This is one of the most frustrating games I've played. The core concept of defending towns from rampaging giants is cool and can be fun in short bursts. The story is pretty bland but the characters actually manage to be fairly likeable.

That's where the positives end. The gameplay never evolves beyond introducing more frustrating enemy types as the game progresses. The controls are really bad, the main character is very slippery and will often get stuck on geometry or in the armpit of one of the monsters. Combat against the smaller enemies is just tedious button-mashing. Some later enemy types wear armor that must be removed to defeat them but the requirements to break the armor are really annoying and rely on the very spotty enemy AI doing certain attacks. Overall, despite a decent concept a lack of polish ruins the game.

A really good sequel. It may not reinvent the wheel but the core is so good and what improvements it does make really enhance the gameplay. The improvements to stealth in particular have made it a lot more satisfying.

The story is also pretty good, although it's not perfect. In particular, I thought that the enemy factions could have been handled better. They probably should have shown Roxxon trying to do bad things more often. Some side missions where you have to save Underground members or regular civilians from Roxxon would have helped. As it is, Roxxon is definitely the greater evil but you fight the Underground way more. Fortunately things were still handled with a decent amount of nuance so I can't complain too much.

I don't want to be too harsh on this since it was made by a small studio but this is just not good. Walking is painfully slow, the few puzzles are pathetically easy, the graphics aren't very impressive, and the story and voice acting are embarrassingly bad. Nobody acts like a real human being and the way the plot played out reminded me of The Room. Hands down the most enjoyable scene involves the main character killing about a dozen gargoyles one by one simply by walking into them. It doesn't make anymore sense in context.

I was surprised by how much I disliked this game. The graphics are amazing and the combat can be fun sometimes but those are the only real positives here. While there are quite a few thoughtfully designed combat encounters, the game is also full of boring or pointless ones as well.

Between fights there are also long stretches of uneventful, paper-thin "exploration" that drag on for way too long or the occasional forgettable puzzle. Occasionally you will fight werewolves but the mechanics are pretty bad. Either a couple werewolves will take turns charging at you, giving you ample time to dodge and shoot them as they run away or you fight them in a QTE.

The story is also pretty nonsensical and would be resolved very quickly if people would just explain things to each other. The Order has one of the most unlikeable casts of characters that I've ever encountered. Pretty much everyone sucks for various reasons and Galahad is one of the worst protagonists I've seen in a while. Multiple missions involve murdering innocent people because "there's no other way" which reaches its nadir in one mission which involves trying to save a zeppelin by hijacking it and murdering the innocent guards before the rebels can I guess? It also has an unsatisfying ending that blatantly sets up a sequel that will never happen.

One of my favorite games of all time and definitely my favorite RPG. The turn-based battle system is really well-done and allows for a good amount of strategy and decision making during encounters. The Sphere Grid is an interesting progression system that allows you to develop characters as you see fit while still giving them unique niches in the party. Blitzball is also a fantastic minigame.

I really love the story and characters as well. Some of the characters are a little divisive but I think they're all interesting and they all get time to shine and have decent arcs. I think Wakka in particular has a pretty interesting character arc. The world of Spira still looks really good to this day and it's a well fleshed-out setting with a distinctive look and feel.

Overall, this game is pretty good. I'm a huge Star Wars fan and I love the Complete Saga so I tried to temper my expectations for this game. I knew it could never live up to the version of the game that I can imagine without the limits of time, resources, or practicality.

It's definitely not perfect. The levels are very short, most of them are vehicle levels and are over in a matter of minutes. The concept of character classes is interesting but the implementation is a bit off. A lot of the old abilities are gone and the new abilities are shoehorned onto characters just because they broadly fit into a class even if it doesn't make sense for them.

But in the end those don't detract from the experience too much and I understand that concessions had to be made. Where the game really shines is in the open world and attention to detail. All the planets are fun to explore and brimming with detail. You can tell a lot of care was put into it. The character roster is massive and full of obscure characters like Mister Bones and Jubnuk that is a real treat for diehard fans.

The combat system is also surprisingly fun, although most encounters are so easy you don't get many opportunities to dig into it. The humor and writing were pretty on point. While obviously geared to a young audience, I still got a chuckle out of it pretty often. It's a great game, just don't go in with sky-high expectations.

Hey everybody, for real, playing to frustrate each other is not a fun way to play because we're all on the same team and that team is to have fun together and to make it fun for all our audiences. And so when people make plays just to frustrate each other and just to troll each other, there's enough of that in the world today, of people trolling each other just to be mean and to be hurtful, and if we're gonna play in this space together we need to do it because we want each other to have fun and not because we're trying to frustrate each other, cause there's enough frustrating things in the world right now and there's enough we can't control, and one of the things we can control is that everyone is here to have fun and not waste each others' time and so when we make decisions that are meant to troll each other, that's something that bad people do.