I liked the demo so much that I bought the game once it released. Now I finally got to play it. What started off interesting and good , went to not so good and confusing. I had hoped that the story would kind of make sense in the end, but after playing it I know as much as I knew after 2hours playtime. The gameplay consists of puzzles, world navigation, combat (which really is not deep nor fun), inventory management and talking to people. I have finished the game with two different endings, both of which seemed to be bad endings and both were not very satisfying.
I really wanted to like it, but its just an ok game that started to annoy me in its last quarter and left me disappointed.

Tetris Battle Gaiden is a sloppy unbalanced mess of a game that has nearly brought me into physical confrontation with my friends. It is perfect.

True to its title, this is a multiplayer-centric Tetris game. Each player selects a character with their own unique set of magical skills. These spells exist on a tier, and by clearing lines containing orbs you're able to progress up to higher tiers of magic. Conventional wisdom would be to always build up to your highest tier of magic and then pop your "ultimate," but Battle Gaiden avoids this trap by smartly designing spells such that they have strong utility in certain situations. As an example, your opponent might be constantly sending garbage blocks your way, and your tier-1 magic will simply clear these lines out to make your well more manageable, whereas your tier-3 magic will reverse your opponents inputs. Inconveniencing them when their well is mostly clear doesn't do you much good when you're drowning in tetrominos.

You also can't play this like a traditional competitive Tetris. In fact, the way some spells work actually incentivize you to "play bad" in order to copy completely mangled rows over to your opponent. Likewise, since carefully managing which tier of magic you're building to is crucial to winning a game, you can't really boil things down to the same rote "build and clear tetrises" that forms a reliable baseline for other Tetris games. It's a thinkin' man's Tetris. Except it's also not!

Some characters are just built better than others, with clear counters that can make matches agonizing to win no matter how thoughtful you are while playing. There's definitely a lack of balance, and it can give those more familiar with the game a clear advantage and push away newcomers. The story mode might be a good way to acclimate new players, but the game's mechanical idiosyncrasies are better learned when you have another human being teaching you the ropes. As such, I have one friend who is way into Tetris Battle Gaiden who I can always rely on for a fair and challenging match, and another who just doesn't "get" the game and has perhaps said some things to me that should get him put onto a government watch list or two.

But, I love it. It's my favorite puzzle game, even if I might struggle to recommend it to others, especially in this current climate where getting a bunch of people in the same room to play games is easier said than done. It was also never released in America, so if you want to play it, you will likely need to restore to emulation. If, however, all of that sounds completely manageable to you, then I would highly encourage you to destroy a few friendships with Tetris Battle Gaiden.

When I first played this game in 2019, I enjoyed it a lot. But, I didn't see how special this series was until earlier last year when I played Bravely Second and this year Bravely Default 2.

The obvious qualities of this game is the combat, Team Asano crafted one of the best turn based combat systems in any game I've played. The amount of depth and variety the combat has to offer is astounding. And the boss fights actually force you to use variety, so you are forced to take advantage of the complexity. No grinding is ever needed if you have a proper strategy. Getting my ass kicked by a boss fight then spending a while theory crafting different builds and strategies until I figure out the best strategy feels so good. And the fact that Bravely Default 2s combat is even better is whats crazy. There are some dominant strategies like Stillness but this game is a tool box free to experiment with how you wish.

The art style is beautiful, not just for a 3DS game, but in general. The fact that I think this game looks way better than Bravely Default 2 A SWITCH GAME shows how fantastic the art direction was for this game. Revo created one of the best gaming soundtracks I've ever heard, the music is genuinely a masterpiece.

Finally the story, I love it. This game has Ringabel my guy. Of course the cast is amazing. The game's greatest use of story is how it incorporates the player itself and their feelings into the theming of the game. I wont go into spoilers, but all I'll say is one of the big themes of Bravely Default series is for the player to persevere with the party even if every action you take feels futile or meaningless. I also love the twist villain because the game uses your expectations against you to pull the rug from under you.

There is one big flaw with this game sadly, as you've all probably heard. Chapter 5-8 is basically recycles content. Now, narrative wise, this is genius, I cant explain because of spoilers but the act of "repeating the cycle" and the feeling of "futility" comes in again. But at the end of the day, repeating the same content gets boring, it fitting the story is irrelevant to this. Bravely Default 2 did a similar idea much better.

Overall, would I recommend this RPG to anyone like how I would, Persona 5? No, I can fully admit this game isn't for everyone, but for me, it's one of the goats.