Heard this game saved Fire Emblem. I'd never played one before, so I thought I'd finally check it out. I mostly enjoyed it, but about 2/3 of the way through I just kinda stopped caring. Most of your units have very shallow personalities, often with a gimmick that gets very old very fast. (Haha, Kellam gets forgotten about, haha Sumia is clumsy, haha are you laughing yet? LAUGH) Once the 2nd generation character started entering the picture, my interest waned very quickly; I knew about FE4's 2nd gen, and Awakening's just felt far less impactful and just felt like "more late game units I don't want to bother training". Some mission objectives other than "Rout the Enemy" would have also been nice.

Decent gameplay and core cast, annoying or forgettable secondary cast, and a story that felt like it dragged on far too long.

Very fun metroidvania indie game. I really like Konjak's artstyle and how much fine detail there is in the character animation, backgrounds, and effects. I'd love to play another game by him.

My main gripe with this game is the writing. The story is very bleak, ends on a bit of an anticlimax, and most of the characters are very selfish and rather unlikable, but I think that's mostly made up with the fantastic presentation.

Good metroidvania, beautiful sprite work, but I wish the writing were better.

Oh man, oh man, oh man. Generation IX. This is...a tough one. If I had to sum it up in once sentence it would be: this is a game I enjoyed despite its many, many, many flaws.

I'll start off with the good. I generally like most of the new Pokemon added this generation. It's nice that we finally got some cross-gen evolutions (other than Sylveon) for the first time since Gen IV, and many of the new Pokemon have unique type combinations, are generally very useful in battle, and have some cool designs (Tinkaton my beloved). The soundtrack is good overall, but I especially think the battle music in this gen is some of the best in the series, and the areas aren't bad either (though whoever thought making the Academy/Mesagoza music a 1-minute loop should be fired out of a cannon). I also am a big fan of the human character designs, sometimes in spite of the character themselves (*stares directly at Geeta*). Lastly, the plot when it converges at Area Zero, is one of my favorites in the series; that finale sequence rivals the best Gen V had to offer, in my book.

And now for the bad... Let's begin with the donphan in the room: the performance of this game is absolutely unacceptable. This game chugs pretty much no matter where you are, the framerate on certain objects & characters is a atrocious in many circumstances, and the camera very frequently clips through the ground and solid objects. Considering the Switch can run BotW, TotK, three Xenoblade games, and even the Gen VIII games with few issues, it is insulting how poorly this game runs. The fact that there have been basically no improvements via patches over a year later is just sad.

On top of that, while I enjoy the Pokemon and Character designs, the world design often feels totally barren. Areas between cities rarely have more than a couple textures, and often have almost nothing in them outside of a few trainers and some item balls. If you've been in one part of an area, you've basically seen all it has to offer.

Even worse, however, are the cities themselves. One of my favorite parts of an RPG--Pokemon included--is coming across a new town, talking to the people there, illegally breaking and entering into the various buildings, grabbing everything that's not nailed down, and hunting for sidequests. Gen IX has almost none of this. The game has literally zero interiors that are not directly related to some part of the main plot, NPCs in towns almost never have anything interesting to say, sidequests are near non-existent, and shops are bloated with iterations of the same stores and restaurants with near-indistinguishable stock. Really, the whole world feels like a theme park set, and the utter lack of any personality in the settlements just hammers you in the face with that feeling.

Character customization--one of my favorite additions to the series and something I spend far too many of my hard-earned Pokedollars on in the last 3 gens--feels totally half-assed. Sure you can still buy accessories and shoes and such, but arguable the most important things for wardrobe personalization, tops/bottoms/dresses, don't exist outside of the small handful of school uniform styles they give you. Hope you like purple (or red) because you ain't got any other choices, sucker. For a game with a primary emphasis on freedom and choosing your own path, the fact that they do not let you change out of an academy uniform is baffling to me. (I know there are some more options in the DLC, but I have not accessed it yet.)

And some miscellaneous gripes: TMs becoming one-use again but being craftable it alright, I guess, but grinding Pokemon materials is not enjoyable compared to...just being able to use the TM again. I get it's for plot reasons, but please let us just fly out of Area Zero instead of having to warp to the entrance every time!!! Jumping on Miraidon/Koraidon is jank af and often leaves you perpetually falling on an odd piece of geometry; it warps you to safe ground after a few seconds, but it happens often enough to be very tedious. Level scaling the boss encounters to some degree would have been nice, as the actual level-order path has you bouncing east and west across Paldea; good fast travel mitigates this somewhat, but it's still feels like an odd decision.

I do not recommend this game, overall. Pokemon holds a special place in my heart, and it's a shame to see how the games have just faltered time and time again ever since the move to 3D. I expect better from you, Game Freak. I know you have it in you. (And please for the love of god let Unno direct a game again I am begging you.)

Trace Memory (aka Another Code outside NA) isn't a bad game, but having played it after Hotel Dusk and Last Window, the growing pains are very apparent. This was CiNG's second game--first for the DS--and while it carries the same atmosphere as CiNG's later titles, Trace Memory left me wanting more.

