Twilight_Shimmer
The Another Code/Trace Memory games tell the tales of Ashley as she discovers the truth of her parents across two games, alongside a young boy in each of them who also needs to find the truth about something, with themes of the importance of memories, loss, facing some hard truths and acceptance wrapped around the turmoils and drama of a teenager. Both of the original games are pretty dear to my heart and the first one a pretty formative one during my early teenage years.
In terms of the story, the first game is "mostly" untouched, and the touches and flourishes in certain aspects also come with drawbacks, but they always feel unnecesary considering the clean execution of the original story, at best the change in the order of events maintain the overall tone of the original at worst it gets rid of some of the mystery and hampers the flow. The second game is heavily changed with elements regarding the main antagonist, cutting some incidental characters and considering another element I'll mention later, it cuts the Wii game by around 40% or so. I can sum up what the major changes make to this story as leaving them way less surprising in terms of their mystery elements, which obviously doesn't affect me as much as I played the original titles, but I do think about how less interesting some elements are going to be presented to a new player in this remake.
The mystery element is pretty neutered but the themes of the story are mostly left untouched, I find the engame of R a bit more on the ridiculous side compared to the original but they still hit the key moments well enough, lack of subtlety in some moments aside, leaving the narrative as the most positive aspect of the game.
Presentation then is a mixed bag for me. The soundtracks were pretty distinct in the originals when it came to the instrumentation and their intent because of the contrasting tones of each title, the first one with a more sad, lonely melancholic atmosphere, while the second having a more of a summer vacation vibe with an adequate use of the more mysterious and melancholic tunes when that was necessary, and a smart use of arrangements of tunes from the first game also when needed, something that is lost in this remake, R no longer saves Emotions until the endgame and is now the standard puzzle theme across both games, and the arrangement given to that track is really lacking considering how unique the track originally is. The arrangements of the first game feel more bouncy and their lack of simplicity and different instrumentation by comparison make a track like the Edward Mansion lose its vibe. R's soundtrack survives the atmosphere part but there are tracks that feel like they were cut in my memory doesn't fail, plus what I already mentioned of the lack of the original game's music more so towards the end that funnily enough was something that tied both games together really well and is missing in this collection that ties the games even more with how it recontextualized some of the story beats.
The artstyle is something that would work better if Nintendo dared to give the same amount of love to every remake they produced, the models look clean but the enviroments have a lot of low res quality to them that I can't even be charitable about it and attempt to call it watercolor, it looks pretty plain and honestly in some ways worse than the originals, those games didn't seem to have much budget behind them on that front but they did a lot more to look timeless than Recollection does, with good use of the pre rendered backgrounds and character portraits on the DS, and the side scrolling movement mixed with more detailed 3D areas when exploration was necessary on the Wii.
So the story retains the themes for the most part at least, despite the change in order, the background of certain narrative beats and the lack of mystery in certain areas, and the presentation is mostly fine if mostly inferior to the original games, if those were my only issues with it, I would still easily recommend experiencing these unique stories with the atmosphere that they bring, but that is only half of what I valued from these games. Gameplay is the other half, and that has been pretty much butchered on most fronts.
The Another Code games were not only great titles for their interesting stories and characters, they were adventure games heavily elevated by the inventive puzzle design where they used every possible feature one could think of from the DS hardware and the Wii remote, and no effort has been made to translate a fraction of that magic in Recollection. There aren't any clever uses of the Joy-Cons or the hardware itself anymore, it boils down to a lot of simple puzzles based on observation. Each game has one gyroscope based puzzle, the controls of it being really janky which is weird in a Nintendo game at this point, but it goes along well with how terribly janky the camera gets in this game, something that really helped my immersion.
In the original game Ashley would have a quiz at the end of each chapter, a very easy one mind you but one that went along well with the themes of the game, that is gone, a quirk of Ashley that I always liked was her moments of being absent minded, she will get lost in her thoughts before a character would call out her name, that is gone.
My heart sank when the water pollution test was pretty much reduced to aiming the camera at a location in R. My cynical take on cutting a good percentage the second game is that it wasn't about improving the pacing or something like that but rather an easy way to not have to put any effort in making more puzzles to replace everything from the original.
The first game had 2 endings, to get the good one a decent amount of extra effort had to be put in the exploration and puzzle solving to uncover the whole story behind the Edwards, I'm not sure if that is still a thing in the remake but I got the good ending right away and I don't think I did anything special to get there beyond just exploring normally.
Been pretty harsh with this, but it comes from a place of love for this series, I can't in good conscience recommend these as the first way to experience Another Code, but something to be played only after that and this remake isn't what I would call essential to get even after that.
As an aside I'm really worried about how a Kyle Hyde collection will turn out now and honestly I would just rather have a new IP instead of having to critique how that is going to fare against the masterpieces that are the originals.
Also the captain doesn't give me candy anymore, that is where I really started to get worried about the changes.
In terms of the story, the first game is "mostly" untouched, and the touches and flourishes in certain aspects also come with drawbacks, but they always feel unnecesary considering the clean execution of the original story, at best the change in the order of events maintain the overall tone of the original at worst it gets rid of some of the mystery and hampers the flow. The second game is heavily changed with elements regarding the main antagonist, cutting some incidental characters and considering another element I'll mention later, it cuts the Wii game by around 40% or so. I can sum up what the major changes make to this story as leaving them way less surprising in terms of their mystery elements, which obviously doesn't affect me as much as I played the original titles, but I do think about how less interesting some elements are going to be presented to a new player in this remake.
The mystery element is pretty neutered but the themes of the story are mostly left untouched, I find the engame of R a bit more on the ridiculous side compared to the original but they still hit the key moments well enough, lack of subtlety in some moments aside, leaving the narrative as the most positive aspect of the game.
Presentation then is a mixed bag for me. The soundtracks were pretty distinct in the originals when it came to the instrumentation and their intent because of the contrasting tones of each title, the first one with a more sad, lonely melancholic atmosphere, while the second having a more of a summer vacation vibe with an adequate use of the more mysterious and melancholic tunes when that was necessary, and a smart use of arrangements of tunes from the first game also when needed, something that is lost in this remake, R no longer saves Emotions until the endgame and is now the standard puzzle theme across both games, and the arrangement given to that track is really lacking considering how unique the track originally is. The arrangements of the first game feel more bouncy and their lack of simplicity and different instrumentation by comparison make a track like the Edward Mansion lose its vibe. R's soundtrack survives the atmosphere part but there are tracks that feel like they were cut in my memory doesn't fail, plus what I already mentioned of the lack of the original game's music more so towards the end that funnily enough was something that tied both games together really well and is missing in this collection that ties the games even more with how it recontextualized some of the story beats.
The artstyle is something that would work better if Nintendo dared to give the same amount of love to every remake they produced, the models look clean but the enviroments have a lot of low res quality to them that I can't even be charitable about it and attempt to call it watercolor, it looks pretty plain and honestly in some ways worse than the originals, those games didn't seem to have much budget behind them on that front but they did a lot more to look timeless than Recollection does, with good use of the pre rendered backgrounds and character portraits on the DS, and the side scrolling movement mixed with more detailed 3D areas when exploration was necessary on the Wii.
So the story retains the themes for the most part at least, despite the change in order, the background of certain narrative beats and the lack of mystery in certain areas, and the presentation is mostly fine if mostly inferior to the original games, if those were my only issues with it, I would still easily recommend experiencing these unique stories with the atmosphere that they bring, but that is only half of what I valued from these games. Gameplay is the other half, and that has been pretty much butchered on most fronts.
The Another Code games were not only great titles for their interesting stories and characters, they were adventure games heavily elevated by the inventive puzzle design where they used every possible feature one could think of from the DS hardware and the Wii remote, and no effort has been made to translate a fraction of that magic in Recollection. There aren't any clever uses of the Joy-Cons or the hardware itself anymore, it boils down to a lot of simple puzzles based on observation. Each game has one gyroscope based puzzle, the controls of it being really janky which is weird in a Nintendo game at this point, but it goes along well with how terribly janky the camera gets in this game, something that really helped my immersion.
In the original game Ashley would have a quiz at the end of each chapter, a very easy one mind you but one that went along well with the themes of the game, that is gone, a quirk of Ashley that I always liked was her moments of being absent minded, she will get lost in her thoughts before a character would call out her name, that is gone.
My heart sank when the water pollution test was pretty much reduced to aiming the camera at a location in R. My cynical take on cutting a good percentage the second game is that it wasn't about improving the pacing or something like that but rather an easy way to not have to put any effort in making more puzzles to replace everything from the original.
The first game had 2 endings, to get the good one a decent amount of extra effort had to be put in the exploration and puzzle solving to uncover the whole story behind the Edwards, I'm not sure if that is still a thing in the remake but I got the good ending right away and I don't think I did anything special to get there beyond just exploring normally.
Been pretty harsh with this, but it comes from a place of love for this series, I can't in good conscience recommend these as the first way to experience Another Code, but something to be played only after that and this remake isn't what I would call essential to get even after that.
As an aside I'm really worried about how a Kyle Hyde collection will turn out now and honestly I would just rather have a new IP instead of having to critique how that is going to fare against the masterpieces that are the originals.
Also the captain doesn't give me candy anymore, that is where I really started to get worried about the changes.
2009
You have a heart of gold, don't let them take it from you.
