minaah
63 Reviews liked by minaah
A lot of people here have been filtered by the levels with ghosts and ghouls, to which i say: Lol.
Real shit though, this is a good game, would be the only good game ever made if Thief II wasn't a Masterpiece Of Time. This is my favorite game ever though out of pure nostalgia, I played this one for hours mastering it, listening to the incredible drum'n'bass ost, and getting immersed in the INCREDIBLE storyline. The pacing is godlike, and the escalation to the incredible finale is so well-earned. Thief Gold fucks up this pacing by adding in 2 of the worst levels ever (thieves guild and mage's tower) and one pretty cool level (the opera house.) I wish there was a way to just play The Dark Project as originally intended but there is a cheat to just skip levels. Do NOT play the Thieves Guild it is like 3 fucking hours long.
It's moody, atmospheric, immersive, you can spend hours getting lost in the world and when you get up to use the restroom you'll feel like you just stepped out of VR. it's so good and the developers should be allowed to legally kill one person of their choice each as reward for working on it.
Real shit though, this is a good game, would be the only good game ever made if Thief II wasn't a Masterpiece Of Time. This is my favorite game ever though out of pure nostalgia, I played this one for hours mastering it, listening to the incredible drum'n'bass ost, and getting immersed in the INCREDIBLE storyline. The pacing is godlike, and the escalation to the incredible finale is so well-earned. Thief Gold fucks up this pacing by adding in 2 of the worst levels ever (thieves guild and mage's tower) and one pretty cool level (the opera house.) I wish there was a way to just play The Dark Project as originally intended but there is a cheat to just skip levels. Do NOT play the Thieves Guild it is like 3 fucking hours long.
It's moody, atmospheric, immersive, you can spend hours getting lost in the world and when you get up to use the restroom you'll feel like you just stepped out of VR. it's so good and the developers should be allowed to legally kill one person of their choice each as reward for working on it.
this game blew me away so hard that i genuinely had to reconsider my feelings on uchikoshi's other work in response. if i didn't have the attachment to ever17's best cast members and its final route that i do i might actually bump it down a peg because remember11 is genuinely all that much better. that said, with r11 itself and supplementary material from the game and interviews with the team under my belt, i feel satisfied in saying i understand what uchikoshi et al were doing here. and for all those who claim this game is unfinished? even if that were literally the case, in execution, this is the peak of uchikoshi's powers. outside of the mere complaints that i wish the game included documentation like the official timeline and interviews in some form of re-release, and the difficulty of achieving some of its TIPS, remember11 is a damn near flawless experience. in keeping my reviews here largely spoiler-free, i can't exactly dissect my feelings about the meaning of the game or my personal takeaway here - but what i will say is that uchikoshi achieves on a meta and post-modernist level here what many seemingly fail to years down the line. a downright masterpiece and i genuinely don't see how the fuck he could possibly outdo what he did here. i have to admit, 999 continues to seem like an even greater drop, much as i like it, in comparison.
Final Fantasy
1987
if nothing else, i can applaud final fantasy's ambition and the scale of its journey for a 1987 jrpg. the clear d&d roots here show their blatant influence throughout in some pretty charming ways, too - but that said, perhaps enough attention to the balance and purpose of certain elements may have needed some polish as opposed to simply fulfilling a quota. for example, thieves are essentially useless and team composition is no more complicated than "create as much universal damage output as possible and also be able to teamheal". it's evident within the next year, enix had a much finer understanding of console jrpgs, as there's basically no reason i'd ever recommend this title over the masterful dragon quest iii, far as nes jrpgs go. ultimately, though, what we have here is the first entry in a series which would take another title or two to really start and find its identity - and that's ok! it's a cute little bauble and the passion is there, in its own way.
Chrono Trigger
1995
i think there's a lot of credence to the idea that chrono trigger is the greatest jrpg ever made. it's a collaboration between the two most important guys in the genre's golden years, it's got a bangin' yasunori mitsuda soundtrack, and the pacing and cinematics are really top-notch. seriously, this game does so much to streamline the process of playing and absorbing it to the point that a single session feels like you've made serious progress each and every time.
chrono trigger is the peak of what the first major wave of jrpgs was seeking to do; it's got those fantasy and early sci-fi/steampunk aesthetics that dominated square's output through the mid-90s, a cast of zany and colorful characters, and some great little story beats to keep things interesting. i absolutely see why this game resonates with so many people, especially if you sank a ton of time into it growing up.
