First GOTM finished for May 2024. After playing Terranigma, and quite enjoying that one, I was excited to finally get around to Illusion of Gaia. It's...alright. Nothing in it blew me away, the music wasn't terribly memorable, and the writing felt stilted and off. The character transformations were fun, and some of the boss fights were entertaining, but often the actual gameplay mostly devolved into poking stuff with a flute. Level design wasn't all that great, but there were some interesting puzzles thrown in that I enjoyed. The story was sometimes just all over the place, and even having beaten the entire game I still feel like a chunk of lore is missing. Glad to have finally gotten around to this one, but overall a pretty average experience.

The is the first port of a non vr game I've ever seen to its completion in vr. It's very clear that this is a port. It could never provide the same level of consistency as a native game built from the ground up. The game cuts to third person very often, the world is static and not interactive, and cutscenes play on a screen in a black void. The implementation certainly has its shortcomings, however, when it hits it hits.

Climbing onto the back of a giant and wiggling my arm like a maniac to slash its weak spot and physically leaning left and right to keep a minecart on the tracks while shooting at enemies were some of the coolest experiences I've had in vr, all packed in a meaty campaign with a budget nearly no vr game could hope to get.

For every cut to third person I wished I could do myself the game surprised me with a mechanic they took the time to retool and let you do in vr leaving me to wonder why some things were left untouched (let me climb ladders!). Even little things have really nice attention to detail. For example, there's a puzzle towards the end of the game that has you controlling a computer screen with a controller. In vr they actually give you a slider and a button on the machine itself. That's really neat!

Honestly, I prefer playing this game in vr for the weapon reloading alone. It's well proven that gun combat is much more intense when you have to fiddle around with magazines yourself. The weapons in general were given a lot of attention and it shows. Each one handles differently, has different ways to reload, and work really naturally with motion controls. The knife is really cool also, with the player being allowed to stab enemies themselves for finishing blows and physically blocking attacks with it to parry. In the beginning the cut to third person for the roundhouse kick really bothered me. Don't get me wrong, it's not ideal, but I got used to it as the game went on. This is just a really cool way to experience this game.

Supremely fucking confident. In its presentation, in its dedication to the trimmed down action gameplay, in its boldly unique aesthetic premise, in its kind of trope-y story, in its blatant misogyny: you get the unshakeable feeling that CyberConnect2 knew what they were making, what they wanted to say, and how they were going to have the player experience it. Does it all work? Absolutely not. Does it even matter? That's gonna depend on how easily you buy into the broader experience Asura's Wrath is offering. It's insane a game like this even exists, in all its grandeur it makes you yearn for more from the gaming industry as a whole. Not necessarily in the sense that I want more games like Asura's Wrath specifically, but games that are willing to be themselves as opposed to the modern AAA trend of making every game their own individual mean of any other genre adjacent AAA title.

Still absolutely gorgeous (at least it is on RPCS3, not sure how it's lookin' on native consoles these days) while also finding this distinct visual balance in its character designs between humor and coolness, which is further reflected in its increasingly ridiculous setpieces that sometimes border on the edge of spectacle and gag -- it's too bad the same couldn't be said for how the game treats the women in its story, mostly being reduced to objects one way or another. Par for the course in shounen anime I guess, but I consider it the one actual blight on the game overall. There's other smaller issues like there not being a whole ton of enemy variety and the action segments can be pretty repetitive, but the pacing and visual language is so fucking on point that those less desirable aspects kinda melt into the back of your brain when the good shit is happening.

People who liked the kaiju shit in Final Fantasy XVI but wanna play a game without 20 hours of MMO questing to get to the good parts should definitely try to find a way to play this one. Also any God Hand enjoyers who thought that game had too much gameplay and not enough Star Wars-themed Hinduism-Buddhism-FotNS-Berserk fusion.

Fantastic game from an art standpoint and a gameplay standpoint. I am in love with the art-style, do not get me wrong it is depressing and outright morbid but that is what makes it so utterly unique and captivating. The religious imagery and theme is fantastic and adds a lot to making this game unique and standing out from other similar games. The combat is satisfying, fluid, and is more complex then it first appears. Collectibles are abundant. Interesting characters with unique inspired designs everywhere. Great level design with a large variety of locales. I am in love with this game in general. From the pictures I think you can tell if this game is for you. If you can handle a more depressing tone and some challenging gameplay this is for you. If you miss Dark Souls and Castlevania this is the game for you.

This game is similar to the Persona Q games in terms of writing, length and pacing. You will expirience a very wholesome story. But in terms of gameplay, it is very different to everything else in the whole Persona franchise.