Demon Souls (I never acknowledge the ‘s when saying the name out loud), is a game that ranges from a 7 to 10/10 moments back and forth, it makes sense given how experimental it is, successes, failures, but always memorable in some shape or form.
The world of Boletaria is pretty coo with all the ways that it pulls you into that world, the level layouts, how each area has its own type of natural shortcut, minimalist sound design, great art direction, the enemies and items you can find in each of them, gives each area a great sense of identity.
Something I really liked about the level design comes from the structure of the game, from the Nexus you can go to any of the 5 main areas, and while they are interconnected and could be done in a single run (besides the Arch demon gate to enter Boletaria-3), every boss fight acts as a checkpoint that you can warp to, so is kind of like a level separation within the connected world; this means that every “level” can be pretty different and throw at you different set pieces and the like, it makes each portion within the world of Demon Souls feel pretty unique, which brings its hits and misses, but it adds to that level of memorability and janky-ness that really ties Demon Souls together.
Boletaria-1 is pretty big and circles back to its start for the boss fight, 2 is a straight line to the boss, 3 is back to a bigger level with a shortcut, and 4 is basically a spiral upwards to its Arch Demon fight, just to exemplify the changes in design within a single main area.
The not winner part of the world of Demon Souls is Stonefang Tunnel, I can live without it, the atmosphere can be pretty boring, the boss fights are not really good (Armor Spider is pretty spammy and ends up feeling like something you have to brute force, Flamelurker is fine in theory but I found his speed and patterns don't really mesh well with the combat of Demon Souls, and the Arch Demon could have been more interesting, could have done more with the idea), and Stonefang-2 in particular is pretty bad both going the normal way and using the shortcut for the boss fight.
The opposite ends are Latria and Shrine of Storms, kino af areas in atmosphere and design, can put both in top areas in gaming.
Boss fight are on the whole pretty interesting, very few are essentialy the at this point design meme of dodges and hits that indies and the more recent From Soft games seem to push, most of them are essentially some form of puzzle, they make for a memorable experience, in terms of challenge ranging from easy, a relatively mild challenge and rather difficult, I appreciate them considering I'm not really fond of the combat in the game, I'm more into it for the exploration and adventure feel. The Arch Demons more than anything being the great example of unique bosses, and despite my issues with the combat, Boletaria's Arch Demon is a really, really good fight.
The game can be quite difficult in its actual levels tho, but almost never unfair, and the format of choosing which level to do past the tutorial is a way for the game to help you as long as you pay attention and are willing to explore, very often you'll find useful NPCs across the starting levels of each area, and equipment that will make your life much easier for other areas, is a nicely designed balance of maximizing that sense of adventure and exploration.
In part I feel is pretty unnecessary for me to say more, it is a pretty well known game at this point, and other people have gone into much more detail and with better writing skills about the game and all its components, I don't really have much to add but I at least wanted to mention the stuff that stood out for me after finally experiencing this game, I'm glad I played it, that I finally went through with it till the end, because it gave me something very flawed, yet pretty special. Also I can finally see how much they messed up in the remake, they fucked you up Demon Souls.
Demon Souls (I never acknowledge the ‘s when saying the name out loud), is a game that ranges from a 7 to 10/10 moments back and forth, it makes sense given how experimental it is, successes, failures, but always memorable in some shape or form.
The world of Boletaria is pretty coo with all the ways that it pulls you into that world, the level layouts, how each area has its own type of natural shortcut, minimalist sound design, great art direction, the enemies and items you can find in each of them, gives each area a great sense of identity.
Something I really liked about the level design comes from the structure of the game, from the Nexus you can go to any of the 5 main areas, and while they are interconnected and could be done in a single run (besides the Arch demon gate to enter Boletaria-3), every boss fight acts as a checkpoint that you can warp to, so is kind of like a level separation within the connected world; this means that every “level” can be pretty different and throw at you different set pieces and the like, it makes each portion within the world of Demon Souls feel pretty unique, which brings its hits and misses, but it adds to that level of memorability and janky-ness that really ties Demon Souls together.
Boletaria-1 is pretty big and circles back to its start for the boss fight, 2 is a straight line to the boss, 3 is back to a bigger level with a shortcut, and 4 is basically a spiral upwards to its Arch Demon fight, just to exemplify the changes in design within a single main area.
The not winner part of the world of Demon Souls is Stonefang Tunnel, I can live without it, the atmosphere can be pretty boring, the boss fights are not really good (Armor Spider is pretty spammy and ends up feeling like something you have to brute force, Flamelurker is fine in theory but I found his speed and patterns don't really mesh well with the combat of Demon Souls, and the Arch Demon could have been more interesting, could have done more with the idea), and Stonefang-2 in particular is pretty bad both going the normal way and using the shortcut for the boss fight.
The opposite ends are Latria and Shrine of Storms, kino af areas in atmosphere and design, can put both in top areas in gaming.
Boss fight are on the whole pretty interesting, very few are essentialy the at this point design meme of dodges and hits that indies and the more recent From Soft games seem to push, most of them are essentially some form of puzzle, they make for a memorable experience, in terms of challenge ranging from easy, a relatively mild challenge and rather difficult, I appreciate them considering I'm not really fond of the combat in the game, I'm more into it for the exploration and adventure feel. The Arch Demons more than anything being the great example of unique bosses, and despite my issues with the combat, Boletaria's Arch Demon is a really, really good fight.
The game can be quite difficult in its actual levels tho, but almost never unfair, and the format of choosing which level to do past the tutorial is a way for the game to help you as long as you pay attention and are willing to explore, very often you'll find useful NPCs across the starting levels of each area, and equipment that will make your life much easier for other areas, is a nicely designed balance of maximizing that sense of adventure and exploration.
In part I feel is pretty unnecessary for me to say more, it is a pretty well known game at this point, and other people have gone into much more detail and with better writing skills about the game and all its components, I don't really have much to add but I at least wanted to mention the stuff that stood out for me after finally experiencing this game, I'm glad I played it, that I finally went through with it till the end, because it gave me something very flawed, yet pretty special. Also I can finally see how much they messed up in the remake, they fucked you up Demon Souls.
2023
First of all the gameplay, I think the main question is how much does conventional rhythm mechanics add to a character action moveset, given the complexity of movesets like Dante's or Bayonetta's there is always some element of rhythm already embedded to these characters, dogde timing, offset combos, pause combos, parry timing, etc. all that is about a "rhyhtm" paced by the player and the enemy one interacts with. So in Hi-Fi Rush, it should add, in theory, more difficulty to the execution of these combos, but it doesn't, I would say that for at least 80 to maybe 90% of it, you can get by, by just mashing through it, undermining that aspect of the game for most of its run. I guess the biggest downfall of the idea from a mechanical stand point, is that it is pretty accessible for people that don't have much rhythm, but it also means that its main thing doesn't really push more in terms of execution compared to other action games.
The fundamental game feel is solid at least, it feels fairly satisfying to pull off combos in the game, but there is a lot of details that make the game less enjoyable to me. There is no form of lock on that I could find, so you either let the auto camera turned on, or you turn it off and have to move it to an adequate enough location every encounter; since there is no proper lock on, the game will soft lock itself to a nearby enemy, and you'll have to move around to be able to soft lock into another, it makes it a lot more finicky than it really needs to be. You can call companions in the middle of the fight to help you, they are on a cooldown, the issue is that some enemies can't be really damaged until you call the correct companion, there are some fights where all the enemies would be ones you can't damage from the get go, so is a fight where I just have to move around, do the ability, wait for it to charge again and then do it again, is not really that engaging or challenging, is a time waster; there are strong enemies that will always have a forced QTE move before you are able to defeat them, it wasn't good in Metroid Dread and is not good here either.
While Chai's speed is fine during combat, he feels needlessly slow outside of it, all you can really do is time dashes, the jumping is not the most ideal one, and there is a decent amount of platforming to do, is not hard, but it doesn't really feels good to play either in these segments either.
Level design is fairly simple and straight forward, some nooks and crannies here and there for extra items and upgrades, there are locked doors that aren't accessible until you get the right companion, don't know how to feel about that.
The presentation, at a surface level, is great, pretty colorful, a nice animated look to it, some good transitions between 2D and 3D cutscenes (idk if completely necessary, the 3D models have more polish than the 2D cutscenes, and those 3D models look 2D-ish enough), it commits to the rhythm aspect here by making as many elements as possible bop alongside the music, but honestly, is rather repetitive to look at, spending most of the time at samey looking factory areas, there are a couple of stand outs as contrast, but for the most part it has a rather uninspired setting, and kind of a sterile vibe to it.
I also didn't vibe with most of the music, I think that is probably a big enough factor in terms of how much you get out of the game, and sadly, not my thing. Guess the highlights would be the licensed stuff, and a couple of the original compositions, besides that, mostly forgettable.
And then there is the story, I'm a weirdo that cares about that a decent amount in this genre, and everything is kind of flat, there is not much in the form of over the top scenarios fitting for a character action game; besides the banter between Chai and Peppermint, which is a pretty basic trope but is done well, every other character feels pretty paper thin, one of them is just a Jojo reference, and while I love Jojo, is not really enough to make an entire character; there isn't really much in the form of themes or tangible development, it doesn't even really feel like it has as much fun with itself as it could, making for very simplistic humor, the kind of jokes that won't hurt me, but also that I won't chuckle at; there is a couple of non boss fights, but I don't think there is enough of a roster of proper fights to pull some No More Heroes stuff in this game. It at least gets building up the bosses across their levels well enough. I see the sentiment that the game is like a playable version of an animated show, and yea, I get that vibe, but it comes off as one of those very simplistic cartoons that I don't get much out of, one that I won't remember much if anything as time goes by.
