ara
2022
i feel like i would ramble on for ages if i started to write paragraphs of text for this game, so i'll go with a List Format This Time.
so here are the top [however many things i end up listing] reasons why this game felt laser-focused to appeal to me:
- a realm-spanning, grounded narrative with actual honest-to-god focus on geopolitics, tough choices and tastefully done magical and fantastical elements, with zero late-game surprise demon king shit to ruin it
- a big, well-rounded cast of characters that not only have interesting and fun personal stories unto themselves, but whose ideals are well examined through the game, and who work as effective lens in interrogating, contrasting and comparing the mechanisms of the various societal systems of the three states of norzelia
- dialogue and character writing that hits a very good balance of dry and serious, and human and humorous, with very well done economical script. just a bit more of joe abercrombie-like sassiness would not have been amiss, but overall very good and fitting for the game
- tactically rigorous gameplay design that moves the focus significantly from out-of-battle preparation and character building to in-battle decision making, which makes the fights themselves feel much more balanced and fair and, most of all, FUN
-- as a bit of a sidenote, i must say that i've always looooved sprawling and involved character progression systems where you can break the game wide open with some good planning and execution, but i've also come to realize that i like them specifically in crpgs and your more standard jrpgs with quick battles and lots of trash mobs to sic your busted ass party at, with trpgs i massively prefer the more chess-like approach that tristrat has
- combat system that gives you all the information you would ever need to plan out your tactics, with basically no bullshit surprises. again, kinda like chess!
- the overall progression philosophy: you're always making at least some in-game progression, even when you face complete defeat, and you never LOSE shit, there's no character permadeath or anything of the sort. in truth the retained experience and kudos from lost fights didn't make a very big impact on the pacing of the game for me (because there were only a few battles i ended up losing once or twice before i emerged victorious), but the psychological effect of knowing you'll always progress in some ways even if you fuck up royally cannot be understated for me--i take more risks, i try out more varied strategies, i generally poke the systems more and as a result, tend to have a lot more fun with the game. with a harsher save/checkpoint system, i tend to play much more conservatively, which always has a negative effect on my enjoyment.
- if it wasn't obvious from the above point, i've never clicked with games that derive a lot of their difficulty or challenge from long-term attrition of resources, so let me just say that i fucking LOVE the tp system. the item system being your standard fare was a good balancing weight for the tp system (though, again, i supremely appreciated the fact that you get used items back if you lose a fight)
- the 3d diorama presentation of the exploration and combat scenarios was just absolutely adorable
all that said, there were certainly a few things i was hoping to see. MORE LISTS!
- a bit more variety across the board would have been appreciated. a few more enemy types and some optional (hard) bonus objectives per fight would have gone a loong way for me. right now the 35 hours i spent with the game feels just right, as much as i'd like to know how the golden route goes, i don't think starting ng+ right away is a good idea. maybe in a year or two, though.
- almost all of the positive status effects feel bizarrely weak compared to the negative ones. proccing immobility or paralysis in particular on a key enemy unit remained incredibly exhilarating all the way to the end, and i really wish positive effects were as impactful.
- some of the scales of justice decisions could have been harder. the setup of every option starting out with equal amount of supporters avoids the potential issue of the game accidentally implying some options are better or more desirable than the others, but i got my will in every one and it felt just a tad too easy.
- while i adored the presentation overall, i'm not a big fan of the super contrasty colors of the 2d-hd games. you definitely get used to it, though, and playing the pc version with higher res and framerate than on the switch made the graphics more palatable for me.
- the material and character skill "tree" systems felt a bit tacked on, the vast majority of upgrades you could get seemed pretty inconsequential. would have preferred less materials overall (and the game being stingier with them) and tighter skill trees with just the skills that make a genuine difference--you get the tiny stat boosts from level ups.
---
i have never played a game that made me feel more like i was playing an epic fantasy novel trilogy. it is in many ways the trpg genre absolutely perfected for my particular tastes. it's not the very best in every single thing--when i want to enjoy some of the most colorful dialogue of the genre i'll boot up fft or to:luct, and when i want a different kind of satisfaction found in building gamebreaking characters i'll boot up troubleshooter (or, tbf, fft or to:luct lol), etc.--but as a whole package, it is one of the best trpgs i've ever played and likely my overall favorite. just an incredible game through and through and god do i hope we get a triangle strategy 2 some day, that takes place in the same world but maybe 100 years in the future--the ending i got certainly made it clear norzelia is just entering a new era of true innovation, so there's a lot of potential there.
four and a half difficult multifaceted realm-changing decisions forced to be made out of sheer necessity out of five
so here are the top [however many things i end up listing] reasons why this game felt laser-focused to appeal to me:
- a realm-spanning, grounded narrative with actual honest-to-god focus on geopolitics, tough choices and tastefully done magical and fantastical elements, with zero late-game surprise demon king shit to ruin it
- a big, well-rounded cast of characters that not only have interesting and fun personal stories unto themselves, but whose ideals are well examined through the game, and who work as effective lens in interrogating, contrasting and comparing the mechanisms of the various societal systems of the three states of norzelia
- dialogue and character writing that hits a very good balance of dry and serious, and human and humorous, with very well done economical script. just a bit more of joe abercrombie-like sassiness would not have been amiss, but overall very good and fitting for the game
- tactically rigorous gameplay design that moves the focus significantly from out-of-battle preparation and character building to in-battle decision making, which makes the fights themselves feel much more balanced and fair and, most of all, FUN
-- as a bit of a sidenote, i must say that i've always looooved sprawling and involved character progression systems where you can break the game wide open with some good planning and execution, but i've also come to realize that i like them specifically in crpgs and your more standard jrpgs with quick battles and lots of trash mobs to sic your busted ass party at, with trpgs i massively prefer the more chess-like approach that tristrat has
- combat system that gives you all the information you would ever need to plan out your tactics, with basically no bullshit surprises. again, kinda like chess!
