APairofTimbs
2021
This is probably the worst one of the trilogy imo. It kinda serves as a neccessary evil, but it struggles to deliver the quality that the 2 had throughout most of the game. This games cover system is really janky and constantly fucks up. I didn't sprint a lot because you would attach to any wall. The guns aren't that interesting as 2, though there is a little bit of fun in them. It would be better without the weight system though. Level design is kinda confusing and disorienting compared 1 and 2, finding where to go was the most difficult here. The game also has a lot of walking segments that old ps3/360 games had like Ninja Gaiden 3, where you just walk while something happens on screen. There's also turret segments which aren't terrible because they aren't there for long but still drag down the experience. It still is a quality game like the last two but I think the highs are bigger than 1, but it has some of the lowest lows, with some levels being miserable to go through. It does give a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy and I am glad I played it still.
This barely functioning mess of a game holds very little qualities. The gameplay consists of walking around wastelands, poor gunplay and dialogue that is mind-numbing. The RPG elements are shallow, and I struggle to understand most of the terms that are attached to the equipment you use. The game is based off a book but don't expect any good story here. The npcs bug out all the time and barely function. The extra half a star I am giving the game is because I like the visual style of the guns and the old school vibe of it.
2014
So I finally played and beaten the first Resident Evil. My thoughts? It alright. It set the standard for survival horror and its definitely enjoyable.
I think my main problems with game is that a lot of the things meant for horror just piss me off more than anything else. The bosses are easy but annoying because of the tank controls so it never hits a high point. You have limited saves which is insanely infuriating for me personally. There's an argument that too many saves makes the player feel too safe and it makes the game not as scary. Counterpoint, the game can and should still just be scary. RE2 is still scary without limiting saves and putting save areas in the worst locations. I see this argument be made for games outside this genre like Dark Souls 1 and I hate it. I dislike the idea of losing tons of progress and doing it all over again. The enemys all take place in small corridors making running past them hard, and some are really fast too. The pistol is one of the worst guns in the franchise, it takes like 5 clips to down a zombie. Burning zombies bodies are tedious because of the process you have to take to do it. You have to watch a door animation every time you go through one, which is slightly confusing for me because I thought they were gonna use this to eventually scare the player but it never did. For others, this is scary, for me, this is annoying. Which is to not say that I don't get scared often, because I can, but my immersion is broken by all these tedious things you have to do. One last thing to top off my list of annoyances is the box pushing. There is a lot of fucking box pushing segments in this game, like a lot, like holy shit. This is a push-like video game.
Now to list some good things and be positive for a moment. I do think the atmosphere is pretty spooky, and the decision to keep the color palette of areas to a black and white helps create a iconic setting. Speaking of iconic settings though, the mansion is the most iconic setting of this whole franchise, the vibe of the mansion is absolutely stellar, with this feeling that something is always trying to kill you (which is probably true). The ost is pretty enjoyable, sometimes I do think it neglects the spooky atmosphere but in turn, it is kind of a bop. My favorite part of Resident Evil games is that they let you get right into the action and don't bog you down with tons of story. The story is there and it exists to give the player a reason to keep going, and that's all I want from a story that isn't aiming high.
I enjoy this game but a lot of moments did upset me from small things that compounded to annoy me. If I had to rate the RE games I played from best to worst it'd probably be: 4, 2, 5, 1, 3. I tend to prefer the action focused ones because they can still maintain a scary mood if done well like 4, and unlike 5.
I think my main problems with game is that a lot of the things meant for horror just piss me off more than anything else. The bosses are easy but annoying because of the tank controls so it never hits a high point. You have limited saves which is insanely infuriating for me personally. There's an argument that too many saves makes the player feel too safe and it makes the game not as scary. Counterpoint, the game can and should still just be scary. RE2 is still scary without limiting saves and putting save areas in the worst locations. I see this argument be made for games outside this genre like Dark Souls 1 and I hate it. I dislike the idea of losing tons of progress and doing it all over again. The enemys all take place in small corridors making running past them hard, and some are really fast too. The pistol is one of the worst guns in the franchise, it takes like 5 clips to down a zombie. Burning zombies bodies are tedious because of the process you have to take to do it. You have to watch a door animation every time you go through one, which is slightly confusing for me because I thought they were gonna use this to eventually scare the player but it never did. For others, this is scary, for me, this is annoying. Which is to not say that I don't get scared often, because I can, but my immersion is broken by all these tedious things you have to do. One last thing to top off my list of annoyances is the box pushing. There is a lot of fucking box pushing segments in this game, like a lot, like holy shit. This is a push-like video game.
