Stop me if you've heard this one before

We're gonna make an rpg. It's gonna be made in rpg maker. It's gonna be needlessly quirky and random, there's gonna be a jarring about face turn with attempts at drama that fall flat, Non characters will populate the story, and its climax will rip off a much better game that you'd rather be playing

Sound familiar? Welcome to indie rpgs of the last decade

A masterpiece, Falcom put all their love into making this you can feel it, one the best Ys and one of their best games for sure as well as a good entry for newcomers.

Plot may not be as engaging as VIII but it's still enough to keep me interested for 55 hours and more wouldn't have bothered me tbh. Early it focuses more on the side characters (bros from Karnak), but by the second half of the game maybe even earlier they become sort of useless and lose their interest that's sad, but the story starts after this and it's great. Talking about characters, Karja is a great match for Adol (the 盾の兄弟 thing is peak fr) but I regret that she doesn't have more intimate moments with Adol to deepen their bond even if you can feel it grow as the adventure goes on.

The exploration is fine, having a lot of islands to explore sounds interesting at first but the issue is that they are almost all the same, I mean sure some are one of a kind however the others just look the same and lack "identity”. What I mean by this is that if you take Seiren from VIII for example you got a whole lot of unique places to discover and here there is no such thing.

The boat part is meh, the islands aren’t even at the good scale when you play, like you encounter a small version that look ASS (yeah I know Falcom small company but come on AC Black Flag on PS3 didn’t have this issue) and I won’t mention the fights but since it’s not a major part of the game it’s okay I guess ?

Also overall the OSTs are kinda weak compared to other games but there are some very good tracks so I won't complain about that, and the cutscenes are really great especially during fights that’s the best cutscenes Falcom has done until now I'm really shocked about this fact even though Ys doesn’t get as much budget as Trails.

Now let's talk about the best part which is the fights, even in nightmare they are not that hard if you don’t play like shit, maybe a little bit too easy but inferno really punishes you really hard, anyways damn its fucking fast paced no more type weakness thing just Adol and Karja that you can switch with ease to connect attacks, unlike the previous games the guard here is essential, if well timed it gives you slight advantages and the combi mode with joint attacks is needed too to break shield for boss fights, I FUCKING LOVE IT THATS THE BEST IDEA THEY HAD IN A WHILE. The only thing I would complain about the fights is that even if your guard will break if you time it wrong, you can pretty much go back asap in guard so a gauge for the guard would’ve been a good thing.

Awesome VN, gameplay is finally somehow enjoyable and the plot is definitely more engaging by adding a share amount of new world elements and major issues to resolve so its way more ambitious than before, while keeping the funny tone that the two previous games had setted. Despite being despicable I loved when Rance shined as a strategist like everyone was chokbar de bz, Aizel was really a good character too but I wanted to see more of him they left me on my hunger fr fr. Besides that overall the art is great and they choosed nice voice actors but Rance-kun is only dubbed during fights thats such a shame...also I wasn't expecting anything from the OST but I was really surprised by some and especiallly the final fight one. Rovert might be the funniest character he truly is the GOAT

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a roller coaster of emotions but when you come out of it you don't feel like you've gained anything, while you had a lot of fun and enjoyed the experience, you're left with more questions than you've started with and you're left wanting more, but the ride already closed down and it's time to go back home.

I'm going to get this out of the way, I in no way hate this game or think it's bad, I deeply love and adore the gameplay, the characters and the world, but i cannot say the same for the narrative at all, it's a complete mess of a story where the more you think about it the less it makes sense, the game really likes to talk about talking about big stuff, it simply alludes to it and does nothing with it, so you're left theorizing and yet there is so little that you can't come up with anything concrete.
Am I missing the point or is the game simply not giving me enough information? Despite the flaws of Xenoblade 1 and 2 in terms of writing, neither of them had this problem and while some things were left ambiguous, if you were to piece everything together it would all make sense, the same simply can't be applied to this game.

