Roadwarden is a surprisingly well written text adventure that felt to me like experiencing a visual novel (A genre I have not explored too much yet), the prose striked a great balance, easy to read but complex enough and added great depth to descriptions and was (as should be in a game like this) one of the main reasons the game is as inmersive as it is.

Exploring the unnamed peninsula for the first time is a such a captivating experience, in this fantasy-like yet grounded world that forces you to plan your days ahead if you hope to achieve a good ending for your character. I found myself submerged by the incredible soundtrack and intrigued by the many mysteries of this ruthless region.

I have only played once, and my ending wasn't all that great, but I know there is a lot that I've missed and suspect that the game has a good deal of replayability.

Each place felt unique and had a different story, interesting tasks and many different characters. Conversations felt natural and it felt good to earn the trust of the village leaders.

I will keep the OST in my personal playlist , and hope to come back to unsolve the riddles I left unriddled and get a better ending for the roadwarden.

(https://youtu.be/jbL7C3Ucg_A?si=rgOpJBzWh-UtKcGc)

Damn, Square Enix once again.

Triangle Strategy gets off with a really great start, the opening chapters have a gripping narrative and present a varied cast of characters, the first decisions you make change the following chapters quite a bit, but don't betray your expectations of their impact. The final 3 chapters showcase great closure to the narrative and great character arcs, or at least it was in the case of the ending I chose, which was bittersweet, but interesting.

It is somewhere in the middle of the game that this game felt like it was being too ambitious for it's own good, promising always more than it could deliver.

Triangle Strategy (almost) always does an amazing job at presenting puzzling situations to the player, and laying a quality selection of decisions available to you regarding the circumstances. Most of the decisions symbolizing a certain ideal out of the three the game focuses on when it comes to this system, although sometimes I'd debate wether a choice or a dialogue option doesn't really fit a different ideal.

Even then, the decisions are usually cool alternatives and many times there is no right answer, which is how it should be. The characters involved present valid arguments and the game makes use of it's characteristic decision making mechanic, the "scales of conviction".

The real issue I have when it comes to the decisions is how sometimes they fail to trick you into thinking they mattered, cause yes, many of this decisions don't end up having an impact. Many serve only as momentaneus different routes that end up merging after a few chapters, ocasionally even in a way that doesn't feel organic, which is the worse part (specially a certain decision in chapter 11).

Sometimes, the issue regarding the decision comes from the stakes. The game tries to tell you that sometimes one needs make rough choices and places you on the kind of situations where a sacrifice must be made, but always gives you the chance to take the " I want it all" kind of choice and it only just causes you to have a more difficult encounter. The worse part is making a sacrifice for roleplay reasons and then getting gaslighted into thinking you are the worst piece of shit ever. This, is not the norm, but it happened often enough to bother me.

When it comes to it's characters, I think the pool is too big for gameplay reasons, so all character development is almost exclusively focused on the main cast, sadly many members of the main cast recieve very superficial treatment. However, the ones that recieve the game's full attention mostly shine, and do so during the entirety of the game.

The villains are decent, some are weaker than others but both Gustadolph and Avlora were really cool, specially Avlora's development. When it comes to Hyzante some of the Saintly seven I enjoyed Exharme, Idore and Lyla.

I really liked the character development Roland and Benedict recieved in the ending route I followed, and Roland is the best character consistently throughout the whole game and I specially enjoyed him in the final chapters (although as I said, I liked him during the whole game), and Benedict was quite good as well.

The combat was quite good , at least on hard difficulty, specially on certain maps that gave it a certain twist, each character was quite unique and had innovative gameplay ideas, I found it to be quite good for the TRPG standard. The difficulty curve was a bit weird at the start but as you get upgrades and recieve new tools it gets better.

I also cannot finish without mention how beautiful the game looks, the game is absolutely gorgeous, maps , sprites and portraits all look incredibly good. And the OST is amazing, as expected from a Square Enix jrpg.

As I was hinting at the beginning of my review, I believe the end product is a concequence of Square Enix's modus operandi. Favoring certain development teams while misstreating others. The game is very ambitious and delivers on many aspects of the game, and achieves it's promises in both the beguinning and the end, but made some deterring mistakes through the middle that gravely affected my overall experience, specially the ones regarding the false illusion of choice and the feeling of stakes being fake in some very few scenarios. Even felt a little burnt out and some parts felt a bit sloggish. It did nevertheless deliver in both the plot and character departments and provided a good combat experience. I can't help but think that maybe if they weren't so ambitious or spent just a bit more time on certain parts of the game the final product would be twice as good, but who knows, perhaps the few mistakes it made clouded my view and affected my experience more than it should have, which is a shame, because I really felt in love with the first chapters of the game, and the ending managed to satisfy me despite my gripes.