The game also feels too long, for the simplicity of the game, it should be more like a DMC1, rather than a Bayonetta or modern DMC game, it suffers from a similar issue I had with Travis Strikes Again, you could shave off one or two segments from each level and the pacing would be very much improved, plus maybe a rework of most of the middle game.
And that is about it, I'll say that I don't regret playing through it, but I was also hoping/expecting to like it a lot more, and not being able to makes me sad, because it really appeals a lot to me on a surface level.
The fundamental game feel is solid at least, it feels fairly satisfying to pull off combos in the game, but there is a lot of details that make the game less enjoyable to me. There is no form of lock on that I could find, so you either let the auto camera turned on, or you turn it off and have to move it to an adequate enough location every encounter; since there is no proper lock on, the game will soft lock itself to a nearby enemy, and you'll have to move around to be able to soft lock into another, it makes it a lot more finicky than it really needs to be. You can call companions in the middle of the fight to help you, they are on a cooldown, the issue is that some enemies can't be really damaged until you call the correct companion, there are some fights where all the enemies would be ones you can't damage from the get go, so is a fight where I just have to move around, do the ability, wait for it to charge again and then do it again, is not really that engaging or challenging, is a time waster; there are strong enemies that will always have a forced QTE move before you are able to defeat them, it wasn't good in Metroid Dread and is not good here either.
While Chai's speed is fine during combat, he feels needlessly slow outside of it, all you can really do is time dashes, the jumping is not the most ideal one, and there is a decent amount of platforming to do, is not hard, but it doesn't really feels good to play either in these segments either.
Level design is fairly simple and straight forward, some nooks and crannies here and there for extra items and upgrades, there are locked doors that aren't accessible until you get the right companion, don't know how to feel about that.
The presentation, at a surface level, is great, pretty colorful, a nice animated look to it, some good transitions between 2D and 3D cutscenes (idk if completely necessary, the 3D models have more polish than the 2D cutscenes, and those 3D models look 2D-ish enough), it commits to the rhythm aspect here by making as many elements as possible bop alongside the music, but honestly, is rather repetitive to look at, spending most of the time at samey looking factory areas, there are a couple of stand outs as contrast, but for the most part it has a rather uninspired setting, and kind of a sterile vibe to it.
I also didn't vibe with most of the music, I think that is probably a big enough factor in terms of how much you get out of the game, and sadly, not my thing. Guess the highlights would be the licensed stuff, and a couple of the original compositions, besides that, mostly forgettable.
And then there is the story, I'm a weirdo that cares about that a decent amount in this genre, and everything is kind of flat, there is not much in the form of over the top scenarios fitting for a character action game; besides the banter between Chai and Peppermint, which is a pretty basic trope but is done well, every other character feels pretty paper thin, one of them is just a Jojo reference, and while I love Jojo, is not really enough to make an entire character; there isn't really much in the form of themes or tangible development, it doesn't even really feel like it has as much fun with itself as it could, making for very simplistic humor, the kind of jokes that won't hurt me, but also that I won't chuckle at; there is a couple of non boss fights, but I don't think there is enough of a roster of proper fights to pull some No More Heroes stuff in this game. It at least gets building up the bosses across their levels well enough. I see the sentiment that the game is like a playable version of an animated show, and yea, I get that vibe, but it comes off as one of those very simplistic cartoons that I don't get much out of, one that I won't remember much if anything as time goes by.
The game also feels too long, for the simplicity of the game, it should be more like a DMC1, rather than a Bayonetta or modern DMC game, it suffers from a similar issue I had with Travis Strikes Again, you could shave off one or two segments from each level and the pacing would be very much improved, plus maybe a rework of most of the middle game.
And that is about it, I'll say that I don't regret playing through it, but I was also hoping/expecting to like it a lot more, and not being able to makes me sad, because it really appeals a lot to me on a surface level.
If there is anything that I would call a perfect Ace Attorney game, it would be this one. I love Ace Attorney but is hard for me to say that any entry ever keeps the quality in the cases at a high level across the board, except for Prosecutor's Path, really a shame that it hasn't been localized.
I wouldn't put most of the weight on its consistent quality to the connective tissue of the story, since the first game also had that, but had its fair share of weaker/less interesting cases, not the case with this game, by its own merit it has 5 of the best crafted mysteries from the series, while on top of all that connecting them so well by the end of it.
The cast of characters is excellent, the extended dynamic for Edgeworth and Kay serves well for case 4's emotional stakes, Raymond Shields is a great mentor type character, Justine makes for another cool rival to the bunch, Sebastian is incredibly endearing and has one of the better arcs in the series, the rest is a lot of memorable characters and great antagonists that you want to take down without going much into spoilers, plus having one of, if not the best final villain of the franchise, beautifully crafted and their final confrontation is just excellent. The selection of returning characters is cool, fan service for sure, but incorporated well into the narrative and how it all ties into the grander scheme of the Ace Attorney world.
Continuing on with the themes of law, corruption, what it means to be an attorney/prosecutor, etc. which was always there in the beginnings of the series in some capacity, and later brought to the front in AA4, and much like every game after 4, Investigations 2 has that as a more prominent part of the main narrative but it doesn't leave strong characters and good interactions in the trash can in order to develop that idea like 4 does.
Genuinely adore this game, and is cemented more in the recent replay I did of it, every case is pure excellence, Ace Attorney at its best, a great soundtrack, and some of the best moments ever in the series, I have nothing bad to say about this game.
I wouldn't put most of the weight on its consistent quality to the connective tissue of the story, since the first game also had that, but had its fair share of weaker/less interesting cases, not the case with this game, by its own merit it has 5 of the best crafted mysteries from the series, while on top of all that connecting them so well by the end of it.
The cast of characters is excellent, the extended dynamic for Edgeworth and Kay serves well for case 4's emotional stakes, Raymond Shields is a great mentor type character, Justine makes for another cool rival to the bunch, Sebastian is incredibly endearing and has one of the better arcs in the series, the rest is a lot of memorable characters and great antagonists that you want to take down without going much into spoilers, plus having one of, if not the best final villain of the franchise, beautifully crafted and their final confrontation is just excellent. The selection of returning characters is cool, fan service for sure, but incorporated well into the narrative and how it all ties into the grander scheme of the Ace Attorney world.
Continuing on with the themes of law, corruption, what it means to be an attorney/prosecutor, etc. which was always there in the beginnings of the series in some capacity, and later brought to the front in AA4, and much like every game after 4, Investigations 2 has that as a more prominent part of the main narrative but it doesn't leave strong characters and good interactions in the trash can in order to develop that idea like 4 does.
Genuinely adore this game, and is cemented more in the recent replay I did of it, every case is pure excellence, Ace Attorney at its best, a great soundtrack, and some of the best moments ever in the series, I have nothing bad to say about this game.
Gay Reimu
The kino of Senran Kagura.
Remember when the series had cool openings, and not just girls dancing in swimsuits or around food? And on that note why is Beyond Light and Darkness such a fucking good song.
Anyways, take everything that Burst did with its characters, and put them on a super satisfying journey of their relationship development between the Hanzo and Hebijo students, fighting the only enemy mobs with decent design in the series, the yoma. Honestly there is nothing more satisfying for me, than rivals going from disdain with each other, to a middle ground/understanding or outright becoming friendly rivals, so Deep Crimson is absolute kino about that.
Presentation wise, visually is much improved, I don't know how much of a hot take it is to say that this is the best looking game in the series, models are great, the environments more polished, animations are cool, specially the pair up intros, outros, and special attacks, and I like the sort of darker shading the entire game has, like the illumination is more subdued, which puts it above the rest, that goes for a far brighter lighting to the models, for me.
Gameplay is also better, everything feels snappier, get a more stable framerate, and thematically, adding the pair mechanic is great, you can swap characters at the press of a button and continue a combo, special shinobi artes for each pair, and continue to grow their affinity for each other grants new animations and dialogue between them. Also there are actual boss fights this time around, which is cool, tad janky with the camera but is cool. Overall it retains the fast paced feel of Burst, but polishes up what it needs to polish up to deliver a much better mechanical and technical experience.
Is a good enough game that when I play it, makes me forget for a while about the fact that the series doesn't have anything worthwhile besides the 2 main entries, between the Versus games that don't have as good of a feel to them, bunch of spin-offs that feel like lazy cash grabs looking at the rhythm, pinball and reflection games, and I'll definitely never forgive them for turning Kiriya-sensei into a pervert in the spin-offs.
Remember when the series had cool openings, and not just girls dancing in swimsuits or around food? And on that note why is Beyond Light and Darkness such a fucking good song.
Anyways, take everything that Burst did with its characters, and put them on a super satisfying journey of their relationship development between the Hanzo and Hebijo students, fighting the only enemy mobs with decent design in the series, the yoma. Honestly there is nothing more satisfying for me, than rivals going from disdain with each other, to a middle ground/understanding or outright becoming friendly rivals, so Deep Crimson is absolute kino about that.