If you were to ask to me describe this game with one word, it'd be: Inconsistent.
The game is a series of inconsistencies across a 100 hour experience, the game gives you so much money yet the shops don't sell anything, the game incentivizes doing side content (more on this later) and yet actively punishes the player for doing so, the list goes on but you get the idea.

Anyway enough about all the negatives, let's get into the proper review.

I'll start with gameplay first this time, and in short It's phenomenal, the addition of a job system greatly helped to keep the game fresh the whole way and the fact you can have 7 party members adds both to the chaos and enjoyment of the battle system, the Hero system is also an extremely fun addition to the core combat and grants way more party customization considering every recruit able Hero is unique with their own unique abilities, the fusion arts also letting you make some crazy combinations which also helps spice up the combat, and then there is the Interlinking mechanic which is tied directly into fusion arts, while early game it's quite rewarding to manage to get Level 3 interlink by managing to pull off enough Fusion Combos, by late game once you have unlocked most of the upgrades the forms simply become too broken, where even a Level 0 interlink can melt bosses.
And the most dreadful mechanic of all... Chain Attacks. They're back and they're more broken than ever, while they're the same as interlinking and they are much more rewarding to pull off right early game, as the game advances and you get more Heroes, some of which have broken chain orders, the game simply breaks and Chain Attacks turn from a fun mechanic to master to a skip button, throwing any and all balance this game had out the damn window.
And not to mention, when you get too powerful and overleveled the game simply stops giving you any amount of job experience, causing you to either not be able to unlock any more jobs or simply not being able to level them up until you find another high level area, and doing quests is an easy way of quickly overleveling yourself which is simply not a good thing when exploration and questing is one of your main gameplay loops that the game constantly encourages you to do.
But even then, it's fun, the amount of possible strategies you can get with any job combination is simply staggering and manages to always keep encounters fresh no matter how long you play the game which is way more than i can say about alot of other JRPGs, in fact i'd even say Xenoblade 3's combat is up there as one of the best combat systems of all time!

And now we move onto the characters, and I have to admit, this game has the best written characters that I've ever seen in a JRPG, the amount of depth even simple side characters have is staggering, the world has a deep history and you can feel by simply talking to the characters and people who start of as one note character slowly develop and become much more engaging, Bolearis is a major example of this, whenever any Hero interacts with another it's a pure delight, and this is when Xenoblade 3's writing as at its peak.
Oh yeah how could I forget, the main cast!
While i don't think the characters just by themselves are anything special, the main group as a whole is fantastic, the way they interact and talk with eachother, the way they grow and learn more about the world they inhabit together, it's great, but there is a very major problem...

And it's the Story of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and well... It's not good, not right now at least.
The story as i mentioned earlier is a mess, and while there are great story moments in the game, they're all locked behind optional side content which is a choice that really hurts this game since the game cannot utilize any of this during the main story simply because of the risk of a player not having done the side content, which really sucks since the side content are most of the times some of the biggest highlights of the game.
So after removing those moments, what do we have left of the main story? We have a generic action shonen plot that tries to look and sound deep yet either always comes up short or says too much to say something with so little value, and it really sucks, but that's fine, the villains will make up for it right? their dynamic with the main characters is what keeps the stories fresh right?
Well I have bad news, in contrast to the main and side characters, all the villains in this game are awful, they are monster of the week baddies who say nothing or do anything, and besides 2 of them, all of them are either bland, forgettable, underdeveloped or simply missed potential.
I'd rather not dive too deep into spoilers so I'll end this section right here.

The world of Xenoblade 3 is still as fantastic as ever, while the opening areas are quite bland, as the game advances you get to see some jaw dropping views and landscapes with the exploration being the best in the series yet, everywhere you go is beautiful and there is always something to find, either a unique creature, a crate or some secret cave area, but that's not what makes the exploration in this game good, I think the exploration is good because you yourself want to explore this world to see more of it, not to get a reward.
However as I mentioned before there is a big problem with exploration as it causes you to quickly overlevel, however that is a problem I'm willing to ignore because of how damn fun the exploration is by itself.

