all at once and missed out on like, a decade’s worth of discourse?
Basically, by the time I was finished with Stormblood I was eager to understand exactly what made Shadowbringers so stand-out, as the other two expansions felt pretty natural in their improvements on a mostly technical and intrigue standpoint. It didn’t take too long -hell, it starts up around the end of the post-Stormblood patches- to see where Shadowbringers deviates as it felt less like an expansion on an MMO and more like the usual JRPG. I finally had a ‘party’, I was working alongside.
It did always bother me that there were a lot of neat characters within The Scions, but typically one or three of these Scions are out of the expansion or frequently dips out of the story. HW and SB have their own kind of JRPG party but it’s usually clear one of the characters present is primarily just for this part of the story, or has to go through their own business before meeting back with our WoL (Estinien shaped description here). In Shadowbringers, its our WoL, all of the scions (bar Lyse) , a secret guest, and a crystal man band together throughout the MSQ and I’m incredibly happy this was finally the case. A lot of the scions finally get their chance to grow and develop from the events that have taken place without much interruption from the expansions’ goals. Like, yeah Thancred shows up in Stormblood and you do a duty where he helps sneak you into Ala Mhigo to save Krile- that's important. But here it’s nice to have moments where we finally get some conversation and back-and-forths between these characters that have been putting in all this effort and grief over, now, multiple worlds. It also helps that now I find the entire cast to be at least pretty good, no Lyse exceptions or characters that seem like they’ll just dip once I end the expansion- I feel like I have a reliable party. Much of the interaction between you and a certain ‘other’ warrior that appears before you, is also fantastic. The theme of survivors’ guilt/ the inability to move on paint themselves wide throughout Shadowbringers.
What’s also great is that the expansion does divide them up- this time by areas in the new “world” of Novrandt. Here’s where the ‘lore’ part of Final Fantasy final hooks me, in particular. Previously, there were already seeds of intrigue here and there, but as I’m mostly going off MSQ it's mostly dashing by certain lore drops and ideas. Here’s when it starts forcing you to get it, no longer are we just dancing around certain ideas, we gotta tackle what’s going on. Novrandt perfectly showcases this as it’s a new world with a new set of rules you have to go through. The races and creatures are called different things, the crystals are differently shaped, there’s a strange ‘void’ surrounding the entire area…the lands of Novrandt are by far some of my favorites in the game. Because of the manner of Novrandt each place has a new, unknown flavor to it while obviously parallelling many of the areas found previously in Eorzea. Each place feels like a weird or, at the very least, more interesting take on the main three hubs from ARR while still maintaining their own identity and core issues. Even the drab and dry Amh Araeng (probably my least favorite area here) manages to have shades of intrigue throughout with its tie to the Flood and the plotline involving those contaminated by the light. The Crystarium also makes for a strong hub centered between each of the areas in Novrandt- dunno if its my favorite thus far but its a warm welcome from Stormbloods’ lack of a clear hub (I guess its Kugane but I didn't feel like we stayed that long there…). Hell even when I thought I was near done with Shadowbringers, it managed to reveal one last location that swept me away in its overwhelming presence.
Complimenting many of the locations throughout Shadowbringers are the instances and trials that sprinkle throughout the adventure. From the starting routes of Holminster Switch under attack from sin eaters to the triumphant climb up Mt. Gulg, many of the dungeons this time around up the ante and there isn't really a weak one in the line up. This is also the ‘formal’ introduction to the trust system- where you can bring along your Scion pals to act as replacements for real people. They’ll also talk from time to time, mostly just natural dialogue, but sometimes commenting on something relating to whichever character you’ve brought in (e.g. Alisaie recognizing a mini boss in one dungeon and momentarily turning dour after defeating it). The trials themselves are pretty good as well, although fairly top heavy all things considered. From expansion to expansion there’s only a few of these, with the post patches adding one or two more to the MSQ but here I was near cap before they gave the second of generally three. It's not really a big deal, but I was wondering when the next big full party fight would be after about half the expansion. Thankfully all of these are also slam dunks, even the “”least plot heavy”” one, Titania, is an incredibly fun romp.
Big ups on the soundtrack this time around too, the composition crew firing on all cylinders this time around. I started enjoying the overworld music. Prior locations sure I thought the music was fine and I’d probably enjoy it going back, but the music in Shadowbringers felt like it was more actively striking interesting chords or taking me off guard. Obviously there’s more rock and electric guitar this time around but even places like Amh Araeng chooses to go with a way more trip-hop(? electronic genres allude me) vibe rather than something more akin to the series’ sweeping orchestra. All of the boss themes this time around are also a big thumbs up.
Lastly, man… Emet Selch. I won’t go too heavy on the details but this was one of the few characters I had always heard about but had very little clarity as to what exactly he was outside of an antagonist. Between him, Zenos and Yotsuyu the cast of main antagonists has gone up drastically. Main thing I’ll say that separates him from the prior two villains is how often he appears. He’s not inactive or even (that) dishonest presence in the expansion, he’s constantly popping up to check in on your party. Again, not wanting to go too far into detail but I enjoy that this ‘type’ of villain is as active as he is in your quest as I feel like these kind of ‘wandering, undying, apathetic yet all powerful beings’ tend to save themselves for the end yet here he’s actively trying to dissuade our party and informing us about his stance- he’s super interesting as a foil.
Shadowbringers' finally feels like the payoff to a lot of what prior expansions have been building toward, which is a funny thing to say given that it feels so distant from the actual conflict on Hydaelyn. I don’t think its my favorite FF experience so far but it could slowly crawl its way upward. There’s still some stretches of downtime that I felt coulda been cut and maybe certain plot beats are pretty easy to guess, as I did pretty often throughout but I really can’t think of a lot of negatives to my time in Shadowbringers. It went by way too fast? Also man! Final Fantasy 14 REALLY likes Dark Knight! I dunno maybe a lot of this stuff hits a lot more having mained DRK; I cannot see myself getting to this point as Monk, lmao (You get a fucking shadow clone at DRK level 80??? Cmon). I hear the patches after this aren’t nearly as strong but I’m almost to the end, at least. I did not earnestly expect to go through this at the start of the year but…damn! Almost to Endwalker…
Oh right, that trailer rules- loved seeing in with a new context but what the fuck were they on spoiling that much stuff lmao.
POST-STORMBLOOD
Earnestly a bit more interesting than the proper Stormblood package, although extremely back and forth in its mission structure. Wasn't a big fan of the amount of times you have to go back to the Doman Enclave, a place I don't think is on the maps? I don't know why a lot of locations in FF14 are like this. At least you can go through the teleport menu to quick travel there but I primarily go through the map to fast travel.
Maybe its a bit of a cop out to have certain characters just resurrected from their supposed death in the main expansion but I thought their presence here was still pretty enjoyable, and one of said characters’ leads into what occurs later in Endwalker from what I’m gathering at the moment so it makes sense.
4.3 onward is when the bar gets raised, a lot of great quests, a fun trial and one of the first main quests putting you in the shoes of another character- Alphinaud. These duties are really weird at first- swapping out your moveset for a much smaller preset that relates to what these characters’ classes are vaguely, while giving you enough resources to not outright perish. These pop up frequently later on in ShB and I think they improve upon your options a bit over time because controlling Alphinaud at first was very weird. Maybe its because I never played an outright caster? Idk.
Shadowbringers
After all this time, finally- the big one. While Final Fantasy 14 had certainly been met with critical acclaim before this point, it was never quite as...explosive as when Shadowbringers was coming out. Personally this is when I started paying attention, and kept a better mental note about character names', plot beats, general thematics, etc. whenever passing discourse. Nothing too specific, but it definitely helped plant the seeds of intrigue in my head.
I'll want to let some of this digest as I'm going through Endwalker- however this is by and far the best expansion thus far in the game. Not infallible, but way more consistent and focused on its cast and paying off on the more ‘lore’ oriented matters of Eorzea.
ARR obviously feels like a cleaning of the slate and a proof of concept as to how a Final Fantasy MMO after XI should have looked, while setting up ideas for later storylines.
Heavensward branches off into ideas that feel a bit more grounded into the world of Eorzea- looking back on it felt a tad weird as a sequel to ARR but it definitely felt more like a story that wanted to be told- more tangible than what ARR's was promising.
Stormblood recenters the focus on the empire as the main conflict and bolsters them with way more interesting figureheads, although much of it still feels like 'Lyse's' character arc, so your mileage varies with how much you care about her struggle in particular.
What I'm trying to summarize is that the first two expansions- while continuing the main storyline in a meaningful manner and branching into other nations of Eorzea- do feel somewhat distant from A Realm Reborn in their arcs. Much of what ARR sets up will pop up from time to time throughout the last two expansions but it's somewhat hard to keep track of where exactly these lines lead at first. Maybe it’s just because I’m downing the MSQ all at once and missed out on like, a decade’s worth of discourse?
Basically, by the time I was finished with Stormblood I was eager to understand exactly what made Shadowbringers so stand-out, as the other two expansions felt pretty natural in their improvements on a mostly technical and intrigue standpoint. It didn’t take too long -hell, it starts up around the end of the post-Stormblood patches- to see where Shadowbringers deviates as it felt less like an expansion on an MMO and more like the usual JRPG. I finally had a ‘party’, I was working alongside.
It did always bother me that there were a lot of neat characters within The Scions, but typically one or three of these Scions are out of the expansion or frequently dips out of the story. HW and SB have their own kind of JRPG party but it’s usually clear one of the characters present is primarily just for this part of the story, or has to go through their own business before meeting back with our WoL (Estinien shaped description here). In Shadowbringers, its our WoL, all of the scions (bar Lyse) , a secret guest, and a crystal man band together throughout the MSQ and I’m incredibly happy this was finally the case. A lot of the scions finally get their chance to grow and develop from the events that have taken place without much interruption from the expansions’ goals. Like, yeah Thancred shows up in Stormblood and you do a duty where he helps sneak you into Ala Mhigo to save Krile- that's important. But here it’s nice to have moments where we finally get some conversation and back-and-forths between these characters that have been putting in all this effort and grief over, now, multiple worlds. It also helps that now I find the entire cast to be at least pretty good, no Lyse exceptions or characters that seem like they’ll just dip once I end the expansion- I feel like I have a reliable party. Much of the interaction between you and a certain ‘other’ warrior that appears before you, is also fantastic. The theme of survivors’ guilt/ the inability to move on paint themselves wide throughout Shadowbringers.
What’s also great is that the expansion does divide them up- this time by areas in the new “world” of Novrandt. Here’s where the ‘lore’ part of Final Fantasy final hooks me, in particular. Previously, there were already seeds of intrigue here and there, but as I’m mostly going off MSQ it's mostly dashing by certain lore drops and ideas. Here’s when it starts forcing you to get it, no longer are we just dancing around certain ideas, we gotta tackle what’s going on. Novrandt perfectly showcases this as it’s a new world with a new set of rules you have to go through. The races and creatures are called different things, the crystals are differently shaped, there’s a strange ‘void’ surrounding the entire area…the lands of Novrandt are by far some of my favorites in the game. Because of the manner of Novrandt each place has a new, unknown flavor to it while obviously parallelling many of the areas found previously in Eorzea. Each place feels like a weird or, at the very least, more interesting take on the main three hubs from ARR while still maintaining their own identity and core issues. Even the drab and dry Amh Araeng (probably my least favorite area here) manages to have shades of intrigue throughout with its tie to the Flood and the plotline involving those contaminated by the light. The Crystarium also makes for a strong hub centered between each of the areas in Novrandt- dunno if its my favorite thus far but its a warm welcome from Stormbloods’ lack of a clear hub (I guess its Kugane but I didn't feel like we stayed that long there…). Hell even when I thought I was near done with Shadowbringers, it managed to reveal one last location that swept me away in its overwhelming presence.
Complimenting many of the locations throughout Shadowbringers are the instances and trials that sprinkle throughout the adventure. From the starting routes of Holminster Switch under attack from sin eaters to the triumphant climb up Mt. Gulg, many of the dungeons this time around up the ante and there isn't really a weak one in the line up. This is also the ‘formal’ introduction to the trust system- where you can bring along your Scion pals to act as replacements for real people. They’ll also talk from time to time, mostly just natural dialogue, but sometimes commenting on something relating to whichever character you’ve brought in (e.g. Alisaie recognizing a mini boss in one dungeon and momentarily turning dour after defeating it). The trials themselves are pretty good as well, although fairly top heavy all things considered. From expansion to expansion there’s only a few of these, with the post patches adding one or two more to the MSQ but here I was near cap before they gave the second of generally three. It's not really a big deal, but I was wondering when the next big full party fight would be after about half the expansion. Thankfully all of these are also slam dunks, even the “”least plot heavy”” one, Titania, is an incredibly fun romp.
Big ups on the soundtrack this time around too, the composition crew firing on all cylinders this time around. I started enjoying the overworld music. Prior locations sure I thought the music was fine and I’d probably enjoy it going back, but the music in Shadowbringers felt like it was more actively striking interesting chords or taking me off guard. Obviously there’s more rock and electric guitar this time around but even places like Amh Araeng chooses to go with a way more trip-hop(? electronic genres allude me) vibe rather than something more akin to the series’ sweeping orchestra. All of the boss themes this time around are also a big thumbs up.
Lastly, man… Emet Selch. I won’t go too heavy on the details but this was one of the few characters I had always heard about but had very little clarity as to what exactly he was outside of an antagonist. Between him, Zenos and Yotsuyu the cast of main antagonists has gone up drastically. Main thing I’ll say that separates him from the prior two villains is how often he appears. He’s not inactive or even (that) dishonest presence in the expansion, he’s constantly popping up to check in on your party. Again, not wanting to go too far into detail but I enjoy that this ‘type’ of villain is as active as he is in your quest as I feel like these kind of ‘wandering, undying, apathetic yet all powerful beings’ tend to save themselves for the end yet here he’s actively trying to dissuade our party and informing us about his stance- he’s super interesting as a foil.
Shadowbringers' finally feels like the payoff to a lot of what prior expansions have been building toward, which is a funny thing to say given that it feels so distant from the actual conflict on Hydaelyn. I don’t think its my favorite FF experience so far but it could slowly crawl its way upward. There’s still some stretches of downtime that I felt coulda been cut and maybe certain plot beats are pretty easy to guess, as I did pretty often throughout but I really can’t think of a lot of negatives to my time in Shadowbringers. It went by way too fast? Also man! Final Fantasy 14 REALLY likes Dark Knight! I dunno maybe a lot of this stuff hits a lot more having mained DRK; I cannot see myself getting to this point as Monk, lmao (You get a fucking shadow clone at DRK level 80??? Cmon). I hear the patches after this aren’t nearly as strong but I’m almost to the end, at least. I did not earnestly expect to go through this at the start of the year but…damn! Almost to Endwalker…
Oh right, that trailer rules- loved seeing in with a new context but what the fuck were they on spoiling that much stuff lmao.
Japan OCG: July 2003
North American: March 2004
(CHAOS Format)
It's been a long time since I logged one of these.
I was looking forward to going through this one in particular. Prior to my indulgence in the modern Yugioh complexities and philosophies to the duel- I did have a few attempts in trying to figure out myself how Yu-Gi-Oh played. The 'chain' mechanic always stood out to me as a weird, WEIRD system compared to the neolithic 'War' simulator of games like Dark Duel Stories and Forbidden Memories that I grew up with, effects and the legalities of specific wording on cards always eluded me. I never quite got why ritual and fusion monsters were the way they were (lo and behold the problem was that these were just poorly made mechanics from the get). 7 Trials was the first game where I decided to tackle this first hand, back around 2018-2019. I would usually just play this on VBA during class in between note takings, but to little avail. I played it a couple of times and tried to just jam a deck together but didn't quite get it still.
5 years later and I was pretty excited to see how exactly I'd feel about this game now that I have a better understanding of the card game- as well as how other games in the series progressed. However, even a modicum of preparation would have been enough for me to have noticed one of the details standing out on the main box art for this title- Black Luster Soldier: Envoy of the Beginning. We'll cover this shortly but it was a pleasant surprise to me when charting these out that this game in particular would be the game to chart a new course in the meta as far as the video games were concerned.
Since the last time we talked about the YGO format, a lot of key cards were released, but ultimately I don't think I talked about the meta since the games didn't really lend themselves to expressing the format (or in some cases, the card game itself) in an interesting manner. For what it's worth, Yu-Gi-Oh itself doesn't really get REAL interesting until several years later, but in a retrospective manner it is satisfying going back and seeing how the game evolves, seeing what cards warp the meta and the way we think about molding decks. However when these games can’t even make the intermediate steps in the meta worth talking about I’d rather spare my time.
There’s a lot of cool tech cards and sets I could go into detail on, as I did skip over Magician’s Force and Dark Crisis in this gap between WC04 and 7 Trials. However this game already has a lot to deal with so I’ll only go into the key cards from these sets or anything I used pretty consistently in the game.
(Magician’s Force)
I never saw it here, but Magical Scientist sees its debut here- a powerful FTK tool that attempts to spam out fusion cards that could be launched at opponents with the help of Catapult Turtle; he has remained banned since 2005 and will likely never come off. Several ‘Spell Counter’ cards debut here including the card drawing tool Royal Magical Library and the multi-faceted Breaker the Magical Warrior (most known for that scene from the anime).
(Dark Crisis)
Not too much here, a lot of archfiend support and the ‘Guardian’ archetype (an archetype with very little modern support except a Pug that literally just got announced). Skill Drain was introduced here and remains a strong floodgate, negating all effects that are activated on the field. Vampire Lord was a pretty good mini-boss, requiring one tribute but able to send opponent’s cards to the graveyard and was able to special summon itself from the graveyard if destroyed by an opponent’s card effect. Sakuretsu Armor I sadly didn't see but is one of the cooler, more consistent removal traps- destroying a monster that declared an attack on you. The only card I was able to get and use pretty often was D.D. Warrior Lady, a monster that helped banish itself and a card that attacked it or vice versa.
While mechanically early Yu-Gi-Oh still remains fairly simple, the power dynamics of certain cards remained so basic that once the meta did evolve certain older cards began to shine so incandescently that basic cards were too powerful to keep around without limitations. The limbs were always there, but a core was necessary for things to take off. It would only be a matter of time before the competition would taste it.
(Chaos)
Chaos refers to a longstanding style of play since the titular set Invasion of Chaos, utilizing the combination of Light and Dark attribute monsters as fodder for stronger boss monsters- typically by banishing one monster from both attributes as cost from the graveyard. Over time, several waves of cards/releases would try to capitalize on this once dominating style of play, including the Synchro bosses Chaos Ruler and Chaos Angel or ever powerful support cards such as Collapserpent, Wyverburster and the now forbidden Eclipse Wyvern. It’s an incredibly popular, historical and potentially unstable theme of cards as even in the modern environment chaos pops up in decks like Dragon Link or engines alongside the Bystial cards. With regards to 7 Trials, there's only a handful of cards regarding specifically the banishing of a light and a dark- however this was enough to completely overtake deck design. Several of the best cards in the game up to this point were already either of the two Chaos attributes, so adding the new IoC tyrants just came naturally.
Previously I had mentioned the games cover card monster Black Luster Soldier: Envoy of the Beginning. By banishing a light and a dark, BLS could special summon itself, meaning you wouldn’t need to use your 1 normal summon per turn. On top of being a 3000 attack monster, BLS had two incredibly potent effects, with the only limit being you could only choose one to use once per turn. First, you can target 1 monster on the field and banish it outright, no graveyard needed. The only downside is BLS couldn’t attack the turn it used said effect. To make up for this missed turn, its second effect was that it could make a second attack that turn if it had attacked and destroyed a monster by battle. If your opponent had set up a strong enough wall or boss monster, BLS was enough to get rid of that set up and potentially step over most defensive cards the next turn it attacked.
The second of the two titans of the set, Chaos Emperor Dragon- Envoy of the End was an insane way to close out games and break boards. By banishing a Light and a Dark from your GY, you can summon one of these dragons down, an easy 3K attacker like BLS. However, whereas BLS was more of a beatdown-type boss, CED relies on a more specific- albeit potentially more potent effect to close out games. By paying 1000 LP, you can remove all cards from the field and both players’ hands to the graveyard and deal 300 LP of damage for each card sent there because of that effect. While it would take a ton of cards to deal FTK or OTK levels of burn damage- if at any point in the match 10 cards were anywhere in the hands or field when CED dropped- 3000 damage on top of the 3000 done during battle would be a massive blow to your opponent. It was often used alongside sangan and Yatagarasu as part of a strategy called “Yatalock” where your opponent was kept from drawing cards due to Yata’s recurring effect to skip the opponent’s draw phase. Naturally over time CED would see errata after errata to keep this kind of lock from happening, as well as nerfing the amount of burn damage done from that effect- but in its initial showing CED was an all too powerful boss to handle.
Invasion of Chaos as a whole still remains a strong release even outside of these two game warping bosses. For starters the Ojamas!...Alongside these chaos bosses was a miniature version of BLS specifically, named Chaos Sorcerer. It required the same cost needing a light and a dark, but was generally weaker in stats and only had the first BLS effect to banish- but was never as limited in its time and could be obtained more easily with regards to rarity. Ironically, Dark Magician of Chaos isn’t a chaos monster, it's just a 2 tribute monster- but its a damn good one, allowing you to reclaim a spell from the GY and banishing any monster destroyed by DMoC. Gren Maju is one of the other stand out cards despite its more niche showings. Namely it represents one of the other recurring themes in Invasion of Chaos; banishing a lot. Gren Maju is a fairly inconsistent but frequent flier in dueling as it’s a normal summonable monster whose effect is its ATK/DEF are 400 times the amount of banished cards you have. The other elemental attributes (earth, fire, etc.) also saw special summonable monsters that required a banish, although outside of Gigantes im not sure how often these saw play. Sacred Crane is a typical 1600 normal summon however if it's special summoned by any means, you’re able to draw a card. Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands would become a staple for any ritual deck once those started becoming tolerable…
Holy shit there’s a lot of good stuff from this set. There’s just a lot of easy to slap in cards that would define what would later be coined ‘GOAT’ format, a timeframe we’ll soon be entering. Berserk Gorilla, Ryu Kokki, Smashing Ground, Dimension Fusion, Compuls??? Fucking Compulsory Evac Device was in this set? Invasion of Chaos is way too good to describe. Older sets are just as groundbreaking but had the excuse that they were compiling a lot of stuff already from the OCG.
My sad confession is that I did not utilize either of the two boss monsters of the Chaos format. They're extremely rare! If I had thought about it I could have just cheated one in with the password machine but I didn't particularly enjoy the thought of doing that. I kinda wished Chaos Sorcerer was a more common occurrence but by the time I got around to these cards my deck was already sorted out. But man, what a set…surely the game itself can capitalize on this insane moment in the card game?
Well, eh.
(The part where I actually review the game)
The thing about this game is that despite how flexible Invasion of Chaos made a lot of deck builds, 7 Trials to Glory is actually fairly simple of a game. You control a character going from areas on the map similar to Sacred Cards, and you battle any and all NPCs you can- including a dog. If you go to sleep at your house, this saves the game and a day passes on the calendar.
Basically, this works way better as a game that you would have played on car rides than on an emulator in 2023.
Tournaments only occur and progress as the day passes so playing on an emulator means you kinda just have to rest a bunch once you have a good enough deck. Once registered for a tournament, you just have to wait until that day, compete, win and repeat for several weeks. It’s pretty simple. In addition most of the time you’ll probably just be fighting Tea Gardner during any time you want to grind for currency as you now buy packs rather than get them after each match. How much currency you get is based on certain factors such as amount of monsters destroyed or how much damage you deal- however Tea covers both of these fronts better than most other duelists due to having a deck dedicated to stalling and gaining health over time. There’s also a rotating banlist each week that you’ll have to take into consideration lest you face the wrath of Mokuba. Otherwise it's just a matter of going week to week to eventual bi-weeks worth of tournaments until you beat the game.
There’s not a whole lot of interest happening throughout, although I did like the tournament based on giving you a certain restriction for the upcoming fight. This ‘Limitation Tournament’ gives you a trainer you’ll be going up against but both players will be under such rule, including rules like “no spells” or “No equip spells”. Except Yugi, Joey and Kaiba who just violate the rules regardless, cheaters. Otherwise most of the tournaments are just your standard dueling fare.
