AlterSephith
Much more enjoyable than MGS1 and a lot more silly in a good way. Raiden as the new main character was a welcome addition and the setting was great. The story was very backloaded so a lot of the concepts they introduce either get a 30+ minute cutscene explaining it or nothing at all, but after letting the game sit for a bit everything made sense.
The sheer ridiculousness of the last 3 hours of the game was very entertaining and I thought the Arsenal Gear section was cool in how it presented one of the games twists. Gameplay was a massive improvement over MGS1 and the boss fights were much better this time round although some fights did get a little tedious. Overall a great game.
8/10
The sheer ridiculousness of the last 3 hours of the game was very entertaining and I thought the Arsenal Gear section was cool in how it presented one of the games twists. Gameplay was a massive improvement over MGS1 and the boss fights were much better this time round although some fights did get a little tedious. Overall a great game.
8/10
Despite having not fought Alatreon and Fatalis I feel I have played enough of Iceborne to say that it’s an improvement to everything MHW did.
To keep this short I’ll say that I reviewed MHW based purely off what was available in World, so no clutch claw was included. The addition of the Clutch Claw was such a good idea being able to give all weapons more approaches to combat and giving a new layer to dealing with some of the stellar new fights available in Iceborne. The new moves added to the weapons also echoes what I previously said and was a welcome addition.
The new monsters and areas are as always fantastic and extremely fun to fight especially the likes of Safi’Jiiva, Shara Ishvalda, Velkhana and even some of the normal large monsters like Zinogre and Rajang were also challenging but engaging fights. There was only one monster that I really didn’t enjoy but this was one out of the 70 monsters overall that was really annoying which is pretty good going (it’s Blackveil Vaal Hazak).
The array of smaller additions such as layered armour and weapons as well as new way to get materials through the steam works were very welcome additions and being able to fully customise the look of your character without sacrificing the bonuses of your armour and weapons was something I was hoping I’d be able to do in World but I’m glad it was included in Iceborne.
With that said Iceborne is a near essential expansion to the experience of MHW and adds a whole new games worth of content worthy of its price tag and time investment. MHW and Iceborne have set an incredible standard for the series and I’m excited to play Rise soon.
10/10
To keep this short I’ll say that I reviewed MHW based purely off what was available in World, so no clutch claw was included. The addition of the Clutch Claw was such a good idea being able to give all weapons more approaches to combat and giving a new layer to dealing with some of the stellar new fights available in Iceborne. The new moves added to the weapons also echoes what I previously said and was a welcome addition.
The new monsters and areas are as always fantastic and extremely fun to fight especially the likes of Safi’Jiiva, Shara Ishvalda, Velkhana and even some of the normal large monsters like Zinogre and Rajang were also challenging but engaging fights. There was only one monster that I really didn’t enjoy but this was one out of the 70 monsters overall that was really annoying which is pretty good going (it’s Blackveil Vaal Hazak).
The array of smaller additions such as layered armour and weapons as well as new way to get materials through the steam works were very welcome additions and being able to fully customise the look of your character without sacrificing the bonuses of your armour and weapons was something I was hoping I’d be able to do in World but I’m glad it was included in Iceborne.
With that said Iceborne is a near essential expansion to the experience of MHW and adds a whole new games worth of content worthy of its price tag and time investment. MHW and Iceborne have set an incredible standard for the series and I’m excited to play Rise soon.
10/10
2021
You can kill people with stale bread like it’s made of steel and that’s hilarious
2011
I still can’t get the mr incredibles skin help
2016
This review contains spoilers
FFXV is such a broken, bumbling mess of development hell, under-utilised ideas and characters, botched endgame storyline, janky combat, my car ran out of fuel time to push it (soul), questionable decisions (oh my god the end photo scene) and filled to the brim with tons of dlc and updates to try and fix everything.
But when thinking about the combat, story and just ridiculous design decisions I can’t help but love it. Like I know it’s not good, I cannot give it more than a 5, but there’s just something about this game.
Maybe it’s because of the time I played it with all the jokes me and my friends would make regarding this game but I just can’t hate it. It’s not even a biased thing either because you could give me several paragraphs about what this game try’s and fails to do and I’d fully agree with you.
But they absolutely nail the “out with the lads, where are we going? only god knows” feel with the main 4 feeling super connected and are great characters throughout the game.
Most of them don’t even have big character changing arcs but the group have such well executed personalities that it just works. All of this really makes the final campfire scene hit so much because of how big of a connection they all have.
I know this game sucks, it’s an absolute mess. But I can’t say I didn’t enjoy my time playing it, so much to the point I got the platinum for it 3 years later…
Hate that fishing mini game.
5/10 (10/10)
But when thinking about the combat, story and just ridiculous design decisions I can’t help but love it. Like I know it’s not good, I cannot give it more than a 5, but there’s just something about this game.
Maybe it’s because of the time I played it with all the jokes me and my friends would make regarding this game but I just can’t hate it. It’s not even a biased thing either because you could give me several paragraphs about what this game try’s and fails to do and I’d fully agree with you.
But they absolutely nail the “out with the lads, where are we going? only god knows” feel with the main 4 feeling super connected and are great characters throughout the game.
Most of them don’t even have big character changing arcs but the group have such well executed personalities that it just works. All of this really makes the final campfire scene hit so much because of how big of a connection they all have.
I know this game sucks, it’s an absolute mess. But I can’t say I didn’t enjoy my time playing it, so much to the point I got the platinum for it 3 years later…
Hate that fishing mini game.
5/10 (10/10)
Better than botw in every way despite still having a very simple story. Even if I vastly prefer the dungeon progression and story/characters of previous games, this game still has so much to do and explore that I cannot say it isn’t extremely good on that alone.
Started this 2 years back and never got round to beating it. But after watching ATSV I got the itch to go back and finish it. Overall I really enjoyed it I think the combat is a lot more improved and funner than the previous games but I think the shorter story and less content compared to spider man 2018 averages them both out to be the same for me. Both great games, exited for the sequel.