- the overall progression philosophy: you're always making at least some in-game progression, even when you face complete defeat, and you never LOSE shit, there's no character permadeath or anything of the sort. in truth the retained experience and kudos from lost fights didn't make a very big impact on the pacing of the game for me (because there were only a few battles i ended up losing once or twice before i emerged victorious), but the psychological effect of knowing you'll always progress in some ways even if you fuck up royally cannot be understated for me--i take more risks, i try out more varied strategies, i generally poke the systems more and as a result, tend to have a lot more fun with the game. with a harsher save/checkpoint system, i tend to play much more conservatively, which always has a negative effect on my enjoyment.
- if it wasn't obvious from the above point, i've never clicked with games that derive a lot of their difficulty or challenge from long-term attrition of resources, so let me just say that i fucking LOVE the tp system. the item system being your standard fare was a good balancing weight for the tp system (though, again, i supremely appreciated the fact that you get used items back if you lose a fight)
- the 3d diorama presentation of the exploration and combat scenarios was just absolutely adorable
all that said, there were certainly a few things i was hoping to see. MORE LISTS!
- a bit more variety across the board would have been appreciated. a few more enemy types and some optional (hard) bonus objectives per fight would have gone a loong way for me. right now the 35 hours i spent with the game feels just right, as much as i'd like to know how the golden route goes, i don't think starting ng+ right away is a good idea. maybe in a year or two, though.
- almost all of the positive status effects feel bizarrely weak compared to the negative ones. proccing immobility or paralysis in particular on a key enemy unit remained incredibly exhilarating all the way to the end, and i really wish positive effects were as impactful.
- some of the scales of justice decisions could have been harder. the setup of every option starting out with equal amount of supporters avoids the potential issue of the game accidentally implying some options are better or more desirable than the others, but i got my will in every one and it felt just a tad too easy.
- while i adored the presentation overall, i'm not a big fan of the super contrasty colors of the 2d-hd games. you definitely get used to it, though, and playing the pc version with higher res and framerate than on the switch made the graphics more palatable for me.
- the material and character skill "tree" systems felt a bit tacked on, the vast majority of upgrades you could get seemed pretty inconsequential. would have preferred less materials overall (and the game being stingier with them) and tighter skill trees with just the skills that make a genuine difference--you get the tiny stat boosts from level ups.
---
i have never played a game that made me feel more like i was playing an epic fantasy novel trilogy. it is in many ways the trpg genre absolutely perfected for my particular tastes. it's not the very best in every single thing--when i want to enjoy some of the most colorful dialogue of the genre i'll boot up fft or to:luct, and when i want a different kind of satisfaction found in building gamebreaking characters i'll boot up troubleshooter (or, tbf, fft or to:luct lol), etc.--but as a whole package, it is one of the best trpgs i've ever played and likely my overall favorite. just an incredible game through and through and god do i hope we get a triangle strategy 2 some day, that takes place in the same world but maybe 100 years in the future--the ending i got certainly made it clear norzelia is just entering a new era of true innovation, so there's a lot of potential there.
four and a half difficult multifaceted realm-changing decisions forced to be made out of sheer necessity out of five
dnf @ the ~50% mark
not for me. i found the open world content uninspired, the everything but the kitchen sink approach to mini games fun on paper but annoying in execution and most of the plot and characters and banter--as someone who liked but didn't love ffvii--okay at best.
combat was definitely the highlight here. i never clicked with remake's combat system, but with rebirth they've done the thing i've always found really fun in jrpgs: they just pile mechanics on mechanics, turning the whole thing into a bit of an unfocused mess of endless things to progress and level and try and tinker with. it has a good weight to it too, and deleting groups of enemies in a flash with carefully orchestrated party-wide combos is always very satisfying. if there's something about the game that might make me come back and finish it and some point (and play the last part of the remake trilogy when it comes out), it's the combat.
not for me. i found the open world content uninspired, the everything but the kitchen sink approach to mini games fun on paper but annoying in execution and most of the plot and characters and banter--as someone who liked but didn't love ffvii--okay at best.
combat was definitely the highlight here. i never clicked with remake's combat system, but with rebirth they've done the thing i've always found really fun in jrpgs: they just pile mechanics on mechanics, turning the whole thing into a bit of an unfocused mess of endless things to progress and level and try and tinker with. it has a good weight to it too, and deleting groups of enemies in a flash with carefully orchestrated party-wide combos is always very satisfying. if there's something about the game that might make me come back and finish it and some point (and play the last part of the remake trilogy when it comes out), it's the combat.