But there is a post game!
Now you get to the truly 'strong' trainers, but by now it's a bit too late to start considering anything too new- the way regulations work in the Mystic Zone allows the player to forego most deck philosophizing and just go straight to the gutter slop EZ pass cheap handie handy Boosted Exodia deck. In this freeform, endless simulator- the final boss of this game is the 'Rare Hunter' character, one so lacking in depth that he never bothered thinking of a name for himself (ignore places that call him ‘Seeker’ i dont know where this came from). Beating him unlocks a version of his 'Boosted Exodia' booster deck for purchase, the near-perfect Exodia deck to use in the Mystic Zone as no regulations means you can run multiple copies of each part, more than a third of your deck filled with these autowin pieces and the rest just stalling and drawing cards. You have now reached the end point of 7 Trials to Glory- not much story left from an already thin game. All that you can really do now is just grind matches in the Mystic Zone battles and tournaments and get crazy cash to spend on more cards.
It’s weird. It’d probably be an excellent game to have as a kid who would need to save often and would see these maybe a bit more naturally. But as is it’s freeform nature was just lacking in too many places to be my favorite of the bunch despite its inclusion of one of the best sets in the meta. Being able to save up currency to buy a big number of packs is pretty fun but I’m not sure if I like it as much as the ‘card a pack’ rewards since in some battles you might not get enough currency for the pack you’re looking to buy. I don’t know, it’s definitely a fine game but it doesn't have the structure of some prior games to really push me to think about how I build my deck. Also while the rotating banlist is a neat idea there were a lot of points where I’d just forgotten that I had certain cards because I had forgotten they were unbanned a while back- it can get kinda confusing. Regardless, it's still a pretty solid simulator and I liked the new aesthetic for battles this time around.
I also still don’t really know what the 7 trials are?
North American: March 2004
(CHAOS Format)
It's been a long time since I logged one of these.
I was looking forward to going through this one in particular. Prior to my indulgence in the modern Yugioh complexities and philosophies to the duel- I did have a few attempts in trying to figure out myself how Yu-Gi-Oh played. The 'chain' mechanic always stood out to me as a weird, WEIRD system compared to the neolithic 'War' simulator of games like Dark Duel Stories and Forbidden Memories that I grew up with, effects and the legalities of specific wording on cards always eluded me. I never quite got why ritual and fusion monsters were the way they were (lo and behold the problem was that these were just poorly made mechanics from the get). 7 Trials was the first game where I decided to tackle this first hand, back around 2018-2019. I would usually just play this on VBA during class in between note takings, but to little avail. I played it a couple of times and tried to just jam a deck together but didn't quite get it still.
5 years later and I was pretty excited to see how exactly I'd feel about this game now that I have a better understanding of the card game- as well as how other games in the series progressed. However, even a modicum of preparation would have been enough for me to have noticed one of the details standing out on the main box art for this title- Black Luster Soldier: Envoy of the Beginning. We'll cover this shortly but it was a pleasant surprise to me when charting these out that this game in particular would be the game to chart a new course in the meta as far as the video games were concerned.
Since the last time we talked about the YGO format, a lot of key cards were released, but ultimately I don't think I talked about the meta since the games didn't really lend themselves to expressing the format (or in some cases, the card game itself) in an interesting manner. For what it's worth, Yu-Gi-Oh itself doesn't really get REAL interesting until several years later, but in a retrospective manner it is satisfying going back and seeing how the game evolves, seeing what cards warp the meta and the way we think about molding decks. However when these games can’t even make the intermediate steps in the meta worth talking about I’d rather spare my time.
There’s a lot of cool tech cards and sets I could go into detail on, as I did skip over Magician’s Force and Dark Crisis in this gap between WC04 and 7 Trials. However this game already has a lot to deal with so I’ll only go into the key cards from these sets or anything I used pretty consistently in the game.
(Magician’s Force)
I never saw it here, but Magical Scientist sees its debut here- a powerful FTK tool that attempts to spam out fusion cards that could be launched at opponents with the help of Catapult Turtle; he has remained banned since 2005 and will likely never come off. Several ‘Spell Counter’ cards debut here including the card drawing tool Royal Magical Library and the multi-faceted Breaker the Magical Warrior (most known for that scene from the anime).
(Dark Crisis)
Not too much here, a lot of archfiend support and the ‘Guardian’ archetype (an archetype with very little modern support except a Pug that literally just got announced). Skill Drain was introduced here and remains a strong floodgate, negating all effects that are activated on the field. Vampire Lord was a pretty good mini-boss, requiring one tribute but able to send opponent’s cards to the graveyard and was able to special summon itself from the graveyard if destroyed by an opponent’s card effect. Sakuretsu Armor I sadly didn't see but is one of the cooler, more consistent removal traps- destroying a monster that declared an attack on you. The only card I was able to get and use pretty often was D.D. Warrior Lady, a monster that helped banish itself and a card that attacked it or vice versa.
While mechanically early Yu-Gi-Oh still remains fairly simple, the power dynamics of certain cards remained so basic that once the meta did evolve certain older cards began to shine so incandescently that basic cards were too powerful to keep around without limitations. The limbs were always there, but a core was necessary for things to take off. It would only be a matter of time before the competition would taste it.
(Chaos)
Chaos refers to a longstanding style of play since the titular set Invasion of Chaos, utilizing the combination of Light and Dark attribute monsters as fodder for stronger boss monsters- typically by banishing one monster from both attributes as cost from the graveyard. Over time, several waves of cards/releases would try to capitalize on this once dominating style of play, including the Synchro bosses Chaos Ruler and Chaos Angel or ever powerful support cards such as Collapserpent, Wyverburster and the now forbidden Eclipse Wyvern. It’s an incredibly popular, historical and potentially unstable theme of cards as even in the modern environment chaos pops up in decks like Dragon Link or engines alongside the Bystial cards. With regards to 7 Trials, there's only a handful of cards regarding specifically the banishing of a light and a dark- however this was enough to completely overtake deck design. Several of the best cards in the game up to this point were already either of the two Chaos attributes, so adding the new IoC tyrants just came naturally.
Previously I had mentioned the games cover card monster Black Luster Soldier: Envoy of the Beginning. By banishing a light and a dark, BLS could special summon itself, meaning you wouldn’t need to use your 1 normal summon per turn. On top of being a 3000 attack monster, BLS had two incredibly potent effects, with the only limit being you could only choose one to use once per turn. First, you can target 1 monster on the field and banish it outright, no graveyard needed. The only downside is BLS couldn’t attack the turn it used said effect. To make up for this missed turn, its second effect was that it could make a second attack that turn if it had attacked and destroyed a monster by battle. If your opponent had set up a strong enough wall or boss monster, BLS was enough to get rid of that set up and potentially step over most defensive cards the next turn it attacked.
The second of the two titans of the set, Chaos Emperor Dragon- Envoy of the End was an insane way to close out games and break boards. By banishing a Light and a Dark from your GY, you can summon one of these dragons down, an easy 3K attacker like BLS. However, whereas BLS was more of a beatdown-type boss, CED relies on a more specific- albeit potentially more potent effect to close out games. By paying 1000 LP, you can remove all cards from the field and both players’ hands to the graveyard and deal 300 LP of damage for each card sent there because of that effect. While it would take a ton of cards to deal FTK or OTK levels of burn damage- if at any point in the match 10 cards were anywhere in the hands or field when CED dropped- 3000 damage on top of the 3000 done during battle would be a massive blow to your opponent. It was often used alongside sangan and Yatagarasu as part of a strategy called “Yatalock” where your opponent was kept from drawing cards due to Yata’s recurring effect to skip the opponent’s draw phase. Naturally over time CED would see errata after errata to keep this kind of lock from happening, as well as nerfing the amount of burn damage done from that effect- but in its initial showing CED was an all too powerful boss to handle.
Invasion of Chaos as a whole still remains a strong release even outside of these two game warping bosses. For starters the Ojamas!...Alongside these chaos bosses was a miniature version of BLS specifically, named Chaos Sorcerer. It required the same cost needing a light and a dark, but was generally weaker in stats and only had the first BLS effect to banish- but was never as limited in its time and could be obtained more easily with regards to rarity. Ironically, Dark Magician of Chaos isn’t a chaos monster, it's just a 2 tribute monster- but its a damn good one, allowing you to reclaim a spell from the GY and banishing any monster destroyed by DMoC. Gren Maju is one of the other stand out cards despite its more niche showings. Namely it represents one of the other recurring themes in Invasion of Chaos; banishing a lot. Gren Maju is a fairly inconsistent but frequent flier in dueling as it’s a normal summonable monster whose effect is its ATK/DEF are 400 times the amount of banished cards you have. The other elemental attributes (earth, fire, etc.) also saw special summonable monsters that required a banish, although outside of Gigantes im not sure how often these saw play. Sacred Crane is a typical 1600 normal summon however if it's special summoned by any means, you’re able to draw a card. Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands would become a staple for any ritual deck once those started becoming tolerable…
Holy shit there’s a lot of good stuff from this set. There’s just a lot of easy to slap in cards that would define what would later be coined ‘GOAT’ format, a timeframe we’ll soon be entering. Berserk Gorilla, Ryu Kokki, Smashing Ground, Dimension Fusion, Compuls??? Fucking Compulsory Evac Device was in this set? Invasion of Chaos is way too good to describe. Older sets are just as groundbreaking but had the excuse that they were compiling a lot of stuff already from the OCG.
My sad confession is that I did not utilize either of the two boss monsters of the Chaos format. They're extremely rare! If I had thought about it I could have just cheated one in with the password machine but I didn't particularly enjoy the thought of doing that. I kinda wished Chaos Sorcerer was a more common occurrence but by the time I got around to these cards my deck was already sorted out. But man, what a set…surely the game itself can capitalize on this insane moment in the card game?
Well, eh.
(The part where I actually review the game)
The thing about this game is that despite how flexible Invasion of Chaos made a lot of deck builds, 7 Trials to Glory is actually fairly simple of a game. You control a character going from areas on the map similar to Sacred Cards, and you battle any and all NPCs you can- including a dog. If you go to sleep at your house, this saves the game and a day passes on the calendar.
Basically, this works way better as a game that you would have played on car rides than on an emulator in 2023.
Tournaments only occur and progress as the day passes so playing on an emulator means you kinda just have to rest a bunch once you have a good enough deck. Once registered for a tournament, you just have to wait until that day, compete, win and repeat for several weeks. It’s pretty simple. In addition most of the time you’ll probably just be fighting Tea Gardner during any time you want to grind for currency as you now buy packs rather than get them after each match. How much currency you get is based on certain factors such as amount of monsters destroyed or how much damage you deal- however Tea covers both of these fronts better than most other duelists due to having a deck dedicated to stalling and gaining health over time. There’s also a rotating banlist each week that you’ll have to take into consideration lest you face the wrath of Mokuba. Otherwise it's just a matter of going week to week to eventual bi-weeks worth of tournaments until you beat the game.
There’s not a whole lot of interest happening throughout, although I did like the tournament based on giving you a certain restriction for the upcoming fight. This ‘Limitation Tournament’ gives you a trainer you’ll be going up against but both players will be under such rule, including rules like “no spells” or “No equip spells”. Except Yugi, Joey and Kaiba who just violate the rules regardless, cheaters. Otherwise most of the tournaments are just your standard dueling fare.
But there is a post game!
Now you get to the truly 'strong' trainers, but by now it's a bit too late to start considering anything too new- the way regulations work in the Mystic Zone allows the player to forego most deck philosophizing and just go straight to the gutter slop EZ pass cheap handie handy Boosted Exodia deck. In this freeform, endless simulator- the final boss of this game is the 'Rare Hunter' character, one so lacking in depth that he never bothered thinking of a name for himself (ignore places that call him ‘Seeker’ i dont know where this came from). Beating him unlocks a version of his 'Boosted Exodia' booster deck for purchase, the near-perfect Exodia deck to use in the Mystic Zone as no regulations means you can run multiple copies of each part, more than a third of your deck filled with these autowin pieces and the rest just stalling and drawing cards. You have now reached the end point of 7 Trials to Glory- not much story left from an already thin game. All that you can really do now is just grind matches in the Mystic Zone battles and tournaments and get crazy cash to spend on more cards.
It’s weird. It’d probably be an excellent game to have as a kid who would need to save often and would see these maybe a bit more naturally. But as is it’s freeform nature was just lacking in too many places to be my favorite of the bunch despite its inclusion of one of the best sets in the meta. Being able to save up currency to buy a big number of packs is pretty fun but I’m not sure if I like it as much as the ‘card a pack’ rewards since in some battles you might not get enough currency for the pack you’re looking to buy. I don’t know, it’s definitely a fine game but it doesn't have the structure of some prior games to really push me to think about how I build my deck. Also while the rotating banlist is a neat idea there were a lot of points where I’d just forgotten that I had certain cards because I had forgotten they were unbanned a while back- it can get kinda confusing. Regardless, it's still a pretty solid simulator and I liked the new aesthetic for battles this time around.
I also still don’t really know what the 7 trials are?
After nearly 6 years since my first outing with the series, I've finally 'caught up' for the moment. I still have Lost Judgment on the docket, and maybe I'll chew through that in the next few weeks or months- but I was hoping to at least get this done before the release of Gaiden later next month.
What's given here is an interesting conundrum however, as Yakuza 6 represents several entities in its' placement in the Yakuza series. Yakuza 6 acts as a follow up to the climatic, overindulgent Yakuza 5, released after two breakout introductory points for the western audience (one a full-on prequel and the other a remake of the first title), introduces the new Dragon engine, precedes both a spiritual sidequest in Judgment and a game with RPG literal sidequests in Yakuza LAD, and on top of all this feels most like a callback to Yakuza 3, above all else. Yakuza is a weird franchise; you can't even call it Yakuza anymore!
Yakuza 6 is a really good game, but one that I would be lying to say didn't feel like I was only half-invested in. I don't know if this kind of game would have worked better in a vacuum without knowing events in LAD or that Gaiden/LAD2 were on the horizon, but it felt very weird that this was the next step after Yakuza 5's brutally maximalist finale. Overall I was fine with the smaller scale, quite glad if anything. Onomichi is great, one of my favorite areas thus far in a Yakuza game. This and Okinawa absolutely feel like wonderful departures from the cramped, cluttered streets of Kamurocho, Sotenbori and Ijincho. I like that many of the ‘minigames’ exclusive to it are moreso little trinkets like the temple offerings and the blessing pulls, although I didn’t realize there were some that I just completely missed. Still, it’s an incredibly pretty locale and one with a lot of personality in its side paths, cluttered neighborhoods, ono michio… and scenic riverside.
While I do like how this game feels a lot slimmer than 5, there’s some side features I did miss from prior games- didn’t realize how many of these were gone until I wanted to try them out in 6, like the UFO catcher or trainers like Komaki.
While I do think there's a lot going for Yakuza 6 I'd be lying if I didn't say this was absolutely one of the easiest titles yet for me to just start glancing over to my phone- I hate doing this. Its storyline regarding the Iwami family and most of the last third’s beats are easily one of the more boring in the series- which is a shame because it involves a cast that I think works quite well. Again, strong strokes of Yakuza 3 resonate in the community of Onomichi. 3's departure from the main formula dealt the series a new hand in its more rural, bright skied, summer trip. However this contrasted quite well with its frantic invasions from Kiryu’s legacy- I thought the flip flopping between Kamurocho and Okinawa worked pretty well.
Meanwhile, in Yakuza 6 the town of Onomichi presents similarly the escapism of both Kiryu AND Haruka at vastly differing times of their lives, at separate points in physical time. This aspect of Onomichi I felt very strongly toward, however as the game ventured further and further toward the ‘secret of onomichi’ plot, the less interesting things got. This all expands into a finale chapter I think is one of the weakest in the series- with sprinkles of great stuff in there but constant naggings from this conspiracy that I’d honestly just ignored after the reveal. I kinda knew Someya’s schtick before going in but I didn’t know some of the finer details of what he’d be doing throughout the game so getting to those segments in the game was quite fun, I think Someya was a great part of 6.The biggest shame is that he ultimately gets overshadowed by this conspiracy/Iwami family dredge that just never tapped my neurons as much as Someya’s character. It was kinda funny getting to the finale and seeing our gang square up against a bunch of the villains from the game, glancing across all 3 of the major actors and thinking “man none of yall are cooking”. The most enjoyable part of this final fight is just Kiryu looking at the final boss and calling him “little baby”, at least.
Also I know this isn’t really supposed to be the game to start throwing in every cameo from the past titles -instead it feels like its trying to start distancing itself from that- but it did feel incredibly weird getting to that finale and finally getting to see Majima, Saejima and Daigo in the detournement. This wouldn’t feel too weird but like we see goddamn Pocket Fighter (although I do like his sidestory), the fighter maker dude from 4, Akiyama’s trainer from 4 and post-stardust Yuya? Yakuza constantly references back to each and every other game in the franchise but it did feel weird how even in this seemingly new chapter Kiryu just runs into these guys I had hoped we’d left to their own devices. At the very least it does leave behind a lot of the tropes and characters that had been starting to get stale.
Overall I did enjoy my time with Yakuza 6 and I think it’s a great follow up to 5’s gargantuan nature, but I had hoped it’d stuck the landing better in the latter half. Onomichi and the Hirose gang are really fun, and I think the entire Haruka chunk of the story was done incredibly well. It’s jump to a proper eighth gen title also brought a lot of nice improvements like auto saving, faster loads, more fun photo mode shenanigans, and just smoother, moment to moment gameplay. It mostly just feels like a transitional piece in the franchise- but it feels all the weirder considering the RGG-verse begins to branch and explode in a lot of other paths after this, into Judgment, Yakuza LAD, and even back to the past with games like Kiwami 2. Still, I’m glad I was able to chew through this one relatively quickly, at just under 30 hours.
What's given here is an interesting conundrum however, as Yakuza 6 represents several entities in its' placement in the Yakuza series. Yakuza 6 acts as a follow up to the climatic, overindulgent Yakuza 5, released after two breakout introductory points for the western audience (one a full-on prequel and the other a remake of the first title), introduces the new Dragon engine, precedes both a spiritual sidequest in Judgment and a game with RPG literal sidequests in Yakuza LAD, and on top of all this feels most like a callback to Yakuza 3, above all else. Yakuza is a weird franchise; you can't even call it Yakuza anymore!
Yakuza 6 is a really good game, but one that I would be lying to say didn't feel like I was only half-invested in. I don't know if this kind of game would have worked better in a vacuum without knowing events in LAD or that Gaiden/LAD2 were on the horizon, but it felt very weird that this was the next step after Yakuza 5's brutally maximalist finale. Overall I was fine with the smaller scale, quite glad if anything. Onomichi is great, one of my favorite areas thus far in a Yakuza game. This and Okinawa absolutely feel like wonderful departures from the cramped, cluttered streets of Kamurocho, Sotenbori and Ijincho. I like that many of the ‘minigames’ exclusive to it are moreso little trinkets like the temple offerings and the blessing pulls, although I didn’t realize there were some that I just completely missed. Still, it’s an incredibly pretty locale and one with a lot of personality in its side paths, cluttered neighborhoods, ono michio… and scenic riverside.
While I do like how this game feels a lot slimmer than 5, there’s some side features I did miss from prior games- didn’t realize how many of these were gone until I wanted to try them out in 6, like the UFO catcher or trainers like Komaki.
While I do think there's a lot going for Yakuza 6 I'd be lying if I didn't say this was absolutely one of the easiest titles yet for me to just start glancing over to my phone- I hate doing this. Its storyline regarding the Iwami family and most of the last third’s beats are easily one of the more boring in the series- which is a shame because it involves a cast that I think works quite well. Again, strong strokes of Yakuza 3 resonate in the community of Onomichi. 3's departure from the main formula dealt the series a new hand in its more rural, bright skied, summer trip. However this contrasted quite well with its frantic invasions from Kiryu’s legacy- I thought the flip flopping between Kamurocho and Okinawa worked pretty well.
Meanwhile, in Yakuza 6 the town of Onomichi presents similarly the escapism of both Kiryu AND Haruka at vastly differing times of their lives, at separate points in physical time. This aspect of Onomichi I felt very strongly toward, however as the game ventured further and further toward the ‘secret of onomichi’ plot, the less interesting things got. This all expands into a finale chapter I think is one of the weakest in the series- with sprinkles of great stuff in there but constant naggings from this conspiracy that I’d honestly just ignored after the reveal. I kinda knew Someya’s schtick before going in but I didn’t know some of the finer details of what he’d be doing throughout the game so getting to those segments in the game was quite fun, I think Someya was a great part of 6.The biggest shame is that he ultimately gets overshadowed by this conspiracy/Iwami family dredge that just never tapped my neurons as much as Someya’s character. It was kinda funny getting to the finale and seeing our gang square up against a bunch of the villains from the game, glancing across all 3 of the major actors and thinking “man none of yall are cooking”. The most enjoyable part of this final fight is just Kiryu looking at the final boss and calling him “little baby”, at least.
Also I know this isn’t really supposed to be the game to start throwing in every cameo from the past titles -instead it feels like its trying to start distancing itself from that- but it did feel incredibly weird getting to that finale and finally getting to see Majima, Saejima and Daigo in the detournement. This wouldn’t feel too weird but like we see goddamn Pocket Fighter (although I do like his sidestory), the fighter maker dude from 4, Akiyama’s trainer from 4 and post-stardust Yuya? Yakuza constantly references back to each and every other game in the franchise but it did feel weird how even in this seemingly new chapter Kiryu just runs into these guys I had hoped we’d left to their own devices. At the very least it does leave behind a lot of the tropes and characters that had been starting to get stale.
Overall I did enjoy my time with Yakuza 6 and I think it’s a great follow up to 5’s gargantuan nature, but I had hoped it’d stuck the landing better in the latter half. Onomichi and the Hirose gang are really fun, and I think the entire Haruka chunk of the story was done incredibly well. It’s jump to a proper eighth gen title also brought a lot of nice improvements like auto saving, faster loads, more fun photo mode shenanigans, and just smoother, moment to moment gameplay. It mostly just feels like a transitional piece in the franchise- but it feels all the weirder considering the RGG-verse begins to branch and explode in a lot of other paths after this, into Judgment, Yakuza LAD, and even back to the past with games like Kiwami 2. Still, I’m glad I was able to chew through this one relatively quickly, at just under 30 hours.
I'm a bit torn at the moment. This year has been a pretty eventful one when it comes to releases- with each month showcasing at least one drop that feels like some niche's goty, and in a much more explosive way than years past. I don't know if this is just how critical discourse has evolved- if gaming development as a whole is more on the pulse with general audiences- some mixture of both or some other memetic, sociological or plain weird state of being we're in. Gaming HAS been pretty good this year and we still have some big stuff in the next few months. What irks me is that I've played a bit of what this year had- only barely scraping the surface, but had quite a plateful each week, yet I can't really think of piece that has kinda... gotten me. Generally going from year to year I can usually point out a release from that year that ranks among my favorites of all time, as I just tend to grab releases I feel like I'd enjoy most. Here that just happened way too often so I decided to diversify my usual safe bets, still haven't gotten Pikmin or Armored Core or Resident Evil 4, etc. For a while it just felt kinda weird that despite this, nothing really stuck into my skull like some leech- draining my head of precious grey matter and leaving only useless gaming tchotchkes and a longing for more after I conclude whatever game I had finished. Until last week.
What I come to struggle with is Rain Code, the newest game headed by Kazutaka Kodaka. Many love his stuff, many hate it, most just have to tolerate the fallout that Danganronpa has left over the last decade plus. Personally, I still love much of what Danganronpa meant from when I first discovered it in high school to what it left for me as I finished it's saga freshman year of college. Five years after finishing it (jesus christ), I've looked back at the franchise through other lens and opinions but have generally stayed the same and I'm glad that my opinion really hasn't waned- I'm STILL glad that I look back at V3 and remember how fun some of those cases and characters are, leading into that finale. I can count on my hand the amount of games I've gone through with as pure, unspoiled eyes as I did with V3 and felt like I absolutely needed that. I'm so glad I didn't engage with an ounce of reddit or twitter discourse before finishing a game I came out genuinely loving. No 'Oh- that game is divisive' or "That ending, man!" even.
