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Yakuza 5 Remastered
2019
a genuinely weird, sprawling game even by this franchise’s standards, completely segmented and convoluted in its narrative and still somehow the most emotionally powerful entry this series has been for me since playing Yakuza 0. the extra time afforded to each character and their story (as compared to Yakuza 4) gives the game proper time to let you really settle in with these people and their world before bringing down the hammer hard in Kamurocho, a much better approach to this multiple protagonists conceit even if much of the narrative detail gets lost in the mix. combining this with this game’s genuine dedication to actual personal stakes (no rubber bullets here!) makes the inevitable finale team up feel that much more emotionally rewarding and sincerely saddening. Haruka and Shinada especially get genuinely incredible, accomplished sections about the price of dedication and art in the face of total ruin, could easily have played entire games with them (Shinada Gaiden when?). and not even to mention the minigames this time around, it’s so clear that this is the game they made before 0 because the same truly mind boggling dedication to each side story here is both admirable and bizarre in equal measure, even if not all of it lands (hunting). it’s overwhelming to throw three new cities into the mix this late into the series but to make up for it they all feel actually lived in and detailed (in part due to these minigames filling out the space) in the exact same ways Kamurocho or Osaka are. a genuinely incredible game even when it feels like it shouldn’t be. easily the best of the non Dragon Engine titles, easily my favorite ending of the franchise
played for the first time due to this project being a 60fps port (i shouldnt be picky about my framerates but early 3d games feel very off for me without it). more zeldas should be like this one i think.
I think the impulse to describe Crabs Treasure as merely a Soulslike is understandable given the somewhat divisive nature of the Souls style difficulty curve - but in truth Crabs Treasure is just as much a PS2 era 3D platformer as it is a challenging action RPG. This fusion is so unexpectedly seamless that its actually kind of difficult to distinguish at first, but when youre unlocking an ability that lets you break purple cubes that have been blocking passages in the past 3 zones and now youre backtracking through levels to collect pink upgrade crystals the experience is unmistakable.
And unlike most contemporary Soulslike titles that determine iteration on the genre means stapling more systems onto the side of the combat experience, Crabs Treasures combination of genres genuinely synthesizes novel gameplay experiences unseen or unrealized even by the Souls games themselves. You ever wanted a boss that truly roams an entire level and acts as a stage hazard in addition to a thrilling Souls fight? Well guess what nerd, the silly crab game is the one that pulled it off - and it might have even pulled it off because its a silly crab game thats slightly less beholden to the confines of realism.
Bonus Thoughts:
- The humor here is kind of tone deaf. Balancing serious with funny is for sure challenging but Aggro Crab makes their gambles with just emphatically bad jokes half the time.
-Swomps not in the game
- Slightly less serious Soulslike means slightly less serious about making sure things like input buffers are tight and unobtrusive, and therefore an occasionally more frustrating game to take seriously.
And unlike most contemporary Soulslike titles that determine iteration on the genre means stapling more systems onto the side of the combat experience, Crabs Treasures combination of genres genuinely synthesizes novel gameplay experiences unseen or unrealized even by the Souls games themselves. You ever wanted a boss that truly roams an entire level and acts as a stage hazard in addition to a thrilling Souls fight? Well guess what nerd, the silly crab game is the one that pulled it off - and it might have even pulled it off because its a silly crab game thats slightly less beholden to the confines of realism.
Bonus Thoughts:
- The humor here is kind of tone deaf. Balancing serious with funny is for sure challenging but Aggro Crab makes their gambles with just emphatically bad jokes half the time.
-
- Slightly less serious Soulslike means slightly less serious about making sure things like input buffers are tight and unobtrusive, and therefore an occasionally more frustrating game to take seriously.
Due to the massive popularity of rolling random shit up, the fans have requested for even more shit to be recycled. The King then forms para social relationships with everyone in order to bolster his own ego.