Now to list some good things and be positive for a moment. I do think the atmosphere is pretty spooky, and the decision to keep the color palette of areas to a black and white helps create a iconic setting. Speaking of iconic settings though, the mansion is the most iconic setting of this whole franchise, the vibe of the mansion is absolutely stellar, with this feeling that something is always trying to kill you (which is probably true). The ost is pretty enjoyable, sometimes I do think it neglects the spooky atmosphere but in turn, it is kind of a bop. My favorite part of Resident Evil games is that they let you get right into the action and don't bog you down with tons of story. The story is there and it exists to give the player a reason to keep going, and that's all I want from a story that isn't aiming high.
I enjoy this game but a lot of moments did upset me from small things that compounded to annoy me. If I had to rate the RE games I played from best to worst it'd probably be: 4, 2, 5, 1, 3. I tend to prefer the action focused ones because they can still maintain a scary mood if done well like 4, and unlike 5.
2021
One of the greats. It's been a while since I have been so immersed into a game world.
The shooting has been improved from 1 and progression is a lot more meaningful and enjoyable even if the rpg elements were stripped back. They also removed the bad car segments from the first game which automatically bumps the rating up half a star. I also like that the renegade options aren't strictly evil, but more so just aggresive. In the first one, renegade was just being a horrible person which made me wonder why anyone would ever go that path for the first time. The best part of this game is how it makes you feel like you are Shepard.
Immersion is hard to establish and it doesn't hit the same for everyone, but giving players key options for all of their teammates is major. The ending is great and makes you ponder on all your choices before and during it. This is not a main story game however, if you just rush through the main story, you probably will not like it much. This is one where you have to take it at your own pace and savor it.
So far, I am enjoying the Mass Effect franchise way more than I thought I would. How great 2 is in comparison to 1 is not blatantly apparent at first but it gets you right into it. The game went from like a 8 to a 9, to a 10 in the course of like 3 hours of playtime. I would try these games even if you aren't a sci-fi guy, because I am certainly not. It's like 6 bucks on sale for all three.
The shooting has been improved from 1 and progression is a lot more meaningful and enjoyable even if the rpg elements were stripped back. They also removed the bad car segments from the first game which automatically bumps the rating up half a star. I also like that the renegade options aren't strictly evil, but more so just aggresive. In the first one, renegade was just being a horrible person which made me wonder why anyone would ever go that path for the first time. The best part of this game is how it makes you feel like you are Shepard.
Immersion is hard to establish and it doesn't hit the same for everyone, but giving players key options for all of their teammates is major. The ending is great and makes you ponder on all your choices before and during it. This is not a main story game however, if you just rush through the main story, you probably will not like it much. This is one where you have to take it at your own pace and savor it.
So far, I am enjoying the Mass Effect franchise way more than I thought I would. How great 2 is in comparison to 1 is not blatantly apparent at first but it gets you right into it. The game went from like a 8 to a 9, to a 10 in the course of like 3 hours of playtime. I would try these games even if you aren't a sci-fi guy, because I am certainly not. It's like 6 bucks on sale for all three.
2021
I really wasn't expecting this game to appeal to me so much. I am not really a sci-fi guy but I did like this game's atmosphere and environment a lot. It kinda feels like playing a video game version of The Fifth Element, given, It's probably inspired by it. The world is vastly more detailed and interesting than other immersive sim-esque games I have played in the past. The shooting is nothing crazy, it is pretty standard, but it is not the highlight of the game. The highlight is the story, or rather how interactive it is. I don't mind that every choice I make is not important, what matters is making you feel like your in the game talking with these characters which I think Mass Effect does a great job at.
Some complaints I do have is that the driving segments suck. Like they are just bad, it's mostly monotonous driving down straight paths, sometimes there's some enemies but they never pose a threat which is probably for the better. The car doesn't control the best either, any small slope flips you all over. I wish there was also more options for good or bad choices in dialogue. I almost had to kill one of my teammates, Wrex, cause my intimidate wasn't high enough until I reloaded. The skill tree is pretty bare bones and the little powers you get aren't that useful besides the damage up ones.
The game was a little short but sweet, I hope 2, which people say is better, is just an improved formula of what we have here. For how old this game is, I wasn't expecting it to actually hold up. I really enjoy this structure it has, and hope the 2nd will be better.
