2024 Ranked
Best to worst ranking of every game I played in 2024. Includes any game I played this year and not 2024 games specifically. Replays also included.
Note: I do not edit the order of these rankings even after the year is over as an archive how I felt at the time.
Note: I do not edit the order of these rankings even after the year is over as an archive how I felt at the time.
16 Games
I wouldn't recommend playing it as a first time experience with Terraria, but if you're returning with an itch for more, look no further. Pretty much better than base Terraria at this point, outside of a few balancing issues.
To say Braid did not appeal to me on a surface level would be an understatement. When I watched a friend play through some of the game in a call, I could not look past the generic, if well made visuals and the literal lullaby music. Everyone in the call poked at the game endlessly, especially due to one particular clip from a documentary. Despite all that though, I would be lying if I said I wasn't quickly intrigued on a gameplay level; a slow-paced platformer with a focus on puzzle solving and unique mechanics? Most platformers fail to engage me much, but this seemed like a unique take on the genre. And after a year or so and a deal made with said friend, I finally sat down and played Braid... and fuck, it was REALLY good.
The machine gun REALLY fucks this game over, but overall I'd say it's good. Might move it higher once I replay with no machine gun on the true ending.
Fun as fuck fast paced run n gun that throws a million things at you at once and more. It's pretty obvious that this game was the foundation for Cuphead, with a lot of things being almost shamelessly ripped straight from it. The game overall is a LOT harder than it's aforementioned inspiration however- bosses really push you to learn the ins and outs of both its moveset and your movement. The way weapons are handled is a lot more fun as well; you choose a base weapon at the start, but you have a secondary slot for a secondary gun. This gives you three options; one of the original guns, or a fusion of both. There never was a clear cut "best" in most cases however, each boss had a gun that works best against them. The secondary gun can't be chosen as they're randomized upon dropping, forcing you to adapt to all the weapons and each fusion they can do. The only reason I have this game lower is because honestly, I think I may have met my match in difficulty. At some point, the bosses became almost entirely about skill-based execution rather than a mix of it and strategy and planning, and I got a bit tired of it. I'll have to see whether this is more consistent though or if there's another reason I'm not perceiving that I enjoyed the game less as it went on.
A step in the right direction on pretty much every axis after the first (and presumably the second) game, but misses the mark in much of its uncharted territory. It's way more charming and interesting in terms of area variety and the events that happen in each, which can have effects both narratively and gameplay wise. The job systems both opens the door for experimentation and replayability, while also shaking up the combat every now and then, even if it doesn't incentivize experimentation much. The world feels more expansive then ever, especially after that Great Plateau-esque moment when you first fly off the floating continent, but it also lacks in truly new stuff to find beyond what you've seen in not only the initial area of the game, but the entire first game as well. There's a large amount of secrets in every map of the game, encouraging to scour the corners of every town and dungeon you stumble into, but it's rare you'll ever find anything that interesting beyond what you can already easily find like shop items or cash. In general, I think FF3 could've really taken it's mechanics further; even its best stuff is never really pushed far, and it overall feels pretty underbaked despite great ideas peppering the whole thing.
(Also side note, FUCK the final area and boss. I quit at the final boss as I'd either have to redo the entire several hour final dungeon and the ballbusting bosses within just because I used the best weapon in the game without realizing they were one-time uses unlike ANY other weapon in the game, or grind for hours.)
(Also side note, FUCK the final area and boss. I quit at the final boss as I'd either have to redo the entire several hour final dungeon and the ballbusting bosses within just because I used the best weapon in the game without realizing they were one-time uses unlike ANY other weapon in the game, or grind for hours.)
Note: Played a translated patch of the original Japanese SFC version. This does not apply to the SNES' Final Fantasy II.
I find myself having a lot of trouble placing this game. While as good (if not better) in most areas to FF3, it also the first game that REALLY begins to feel a bit stagnate on the formula. FF3 had the excuse of still being an NES-era foundational game improving on the concept of its first outing. 4 in comparison, for being the first in a generational leap, just doesn't feel like it bridges that gap fully. It doesn't really do anything major to push the series forward, it really only takes minor steps in various areas while keeping the overall feel very consistent.
