gonna be completely honest, this was my dream tama bc i love mothra and i had heard that this was kinda like a prototype for the digimon vpets, but i got a little bit disappointed. the system is okay, but the one thing that annoyed the hell outta me is that mothra's weight goes down by JUST ONE SINGLE POINT after you play the little game. i got sooooooooooo tired of that game that i'm just dropping it for now. also got frustrated that, after completing all the pre requisites for a certain evolution and taking good care of the tama, it didn't evolve and just... died. so. yea. it's cool that it exists and it's a good tama to have in my collection, but not a very fun one

To say that Final Fantasy was important in my life would be a huge understatement. It goes far beyond being my favorite video game series of all time. It's part of who I am today.

But what, you might ask, makes these games so special to me? I believe that Final Fantasy is a very honest videogame series, which doesn't try to appear smarter than it actually is. I can list an extensive list of Japanese RPGs that have a more refined and robust narrative than most games in the Final Fantasy franchise; or even, several with better-designed combat systems, or that have a more modern game design in relation to their time. But that's the point: these things aren't the most important thing in a Final Fantasy game. Instead, the series tries to win over its player through feelings and emotions, unforgettable moments that will remain etched in their memory forever, and this is truly something that few RPG franchises can boast of having managed to achieve.

Perhaps the original Final Fantasy VII is the culmination of this representation. A brilliant game for its time, which has carried a huge legacy to this day. Not because of the gameplay, not because of its design, but because of what it represents, and the way it connected and was important to its players. And in this, Rebirth manages to replicate and get it right with all its strength.

Developing that group of characters to the point where you almost consider them lifelong friends, or a member of your own family, is really something. If you believe that the journey is more important than the final destination, Rebirth is a greater representation of the journey within the story of FF VII. Going from city to city, getting to know the group members' past, their anxieties, their traumas, the things that makes them happy, is priceless. The level of detail and care that Square Enix had in each interaction, each dialogue between the characters, was truly special. After playing video games for so many years, you can really tell when a development team is involved in that project, and are fans of the title as much of you are.

Earlier, I mentioned that gameplay is not the main selling point of the franchise, after all, its own philosophy is focused on innovation in each game. Even in the era of turn-based combat, we saw great differences and nuances in the gameplay of each game. It is a franchise that has a strong identity, without necessarily having a fixed identity. But in this regard, Rebirth absolutely rules. It truly has one of the best combat systems I've experienced in an action RPG, the level of experimentation and ways the player can play with it is much greater than in the Final Fantasy VII remake, which I already considered impressive.

In fact, beyond the combat system, Rebirth can very well be considered an amusement park. The abundance of minigames, activities, ways of leisure and passing time are unbelievably abundant. It's experimentation, and fun in the greatest essence of the word. Secret amazing bosses, insane difficult challenges, rewarding relationship system, the game just have all you could ask for a JRPG, and scream the words ''Final Fantasy".

Now, I'm not going to give away any spoilers, but I can say that Rebirth is one of the bravest games I've ever seen. Suffice it to say that if we put 100 players of the game in a room, we would probably have 100 different opinions about the developments and direction the story took. Its ending is something that will be absorbed and debated for years, and that's something I really admire.

I never tire of repeating that the most important thing to define your favorite games are not things like design, fun, or even technical aspects. But yes, the experience and the way you absorb it, and remember that game over time. And since the original Final Fantasy VII has always been in my memory, it will have to make room for Rebirth next to it, because my friend, I shouldn't forget it anytime soon.

shantae games are fun, but not that fun. and i think it all comes down to the more linear aspect of the exploration. i mean, can this game really be defined as a metroidvania? the world is pretty straight foward, to the point exploration becomes boring. i think the times i had more fun with the game, were the times it seemed to experiment new things in its linearity (i.e the "stealth" section and the "running" section). also, i was gonna go for the 100%, but due to some weird bug, an item i already owned wouldn't show up in my progress, so, yeah.
also can we talk about the character design? i know it's from a classic gameboy color game but somehow they manage to make shantae and all the female characters even more sexualized than they were in previous games. i played it in 3D on my 3DS and their boobs actually were protruding through the screen ?? lol also they look exactly the same ???? there's no nuance whatsoever.

the movements and attacks were fun though! i love the scimitar jump and the cannon. it was cool to combine attacks to the movements. and, yea, i guess in the end of the day, i had some fun with it! i just wish it were something more.

Functionally, this is a failure of a video game; all the ways a player interfaces with the game are either sloppily opaque, mind-numbingly dull, or both. Mandatory character interactions are frequently tucked away in completely innocuous NPC dialogue, with no indication that any new part of the game has become accessible after talking with them. Combat encounters borrow the positional grid-based systems of LIVE A LIVE or Popolocrois Monogatari, yet any instances of this feature affecting battle strategies are both exceedingly rare and exceedingly shallow. It understands that Pokémon is the hot new exciting game everyone wants to be, but it doesn’t realize we’re well past the inconsequential random monster recruitment of Dragon Quest V. Every dungeon in the game is built using exactly two visual backdrops that get lazily color-swapped with no other visual or thematic variations, and the dungeon designs are never any deeper than a single intended progression path with frivolous branching dead-ends. Strikingly few sections of this game can be intuitively navigated without the guiding hand of a walkthrough. None of the issues in this game ever amount to any kind of mechanical payoff or purpose; the game is simply not constructed well. Though with all this being the case, anybody who critically engages with art has to reconcile with one question sooner or later: at what point does heart surmount technical ineptitude?
The truth is that despite all its damning flaws, I came away from Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure absolutely enamored with it. This game ascends far beyond the threshold where passion overtakes convention, proving that even a blatantly terrible video game can still claw its way into being a masterpiece when it’s so overflowing with love. The sporadic musical numbers sung by noticeably non-professional singers constantly put a huge smile on my face – and not an ironic, sneering smile either, a genuine one! The earnestness of untrained singing voices lent the songs a sincerity that only further drew out the beauty of the music. Similarly, the simplicity and innocence of Rhapsody’s narrative is exactly what allows it to be so effective. The central themes of the story are a little loose and tend to get confused with each other, but there were still several story beats that managed to pool emotions in my eyes – when other story beats didn’t have me audibly laughing out loud, of course. This game’s got a magical tone that knows exactly what it wants to be exactly when it wants to be them, and it pulls them off excellently. Wrap it all up with some of the softest, cutest, warmest character designs and environments the Playstation can render and the result is a game that begs to be loved with just as much love as it has to give… And I do! I love this game. How could I not?
Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure is constructed horribly but crafted magnificently, and in the end that heart is what matters most above anything else. How beautiful for a game like this to exist.