Fun game that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Nice cast of characters even if the Disney characters were just surface level versions of their film counterparts, except for Donald and Goofy. These Disney worlds were mostly shorted down retellings of their original stories and were mostly fun to go through (mainly some gameplay moments weren’t good) as stepping stones for the greater plot of the game, which were the highlights.
Combat was simple and clean and it never felt too janky at all but a lot of the fights did boil down to how fast I could click X. This time around however it was more engaging than a certain other game I said this about as it is an action game and some bosses do require you to think and were quite fun to fight like some specific endgame bosses. Offensive spells didn’t ever feel like they did much even with magic oriented Keyblades and I would rarely use the skills as I’d be saving MP for Curaga and Aeroga. Overall the combat never got dull however.
Gummi Ship was fine. It wasn’t all that engaging and normally I don’t mind on rail shooters but this was just a bit boring. It’s not like I didn’t mess around with the Gummi Ship garage either I did customise my ship with better parts but it really didn’t make it all that more interesting.
I know this is the first entry In quite a big series but I was intrigued enough by the main characters and world that it’s made me interested in the rest of the series. After I got over the fact that Donald and Goofy are inherently very silly characters and the fact that the game fully sends it with how seriously they take these characters and don’t just disregard them as comic relief I ended up really enjoying them as apart of the main party.
Overall Kingdom Hearts 1 is an inoffensive and fun experience, considering I’ve only heard it gets better from here I’m excited to see what they do.
6/10
Combat was simple and clean and it never felt too janky at all but a lot of the fights did boil down to how fast I could click X. This time around however it was more engaging than a certain other game I said this about as it is an action game and some bosses do require you to think and were quite fun to fight like some specific endgame bosses. Offensive spells didn’t ever feel like they did much even with magic oriented Keyblades and I would rarely use the skills as I’d be saving MP for Curaga and Aeroga. Overall the combat never got dull however.
Gummi Ship was fine. It wasn’t all that engaging and normally I don’t mind on rail shooters but this was just a bit boring. It’s not like I didn’t mess around with the Gummi Ship garage either I did customise my ship with better parts but it really didn’t make it all that more interesting.
I know this is the first entry In quite a big series but I was intrigued enough by the main characters and world that it’s made me interested in the rest of the series. After I got over the fact that Donald and Goofy are inherently very silly characters and the fact that the game fully sends it with how seriously they take these characters and don’t just disregard them as comic relief I ended up really enjoying them as apart of the main party.
Overall Kingdom Hearts 1 is an inoffensive and fun experience, considering I’ve only heard it gets better from here I’m excited to see what they do.
6/10
2021
Monster Hunter Rise feels like the core ideas and mechanics of the game are there and great but get held back massively by being a port of a switch game. Throughout this review I will be comparing to MHW quite a bit as that was the last MH game I played and is apart of the same gen.
Firstly the story of this game was incredibly bare bones. The flagship monster for this game appears for one cutscene and proceeds to die in roughly 15 minutes in a quest not too long after. Magnamalo as a monster is cool and I enjoyed his fight but the build up is non existent and ends way too soon. In comparison to a monster like Nergigante who you repel twice and has enough build up to make him feel like a threat, Magnamalo falls flat hard and it’s a real shame considering how good of a design he has.
Rest of the story follows a pretty similar problem. The rampage never really felt developed on and the appearance and problems Ibushi causes is glossed over and done with very quickly. Narwas even worse for it as you don’t even get to see the resonance as it happens off screen. It all just feels very empty and not enough moment to moment story sections to make me care for the main threats of the game. Once again however design wise the serpents are stunning and their fights are alright but that’s all they’ve got going.
Due to the story being lacklustre the characters suffer also. Despite them being named this time around they don’t get the time to do much or have anything going for them. Even though I thought the characters in world were just okay, they still had the opportunity to interact more because of how the story is structured. Rise doesn’t really give the characters or monsters this chance making the game boil down to just doing hunts with no real link between them excluding the urgent quests. Even then those urgent quests feel quite disconnected and are just like normal hunts.
Like with MHW however, the story for these games is not the primary reason I play these games. I love the lore of the monsters and the world that the games take place in but the actual story I’m fine with being just okay like MHWs. Typically I do like having some kind of strong structure or continuity connecting the quests like MHW but where this game shines the most is in its gameplay.
Rise’s gameplay is incredibly fun. I think the switch skills and move set swapping system was such a good addition to the game and allows for attuning your weapon to whatever you prefer or need. All of these skills don’t get outclassed by their counterpart as each have a specific use that can only be accomplished by using these skills. The Palamutes (mounts) are amazing additions and I’m glad they are going to add something similar to Wilds. Having a mount you can use to freely and quickly traverse the map is great and was needed a lot in MHW.
However this game feels a lot less weighty and impactful with its gameplay as the sound effects and visual effects like screen shake and hit stop aren’t as heavy makes it feel like I’m hitting the monster with a twig at times. The impact is still there for stuff like the hammer and greatsword but unlike MHW where every action felt like there was huge weight behind it, Rise sacrifices that for speedier gameplay which some might prefer.
Visuals are never something I complain about especially since the switch has limited capability but they are obviously lower detail. For the most part this lower detail didn’t bother me as its art style was still incredibly strong and some of the new monsters looked fantastic.
The area design is what I really think this game gets set back by from it being a switch game. Once again in comparison to MHW, there is severely less interaction with the monsters, you and the environment. The areas feel a lot more basic and don’t have these small things that can make hunts unique just off the environment alone. The best example I have is Diablos in MHW and Rise. In MHW I was in the middle of fighting two other monster above this section of desert that solely exists for Diablos to emerge from and engulf the other monsters into it whereas in Rise Diabolos is just another monster in the desert and the environment has nothing unique to interact with.
This was such a huge thing for me in MHW as it was everywhere: the flood taking Rathalos down a cliff, Boulders that can be dropped on monsters, the volcanic eruptions in Elders Recess, The ice crags falling and limiting movement, tons of more examples that made the hunts unpredictable at times and this doesn’t even include certain monsters who will purposely intervene in your fight. None of this was present in Rise and it was a massive shame.
