Pretty visuals and it's nice to see past Atelier characters in new shiny graphics but the fact it's a gacha game just makes it very time-consuming to grind your characters enough for the main story if you're F2P and eventually that just becomes very exhausting.

Not to mention while the main story seems to have promise and the characters are likable for the most part, it just generally feels dragged out for the sake of being a live service game. Also, it's very disappointing how Resleriana calls itself a mainline Atelier game but the item creation is so pathetically simplified compared to the rest of the games.

Between Resleriana demanding so much of your time to keep up with it daily and it came out in a very busy winter 2024 season, I just eventually gave up on playing the game to focus on other releases. I may come back to it one day since I did not completely dislike Resleriana but the game for now is at a very low priority to return to.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is a pretty comfortable game. It's just pretty relaxing to explore a huge open world filled with dozens of dungeons and caves with your party. The pawn system is one of my favorite things about the game since not only you will be attached to your main pawn the entire time, but you will also run into tons of pawns out of the wild or summon them with a rift crystal.

The pawns can vary in all shapes and sizes and can be one out of six vocations (since the advanced vocations such as mystic sphere and magical archer are exclusive to the Arisen). They come in one of four core personalities with a dozen or so specializations, such as marking down materials or translating elven speak to help with the adventure. Their dialogue is pretty limited and after 10 hours it just becomes very repetitive, but I do like the idea of pawns talking to each other and guiding you to chests or campsites you haven't found yet. Adventuring just never feels stale with pawns even 90 hours in.

The vocation system is nice with plenty of jobs for combat variety. Even the basic vocations such as fighter and mage are fun to use. The only one I personally didn't enjoy was the trickster vocation due to the inability to directly do damage. But otherwise, despite how sloppy the combat can be due to no lock-on or dodge/block mechanics, the action combat stays fresh due to the amount of vocations you can use and thier skills you can use for each vocation as you level them up. Although I wish you had more than four skill slots because you get plenty of skills to choose from by the time you max out a vocation.

Dragon's Dogma 2 got the core idea of party-based action RPG down nicely but I am afraid I feel like there are a lot of cut corners as I play through the game. There is a huge lack of enemy and boss variety and fighting the 50th Orge or Cyclops becomes far less exciting. Also, the dungeons and caves are very repetitive in terms of design and visual presentation. On one hand, I enjoy the size of Dragon's Dogma 2 map but also I understand why some people thought the map was too huge due to the lack of content variation in the world.

The overall story and questing in Dragon's Dogma 2 is nothing groundbreaking either. That is to say, it's still a pretty serviceable, if not rather shockingly short main quest in proving you are the true Arisen to everyone and getting your heart back from the dragon that has taken it. However, I really think the whole concept of the post-game is a really nice mood changer and felt like it has taken inspiration from the World of Ruin from Final Fantasy VI as well as the Souls games as far gameplay becomes more difficult. I just wish the post-game ideas were longer or at least more integrated into the story earlier on.

However, my biggest complaint is player decisions for quests feel weightless. Choices in Dragon's Dogma 2 mostly affect what ending you will get for some side quests. No, you don't even get a choice on whether you want to romance Ulkira or Wilhelmina or not if you complete thier quest lines. The game forces romance at you with no say so and that bothers me if I have to be honest. That said, there are still quite a few side quests I enjoyed that fleshed out the sense of world-building more and will be useful to complete later on in the game despite the writing not being particularly outstanding.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is definitely rough on the edges as far as the ratio between the map and the amount of content variation inside the map, a not-too-amazing main story, and some really questionable decisions as far as questing. But at its core, it's an earnest action RPG that is satisfying to explore and engage in its combat and pawn mechanics. End of the day, while I enjoyed the game for the most part, with some polish, more variety and more involved writing with the main story, Dragon's Dogma 2 could be a very strong contender for GOTY.

Rising Tide is 100% done with all side quests completed and Katios Gate is cleared. I could have done better with Katios Gate but it's really challenging for a few fights even with the cheesy "nuke" build I made for the sake of completion.

Fantastic send-off to FFXVI since the DLC really enforces why FFXVI is such a fantastic game between the dense world-building, spectacular fights, and the undying pure human will to create a better tomorrow for the people who are suffering.

This looks like the end of FFXVI as far as additional content but I'm very happy the two expansion packs exist to expand one of my favorite games organically. Sad that Clive's journey is coming to an end but I'm glad I was a part of every moment of it.

When I heard Majikoi had obtained several sequels beyond the original, the next order of business was to play Majikoi S. Returning to Kawakami City and revisiting the Kazama family, Majikoi S serves more of an expansion to the original game rather than a continuation.

