This game helped me with being more patient. I think when it comes to games, my biggest weakness is that I am not patient. I don't like feeling like I am not getting my time worth of a game. That being said, I also have a tendency to rush through games to get to the next one. This game is one that you take your time with. Let it slowly cook, and consume it when the time is right.

To actually talk about the game though, its pretty good. I stopped at act 2, act 3 is too obtuse to find on your own and it ends perfectly fine at act 2. Combat is fine, it is serviceable and its not meant to be some type of hardcore action game. Its more about grinding and leveling up to overpower guys than swiftly dodging, although you still can. The game doesnt do any one thing great but its the combination of every thing that makes it great. How many games exist out there that are action jrps, with farming and social sim aspects? Not many. There much more I can say but I think I got the main point across. If you were thinking about trying this, then you should. It's great, and is a game that can suck the time out of your life very fast.

Well, I was going to play this game. I got stuck trying to find where the fucking prince went after he gave me the book. I spent an hour trying to find him and NOTHING gave me any information about where he should be. The recap info didn't tell me, npcs didn't tell me. Quite honestly, one of the most frustrating things I've done in a game recently. I know its a ps1 game and man does it feel like it with not being able to tell where the fuck to go or do. I should've just started with 8 like everyone said. The game is 80+ hours long and I spent the first hour aimlessly wandering because I didn't pay enough attention to remember during the cutscene where the prince said where he was going, IF he even said it at all. This issue could be solved with a guide, or I could just play a game that doesn't require a guide. First impressions are important and this was one of the worst first impressions a game had put me through.

Echoes is strange. I wonder what made them choose gaiden to remake over fan favorites like thracia or GoHW. Echoes is remade and even features new segments which is nice! Unfortunately, it shows its age as a nes game.

The bad.

- Maps are very simplistic. Terrain effects are barely relevant on hard difficulty and most of them are empty spaces with nothing happening. The fault lies with the fact that levels aren't built with as much care as fates or awakening, because a lot of them are little grunt fights.

-The dungeons are neat the first time but you quickly realize how tedious and boring these environments are. The fatigue system is annoying, and the random encounters take forever. Imagine playing Final Fantasy but ever random encounter took 3-4 minutes and didn't give you anything of value and little EXP. These dungeons may hide permanant stat buffs, which does promote actually exploring, sadly it is very bare bones.

-The story is boring, plain and simple. Some characters are interesting and overall better written than fates ever was, but its not enough to carry the nes era story. Also, it has some weird brother sister love thing happening that I did not jive with. With how much alm and celica simp over each other too, it was naseuating at some moments.

The Good.

-Weapons have no durability now and they are function more as stat buffs than required tools. I like this because they also give skills if you use them enough, which makes weapons unique even to non-main characters.

-The music is pretty good. I don't have much else to say on this point, they just took the old composition and remade it with actual instruments this time and not nes boops.

-Again, characters are better here than they were in fates, some are kind of one note like alm's femcel childhood friend whos name I already forgot. But the characters that are required to come with you are actually the best ones and enjoyable.

-The turnwheel is great for the health of the game and the franchise. This isn't xcom, every unit has character and importance so losing them would be annoying, or getting hit by a 5% crit and losing a unit is also annoying. It doesn't happen too often but my units also can't seem to land a attack ever at 90% hit rate so who knows? I do wish that, like in three houses, if main character dies, you could use turnwheel instead of being forced to restart. One level I played, celica got crit off 7% and I had to restart the whole thing.

I do like some of the changes but they changed so much I hesitate to call this a "remake". If you were to change so much of the game, why not just change the whole thing? Modernize the gameplay, touch up the story. Maybe they did do these things, I haven't played the nes game so I can't say, but the old nes game still feels like an old nes game but now theres monotonous dungeons.