Nowadays, I'm jaded! Twitter keeps spoiling me on anything and everything, so I can't really get mad anymore because people are just going to be annoying forever regardless of what I could ever do or say, besides becoming a Tibetan monk. I've given up! Spoil everything for me!
Anyway... with Rain Code here I'm conflicted. Not particularly of its own quality but to how to accurately place it within my heart and of my critical eye. It's great, at points by the end its fantastic. Kodaka has a grip on my brain like no other, but as the times flow and the seasons change, we've arrived at a new avenue- one that I had to consider through my playthrough. Now that I am older and my tastes have changed somewhat, have I come to recognize many of the juvenile and messy flaws to the general Kodaka vibe? Yeah, however by the end of the game I reached the conclusion I trusted in myself since beginning the game.
I am Kodaka’s greatest soldier.
I think this was a wonderful departure from the Danganronpa series while still utilizing many of the structural bones of those games. This has its advantages and disadvantages, but it was certainly refreshing having a somewhat more constant and developing cast compared to the DRs games, as well as mysteries that are well done enough that you can figure out most of what’s going on through logically figuring it out yourself. I think most of the Yakou detective agency is splendid, even my least favorite of the bunch ended up with way more hits than the usual least favorite of a DR game. Although I will say I think the Peacekeepers can be really hit or miss- some of them get enough screen time to make an impression while others feel like hoaky 3rd rate pokemon villains. I wouldn’t mind so much but you meet a different one usually each chapter until 4 and they usually fuck off afterward. I’m glad Yomi’s just a complete dirtbag, although by the end it was clear he wasn’t the big bad so I was just kinda booing and yelling at him to exit the stage. The ACTUAL big bad though I think is quite strong, making for a really fun final confrontation.
I do really like the hub world of Kanai Ward- I really would have liked this on something that wasn’t the Switch but I’ll take it. The cyperpunk noir vibe works really well with the Danganronpa art crew style, and after some adjusting I really liked a lot of the world building that went into how Kanai Ward works. It was really cool that it incorporates a lot of how it works into its mysteries. There’s certain worldbuilding notes that irk but I get why they say certain stuff like “this is the [Church], its the only one in Kanai Ward”, although part of me wished that locations like this were maybe a bit more fleshed out just as some flavoring.
I still don’t quite know why certain characters just have dog ears though. Two characters have dog ears and I get one of them because of their talent, the other one…? Iunno.
The sidequests are a bit basic, but it does remind me of the Yakuza-type side missions we all know and love. You walk up to a fortune teller, get given an extraordinary telling for free, that telling comes true and then the fortune teller scams with extraordinary prices if you fall for his ruse. A lot of these have their own Rain Code flavoring to them but there’s not too many so they’re easy to chew along the way of beating other main story things.
My main complaint is that I do think it takes a while after its strong prologue to regain its footing. Chapter 1 isn’t really bad, I mostly just didn’t find its cases as interesting as I’d hope, although Halara as your partner for this section was certainly a treat. Inversely, I really liked the moment to moment mystery for Chapter 2, but Desuhiko is by and far the hardest of the bunch to grapple with his perverse nature (he’s still running laps around Teruteru, somehow). I will say I appreciate how often Shinigami back talks Desuhiko by saying she legitimately hates him- I feel like you don’t get that kinda treatment against these usual horndog archetypes in anime (again, shoutout to AITSF). Chapter 3 feels like the weakest case, and Fubuki (bless her) isn’t the sharpest of the bunch- but I did like the set up and how large-scale the mystery turned out to be.
Also- WOW, shoutout to one-time boat mechanics that feel like I’m right back in Mario Sunshine.
I am… Kodaka’s greatest soldier.
I do wish Shinigami was a bit less talkative overall, some of her barks come off as just kinda filling in empty space in the soundscape when that’s really unnecessary. I enjoyed her presence overall but she does have moments where it feels like her joking nature is out of place- I did appreciate when, by the end of the game, even Yuma’s begins getting vocally frustrated at some of the comments made by Shinigami and she recognizes she probably overstepped a few too many times. I would have liked some of this a bit earlier but I’ll take what I can get. Kurumi also feels like the strangest addition to the cast- she’s considered one of the only informants in Kanai Ward which is helpful to our detectives but she just kinda tags along and is completely normal. It’s bizarre because Kodaka doesn’t write normal characters- she’s scary.
I will note I think this game runs fine on switch and I never ran into too many hiccups but I do crave a version of this game that was on the PS5 or at least PC. There's quite a lot of loading that you gotta deal with. Switch is just getting up there, man. If you're interested in getting this game but can wait, see if a PC version gets announced. Also I don’t think I’ll be checking out those DLCs, they don’t seem to be worth the price at the moment or all that content-filled. I
I'm reminded a lot of when Uchikoshi decided to turn to the AI games once his Nonary saga was finished, which felt not only like a general improvement in several aspects but a natural evolution on the ideas he had when first starting with 999. While I was somewhat mid on the Nonary saga as a whole I really appreciated that the AI games breathed new life and utilized Uchikoshi’s strengths as a writer to make a narrative that felt a lot more focused and down to earth, and by the time he leaned more into the strange meta-narrative, was able to better convey his style through a game with what i felt was stronger direction and consideration that his prior works. With Rain Code, I think it leans a lot into the Danganronpa formula which does feel a bit distracting at times, and I’d be lying if I didn’t want Kodaka to break off from the usual templates you find in these kinds of games. I think about Yuma and Date having similar archetypes as amnesiac detectives with identity crises while being berated by overly neurodivergent neuro-demonic female partners. While I did love Yuma (he’s about as par for me as Hajime was in 2, maybe more) and Shinigami, I’d be lying if I didn’t appreciate AITSF’s choice to set its events 6 years after Date was found without memories by the Boss. It was fun to have a game with that trope but with a character that had already lived a chunk of their life filling his shell with relationships and memories. Here, the time scale is a lot more by the numbers, being right as Yuma lost his memories- which for the purpose of what story its trying to tell- is fine. But I kinda wanna see if Kodaka can tackle something that is out of his usual ballpark, maybe an older protagonist or a different gender. Yuma’s still great although he does feel like a mix between Naegi and Hajime.
I really enjoyed my time here, although I think much of the first half is trying to spin its wheel while trying to balance the usual format for these kinds of games. By the end it hits its stride, and I was struck with the same kind of energy that comes up whenever I had gotten to the end of the other games, probably making my game of the year thus far. As much as I liked other games this year, there’s few guys that are wiretapped into my heart and my brain like Kodaka. While V3 remains one of my favorite works still, I see this as a couple of steps back- and not a few steps forward per se, but a lot more steps toward a new direction. I’m always welcome to whatever Kodaka and his crew have in mind, I’m looking forward to whatever might come next.
What I come to struggle with is Rain Code, the newest game headed by Kazutaka Kodaka. Many love his stuff, many hate it, most just have to tolerate the fallout that Danganronpa has left over the last decade plus. Personally, I still love much of what Danganronpa meant from when I first discovered it in high school to what it left for me as I finished it's saga freshman year of college. Five years after finishing it (jesus christ), I've looked back at the franchise through other lens and opinions but have generally stayed the same and I'm glad that my opinion really hasn't waned- I'm STILL glad that I look back at V3 and remember how fun some of those cases and characters are, leading into that finale. I can count on my hand the amount of games I've gone through with as pure, unspoiled eyes as I did with V3 and felt like I absolutely needed that. I'm so glad I didn't engage with an ounce of reddit or twitter discourse before finishing a game I came out genuinely loving. No 'Oh- that game is divisive' or "That ending, man!" even.
Nowadays, I'm jaded! Twitter keeps spoiling me on anything and everything, so I can't really get mad anymore because people are just going to be annoying forever regardless of what I could ever do or say, besides becoming a Tibetan monk. I've given up! Spoil everything for me!
Anyway... with Rain Code here I'm conflicted. Not particularly of its own quality but to how to accurately place it within my heart and of my critical eye. It's great, at points by the end its fantastic. Kodaka has a grip on my brain like no other, but as the times flow and the seasons change, we've arrived at a new avenue- one that I had to consider through my playthrough. Now that I am older and my tastes have changed somewhat, have I come to recognize many of the juvenile and messy flaws to the general Kodaka vibe? Yeah, however by the end of the game I reached the conclusion I trusted in myself since beginning the game.
I am Kodaka’s greatest soldier.
I think this was a wonderful departure from the Danganronpa series while still utilizing many of the structural bones of those games. This has its advantages and disadvantages, but it was certainly refreshing having a somewhat more constant and developing cast compared to the DRs games, as well as mysteries that are well done enough that you can figure out most of what’s going on through logically figuring it out yourself. I think most of the Yakou detective agency is splendid, even my least favorite of the bunch ended up with way more hits than the usual least favorite of a DR game. Although I will say I think the Peacekeepers can be really hit or miss- some of them get enough screen time to make an impression while others feel like hoaky 3rd rate pokemon villains. I wouldn’t mind so much but you meet a different one usually each chapter until 4 and they usually fuck off afterward. I’m glad Yomi’s just a complete dirtbag, although by the end it was clear he wasn’t the big bad so I was just kinda booing and yelling at him to exit the stage. The ACTUAL big bad though I think is quite strong, making for a really fun final confrontation.
I do really like the hub world of Kanai Ward- I really would have liked this on something that wasn’t the Switch but I’ll take it. The cyperpunk noir vibe works really well with the Danganronpa art crew style, and after some adjusting I really liked a lot of the world building that went into how Kanai Ward works. It was really cool that it incorporates a lot of how it works into its mysteries. There’s certain worldbuilding notes that irk but I get why they say certain stuff like “this is the [Church], its the only one in Kanai Ward”, although part of me wished that locations like this were maybe a bit more fleshed out just as some flavoring.
I still don’t quite know why certain characters just have dog ears though. Two characters have dog ears and I get one of them because of their talent, the other one…? Iunno.
The sidequests are a bit basic, but it does remind me of the Yakuza-type side missions we all know and love. You walk up to a fortune teller, get given an extraordinary telling for free, that telling comes true and then the fortune teller scams with extraordinary prices if you fall for his ruse. A lot of these have their own Rain Code flavoring to them but there’s not too many so they’re easy to chew along the way of beating other main story things.
My main complaint is that I do think it takes a while after its strong prologue to regain its footing. Chapter 1 isn’t really bad, I mostly just didn’t find its cases as interesting as I’d hope, although Halara as your partner for this section was certainly a treat. Inversely, I really liked the moment to moment mystery for Chapter 2, but Desuhiko is by and far the hardest of the bunch to grapple with his perverse nature (he’s still running laps around Teruteru, somehow). I will say I appreciate how often Shinigami back talks Desuhiko by saying she legitimately hates him- I feel like you don’t get that kinda treatment against these usual horndog archetypes in anime (again, shoutout to AITSF). Chapter 3 feels like the weakest case, and Fubuki (bless her) isn’t the sharpest of the bunch- but I did like the set up and how large-scale the mystery turned out to be.
Also- WOW, shoutout to one-time boat mechanics that feel like I’m right back in Mario Sunshine.
I am… Kodaka’s greatest soldier.
I do wish Shinigami was a bit less talkative overall, some of her barks come off as just kinda filling in empty space in the soundscape when that’s really unnecessary. I enjoyed her presence overall but she does have moments where it feels like her joking nature is out of place- I did appreciate when, by the end of the game, even Yuma’s begins getting vocally frustrated at some of the comments made by Shinigami and she recognizes she probably overstepped a few too many times. I would have liked some of this a bit earlier but I’ll take what I can get. Kurumi also feels like the strangest addition to the cast- she’s considered one of the only informants in Kanai Ward which is helpful to our detectives but she just kinda tags along and is completely normal. It’s bizarre because Kodaka doesn’t write normal characters- she’s scary.
I will note I think this game runs fine on switch and I never ran into too many hiccups but I do crave a version of this game that was on the PS5 or at least PC. There's quite a lot of loading that you gotta deal with. Switch is just getting up there, man. If you're interested in getting this game but can wait, see if a PC version gets announced. Also I don’t think I’ll be checking out those DLCs, they don’t seem to be worth the price at the moment or all that content-filled. I
I'm reminded a lot of when Uchikoshi decided to turn to the AI games once his Nonary saga was finished, which felt not only like a general improvement in several aspects but a natural evolution on the ideas he had when first starting with 999. While I was somewhat mid on the Nonary saga as a whole I really appreciated that the AI games breathed new life and utilized Uchikoshi’s strengths as a writer to make a narrative that felt a lot more focused and down to earth, and by the time he leaned more into the strange meta-narrative, was able to better convey his style through a game with what i felt was stronger direction and consideration that his prior works. With Rain Code, I think it leans a lot into the Danganronpa formula which does feel a bit distracting at times, and I’d be lying if I didn’t want Kodaka to break off from the usual templates you find in these kinds of games. I think about Yuma and Date having similar archetypes as amnesiac detectives with identity crises while being berated by overly neurodivergent neuro-demonic female partners. While I did love Yuma (he’s about as par for me as Hajime was in 2, maybe more) and Shinigami, I’d be lying if I didn’t appreciate AITSF’s choice to set its events 6 years after Date was found without memories by the Boss. It was fun to have a game with that trope but with a character that had already lived a chunk of their life filling his shell with relationships and memories. Here, the time scale is a lot more by the numbers, being right as Yuma lost his memories- which for the purpose of what story its trying to tell- is fine. But I kinda wanna see if Kodaka can tackle something that is out of his usual ballpark, maybe an older protagonist or a different gender. Yuma’s still great although he does feel like a mix between Naegi and Hajime.
I really enjoyed my time here, although I think much of the first half is trying to spin its wheel while trying to balance the usual format for these kinds of games. By the end it hits its stride, and I was struck with the same kind of energy that comes up whenever I had gotten to the end of the other games, probably making my game of the year thus far. As much as I liked other games this year, there’s few guys that are wiretapped into my heart and my brain like Kodaka. While V3 remains one of my favorite works still, I see this as a couple of steps back- and not a few steps forward per se, but a lot more steps toward a new direction. I’m always welcome to whatever Kodaka and his crew have in mind, I’m looking forward to whatever might come next.
Stormblood
(Finished on October 5th)
(Note half of this review is just me ranting about Monks off the playstyle of two games I just so happened to be playing at the same time feel free to skip that)
Post-Heavensward
I forgot if I already brought this up.
Anyway, what if Estinien went joker mode. Pretty cool follow up to the events of Heavensward, although these kind of quests do kinda make me think "some of this feels like it shoulda been in the main expansion?" but I understand why this is the case, I guess.
Like post-ARR there's some rando missions laid throughout that are supposed to be like "hey! here's the stuff that's leaning into Stormblood get excited!" but it still felt very weird leading up to it. I never really know how to judge these quests/patches as they mostly act as a medley of prepping for the next expansion, of course but then it flip flops to wrapping up a lot of loose ends from the prior expansion. (also this expansion took a bit longer than the other two so much of this honestly left my brain).
STORMBLOOD (Proper)
Leading up to this expansion, I had heard all sorts of opinions regarding this section of FF14. I wasn't entirely sure how to tackle it at first other than to have an open mind and just go through the motions as I went from quest to quest. While I think I understand the hangups a lot of other people had with Stormblood, I still enjoyed it most of the way through. It just has a few sections of GLACIAL pacing, and some really rough character writing depending on where you're coming in from. It's a divisive expansion, but overall I enjoyed it, if only a couple of steps behind Heavensward.
I think one of the more standout points about Stormblood is just how damn good the instances are in this expansion. Heavensward was definitely a step above A Realm Reborn in terms of scenario and the required dungeons, but Stormblood has maybe 1 or 2 dungeons that feel 'mid'. I really enjoyed just about every dungeon or trial that the expansion had, from the Susanoo giant sword blocking QTE to the Mario Party-esque trials of Bardam’s Mettle. The only dungeon I don't think I cared about was the grave shipyard but it was kinda neat as what I think is a FFV callback?
I also really liked most of the areas throughout the middle chunk of the expansion. I'll get to the first and last chunk later, but from the sprawling streets of Kugane to the rolling plains of the Azim Steppe, to the overwhelming Dairyu Moon Gates from the bottom of the Yanxia basin
there was a lot of really nice locales throughout the expansion. You get this weird diving mechanic also which gets shoehorned into a lot of places throughout the expansion, but your first use of this is in this huge ocean map with a bunch of underwater locales throughout.
The main issue regarding Stormblood is that it does have some really slow parts in its plot. It reminds me of Fire Emblem! No but actually, the whole 'we need to gather and unite the oppressed masses to rebel over their imperialist overlords", the arid environments of Gyr Abania, the nomadic tribes... it felt like I was getting a fusion of Thracia, Blazing Blade and Fates Birthright all in one! I mean, if you squint, Yotsuyu is basically like Aversa. I’m not crazy. Regardless, I did enjoy the new rotation of the cast for this expansion, as I appreciated the return of Alisaie into the main lineup for this expansion and in always happy whenever Raubahn is present. On the other hand, Lyse is so milquetoast. I had heard whining and complaining about some of the characters in this being really rought and while I don't think its all that bad -sometimes you like a toxic bitch, who doesn't?- but Lyse really is just way more pushed than she really needs to be. To give her some credit, she's mostly just mid, but she's got so little sauce for who's supposed to be the central character for this expansion. I don't know, I was kind of waiting for her to commit some atrocity- hell if she did do that at least she'd be somewhat more interesting. Nearing the end of the expansion I was wondering if she was gonna do something into post-Stormblood, but nah she ends up leaving the Scions to help rebuild Ala Mhigo.
The two main villains this time around are really fun though, I was really shocked when I heard people were on the fence with Zenos. I guess I can kinda understand with how simple his motives are, but Zenos is so delightfully hammy I can't help but love whenever he's on screen. Hell, if I had one problem with Zenos it'd be that he didn't have enough screentime, he shows up every now and then but it's divvied up between the two main villains, who already take a bit of a break for a 1/3rd of the expansion.
I did wanna get cocky this expansion and see if I could manage two jobs at the same time throughout the expansion but it got to the point where I was underlevelled for pretty simple missions so I decided to hang up the MNK clothes and go full time as a Dark Knight. This felt like a fine decision to me, although I was still left grumbling to myself that I wish levelling was significantly easier in general.
Dark Knight continues to be probably one of the more interesting classes on the docket, continuing the Sidurgu and Rielle sidequest with a new addition in Myste- a young boy who’s stolen a portion of your aether for the purpose harnessing it and of finding some closure for those that have died. The end of this questline was really cool so I'm excited to see what the next expansions have in store, since they brought the writer for the DRK questline onto shadowbringers.
I did decide to try a bit of Samurai as well, considering its one of the new additions in this expansion. It's a little overwhelming at first as its a class that starts out at level 50, using a lot of skills that weave in and out of similar combos. Once I got the hang of it though it felt...okay. I'll probably load into leveling for it every now and then but don't think I'll be wanting it to become a mainstay in my arsenal. Part of me wanted to get back into MNK-ing after a small break throughout the post-HW questline, however with how bad DPS wait times are and how same-y MNK can get I just wasn't feeling up to switching over to that job to level it up.
I had planned an entire rant in my Baldurs Gate review where I wanted to talk about how much I wish Monk was a cooler class but I figured I'd cut that out since it was already a lengthy review, so I'll just graft it into here- man I wish Monk was so much cooler (BG3's version of monks are fine, they're just weird and require a bit of tooling- it just took me 9 levels to get an ability I thought was cool enough). Part of that desire to rant was predicated on going through MNK in FF14 around the same time, though. I always liked classes and weapons that utilized martial arts or bare-handed fighting in their gameplan. It's a unique way of handling the traditional swords and magic (or guns, Fallout has unarmed skills too) you come to find in these types of games by kind of tossing both out the window. No swords, just your bare strength- no magic, but the Ki in your soul. But in reality, what you get is a really boring questline and some okay feeling combat.
It did kinda worry me that Dark Knight was considered the best job sidequest by a wide margin when looking into it- mostly because I wasn't sure if this meant there'd be this wide gap in quality between that and the rest of the jobs. Not sure how consistent of a given that is just yet, but as it stands for Monk, I never really wanted to know what the Monk dude was up to or what's up with the rivalling tribes or whatever.
Also while I do like the new mechanics introduced for Monk in Stormblood, there was a part of me that just wants Monks to have a more interesting energy to them- Lyse being the closest thing to a Monk in the main cast is maybe the worst example you could produce. I dug the pugilist storyline enough, and at first I kinda understood what the ARR Monk arc was going for- I just wish it went more into a spiritual or a more personal direction.
Or you could just make your martial artist class storyline just be Kengan Ashura, that'd be sick. I don't care how involved and bizarre it'd be make the Monk storyline turn into a damn tournament arc with corrupt-business-conspiracy-superhuman-experimenting-nonsense and lemme learn moves that look like they'd break my bones just as much as they break my opponents'. They should give me a suplex like Sabin's- it doesn't need to take the enemy model off screen or anything- but I'd like some allusion that my Monk could just be like Sabin. Some Monk combos should almost look like Bogartian power geysers- Monk abilties that almost feel as good as God Hand roulette attacks- maybe even just give me a BM 'Taunt' ability like im Kiryu.
Hell, give me Asura's 6 arms- why not!
I don't literally need Star Platinum behind my back, but if I had an attack where the animation were my PC holding a stance and an outburst of flying fists came from the side, creating an illusion that I'm just rapidly firing blows from nowhere, I'd think "Monks're really cool!"- instead its some neat acrobatics and whatnot but, not really what I had in mind. You get some neat supermoves in the new 'Master Gauge’ mechanic in Stormblood, it just requires a lot more I guess I wouldn't mind so much but I do like a lot of the Monks that appear in the standard FF games up to the point that I've played. Sabin, Tifa, Yang- hell I think the FFT Monks have more carnal moves early on- they get a damn Ki blast! (Looking over this before I post the review, forgot to mention how much I liked Matthew's playstyle in the most recent XB3 expansion. You can make non-action brawlers feel good!!)
I just wish Monks had a lot more going for them is all. It feels like the class should be flashier and more 'unga' -and maybe by the endgame of FF14 it gets neater moves, I don't know- but I was getting really bored playing Monk by this point (also Baldurs Gate 3s' monk up until Level 9), in terms of questline, moveset and . I could go further into how even non-action game move animations can go a long way, however I started talking about Pokemon and I felt like I should save that for later.
Sorry for the tangent I needed some outlet in which to spew this out, its been stuck in my head for a few weeks.
For what its worth I think this isn't a huge step down from Heavensward, and its just about as good on a lot of fronts, its just sandwiched between an incredibly slow beginning and parts of the end of the scenario. Much of what lies in between I think is a lot neater but anytime you have to traverse back to the Gry Abania map, it always feels a lot more monotonous of a task getting much of anything done. Glad that it's getting added along with HW in being free for new players, as I think this being the first paid content users had to go through for a while there might have been a bit of a mean joke.
(Finished on October 5th)
(Note half of this review is just me ranting about Monks off the playstyle of two games I just so happened to be playing at the same time feel free to skip that)
Post-Heavensward
I forgot if I already brought this up.
Anyway, what if Estinien went joker mode. Pretty cool follow up to the events of Heavensward, although these kind of quests do kinda make me think "some of this feels like it shoulda been in the main expansion?" but I understand why this is the case, I guess.
Like post-ARR there's some rando missions laid throughout that are supposed to be like "hey! here's the stuff that's leaning into Stormblood get excited!" but it still felt very weird leading up to it. I never really know how to judge these quests/patches as they mostly act as a medley of prepping for the next expansion, of course but then it flip flops to wrapping up a lot of loose ends from the prior expansion. (also this expansion took a bit longer than the other two so much of this honestly left my brain).