There are routes that take place after the ending of the five main routes and the Agave route for the original game. However, The main focus of S is on the brand-new characters that further add insight into the Kuki Corporation and introduce a new rival school known as Tenshin Academy. As well as characters from the original game that have not gotten a route have received one in S While the expansion sounds exciting and some of it is well executed, there is also quite a lot of content in S I less than enjoyed.

Majikoi S plays the same as the original game but with a few improvements. Since Majikoi S is fully voiced (just like the original game if you patched it), the addition of a voice timer to let you know when a character has finished speaking is greatly appreciated. Especially since there are times from the original when I have proceeded to the next line before the character is finished talking because I thought they were done talking (it can be a bit hard to tell at times since the voices are only in JP).

New to Majikoi S are short animated clips of action scenes that occur during fights in the game. Considering the nature of Majikoi and its focus on martial arts and combat, these short clips elevate the fights to be more engaging and entertaining to experience rather than just solely using text, voice, sound effects, and still images to depict these scenes.

Also, the route selection is much more straightforward this time, since you use a timeline to select which route to start, rather than spending X amount of time with a character after the prologue in the original game. From there, only the choices you can select can impact the game. While some choices will just alter the dialogue for the next few lines, others will impact what route you will proceed to. And Majikoi S rather has quite some endings that can be very difficult to get without using a guide.

At the end of the common route (which is 2nd-year 1st Semester + Future without a Relationship), the player character, Yamato Naeo, is presented with four “heroines” to pursue their routes. Tsubame Matsunaga, Margit Eberbach, Kokoro Fushikawa and Monshiro Kuki. Tatsuko Itagaki is also considered a “heroine” in S but her route must be accessed in the Agave After route. From what I have noticed, out of these options only Tsubame and Monshiro’s routes cover the bulk of the new S content while the rest of the routes are fairly self-contained to the heroine herself.

I was suggested to start with Tsubame’s route first since it was the route that further introduced the most amount of new characters. And for the most part that was true thanks to the tournament that takes place during her route as well as her need to advertise her natto brand (which means naturally encountering a bunch of characters). Maybe because I love it when girls are older than me or I just love the whole Onee-san trope but I ended up loving Tsubame’s route a lot and she ended up being my favorite character in the game, even if I can understand why some would dislike her at the end. Her route is split into two sub-routes. One route when Yamato “takes the lead” and another when Tsubame “takes the lead”.

The next route I have done is Monshiro’s route. While her route is considerably slower and less action-packed than the previous routes in Majikoi, Monshiro’s route gives the player plenty of insight into how the Kuki company is operated and the employees of the company. Not to mention as far as character writing and development, Monshiro is the strongest route for that in S. After all it’s just really hate to not like Monshiro, she is just really precious and I have claimed her as my “daughter”. Monshiro’s route can have various endings but the “Future with Monshiro” ending is the main ending for her and will unlock her “after” routes.

Margit was the next route I have completed and frankly, it’s rather disappointing. While this route made me enjoy Margit more as a character compared to the original game, I did not like it was so sex heavy with several explicit scenes. To the point, I think half of her route was just sex. It's just a bummer that this is how the game decided to treat Margit when she’s one of the more interesting characters in the games.

Kokoro was next, and while her route hardly focused on any of the new content, it was still a fairly enjoyable route as you get to learn more about Kokoro that was never revealed in the original game. I found her just very annoying and arrogant before, but her route made me see Kokoro in a new light. Now I just can’t help but laugh at her every time she fails at something and cries about it since it’s so comedic and amusing to me. There is a handful of sex scenes but not to the point I thought the sex was overwhelming (although I was quite disgusted with the end of one of them).

Then you have Tatsuko’s route, which began on the Agave After route as well as the after routes for the original’s game five heroines. These routes will assume you have played the original game since the after routes rather work as extended epilogues of the events that took place in the original game. There isn’t much to say since their main plotline is completed. You just go on romantic dates with the chosen girl and engage in plenty of sexual acts with them. Which for me, range from me enjoying them to absolutely loathing them.

Majikoi S is undeniably very sex-heavy in general and because of that, it is important to note that all of the involved characters are 18 and over. In fact, I have discovered the word “nukige”. A term I found out because of this game that means it explicitly focuses on the graphic sex scenes, and by that I mean it’s porn. I rather not get into details since I want to keep this review as clean as possible. But I thought they have overdone it with the porn. The original game had 20 and they are all removed if you play the Steam version while S had nearly 50 porn scenes.

Not to mention they are all very long and unrealistically dragged out. I was uncomfortable seeing a handful of sex acts (for reasons I rather avoid mentioning to not make things problematic) but for the most part, I just ultimately got bored of nearly all of them (I will admit I enjoyed two of them though) since they’re all written the same way and quite frankly, I get very impatient with sex scenes. So in the end I ended up turbo-skipping over all of the dialogue.

