tthiele0204
1997
This is genuinely one of the most baffling blind spots I've had as a huge fan of JRPGs. I've heard time and time again about how revolutionary this game was for the genre, and I kept trying to pick it up and failing each time. I think initially, nothing really grabbed me about the game save for its' setting. Don't get me wrong; the opening isn't bad, but I have attention problems when it comes to games, if I'm not drawn in instantly, I have to really push myself to get to a point where playing comes naturally. Very glad that I ended up doing that this time around.
For reference, I played this game LOCKED IN this time around; I was playing in a pitch black room off my CRT with no background noise, save for a space heater because landlords are useless parasites. The atmosphere of this game is addicting, which is something I never noticed until I played this way. Midgar's oppressive, looming city contrasted with the dismal and cozy slums that lie underneath are such fascinating settings for the first segment of the game. You really start to get a sense for this world that you're in, you start to get immersed in this setting, almost in a way that you start to believe nothing is outside of this place. Which is why when you finally leave after a half-dozen hours, it's overwhelming. You can go anywhere in this colorful, lively world that starkly contrasts the setting you just got so comfortable knowing. This is genius, because you would think that the characters would react to this in an awestuck way, oohing and aahing at the new scenery, but instead they barely react at all, and instead the burden of those emotions is placed onto you, the player. This is how masterfully the world of FF7 is crafted and woven into the story, it almost makes you forget it's a PS1 game.
The gameplay is rather interesting too. It ranges from really easy, to extremely frustrating depending entirely on one thing; materia. Materia, no pun intended, is the lifeblood of FF7's systems, as it replaces skills and classes from other more traditional RPGs and turns FF7 into a wildly customizable experience. How you use materia what dictates how well things go for you in FF7, and I would argue is what defines it in the genre. Every spell/ability that is commonplace for other RPGs is squished into these slottable gems, meaning you can mix and match playstyles, meaning characters don't fall into one niche and that's all there is to say about them; rather you can choose whatever the hell you want them to be. For instance, I opted for Cloud to be a melee attack bruiser, giving him materia that allowed him to take hits for frailer party members, but he would also launch a counterattack when he endured these hits, allowing him to dish out more melee damage, regardless of if it's "his turn" or not. I gave Tifa a good mix of support abilities and healing, while still allowing her to hit pretty hard, making her kind of like a war monk in other games. My last party member was a pure caster, I gave him plenty of powerful spells and summons to empower him from the backline, whereas some other people opt to make him a physical bruiser. You really can do whatever you want, and it will usually work out pretty well, as long as you have a plan.
The soundtrack is superb, I really don't have much more to say about it than that. There is such an insanely wide variety of tracks that you would be hard pressed to not find something you absolutely adore from this game. The main theme is so fucking spectacular, too. I never got tired of hearing it.
In terms of critiques I have for this game, I would say that I was getting a little frustrated by the gimmicky stuff. If you've played, you know what I mean. Some dungeons are pretty straightforward, but other have some weird shit that kind of just draws you out of the game for a little bit. Nothing that really took away from my experience, but just frustrating to have to learn a new minigame/gimmick for a dungeon every hour or so. I will lend to its' credit, this did keep me on my toes for the duration of the game, but some of the minigames were wildly frustrating if you just didn't jive with the concept well. I would also say that the pacing of the story is a little wonky in Disc 2, I felt like there was a big lull in the middle, especially compared to the breakneck pacing at the start and the end of Disc 2, doing little side-fetch quests felt a little bit like the Triforce Quest from Wind Waker, albeit much much less tedious.
Final thoughts, I am a stupid idiot moron for not playing this sooner. This was one of the most fun gaming experiences I've had in a long while, I felt like a kid again, as that was the last time I've felt such wonder for gaming. I can confidently say that this game rightfully deserves it's place among the monoliths of gaming as a truly influential, masterpiece title now that I have finished it. It is super fascinating coming back to it after playing dozens upon dozens of JRPGs that drew inspiration from this monumental title, and drawing my little thread from those games back to here. This is just one of those games that every gamer has to experience at least once, just to see what all the hype is about.
For reference, I played this game LOCKED IN this time around; I was playing in a pitch black room off my CRT with no background noise, save for a space heater because landlords are useless parasites. The atmosphere of this game is addicting, which is something I never noticed until I played this way. Midgar's oppressive, looming city contrasted with the dismal and cozy slums that lie underneath are such fascinating settings for the first segment of the game. You really start to get a sense for this world that you're in, you start to get immersed in this setting, almost in a way that you start to believe nothing is outside of this place. Which is why when you finally leave after a half-dozen hours, it's overwhelming. You can go anywhere in this colorful, lively world that starkly contrasts the setting you just got so comfortable knowing. This is genius, because you would think that the characters would react to this in an awestuck way, oohing and aahing at the new scenery, but instead they barely react at all, and instead the burden of those emotions is placed onto you, the player. This is how masterfully the world of FF7 is crafted and woven into the story, it almost makes you forget it's a PS1 game.
The gameplay is rather interesting too. It ranges from really easy, to extremely frustrating depending entirely on one thing; materia. Materia, no pun intended, is the lifeblood of FF7's systems, as it replaces skills and classes from other more traditional RPGs and turns FF7 into a wildly customizable experience. How you use materia what dictates how well things go for you in FF7, and I would argue is what defines it in the genre. Every spell/ability that is commonplace for other RPGs is squished into these slottable gems, meaning you can mix and match playstyles, meaning characters don't fall into one niche and that's all there is to say about them; rather you can choose whatever the hell you want them to be. For instance, I opted for Cloud to be a melee attack bruiser, giving him materia that allowed him to take hits for frailer party members, but he would also launch a counterattack when he endured these hits, allowing him to dish out more melee damage, regardless of if it's "his turn" or not. I gave Tifa a good mix of support abilities and healing, while still allowing her to hit pretty hard, making her kind of like a war monk in other games. My last party member was a pure caster, I gave him plenty of powerful spells and summons to empower him from the backline, whereas some other people opt to make him a physical bruiser. You really can do whatever you want, and it will usually work out pretty well, as long as you have a plan.
The soundtrack is superb, I really don't have much more to say about it than that. There is such an insanely wide variety of tracks that you would be hard pressed to not find something you absolutely adore from this game. The main theme is so fucking spectacular, too. I never got tired of hearing it.
In terms of critiques I have for this game, I would say that I was getting a little frustrated by the gimmicky stuff. If you've played, you know what I mean. Some dungeons are pretty straightforward, but other have some weird shit that kind of just draws you out of the game for a little bit. Nothing that really took away from my experience, but just frustrating to have to learn a new minigame/gimmick for a dungeon every hour or so. I will lend to its' credit, this did keep me on my toes for the duration of the game, but some of the minigames were wildly frustrating if you just didn't jive with the concept well. I would also say that the pacing of the story is a little wonky in Disc 2, I felt like there was a big lull in the middle, especially compared to the breakneck pacing at the start and the end of Disc 2, doing little side-fetch quests felt a little bit like the Triforce Quest from Wind Waker, albeit much much less tedious.
Final thoughts, I am a stupid idiot moron for not playing this sooner. This was one of the most fun gaming experiences I've had in a long while, I felt like a kid again, as that was the last time I've felt such wonder for gaming. I can confidently say that this game rightfully deserves it's place among the monoliths of gaming as a truly influential, masterpiece title now that I have finished it. It is super fascinating coming back to it after playing dozens upon dozens of JRPGs that drew inspiration from this monumental title, and drawing my little thread from those games back to here. This is just one of those games that every gamer has to experience at least once, just to see what all the hype is about.
Just to get the superficial shit out of the way; wow, this game looks awful on Switch. The FMVs are untouched, they look great. But holy hell the sacrifices they had to make for this game to have a decent locked framerate is crazy. It's kind of a miracle this version runs on Switch, so props to them, but damn I kind of wish I played on PC if I didn't prefer the portability.
The gameplay itself is actually quite an interesting change up from the standard FF formula, I found it refreshing... for a little bit anyways. I think the materia fusion system and the gearing is actually quite awesome in this game, but still not quite good enough to fix the greatest issue this game has which is repetitiveness. And this game is one of the worst cases I've seen from a AAA release, even if it was on the PSP intially. You will play the same exact maps at least 20 different times if you are doing a good chunk of the optional missions like I did. I ended up being like level 48 at the end of the game because I did so many optional missions, but I didn't even get 50% clear on the optional missions because there's just so damn many. This was a problem, because I absolutely STEAMROLLED the final bosses with little-to-no challenge, and I also endured dozens upon dozens of tedious little side missions, which granted, they take like 5 minutes tops, they're still the same exact thing; walk over here, kill a boss/bosses, a handful of chests/random encounters along the way. It is a fucking slog, which is why I would only recommend doing a few side missions here and there, as some of the questlines are actually quite cute, but man are the just generic missions so exhausting after a while.
The highlight of my time playing Crisis Core was the ACTUAL boss fights. I had an amazing time fighting Bahamut when I was like 5-6 levels under what I should have been, it felt a lot some of the Summon fights from FF7R with Chadley. These fights are the absolute peak of Crisis Core, and unfortunately they were a high I only got a handful of times, due to how quickly I got overpowered. After doing a ton of side missions, which the game told me I should be doing, I was 1-shotting bosses left and right, and I feel like I was a little robbed of what the game should be like. I didn't even break a sweat on the game's final boss. In the game's defense, I didn't really look for a difficulty setting after I realized how OP I was, I kind of just wanted the game to be over.