Presentation wise, visually is much improved, I don't know how much of a hot take it is to say that this is the best looking game in the series, models are great, the environments more polished, animations are cool, specially the pair up intros, outros, and special attacks, and I like the sort of darker shading the entire game has, like the illumination is more subdued, which puts it above the rest, that goes for a far brighter lighting to the models, for me.
Gameplay is also better, everything feels snappier, get a more stable framerate, and thematically, adding the pair mechanic is great, you can swap characters at the press of a button and continue a combo, special shinobi artes for each pair, and continue to grow their affinity for each other grants new animations and dialogue between them. Also there are actual boss fights this time around, which is cool, tad janky with the camera but is cool. Overall it retains the fast paced feel of Burst, but polishes up what it needs to polish up to deliver a much better mechanical and technical experience.
Is a good enough game that when I play it, makes me forget for a while about the fact that the series doesn't have anything worthwhile besides the 2 main entries, between the Versus games that don't have as good of a feel to them, bunch of spin-offs that feel like lazy cash grabs looking at the rhythm, pinball and reflection games, and I'll definitely never forgive them for turning Kiriya-sensei into a pervert in the spin-offs.
2012
Idk why I'm doing this.
Everyone's first Senran Kagura game is definitely played out of a twisted sense of curiosity about them action games that feature a lot of jiggling, I started with this one, way back in 2014.
Once you get past that curiosity, you find a fairly compelling set of characters, which is fairly surprising. Story is pretty simple, good shinobi fight bad shinobi, but you find out that there has to be a balance of both, the usual trope of grayness, what gives it its more interesting weight to it are the characters, every girl has her background development, and a rival character from whom they grow to understand their opposite side, it gets fairly dark at times, is essentially what you would get out of competent shows about magical girls and the like, but with a much more lewd presentation to it. rivalries, enemies to friends, discovering moral neutrality, troupes like fiery and emotional vs. emotionless, the rich and the poor, a lot of stuff that works is all presented with competent execution in Burst.
Presentation itself, is fine, visually it won't win any awards, but the art style itself is pleasant and works with the uh, character proportions well enough, framerate leaves a lot to be desired, specially from such a simple looking game. Music is fantastic tho, idk why it slaps as hard as it does, and this is definitely still the musical peak of the series in terms of how memorable it is.
Gameplay is serviceable, is essentially a 2D plane musou, you get the type of combos from those games, mostly mindlessly beating the shit out of a bunch of mobs, and sometimes rivals, with some bizarre difficulty spikes here and there in the 1v1 duels, is pretty mindless and simple, but fairly satisfying to play, quite fast paced as well.
Overall, an ok game that is elevated by its characters.
Everyone's first Senran Kagura game is definitely played out of a twisted sense of curiosity about them action games that feature a lot of jiggling, I started with this one, way back in 2014.
Once you get past that curiosity, you find a fairly compelling set of characters, which is fairly surprising. Story is pretty simple, good shinobi fight bad shinobi, but you find out that there has to be a balance of both, the usual trope of grayness, what gives it its more interesting weight to it are the characters, every girl has her background development, and a rival character from whom they grow to understand their opposite side, it gets fairly dark at times, is essentially what you would get out of competent shows about magical girls and the like, but with a much more lewd presentation to it. rivalries, enemies to friends, discovering moral neutrality, troupes like fiery and emotional vs. emotionless, the rich and the poor, a lot of stuff that works is all presented with competent execution in Burst.
Presentation itself, is fine, visually it won't win any awards, but the art style itself is pleasant and works with the uh, character proportions well enough, framerate leaves a lot to be desired, specially from such a simple looking game. Music is fantastic tho, idk why it slaps as hard as it does, and this is definitely still the musical peak of the series in terms of how memorable it is.
Gameplay is serviceable, is essentially a 2D plane musou, you get the type of combos from those games, mostly mindlessly beating the shit out of a bunch of mobs, and sometimes rivals, with some bizarre difficulty spikes here and there in the 1v1 duels, is pretty mindless and simple, but fairly satisfying to play, quite fast paced as well.
Overall, an ok game that is elevated by its characters.
This review contains spoilers
Want to slap whoever added the trailing and stealth missions (not the more "involved" stealth of the one instance of Stormblood and the Thancred instance here), this get behind the obvious rock formation to hide behind to just waste time type of stealth mission.
As someone that has been hyped to see more of Garlemald since the beginning of the game, its implementation in Endwalker left me kinda cold, in general the story gave me a feeling that the threads and characters from A Realm Reborn to Stormblood wasn't a priority anymore, and decided instead to make a story about the ascians, with the Shadowbringers main cast because that is the most acclaimed one, keep Estinien because people liked Heavensward too. Is honestly silly that Cid doesn't take a big part in the story where you go to Garlemald and the Sea of Stars, the dude that loves his technology and gave you ships to confront your fights in ARR and HW, like at least he still got stuff in the side stories in the other expansions, but come on, he is definitely a big character from XIV, definitely more deserving of being on a key visual than Tataru, also why Tataru and not, idk Krile.
Obviously is not all bad, the locales are great, thematically the dungeons are interesting, it has one of the most consistently great musical scores of the game, I fucking love Flow Together, the character moments are among the best in the game, and the few times the rest of the cast show up, is definitely a heartwarming event. Y'shtola is kinda there, which is guess is the most consistent part of XIV, she doesn't get anything beyond fake-out self sacrifices.
Hydaelyn and Endsinger are great trials, Zodiark is oddly disappointing, is kinda easy and it doesn't have that big of a presentation flair to make up for it, like I like that his theme had motifs of FFI's battle theme, but other than that, kinda weak, and weird that the first dungeon probably has the hardest normal fight in EW, and not at all surprising that you fight him and Hydaelyn, neither as the final confrontation, feel that was pretty much set since their primal twist in Shadowbringers.
I also felt like in a weird auto-pilot through the story, I liked most of the set pieces, despite the odd pacing, everything is so jumpy, between Thavnair, Sharlayan, then we go to Garlemald for a bit, we drop the tower story there, what was even the point of the body possession bit with Zenos, again cool set piece, but why?, then the moon for a bit, Final Days start, Thavnair sells its despair well, but everything else just looks pretty chill, even with the role quests, then we travel back in time to hang out with the ascians because Emet is a really popular character, and because we need a final boss and we ended everyone else with a build up already, and Zenos can't be the final trial again, used 2 of the best antagonists in fact with Shadowbringers, so here is nihilistic bird girl and then straight to the edge of universe, also god damn, the amount of almost retconish bs and rationalization, plus pretty much emotional manipulation in order to justify how awful Venat is, fucking astounding. I didn't really care about a lot of story developments, we end up at use the power of friendship to beat the shit out of nihilism at the edge of the universe, war and politics? who? Do I still love Ultima Thule as a location and its music? Absolutely. Did I care much about Meteion and the fake-out deaths? Not that much honestly. And are the Dead Ends and The Final Day great set pieces? Yes, they are.
Was the entrance of Zenos, his dialogue and final send off, despite me not liking that he couldn't stay dead, fucking amazing? That I can't deny.
Solid expansion, not a great ending to everything, but good enough for the ascians. Heavensward's story is still the peak, and Stormblood has the best gameplay.
And as far as general praise I can give that XIV's writing can at times give some good grey morality to antagonists, going from Emet's great characterization, to how they handled Elpis and Venat is such a nosedive, honestly for the sake of the story it would have been better to either not show it and keep it vague, or rework it to actually function in some way other than Hermes and Venat being idiots, Venat woe is me, doomed the entirety of my civilization because they can't handle grief like I want them to, and Elpis is actually a nice place, they definitely were trash at portraying them as some sort of hubris downfall or some sort of cruel people, the Hermes breakdown was ridiculous too, and at that point that one cutscene at the end of the segment I just can't take it seriously.
This probably came out more of a salty rant than I would have liked, but I do have to reiterate that I still enjoyed my time with it, just not as much as the rest of the game.
Do hope whatever is next goes for something different, and a different cast, I like the scions but I already spent like 500 hours with some of them tagging along, love the twins but I could do with a break Kappa.
As someone that has been hyped to see more of Garlemald since the beginning of the game, its implementation in Endwalker left me kinda cold, in general the story gave me a feeling that the threads and characters from A Realm Reborn to Stormblood wasn't a priority anymore, and decided instead to make a story about the ascians, with the Shadowbringers main cast because that is the most acclaimed one, keep Estinien because people liked Heavensward too. Is honestly silly that Cid doesn't take a big part in the story where you go to Garlemald and the Sea of Stars, the dude that loves his technology and gave you ships to confront your fights in ARR and HW, like at least he still got stuff in the side stories in the other expansions, but come on, he is definitely a big character from XIV, definitely more deserving of being on a key visual than Tataru, also why Tataru and not, idk Krile.
Obviously is not all bad, the locales are great, thematically the dungeons are interesting, it has one of the most consistently great musical scores of the game, I fucking love Flow Together, the character moments are among the best in the game, and the few times the rest of the cast show up, is definitely a heartwarming event. Y'shtola is kinda there, which is guess is the most consistent part of XIV, she doesn't get anything beyond fake-out self sacrifices.