2024
feeling blessed on this day.
i like juggling short run-based roguelites/likes with my big games and isaac has for a very long time been my go-to, but i've been playing it a LOT in the last 6 months so i was starting to feel just a bit burned out, and just as i was thinking i'd have to focus solely on the big ass big games, balatro enters my life.
digital crack. there's your review. i'm afraid my yakuza 8 playthrough will actually go on ice because of this, the one that was supposed to be the secondary game when i'm too tired to focus on the primary one.
oh well, it's not like i'm on a time limit here or anything. now then... back to being the jokah, baby. or whatever. release serotonin, please.
i like juggling short run-based roguelites/likes with my big games and isaac has for a very long time been my go-to, but i've been playing it a LOT in the last 6 months so i was starting to feel just a bit burned out, and just as i was thinking i'd have to focus solely on the big ass big games, balatro enters my life.
digital crack. there's your review. i'm afraid my yakuza 8 playthrough will actually go on ice because of this, the one that was supposed to be the secondary game when i'm too tired to focus on the primary one.
oh well, it's not like i'm on a time limit here or anything. now then... back to being the jokah, baby. or whatever. release serotonin, please.
2020
Fucking incredible is what I think (I'll write a longer review some day when I'm not stuck on my phone lol)
This review contains spoilers
four big catastrophes with zero casualties out of five
if crossbell is peak trails, azure itself is a smaller additional peak that's jutting out of that peak, reaching slightly higher, but it's also covered in a bit of bird shit that conspicuously spells out the words "sexual harassment is so funny, guys".
so it definitely has its pros and cons, perhaps more clearly defined ones than most of the other games in the series, in my opinion. first, the pros.
the gameplay is by far at its best, here. the addition of wazy and noel means the main playable cast offers just the right amount of variety to mess around with without being too little or too much, and the master quartz system opens up a lot of fun character build possibilities, making progression feel really addictive. i played on hard and it felt just perfect, many of the bosses were stiff challenges that frequently forced me to rethink my party composition, but trash mobs, at least if i got a double advantage (which is very easy to get, thankfully), went down nice and easy and never felt like a huge drag.
the narrative is much more exciting than zero's and for the most part it's a fun enough time. that's not really why i play trails, though, and thankfully azure is absolutely chock full of fun little optional conversations, entertaining npcs and interesting and varied side quests. this is where azure really shines for me, why i had such a great time with this game. the party banter is much more varied and natural than zero's--randy definitely still has his "OH MAN I WANNA HIT ON THIS CHICK" moments but for the most part it really felt like the writers had gotten sick of the repeated tropes in zero and started to write, like, actual dialogue and jokes between actual characters--and wazy injecting a bit of sorely needed edge and humor single-handedly saves and elevates many scenes and quests. wazy in general is a highlight and a real breath of fresh air in a series whose main playable casts are almost always very rigidly confined "good guys", not just smart and thoughtful, but kind and polite and mature and nice beyond belief.
on the flipside, this is where the fan service shit really starts. the way the game treats the elie/shirley scene is insane, and the literal beach episode just plain sucks. we also get even more female characters with huge boobs and revealing outfits, but at least with these older games, they aren't nearly as in your face as they might be, which is a small mercy. one that's immediately out the window with cold steel's move to full 3d, though...
i also found the finale to be really dull, to my surprise. i remember enjoying it quite a bit on my first playthrough some years ago, but on a replay, knowing all the twists and reveals, it really is just a linear slog from one corny ass shounen anime conversation to the next. everything gets wrapped up real neat, villains get their heartfelt moments and sympathy, nobody dies or is even seriously injured, any potentially challenging or interesting questions (like is kea unconsciously affecting others around her and what does that mean for her and people around her, or kea in general, really) get completely swept under the rug immediately and so on. just shitloads of jrpg fluff. trails' main narratives are very often completely at odds with the series' aim to create an expansive and believable world for me, and it's at it's most obvious during azure's finale. i just can't take these stories seriously.
the localization felt, for the most part, definitely improved here. gone were the clunky, robotic lines that were frequent in zero. i did not actually expect this, so it was a really positive surprise. that said, it did feel like azure had more of what i've seen people call anime-isms, and i think a more naturalistic and less word-for-word approach to the localization would have really benefited the game. it's also chock full of weird jrpg fluff about justice and delusions and whatever the fuck, but i'm guessing that's how it is in the original script, too.
moving on, with some trepidation, to a.. sort of replay of cold steel, and then reverie and beyond. my expectations are low, but it's going to be interesting to see if playing them after crossbell, as god intended, makes them a better time.
if crossbell is peak trails, azure itself is a smaller additional peak that's jutting out of that peak, reaching slightly higher, but it's also covered in a bit of bird shit that conspicuously spells out the words "sexual harassment is so funny, guys".
so it definitely has its pros and cons, perhaps more clearly defined ones than most of the other games in the series, in my opinion. first, the pros.