Crisis Core's story is really fascinating. I didn't know hardly anything going in, except that I was pretty sure about how things were going to end. I found the new characters like Angeal and Genesis to be pretty hit or miss, but what ground was covered with already existing characters and their relation to Zack was super interesting. Overall, it's a pretty just decent story. What absolutely broke me was the ending. I don't know what it was that hit me so hard, but the last time I cried this hard was at the ending of XC3: Future Redeemed, which is like the emotional zenith of my favorite trilogy of games ever, so that makes sense there. But Crisis Core wasn't the most insane story or anything, so I found myself quite caught off guard. I guess the writers just really knew how to hit you where it hurts.
At the end of the day, I think there is a lot of value in Crisis Core's story, even if the pacing is bizarre. I wish I could replay the game with less of the side shit, as I think I'd like the game better, but given what I did experience, I thought this game was a super solid beat em up in world of FF7 that links Cloud and Zack's story in a super heartfelt way. I am very glad I played.
The gameplay itself is actually quite an interesting change up from the standard FF formula, I found it refreshing... for a little bit anyways. I think the materia fusion system and the gearing is actually quite awesome in this game, but still not quite good enough to fix the greatest issue this game has which is repetitiveness. And this game is one of the worst cases I've seen from a AAA release, even if it was on the PSP intially. You will play the same exact maps at least 20 different times if you are doing a good chunk of the optional missions like I did. I ended up being like level 48 at the end of the game because I did so many optional missions, but I didn't even get 50% clear on the optional missions because there's just so damn many. This was a problem, because I absolutely STEAMROLLED the final bosses with little-to-no challenge, and I also endured dozens upon dozens of tedious little side missions, which granted, they take like 5 minutes tops, they're still the same exact thing; walk over here, kill a boss/bosses, a handful of chests/random encounters along the way. It is a fucking slog, which is why I would only recommend doing a few side missions here and there, as some of the questlines are actually quite cute, but man are the just generic missions so exhausting after a while.
The highlight of my time playing Crisis Core was the ACTUAL boss fights. I had an amazing time fighting Bahamut when I was like 5-6 levels under what I should have been, it felt a lot some of the Summon fights from FF7R with Chadley. These fights are the absolute peak of Crisis Core, and unfortunately they were a high I only got a handful of times, due to how quickly I got overpowered. After doing a ton of side missions, which the game told me I should be doing, I was 1-shotting bosses left and right, and I feel like I was a little robbed of what the game should be like. I didn't even break a sweat on the game's final boss. In the game's defense, I didn't really look for a difficulty setting after I realized how OP I was, I kind of just wanted the game to be over.
Crisis Core's story is really fascinating. I didn't know hardly anything going in, except that I was pretty sure about how things were going to end. I found the new characters like Angeal and Genesis to be pretty hit or miss, but what ground was covered with already existing characters and their relation to Zack was super interesting. Overall, it's a pretty just decent story. What absolutely broke me was the ending. I don't know what it was that hit me so hard, but the last time I cried this hard was at the ending of XC3: Future Redeemed, which is like the emotional zenith of my favorite trilogy of games ever, so that makes sense there. But Crisis Core wasn't the most insane story or anything, so I found myself quite caught off guard. I guess the writers just really knew how to hit you where it hurts.
At the end of the day, I think there is a lot of value in Crisis Core's story, even if the pacing is bizarre. I wish I could replay the game with less of the side shit, as I think I'd like the game better, but given what I did experience, I thought this game was a super solid beat em up in world of FF7 that links Cloud and Zack's story in a super heartfelt way. I am very glad I played.
2024
I did a complete 180 on this game, and I'm glad that I gave it the chance. I went from absolutely hating the way it looked in all of the trailers, to mildly interested when the reviews came out, to hooked and 100% completing the game on Expert mode. I have put like 55 hours into my initial playthrough, and did everything you can do on the initial playthrough, save for maxing out all of my units or grinding every rapport conversation. Here's my thoughts after my first run of the game.
I'm going to get the unpleasant comments out of the way first; I don't think this game's story or OST are its' strong suits. I think that the story is serviceable, and a nice homage to Fire Emblem 1 in a lot of ways, but honestly I think the overarching plot of this game is very not good. There are some decent moment-to-moment scenes in the chapters themselves, but I found myself pretty much over the story by the end, as the twists it throws at you are just piss poor. The music is inoffensive on the other hand; but only a few tracks really stand out to me as something spectacular. They don't really carry any emotional weight to them, but sound neat sometimes.
That's the other negative I have; I don't feel like this game handles its emotional core very well. Any and all moments that should feel extremely emotional resulted in characters acting like water being poured into more water. I feel like a lot of the time the game is more telling me how characters are feeling rather than letting me see them behave in a certain way on screen. Granted, some of this might be limitations of the presentation, but if that's the case, then why go with that presentation at all? I know it's kind of VanillaWare's thing after 13 Sentinels but idk I feel like sacrificing the emotional core for aesthetic is a bad choice. I'm merely speculating about that though, I have no clue as to why the game actually is like that.
Getting to what I liked about this game; I was addicted to the combat as soon as the tutorial ended. Getting to mess around with the gambit system and trying to maximize damage with a certain squad is so enjoyable to me. There was at least four points in the game where I just completely nuked all of my units and rebuilt them from the ground up because I unlocked a new character/class and wanted to see how they'd work. There is a great level of customization, even down to a super granular level, and I liked that a lot about this game. You could even change the color scheme of any character you want, as well as their stats, even if not by that much. Unicorn Overlord has so many abilities, it's dizzying. I spent hours of my initial playthrough just reading abilities and seeing how they interact with each other in mock battles. Speaking of which, that is another cool feature. The mock battle feature is fucking awesome because you can lab your own created teams against your other teams to see how well they can cover certain things, and I found that extremely cool.
Gameplay aside, the character design is fantastic in this game. I carefully avoided saying that I disliked the presentation earlier when I was talking about the story and music, as I actually quite like the characters and animations. There is a great mix of ages, backgrounds, personalities. I think overall, this game's characters and their rapport conversations are the best thing the writing has to offer. I found a lot of gems in some of the conversations, which shocked me, because it did prove that they know how to write. I was wanting more of that to be in the main story, especially as going and watching all of the rapport conversations got to be a chore with how often I was changing up my teams. I think that is my last little gripe; I wish the gifting system didn't just work for Alain, and that you could give gifts between allies to unlock their rapport convos, as save for a few teams that were pretty consistent throughout my playthrough, I barely got even a quarter of the conversations.
Despite my initial hesitancy towards this game, I'm glad I took a shot on it and ended up playing it. The strategy and teambuilding gameplay was firing on all cylinders, even if the story seemed to take a backseat for most of the game, leaving me to wonder if this was a test run for another game down the line. I really hope that VanillaWare and Atlus try another game in this genre, as even after pouring almost 2 weeks into playing this, I wanted more. I will definitely be keeping an eye on these teams a little closer going forward, as they've definitely piqued my interest with this title.
I'm going to get the unpleasant comments out of the way first; I don't think this game's story or OST are its' strong suits. I think that the story is serviceable, and a nice homage to Fire Emblem 1 in a lot of ways, but honestly I think the overarching plot of this game is very not good. There are some decent moment-to-moment scenes in the chapters themselves, but I found myself pretty much over the story by the end, as the twists it throws at you are just piss poor. The music is inoffensive on the other hand; but only a few tracks really stand out to me as something spectacular. They don't really carry any emotional weight to them, but sound neat sometimes.
That's the other negative I have; I don't feel like this game handles its emotional core very well. Any and all moments that should feel extremely emotional resulted in characters acting like water being poured into more water. I feel like a lot of the time the game is more telling me how characters are feeling rather than letting me see them behave in a certain way on screen. Granted, some of this might be limitations of the presentation, but if that's the case, then why go with that presentation at all? I know it's kind of VanillaWare's thing after 13 Sentinels but idk I feel like sacrificing the emotional core for aesthetic is a bad choice. I'm merely speculating about that though, I have no clue as to why the game actually is like that.
Getting to what I liked about this game; I was addicted to the combat as soon as the tutorial ended. Getting to mess around with the gambit system and trying to maximize damage with a certain squad is so enjoyable to me. There was at least four points in the game where I just completely nuked all of my units and rebuilt them from the ground up because I unlocked a new character/class and wanted to see how they'd work. There is a great level of customization, even down to a super granular level, and I liked that a lot about this game. You could even change the color scheme of any character you want, as well as their stats, even if not by that much. Unicorn Overlord has so many abilities, it's dizzying. I spent hours of my initial playthrough just reading abilities and seeing how they interact with each other in mock battles. Speaking of which, that is another cool feature. The mock battle feature is fucking awesome because you can lab your own created teams against your other teams to see how well they can cover certain things, and I found that extremely cool.