However, my biggest complaint is you have to endure much of the porn just to unlock the childhood route. To unlock it, you must complete all 5 routes of the newly added heroines for S as well as all of the after routes of the heroines from the original game. I think that only completing Tsubame and Monshiro’s route should be the requirement to unlock the childhood route considering they are directly tied into the new S content while the rest was fairly irrelevant to the new content. So enduring 8 sex-heavy routes just to unlock what I consider to be the best route in the game is heinous and what I consider the biggest fault of the game.

Once you do unlock the childhood route, which will lead into the Koyuki’s route since Koyuki Sakakibara is considered to be the “secret” 6th heroine for S. The childhood route is easily the most epic, action-packed, and exciting route in the game since it’s such a love letter to classic battle shounen series such as Dragon Ball and Bleach and even take influences from Star Wars. As someone who grew up on those series, it was just nonstop joy from beginning to end thanks to the tight pacing despite how huge the Koyuki route is in scale.

However, I thought any romance for Koyuki was forceful and shoehorned due to the lack of time you spend with her. If the Koyuki route was named something else (I think it should be called the Bushido Plan route instead), then I would have no major issues with it. However, considering that the route is named after Koyuki and considering there’s a huge lack of focus for her. The naming convention is rather confusing and jarring.

Majikoi S in the end is a severable sequel with new improvements to make enjoying the visual novel easier and the new characters are overall great and help expand the world of Majikoi. The porn is frankly overwhelming, does overstay its welcome though and I dislike a handful of them. And due to a lack of an option to skip or censor those games, it makes Majikoi S very difficult to recommend even if someone loved the original game. However, if you can overlook the high amounts of porn, then Majikoi S is a treat for anyone that wants more adventures with the Kazama family and the people that surround Yamato Naoe.

Played 12 hours of Tactics Orge before the start of the new years. It's not bad but due to a couple reasons I'm gonna shelve it for now.

From an historical perspective, it's nice to see where Final Fantasy Tactics and Triangle Strategy got its inspiration. But my main thing is just how slow the battles are, even on high spreed mode. Idk, it just feel like it takes forever to take down an enemy. Especially since there's an "union level", so an unit can't go pass the union level until it's raised after a couple main story battles. I get this exist so you won't have anyone overleveled and rely less on "tactics". But I kinda wish the union level didn't exist if enemy gonna be huge health sponges. At least the AI mode is nice if you wanna grind up units on training maps.

Story is fine, it's nothing wow (maybe because the stories of FFT and TS spoiled me) but it's serviceable enough for a tactics game, especially for its age. I like how you can make choices to shape up the story and having certain characters you have recruited to have extra lines during battles is nice. It was the main reason why I kept playing despite the dragged out battles.

There's also an another good reason why I'm shelving the game but that's something I really can't really explain, at least not in the public (let just say it isn't just about me for this reason). I am aware of the age of Tactics Orge and even the remake is quite old at this point. But I'm just at the stage when there's just so many games to play, I don't really have the time to just settle for "okay". I might return to it one day since deep down, I do enjoy it enough to keep playing. But right now, there are just bigger priorities than Tactics Orge.

Over the weekend I played the free DLC for God of War Ragnarok which is the Valhalla mode. Finally, I went in with no expectations other than it's just more God of War for free with a roguelike mode (that I was curious how that would work with the gameplay). Still, I left with a fantastic conclusion to Kratos' journey and growth as a character.

Valhalla isn't very narrative-heavy in terms of plot. The overall story is just Kratos coming to terms with who he was as a person back in Greece compared to who he is now and each "run" he does in Valhalla is Kratos facing different aspects of his past and how he views his past self isn't as black and white as he thinks it is.

Valhalla being a roguelike works wonderfully for the introspective journey Kratos takes in Valhalla. Gameplay-wise, while Kratos is in Valhalla, he can unlock temporary perks, weapon enchantments, stats, HP and rage recovery, etc to make a "run" easier. Upon death, Kratos is sent back to the shore and must restart the run until he completes a run after battling randomized enemies and bosses across all the areas seen in the base game.

A huge emphasis on Valhalla is that Kratos is always making progress towards "mastery" regardless of whether the run is successful or not. Since at the shore, you can make permanent stat and Valhalla upgrades Kratos can have those at the start of every run thanks to mastery seals and later on spirit seals he gets to keep to use on those upgrades.

However, what really impressed me was the self-reflection Kratos was doing. As someone that been into the God of War series for over a decade now and played every game in the series, it's rather very satisfying to see Kratos' evolution from an angry vengeful violent person to someone who only wants to fight to protect who he cares for and to freed others from tyrant gods.

