Sebs
BACKER
116 reviews liked by Sebs
If not a little long winded, a very awesome and ineteresting wrap up to the main story of penacony. Super stoked for more.
Yappiest patch yet but good info and reveals. Also thank you Aventurive for coming home and making my life easier
Streets of Rage 2
1992
This is the best beat em up swag we could of had in its time
Streets of Rage 3
1994
Something just wasn't right idk man, also the soundtrack fell the fuck off
Final Fantasy
2021
(This review was made shortly after writing Strangers of Paradise's as well. Read that review first if you want to go through my FF reviews in order)
The game that started it all. A fantasy that was the final chance for one man to make the game he wanted.... And he did.
Final Fantasy 1 is an amazing game. Has an easy to follow story, a great collection of enemies with some of this best art used to bring them to life, and some of the best music that still gets new renditions to this day. It's been many years since this game first came out and thanks to Square Enix with the Pixel Remasters... this and 2 through 6 have a chance to easily bring in more fans in.
The story is as classic as you can get. The 4 elements are out of control and 4 brave adventures arrive with a dimmed crystal each to purify the altars of each element to restore balance and save the world. This time however, you get to chose who the heroes are between a Thief, Warrior, Black Mage, White Mage, Monk, and Red Mage. Each providing something different to the table so you gotta pick think what you'll do. (Mine was a Thief, Monk, White Mage, and Red Mage)
Combat is pretty good and was revolutionary for the time. Turned based with both the enemy party and your party on the screen duking it out. Magic works similarly to DnD with spell slots. Run out of slots and you can't cast anymore. There are tons of different spells, weapons, and armor that can change the tide of battle with even equipment not equipped having spells tied to them as a one time use so none spell casters can cast if need be.
Now gameplay for story... well if you played a game back in the 90s or have heard about how they played I sure hope you are prepared to just wonder about and write down info you see mentioned that could be important. Of course there are guides out now but if you want the original experience I recommend having a way to take notes nearby. I got lost a few times but eventually got on the right path and continued on without to much trouble. You will need to grind a few times so just be ready for that. Somethings are just vague for story but it helps with the world to an extent.
Now for additions given to the Pixel Remasters. The game has had all it's original bugs fixed, a brand new arrangement to the songs are available or you can play with the NES original version, a bestiary is included so you can keep up with all the enemies you've taken down in your journey to save the world, a Booster option to boost money or exp if you so chose or you can lower how much you get to make it harder, a music player to hear just the music from the arrangement and the original whenever you want, and my personal favorite, an art gallery that shows all the concept art for the original game including art done for anniversaries.
All in All. Final Fantasy 1 is a nice benchmark for the series and paved the way for many JRPGs to come. I highly recommend giving this game a go to see Final Fantasy's beginnings.
The game that started it all. A fantasy that was the final chance for one man to make the game he wanted.... And he did.
Final Fantasy 1 is an amazing game. Has an easy to follow story, a great collection of enemies with some of this best art used to bring them to life, and some of the best music that still gets new renditions to this day. It's been many years since this game first came out and thanks to Square Enix with the Pixel Remasters... this and 2 through 6 have a chance to easily bring in more fans in.
The story is as classic as you can get. The 4 elements are out of control and 4 brave adventures arrive with a dimmed crystal each to purify the altars of each element to restore balance and save the world. This time however, you get to chose who the heroes are between a Thief, Warrior, Black Mage, White Mage, Monk, and Red Mage. Each providing something different to the table so you gotta pick think what you'll do. (Mine was a Thief, Monk, White Mage, and Red Mage)
Combat is pretty good and was revolutionary for the time. Turned based with both the enemy party and your party on the screen duking it out. Magic works similarly to DnD with spell slots. Run out of slots and you can't cast anymore. There are tons of different spells, weapons, and armor that can change the tide of battle with even equipment not equipped having spells tied to them as a one time use so none spell casters can cast if need be.
Now gameplay for story... well if you played a game back in the 90s or have heard about how they played I sure hope you are prepared to just wonder about and write down info you see mentioned that could be important. Of course there are guides out now but if you want the original experience I recommend having a way to take notes nearby. I got lost a few times but eventually got on the right path and continued on without to much trouble. You will need to grind a few times so just be ready for that. Somethings are just vague for story but it helps with the world to an extent.