Some complaints I do have is that the driving segments suck. Like they are just bad, it's mostly monotonous driving down straight paths, sometimes there's some enemies but they never pose a threat which is probably for the better. The car doesn't control the best either, any small slope flips you all over. I wish there was also more options for good or bad choices in dialogue. I almost had to kill one of my teammates, Wrex, cause my intimidate wasn't high enough until I reloaded. The skill tree is pretty bare bones and the little powers you get aren't that useful besides the damage up ones.
The game was a little short but sweet, I hope 2, which people say is better, is just an improved formula of what we have here. For how old this game is, I wasn't expecting it to actually hold up. I really enjoy this structure it has, and hope the 2nd will be better.
It's like the most mid action rpg ever. I think they spent most the budget on the main character models because everything else looks like ass. I wouldn't be bothered by this, and I typically don't talk about graphics because it doesn't matter most of the time but DAMN. They will do these panning shots on the background, and they look like a ps1 game, not even ps2, and I have everything on normal graphic setting with prioritize image quality. My biggest issue however is that the game is really blurry, like so blurry that it affects gameplay. Apparently, it's the depth of field but I don't know that it is, it makes this game so ugly to look at. This game already has a huge problem identifying key visuals during combat because it's a party-based action rpg. I couldn't figure out how to eliminate this issue without using mods but I did minimize it.
Combat is uhm... it's not the worst thing ever. There's a large lack of feedback and visual clarity I mentioned earlier, and enemies don't react to attacks that well enough to understand if you have staggered them. You are limited with ap points to attack, which sucks because it just makes it so you can't play aggressive, you have to eventually just stand still in combat to be able to attack again. It's not that long but its long enough to ruin key moments in combat. Blindside feels really janky, whenever I wanted to do it, I never got it and whenever I didn't, I got it all the time. A lot of this game is just walking back and forth from places you've been in, some of the cities are nice but they are filled with nothing.
The story is a nothing burger with nothing remotely interesting in it. if you do play the game, just skip the cutscenes.
I could keep drilling into this game, but I think the problem is that the budget just isn't there for this franchise to tackle 3D and that's probably why the 2 remake is the highest rated one of this franchise.
Combat is uhm... it's not the worst thing ever. There's a large lack of feedback and visual clarity I mentioned earlier, and enemies don't react to attacks that well enough to understand if you have staggered them. You are limited with ap points to attack, which sucks because it just makes it so you can't play aggressive, you have to eventually just stand still in combat to be able to attack again. It's not that long but its long enough to ruin key moments in combat. Blindside feels really janky, whenever I wanted to do it, I never got it and whenever I didn't, I got it all the time. A lot of this game is just walking back and forth from places you've been in, some of the cities are nice but they are filled with nothing.
The story is a nothing burger with nothing remotely interesting in it. if you do play the game, just skip the cutscenes.
I could keep drilling into this game, but I think the problem is that the budget just isn't there for this franchise to tackle 3D and that's probably why the 2 remake is the highest rated one of this franchise.
2005
I just don't think I like this whole franchise.
Maybe its my fault too.
I first played this series in hopes of finding a action rpg game that I would like similar to KH2, but not a souls-like and/or made by square enix. I enjoy the campy, overly anime story and characters, thats part of what I like. The gameplay is where these games falter for me. The tales of games, even arise, always feel clunky, slow, and limiting. Your moveset is not that interesting and the enemies you fight are neither unique, nor engaging. Maybe it's my fault for expecting a franchise to have one game comparable to a ps2 game. I won't claim that KH2 is the peak of combat in action rpgs, far from it, but I just wanted something similar to that. I saw someone in these reviews describe this combat as fast and fluid, and I wonder what video game they played?
I think a major issue with this franchise is that every game has it's own issues. Like Vesperia has insane difficulty spikes (according to others), Berseria's soul system is not fleshed out, Zestria is... Zestria, Abyss is stagnant, slow and presents nothing of value to the audience, and Innocence that I played for some reason has an awful story. I'll probably play xillia and if I don't like that, I might be done with this franchise.
Maybe its my fault too.
I first played this series in hopes of finding a action rpg game that I would like similar to KH2, but not a souls-like and/or made by square enix. I enjoy the campy, overly anime story and characters, thats part of what I like. The gameplay is where these games falter for me. The tales of games, even arise, always feel clunky, slow, and limiting. Your moveset is not that interesting and the enemies you fight are neither unique, nor engaging. Maybe it's my fault for expecting a franchise to have one game comparable to a ps2 game. I won't claim that KH2 is the peak of combat in action rpgs, far from it, but I just wanted something similar to that. I saw someone in these reviews describe this combat as fast and fluid, and I wonder what video game they played?