I would usually talk about the soundtrack here but I don't really need to, every track is fantastic, and while the overworld themes are a little lacking compared to previous entries, the music of this game is simply out of this world.

In conclusion: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is an inconsistent mess of a game that constantly threatens the player to be a masterpiece, yet never quite manages to do so, the game is way more concerned about fantasizing about important things than actually talking about them, and while it is much better than most games out there right now, as a conclusion to a massive story arc it is simply lacking in the story department.
Is this game an overhyped letdown? I wouldn't say so, but I can't say it was what i wanted either.

An unbelievably dense (and at times bloated) love letter to the mystery genre that revels and thrives in its own eccentricity perfectly. Boasts some of the most outrageous voice work, certified hot sauce giga-banger songs, and scenes that range from bizarrely zany to so disturbingly realistic that I can scarcely believe they exist.

I've never played anything the challenged me quite like Umineko. Its unapologetic, and at times scathing in its indictment of people who who refuse to interact with the media they consume, but at the end of all the madness it boils down to one simple question; one that completely shattered the lens by which I view stories.

Without love, it cannot be seen.

One glance at FMD Muramasa might be enough to set off alarm bells, and a further look into its tagline "This is not a story of heroes," might even be enough to have them ringing dangerously loud so as to protect your poor eyes from any further perceived edge it may contain. I'm writing this in part to assuage these concerns; not because Muramasa doesn't contain at least some element of what it appears to be on the surface, but because it is so much more than just that.

If you've ever consumed a piece of media concerning itself with any discussion around justice, its meaning, its applications, or how it might affect both people and the world, I think there is a solid chance you will enjoy Muramasa. It's characters all have very different ways of coping with the unflinchingly brutal world around them, and some of its best and midnight black moments are when it puts these mentalities under a microscope to see whether they hold up under its crushing gaze.

This isn't to say Muramasa is some fun-sucking, edge inducing black hole of pure anti-enjoyability, far from it. In fact, I'd go so far as to say a good majority of the time I spent with this cast I done so smirking, cracking into a silent chuckle, or outright uncontrolled laughter. There is such a diverse array of humour from the many wonderful persons of Muramasa, and Minato Kageaki is as much the perfect straight man to them as Araragi Koyomi is to the Monogatari series.

I'd like to assert, however, that these two seemingly separate pieces of tone or not simply that. Muramasa's ability to portray a sense of humour, wildly entertaining character interests, and combine them with its darkest and most engaging contemplations are not only appreciated; but utterly essential to its success in storytelling. No matter what these people have done, or will do, its how it reminded me of their capacity to engage in day to day banter or interests that allowed those more powerful moments their due, lest the aforementioned black hole actually come into being.

Narahara's in depth world of mecha battles and meticulously crafted sword fights is a disgustingly entertaining battlefield of never ending conflict. It's clear however, that it uses this as a platform to form a strong refutation of such things and many adjacent crimes. It's at times far too gratuitous with it attempts at bleakness, and I don't doubt that many people sensitive to such portrayals will be instantly aware that it is so. However, for anyone who knows themself to not fall into that category, I urge you to give this wild ride a shot.

I think the fact this story refuses to allow its cast any semblance of reprieve for their actions says a lot about its intent. The illusion of heroism reflected in the mirror for standing against a great threat is completely shattered by a constant and brutal condemnation of their deeds. Muramasa is so utterly unafraid to remind us what it thinks lies at the end of the path it shows, and its gut wrenchingly appropriate to see the faintest of lights it sparks unable to illuminate that path.

This certainly isn’t a story of heroes; not for anyone already on the path. What it desires is something so elusive that by the end we are still so far from it, maybe even more so than when we began—and that is what stuck with me the most after the credits rolled.

“Peace is the noblest of pursuits.”

As the credits roll and I hear "My Way" by Frank Sinatra, my mind is crowded with conflicting thoughts and emotions
how can a game be so cringe and awful yet use it to its own benefit? how can a game with no identity and soul use it to give itself purpose?
I think about those, and I have no answer to either question, but what I have experienced is something unique and memorable
something unforgettable that will stick with me.