Now for additions given to the Pixel Remasters. The game has had all it's original bugs fixed, a brand new arrangement to the songs are available or you can play with the NES original version, a bestiary is included so you can keep up with all the enemies you've taken down in your journey to save the world, a Booster option to boost money or exp if you so chose or you can lower how much you get to make it harder, a music player to hear just the music from the arrangement and the original whenever you want, and my personal favorite, an art gallery that shows all the concept art for the original game including art done for anniversaries.
All in All. Final Fantasy 1 is a nice benchmark for the series and paved the way for many JRPGs to come. I highly recommend giving this game a go to see Final Fantasy's beginnings.
Besiege
2020
This game is as fun as your problem solving skills allow you to get with it. Yeah you can probably scrap together a hunk of junk to runover 2 guys for the mission. But what if you made a hot air balloon with a claw machine claw on it and picked the guys up one at a time and drop them from 600ft.
Doing challenges like minimum pieces or trying to use a single vehicle for multiple challenges is a treat. Unfortunately the creativity is going to be lost on some people, but that's how it is with your average gamer.
If there was something more as far as a story, a more extensive soundtrack, etc. I'd probably whip out the 5th star, but the gameplay loop is a blast for those who will mesh with the creative systems.
Doing challenges like minimum pieces or trying to use a single vehicle for multiple challenges is a treat. Unfortunately the creativity is going to be lost on some people, but that's how it is with your average gamer.
If there was something more as far as a story, a more extensive soundtrack, etc. I'd probably whip out the 5th star, but the gameplay loop is a blast for those who will mesh with the creative systems.
This review contains spoilers
Being a fan of the final fantasy series. I wanted to at least give each game its fair share to see what exactly they all have that special to them. Which is why it's funny enough that I am starting with one of the newer titles that is a prequel to the original game.
In concept Stranger of Paradise is an interesting attempt to give a story to the character Jack Garland who spoiler alert, is the first boss of final fantasy one. So there's not a lot you can try to come up with there. But to their credit Square Enix and Team Ninja tried to at least do something.
The problem is it's very hard to get attached to a character that in the original game exists and gets defeated by 4 level 5 characters. Throughout the entire time with the story, I found it very hard to believe that this guy is the same person that I had to fight in the chaos shrine within the first maybe half an hour of final fantasy one.
I played through the whole game with a friend and tried to keep an open mind to the story and to try and let it all get into my head. So I could have my own opinions and see how good this story could possibly be. The only words I can say before I come back to it is anyone who says that Jack Garland is the best protagonist we have ever had in final fantasy is a liar. The story felt like it was beating me over the head for even trying to understand it and really only became good within the final hour maybe.
Combat wise the game is incredibly fun. Setting up classes however you want. Each having different abilities that make them viable and combing abilities from some classes makes the experience even more fun. For example, I played Dark Knight which allowed you to use your health to deal more damage so a risk vs reward. I would then add in abilities from other classes to recover HP so I wouldn't lose as much.
Graphically the game looks great. Each location is based off a location from all the past final fantasies up to that point so from 1 to 15, each places has a location tied to it. It was a love letter in the sense. Each location also used a motif from the original games so you could have part of the original song included in and it sounded so good. My favorite was 15's rep.
Now the actual story. The entire time you're getting these moments that are supposed to make Jack and his comrades seem as though they know each other very well but we never get to see them actually do anything together, and all these are just weird moments that make no sense until the very end. And even then it's still done poorly to the point that you still don't understand.
The game ends how you expect if you've played Final Fantasy. Jack has to become Chaos. However, the way in which they do was interesting, but feel flat for me. You find out that basically the world of Final Fantasy is being reset by another race of people to keep trying to balance light and dark within it to help with their own world??? It was kinda vague even then. And Jack has been sent in multiple times to keep the balance. By the time you take control of him, he has secretly set in motion the means to stop this reset and to have the world act in its own way and can't be controlled anymore.
The plan of course being, become Chaos. But due to the world being reset, they keep losing their memories. So Jack gets someone on the inside and basically says, "Hey, lead me and I will make sure this doesn't happen again." The rest of the party slowly gets their memories back but it takes Jack the longest to get it back so for the entire game you're as in the dark as he is. The second to last mission has the party remember what to do and fight Jack so he can kill them and regain more memories and corrupt himself to become chaos as you are now forced to kill your comrades which maybe would've made someone emotional but because of how it is handled you're kinda meh about it.