Hydaelyn and Endsinger are great trials, Zodiark is oddly disappointing, is kinda easy and it doesn't have that big of a presentation flair to make up for it, like I like that his theme had motifs of FFI's battle theme, but other than that, kinda weak, and weird that the first dungeon probably has the hardest normal fight in EW, and not at all surprising that you fight him and Hydaelyn, neither as the final confrontation, feel that was pretty much set since their primal twist in Shadowbringers.
I also felt like in a weird auto-pilot through the story, I liked most of the set pieces, despite the odd pacing, everything is so jumpy, between Thavnair, Sharlayan, then we go to Garlemald for a bit, we drop the tower story there, what was even the point of the body possession bit with Zenos, again cool set piece, but why?, then the moon for a bit, Final Days start, Thavnair sells its despair well, but everything else just looks pretty chill, even with the role quests, then we travel back in time to hang out with the ascians because Emet is a really popular character, and because we need a final boss and we ended everyone else with a build up already, and Zenos can't be the final trial again, used 2 of the best antagonists in fact with Shadowbringers, so here is nihilistic bird girl and then straight to the edge of universe, also god damn, the amount of almost retconish bs and rationalization, plus pretty much emotional manipulation in order to justify how awful Venat is, fucking astounding. I didn't really care about a lot of story developments, we end up at use the power of friendship to beat the shit out of nihilism at the edge of the universe, war and politics? who? Do I still love Ultima Thule as a location and its music? Absolutely. Did I care much about Meteion and the fake-out deaths? Not that much honestly. And are the Dead Ends and The Final Day great set pieces? Yes, they are.
Was the entrance of Zenos, his dialogue and final send off, despite me not liking that he couldn't stay dead, fucking amazing? That I can't deny.
Solid expansion, not a great ending to everything, but good enough for the ascians. Heavensward's story is still the peak, and Stormblood has the best gameplay.
And as far as general praise I can give that XIV's writing can at times give some good grey morality to antagonists, going from Emet's great characterization, to how they handled Elpis and Venat is such a nosedive, honestly for the sake of the story it would have been better to either not show it and keep it vague, or rework it to actually function in some way other than Hermes and Venat being idiots, Venat woe is me, doomed the entirety of my civilization because they can't handle grief like I want them to, and Elpis is actually a nice place, they definitely were trash at portraying them as some sort of hubris downfall or some sort of cruel people, the Hermes breakdown was ridiculous too, and at that point that one cutscene at the end of the segment I just can't take it seriously.
This probably came out more of a salty rant than I would have liked, but I do have to reiterate that I still enjoyed my time with it, just not as much as the rest of the game.
Do hope whatever is next goes for something different, and a different cast, I like the scions but I already spent like 500 hours with some of them tagging along, love the twins but I could do with a break Kappa.
This review contains spoilers
Ramble Part 4/5
You ever think about how Vauthry has a cool, unique character design and then he just turns into Square pretty boy #9001 halfway through his battle? I think about it everyday.
Shadowbringers could be something really excellent if it didn't try to do so much in one expansion, is in a very awkward middle ground, it has a faster pace than the expansions before it, but is not good enough compared to a non MMORPG, so for me it doesn't play to the best strenghts of what I like about XIV neither does it do things as well as some of my favorites in the genre.
I think the best example of it is that part in Il Mheg when all the tribes drive Ranjit away (why does Ranjit suck so much btw), I spend like 20 quests with 4 different tribes, and the only ones that some level of fleshing out are the fairies, Seto in itself is a fine story bit, but the tribe itself is again, something that you get through so quickly, a segment like that would be a parallel to Stomblood, but SB actually takes its time fleshing out and letting its different tribes and locales sink in before that big battle or moment, it may be slower paced, but with this type of story set piece, it works out for the best to take its time.
In general the different towns and the people you help is definitely a lot weaker to me than the previous expansions, and that being my favorite part of the story, leaves me with some conflicting feelings with Shadowbringers, it just doesn't match the quality of Ishgard, Doma, or Ala Mhigo. Like just have one tribe or so per area, Il Mheg could have been just fairies and Seto, Raktika could have been the Viera and the Nights Blessed mixed into a single tribe, like Vieras that follow the darkness, etc.
And following from that, I definitely didn't feel the absolute hype that something like the final assault against Vauthry with the rock mech and everyone coming together should have, because I didn't connect as well with those characters as the game expected me to, tho the fairies showing up was cool.
The rest of the main story is pretty good still tho, Ryne is essentially the main character and she is great, Thancred's eternal suffering is always fun to watch, and the fact that they made him and Urianger Ryne's dads is just amazing, and the banter between the dads is just great, even if it makes me salty that Y'shtola and Lyse didn't have something like that in Stormblood, Shadowbringers, more like, Shadowdads. Speaking of Y'shtola, I have pretty much made peace with the fact that she will remain a completely static character, maybe I had my expectations too high for her, given that she is essentially the poster character of XIV, but I should have realized sooner that is just because she is a cat lady, it is quite a shame cause I do like her personality, but she doesn't really get any conflict or growth across these 400 hours that I have sunk into the story of XIV, and we are now at her third fake sacrifice, so I can't really bring myself to care about that, at least it got resolved within one quest, so it wasn't much time wasted with grief, but it also makes me wonder why that was a thing in the first place. ANYWAYS, Emet Selch is a greatly entertaining character, and probably the highlight character wise for me, I don't have much in the way of empathy or sympathy for him and his motivations, but that doesn't take away from how great of a personality he has, or how satisfying it is to take him down, him and Elidibus being built up as major antagonists of the game for so long, and they nail their last stands so well in Shadowbringers.
In general the Ascians are pretty cool set pieces, again I can't say I feel bad for them with how much shit they make me go through, but their backgrounds are fleshed well enough, and is always a big event when you take one down, Lahabrea, Moenbryda's sacrifice, the pair in the Singularity Reactor, Hades, the Seat of Sacrifice, they are all absolute hype, and ironically given their nature, do stay dead after being defeated, meaning that future expansions or patches never minimize the importance or impact of their set pieces, they will always be the climax that they are supposed to be.
Post patches were interesting, 5.3 definitely is one of the peak XIV moments, seeing the original Warrior of Light without much context before was one of the main reasons I wanted to play the game because I thought it looked cool, and after an admittedly longer than I imagined journey to reach it, I can say that with context is as great as I hoped it would be.
Gameplay wise, there isn't much more to talk about sometimes because whatever praises and issues I have with the game is not something that will radically change at this point, it does add one significant thing that I find stupid that it hasn't been retroactively added to the other areas, the bi colored gems are a great reward for doing FATEs, that actually give a reward that isn't obsolete in terms of functionality, you can buy the speed mount maps with them, so I engaged with FATEs a lot more here because they gave me a good reward for it.
The Eden Raid is pretty straightforward, there isn't any solo instances in this one like in Omega, is pretty much just boss battles, but is pretty much what I wanted out of it, won't deny that one of the main reasons I got into XIV was because I saw Gaia, so I'll say she lived up to my hype, she and Ryne are great together and I always appreciate a good story stealing Utena set pieces. The Shadow of Werlyt was also pretty good, tragic af, but you get to control a mech and fight mechs, and get to see more of best Cid.
Presentation wise, I love Il Mheg, Lakeland, and the Tempest, those are some of the best areas in the whole of XIV, and what they don't have going for level design in the dungeons they have in ambiance and some cool vistas. The music takes some interesting turns, the battle theme for one being super unfitting for the depressing world of the First, there is a lot more use of guitars with more of an electronic beat, and while a lot of the time is not my thing, is still a soundtrack that I don't mind hearing over the course of the game, Raktika is like a worse Sawano track, To the Edge is fucking amazing, so is Titania's theme, The Tempest is one of my favorite tracks in the game, Matoya's Relict sounds like Banjo, and if they made an entire soundtrack like Anamnesis Anyder, then I would be pretty happy. The VIII arrangements in the Eden raids are awesome, the track that plays in Eternity is fantastic, and the Black Wolf Stalks Again is a track that just demands your attention from the opening rift, bless Uematsu for that one, so on the whole while I don't like as many songs in Shadowbringers compared to the other expansions, when there is a track that I vibe with, is a really good track.
I feel there is always around 50 more paragraphs I could write about these expansions, but I'm not a good enough writer, nor do I feel I should put that much effort in stuff people won't read and I don't really feel like I want people to read it anyways, but that closes another chapter in this game for me, is definitely a good expansion, but is not something that I would say I enjoyed as much as Heavensward or Stormblood, and comparing any to A Realm Reborn itself feels weird to me in the stuff they set out to do.
Shadowbringers has a good amount of peaks, but also valleys, and sadly the valleys are the stuff that I come to like the most about the game, but those peaks are pretty cool still.
You ever think about how Vauthry has a cool, unique character design and then he just turns into Square pretty boy #9001 halfway through his battle? I think about it everyday.
Shadowbringers could be something really excellent if it didn't try to do so much in one expansion, is in a very awkward middle ground, it has a faster pace than the expansions before it, but is not good enough compared to a non MMORPG, so for me it doesn't play to the best strenghts of what I like about XIV neither does it do things as well as some of my favorites in the genre.
