About on par with Aria, or maybe a little bit better. Dawn pretty much plays like Aria, except with improved visuals and music. The Magic Seal mechanic is also new, but it's really just a gimmick that uses the DS touch screen, and didn't need to be there.

Yoko's new weapon upgrade shop sounds good on the surface, letting you spend souls in order to improve weapons that aren't very good at first. However, the drop rate for enemy souls in this game is extremely low, and it's not worth trying to grind for the specific souls you need, so she ends up not being very useful. She and Hammer at least have funny/interesting stuff to say when you talk to them.

Also, I do kind of like the anime-styled portraits. They're very expressive, and they fit the aesthetic of this game well enough. Still, I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the Ayami Kojima art from Aria and the older games.

Portrait of Ruin is, as the title suggests, a game about portraits. Of ruin.

The way the portraits work reminds me of Lament of Innocence, where there were various levels separate from the castle that you could go to. Except in this one, the castle is its own level instead of just being a hub. The idea of going into portraits to get more abilities in order to explore more of the castle is really cool,but they're unfortunately very linear. The order that you do the portraits in is set unless you do some wacky sequence breaking techniques. The second half is a little better with this, letting you explore the last four portraits in any order. I also liked how they were remixed versions of the previous levels, sort of like the reverse castle in SOTN.

Jonathan and Charlotte are both incredibly fun to play, and it doesn't feel like one character is straight up better than the other. Jonathan has better gear and more options for weapons, and Charlotte has a large variety of spells, both for support and damage. The switching mechanic is unfortunately pretty underused aside from a few early game puzzles. Although I do find it pretty satisfying when both characters out and you can combo enemies to death.

The story is also pretty good, usually Castlevania stories are pretty minimal but this one is quite a bit more involved. I especially enjoyed the callbacks to Bloodlines, which this game is a sequel to. Jonathan and Charlotte also have great banter, and play off each other well.

My only complaints are that it's pretty linear, and also very grindy on account of the subweapons and all the side quests. Other than that, I enjoyed this game quite a lot. Also, extra points for having dual audio in 2006 on a fucking DS game. Based Konami.

Extra is actually pretty enjoyable, though the later routes kind of drag on a bit. No idea how people get filtered by this unless they have a physical aversion to slice of life.

Unlimited is also great as a huge departure from the tone and setting of Extra in ways I wasn't expecting at all. The really hard hitting moments all seem to come closer to the end however, and it seems like mostly setup for what's to come in Alternative. I'm definitely looking forward to that payoff when the time comes.

Also, I would literally die for Jinguuji Marimo.

This game took me way too god damn long to finish but it's pretty good.

This game has a pretty unique battle system, and while I can see why it might not be for everyone I found it to be very fun. Getting to the point where your party members will easily wipe out groups of enemies is extremely satisfying, but it does take a bit of work to get there. Obviously there are basic RPG things to consider like team building and gear and all that, but you have to set up your gambits just right so that your party will do what you want them to in the correct order, so you don't have to worry about giving them commands manually.

I can understand why people wouldn't like the automation, but I find it really interesting. It's like programming your party members, in a sense. It puts a greater emphasis on coming up with strategies before you go into a fight, and then executing on them, rather than making decisions in the middle of battle. The main story content isn't very hard for the most part, but for a lot of the late-game hunts and espers, you'll definitely need to pay more attention to how your gambits are set up.

The story was a little hard for me to follow, which is mostly my fault because I had this game on hold for like six months, but the main cast are all very likeable and all have their own goals and motivations for going on this journey. Vaan feels the most like he's just along for the ride, but he has some good moments and development by the end.

In conclusion, I am THE Basch fon Ronsenberg of Dalmasca! BASCH LIVES!!

after 7, it seemed like they were finally moving away from kiryu and having ichiban be the series' new main protagonist, so i was a little bit skeptical when they announced the next game would focus on both kiryu and ichiban. i was still pretty interested in seeing where they would take ichiban's character, and the hawaii setting sounded promising. having not payed much attention to the trailers and previews pre-release, most of this game's story and content came as a surprise to me and i'm happy to say i really enjoyed it for the most part.

gameplay-wise, it's quite a large step up from 7's combat. in a game where positioning is a big deal, being able to move your characters around manually allows for more strategy during battles. being able to see what direction you'll be knocking the enemies into, as well as proximity bonuses and back attacks which do more damage, gives you the opportunity to better optimize encounters and finish off groups more quickly. this also lets you change the path of aoe skills, including as many enemies as possible in the attack or hitting only ones with a specific weakness. this was one of the biggest improvements i wanted to see from 7, so i was excited that they went through with it.

jobs also work a bit differently compared to the previous game. before, only certain skills from each job could be inherited, and they would be attached to that character permanently once you unlocked them. it made it so that you would grind every job up to a certain level to unlock all of the inherited skills. now, you're able to choose which skills to inherit out of the entire job's move list. of course you still have to level up those jobs to unlock more skills, but being able to choose adds an element of character building that wasn't present before. it's balanced somewhat, you can only inherit five skills total, but being able to customize each character's move set to this degree brings a lot of depth to the job system.

admittedly, i'm not a completionist, i did as much side content as i felt like before i got tired and i still ended up spending a lot of time with this game. most of my time was spent grinding characters and bond levels so that i could fill out everyone's move set. not that it's necessary to grind that much, the main story wasn't super challenging, i just wanted to unlock more skills as soon as possible. the dungeon is marginally improved from the previous game. there are more floors and some floors have trapped civilians, giving you a bit more of an incentive to explore more before moving on. completing a floor also gives you points that you can exchange for weapons, collectables, or crafting materials. the level design of the dungeon is still not too interesting, but at least it doesn't feel as monotonous to grind in there.

while on the subject of side content, the new minigames are... okay i guess. sujimon battles are an amusing idea, recruiting random enemies you find and building a team to fight with is pretty fun. i didn't find the battles themselves to be super engaging but maybe that's just me. and honestly i kind of ignored donodoko island entirely lol, maybe i'll go back eventually to finish that but the little i played of it was not very interesting.

i mentioned earlier that i was skeptical of kiryu coming back as a main character, but his side of the story turned out to be the highlight for me. this main story in general is what i'm mixed on the most. it has a lot of great ideas that just don't come together super well, and the antagonists are pretty uninteresting. kiryu has his own set of substories separate from ichiban, where he reminisces on events from past games, and we see what some of the old characters are up to now. these smaller moments are where i found myself enjoying the writing the most, and i ended up pretty happy with kiryu's role in this game's story. perhaps this very well could be his last game? maybe? i dunno, i'll wait till Like a Dragon 9 comes out to see for sure.

i enjoyed this game actually a lot more than i expected to. it was pretty easy just to sink time into exploring the new location and experimenting with the combat and new jobs. the new party members are all pretty likeable and have satisfying arcs by the end. and despite my issues with the story i can't say i was disappointed with how it all turned out. this is definitely up there with some of the better games in the series overall.

"this happened to my buddy eric"/10