I will 100% replay this, and follow different routes and perhaps my opinion about certain aspects changes when I see how different it really is.

Más de lo mismo sin perder nada de encanto, todo lo contrario. Quizá he pecado de pasármelo demasiado rápido y no pararme a disfrutarlo como debería, aunque lo haya completado al 100%, pero me ha parecido simplemente una versión mejorada del primero, y ya era un juego casi perfecto a excepción de su gameplay, que es en lo que en esta secuela se da el verdadero salto diferencial. Por ponerle otra pega, el lore tiene menos mística (he echado en falta una tontería como los huesos coleccionables y sus descripciones que era una de mis cosas favoritas en el anterior) y las cutscenes también

Una banda sonora aún más excepcional que la de su antecesor, un diseño de bosses (hay tres en concreto que me han parecido de lo mejor que he visto nunca) y en general una jugabilidad tan fluida que hace que Blasphemous II pase a ser para mí uno de los candidatos al GOTY desde ya.

Obra maestra portentosa como pocas y el mejor ejemplo de cómo se debe de hacer una continuación con maestría.

Top tier track: Corona de Siete Azahares

My first metroidvania.

I have never been a fan of platformers and I still think this is not really my kind of game, regardless of that I have been able to enjoy it.

It is hard to believe that this game is 30 years old, the ambience is unbelievably well achieved thanks to the visuals which make each area iconic and is supported by an outstanding sound design.

The level design is remarkable, but I will say I didn't enjoy when the game forces you to backtrack. Arriving at an area that you have already explored earlier with a newly revealed shortcut and having to go all the way there just by backtracking are two completely different things. Super Metroid sometimes manages to make interesting shortcuts with it's upgrade system, but forgets to do so in some scenarios, forcing you to go all the way back where you came from (not just a few rooms away) a copious amount of times.

Some rooms where platforming was needed seemed to drag for too long, specially when provided with some foes and proyectiles along the way for increased anxiety.

The movement was smoother than I expected overall, but I struggled with the jump, specially with wall-jumping and using the space suit roll jump.

Despite all that, the exploration of new zones always feels fresh, and the upgrade system not only provides with a sense of progression of Samus's power level but also providing a variety of tools to delve deeper into each area and progress towards the next one.

Many of the upgrades seemed very advanced for the time where this game came out, for example , the grappling hook feels surprisingly smooth. By the end of the game Samus's arsenal has changed so much that it almost feels like another game, also making dealing with enemies much easier and satisfactory. I had one huge issue with the arsenal tho, and it's swapping between weapons, which felt incredibly clunky probably because the console lacked enough buttons or maybe because I played this with an Xbox controller.

I have also tried practicing some techniques like bomb jumping and wall jumping, although they were useful to me in a small number of situations as I'm not any kind of speedrunner, I can begin to see and appreciate how this game influenced the world of speedrunning and how the developers took care in making it possible.

My favorite part of the game were the first few zones, I feel this is where I enjoyed the exploration and ambience the most, every area felt unique and I really like the abandoned and hostile planet it helped to picture, I enjoyed the wrecked ship as well. The ending was pretty cool and the areas were visually impressive but having to backtrack and getting stuck not knowing how to progress kind of worsened my overall experience (I probably should be more patient with this kind of games, can't help it tho it's my first metroidvania). I have the feeling that I will appreciate this game much more when I come back to it in the future after tackling some other games of the same genre. With my platforming skills honed and the patience required to tackle the genre ( I was looking foward to other titles that I mean to play in the following days, which stressed me to finish this one faster).

Overall this game surprised me and helped understand how ahead of it's time it truly was, I will surely come back to it in the future.

I never played the original game, probably won't do this justice so I'll keep it short.

I feel I've figured out quite some things about life, as someone in their mid twenties. Even so, sometimes one cannot help but waver about what do they truly want, what truly is important to them and many other questions that strike our minds from time to time.

This game delves into these uncertainties and much more, on what gives us purpose and what keeps us going foward, what it truly means to be alive. It tells us that to live is to suffer, to bond, to forge memories that will make us what we are and we will keep forever, to accept what we cannot change and to change what we can. Always accompanied with the fateful reminder that to live is to die.

I feel like deep down most of us know this, even if we struggle to come to terms with it which is even harder in modern society, we are constantly told that only success regarding your ambitious career path or job can lead to a truly fulfilling life, but our hearts know otherwise.