There are a lot of references from past God of War games that just make Valhalla more satisfying to play if you have been following Kratos over the years. And not only Kratos reflects on the major events that happen in the first three mainline games. But also he takes a look back on his actions in the lesser-known God of War games such as Chains of Olympus, Ghost of Sparta, and Ascension.

Overall, as one of the biggest unexpected surprises that have appeared towards the end of the year, God of War Valhalla stands tall as one of the finest pieces of gaming this year. By serving as an extended complimentary epilogue to the already masterful Ragnarok and finally giving the closure Kratos deserves as a character. Considering Valhalla is completely free of charge, if you have completed Ragnarok, then I can't recommend it enough to play the DLC ASAP.

It's definitely more of a post-game dungeon deal with challenging bosses since the story for this DLC is basically a very well-elaborated excuse to have a challenging dungeon at the endgame. But it was really nice to revisit FFXVI's combat and dungeon crawling even if it's not my absolutely favorite part of the game.

Me personally, I thought the dungeon was too FFXIV-ish. It definitely reminded me of how dungeons and raids in that game work because of the challenge and how a lot of the bosses love AOE attacks. But I thought the whole high techno setting was just very out of place??? Me personally, I think "Omega" in FF in general sticks out like a sore thumb but it's especially apparent in FFXVI.

Overall while the DLC doesn't have any of the highs of the base game off FFXVI, it's a short and sweet time with its gameplay if you want more FFXVI and pretty much did everything you could in the base game or looking for a greater challenge.

"The Hero Turns To Look Inside, Is Destroyed By What He Sees, And Is Redeemed."

Finished Alan Wake 2 last night and oh my, I absolutely get the praise for Alan Wake 2 now. It's an experience like no other game and not only does it greatly improve from the first game in every single aspect, but this is easily Redemy Entertainment's magnum opus with its unique multimedia method of storytelling and immersion.

The graphics are just astonishing, especially with how carefully Redemy has been crafting thier usage of lighting to the point there are many scenes when you could easily mistake the game for live-action. The audio design is one of the best I have experienced and it's incredibly immersive to hear sounds from all directions and angels from pouring rain, ringing phones, a conversation between people, and eerie monstrous sounds. From an aesthetic viewpoint, Alan Wake 2 does an excellent job of sending the message that this is a survival horror story.

Speaking of survival horror, Alan Wake 2 makes a drastic change in gameplay from the first game. No longer an action-adventure game shooting down dozens of Taken and dealing with frustrating combat sections. The gameplay emphasizes less action and more on slowly walking through nerve-wracking uncertainly.

While the survival horror combat itself is nothing groundbreaking, what helps make Alan Wake 2 stand out is how the duel protagonists, the titular character himself Alan Wake, and FBI agent Saga Anderson, solve their obstacles to resolve the issue at hand.

With Saga's mind place to help put together pieces she finds throughout the game to solve the surrounding mysteries and interrogate suspects. As well as Alan's plot board changes the surrounding environment around him as if he's rewriting "plot elements" for a story. It's a fresh and creative layer to prevent the gameplay from ever being stale.

The shining gem of Alan Wake 2 is the story and narrative and while it's very difficult to talk about its story without going into spoilers and details. What I can say is it masterfully presents its story like no other game I've played.

You have live-action segments of a short film, an operatic rock musical, video autobiographies, commercials, etc. As well as songs that play during and at the end of each chapter and scattered pages of incomplete manuscripts, all complimentary to the spiraling complex narrative that explores the psychological descent of the duel protagonists.

While each unique segment of Alan Wake 2 does sound disjointed and nonsensical on paper, it all comes together flawlessly in a meta manner of speaking to tell a story about a story and how these characters are trapped in a horror story coming to life.

Not to mention, the worldbuilding and easter eggs that Remedy have set up with thier previous games Quantum Break and Control help sell the overall dark surrealism and atmosphere that extends beyond the main focus and scope of Alan Wake 2. So it's very rewarding to play Redemy's previous games to appreciate these finer details that would be harder to pick up.

Truthfully, Alan Wake 2 is a near-flawless game. While I do think some of the enemies are a bit too health spongey and the checkpoint system could be more forgiving, those are just nothing more but minor nitpicks. It's otherwise masterfully executed in game design, narrative, and presentation with its creative multimedia approach.

I'm not a huge horror fan so I can't say with confidence it's one of the greatest horror stories of all time. But what I can say is it's a hallmark of visual and audio entertainment and sets a new standard of story presentation and game design. As far as I know, Alan Wake 2 is easily one of the greatest games of all time and that is something I do not say lightly.