There are some baffling writing decisions in this game but I do think that's what gives the game its charm, under any normal circumstance this game would be horrible in every way, but it isn't.
Jack Garland as a character would also under normal circumstances be an awful character, but because of the setting he's in, the characters he's surrounded by, the story he takes part in... He actually sorta becomes genius?
I think I can sorta say the same for the Party Members as well, they're all so 1-dimensional that it gives them charm, the banter between them and Jack during missions is wonderful, it gives them a very tiny amount of depth but more importantly, it makes you care for them, you want to see more of these characters, you want to keep seeing these character's interact and that's honestly the most impressive part of this game.
Despite everything it does, despite all of its flaws, it manages to come out on top and it's proof that games with experimental tones and over-the-top plot can work in this modern video game industry and I think that's the most respectful thing about this game and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Alright now with that nonsense out of the way, why don't we get into the proper review?

As usual, starting with the story:
It's entertaining but simple, well written? Hard to say but at the end of the day it fits extremely well with the tone of the game not much to comment without diving into spoiler territory so I'll end this one here and as much I want to talk more about this aspect I simply can't bring myself to because the story is best experienced blind.

Up next are the characters!
They're fun, they are very 1-dimensional as I mentioned before but they serve their purpose in the story well and really help spice up the gameplay and make you strategize a bit more about each encounter.

Now finally, the highlight of the entire game, the gameplay:
It's superb, one of the best I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing, the combat is fast and smooth, there are tons of jobs and weapons with different playstyles that are all viable and fun in their own way and I want more, the combinations that you can make with each job, the different skills and actions you can apply to the end of your actions are fascinating, it makes every single combination of jobs unique and viable and incentivizes experimentation which made any and all encounters feel fresh and challenging in their own way, mastering the combat and using soul shield perfectly feel extremely rewarding and I think more games should adopt a high-risk high reward kind of playstyle this game has.
and the loot system is also fantastic, it's your usual nioh style, it can be very satisfying to optimize all your equipment and steamroll everything but you can also completely ignore it and play the game without any issues.
and the level design... It's not awful but it could be better, most of the early levels are very bland with some nonsensical room placement but I believe the final few levels are where the level design shines the most as there are some beautiful locations that feel amazing to go through, however, some levels hurt to look at and sometimes make me want to take a break after beating a level, however overall I don't think this is a major issue for this game as the combat more than makes up for it in that regard.

And finally the Music.
as always with Final Fantasy games, it's superb.
The remixes of older tracks from the series mixed in with more modern and action-packed battle themes make it a joy to listen to and play through and I desperately want to listen to the soundtrack whenever I can, it really makes the game very slightly more enjoyable.

In conclusion:
Stranger of Paradise is a modern Video Game B-Movie and it's wonderful, the complete over-the-top plot and the edgy tone makes it a very unique game ignoring Dirge of Ceberus in the entire Final Fantasy franchise, and with the approach they went with for the game all the flaws it has easily enhances it rather bring it down.
And as much as I adore this game, I can't bring myself to say that it's a game for everyone, everything about it appeals so much to my tastes and what I enjoy in videogames where it's very hard to recommend to people even if I do believe everyone should give it a shot at the least.
I was in it from the beginning and I'm glad I made it all the way through to the end, And I hope that you feel the same.

This visual novel does romance in a way I haven't really seen before and thought I would never find in a work like this. By the end of it I disliked the main characters in the same amount that I loved them, and I think it'll stick with me for a long time.
I wouldn't call it perfect, Closing Chapter had some weaker parts that dragged and made me stall it for some time (especially in the side routes), but CODA was good enough that the whole journey felt worth it in the end. One of the routes especially was the highest point of the VN and every scene in it was that much powerful because of everything that came before.

今でも覚えている あの日見た雪の白さ
初めて触れた 唇の温もりも忘れない
粉雪のようなあなたは 汚れなく奇麗で
私もなりたいと雪に願う
I still love you.