Just about every review here praises the gameplay. It fixes the map, companion, and smirk problems of SMTIV, while adding more difficultly options, more demons, more skills, etc. It wouldn't be controversial to say that this has the best gameplay in the series. The reason most people aren't also rating it 10/10 is the story, so let's focus on that.

Even though Megami Tensei games almost always have multiple endings there's usually one ending that has by far more content than all the other endings, like SMTIV's Netural or Nocturne's True Demon Ending. Many players, like myself, just want the ending with the most content, and therefore don't consider any other criteria for choosing an ending.

Apocalypse is somewhat unique because it has two bad endings, that end the game quite early; and two good endings, that both have the same amount of content. Though these two good endings have the same gameplay content the story differs significantly.

The reason many people dislike the story is because of the cast of teenage party members focused on the power of friendship. Some people like these characters as they get more developed character arcs and personalities compared to SMTIV's partners. Some people find them annoying and would prefer less dialogue though. No matter your stance I can't see this as being a negative. If you like them then there's a good ending where you join forces, and if you don't like them then there's a good ending where you go against them. Either way you still get the same amount of content and true final boss.

I recommend everyone who played SMTIV to play this game. The gameplay is better in every aspect. I think the backlash is just that people assumed that the ending where you turn against your party members would be a bad ending, so even though many people wanted to do that they didn't because they thought it wouldn't get the true final boss. Now that you know you can do either you should love this game like I did.

I loved this game at first but the more I played it the less I liked it. You choose one of three houses at the very start of the game. No matter which route you pick the maps and plot will be the same, the only difference being your students. You can easily recruit students from other houses though aside from one or two people which are locked to a certain house. On my second playthrough I recruited every recruit-able person before even halfway through the game. So what house you pick doesn't really matter at first.
After the halfway point the three routes split to be completely different. The Black Eagles route feels unfinished. Not only is is significantly shorter than the other routes, but the story also doesn't have a true conclusion. We know there's still more people to fight, but we don't get to do it.
The Black Eagles route has a route split right at the halfway point for you to instead join with the church. This route is pointless as it has the same maps and cutscenes as the Golden Deer route aside from the final map. Don't bother with it. However, you might accidentally end up doing it because it's easier to get forced into this route than to do the actual Black Eagles route.
The Blue Lions route is the most unique and finished route in the game, but the story mainly hinges on a misunderstanding, which is especially annoying if this route isn't your first. As the player I clearly know the answer and could solve the conflict in a single sentence, but I don't get to and instead I just watch the world burn.
Also this game has one of the worst maps in all of Fire Emblem: Hunting By Daybreak. As I mentioned it's very easy to recruit other units, so in my second playthrough I used units from different houses. However, this is the only map that makes you use only units from the house you chose at the start, regardless of if you've leveled them or not.
Anyway, it's almost a good game. The characters are detailed and their side stories are often pretty interesting, but the gameplay has huge problems. The common route is too long, the monastery parts are repetitive, the class system encourages units to often pick the same class, etc.

Seeing the same cast of characters follow one continuous plot over 20 years of publication is common for comics and books, but it almost never happens in video games. Games series tend to either have a new cast and plot each game, like Final Fantasy, or have the same cast but no continuous plot, like Mario. The only series I can think of that comes close to a continuous cast and plot are Ys, which keeps the same protagonist and best friend but has almost no other returning characters; Trails, which keeps the same setting but the protagonist and party members change often; and Metal Gear, which has ended.

Kingdom Hearts is an outlier in this regard. If you want a story focused video game series with the same cast and plot that spans twenty years, then Kingdom Hearts is your best and probably only choice. Now I don't actually like to read those books and comics that span twenty years because I find them repetitive, but Kingdom Hearts doesn't have this problem because the gameplay changes significantly from game to game. The first is focused on platforming with hack and slash, then it's a card game, then it's a character action, then a few games here are just movies, there's one with monster collecting, etc. It's varied and unique.

Another draw to this series is the Disney characters and worlds. Again, I don't actually care much for Disney movies, but I love them here because of the variety. One world might be in a whale, another in a computer, one is underwater, in one you sail a boat, etc. While there's a core cast that is recurring there's tons of Disney characters to add variety to the story and the aesthetic.

Is Kingdom Hearts always good? No. There are a lot of things I dislike. Some games I don't like the combat, some characters I don't care for, some worlds overstay their welcome, etc. but this is really about being more than the sum of its parts. If I had to rate each game in the series and average them out, I'd probably end up with a 7.5/10, but as a whole package, being an incredibly unique media experience that you won't find anywhere else, it has to be a 10/10.