All of this is to say however, FF4 is still a solid game. It restructures 3's job system to be tied to specific characters and story progression, making your party constantly evolve and change due to various events. Party members leave to do their own thing, die, get lost, etc, and it isn't until the last few hours where you finally get your endgame team. The freedom in character customization it takes away is made up for by making the game overall less stagnant and more engaging.
There is one major new aspect of this game, one that is undeniably revolutionary... and it's ATB. I don't know if I ever truly expressed my opinions on ATB, but to put it short; not a fan. I think it takes away from the strategy of turn-based combat, which is a major factor in WHY I enjoy it at i's best. ATB discourages this by giving you no time to think about each action and punishes you for not choosing fast enough. A lot of times, difficulty in this game came not from a poor strategy, but needed to select said actions faster. It just isn't a system that gels well together and only provides surface level engagement to hide a shallow combat system.
...In spite of this, I would be lying if I didn't say I think FF4 consistently has the best and toughest combat up to this point in the series. It definitely starts out the roughest; combat is painfully easy and ATB takes its biggest toll. However, at around the water fiend, the game has a pretty sudden difficulty spike, and from then on a lot of the bosses required genuine strategy and quick thinking, more than I had seen in the series prior. There's even a few fights that I thought used ATB cleverly, such as the Plague fight in the final dungeon, which slaps a timer on each character that will kill them at 0. Also, I gotta say; ATB makes running away MUCH faster and random encounters way less annoying and disruptive. It genuinely might be the best upside to the system. Despite those praises, I feel the game would benefit most from NOT having it, but I am interested to see how it evolves moving forward.
If there's one thing the series still just cannot get right, it's the final area. Just as with 3 before it, it forces you to grind. This time, I decided to push through it since it didn't require backtracking and running away was MUCH more bearable, but it still sucks. After grinding 10 levels, the boss turned from an impossible wall that instakilled my party with one attack, to a joke that barely scratched me. Its baffling how long grinding was a staple of JRPGs for. It doesn't make me feel accomplished, just exhausted.
(Also, side note I forgot to include; a lot of the openness and discovery seen in 1 and 3 (and maybe 2) is lost here. Progression is extremely linear, and anytime something DOES open up it pretty much just amounts to another town to stock up at. A pretty big downgrade from how FF3 handled it.)
I find myself having a lot of trouble placing this game. While as good (if not better) in most areas to FF3, it also the first game that REALLY begins to feel a bit stagnate on the formula. FF3 had the excuse of still being an NES-era foundational game improving on the concept of its first outing. 4 in comparison, for being the first in a generational leap, just doesn't feel like it bridges that gap fully. It doesn't really do anything major to push the series forward, it really only takes minor steps in various areas while keeping the overall feel very consistent.
All of this is to say however, FF4 is still a solid game. It restructures 3's job system to be tied to specific characters and story progression, making your party constantly evolve and change due to various events. Party members leave to do their own thing, die, get lost, etc, and it isn't until the last few hours where you finally get your endgame team. The freedom in character customization it takes away is made up for by making the game overall less stagnant and more engaging.
There is one major new aspect of this game, one that is undeniably revolutionary... and it's ATB. I don't know if I ever truly expressed my opinions on ATB, but to put it short; not a fan. I think it takes away from the strategy of turn-based combat, which is a major factor in WHY I enjoy it at i's best. ATB discourages this by giving you no time to think about each action and punishes you for not choosing fast enough. A lot of times, difficulty in this game came not from a poor strategy, but needed to select said actions faster. It just isn't a system that gels well together and only provides surface level engagement to hide a shallow combat system.
...In spite of this, I would be lying if I didn't say I think FF4 consistently has the best and toughest combat up to this point in the series. It definitely starts out the roughest; combat is painfully easy and ATB takes its biggest toll. However, at around the water fiend, the game has a pretty sudden difficulty spike, and from then on a lot of the bosses required genuine strategy and quick thinking, more than I had seen in the series prior. There's even a few fights that I thought used ATB cleverly, such as the Plague fight in the final dungeon, which slaps a timer on each character that will kill them at 0. Also, I gotta say; ATB makes running away MUCH faster and random encounters way less annoying and disruptive. It genuinely might be the best upside to the system. Despite those praises, I feel the game would benefit most from NOT having it, but I am interested to see how it evolves moving forward.
