Very high production qualities for a Game Boy Color game. Sprites are highly detailed, music is of high quality, and you can even hear voices in some areas. The game itself is short and simple, you spend one month at the Combat Revue and basically do tasks to get a new assignment. I got assigned… Janitor… There is replay value with the game to get more points, and an extension called Pocket Sakura which unlocks special bonuses in the game. Overall a bite-sized portable version of Sakura Wars without the SRPG elements that’s easy to pick up and play.

A highly influential legacy title, it’s very clear to see how this influenced many other visual novels and SRPGs going forward. I think this game has aged exponentially well in spite of how long it’s been since it has released. All of the characters are fantastic, I loved all six of the main girls and they all grew so much on me and felt like a family by the end. Sakura in particular really resonated with me and I ended up romancing her. While the SRPG content is very barebones and just has the basics of it from the genre, I still found it very fun and engaging with the mechanics and found the maps extremely well-designed. The story was also great and I loved its social commentary and religious elements. Combine that with fun minigames and a great social simulation aspect and I found this to be a fantastic experience overall. Overall, Sakura Wars is a timeless classic, and I urge you to play it. I think this is a game everyone should play at least once in their life.

Strange game tbh, a lot of weird feelings about this one. In terms of story it’s easily some of the best in Final Fantasy’s history, Nojima hit it out of the park and it really does a great job fleshing out Zack as a character, while leaving some breadcrumbs for fans in terms of character interactions and development, covering plot points not seen in Final Fantasy 7, and leaving breadcrumbs for the future as well. This all culminates in an emotionally turbulent conclusion which I got to say absolutely broke me and left me in pieces. Where this game faulters however is in terms of gameplay and design. The combat is very unintuitive and leaves a lot to be desired. Most of it is designed around spamming the attack button with very little variety, you can customize your materia to use different spells and physical attacks but it’s more limited (and not very useful) than it sounds, you’re better off really just using the standard attack most of the time. There’s also a dodge roll and a block button, but they both aren’t very useful, are slow, and have a lot of delay, making them hard to use in difficult situations. You are aided by something called the DMW, which is like a slot machine roulette that grants you a special attack, but the odds of you getting something worthwhile are completely randomized. The enemies and bosses can range in terms of design from okay to BS, with pretty fast attacks with a lot of damage and unskippable overpowered attacks that sometimes result in instant death. The areas themselves are also not very well-designed. Mostly being empty, long-spanning hallways with very few things to find or NPCs. The encounter rate is also really high, which results in you needing to fight and wipe out enemies which can get monotonous. Also added are random minigame sections. These are pretty unintuitive, and are often just a hinderance towards the overall experience as they don’t really add anything of value. All in all while the story and characters are amazing and I cannot stress that enough, the actual game itself is a really mixed bag, I’m not sure how I feel about it. Very mixed feelings as a whole.

I’m just gonna keep it short and go straight to the point, was initially pretty favorable towards the game, with more thought and playing it’s predecessor I then realized I probably forced myself to like the game. Clunky battle system, awkward voice acting (absolutely baffling considering some of the talent at hand), paper thin characters (except Regal my baby boy), mediocre visuals, pretty awful music (considering the composer), an unclear character progression system that locks character development behind multiple playthroughs, and a story that plays it really safe after the first third make for a pretty awkward experience. The first point might change on a replay as the version I played was in 30 FPS, but I can’t see anything else changing. Probably the weakest Tales game I’ve played so far.

I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, I’ve been going through an incredibly rough time recently, and it almost did not end well. So I’m gonna talk about a game that helped me through a really rough spot.

This is Tales of Phantasia, released for the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) in 1995, although it wouldn’t release here until 2006 for the Game Boy Advance. I don’t know how many people are familiar with the Tales series, it’s mostly known outside of Japan for the games Berseria and Arise, but it started with this game. This is a very special game for a multitude of reasons. It was the first game of it’s time to have full-voice acting, in addition to a combat system called the Linear Motion Battle System, which is kinda like a fighting game as you play on a linear plane with a focus on combos. You can switch your attacks on the fly and even switch characters while playing, in general it’s a very unique system and felt really fast-paced and fun. There are also plenty of things outside of the main game. You can find secrets all over the overworld, sidequests that help flesh out the world and characters, and additional weapons and gear that can help you later in the game, it’s even better if you’re planning on replaying the game multiple times!

In terms of the story I was expecting something really cliched and basic but for a game from 1995 it’s actually really intractate, dealing with a lot of mature topics such as mass genocide, found family, racism, discrimination, existentialism, long-distance relationships, and more. The story is about Cress Albane and his friend Chester Burklight, who one day after a hunting trip find their village has been destroyed by bandits and their entire families killed, yes even the children which becomes a pivotal part in Chester’s arc to avenge his sister. Cress will have to go on a journey to become more than he is, he’s a wonderful character who experiences a lot of growth and maturity throughout the game and I loved his arc especially how he aspires to become an even greater swordsman than his father and his personal journey to make that a reality. Other characters include the claric, Mint Adenine, who struggles with post-traumatic stress and aspires to be as good of a healer as her mother, a great parallel to Cress’s journey, the summoner Claus, who initially starts as a very immature and childish researcher who matures into a leader and deals with a long-distance relationship with his colleague, the half-elf Arche Klein, who faces racism and discrimination for being a half-elf, and Suzu Fujibayashi, a shinobi from the future struggling with the loss of her parents. Together they must defeat the evil Dhaos, who threatens to endanger their world. I found all these characters to just be wonderful, they all grow together and feel so much like a family in spite of everything that they go through. Dhaos is also a fantastic villain, whose looming presence is felt through the entire game.

In short, Tales of Phantasia is a magical journey that brought me back to what I really love about videogames. I love the atmosphere which reminds me of the dark fantasy movies and books I read in my youth, such as Princess Bride, the Hobbit, or Labyrinth. It really helped make me feel good about myself again after such a difficult time. I still have a long way to go, but I cannot thank the game enough for how it helped me. I recommend this to anyone looking for a classic role-playing experience.

I’m not finished with the game actually but I think I’ve played enough of the remaster to purely critique it, this will be entirely about the remaster itself, what it adds, and some of the issues I’ve encountered.

For positives, while there is not many, there is a few things I have enjoyed about what it has added. On the overworld, enemies chasing you now have an icon that shows them coming after you. This makes it much easier to escape random encounters. Additionally, animated cutscenes can be skipped, and you now have the ability to close the game wherever you are.

Unfortunately as I mentioned before the positives were a very short list. In truth there has been a myriad of issues I have encountered with the game, Obviously one of the most noticeable is the reduction of the framerate from the original’s 60 to 30 but it goes further than that. There’s frequent frame drops, stuttering, and poor performance all around, particularly in battles especially ones with detailed backgrounds or when Collette is in battle because of how the game renders her angel wings. Additionally there are missing graphical effects such as the iconic screen transition (on the switch version at least) and very odd-looking AI-upscaled textures. All of the issues from the PS3 version return in this one, including missing and quieter audio. The load times are also very long, where I can’t tell if the game is loading a cutscene or if it’s just taking awhile.

Overall I’m disappointed with this version of the game and have had a plethora of issues with it, I hope Namco will patch the game but otherwise I recommend just sticking with it on GameCube.