It's hard to be objective when a game feels like it was tailor-made specifically for you, so I won't even try. This is probably the most fun I'll have with any game this year, and I enjoyed every minute from start to end. It's pure fanservice for any Xenoblade fan, which also means I can't recommend playing it if you haven't played the others, but that's just fine, as this is pretty much the epilogue of the series. All of the characters were likable and had a fun dynamic with each other, and seeing Shulk and Rex as middle-aged adults who act like proud fathers all the time plastered a permanent smile on my face.

I especially want to highlight the gameplay, as it really improved upon what Xenoblade 3 had established (which was already very good). Upgrading your character's abilities is now directly tied to completing Affinity Missions, which are a variety of tasks that encourage the player to engage with the world; such as completing the collectopedia (yes, it's back for real this time!) by picking up the items on the ground, or the enemypedia, which is a similar concept but for defeating 1-3 members of each enemy in the world, building ladders, ziplines, and other infrastructure, finding landmarks and secret areas, etc. I would love to see this feature in other open world or exploration-based games, just because it keeps the game engaging long after the main campaign has been finished. The Community is back from Torna, but no longer locks story progress behind itself, and lets the player complete it at their leisure. While I don't think it adds as much charm to the world as the NPC relationship chart (pretty much a staple of the series a this point), it's definitely more akin to the Bombers' Notebook from Majora's Mask, and it's very satisfying to complete as you make people happier.

Saying I feel like I've fallen in love with Xenoblade all over again basically sums everything up.

It's fine...there's a few neat things you can do in this game but it's a bit buggy and it's obviously rushed. Each faction generally had similar missions, but they atleast had some few unique ones to vary the gameplay a little.

The gameplay itself was ok, its very clunky and alot of the debris gets in the way when you're trying to kill bots. It's extremely annoying especially in car mode, you will constantly be derailed by police or any other form of debris everywhere you go during the missing and you will fail it multiple times. The driving itself is perfectly aceptable and its incorporated into the game quite decently.
Combat is also very clunky, guns do absolutely nothing to opposing bots as they will completely block them. So you really just mash a bunch until you kill something, because debris is everywhere as well. They atleast introduce different kinds of enemies but they are frustrating to kill especially in smaller spaces where you can't run outside the misson areas where the game wants you to stay in.

Autobot story ark was pretty easy, only failed a couple of times due to what I said prior. The car chase with jazz was probably the best part of the whole thing, the megatron boss fight was just disappointing.

The decepticon story ark was alot more enjoyable, since you're allowed to destroy buildings for the mission, as well as have moments of flying in vehicle mode for most of it. The amount of enjoyability was pretty consistent throughout. And the optimus fight was slightly more interesting

I have a few nitpicks that I would like to add as well, the game seems pretty rushed. There's moments where ironhides design completely changes in the cutscenes and ingame. Also megatron gets a line that isn't voiced by frank welker instead its voiced by some intern and I thought that was a bit funny. Not sure why thats in the game. The g1 cosmetics are also a nice touch.

Overall this game gets a 5.2/10, not perfect at all it's very frustrating with it's mechanics, and the cutscenes don't really tell a story that well. But its not all bad either. I cannot say I recommend this game to any fans of the movies unless you want to fight bots in cybertron.

What have they done to my boy? Words cannot begin to describe my overall disappointment what they have done to my favorite video game ever, but as they are the only medium in which a human can express anything i will deign to try.

Lets start with Tone, the tone of this game is completely all over the place, the one line left in about bingo is all that remains from the first game. The game takes itself so very seriously now, everything is gritty, darker, "realistic" with leon being the worst offender, whereas before he was hyper competent goofball, now leon is a void of a personality, i would go as far as to say that there is no personality left for Leon to fill other than uber serious cop guy. Ironic that if this version of leon was the one presented on PS2 there would probably be zero love for the character at all. because while re4 remake leon "completes" alot of the same events as the original he does so with absolutely zero style, zero charm no stupid quips or absurd humor, whereas the the original RE4 leon would be running away from a giant mech of the antagonist, narrowly escape with his life before turning around and delivering the cheesiest line possible. Leon in RE4 felt like a charcter who belonged in the absurdity that surrounded him, and him being completely unfazed by everything thrown at him made him the memorable character he is today. This is the whole reason that the game was remade in the first place to capitalize on nostalgia for a vastly superior game. Capcom sanded Leon down to perfectly average video game protagonist #78.
I have to ask who is this for? New players aren't going to remember this version of leon, he's a wet noodle with no charm.

But aside from our leading Man, the world has changed alot too, someone at capcom went down the list and struck off every set piece that they deemed too goofy and in the process contributed to making re4 significantly less memorable. the boulder run in the village, the lava room, the bulldozer, the speeding car, mecha salazar, the spike room, the laser room, cable car sniping, and so many more. Its these critical moments where i kept asking myself surely this will be in the game right? No it will not, without all of these amazing varied set pieces the game feels less like RE4 and more like another bland third person shooter that apes the combat mechanics and nothing else. By removing these set pieces capcom has effectively removed the soul of the game.
Okay So what do we get in return?