If there's one thing the series still just cannot get right, it's the final area. Just as with 3 before it, it forces you to grind. This time, I decided to push through it since it didn't require backtracking and running away was MUCH more bearable, but it still sucks. After grinding 10 levels, the boss turned from an impossible wall that instakilled my party with one attack, to a joke that barely scratched me. Its baffling how long grinding was a staple of JRPGs for. It doesn't make me feel accomplished, just exhausted.
(Also, side note I forgot to include; a lot of the openness and discovery seen in 1 and 3 (and maybe 2) is lost here. Progression is extremely linear, and anytime something DOES open up it pretty much just amounts to another town to stock up at. A pretty big downgrade from how FF3 handled it.)
FFV has made me realize this series, in its current state, is near impossible to rate against each other. The way it handles sequels means each step forward these games makes is extremely incremental, but the constant fundamental change to how party members works makes it so each of these new ideas are never able to solidify and feel fully explored. After 5 games, Final Fantasy still feels like just a loose bag of really interesting concepts that scrambles itself every single game, while only adding a handful of new fundamental features each time, never bringing to fruition one strong creative vision.
Anyways, onto the game itself; as implied earlier, Final Fantasy V puts as many steps as it does misses. The job system is reintroduced from III, and to the game's credit it's designed pretty well. Being able to mix and match various abilities from each class brings swaths of strategy, and the culmination of everything you've been building your characters up to be at the end is undeniably rewarding. And in the latter third of the game, you REALLY start to get tested on this as dungeons beat you down with encounters relentlessly and bosses become genuine threats. In general, said latter third was surprisingly great; its the first time since the early parts of III where you're given near-complete free reign to roam without your next goal not being explicit. The path forward is also very open, so you can just kinda go around and explore whatever strange shit popped up after the world merge. You go into towns and hear rumors of strange shit like a phantom village in the middle of a forest, a tower with enemies lodged in the walls, strange noises coming from beneath an island, etc. It's by no means perfect, but god does it feel nice to finally stretch your legs a little after IV's constant railroading.
It's unfortunate that this great section of the game is, well, just a section. For about 15 or so hours before this (fyi the average length of the prior games), the game barely gives an inch of challenge, exploration, or really anything that interesting. All you get is repetitive, lackluster battles and the same story you've seen 4 times already while being guided along a linear path, and it's boring as shit. The series has suffered from this triteness in doses, but here is when it really became grating. Even if the general plot is different, the emotional beats it produces and concepts it uses feel the exact same. It's been getting better at expressing this one story, but it's getting old. And considering what I've seen of VI and the future games, I think they realized this too. You can really feel its spot of being at the tail-end of the foundational entries to the series, while being just before the ones that would change everything... supposedly.
Anyways, onto the game itself; as implied earlier, Final Fantasy V puts as many steps as it does misses. The job system is reintroduced from III, and to the game's credit it's designed pretty well. Being able to mix and match various abilities from each class brings swaths of strategy, and the culmination of everything you've been building your characters up to be at the end is undeniably rewarding. And in the latter third of the game, you REALLY start to get tested on this as dungeons beat you down with encounters relentlessly and bosses become genuine threats. In general, said latter third was surprisingly great; its the first time since the early parts of III where you're given near-complete free reign to roam without your next goal not being explicit. The path forward is also very open, so you can just kinda go around and explore whatever strange shit popped up after the world merge. You go into towns and hear rumors of strange shit like a phantom village in the middle of a forest, a tower with enemies lodged in the walls, strange noises coming from beneath an island, etc. It's by no means perfect, but god does it feel nice to finally stretch your legs a little after IV's constant railroading.
It's unfortunate that this great section of the game is, well, just a section. For about 15 or so hours before this (fyi the average length of the prior games), the game barely gives an inch of challenge, exploration, or really anything that interesting. All you get is repetitive, lackluster battles and the same story you've seen 4 times already while being guided along a linear path, and it's boring as shit. The series has suffered from this triteness in doses, but here is when it really became grating. Even if the general plot is different, the emotional beats it produces and concepts it uses feel the exact same. It's been getting better at expressing this one story, but it's getting old. And considering what I've seen of VI and the future games, I think they realized this too. You can really feel its spot of being at the tail-end of the foundational entries to the series, while being just before the ones that would change everything... supposedly.