Music as always is brilliant and I really don’t need to comment much on it since this review is long enough. Fits the style of the game and sounds fantastic.
Overall the game is great to put on and get a few hunts in. With small maps and much more favourable options for the hunter it’s easy to hunt a few things and be done within the hour, something that was probably intentional with it being a switch game. MHR doesn’t come without its limitations but I’m still interested to see what Sunbreak has as these games love to save their best for the DLC.
7/10
Firstly the story of this game was incredibly bare bones. The flagship monster for this game appears for one cutscene and proceeds to die in roughly 15 minutes in a quest not too long after. Magnamalo as a monster is cool and I enjoyed his fight but the build up is non existent and ends way too soon. In comparison to a monster like Nergigante who you repel twice and has enough build up to make him feel like a threat, Magnamalo falls flat hard and it’s a real shame considering how good of a design he has.
Rest of the story follows a pretty similar problem. The rampage never really felt developed on and the appearance and problems Ibushi causes is glossed over and done with very quickly. Narwas even worse for it as you don’t even get to see the resonance as it happens off screen. It all just feels very empty and not enough moment to moment story sections to make me care for the main threats of the game. Once again however design wise the serpents are stunning and their fights are alright but that’s all they’ve got going.
Due to the story being lacklustre the characters suffer also. Despite them being named this time around they don’t get the time to do much or have anything going for them. Even though I thought the characters in world were just okay, they still had the opportunity to interact more because of how the story is structured. Rise doesn’t really give the characters or monsters this chance making the game boil down to just doing hunts with no real link between them excluding the urgent quests. Even then those urgent quests feel quite disconnected and are just like normal hunts.
Like with MHW however, the story for these games is not the primary reason I play these games. I love the lore of the monsters and the world that the games take place in but the actual story I’m fine with being just okay like MHWs. Typically I do like having some kind of strong structure or continuity connecting the quests like MHW but where this game shines the most is in its gameplay.
Rise’s gameplay is incredibly fun. I think the switch skills and move set swapping system was such a good addition to the game and allows for attuning your weapon to whatever you prefer or need. All of these skills don’t get outclassed by their counterpart as each have a specific use that can only be accomplished by using these skills. The Palamutes (mounts) are amazing additions and I’m glad they are going to add something similar to Wilds. Having a mount you can use to freely and quickly traverse the map is great and was needed a lot in MHW.
However this game feels a lot less weighty and impactful with its gameplay as the sound effects and visual effects like screen shake and hit stop aren’t as heavy makes it feel like I’m hitting the monster with a twig at times. The impact is still there for stuff like the hammer and greatsword but unlike MHW where every action felt like there was huge weight behind it, Rise sacrifices that for speedier gameplay which some might prefer.
Visuals are never something I complain about especially since the switch has limited capability but they are obviously lower detail. For the most part this lower detail didn’t bother me as its art style was still incredibly strong and some of the new monsters looked fantastic.
The area design is what I really think this game gets set back by from it being a switch game. Once again in comparison to MHW, there is severely less interaction with the monsters, you and the environment. The areas feel a lot more basic and don’t have these small things that can make hunts unique just off the environment alone. The best example I have is Diablos in MHW and Rise. In MHW I was in the middle of fighting two other monster above this section of desert that solely exists for Diablos to emerge from and engulf the other monsters into it whereas in Rise Diabolos is just another monster in the desert and the environment has nothing unique to interact with.
This was such a huge thing for me in MHW as it was everywhere: the flood taking Rathalos down a cliff, Boulders that can be dropped on monsters, the volcanic eruptions in Elders Recess, The ice crags falling and limiting movement, tons of more examples that made the hunts unpredictable at times and this doesn’t even include certain monsters who will purposely intervene in your fight. None of this was present in Rise and it was a massive shame.
Music as always is brilliant and I really don’t need to comment much on it since this review is long enough. Fits the style of the game and sounds fantastic.
Overall the game is great to put on and get a few hunts in. With small maps and much more favourable options for the hunter it’s easy to hunt a few things and be done within the hour, something that was probably intentional with it being a switch game. MHR doesn’t come without its limitations but I’m still interested to see what Sunbreak has as these games love to save their best for the DLC.
7/10
This review contains spoilers
FFVIII is a game that no matter how many words I put into it, I still don’t fully get what they were thinking.
This game is, in almost every single way, a step back from FF7. Aside from the visuals that i am impressed they got working on a ps1, everything in this game in terms of combat, characters, story and world building is a far cry from the series previous entry.
This review is gonna be structured by disc, for every disc I finish I am adding more to this review and seeing how my opinion on the game changes.
Disc 1
After having beaten disc one I’ve come to a number of conclusions. The junction system is an interesting yet counterintuitive mess. The characters fairly one note currently. The story has mostly made sense and been interesting up to the assassination, where the sniper was positioned BEHIND the target that’s covered by a huge parade vehicle. Finally the areas look cool and are visually great but they can confusing at times (sewers, tomb, a lot of the towns).
Let me go into the combat system a little. Leveling your characters actively HINDERS you due to everything being scaled to your level, However that’s not entirely true. Whenever you level up your characters stats go up a little, the problem is that when enemies level up alongside you they gain more than what you gain. This means that if you’re level 20, a fight will be harder than if you’re at level 10 so it’s better to just not do fights altogether. This is enforced by the fact most bosses don’t even give exp and just AP for your Guardian Forces (GFs).
The game even encourages you to not level your characters as you can gain stats via levelling GFs which are what you junction to your characters. Now the levels of these don’t affect the levels of the enemies, So you can have them at high levels and not worry. On top of that, they can learn skills from gaining AP and these skills when equipped can give massive stat increases that essentially make you over levelled for every fight in the game.