I think a major issue with this franchise is that every game has it's own issues. Like Vesperia has insane difficulty spikes (according to others), Berseria's soul system is not fleshed out, Zestria is... Zestria, Abyss is stagnant, slow and presents nothing of value to the audience, and Innocence that I played for some reason has an awful story. I'll probably play xillia and if I don't like that, I might be done with this franchise.
Chaos game is good game.
Combat system is fleshed out with the job system and there is a ton to do with it. My favorite was monk, I used it the whole game and there is even more too. On top of the special moves you get, and the ability to steal spells, I struggle to understand how people can call this repetitive. How fun the game is depends on how much you choose to interact with it. I think people on this site just don't like action games that much. They'll complain that this 10-hour game is too repetitive and then talk about a 50-hour jrpg being the best game ever made. I also see a lot of complaints against the Team Ninja games that they have bad level design, and I personally don't see that. All of them kinda hit the same notes that souls games do, with the exception of Nioh 1 that is a game where the developers intentionally try to make to hate it.
This game is also a love letter to the FF franchise. So many levels are modeled off of areas in mainline games. There's an area that's based off the first big FF12 dungeon with walls that push you into pits. Sunleth waterscape, a song from FF13 gets repurposed. There's a FF15 level, and so much more.
The story is fine, I like seeing jack do the chaos things and talk about chaos and being chaos and destroying chaos. It's kind of a big task to make a prequel to a 40-year old game. If you hate it, you probably take stories too seriously. Team Ninja has never done stories well, and I still don't know why people expect some masterpiece from them. A small complaint from me is that I don't like having to choose difficulties. I like having just one and you have to deal with it. But I also understand that this is a Nioh game for babies so it is what it is.
Chaos good, Game good, and now I am CHAOS.
Combat system is fleshed out with the job system and there is a ton to do with it. My favorite was monk, I used it the whole game and there is even more too. On top of the special moves you get, and the ability to steal spells, I struggle to understand how people can call this repetitive. How fun the game is depends on how much you choose to interact with it. I think people on this site just don't like action games that much. They'll complain that this 10-hour game is too repetitive and then talk about a 50-hour jrpg being the best game ever made. I also see a lot of complaints against the Team Ninja games that they have bad level design, and I personally don't see that. All of them kinda hit the same notes that souls games do, with the exception of Nioh 1 that is a game where the developers intentionally try to make to hate it.
This game is also a love letter to the FF franchise. So many levels are modeled off of areas in mainline games. There's an area that's based off the first big FF12 dungeon with walls that push you into pits. Sunleth waterscape, a song from FF13 gets repurposed. There's a FF15 level, and so much more.
The story is fine, I like seeing jack do the chaos things and talk about chaos and being chaos and destroying chaos. It's kind of a big task to make a prequel to a 40-year old game. If you hate it, you probably take stories too seriously. Team Ninja has never done stories well, and I still don't know why people expect some masterpiece from them. A small complaint from me is that I don't like having to choose difficulties. I like having just one and you have to deal with it. But I also understand that this is a Nioh game for babies so it is what it is.
Chaos good, Game good, and now I am CHAOS.
This review contains spoilers
I hate this game. I am hating so hard on this game right now. I am confused why they made a trails game, which is a series known for having a lot of story, which has little story. This is a game where you go through the exact same dungeons you did in the last 2 games for 40 hours. Chapter 5's final boss can suck the fattest cock known to man kind, I hate getting petrified and then having to back out, put on the petrify immunity accesories and then do it again. Chapter 6 is like 15 hours long and filled with endless walking through empty dungeons from the last game. Chapter 7 started with me walking aimlessly then the game just decided that its time to proceed when I didn't do anything. I also clipped into the ground in chapter 7 because I was using fast forward and lost a lot of progress so be careful with that. Chapter 8 pulls a FF6 and makes you use all your party members, so have fun leveling and getting new equipment for literally every character.
The door mechanic is a lazy way to implement story that doesn't actually matter. I am not here to play a VN, this is a jrpg. Its like they gave up on trying to balance the story and gameplay and just said "fuck it, do it yourself". I personally don't care for these cutscenes, I don't need more character development in this game, I already have 100+ hours invested in these characters.