I think the best example of it is that part in Il Mheg when all the tribes drive Ranjit away (why does Ranjit suck so much btw), I spend like 20 quests with 4 different tribes, and the only ones that some level of fleshing out are the fairies, Seto in itself is a fine story bit, but the tribe itself is again, something that you get through so quickly, a segment like that would be a parallel to Stomblood, but SB actually takes its time fleshing out and letting its different tribes and locales sink in before that big battle or moment, it may be slower paced, but with this type of story set piece, it works out for the best to take its time.
In general the different towns and the people you help is definitely a lot weaker to me than the previous expansions, and that being my favorite part of the story, leaves me with some conflicting feelings with Shadowbringers, it just doesn't match the quality of Ishgard, Doma, or Ala Mhigo. Like just have one tribe or so per area, Il Mheg could have been just fairies and Seto, Raktika could have been the Viera and the Nights Blessed mixed into a single tribe, like Vieras that follow the darkness, etc.
And following from that, I definitely didn't feel the absolute hype that something like the final assault against Vauthry with the rock mech and everyone coming together should have, because I didn't connect as well with those characters as the game expected me to, tho the fairies showing up was cool.
The rest of the main story is pretty good still tho, Ryne is essentially the main character and she is great, Thancred's eternal suffering is always fun to watch, and the fact that they made him and Urianger Ryne's dads is just amazing, and the banter between the dads is just great, even if it makes me salty that Y'shtola and Lyse didn't have something like that in Stormblood, Shadowbringers, more like, Shadowdads. Speaking of Y'shtola, I have pretty much made peace with the fact that she will remain a completely static character, maybe I had my expectations too high for her, given that she is essentially the poster character of XIV, but I should have realized sooner that is just because she is a cat lady, it is quite a shame cause I do like her personality, but she doesn't really get any conflict or growth across these 400 hours that I have sunk into the story of XIV, and we are now at her third fake sacrifice, so I can't really bring myself to care about that, at least it got resolved within one quest, so it wasn't much time wasted with grief, but it also makes me wonder why that was a thing in the first place. ANYWAYS, Emet Selch is a greatly entertaining character, and probably the highlight character wise for me, I don't have much in the way of empathy or sympathy for him and his motivations, but that doesn't take away from how great of a personality he has, or how satisfying it is to take him down, him and Elidibus being built up as major antagonists of the game for so long, and they nail their last stands so well in Shadowbringers.
In general the Ascians are pretty cool set pieces, again I can't say I feel bad for them with how much shit they make me go through, but their backgrounds are fleshed well enough, and is always a big event when you take one down, Lahabrea, Moenbryda's sacrifice, the pair in the Singularity Reactor, Hades, the Seat of Sacrifice, they are all absolute hype, and ironically given their nature, do stay dead after being defeated, meaning that future expansions or patches never minimize the importance or impact of their set pieces, they will always be the climax that they are supposed to be.
Post patches were interesting, 5.3 definitely is one of the peak XIV moments, seeing the original Warrior of Light without much context before was one of the main reasons I wanted to play the game because I thought it looked cool, and after an admittedly longer than I imagined journey to reach it, I can say that with context is as great as I hoped it would be.
Gameplay wise, there isn't much more to talk about sometimes because whatever praises and issues I have with the game is not something that will radically change at this point, it does add one significant thing that I find stupid that it hasn't been retroactively added to the other areas, the bi colored gems are a great reward for doing FATEs, that actually give a reward that isn't obsolete in terms of functionality, you can buy the speed mount maps with them, so I engaged with FATEs a lot more here because they gave me a good reward for it.
The Eden Raid is pretty straightforward, there isn't any solo instances in this one like in Omega, is pretty much just boss battles, but is pretty much what I wanted out of it, won't deny that one of the main reasons I got into XIV was because I saw Gaia, so I'll say she lived up to my hype, she and Ryne are great together and I always appreciate a good story stealing Utena set pieces. The Shadow of Werlyt was also pretty good, tragic af, but you get to control a mech and fight mechs, and get to see more of best Cid.
Presentation wise, I love Il Mheg, Lakeland, and the Tempest, those are some of the best areas in the whole of XIV, and what they don't have going for level design in the dungeons they have in ambiance and some cool vistas. The music takes some interesting turns, the battle theme for one being super unfitting for the depressing world of the First, there is a lot more use of guitars with more of an electronic beat, and while a lot of the time is not my thing, is still a soundtrack that I don't mind hearing over the course of the game, Raktika is like a worse Sawano track, To the Edge is fucking amazing, so is Titania's theme, The Tempest is one of my favorite tracks in the game, Matoya's Relict sounds like Banjo, and if they made an entire soundtrack like Anamnesis Anyder, then I would be pretty happy. The VIII arrangements in the Eden raids are awesome, the track that plays in Eternity is fantastic, and the Black Wolf Stalks Again is a track that just demands your attention from the opening rift, bless Uematsu for that one, so on the whole while I don't like as many songs in Shadowbringers compared to the other expansions, when there is a track that I vibe with, is a really good track.
I feel there is always around 50 more paragraphs I could write about these expansions, but I'm not a good enough writer, nor do I feel I should put that much effort in stuff people won't read and I don't really feel like I want people to read it anyways, but that closes another chapter in this game for me, is definitely a good expansion, but is not something that I would say I enjoyed as much as Heavensward or Stormblood, and comparing any to A Realm Reborn itself feels weird to me in the stuff they set out to do.
Shadowbringers has a good amount of peaks, but also valleys, and sadly the valleys are the stuff that I come to like the most about the game, but those peaks are pretty cool still.
Watching a friend trying to 100% this has made me hate it.
This review contains spoilers
Ramble Part 3
The thing Stormblood has above Heavensward, and in part A Realm Reborn, is the gameplay. Areas are not as bloated as the ones from the previous expansion, even if they aren’t as imaginative admittedly to the ones in HW not as compact as ARR, but the layout is a lot better, with more logical placements of Aether currents, the new dungeons have a bit of obstacles or gimmicks that masks the linearity better, and it consistently has super fun bosses with a lot of AoE attacks in quick successions, has some of the more interesting single player instances, with an adequate use of gimmicks to make some of them stand out more, and it has the bigger number of climactic set pieces across the XIV experience, Ala Mhigo, Tsukuyomi, Doma Castle, the Burn, Ghimlyt Dark, Shinryu, the fights with Zenos, the moments where you play as other characters, are all great. The underwater ability, while not used as much, it gives such a nice change of pace to the exploration in some parts of the story, the swim towards the underwater city is such a cool moment, is less a mechanical novelty but is used to great effect in the presentation.
The story is still pretty good as well honestly, but with some weird omissions and annoyances, where Heavensward has some pacing problems but still delivers everything is supposed to with great sequences, Stormblood has a really good pace, but has some underwritten parts and a very strong disruption that bring it down.
The journey of liberating Doma and Ala Mhigo once again makes what I like the most about the game shine, slowly building relationships with people tormented by the Empire is such a great context for the gameplay loop of XIV, and the sequences it all culminates in is rather excellent, the invasion to Doma Castle, is a very short cutscene, but thinking about how you brought all those people together to your cause through all those questlines gives it a bigger weight, the Azim Steppe is a big highlight of that for me, is little sun annoying? Yea a bit, is the Naadam fucking cool? Yes, yes it is. Building friendships with the Kojin, the Confederacy, all that is great for me, backed up by a great story of growth and learning to lead of Lyse and Hien, and it also helps that Yotsuyu and Zenos are so over the top as antagonists that makes the whole experience of retaking those lands all the sweeter.
The most strange omission of the story comes from Y’shtola, she takes a big hit for Lyse in the start of Stormblood, which is the final nail that pushes her to be more proactive about the liberation of Ala Mhigo, another way to just not have Y’shtola grow as a character aside, the fact that this plot point doesn’t have a resolution like a nice reunion after she recovers is bizarre, given this game likes to really make a point about showing and talking about everything for better and for worse, is such a big letdown that the next time we see Y’shtola, she is just there all fine and dandy? There is also the thing of the underwater city not having much impact at all in the story, despite having some important enough side characters there that could have been a fun character moment for Yugiri, despite going through some effort to even visit it, quite strange too, it has one of the highlights of side stories tho, the Hisui and Kurenai storyline is really cute, and like there is stuff to do for them with the crafting side quests, but is still bizarre that is made a big deal getting the ability to swim to that town to begin with, and not get much from it in the MSQ.
The best piece of storytelling in the game so far comes from the Tsukuyomi fight in the post patches, which is in the middle of the more exhausting story part in the game, the post patches of Stormblood is where the dialogue and cutscene length of XIV can start to drag, it wasn’t really a problem in any other expansion unless my memory fails me, it left really lengthy sequences to very specific moments, like Praetorium or the ending cutscenes, here there is a lot of emphasis on flashbacks and the like for the character of Yotsuyu, which is completely unnecessary, because the fight with Tsukuyomi pretty much explains all that story, and it does it without the need of long dialogue sequences or interruptions, because it makes it works seamlessly into the gameplay. XIV sometimes has neat details within dungeons and instances to showcase some story beats, like Ghimlyt Dark having the Alliance leaders, and some of your friends joining up on the fight, those are really cool moments seamlessly tied into the gameplay as well.
The worst part of Stormblood’s story comes from the end of the story patches, and it has a general story element that bothers me a lot in XIV, the refusal to let villains die.