So Anyways, We Love Katamari is such a short and charming game. The amount of dopamine I get for rolling up all the haters in the world is astounding. Nothing brings me more joy then reforming the universe via balls. This is a very simple game to get into, but incredibly difficult to master. The controls are VERY unique, however they can sometimes be the biggest obstacle for newcomers. Having to use both joysticks to move the ball around and push it with little camera control can be hard for those who never played a Katamari game before. I think its one of the things that makes it so fun to play as well strangely enough. Its a bit of a challenge to master how to play this game, and once you can every level can become a cakewalk. it's very rewarding to be able to roll up stuff even quicker because of this patience to learn the mechanics and the level layout. This game plays like one of those "very satisfying" videos where someone has a glue ball and starts rolling up glitter and shit. I love having visual stimulation by seeing giant balls get bigger.
The visual style is honestly so dang charming to me, it gives me the vibe of one of those insane Japanese commercials. It's frantic/over the top with every cutscene and visual. The best is when you find something extremely silly in the levels themselves. Running into different whacky elements brings such a fun distraction as you roll up children away from their families only to later be united together inside THE GREAT SPHERICAL ONE!!!!
Katamari has good replay ability to pick up whenever. This is due to how levels can be very short with some only being about 3 minutes to a max of 20 minutes. Being able to hit up a level again and trying to out due your previous time and size can feel so rewarding. I personally liked playing this game while watching something in the background, this is because I found levels so easy to guide me on paths of where I need to go. Despite the timer feeling like it should pressure me more, the game does a good job of laying out items that help direct you towards both growth and the goal.
on a last quick note, the extra challenge modes in Royal Reverie expansion were super neat, however felt like it was a lot of the same. I do recommend checking them out if you play, but just be warned of the difficulty with some levels.
I recommend anyone to try this game, even if the controls push you away a bit. It's a short and easy game to get into and finish within a few days. Always push on and roll yourself a big ol' star to make The King proud.
So Anyways, We Love Katamari is such a short and charming game. The amount of dopamine I get for rolling up all the haters in the world is astounding. Nothing brings me more joy then reforming the universe via balls. This is a very simple game to get into, but incredibly difficult to master. The controls are VERY unique, however they can sometimes be the biggest obstacle for newcomers. Having to use both joysticks to move the ball around and push it with little camera control can be hard for those who never played a Katamari game before. I think its one of the things that makes it so fun to play as well strangely enough. Its a bit of a challenge to master how to play this game, and once you can every level can become a cakewalk. it's very rewarding to be able to roll up stuff even quicker because of this patience to learn the mechanics and the level layout. This game plays like one of those "very satisfying" videos where someone has a glue ball and starts rolling up glitter and shit. I love having visual stimulation by seeing giant balls get bigger.
The visual style is honestly so dang charming to me, it gives me the vibe of one of those insane Japanese commercials. It's frantic/over the top with every cutscene and visual. The best is when you find something extremely silly in the levels themselves. Running into different whacky elements brings such a fun distraction as you roll up children away from their families only to later be united together inside THE GREAT SPHERICAL ONE!!!!
Katamari has good replay ability to pick up whenever. This is due to how levels can be very short with some only being about 3 minutes to a max of 20 minutes. Being able to hit up a level again and trying to out due your previous time and size can feel so rewarding. I personally liked playing this game while watching something in the background, this is because I found levels so easy to guide me on paths of where I need to go. Despite the timer feeling like it should pressure me more, the game does a good job of laying out items that help direct you towards both growth and the goal.
on a last quick note, the extra challenge modes in Royal Reverie expansion were super neat, however felt like it was a lot of the same. I do recommend checking them out if you play, but just be warned of the difficulty with some levels.
I recommend anyone to try this game, even if the controls push you away a bit. It's a short and easy game to get into and finish within a few days. Always push on and roll yourself a big ol' star to make The King proud.
Convince a cult of sad peasants to join up in your way better and cooler cult, did we also mention we a have pool with 7 stone statues and a bar?