Gameplay aside, the character design is fantastic in this game. I carefully avoided saying that I disliked the presentation earlier when I was talking about the story and music, as I actually quite like the characters and animations. There is a great mix of ages, backgrounds, personalities. I think overall, this game's characters and their rapport conversations are the best thing the writing has to offer. I found a lot of gems in some of the conversations, which shocked me, because it did prove that they know how to write. I was wanting more of that to be in the main story, especially as going and watching all of the rapport conversations got to be a chore with how often I was changing up my teams. I think that is my last little gripe; I wish the gifting system didn't just work for Alain, and that you could give gifts between allies to unlock their rapport convos, as save for a few teams that were pretty consistent throughout my playthrough, I barely got even a quarter of the conversations.
Despite my initial hesitancy towards this game, I'm glad I took a shot on it and ended up playing it. The strategy and teambuilding gameplay was firing on all cylinders, even if the story seemed to take a backseat for most of the game, leaving me to wonder if this was a test run for another game down the line. I really hope that VanillaWare and Atlus try another game in this genre, as even after pouring almost 2 weeks into playing this, I wanted more. I will definitely be keeping an eye on these teams a little closer going forward, as they've definitely piqued my interest with this title.
Finished my 100% run of the game; still the greatest game I have ever had the privilege of playing. Kinoblade still my all timer, I love every single character in this game with every fiber of my being, and when Riki said "Shulk real Heropon" I felt that in my soul.
Real talk though, I cannot advise finishing all side-quests in this game unless you are a masochist. I was using a spreadsheet to track my progress with 100%ing the game and let me tell you; even with that I was still walking on eggshells that I would accidentally trigger a timeout on a quest due to certain story progressions. I think some of the sidequest chains are absolutely fucking hysterical, and I am ashamed I had never done the Bana sidequests til this playthrough.
Great game, Shulk+Reyn+Dunban dogwalking the final boss with one chain attack is a new highlight of this series for me lmao
Real talk though, I cannot advise finishing all side-quests in this game unless you are a masochist. I was using a spreadsheet to track my progress with 100%ing the game and let me tell you; even with that I was still walking on eggshells that I would accidentally trigger a timeout on a quest due to certain story progressions. I think some of the sidequest chains are absolutely fucking hysterical, and I am ashamed I had never done the Bana sidequests til this playthrough.
Great game, Shulk+Reyn+Dunban dogwalking the final boss with one chain attack is a new highlight of this series for me lmao
I have not played Final Fantasy 7 on the PS1 yet; I have struggled with getting over the ATB system on my multiple attempts to get started with the original. I'm not necessarily in love with timer RPGs as I feel like I spend a good portion of the game waiting, and I'm a very impatient person sometimes. But the game has always intrigued me from a story perspective, as the world of Midgar has such an allure to it, it feels like such a fully imagined world. I want to know about the characters and the history to it, but just couldn't get past the initial hangups about the battle system.
I was very happy to find that not only did I not hate the battle system in FF7R, but rather I really liked it quite a bit. It feels silly to say, but it feels closer to like "baby's first DMC" rather than a standard Final Fantasy. I am the number one defender of turn-based combat in games, but I have to say it was refreshing to play a JRPG with such unique combat. Playing as Cloud is great; you have the balance of switching between operator/punisher mode and adapting to a more bruiser/balanced role in combat and abusing their advantages in different ways. It was always wildly satisfying to land a fat counter in punisher mode and do huge damage back to the enemy with potential for a stagger. All of the other characters felt slightly less involved, save for Tifa who I feel like you could have a PHD in playing because her kit is like the ultimate stagger/blitz kit for doing INSANE damage, but there's a ton of combos you can string if you know what you're doing. The one compliment I will give all of the characters, however, is that they all felt fleshed out, and that they served different enough roles at base, while still being highly customizable with materia. I liked the gearing in this game quite a bit as a result, and I am dying to try the original as a result.
As for the music; it's Nobuo Uematsu. You could give that man two trash can lids and he would make the greatest game OST of all time. This game is no slouch in the soundtrack department. I feel like all of the fan favorite tracks that I've heard about got spectacular treatment in the remake. "JENOVA" is my number one standout, as the remix is insane. They really slowed down the song at first, making it this insane orchestral piece that feels like it's straight out of a symphony, making this feeling of uncertainty mount higher and higher. Then for the final phase of the boss, hearing it drop the pretense of this slower, more grandiose orchestral piece in favor of the energy and tempo of the original song was such an awesome moment in-game. That shit got me so energized and motivated to power through the fight. I can't avoid mentioning the remix of "One Winged Angel" either, as I didn't really think that song could get much better.
The only real gripe I had was with the pacing of FF7R. I loved the story and characters, as I felt like lingering in the beginning part of the game really helped with fleshing out certain characters in ways that made me really appreciate the brilliant writing from over 2 decades ago. This became a double edged sword though, as I felt like this game had some pacing issues with certain moments being drawn out more than they needed to be. In fact; the whole game is content with making things go really slow sometimes, which can get a little frustrating, especially in a mostly linear game such as this. No random encounters is nice too, but sometimes they don't really space out the combat as well as they should, as I had times where I would literally just be walking around doing puzzles with no combat for upwards of 15-20 minutes sometimes if I cleared all the encounters in an area already. Pair that with a myriad of super straightforward and boring puzzles and some of the dungeons overstay their welcome, and I just felt like the game drags its feet sometimes.
At the end of the day, a great linear ARPG with some fun set pieces, great boss fights, and a cast of endearing and beloved characters. You can't really go wrong with FF7R. If you can look past those times where the game drags a little, you will find a refreshing take on one of the most beloved JRPGs of all time, with a few new twists up it's sleeve.
I was very happy to find that not only did I not hate the battle system in FF7R, but rather I really liked it quite a bit. It feels silly to say, but it feels closer to like "baby's first DMC" rather than a standard Final Fantasy. I am the number one defender of turn-based combat in games, but I have to say it was refreshing to play a JRPG with such unique combat. Playing as Cloud is great; you have the balance of switching between operator/punisher mode and adapting to a more bruiser/balanced role in combat and abusing their advantages in different ways. It was always wildly satisfying to land a fat counter in punisher mode and do huge damage back to the enemy with potential for a stagger. All of the other characters felt slightly less involved, save for Tifa who I feel like you could have a PHD in playing because her kit is like the ultimate stagger/blitz kit for doing INSANE damage, but there's a ton of combos you can string if you know what you're doing. The one compliment I will give all of the characters, however, is that they all felt fleshed out, and that they served different enough roles at base, while still being highly customizable with materia. I liked the gearing in this game quite a bit as a result, and I am dying to try the original as a result.
As for the music; it's Nobuo Uematsu. You could give that man two trash can lids and he would make the greatest game OST of all time. This game is no slouch in the soundtrack department. I feel like all of the fan favorite tracks that I've heard about got spectacular treatment in the remake. "JENOVA" is my number one standout, as the remix is insane. They really slowed down the song at first, making it this insane orchestral piece that feels like it's straight out of a symphony, making this feeling of uncertainty mount higher and higher. Then for the final phase of the boss, hearing it drop the pretense of this slower, more grandiose orchestral piece in favor of the energy and tempo of the original song was such an awesome moment in-game. That shit got me so energized and motivated to power through the fight. I can't avoid mentioning the remix of "One Winged Angel" either, as I didn't really think that song could get much better.
The only real gripe I had was with the pacing of FF7R. I loved the story and characters, as I felt like lingering in the beginning part of the game really helped with fleshing out certain characters in ways that made me really appreciate the brilliant writing from over 2 decades ago. This became a double edged sword though, as I felt like this game had some pacing issues with certain moments being drawn out more than they needed to be. In fact; the whole game is content with making things go really slow sometimes, which can get a little frustrating, especially in a mostly linear game such as this. No random encounters is nice too, but sometimes they don't really space out the combat as well as they should, as I had times where I would literally just be walking around doing puzzles with no combat for upwards of 15-20 minutes sometimes if I cleared all the encounters in an area already. Pair that with a myriad of super straightforward and boring puzzles and some of the dungeons overstay their welcome, and I just felt like the game drags its feet sometimes.
At the end of the day, a great linear ARPG with some fun set pieces, great boss fights, and a cast of endearing and beloved characters. You can't really go wrong with FF7R. If you can look past those times where the game drags a little, you will find a refreshing take on one of the most beloved JRPGs of all time, with a few new twists up it's sleeve.
2010
Going to try and keep my thoughts concise for once. RDR is the best Rockstar game I have ever played, and prior to playing this, I would have said that's like being the tallest person at the fucking North Pole but honestly the gap between this and all of the other Rockstar games I have played has left me speechless.
The game prods at many themes such as honor, duty, loyalty, patriotism, fatherhood, and a man's worth. These conversations are usually explored on all sides and develop the picture of John Marston as a man who stands somewhere in the middle of them all in such a natural way. I think this game choosing to follow Marston after he hung up the hat with the Van der Linde gang is such a brilliant choice, and the ending was absolutely devastating, despite me having some idea of what was coming.
I have heard that RDR2 stands head and shoulders above this game, and if that's true I am in for an absolute blast with the second game.