The characters trying to ship Agate and Tita together is absolutely fucking disgusting. Tita is a child and Agate is a grown adult, and Anelace, one of the other characters says that the age gap is nothing to their love. Ew, gross, I can put the Estelle and Joshua love thing aside because they aren't blood related and it's also just weird shit they do over in Japan that you get used to if you've watched enough anime. I didn't talk about this in my SC review but it's also gross how Agate uses Tita as a substitute for his dead little sister. His arc would've been a lot better if it was about him learning to cope with his loss and not just finding a new sister replacement.
I think Kevin's arc is interesting but I think Falcom struggles with displaying emotions through writing. I feel like they tackle these issues on a very surface level without getting too deep into. I don't know what they are afraid of, but they failed both times with Joshua and Kevin at making me feel anything for these characters. Like yea, Kevin feels like he should go to hell, and then literally goes to hell, but it falls flat, it doesn't truly express the despair Kevin is feeling to the player, or at least me personally.
Otherwise, in terms of story content, I struggle to understand how any of this is important. This is a fanservice game, they get all the characters together, write about whatever random bullshit they did between SC and 3rd and put them in doors, and repeat dungeons from the previous games. I just find FC the best, everything is new, every character doesn't hang out with you like they do in SC because like real people, they got stuff to do. The character dynamic between Estelle and Joshua was great, and fleshing out the world was great. SC gave me the impression they were gonna dig deep and make true on the promising writing of FC but then they just wrote shounen slop. Then 3rd is a nothing burger for fans, and 15% new content. At this point, I just want to get to crossbell. The combat system is stale with nothing new, the story is irrelevant and non-existant, the soundtrack is probably the weakest, and environments are painfully generic. My expectations are now in the gutter and I expect nothing from crossbell.
FC really did feel refreshing to play too. The combat system was weird but different and fleshed out thoughtout that one unlike SC and 3rd where it stagnates. The main character was a WOMAN. That never happened back when this was made, AND she is properly fleshed out. Olivier is bisexual??? Maybe, I am uncertain about this but he says a lot of things that made me think so. It was so different from the FF games where you play as a blond guy with his short black hair girl friend to kill god. FC did not end with killing god. I pray that the future games can capture some of those feelings I felt during FC and sharpen them.
The door mechanic is a lazy way to implement story that doesn't actually matter. I am not here to play a VN, this is a jrpg. Its like they gave up on trying to balance the story and gameplay and just said "fuck it, do it yourself". I personally don't care for these cutscenes, I don't need more character development in this game, I already have 100+ hours invested in these characters.
The characters trying to ship Agate and Tita together is absolutely fucking disgusting. Tita is a child and Agate is a grown adult, and Anelace, one of the other characters says that the age gap is nothing to their love. Ew, gross, I can put the Estelle and Joshua love thing aside because they aren't blood related and it's also just weird shit they do over in Japan that you get used to if you've watched enough anime. I didn't talk about this in my SC review but it's also gross how Agate uses Tita as a substitute for his dead little sister. His arc would've been a lot better if it was about him learning to cope with his loss and not just finding a new sister replacement.
I think Kevin's arc is interesting but I think Falcom struggles with displaying emotions through writing. I feel like they tackle these issues on a very surface level without getting too deep into. I don't know what they are afraid of, but they failed both times with Joshua and Kevin at making me feel anything for these characters. Like yea, Kevin feels like he should go to hell, and then literally goes to hell, but it falls flat, it doesn't truly express the despair Kevin is feeling to the player, or at least me personally.
Otherwise, in terms of story content, I struggle to understand how any of this is important. This is a fanservice game, they get all the characters together, write about whatever random bullshit they did between SC and 3rd and put them in doors, and repeat dungeons from the previous games. I just find FC the best, everything is new, every character doesn't hang out with you like they do in SC because like real people, they got stuff to do. The character dynamic between Estelle and Joshua was great, and fleshing out the world was great. SC gave me the impression they were gonna dig deep and make true on the promising writing of FC but then they just wrote shounen slop. Then 3rd is a nothing burger for fans, and 15% new content. At this point, I just want to get to crossbell. The combat system is stale with nothing new, the story is irrelevant and non-existant, the soundtrack is probably the weakest, and environments are painfully generic. My expectations are now in the gutter and I expect nothing from crossbell.
FC really did feel refreshing to play too. The combat system was weird but different and fleshed out thoughtout that one unlike SC and 3rd where it stagnates. The main character was a WOMAN. That never happened back when this was made, AND she is properly fleshed out. Olivier is bisexual??? Maybe, I am uncertain about this but he says a lot of things that made me think so. It was so different from the FF games where you play as a blond guy with his short black hair girl friend to kill god. FC did not end with killing god. I pray that the future games can capture some of those feelings I felt during FC and sharpen them.