The eyes of Nidhogg are pretty terrible in this regard, it dampens part of the absolutely perfect ending to Heavensward, that they use them again to bring Shinryu at the end of those post patches; Gaius had a fitting end to him in A Realm Reborn, it was yet another satisfying end to it, but nope he is alive still; Zenos? After the amazing confrontation against him in the Royal Menagerie, and after the cheesy, but heartwarming sequence of Ala Mhigo being liberated to the tune of Measure of his Reach? Still here. Like imagine if Lahabrea and the other ascian you managed to destroy after much sacrifice and lives lost were just like “NOPE, still here” it would be so frustrating, and I get that some of these revivals are meant to have something happen story wise, Gaius is a better guy now, but why not have that with Maxima, he was already a Garlean that broke the mold of being an asshole from the empire, why not give more weight to him as a character than bring Gaius back, even the cool sacrifice and end to Gosetsu and Yotsuyu gets unraveled pretty soon after, even if that did deliver the best story and gameplay sequence of the game.
Now to talk about the end of the post patches in Stormblood, I kind of have to blame Shadowbringers for this, cause how it all starts is kind of clumsy, snipping away Scions to the First, fine, my problem comes from the fact that it robs Stormblood of an ending, you are pretty much taken away during a climax in the Ghimlyt Dark, in the middle of a battle against an Ascian, while trying to help your friends, and I’m just supposed to care about going to the First and do some other things, like no, I want to stick around Ala Mhigo, like is just leaving me hanging in the middle of it all, A Realm Reborn, and Heavensward had a proper enough ending, but Stormblood doesn’t really have one anymore, the Royal Menagerie was an ending, but ya know, Zenos is still kicking around.
On a more positive note, the music is really cool, the main motifs of the expansion are amazing, Triumph is such an epic boss theme, From the Dragons’ Wake is funky af, and how did Tsukuyomi managed to shift between 3 different styles of music for her fight without me disliking any of them like Sheva or Leviathan is a quite the mystery, Lakshimi? Chef kiss, saving Makers’ Ruin for the Vergil fight? Perfection. ARR is still my favorite score, but SB definitely comes second.
The side stories? Omega? Amazing gameplay wise, I love the VI fan service, even if again, they don’t quite reach the same level of quality music wise, the Midgardsormr fight is a highlight just like it was one in ARR, and while the narrative itself isn’t much to write home about, the character interactions are great, more Cid and Nero banter, best boy Midgardsormr development, really fuck Hydealyn and Zodiark, dragon boy is where it’s at, Alpha is cool, Vergil is Vergil. The Four Lords? I loved it, the dungeons thematically incredible, and the fight incredibly pleasing both mechanically and visually, and again, From the Dragons’ Wake is too good of a music track. Return to Ivalice is interesting, I only played XII and know some things about Tactics, the storyline is a weird mish mash with some curious changes to the XII bits, it also features some of the best boss fights in the game, making a legitimate enough challenge, with proper balance of what to do between alliances, and not just everyone go ham on the raid.
The thing Stormblood has above Heavensward, and in part A Realm Reborn, is the gameplay. Areas are not as bloated as the ones from the previous expansion, even if they aren’t as imaginative admittedly to the ones in HW not as compact as ARR, but the layout is a lot better, with more logical placements of Aether currents, the new dungeons have a bit of obstacles or gimmicks that masks the linearity better, and it consistently has super fun bosses with a lot of AoE attacks in quick successions, has some of the more interesting single player instances, with an adequate use of gimmicks to make some of them stand out more, and it has the bigger number of climactic set pieces across the XIV experience, Ala Mhigo, Tsukuyomi, Doma Castle, the Burn, Ghimlyt Dark, Shinryu, the fights with Zenos, the moments where you play as other characters, are all great. The underwater ability, while not used as much, it gives such a nice change of pace to the exploration in some parts of the story, the swim towards the underwater city is such a cool moment, is less a mechanical novelty but is used to great effect in the presentation.
The story is still pretty good as well honestly, but with some weird omissions and annoyances, where Heavensward has some pacing problems but still delivers everything is supposed to with great sequences, Stormblood has a really good pace, but has some underwritten parts and a very strong disruption that bring it down.
The journey of liberating Doma and Ala Mhigo once again makes what I like the most about the game shine, slowly building relationships with people tormented by the Empire is such a great context for the gameplay loop of XIV, and the sequences it all culminates in is rather excellent, the invasion to Doma Castle, is a very short cutscene, but thinking about how you brought all those people together to your cause through all those questlines gives it a bigger weight, the Azim Steppe is a big highlight of that for me, is little sun annoying? Yea a bit, is the Naadam fucking cool? Yes, yes it is. Building friendships with the Kojin, the Confederacy, all that is great for me, backed up by a great story of growth and learning to lead of Lyse and Hien, and it also helps that Yotsuyu and Zenos are so over the top as antagonists that makes the whole experience of retaking those lands all the sweeter.
The most strange omission of the story comes from Y’shtola, she takes a big hit for Lyse in the start of Stormblood, which is the final nail that pushes her to be more proactive about the liberation of Ala Mhigo, another way to just not have Y’shtola grow as a character aside, the fact that this plot point doesn’t have a resolution like a nice reunion after she recovers is bizarre, given this game likes to really make a point about showing and talking about everything for better and for worse, is such a big letdown that the next time we see Y’shtola, she is just there all fine and dandy? There is also the thing of the underwater city not having much impact at all in the story, despite having some important enough side characters there that could have been a fun character moment for Yugiri, despite going through some effort to even visit it, quite strange too, it has one of the highlights of side stories tho, the Hisui and Kurenai storyline is really cute, and like there is stuff to do for them with the crafting side quests, but is still bizarre that is made a big deal getting the ability to swim to that town to begin with, and not get much from it in the MSQ.
The best piece of storytelling in the game so far comes from the Tsukuyomi fight in the post patches, which is in the middle of the more exhausting story part in the game, the post patches of Stormblood is where the dialogue and cutscene length of XIV can start to drag, it wasn’t really a problem in any other expansion unless my memory fails me, it left really lengthy sequences to very specific moments, like Praetorium or the ending cutscenes, here there is a lot of emphasis on flashbacks and the like for the character of Yotsuyu, which is completely unnecessary, because the fight with Tsukuyomi pretty much explains all that story, and it does it without the need of long dialogue sequences or interruptions, because it makes it works seamlessly into the gameplay. XIV sometimes has neat details within dungeons and instances to showcase some story beats, like Ghimlyt Dark having the Alliance leaders, and some of your friends joining up on the fight, those are really cool moments seamlessly tied into the gameplay as well.
The worst part of Stormblood’s story comes from the end of the story patches, and it has a general story element that bothers me a lot in XIV, the refusal to let villains die.
The eyes of Nidhogg are pretty terrible in this regard, it dampens part of the absolutely perfect ending to Heavensward, that they use them again to bring Shinryu at the end of those post patches; Gaius had a fitting end to him in A Realm Reborn, it was yet another satisfying end to it, but nope he is alive still; Zenos? After the amazing confrontation against him in the Royal Menagerie, and after the cheesy, but heartwarming sequence of Ala Mhigo being liberated to the tune of Measure of his Reach? Still here. Like imagine if Lahabrea and the other ascian you managed to destroy after much sacrifice and lives lost were just like “NOPE, still here” it would be so frustrating, and I get that some of these revivals are meant to have something happen story wise, Gaius is a better guy now, but why not have that with Maxima, he was already a Garlean that broke the mold of being an asshole from the empire, why not give more weight to him as a character than bring Gaius back, even the cool sacrifice and end to Gosetsu and Yotsuyu gets unraveled pretty soon after, even if that did deliver the best story and gameplay sequence of the game.
Now to talk about the end of the post patches in Stormblood, I kind of have to blame Shadowbringers for this, cause how it all starts is kind of clumsy, snipping away Scions to the First, fine, my problem comes from the fact that it robs Stormblood of an ending, you are pretty much taken away during a climax in the Ghimlyt Dark, in the middle of a battle against an Ascian, while trying to help your friends, and I’m just supposed to care about going to the First and do some other things, like no, I want to stick around Ala Mhigo, like is just leaving me hanging in the middle of it all, A Realm Reborn, and Heavensward had a proper enough ending, but Stormblood doesn’t really have one anymore, the Royal Menagerie was an ending, but ya know, Zenos is still kicking around.
On a more positive note, the music is really cool, the main motifs of the expansion are amazing, Triumph is such an epic boss theme, From the Dragons’ Wake is funky af, and how did Tsukuyomi managed to shift between 3 different styles of music for her fight without me disliking any of them like Sheva or Leviathan is a quite the mystery, Lakshimi? Chef kiss, saving Makers’ Ruin for the Vergil fight? Perfection. ARR is still my favorite score, but SB definitely comes second.
The side stories? Omega? Amazing gameplay wise, I love the VI fan service, even if again, they don’t quite reach the same level of quality music wise, the Midgardsormr fight is a highlight just like it was one in ARR, and while the narrative itself isn’t much to write home about, the character interactions are great, more Cid and Nero banter, best boy Midgardsormr development, really fuck Hydealyn and Zodiark, dragon boy is where it’s at, Alpha is cool, Vergil is Vergil. The Four Lords? I loved it, the dungeons thematically incredible, and the fight incredibly pleasing both mechanically and visually, and again, From the Dragons’ Wake is too good of a music track. Return to Ivalice is interesting, I only played XII and know some things about Tactics, the storyline is a weird mish mash with some curious changes to the XII bits, it also features some of the best boss fights in the game, making a legitimate enough challenge, with proper balance of what to do between alliances, and not just everyone go ham on the raid.
