Prior to this release I actually felt myself falling off the franchise a little bit.
Not that it was generally dropping off in terms of quality, just that the two prior games "Ishin" and "Gaiden" weren't really my favourites this series had to offer.
Still though, I was exciting for this one seeing how 7 was such a confident establishment of a brand new genre shift to turn based gameplay, and how wonderful Ichiban Kasuga turned out to be as a protagonist.
Now that I've hit credits, I'm rather thrilled to say that this has now wormed its way into being one of my favourite entries.
I'll begin with talking about characters and gameplay, then moving onto world and story.
THE CHARACTERS
In terms of character writing this is by far the best RGG has done, every party member feels rich in terms of backstory and have such vivid personalities that it is incredibly hard not to be endeared to them after bashing a few heads.
The "bond" system has been expanded to include a bingo cards. In essence, there are spots in the map where the player character and party member can talk about a variety of topics. From a friendly game of Sega Bass Fishing to starting a band.
These events are incredibly frequent and each one you unlock helps you complete that party member's bingo card. Upon completion of the bingo slots you receive bond points which unlock "drink links" which is where you have a sit down with that party member and do their side story.
Overly long explanation over, I go into that much detail because I wanted to highlight how much work went into making the crew as lovable as possible.
And how each and every mechanic builds and relates to each other. It constantly feels like you're making progress in something, even if you set out to simply run around and enjoy the Hawaii fresh air, there's always something you'll be doing.
THE COMBAT
Onto the thing you'll do the most in the open world, they also managed to refine the turn based combat to be rather gratifying and fun. A lot of the complaints I had with 7, i.e. AOE's being hard to pull off due to the AI deciding where to position your party members, an undercooked feeling job system, and exploitable attacks that felt poorly balanced, have been expanded upon and fleshed out.
You can now move your character during battle, so attacks are much easier to land as you are now in control of where you're positioned and can make adjustments accordingly.
Not only that, but the job system has been improved also.
Now there are a lot more centre's to change your job at for one, but they also went a long way to make the jobs feel more specified than before.
In 7 every job basically came down to "Move that hurts enemy but with a different animation" but now that enemies have a lot more weaknesses to exploit it makes the jobs a lot more vital.
Another issue 7's combat had was that whenever an item, for example a bike or a cone, was in between you or an enemy, your character would pick it up when doing a basic attack. The problem being that you could not control where or when this happens due to the AI taking positioning into its own hands. Now you can simply move away from the item in order to do the attack you want.
It still isn't perfect though, doing a basic attack next to another party member will trigger a "tag team attack" of sorts. Basically an animation where both characters join together to punch the enemy. However with this new addition, it can be tough to try and land a basic attack if you want to do one as the tag team (and interactable items) may leave you with no room to properly position yourself.
A simple fix for this would be a button turning off the tag teams and item pick ups, thus making it a lot easier for the player to properly control what the character does.
THE WORLD
In the marketing they prized this game as being the biggest one they've made yet, and Hawaii certainly makes it feel so.
RGG went to great lengths to make Hawaii come to life, individuals you can greet and all have lives and hobbies, sun so bright that it becomes blinding at noon, a dynamic rain system which rears its at random (which the characters always had something to say about every time it happened)
Work, a lot of bloody work went into this and it shows.
I mentioned the bonds and drink links but they don't even scratch the surface of the content available on display here.
A delivery based reimagining of Crazy taxi, an entire Pokemon game, enough wacky substories to show up 100 other games, an animal crossing inspired island to build and improve on and more.
But my favourite out of all the side content is easily Kiryu's "bucket list"
I won't go into much detail but it's rare when the optional content is this vital in expanding upon overarching thesis of your game.
Quite honestly, if you removed this side of the game then the experience would've suffered greatly. Because the core mystery isn't the strongest this franchise has offered.
THE STORY
This game has gotten a bit of flack from long time fans. Saying that the actual plot itself is very messy in places and rushed in others, and loath I am to say this but it's undeniable that this is the truth.
It's not Game of Thrones Season 8 level of "Oh man, you guys rushed this" in fact the story has so many good scenes within it that pay off on years of character development that it feels like this ending was the plan for ages.
Often times the plot feels dragged out, a tad uninteresting and basic all things considered. But it has a very obvious heart and humility that I can't help but love.
Upon hitting credits I was left with the biggest grin imaginable, the ending sequence is something this series hasn't exactly gone to before.
It felt refreshing, small and above all it was so much fun.
"Fun", that's the word I would use to sum up this game.
There is nothing to distract from its unbridled optimism and joy, and it helps smooths over the lacking moments wholesale for me.
Ichiban Kasuga and Kazuma Kiryu had one hell of a road trip, one I won't be forgetting any time soon.