Its bad, what a surprise. The controls were scientifically designed in a lab by satan himself to be the most unfun thing to grace a human beings hands. Like the camera is inverted horizontally, but not vertically??? Besides the obvious fact that the game controls like pure absolute dogshit, the AI is insanely broken. They just won't notice you like ever, you could kill their friend in front of them and they still wouldn't notice you. If you could somehow get past the terrible controls, there is a mildly ok-ish game with terrible AI and stealth mechanics that don't matter. I would have a easier time trying to play qwop or octodad than this game.
Uh, I actually was not expecting this game to be this good. I kinda have a track record of not liking Zelda games but this one is unironically amazing. This game is shorter than other Zelda games, but the reason for that is that it cuts out all the bullshit that other games have. No unnecessarily long start like twilight princess, or boring boat segments/triforce hunt in wind waker. The blatant obtuseness of the older games has evaporated. It is just back to back great dungeons, with minimal overworld segments that complement the dungeons. I always had the thought that Zelda games would be a lot better if it was just the dungeons, and this is it. Thats not to say there is no story, but it's mostly minimal and serves the purpose of explaining the hero's journey. The wall merge gimmick is also amazing because it is used in every dungeon, and very well. It's also used with items to give them new uses. The dungeons here are also some of the best I have experienced with 2 exceptions. The only reason this doesn't get a 10 is because I did not like the dark palace, and the thieves hideout is a bit below average.
This review contains spoilers
They are lying to you, this game is not peak, but it is good. I do admire how ambitious this, and FC are, you can tell they tried to make a great game here with a minuscule budget. How they tried to stretch this budget out though made it worse. Trails SC suffers from some of the worst pacing I may have ever seen in a video game story. Chapter 8 has all this crazy shit happen and then they make you do a round trip around the city's you've been too. It's some of the most boring nothing content. In this game there's about 30-35% of a great game, and the rest of it is horrible. So much could've been cut out. I also dislike the character arcs for Agate and the rest of the side characters. The whole point of the first game was to make us invested in these characters, it should've been done in the first, not here. It really sucks too, because the first game was relatively down to earth, the stakes weren't too high, and a lot of it was spent establishing the world. SC devolves into THE most predictable and awful anime drivel, but it does retain its strong character writing. The villains suck ass and do the Vegeta thing that happens all the time in anime where they end up being good at the end. The first time Estelle meets Weissman on the ship, he is quite literally playing a giant organ. Like, it is straight up comical at times. The game also does not handle heavy topics well. The explanation of what happened to Joshua as a kid is not adequate enough to make me feel anything or really understand the repercussions this had. I think Estelles development to being more mature is cool, but when the game starts saying she's like the sun and she bring everyone together, it feels like it minimalizes her development. The start of SC is spent with Estelle learning to be strong on her own, and then the game just forgets that part and just says she is bright like the sun. It also infuriates me how formulaic the game is. Like 5 of the chapters is doing boring shit to meet an ouroboros member, who then kicks your ass then leaves. It never occurs to the main party that they need to get stronger to beat them and then they somehow do at the end??? It's more of an issue too, because the game has this thing where how strong you are in game is roughly how strong that character is in the story. For example, when Zane joins the party. he is obviously higher level than everyone else, because Zane would beat the dogshit out of Estelle or Schera. But Schera is also higher level than Estelle but not more than Zane. When Joshua joins, he is the highest level so far because he used to be part of ouroboros. When the bandit girl joins your party, she is lower level and doesn't even have a s-craft. I could keep going on to prove this point. There's no in-story explanation of how they got stronger, it's through gameplay, but it's confusing story wise because a lot of players won't even notice this fact.
Gameplay wise, it is identical EXCEPT for the new addition of chains. Chains are fucking terrible, and I have no clue why you would ever use these dog shit moves. It ruins your turn order, barely does more damage than if everyone involved just attacked normally, and costs craft points from everyone. They are awful and the only new addition sucks ass. Combat is mostly fine though. The boss fights are fun with a few exceptions, and the random encounters are ass. It takes too long for fights to finish for it to be structured like a SRPG. Luckily, you don't really need to grind. I do wish it did the FF13 and made every party members level the same. The late game boss fights are fucking awful though. The 2nd Renne fight, she hit her super immediately and crit and insta killed my whole party before I could even realize what happened. Loewe's fight is ass, and luckily you can just skip it for some reason??? A lot of the late game fights just have you spamming earth wall and aoe magic attacks. Also, Estelle is like the shittiest character. Her stats are fucking awful, and I could never make here as good as any other party member.