The game prods at many themes such as honor, duty, loyalty, patriotism, fatherhood, and a man's worth. These conversations are usually explored on all sides and develop the picture of John Marston as a man who stands somewhere in the middle of them all in such a natural way. I think this game choosing to follow Marston after he hung up the hat with the Van der Linde gang is such a brilliant choice, and the ending was absolutely devastating, despite me having some idea of what was coming.
I have heard that RDR2 stands head and shoulders above this game, and if that's true I am in for an absolute blast with the second game.
2024
My first experience with Persona 3 was playing FES over the summer break I had from college. I had played Persona 4 and 5 prior to that, so I went in expecting a game that was roughly the same atmosphere and feel. I was completely shocked to find a game whose cast were all experiencing such deep grief and regret in their own ways. FES has its fair share of problems, but I couldn't pull myself from the addictive gameplay loop that it established, and I blew through the game in a week. I remember watching the ending on a hot summer night with a fan blowing against my back as I bawled my eyes out at one of the most optimistic, heartfelt endings I've experienced in a game. I didn't sleep much that night because I was sitting up thinking about my own life, it just shook me so deeply. So naturally, I'm very emotionally connected to this game.
Fast-forward a few years to the announcement of Reload. I was so excited, as I had been around for the first round of Yukari leaks that people totally thought were fake, but ended up being early Reload footage. I was so interested in the initial footage, but in the back of my mind I was a little nervous. All of the press releases about this game looked fantastic, but they didn't really capture the spirit of Persona 3, at least not to me. The game looked very vibrant and bright, and the music was beautiful. It was a stark contrast from the dark and muddy original, whose music reflected the unsettling tone in some places. I was a bag of very mixed emotions about the remake. I have been burned with these sort of remakes before, so I crossed my fingers and held my breath.
My birthday rolls around and it just so happens to be a couple days after Reload released, so I got a copy for that and I was ecstatic. I popped it into my PS5, and I felt all of my worries wash away. There was a ton of new content to entice me as a returning player, as well as a myriad of quality of life features that made the whole experience feel streamlined into a really polished game. The same bleak vibe persisted, even in light of the new aesthetic of the game, which made me feel much better about the new coat of paint.
Of the new features, Theurgy is the clear standout to me. It essentially replaces the fusion spell mechanic from the original, but spreads the love to the entire cast. These animations feel like a love letter to each character, incorporating an aspect of their personality or design, and they're all great eye candy. For the protagonist, they basically just dropped the fusion spell list into his theurgies, and it allows for a lot more variety. It feels viable to use some of the earlier fusion spells late into the game now, as it doesn't require having a handful of shitter personas on hand to pull them off.
Other sweet changes include QoL teleporter changes from portable, new side stories for the boys in the party, and fully voiced social links. All of these culminated in a more enjoyable experience for me, but didn't really trample the vibe of the original game. I felt this way about most all of the changes, voice actors included. I was iffy on the new voice cast at first, but I grew on them as I played, especially after I realized all of SEES' original voice actors got recast into supporting roles that act like mentors to the new SEES members. That was a nice touch by Atlus. This along with revamped AMV cutscenes were a huge difference to me, I really appreciated some of the new changes.
One change I wasn't in love with was the change to the musical themes. For the most part; the music was untouched, but a very noticeable change was the lack of "Burn My Dread" prior to the final fight. This was a kind of sour note for me, as I felt the impact of starting and ending the journey with the revisited song was such a cool touch in the original game. I wish this was somehow kept in, but I understand that with the new opening changes were made.
ENDING SPOILER PARAGRAPH, SKIP IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED
After a week of spending all of my free time devoted to this game, I finally got to that same ending that broke me. I was especially worried about this, as this was what cuts me the deepest. The powerful message of making the most of what joy you have in life and finding a purpose that makes it worth living, despite all of the hardships that you encounter is such a great moment, especially when it's being told by Aigis, a character who has such a struggle with her own sense of humanity and consciousness. Her realizing such a profound and human notion despite being a machine is so so moving, especially given the loss she experiences. The new ending doesn't change this; but instead chooses to invoke the imagery of spring, and the changing season alongside her monologue. I loved this change, as well as the better incorporation of SEES in the ending. I still felt just as devastated the second time around; which I was very happy about, as funny as that sounds.
This game is what remakes should strive to be; I know that some people were upset with the lack of some P3P features, especially FeMC. But I felt like this game not only beautifully captured, but furthered the original game to heights I couldn't have dreamed of. If Atlus ends up adding "The Answer" as DLC too, I will be even happier. But as it is, this will go down as one of my favorite remakes of all time.
Fast-forward a few years to the announcement of Reload. I was so excited, as I had been around for the first round of Yukari leaks that people totally thought were fake, but ended up being early Reload footage. I was so interested in the initial footage, but in the back of my mind I was a little nervous. All of the press releases about this game looked fantastic, but they didn't really capture the spirit of Persona 3, at least not to me. The game looked very vibrant and bright, and the music was beautiful. It was a stark contrast from the dark and muddy original, whose music reflected the unsettling tone in some places. I was a bag of very mixed emotions about the remake. I have been burned with these sort of remakes before, so I crossed my fingers and held my breath.
My birthday rolls around and it just so happens to be a couple days after Reload released, so I got a copy for that and I was ecstatic. I popped it into my PS5, and I felt all of my worries wash away. There was a ton of new content to entice me as a returning player, as well as a myriad of quality of life features that made the whole experience feel streamlined into a really polished game. The same bleak vibe persisted, even in light of the new aesthetic of the game, which made me feel much better about the new coat of paint.
Of the new features, Theurgy is the clear standout to me. It essentially replaces the fusion spell mechanic from the original, but spreads the love to the entire cast. These animations feel like a love letter to each character, incorporating an aspect of their personality or design, and they're all great eye candy. For the protagonist, they basically just dropped the fusion spell list into his theurgies, and it allows for a lot more variety. It feels viable to use some of the earlier fusion spells late into the game now, as it doesn't require having a handful of shitter personas on hand to pull them off.
Other sweet changes include QoL teleporter changes from portable, new side stories for the boys in the party, and fully voiced social links. All of these culminated in a more enjoyable experience for me, but didn't really trample the vibe of the original game. I felt this way about most all of the changes, voice actors included. I was iffy on the new voice cast at first, but I grew on them as I played, especially after I realized all of SEES' original voice actors got recast into supporting roles that act like mentors to the new SEES members. That was a nice touch by Atlus. This along with revamped AMV cutscenes were a huge difference to me, I really appreciated some of the new changes.
One change I wasn't in love with was the change to the musical themes. For the most part; the music was untouched, but a very noticeable change was the lack of "Burn My Dread" prior to the final fight. This was a kind of sour note for me, as I felt the impact of starting and ending the journey with the revisited song was such a cool touch in the original game. I wish this was somehow kept in, but I understand that with the new opening changes were made.
ENDING SPOILER PARAGRAPH, SKIP IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED
After a week of spending all of my free time devoted to this game, I finally got to that same ending that broke me. I was especially worried about this, as this was what cuts me the deepest. The powerful message of making the most of what joy you have in life and finding a purpose that makes it worth living, despite all of the hardships that you encounter is such a great moment, especially when it's being told by Aigis, a character who has such a struggle with her own sense of humanity and consciousness. Her realizing such a profound and human notion despite being a machine is so so moving, especially given the loss she experiences. The new ending doesn't change this; but instead chooses to invoke the imagery of spring, and the changing season alongside her monologue. I loved this change, as well as the better incorporation of SEES in the ending. I still felt just as devastated the second time around; which I was very happy about, as funny as that sounds.
This game is what remakes should strive to be; I know that some people were upset with the lack of some P3P features, especially FeMC. But I felt like this game not only beautifully captured, but furthered the original game to heights I couldn't have dreamed of. If Atlus ends up adding "The Answer" as DLC too, I will be even happier. But as it is, this will go down as one of my favorite remakes of all time.
This is my review of Birthright, a belated continuation of my unfinished FE series replay. I played through this path on Hard/Classic to keep things consistent with my Conquest playthrough.
Gameplay: Still retains the things that I like about Fates' engine from Conquest: stances with pair-ups, daggers are actually a solid addition, ranged weapon triangle, etc. This time around, however, there are infinite grinding gold/exp maps that you can utilize in the world map, which I don't really have too great of an issue with because you can engage with this on your own terms. It isn't forced on the player, although I can imagine it makes an already cakewalk game even easier than it already is. What I will say in this department is that the maps are significantly worse. Not only are they not nearly as memorable as Conquests, a lot of them are re-used. We could get into which came first, and which is technically recycling the maps, but I'm going to lean more towards Conquest's favor as it generally does more to differentiate the maps from other versions in a fun and unique way. Still, was a little disappointing on the map design, especially considering how easy most of them were without grinding. I also felt like Birthright just absolutely showers you in stat boosting items, despite the easier difficulty... I have no metric to prove that so I could be wrong; just a feeling I got as I felt like I got another every other chapter or so.
Music: I actually like Birthright's music quite a bit more than Conquests, as I think it takes the music a different direction than most FE games with the flutes in most of the Hoshidan map themes, and that being a constant through-line for the soundtrack is cool. Just really good overall, enough said.