as for me, i played this game pretty early into my adventures with jrpgs and enjoyed myself, and since then i've played it to completion probably like three or four times - started it up or completed another random ending maybe a dozen more. it's entertaining and engaging, which to a genre outsider i could see very few jrpgs being.
i think where trigger and i sort of shake hands and don't really find intimate ground is just based on the fact that it doesn't really touch me emotionally the way other jrpgs have, but that's largely due to what interests me in games and stories. it's a streamlined and air-tight package but i'm not moved or blown away by anything it shows me. even moments and sequences from its genre contemporaries like final fantasy vi, or terranigma, or dragon quest v, or earthbound - admittedly less perfectly clean-cut games, but more daring, outspoken, and therefore more personally significant titles for me - leave chrono trigger's narrative and drama feeling... admittedly somewhat unremarkable in comparison.
don't get me wrong, chrono trigger is about as tight and precise as jrpgs come, and a genuine joy to play, but those are the things i admire most about it - largely leaning into its entertainment value more than its artistic dominance over me. it's why i admit to liking and resonating with chrono cross on a far more personal and powerful level than this game. but by all means, if you haven't played chrono trigger, play chrono trigger, it's probably the best place to start with jrpgs and it tops endless charts for a reason.
chrono trigger is the peak of what the first major wave of jrpgs was seeking to do; it's got those fantasy and early sci-fi/steampunk aesthetics that dominated square's output through the mid-90s, a cast of zany and colorful characters, and some great little story beats to keep things interesting. i absolutely see why this game resonates with so many people, especially if you sank a ton of time into it growing up.
as for me, i played this game pretty early into my adventures with jrpgs and enjoyed myself, and since then i've played it to completion probably like three or four times - started it up or completed another random ending maybe a dozen more. it's entertaining and engaging, which to a genre outsider i could see very few jrpgs being.
i think where trigger and i sort of shake hands and don't really find intimate ground is just based on the fact that it doesn't really touch me emotionally the way other jrpgs have, but that's largely due to what interests me in games and stories. it's a streamlined and air-tight package but i'm not moved or blown away by anything it shows me. even moments and sequences from its genre contemporaries like final fantasy vi, or terranigma, or dragon quest v, or earthbound - admittedly less perfectly clean-cut games, but more daring, outspoken, and therefore more personally significant titles for me - leave chrono trigger's narrative and drama feeling... admittedly somewhat unremarkable in comparison.
don't get me wrong, chrono trigger is about as tight and precise as jrpgs come, and a genuine joy to play, but those are the things i admire most about it - largely leaning into its entertainment value more than its artistic dominance over me. it's why i admit to liking and resonating with chrono cross on a far more personal and powerful level than this game. but by all means, if you haven't played chrono trigger, play chrono trigger, it's probably the best place to start with jrpgs and it tops endless charts for a reason.
Grandia
1997
One thing I have noticed upon finishing this game, is that the main theme that played a lot during the first half of the adventure, only plays one final time at the very end. It's basically a genius way of telling the players that the real story starts in disc 2 and now it's impossible to give this game anything lower than a 10/10. Absolute masterpiece that everyone needs to play.
It's a shame, I really felt that this game properly did a good job of translating the console/PC version's overall design goals into a 2D handheld game. It turned out to be a slow paced platformer that used simple stealth mechanics in order to make the player patiently observe their surroundings before making their move, which is very true to the series' ideals. Even the feel of the movement and combat feels authentically Splinter Cell: slightly heavy, deliberate. But the game just keeps making the game more and more annoying to play as you progress. There's a couple difficulty sections later on that can feel far too reliant on trial and error gameplay. The console/PC Splinter Cell had this too, but it's cushioned by the fact that quick saves existed, and there's more ways to cheese it. Pretty much everything from the Oil Refinery level onwards is poorly designed, with the game trying real hard to be a challenge. I finally quit at a "puzzle" in the second to last level, it doesn't make sense and the controls just kept failing me. But I still believe that the core mechanics here are quite good, so I might give the other Splinter Cell GBA titles a try anyways.
Mhm yeah, there's tears in my eyes alright, because they somehow made a story about samurai mechs completely LAME.
It is with a heavy heart that I also slap an 'ABANDONED' on the PC version of Splinter Cell 2. While functionally much, much better than the PS2 version, my first two hours with it were pretty dull -- feeling like a samey retread of the first game, but with much less interesting level design.
