I was going to be harsher on this game due to its controls, but after a certain point I got used to them. They are still bad though, everything that is hard about this game comes from its control scheme.

Moving away from the negatives, this game is super charming. All of the designs are great, especially Roll's, a straight up 10/10. Graphically, this game is still great; the only way I can describe it is as charming. All the characters are fun, and the Bonne family makes for entertaining villains. Considering the era, the dub is surprisingly alright; again, it all helps create this charming quality.

Overall, I liked it. It has good art for the characters, which is the main reason I went to play it. BTW, the artist is Constellor if you want to see more of their art. The pixel art is also very good.

The combat was enjoyable. I have never played a battle network game, so I don't know how it compares to those games, but I feel it does a mostly decent job at being entertaining the whole way through. I say mostly because I really don't like Undertale-like parts. They ruin the flow of combat for me by being too long, especially if you get a bunch of enemies doing it in a row.

I liked the characters and story; both are pretty straightforward. I did find a few points pretty eye-rolling (e.g. The Murk Slayer), but I feel that comes with the territory a bit with this type of story. The comedy in this is extremely hit-or-miss. There is way too much cheap reference humour in the superfluous text. It's 2023; you can't make eating a mushroom will make you big joke anymore, come on.

Despite all the negative stuff, I still think it is a 7/10. If they make a sequel, I will play it.

This does some things worse and some things better than the last game. Rozalin and Adell are a power couple 100%, and I like Axel and Yukimaru. A pretty big problem is that the main antagonist is a total jobber.

The main problem I had is that this game has trouble telling the difference between difficulty and tedium. Geo panel heavy maps are seemingly made to make things take longer, instead of adding a challenge. There is some aggressive filler here, almost the entirety of Shinra Tower is this.

Also I want to hit the person who decided the movement area colour should be almost identical to the red panels.

I decided to give this a shot after enjoying the Edgerunners anime. Despite my low score, I enjoyed it overall. The main story is fine and has nice set pieces, like the parade. But I never really felt like there was a primary antagonist in this game, like Yorinobu is whatever. You could say Adam Smasher is one but I feel Edgerunners is doing a lot of the heavy lifting there. The main story's strength is the relationship between you and Johnny Silverhand and how it develops throughout the game. The side quests are where the game truly shines, it's where I think the most interesting and fun stuff happens, and I say this having not done all of them. 

I am disappointed by the customization options in this game. For Cyberpunk it is sad that you can't make yourself metal from the jaw down. The most you can really do is make your hands slightly cybernetic. Also for all the clothing option this game has, it really should have been Third Person.

However it's biggest problem comes from that I played it on PS4. This game is a nightmare of performances, constantly the game would not load sections of the environment for lengths of time. Multiple times I have had to wait for over a minute for a quest character or shop dealer to load in. It is straight up unacceptable that it was allowed to release on the ps4 gen. 

This would probably be a 7 or an 8/10 if it ran better.

This is definitely something I would want to see CD Projekt Red have another go at because I think having a good base and learning from all the Ls they took when this first came out, they could make a really good Cyberpunk game.

Mid, let me tell you about mid. This one of the most aggressively average JRPG I've played. The story is dull, nothing noteworthy or shocking really happens. One of the potentially interesting points is undone by one of the game's revisions, making it embarrassingly dumb. The combat is bland action that can be solved by just face-fucking enemies while chugging health items.

The characters are basic, you can figure out everything about them by their introduction just by having a passing interest in Anime and JRPGs. Music is unfortunately forgettable, the only song I remember is X.R.C. and its the title screen music. EX+ makes this game longer than it's original, making it by default worse in my eyes.

Don't play it, play any other Falcom game.

This game is very neat and has a lot of interesting ideas, but it has some problems. The gameplay shifts between braindead and annoying. All you really do is mash and grinding can solve any wall you hit.

The skill system is really unique, being able to train people to fulfil roles outside of combat. I do think there are tons of nitpicks you could get into with it. For example, if you get someone with the customization skill, they can only customise the weapon they use, which can be really annoying, especially when your party is mostly using different weapon types. Meaning, you would need to give multiple people the customization skill to get party-wide value out of it.

I love and also despise the limited party gimmick, I think it's a cool idea to personalise your experience and encourage replays. But it's the worst feeling when you see a new character that you think looks cool but you have a full party, so you're screwed. (BTW my party was Roddick, Milie, Ilia, Ronyx, Cyuss, Ioshua, Mavelle, and Pericci)

Private actions are, again, a cool idea that could have been executed better. The issue is that it is handled in a very inconvenient way. You can only view one of the unquie party interactions per activation of a private action, meaning that you have to repeatedly go in and out of the town repeatedly to see them all. Also, when you are in a private action, you cannot rest at an inn or leave a town via ship, nor can you regroup the party without leaving a town.

The story is fairly bare bones; you never feel the presence of an antagonist, and there are no recurring villains, which is disappointing. What carries the game is the characters you have in your party, because this game has limited party slots, which makes seeing party members interact interesting because you are seeing something you couldn't see if you made a different choice. I do wish there was more character development, as Ronyx and Ilia are the only ones I consider fully fleshed out, at least in my party.

I do wish this game had more sci-fi stuff because with a name like Star Ocean and the first couple hours, I expected more. But in truth, Star Ocean is almost pure fantasy for 90% of it.