Story: A lot of the same gripes I had with Conquest's story apply here. I will say, this game feels like a different coat of paint over a traditional FE story, as Birthright's themes feel a lot closer aligned to other entries in the series. This isn't a good or a bad thing to me, just something I wanted to note. What I will say, is that this game feels a lot safer than Conquest, and I felt like it suffered because of it. This game's story just feels boring, as it has the least answers to the overarching plots, and it just feels like standard FE "oh, the neighboring country is invading, guess we gotta fight back" thoroughfare. Very middle of the pack FE story for what it is.
Characters: I feel like this section would be a little redundant, as it's the same set of characters between games. Some of the Nohrian characters get a little bit different characterization in this game, but to be honest it's minute details save for Xander and Elise. I honestly found Elise's presence in Birthright to be a lot more engaging than it was in Conquest, but Xander's was a little worse in an attempt to create this game's "Camus" archetype. This is the section I feel like writing the least about because I've always thought this was the weakest of the 3ds entries in terms of characters, but that's just me.
tl;dr: Birthright is weaker than Conquest almost entirely across the board. I think that it is a good option for people that want an easier and more relaxed FE experience, but it completely abandons any sort of moral uncertainty that Conquest attempts (albeit hamfistedly) in favor of the generic FE themes that we've gotten over the years, and to be honest, not even a great execution of those themes compared to other entries in the series. I just don't see any point unless you were REALLY grabbed by the cast of Conquest and wanted to see what the other side of the coin looks like, but prepare for disappointment, unless you started here.
NOTE: Don't look for my review of Revelations; I will not be playing that dogshit again. In fact, here's a mini-review:
Fire Emblem Fates: Revelations (2015): *
Game fucking sucks, nobody wants to do mundane tasks in a turn based strategy game, and the whole "golden ending shit" ruins the whole premise of moral ambiguity. Lame, weak ass game, not worth anyone's time. Only thing worse than unanswered questions in the other routes is finally getting the answers and they suck balls.
Gameplay: Still retains the things that I like about Fates' engine from Conquest: stances with pair-ups, daggers are actually a solid addition, ranged weapon triangle, etc. This time around, however, there are infinite grinding gold/exp maps that you can utilize in the world map, which I don't really have too great of an issue with because you can engage with this on your own terms. It isn't forced on the player, although I can imagine it makes an already cakewalk game even easier than it already is. What I will say in this department is that the maps are significantly worse. Not only are they not nearly as memorable as Conquests, a lot of them are re-used. We could get into which came first, and which is technically recycling the maps, but I'm going to lean more towards Conquest's favor as it generally does more to differentiate the maps from other versions in a fun and unique way. Still, was a little disappointing on the map design, especially considering how easy most of them were without grinding. I also felt like Birthright just absolutely showers you in stat boosting items, despite the easier difficulty... I have no metric to prove that so I could be wrong; just a feeling I got as I felt like I got another every other chapter or so.
Music: I actually like Birthright's music quite a bit more than Conquests, as I think it takes the music a different direction than most FE games with the flutes in most of the Hoshidan map themes, and that being a constant through-line for the soundtrack is cool. Just really good overall, enough said.
Story: A lot of the same gripes I had with Conquest's story apply here. I will say, this game feels like a different coat of paint over a traditional FE story, as Birthright's themes feel a lot closer aligned to other entries in the series. This isn't a good or a bad thing to me, just something I wanted to note. What I will say, is that this game feels a lot safer than Conquest, and I felt like it suffered because of it. This game's story just feels boring, as it has the least answers to the overarching plots, and it just feels like standard FE "oh, the neighboring country is invading, guess we gotta fight back" thoroughfare. Very middle of the pack FE story for what it is.
Characters: I feel like this section would be a little redundant, as it's the same set of characters between games. Some of the Nohrian characters get a little bit different characterization in this game, but to be honest it's minute details save for Xander and Elise. I honestly found Elise's presence in Birthright to be a lot more engaging than it was in Conquest, but Xander's was a little worse in an attempt to create this game's "Camus" archetype. This is the section I feel like writing the least about because I've always thought this was the weakest of the 3ds entries in terms of characters, but that's just me.
tl;dr: Birthright is weaker than Conquest almost entirely across the board. I think that it is a good option for people that want an easier and more relaxed FE experience, but it completely abandons any sort of moral uncertainty that Conquest attempts (albeit hamfistedly) in favor of the generic FE themes that we've gotten over the years, and to be honest, not even a great execution of those themes compared to other entries in the series. I just don't see any point unless you were REALLY grabbed by the cast of Conquest and wanted to see what the other side of the coin looks like, but prepare for disappointment, unless you started here.
NOTE: Don't look for my review of Revelations; I will not be playing that dogshit again. In fact, here's a mini-review:
Fire Emblem Fates: Revelations (2015): *
Game fucking sucks, nobody wants to do mundane tasks in a turn based strategy game, and the whole "golden ending shit" ruins the whole premise of moral ambiguity. Lame, weak ass game, not worth anyone's time. Only thing worse than unanswered questions in the other routes is finally getting the answers and they suck balls.
Recently just finished another replay of Conquest (Hard/Classic), here are my thoughts, since I didn't do this game in my series replay due to running out of time before Engage dropped:
Gameplay: Probably the tightest modern FE gameplay we've seen. The pinnacle of pair-up/supporting units combat, as it nerfs the GOD pairups from awakening that just faceroll the entire game, as well as creating a distinction between attack and guard stance, which makes pair up feel like a more fleshed out mechanic rather than the outright win button that it used to be. I also LOVE that enemy units can be paired up, as it makes you stop, think, and count the shield gauge on the enemy to ensure you don't accidentally kamikazee your unit into a losing battle. I think that the map design is overall very creative and engaging this time around. Only a couple of maps made me feel like throwing my 3ds this time around (Fuga's wild ride, the ninja no fun zone, Endgame, etc.). I think that having a deeper understanding of how pairups work in Conquest alleviates a lot of frustration that comes with the mid/lategame unit building. Between the wide variety of objectives and map gimmicks, I felt like Conquest never let me rest on my laurels and coast, which is something I really appreciate, especially when compared to Birthright and Revelations. Late game swarms of debuff enemies can get really frustrating if get sloppy, but that's more on the player then the devs. This section is the highlight of Conquest.
Music: I want to get the positives out of the way before I absolutely tear this game to shreds, and this is the other huge positive of Conquest. The soundtrack is absolutely fantastic, my favorite highlight being Justice RIP, as it is such a great track for the tone it is trying to set. I think overall, Conquest does a fantastic job of having a fresh score that matches the tone of the story and still manages to sound great after resetting the same map 3 times. Other standout tracks are "Paradise (Dark)" and "Thorn in You."
Story: Here's where I stop being nice, and here's where I attempt to distinguish myself from every other person who's shit talked this game in the past. I think that the story for Conquest has the potential for greatness, but a few ill-advised writing choices left me with some crossed wires. I think that Corrin being a pacifist is an okay idea, but I have some fundamental issues with how Conquest decides to preserve his "hero-like innocence" as anytime that Corrin is forced to make a difficult choice, the choice and actions taken are often taken out of his hands, and from thus removed any responsibility or guilt. For instance; Leo kills Zola in Izumo when they cannot afford him to blab to Garon, the Rainbow Sage kills himself when Iago tells Corrin he must kill him, Ryoma kills himself similarly to the Rainbow Sage to preserve Corrin's image, and shit even Leo kills Iago, who to be honest, deserves and warrants Corrin's wrath after all he put him through. I find this kind of writing to be lazy and not utilizing the unique advantage of playing as a Nohrian in Fates' setting. This was supposed to be the "darker, grittier path" of Fates, and I feel like the whole time Corrin doesn't have to compromise his morals, despite him claiming that he has every other cutscene, as he never takes an action that really challenges his moral compass in any meaningful way other than fighting his siblings non-lethally for the twentieth time. I also was getting rather tired of every cutscene shoving in my face that Corrin instructed the army to "not kill anyone" as that's really not feasible in most of the settings it is said to have occurred in. I applaud the efforts to make Corrin a more pacifistic character, but for God's sake there are never any repercussions either way of this path he walks. He loses people as a result of choosing to side with Nohr, not because of any choices that he makes after that fact, and I find that extremely boring.
Shifting gears, I also have a few scenes in Conquest that I really liked, but honestly they feel as if they belong in a better Fire Emblem game. For instance, I think that the scene after Ryoma's death where Corrin has a crisis of faith right before the end of the game is FANTASTIC, but holy shit it comes too little and too late after the entire game has made Corrin completely pussy foot around the idea of killing anybody. I found the scene to be powerful, but extremely contradictory of the path that he had been walking up until that point. The other scene that I really liked was the ending cutscene with your siblings, as the speech that Xander gives is a very great summary of the war that they had just fought, assuming that Garon was still the power-hungry tyrant that he was presumed to be at the beginning of the game. Instead, Xander gives this great speech about avarice and the price being paid in blood, immediately after we see his father (who started the war) turn into a giant goop monster and claim that the world is his just because... which kind of made me laugh because it's so cartoonish that it completely shatters the tone that Conquest's ending had been building up to that point. I think that the speech feels out of place, and ultimately I think it works better if Garon was a human King who just strove for power and riches. I won't parrot the dozens of videos that bring up Fates' many plot contrivances, because every Fire Emblem has plot devices, but I will just put out there as well, that the Valla curse and the crystal ball shit that Conquest tries to pull was outrageous, even given all the bullshit I've just highlighted. Overall, I think that this game needed longer in the oven; I think that we needed to see Garon as a good man before he became Anankos' puppet, or at the very least, we needed to see him as a human to understand the Nohrian siblings' hesitancy to turn against this awful, awful man that we see the entire game. I think that just a couple more revisions and dropping some of the crazier points in the story, such as "wHo Is tHaT mySteriOus DAncEr?" or "hey corrin, look into my magic ball and see the magical convenience that explains your father's current moral bankruptcy," would have done wonders for this game's story.