Ok, so playing this game again, without the childhood bias, its not as good as I believed it to be. I think the story is among the best the franchise has to offer but man... the gameplay is kinda ass. Firstly, the difficulty is fucked. Hard mode is peepee baby time and lunatic is stat inflated up the ass. Lunatic forces players, mostly early, to play in very specific strategies and the maps are designed poorly on top of that. Most of the time, you get rushed by 100 enemy units in these maps, the solution? Send in your overpowered main character unit to one tap every living creature. The optimal way to play the game is have a couple dudes, around 4-5 that get all the exp then you slap 4-5 stat stick characters on those guys. Its why the game lets you have around 9-10 units most times. Half your units are never meant to see the light of day and just be stat sticks. You also have to make sure all your good units are tanky enough to survive the absolute horseshit ambushes that occur. This was also a problem I had in three houses. When my units eat shit and die cause some units spawn out of thin air on top of mine, it not very fun. Its a trial and error mechanic, where my units die, then I reset then try again, or if youre on casual, you just play the rest of the level with half your team missing. This game is mostly a power fantasy where the custom character who has inflated stats up the ass, just steam rolls everything while all your friends die. I remember when I was a kid, I beat the final levels with my whole party dying and just soloing the level. As a SRPG, this is like a cardinal sin. If it had better designed maps that werent just zerg rushes, and a better adjusted difficulty, it would probably retain its 9/10 rating I previously gave it. I think it speaks volumes when lunatic+ where its the same thing but enemy units have random skills, can be impossible to beat in the early levels.

Moonlit farewell is a pretty underwhelming send off. I don't know if rdein, the main developer, had just lost his passion for the franchise after minoria or what but this is not the dark souls 3 to the momodora series. The game starts off relatively fine with the first area having some of the best music in the game. The start also includes you getting lore dumped about moon gods and the history of the village and a bunch of other stuff I did not care for. This is not how you start off your game, its why a lot of jrpgs lore dump you at the end when you're already invested. The best way would to be to learn about throughout the course of the entire game but we don't live in a world where this happens too often.

To cut into the main problems of the game, is that this is a mostly safe re-tread of past games. It feels like the soul has been drained and the formula has been followed to try to mechanically produce the most optimal game like a robot. Theres enough here that I did enjoy it and the final area brought this game up half a star but its sad that this is what we get after minoria and reverie. You can even see the lack of soul in the start up screen. Here, its just a bunch of weird sigils on a black background, minoria is a little more stylized, but reverie starts out with a wonderfully made view of the city you explore. It feels like a creative slump or just a slow decline from reverie.

To compare this to reverie in term of gameplay, its mostly worse. I praised reverie for being simple and executed amazingly. Even if its simple, if its done well, any game can be great. Reverie is a smaller-scale game, but it benefits from that. Movement is tight and precise. In Moonlit Farewell, movement is loose and its harder to make precise jumps. Luckily, the game does not really ever challenge you in terms of platforming which is an issue itself. The game also does a DMC a lot where they lock you in a area and force you to fight enemies which minoria did but this game does it way too often. Most items you pick up mid to late game will force you into one of these encounters. Theres also more enemies, which sounds better until you realize most of them do the same thing. The games combat is fundamentally broken. It appears the same but the sigils you acquire trivialize the game. My sigils that I had equipped made it so once I hit the mid game, I never moved during a boss fight. Most bosses are giant stagnant guys that shoot things at you and have 2 moves. You have so much healing resources that taking damage does not matter. I equipped a sigil that gave me invulnerability after healing and one that gave me a shield after healing and then I never moved during a boss ever again. You get so much healing on top of that and with the companion system that is never explained, gives you even more healing. The bosses are worse, the enemies act the same, sigils are insanely busted, and movement being more loose combines to make a worse experience. Theres also a issue where there is too much effects that sometimes its hard to tell what is happening, which I guess isnt an issue because I could beat all the bosses with one foot on a wii remote. Easy games are not bad, but games that are so easy that I don't have to move during combat is a problem. Not having to engage with the game or its mechanics is a problem that cannot be overlooked, at least in a game where engaging in its mechanics is supposed to be the best part of its gameplay.