Finished Super Mario RPG at 15 hours. It was way shorter than I thought even for SNES RPG standards but also after playing a bunch of complex and deep RPGs lately, something so simple, fun, and lighthearted as Super Mario RPG was such a refreshing change of pace. This was a game I wanted to play for years but I never got around to it, so I'm going into the game as a newcomer.

The overall story is quite simple. it's just Mario with friends embarking on a journey to find the seven stars to restore the Star Road that grants wishes and defeats Smithy who has taken over Boswer's Keep to start an invasion with weapons. While the grand scheme of things is your run-of-the-mill Mario adventure, it's the whole journey to find the seven stars that are the whole highlight of the adventure.

I honestly found the game much more enjoyable than expected because it just doesn't take itself seriously at all. Throughout the game, Super Mario RPG is filled with silly slapstick humor, over-the-top exaggerations, and villains with pretty selfish but goofy motivations. Such as Booster kidnapping and wanting to marry Peach for whatever reason. And he isn't exactly the brightest bulb in the shed, so his shortcomings were entertaining to watch, to say the least.

Super Mario RPG is just a game filled with so much fun, color, and charm, from the various settings and characters featured in the Mario series to the soundtrack composed by Yoko Shimomura to compliment the mood. However, what gives the game its identity is the fusion between the turn-based combat and the platforming, puzzling, and minigames known in Mario during exploration.

Minigames were fairly common in RPGs for its time period but Super Mario RPG uses its strengths from the series' history to create brief challenges for Mario to overcome such as navigating a mine tunnel with controls similar to Mario Kart or hopping over barrels and avoiding enemies that pay homage to its Donkey Kong origins. Personally, I wasn't a fan of the platforming at all, I just find the controls too slippy and it doesn't work as well because of the isometric perspective. But considering the original game serves as the bridge between 2D and 3D Mario, perhaps I could be a bit forgiving.

However, for much of the game, the gameplay lies within the turn-based combat every time you encounter an enemy.
Super Mario RPG takes much of the RPG elements from known Square RPGs from the SNES era such as Final Fantasy IV-VI and Chrono Trigger. Attacks, spells, and item management are all present. But what is unique in Super Mario RPG is the timing-based input for attacks and special abilities. If the input is timed correctly, the potency of the attack or special ability will increase. It's such a kinetic mechanic that it's single-handedly the one thing that prevents the otherwise very easy and simple combat from being stale and boring.

Overall, I don't have many complaints about Super Mario RPG. Besides the iffy platforming and while much of the game's narrative has aged wonderfully compared to its contemporaries thanks to having a simple approach to the story. There are still minor gaps in the story that I have noticed that were unexplained and Geno in particular was oddly silent compared to the other playable characters (I don't know if he is written that way on purpose or not).

Otherwise, it's a game filled with so much color and charm and it does not overstay its welcome at all. Mario is usually at its best when it just wants to show a player a fun and good time without taking a long time to do so and Super Mario RPG does that very well. I understand why this game is very belove

I spent over 200 hours between my tav and durge playthroughs...yea I have no idea how I am supposed to rate and review this game.

For starters, even with two fully completed playthroughs, I only feel like I've seen 70% of the game's content at best and honestly I don't feel confident I can write about a game and I haven't even seen everything. Maybe it's imposter symptom but compared to the dude that doing a 100% review of BG3, I just don't feel like I'm up for the task to do it right.

Also honestly, a part of me wants to give it a 10/10 and hail it as one of the greatest games that I've played. This is exactly what I wanted in an RPG. Various classes (that you can multiclass with) and races to choose from, tons of excellent dialogue with NPCs, so many story choices that dramatically impact yourself, your companions, the world, and the main story, and how those variations masterfully interweave with each other. The storylines of my two playthroughs are night and day because of how much you can differentiate a playthrough. As far as executing a freeform adventurous concept that only exists in TTRPGs, BG3 is the game that comes the closest to it and it does it extremely well.

But also...I think a 10/10 is honestly a bit too high and deep down I feel like it's perhaps a 9/10 game. After all, I just have so many frustrations with the combat (especially during my first playthrough) that can feel cheap at times, with bugs ranging from random objects floating during cutscenes (which is funny) to money you put in your inventory disappearing to quests just straight up not working at all. Not to mention I can't help but feel like there is still a sense of incompleteness with the endings and some of the companions that can join your party. Plus...I think the dice just really hates me and my luck at times. BG3 does so well but I just had so many tiny irritating issues during my experience, that idk if I can just ignore all of that and still give it a 10/10

Regardless, the game is legitimately amazing at least, and from my point of view, it took what Dragon Age Origins (a game that helped me get into RPGs) set out to do almost 15 years ago and amplified it 10x more. In any case, the game earns its praise at the very least and it's going to be a huge influence on the progression of RPGs for future games.