A cardinal sin came for me at the end of the Paris level. You crawl through an air vent, into a locked room some enemies are trying to get into. After some brief story dialogue, you see enemies priming a bomb to open the locked room. I died on my escape (they heard me trying to crawl through the vent), so I quick loaded and had an idea! Before entering the room, I dropped a smoke grenade from the vent to the floor below! So the enemies trying to break into the room passed out, and were no longer a threat! I played through the same dialogue as before, but this time there was no bomb-prep cutscene because I had dispatched the enemies.
HOWEVER! The level is unfinishable without the bomb. You need the bomb to blow open the door to allow you to extract. And I had already used up my one quick save slot after taking out those enemies, so my only other option was to REPLAY THE ENTIRE LEVEL AGAIN, AND NOT BE AS CLEVER! Why the enemies are killable when they are needed for story progress I do not know, AND the game doesn't even give you a proper 'hey you messed up, here's a checkpoint' fail state. It's insane that innovative play like that in a stealth game just lets you fuck yourself in that manner.
Anyway, I have no desire to replay the entire level, so we're calling it quits here.
A cardinal sin came for me at the end of the Paris level. You crawl through an air vent, into a locked room some enemies are trying to get into. After some brief story dialogue, you see enemies priming a bomb to open the locked room. I died on my escape (they heard me trying to crawl through the vent), so I quick loaded and had an idea! Before entering the room, I dropped a smoke grenade from the vent to the floor below! So the enemies trying to break into the room passed out, and were no longer a threat! I played through the same dialogue as before, but this time there was no bomb-prep cutscene because I had dispatched the enemies.
HOWEVER! The level is unfinishable without the bomb. You need the bomb to blow open the door to allow you to extract. And I had already used up my one quick save slot after taking out those enemies, so my only other option was to REPLAY THE ENTIRE LEVEL AGAIN, AND NOT BE AS CLEVER! Why the enemies are killable when they are needed for story progress I do not know, AND the game doesn't even give you a proper 'hey you messed up, here's a checkpoint' fail state. It's insane that innovative play like that in a stealth game just lets you fuck yourself in that manner.
Anyway, I have no desire to replay the entire level, so we're calling it quits here.
Persona 5
2016
This review contains spoilers
GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH this game could have been so good....
For being a story about rebellion and going against the system, it sure is unspecific about WHAT were rebelling against, in the story when they say "those shitty/rotten adults" it is so vague that it doesnt really fit the narrative, and it felt like the writers wanted to make a story that was actually about realizing the flaws in the system and rebelling against it to change it, but got cut short by executives instead and so we ended up with a halfbaked story that doesnt really do anything to inspire the audience to seek change. This is all speculation because we dont know what actually happens behind the scenes, but it would explain why the game is written the way it is.
I found most of the main cast to be a mixed bag, to be honest: Ryuji is basic but good. Yusuke is quirky and unique, he is in my opinion the best phantom thief. Ann is good at the start but falls off writing-wise later and gets sexualized without her consent like a million times which goes against her whole arc.
Morgana is annoying as your inner voice throughout the game, but hes probably worse when hes talking for himself, his whole arc in harus palace is really bad and poorly executed, but i at least see what they were trying to go for, even if they failed. Makoto has a very cool introduction but is all style no substance(4:53:35). Futaba is good, her arc really struck a cord with me and i managed to sympathize with her story. Haru just felt like she had nothing going for her and failed to stand out like the others did. Akechi is just a character i did not care for. He wasnt bad or anything, but i could not care for him less.
As for the villains of this game, they´re not well written at all, they are pretty one dimensional scumbags fitting the themes of the seven deadly sins, with the final boss being Nyx from persona 3 but shittier. Theres only one exception to this, which would be Sae, since she ends up getting redeemed and working with the phantom thieves, which feels like progression for her character. Now, the villains didnt need to be great for this game to have been better. After all, people like Okumura, Kaneshiro and Kamoshida do exist in real life, but they just serve to be another facet thats not really interesting about this game.
Theres a lot of improvement in gameplay and social links alike compared to previous entries, such as baton pass and technicals being introduced. I enjoyed nearly all of these additions, except for demon negotiation. To me, shuffle time fits persona´s identity better and could be improved upon for persona 6 instead of just taking elements from mainline SMT.
Speaking of gameplay improvements for persona 6, i might as well throw out some suggestions since im here.