Very good core concept that's sadly barely explored due to a minuscule amount of content. By the time it was over it didn't even feel like it truly began. I can only assume this game is remembered for it's soundtrack, which is pretty good.
I wrote a longer review but closed it on accident right in the middle of writing it so I'm gonna speed through the shit I erased quickly. It's not gonna be well structured until I start writing the new segment. Might rewrite it later.
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Don't like it. Step forward in some areas, but a step back in the ones that matter.
Big improvement in visual presentation and story. Actually feels like a step forward from the NES compared to the last two outings. Sprites look great and it overall feels less rigid, though still tends to feel stilted. Plot is much more engaging this time with a great forward momentum and few dull moments. A lot of tradition is let go in favor of new shit we haven't seen before, but still keeps the spirit of the series. Characters are the highlight; they really get fleshed out, though due to the nonlinear second half, you don't get too many scenes with all of them together and interacting, but the amount of time given to each character individually generally makes up for this. Antagonistic force is much more present and threatening, constantly being an issue for your party. Overall the game is also pretty dark and depressing, having genuinely shocking shit from beginning to end.
~ END OF OLD - INTO NEW ~
I can only assume these reasons are why FFVI has its cult status, as outside of that, it falls flat. I'll give credit where credit is due; the was party members are handled is pretty solid. It finally fuses the two styles of gameplay, the jobs and unique members, in a way that generally satisfies both. Everyone is their own individual person with a unique ability and stats that give them their own purpose, while simultaneously having the gradual stat and ability (or this time, magic) growth ala V to give freedom in how you build up your party. However, this great system ultimately never gets to shine, as in a shocking turn of events, the game is actually easy (or at least, EXTREMELY easy to exploit). I can't really recall a time where I was challenged in this game. As per V, the first half of the game gives very little difficulty, with the only memorable spike being those mice enemies in the rafters above the opera stage, but even those were made easy quickly after just slowing down instead of speeding through due to the stress of the time limit. And in the second half... by the time any real challenge comes your way, your party is extremely busted. Blitz, Bushido, X-Magic and Quick completely break this game in half and remove any sense of challenge (Side note: I realize now a day after writing this that the rom hack I played with, Ted Woolsey Uncensored, includes am undisclosed feature where Bushido is sped up way more than in the original release, making it substantially better. Even with that though, if I didn't have him I would've just added another magic character and still spammed Quick + Flare, giving around the same damage output). Enemies, bosses, even THE FINAL BOSS barely get the chance to attack you before being wiped off of the face of the Earth. Sure, other FF games could be broken too, but they usually took a solid amount of grinding. I did not grind once in VI; all I did was explore. Remember in the previous few games where the games opened up at the end and allowed you to explore, but since the enemies were scaled to be really tough at the end, the exploration was actually required? VI does away with such absurdly reasonable balancing and makes it so the only chance you get at a fair challenge is if you don't do the extra content and jump into the final area. It's absurd how much of a downgrade this is from the previous entries, and I just can't see the vision behind this. It's probably better for a newcomer, but if you've played any of the previous entries, you're trained to do everything you can before hopping into the finale.
And even if you excuse all of this, when you get to the finale... it isn't that great? I'm not sure if this is a controversial opinion or not, but I think Kefka was a pretty disappointing antagonist. Having a villain with pretty much no motivation outside of being literally insane and wanting immense power is a great change of pace in this series. And out of every one so far, he easily feels the most threatening. For God's sake, he literally causes the apocalypse and kills a large percent of the population. And at the end, none of it gets reversed. To make it even better, there is no "secret hidden REAL antagonist" behind Kefka, nor was he born with any extraordinary power that allowed him to do this. He simply went insane and built up immense power all on his own. So then, what's the issue? Well, first of all; his appearances drop off a cliff after the apocalyptic event. You do not see him ONCE for about 15 hours straight. There is a single part right near the beginning where he strikes a house with lighting, as well as there being some places where the same thing happened long before you arrived, but that's it. He never arrives to mess with you or sends something to stop you. You could argue the world itself becoming so hostile is feeling Kefka's effect, but once you get used to it and the hopelessness quickly diminishes, this effect wears off. To make it worse, once you actually get to the tower, he doesn't really do anything? They suddenly pull this thing about him being a nihilist RIGHT at the end just so the characters can kind of spout that life is worth living at him? I can see what they were going for in retrospect; the whole second half of the game is about finding your teammates and helping them find their reasons to live, while Kefka only focuses on his own motivations and has no care for other people due to his insanity, making each side solid stand-ins for optimism and nihilism respectively, but it's so out of nowhere and explicitly told that it doesn't feel satisfying at all. The motives for fighting here aren't really as apparent as they could've been. Kefka already won essentially, gaining the immense power from the statues, but for whatever reason he didn't really do anything for the next year or so? When you confront him he starts frying shit again, but compared to the prior player motivations from both this game and previous, it just isn't as strong. None of this is helped by the fact that the fight itself is absurdly easy, never giving you a chance to feel his power.