Overall, though, it is just the first game, but the story is worst. The game could not meet up to expectations and its writing is better when it isn't trying to make some secret organization kingdom hearts storyline. Its wasted so much of its time on backtracking and character arcs that should've happened in the first. The payoff is not worth 100 hours of gameplay. To put it in perspective, I have almost the same time in these two games as Persona 5. I am going to play the future entries though and I hope they improve on the formula established here.
Gameplay wise, it is identical EXCEPT for the new addition of chains. Chains are fucking terrible, and I have no clue why you would ever use these dog shit moves. It ruins your turn order, barely does more damage than if everyone involved just attacked normally, and costs craft points from everyone. They are awful and the only new addition sucks ass. Combat is mostly fine though. The boss fights are fun with a few exceptions, and the random encounters are ass. It takes too long for fights to finish for it to be structured like a SRPG. Luckily, you don't really need to grind. I do wish it did the FF13 and made every party members level the same. The late game boss fights are fucking awful though. The 2nd Renne fight, she hit her super immediately and crit and insta killed my whole party before I could even realize what happened. Loewe's fight is ass, and luckily you can just skip it for some reason??? A lot of the late game fights just have you spamming earth wall and aoe magic attacks. Also, Estelle is like the shittiest character. Her stats are fucking awful, and I could never make here as good as any other party member.
Overall, though, it is just the first game, but the story is worst. The game could not meet up to expectations and its writing is better when it isn't trying to make some secret organization kingdom hearts storyline. Its wasted so much of its time on backtracking and character arcs that should've happened in the first. The payoff is not worth 100 hours of gameplay. To put it in perspective, I have almost the same time in these two games as Persona 5. I am going to play the future entries though and I hope they improve on the formula established here.
This review contains spoilers
I might pick this game back up later but I just have so little interest in continuing this at the moment. The gameplay for me is like the trails combat but with even less thinking, but its also not fast enough to breeze through. The story is reached this point where ichiban is helping the orphanage out and it is so goddamn boring. Nothing important is happening in the story and this is also the time where they introduce the job system for some reason. I have 19 hours in this game and you only get to the job system at about hour 17. It just feels like playing 7 again, but combat is a little better and hawaii is more visually nice. Sure, the little mini games are cool and all, like the uber eats mode but its so short and is also more fun than the main game. I think that is a big issue is that they spread themselves so thin that the main game just sucks, and the side content is more fun. But the side content won't get you the story. While gaiden is my personal favorite yakuza game, One nitpick I do have about it is I wish it concluded kiryus arc at least a little bit. Ichiban cannot truly shine as a main protagonist when Kiryu is right there. Especially if the games are going for a more lighter, and comedic tone than the previous ones.
2012
Don't play the vita version.
I can't in good faith give this game a good rating. 3D Zelda games are plagued with so many issues, that most of them are either boring or infuriating. The N64 Zeldas are more infuriating while the later ones are more just boring. I've tried to play this game 3 times now and let me tell you some of the breaking points that existed for me
The first time, I tried to present the letter to the zora king but it didn't work so I spent 2 hours trying to find out what to do, just to find out that I was not standing the right spot. The second time was trying to find out what to do after the bad jabu jabu "dungeon" just to realize that I didn't pay attention to the cutscene enough where zelda throws a thing in the water in front of the town. This time around, was doing the forest temple and the required small key was in the beginning where you have to climb a vine texture that blends into the background. These moments suck but these are more "the straw that broke the camels back" than the real causes. 3D Zelda games tend to be very obtuse and inconsistently fun. Most of these games consist of dialouge, lots of walking, terrible combat, and dungeons. Only one of those things is good and its not the walking.
You know, for how much these Zelda game have to say, it sure is a whole lot of nothing. This is a larger problem of every 3d zelda where they all have story and all of them are damn near the same and add nothing of value. But also every game has unskippable dialogue and mindless chatter. The story is nothing, its meaningless, its all the same. Link is the hero he has to kill ganon, then he does. You always have to help the zora and do a water dungeon, you always have to help the gorons and do a lava/fire dungeon. You always get the hookshot, and the bow, and bombs, and a boomerang, a couple bottles, and some type of instrument. The dungeons are always the same, the items are the same, the characters are the same. SO IF EVERYTHING IS ALWAYS THE SAME, WHY DO YOU KEEP GIVING ME A BORING UNSKIPPABLE STORY? This is less targeted at ocarina of time, being that it is the first 3d one but it is something this game still suffers from.