"If your heart's in the right place, that's all that matters."
Not that it was generally dropping off in terms of quality, just that the two prior games "Ishin" and "Gaiden" weren't really my favourites this series had to offer.
Still though, I was exciting for this one seeing how 7 was such a confident establishment of a brand new genre shift to turn based gameplay, and how wonderful Ichiban Kasuga turned out to be as a protagonist.
Now that I've hit credits, I'm rather thrilled to say that this has now wormed its way into being one of my favourite entries.
I'll begin with talking about characters and gameplay, then moving onto world and story.
THE CHARACTERS
In terms of character writing this is by far the best RGG has done, every party member feels rich in terms of backstory and have such vivid personalities that it is incredibly hard not to be endeared to them after bashing a few heads.
The "bond" system has been expanded to include a bingo cards. In essence, there are spots in the map where the player character and party member can talk about a variety of topics. From a friendly game of Sega Bass Fishing to starting a band.
These events are incredibly frequent and each one you unlock helps you complete that party member's bingo card. Upon completion of the bingo slots you receive bond points which unlock "drink links" which is where you have a sit down with that party member and do their side story.
Overly long explanation over, I go into that much detail because I wanted to highlight how much work went into making the crew as lovable as possible.
And how each and every mechanic builds and relates to each other. It constantly feels like you're making progress in something, even if you set out to simply run around and enjoy the Hawaii fresh air, there's always something you'll be doing.
THE COMBAT
Onto the thing you'll do the most in the open world, they also managed to refine the turn based combat to be rather gratifying and fun. A lot of the complaints I had with 7, i.e. AOE's being hard to pull off due to the AI deciding where to position your party members, an undercooked feeling job system, and exploitable attacks that felt poorly balanced, have been expanded upon and fleshed out.
You can now move your character during battle, so attacks are much easier to land as you are now in control of where you're positioned and can make adjustments accordingly.
Not only that, but the job system has been improved also.
Now there are a lot more centre's to change your job at for one, but they also went a long way to make the jobs feel more specified than before.
In 7 every job basically came down to "Move that hurts enemy but with a different animation" but now that enemies have a lot more weaknesses to exploit it makes the jobs a lot more vital.
Another issue 7's combat had was that whenever an item, for example a bike or a cone, was in between you or an enemy, your character would pick it up when doing a basic attack. The problem being that you could not control where or when this happens due to the AI taking positioning into its own hands. Now you can simply move away from the item in order to do the attack you want.
It still isn't perfect though, doing a basic attack next to another party member will trigger a "tag team attack" of sorts. Basically an animation where both characters join together to punch the enemy. However with this new addition, it can be tough to try and land a basic attack if you want to do one as the tag team (and interactable items) may leave you with no room to properly position yourself.
A simple fix for this would be a button turning off the tag teams and item pick ups, thus making it a lot easier for the player to properly control what the character does.
THE WORLD
In the marketing they prized this game as being the biggest one they've made yet, and Hawaii certainly makes it feel so.
RGG went to great lengths to make Hawaii come to life, individuals you can greet and all have lives and hobbies, sun so bright that it becomes blinding at noon, a dynamic rain system which rears its at random (which the characters always had something to say about every time it happened)
Work, a lot of bloody work went into this and it shows.
I mentioned the bonds and drink links but they don't even scratch the surface of the content available on display here.
A delivery based reimagining of Crazy taxi, an entire Pokemon game, enough wacky substories to show up 100 other games, an animal crossing inspired island to build and improve on and more.
But my favourite out of all the side content is easily Kiryu's "bucket list"
I won't go into much detail but it's rare when the optional content is this vital in expanding upon overarching thesis of your game.
Quite honestly, if you removed this side of the game then the experience would've suffered greatly. Because the core mystery isn't the strongest this franchise has offered.
THE STORY
This game has gotten a bit of flack from long time fans. Saying that the actual plot itself is very messy in places and rushed in others, and loath I am to say this but it's undeniable that this is the truth.
It's not Game of Thrones Season 8 level of "Oh man, you guys rushed this" in fact the story has so many good scenes within it that pay off on years of character development that it feels like this ending was the plan for ages.
Often times the plot feels dragged out, a tad uninteresting and basic all things considered. But it has a very obvious heart and humility that I can't help but love.
Upon hitting credits I was left with the biggest grin imaginable, the ending sequence is something this series hasn't exactly gone to before.
It felt refreshing, small and above all it was so much fun.
"Fun", that's the word I would use to sum up this game.
There is nothing to distract from its unbridled optimism and joy, and it helps smooths over the lacking moments wholesale for me.
Ichiban Kasuga and Kazuma Kiryu had one hell of a road trip, one I won't be forgetting any time soon.
"If your heart's in the right place, that's all that matters."