Characters: I think Conquest has a colorful cast of characters with a variety of personalities, so I think that there will be at least one for everybody. I think that the children units in this game are the worst implementation of them so far, both the Outrealms shenanigans, and the fact that overall the parent/kid dynamics are not as great as they were in Awakening/Genealogy. After reading some variation of "Hey pal, sorry I chucked you into a time machine orphanage..." for the umpteenth time, I started to stop giving much attention to those maps. Thank God they haven't done another half-baked attempt at child units since this game, as this just wasn't it. I have no beef with the kid units themselves, but man does it really add onto the bullshit list of random plot contrivances with no value added in Fates.
Tl;dr: Conquest has insanely tight gameplay and map design, especially when you take into account how to use each character's niche to its fullest potential. I found myself scraping by in some instances, which is something I rarely have to do in FE games these days. I really appreciate the challenge and the insane replayability this game offers... but holy shit this game's story really is as bad as I remember, and I have not a clue where these "Fates renaissance" folks are coming from on Twitter, as this shit is just terrible. This game holds the title of most hours I've ever sunk into a handheld game; over 600 hours now, it holds a place in my heart for sure... but don't come at me with that Fates switchup shit in 2024, I will laugh straight in your face.
Gameplay: Probably the tightest modern FE gameplay we've seen. The pinnacle of pair-up/supporting units combat, as it nerfs the GOD pairups from awakening that just faceroll the entire game, as well as creating a distinction between attack and guard stance, which makes pair up feel like a more fleshed out mechanic rather than the outright win button that it used to be. I also LOVE that enemy units can be paired up, as it makes you stop, think, and count the shield gauge on the enemy to ensure you don't accidentally kamikazee your unit into a losing battle. I think that the map design is overall very creative and engaging this time around. Only a couple of maps made me feel like throwing my 3ds this time around (Fuga's wild ride, the ninja no fun zone, Endgame, etc.). I think that having a deeper understanding of how pairups work in Conquest alleviates a lot of frustration that comes with the mid/lategame unit building. Between the wide variety of objectives and map gimmicks, I felt like Conquest never let me rest on my laurels and coast, which is something I really appreciate, especially when compared to Birthright and Revelations. Late game swarms of debuff enemies can get really frustrating if get sloppy, but that's more on the player then the devs. This section is the highlight of Conquest.
Music: I want to get the positives out of the way before I absolutely tear this game to shreds, and this is the other huge positive of Conquest. The soundtrack is absolutely fantastic, my favorite highlight being Justice RIP, as it is such a great track for the tone it is trying to set. I think overall, Conquest does a fantastic job of having a fresh score that matches the tone of the story and still manages to sound great after resetting the same map 3 times. Other standout tracks are "Paradise (Dark)" and "Thorn in You."
Story: Here's where I stop being nice, and here's where I attempt to distinguish myself from every other person who's shit talked this game in the past. I think that the story for Conquest has the potential for greatness, but a few ill-advised writing choices left me with some crossed wires. I think that Corrin being a pacifist is an okay idea, but I have some fundamental issues with how Conquest decides to preserve his "hero-like innocence" as anytime that Corrin is forced to make a difficult choice, the choice and actions taken are often taken out of his hands, and from thus removed any responsibility or guilt. For instance; Leo kills Zola in Izumo when they cannot afford him to blab to Garon, the Rainbow Sage kills himself when Iago tells Corrin he must kill him, Ryoma kills himself similarly to the Rainbow Sage to preserve Corrin's image, and shit even Leo kills Iago, who to be honest, deserves and warrants Corrin's wrath after all he put him through. I find this kind of writing to be lazy and not utilizing the unique advantage of playing as a Nohrian in Fates' setting. This was supposed to be the "darker, grittier path" of Fates, and I feel like the whole time Corrin doesn't have to compromise his morals, despite him claiming that he has every other cutscene, as he never takes an action that really challenges his moral compass in any meaningful way other than fighting his siblings non-lethally for the twentieth time. I also was getting rather tired of every cutscene shoving in my face that Corrin instructed the army to "not kill anyone" as that's really not feasible in most of the settings it is said to have occurred in. I applaud the efforts to make Corrin a more pacifistic character, but for God's sake there are never any repercussions either way of this path he walks. He loses people as a result of choosing to side with Nohr, not because of any choices that he makes after that fact, and I find that extremely boring.
Shifting gears, I also have a few scenes in Conquest that I really liked, but honestly they feel as if they belong in a better Fire Emblem game. For instance, I think that the scene after Ryoma's death where Corrin has a crisis of faith right before the end of the game is FANTASTIC, but holy shit it comes too little and too late after the entire game has made Corrin completely pussy foot around the idea of killing anybody. I found the scene to be powerful, but extremely contradictory of the path that he had been walking up until that point. The other scene that I really liked was the ending cutscene with your siblings, as the speech that Xander gives is a very great summary of the war that they had just fought, assuming that Garon was still the power-hungry tyrant that he was presumed to be at the beginning of the game. Instead, Xander gives this great speech about avarice and the price being paid in blood, immediately after we see his father (who started the war) turn into a giant goop monster and claim that the world is his just because... which kind of made me laugh because it's so cartoonish that it completely shatters the tone that Conquest's ending had been building up to that point. I think that the speech feels out of place, and ultimately I think it works better if Garon was a human King who just strove for power and riches. I won't parrot the dozens of videos that bring up Fates' many plot contrivances, because every Fire Emblem has plot devices, but I will just put out there as well, that the Valla curse and the crystal ball shit that Conquest tries to pull was outrageous, even given all the bullshit I've just highlighted. Overall, I think that this game needed longer in the oven; I think that we needed to see Garon as a good man before he became Anankos' puppet, or at the very least, we needed to see him as a human to understand the Nohrian siblings' hesitancy to turn against this awful, awful man that we see the entire game. I think that just a couple more revisions and dropping some of the crazier points in the story, such as "wHo Is tHaT mySteriOus DAncEr?" or "hey corrin, look into my magic ball and see the magical convenience that explains your father's current moral bankruptcy," would have done wonders for this game's story.
Characters: I think Conquest has a colorful cast of characters with a variety of personalities, so I think that there will be at least one for everybody. I think that the children units in this game are the worst implementation of them so far, both the Outrealms shenanigans, and the fact that overall the parent/kid dynamics are not as great as they were in Awakening/Genealogy. After reading some variation of "Hey pal, sorry I chucked you into a time machine orphanage..." for the umpteenth time, I started to stop giving much attention to those maps. Thank God they haven't done another half-baked attempt at child units since this game, as this just wasn't it. I have no beef with the kid units themselves, but man does it really add onto the bullshit list of random plot contrivances with no value added in Fates.
Tl;dr: Conquest has insanely tight gameplay and map design, especially when you take into account how to use each character's niche to its fullest potential. I found myself scraping by in some instances, which is something I rarely have to do in FE games these days. I really appreciate the challenge and the insane replayability this game offers... but holy shit this game's story really is as bad as I remember, and I have not a clue where these "Fates renaissance" folks are coming from on Twitter, as this shit is just terrible. This game holds the title of most hours I've ever sunk into a handheld game; over 600 hours now, it holds a place in my heart for sure... but don't come at me with that Fates switchup shit in 2024, I will laugh straight in your face.
This review contains spoilers
Leaps and bounds ahead of what the previous two entries did with the character; combat, traversal, storytelling, side missions, and honestly writing were all the best they've been for Insomniac so far. Great conclusion too, although I'm not sure this game's ending can top the first games...
Love the sense of dread that they were able to culminate this time, as I remember at the peak of the Symbiote arc with Peter, I started to kind of feel on edge and I think that is just a hallmark of damn good writing and planning, that part of the game was so excellently handled. I hope that they keep the momentum going and keep putting these characters through hell so they might make another banger with Spider-Man 3. I am very excited.
Love the sense of dread that they were able to culminate this time, as I remember at the peak of the Symbiote arc with Peter, I started to kind of feel on edge and I think that is just a hallmark of damn good writing and planning, that part of the game was so excellently handled. I hope that they keep the momentum going and keep putting these characters through hell so they might make another banger with Spider-Man 3. I am very excited.
"I am Monado. I was here for the beginning. And I will proclaim the end. "
This is the perfect conclusion to Klaus's trilogy, and I couldn't be happier. This DLC answers so many of the questions I had for the base game of Xenoblade 3, and similarly to Torna, almost enhances the emotional impact of the game knowing the context. I don't want to get into the nitty gritty spoilers, but this feels like the culmination of years of planning and experimentation to cook up one final masterpiece by Monolith. Cheers to them.