The game looks nice, but the sprite work feels off. Maybe its just bias, but I enjoyed reveries sprite work more, it was just so animated and detailed. Thats not to say this games art style isnt detailed but it looks more... stale? If I had to choose a word it would be that. Unlike minoria, the music here is pretty nice and balanced. The starting zone and the final zone have the best music in the game and everything else in between is just fine. Unfortunately though, the story here is just kind of a detriment. I would understand if rdein wanted to get away from momodora and just create something different. Being tied down to a overarcing narrative is pretty restricting and I feel like having to explain all this story is detrimental, especially when its not that important or interesting to the experience.

Game is still good though, but I hope rdein moves on from this franchise in hopes of creating something filled with more passion. Maybe even experience with other game genres, I dont know, but whatever it is, I hope he enjoys making what he does because passion is ultimately what makes games enjoyable to play.

I actually don't think this game is that bad but I do have enough gripes. The ways to progress are so confusing that I got stuck and had to pull up a guide to find how to progress. The combat is fine. Its mashy, but it works for the type of game it is. There is no lock on so the greatest bane of combat is how much you'll whiff. If you don't move while attacking, your character will sometimes soft lock on to a enemy but only sometimes, its very inconsistent. You have a little step dash the game never tells you about, I dont think it gives you I-frames so the best weapons is probably magic so tou don't have to engage enemies. I used dual swords because magic is boring. There is a story? Theres events that happen but most the game is about talking to npcs and interacting with them. Sadly, npcs repeat a lot and most of them are pretty vapid characters. More of a personal issue but I hate the main characters design. Not just this game but most of the series protagonists look awful. You are a farmer but you also fight but your characters look like the most weak person in the village who does not like to fight. Your character acts spineless, and is like a piece of toast. The designs would work for a harvest moon game where you are JUST a farmer but it doesn't work when you are fighting big skeleton dragons. I'll probably play rune factory 4. I like the concept of a farm game with combat on the side. I think rune factorys idea of making everything you do give you level ups is genius. Its a constant dopamine rush and it insures that no matter what the player does, you will be making meaningful progress.

This game is a lightning in a bottle moment. You really will probably never see a game this good in the franchise again. The soundtrack is fucking fantastic, one of the best. The worlds are great even the lion king one and atlantica. The lion king one is one of the games several ways to spice up gameplay and atlantica is optional and a easy but fun rhythm game. The gummi ship segments are fun arcade shooter moments, also with great music. Gameplay is tight, flashy and critical mode provides a fair but challenging experience overall. Great boss fights, with few, if any, bad ones. The ability to do a level 1 playthrough and no damage bosses displays how good the combat is and is something you don't see that often in action rpgs. The story is dumb but always entertaining. Don't take it that serious and you'll learn to enjoy it. You're supposed to laugh at mickey in a black cloak. Its crazy how most action rpgs can't reach the height this game did in 2007 (besides souls-likes and yakuza if we count that series).

This game is hard to get through. Despite its short length, I could not finish this. The levels start off fine, a little boring, and peak in the middle but they never introduce anything new in them. The game will later on start requiring players to hit pulls on walls and objects in the air but its hard to tell where you are on the y axis to line up these shots. Also, when you are in air, you can't turn 90 degrees to hit some of these angles the game wants you too. A lot of the later levels become more tedious than anything else. I would say its a difficulty thing and difficulty is cool, but it feels unfun here because the control you have is not enough to meet up to the games expectations. A lack of ideas, control and movement options make most levels pretty stale. The boss fights are also miserable. They take WAY too long that it makes me feel like I am playing sonic 4 again. They aren't that mechanically interesting and because these boss fights take place in wide open areas, your only movement options is walk and jump. Visually, the game nails an aesthetic but GOD DAMN is the real game rough to play.