So anyways, Dragon Quest Builders 2 is a game I originally didn't expect too much out of. I expected a type of Minecraft clone with some Dragon Quest flair. However what I found was a story that helps to push those who have lost something, to find the courage to rebuild and keep going. Despite this being a crafting and building game like Minecraft, it chooses to focus itself on a story mode. You will go from island to island helping the inhabitants restore their home and former glory. Most have lost the will to build and survive anymore, many being pushed to abandon their homes and live in the wild or the ruins of before. While the story (at first) handles itself in a very mild way with the storytelling, as I got through more of the game it started to throw curve balls at me that I never expected. characters started to ask me questions for things I didn't have any real answers to. Situations came up where all I could do is just sit and watch with little control over the outcome. This game starts to make you existential...
Uuuuhhhhh...
so anyways...
The gameplay I found super neat where it feels more like town/base building. You can take on requests from the villagers and build specific types of rooms or buildings for them. The neat part is the fact that these rooms each serve a type of functionality that the inhabitants can interact with. Some help with cooking, some are personalized rooms for sleeping, and some help with farming. There's many different rooms and type combos to find and build, the game doesn't tell you all of them and leaves you to try and experiment with different blocks, decorations, and layouts. The combat is very basic and run of the mill "press X to swing sword" and all the bosses are just a single gimmick that you punish 3 times and win. The game has a great assortment of tools and decoration to build with, which is heavily well shown with how the loading screens will display the amazing creations that others have created.
I think Dragon Quest Builders 2 has a surprising amount of depth that I was not ready for. The game picks up immensely in the second half. even with the first half not being as crazy, I think its still worth checking out this very charming game.
So anyways, Dragon Quest Builders 2 is a game I originally didn't expect too much out of. I expected a type of Minecraft clone with some Dragon Quest flair. However what I found was a story that helps to push those who have lost something, to find the courage to rebuild and keep going. Despite this being a crafting and building game like Minecraft, it chooses to focus itself on a story mode. You will go from island to island helping the inhabitants restore their home and former glory. Most have lost the will to build and survive anymore, many being pushed to abandon their homes and live in the wild or the ruins of before. While the story (at first) handles itself in a very mild way with the storytelling, as I got through more of the game it started to throw curve balls at me that I never expected. characters started to ask me questions for things I didn't have any real answers to. Situations came up where all I could do is just sit and watch with little control over the outcome. This game starts to make you existential...
Uuuuhhhhh...
so anyways...
The gameplay I found super neat where it feels more like town/base building. You can take on requests from the villagers and build specific types of rooms or buildings for them. The neat part is the fact that these rooms each serve a type of functionality that the inhabitants can interact with. Some help with cooking, some are personalized rooms for sleeping, and some help with farming. There's many different rooms and type combos to find and build, the game doesn't tell you all of them and leaves you to try and experiment with different blocks, decorations, and layouts. The combat is very basic and run of the mill "press X to swing sword" and all the bosses are just a single gimmick that you punish 3 times and win. The game has a great assortment of tools and decoration to build with, which is heavily well shown with how the loading screens will display the amazing creations that others have created.
I think Dragon Quest Builders 2 has a surprising amount of depth that I was not ready for. The game picks up immensely in the second half. even with the first half not being as crazy, I think its still worth checking out this very charming game.
Dragon Quest
2004
Hero saves princess, kills a demon lord, gets rizz
So Anyways, Dragon Quest... how do I even begin? This game has inspired more people over than many fantasy stories have before. The art style, the music, the gameplay. All of it brought together to make a new genre of gaming. while the game doesn't hold up as well with todays standards, it still has this simplistic groove to it that makes it shout "It was me !!!". This game started so many trends with rpg's its hard to count. This is of course all thanks to the countless people who helped make it.