STORMBLOOD (Proper)
Leading up to this expansion, I had heard all sorts of opinions regarding this section of FF14. I wasn't entirely sure how to tackle it at first other than to have an open mind and just go through the motions as I went from quest to quest. While I think I understand the hangups a lot of other people had with Stormblood, I still enjoyed it most of the way through. It just has a few sections of GLACIAL pacing, and some really rough character writing depending on where you're coming in from. It's a divisive expansion, but overall I enjoyed it, if only a couple of steps behind Heavensward.
I think one of the more standout points about Stormblood is just how damn good the instances are in this expansion. Heavensward was definitely a step above A Realm Reborn in terms of scenario and the required dungeons, but Stormblood has maybe 1 or 2 dungeons that feel 'mid'. I really enjoyed just about every dungeon or trial that the expansion had, from the Susanoo giant sword blocking QTE to the Mario Party-esque trials of Bardam’s Mettle. The only dungeon I don't think I cared about was the grave shipyard but it was kinda neat as what I think is a FFV callback?
I also really liked most of the areas throughout the middle chunk of the expansion. I'll get to the first and last chunk later, but from the sprawling streets of Kugane to the rolling plains of the Azim Steppe, to the overwhelming Dairyu Moon Gates from the bottom of the Yanxia basin
there was a lot of really nice locales throughout the expansion. You get this weird diving mechanic also which gets shoehorned into a lot of places throughout the expansion, but your first use of this is in this huge ocean map with a bunch of underwater locales throughout.
The main issue regarding Stormblood is that it does have some really slow parts in its plot. It reminds me of Fire Emblem! No but actually, the whole 'we need to gather and unite the oppressed masses to rebel over their imperialist overlords", the arid environments of Gyr Abania, the nomadic tribes... it felt like I was getting a fusion of Thracia, Blazing Blade and Fates Birthright all in one! I mean, if you squint, Yotsuyu is basically like Aversa. I’m not crazy. Regardless, I did enjoy the new rotation of the cast for this expansion, as I appreciated the return of Alisaie into the main lineup for this expansion and in always happy whenever Raubahn is present. On the other hand, Lyse is so milquetoast. I had heard whining and complaining about some of the characters in this being really rought and while I don't think its all that bad -sometimes you like a toxic bitch, who doesn't?- but Lyse really is just way more pushed than she really needs to be. To give her some credit, she's mostly just mid, but she's got so little sauce for who's supposed to be the central character for this expansion. I don't know, I was kind of waiting for her to commit some atrocity- hell if she did do that at least she'd be somewhat more interesting. Nearing the end of the expansion I was wondering if she was gonna do something into post-Stormblood, but nah she ends up leaving the Scions to help rebuild Ala Mhigo.
The two main villains this time around are really fun though, I was really shocked when I heard people were on the fence with Zenos. I guess I can kinda understand with how simple his motives are, but Zenos is so delightfully hammy I can't help but love whenever he's on screen. Hell, if I had one problem with Zenos it'd be that he didn't have enough screentime, he shows up every now and then but it's divvied up between the two main villains, who already take a bit of a break for a 1/3rd of the expansion.
I did wanna get cocky this expansion and see if I could manage two jobs at the same time throughout the expansion but it got to the point where I was underlevelled for pretty simple missions so I decided to hang up the MNK clothes and go full time as a Dark Knight. This felt like a fine decision to me, although I was still left grumbling to myself that I wish levelling was significantly easier in general.
Dark Knight continues to be probably one of the more interesting classes on the docket, continuing the Sidurgu and Rielle sidequest with a new addition in Myste- a young boy who’s stolen a portion of your aether for the purpose harnessing it and of finding some closure for those that have died. The end of this questline was really cool so I'm excited to see what the next expansions have in store, since they brought the writer for the DRK questline onto shadowbringers.
I did decide to try a bit of Samurai as well, considering its one of the new additions in this expansion. It's a little overwhelming at first as its a class that starts out at level 50, using a lot of skills that weave in and out of similar combos. Once I got the hang of it though it felt...okay. I'll probably load into leveling for it every now and then but don't think I'll be wanting it to become a mainstay in my arsenal. Part of me wanted to get back into MNK-ing after a small break throughout the post-HW questline, however with how bad DPS wait times are and how same-y MNK can get I just wasn't feeling up to switching over to that job to level it up.
I had planned an entire rant in my Baldurs Gate review where I wanted to talk about how much I wish Monk was a cooler class but I figured I'd cut that out since it was already a lengthy review, so I'll just graft it into here- man I wish Monk was so much cooler (BG3's version of monks are fine, they're just weird and require a bit of tooling- it just took me 9 levels to get an ability I thought was cool enough). Part of that desire to rant was predicated on going through MNK in FF14 around the same time, though. I always liked classes and weapons that utilized martial arts or bare-handed fighting in their gameplan. It's a unique way of handling the traditional swords and magic (or guns, Fallout has unarmed skills too) you come to find in these types of games by kind of tossing both out the window. No swords, just your bare strength- no magic, but the Ki in your soul. But in reality, what you get is a really boring questline and some okay feeling combat.
It did kinda worry me that Dark Knight was considered the best job sidequest by a wide margin when looking into it- mostly because I wasn't sure if this meant there'd be this wide gap in quality between that and the rest of the jobs. Not sure how consistent of a given that is just yet, but as it stands for Monk, I never really wanted to know what the Monk dude was up to or what's up with the rivalling tribes or whatever.
Also while I do like the new mechanics introduced for Monk in Stormblood, there was a part of me that just wants Monks to have a more interesting energy to them- Lyse being the closest thing to a Monk in the main cast is maybe the worst example you could produce. I dug the pugilist storyline enough, and at first I kinda understood what the ARR Monk arc was going for- I just wish it went more into a spiritual or a more personal direction.
Or you could just make your martial artist class storyline just be Kengan Ashura, that'd be sick. I don't care how involved and bizarre it'd be make the Monk storyline turn into a damn tournament arc with corrupt-business-conspiracy-superhuman-experimenting-nonsense and lemme learn moves that look like they'd break my bones just as much as they break my opponents'. They should give me a suplex like Sabin's- it doesn't need to take the enemy model off screen or anything- but I'd like some allusion that my Monk could just be like Sabin. Some Monk combos should almost look like Bogartian power geysers- Monk abilties that almost feel as good as God Hand roulette attacks- maybe even just give me a BM 'Taunt' ability like im Kiryu.
Hell, give me Asura's 6 arms- why not!
I don't literally need Star Platinum behind my back, but if I had an attack where the animation were my PC holding a stance and an outburst of flying fists came from the side, creating an illusion that I'm just rapidly firing blows from nowhere, I'd think "Monks're really cool!"- instead its some neat acrobatics and whatnot but, not really what I had in mind. You get some neat supermoves in the new 'Master Gauge’ mechanic in Stormblood, it just requires a lot more I guess I wouldn't mind so much but I do like a lot of the Monks that appear in the standard FF games up to the point that I've played. Sabin, Tifa, Yang- hell I think the FFT Monks have more carnal moves early on- they get a damn Ki blast! (Looking over this before I post the review, forgot to mention how much I liked Matthew's playstyle in the most recent XB3 expansion. You can make non-action brawlers feel good!!)
I just wish Monks had a lot more going for them is all. It feels like the class should be flashier and more 'unga' -and maybe by the endgame of FF14 it gets neater moves, I don't know- but I was getting really bored playing Monk by this point (also Baldurs Gate 3s' monk up until Level 9), in terms of questline, moveset and . I could go further into how even non-action game move animations can go a long way, however I started talking about Pokemon and I felt like I should save that for later.
Sorry for the tangent I needed some outlet in which to spew this out, its been stuck in my head for a few weeks.
For what its worth I think this isn't a huge step down from Heavensward, and its just about as good on a lot of fronts, its just sandwiched between an incredibly slow beginning and parts of the end of the scenario. Much of what lies in between I think is a lot neater but anytime you have to traverse back to the Gry Abania map, it always feels a lot more monotonous of a task getting much of anything done. Glad that it's getting added along with HW in being free for new players, as I think this being the first paid content users had to go through for a while there might have been a bit of a mean joke.
2020
Baldur's Gate 3
(Finished on 9/29/23)
Usually whenever I open up to the start of the year I don't entirely know what I'll be playing throughout the months to come. After all, there's a bunch of games that just drop on a dime with little to no warning nowadays. Usually I have about 5 games that are certain to come out and I just scrounge around and see what looks good as the months go by. Here, with Baldur's Gate, is a weird cross section between a game I had known about for sometime but didn't think about how it was fully releasing this year nor did I really think I'd be getting my hands into it. Lo and behold I begin correspondence with someone for a few months and they, on top of a few podcasts, bring its release date up in conversation and suddenly the idea of getting it felt like a good opportunity. And here I thought I was gonna check out Starfield as my game for that August... shudder. My expectations were pretty moderate but I was pleased that the game offered a breadth of customizability and intrigue from the start, so as to keep me hooked and continuing to play. Prior to this I had played a couple of hours of Divinity II, longing for a DND experience without the need to set up or rely on everyones' schedules to align perfectly. While I enjoyed my time with D2OS, it didn't really get sucked in like I did here, probably in part to the overwhelming amount of discourse at the moment, but also the near immediate critical uproar upon release convinced me to start it up once it dropped and follow through in finishing it.
For my run I decided to play as a half-orc Monk, with the folk hero background. I had recalled one of only a few runs of TTRPG I'd ever played where my preferred class of Monk had just ran up to a first boss and ended up comboing a string of good dice rolls in one turn, tearing the fiend in half. It felt glorious having my character ostensibly run up and style on a boss in a game that feels so magic heavy. I loved it! Here I was hoping to rekindle some energy of that and, as I'll explain later I got something a bit different than what I had in mind. Here we have the first and perhaps largest dissonance between the gamified ttrpg vs the tabletop-ified rpg(?). Imagination is a wonderful mechanic, so little effort and so little cost but it's hard to share the sentiment. I do wish I had chosen a different background as you soon meet another character in solo play that has the same Folk Hero background that I had. On the one hand this meant any chance to get 'Inspirations' as a folk hero meant I got two points just because I had Wyll in the party, but on the other hand it just didn't feel as unique.
Currently this game is receiving the utmost critical and commercial success, praise from all ends and its looking to be a lot of people's GOTY, including mine if we're not counting remasters (thanks Katamari) or expansions (thanks Xenoblade). While I feel this is a solid contender I did want to point out I think this is far from a perfect game and I do think there's a lot of ironing out that needs to be done, but what's presented is still a strong release for this year. I think the cast overall is incredibly fun, and you get more winners, at least in one aspect, than duds. I think the expressive ways to customize your characters both original and the builds you can do with your party members can lead to interesting builds. The ease in which you can recustomize and rebuild your party is very appreciated, and I took advantage of it pretty early on (went way of the four elements and switched quickly to Way of the Open Hand, good change). The game looks really nice and you get to see a lot of really neat locales throughout your journey (although I never did go back and check out the githyanki creche area). The amount of detail put into 95% of the game's interactions is stunning to say the least and several times I was glad to see the game took account of certain actions I had taken several play sessions prior. I was always glad to see my character's backstory, race or class have unique dialogue and it even helped me gain access a few times. The amount of details regarding every element of the environment during battles is staggering, with many details probably still not found or well known yet.
I think the idea of relationships with your party is pretty fun overall and I think the game does an alright job fleshing out your characters throughout the adventure. It’s a bit hard to judge at the moment as I’ve only really experienced one and maybe a half relationships the game allowed. Sorry to say I went basic mode and romanced Shadowheart, however I did find her questline to be the most intriguing. I did NOT have sex at all during the act 1 party however the rest of the relationship progressed pretty naturally. Only slightly odd given how fast certain characters’ approval will max out compared to the ‘questline’ requirements needed to progress romances forward. Just a weird disconnect I had with the games’ romance system.
It’s also very weird just how seemingly flexible much of the party relationships can be, on the one hand I can understand the going ons behind the machine -to a certain extent- but then I read up on other people's experiences regarding certain variables or understandings of certain characters that differed from mine and I tilted my head a bit. I kept seeing impressions of Shadowheart being someone that strictly preferred a more monogamous relationship, yet late in the game when asked by Halsin if I wished to pursue anything romantic I kinda humored him and said 'yeah lemme ask shadowheart', I saved my game just in case something went awry, but when I asked she seemed to have been easygoing about the idea, even kinda curious. I was floored! Here I was extremely late into the game, pretty deep into the SH relationship and maybe I had maintained such a healthy understanding of each other that she was supportive of me humoring Halsin as a bit.
What I will say is i think the usage of the whole "X approves!" mechanic can look really stupid in certain situations. It didn't bother me too much but on occasion an event would play out that would just tilt my head as to why certain acts would proc a disapprove. In one instance, my team was coming up on an assisination in progress- our culprit monologuing to his paralyzed victim, blade to the epidermis of their neck. Before the assassin can finish the deed I was given three options :
1)<Monk> Something, something i cant remember but you reveal yourself
2)<Stealth> Keep to the shadows…
3) <Half Orc> You're a coward.
Picking the 2nd option gains disapproval from Karlach and Wyll -both of whom were present in my party- seemingly because my option just wasn't...bombastic enough? These points end up being minor in the long run but I had Machiavelli over my shoulder throughout some of these encounters considering how petty some of these disapprovals might be. Astarion disapproving of certain acts feels a bit more natural, he's a pompous silver tongued rogue so trying to act high and mighty runs counter to his desire to. But what, does sneaking up on someone just bore Karlach that much? Does Wyll need me to announce my presence to every meddler in tow? This guy has dimension door shoes! We need to catch him off guard!!
Alright I will say this game was already battings pretty high and I was pretty elated throughout most of it, but there was always one thing nagging over the back of my shoulder and I was never sure what- but after 120 hours I think it's fine to materialize that complaint:
I don't know if I like the combat system. Or if its just hiccups regarding 5E in general. or if its just Act 3 fights that are hammering this nail into my head. Man I don’t know, I just got really tired of fights by the end of this game.
Throughout the game I felt kinda rude doing this, but I figured I should compare its moment to moment gameplay with that of Fallout New Vegas and Disco Elysium, two of my and assuredly many others favorite WRPGs. What I lack in what feels like some petty originality I'll try and make up for in some form of critical comparison, if you may forgive me. One of the things I appreciated most about both of these games is its consistent and in games like Fallout New Vegas, almost insistent chance to try and talk your way out of given combat encounters. If you've played FNV pretty thoroughly and are of a high enough level it feels almost impossible to not have maxed out one of the few skills needed to talk the legion out of invading the west. Maybe it decreases the stakes or the dramatic tension that you can talk down a guy just by saying his trade lines are gonna be fucked if he expands territory any more than he already has, but to me I think its a fitting way to conclude a game that was already so talkative and so skill check intensive. Disco runs a more similar path to Baldur's gate by having most of its skills be dice rolls altered by your boons and banes. The main difference is that Disco does an excellent job namely for having 0 combat outside of tense standoff moments. I think this also does a great job in characterizing our prenamed and predetermined character Harrier by having us, the player, feel like some kind of a trickster god in our failures and our insistence to keep failing- as there's very few ways to truly 'lose' in Disco Elysium. Most outs in DE involve you deliberately choosing options that might cause your self destruction. Hell even in events with constant health or morale hits you can continue to spam your medicines mid-dialogue just to keep yourself as alive as necessary. What I'm trying to get at here is that whenever I am in combat in this game I feel less like a tactician or a player character or even some god and more like I've been dragged along by whatever the game's predetermined choices have in store, and unlike FNV where I feel as thought the game offers a variety of outs for major fights, there's a lot of times the game wants it to be this epic battle of varying satisfaction; and unlike Disco Elysium there's a very real chance to die often, these dice rolls mean everything and you just have to live with whatever the dice give you. While I don't think the dice do a bad job at giving you a fair fight, it is very easy to get frustrated whenever you have a good shot at targeting something and just end up whiffing it.
It reminds me a lot of fire emblem (I say this to myself a lot whenever I play a video game, I hope I never say this again in a game that isnt fire emblem or fire emblem adjacent, please message me if I betray my wishes in future reviews)
Overall I think the combat is completely manageable and there's a lot more interesting encounters in the first two acts. However, I can't help but think that the third act really drops the ball in a lot of these encounters. There's not 1 nor 2 but 3 different encounters that have the same build up, descending into a circular arena where the boss is surrounded by cronies (maybe a 4th i haven't done every 3rd act sidequest). These fights range in difficulty but when they get bad- man did I wanna throw something.
(Sorry the next few paragraphs are just me ranting about certain encounters maybe you had an easier time with these, Orin bugged on my run but I know others had a way worse time with her)
The worst in my case was Viconia, namely because there's just 20 other dudes surrounding you. This is the main thing that frustrated me about a lot of the late game encounters, it just felt like there were so many encounters where the main difficulty was that you had to deal with a group of enemies if not 4 times your squad size, than only somewhat smaller but with more 'elite' opponents that are harder to handle or have a lot of spells at their disposal. Not helped that it feels like good dungeon design would ask that you deal with certain smaller encounters that prep you as to what's to come, maybe have enemies that mostly deal with Necrotic damage to let you know hey you might want Necrotic resistance. They actually do this a few times like when you're about to fight Orin or Gortash. In the - Viconia fight nah you get allowed in and dont have too much of an idea as to what she's capable of and will Blight one of your party members instantly, all the while you get drowned in a sea of darkness.
This and the Gondian questline where you have to sneak into the backroom of a factory and find plans regarding a submersible, but afaik you have no idea that there's supposed to be a clue about the questline back there? And if you head in normally you have to fight several guards, the gondian slaves and the last few mechs roaming around? And if you do get to that submersible you have to go on a rescue mission where you have 4 turns to rescue several hostages (rest in peace duke ravengard I didn't care, sorry Wyll), go back to the factory and then deal with the same enemies one last time but the Gondians now rebel against the masters and are....useful 10% of the time. Hell, most NPCs in this game are only good half the time aside from a few recurring characters. For the most part this wouldn't be too bad but this encounter got really obnoxious as the higher ups in this fight will begin activating signals that detonate the collars around the slaves' necks both in this room and for anyone that was working in the room prior. This got to be pretty obnoxious in any case where the Gondians DID decide to be useful and attacked these higher ups but were so far away that none of my allies could get over to the signal uninterrupted before the signal went off (that or the staircase got so crowded my member literally couldn't reach it).
This is how a lot of the fights in the last act feel, not literally but there's always just 1 aspect that complicates things for the worst and I just wonder why all of these were lined up in the last 10% of the game. For comparison, Act 2 had a pretty interesting build up as there's three major fights in the town outside the Moonrise Towers, each of which had their own manner of fighting but also their own way to beat them through skill checks. It's fun! I'll admit to cheesing the tollmaster a bit as she was my last, but I did fight and lose to Thisobold (the bartender) and I naturally beat the surgeon- mostly because I accidentally started the encounter as Astarion and had a way better persuasion proficiency. The second of this group, Thisobald is probably my favorite encounter in the game, both as a fight and as a gauntlet of several skill checks. Just a few rounds of drinks and maybe a few constitution saves and I made the dude kill himself.
Lastly I did wanna just touch on some general QoL stuff that I ran into that I think could be easily fixed/touched up on now that games are just living things now so I didn't wanna hark too much on these points.
-Namely I wish it was easier to manage your members back at the camp- it got incredibly tedious switching between two party members throughout the later half of the game. For a large part of the game I had Astarion/Karlach/Shadowheart on deck but rarely took any of them out until the end of Act 2 when I was told to put Wyll back in for one section. He had been severely neglected for most of the game so he got back 5 levels or so and seeing that massive upgrade I was able to understand what tools in his kit to focus on, making him a much more potent fighter in one sweep than whatever stealth build I was trying to mold. So, I kept Wyll on for my main team. However! Astarion is hands down the best lockpicker, and this game loves give you locks to pick, well above the usual 20. Act 3 is also the point in the game where combat becomes MUCH more frequent and large scale. Act 3 constantly had me going back to camp, talking to Wyll, going to Astarion, unlocking something that seemed important, going back to camp talking to Astarion, and then re-talking to Wyll to get him back and each time I just thought "why can't I just do this from the main map"
-Also why can you just attack empty spaces? I guess if you wanna be a hot shot and guess where invisible enemies are, the game will allow it but I was always pretty frustrated whenever I clicked around an enemy too fast and clicked on an empty space a foot away from them to attack.
-Would it kill for maybe a few more levels? I hit level cap way earlier than I’d like.
-Why does Act 1 not end at the Grove party? Why does it persist into the whole Underdark area? Act 2 feels way shorter than 1 or 3.
-I also don't know what the weird missing exp issue is? It's hard to explain but the game keeps track of what I guess is 'lost' exp as a result of either a party member dying or not being present in the party to gain the exp from quests, kills etc. However because of this you might have party members in your party throughout the entire game (I basically just kept Karlach and Shadowheart on deck since getting them) with way less exp than others. To remedy this you just tell them to leave the team for a minute and when you ask them to come back, they regain that exp. Thankfully it's that simple but it was such a weird thing to encounter.
These aren’t the biggest of issues and hell some of these might be fixed over time or hell! maybe its something i missed! I was gonna complain about how there’s no multi select in the inventory but it was shift click the entire time. Sometimes I’m just stupid.
Baldur's Gate 3 is an excellent showcase to Larian's commitment and critical eye as to how to make a wrp 'video' g as similar to a real game of '5e DND' as it can get, while having the presentation to boot and the gameplay fine tuned throughout. It's an easy recommendation but I did have some hangups by the end of the game that kept it from becoming an all-timer like some of my other favorite WRPGs. Maybe with time and a more focused build I can fully indulge myself in what the game has again, but by the end of my first playthrough I had drank what felt like twice than enough.
(Finished on 9/29/23)
Usually whenever I open up to the start of the year I don't entirely know what I'll be playing throughout the months to come. After all, there's a bunch of games that just drop on a dime with little to no warning nowadays. Usually I have about 5 games that are certain to come out and I just scrounge around and see what looks good as the months go by. Here, with Baldur's Gate, is a weird cross section between a game I had known about for sometime but didn't think about how it was fully releasing this year nor did I really think I'd be getting my hands into it. Lo and behold I begin correspondence with someone for a few months and they, on top of a few podcasts, bring its release date up in conversation and suddenly the idea of getting it felt like a good opportunity. And here I thought I was gonna check out Starfield as my game for that August... shudder. My expectations were pretty moderate but I was pleased that the game offered a breadth of customizability and intrigue from the start, so as to keep me hooked and continuing to play. Prior to this I had played a couple of hours of Divinity II, longing for a DND experience without the need to set up or rely on everyones' schedules to align perfectly. While I enjoyed my time with D2OS, it didn't really get sucked in like I did here, probably in part to the overwhelming amount of discourse at the moment, but also the near immediate critical uproar upon release convinced me to start it up once it dropped and follow through in finishing it.
For my run I decided to play as a half-orc Monk, with the folk hero background. I had recalled one of only a few runs of TTRPG I'd ever played where my preferred class of Monk had just ran up to a first boss and ended up comboing a string of good dice rolls in one turn, tearing the fiend in half. It felt glorious having my character ostensibly run up and style on a boss in a game that feels so magic heavy. I loved it! Here I was hoping to rekindle some energy of that and, as I'll explain later I got something a bit different than what I had in mind. Here we have the first and perhaps largest dissonance between the gamified ttrpg vs the tabletop-ified rpg(?). Imagination is a wonderful mechanic, so little effort and so little cost but it's hard to share the sentiment. I do wish I had chosen a different background as you soon meet another character in solo play that has the same Folk Hero background that I had. On the one hand this meant any chance to get 'Inspirations' as a folk hero meant I got two points just because I had Wyll in the party, but on the other hand it just didn't feel as unique.
Currently this game is receiving the utmost critical and commercial success, praise from all ends and its looking to be a lot of people's GOTY, including mine if we're not counting remasters (thanks Katamari) or expansions (thanks Xenoblade). While I feel this is a solid contender I did want to point out I think this is far from a perfect game and I do think there's a lot of ironing out that needs to be done, but what's presented is still a strong release for this year. I think the cast overall is incredibly fun, and you get more winners, at least in one aspect, than duds. I think the expressive ways to customize your characters both original and the builds you can do with your party members can lead to interesting builds. The ease in which you can recustomize and rebuild your party is very appreciated, and I took advantage of it pretty early on (went way of the four elements and switched quickly to Way of the Open Hand, good change). The game looks really nice and you get to see a lot of really neat locales throughout your journey (although I never did go back and check out the githyanki creche area). The amount of detail put into 95% of the game's interactions is stunning to say the least and several times I was glad to see the game took account of certain actions I had taken several play sessions prior. I was always glad to see my character's backstory, race or class have unique dialogue and it even helped me gain access a few times. The amount of details regarding every element of the environment during battles is staggering, with many details probably still not found or well known yet.