It's cool, the story was good but left lots of questions unanswered. Who was the samurai lady? Who is the little girl? There's other questions too. Given, I am not one to need answers to everything in a story, some things are best left untold. Game play is fun but it struggles to keep my attention for its short length of 4 hours. There's just not a lot happening gameplay wise, after playing for 30 minutes, thats pretty much the rest of the game. Segments like the motorcycle one are cool but rare and even then, don't vary gameplay enough to keep it that interesting. It's a trial and error game where you'll die in one hit and retry until you kill everything in one go with no damage like hotline miami. I'm not a fan of the trial and error but the gameplay is sturdy enough that it remains fun for its short length even if it struggled to keep my attention. The music is not terrible but it felt largely the same and never caught my attention despite the game showing the name of the songs everytime in the corner. It does its job but thats all it does.

On a side note though, this game kinda feels like dead cells. Like a lot of my dead cells habits fucked me over while playing this like trying to roll through doors. Even your air momentum feels the similar.

Great game, it's a lot like its predecessors. Parrying feels great if not too overpowered, and combat is overall improved from reverie mostly. A few nitpicks about the combat though, sometimes I would hit a parry and still take damage. For how responsive you are, the enemies are not as responsive. This leads to bosses kinda feeling underwhelming because you can schmove all over them. Some passive abilities you pick up are TERRIBLE. Like absolute dog shit. Some do things like reduce damage by 4%. 4!? What in the fuck is 4% reduced damage gonna do? One ability gives your melee attacks a projectile but if you use it with the mace weapon, it just doesn't work. The art is also a downgrade, not to say that this couldn't have worked, but it looks pretty terrible up close. The game also has a nauseating habit of zooming in and out way too often. Reverie looks so good because the animations are so smooth and fluid but here, they aren't really fluid at all, in fact they're pretty choppy. My last complaint is the music. It's so abrasive and loud, also it's not really balanced right. Like some areas music is way louder than others. I turned it down to 60% and the rest of the audio settings were at 100%. Otherwise though, this is a relatively same experience as reverie. I wish reverie had the number of enemies this game did but otherwise, I would choose reverie. Still a solid time though, with more dialogue and more story focus. Not too much though. Try it out, it's good.

I'm not giving this a rating because I might come back to this later. My motivation for playing this game kinda just died so hard. To explain, I was playing the game and trying to understand the combat. My main issues stems from the combat. I think the break soul system isn't inherently bad but it lacks any polish. Being able to chain combos with the break soul moves is really fun but limiting them with the soul gauge is really punishing and forces the game into a sluggish action game. This wouldn't be a issue if getting souls in combat was reliable. THIS IS THE BIGGEST ISSUE! You have no reliable way to acquire souls in combat. The only way to get souls is 3 different paths

-Stunning enemies which is dependent on a random chance for your attacks to do. You can also get stunned yourself and lose your souls which if you go below 3, have fun. If enemies block your attacks, you can't stun them and your best way of breaking guard is with the break soul move which requires souls but you're breaking guard to get the souls.

-Killing enemies, but if you're fighting a boss and theres no little enemies to kill then your shit out of luck. It's not a very good way to get souls, but it does let you kill low level random encounters fast.

-Dodging at the right moment gives you a CHANCE at getting a soul to drop. Most of the time my team mates would pick them up too, stealing them from me.

Having 2 or less souls makes the gameplay miserable because you cannot do a single thing. You just have to pray you get a lucky stun. If you get stunned, you're just fucked. I also dislike action games with party members, this was also a problem with Ys. When you have so many party members fighting, two bad things tend to happen.

-Enemies cannot focus on one target, because there is so many on your team, they can't fight properly. You can see this in games even like elden ring, where you use your mimic tear and the boss just stops caring about you, and/or can't make it's mind up and the AI spazs out.

-It visually becomes nonsense. So many attacks and characters yelling in the background and spells going off makes trying to distinguish anything so god damn difficult. It becomes hard to tell what is even happening in the giant group fights.

