Being one of the two games I bought when I first started collecting all those years ago, this game fell into the backlog abyss because of the other title (Persona 3 FES). I've always loved the style and the art direction of this game, though I think for me and a lot of people the D-Counter system scares everyone off.

Once I learned about D-Charging to one shot pretty much everything that's an obstacle, the game became pretty easy. The real fun was when I was treating the SOL system like a rougelike. Slowly building up my Party XP bank, and investing in my Ant Colony to passively make me money to buy those super weapons were fun to grind for. On my first run, I got to the boss right before the final dungeon. On my second run, I got to the third to last boss before maxing out. Understanding the systems in place and how to exploit them is built into the design of Dragon Quarter. You are meant to learn about how to abuse the Dragon Form to get past road blocks. You are supposed to master layouts and trap placements to quickly navigate dungeons. You're supposed to overlevel yourself with your Party XP to blitz through early environments.

My final run I did in one sitting after grinding took about 3.5 hours to do. My equipment was amazing, I had the right skills to kill anything that stood in my way. I had only 7% at the boss that ended my run the first time, allowing me to use my Dragon form to obliterate the final dungeon. It's a feeling that only a game like this can achieve after burying yourself into mastering its systems.

When I talked about this game, I used this head ass term "osmosis of confusion", which a lot of people probably went through in the early hours of this game. Trying to figure out "Do I restart each time, is this a rougelike, what carries over". If there are any tips I can give you while playing this game is: The SOL System is New Game+ as a mechanic, treat it as such. Just like with NG+ with any other game, you get reworked dungeons, loot, enemies, and minibosses that now spawn. New story segments that better explain the narrative are only shown if you interact with this system.

After finishing this game last night, I breathe a sigh of relief. This game truly challenged me to think more than I usually would with a JRPG. The world is beautiful. The art design is at its best during the cutscenes. I didn't expect these characters to be so animated, specifically with their facial expressions. I knew the exact emotions the cast were feeling without the annoying trope of outright explaining it out loud. These characters are quite introspective and that omission of telling the player what to feel, makes this narrative more compelling. Does Ryu come to terms with this being a doomed quest? What other horrors have the council orchestrated? It's all a bit weird, but it pays off at the end with a gorgeous ending.


Yada yada ~battles could be faster, there could be more varied level design~

Though I feel the battle system fits the world of this game. This world is cold. They live underground, with monsters as their main source of food and energy. Everything fits is what I'm trying to say, and the more uncomfortable you are with a certain idea, the more it makes sense once you master that aspect.

This game is probably the most accurate depiction of the Dragon Ball Z series, the cutscenes are pretty close to the series original, most of it is voiced and the dialogue is a bit modernized so there's no awkward translations or anything. The game play is very smooth and feels pretty much like you're playing a fight scene from the anime itself, the control took some getting used to since they aren't changeable, so you're just stuck with what's given. It's a really good DBZ game, one of the best.

Okay I feel like this gonna have to come with some caveats. for starters, my star rating is based more off fun/playability over anything else.

I realize the game has some frame rate issues here and there, pop-ins are there and all over the place albeit kinda fast and textures tend to run off or blink in and out at times. These are the only issues I had while playing, no glitches and crashes, but I also never turned on the online play so that MAY be why I didn't run into the issues so many people talk about, I thought I had to explain all this because it's a rather hot topic when talking about this game.

All that aside, I very much loved this game. I think it's biggest strengths are as follows:

Exploration is massive, the Paldea region is absolutely huge and actually beautiful to explore, with Pokemon everywhere and different biomes as well as towns here and there and cities and plenty of culture, there's never nothing to see when traveling along these lands.

Choice of how you want to do things. After a bit of tutorial, you are literally given freedom to do whatever you want, you are given three story arcs and are told: "you can do whatever you want and let no one tell you how you should tackle things." You are free to tackle which story you want, or switch between one or the other or however, you wanna go take on a gym or Pokemon waaay above your level? Go ahead, nothing is gonna stop you IF you can find a way to reach it through your wit and exploration.

Legacy of content. I know that sounds weird but hear me out, the three arcs are highly based off how past Pokemon games are played. One arc is akin to Legends Arcus and Sun/Moon, another arc is akin to the Pokemon Rumble games, and another arc is like the classic Pokemon games, these arcs also have a bit of the Pokémon Colosseum/Gale of Darkness hidden in there, basically there's a lot of soul in this game.

Now onto the graphics, I won't go too long into this because as I said before the graphics are beautiful, the Pokemon models, the characters, the land/world all of it beautiful.