Drawing spells is a fine mechanic and equipping them to give stat boosts is a unique feature however this feeds into the not needing to level as you can boost everything through equipping spells. Because of this I don’t want to use my spells as it would lower my stats so it using magic ends up contradicting itself and doesn’t work well. The stat increase from equipping a high number of spells is nothing to scoff at either, just drawing 40 Life magic from one enemy and junctioning a GF that has the ability to put this magic onto HP doubled my health from 500 to 1000, at level 8. This can go further and I can put stuff like Fire onto Strength and be doing a lot more damage than I’m meant to for my level.
The characters I can’t even really comment on right now as It’s too early to say. Selphie has one defining trait and that’s her love for trains. Zell is just there to be the funny comic relief guy. Rinoa has at least something going on with her conflict within her family and her will to change the circumstances around her yet Squall currently is just your average protagonist who has this inner monologue that I’m almost convinced he’s actually saying out loud. Overall they’re just fine and fun characters currently.
I’ve already briefly touched up on the story being alright at the moment with the exception of one section that makes no literal sense but the weird dream sequences or looks into Lagunas life are pretty cool and are the main crux of what I’m interested in currently. Overall having finished disc one I am interested to see what disc two has to offer.
Disc 2
Okay like I expected with the gameplay it’s basically the exact same since disc one but the main things I can really add on to it is some of the discovery’s I’ve made on how truly broken this system is. I’ve discovered that you can transfer magic from one character to another, meaning that Squall now has around 3000ish health and is only level 11. His damage is also ludicrously high after exploring the map not even for 30 minutes and finding a buyable draw point that has ULTIMA for some reason. This makes me do around 3000~ a hit and combined with the darkside skill, it’s upwards of 8000. Because of my ability to now one shot nearly everything the gameplay overall has boiled down to how fast I can click X due to not wanting to use the spells because that would weaken my characters as I’ve stated before. Because of the absurd damage that spells and GFs cannot reach using the GFs in battle is practically useless since they take longer to use so your best option really is just to attack attack and attack.
It’s also incredibly easy to completely break every character you have, just let the GFs learn the correct skills and use card on enemies (later on you can just kill cactuar) and you can gain AP relatively fast. Then just refine your items into good magic and you’ve practically won the game by that point. Completely breaking the game like this is something I really enjoyed doing in FF7 with stuff like magic counter knights of the round, anything to do with mime or final attack spam so being able to do it this early in the game is hilarious and probably the funnest part right now. This might be all I can say on the gameplay as I will probably have the exact same setup and strategy come the final boss.
Although the general narrative of the story has been relatively cohesive up to this point, some parts of the story really do just come out of nowhere. A great example is everything surrounding the Balamb Garden. Why is there an old rustic device that after Squall bashing his head against it a couple times makes the city sized building just MOVE and float over the ocean? Despite it being a cool addition in the story it kinda feels like a cop out that currently doesn’t have much of an explanation and is there for a solution to the incoming missiles. Also the other garden now being able to move must just mean this was something they all are meant to do and not just unique to Balamb.
Then there’s the alien guy, Like who? Suddenly we are told to go talk to the Garden Master and it’s some funny alien man who then we just kill by blowing him up??? This isn’t the first time a game I’ve played just has unexplained surprise aliens but I guess it’s more normal for this series than most so I don’t mind it too much, just a very funny occurrence. I did encounter more of these guys in some northern village after the garden started to move and they seem to worship Laguna in a way and they saved him after he slipped off the mountain.
Speaking of plot points coming out of nowhere, the insane info dump we get at Trabia reveals that every main team member including Seifer but excluding Rinoa are all from the same orphanage. For some reason Irvine decided to drop this on us now and supposedly no one but him remembers because of the side effects of junctioning. Also just to make it seem even more implausible the Matron is of course the Sorceress Edea and the “sis” that Squall mentions in his memories is Ellone. I mean i suppose all the characters now have some kind of connection with each other from the past but all of this being revealed so quickly felt like they really didn’t know how to tell you everything naturally and they had to rush it all out before the confrontation with Edea.
Now knowing that the dream sequences are a look into the past makes them pretty interesting. Also now knowing that Ellone is the one who lets you do this is cool. I’m not entirely sure why she can do that yet but I can only assume her motivations are something to do with changing some tragic event that happened to them all.
Squalls character is slowly getting more interesting. Him feeling like he should be alone because he’s afraid to lose anyone to time is a very nice core theme for him and his inner monologues do reveal a lot about his character that he doesn’t want others to know about. Rinoa is also still pretty good but the rest are about the same, fun personality’s but not much beyond that.
Selphies whole going back to her home that got completely destroyed was one of the worst instances of plot ponts never being given enough time. Her just going “wow this is horrible” to “oh well what’s next” in such quick succession was just outright bad. Even if the intention was to put on a strong face when she’s actually emotionally distraught they don’t convey it well at all and everyone just moves on. Like many things in this game nothing gets time to breathe and it’s just onto the next ridiculous plot point.
Beating disc two has left me with a few answers and a lot more questions. The motivations of Edea currently don’t really make much sense as why would she train a band of elite soldiers to fight the sorceress when she herself is the sorceress. Everything up to this point leaves me questioning where this game is gonna go.
Disc 3
Now this is where everything goes so catastrophically downhill.
I’ll get the fact that the gameplay hasn’t changed or my junctions haven’t changed since disc two so nothing new there.
But everything to do with the story in this section is completely out of nowhere. So we start with finding out that Edea was actually possessed by a sorceress from the future, which still doesn’t explain the point of SeeD. The running theory is if SeeD were to kill Edea then “ultimecia” wouldn’t have a person to control. So unless Edea knew about the fact she was being controlled and set them up for that reason (hasn’t been stated or explained yet) then I don’t really know.
Regardless we quickly visit a ship to try and find Ellone only to find out she’s in a place called Esther. Once we arrived there I couldn’t really fathom as to why we were suddenly in a country sized city that has architecture and technology that looks straight out of a early 2000s “this will be city’s in the future” kind of design. This is where the games story gets very silly to say the least.