I've said countless times that I've been disappointed by this series in the past, but FFVI really bums me. This series has had so many great ideas and concepts over the 5 games that came before. VI is beloved, and while I wasn't expecting perfection, or hell, even something above what came before... the steps back in gameplay, the one part of the series that DESPERATELY needed improvements, really shot down any chance of me liking it. And the narrative faults being more apparent due to its improvements didn't help at all. I plan to jump into VII next since it feels wrong to leave off before THE Final Fantasy, but after this game, I'm really only doing it because of that context (PPS: probably not doing that now. I need a break from this series).
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Don't like it. Step forward in some areas, but a step back in the ones that matter.
Big improvement in visual presentation and story. Actually feels like a step forward from the NES compared to the last two outings. Sprites look great and it overall feels less rigid, though still tends to feel stilted. Plot is much more engaging this time with a great forward momentum and few dull moments. A lot of tradition is let go in favor of new shit we haven't seen before, but still keeps the spirit of the series. Characters are the highlight; they really get fleshed out, though due to the nonlinear second half, you don't get too many scenes with all of them together and interacting, but the amount of time given to each character individually generally makes up for this. Antagonistic force is much more present and threatening, constantly being an issue for your party. Overall the game is also pretty dark and depressing, having genuinely shocking shit from beginning to end.
~ END OF OLD - INTO NEW ~
I can only assume these reasons are why FFVI has its cult status, as outside of that, it falls flat. I'll give credit where credit is due; the was party members are handled is pretty solid. It finally fuses the two styles of gameplay, the jobs and unique members, in a way that generally satisfies both. Everyone is their own individual person with a unique ability and stats that give them their own purpose, while simultaneously having the gradual stat and ability (or this time, magic) growth ala V to give freedom in how you build up your party. However, this great system ultimately never gets to shine, as in a shocking turn of events, the game is actually easy (or at least, EXTREMELY easy to exploit). I can't really recall a time where I was challenged in this game. As per V, the first half of the game gives very little difficulty, with the only memorable spike being those mice enemies in the rafters above the opera stage, but even those were made easy quickly after just slowing down instead of speeding through due to the stress of the time limit. And in the second half... by the time any real challenge comes your way, your party is extremely busted. Blitz, Bushido, X-Magic and Quick completely break this game in half and remove any sense of challenge (Side note: I realize now a day after writing this that the rom hack I played with, Ted Woolsey Uncensored, includes am undisclosed feature where Bushido is sped up way more than in the original release, making it substantially better. Even with that though, if I didn't have him I would've just added another magic character and still spammed Quick + Flare, giving around the same damage output). Enemies, bosses, even THE FINAL BOSS barely get the chance to attack you before being wiped off of the face of the Earth. Sure, other FF games could be broken too, but they usually took a solid amount of grinding. I did not grind once in VI; all I did was explore. Remember in the previous few games where the games opened up at the end and allowed you to explore, but since the enemies were scaled to be really tough at the end, the exploration was actually required? VI does away with such absurdly reasonable balancing and makes it so the only chance you get at a fair challenge is if you don't do the extra content and jump into the final area. It's absurd how much of a downgrade this is from the previous entries, and I just can't see the vision behind this. It's probably better for a newcomer, but if you've played any of the previous entries, you're trained to do everything you can before hopping into the finale.