The combat is awful, I know this is a 1997 n64 game but I still do not enjoy this combat. Its clunky, slow and barely functional with the terrible camera controls.
There is some good though. The dungeons are mostly fun. Twilight princess 100% has better dungeons than this game but there are still cool. The dungeons here struggle being interesting considering this is the first attempt into 3d, but they have the core elements that make zelda dungeons fun. Theres a lot of really strange things that players will have to figure out in the n64 zelda game to clear it without looking it up, like my earlier example of the forest temple. I spent a lot of time in jabu jabus dungeon, because I didnt realize to get to the boss room, I had to use the boxes that only exist in that one room for the button. Or sneaking into the hyrule castle for the first time and not realizing you had the power to climb steep slopes all of a sudden. In a way, OoT has issues that tomb raider 2 has, where it requires you to do things that the player had access to but would never know. For example, in tomb raider 2, theres a level where you can climb bookshelves, but you can't climb all bookshelves, only those specific ones in that level.
The music in this game is also great and boosted my rating of this game by at least half a star. It has some absolute classic tracks that are iconic to this day.
I've given this game many chances though, I've tried to be patient but even looking back, I can't say much of my time spent playing this game was doing anything that much fun outside of the dungeons. Its strange to me that a franchise so creatively bankrupt that has barely improved upon itself is considered one of the best in the industry. I'm sorry, but I don't like the best game of all time.
The first time, I tried to present the letter to the zora king but it didn't work so I spent 2 hours trying to find out what to do, just to find out that I was not standing the right spot. The second time was trying to find out what to do after the bad jabu jabu "dungeon" just to realize that I didn't pay attention to the cutscene enough where zelda throws a thing in the water in front of the town. This time around, was doing the forest temple and the required small key was in the beginning where you have to climb a vine texture that blends into the background. These moments suck but these are more "the straw that broke the camels back" than the real causes. 3D Zelda games tend to be very obtuse and inconsistently fun. Most of these games consist of dialouge, lots of walking, terrible combat, and dungeons. Only one of those things is good and its not the walking.
You know, for how much these Zelda game have to say, it sure is a whole lot of nothing. This is a larger problem of every 3d zelda where they all have story and all of them are damn near the same and add nothing of value. But also every game has unskippable dialogue and mindless chatter. The story is nothing, its meaningless, its all the same. Link is the hero he has to kill ganon, then he does. You always have to help the zora and do a water dungeon, you always have to help the gorons and do a lava/fire dungeon. You always get the hookshot, and the bow, and bombs, and a boomerang, a couple bottles, and some type of instrument. The dungeons are always the same, the items are the same, the characters are the same. SO IF EVERYTHING IS ALWAYS THE SAME, WHY DO YOU KEEP GIVING ME A BORING UNSKIPPABLE STORY? This is less targeted at ocarina of time, being that it is the first 3d one but it is something this game still suffers from.
The combat is awful, I know this is a 1997 n64 game but I still do not enjoy this combat. Its clunky, slow and barely functional with the terrible camera controls.
There is some good though. The dungeons are mostly fun. Twilight princess 100% has better dungeons than this game but there are still cool. The dungeons here struggle being interesting considering this is the first attempt into 3d, but they have the core elements that make zelda dungeons fun. Theres a lot of really strange things that players will have to figure out in the n64 zelda game to clear it without looking it up, like my earlier example of the forest temple. I spent a lot of time in jabu jabus dungeon, because I didnt realize to get to the boss room, I had to use the boxes that only exist in that one room for the button. Or sneaking into the hyrule castle for the first time and not realizing you had the power to climb steep slopes all of a sudden. In a way, OoT has issues that tomb raider 2 has, where it requires you to do things that the player had access to but would never know. For example, in tomb raider 2, theres a level where you can climb bookshelves, but you can't climb all bookshelves, only those specific ones in that level.
The music in this game is also great and boosted my rating of this game by at least half a star. It has some absolute classic tracks that are iconic to this day.
I've given this game many chances though, I've tried to be patient but even looking back, I can't say much of my time spent playing this game was doing anything that much fun outside of the dungeons. Its strange to me that a franchise so creatively bankrupt that has barely improved upon itself is considered one of the best in the industry. I'm sorry, but I don't like the best game of all time.