Crisis Core is a game I knew about many years back when it was on the PSP. However, I had no chance to play it since Crisis Core was physical only with the UMD and I had a PSP Go, which if anyone remembers, it's digital only. So I ultimately missed out on Crisis Core...until Reunion was released with brand new graphics and new quality-of-life improvements while retaining the same story and gameplay of the original.

Never playing the original, I have no frame of reference for comparison. So I will be treating Reunion as its own seperate game. First of all, this has to be one of the highest-effort remasters I've played. Although the graphics aren't as high-end and detailed compared to Final Fantasy VII Remake, the difference is still night and day despite keeping all of the original animations. Not to mention a newly rerecorded soundtrack considering both original songs for Crisis Core as well as remixes of some of the iconic scores from the original Final Fantasy VII.

Gameplay is action-based RPG as players assume control of SOLDIER Zack Fair, although it may seem simple at first, granted there is only a single button for attacking, the true meat of Crisis Code's gameplay is the Digital Mind Wave and Materia Fusion.

The Digital Mind Wave is a nonstop spinning RNG-based mechanic that grants Zack different status buffs, limit breaks, and even summons based on what three-digit number is chosen alongside a picture of the character or summon. You can even level up by hitting the three digits "777". I personally think that an odd way to level up but also in my opinion, levels hardly matter in Crisis Code as Materia Fusion is the bulk of buffering Zack's stats.

The materia system is similar to the original FFVII at its core but what makes Crisis Core unique is the fusion system. For example, fusing a fire material and a poison material will create a dark fire material. This means it's the fire spell but with added poison and silence status debuffs.

In addition, there are also stat attachments with materia. For example, fusing two blizzard materia with 2+ mag will result in blizzard materia with 3+ mag, and equipping that on Zack will grant him an extra 3+ for the magic stat. Also at certain random times, each equipped material can level up to 5 stars, which is mastery and every level will increase the power and attached stat to the materia.

Between the DWM and the materia system, Crisis Core offers the player incredible depth by creating various kinds of materia and huge stat boosts attached to them. In fact, it's rather very easy to overpower Zack within the midpoint of the game if the player constantly engages in fusion and mastering material.

Especially if the player engages in mission mode. While it's very repetitive, they are brief levels when the objective is to defeat the boss enemy and seek out treasure for new materia and items. Completing certain missions will result in new equipment and unlock new shops that the player will not get in the main story. Personally I enjoy the gameplay loop for mission mode, perhaps thanks to its new QoL improvements for Reunion.

Speaking of the main story, and it's very easy to go in-depth with Crisis Core's gameplay but Final Fantasy has always been known for its stories and the main purpose of Crisis Core is to be a prequel game that leads up to the very beginning of the original FFVII. It starts off with SOLDIER Zack Fair being deployed to end the war between Shiina and Wutai alongside fellow SOLDIER operatives Sephiroth and Angeal.

From a worldbuilding perspective, it's nice to see the universe of Final Fantasy VII a few years before the start of the original game and most of the main and supporting cast such as Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith appear in Crisis Core, although with smaller roles this time around.

However, I was very surprised to see how Sephiroth behaved as a calm and collected character before he became a "fallen hero" and his descent into madness as a villain. Not to mention there are little nods throughout the game that strongly foreshadow locations, organizations, and people that appear in Final Fantasy VII.

As far as using Zack and his journey as a catalyst to depict what happened before the events of Final Fantasy VII, I say the story serves him well and expands him greatly as a character. Considering he was just a minor character in the original game that mainly was there as a flashback when he was saving Cloud's life. Zack is filled with personality as someone who wants to be a hero for his dream and wants to protect his SOLDER's pride with honor all the way up to the very end.

The overall plot for Crisis Core, while it's still connected to the overall Final Fantasy VII universe, it works well enough as a standalone story since the main conflict with Genesis and his forces is fairly detached enough. Although I do find Genesis himself as overly operatic to the point he just didn't quite gel well with the rest of the cast, he is still severable enough as a constant thorn to Zack.

However, one of my biggest complaints about Crisis Code is the final chapter, I just felt it was very rushed and forceful in connecting the ending of Crisis Core to the beginning of FFVII. While the final moments are very emotional despite Zack's fate having been pre-determined due to Crisis Core being a prequel game.

There are just several questions that don't get answered within the game. Naturally, huge plot points like what is next for Sephiroth and Cloud are answered in FFVII. But more some of the finer details that are explicitly related to Crisis Core and less so the other installments of FFVII that don't get an answer, especially during the final chapters.

Also, and this is more for completists, but the DMW system is quite annoying to work with if you want to 100% the system by viewing all DMW flashbacks and summon scenes due to its RNG nature. There are ways to boost a specific character's DMW triggering by equipping multiple mastered materia with thier limit breaks. But even then, it's not a guarantee you will view a flashback when thier DMW is selected.

