Sandonoval
2023
more like alan sleep
waiting for an entry in the genre that is any more compelling than Recettear was in 2007
the sense of progression in this game is very flat; unforgivable for an economy game
the sense of progression in this game is very flat; unforgivable for an economy game
2024
Reviewing again; the weekly updates do just enough to keep me playing. It's an alright popcorn game.
2024
i feel like i reached the bottom of this games depth within, 6 hours.
1999
This game has so many interesting underlying ideas that were extremely ahead of its time. Are they the best implementations of these ideas? No. Is the game playable? Barely.
An enterprising game developer could find a lot to steal from, here.
An enterprising game developer could find a lot to steal from, here.
rip toriyama but dq has always been way too dry and vanilla for me
2017
This is the fantasy of FF7's materia system, made flesh. Frankly more RPGs should just plagiarize their scaling mechanics from zachtronics games wholesale.
2023
+ The npc bio writing is oddly very strong! Poignant, and terse; I felt very motivated to click on everybody and read a little two sentence life story, in a way that the likes of baldurs gate 3 or <any fallout> absolutely fail to do.
-job system is extremely dry and boring. so many things wrong with it. just steal from FFT if you can't be bothered to do it right.
-narrative driving force is non-existent; this is just a collection of 8 character arcs that are totally unrelated to each other
-as such, the texture of playing the game is much like hitting speedbumps over and over, as you get a new character and have to train them up from 0 again (and if you play their initial chapters, that's basically a whole hour where the net power level of your ACTUAL party has ZERO delta!!)
-whats the point in having 8 characters if i can only ever use 4 of them. this is a problem thats been solved for 20 years, embarassing to stumble into it again.
if you're going to invest a bunch of time / money into developing a character the feeling i get when i pick one up can't be:
1) great another bench warmer
or 2) make me feel negatively about replacing another character that i've already put a bunch of levels into
bunch of other mechanical issues with it that are deeply annoying but are too nitty gritty to want to get into here, and the character stories are simply not good enough (and often not good at all) to cover for it.
-job system is extremely dry and boring. so many things wrong with it. just steal from FFT if you can't be bothered to do it right.
-narrative driving force is non-existent; this is just a collection of 8 character arcs that are totally unrelated to each other
-as such, the texture of playing the game is much like hitting speedbumps over and over, as you get a new character and have to train them up from 0 again (and if you play their initial chapters, that's basically a whole hour where the net power level of your ACTUAL party has ZERO delta!!)
-whats the point in having 8 characters if i can only ever use 4 of them. this is a problem thats been solved for 20 years, embarassing to stumble into it again.
if you're going to invest a bunch of time / money into developing a character the feeling i get when i pick one up can't be:
1) great another bench warmer
or 2) make me feel negatively about replacing another character that i've already put a bunch of levels into
bunch of other mechanical issues with it that are deeply annoying but are too nitty gritty to want to get into here, and the character stories are simply not good enough (and often not good at all) to cover for it.
2010
emperor has no clothes
2021
nintendo gets away with murder again, and by murder i mean egregious self-plagiarism that the public somehow guzzles up uncritically for the 10th time in a row. these are the same reheated mechanics that you've seen since super metroid, verbatim. it's incredible. you're going to chew through this entire game and not taste one single new idea, and by the end you're going to realize that you're no fuller (or hungrier) for the experience. a complete net neutral.
also fighting the same robot nemesis enemy (and the preceding eyeball boss) in excess of what, six, seven times over the course of the game is fucking insane
also fighting the same robot nemesis enemy (and the preceding eyeball boss) in excess of what, six, seven times over the course of the game is fucking insane
every time i play a kirby i am like 'maybe this time it wont be a game for little babies'. i am kind of like an idiot who keeps pressing the same button
i think probably the best vanilla 2d metroidvania out there; some pretty good boss fights too. definitely better than anything nintendo has put out in the genre.
unfortunately best in subgenre ultimately caps out at: 'it's fine'.
unfortunately best in subgenre ultimately caps out at: 'it's fine'.
The immediacy and lack of fanfare with which EO throws you into party creation, and then into the game's core loop -- is pretty remarkable! I think more games should take cues from this -- I certainly will for my own work.
2009
The purpose of all great works of art is to prepare oneself for death.
Went into this game completely blind -- from a mechanics/scaling point of view the first 10-15 hours are incredibly joyful. You have a huge number of provocatively named menu items, each of which promise some extremely atypical (for a jrpg) reward. What do you mean my character can study Penmanship and Sketching -- and wait, if she exhibits mastery over both she can start a Publication? What does that even mean???!!!
Every time you get XP and unlock something new in this game, it's like a dozen jack in the boxes popping off, and some of it is genuinely pretty interesting.
Unfortunately it falls apart under its own weight -- meaningful decision-making disintegrates when you get enough ways to maximize XP growth; then the menus just become bubble wrap.
Still, knowing that a bunch of these mechanics were in the 1998 version of the game is like learning an ancient civilization mastered metallurgy centuries before anyone else -- extremely ahead of its time. If I played this at a more malleable age, I would probably have 20 percent more brain worms, easy.
Every time you get XP and unlock something new in this game, it's like a dozen jack in the boxes popping off, and some of it is genuinely pretty interesting.
Unfortunately it falls apart under its own weight -- meaningful decision-making disintegrates when you get enough ways to maximize XP growth; then the menus just become bubble wrap.
Still, knowing that a bunch of these mechanics were in the 1998 version of the game is like learning an ancient civilization mastered metallurgy centuries before anyone else -- extremely ahead of its time. If I played this at a more malleable age, I would probably have 20 percent more brain worms, easy.