Bio
JRPG enthusiast and huge Nintendo fanboy, my ratings might seem high but I just love video games and I like pretty much everything I play
5 star- An all time favourite, best of the best
4.5 star- Fantastic and a favourite but some minor flaws and missteps
4 star- A great time despite a few issues or flaws
3.5 star- Solid, but definitely not up there with other favourites
3 star- Still pretty solid, but nowhere near a favourite
2.5 star- Some enjoyable stuff in there
2 star- More bad to say than good
1.5 star- The bad outweighs the good by a lot
1 star- Trash
0.5 star- Even worse trash
Personal Ratings
1★
5★

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Liked

Gained 10+ total review likes

Popular

Gained 15+ followers

Best Friends

Become mutual friends with at least 3 others

3 Years of Service

Being part of the Backloggd community for 3 years

GOTY '21

Participated in the 2021 Game of the Year Event

Noticed

Gained 3+ followers

Favorite Games

Persona 5 Royal
Persona 5 Royal
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Kingdom Hearts II
Kingdom Hearts II

098

Total Games Played

005

Played in 2024

000

Games Backloggd


Recently Played See More

Final Fantasy VII Remake: Episode Intermission
Final Fantasy VII Remake: Episode Intermission

Feb 26

Mario vs. Donkey Kong
Mario vs. Donkey Kong

Feb 18

Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade

Feb 04

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations

Jan 14

Sonic Colors: Ultimate
Sonic Colors: Ultimate

Jan 04

Recently Reviewed See More

This review contains spoilers

I'm not exactly a Yakuza veteran, having only played 0 and Kiwami when I picked up Like a Dragon on release.
Being a huge fan of the turn-based RPG genre, I was really interested to see how Yakuza would translate to the genre, and this game definitely didn't disappoint.
First of all, the combat is incredible. The button prompts keep a degree of activity to the combat aside from just selecting attacks, and the skills for each party member and job are mostly really inventive (Nanba's signature attacks are some of my favourites). The battles almost never dragged on for too long, keeping things short and satisfying like in the past games, which is definitely to be praised.
The new protagonist, Ichiban, might have endeared me to him more than Kiryu has (granted I've only played 2 of the Kiryu games). Why? Because his obsession with Dragon Quest is on par with mine if not greater. The new supporting cast are also excellent, and made Ijincho a setting on par with Kamurocho and Sotenbori for me. Speaking of which, the sub stories and other side content like mini games are just as fun as I've come to expect them to be and help add to the charm of this new setting. New to this game are the Drink Links and party chats, similar to the bonding systems other JRPGs use between their MCs and party members. These help to develop the party members and give them more fleshed out side stories, and helped especially to develop some of the later recruited party members who didn't get too much of their background explained or have their past explored in any great detail in the main story (Joon-gi Han's drink link was really good, and I wouldn't like the character as much if the Drink Links weren't a thing). I should also mention that the returning characters in this game were masterfully handled- Where it would have been easy for them to have felt forced into the game, not one of them did- Their appearances felt organic, and the game would have felt incomplete without some acknowledgement of what came before it. I think there was no better way to usher in a new era for the series.
The main story of this game is maybe one of my favourites in any JRPG, and it didn't have to be a tale about a fated hero setting out to kill a God to earn that title. All it had to do was have heart, and this story about an average yakuza grunt starting over from rock bottom turned into much more than that- A story about family, those you're born with AND those you choose, that could be inspiring and triumphant at times, but was full of twists and turns that could lead it to be incredibly shocking, thought provoking and even heartbreaking.
TLDR: This game was absolutely amazing, please play it.

This was my first complete introduction to the Trails series after trying Sky FC, getting through the Prologue and dropping it because of its slow start and the fact that I just wasn't invested enough in the series' world yet to get through that game.
Now here I am a few months later and I can definitely say with confidence that I now plan on consuming all the Trails content I possibly can, and all it took was this game.
To me it felt like a perfect blend of what I loved about some of my other favourite JRPGs in terms of gameplay and structure. The Persona games come to mind with this game's calendar, "bonding" system and the chapter structure in CS feeling almost equivalent to the story arcs in, for example, P5 (sorry to be THAT Persona 5 fan, and also I'm aware that this game was released first and that the other Persona games also have this structure, as do many other JRPGs), but this game isn't as heavily time-management involved, which worked in its favour. In short it uses these same elements but sparingly enough to work in the context of this game.
What I loved most about this game was its ever-moving narrative right down to the most minor NPCs. Every time a new story beat happens, the NPCs in the area it concerns have something new to say, which really made the world feel alive and made the events feel as significant as they needed to. Despite this game's hefty 75-80 hour runtime with a fair amount of use of its turbo mode, it never overstayed its welcome or felt like a chore (Note: I didn't 100% but I'd say I probably did most side quests, perhaps bar a few hidden ones I missed and one fishing-related one I didn't bother with)
The story itself was a lot of fun. Sure, there were some anime tropes, and sometimes certain things felt kind of rushed, but I absolutely loved the main cast of Class VII and seeing them become a close group of friends throughout the course of their first few months at Thors. Without giving too much away I also like how it steadily amped up the action and tension building up to its final hours, which were pretty crazy and left me more than eager for more.
I should also mention the soundtrack, too- The battle themes, particularly some boss fights', were amazing, and even some of the tracks that played in cutscenes and exploration etc. are probably going to stay stuck in my head for a long while after the fact.
My only minor complaints were that certain stuff felt glossed over that could have been interesting had they been fully dealt with (although I'm told this was due to time constraints and the part in question is explored in an audio CD), and also the game's graphics felt kind of dated in places, although that's much less a complaint than a nitpick and didn't bother me at all most of the time.
Long story short, this is an amazing RPG, and if you're like me and struggled with Sky FC, this might be a better starting point. I now plan to play CS2 before backtracking to the Liberl and Crossbell arcs, to prepare myself for CS3 and 4, and eventually beyond.

I'm one of those people who saw the "SMT x Fire Emblem" teaser back in the day and filled their heads with thoughts of how amazing a crossover between the two series could be, with the dark atmosphere of SMT mixed with the compelling heroes of FE.
...I only ended up playing it 4 years after release and what I imagined wasn't exactly what I got, but TMS #FE Encore is an example of how sometimes being proven wrong is okay.
I immediately assumed the idol premise wouldn't be for me when the game first released and avoided it, but since giving it a chance I was really pleasantly surprised. The battle system feels really satisfying, especially pulling off long combo attacks by striking weaknesses (kind of like 1 more in Persona and press turn in SMT, but more powerful when used smartly and when you have the right skills and teammates).
It's also cool to see "Mirage" forms of both recent and classic FE characters alike- And the promotion system from FE lets you choose the final form of your party members' Mirages. There's also a wide range of weapons, levelling them up gives you new skills etc.
The story is... All right. The idol stuff isn't really my cup of tea, but I kind of found myself enjoying it anyway. While some of the leading cast are kind of bland, they're generally pretty likeable (Except Ellie. All my homies hate Ellie). The side quests are really fun little stories and some of them are pretty humourous.
All in all a really fun JRPG. I'm glad I played it, but part of me does kind of wish the project dubbed SMT x Fire Emblem had been something more... Well, representative of how both franchises actually are.