the gameplay is by far at its best, here. the addition of wazy and noel means the main playable cast offers just the right amount of variety to mess around with without being too little or too much, and the master quartz system opens up a lot of fun character build possibilities, making progression feel really addictive. i played on hard and it felt just perfect, many of the bosses were stiff challenges that frequently forced me to rethink my party composition, but trash mobs, at least if i got a double advantage (which is very easy to get, thankfully), went down nice and easy and never felt like a huge drag.
the narrative is much more exciting than zero's and for the most part it's a fun enough time. that's not really why i play trails, though, and thankfully azure is absolutely chock full of fun little optional conversations, entertaining npcs and interesting and varied side quests. this is where azure really shines for me, why i had such a great time with this game. the party banter is much more varied and natural than zero's--randy definitely still has his "OH MAN I WANNA HIT ON THIS CHICK" moments but for the most part it really felt like the writers had gotten sick of the repeated tropes in zero and started to write, like, actual dialogue and jokes between actual characters--and wazy injecting a bit of sorely needed edge and humor single-handedly saves and elevates many scenes and quests. wazy in general is a highlight and a real breath of fresh air in a series whose main playable casts are almost always very rigidly confined "good guys", not just smart and thoughtful, but kind and polite and mature and nice beyond belief.
on the flipside, this is where the fan service shit really starts. the way the game treats the elie/shirley scene is insane, and the literal beach episode just plain sucks. we also get even more female characters with huge boobs and revealing outfits, but at least with these older games, they aren't nearly as in your face as they might be, which is a small mercy. one that's immediately out the window with cold steel's move to full 3d, though...
i also found the finale to be really dull, to my surprise. i remember enjoying it quite a bit on my first playthrough some years ago, but on a replay, knowing all the twists and reveals, it really is just a linear slog from one corny ass shounen anime conversation to the next. everything gets wrapped up real neat, villains get their heartfelt moments and sympathy, nobody dies or is even seriously injured, any potentially challenging or interesting questions (like is kea unconsciously affecting others around her and what does that mean for her and people around her, or kea in general, really) get completely swept under the rug immediately and so on. just shitloads of jrpg fluff. trails' main narratives are very often completely at odds with the series' aim to create an expansive and believable world for me, and it's at it's most obvious during azure's finale. i just can't take these stories seriously.
the localization felt, for the most part, definitely improved here. gone were the clunky, robotic lines that were frequent in zero. i did not actually expect this, so it was a really positive surprise. that said, it did feel like azure had more of what i've seen people call anime-isms, and i think a more naturalistic and less word-for-word approach to the localization would have really benefited the game. it's also chock full of weird jrpg fluff about justice and delusions and whatever the fuck, but i'm guessing that's how it is in the original script, too.
moving on, with some trepidation, to a.. sort of replay of cold steel, and then reverie and beyond. my expectations are low, but it's going to be interesting to see if playing them after crossbell, as god intended, makes them a better time.
This review contains spoilers
three and a half corny speeches out of five
it's trails. a weird series whose style and philosophy of character and plot writing fundamentally disagrees with me, a series so frequently unbearably dorky that i find myself rolling my eyes playing it so often that some day i think i'll sprain an eye muscle and go blind. are eye muscles a thing? can you sprain them? that's no doubt one of the unsolved mysteries of the universe. no, no, stop googling it; i'm on a personal quest to find out!
because i also can't stop playing these frigging games. despite my seething but ice cold hatred for the cold steel sub-series, i've played 1-3 from beginning to end, and i've restarted 4 multiple times--that's like, a 400-hour-old baby's worth of gaming hours! a big, fat, ugly baby, who just can't decide what it wants. i've also played the first two sky games multiple times, despite finding the main duo pretty annoying (i have nothing bad to say about sky the 3rd--that boy good). they are such a unique beast in the world of japanese rpgs that i very well can't just ignore them, can't not play them, and if that means i'll have to occasionally rant about them and my issues with them online, to a no doubt thoroughly captivated audience...
whhops, doing it again. moving on!
i was excited to finally jump into the officially localized crossbell games, as i've played them before with the (very rough) fan translations and found myself having a genuinely really good time--they are, as far as i'm concerned, easily peak trails, both in the good ways and in the... no, actually, peak trails in just the good ways.
the central cast is nice, tight and balanced. lloyd is a bit of a dweeb, but he gets teased for it adequately, so i can't hate on him too much. the other three are great, with randy probably being the highlight for me--despite his thorougly tired and unfunny womanizing shtick, he gets the best moments in the game in my opinion. the supporting cast is varied and colorful too--there's a lot to love there. but everyone gets plenty of screentime and good scenes and lines and moments.
the plot is.. well, it's good. it's a really slow burn, and in all honesty, i did end up dropping the game for a while after the first couple chapters cause i was just so bored with it. but, in all fairness, i did come in with the wrong expectations--i was just thinking about azure and how exciting that game gets, that i forgot that the first half of the duology is there to lay a TON of groundwork. and it definitely gets more exciting later on! i was actually surprised how self-contained zero really was, i totally remembered there being at least one very end game plot twist to hook you, but it seems i was wrong.
