51 reviews liked by FFXIIKD


To preface my review when I first played this game on release I strongly disliked it. I was in the camp of die hard Kaneko fans who felt slighted by the shift in art. I was ignorant of the guest artists so I assumed the mishmash of various styles was some kind of sloppy artistic choice. But after reflecting and talking to less biased people and then replaying this became one of my favorite entries in the series.

Plot
The story from this game is very interesting as it's reflecting concepts first ideated with SMT 1. And being familiar with that narrative and themes it's an interesting juxtaposition. I enjoyed the loving nod to the history of the franchise through innovation. The story provides an early twist that plays on the comfort of using the opening moments to establish it's narrative and structural boundaries which is not necessarily common in Megaten but has been done before in SMT 3 but much less successfully. I found the characters to be somewhat shallow upon first encounter but even NPCs have story arcs that build the world and develop as the plot shifts and changes.

Art:
Like I said in the preamble, I was taken aback by the mixing of a myriad of art styles, some Kaneko, some Doi and some from guest artists it is a little jarring but it works overall.
The visual design and logic of the world is striking and interesting, fertile ground for further exploration (which we did get).
Character design was handled very well, though most are based on real people which is kinda boring in my opinion as a creative decision.

Music
This is the first mainline soundtrack I like. The music is exciting, unique, unforgettable and a great metric I use is that I can enjoy the music in situ and at the gym. I think the creativity of this composer is probably the most interesting thing about the creativity of the game.

Gameplay
This game's gameplay was just fine to me, I couldn't tell you about challenge because after a few bumps the exploitation of smirks and building demons made the game easy. I think the challenge was more to do with going back and rebuilding when something didn't work but that was not very much effort for the player.

Devil Survivor was offputting to me. I found the weird anime style an affront to the aesthetic of Kazuma Kaneko. I didn't have much experience with tactics games and didn't have faith in how this game could be exciting for someone with no interest in that genre. However, once I delved into the game it really extruded style in a way I hadnt thought possible for Megaten.

Plot
The game has an amazing narrative structure that is bound to it's ludo narrative. I love using ludo narrative in game design so this game marrying it's restrictions this way was a stroke of genius. I think this shonen battle structure was good as an easy to digest plot and the mixing with SOME mythology (mostly religious) was nice. The cast are recruitable and they are all mostly compelling and I like that some are just made to be unlikeable in ways that are realistic like Midori or Kaido or some are just intensely likeable like Gin, Atsuro, Yuzu and Haru.


Gameplay
The game has a weird hybrid of tactics and turn based battle BUT the game has the worst balance, If you know a handful of useful skills the game is ball achingly easy.
I do love the system of auctioning for demons and the ability to replay areas. I found that the game grew more complex over time but in a way that was a compelling balance.

Music
I have to say this is the weakest ost for me, I like a couple tracks a lot but it isn't interesting for the genre of jrpg nor does it truly stand out which is unfortunate because the music was composed by a legendary musician.

Overall Thoughts
This is one of the weirdest games to talk about because overall it's wonderful and the additions for Overclocked are great. I also think the box art goes hard.

cute little point-and-click puzzle game

An absolutely AMAZING platformer for the NES, which seems to have successfully set up 2D Mario platformers in a way that we still use its formatting to this very day. Absolutely insane progress from 1985 with Mario Bros 1, and even Doki Doki Panic/Super Mario Bros USA in 1987. So much creativity and fun in its world building, and how it mixes what we loved from the original Super Mario Bros, as well as parts from SMB2, like the vertical platforming and themed world environments.

Controls are beautiful, and felt great on the NES. Game is an easier platformer for the system, but in all ways that make sense, such as controls being so tight and continues being unlimited. It's easier than other platformers just because it's finally fair in all ways, with really no blame on the difficulty being from the game being unfair. Super Mario Bros. 3 is genuinely such a creative and fun experience, I completely understand how it took over the gaming world for a bit there...

The one thing that keeps me from rating this masterpiece a complete 5/5 is SPECIFICALLY the first fortress in World 7. It's completely mandatory (unless you found the warp whistles, I guess) but it's entire level is based around needing to know the secrets like it's some extra bonus area you unlock from reading Nintendo Power. Look at this. I ran around completely confused out of my mind not understanding at ALL what I was doing wrong, and the level itself seems infamous to those who grew up with it, a lot of people just... dropped the game because they couldn't figure out that you're supposed to FLY TO THE GODDAMN CEILING OF COURSE!! I honestly would have probably been in the same scenario if not for us now living in internet-land. This is totally another Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake/original Legend of Zelda moment, where I WOULD rate this game 5/5 easily, if not for ONE part that absolutely blows my gasket off on how annoying/cruel it is. But in the end, that's just how I rate!

This was my first time beating Super Mario Bros. 3, and my first time playing it physically on the NES! I had a really, really great time overall, and absolutely feel myself morphing into one of those annoying SMB3 fanboys...fan..girls? Eh, whatever. Play this game if you haven't, either for the historical influence or just because it's really fucking good. If you go in with the mindset that you're playing a NES platformer from 1988, you'll have a fucking blast, I guarantee it.