The game is played from a top-down perspective with fixed camera angles, and feels a bit more like an old PC point-and-click than a VN. The story itself is decent (I very much enjoyed the final area), but is held back by it's very short length; you can beat this game in just a few hours. Some of the puzzles feel very contrived, and one of them also literally doesn't work unless you have a physical DS, as it relies on viewing a real-world reflection on the screen.

This game and its JPN/EU-only Wii sequel are getting a remake in early 2024. If you're interested, I would likely recommend waiting for that release to play this!

The sequel to Hotel Dusk, Last Window only came out in Japan and Europe, and was developer CiNG's final release before going defunct later the same year (RIP to a real one). Set a year, later, Last Window follows a mostly-unrelated plot. I imported this from Europe, as the DS was not region-locked (and this was back when DS game prices were still reasonable).

The game follows mostly the same style: a VN with occasional puzzles and interrogations, and a city apartment building to explore in lieu of a hotel this time around. Character artwork is still done in the same sketch style, but now sometimes in color! I think Last Window's plot is just a bit stronger that Hotel Dusk's, and felt myself feeling stuck less often, so overall I rate it just a wee bit higher, but both are still great. If you liked Hotel Dusk, definitely play this one too!

A neat visual novel slash puzzle game slash noir story, Hotel Dusk was a pleasant surprise for me. I picked it up after seeing Kyle Hyde's trophy in Smash Bros Brawl. VNs aren't typically my thing, but this has enough other gameplay elements that kept me interested, mainly puzzle-solving, and a small, but interesting hotel to wander around dungeon-crawler style. The character writing is great, and everyone is done in a sketch-like style with lots of line boil--all hand-drawn. The characters are all very expressive, distinct, and have their own engaging personal narratives that are interesting in their own right, and impactful to the main plot in varying degrees.

It is a bit short, and sometimes the puzzle/interrogation solutions can feel a little obtuse, but overall it's a good time if you're looking for a VN-style game.

Ah, Dark Dawn, the black sheep of the Golden Sun series. 13 years on and we still haven't gotten a follow-up to the 3rd GS game, which (of course) ended on a cliffhanger.

I have a lot of issues with Dark Dawn, but I do not think it's a bad game. First, the good: Sakuraba's soundtrack is still top-notch, and the visuals are some of the better looking ones on the DS, though the chibi-style overworld models do not work for everyone. The Djinn system is still here, and is just as fun to utilize as the GBA titles; I had a lot of fun with the battles in this game.

SPeaking of Djinn, the bad: unlike the original duology (outside of not transferring your save), Dark Dawn has points of no return and permanently missable collectibles...including Djinn. And these points of no return are not well-telegraphed, making it easy to screw yourself over unless you look them up ahead of time. I generally do not like permanent missables in games, especially RPGs, and the fact that Dark Dawn has them while the GBA games do not is a big problem to me. I recommend following a guide if you want to play this.

Additionally, the plot feels more aimless that the original games. I honestly don't even recall much of it outside of the final climactic sequence. And it still has all the writing and pacing issues that plagued the orignals' plots. Dark Dawn also has a full party of eight new characters, with some of the originals appearing as NPCs. They're decent overall, but the last few barely get any development as they join you extremely late in the story. At least one of them never even gets the chance to interact with the main antagonists until the literal final boss!

If you liked the originals and are itching for more, it's not a bad game and I do recommend it, but it's a shame that it felt like it took one step forward and two steps back. And damn it, Camelot, give us a follow-up already!!!

The second half of the Golden Sun duology picks up literally right where the original ends, but shifts perspective to the (ostensibly) antagonists' side. Basically every point I made about the first game still stands here--they are basically one full game split in half with very little difference between them.

You have a new party of four characters, but they generally fill the same archetypes as the original four, and you eventually even team up for a full party of eight by the end. Everything you did in the first game is carried over--if you're willing to manually write down and input the 260-character password generated at the end (or are lucky enough to possess physical cartridges, two GBAs, and a link cable to do it automatically).

The first of the original Duology, Golden Sun pushes the GBA to its limits. Everything in the game moves very fluidly, and Motoi Sakuraba makes the GBA create sounds I didn't even know were possible with his progressive rock-inspired soundtrack. The Djinn class system can feel a bit overwhelming at first, but once you get a handle on it it is easily one of my favorite overall combat systems in a turn-based RPG.

The primary thing that holds Golden Sun back is its writing. The plot overall is alright (and keep in mind this is only half of it), but the dialogue is very long-winded, often repeats itself, and just generally slows the game to a crawl. I have a relatively high tolerance for this type of thing--especially since it is not voice acted--but if constant, drawn-out cutscenes are a dealbreaker for you, you may want to look elsewhere.

Hands down one of my favorite RPGs. The fan translation is phenomenal and really shows the care and love put into it from dedicated fans. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry, it'll weird you out! Sprites and animations are some of the best on the GBA. Shogo Sakai's soundtrack here is one of his best, and the rhythm-based physical attack system makes every different battle tune a new challenge; you even get crazy complex rhythms in some of the harder fights (I hope you can count in 29/16!). If you haven't played, do yourself a favor and get the fan translation right now!!

(P.S.: In my opinion, playing Earthbound and/or Mother 1 is not necessary to enjoy Mother 3, but it will help you understand a couple aspects of the plot and let you pick up on all the references to the previous games. But overall, it's still a good standalone experience.)