I think the idea of relationships with your party is pretty fun overall and I think the game does an alright job fleshing out your characters throughout the adventure. It’s a bit hard to judge at the moment as I’ve only really experienced one and maybe a half relationships the game allowed. Sorry to say I went basic mode and romanced Shadowheart, however I did find her questline to be the most intriguing. I did NOT have sex at all during the act 1 party however the rest of the relationship progressed pretty naturally. Only slightly odd given how fast certain characters’ approval will max out compared to the ‘questline’ requirements needed to progress romances forward. Just a weird disconnect I had with the games’ romance system.
It’s also very weird just how seemingly flexible much of the party relationships can be, on the one hand I can understand the going ons behind the machine -to a certain extent- but then I read up on other people's experiences regarding certain variables or understandings of certain characters that differed from mine and I tilted my head a bit. I kept seeing impressions of Shadowheart being someone that strictly preferred a more monogamous relationship, yet late in the game when asked by Halsin if I wished to pursue anything romantic I kinda humored him and said 'yeah lemme ask shadowheart', I saved my game just in case something went awry, but when I asked she seemed to have been easygoing about the idea, even kinda curious. I was floored! Here I was extremely late into the game, pretty deep into the SH relationship and maybe I had maintained such a healthy understanding of each other that she was supportive of me humoring Halsin as a bit.
What I will say is i think the usage of the whole "X approves!" mechanic can look really stupid in certain situations. It didn't bother me too much but on occasion an event would play out that would just tilt my head as to why certain acts would proc a disapprove. In one instance, my team was coming up on an assisination in progress- our culprit monologuing to his paralyzed victim, blade to the epidermis of their neck. Before the assassin can finish the deed I was given three options :
1)<Monk> Something, something i cant remember but you reveal yourself
2)<Stealth> Keep to the shadows…
3) <Half Orc> You're a coward.
Picking the 2nd option gains disapproval from Karlach and Wyll -both of whom were present in my party- seemingly because my option just wasn't...bombastic enough? These points end up being minor in the long run but I had Machiavelli over my shoulder throughout some of these encounters considering how petty some of these disapprovals might be. Astarion disapproving of certain acts feels a bit more natural, he's a pompous silver tongued rogue so trying to act high and mighty runs counter to his desire to. But what, does sneaking up on someone just bore Karlach that much? Does Wyll need me to announce my presence to every meddler in tow? This guy has dimension door shoes! We need to catch him off guard!!
Alright I will say this game was already battings pretty high and I was pretty elated throughout most of it, but there was always one thing nagging over the back of my shoulder and I was never sure what- but after 120 hours I think it's fine to materialize that complaint:
I don't know if I like the combat system. Or if its just hiccups regarding 5E in general. or if its just Act 3 fights that are hammering this nail into my head. Man I don’t know, I just got really tired of fights by the end of this game.
Throughout the game I felt kinda rude doing this, but I figured I should compare its moment to moment gameplay with that of Fallout New Vegas and Disco Elysium, two of my and assuredly many others favorite WRPGs. What I lack in what feels like some petty originality I'll try and make up for in some form of critical comparison, if you may forgive me. One of the things I appreciated most about both of these games is its consistent and in games like Fallout New Vegas, almost insistent chance to try and talk your way out of given combat encounters. If you've played FNV pretty thoroughly and are of a high enough level it feels almost impossible to not have maxed out one of the few skills needed to talk the legion out of invading the west. Maybe it decreases the stakes or the dramatic tension that you can talk down a guy just by saying his trade lines are gonna be fucked if he expands territory any more than he already has, but to me I think its a fitting way to conclude a game that was already so talkative and so skill check intensive. Disco runs a more similar path to Baldur's gate by having most of its skills be dice rolls altered by your boons and banes. The main difference is that Disco does an excellent job namely for having 0 combat outside of tense standoff moments. I think this also does a great job in characterizing our prenamed and predetermined character Harrier by having us, the player, feel like some kind of a trickster god in our failures and our insistence to keep failing- as there's very few ways to truly 'lose' in Disco Elysium. Most outs in DE involve you deliberately choosing options that might cause your self destruction. Hell even in events with constant health or morale hits you can continue to spam your medicines mid-dialogue just to keep yourself as alive as necessary. What I'm trying to get at here is that whenever I am in combat in this game I feel less like a tactician or a player character or even some god and more like I've been dragged along by whatever the game's predetermined choices have in store, and unlike FNV where I feel as thought the game offers a variety of outs for major fights, there's a lot of times the game wants it to be this epic battle of varying satisfaction; and unlike Disco Elysium there's a very real chance to die often, these dice rolls mean everything and you just have to live with whatever the dice give you. While I don't think the dice do a bad job at giving you a fair fight, it is very easy to get frustrated whenever you have a good shot at targeting something and just end up whiffing it.
It reminds me a lot of fire emblem (I say this to myself a lot whenever I play a video game, I hope I never say this again in a game that isnt fire emblem or fire emblem adjacent, please message me if I betray my wishes in future reviews)
Overall I think the combat is completely manageable and there's a lot more interesting encounters in the first two acts. However, I can't help but think that the third act really drops the ball in a lot of these encounters. There's not 1 nor 2 but 3 different encounters that have the same build up, descending into a circular arena where the boss is surrounded by cronies (maybe a 4th i haven't done every 3rd act sidequest). These fights range in difficulty but when they get bad- man did I wanna throw something.
(Sorry the next few paragraphs are just me ranting about certain encounters maybe you had an easier time with these, Orin bugged on my run but I know others had a way worse time with her)
The worst in my case was Viconia, namely because there's just 20 other dudes surrounding you. This is the main thing that frustrated me about a lot of the late game encounters, it just felt like there were so many encounters where the main difficulty was that you had to deal with a group of enemies if not 4 times your squad size, than only somewhat smaller but with more 'elite' opponents that are harder to handle or have a lot of spells at their disposal. Not helped that it feels like good dungeon design would ask that you deal with certain smaller encounters that prep you as to what's to come, maybe have enemies that mostly deal with Necrotic damage to let you know hey you might want Necrotic resistance. They actually do this a few times like when you're about to fight Orin or Gortash. In the - Viconia fight nah you get allowed in and dont have too much of an idea as to what she's capable of and will Blight one of your party members instantly, all the while you get drowned in a sea of darkness.
This and the Gondian questline where you have to sneak into the backroom of a factory and find plans regarding a submersible, but afaik you have no idea that there's supposed to be a clue about the questline back there? And if you head in normally you have to fight several guards, the gondian slaves and the last few mechs roaming around? And if you do get to that submersible you have to go on a rescue mission where you have 4 turns to rescue several hostages (rest in peace duke ravengard I didn't care, sorry Wyll), go back to the factory and then deal with the same enemies one last time but the Gondians now rebel against the masters and are....useful 10% of the time. Hell, most NPCs in this game are only good half the time aside from a few recurring characters. For the most part this wouldn't be too bad but this encounter got really obnoxious as the higher ups in this fight will begin activating signals that detonate the collars around the slaves' necks both in this room and for anyone that was working in the room prior. This got to be pretty obnoxious in any case where the Gondians DID decide to be useful and attacked these higher ups but were so far away that none of my allies could get over to the signal uninterrupted before the signal went off (that or the staircase got so crowded my member literally couldn't reach it).
This is how a lot of the fights in the last act feel, not literally but there's always just 1 aspect that complicates things for the worst and I just wonder why all of these were lined up in the last 10% of the game. For comparison, Act 2 had a pretty interesting build up as there's three major fights in the town outside the Moonrise Towers, each of which had their own manner of fighting but also their own way to beat them through skill checks. It's fun! I'll admit to cheesing the tollmaster a bit as she was my last, but I did fight and lose to Thisobold (the bartender) and I naturally beat the surgeon- mostly because I accidentally started the encounter as Astarion and had a way better persuasion proficiency. The second of this group, Thisobald is probably my favorite encounter in the game, both as a fight and as a gauntlet of several skill checks. Just a few rounds of drinks and maybe a few constitution saves and I made the dude kill himself.
Lastly I did wanna just touch on some general QoL stuff that I ran into that I think could be easily fixed/touched up on now that games are just living things now so I didn't wanna hark too much on these points.
-Namely I wish it was easier to manage your members back at the camp- it got incredibly tedious switching between two party members throughout the later half of the game. For a large part of the game I had Astarion/Karlach/Shadowheart on deck but rarely took any of them out until the end of Act 2 when I was told to put Wyll back in for one section. He had been severely neglected for most of the game so he got back 5 levels or so and seeing that massive upgrade I was able to understand what tools in his kit to focus on, making him a much more potent fighter in one sweep than whatever stealth build I was trying to mold. So, I kept Wyll on for my main team. However! Astarion is hands down the best lockpicker, and this game loves give you locks to pick, well above the usual 20. Act 3 is also the point in the game where combat becomes MUCH more frequent and large scale. Act 3 constantly had me going back to camp, talking to Wyll, going to Astarion, unlocking something that seemed important, going back to camp talking to Astarion, and then re-talking to Wyll to get him back and each time I just thought "why can't I just do this from the main map"
-Also why can you just attack empty spaces? I guess if you wanna be a hot shot and guess where invisible enemies are, the game will allow it but I was always pretty frustrated whenever I clicked around an enemy too fast and clicked on an empty space a foot away from them to attack.
-Would it kill for maybe a few more levels? I hit level cap way earlier than I’d like.
-Why does Act 1 not end at the Grove party? Why does it persist into the whole Underdark area? Act 2 feels way shorter than 1 or 3.
-I also don't know what the weird missing exp issue is? It's hard to explain but the game keeps track of what I guess is 'lost' exp as a result of either a party member dying or not being present in the party to gain the exp from quests, kills etc. However because of this you might have party members in your party throughout the entire game (I basically just kept Karlach and Shadowheart on deck since getting them) with way less exp than others. To remedy this you just tell them to leave the team for a minute and when you ask them to come back, they regain that exp. Thankfully it's that simple but it was such a weird thing to encounter.
These aren’t the biggest of issues and hell some of these might be fixed over time or hell! maybe its something i missed! I was gonna complain about how there’s no multi select in the inventory but it was shift click the entire time. Sometimes I’m just stupid.
Baldur's Gate 3 is an excellent showcase to Larian's commitment and critical eye as to how to make a wrp 'video' g as similar to a real game of '5e DND' as it can get, while having the presentation to boot and the gameplay fine tuned throughout. It's an easy recommendation but I did have some hangups by the end of the game that kept it from becoming an all-timer like some of my other favorite WRPGs. Maybe with time and a more focused build I can fully indulge myself in what the game has again, but by the end of my first playthrough I had drank what felt like twice than enough.
Its got some fun character moments between Kieran and Carmine but otherwise its just an additional map and not a very intriguing one. It's new pool of pokemon is fine, and I think the theming is neat but nothing really kept me glued to what was going on. I did try to make a new team out of this DLC and granted this at least helped to bloat my overall time, just so I could train the new 'mons to be up to snuff but if you played this normally with the team you used post-main story you can easily breeze through most of this in an afternoon- as most people did when this first dropped. I kinda wish there was one other major city or location but the only really neat locales are the central mountain, its crater and the starting town's surrounding areas- most of the other areas are bland as hell.
I had a large write up about other issues I was thinking of with regards to ScVi as we near a year after it first dropped but I'll save that for when the next expansion drops.
Its fine but I would say wait for the next part before purchasing since you have to spend $35 for both this and whatever the next expansion is rather than selecting separate parts.
I had a large write up about other issues I was thinking of with regards to ScVi as we near a year after it first dropped but I'll save that for when the next expansion drops.
Its fine but I would say wait for the next part before purchasing since you have to spend $35 for both this and whatever the next expansion is rather than selecting separate parts.
2023
Finished on 8/26/2023
tl;dr its a functional game but man does it not stand out outside of having all of the other fire emblem guys here. The next game really needs to dial it back, retain some of the QoL features and have a more grounded vibe. Get a new translation team or a new writing room, maybe both. It looks more colorful than Three Houses. The best stuff is the DLC stuff but not the Fell Xenologue afaik, just the new emblem rings.
Fire Emblem…Engage!
(0. PROLOGUE:)
It's a game with so much Fire Emblem packed in, all for a game that barely feels like I'm playing Fire Emblem.
This game reminds me of so many other games, both from Fire Emblem and from other series, just by how much content is included in this game but also by how much better other games are at implementing new mechanics and evolving into this 'new generation of gaming', for better or worse. The rougher part is how much the Fire Emblem part comes from just stealing other aspects of previous titles, and only really toying around with a few aspects in ways I don't feel are as well executed here or worse, have become so memetically ingrained to how a Fire Emblem is supposed to play out that it becomes a laughing stock. Rather than remembrance of times of elation or intrigue regarding a particularly well set up chapter or an interesting character or a strong tenet of worldbuilding, I'm reminded more often of flaws privy to previous titles in the series. What Engage presents is a wonderful amalgamation of what the series has become- but doesn't provide an interesting solution as to what the series will do next. While it presents a myriad of different interactables and new features, I ended up not really wanting to toy around or mess with most of these as I figured much of it didn't actually matter. Other games do this as well obviously, including titles throughout Fire Emblem- not every part of the game has to tie back to the main story. Not every mechanic needs to be fine-tuned to be as balanced as possible, sometimes it pays to be a bit busted. However in Engage's case so much of its mechanics feel like they're... out of sync?
I never truly felt like I conquered the game, and some other FEs have made me feel similarly, but I've been interested in going back and tackling at later dates (maybe Thracia someday...). Here it just felt it was more worth it to not pay attention to certain mechanics post battle mechanics for a few battles, otherwise I'd just be wasting time in menus, management and minutiae for no reason. What's left is a main plot that feels like the weakest since...actually only since Revelations so it hasn't been too long but it left a lot to be desired.
Sometimes I dont wanna be Mr. Cynical, but on the other hand sometimes it's a lot more fun to just be a hater: I thought a lot of this game was fucking dumb and not in a fun sense. I need someone else to come in and pull in the reins on whatever writers and scenario staff is on these projects because dear god I felt embarrassed at times going through the main scenario of this. I don't know if it's a translation thing or if the original script is as bad or what but we're in dire need of some new material, Kaga help us.
The overall package might be a serviceable title, however after having played every other mainline Fire Emblem I just can’t help but feel as though most aspects of this were half baked.
(1. Engaging Mechanics)
(a. Engage!)
Firstly, the namesake of the game. Engage. It’s a neat mechanic and the primary function of this game, like 3H’s academia and Awakefates’ partnering and child minmaxing simulator (blah blah yeah FE4 had this we know). For each game in the series we have a rep, except for FE3 given its a sequel without a new MC -thought it would have been extremely brave of them to have put Kris in here. Units you deploy into battle can equip these and boost their stats and gain certain skills. After some time in battle you can ‘Engage!’ and activate certain other skills on top of take use of certain gimmicks that each ring holds.
Unfortunately some of these rings are blatantly better than others and much of how the rings’ customization either feel on one end, incredibly confusing or on the other end so vast in its customizability to the point of being overwhelming. You gain SP in battle with which you can purchase the skills off rings you have bonded with for long enough so that you can equip them when you switch to another ring. This gets to be so cumbersome I stopped bothering- this is a running trend. For certain units it got to the point where I didn’t see any actual use in switching up rings unless I got a new unit or reclaimed certain rings due to plot reasons.Some of the skills are so expensive that I decided to just keep certain rings on units where I felt they didnt need to diversify, like why should I ever not have Alcryst hold Lyn and keep all of her skills. Why shouldn’t I just keep Hector on Timerra when she just tanks literally everything with him and follows through with Sandstorm, every skill Hector has is too expensive to just let some other schmuck have it -Diamant got shafted in his growths- I have no other tank! Many of these Rings do have neat mechanics, and I WILL SAY I DID BUY THE EXPANSION PASS-
NOTE: I SHOULDA MENTIONED EARLIER I DID BUY THE EXPANSION PASS THIS FEELS PERTINENT TO THE DIFFICULTY CURVE OF THIS SRPG
But several of these rings do have neat mechanics- although its clear much of the best rings come from having bought the DLC. Several of these mechanics range from a counter from Ike’s Great Aether, having Micaiah drain her HP to 1 and heal all other allies to full HP, and having Lyn just fucking snipe from across the map. However, in the DLC you have Tiki who just gives units a second wind, Hector who tanks everything and has guaranteed follow ups, Chrobin who has a rally for all stats and Veronica from Heroes. Soren and Veronica’s inclusion in the DLC is so cool, but only because they’re like 2 of the other characters that have an attitude. It was incredibly refreshing having Soren come in and suddenly it felt like I was talking to a human, Veronica too tbh. Her mechanic is also really neat- on top of having an attacking staff like in FEH she can summon random units like in FEH from 1 of 4 colors but they vary in strength from 3 star weaklings to 5 star units based off the other rings.
(b. Divine Paralogues)
Perhaps to my disadvantage, oddly enough, I decided to tackle some of the 'divine paralogues' much earlier on. The first being Tiki’s is a map that constantly feeds you dragons and tough opponents as you get to the end. It’s a hard map but you get a pretty good ring out of it. Unfortunately for the next few maps and onward most of the game just felt a lot easier than I thought it was meant to be, as I went through more and more of these divine paralogues. I wanted to know when it was best to tackle these, and saw that people preferred them at much earlier levels, so sure enough I thought it best to do them earlier than later. What this meant was I had several rings that the game doesn't really account for.
These rings don’t break the game, necessarily, however I do feel like several maps were made much simpler or didn’t hit as hard because I had these rings at the ready. In this aspect I'm reminded of Xenoblade 2 and its handling of difficulty- I struggled here as well, due to the numerous flimsy tutorials, details not told to you and the much different combat system from XB1's. As I went through XB2 though, I grew to understand and eventually conquer most of the game's mechanics and grow my arsenal of blades (except Kos-Mos fuck that).
I also think that that game succeeds in its expansion pass by giving people a bunch of rare crystals and two of the strongest blades in game. Note that while these blades are incredibly strong I don't think they necessarily break anything- namely they just act as consistent and easy to use blades usable from the early game onward. You can continue to use, pull and customize other blades to your liking and go about the game as you please.
On the contrary, these expansion pass maps for Fire Emblem feel incredibly weird to have on top of other paralogues, giving you so much XP in the process. In something like Xenoblade I don't think anyone minds dominating enemies- sure there's a sort of elation to figuring out weird or difficult fights in rpgs but Xenoblade bosses are rarely...'cerebral?' they mostly just act around for the story and have that MMO raid type vibe, you get the idea. In Fire Emblem though, much of the appeal comes from the careful considerations regarding your team, their equipment, their skills, the map, the kinds of enemies, etc. While I feel like parts of these are present here, I think there's so many new trinkets and gimmicks that its just too easy to hit ‘optimize rings/items’ and just stick with whatever you're given. After a while, once you’ve stuck with certain rings you just don't even bother switching things up.
Sidenote: I do really wish there was a set mechanic where you can just preset certain items that you always want certain units to get so you don’t have to optimize some times and go into a map only to realize that Alcryst didnt get the longbow and got the minibow thanks IntSys.
I just think that it would have been smart for the divine paralogues to have not given EXP or taken some measures to not completely overpower you for the rest of the game, idk. Maybe only unlock at the near end of the game? Maybe not scale to the party’s level? It just feels like a sloppy way to add these guys in. Also man, some of those maps took an eternity to finish.
(c. new Units)
It feels like you're constantly getting new units that are clearly better than what you had before. That early game feels so weird in hindsight and like a completely different game because all your units were just that bad. It feels like Radiant Dawn with its Dawn Brigade levels of 'I guess these guys are my party'. Yunaka I tried getting you to work but dear god someone fucked up your numbers because a later dude just works so much better.
Perhaps this is Int Sys's way of combating earlier FE-mindset that favors keeping a consistent party meanwhile later units that are already promoted get left to the wayside? But I always figured most of these units were supposed to act as replacements in case you had a unit die, the only drawback being that it lacked as much investment? Here it feels like you're supposed to get a 'feel' for each of these waves of party members but I know my ass is not using anyone other than these royals that are clearly some of the best units. Still it was kinda nice to just switch out who i was using for a while, like using Merrin over Yunaka for a few maps but still it felt like there was a clear bias towards all the royalty units. Not helped that these royalty units have unique classes that seem like they’re supposed to stick to, and switching to any other class robs you of the class skills inherent to that royalty class, some of which are really good! But like, I wanted to have a normal Halberdier and maybe a Paladin? Nah instead I get a uh, ‘Succeseur’ and a ‘Landwurm’. Idk, party composition just didn’t feel all that satisfying this time around outside of using Lindon for whatever reason (props to the conversation between him and Veronica where she exclaims ‘she regrets the day she gets summoned by the Order of Heroes’, I actually chuckled for once in the game).
It feels like Engage has the Fates issue of having all of your sibling units be these extremely powerful units that you HAVE to use, because why wouldn’t you have Xander or Takumi. But at least even these units dont get these unique promotes and you can kinda just go wacky making Camilla a berserker or something for some reason.
II. Maps
Alright I’ll come clean and say it. I don’t know the first thing about map design, I know! I know! I’ve played all the Fire Emblems but I still don’t really understand it! What I will say is that while I don’t have the basic understandings of map design, I’ll brazenly and foolheartedly say that I think it’s generally an overvalued thing in the series in several aspects.
I dont know, I just never minded Fire Emblems with generally simpler map designs, although many of these are from much simpler times or have other aspects that I feel overtake the need for gimmicky map layouts. I like Genealogy a lot, I felt it had good maps but less from a tactical standpoint and more from a consistency and scale standpoint. Echoes: Shadow of Valentia has these horridly simple maps and gets regularly lambasted because of it but I’d much prefer these kinds of map alongside the neat little dungeon exploring action segments any day of the week over stuff like Thracia’s litany of brutal maps. Fates Conquest I think has the best medium, having a large amount of gimmicky maps but interspersing them with some simple ones to ease out the experience, it’s a wonder most people point to Chapter 10 as a highlight in the franchise.
With regards to Engage what I will say is that I think map-wise many of them do come out the better end of things, having neat things to watch out for and a lot of playthings to work with. What I don’t particularly like is how often the maps feel like they rely on throwing an absurdly large number of reinforcements down your throat upon hitting a certain threshold.
How come so many of the maps are predicated on this "What if we just summoned a bunch of dudes"? I don't often yell in frustration but I got so pissed nearing the end of Chapter 21, as you near the boss of a fairly simple map but once you reach the backroom, the map just decides to spawn like 12 units on all sides. What's frustrating is that its already a map that's just constantly sending out guys from all sides and that's it. There's no other element to the fight; it's a complete war of attrition if you don’t just beeline it to the boss. This just happened so often by the end of the game it started feeling farcical, hell it even bled into the divine paralogues. Tiki’s map is pretty rough with it but holy fucking hell Camilla your map took 2 hours just because they poured in from everywhere. Was the boss that hard? Nah, it just took fucking forever getting to her. It really sucks too because I think some of the maps had neat ideas by the end but this one aspect just kept popping up like a bad habit. I guess it’s to teach you to not split up your party? I don’t know.
Fire emblem maps can be hit or miss throughout the series but generally I don't mind when games have weaker maps if I find the overall gameplay or the story to fill in the gaps in basic or straightforward maps. Although with Engage, despite having some interesting maps it didn’t really have much of a backbone when it came to the scenario or the characters but I’ll get to that later. Thracia was a game of similar feeling when I left it- a fairly rough time with strong maps throughout- but I did come to enjoy its story and its attempt to tell this side story from Genealogy, of an ousted Prince from Leonster come to restore his family and kingdom’s honor while liberating the nation that stole it. Here, you can have a map with miasma or cannons or anything but I'm just wondering why the hell im fighting the same fucking goons over and over and over again. Also I had a REALLY hard time telling certain opponents apart- the shift to 3D comes with certain unforeseen costs. Obviously, this isn't too bad with flying units or mage or horseunits but like sometimes the Heroes really look like Warriors or Armored units or even Great Knights idk maybe im blind.
