Raidou 1 has really solid sense of style, nailing a supernatural detective TV show in its atmosphere, music, characters and designs. The story is fun and intriguing throughout, and at the end goes somewhere you might not expect it to. If nothing else, play an hour or two just to check out the vibe cause its seriously good.

The gameplay drags it down though. Combat is too simplistic and stiff, and your summoned demons can take forever to react to anything. The dungeons can be pretty slow, and filled with random encounters which made the combat become really tedious.

One of my favourite RPGs and games in general. SMT IV is incredibly fun, if pretty tough at the beginning of the game. The press turn system makes for fun combat pretty much all the time, with boss fights often being highlights that force you to be strategic with your demon fusions. The atmosphere is top tier thanks to the art direction and one of the best soundtracks I've heard in a game. The characters and story are good too, Walter is a lot of fun and easily my favourite character from mainline SMT. He will end it thus, and you will remember it.

In the first 20 minutes of playing this game, I tried making my character (Plank, my beloved) mining some rock for resources only to immediately get killed by bonedogs with no chance of fighting back.

After restarting and playing for another half hour, I saw some bandits get wacked and enslaved by the Holy Nation and figured if I could free one while they didn't see I could get a new team member. That didn't happen and Plank was immediately crippled and enslaved too.

I then spent actual hours in the Holy Nation prison Rebirth training up Plank's lockpick, sneak and assassin skills by freeing and knocking out defenseless fellow slaves. Two slaves tried to escape, only to get caught and get the shit kicked out of them, eventually after enough times getting their legs sliced off. I created an escape plan myself by knocking out the guards at one of the entrances and putting them in slave cages which shouldn't have worked but it hilariously did because Kenshi is janky as fuck. I had a team of 3 at this point, and carried out those two legless slaves who refused to join me and just crawled back in the dust to Rebirth.

I then spent actual hours just trying to have my guys survive, trying to find items I could sell just so they didn't starve. The default hunger speed is crazy so I lowered that I won't lie, and I found a nearby town to live in and buy a shitty little hut in. Eventually after scrounging up enough I got a bigger house for all of my guys, and got some mods so I could do some farming inside the town to create hemp, so I could make fabric, so I could make bandanas, so I could then eventually level up one of my guy's clothing skill to make enough high quality bandanas so I could sell them and become crazy rich.

I then spent actual hours just levelling up combat skills and recruiting new people. I got a mod that increased skill level up speed because the default is agonising I won't lie. To train combat skills your best bet is just to throw your guys at bandit groups and get the shit kicked out of you, and do it over and over until you need someone stronger. When training my group against some aggresive escaped slaves, one of my characters - called Plop - severed an arm off a slave, and then brutally chased her down as she fleed to cut off the other arm just for fun or something. I felt so bad man, I patched her up and let her heal back up in my base. When she was healed she speedily ran the fuck out for obvious reasons, only to run into another one of my team outside the town who I had returning and then basically recruited herself onto my team upon seeing him. I think events like this happen with injured NPCs, but it probably isn't intended for contexts like this lmao.

I think you get the point. Kenshi can be jank, grindy, tedious, and hard to even approach, but its an incredible RPG sandbox that can give you insane and unique tales with all the freedom it has. Its really satisfying struggling so hard at the beginning, taking forever to do anything, only to finally be able to fight back in the cruel world of Kenshi. My boy Plank ended up toppling the Holy Nation that once enslaved him, with a lot of difficult and bizarre stuff along the way. I highly recommend you give it a go and just see what stories you end up with.

Genuinely my favourite Fire Emblem game. Its a game known for being janky as hell and that's pretty true, with wack units, low hit rates, gimmicky and annoying gaiden chapters, and there's probably more that can be said.

In spite of that, it has really solid maps and those shaky hit rates and gaiden chapter requirements force you to think a lot. I find a lot of fun in using the game's wack ass nobody characters like Dorothy or even Sophia because you can find ways to level them up or give them a purpose in a chapter. Even with very strong units like Rutger, Perceval and Melady available there is still room for other characters to contribute. Roy is infamously bad, but he becomes more like a king on a chess board where you need to think carefully to keep him alive and that ties really well into his character. Not for everyone but he isn't without merit.

Story is simple and could use more characters for Roy to interact with but it does its job. Elibe is a well realised setting, with each country having a distinct and memorable role. Supports were introduced in this game, and while they can be too short and simple at times the game has a lot of good ones. Roy, Shanna, Sue, Lugh, Igrene, Echidna, and Dorothy just to name a few. Just read them on an FE wiki tho, the GBA support system sucks.