We can now, for some unexplained reason, travel to space and several concepts and names just get dropped out of nowhere. We need to “take the lunar gate to space to meet Ellone” like what?? Since when has space travel been a thing? How have they managed to cloak an entire city in some holographic projection? What even is a Lunatic Pandora? And it’s not even like the rest of the continent doesn’t know about this, they were fully aware that Esther existed and has existed for ages, so why are we only hearing anything about this kind of stuff now.
Anyway we get sent off to space in cryo pods??? And suddenly there’s a rectangular structure called “Lunatic Pandora” which only got mentioned to us about 15 minutes ago. Despite our efforts, Pandora makes it to its destination and Squall has to run around the space station for Ellone. And then Rinoa gets possessed, throwing everything into chaos and releases the ancient sorceress Adel after only bypassing TWO LOCKS (awful security). Forgot to mention this is all taking place while the “lunar cry” is happening, an event which these scientists didn’t seem to be doing a good job of preventing. So an absolute maelstrom of monsters beams into the planet and lands on Pandora.
A running trend this game has is events just happing out of nowhere. The Lunar Cry could have been a really cool plot point for the story but because I got told how much of a danger it was about 5 minutes before it happened the game never gives itself time to build up to these big events. I’m not going to care about Pandora or the Lunar Cry if the game doesn’t let the characters care. If this whole sequence of events was built up too similarly to Cloud giving Sephiroth the Black Materia and freeing the Weapons it would be a great part of the story. I think this is a fair comparison since In both situations a main character (Rinoa/Cloud) aid the primary antagonist in a catastrophic event (Freeing Weapon/Seph and Freeing Adel) but its a stark contrast in how much better it was handled in FFVII.
Anyway after all of this happens Rinoa is about to die out in space, her suit has ran out of oxygen. Then they completely throw that out the window by having her emergency supply run out well before Squall can make it to her, meaning she should have died like 10 minutes ago. She ends up being able to breathe somehow and they spin around in space for a bit before the GIANT SPACECRAFT IS CONVENIENTLY FLOATING RIGHT NEXT TO THEM. Said spacecraft has also been lost for 17 YEARS despite it being very close to the space station.
For as much as Ive complained about everything in disc three up to this point, Squall and Rinoa get probably the best scene in this game so far while they are landing the spaceship. Their conversation was a great moment for both their characters and hearing the vocal track was a nice surprise and probably a first for FF games. Despite that I definitely felt like I should have been impacted more, but due to all the recent events and how many sudden turns this game takes it didn’t hit as well as it could’ve.
Speaking about the characters, all but Squall and Rinoa get a thing remotely moving or interesting. I know the game is primarily about those two and they do get a good couple of scenes together but everyone else gets the short end of the stick. I cannot tell you one interesting thing about Zell, Quistis, Irvine and Selphie since the end of disc one. They don’t even feel like a strong bonded team let alone friends in comparison to FFVIIs cast which is going to be my main comparison as these games are back to back.
So after all is done, Rinoa leaves for a grand total of 5 seconds before we get her back and we now have access to an airship, only it’s not nearly as cool as when you get the Highwind as you go to pretty much every area already in the story and there’s little to no new areas to explore, It just serves to make said exploration faster.
At the end of this disc we meet Laguna and go over a rescue mission for Ellone (again) and we head off to Pandora. We fight Seifer, he KILLS ODIN??? and Gilgamesh comes down and deals the final blow. Just after Seifer then runs off with Rinoa and awakens Adel.
Most of this segment may have felt like a plot summary, but that’s because it’s the only way I can talk about what any of that was. This was a completely nonsensical and outlandish turn for this game to go, giving nearly no explanations to the concepts presented previously and have several contrived plot points leaves everything feeling too sudden and having not much weight on the scenes that should feel impactful.
Disc 4
So time compression begins and everything gets extremely out of hand and we end up at the final dungeon. Really not much to say on this dungeon other than it was kinda a slog to kill all of the boss fights and get the ability’s back along with the confusing design of the dungeon really didn’t help. Then we get to the final boss. A 5 phase fight of doing the same thing I’ve done all game. I had to sacrifice less damage for max health because some attacks would one shot me but other than that and the rng of the party members at the start of the fight, it was alright I suppose. It felt very fitting that all my party members were “consumed by time” or whatever and Squall was the only one left.
After finally defeating the final boss the most bizarre set of scenes proceed to play out. After getting once again blue balled into the existence of SeeD (although I’m fairly sure what I stated earlier is true) the game decides to end it with one of the weirdest cutscenes I’ve seen in a game and probably the strangest cutscene in any FF game.
The series of repeating and morphed scenes of Rinoa and Squall were absolutely not how I expected this game to end. Time is compressing I get that but like many other parts of this game this scene is so out of left field. Squall walking through the desert and collapses in Rinoas arms, does he die? Well the final scene after the credits should make you believe he doesn’t. But what if the time compression was successful and they just went through with a faulty plan that ended up failing, it felt like it did fail considering what’s happening. But then Selphies video is definitely after the events of the game. Is it an alternative timeline after the “compression”, I don’t know and I don’t think I ever will. Considering there is an extensive theory on how Squall “died” after the end of disc one (it’s been debunked but still) shows how many questions this ending left for people.
Despite everything I’ve said though I can’t really call this game utterly unplayable. It’s definitely bad and at points very bad, and never really goes beyond okay. But it’s more just so convoluted for absolutely no reason and everything just happens because it “can” rather than if it “should”. I found myself going “what???” at just the extremely strange choices that they made throughout the story and it ended up with me wanting to see if they can repair this already damaged train wreck before it blows up again.
And I can definitely say they didn’t succeed.
3/10
This game is, in almost every single way, a step back from FF7. Aside from the visuals that i am impressed they got working on a ps1, everything in this game in terms of combat, characters, story and world building is a far cry from the series previous entry.
This review is gonna be structured by disc, for every disc I finish I am adding more to this review and seeing how my opinion on the game changes.
Disc 1
After having beaten disc one I’ve come to a number of conclusions. The junction system is an interesting yet counterintuitive mess. The characters fairly one note currently. The story has mostly made sense and been interesting up to the assassination, where the sniper was positioned BEHIND the target that’s covered by a huge parade vehicle. Finally the areas look cool and are visually great but they can confusing at times (sewers, tomb, a lot of the towns).