The tactic gameplay, it's simple but efective. However it will start slowly and it will take some time to develop, but once you get the hang of it, you are in for great amount of strategies that can even get you to win battles in 1 turn.

Sadly, the traditional fusion mechanics is one of the weakest of the whole megami franchise. You can only select one skill to pass in every fusion, which limited a lot the combat options. But it evens out with all the option every character has, still it could have been a lot better, at least for the people who likes to break games with insane strategies.

The levels are actually more fun than they look like, you can see them as puzzles that are solved by bringing the right characters with the right skills at the right positions, so when you get the perfect combination it will feel very gratifying.

The art style, altough not for everyone, is not as simple it looks. For example, the character portraits have a lot of variations, and whats even more impresive, they are not the same whenever a character is looking left or right. It has a lot of charm, and Im sure you will love it eventually.

The music might be the weakest point but it still rocks, maybe it's not as good as the main games and not even close the Persona Q soundtracks, but still very enjoyable.

Overall I had a pleasant surprise with this game, I wasn't expecting much, but it was for sure one of the best games of 2023. However, it's tricky to recommend this game, you need to be a tactics fan or a huge persona fan to really enjoy it, luckily I am both, so win win!

SUPER UNDERRATED GAME!!!

It was a game that really spoke to me, being a big marvel fan, someone who loves a good turn-based gameplay, and some one who loved the monastery gameplay of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I thought the characters were all written pretty true to comic iterations, and had fun little personality quirks, even if I thought the in-fighting story got played out and a bit frustrating.

I really wish that Firaxis would be given the opportunity to make a sequel, but I know it probably won't happen. Nonetheless, I really loved this game.

I really, really wanted to like this game. I loved BOTW, but this didn't do it for me. I spent 50+ hours, and still felt like I was missing some crucial pieces of information or gear at every turn. A good open-world game should always make you feel like you're on the right path, but I never once felt that way here. Just felt like I was always doing the wrong things in the wrong order, and it made me not want to play. Maybe it's me, but it was a far cry from the wonder that was BOTW for me. Biggest disappointment of the year for me.

someone told me this game puts most battle shonen 3d arena fighters to shame

im gonna go a step further and say this puts a lot of battle shonen to shame

game excels at insane scale and really touching emotion. the Hideaway mechanic really helps sell the lovable cast and how much of a mark Clive is making on this world.

this game lives and dies based on your emotional connection to the Hideaway. STRONGLY, STRONGLY recommend doing every single Hideaway sidequest. The assorted towns and random strangers don't matter as much but the Hideaway should be at the top of your priorities list.

Sidequest placement in games gets brought up a lot as a weird break in the pace, a weird misplaced priority for the hero to be doing this when there's a world ending main quest objective - but I actually think that works beautifully here.

Clive sees them as a family and doesn’t think he’s above any of them. Their livelihoods and small inconveniences matter as much to him as a deity knocking on his doorstep with a sword.

Some of the most memorable moments in this game for me were small things like buying cloths from the market so the young girls around the Hideaway could finally get out of their tattered rags. They could wear things they were proud of and feel a little less like society's rejected.
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massive behemoths on your screen at all times battling it out with laser rays while the main character yells about how much he loves humanity over some very thin faux game of thrones aesthetic dressing

peak

the satisfaction of gaining a new power set by tearing it out of a boss’s asshole is unbeatable

ill write a better review later if i feel like it. this is fired off like 20 minutes after beating it because I wanted to champion the game a little.
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sparknotes:

- one of the best combat systems in any video game
- every single boss fight is one of the best boss fights in any video game
- exceptional english voice acting
- pretty strong story that gets detrimentally overambitious at times but definitely memorable and deeply touching
there's an undeniable beauty in overambition. i love when the storytelling reaches for the stars
- the art direction and setting are jawdropping
- really outstanding cast and character development
- a frequent draw of the JRPG genre is the "immersive" feel of going on a journey in a foreign world that feels real, and this is spectacular at that. they go the EXTRA mile to make Valisthea feel real as hell



there's a bit of a strange marriage between "slow JRPG dialogue stretches" and "adrenaline rush character action stretches" - the pacing of both combined into one game seems to throw a lot of people off


beware that ymmv in that regard but i loved it

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*as you get further in the game (3rd actish) there are optional sidequests with each "town leader" (martha, quentin, isabelle, lubor, eloise) that have your hub towns react to the state of the world/your progress in the storyline

try not to miss these they're very cool stuff that actively change the dynamics of entire locales through Clive's actions