The maps overall are fine, but only up to a certain point where some of them really overstep their boundary in what just feels like wasting my time. Don’t show me the exit only to start throwing pots and pans once I’m a foot away from the door.
III. Story, Cast and Vibes
The writing is just absolutely abysmal. I know "ha ha Fire Emblem when it has a bad story!" but it was genuinely frightening when the best slice of dialogue in the entire game was from the expansion pass.
(a. I don’t like hanging out with your friends Alear)
Most of the conversations are just fine, but it reeeally depends on who you have on board. Sometimes there's winners but other times it's just this morass of skipping dialogue that these games always get into. I started thinking about Yakuza and its sidestories- once you've played a Yakuza or two you get the general idea of how it might play out. Typically on my end, this might lead to some text skimming if I don't feel as though the substory is particularly interesting and that's fine, each of these games has at least 50+ substories to go through for a series with 8 mainline entries + spinoffs. But usually there's a bunch that have intriguing premises and rewards and setups so it's always nice to take a break and see what you can get on your plate. Back in Fire Emblem it just....feels like I never left. And god do I want out. It was so lovely when three houses dropped and people at the time were just like "Man! Some of these three houses dialogues do not end amicably!" and I think that's great! Sometimes you just hang with some guy and the vibes go awry! It felt pretty refreshing to see character interactions that just felt like acquaintanceships, especially once you get to the end credits and certain units just have paired endings as friends.
Here…I’m sorry I don’t find the cast all that interesting but I’d have to get really into how fast the tone of this game starts feeling jarring. From the very get-go once Alear wakes up you’re constantly barraged by characters that compliment and suck your dick because you are the Divine Dragon. Cool! I think? Not really! I echo back to the sentiment I had with the beginning feeling jarring because so many of your starting party members just are not interesting outside of really liking that you're the Divine Dragon. After the halfway points certain characters get shown and I ended up having a few characters I liked but nothing really grabbed my attention. A lot of these guys just feel like the Awakefates “here’s my main quirk!” for several conversations and I really don’t wanna waste my time reading over what may or may not shed one layer of this character. Yeah maybe Seadall has some interesting conversations but why should I bother when he might just say something similar in another conversation with another party member, why should i bother with any of these conversations? Why should I bother with most dialogue in this game. It might be a bit harsh for me just not care about most of this dialogue but to be quite honest rarely does the game present itself in a way where it seems like something interesting could happen.
I think it’s mostly the cutscene/animations. Just something about seeing the same characters appear at the same places in the Somniel doing the same animations all the while rarely doing anything that could fire neurons or stem from usual path, I didn’t really want to take the chance and skim through several lines of dialogue for maybe. I don’t know, maybe I just got burnt out too fast and I didn’t give most of the guys a chance, I'm sure there’s interesting nuggets here and there but I didn’t really have any incentive or desire to further explore characters that seemed like milquetoast from the get. Awakening and Fates also has this issue to certain degrees although I’ll give props to Fates Conquest for having a whole cast of just weirdos. Like yeah now I’ll pay attention now that the characters in question are psychopaths and maladjusted soldiers. Here’s the most interesting unit is…idk Panette? Seadall? You’d have to put a gun to my head.
What’s rough is that it feels like this bleeds out into the Engage characters as well. Here, because each of the games' representatives is the protag or a secondary protag/character most of the interaction just feels like the same dialogue but interspersed with "hey this was the place where that really meaningful event happened..." followed by "we will now trust ourselves even more. with you by my side we will be the strongest ever heroes foreverer" I really wanna stress how boring most of the dialogue in this game is. Most of the intrigue just came from how much more interesting previous games were.
(b. Story! or actually cutscene direction- the story is so who cares i didn't feel like talking about most of it. Alear is the son of the villain big whoop, could you at least plagiarize a better fire emblem)
Earlier Fire Emblems could get away with low budget storytelling by having just the usual visual novel portrait do most of the action, and maybe having the in-game models do limited actions to supplement certain scenes or motions. Here we have the first game in the series without portraits and we get to see cutscenes flow with the characters, but unfortunately most of them just…stand there. Like the high budget stuff is fine obviously but whenever we’re out of that mode we have scenes where the characters are just standing there and reacting with generic motions. I couldn’t help but laugh every now and then as villains just stood around gloating like 10 feet from our entourage and I just wanted one of them to take the initiative and attack them. This happens all the time with media, the guy that’s clearly open to be shot but no one takes advantage- its fine. But here it just feels so weird to see the same cultist evildoers just standing around and the heroes are just kinda standing there having a casual conversation? There’s no like.. ambushed! or… surprised! stance or…’hesitant’? stance, it just seemed like our characters just shook their heads and stood in place usually as the main villains just did their piece. It feels incredibly flaccid. Also man I really don’t like the villains here, you fight them so often and it rarely feels like I want to fight them. Not because I felt sympathetic or heartfelt fighting them but because I was wondering when the fuck they’d just die. Nobody really dies in this game, or it sure doesn’t feel like it outside of one chapter. A place gets burnt in one chapter separate from that but even that didn’t feel all that dire. I felt like I was fighting Danganronpa characters rather than some re-imagining of the four fangs from Blazing Blade.
Granted, there is an impressive amount of variety in certain text, even if its only for short conversations between the rings and for certain story moments.
It's kinda odd I like a lot of the designs here and I don't think I'd mind the change to a more light hearted tone but a part of me wonders why the hell this was even put in a medieval setting to begin with? Why not just make this the first modern feeling Fire Emblem? I feel like the series could benefit from shedding away these overdone medieval locales and time period. Just make it like Final Fantasy and do some weird fusion of diesel/steam-punk with fantasy elements and weaponry. I had wished when this game first leaked that this was the fire emblem to have taken us to the modern age. I know it'd be fucky having modern day tech alongside stuff like cavalry and archers but who cares. I don't care if guns exist alongside the dude with a ring that summons some dude.
(C. Somniel)
It’s kinda weird writing this segment out because it feels like it ties into a lot of the main issues I have with all the other parts of the game. The somniel is the rest stop after each battle for you to maintain so many aspects and manage all of these things…! Don’t go here every chapter! Maybe every two!
Maybe if I delved deeper into research I could find some use for some of these things but like did my enjoyment of the game stem from having not sent a bunch of money to some country for more bond fragments? Probably not.
Also by the way where the hell is all the money in this game anyway? You get like 50,000 G at chapter 20 something and its like where the fuck was all this hiding. Like I didn’t really need gold that much anyway but where the hell is it?
Do I need to fish? Did petting Crungett (the little cat thing) mean all that much? Did I even need new non-emblem bond rings? Well alright I did like Olwen’s Dire Thunder. I wish more of these were readily available but it didn't really feel like it mattered.
I really regret spending as much time as I did early on here, I don’t even know what most of these side things are meant for. Did I really need to get all of the bright shiny spots on the map? nah.
It plays a lot like the Monastery in Three Houses or the base with Lilith in Fates but it felt so weirdly unnecessary. It’s not terrible but after the halfway point I just didn’t want to spend anymore time there except to check on skills and sp, rather than train in the arena or anything. I started thinking about Fallout 4’s settlements and before long I wanted to stop thinking about most things about this game (alright it's not that bad but I really didn’t give a shit about sorting what pets are on the farm or wyvern riding. I'm sorry, Engage).
IV. The last section
(a.) Just pettiness at this point the review is already this long fuck it, its 1am,
Ah man i didnt even talk about how fucking stupid skirmishes are. I didn’t remember or realize that there’s a difference between skirmishes and training battles
Why have rings for certain important figures in each game but then have some of those guys come back and have a second ring? Like how come the Three Houses group get a ring for each of the three house leaders but then there's a single ring that has all of them bundled together, thats a waste of three of the eight slots each game gets.
I’ll give the final boss props, matching the emblems to their respective villains that have been summoned is kinda neat but them not being named by their actual names is so stupid, like 8 of these Dark Engage rings are called like ‘Dark Dragon’ or “Fallen King’ (also like why do these evil engages have weird ass stat distributions and weapons; why does Veld’s engage ring go on a fucking bow knight he was a bishop??)
Man. I kinda wish they had remixed some new music for the divine paralogues. I don't remember the Corrin/Fates remix because I got to Camilla and I just wanted it to be a remix of Alight (Storm). Also why is it called the trial of genealogy when its the map for Leif from Thracia 776 are they fucking stupid?
No one fucks in this story. Like yeah obviously no one has nudity in these games but like you get the pact ring near the end of the game and that's what our romance is? You go through the credits of the game and there’s only two endings for each character and the second one is only based on whether or not you decided to give them the ring lmao. 3H spoiled us on interesting epilogues. Also like why the fuck is the special CG so similar looking to the one in 3H? It kinda scared me checking and wondering whether or not they just straight up reused the same ‘soft purple evening’ outlook from that game but there’s minute differences. I also like that you go into some of these endings for characters that are clearly like “we CANNOT have this kid/your sister marry you what the fuck” but instead of having the ‘pact’ ending be anything where Alear connects or supports their future going forward, the problematic choice character just fucks off and does whatever they were gonna do divorced of your epilogue. Like yeah, good choice dummy. (I chose Ivy, she’s okay) (I wish she could keep the glasses on at all times)
(b.) A discussion about fan service
The idea of 'Fan Service' is one that's been long tied to games and feels incredibly prescient over the medium as a whole (albeit not exclusive). The idea of watching a new announcement and suddenly its this ‘new project’ but what if, we had this returning character from an older game! And it crosses over into this media franchise! And so on and so forth.
It's commonplace by now but even with as jaded as I sound with this- its always fun to see what's been tied to what even if someone loosely. I started thinking about Fire Emblem X SMT, a game that was announced at the opportune time for me, having just gotten into Fire Emblem through Awakening and was playing through SMT4. To my dismay this turned out to become something much different than what 14 year old me imagined- some idol based rpg where the characters have Awakening and Shadow Dragon stands and fight with a Persona like system. I was disappointed at the revelation but so many years later I can respect that it kind of has this neat personality to it. I still haven't played it, mind you- I do own a copy but I’ll get to it probably before I die. I can harp over that game’s lack of variety in who they chose to represent the ‘stands’ or what not but 1) again i haven't played it and 2) it being relegated to mostly arachnea does lend itself to some kinda intrigue like oh shit they’re pulling deep cuts like Bord and Cord. It's placement in a separate, human universe alongside these SMT mechanics feels slightly more...real, I guess. It's adherence to themes and elements of the idol industry, while an extremely different flavor from both the general western fantasy themes and Fire Emblem (and SMT somewhat) as a whole- make for a fairly unique concept which I feel gives it some room to stand.
But with Engage I don't feel this strong connection to Fire Emblem- even with all these references and ties to other games in the series I only barely feel that energy I do with other games in the series. Hell, part of what I enjoyed about Fire Emblem games prior was that much of those callbacks were so 'museum'-like in their presence I was a lot more interested in seeing what the other FEs offered. Part of why I went and played Fire Emblem 4 was because FEH had a chapter back in 2018 that played the first few map themes during the mission.
This isn't to say that the depiction of every other game in the franchise into Engage is inherently terrible or anything but I don't get this desire or heart-swelling playing many of these maps that I figured were supposed to make me feel back to when I played all these other games. There are brief moments of pointing out certain neat details that hearken back to these games but that’s about it.
Here, while all of the fanservice is tied into the mechanics and the story of Engage, it's such a bizarre concept that I can't really immerse myself into its presence. It's one thing for a gacha game- some free mobile app where you're just able to gather all of these characters and snowball from there over the course of 6 years and build out interactions, have all these characters and alternate outfits, new storylines each year and you just put that to the side for 15 minutes a day or something. Not a particularly amazing game but I'm glad its lasted as long as it had and built out all these weird storylines.
I think my main fear is if I'm just growing out of the series- but that doesn't feel like the case, I think the overall gameplay loop and design decision behind the core of Fire Emblem is incredibly addicting and engaging. Late last year I got and played through the beginning of Tactics Ogre Reborn. A great game for what I've played, but incredibly dry, I haven't put as much into it as I'd like despite this. I just know Fire Emblem way more and I enjoy the kind of specialized unit pseudo party composition that FE brings rather than the hiring units style of other tactics games. FE just tends to have this sauce that I really like for the most part even at most of its derivative moments.
Also!! Fuck isometric viewpoints!! I’m tired of seeing them!! Sorry Devil Survivor fans!! I don't like trying to guess what direction the d-pad is gonna take me when there is no top right button!!
I really hope the next game is just mind-bendingly different. Maybe part of it is I'm growing out of the series but so much of this feels like been there, done that. I'm so tired of these support conversations with the same animations, this same kinda world, these same archetypes and plot twists and elements. This game feels more incestuous than Awakening, Fates and the entirety of the Jugdral games despite not actually having any, this might be the most surprising plot detail in Engage. I really want a game that's just able to stand out- and I felt like that's what Three Houses was doing, which I look back on a bit more fondly now despite some of the issues surrounding it. I guess I'm just thinking about how it feels like the last 'normal' feeling Fire Emblem in the series was Fates?? Echoes is great but a remake and has much of these action-adventure segments, Three Houses has this Persona/Harry Potter-esque feeling that I feel overshadows the actually tactical aspect of FE and then this which almost feels like a return to form in some ways but so many of its annoying gimmicks just hampered my enjoyment. Engage is cloyingly Fire Emblem.
tl;dr its a functional game but man does it not stand out outside of having all of the other fire emblem guys here. The next game really needs to dial it back, retain some of the QoL features and have a more grounded vibe. Get a new translation team or a new writing room, maybe both. It looks more colorful than Three Houses. The best stuff is the DLC stuff but not the Fell Xenologue afaik, just the new emblem rings.
Fire Emblem…Engage!
(0. PROLOGUE:)
It's a game with so much Fire Emblem packed in, all for a game that barely feels like I'm playing Fire Emblem.
This game reminds me of so many other games, both from Fire Emblem and from other series, just by how much content is included in this game but also by how much better other games are at implementing new mechanics and evolving into this 'new generation of gaming', for better or worse. The rougher part is how much the Fire Emblem part comes from just stealing other aspects of previous titles, and only really toying around with a few aspects in ways I don't feel are as well executed here or worse, have become so memetically ingrained to how a Fire Emblem is supposed to play out that it becomes a laughing stock. Rather than remembrance of times of elation or intrigue regarding a particularly well set up chapter or an interesting character or a strong tenet of worldbuilding, I'm reminded more often of flaws privy to previous titles in the series. What Engage presents is a wonderful amalgamation of what the series has become- but doesn't provide an interesting solution as to what the series will do next. While it presents a myriad of different interactables and new features, I ended up not really wanting to toy around or mess with most of these as I figured much of it didn't actually matter. Other games do this as well obviously, including titles throughout Fire Emblem- not every part of the game has to tie back to the main story. Not every mechanic needs to be fine-tuned to be as balanced as possible, sometimes it pays to be a bit busted. However in Engage's case so much of its mechanics feel like they're... out of sync?
I never truly felt like I conquered the game, and some other FEs have made me feel similarly, but I've been interested in going back and tackling at later dates (maybe Thracia someday...). Here it just felt it was more worth it to not pay attention to certain mechanics post battle mechanics for a few battles, otherwise I'd just be wasting time in menus, management and minutiae for no reason. What's left is a main plot that feels like the weakest since...actually only since Revelations so it hasn't been too long but it left a lot to be desired.
Sometimes I dont wanna be Mr. Cynical, but on the other hand sometimes it's a lot more fun to just be a hater: I thought a lot of this game was fucking dumb and not in a fun sense. I need someone else to come in and pull in the reins on whatever writers and scenario staff is on these projects because dear god I felt embarrassed at times going through the main scenario of this. I don't know if it's a translation thing or if the original script is as bad or what but we're in dire need of some new material, Kaga help us.
The overall package might be a serviceable title, however after having played every other mainline Fire Emblem I just can’t help but feel as though most aspects of this were half baked.
(1. Engaging Mechanics)
(a. Engage!)
Firstly, the namesake of the game. Engage. It’s a neat mechanic and the primary function of this game, like 3H’s academia and Awakefates’ partnering and child minmaxing simulator (blah blah yeah FE4 had this we know). For each game in the series we have a rep, except for FE3 given its a sequel without a new MC -thought it would have been extremely brave of them to have put Kris in here. Units you deploy into battle can equip these and boost their stats and gain certain skills. After some time in battle you can ‘Engage!’ and activate certain other skills on top of take use of certain gimmicks that each ring holds.
Unfortunately some of these rings are blatantly better than others and much of how the rings’ customization either feel on one end, incredibly confusing or on the other end so vast in its customizability to the point of being overwhelming. You gain SP in battle with which you can purchase the skills off rings you have bonded with for long enough so that you can equip them when you switch to another ring. This gets to be so cumbersome I stopped bothering- this is a running trend. For certain units it got to the point where I didn’t see any actual use in switching up rings unless I got a new unit or reclaimed certain rings due to plot reasons.Some of the skills are so expensive that I decided to just keep certain rings on units where I felt they didnt need to diversify, like why should I ever not have Alcryst hold Lyn and keep all of her skills. Why shouldn’t I just keep Hector on Timerra when she just tanks literally everything with him and follows through with Sandstorm, every skill Hector has is too expensive to just let some other schmuck have it -Diamant got shafted in his growths- I have no other tank! Many of these Rings do have neat mechanics, and I WILL SAY I DID BUY THE EXPANSION PASS-
NOTE: I SHOULDA MENTIONED EARLIER I DID BUY THE EXPANSION PASS THIS FEELS PERTINENT TO THE DIFFICULTY CURVE OF THIS SRPG
But several of these rings do have neat mechanics- although its clear much of the best rings come from having bought the DLC. Several of these mechanics range from a counter from Ike’s Great Aether, having Micaiah drain her HP to 1 and heal all other allies to full HP, and having Lyn just fucking snipe from across the map. However, in the DLC you have Tiki who just gives units a second wind, Hector who tanks everything and has guaranteed follow ups, Chrobin who has a rally for all stats and Veronica from Heroes. Soren and Veronica’s inclusion in the DLC is so cool, but only because they’re like 2 of the other characters that have an attitude. It was incredibly refreshing having Soren come in and suddenly it felt like I was talking to a human, Veronica too tbh. Her mechanic is also really neat- on top of having an attacking staff like in FEH she can summon random units like in FEH from 1 of 4 colors but they vary in strength from 3 star weaklings to 5 star units based off the other rings.
(b. Divine Paralogues)
Perhaps to my disadvantage, oddly enough, I decided to tackle some of the 'divine paralogues' much earlier on. The first being Tiki’s is a map that constantly feeds you dragons and tough opponents as you get to the end. It’s a hard map but you get a pretty good ring out of it. Unfortunately for the next few maps and onward most of the game just felt a lot easier than I thought it was meant to be, as I went through more and more of these divine paralogues. I wanted to know when it was best to tackle these, and saw that people preferred them at much earlier levels, so sure enough I thought it best to do them earlier than later. What this meant was I had several rings that the game doesn't really account for.
These rings don’t break the game, necessarily, however I do feel like several maps were made much simpler or didn’t hit as hard because I had these rings at the ready. In this aspect I'm reminded of Xenoblade 2 and its handling of difficulty- I struggled here as well, due to the numerous flimsy tutorials, details not told to you and the much different combat system from XB1's. As I went through XB2 though, I grew to understand and eventually conquer most of the game's mechanics and grow my arsenal of blades (except Kos-Mos fuck that).
I also think that that game succeeds in its expansion pass by giving people a bunch of rare crystals and two of the strongest blades in game. Note that while these blades are incredibly strong I don't think they necessarily break anything- namely they just act as consistent and easy to use blades usable from the early game onward. You can continue to use, pull and customize other blades to your liking and go about the game as you please.
On the contrary, these expansion pass maps for Fire Emblem feel incredibly weird to have on top of other paralogues, giving you so much XP in the process. In something like Xenoblade I don't think anyone minds dominating enemies- sure there's a sort of elation to figuring out weird or difficult fights in rpgs but Xenoblade bosses are rarely...'cerebral?' they mostly just act around for the story and have that MMO raid type vibe, you get the idea. In Fire Emblem though, much of the appeal comes from the careful considerations regarding your team, their equipment, their skills, the map, the kinds of enemies, etc. While I feel like parts of these are present here, I think there's so many new trinkets and gimmicks that its just too easy to hit ‘optimize rings/items’ and just stick with whatever you're given. After a while, once you’ve stuck with certain rings you just don't even bother switching things up.
Sidenote: I do really wish there was a set mechanic where you can just preset certain items that you always want certain units to get so you don’t have to optimize some times and go into a map only to realize that Alcryst didnt get the longbow and got the minibow thanks IntSys.
I just think that it would have been smart for the divine paralogues to have not given EXP or taken some measures to not completely overpower you for the rest of the game, idk. Maybe only unlock at the near end of the game? Maybe not scale to the party’s level? It just feels like a sloppy way to add these guys in. Also man, some of those maps took an eternity to finish.
(c. new Units)
It feels like you're constantly getting new units that are clearly better than what you had before. That early game feels so weird in hindsight and like a completely different game because all your units were just that bad. It feels like Radiant Dawn with its Dawn Brigade levels of 'I guess these guys are my party'. Yunaka I tried getting you to work but dear god someone fucked up your numbers because a later dude just works so much better.
Perhaps this is Int Sys's way of combating earlier FE-mindset that favors keeping a consistent party meanwhile later units that are already promoted get left to the wayside? But I always figured most of these units were supposed to act as replacements in case you had a unit die, the only drawback being that it lacked as much investment? Here it feels like you're supposed to get a 'feel' for each of these waves of party members but I know my ass is not using anyone other than these royals that are clearly some of the best units. Still it was kinda nice to just switch out who i was using for a while, like using Merrin over Yunaka for a few maps but still it felt like there was a clear bias towards all the royalty units. Not helped that these royalty units have unique classes that seem like they’re supposed to stick to, and switching to any other class robs you of the class skills inherent to that royalty class, some of which are really good! But like, I wanted to have a normal Halberdier and maybe a Paladin? Nah instead I get a uh, ‘Succeseur’ and a ‘Landwurm’. Idk, party composition just didn’t feel all that satisfying this time around outside of using Lindon for whatever reason (props to the conversation between him and Veronica where she exclaims ‘she regrets the day she gets summoned by the Order of Heroes’, I actually chuckled for once in the game).
It feels like Engage has the Fates issue of having all of your sibling units be these extremely powerful units that you HAVE to use, because why wouldn’t you have Xander or Takumi. But at least even these units dont get these unique promotes and you can kinda just go wacky making Camilla a berserker or something for some reason.
II. Maps
Alright I’ll come clean and say it. I don’t know the first thing about map design, I know! I know! I’ve played all the Fire Emblems but I still don’t really understand it! What I will say is that while I don’t have the basic understandings of map design, I’ll brazenly and foolheartedly say that I think it’s generally an overvalued thing in the series in several aspects.
I dont know, I just never minded Fire Emblems with generally simpler map designs, although many of these are from much simpler times or have other aspects that I feel overtake the need for gimmicky map layouts. I like Genealogy a lot, I felt it had good maps but less from a tactical standpoint and more from a consistency and scale standpoint. Echoes: Shadow of Valentia has these horridly simple maps and gets regularly lambasted because of it but I’d much prefer these kinds of map alongside the neat little dungeon exploring action segments any day of the week over stuff like Thracia’s litany of brutal maps. Fates Conquest I think has the best medium, having a large amount of gimmicky maps but interspersing them with some simple ones to ease out the experience, it’s a wonder most people point to Chapter 10 as a highlight in the franchise.
With regards to Engage what I will say is that I think map-wise many of them do come out the better end of things, having neat things to watch out for and a lot of playthings to work with. What I don’t particularly like is how often the maps feel like they rely on throwing an absurdly large number of reinforcements down your throat upon hitting a certain threshold.
