Vanillaware asked what if Fire Emblem was good.
- Crits and misses are calculated in the battle preview. So if the game says your unit will deal 20 damage and receive 10, that's guaranteed. There's almost no RNG to worry about.
-No perma-death, and the difficultly is balanced around that. The highest difficultly is fair but challenging.
-Units are much more than just their class since units can have abilities, conditions to active those abilities that remind me of FF12's gambits, and four pieces of equipment which can also have conditional abilities.
-Classes are also more nuanced since each class is usually weak to multiple classes, thus allowing for multiple ways to take down a foe.
-Units operate in groups of up to six party members, allowing for detailed class synergies. It's easy to switch these as well to adapt to new party members or just a specific map.
-The game is real time with pause, so telling a unit to move across the whole map is just one input rather than having to move them every turn.
-The story actually remembers all of its characters. Party members that haven't been in a cutscene for ten hours will come out again when relevant.
-The aesthetic is beautiful and doesn't fall into generic anime looks.
-The voice actors generally sound like people rather than trying to impersonate anime tropes. This isn't because the voice actors are different, the voice talent is actually an all-star cast of JRPG voice actors, rather it's just that the voice direction is more serious.
-There's a large degree of player freedom as there's tons of optional missions, and some of the main story can be done in different orders as well.
-There's an overworld allowing for a brief respite between battles to talk to NPCs, see party member conversations, buy equipment, etc.
Overall the game fixes all of my problems with fantasy strategy RPGs while also having the unique Vanillaware aesthetic that makes it feel original. I recommend this game to anyone who likes RPGs or strategy games, even if they haven't liked most fantasy strategy RPGs.

Sea of Stars has sick character and enemy designs, a good setup for the plot, a battle system that initially shows a lot of potential, intricate dungeons encompassing plenty of puzzle mechanics... and then fails to progress in any of these aspects. The character writing is horrendously stale, with the deutoragonists Valere and Zale being almost NPC-like with how every sentence they speak is related to either their duty as protectors of the world, or their love for their best friend. You learn nothing about their interests, goals, fears, doubts, or insecurities beyond that. The remaining cast has slightly more personality to them, but even by the end of the game, if you asked me to describe each cast member with only 3 words, I would only be able to do this with 1 member of the playable roster. Every conversation felt as if it was just there to move the plot forward, with the characters themselves not growing as people at all... mostly.

The battle system has good ideas behind it, but is far too limiting in practice as each character only gets three skills: an attack that deals damage, another attack that also deals damage but with AOE, and a third healing/utility skill. There's a system to interrupt the enemy's spellcasts by hitting them with specific elements that show up next to them, but in the end it just limits your options further by forcing you to use Damage Skill B as opposed to Damage Skill A or Utility Skill C. There are no player-inflicted buffs, status effects, or anything of the sort to manage, so pretty much every battle encounter plays out with the same flow and strategy.

The dungeons in this game are gorgeous and have lots of variety in aesthetic and general design. Looking at them was a treat, and I wish I could say the same for the myriad of puzzles within them. There are a good number of puzzles in each dungeon, but they almost feel like more of a chore than an experience due to how easy they are. Just one quick glance at the screen and 90% of puzzles in the game solve themselves, which is a shame as there are so many different mechanics brought up that could've made for a fun brain-scratching time in the same lieu as Golden Sun's dungeons.

I won't say much about the plot, but nothing shocked or excited me because the game went waaaaay too hard on foreshadowing events, with it being harder to care much about what was happening while I held no love for the characters. There are some cool lore bits and short stories to aid in the worldbuilding, which I felt was a cool part of the game. The world itself is interesting, backed by the sick character designs and beautiful spritework as mentioned before, so while I won't remember the plot or characters a year down the line, I will occasionally think back and say, "Damn, Sea of Stars was a pretty game."