Let me go into the combat system a little. Leveling your characters actively HINDERS you due to everything being scaled to your level, However that’s not entirely true. Whenever you level up your characters stats go up a little, the problem is that when enemies level up alongside you they gain more than what you gain. This means that if you’re level 20, a fight will be harder than if you’re at level 10 so it’s better to just not do fights altogether. This is enforced by the fact most bosses don’t even give exp and just AP for your Guardian Forces (GFs).
The game even encourages you to not level your characters as you can gain stats via levelling GFs which are what you junction to your characters. Now the levels of these don’t affect the levels of the enemies, So you can have them at high levels and not worry. On top of that, they can learn skills from gaining AP and these skills when equipped can give massive stat increases that essentially make you over levelled for every fight in the game.
Drawing spells is a fine mechanic and equipping them to give stat boosts is a unique feature however this feeds into the not needing to level as you can boost everything through equipping spells. Because of this I don’t want to use my spells as it would lower my stats so it using magic ends up contradicting itself and doesn’t work well. The stat increase from equipping a high number of spells is nothing to scoff at either, just drawing 40 Life magic from one enemy and junctioning a GF that has the ability to put this magic onto HP doubled my health from 500 to 1000, at level 8. This can go further and I can put stuff like Fire onto Strength and be doing a lot more damage than I’m meant to for my level.
The characters I can’t even really comment on right now as It’s too early to say. Selphie has one defining trait and that’s her love for trains. Zell is just there to be the funny comic relief guy. Rinoa has at least something going on with her conflict within her family and her will to change the circumstances around her yet Squall currently is just your average protagonist who has this inner monologue that I’m almost convinced he’s actually saying out loud. Overall they’re just fine and fun characters currently.
I’ve already briefly touched up on the story being alright at the moment with the exception of one section that makes no literal sense but the weird dream sequences or looks into Lagunas life are pretty cool and are the main crux of what I’m interested in currently. Overall having finished disc one I am interested to see what disc two has to offer.
Disc 2
Okay like I expected with the gameplay it’s basically the exact same since disc one but the main things I can really add on to it is some of the discovery’s I’ve made on how truly broken this system is. I’ve discovered that you can transfer magic from one character to another, meaning that Squall now has around 3000ish health and is only level 11. His damage is also ludicrously high after exploring the map not even for 30 minutes and finding a buyable draw point that has ULTIMA for some reason. This makes me do around 3000~ a hit and combined with the darkside skill, it’s upwards of 8000. Because of my ability to now one shot nearly everything the gameplay overall has boiled down to how fast I can click X due to not wanting to use the spells because that would weaken my characters as I’ve stated before. Because of the absurd damage that spells and GFs cannot reach using the GFs in battle is practically useless since they take longer to use so your best option really is just to attack attack and attack.
It’s also incredibly easy to completely break every character you have, just let the GFs learn the correct skills and use card on enemies (later on you can just kill cactuar) and you can gain AP relatively fast. Then just refine your items into good magic and you’ve practically won the game by that point. Completely breaking the game like this is something I really enjoyed doing in FF7 with stuff like magic counter knights of the round, anything to do with mime or final attack spam so being able to do it this early in the game is hilarious and probably the funnest part right now. This might be all I can say on the gameplay as I will probably have the exact same setup and strategy come the final boss.
Although the general narrative of the story has been relatively cohesive up to this point, some parts of the story really do just come out of nowhere. A great example is everything surrounding the Balamb Garden. Why is there an old rustic device that after Squall bashing his head against it a couple times makes the city sized building just MOVE and float over the ocean? Despite it being a cool addition in the story it kinda feels like a cop out that currently doesn’t have much of an explanation and is there for a solution to the incoming missiles. Also the other garden now being able to move must just mean this was something they all are meant to do and not just unique to Balamb.
Then there’s the alien guy, Like who? Suddenly we are told to go talk to the Garden Master and it’s some funny alien man who then we just kill by blowing him up??? This isn’t the first time a game I’ve played just has unexplained surprise aliens but I guess it’s more normal for this series than most so I don’t mind it too much, just a very funny occurrence. I did encounter more of these guys in some northern village after the garden started to move and they seem to worship Laguna in a way and they saved him after he slipped off the mountain.
Speaking of plot points coming out of nowhere, the insane info dump we get at Trabia reveals that every main team member including Seifer but excluding Rinoa are all from the same orphanage. For some reason Irvine decided to drop this on us now and supposedly no one but him remembers because of the side effects of junctioning. Also just to make it seem even more implausible the Matron is of course the Sorceress Edea and the “sis” that Squall mentions in his memories is Ellone. I mean i suppose all the characters now have some kind of connection with each other from the past but all of this being revealed so quickly felt like they really didn’t know how to tell you everything naturally and they had to rush it all out before the confrontation with Edea.
Now knowing that the dream sequences are a look into the past makes them pretty interesting. Also now knowing that Ellone is the one who lets you do this is cool. I’m not entirely sure why she can do that yet but I can only assume her motivations are something to do with changing some tragic event that happened to them all.
Squalls character is slowly getting more interesting. Him feeling like he should be alone because he’s afraid to lose anyone to time is a very nice core theme for him and his inner monologues do reveal a lot about his character that he doesn’t want others to know about. Rinoa is also still pretty good but the rest are about the same, fun personality’s but not much beyond that.
Selphies whole going back to her home that got completely destroyed was one of the worst instances of plot ponts never being given enough time. Her just going “wow this is horrible” to “oh well what’s next” in such quick succession was just outright bad. Even if the intention was to put on a strong face when she’s actually emotionally distraught they don’t convey it well at all and everyone just moves on. Like many things in this game nothing gets time to breathe and it’s just onto the next ridiculous plot point.
Beating disc two has left me with a few answers and a lot more questions. The motivations of Edea currently don’t really make much sense as why would she train a band of elite soldiers to fight the sorceress when she herself is the sorceress. Everything up to this point leaves me questioning where this game is gonna go.