I really don't understand why people enjoy this game. I like Metroid because of the movement upgrades that makes backtracking fun. I like Castlevania because of the RPG aspects that make you feel significantly more powerful with each upgrade and the variety of drops from enemies makes it fun to go back and see what you can get. This game has neither of those qualities. The way you move and attack at the beginning of the game is basically the same as at the end of the game. There are some RPG aspects like a currency system but there's no point where you feel powerful or any enemy weapon drops. I wanted to like it but sadly did not at all.

This DS version is the one to play. The SNES/GBA/PSP were easy mode and this version retains something more akin the original Japanese difficulty. If you play on DS there's only one difficultly but the Steam version has Normal and Hard. Hard is the DS difficultly and Normal is somewhere between Hard and SNES/GBA/PSP. I still recommend the Hard mode as it makes for the best combat in the series. It's not a grind, you actually get more Exp than in the Easy versions. The PSP version comes with the After Story but its writing and combat is not nearly as good so I'd say skip it. The 3D models look nice and the soundtrack is great. The voice acting is pretty good. The script was entirely redone and sounds great. They speak somewhat old English but not to the point where it gets annoying. Overall this is my favorite FF game mostly for the combat but the rest of the game is great too.

I think Atlus realized that they have three separate audiences and tried to make a game that would appeal to all of them, but in the end they made a game that appeals to nobody.
-If you don't like old school Megami Tensei like the original Soul Hackers then you will hate the dungeon and map design in this game.
-If you don't like modern Shin Megami Tensei games like SMT 4 and 5 then you will hate the focus on side quests and backtracking in order to not be under leveled.
-If you don't like the modern Persona games then you will hate how much dialogue this game has, much of which is pointless moments like talking about food or chatting about backstories at a bar.
The only people who could enjoy this game are Atlus super fans like me who like all of those games. The issue with this though is because I've played most games Atlus has ever put out, I know that every thing this game tries to do has been done better in prior games.
There's nothing about this game that it does better than any prior Atlus game. I totally want Atlus to take risks with Megami Tensei. If you liked Nocturne then you might not like Digital Devil Saga, Raidou, or Persona 3 and 4, but that's because those games each appeal to a slightly different audience. This game tried to appeal to everyone by making a game with some dungeon crawling, some side quests, some slice of life dialogue, and in the end it appeals to no one.

I will always advocate for more media centered around living with a disability. What separates Katawa Shoujo is the emphasis on the emotional impact of disabilities rather than the physical. Emi's story is about her grief of someone else from her accident, Shizune's is about her want for control since she can't be independent, Hanako's is about her anxiety from having a visible disability, Rin's is about how other people think she could never be successful due to her disability, and Lilly's is her unwillingness to rely on others in any way and pushing away relationships because of this. I know it's overall not the most well written fiction in existence, but until there's a plethora of stories focusing on similar themes I'll gladly give this a high rating.

This is by far my favorite PS1 FF game. The game fixes the awful combat balancing of 7 and 8 so casting spells is actually useful. The music is always good, and the graphics somehow are a huge step up again. Oddly my biggest complaint with this game is the characters, which since 4 has the been the highlight of the series for me. The first four party members are well developed, Vivi being one of the best FF characters ever, but the back half are barely developed. Quina and Amarant have nearly no identity, and Eiko feels like she's there for just a plot point. Freya is my favorite as she combines the archetypes of Kain and Rydia from 4, who are my two favorite characters from my favorite entry, but her story gets relatively little focus and this was very disappointing to me. Otherwise though a fantastic game.

If I were to rate this game with individual scores for its gameplay, graphics, sound design, etc. then no aspect would be rated highly due to the overall lack of polish and originality. However, this game is much more than the sum of its parts.

This is essentially the first game that is an online-multiplayer, survival-crafting, monster-collecting, action-shooter. I've desperately wanted a game like this since the Pixelmon Minecraft mod came out in 2012, which is probably the closest we've ever gotten until now.

Even though it's clear that the world design is based on Breath of the Wild, the monsters are based on Pokemon, the tech tree is based on Ark, the boss design is based on Elden Ring, etc. if I try to compare the whole of the game to another then there's no competition. This combination of genres is unique. The overall experience was unlike anything I've played before which is why I really enjoyed it despite the obvious flaws.

I love the concept of having a story sequel to the mainline games in a rom hack. It's like a fully realized fan fiction. Unova still feels fresh to explore because the order you explore the region is completely different, not to mention the landscape changes that have happened because of story.
The difficultly was just right for me. It takes into account that anyone playing this has likely played dozens of Pokemon games, but it's not so hard that you get frustrated. It just took me two or three tries on each gym.
Really the only negative aspect of the game is that it's made in Crystal. There's some updates, like Physical/Special split, reusable TMs, and Fairy type, but there's no Abilities, Natures, Double Battles, etc. If all else was the same but it was made in Pokemon Essentials for some modern updates, better graphics, and better post game then it would be one of my favorite rom hacks ever. As it stands though it's still worth playing for any Unova fan.