ultimately more or less the only bits i did not care for were any when the sky characters popped up--i frankly do not give a single shit about estelle or joshua or renne. mercifully those were fairly minor in the end. neither was i a huge fan of tio's backstory and how it was handled in the present narrative, but relegating the actually dark (and in this case, very dark) bits of the human existence to the background and then either basically just sweeping that stuff under the rug or even resolving it in the most unsincere, saccharine (relatively) feeling way in the narrative is nothing new to trails and is, in fact, one of my biggest frustrations with the series. heavy flashes of this with randy too, actually. the dude murdering hundreds or thousands of people in the battlefield over the course of 15 years, starting when he was literally four years old (according to him), is handled like it was just a neat bit of added flavor to this character, he's just a cool guy with some secret depths, a bit of darkness to him, but hey, who amongst us isn't like this? you just talk it through and it's all good. very relatable.
the combat is really good, it's fun, it's snappy, it feels good to mess around with the timeline mechanic (i forgot how strong the speed buff and debuff were in this), it offers just the right amount of variety in combat and outside of it to feel like you have plenty of options at your disposal, but without feeling like any mechanic is superfluous or encumbering or just worthless. it's like the sky games but with interesting accessory and quartz itemization, or like the cold steel games without the ridiculous systems and cast bloat.
i have found the official localization to be a bit of a mixed bag, however, to my disappointment. it's fairly breezy and casual most of the time, but on the occasion it pulls out the absolutely clunkiest possible lines that sound like they were just straight up machine-translated, like nothing a real person would ever say, not even tio, the lil' robot girl herself. those really stick out. i hope azure is better on this front. though, in fairness to nisa, this has also seemed like a staple of the series to me, even under xseed, so maybe it's mostly due to the source text.
all in all, i had a really good time thoroughly steeping myself in the slow and meticulous worldbuilding and politics of crossbell, the big and the small side quests, the npcs and their daily lives, the interesting character progression and the engagingly simple but varied combat. i'm more than ready for the shit to hit the fan in azure.
it's trails. a weird series whose style and philosophy of character and plot writing fundamentally disagrees with me, a series so frequently unbearably dorky that i find myself rolling my eyes playing it so often that some day i think i'll sprain an eye muscle and go blind. are eye muscles a thing? can you sprain them? that's no doubt one of the unsolved mysteries of the universe. no, no, stop googling it; i'm on a personal quest to find out!
because i also can't stop playing these frigging games. despite my seething but ice cold hatred for the cold steel sub-series, i've played 1-3 from beginning to end, and i've restarted 4 multiple times--that's like, a 400-hour-old baby's worth of gaming hours! a big, fat, ugly baby, who just can't decide what it wants. i've also played the first two sky games multiple times, despite finding the main duo pretty annoying (i have nothing bad to say about sky the 3rd--that boy good). they are such a unique beast in the world of japanese rpgs that i very well can't just ignore them, can't not play them, and if that means i'll have to occasionally rant about them and my issues with them online, to a no doubt thoroughly captivated audience...
whhops, doing it again. moving on!
i was excited to finally jump into the officially localized crossbell games, as i've played them before with the (very rough) fan translations and found myself having a genuinely really good time--they are, as far as i'm concerned, easily peak trails, both in the good ways and in the... no, actually, peak trails in just the good ways.
the central cast is nice, tight and balanced. lloyd is a bit of a dweeb, but he gets teased for it adequately, so i can't hate on him too much. the other three are great, with randy probably being the highlight for me--despite his thorougly tired and unfunny womanizing shtick, he gets the best moments in the game in my opinion. the supporting cast is varied and colorful too--there's a lot to love there. but everyone gets plenty of screentime and good scenes and lines and moments.
the plot is.. well, it's good. it's a really slow burn, and in all honesty, i did end up dropping the game for a while after the first couple chapters cause i was just so bored with it. but, in all fairness, i did come in with the wrong expectations--i was just thinking about azure and how exciting that game gets, that i forgot that the first half of the duology is there to lay a TON of groundwork. and it definitely gets more exciting later on! i was actually surprised how self-contained zero really was, i totally remembered there being at least one very end game plot twist to hook you, but it seems i was wrong.
ultimately more or less the only bits i did not care for were any when the sky characters popped up--i frankly do not give a single shit about estelle or joshua or renne. mercifully those were fairly minor in the end. neither was i a huge fan of tio's backstory and how it was handled in the present narrative, but relegating the actually dark (and in this case, very dark) bits of the human existence to the background and then either basically just sweeping that stuff under the rug or even resolving it in the most unsincere, saccharine (relatively) feeling way in the narrative is nothing new to trails and is, in fact, one of my biggest frustrations with the series. heavy flashes of this with randy too, actually. the dude murdering hundreds or thousands of people in the battlefield over the course of 15 years, starting when he was literally four years old (according to him), is handled like it was just a neat bit of added flavor to this character, he's just a cool guy with some secret depths, a bit of darkness to him, but hey, who amongst us isn't like this? you just talk it through and it's all good. very relatable.
the combat is really good, it's fun, it's snappy, it feels good to mess around with the timeline mechanic (i forgot how strong the speed buff and debuff were in this), it offers just the right amount of variety in combat and outside of it to feel like you have plenty of options at your disposal, but without feeling like any mechanic is superfluous or encumbering or just worthless. it's like the sky games but with interesting accessory and quartz itemization, or like the cold steel games without the ridiculous systems and cast bloat.