This review contains spoilers
Can I set this to ramble instead of review.
First of all the area design of Heavensward doesn’t really work for me, they are way too bloated in verticality and expansiveness, that is definitely to showcase flying mounts, but you don’t get to the flying until much later into each area, so the walking is pretty excruciating at times, especially given the placement of aether currents, which is the collectible needed for both flying and a faster speed mount, since your compass for them doesn’t take in account the verticality of the areas, and the fact that when the world doesn’t have FATEs going on or maybe you ignored the sidequests because the extrinsic rewards are pretty poor, it means there isn’t much to do in these super huge areas, so the size of them can be painful to go through. The saving grace of it all is supposed to be the first big journey you take to meet Hraesvelgr, and for the duration of it, it kind of works, yes I’m not having as much fun going through these areas but the promise of that meeting with an ancient dragon is enough of a motivator, going through the Dravanian Forelands, Somh Al, and the like, it all has a great mystical feel to it, even the annoying venture with the Moggles I can brush off for that build up, climbing the Zenith backed up with the beautiful melody of the Dragonsong it all works super well, but then the meeting is somewhat anti-climactic for the general story progression, there was some character development in between the journey, which is nice, but the pay-off of the whole ordeal falls a bit flat at the moment it matters the most, the story revelations you would get from the same character doesn’t even happen until subsequent visits, where you have fast travel and the whole aspect of the journey build up and adventure is already done away it, and the proper pay-off to the character doesn’t happen until the post patch quests, which has the actual ending of Heavensward, that is really the most disappointing aspect of the story pacing, even if it all gets resolved well at one point or another.
Now the main story itself, is quite good, really the best of the entire game, you have a typical set up of a war between “humans” and dragons, some classism, church bad, people bad, but is all executed really well, our main hub is Ishgard, which Coerthas is part of, so from A Realm Reborn you already have a good connection with one of the best portions of the game, is definitely the smartest choice to follow up on for the expansion. Aymeric, Estinien, Ysayle, and Haurchefant, are pretty good characters, Nidhogg is a pretty good antagonist, something I appreciate from XIV is that, while it tries to paint some of the villains in a nicer, more sympathetic light, it gives you enough reason to just wanting to beat the shit out of them, like I’m supposed to feel a bit bad for Nidhogg, doesn’t really work for me, but he does enough awful things in the game for it to please any camp when it comes to the character, which is awesome, and the moment you do get to fight him is among the finest moments in the game, one that I’ll admit gave me chills playing it.
Heavensward has the best post patch quests, because it kind of cheats, honestly if I played the game back when it was brand new, I would have probably sat there questioning what the fuck do I do now, because the cliffhanger is kind of cruel right at the end of it, is like “guys, I’m sure is cool to celebrate and all, but you know we still have to deal with Nidhogg who just stole Estinien’s body right? Guys? GUYS?”, this is the only expansion that robs that finality from you right at the end, like I know more things will happen, but it can at least resolve what it needs to in the main story before moving on to the patches. And as much as I love the Final Steps of Faith and the resolution of it all, again, massive chills, couldn’t help but groan at the fact that they threw away the eyes at the abyss rather than destroy them for good, like that is the moment where your RPG brain goes “that will come back” and it takes some wind out of how beautiful the end of the dragonsong war is, and it won’t be the last time XIV brings back stuff like that, is ironic that the Ascians, the characters that can just jump into other bodies and live eternally, when they are finally confronted, that is actually the end of their story (which I appreciate, cause they are always well built up and executed) but the more normal villains can just pop up again for the lulz. Apart from the ending, it sets up Shadowbringers and Stormblood, idk why Shadowbringers now but it was a cool questline, Fate Surrender is definitely a peak in the game, the Warriors of Darkness being an awesome bunch, and the Stormblood stuff is just pretty cool.
Big side stories, I like Alexander because I like those kind of causal time loops stories, even if I don’t find the combat scenarios themselves that interesting, Void Ark is fantastic, the atmosphere and vibe to each of the 3 raids are incredible, with some very interesting fights, Warring Triad is ok, decent fights, ok story, an FFVI remix that is not as good as the original.
If it wasn't for some gameplay problems, this would probably be my favorite.
First of all the area design of Heavensward doesn’t really work for me, they are way too bloated in verticality and expansiveness, that is definitely to showcase flying mounts, but you don’t get to the flying until much later into each area, so the walking is pretty excruciating at times, especially given the placement of aether currents, which is the collectible needed for both flying and a faster speed mount, since your compass for them doesn’t take in account the verticality of the areas, and the fact that when the world doesn’t have FATEs going on or maybe you ignored the sidequests because the extrinsic rewards are pretty poor, it means there isn’t much to do in these super huge areas, so the size of them can be painful to go through. The saving grace of it all is supposed to be the first big journey you take to meet Hraesvelgr, and for the duration of it, it kind of works, yes I’m not having as much fun going through these areas but the promise of that meeting with an ancient dragon is enough of a motivator, going through the Dravanian Forelands, Somh Al, and the like, it all has a great mystical feel to it, even the annoying venture with the Moggles I can brush off for that build up, climbing the Zenith backed up with the beautiful melody of the Dragonsong it all works super well, but then the meeting is somewhat anti-climactic for the general story progression, there was some character development in between the journey, which is nice, but the pay-off of the whole ordeal falls a bit flat at the moment it matters the most, the story revelations you would get from the same character doesn’t even happen until subsequent visits, where you have fast travel and the whole aspect of the journey build up and adventure is already done away it, and the proper pay-off to the character doesn’t happen until the post patch quests, which has the actual ending of Heavensward, that is really the most disappointing aspect of the story pacing, even if it all gets resolved well at one point or another.
Now the main story itself, is quite good, really the best of the entire game, you have a typical set up of a war between “humans” and dragons, some classism, church bad, people bad, but is all executed really well, our main hub is Ishgard, which Coerthas is part of, so from A Realm Reborn you already have a good connection with one of the best portions of the game, is definitely the smartest choice to follow up on for the expansion. Aymeric, Estinien, Ysayle, and Haurchefant, are pretty good characters, Nidhogg is a pretty good antagonist, something I appreciate from XIV is that, while it tries to paint some of the villains in a nicer, more sympathetic light, it gives you enough reason to just wanting to beat the shit out of them, like I’m supposed to feel a bit bad for Nidhogg, doesn’t really work for me, but he does enough awful things in the game for it to please any camp when it comes to the character, which is awesome, and the moment you do get to fight him is among the finest moments in the game, one that I’ll admit gave me chills playing it.
Heavensward has the best post patch quests, because it kind of cheats, honestly if I played the game back when it was brand new, I would have probably sat there questioning what the fuck do I do now, because the cliffhanger is kind of cruel right at the end of it, is like “guys, I’m sure is cool to celebrate and all, but you know we still have to deal with Nidhogg who just stole Estinien’s body right? Guys? GUYS?”, this is the only expansion that robs that finality from you right at the end, like I know more things will happen, but it can at least resolve what it needs to in the main story before moving on to the patches. And as much as I love the Final Steps of Faith and the resolution of it all, again, massive chills, couldn’t help but groan at the fact that they threw away the eyes at the abyss rather than destroy them for good, like that is the moment where your RPG brain goes “that will come back” and it takes some wind out of how beautiful the end of the dragonsong war is, and it won’t be the last time XIV brings back stuff like that, is ironic that the Ascians, the characters that can just jump into other bodies and live eternally, when they are finally confronted, that is actually the end of their story (which I appreciate, cause they are always well built up and executed) but the more normal villains can just pop up again for the lulz. Apart from the ending, it sets up Shadowbringers and Stormblood, idk why Shadowbringers now but it was a cool questline, Fate Surrender is definitely a peak in the game, the Warriors of Darkness being an awesome bunch, and the Stormblood stuff is just pretty cool.
Big side stories, I like Alexander because I like those kind of causal time loops stories, even if I don’t find the combat scenarios themselves that interesting, Void Ark is fantastic, the atmosphere and vibe to each of the 3 raids are incredible, with some very interesting fights, Warring Triad is ok, decent fights, ok story, an FFVI remix that is not as good as the original.
If it wasn't for some gameplay problems, this would probably be my favorite.
2003
A pretty cool Metal Slug type game. It has a handful of attacks that are a bit too tricky to evade, but is for the most part a fair game, the special attack mechanic is pretty cool, and I find its use to evade certain attacks useful, adds an extra layer of choice during boss fights as well, if only I didn't suck at it.
The sprite work has a nice fluidity to it, and the color palette is awesome, is not as impressive as a Metal Slug game, since is not all fully 2D, but is still a nice looking game. Soundtrack is pretty catchy, also very Metal Slug, which makes sense since is the same composer. Also you get a dolphin, so that is cool.
The sprite work has a nice fluidity to it, and the color palette is awesome, is not as impressive as a Metal Slug game, since is not all fully 2D, but is still a nice looking game. Soundtrack is pretty catchy, also very Metal Slug, which makes sense since is the same composer. Also you get a dolphin, so that is cool.