How come so many of the maps are predicated on this "What if we just summoned a bunch of dudes"? I don't often yell in frustration but I got so pissed nearing the end of Chapter 21, as you near the boss of a fairly simple map but once you reach the backroom, the map just decides to spawn like 12 units on all sides. What's frustrating is that its already a map that's just constantly sending out guys from all sides and that's it. There's no other element to the fight; it's a complete war of attrition if you don’t just beeline it to the boss. This just happened so often by the end of the game it started feeling farcical, hell it even bled into the divine paralogues. Tiki’s map is pretty rough with it but holy fucking hell Camilla your map took 2 hours just because they poured in from everywhere. Was the boss that hard? Nah, it just took fucking forever getting to her. It really sucks too because I think some of the maps had neat ideas by the end but this one aspect just kept popping up like a bad habit. I guess it’s to teach you to not split up your party? I don’t know.
Fire emblem maps can be hit or miss throughout the series but generally I don't mind when games have weaker maps if I find the overall gameplay or the story to fill in the gaps in basic or straightforward maps. Although with Engage, despite having some interesting maps it didn’t really have much of a backbone when it came to the scenario or the characters but I’ll get to that later. Thracia was a game of similar feeling when I left it- a fairly rough time with strong maps throughout- but I did come to enjoy its story and its attempt to tell this side story from Genealogy, of an ousted Prince from Leonster come to restore his family and kingdom’s honor while liberating the nation that stole it. Here, you can have a map with miasma or cannons or anything but I'm just wondering why the hell im fighting the same fucking goons over and over and over again. Also I had a REALLY hard time telling certain opponents apart- the shift to 3D comes with certain unforeseen costs. Obviously, this isn't too bad with flying units or mage or horseunits but like sometimes the Heroes really look like Warriors or Armored units or even Great Knights idk maybe im blind.
The maps overall are fine, but only up to a certain point where some of them really overstep their boundary in what just feels like wasting my time. Don’t show me the exit only to start throwing pots and pans once I’m a foot away from the door.
III. Story, Cast and Vibes
The writing is just absolutely abysmal. I know "ha ha Fire Emblem when it has a bad story!" but it was genuinely frightening when the best slice of dialogue in the entire game was from the expansion pass.
(a. I don’t like hanging out with your friends Alear)
Most of the conversations are just fine, but it reeeally depends on who you have on board. Sometimes there's winners but other times it's just this morass of skipping dialogue that these games always get into. I started thinking about Yakuza and its sidestories- once you've played a Yakuza or two you get the general idea of how it might play out. Typically on my end, this might lead to some text skimming if I don't feel as though the substory is particularly interesting and that's fine, each of these games has at least 50+ substories to go through for a series with 8 mainline entries + spinoffs. But usually there's a bunch that have intriguing premises and rewards and setups so it's always nice to take a break and see what you can get on your plate. Back in Fire Emblem it just....feels like I never left. And god do I want out. It was so lovely when three houses dropped and people at the time were just like "Man! Some of these three houses dialogues do not end amicably!" and I think that's great! Sometimes you just hang with some guy and the vibes go awry! It felt pretty refreshing to see character interactions that just felt like acquaintanceships, especially once you get to the end credits and certain units just have paired endings as friends.
Here…I’m sorry I don’t find the cast all that interesting but I’d have to get really into how fast the tone of this game starts feeling jarring. From the very get-go once Alear wakes up you’re constantly barraged by characters that compliment and suck your dick because you are the Divine Dragon. Cool! I think? Not really! I echo back to the sentiment I had with the beginning feeling jarring because so many of your starting party members just are not interesting outside of really liking that you're the Divine Dragon. After the halfway points certain characters get shown and I ended up having a few characters I liked but nothing really grabbed my attention. A lot of these guys just feel like the Awakefates “here’s my main quirk!” for several conversations and I really don’t wanna waste my time reading over what may or may not shed one layer of this character. Yeah maybe Seadall has some interesting conversations but why should I bother when he might just say something similar in another conversation with another party member, why should i bother with any of these conversations? Why should I bother with most dialogue in this game. It might be a bit harsh for me just not care about most of this dialogue but to be quite honest rarely does the game present itself in a way where it seems like something interesting could happen.
I think it’s mostly the cutscene/animations. Just something about seeing the same characters appear at the same places in the Somniel doing the same animations all the while rarely doing anything that could fire neurons or stem from usual path, I didn’t really want to take the chance and skim through several lines of dialogue for maybe. I don’t know, maybe I just got burnt out too fast and I didn’t give most of the guys a chance, I'm sure there’s interesting nuggets here and there but I didn’t really have any incentive or desire to further explore characters that seemed like milquetoast from the get. Awakening and Fates also has this issue to certain degrees although I’ll give props to Fates Conquest for having a whole cast of just weirdos. Like yeah now I’ll pay attention now that the characters in question are psychopaths and maladjusted soldiers. Here’s the most interesting unit is…idk Panette? Seadall? You’d have to put a gun to my head.
What’s rough is that it feels like this bleeds out into the Engage characters as well. Here, because each of the games' representatives is the protag or a secondary protag/character most of the interaction just feels like the same dialogue but interspersed with "hey this was the place where that really meaningful event happened..." followed by "we will now trust ourselves even more. with you by my side we will be the strongest ever heroes foreverer" I really wanna stress how boring most of the dialogue in this game is. Most of the intrigue just came from how much more interesting previous games were.
(b. Story! or actually cutscene direction- the story is so who cares i didn't feel like talking about most of it. Alear is the son of the villain big whoop, could you at least plagiarize a better fire emblem)
Earlier Fire Emblems could get away with low budget storytelling by having just the usual visual novel portrait do most of the action, and maybe having the in-game models do limited actions to supplement certain scenes or motions. Here we have the first game in the series without portraits and we get to see cutscenes flow with the characters, but unfortunately most of them just…stand there. Like the high budget stuff is fine obviously but whenever we’re out of that mode we have scenes where the characters are just standing there and reacting with generic motions. I couldn’t help but laugh every now and then as villains just stood around gloating like 10 feet from our entourage and I just wanted one of them to take the initiative and attack them. This happens all the time with media, the guy that’s clearly open to be shot but no one takes advantage- its fine. But here it just feels so weird to see the same cultist evildoers just standing around and the heroes are just kinda standing there having a casual conversation? There’s no like.. ambushed! or… surprised! stance or…’hesitant’? stance, it just seemed like our characters just shook their heads and stood in place usually as the main villains just did their piece. It feels incredibly flaccid. Also man I really don’t like the villains here, you fight them so often and it rarely feels like I want to fight them. Not because I felt sympathetic or heartfelt fighting them but because I was wondering when the fuck they’d just die. Nobody really dies in this game, or it sure doesn’t feel like it outside of one chapter. A place gets burnt in one chapter separate from that but even that didn’t feel all that dire. I felt like I was fighting Danganronpa characters rather than some re-imagining of the four fangs from Blazing Blade.
Granted, there is an impressive amount of variety in certain text, even if its only for short conversations between the rings and for certain story moments.
It's kinda odd I like a lot of the designs here and I don't think I'd mind the change to a more light hearted tone but a part of me wonders why the hell this was even put in a medieval setting to begin with? Why not just make this the first modern feeling Fire Emblem? I feel like the series could benefit from shedding away these overdone medieval locales and time period. Just make it like Final Fantasy and do some weird fusion of diesel/steam-punk with fantasy elements and weaponry. I had wished when this game first leaked that this was the fire emblem to have taken us to the modern age. I know it'd be fucky having modern day tech alongside stuff like cavalry and archers but who cares. I don't care if guns exist alongside the dude with a ring that summons some dude.
(C. Somniel)
It’s kinda weird writing this segment out because it feels like it ties into a lot of the main issues I have with all the other parts of the game. The somniel is the rest stop after each battle for you to maintain so many aspects and manage all of these things…! Don’t go here every chapter! Maybe every two!
Maybe if I delved deeper into research I could find some use for some of these things but like did my enjoyment of the game stem from having not sent a bunch of money to some country for more bond fragments? Probably not.
Also by the way where the hell is all the money in this game anyway? You get like 50,000 G at chapter 20 something and its like where the fuck was all this hiding. Like I didn’t really need gold that much anyway but where the hell is it?
Do I need to fish? Did petting Crungett (the little cat thing) mean all that much? Did I even need new non-emblem bond rings? Well alright I did like Olwen’s Dire Thunder. I wish more of these were readily available but it didn't really feel like it mattered.
I really regret spending as much time as I did early on here, I don’t even know what most of these side things are meant for. Did I really need to get all of the bright shiny spots on the map? nah.
It plays a lot like the Monastery in Three Houses or the base with Lilith in Fates but it felt so weirdly unnecessary. It’s not terrible but after the halfway point I just didn’t want to spend anymore time there except to check on skills and sp, rather than train in the arena or anything. I started thinking about Fallout 4’s settlements and before long I wanted to stop thinking about most things about this game (alright it's not that bad but I really didn’t give a shit about sorting what pets are on the farm or wyvern riding. I'm sorry, Engage).
IV. The last section
(a.) Just pettiness at this point the review is already this long fuck it, its 1am,
Ah man i didnt even talk about how fucking stupid skirmishes are. I didn’t remember or realize that there’s a difference between skirmishes and training battles
Why have rings for certain important figures in each game but then have some of those guys come back and have a second ring? Like how come the Three Houses group get a ring for each of the three house leaders but then there's a single ring that has all of them bundled together, thats a waste of three of the eight slots each game gets.
I’ll give the final boss props, matching the emblems to their respective villains that have been summoned is kinda neat but them not being named by their actual names is so stupid, like 8 of these Dark Engage rings are called like ‘Dark Dragon’ or “Fallen King’ (also like why do these evil engages have weird ass stat distributions and weapons; why does Veld’s engage ring go on a fucking bow knight he was a bishop??)
Man. I kinda wish they had remixed some new music for the divine paralogues. I don't remember the Corrin/Fates remix because I got to Camilla and I just wanted it to be a remix of Alight (Storm). Also why is it called the trial of genealogy when its the map for Leif from Thracia 776 are they fucking stupid?
No one fucks in this story. Like yeah obviously no one has nudity in these games but like you get the pact ring near the end of the game and that's what our romance is? You go through the credits of the game and there’s only two endings for each character and the second one is only based on whether or not you decided to give them the ring lmao. 3H spoiled us on interesting epilogues. Also like why the fuck is the special CG so similar looking to the one in 3H? It kinda scared me checking and wondering whether or not they just straight up reused the same ‘soft purple evening’ outlook from that game but there’s minute differences. I also like that you go into some of these endings for characters that are clearly like “we CANNOT have this kid/your sister marry you what the fuck” but instead of having the ‘pact’ ending be anything where Alear connects or supports their future going forward, the problematic choice character just fucks off and does whatever they were gonna do divorced of your epilogue. Like yeah, good choice dummy. (I chose Ivy, she’s okay) (I wish she could keep the glasses on at all times)
(b.) A discussion about fan service
The idea of 'Fan Service' is one that's been long tied to games and feels incredibly prescient over the medium as a whole (albeit not exclusive). The idea of watching a new announcement and suddenly its this ‘new project’ but what if, we had this returning character from an older game! And it crosses over into this media franchise! And so on and so forth.
It's commonplace by now but even with as jaded as I sound with this- its always fun to see what's been tied to what even if someone loosely. I started thinking about Fire Emblem X SMT, a game that was announced at the opportune time for me, having just gotten into Fire Emblem through Awakening and was playing through SMT4. To my dismay this turned out to become something much different than what 14 year old me imagined- some idol based rpg where the characters have Awakening and Shadow Dragon stands and fight with a Persona like system. I was disappointed at the revelation but so many years later I can respect that it kind of has this neat personality to it. I still haven't played it, mind you- I do own a copy but I’ll get to it probably before I die. I can harp over that game’s lack of variety in who they chose to represent the ‘stands’ or what not but 1) again i haven't played it and 2) it being relegated to mostly arachnea does lend itself to some kinda intrigue like oh shit they’re pulling deep cuts like Bord and Cord. It's placement in a separate, human universe alongside these SMT mechanics feels slightly more...real, I guess. It's adherence to themes and elements of the idol industry, while an extremely different flavor from both the general western fantasy themes and Fire Emblem (and SMT somewhat) as a whole- make for a fairly unique concept which I feel gives it some room to stand.
But with Engage I don't feel this strong connection to Fire Emblem- even with all these references and ties to other games in the series I only barely feel that energy I do with other games in the series. Hell, part of what I enjoyed about Fire Emblem games prior was that much of those callbacks were so 'museum'-like in their presence I was a lot more interested in seeing what the other FEs offered. Part of why I went and played Fire Emblem 4 was because FEH had a chapter back in 2018 that played the first few map themes during the mission.
This isn't to say that the depiction of every other game in the franchise into Engage is inherently terrible or anything but I don't get this desire or heart-swelling playing many of these maps that I figured were supposed to make me feel back to when I played all these other games. There are brief moments of pointing out certain neat details that hearken back to these games but that’s about it.
Here, while all of the fanservice is tied into the mechanics and the story of Engage, it's such a bizarre concept that I can't really immerse myself into its presence. It's one thing for a gacha game- some free mobile app where you're just able to gather all of these characters and snowball from there over the course of 6 years and build out interactions, have all these characters and alternate outfits, new storylines each year and you just put that to the side for 15 minutes a day or something. Not a particularly amazing game but I'm glad its lasted as long as it had and built out all these weird storylines.
I think my main fear is if I'm just growing out of the series- but that doesn't feel like the case, I think the overall gameplay loop and design decision behind the core of Fire Emblem is incredibly addicting and engaging. Late last year I got and played through the beginning of Tactics Ogre Reborn. A great game for what I've played, but incredibly dry, I haven't put as much into it as I'd like despite this. I just know Fire Emblem way more and I enjoy the kind of specialized unit pseudo party composition that FE brings rather than the hiring units style of other tactics games. FE just tends to have this sauce that I really like for the most part even at most of its derivative moments.
Also!! Fuck isometric viewpoints!! I’m tired of seeing them!! Sorry Devil Survivor fans!! I don't like trying to guess what direction the d-pad is gonna take me when there is no top right button!!
I really hope the next game is just mind-bendingly different. Maybe part of it is I'm growing out of the series but so much of this feels like been there, done that. I'm so tired of these support conversations with the same animations, this same kinda world, these same archetypes and plot twists and elements. This game feels more incestuous than Awakening, Fates and the entirety of the Jugdral games despite not actually having any, this might be the most surprising plot detail in Engage. I really want a game that's just able to stand out- and I felt like that's what Three Houses was doing, which I look back on a bit more fondly now despite some of the issues surrounding it. I guess I'm just thinking about how it feels like the last 'normal' feeling Fire Emblem in the series was Fates?? Echoes is great but a remake and has much of these action-adventure segments, Three Houses has this Persona/Harry Potter-esque feeling that I feel overshadows the actually tactical aspect of FE and then this which almost feels like a return to form in some ways but so many of its annoying gimmicks just hampered my enjoyment. Engage is cloyingly Fire Emblem.
2023
Not much I wanna say here, quite the fun and unique experience. Glad to have seen that this game exploded since first hearing about it several years ago during the initial builds around 2018-2019(?) and glad that its overall an extremely polished game at its core.
My main hang up is that its just not my kind of game when you get to that core, that being a very speedrun, skill-intensive, combo building mad dash while having to manage collectibles and enemies along the way. In that sense it does remind me a lot of why I have a hard time really liking sonic games, even in 2D. I love a ton of the speed sections, hell the escape segments remain my favorite aspect but I think im not the biggest fan of having to deal with enemies during platforming, as well as some of how the boss fights play out. Namely -and maybe its just me- I just had a hard time really get the hang of certain bosses' attack patterns and what would be considered an attacking state (e.g. one boss just running past you but making contact during this state actually doesn't proc damage). You do at least have the parry mechanic to help you out with this, although its reliability varies. Also I really would have liked a faster restart upon death after boss fights, being sent to the boss door always felt like a waste of time- so I usually just gave up and restarted the level from the pause menu if I got down to 1 HP.
Regardless, its definitely a title I recommend, and I'm glad I don't have the kind of brainworms that egg me on to try for P ranks.
My main hang up is that its just not my kind of game when you get to that core, that being a very speedrun, skill-intensive, combo building mad dash while having to manage collectibles and enemies along the way. In that sense it does remind me a lot of why I have a hard time really liking sonic games, even in 2D. I love a ton of the speed sections, hell the escape segments remain my favorite aspect but I think im not the biggest fan of having to deal with enemies during platforming, as well as some of how the boss fights play out. Namely -and maybe its just me- I just had a hard time really get the hang of certain bosses' attack patterns and what would be considered an attacking state (e.g. one boss just running past you but making contact during this state actually doesn't proc damage). You do at least have the parry mechanic to help you out with this, although its reliability varies. Also I really would have liked a faster restart upon death after boss fights, being sent to the boss door always felt like a waste of time- so I usually just gave up and restarted the level from the pause menu if I got down to 1 HP.
Regardless, its definitely a title I recommend, and I'm glad I don't have the kind of brainworms that egg me on to try for P ranks.
(Actually finished on July 25th, 2023 uh oh)
Definitely an improvement over the primary- agh shit hold up we gotta talk about POST-ARR.
POST-A REALM REBORN (v2.1-2.6)
I guess it's to be expected that they wouldn't just transition into Heavensward right after ARR, they do several major updates before each expansion. It's fairly alright but this is definitely where a lot of the...nuance(?) of Final Fantasy 14 start to show. Finally, CBU3 took off the weights of ARR and got to work in making the kind of MMO they wanted to! Sadly, this would still require quite a couple of hours of set up. POST-ARR quests have quite a few plotlines going on, on top of a side dungeon introducing 'Alliance Raids' and fan favorite catboy G'raha Tia. We got done with the Crystal Tower segment pretty quickly although it was definitely the start of FF14's dungeons getting fairly tricky, especially in these Alliance Raids. 24 players, 3 teams of 8 consisting of 4 dps, 2 tanks and 2 healers. Very hectic and very daunting at first, and I'll admit to getting lost and going into another squads' segment during the final level of the raid. Still primarily using Monk as my class during this segment, and I gotta give props to anybody that does not start out these kinds of games as DPS because man would being an early Tank or a Healer stress me to no end, but more on that later. Honestly despite how oddly these quests are set up, I did mentally block most of what happened prior as just some sort of 'trial' phase of 14, as if it were some proof of concept rather than the first part of an ongoing series, which might be weird to say given that was supposed to be the rebirth of 1.0 but hey here we are now. Post-ARR the cutscene density increases and the amount of voice acting becomes more prevalent which definitely helps. But overall the scenarios here made for a much better idea as to what's to come not just in Heavensward but as to what later expansions will pick up on, with a strong finale in Patch 2.5. Although watching that final cutscene did lend some strong "garry's mod animation" vibe, ngl. Not necessarily knocking it! Just stuck in my mind for cutscenes afterward.
Heavensward Proper
Finally, we get to the 'good' stuff. The expansion where FF14 is supposed to get real strong. Does that claim actually hold up? I'd say so- but having now put in several more hours (I will not talk about how i thought my actual playtime of 100 hours was supposed to be like, 40-50 hrs) I got a lot more invested in the cast, where quests were going, and certain dungeons/trials felt a lot more engaging- although there's still a lot of oddities that you have to tackle with this being a new section of the game. Most of the unlocks and progression from ARR aren't as prevalent here, as most of the expansion focuses on this new chunk of the plot. It's a bit unfortunate because one of the major new inclusions here is the 'Aether Current' system. For those unaware, post-ARR allows you to fly across the regions you had unlocked or whatever rideable companion you had on hand, be in Chocobo or flying whale you bought on the Square Enix store for 30 dollars (...wtf). The Aether Currents are this list of quests and on-field interactables that you need to gather in each area to be able to fly again in that area. I get it, it's so you don't just skip over all the level that was just made for the expansion but man is it kinda obnoxious using the compass and doing all the simple quests to get the aether currents. I didn't bother with collecting them until after finishing Heavensward proper. It doesn't actually take too much time to get cleared but I wanted to check out more of the MSQ instead.
Aside from that not too much new to talk about aside from the storyline and characters, although I did decide to take a big step- running Dark Knight. Tbh, I was really hesitant moving away from DPS and taking on a new role going through dungeons, but I'm glad that either my server or just the overall community for FF14 was as easy going and helpful as they were in telling me if I was doing anything wrong or missing anything as a tank, like not having my damn aggro spell up or using Unmend to grab long distance aggro. Lot of this information was really helpful in getting me to understand the 'tank' mindset and in some instances it is easier than DPS since all I'm expected to do is stand around and keep the target(s) locked on me, while my DPS figures out certain dungeon mechanics. My main issue is just how long it takes grinding out DRK to whatever level matches your current job, definitely decide from the start of Heavensward whether or not you want you want to go into a job and stick with it- I finished HW before getting my DRK up to where my MNK was so I had to grind out more as the former since MSQ is where all the good EXP is at, YFM?...
Props to Dark Knight though for having an incredibly good job storyline though, apparently they bring on the writer for this storyline into the main questline in later expansions which im glad is the case. It's just fun to have a class where the whole bit is "man what the fuck are we (as jrpg-hero-person) doing even, these menial tasks- you're an idiot, <WoL>" its a super interesting take on the usual spiel, especially coming off Monk's story.
Also this is partially true of pre-HW but if all the discourse around Game of Thrones and FF16 was tiring than I apologize, but there’s definitely more of a GRRM vibe once you get into Dravania and start dealing with assassination, political drama, dragons, wintry locales, class disparity, etc. Banri Oda, main scenario writer for pretty much the rest of the game, actually did mention this a few years back in an interview, although looking at the transcript he described it more as “the methodology of how these works were created helped me write Heavensward”, and I’d have to say it rings true. As much as I like Ul’dah or Limsa I can’t exactly say I know much or did too much in those towns outside of side quests or spending time in the Steps of Thal, whereas Ishgard and the surrounding areas of Heavensward make for a much more interesting environment, visually and geopolitically.
On top of that most of your cast throughout the expansion is just pretty great, seeing a lot more big names and spending time with some of the harder hitters from the previous segments like Haurchefant (Haurchie…), Alphinaud and Ysayle. Also Tataru -giving a thumbs up to one of the like, 4 good Lalafell out there. Also very interested in seeing where Estinien goes from here since that’s definitely a name I heard a lot prior to starting FF14.
Overall, a BIG step up from FF14 although I do think there’s quite a bit that’s still cooking. Definitely glad this was included in the free expansion since it’s a more interesting package as to what kept FF14 rallying for years and years. Note that this review -were I less lazy- would have been finished before the most recent fanfest in which they announced the free trial would be including Stormblood, days after having finished HW. Fairly interested in Stormblood though, unironically.
Definitely an improvement over the primary- agh shit hold up we gotta talk about POST-ARR.
POST-A REALM REBORN (v2.1-2.6)
I guess it's to be expected that they wouldn't just transition into Heavensward right after ARR, they do several major updates before each expansion. It's fairly alright but this is definitely where a lot of the...nuance(?) of Final Fantasy 14 start to show. Finally, CBU3 took off the weights of ARR and got to work in making the kind of MMO they wanted to! Sadly, this would still require quite a couple of hours of set up. POST-ARR quests have quite a few plotlines going on, on top of a side dungeon introducing 'Alliance Raids' and fan favorite catboy G'raha Tia. We got done with the Crystal Tower segment pretty quickly although it was definitely the start of FF14's dungeons getting fairly tricky, especially in these Alliance Raids. 24 players, 3 teams of 8 consisting of 4 dps, 2 tanks and 2 healers. Very hectic and very daunting at first, and I'll admit to getting lost and going into another squads' segment during the final level of the raid. Still primarily using Monk as my class during this segment, and I gotta give props to anybody that does not start out these kinds of games as DPS because man would being an early Tank or a Healer stress me to no end, but more on that later. Honestly despite how oddly these quests are set up, I did mentally block most of what happened prior as just some sort of 'trial' phase of 14, as if it were some proof of concept rather than the first part of an ongoing series, which might be weird to say given that was supposed to be the rebirth of 1.0 but hey here we are now. Post-ARR the cutscene density increases and the amount of voice acting becomes more prevalent which definitely helps. But overall the scenarios here made for a much better idea as to what's to come not just in Heavensward but as to what later expansions will pick up on, with a strong finale in Patch 2.5. Although watching that final cutscene did lend some strong "garry's mod animation" vibe, ngl. Not necessarily knocking it! Just stuck in my mind for cutscenes afterward.