The final mission itself has you go and blast your way through the chaos shrine to go and take the fight back to the lufenians to take the world of FF1 back. You invade and fight Darkness Manifest which is Amano's art of Chaos turned into a 3D model and it looks fantastic. The game ends with Jack taking up the mantle of Chaos, his "friends" becoming the 4 fiends, and them saying we'll train the warriors of light ourselves as the game fades to black and begins the timeloop before cutting ahead the beginning of FF1 with Jack, officially in the Garland armor sitting on the throne in the chaos shrine as the Warrior of Light and his party enter. You see them wrapped in light before.... and I'm not joking... fucking Frank Sinatra's My Way starts playing and credits role.
The moment the credits hit, the bits I was starting to enjoy and even looking forward to immediately turned sour. I felt angry, annoyed, and felt like I was played for even trying to enjoy the story.
All in all. Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origins is great with combat, cool outfits, but horribly captured characters that have no reasons for you to care about them till it's to late and a story that beats you up for trying to understand it.
I can not in good faith recommend this game unless you just want to ignore the story and beat the shit out of stuff.
While there is DLC for it I'm not sure when I'll get to it after how the story made me feel. But when I do this review will be updated.
In concept Stranger of Paradise is an interesting attempt to give a story to the character Jack Garland who spoiler alert, is the first boss of final fantasy one. So there's not a lot you can try to come up with there. But to their credit Square Enix and Team Ninja tried to at least do something.
The problem is it's very hard to get attached to a character that in the original game exists and gets defeated by 4 level 5 characters. Throughout the entire time with the story, I found it very hard to believe that this guy is the same person that I had to fight in the chaos shrine within the first maybe half an hour of final fantasy one.
I played through the whole game with a friend and tried to keep an open mind to the story and to try and let it all get into my head. So I could have my own opinions and see how good this story could possibly be. The only words I can say before I come back to it is anyone who says that Jack Garland is the best protagonist we have ever had in final fantasy is a liar. The story felt like it was beating me over the head for even trying to understand it and really only became good within the final hour maybe.
Combat wise the game is incredibly fun. Setting up classes however you want. Each having different abilities that make them viable and combing abilities from some classes makes the experience even more fun. For example, I played Dark Knight which allowed you to use your health to deal more damage so a risk vs reward. I would then add in abilities from other classes to recover HP so I wouldn't lose as much.
Graphically the game looks great. Each location is based off a location from all the past final fantasies up to that point so from 1 to 15, each places has a location tied to it. It was a love letter in the sense. Each location also used a motif from the original games so you could have part of the original song included in and it sounded so good. My favorite was 15's rep.
Now the actual story. The entire time you're getting these moments that are supposed to make Jack and his comrades seem as though they know each other very well but we never get to see them actually do anything together, and all these are just weird moments that make no sense until the very end. And even then it's still done poorly to the point that you still don't understand.
The game ends how you expect if you've played Final Fantasy. Jack has to become Chaos. However, the way in which they do was interesting, but feel flat for me. You find out that basically the world of Final Fantasy is being reset by another race of people to keep trying to balance light and dark within it to help with their own world??? It was kinda vague even then. And Jack has been sent in multiple times to keep the balance. By the time you take control of him, he has secretly set in motion the means to stop this reset and to have the world act in its own way and can't be controlled anymore.
The plan of course being, become Chaos. But due to the world being reset, they keep losing their memories. So Jack gets someone on the inside and basically says, "Hey, lead me and I will make sure this doesn't happen again." The rest of the party slowly gets their memories back but it takes Jack the longest to get it back so for the entire game you're as in the dark as he is. The second to last mission has the party remember what to do and fight Jack so he can kill them and regain more memories and corrupt himself to become chaos as you are now forced to kill your comrades which maybe would've made someone emotional but because of how it is handled you're kinda meh about it.
The final mission itself has you go and blast your way through the chaos shrine to go and take the fight back to the lufenians to take the world of FF1 back. You invade and fight Darkness Manifest which is Amano's art of Chaos turned into a 3D model and it looks fantastic. The game ends with Jack taking up the mantle of Chaos, his "friends" becoming the 4 fiends, and them saying we'll train the warriors of light ourselves as the game fades to black and begins the timeloop before cutting ahead the beginning of FF1 with Jack, officially in the Garland armor sitting on the throne in the chaos shrine as the Warrior of Light and his party enter. You see them wrapped in light before.... and I'm not joking... fucking Frank Sinatra's My Way starts playing and credits role.
The moment the credits hit, the bits I was starting to enjoy and even looking forward to immediately turned sour. I felt angry, annoyed, and felt like I was played for even trying to enjoy the story.