Personally, I found Genesis in particular very stubborn to trigger and I had to do about an hour of letting the game sit during combat and restarting the battle just for his DMW flashback to trigger. Abit this is a flaw most people will not encounter but it's still a flaw the player can possibly run into and there's nothing to do about it besides having good luck.

Crisis Core may have a few fumbles toward the end of its run but it's otherwise a great entry in the Final Fantasy VII universe with its expanded characterization and worldbuilding and the best usage of the materia system thanks to its in depth materia fusion with plenty of strong RPG elements to experiment. Either way, Reunion does a great job at being a prequel game with its own narrative while also being pleasing enough. Whatever Reunion is used to build excitement for FFVII Rebirth or to revisit a game with a fresh new coat of paint or experiencing Zack's story for the first time. Crisis Core is a well-done compliment for Final Fantasy VII.

The Legend of Nayuta is a game I have been curious about for many years before I got to play it. I knew about its existence for a while and heard it was unconnected to mainline Trails but for a long time, only shoddy fan translations existed. So I was pretty excited back in 2021 when NISA announced they would be localizing Nayuta and considering it was the only Trails game I had not played yet at the time, I was the most excited for it despite my understanding of why localizing Crossbell or Reverie is a bigger deal (but that's another discussion for another time).

The wait was long but this month I finally got my hands on Nayuta and it's a great game despite there being a few things I was eh about. For starters, I just absolutely love the art style and direction. With upscaled textures and a sharp resolution, it felt like I was playing a remaster of an old Dreamcast game from 21 years ago with its HD low poly visuals. So it's even more impressive that Falcom managed to cram its visuals in a tiny PSP back in its original release in 2012.

And not only the visuals feel like I was playing a remastered Dreamcast game, but the gameplay complements that nostalgic feel. Nayuta is listed as an action RPG, similar to Falcom's other games like Ys and Zwei. But personally, it felt like one of those old action platformer games from the early 2000s. There are RPG elements like leveling up, increasing your stats, and doing side quests but the meat of Nayuta's gameplay boils down to playing the stages.

Each stage in Nayuta is when the titular character alongside a fairy named Noi must reach the "end point" to complete the stage. Along the way, there are various elements to attack either with Nayuta's sword abilities or Noi's arts (which are essentially elemental magic spells just like in mainline Trails). As the game progresses, Nayuta will also unlock craft abilities to help him progress the game's platforming challenges.

Speaking of challenges, each stage features three purple crystals to destroy, a treasure chest for new equipment or artifacts, and a mission objective, which is an additional goal to achieve such as defeating a certain amount of enemies or only taking a certain amount of hits or falling off the stage a certain amount of times. Doing these extra challenges will increase your rating for the stage with stars and the more stars you collect, the more abilities and boosts Nayuta will gain with his sword, platforming, and combo streak as well as new equipment.

Nayuta's gameplay is fairly simple in design but with the RPG elements as well as adding on new platforming abilities that even encourage replaying a stage to collect all of the stars, the gameplay never got stale once in my 40 hours within the game. However despite how different the gameplay is from mainline Trails, it certainly shares a lot of story beats with its structure and format. After all it is a Trails game and many people play Trails for the story.

Nayuta is a miniature version of what to expect in Trails and while it never reaches the highs for each mainline arc, it's rather grand considering it's a standalone game with currently no direct connections to the rest of Trails. The premise of the story is about Nayuta, a student studying astrology who goes home to Remnant Island for summer vacation and soon discovers a second world called Lost Heaven and unravels its mysteries that are tied to Nayuta's own world, including the belief that his world is a "flat earth" and it's possible to fall off from the "edge of the world".

Nayuta is formatted similarly to other Trails games with story progression, NPCs update frequently even if the amount of NPCs comes nowhere close to any other Trails game, there are quests to complete that you get from a mailbox and even quests you can only do in new game plus. And of course, talking to certain NPCs at the right time will advance the story.

The plot points, overall, while it's a fairly predictable story with no plot twists that are truly mind-blowing, it's still a very well-executed and focused narrative for the most part. Which may be a pro to some people as Trails games are often criticized for their excessive "bloat". It sets that grand multi-world adventure rather well without overstaying its welcome. That said, while Nayuta does a lot very well, there are a few things that could be improved.

For starters, I found some of the major characters lacking. One of Falcom's biggest strengths is character-focused narrative that especially shines in the Trails series. So it was rather a bit disappointing when not even the best characters (in my opinion of course) get a semblance of development, which is Creha, Signa, and Noi, pales in comparison to what Falcom has written in the past. Granted, it may be a bit unfair to compare a single game, which has far less text and character interaction than any other Trails game that is known for its interconnection (meaning you will see many of these characters in multiple games). However, it's a Trails game in name still, so serving that comparison may be difficult.