Disc 3
Now this is where everything goes so catastrophically downhill.
I’ll get the fact that the gameplay hasn’t changed or my junctions haven’t changed since disc two so nothing new there.
But everything to do with the story in this section is completely out of nowhere. So we start with finding out that Edea was actually possessed by a sorceress from the future, which still doesn’t explain the point of SeeD. The running theory is if SeeD were to kill Edea then “ultimecia” wouldn’t have a person to control. So unless Edea knew about the fact she was being controlled and set them up for that reason (hasn’t been stated or explained yet) then I don’t really know.
Regardless we quickly visit a ship to try and find Ellone only to find out she’s in a place called Esther. Once we arrived there I couldn’t really fathom as to why we were suddenly in a country sized city that has architecture and technology that looks straight out of a early 2000s “this will be city’s in the future” kind of design. This is where the games story gets very silly to say the least.
We can now, for some unexplained reason, travel to space and several concepts and names just get dropped out of nowhere. We need to “take the lunar gate to space to meet Ellone” like what?? Since when has space travel been a thing? How have they managed to cloak an entire city in some holographic projection? What even is a Lunatic Pandora? And it’s not even like the rest of the continent doesn’t know about this, they were fully aware that Esther existed and has existed for ages, so why are we only hearing anything about this kind of stuff now.
Anyway we get sent off to space in cryo pods??? And suddenly there’s a rectangular structure called “Lunatic Pandora” which only got mentioned to us about 15 minutes ago. Despite our efforts, Pandora makes it to its destination and Squall has to run around the space station for Ellone. And then Rinoa gets possessed, throwing everything into chaos and releases the ancient sorceress Adel after only bypassing TWO LOCKS (awful security). Forgot to mention this is all taking place while the “lunar cry” is happening, an event which these scientists didn’t seem to be doing a good job of preventing. So an absolute maelstrom of monsters beams into the planet and lands on Pandora.
A running trend this game has is events just happing out of nowhere. The Lunar Cry could have been a really cool plot point for the story but because I got told how much of a danger it was about 5 minutes before it happened the game never gives itself time to build up to these big events. I’m not going to care about Pandora or the Lunar Cry if the game doesn’t let the characters care. If this whole sequence of events was built up too similarly to Cloud giving Sephiroth the Black Materia and freeing the Weapons it would be a great part of the story. I think this is a fair comparison since In both situations a main character (Rinoa/Cloud) aid the primary antagonist in a catastrophic event (Freeing Weapon/Seph and Freeing Adel) but its a stark contrast in how much better it was handled in FFVII.
Anyway after all of this happens Rinoa is about to die out in space, her suit has ran out of oxygen. Then they completely throw that out the window by having her emergency supply run out well before Squall can make it to her, meaning she should have died like 10 minutes ago. She ends up being able to breathe somehow and they spin around in space for a bit before the GIANT SPACECRAFT IS CONVENIENTLY FLOATING RIGHT NEXT TO THEM. Said spacecraft has also been lost for 17 YEARS despite it being very close to the space station.
For as much as Ive complained about everything in disc three up to this point, Squall and Rinoa get probably the best scene in this game so far while they are landing the spaceship. Their conversation was a great moment for both their characters and hearing the vocal track was a nice surprise and probably a first for FF games. Despite that I definitely felt like I should have been impacted more, but due to all the recent events and how many sudden turns this game takes it didn’t hit as well as it could’ve.
Speaking about the characters, all but Squall and Rinoa get a thing remotely moving or interesting. I know the game is primarily about those two and they do get a good couple of scenes together but everyone else gets the short end of the stick. I cannot tell you one interesting thing about Zell, Quistis, Irvine and Selphie since the end of disc one. They don’t even feel like a strong bonded team let alone friends in comparison to FFVIIs cast which is going to be my main comparison as these games are back to back.
So after all is done, Rinoa leaves for a grand total of 5 seconds before we get her back and we now have access to an airship, only it’s not nearly as cool as when you get the Highwind as you go to pretty much every area already in the story and there’s little to no new areas to explore, It just serves to make said exploration faster.
At the end of this disc we meet Laguna and go over a rescue mission for Ellone (again) and we head off to Pandora. We fight Seifer, he KILLS ODIN??? and Gilgamesh comes down and deals the final blow. Just after Seifer then runs off with Rinoa and awakens Adel.
Most of this segment may have felt like a plot summary, but that’s because it’s the only way I can talk about what any of that was. This was a completely nonsensical and outlandish turn for this game to go, giving nearly no explanations to the concepts presented previously and have several contrived plot points leaves everything feeling too sudden and having not much weight on the scenes that should feel impactful.
Disc 4
So time compression begins and everything gets extremely out of hand and we end up at the final dungeon. Really not much to say on this dungeon other than it was kinda a slog to kill all of the boss fights and get the ability’s back along with the confusing design of the dungeon really didn’t help. Then we get to the final boss. A 5 phase fight of doing the same thing I’ve done all game. I had to sacrifice less damage for max health because some attacks would one shot me but other than that and the rng of the party members at the start of the fight, it was alright I suppose. It felt very fitting that all my party members were “consumed by time” or whatever and Squall was the only one left.
After finally defeating the final boss the most bizarre set of scenes proceed to play out. After getting once again blue balled into the existence of SeeD (although I’m fairly sure what I stated earlier is true) the game decides to end it with one of the weirdest cutscenes I’ve seen in a game and probably the strangest cutscene in any FF game.
The series of repeating and morphed scenes of Rinoa and Squall were absolutely not how I expected this game to end. Time is compressing I get that but like many other parts of this game this scene is so out of left field. Squall walking through the desert and collapses in Rinoas arms, does he die? Well the final scene after the credits should make you believe he doesn’t. But what if the time compression was successful and they just went through with a faulty plan that ended up failing, it felt like it did fail considering what’s happening. But then Selphies video is definitely after the events of the game. Is it an alternative timeline after the “compression”, I don’t know and I don’t think I ever will. Considering there is an extensive theory on how Squall “died” after the end of disc one (it’s been debunked but still) shows how many questions this ending left for people.