The gameplay is as basic of rpg mechanics as you can get, and that makes sense since it started almost all of them. despite how the game is a grindy turn based rpg with little direction on how and what to do, you cant help but appreciate how it all started here. The grind can be rough, but manageable with how you can just watch something else while you play or even play it in small bursts like I did on my phone. The story is a very run of the mill basic fantasy story of "Hero saves princess, kills bad guy, gets married". This was a game on NES so I don't blame it for going for a short simple story. I do think the simplicity of everything is the charm for it. The music is also an incredible bop that I still love even now, though the music got very repetitive with how every battle encounter was THE SAME EXACT SONG. Its a great song but, with how much you u need to grind, it gets reeeeaaaalllllyyy tiring.
The big reason I played this game was due to the unfortunate passing of Akira Toriyama. His art give this game the personality it needed to shape this world into something truly goofy and whimsical. For example, for those who don't know, when it came to designing the iconic slime, it started off as a small pile of sludge on floor for its design. Toriyama saw the sketch and took and it made it into the happy little dew drop it is now, creating what is the main mascot of the series. He would take the plain and turn it into the creative. You helped make many wonderful things, thank you Toriyama. may you rest in peace always.
This is a really easy game to beat within 8 hours or less. it helps to find a guide if you can but I would recommend it for anyone who wants to see where it all begin or needs a quick and easy distraction.
So Anyways, Dragon Quest... how do I even begin? This game has inspired more people over than many fantasy stories have before. The art style, the music, the gameplay. All of it brought together to make a new genre of gaming. while the game doesn't hold up as well with todays standards, it still has this simplistic groove to it that makes it shout "It was me !!!". This game started so many trends with rpg's its hard to count. This is of course all thanks to the countless people who helped make it.
The gameplay is as basic of rpg mechanics as you can get, and that makes sense since it started almost all of them. despite how the game is a grindy turn based rpg with little direction on how and what to do, you cant help but appreciate how it all started here. The grind can be rough, but manageable with how you can just watch something else while you play or even play it in small bursts like I did on my phone. The story is a very run of the mill basic fantasy story of "Hero saves princess, kills bad guy, gets married". This was a game on NES so I don't blame it for going for a short simple story. I do think the simplicity of everything is the charm for it. The music is also an incredible bop that I still love even now, though the music got very repetitive with how every battle encounter was THE SAME EXACT SONG. Its a great song but, with how much you u need to grind, it gets reeeeaaaalllllyyy tiring.
The big reason I played this game was due to the unfortunate passing of Akira Toriyama. His art give this game the personality it needed to shape this world into something truly goofy and whimsical. For example, for those who don't know, when it came to designing the iconic slime, it started off as a small pile of sludge on floor for its design. Toriyama saw the sketch and took and it made it into the happy little dew drop it is now, creating what is the main mascot of the series. He would take the plain and turn it into the creative. You helped make many wonderful things, thank you Toriyama. may you rest in peace always.
This is a really easy game to beat within 8 hours or less. it helps to find a guide if you can but I would recommend it for anyone who wants to see where it all begin or needs a quick and easy distraction.
Animal Well
2024
This is one of those rare games where I think it's amazing and everyone should play it, but I also think it's incredibly overrated.
It's not groundbreaking or changing the genre in anyway, despite what all the reviews and hype seems to suggest. It's just a really, really good metroidvania that understands the genre perfectly. Its full of secrets that are fun to explore, and it really felt like I would rarely go the "wrong way".
That said, the only thing stopping this from being 5 stars is the save points system. It feels really out of place in a game like this, with such a focus on puzzles. Either spawning in the room you died in, like Celeste, or just having way more save points would have made this game so much easier to play - especially towards the end
It's not groundbreaking or changing the genre in anyway, despite what all the reviews and hype seems to suggest. It's just a really, really good metroidvania that understands the genre perfectly. Its full of secrets that are fun to explore, and it really felt like I would rarely go the "wrong way".
That said, the only thing stopping this from being 5 stars is the save points system. It feels really out of place in a game like this, with such a focus on puzzles. Either spawning in the room you died in, like Celeste, or just having way more save points would have made this game so much easier to play - especially towards the end
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")