I think the straw that broke the camels back for me was when I googled "tales of berseria combat" and the first result was someone on reddit asking for help with it. I also needed help so I inquired further and most people just said they didn't really know either and beat the game. I did not like this. Being able to just ignore the games mechanics completely and being perfectly fine is not fun to me. At that point, why not just play a musou game that would feel better to button mash through? Or even a turn based rpg that makes me have to use my brain. I did not get a good feeling from this.

Otherwise, the story is fine, it was building to something, but I was more focused on trying to understand this combat system that apparently others didn't bother with learning. Game looks better than arise stylistically. Animations is better than arise, it has more soul. Music is underwhelming and sometimes just not there? Where is it? I couldn't find it.

Momodora is a great example of how simple games can be great at the same time. This game is a must play for anyone who enjoy metroidvanias.

Starting off, I want to comment about how great the sprite work is here. The 4:3 aspect ratio actually works pretty well here and the animations are very fluid. The environments look incredible and the backgrounds are very nice to take in. Sometimes, it adds to the dark vibe that some areas give off. Speaking of vibes though, the music is also really good, but the game also knows when to pull back and just let you sink in. The 2nd area of the game doesn't have much happening in music and its to set the tone of the setting. You aren't in a happy place, you're in a desolate, empty kingdom with few left who are struggling along. Enemies you fight are actual ghosts, skeletons, the people from the kingdom who have died. It has a cutesy exterior but the inside is rather saddening.

Gameplay is pretty nice too, Its pretty smooth, its precise to control, and I never had any issues with movement. Its pretty much your standard metroidvania stuff but without the whole 2 castle thing that castlevania does often or having to do new game plus for the true ending, or find a bunch of random books around the castle stuff. Its also a metroidvania without too much backtracking which I like. What I mean specifically is that the games events are pretty laid out, you have branching paths but you aren't going to be lead astray to random areas you can't do much in. In my run, it was clear where I needed to go and most the times, there was no need to run back through areas. You COULD run through previous areas if you wanted to find some extra looties but its not integral to finishing the game. I even got the true ending without having to put in much effort. Most metroidvania games require you to do some extremely confusing or tedious things to get the true ending.

A couple gripes though, is that contact damage on enemies is inconsistent. Some have it and some don't. Personally, I don't think any of them should have it, in a game where your melee weapon has a short range and requires you to get real close and your melee attacks make you walk forward too. It's not that big of a deal but it's probably my biggest issue. Most of the bosses are good but the flame one, and you'll know it when you get there, isnt that good. It's not terrible but it enforces a passive playstyle.

Play this game though, it's not that expensive, it has tons of love poured in it, and it's one of my personal favorites of the genre. BUY IT NOW!

This game had potential. The amount of repeated enemies with different color palates are numerous. Enemies are also really easy. Like, so much so, that there's kinda no point in this even being an action rpg. They're really tanky, you can't hit stun them unless you inflict break on them, and you have no way of knowing how close you are to actually getting them to break. Enemies fall out of your air juggles constantly, like all the time. Your skill tree upgrades are pretty fucking worthless. Most are very situational, and the semi useful ones don't actually tell you how much they increase things by. You know how elden ring bosses have insane tracking? Yea, this game is the complete opposite, nothing hits you. You have a dodge roll that can be used to avoid attacks, but you can just walk to the right or left and avoid mostly everything.

The story is pretty strange. I've played about 8 hours and for a game about freeing slaves and being oppressed by tyrants, it sure does not have that tone at all. It kinda has no tone at all. As I am writing this, I'm pretty stuck on trying to think about the tone or much else of the story. Like I know the general premise, but the story doesn't do much elaborating on the world, and the environments are pretty bland. One of my favorite rpgs, FF13, doesn't do much world building at all, but it does focus in on the characters stories. This game seems intent on making us forget about the main characters stories so they can info dump us near the end. Then what we're left with is the minuscule amount of world building and focusing on characters that I personally did not care for as the game made them sit in the background for a good chunk of the game. It's also really predictable, maybe I just played too many stupid anime games, but I could predict this game like I was in the future.

As this is my first game in the tales series, people have said others are better and I will be playing those, In particular, Tales of Berseria.