A pretty good effort for their first full on JRPG. While a bit bare bones, the game is mechanically solid, and pretty nice to look at.

Coming at this one as a newcomer to Granblue, I thought the introduction to the characters and the world was well done, with lots of lore to read for catching up. I thought the story as a whole was pretty bland, with not a lot of character development or unique ideas, just a pretty straight forward anime filler arc. The main story was surprisingly short, with small a handful of unique locations to explore, and only one of them being somewhat nonlinear. Side quests were also extremely basic, having only a small blurb of text for each one along with a list of enemies to defeat. The quests you can receive from the quest counter help to increase replayability, and kind of blend the mobile game structure into Relink, allowing for quick bursts of combat and grinding without any hassle.

The combat is luckily pretty fun, though a bit simple once you find a character you really like. All of them have a short list of combos and special attacks, so mastery does not take long. Personally, I think this game would be a lot more fun to play with the ability to swap characters mid battle, similar to ff7 Remake. Some sort of elemental combo system like Genshin Impact or multi-character combos of some kind could bring the gameplay to a new level.

Hoping Cygames continues to put out full console games, since they have made some of the more engaging mobile games that I've tried. I think they could knock a second game out of the park if they go for a more traditional RPG structure with an actual world to explore, a deep story, and meaningful character arcs.

This is the New Super Mario Bros. U of Sonic games. It functions, it overall plays pretty well, the graphics are clean and simple, but wow is it just so bland.

For starters, I appreciate that they went with all new zones for this one. No green hill zone or chemical plant, thank God. Some of the stage gimmicks were kinda neat, like the big drone in press factory. I just wish this game had more of a unique style/identity, which most Sonic games have no problem with. It just lacks that unique Sonic vibe, and the OST isn't doing it any favors.

I thought the emerald powers were a really solid concept, but went way underutilized, at least in my playthrough. Most of them just have highly specific use cases, and in the moment when I'm focused on going fast, I don't stop to think about opening up the ability wheel.

Collectables were also pretty lame, since they are restricted to the online multiplayer. A simple incentive could have involved letting players use their custom character in the main game.

Overall, a solid attempt. The gameplay fundamentals are solid, and a decent portion of the stages were fun to play through. I just can't justify this game being $60, since Sonic Mania is overall more complete, more fun, and far less cost.

Its a wonder that I actually played this game all the way through, considering it has so many classic RPG mechanics that I tend to despise, along with a pretty disappointing story, and somewhat bland characters.

From what little I knew about Star Ocean going into this game, I was expecting a sci-fi cross fantasy adventure, but what I got was a vanilla fantasy adventure with a dash of sci-fi at the beginning and end of the game. Only two party members actually come from the sci-fi side of things, and both wield basic fantasy weapons. The story is just a basic "go and beat the demon king" with extra twists toward the beginning and end involving time travel and advanced technology. Was really hoping for some deeper interactions between characters from different planets and some unique characters arcs, but none of them really get the time they need to feel unique. The whole pick your own party thing seems like a great strength for this game's replay value, but I feel it hurts the story more than it helps gameplay wise.

Battles are very straightforward and don't really require much of the player. Most of the challenge comes from properly equipping your party, and positioning on the battlefield. For such a basic battle system, it stinks that random encounters are constant everywhere except towns.

This game also has so many little systems to learn through the main Skill system. The game wants you to constantly experiment with these systems since so many of the good pieces of equipment come from crafting, smithing, etc. But then barely explains any of it, and makes all success rates extremely low unless you are good at a couple other systems, have a lucky item, play a certain song, etc. Just found these systems more cumbersome and picky than fun and encouraging.

All that being said, there were enough enjoyable portions to this game that made it worth getting through. For one, I really appreciated the PS1 style graphics, with expressive spritework and nostalgic pre-rendered backgrounds. Also, despite the combat being simple, it got me through the game without feeling tired of it. The ability to change characters at any point was appreciated, and encouraged me to try out new characters as I got them.