Not to mention, I especially found characters such as Lyra especially disappointing. Considering how prominent she's featured in key art of Nayuta, you would think she would have an important role in the game. But it turns out she has no agency or motivations on her own and practically exists only as an extension to Nayuta by simply being an immature love interest to him. I believe the story of Nayuta would play almost exactly the same without Lyra and that's rather disappointing to say for a Falcom game considering I never felt like this for any of the major Trails characters.

Plus, I found the ending of Nayuta to be rather sloppily executed. It just pretty much made the entire final chapter pointless in terms of stakes and sacrifices since Falcom really wanted to push for a squeaky clean perfect "happily ever after" ending. I think I would probably feel better about the ending if they combined the major plot events in the final chapter and the after-story as one huge finale. Because a second "ending" that is basically a reprise of the final ending just feels weird.

Besides a few weak characters who struggled to land the ending moments well, Nayuta is a game that has incited a lot of childhood wonder and memories in me from the PS2 and Dreamcast days, from its charming, vivid low poly graphics, the simple but yet always evolving action platforming gameplay and its concise but epic plotline. Whether or not Nayuta is connected to the rest of Trails, we can have plenty of discussions about that due to its many parallels to the series. However, it's an excellent entry as a standalone game without any requirement of playing the rest of Trails and it nails the balance between being simple and fun and complex and thought-provoking just right.

Okay, let me say this, Cassette Beasts is not a bad game. It does a lot of things pretty fine. In fact, it's pretty impressive that only about 5-7 people total made the game. It's a monster-taming RPG very similar to Pokemon. You go around the open world and platform around to access new locations, which I do find the visuals very charming, and engage in battle with beasts and trainers. You catch these beasts with cassettes by recording them and I really love the idea of having music integral to the game. It just helps give it its own identity.

Cassette Beasts share a lot of the same mechanics as Pokemon such as remasting, which is evolving your beasts into new powerful forms. As well as each beast falls into multiple types of elements; including more unique ones such as glitter, plastic, glass, and toxic. Plus I really like how you can customize movesets and abilities with stickers, even if the sticker doesn't match the element type of the beast. However, my favorite aspect has to be fusion. When you and your partner's beast combine into a new, bigger, more powerful beast that shares the same moveset. Plus I just think it's aesthetically super cool that no two beasts look exactly the same when you fuse them together.

Gameplay-wise...while personally I'm not a huge fan of monster taming in RPGs, I still found it severable and fairly fun. However, it's very barebones in terms of story. I felt like I spent 80% of the game on just going to new areas and fighting.

Cassette Beasts' plot is basically you're a complete stranger who landed on New Wirral, a strange land full of monsters, and you want to get back home. To do that, you need to defeat archangels to search for clues. And in the meanwhile, you can fight against ranger captains to get stamps (much like how you defeat Pokemon trainers for badges) and deal with vampires that may or may not be real estate scammers. That is essentially the plot within a paragraph. Granted there is a few cool moments I don't want to spoil but I found it to be very sparse for the most part.

If anything, the characters that serve as your partners add a lot of spice to the game's writing. They may not be super in-depth that get tons of development but they're still very likable characters that come from different time periods and places. Each partner has a bond system and you are able to learn more about the character's life before they came to New Wirral and even have the option to romance almost any of your partners once you max out thier bond. Plus a lot of the side characters such as the ranger trainers are colorful. They are pretty one-noted and only have a single trope for thier personality but alas they add to the game's vibrant atmosphere.

Other complaints I have is I personally found it super annoying for random people to pop up and challenge me to a fight all of the time, when sometimes I just can't be bothered at all. Plus the game does become very grindy in the post-game, especially since by then most of the content is either randomly generated quests or filling out the bestiary but as far as story content, there isn't much left to do after the final boss. And this is more of a Switch-specific issue but even with the stable patch update, I wasn't particularly a fan of the long load time. It's especially jarring when a loading screen pops up in the middle of walking from one area to another.

Cassette Beasts is a cutesy, fun 20-25+ hour game with some neat vivid ideas to break away from the monster-taming formula Pokemon have dominated for over 25 years. It doesn't truly do anything wrong or awfully. However, there's just much more to be desired with the story writing and there are certain mechanics and tropes I wish Cassette Beasts didn't copy from Pokemon. Maybe because I'm not in love with this subgenre of RPGs but decent gameplay alone can only keep my attention for so long before I would eventually get tired of the game. I don't think Cassette Beasts is bad, I'm just not sure if monster-taming games are for me