Heavensward Proper
Finally, we get to the 'good' stuff. The expansion where FF14 is supposed to get real strong. Does that claim actually hold up? I'd say so- but having now put in several more hours (I will not talk about how i thought my actual playtime of 100 hours was supposed to be like, 40-50 hrs) I got a lot more invested in the cast, where quests were going, and certain dungeons/trials felt a lot more engaging- although there's still a lot of oddities that you have to tackle with this being a new section of the game. Most of the unlocks and progression from ARR aren't as prevalent here, as most of the expansion focuses on this new chunk of the plot. It's a bit unfortunate because one of the major new inclusions here is the 'Aether Current' system. For those unaware, post-ARR allows you to fly across the regions you had unlocked or whatever rideable companion you had on hand, be in Chocobo or flying whale you bought on the Square Enix store for 30 dollars (...wtf). The Aether Currents are this list of quests and on-field interactables that you need to gather in each area to be able to fly again in that area. I get it, it's so you don't just skip over all the level that was just made for the expansion but man is it kinda obnoxious using the compass and doing all the simple quests to get the aether currents. I didn't bother with collecting them until after finishing Heavensward proper. It doesn't actually take too much time to get cleared but I wanted to check out more of the MSQ instead.
Aside from that not too much new to talk about aside from the storyline and characters, although I did decide to take a big step- running Dark Knight. Tbh, I was really hesitant moving away from DPS and taking on a new role going through dungeons, but I'm glad that either my server or just the overall community for FF14 was as easy going and helpful as they were in telling me if I was doing anything wrong or missing anything as a tank, like not having my damn aggro spell up or using Unmend to grab long distance aggro. Lot of this information was really helpful in getting me to understand the 'tank' mindset and in some instances it is easier than DPS since all I'm expected to do is stand around and keep the target(s) locked on me, while my DPS figures out certain dungeon mechanics. My main issue is just how long it takes grinding out DRK to whatever level matches your current job, definitely decide from the start of Heavensward whether or not you want you want to go into a job and stick with it- I finished HW before getting my DRK up to where my MNK was so I had to grind out more as the former since MSQ is where all the good EXP is at, YFM?...
Props to Dark Knight though for having an incredibly good job storyline though, apparently they bring on the writer for this storyline into the main questline in later expansions which im glad is the case. It's just fun to have a class where the whole bit is "man what the fuck are we (as jrpg-hero-person) doing even, these menial tasks- you're an idiot, <WoL>" its a super interesting take on the usual spiel, especially coming off Monk's story.
Also this is partially true of pre-HW but if all the discourse around Game of Thrones and FF16 was tiring than I apologize, but there’s definitely more of a GRRM vibe once you get into Dravania and start dealing with assassination, political drama, dragons, wintry locales, class disparity, etc. Banri Oda, main scenario writer for pretty much the rest of the game, actually did mention this a few years back in an interview, although looking at the transcript he described it more as “the methodology of how these works were created helped me write Heavensward”, and I’d have to say it rings true. As much as I like Ul’dah or Limsa I can’t exactly say I know much or did too much in those towns outside of side quests or spending time in the Steps of Thal, whereas Ishgard and the surrounding areas of Heavensward make for a much more interesting environment, visually and geopolitically.
On top of that most of your cast throughout the expansion is just pretty great, seeing a lot more big names and spending time with some of the harder hitters from the previous segments like Haurchefant (Haurchie…), Alphinaud and Ysayle. Also Tataru -giving a thumbs up to one of the like, 4 good Lalafell out there. Also very interested in seeing where Estinien goes from here since that’s definitely a name I heard a lot prior to starting FF14.
Overall, a BIG step up from FF14 although I do think there’s quite a bit that’s still cooking. Definitely glad this was included in the free expansion since it’s a more interesting package as to what kept FF14 rallying for years and years. Note that this review -were I less lazy- would have been finished before the most recent fanfest in which they announced the free trial would be including Stormblood, days after having finished HW. Fairly interested in Stormblood though, unironically.
2023
Honestly I don't know what I expected, but for a game teased 4 years ago and released in this state I guess I expected...more? I mean I think about how Pokemon GO just drops on a dime and sweeps the world by storm without any hype but this has barely any fun attached.
You just go to sleep and catch whatever pokemon you can that came to meet you overnight.But to catch Pokemon you have to buy these biscuits and feed them enough to follow you around? Most of it is just mindless and boring.
Also this dropped at the worst possible time frankly, as I just moved into a house where there's no outlets anywhere near my bed.
You just go to sleep and catch whatever pokemon you can that came to meet you overnight.But to catch Pokemon you have to buy these biscuits and feed them enough to follow you around? Most of it is just mindless and boring.
Also this dropped at the worst possible time frankly, as I just moved into a house where there's no outlets anywhere near my bed.
An excellent addition to XB3's package, similar to how Torna compliments XB2 and an excellent wait to conclude the Xenoblade trilogy. Not gonna rate this since XB3 ranks as one of my favorites already and this just acts as more of that but in a more contained, succinct packaged. Although, it's a bit of a wilder and more complicated narrative this time around, especially if you've seen the trailers and promos regarding who's joined alongside our DLC protagonist Matthew. There's not too much I wanna say since it's just an expansion but it's made me really excited for whatever project Monolith has next.
There's a bunch of neat goodies that FR adds that might be a bit distracting from the usual Xenoblade fare but the collectathon-like nature of filling the enemypaedia , each of the collectibles and the community is pretty addictive. You needed to fill out the community portion of Torna to beat the game but here I just really felt like I needed to get that checked off. Main issue in this regard is just how monotonous talking to everyone in the colony gets but otherwise you get some good rewards out of the quests.
I am gonna need Monolith to make it so that you can keep your weapon sheathed out in the field
While I did enjoy the class changing aspect of XB3 it did need some ironing out with regards to balance/intrigue, especially as a lot of the cooler classes came much, much later- I am glad that doesn't show up whatsoever here. Each of the party members retains a clear role of <<<Fast DPS/ Crit DPS, Main Healer/AOE Support and Basic Tank/Dodge Tank>>>? making it pretty hard to worry about whether or not your party build is off, all you need to manage is equips, arts and some bonus customizables.
Also while I was fine with the final stretch of XB3 I'd be lying if I didn't say it lacked a certain punch that 2 did, climbing up the world tree. While a much shorter stretch obviously, I do think the ascent up the Black Mountains onto Prison Island is such a cooler final segment.
Overall there isn’t too much I wanna say, it's just a great culmination of the last 3 games on top of the Xeno series as a whole. I'm looking forward to seeing what Gears/Saga/(I dont even know how to start X) hold, as well as whatever comes after this.
Matthew is also really cool, man.
There's a bunch of neat goodies that FR adds that might be a bit distracting from the usual Xenoblade fare but the collectathon-like nature of filling the enemypaedia , each of the collectibles and the community is pretty addictive. You needed to fill out the community portion of Torna to beat the game but here I just really felt like I needed to get that checked off. Main issue in this regard is just how monotonous talking to everyone in the colony gets but otherwise you get some good rewards out of the quests.
I am gonna need Monolith to make it so that you can keep your weapon sheathed out in the field
While I did enjoy the class changing aspect of XB3 it did need some ironing out with regards to balance/intrigue, especially as a lot of the cooler classes came much, much later- I am glad that doesn't show up whatsoever here. Each of the party members retains a clear role of <<<Fast DPS/ Crit DPS, Main Healer/AOE Support and Basic Tank/Dodge Tank>>>? making it pretty hard to worry about whether or not your party build is off, all you need to manage is equips, arts and some bonus customizables.
Also while I was fine with the final stretch of XB3 I'd be lying if I didn't say it lacked a certain punch that 2 did, climbing up the world tree. While a much shorter stretch obviously, I do think the ascent up the Black Mountains onto Prison Island is such a cooler final segment.
Overall there isn’t too much I wanna say, it's just a great culmination of the last 3 games on top of the Xeno series as a whole. I'm looking forward to seeing what Gears/Saga/(I dont even know how to start X) hold, as well as whatever comes after this.
Matthew is also really cool, man.
(Finished on July 4th)
There’s not a whole lot I can really say, I do love Katamari. Royal reverie additions seem a bit lacking but I’m happy I’m able to play this finally.
(Although did you really need to make it so that getting all the cousins meant going back into the final level another 4 times?)
There’s not a whole lot I can really say, I do love Katamari. Royal reverie additions seem a bit lacking but I’m happy I’m able to play this finally.
(Although did you really need to make it so that getting all the cousins meant going back into the final level another 4 times?)
Gonna put this on the backburner, there's too much to do in this game- and so much I need to get back on. Shelving this right before the final boss/segment but there's a lot of quests and completionist things I wanna look through at a later date. Might wait for the first wave of DLC to finish in case they announce that happens before the end of the year. Might pop in every now and then before the end of the year, who knows!
Very good game and a pretty good follow up to the monumental BOTW- although part of me does wonder if there were ways to trim certain sections/areas/missions. This is just one of those forever games.
Without going too in-depth before actually finishing the game, everything feels like its in its right place- I'm just waiting for the moment either later in the year when I'm thinking about the game or when I'm getting back to clearing corners that something clicks and it succeeds in becoming a favorite rather than shoveling so much content so as to 'buy' (for lack of a better word atm) its way into that title.
I have no complaints, yet I am still pensive on where to put my feelings. Work for a later date, at least.
Very good game and a pretty good follow up to the monumental BOTW- although part of me does wonder if there were ways to trim certain sections/areas/missions. This is just one of those forever games.
Without going too in-depth before actually finishing the game, everything feels like its in its right place- I'm just waiting for the moment either later in the year when I'm thinking about the game or when I'm getting back to clearing corners that something clicks and it succeeds in becoming a favorite rather than shoveling so much content so as to 'buy' (for lack of a better word atm) its way into that title.
I have no complaints, yet I am still pensive on where to put my feelings. Work for a later date, at least.
(Actually beat on 6/20/23)
Finally getting around to this. It only took me several years, a new pc setup and matching with someone over Hinge to convince me to get back into this mess.
Playing as a femroe monk as that was the character I had made 4(? I really dont wanna think that I started and made this character that long ago...) years ago, I decided to swallow the pill that is FF14.
Generally just bee-lining the main quests is fine, although it was always hard to gauge EXACTLY when things would start to pick up story or gameplay wise so let me try to boil when exactly certain gameplay mechanics or ideas popped up that fired at least a few neurons because it does take a long while before you get to the meat of the story (arguably even in this expansion you don't really get but so much).
Before that lemme sum up my previous experience of just: Start main quest -> look around for main quest -> find other quest -> just do whatever basic quests were around -> loop -> 2 years pass -> try to play some stuff with friends -> walk across the entirety of a continent and a server to reach my friends in Gridania. I didn't really beeline like I had thought I was gonna do and just got mired in what I 'thought' I would have needed to do to understand FF14.
Firstly, all of this is from the experience of a Pugilist starting out in Thanalan/Ul'Dah so the experience will differ if you start in Gridania or Limsa Lominsa, my first dungeon was around level 15. This doesn't sound too bad but you have to do quite a bit in the surrounding area, some local politics-type beats, and you have to jump continent to La Noscea. Doing the main quest and job stuff this isnt too hard- however it will be a lot of back and forth from one place to another and trying to remember the map layouts surrounding the city. Admittedly, trying to remember the layout of Western and Northern Thanalan took much longer than I would like to admit. Doing mainline stuff primarily, the first and second dungeons are nearly back to back so its not as sparse feeling as the beginning grind might lead you to believe- you dont start out being able to do dungeons but once you get to your first the duty finder, they become a bit more prevalent. Story wise a bit more starts to progress as soon after you complete your first few dungeons, and you're able to meet the Scion of the Seven Stars- a group of people relevant to the end of the origin FF14 and that old guy I keep seeing disintegrated. I can say with certainty I've heard of at least half of these characters prior and have seen the spread cheeks of at least three, so I started to pay a bit more attention to what was happening around this time.
Around level 20 I finally realized there were symbols above the 'hunting log' creatures. DO THE HUNTING LOGS. There was so much exp nabbing these I couldn't believe. Also, more games need creature logs! Look forward to when I finish XB3: Future Redeemed (in a few weeks, hopefully). Finally it was around this time that I kinda got used to the cycle of things- those long trips between places didn't feel too bad. Maybe this is Stockholm Syndrome. However, it also dawned on me I really didn't need gil for too much at the moment, so I felt fine just teleporting or taking the chocoboporter whenever I needed to. Previously I was pretty conscious on sparing as much Gil as possible until I knew I needed something good but it really doesn't matter. By the way! Check all the Chocoboporters and Crystals you can!
Around level 25 was when things seemed to have slowed down mission wise but my moveset seemed a little more robust, and a few levels later, I was given the chance (as part of the MSQ) to join a free company. I haven't done too much regarding this and I don't entirely understand the point but once joining I was given a quest to redeem my chocobo! Finally a free mode of transportation! But more importantly, I found the achievement trading guy in Gridania and was able to get my first companion- A tiny Gilgamesh.
...i didn't know this existed but I really needed it.
Finally once I hit level 30 things started to click in a bit better- my actual job as a Monk unlocked and I could use a few more moves as I leveled up. The overall idea of how quests were structured started to kick in, and I had a much easier time getting around thanks to my new chocobo, a much greater mass of wealth and just a better understanding as to where to go.
Unfortunate for me, starting to understand what the quest structure meant realizing the next 10 levels or so were just clearing out a backlog of Minfillia's chore list across the three starting regions of the game. At the very least this cut down on the cross-regional travel but goddamn are a lot of these back and forth. There are some intriguing stories and lines interspersed throughout these mini arc such as the Ala Mhigo, but as part of the main quest it just feels very bloated. At least there's a dungeon or a primal fight every few levels to spice things up, and I do have to commend the community- I've yet to had a bad experience thus far. Granted these are just main story dungeons I'm going through for one time but its been pleasant seeing others enthusiastic to just get through a dungeon, they're super pleasant to go through. Hell, we even had a bungle midway through Stone Vigil but the game's generous in its respawn mechanic so it was just a matter of retrying a mob or boss that went awry.
Around level 40 a fourth region unlocks, the Coerthas! Around this time the quests start to get a bit more interesting, despite some back and forth still. I'd heard the name Haurchefant quite a few times but don't have much context for what he does so his presence/dialogue here juxtaposed against some of these other hoity-toity Elezen which made him stand out- talking with my guide about him made me interested in seeing whatever he ends up doing.
From here it was basically a snowball through the rest of the msq, chugging through to the final major region of Version 2.0, Mor Dhona. Shoutouts to both FF14 and Xenoblade 2 for having a mountainous, industrial region wrought with imperial forces using Mor in its name.
Unfortunately around level 48 despite all best efforts we hit it. The plateau. Only a handful of quests until the end, but sadly I'm just too low leveled! Despite there being quite a lot of exp to go around I did think it was a bit bullshit the exp yield didn't just mainline you to the end of MSQ- I was thinking the endgame stuff for main story stuff would require you to be about level 45 rather than 50.
After a bit of grinding I was able to reach level 49 and do some of the last few quests only to get to- another quest with a level requirement. This time regarding the 'item' level of your character. I'm hoping this makes way more sense later in game but for right now it really doesn't sound like it makes any sense. I guess it's to make sure your armor is up to date? I've got no idea how to quickly get these up to a reasonable level, especially in the free trial that keeps me locked out of trading and accessing the market? It's a weird system and I do have a lot of hang ups with what you can and can't access with the free trial. I get its free but like would it kill Square to allow you to create a party? Or to at least have limited access to the market board?
FINALLY, we reach level 50 AND get a strong enough item level to begin the last chunk, after some last minute hunting log shenanigans. These last few bits are pretty cool- although I feel like they have functions and requirements that are introduced way too late and just impede progress. Usually whenever you want to introduce new requirements for big set pieces you'd want to introduce them early or midway through a campaign and ease players into getting used to them but stuff like the exp curve slowing down and the item levels just feels really bad when I was really gunning to get the last few missions done. Maybe adding in all the job class quests helped with leveling early on and definitely the hunting log helps fill in exp but I was really confused as to why these last quests just jumped up in requirements so fast. At the very least these last few bits were pretty fun, running through the corridors of The Praetorium and the outside rim on Magitek is pretty neat and the two last bosses are neat enough.
I think the most I can say about ARR is that its neat enough that I can understand why people latched onto it when it dropped and why it kept those users attracted enough to continue into expansions to the extent that the FF14 team could actually make the game they wanted to in Heavensward onward. Even in these later chunks it felt like the team was getting more ambitious and comfortable with where they were taking the cast and world. It's just a long opener muddled with walking back and forth to quest markers. Still, I thought it was fun to see how my character was progressing and seeing all the characters that I only heard offhand altogether here was cool. Looking forward to (well, firstly the preshow quests of) Heavensward!
Finally getting around to this. It only took me several years, a new pc setup and matching with someone over Hinge to convince me to get back into this mess.
Playing as a femroe monk as that was the character I had made 4(? I really dont wanna think that I started and made this character that long ago...) years ago, I decided to swallow the pill that is FF14.
Generally just bee-lining the main quests is fine, although it was always hard to gauge EXACTLY when things would start to pick up story or gameplay wise so let me try to boil when exactly certain gameplay mechanics or ideas popped up that fired at least a few neurons because it does take a long while before you get to the meat of the story (arguably even in this expansion you don't really get but so much).
Before that lemme sum up my previous experience of just: Start main quest -> look around for main quest -> find other quest -> just do whatever basic quests were around -> loop -> 2 years pass -> try to play some stuff with friends -> walk across the entirety of a continent and a server to reach my friends in Gridania. I didn't really beeline like I had thought I was gonna do and just got mired in what I 'thought' I would have needed to do to understand FF14.
Firstly, all of this is from the experience of a Pugilist starting out in Thanalan/Ul'Dah so the experience will differ if you start in Gridania or Limsa Lominsa, my first dungeon was around level 15. This doesn't sound too bad but you have to do quite a bit in the surrounding area, some local politics-type beats, and you have to jump continent to La Noscea. Doing the main quest and job stuff this isnt too hard- however it will be a lot of back and forth from one place to another and trying to remember the map layouts surrounding the city. Admittedly, trying to remember the layout of Western and Northern Thanalan took much longer than I would like to admit. Doing mainline stuff primarily, the first and second dungeons are nearly back to back so its not as sparse feeling as the beginning grind might lead you to believe- you dont start out being able to do dungeons but once you get to your first the duty finder, they become a bit more prevalent. Story wise a bit more starts to progress as soon after you complete your first few dungeons, and you're able to meet the Scion of the Seven Stars- a group of people relevant to the end of the origin FF14 and that old guy I keep seeing disintegrated. I can say with certainty I've heard of at least half of these characters prior and have seen the spread cheeks of at least three, so I started to pay a bit more attention to what was happening around this time.
Around level 20 I finally realized there were symbols above the 'hunting log' creatures. DO THE HUNTING LOGS. There was so much exp nabbing these I couldn't believe. Also, more games need creature logs! Look forward to when I finish XB3: Future Redeemed (in a few weeks, hopefully). Finally it was around this time that I kinda got used to the cycle of things- those long trips between places didn't feel too bad. Maybe this is Stockholm Syndrome. However, it also dawned on me I really didn't need gil for too much at the moment, so I felt fine just teleporting or taking the chocoboporter whenever I needed to. Previously I was pretty conscious on sparing as much Gil as possible until I knew I needed something good but it really doesn't matter. By the way! Check all the Chocoboporters and Crystals you can!
Around level 25 was when things seemed to have slowed down mission wise but my moveset seemed a little more robust, and a few levels later, I was given the chance (as part of the MSQ) to join a free company. I haven't done too much regarding this and I don't entirely understand the point but once joining I was given a quest to redeem my chocobo! Finally a free mode of transportation! But more importantly, I found the achievement trading guy in Gridania and was able to get my first companion- A tiny Gilgamesh.
...i didn't know this existed but I really needed it.
Finally once I hit level 30 things started to click in a bit better- my actual job as a Monk unlocked and I could use a few more moves as I leveled up. The overall idea of how quests were structured started to kick in, and I had a much easier time getting around thanks to my new chocobo, a much greater mass of wealth and just a better understanding as to where to go.
Unfortunate for me, starting to understand what the quest structure meant realizing the next 10 levels or so were just clearing out a backlog of Minfillia's chore list across the three starting regions of the game. At the very least this cut down on the cross-regional travel but goddamn are a lot of these back and forth. There are some intriguing stories and lines interspersed throughout these mini arc such as the Ala Mhigo, but as part of the main quest it just feels very bloated. At least there's a dungeon or a primal fight every few levels to spice things up, and I do have to commend the community- I've yet to had a bad experience thus far. Granted these are just main story dungeons I'm going through for one time but its been pleasant seeing others enthusiastic to just get through a dungeon, they're super pleasant to go through. Hell, we even had a bungle midway through Stone Vigil but the game's generous in its respawn mechanic so it was just a matter of retrying a mob or boss that went awry.
Around level 40 a fourth region unlocks, the Coerthas! Around this time the quests start to get a bit more interesting, despite some back and forth still. I'd heard the name Haurchefant quite a few times but don't have much context for what he does so his presence/dialogue here juxtaposed against some of these other hoity-toity Elezen which made him stand out- talking with my guide about him made me interested in seeing whatever he ends up doing.
From here it was basically a snowball through the rest of the msq, chugging through to the final major region of Version 2.0, Mor Dhona. Shoutouts to both FF14 and Xenoblade 2 for having a mountainous, industrial region wrought with imperial forces using Mor in its name.
Unfortunately around level 48 despite all best efforts we hit it. The plateau. Only a handful of quests until the end, but sadly I'm just too low leveled! Despite there being quite a lot of exp to go around I did think it was a bit bullshit the exp yield didn't just mainline you to the end of MSQ- I was thinking the endgame stuff for main story stuff would require you to be about level 45 rather than 50.
After a bit of grinding I was able to reach level 49 and do some of the last few quests only to get to- another quest with a level requirement. This time regarding the 'item' level of your character. I'm hoping this makes way more sense later in game but for right now it really doesn't sound like it makes any sense. I guess it's to make sure your armor is up to date? I've got no idea how to quickly get these up to a reasonable level, especially in the free trial that keeps me locked out of trading and accessing the market? It's a weird system and I do have a lot of hang ups with what you can and can't access with the free trial. I get its free but like would it kill Square to allow you to create a party? Or to at least have limited access to the market board?
FINALLY, we reach level 50 AND get a strong enough item level to begin the last chunk, after some last minute hunting log shenanigans. These last few bits are pretty cool- although I feel like they have functions and requirements that are introduced way too late and just impede progress. Usually whenever you want to introduce new requirements for big set pieces you'd want to introduce them early or midway through a campaign and ease players into getting used to them but stuff like the exp curve slowing down and the item levels just feels really bad when I was really gunning to get the last few missions done. Maybe adding in all the job class quests helped with leveling early on and definitely the hunting log helps fill in exp but I was really confused as to why these last quests just jumped up in requirements so fast. At the very least these last few bits were pretty fun, running through the corridors of The Praetorium and the outside rim on Magitek is pretty neat and the two last bosses are neat enough.
I think the most I can say about ARR is that its neat enough that I can understand why people latched onto it when it dropped and why it kept those users attracted enough to continue into expansions to the extent that the FF14 team could actually make the game they wanted to in Heavensward onward. Even in these later chunks it felt like the team was getting more ambitious and comfortable with where they were taking the cast and world. It's just a long opener muddled with walking back and forth to quest markers. Still, I thought it was fun to see how my character was progressing and seeing all the characters that I only heard offhand altogether here was cool. Looking forward to (well, firstly the preshow quests of) Heavensward!