And even if you excuse all of this, when you get to the finale... it isn't that great? I'm not sure if this is a controversial opinion or not, but I think Kefka was a pretty disappointing antagonist. Having a villain with pretty much no motivation outside of being literally insane and wanting immense power is a great change of pace in this series. And out of every one so far, he easily feels the most threatening. For God's sake, he literally causes the apocalypse and kills a large percent of the population. And at the end, none of it gets reversed. To make it even better, there is no "secret hidden REAL antagonist" behind Kefka, nor was he born with any extraordinary power that allowed him to do this. He simply went insane and built up immense power all on his own. So then, what's the issue? Well, first of all; his appearances drop off a cliff after the apocalyptic event. You do not see him ONCE for about 15 hours straight. There is a single part right near the beginning where he strikes a house with lighting, as well as there being some places where the same thing happened long before you arrived, but that's it. He never arrives to mess with you or sends something to stop you. You could argue the world itself becoming so hostile is feeling Kefka's effect, but once you get used to it and the hopelessness quickly diminishes, this effect wears off. To make it worse, once you actually get to the tower, he doesn't really do anything? They suddenly pull this thing about him being a nihilist RIGHT at the end just so the characters can kind of spout that life is worth living at him? I can see what they were going for in retrospect; the whole second half of the game is about finding your teammates and helping them find their reasons to live, while Kefka only focuses on his own motivations and has no care for other people due to his insanity, making each side solid stand-ins for optimism and nihilism respectively, but it's so out of nowhere and explicitly told that it doesn't feel satisfying at all. The motives for fighting here aren't really as apparent as they could've been. Kefka already won essentially, gaining the immense power from the statues, but for whatever reason he didn't really do anything for the next year or so? When you confront him he starts frying shit again, but compared to the prior player motivations from both this game and previous, it just isn't as strong. None of this is helped by the fact that the fight itself is absurdly easy, never giving you a chance to feel his power.
I've said countless times that I've been disappointed by this series in the past, but FFVI really bums me. This series has had so many great ideas and concepts over the 5 games that came before. VI is beloved, and while I wasn't expecting perfection, or hell, even something above what came before... the steps back in gameplay, the one part of the series that DESPERATELY needed improvements, really shot down any chance of me liking it. And the narrative faults being more apparent due to its improvements didn't help at all. I plan to jump into VII next since it feels wrong to leave off before THE Final Fantasy, but after this game, I'm really only doing it because of that context (PPS: probably not doing that now. I need a break from this series).
Doesn't take enough of a jump forward from Megami Tensei 2 to really justify its existence. The only really NEW thing it introduces is the alignment system, but it's at its most basic here and plays a role in little gameplay systems. To go along with that, the story is more present and a larger focal point, and definitely a step up, but it still feels a little all over the place. There's a bunch of neat concepts that feel strangely glossed over and underdeveloped, like Yuriko's whole character basically culminating to nothing.
Outside of all that, it's what you'd expect, but a little worse. Dungeons have continued getting worse from MT2, never even getting close to capturing MT1's oppressive gauntlets, while not introducing enough new mechanics in them to replace. There are a few more solid gimmick dungeons, such as DestinyLand or the police station, but they're few and far between, as well as just not being too interesting anyways. I also don't think they introduced really any new features to combat, outside of like.. 2 types of demon being able to appear instead of 1? But even then, I only remember that happening during scripted fights, so it's uncommon. The combat is basically just the same from MT2. There's also the undeniable visual improvement, feeling like a proper step forward. Dungeons now having multiple frames make them so much smoother to walk through, while the demons and characters are way better looking (especially if you use a NTSC filter like a true man). Despite this though, I do wish the game had more visually distinct areas. There's only like... 5 or so different types of dungeon visuals in the game that are palette swapped. It really sticks out in areas that should be incredibly visually distinct like DestinyLand, which just plasters bright colors everywhere to make up for the generic sprites. It homogenizes an otherwise pretty unique world, never letting it shine.
The best bone I can throw SMT1 is that it has pretty solid atmosphere. The dream sequence at the beginning sets this perfect otherworldly tone that underlines most of the game. It never quite reaches that level again, but the feeling never quite shakes off. The music only heightens this atmosphere further with the new hardware allowing for new levels of sound to be reached. I still prefer MT2's excellent chip-enhanced soundtrack, but SMT is a great followup.