They put durability on the knife (why?)
because there is a parry (why?)
because all of the cool game have parrying (how will you balance it?)
Your knife breaks and you have to pay to get it fixed or you can't use it. (WHHHYYY)

Parrying is honestly a cheapo trick they coudn't figure out how to balance in the RE4 sandbox without a band aid fix. Most of the time my knife was broken while playing, in the original it was a really poor fallback option baked into your kit that could be used to escape some tight situations.

In this game parrying is at the core of a lot of encounters and those moments where you are without your knife you are basically playing original RE4 at that point anyway, running to avoid attacks and not being able to block.

There had to be a better way to balance this, i had to have spent 10% of my run's currency on the damn knife repairs.

Then we have sidequests, which are literally the most boring copy paste objectives ever. Remember the blue medallions in the first game? Get ready to do that 6 more times across different areas of the game, or kill 3 rats in different hallways or areas, or fight a slightly powered up version of a normal enemy, no thank you.

This game fails to capture the originals charm in almost every conceivable way, this at the end of the day was product created with money in mind. All of the removed content has been supplanted with non-memorable generic third person shooter drivel.

I'm so very disappointed to say that no one will talking about this game in 20 years, I can't even tell you what happened in the castle in this game as i literally cannot picture it. This game will not create ravenous fans the way the first did because it lacks the originals energy and charm.

The Gameplay is the only thing that has "improved" and even that is debatable.

What a waste, i could easily see people playing this and not understanding what all of the hype about the original was.

I've been meaning to settle the score with Fire Emblem 7 for quite some time. For whatever reason I've always been fascinated with FE7, going back to the days when I was into Smash Brothers. "Oh, this is the one with Lyn and Roy's dad!" When looking into the series on my own time back then, I had read on a lot of pages that this one was considered one of the easiest FE games alongside the first available in English, so it made me want to start there. One problem though. The game was EXPENSIVE. Even back then mfs on eBay were scalping the hell out of these games, so my hopes of ever getting to play it dwindled.
That was until I was introduced to the world of emulation, and shortly after one of my priorities was this game. I started it... And stopped playing. Why? I forgot. Then this other time I borrowed my girlfriend's Raspberry Pie which had this game loaded on it, so I tried going through the game again. Dropped it. Then I tried an emulator a second time, starting from the beginning because I had switched emulators. I stopped playing. For the life of me I could not stick to finishing this game because I kept changing my method of playing it.
Fast forward a year or two and I had randomly been enticed to play a Fire Emblem game from start to finish, that being The Sacred Stones, and I really liked it! "Now that I'm a fan of this series, maybe this is my chance to finish 7 already!" I said, so I started playing aaaaand... I put it on hold. Yakuza had already consumed my life at that point. THEN after two months I picked up this game again and was absolutely motivated to finish it, and I FINALLY GOT IT DONE.
So onto the game itself, it's very similar to the other one I had played, Sacred Stones, which isn't a bad thing actually. I really liked the gameplay of that one so hopping into this felt really easy to do. I still had to trudge through the overly long tutorial (which at this point I had experienced nearly 5 times), but once I got to Eliwood's story things started to pick up. The gameplay of the GBA Fire Emblems is very quick and snappy, combined with stellar presentation and battle animations. I like the class system and weapon triangles which add an extra layer of depth to the combat mechanics. As for the maps, I liked most of them although the later ones can suck shit at times, especially with enemy spam. The final boss chapter was also just awful, I almost wanted to stop playing from how unforgiving and long it was. But still, I managed to pull through.
Fire Emblem 7 really stuck the landing for me because of it's characters. I already mentioned Lyn and Eliwood but HECTOR steals the show for me, he's so cool and immensely overpowered at points, alongside just being a cool character. Priscilla, Florina, Rebecca, and Marcus were also some characters I really liked, just to name a few. While many of them aren't really deep in terms of writing, they deliver by being distinct and charming in their own ways. Eliwood especially goes through a lot of tough shit throughout the story, I felt kinda bad for the guy. At the time of this review I still haven't played Hector mode but I definitely will in the future, because it adds a lot of characters and story moments to make the experience more complete. Even so, FE7 as is has a simple but fun and engaging narrative with a cast of very likable helpers.
So was it worth the wait and countless resets to finish Fire Emblem 7 to me after all this time? I'd say so. While the game is definitely very flawed, and I can see why in the grand scheme of the franchise it isn't very special, it means a lot to me because of my needlessly complex history and fascination with it. Definitely would recommend at least trying this one!