4.5/5

What an amazing game.
Just finished getting the platinum, and I'm glad most of the side content was fun enough to actually do. Not that much filler, which is rare for open world games.

Great story in a great campaign. This shit surprised me several times and kept me guessing til the very end, even til after the credits. Loved all the characters in this, they made MJ one of my favorite characters in this game, after being the worst in the first game. The villains were fun, even though 1 maybe overstayed their welcome.

The gameplay is as crazy as ever, you get a lot more toys to play with this time, across 2 Spider-Men to boot. None of the combat encounters ever bored me.

Flying/webbing around the city was as fun as ever, with the wing suit and wind tunnels adding a whole layer to traversal.

My one big gripe with this game and why I almost dropped it to a 9 is the amount of bugs I encountered. While some were funny, a couple were soft locks that required either going to the last checkpoint or reset the ps5. I never lost more than a couple of minutes of progress so I choose not to drop it to a 9. Hopefully these are patched out soon. Other than that the performance was great in both 60 and 120fps modes.

Overall this is now my 2023 GOTY. It was worth the wait.

A major improvement from the rest of 343 Halo, even if environments aren't all that varied and some levels feel repetitive.

Guys, this game is fucking insane. Like absolutely insane. I can not stress enough how fucking cool this game is. This dude from Japan, Yuji Horii, took this mostly Western PC genre and completely changed the world of gaming for-fucking-ever. I mean, I'm sure you already know that, and I'm sure you think, oh yeah, it's impressive how much this game did being a prime builder for the genre, but like guys... holy SHIT. This game is one of the first of its kind, and it still gets SO much right. It gets things right that games coming out way later might forget about (YES, I'm still bitter that Lufia doesn't have ANY indicator of how low your HP is in battle in fucking 2002 shut up), it gets things right that I full on went in expecting a game on the Famicom to understandably not get right it's first-time around, it got things right that I didn't even know I wanted to be done right. I've see people online argue about earlier Japanese RPGs, and they're what we should put more focus on, like Dragon Slayer or Black Onyx, but like come on - this was put on a way less powerful system compared to the PC-88 and it had a soundtrack of music, charmingly detailed enemies and backgrounds, it had fucking characters you could talk and learn from... Dragon Quest so perfectly surrounds you into feeling like you've been dropped into a fairy tale and finally get to be the hero for (which I lovingly named Fugger btw).

Now, lemme tell you the ways in which Dragon Quest blows my goddamn fucking mind:

- Dragon Quest takes a genre used to the complexity that a PC keyboard can allow a player, and was able to easily convert it over to a controller that has 2 buttons.
- It opened an uncountable amount of players to a concept they've never heard of, and had them fall IN LOVE with it. Like for real, how many kids in 1980's Japan do you think were playing Dungeons and Dragons with their friends?
- This Horii dude was so worried about making sure the game was player-friendly enough that he straight up invented some amazing QOL elements that became naturally part of the genre, to the point we just assume it's going to be in any RPG we pick up. Examples include: Leveling-up quick in the beginning to keep motivations high, NPCs offering beginner advice, visual representations in knowing the changes in difficulty (bridges and tunnels), text boxes with all current information easy for access, etc. etc.
- Additionally, how involved the player's actions feel in connection to the game's story is so charming. Events such as being able to see the hero physically bridal-style carry the princess back to the castle, and seeing the poisonous swamps now brimming with flowers really helps emotionally connect the player to what they do to progress the story.
- And yes the story! Let's not forget about that! Yes, it features a damsel-in-distress storyline that we've seen a million times in plays, books, and movies, but the way Dragon Quest's story of self-growth and determination so perfectly mixes with the RPG gameplay brought forward. The villain is also really cool - especially his sort of plot-twist second form.

On top of all that, the absolute most important of all, Dragon Quest is FUN. It's fun! It's really fucking fun! Almost 30 years later, and you still find people online, old or young, Eastern or Western, no matter the gender, all talking about their fondness for the game. It's groundbreaking, beautiful (especially on NES), influential, it looks and works better than even goddamn Linda Evangelista. I played through it with the American Dragon Warrior guide book that came out the same time the game did in the West, and found that perfect for helping me know what to do next after I got bored wandering in circles trying to level up.

This is the first game I've played in the Dragon Quest series, even though really, I played Dragon Warrior for the NES in technicality, heh heh. This whole experience is definitely the start to a new series I think I will be very annoying about, so I hope anyone who, for some reason happens to like following my reviews, is ready for many, many more to come.

XOXO

4/5

actually really charming and simple, too bad it's a bit short. really feels like a genuine scooby-doo movie. half a point subtracted cuz scooby gets in the damn way the entire time you're getting chased and is the true villian of the game

The bosses were alright; a bit boring. Map was annoying. Didn't really like most of the forms. Fun nonetheless.