This is the perfect conclusion to Klaus's trilogy, and I couldn't be happier. This DLC answers so many of the questions I had for the base game of Xenoblade 3, and similarly to Torna, almost enhances the emotional impact of the game knowing the context. I don't want to get into the nitty gritty spoilers, but this feels like the culmination of years of planning and experimentation to cook up one final masterpiece by Monolith. Cheers to them.
2023
This review contains spoilers
Octopath Traveler II is everything that I wanted from the first game, almost. I think that Square did a fantastic job of taking criticism from the fans about the first game and channeling that into a fantastic sequel. If we're talking about strictly gameplay and music, this eclipses the original. But in terms of the story, I have some comments.
This is a point of contention for me in both games, as Octopath II is building off the system from the first game on character stories. It has a few improvements here and there, such as route splits, combined stories, etc. However, I did find myself feeling like I was just ready to set the game down towards the end, as it felt like the same old song and dance of arrive at new town, watch ten minutes of cutscene, go through a short dungeon, and fight a boss for every single chapter. Some chapters just skipped the dungeon, the boss, or even both which was jarring to me, but even still. I didn't find my expectations subverted or shaken in any capacity up until the final few hours of the game, which is where the most radical change happens between this game and the first.
My biggest issue with how Octopath II tells its story is the fact that the party still doesn't act like a cohesive group. I understand that this would be insanely difficult to pull off, as this is a very non-linear game in a genre that is defined by linear story telling, and it would be very hard to manage what characters are in the player party and etc, which is fine. But I found that the party banters were seldom enough to sate my desire for group interaction, as they're fairly shallow most of the time and don't really have me feeling any type of way. It makes the game feel like there are no stakes for the travelers outside of the role they play in their own story. The group faces no internal struggle, just as they don't grow closer either, that is until the last few hours. They just seem to be at arms length the entire game, until the Journey for Dawn, which FINALLY fixed my issues, but too little too late.
This lack of meaningful relationships for like 90% of the game made a lot of my choices on where I went and when feel like they had no stakes, and that I solely went there on a whim because I decided to. Like don't get me wrong, the individual character stories are pretty good, it's just that overall the game felt a little underwhelming in the overarching narrative, as even the final showdown is a little vacant of group togetherness and triumph as they all just spit character lines about themselves rather than interact in a meaningful way. In the end, this was still a massive improvement over the first game's story, but still felt a few steps removed from the answer I was hoping for.
My qualms about the story aside, the gameplay loop is actually quite fun, as each traveler feels like they have more options this time around, and the combat is MUCH more balanced (at least until you find all the Ochette exploits.) I also really like the soundtrack, so there's that. I can't complain with what we got, but man I almost wish they just focused more energy into a good Bravely Default game, as those games are the peak of what a great JRPG party is, even if their overall story is a little less good.
Nonetheless, I was satisfied with this sequel. But fuck them for trying to squeeze this game's dogshit title in at the end, that was a little painful ngl.
This is a point of contention for me in both games, as Octopath II is building off the system from the first game on character stories. It has a few improvements here and there, such as route splits, combined stories, etc. However, I did find myself feeling like I was just ready to set the game down towards the end, as it felt like the same old song and dance of arrive at new town, watch ten minutes of cutscene, go through a short dungeon, and fight a boss for every single chapter. Some chapters just skipped the dungeon, the boss, or even both which was jarring to me, but even still. I didn't find my expectations subverted or shaken in any capacity up until the final few hours of the game, which is where the most radical change happens between this game and the first.
My biggest issue with how Octopath II tells its story is the fact that the party still doesn't act like a cohesive group. I understand that this would be insanely difficult to pull off, as this is a very non-linear game in a genre that is defined by linear story telling, and it would be very hard to manage what characters are in the player party and etc, which is fine. But I found that the party banters were seldom enough to sate my desire for group interaction, as they're fairly shallow most of the time and don't really have me feeling any type of way. It makes the game feel like there are no stakes for the travelers outside of the role they play in their own story. The group faces no internal struggle, just as they don't grow closer either, that is until the last few hours. They just seem to be at arms length the entire game, until the Journey for Dawn, which FINALLY fixed my issues, but too little too late.
This lack of meaningful relationships for like 90% of the game made a lot of my choices on where I went and when feel like they had no stakes, and that I solely went there on a whim because I decided to. Like don't get me wrong, the individual character stories are pretty good, it's just that overall the game felt a little underwhelming in the overarching narrative, as even the final showdown is a little vacant of group togetherness and triumph as they all just spit character lines about themselves rather than interact in a meaningful way. In the end, this was still a massive improvement over the first game's story, but still felt a few steps removed from the answer I was hoping for.
My qualms about the story aside, the gameplay loop is actually quite fun, as each traveler feels like they have more options this time around, and the combat is MUCH more balanced (at least until you find all the Ochette exploits.) I also really like the soundtrack, so there's that. I can't complain with what we got, but man I almost wish they just focused more energy into a good Bravely Default game, as those games are the peak of what a great JRPG party is, even if their overall story is a little less good.
Nonetheless, I was satisfied with this sequel. But fuck them for trying to squeeze this game's dogshit title in at the end, that was a little painful ngl.
I had put off playing this game for way too long. I heard so many mixed opinions on this game that steered me away from playing, and yet I finally bit the bullet and played it.
It was fucking amazing.
The story, the music, the art direction, even the combat with the new controls on Switch is so fucking clean. I really had an amazing time with this game. Some of the dungeons are really creative, as Sky Keep and Sand Ship are some of my favorite in the series. The story and relationship between Link and Zelda is perfection and sets up the series in such a great way. I ended up really enjoying the cast of characters in this game way more than I had anticipated from my first few hours with it, and I have to say I almost cried a bit at certain scenes involving a crystal. I picked this game up and beat it in three days, basically playing it in all of my free time as I was enamored with how clean it felt to play portable on the switch. While the game has a little bit of a slow opening, once it gets the ball rolling, it's a non-stop blast until the end. Even though you end up backtracking ALOT, Skyward Sword manages to change up the level enough to keep each pass through one of the three major areas interesting to the player. The biggest critique I have is that at times, the right stick sword movements got a little finicky sometimes and it was annoying when making precise cuts, but it was totally fine like 95% of the time.
I think this is the first game to get me this excited about Zelda in a long time, ever since I first played Ocarina. Skyward Sword is a fantastic entry and based on how little I've heard people sing it's praises, I would even potentially say an underrated one. I know that the Switch version did SO much to try and smooth over some of the gameplay frustrations, so I can't comment on the original, but damn the HD version hits so hard.
It was fucking amazing.
The story, the music, the art direction, even the combat with the new controls on Switch is so fucking clean. I really had an amazing time with this game. Some of the dungeons are really creative, as Sky Keep and Sand Ship are some of my favorite in the series. The story and relationship between Link and Zelda is perfection and sets up the series in such a great way. I ended up really enjoying the cast of characters in this game way more than I had anticipated from my first few hours with it, and I have to say I almost cried a bit at certain scenes involving a crystal. I picked this game up and beat it in three days, basically playing it in all of my free time as I was enamored with how clean it felt to play portable on the switch. While the game has a little bit of a slow opening, once it gets the ball rolling, it's a non-stop blast until the end. Even though you end up backtracking ALOT, Skyward Sword manages to change up the level enough to keep each pass through one of the three major areas interesting to the player. The biggest critique I have is that at times, the right stick sword movements got a little finicky sometimes and it was annoying when making precise cuts, but it was totally fine like 95% of the time.
I think this is the first game to get me this excited about Zelda in a long time, ever since I first played Ocarina. Skyward Sword is a fantastic entry and based on how little I've heard people sing it's praises, I would even potentially say an underrated one. I know that the Switch version did SO much to try and smooth over some of the gameplay frustrations, so I can't comment on the original, but damn the HD version hits so hard.
-- Warning, strong language --
This review is not a part of my FE series replay reviews, as I am not being "objective" or "fair" as game reviewers tend to think they are. I am here to CLEAR SOME SHIT UP for glue eating individuals that say this game is bad. This one is personal for me because I'm tired of hearing the same tired ass takes about this masterpiece of a game, because even though liking it isn't a hot take, dissenters of this game have one fuckin critique and still rank it among the worst in the series, which is egregiously cap when Revelations and Sacred Stones exist and are actively the worst games.
Let's talk about expectations for a Fire Emblem game nowadays, as I feel like especially right after the release of Engage, I've come to understand what FE fans have come to expect from a new entry in the series. I imagine the thoughts bouncing around in their heads sound a little something like this:
"Wow! I can't believe we're getting a new FE, I sure hope that it has the weapon triangle, a fully fledged child/marriage system with skill inheritance, shit fuckloads of skills to grind and abuse in combat, and hella optional maps for grinding. Otherwise I'm going to pound my chest like an ape on twitter dot com and scream about how the franchise is going down the shitter and elitists are the bane of the fucking franchise."