While not discussed in many circles online, Shadow Dragon is probably one of the most important Fire Emblem games, being the last true “classic” styled entry. Upon it’s original release, the game wasn’t generally favored, and alongside rather poor sales in the United States it left Fire Emblem in a tricky place. Where the series would go after this will be explained in some other review i do in the future, as for now I want to talk about this game. Like a majority of this franchise, I had much interest in trying this game, as it was a remake of Marth’s very first adventure after all. But just like the many other games in the series I wanted to play, it wasn’t very accessible.
In the current day when FE8 and 7 started my obsession with this series I had hopped onto 6 immediately afterwards. I was not very impressed. Ok-ish map design tied with lackluster player units and absolute beasts of enemy units led me to frustration into dropping the game after only 13 chapters. I was done. So I decided to hop into this game instead, it was also on a handheld and I had heard some good things about it before. So I started playing.
This is a contender for my favorite Fire Emblem game so far from its gameplay alone. While rejecting a few gameplay systems from previous entries and retaining certain cryptic NES jank, the game itself is very speedy and easy to just pick up and play. Maps aren’t very long if you play smart, you can turn off pointless enemy turns to save time, and the game rarely feels like it's wasting your time. That being said… the certain carryovers from the original can be pretty annoying at points. Only Marth can enter villages, and there’s no rescue system which can leave your weaker units in a lot of trouble sometimes. I miss the rescue system because it added an extra layer of possible risk vs reward and gave cavaliers and fliers even more usability. But it's not too major of a blow.
Reinforcements are another element of this game that can be obnoxious. It’s a complete coin flip on whether they will spawn from unattended forts or the sides of the map, and like other FE games with reinforcements you would only know this from previous knowledge or using a guide. With some maps it's a fine enough hindrance for not playing efficiently enough, but in others it’s such a pain in the ass, especially when 90% of the time these reinforcements are horse riders or flyers, meaning they will dash after your ass IMMEDIATELY.
That being said, I feel as a tradeoff this game is honestly kinda broken. Units such as Caeda, a General Setger, and any Ballista user will be your best friend for a majority of the game, especially when properly exploiting the forgery system on the Wing Spear or Ballista weapons. There’s this one map I was really struggling on until I realized that I can just warp Setger to the central part of the map and have him sit there while taking literally no damage and killing every single enemy + reinforcement for almost the entire session. It’s little moments like these that make me kinda love this game, it’s busted and exploitable in areas to a comical degree but almost as a balance to this there are a lot of reinforcements and later maps are fine with having enemy healers out of your range constantly.
Permadeath, permadeath, permadeath. It’s impossible to discuss any Fire Emblem game prior to 12 without mention of this ever so infamous punishment for poor play, the ability to permanently lose any of your units at any time. It’s easy to be intimidated by it. What if I lose an integral character from my team and I can’t beat the game because of it? Shadow Dragon seems to try something a bit different with this concept by also fusing it with another frequent feature of Fire Emblem: the gaiden chapters. In previous games, the gaiden chapters could only be accessed by certain parameters, to my knowledge mainly related to recruiting certain units or finishing a chapter in a turn limit (and they were also required to beat FE6. lol.). This game’s approach to gaiden chapters was rather different- instead, they are used rather as a failsafe for players who are losing too many units. I’ve seen many players complain about this feature and how they don’t like the game is “forcing” them to lose units for it, but that’s entirely missing the point- the game isn’t forcing you. It’s there for players who might be struggling or decide not to constantly reload their game upon failure. If you feel that you are falling behind and might not be able to make it to the end, the game encourages you to keep going and gives you backup to put the player in a much more comfortable position. Now obviously, you still have to try if you want to see things to the end, but it’s there to keep you going regardless.
I think this take on the concept of permadeath is an insanely smart way of still keeping the punishing system it always has been, but creating new ways to make the player not feel discouraged from finishing the game. As early as the prologue, you are forced to sacrifice a single unit- with you even being told to accept your losses and move on. This is war, there is no playing around.
Replayability is another focus of Shadow Dragon. The game itself isn’t very long, consisting of 25 chapters that are all relatively short. However, this is taken advantage of by incorporating several difficulty options. Each difficulty progressively gets harder in a natural scale, starting with normal and slowly increasing the BS factor. It’s a way to keep you coming back, and topping that with Shadow Dragon’s addictive nature it fits like a glove.
The graphics have always been a major turnoff. After the simply beautiful GBA games with plenty of colors and smooth battle animations, going to the ugly pre-rendered look of this game alongside the “meh” looking animations may turn away most players. As much as it is to say “graphics aren’t everything” presentation still means a lot to a game in the long run, especially if it’s in a series with previous entries that looked much better. They’re graphics I can simply tolerate, but it did leave me disappointed especially with the potential of visuals the DS could pull off. The promotional art is a different story, though. Composed by Ghost in the Shell manga artist Masamune Shirow, they’re splendid pieces that fit Fire Emblem while being distinctive and stylish pieces in their own right. Unfortunately, he didn’t make that much art for this game, aside from some promotional pieces and some other artwork that you can’t even see outside of an art book he published, but they’re great nonetheless.
This game, while being fantastic in it’s own right, also marked the end of an era for Fire Emblem. The sequel would be the introduction to modern FEisms such as casual mode and a player avatar, which would soon be followed up be Fire Emblem Awakening, an absolute game changer in both Fire Emblem and Nintendo’s history, but that’s a story for another time. It’s a shame that this game wasn’t ever really given it’s moment to shine, especially when it’s a very solid package with a lot of fun quirks alongside being a great remake. Hopefully it will someday be given the recognition that it deserves, and I hope that this review will encourage readers to try it out themselves. Come join us, together we ride!