In this game, you will accompany many people on their journey to find one's purpose and meaning, and while doing so finding your own. Rushing your way through days and months with an addictive calendar system, making sure to make the best out of every afternoon and evening to max every social link and social stat so you can enjoy the wonderfull characterization that this game offers. The soundtrack is breathtaking and I cannot overstate how much I appreciate how varied it is and how it accompanies so well the state of the game you are currently in.

The gameplay is fun, played it on hard difficulty even if I was playing on easy for a while, which made it boring, so I ended up going back to hard not to regret it.

The themes are all over the place, everything fits them in the game even if some style may have been lost with the remake.

I have always struggled with the concept of death, the death of others and my own. This game resonated with me on a very personal level and I will cherish my memories of it.

"The arcana is the means by which all is revealed. Celebrate life grandeur, it's brilliance, it's magnificence."

My only regret is not having played this back when i was a teenager.This game truly is an ode to life, and it's absolutely beautiful.

Un comienzo sencillo para una de las franquicias más importantes de la historia de los videojuegos. Todo está bien aquí, a excepción de la dificultad que es prácticamente inexistente salvo en su jefe final que te obliga a farmear muchos niveles porque el salto que pega respecto a los enemigos anteriores es absurdamente exagerado.

A nivel artístico y musical, de sobresaliente, eso sí, al menos en la versión de GBA.

Top tier track: Opening Theme

Juegazo, completado al día siguiente de su salida en apenas 5 horitas con ambos personajes (grata sorpresa esto, por cierto). Quiero dar mi enhorabuena a Carlos Azuaga por idear este pedazo de proyecto y no haberse venido abajo ante tanto retraso y la magnitud de publicar algo así por primera vez, y también a toda la gente que ha participado en él porque ha sido fantástico, una pena que la espera haya sido tan larga para algo que ha durado tan poco en mis manos, pero no me quejaré, porque quizá la única pega que puedo sacar es que se me ha hecho algo más sencillo de lo que esperaba, pero es justamente lo que necesitaba ahora.

Contentísimo de aparecer en los créditos y de haber sido backer de algo tan chulo. Eso sí, solo pido una cosilla, por favor, subid la banda sonora ya a Youtube o Spotify, necesito escucharla en bucle durante los próximos días y convertirla en mi nueva adicción (Yuzo Koshiro, que nunca defrauda, y el resto de músicos han hecho un trabajazo de locos, pero me gustaría saber quién ha compuesto cada canción).

Top tier track: Stage 7 (por favor necesito escucharla de nuevo ya jajaja)

Inolvidable. Es demencial imaginar todo lo que supuso este videojuego en su época, y como se las apañaron para meter esta barbaridad en una NES, sencillamente colosal en todos y cada uno de sus aspectos. La banda sonora, es un auténtico logro y emociona a cualquier persona que sienta pasión por este arte.

Y además, cierra la historia con una narrativa muy adelantada a su era. No es difícil saber por qué este juego es legendario, y lo querré mucho siempre.

Top tier track: Eternal Wind

It is so clear that this game suffered issues regarding it's development.

I didn't enjoy Nero's gameplay too much, at first it seemed interesting but gets old pretty quick, specially after being able to play Dante in the second half of the game.

Nero is also kind of annoying as a character, not to the point that I actively dislike him but just not interesting at all. He is cocky and tries to be funny but seems to lack the charisma Dante does. Basicly ends up as an edgier and more boring copy of Dante.

The story is mediocre, I found the moment where a big baddy speedruns revealing his true plan to Nero very funny.

Most of the bosses are good, except maybe some of the last bosses, the problem lies in the fact that they recicle most of them not only once, but twice. Imagine facing the same bosses from the beginning of the game THREE TIMES.

The game improves drastically when you get your hands on Dante, the gameplay is fluid and an overall improvement on DMC 3, the weapons are unique and feel great. Not only the gameplay improves but Dante is as charismatic as ever and a thousand times more interesting than Nero as a character so the game as a whole improves with him around. Even if you fight the same bosses you already did before.

backtracking is annoying but I thought it would be worse.

As I said, the game starts strong with interesting new mechanics and bosses, becomes a bit stale somewhere around the middle and kicks it up again when you play as Dante only to let you down after a few missions forcing you to go back to Nero and facing recycled bosses and some annoying new ones.

It doesn't bring too much new to the table but serves as context for Nero and provides some gameplay improvements, has some nice bosses and highlights plus it's nice to see Dante again.