One thing I couldn't find space for; I did slowly start to appreciate the gameplay loop SMT1 is going for. Enemies are extremely punishing, but if you recruit them and talk to them afterwards, you can skip any encounters with that demon in it. So dungeons require striking a balance between stronger, fused demons for actual combat and weak, negotiated demons to skip through the harsher fights. It's a pretty solid system that contextualized a lot of the parts that really frustrated me, though even then I think it does little to alleviate the issues that plague this game.
Outside of all that, it's what you'd expect, but a little worse. Dungeons have continued getting worse from MT2, never even getting close to capturing MT1's oppressive gauntlets, while not introducing enough new mechanics in them to replace. There are a few more solid gimmick dungeons, such as DestinyLand or the police station, but they're few and far between, as well as just not being too interesting anyways. I also don't think they introduced really any new features to combat, outside of like.. 2 types of demon being able to appear instead of 1? But even then, I only remember that happening during scripted fights, so it's uncommon. The combat is basically just the same from MT2. There's also the undeniable visual improvement, feeling like a proper step forward. Dungeons now having multiple frames make them so much smoother to walk through, while the demons and characters are way better looking (especially if you use a NTSC filter like a true man). Despite this though, I do wish the game had more visually distinct areas. There's only like... 5 or so different types of dungeon visuals in the game that are palette swapped. It really sticks out in areas that should be incredibly visually distinct like DestinyLand, which just plasters bright colors everywhere to make up for the generic sprites. It homogenizes an otherwise pretty unique world, never letting it shine.
The best bone I can throw SMT1 is that it has pretty solid atmosphere. The dream sequence at the beginning sets this perfect otherworldly tone that underlines most of the game. It never quite reaches that level again, but the feeling never quite shakes off. The music only heightens this atmosphere further with the new hardware allowing for new levels of sound to be reached. I still prefer MT2's excellent chip-enhanced soundtrack, but SMT is a great followup.
One thing I couldn't find space for; I did slowly start to appreciate the gameplay loop SMT1 is going for. Enemies are extremely punishing, but if you recruit them and talk to them afterwards, you can skip any encounters with that demon in it. So dungeons require striking a balance between stronger, fused demons for actual combat and weak, negotiated demons to skip through the harsher fights. It's a pretty solid system that contextualized a lot of the parts that really frustrated me, though even then I think it does little to alleviate the issues that plague this game.
Might make a full review of this one.
Game started out engaging as hell with a world begging to be explored, but got undermined by repetitive, time-wasting battles and a disappointing lack of things to find off the beaten path. A much better launching off point as a series compared to Dragon Quest, but overall more disappointing due to the high points never being able to truly shine.
Even if you ignore its existence as a remake and hold back from any comparisons to the original, Persona 3 Reload still isn't that good. There are glimpses of great elements here, and plenty of moments where I was actually enjoying it quite a bit, but in an 100 hour game, even 10 hours of great content cannot save 90 stale ones. It sticks too close to the original game in most aspects to really feel like a new experience, while completely gutting all of the more controversial (and typically, the most interesting) systems and replacing it with the same shit we've seen for the last 2 games. And Tartarus, EASILY the worst part of the original game that had bounds of room for improvement, feels basically the exact same. And no, the sprinkled-in "unique" floors with shallow attempts at gameplay diversity every now and then do not help at all.
It's disappointing to see a game with as much potential as Persona 3 be homogenized and stripped of so many good ideas. Reload isn't awful, but it lacks any of its own flavor, turning a pretty uniquely structured and innovative game into just another Persona game.
It's disappointing to see a game with as much potential as Persona 3 be homogenized and stripped of so many good ideas. Reload isn't awful, but it lacks any of its own flavor, turning a pretty uniquely structured and innovative game into just another Persona game.
In this game, you grind. That is it. There's practically no combat depth, exploration is boring and aimless, the plot and world building is as basic as you could imagine, etc. If you encounter a fight you can't beat, the only solution is to grind. It can't even be excused for being foundational when Wizardry and Ultima were bringing more interesting things to the table 5 years beforehand on hardware that could only render monochrome lines in a window a fraction of the size of the screen. It's been a long time since I've dropped a game despite putting hours into it, but I could not push through even with speed hacks. Possibly one of the worst games I've ever played.