While they're right about that very last part, I feel like this game was victim to these expectations, as I have seen nothing but idiot after idiot complaining about something or other that this game didn't completely fucking axe from the original experience. Let's real talk for a second here: the original game sucks fucking donkey dick. Gaiden is by no means a fun experience. I just replayed it. You are a fuckin contrarian if you say it is, and a super mega chud if you say it's better than this game. This is a remake, and while it does very little to improve the shitty map design and approach to enemy placement (or lack thereof), it does SO FUCKING MUCH to reimagine and improve the limited source material and create something truly magical that you have to be a soulless bastard to hate this.
- Gameplay: This is the actual worst part of the game, but not nearly as bad as people make it out to be, and in fact, Three Houses stole many aspects of this game's playbook for itself. For instance, this entry gave us the Mila Turnwheel, something that every entry since has seen, as well as combat arts, something that Three Houses made an integral aspect of its combat. While the maps are often just locations with enemies placed on them with little-to-no rhyme or reason, I find that the maps aren't nearly as atrocious if you just don't suck balls at the game. Crazy idea, using the tools the game gives you to beat it, such as warp rescue strats on Alm's route, Peg knight abuse against cantors and monsters on Celica's route, and just using your brain on either. Yes, swamp maps are annoying, but also, they added the turnwheel for a reason, so use it.
-Map Design: It's fucking trash. Like this is the one weakness of the game in my mind. The maps are not fun to play, at best, unit growth is something to drive the player on maps, but no real meaningful side objectives or obj variety on maps. However, again, as this is a remake, there is only so much they can do with this, as Gaiden was a JPN only title prior to this, and if they HAD done radical revisions, it would honestly change the identity of the game.
-Soundtrack: This game has the best soundtrack in the entire fucking series. Fates might be a close second, but this is the greatest glow-up of a remake's soundtrack I've ever heard. If you need proof: "Lord of a Dead Empire," "Scion's Dance in Purgatory," "The Sacrifice and the Saint," "Pride and Arrogance," "With Mila's Divine Protection," "TWILIGHT OF THE GODS," do I need to list any fucking more??? "Heritors of Arcadia"???? Anything else? It's not close, and tbh it doesn't fall into the very common FE trope in modern entries of shoe horning the fuck out of the main motif into every single goddamn map theme in the game, thank God.
-Voice Acting: This is the first fully-voiced Fire Emblem game, at least in main cutscenes and support conversations. It is for the most part really, really fucking good voice acting. Like way better than I would have expected for a 3DS title, especially given the mixed bag that we got with Fates. Ian Sinclair's Berkut genuinely fucking KILLS his performance, but genuinely I cry at some of this game's voice acting every single time I play it, and I think Kyle does a phenomenal job at Alm.
-Story: This is the part that confuses me most about this game. I get hating the gameplay, or maybe even some of the dialogue, as it doesn't really feel like FE dialogue in some places, but how in the actual fuck do you hate this game's story? The story of Alm and Celica is so fuckin moving to me, and I genuinely choke up every time I see them get torn apart at the end of the prologue. The implementation of the two new characters, Berkut and Fernand is also very well done, as it gives characterization to some of the founding members of the Deliverance who tended to get shafted in the original game. It felt like most of the story was happening in Celica's route in the original, whereas this game's storytelling feels more leaning towards Alm, but ultimately more equal, which is something I appreciate about it.
At the end of the day, I get you not liking Shadow of Valentia as a Fire Emblem game, I do. But this game is a fucking masterpiece apart from the series it comes from, and does so much to further that series, even if it feels like it takes a few steps back in other places. Echoes is a perfect example of a masterful remake; loyal to the source material in most places, while adding enough to keep the experience fresh and engaging for new audiences. Now that I've not only gotten onto my soapbox, but also did a fucking cartwheel off of it, I hope that you can understand just how special this game is to me, because I feel like it was very formative to the kind of video games that I enjoy to this day.
[EDIT: I fuckin forgot to mention the god tier glow-up of the character designs. The redesigns of some of these characters are night and day, and it's fucking insane how they managed to turn some of the ugliest designs in the original (Boey) into some of my favorites. I cannot stress enough just how amazing this game's artstyle is and how much of an improvement it is, which to be fair really anything would be from the original NES title...]
This review is not a part of my FE series replay reviews, as I am not being "objective" or "fair" as game reviewers tend to think they are. I am here to CLEAR SOME SHIT UP for glue eating individuals that say this game is bad. This one is personal for me because I'm tired of hearing the same tired ass takes about this masterpiece of a game, because even though liking it isn't a hot take, dissenters of this game have one fuckin critique and still rank it among the worst in the series, which is egregiously cap when Revelations and Sacred Stones exist and are actively the worst games.
Let's talk about expectations for a Fire Emblem game nowadays, as I feel like especially right after the release of Engage, I've come to understand what FE fans have come to expect from a new entry in the series. I imagine the thoughts bouncing around in their heads sound a little something like this:
"Wow! I can't believe we're getting a new FE, I sure hope that it has the weapon triangle, a fully fledged child/marriage system with skill inheritance, shit fuckloads of skills to grind and abuse in combat, and hella optional maps for grinding. Otherwise I'm going to pound my chest like an ape on twitter dot com and scream about how the franchise is going down the shitter and elitists are the bane of the fucking franchise."
While they're right about that very last part, I feel like this game was victim to these expectations, as I have seen nothing but idiot after idiot complaining about something or other that this game didn't completely fucking axe from the original experience. Let's real talk for a second here: the original game sucks fucking donkey dick. Gaiden is by no means a fun experience. I just replayed it. You are a fuckin contrarian if you say it is, and a super mega chud if you say it's better than this game. This is a remake, and while it does very little to improve the shitty map design and approach to enemy placement (or lack thereof), it does SO FUCKING MUCH to reimagine and improve the limited source material and create something truly magical that you have to be a soulless bastard to hate this.
- Gameplay: This is the actual worst part of the game, but not nearly as bad as people make it out to be, and in fact, Three Houses stole many aspects of this game's playbook for itself. For instance, this entry gave us the Mila Turnwheel, something that every entry since has seen, as well as combat arts, something that Three Houses made an integral aspect of its combat. While the maps are often just locations with enemies placed on them with little-to-no rhyme or reason, I find that the maps aren't nearly as atrocious if you just don't suck balls at the game. Crazy idea, using the tools the game gives you to beat it, such as warp rescue strats on Alm's route, Peg knight abuse against cantors and monsters on Celica's route, and just using your brain on either. Yes, swamp maps are annoying, but also, they added the turnwheel for a reason, so use it.
-Map Design: It's fucking trash. Like this is the one weakness of the game in my mind. The maps are not fun to play, at best, unit growth is something to drive the player on maps, but no real meaningful side objectives or obj variety on maps. However, again, as this is a remake, there is only so much they can do with this, as Gaiden was a JPN only title prior to this, and if they HAD done radical revisions, it would honestly change the identity of the game.
-Soundtrack: This game has the best soundtrack in the entire fucking series. Fates might be a close second, but this is the greatest glow-up of a remake's soundtrack I've ever heard. If you need proof: "Lord of a Dead Empire," "Scion's Dance in Purgatory," "The Sacrifice and the Saint," "Pride and Arrogance," "With Mila's Divine Protection," "TWILIGHT OF THE GODS," do I need to list any fucking more??? "Heritors of Arcadia"???? Anything else? It's not close, and tbh it doesn't fall into the very common FE trope in modern entries of shoe horning the fuck out of the main motif into every single goddamn map theme in the game, thank God.
-Voice Acting: This is the first fully-voiced Fire Emblem game, at least in main cutscenes and support conversations. It is for the most part really, really fucking good voice acting. Like way better than I would have expected for a 3DS title, especially given the mixed bag that we got with Fates. Ian Sinclair's Berkut genuinely fucking KILLS his performance, but genuinely I cry at some of this game's voice acting every single time I play it, and I think Kyle does a phenomenal job at Alm.
-Story: This is the part that confuses me most about this game. I get hating the gameplay, or maybe even some of the dialogue, as it doesn't really feel like FE dialogue in some places, but how in the actual fuck do you hate this game's story? The story of Alm and Celica is so fuckin moving to me, and I genuinely choke up every time I see them get torn apart at the end of the prologue. The implementation of the two new characters, Berkut and Fernand is also very well done, as it gives characterization to some of the founding members of the Deliverance who tended to get shafted in the original game. It felt like most of the story was happening in Celica's route in the original, whereas this game's storytelling feels more leaning towards Alm, but ultimately more equal, which is something I appreciate about it.
At the end of the day, I get you not liking Shadow of Valentia as a Fire Emblem game, I do. But this game is a fucking masterpiece apart from the series it comes from, and does so much to further that series, even if it feels like it takes a few steps back in other places. Echoes is a perfect example of a masterful remake; loyal to the source material in most places, while adding enough to keep the experience fresh and engaging for new audiences. Now that I've not only gotten onto my soapbox, but also did a fucking cartwheel off of it, I hope that you can understand just how special this game is to me, because I feel like it was very formative to the kind of video games that I enjoy to this day.
[EDIT: I fuckin forgot to mention the god tier glow-up of the character designs. The redesigns of some of these characters are night and day, and it's fucking insane how they managed to turn some of the ugliest designs in the original (Boey) into some of my favorites. I cannot stress enough just how amazing this game's artstyle is and how much of an improvement it is, which to be fair really anything would be from the original NES title...]
peak beat em up shitty licensed movie tie-in game