i have found the official localization to be a bit of a mixed bag, however, to my disappointment. it's fairly breezy and casual most of the time, but on the occasion it pulls out the absolutely clunkiest possible lines that sound like they were just straight up machine-translated, like nothing a real person would ever say, not even tio, the lil' robot girl herself. those really stick out. i hope azure is better on this front. though, in fairness to nisa, this has also seemed like a staple of the series to me, even under xseed, so maybe it's mostly due to the source text.
all in all, i had a really good time thoroughly steeping myself in the slow and meticulous worldbuilding and politics of crossbell, the big and the small side quests, the npcs and their daily lives, the interesting character progression and the engagingly simple but varied combat. i'm more than ready for the shit to hit the fan in azure.
rolling 1d5..... it's a 4.5! yes i rolled a 4.5. it landed on its edge. shut up, i'm the gm here.
this was the jankiest, buggiest mfer i've played in a long time (possibly since kingmaker, lol)--and it was the ENHANCED EDITION, at that!--but.... (cue a pillar of light hitting the ground and the Mythic Power song kicking in) i fucking loved it!
what a wonderful, long ride it has been. wa'ah has everything i look for in an rpg: a big playable cast of interesting, intriguing, fun characters of all sorts and some great banter between them, myriad character progression possibilities and an addictive combat system that makes working out builds very rewarding, TONS of smaller side quests and side areas with their own little stories, often mysterious and fascinating and surprising, an epic story with lots of twists and turns and a good amount of player agency and, of course, an incredible soundtrack.
it's far from a perfect game, it has a lot of messy systems and bad ux, not to mention the bugs and the glitches and the jank, and i had to spend some time tweaking it with the fantastic toybox mod to really make it work for me, but it's 100% one of those more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts games, absolutely no doubt about that.
i would be here all evening if i went into all the details with a game as huge as this, so i'm just gonna say that wherever owlcat goes, i'll be there... just maybe not day one, or even year one. wotr is now easily one of my favorite rpgs which, by extension, makes it one of my favorite games because rpgs are My Jam, and it feels really good to feel this way almost a couple decades into this hobby. i absolutely cannot wait to see what the studio does with Rogue Trader.
before that, i have a LOT of rpg favorites to revisit, because boy did this awaken a thirst for more rp-gaming in me. 2023 truly the year of the crpg.
this was the jankiest, buggiest mfer i've played in a long time (possibly since kingmaker, lol)--and it was the ENHANCED EDITION, at that!--but.... (cue a pillar of light hitting the ground and the Mythic Power song kicking in) i fucking loved it!
what a wonderful, long ride it has been. wa'ah has everything i look for in an rpg: a big playable cast of interesting, intriguing, fun characters of all sorts and some great banter between them, myriad character progression possibilities and an addictive combat system that makes working out builds very rewarding, TONS of smaller side quests and side areas with their own little stories, often mysterious and fascinating and surprising, an epic story with lots of twists and turns and a good amount of player agency and, of course, an incredible soundtrack.
it's far from a perfect game, it has a lot of messy systems and bad ux, not to mention the bugs and the glitches and the jank, and i had to spend some time tweaking it with the fantastic toybox mod to really make it work for me, but it's 100% one of those more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts games, absolutely no doubt about that.
i would be here all evening if i went into all the details with a game as huge as this, so i'm just gonna say that wherever owlcat goes, i'll be there... just maybe not day one, or even year one. wotr is now easily one of my favorite rpgs which, by extension, makes it one of my favorite games because rpgs are My Jam, and it feels really good to feel this way almost a couple decades into this hobby. i absolutely cannot wait to see what the studio does with Rogue Trader.
before that, i have a LOT of rpg favorites to revisit, because boy did this awaken a thirst for more rp-gaming in me. 2023 truly the year of the crpg.
2022
This review contains spoilers
a wonderful, a beautiful surprise. i definitely had some reservations going in, i have very little interest in the setting or the period of history it takes place in, and i never particularly enjoyed PoE1 or 2's writing--the former being too dry, the latter often feeling like it overcorrected too much due to the dryness criticism. boy did those reservations get mashed, stabbed, crushed and burned and sent to kingdom come, though. amen. AMEN! (with shaky text)
the quality of the writing was definitely the biggest surprise here. the writing, the characters, the dialogue feel real, there's a sincerity to it and its depictions of the life of the various characters and groups in the 1500s that really makes it feel like it's coming from the heart, born out of sheer passion for the medium and the setting and out of love for the stories it's telling. it's frankly a bit amazing to me how attached i got to some of these characters, considering the cynicism i had with me going in. many of andreas' inner sequences got me genuinely emotional, and particularly the ones with august just, fucking, destroyed me. i've certainly gotten more emotional and sensitive in many ways as i've gotten older and while pentiment isn't the only game that has made me misty-eyed, it has the honor of being the first one to make me squeeze out a little sob multiple times.
in addition to the emotions felt, i also enjoyed the musings on art and delicate conversations on death a lot. i actually got quite a bit out of the religious talk too, which was nice, since i've never really given religion or my own faith (or the lack thereof) any particular thought. not to mention the mystery itself, of course! the dialogue styling reveal was a wonderfully clever little thing at the end there, and i found the conclusion to the whole thing to be very satisfying.
all that said, i'm not gonna replay this. i don't know how much choice & consequence is actually built into the overarching narrative, but my playthrough felt completely organic, the events made sense and it never felt like the story got pushed one way or the other artificially. it felt coherent and whole, which i think is an incredible achievement for a game that's at least supposed to be highly reactive in its narrative--i wouldn't know, i went in blind and don't know anything about other people's playthroughs, nor, like i said, am i planning on doing multiple playthroughs since the first one was so good and felt so intimately mine.
some other miscellaneous things i wanted to praise:
- the storybook presentation is absolutely top notch. like what else is there to say? nothing. it's exceptional.