Every party member should feel more unique from one another, aside from having their own element (and sometimes unique moves), they should get a complete gimmick of their own to make strategizing around party compositions more fun and to help them stand out from each other as individuals to play into the themes of the games. Theres a few ways to make this possible, they could have a gauge you fill by hitting certain moves, being able to summon a stronger version of their persona during certain conditions and so on. What i dont like right now about newsona is the attention the MC receives when compared to the others, it just feels like the rest of your group is NPCs standing in the sidelines and only following your commands instead of being proper party members that fill their own niche in battle.
Anyway yeah this game is a lot of wasted potential storywise but at least it was a comercial success, so maybe we will get something better next time around.
For being a story about rebellion and going against the system, it sure is unspecific about WHAT were rebelling against, in the story when they say "those shitty/rotten adults" it is so vague that it doesnt really fit the narrative, and it felt like the writers wanted to make a story that was actually about realizing the flaws in the system and rebelling against it to change it, but got cut short by executives instead and so we ended up with a halfbaked story that doesnt really do anything to inspire the audience to seek change. This is all speculation because we dont know what actually happens behind the scenes, but it would explain why the game is written the way it is.
I found most of the main cast to be a mixed bag, to be honest: Ryuji is basic but good. Yusuke is quirky and unique, he is in my opinion the best phantom thief. Ann is good at the start but falls off writing-wise later and gets sexualized without her consent like a million times which goes against her whole arc.
Morgana is annoying as your inner voice throughout the game, but hes probably worse when hes talking for himself, his whole arc in harus palace is really bad and poorly executed, but i at least see what they were trying to go for, even if they failed. Makoto has a very cool introduction but is all style no substance(4:53:35). Futaba is good, her arc really struck a cord with me and i managed to sympathize with her story. Haru just felt like she had nothing going for her and failed to stand out like the others did. Akechi is just a character i did not care for. He wasnt bad or anything, but i could not care for him less.
As for the villains of this game, they´re not well written at all, they are pretty one dimensional scumbags fitting the themes of the seven deadly sins, with the final boss being Nyx from persona 3 but shittier. Theres only one exception to this, which would be Sae, since she ends up getting redeemed and working with the phantom thieves, which feels like progression for her character. Now, the villains didnt need to be great for this game to have been better. After all, people like Okumura, Kaneshiro and Kamoshida do exist in real life, but they just serve to be another facet thats not really interesting about this game.
Theres a lot of improvement in gameplay and social links alike compared to previous entries, such as baton pass and technicals being introduced. I enjoyed nearly all of these additions, except for demon negotiation. To me, shuffle time fits persona´s identity better and could be improved upon for persona 6 instead of just taking elements from mainline SMT.
Speaking of gameplay improvements for persona 6, i might as well throw out some suggestions since im here.
Every party member should feel more unique from one another, aside from having their own element (and sometimes unique moves), they should get a complete gimmick of their own to make strategizing around party compositions more fun and to help them stand out from each other as individuals to play into the themes of the games. Theres a few ways to make this possible, they could have a gauge you fill by hitting certain moves, being able to summon a stronger version of their persona during certain conditions and so on. What i dont like right now about newsona is the attention the MC receives when compared to the others, it just feels like the rest of your group is NPCs standing in the sidelines and only following your commands instead of being proper party members that fill their own niche in battle.
Anyway yeah this game is a lot of wasted potential storywise but at least it was a comercial success, so maybe we will get something better next time around.
I've seen people compare it to, and I shit you not, The Brothers Karamazov. They should be exiled straight to Siberia for literature blasphemy.
The main parallel they drew is how this game supposedly allows different moralities to present themselves in equal footing. First of all, the game has one true ending. You know how visual novels work. Among the multiple endings, there is always one that is at the end of the longest, hardest route, and you end up with the most important girl. This game makes it more obvious, with all the other endings being some sort of refute to their own themes, so that you can clearly tell where the writer's heart truly lies. But the real problem is not how even-handed the writer is, but how compelling he presents his final argument. Without going into spoiler, the short answer is logic fallacy. When the game needed cool analysis and rational thinking the most to justify its morality, the writer resorted to appealing to the reader's emotion instead of reason, and in my case, fell flat completely. What is this novel take on morality that the game subjected me 50 hours of pain to get through? It's neither novel nor moral, an excuse used by perpetrators throughout history after committing atrocity.