Despite everything I’ve said though I can’t really call this game utterly unplayable. It’s definitely bad and at points very bad, and never really goes beyond okay. But it’s more just so convoluted for absolutely no reason and everything just happens because it “can” rather than if it “should”. I found myself going “what???” at just the extremely strange choices that they made throughout the story and it ended up with me wanting to see if they can repair this already damaged train wreck before it blows up again.
And I can definitely say they didn’t succeed.
3/10
A phenomenal, entertaining mystery game from start to finish. Extremely interesting concepts that are executed well and the interwoven gameplay mechanics with the story was really cool. Characters with great writing and fun personalities throughout the game that had that perfect Ace Attorney feel from the original trilogy.
The game constantly made me keep thinking of new theories to the questions the game laid out, some exceeded my expectations and were amazingly done, others I felt could have had a bit of work or a change around.
As always these games have brilliant soundtracks and fitted the mood and feel of the game and the scenes perfectly. I played with the original soundtrack, but the remastered soundtrack is just as good and both are great ways to experience the game.
Overall the game is amazing and is very Shu Takumi and feels just like experiencing a final Ace Attorney case, I only feel some parts of the end could have been done differently.
8/10
The game constantly made me keep thinking of new theories to the questions the game laid out, some exceeded my expectations and were amazingly done, others I felt could have had a bit of work or a change around.
As always these games have brilliant soundtracks and fitted the mood and feel of the game and the scenes perfectly. I played with the original soundtrack, but the remastered soundtrack is just as good and both are great ways to experience the game.
Overall the game is amazing and is very Shu Takumi and feels just like experiencing a final Ace Attorney case, I only feel some parts of the end could have been done differently.
8/10
As this was my first Monster Hunter game this left a great impression of the series after putting it off for several years thinking “damn, I know I’d like this if I properly tried it again.”and as it turns out I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.
The few complaints I have with the game boil down to some monsters feeling a bit tedious and having move sets that felt clunky or awkward to work around but there was very few out of the base games 30 plus large monsters that really did this and the majority of the hunts were fantastic.
My only other complaint lies at lack of character the characters had. I know the game is “monster” hunter so I didn’t really go into this expecting groundbreaking character writing as all the attention to detail and world building would obviously focus on the monsters but it would of been nice if the characters even got names rather than just titles.
I feel what put me off this game for so long was that I just didn’t find the right weapon to use. Since the game offers 14 different weapons types that all vary greatly in play style I feel that there’s an option for everyone who tries the game it’s just that you need to find the one that clicks, for me that was the Insect Glaive as being able to interact and knock down monsters from the sky added a new layer onto the gameplay that is very engaging.
The attention to the monsters AI is really intricate and incredibly well designed as there’s tons of unique interactions the monsters can have with the player, environment or even other monsters through turf wars or just both of their attacks working so well together that it never really looked strange and flowed naturally.
I never really felt the grind for materials for your gear was too egregious and the majority of the time I could get everything I needed with 5 to 10 hunts. This speeds up greatly doing hunts online which is always a blast.
The music is overall great and really shines in its unique tracks for the Elder Dragons and the environments all felt fun to explore and never got dull to have to revisit.
Overall an extremely enjoyable game that once you get used to the weapon that you’ve chosen it becomes highly engaging and has included some of the funnest fights I’ve played in a while. Would recommend anyone give it a try.
8/10
The few complaints I have with the game boil down to some monsters feeling a bit tedious and having move sets that felt clunky or awkward to work around but there was very few out of the base games 30 plus large monsters that really did this and the majority of the hunts were fantastic.
My only other complaint lies at lack of character the characters had. I know the game is “monster” hunter so I didn’t really go into this expecting groundbreaking character writing as all the attention to detail and world building would obviously focus on the monsters but it would of been nice if the characters even got names rather than just titles.
I feel what put me off this game for so long was that I just didn’t find the right weapon to use. Since the game offers 14 different weapons types that all vary greatly in play style I feel that there’s an option for everyone who tries the game it’s just that you need to find the one that clicks, for me that was the Insect Glaive as being able to interact and knock down monsters from the sky added a new layer onto the gameplay that is very engaging.
The attention to the monsters AI is really intricate and incredibly well designed as there’s tons of unique interactions the monsters can have with the player, environment or even other monsters through turf wars or just both of their attacks working so well together that it never really looked strange and flowed naturally.
I never really felt the grind for materials for your gear was too egregious and the majority of the time I could get everything I needed with 5 to 10 hunts. This speeds up greatly doing hunts online which is always a blast.
The music is overall great and really shines in its unique tracks for the Elder Dragons and the environments all felt fun to explore and never got dull to have to revisit.
Overall an extremely enjoyable game that once you get used to the weapon that you’ve chosen it becomes highly engaging and has included some of the funnest fights I’ve played in a while. Would recommend anyone give it a try.
8/10
2007
Sometimes all you need is a man to go yippie wahoo 👍
This game hits like an absolute truck if you’ve played all the previous games and highly advise you do just that as the payoff is incredibly worth it. (even 7, there is heavy spoilers for that game by the end.)
Does nearly everything perfectly. The best mainline brawler combat for Kiryu we’ve gotten. Extremely good writing for Kiryus character as he gets one of the best scenes in the series by a long shot. An incredibly well written story despite how short it was yet it was well paced and intriguing throughout as it also clears up so many questions from 6 and 7.
Gaiden has single-handedly made 8 my most anticipated game for next year. Kiryu is my second dad.
10/10
Does nearly everything perfectly. The best mainline brawler combat for Kiryu we’ve gotten. Extremely good writing for Kiryus character as he gets one of the best scenes in the series by a long shot. An incredibly well written story despite how short it was yet it was well paced and intriguing throughout as it also clears up so many questions from 6 and 7.
Gaiden has single-handedly made 8 my most anticipated game for next year. Kiryu is my second dad.
10/10
1998
Games good, occasionally.
6/10
6/10