- i adored all the silly little minigames, from eating to twig snapping to cypher solving to cookie cutting. they were a really fun way to involve the player more deeply in the world.
- loved the sound design, between the myriad cartoonishly exaggerated and high-quality ambient noises and the writing sounds, a lot of the sound design really scratched my brain in a pleasant way. it was almost like an asmr experience at times. like the minigames, they also really helped bringing the world truly alive.
tl;dr: it made me cry multiple times and i fucking hope obsidian manages to bring this sort of sincerity and emotion and depth of character and love to its future rpgs because i think they could make something pretty incredible then.
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good night, august.
the quality of the writing was definitely the biggest surprise here. the writing, the characters, the dialogue feel real, there's a sincerity to it and its depictions of the life of the various characters and groups in the 1500s that really makes it feel like it's coming from the heart, born out of sheer passion for the medium and the setting and out of love for the stories it's telling. it's frankly a bit amazing to me how attached i got to some of these characters, considering the cynicism i had with me going in. many of andreas' inner sequences got me genuinely emotional, and particularly the ones with august just, fucking, destroyed me. i've certainly gotten more emotional and sensitive in many ways as i've gotten older and while pentiment isn't the only game that has made me misty-eyed, it has the honor of being the first one to make me squeeze out a little sob multiple times.
in addition to the emotions felt, i also enjoyed the musings on art and delicate conversations on death a lot. i actually got quite a bit out of the religious talk too, which was nice, since i've never really given religion or my own faith (or the lack thereof) any particular thought. not to mention the mystery itself, of course! the dialogue styling reveal was a wonderfully clever little thing at the end there, and i found the conclusion to the whole thing to be very satisfying.
all that said, i'm not gonna replay this. i don't know how much choice & consequence is actually built into the overarching narrative, but my playthrough felt completely organic, the events made sense and it never felt like the story got pushed one way or the other artificially. it felt coherent and whole, which i think is an incredible achievement for a game that's at least supposed to be highly reactive in its narrative--i wouldn't know, i went in blind and don't know anything about other people's playthroughs, nor, like i said, am i planning on doing multiple playthroughs since the first one was so good and felt so intimately mine.
some other miscellaneous things i wanted to praise:
- the storybook presentation is absolutely top notch. like what else is there to say? nothing. it's exceptional.
- i adored all the silly little minigames, from eating to twig snapping to cypher solving to cookie cutting. they were a really fun way to involve the player more deeply in the world.
- loved the sound design, between the myriad cartoonishly exaggerated and high-quality ambient noises and the writing sounds, a lot of the sound design really scratched my brain in a pleasant way. it was almost like an asmr experience at times. like the minigames, they also really helped bringing the world truly alive.
tl;dr: it made me cry multiple times and i fucking hope obsidian manages to bring this sort of sincerity and emotion and depth of character and love to its future rpgs because i think they could make something pretty incredible then.
-------
good night, august.
This review contains spoilers
peaks and valleys. i just wish there were more peaks. right now it feels like the valleys vastly outnumber the peaks for me.
i still have the last case to do but i have frankly zero interest in continuing now, 2-4 was dreadfully disappointing and it seems that 2-5 is all about resolving the reaper myth arc which i'm just... really not that interested in. read a few major spoilers for the final case out of curiosity and yeah, nah, nothing about it particularly excited me, so i'm not sure if i'll ever actually return. hence this amazingly comprehensive review.
i'm not sure how to rate this, because i really loved some of the cases (2-3 was def the highlight) but when it's boring, like during 2-1 or 2-4, i really am finding it to be incredibly boring. 4.5 when i was playing 2-3. 2.0 now. maybe after a few days it'll be at 3.0, and then i have a particularly great day and it climbs up to 3.5, and then i'll sleep bad and it'll drop down to 2.5. so i'm just gonna leave it unrated. who cares.
i still have the last case to do but i have frankly zero interest in continuing now, 2-4 was dreadfully disappointing and it seems that 2-5 is all about resolving the reaper myth arc which i'm just... really not that interested in. read a few major spoilers for the final case out of curiosity and yeah, nah, nothing about it particularly excited me, so i'm not sure if i'll ever actually return. hence this amazingly comprehensive review.
i'm not sure how to rate this, because i really loved some of the cases (2-3 was def the highlight) but when it's boring, like during 2-1 or 2-4, i really am finding it to be incredibly boring. 4.5 when i was playing 2-3. 2.0 now. maybe after a few days it'll be at 3.0, and then i have a particularly great day and it climbs up to 3.5, and then i'll sleep bad and it'll drop down to 2.5. so i'm just gonna leave it unrated. who cares.