All in all. Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origins is great with combat, cool outfits, but horribly captured characters that have no reasons for you to care about them till it's to late and a story that beats you up for trying to understand it.
I can not in good faith recommend this game unless you just want to ignore the story and beat the shit out of stuff.
While there is DLC for it I'm not sure when I'll get to it after how the story made me feel. But when I do this review will be updated.
Dragon's Dogma II
2024
What did I even want out of Dragons Dogma 2? I began this game with a severe sense of disappointment, frustrated that it wasnt something “more”. But Im glad the game has a much greater sense of itself than I did, unwaveringly retaining its unorthodox core with a much more grand presentation. When I get over myself, I see theres just as much here to love as the first game - I would be ungrateful to not appreciate its weird and rare nature.
However it must be said that I hate these characters and their side quests and Im glad half of them are sitting in the NPC Lost And Found (the morgue). I would have liked a slightly less vast open world full of nothing but caves and aged beast skags, but I had the most fun carrying pots down ancient cliff faces than I did trying to council Hugo on how to live his life after being a bandit patsy (with that council being "Ill throw you off the cliff myself")
However it must be said that I hate these characters and their side quests and Im glad half of them are sitting in the NPC Lost And Found (the morgue). I would have liked a slightly less vast open world full of nothing but caves and aged beast skags, but I had the most fun carrying pots down ancient cliff faces than I did trying to council Hugo on how to live his life after being a bandit patsy (with that council being "Ill throw you off the cliff myself")
Overall, this is an incredible game with an extremely interesting way of going about solving the mystery of the Obra Dinn. As you happen upon different threads and start pulling, you start to realize that even though you're following an overarching plot of the major events on the ship, you're quickly pulled into individual plotlines as you try to identify each character and what ultimately happens to them. You find yourself becoming invested in each scene, slowly starting to go from a very superficial view of just the victim to paying more attention to details the game has been hiding in plain sight from the beginning. It quickly becomes very satisfying to see the book filled out with everything you figured out, regardless of how you reached the outcome because of the plethora of ways to reach one solution. For the full time I was playing, I became fully immersed in the world and found it easy to start pulling at strings and following them without realizing how much time had passed. It's a pretty perfectly structured game that lets you unravel the mystery at your own pace and is presented in such a way that even the ultimately straightforward story is extremely interesting.
Balatro
2024
This might just be one of the most addicting video games I've ever played. I picked this game up to keep myself busy while waiting for something else to release in a few days, and honestly if that game didn't come out I would have really spiraled deep into Balatro. I don't think I've experienced such a passing of time since reading my favorite stories, or binge watching my favorite shows for the first time. I would start a round at a reasonable 7pm and suddenly it was 1am on a work night.
I'm still wrapping up some other soloplayer content right now but I hope to return to this funny deckbuilding roguelike very soon after. Hopefully I'll approach it in a healthier way, because dear god. Guess that scary realism should really be a testament to how good it is though.
I cannot however give it a perfect score, as much as the gameplay loop definitely deserves it and the accessibility aspect of it also does, I just feel there are a couple things this game is still missing to give it more visual replayability. Along with that, I also believe this game suffers from its soundtrack and sound effects. Most if not everyone will be muting either just the music, or the entire game very shortly into their experience with it. But gameplay loop wise, excellent. Awesome job, and I really have no issue just listening to my own music while I play it so at the end I really do not care.
I'm still wrapping up some other soloplayer content right now but I hope to return to this funny deckbuilding roguelike very soon after. Hopefully I'll approach it in a healthier way, because dear god. Guess that scary realism should really be a testament to how good it is though.
I cannot however give it a perfect score, as much as the gameplay loop definitely deserves it and the accessibility aspect of it also does, I just feel there are a couple things this game is still missing to give it more visual replayability. Along with that, I also believe this game suffers from its soundtrack and sound effects. Most if not everyone will be muting either just the music, or the entire game very shortly into their experience with it. But gameplay loop wise, excellent. Awesome job, and I really have no issue just listening to my own music while I play it so at the end I really do not care.
12 lists liked by Sebs
by Rowl_ |
10 Games
by Smicklensmoot |
75 Games
by FinalGambit |
30 Games
by ZettaZeptogram |
30 Games
by Smicklensmoot |
30 Games
by EarlyUpLate |
30 Games
by Mewtsukki |
29 Games
by wheatie |
30 Games
by _YALP |
36 Games