And then there's the writing. The writer is clearly a kendo fan, if not a kendo course salesman, but that doesn't excuse him for shoving wall of text of kendo tutorial down people's throat. Exciting combat scenarios are grind to a halt by monotone exposition. The only thing more boring than action scenes are the comedy scenes. After all the philosophizing about the morality of man, garbage anime tropes are here to cleanse the palette and remind you nothing here is worth putting too much thoughts into. And how can I forget the sex scenes? They are fascinating in a Titus Andronicus sort of way. Who am I kidding? This is NitroPlus we are talking about. With the writer's fetish on display, I could see his hard on through the screen.
One point for the sudoku puzzle that came out of nowhere.
The main parallel they drew is how this game supposedly allows different moralities to present themselves in equal footing. First of all, the game has one true ending. You know how visual novels work. Among the multiple endings, there is always one that is at the end of the longest, hardest route, and you end up with the most important girl. This game makes it more obvious, with all the other endings being some sort of refute to their own themes, so that you can clearly tell where the writer's heart truly lies. But the real problem is not how even-handed the writer is, but how compelling he presents his final argument. Without going into spoiler, the short answer is logic fallacy. When the game needed cool analysis and rational thinking the most to justify its morality, the writer resorted to appealing to the reader's emotion instead of reason, and in my case, fell flat completely. What is this novel take on morality that the game subjected me 50 hours of pain to get through? It's neither novel nor moral, an excuse used by perpetrators throughout history after committing atrocity.
And then there's the writing. The writer is clearly a kendo fan, if not a kendo course salesman, but that doesn't excuse him for shoving wall of text of kendo tutorial down people's throat. Exciting combat scenarios are grind to a halt by monotone exposition. The only thing more boring than action scenes are the comedy scenes. After all the philosophizing about the morality of man, garbage anime tropes are here to cleanse the palette and remind you nothing here is worth putting too much thoughts into. And how can I forget the sex scenes? They are fascinating in a Titus Andronicus sort of way. Who am I kidding? This is NitroPlus we are talking about. With the writer's fetish on display, I could see his hard on through the screen.
One point for the sudoku puzzle that came out of nowhere.
Breath of Fire
1993
comfortably mid. straight up just a generic late 80s-early 90s style jrpg where the species involved are less monotonous. granted just about all of them are mostly just humans, but the sentiment was there. the unique abilities each party member has on the field are novel and feel a lot less arbitrary as progression or loot gates than many games are with their obstacles, so i applaud the designers for that.
combining all your party members like they're making a sentai mech but instead a big beast is a great idea, though it's a bit too limited and clunky in practice. it just doesn't work too great with the party menus and feels lacking in strategy with how linear the progression of their power feels. again, though, it's a cool idea! it's especially cool that you can shred bosses with the later combinations. it makes the combinations as exploration rewards feel very... well, rewarding.
basically nothing to say about the writing or presentation here. pretty bog standard. i started to get a bit tired of the game toward the end cause of the random busywork thrown in to break up the narrative flow but it wasn't enough to deter me from powering through to the end. this game was cute and fun enough that if the sequel improves enough on it even just mechanically then it has the potential to be great (and i've heard it does improve quite a lot!).
combining all your party members like they're making a sentai mech but instead a big beast is a great idea, though it's a bit too limited and clunky in practice. it just doesn't work too great with the party menus and feels lacking in strategy with how linear the progression of their power feels. again, though, it's a cool idea! it's especially cool that you can shred bosses with the later combinations. it makes the combinations as exploration rewards feel very... well, rewarding.
basically nothing to say about the writing or presentation here. pretty bog standard. i started to get a bit tired of the game toward the end cause of the random busywork thrown in to break up the narrative flow but it wasn't enough to deter me from powering through to the end. this game was cute and fun enough that if the sequel improves enough on it even just mechanically then it has the potential to be great (and i've heard it does improve quite a lot!).
Pizza Tower
2023
I enjoy this as much as lactose intolerant people enjoy actual pizza
BG 1 and 2 were the games that got me into CRPGs when I was a kid
Xenogears
1998
This game is a huge mess and has a laundry list of problems, but damn I loved it. One of the most interesting stories in a game, it's artstyle is perfect, and I cannot believe how grand it's scale feels for a PS1 game. In that way, it blows FFVII (a game I admittedly like more) out of the water, with only one year difference in release.
This game is only popular because of tik tok. There’s no true fans of this game. It comically misunderstands the source material it attempts to base itself off of while simultaneously wrecking any true merit the game may have. The mechanics are awful as well as the graphics and the story. The only credit this game can be given is the amazing soundtrack.