2022
three and a half, uh... chained.. echoes.. out of five. second time i'm trying to do this gag and i'm already running out of ideas.
anyway, very good game. i think it's definitely not without its issues, but for (basically) a one man creation it's such an astoundingly impressive achievement that i really don't feel like going TOO deep into them. the two things i will mention specifically are the portraits, and the dialogue. i just frankly don't like the portrait art very much, i think many of the characters look quite goofy which often clashes with the tone of the scene. i think i would have preferred just.. no portraits at all, maybe some character art in the menu. the rest of the art is just fucking beautiful, man, which is why the portraits stand out.
the portrait thing also feeds into the second issue, which is dialogue and specifically, how a lot of the characters seem to lack a distinct voice most of the time and how hard discerning tone could often be. many characters have their own fun little quirks (i could never get used to victor's "shishishi" though it just READS SO WEIRD BRO) for sure, but idk, when talking like, whole conversations, something about it just felt off a bit too often for me. could be a function of the game being made by someone whose native tongue isn't english, could be a lot of little things.
but yeah, otherwise it's really damn good. while, granted, i did lower the difficulty to the lowest about halfway through and kept it there for the rest of the game because i am apparently--unfortunately--completely over regular turn-based jrpg combat at this point, i loved the idea and most of the implementation of the combat and character progression systems. the grimoire shard system made level ups feel just right when it comes to rewards, a really nice middle point between your typical jrpg numbers bump and a considerably more involved crpg, and the low fight frequency and replenishing resources made every fight feel meaningful. everything about the gameplay in general felt snappy, which is just fantastic.
i enjoyed the hell out of the story, too. i thought it was a really wonderfully executed take on the whole "revive the classic jrpgs" sub-genre of indie rpgs, like it's blatantly doing that but also it does such a good job weaving all these tropes and cliches and beats into a tightly plotted storyline that also feels genuinely fresh. lots of fun little twists to said beats along the way which definitely helped there. lacks a bit of emotional impact for me since i wasn't SUPER into the cast due to the aforementioned dialogue issues, but it had its moments and the ending in particular made me go :') a bit.
p damn excited to see what matthias does next. i read that he initially wanted chained echoes to have a more real-time combat system, so i'm definitely hoping he'll get to fulfill that dream with his next game--something more along the lines of ff12 or xenoblade but with chained echoes' philosophy on combat frequency and character progression could be incredible.
anyway, very good game. i think it's definitely not without its issues, but for (basically) a one man creation it's such an astoundingly impressive achievement that i really don't feel like going TOO deep into them. the two things i will mention specifically are the portraits, and the dialogue. i just frankly don't like the portrait art very much, i think many of the characters look quite goofy which often clashes with the tone of the scene. i think i would have preferred just.. no portraits at all, maybe some character art in the menu. the rest of the art is just fucking beautiful, man, which is why the portraits stand out.
the portrait thing also feeds into the second issue, which is dialogue and specifically, how a lot of the characters seem to lack a distinct voice most of the time and how hard discerning tone could often be. many characters have their own fun little quirks (i could never get used to victor's "shishishi" though it just READS SO WEIRD BRO) for sure, but idk, when talking like, whole conversations, something about it just felt off a bit too often for me. could be a function of the game being made by someone whose native tongue isn't english, could be a lot of little things.
but yeah, otherwise it's really damn good. while, granted, i did lower the difficulty to the lowest about halfway through and kept it there for the rest of the game because i am apparently--unfortunately--completely over regular turn-based jrpg combat at this point, i loved the idea and most of the implementation of the combat and character progression systems. the grimoire shard system made level ups feel just right when it comes to rewards, a really nice middle point between your typical jrpg numbers bump and a considerably more involved crpg, and the low fight frequency and replenishing resources made every fight feel meaningful. everything about the gameplay in general felt snappy, which is just fantastic.
i enjoyed the hell out of the story, too. i thought it was a really wonderfully executed take on the whole "revive the classic jrpgs" sub-genre of indie rpgs, like it's blatantly doing that but also it does such a good job weaving all these tropes and cliches and beats into a tightly plotted storyline that also feels genuinely fresh. lots of fun little twists to said beats along the way which definitely helped there. lacks a bit of emotional impact for me since i wasn't SUPER into the cast due to the aforementioned dialogue issues, but it had its moments and the ending in particular made me go :') a bit.
p damn excited to see what matthias does next. i read that he initially wanted chained echoes to have a more real-time combat system, so i'm definitely hoping he'll get to fulfill that dream with his next game--something more along the lines of ff12 or xenoblade but with chained echoes' philosophy on combat frequency and character progression could be incredible.
This review contains spoilers
four kid heads in a bag out of five. the most draining and demanding single-player game i've played in a long time and i highly doubt i'll ever replay it, but overall i was shocked how much i enjoyed it as a DRPG newbie. while it has its issues, the whole package made for a very memorable experience. i love pericot. and nachi. and mom. and everyone. and my PUPPETS.