The music is actually in reversal to how I'm used to, the battle themes are amazing as well as the town themes and the overworld theme, but when you get to the gym themes...I honestly don't like most if not any of them.

Without spoiling the story, I loved every bit of it, some of the arcs took longer to get into but when they kicked up, they were great, and the overall story as a whole I love.

If I had to say anything bad about the game, it's nothing that hasn't been said, the frame rate needs so polishing and some textures fixed up, but I also wish your uniform/clothes were more customizable, you're stuck with the default uniform in 4 different style, but no color change, but you can change accessories, but that's about it.

Overall, I put about 30+ hours into the game and loved every single second of it, Legends Arceus has the better and faster gameplay, but I feel Scarlet/Violet did everything else slightly better in scale.

At first I was a tad bit worried about this game, because I've played all the 2D Mario games and a few quite recently. The one thing that bugs me is not liking the NEW Super Mario Bros series of games due to how they feel the same and some even reuse nearly ever asset of the prior games. This was my fear when they announced the game and that fear kinda stayed due to me never watching things past the first trailer. Pretty much 10 mins into the game, I knew my worries were unfounded.

This game is absolutely beautiful. I can't even think of another game that uses this art style exactly, but the closest may just be the Kirby's Return to Dreamland Deluxe game. The graphics are spot on and feel like they have a sort of clay or toy look to it, and the game is absolutely riddled with VFX all over it to create stunning transitions and whimsical effects. As I kept playing, I found myself reminded of Super Mario World (based on the game's structure and gameplay) and Super Mario Land 2 (based on the character/enemy models and creativity) Enemies, characters, background, foreground and the world itself has vivid animations and the game feels lively from start to end.

Speaking of lively, the music is pretty unique in spots. some of the music is remixed with a deeper or extended feel, while some levels have their own songs not related to the past games, which is impressive considering how much music the whole series has. If I had to compare the music, I found myself comparing it to the music Camelot used to produce for Golden Sun as well as the Mario sports games. Something I had a slight worry for was the voice acting...not that Mario as a series ever had a lot if barely any voice acting, but this was Nintendo's first game in YEARS not using Charles Martinet (the G.O.A.T.) for Mario and Luigi, so I worried a bit of how it was gonna sound...aaaaand? The new voice actors did an amazing job, everyone sounds just like they should and in some cases a bit better. Apparently almost everyone got a voice change, but to be honest it's barely noticeable and it's not, because they tried to be sound-alikes, but most of the cast haven't had new voice clips since the Gamecube era and some even longer, yet they did an amazing job with everyone.

Usually I would explain the story, but that's one spot that didn't really improve much. The story isn't bad, but it's what it is usually for Mario...Bowser does something that Mario and group has to fix and this time no Peach kidnapping, otherwise standard affair and done as well as in the past.

While the story didn't change, the gameplay kinda did in certain ways. You're given 12 characters: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy (my girl), Blue Toad, Yellow Toad, and Toadette are all the normal characters you can choose that honestly don't play any different from each other, so it's just cosmetic. Green Yoshi, Red Yoshi, Yellow Yoshi, Blue Yoshi and Nabbit all act as a sort of Easy Mode and don't take damage when hit and the Yoshi's play much like they do in Yoshi's Island while Nabbit is just faster than most the characters. Easy Mode characters can't transform or use an of the power ups. The new transformations and power ups are actually pretty fun, but the main event of the game is the Wonder Flower which warps the stages and different ways and adds a dreamy effect to everything. The amount of effects are waaay too verified to list. You also collect Wonder Seeds that let you progress through the different levels akin to the Power Stars in Super Mario 64. Overall the gameplay is fun and the controls are as tight as a Mario game can get and the feeling is enhanced by the Badge system which let's you equip a badge and gives you different effects such as flutter jump, parachute, and more. This is pretty much the answer to not giving each "Normal" characters abilities so you can use whoever you like and let the badges adjust how you play. Also the game has an Online Mode where you can play with a group of friends in a room or just play online with other people in "ghost" mode where you see them playing too and have very minimal interactions, but can still help each other in way such as recovering from death or dropping items and pointing out secrets to help each other. It's a very underrated system they should keep, as it has the same kind of community feel as Dark Souls or Elden Ring.

So yeah, that was a lot of praise, but does it have any issues in my eyes?

- I feel like Nintendo could have made Green Yoshi a "Normal" character, and give use the default Toad as a "Normal" character and move the Blue and Yellow Toad over to the "Easy Mode" characters. As I said before Yoshi plays much like he does in Yoshi's Island so he could have used all the power ups and transformations in alternative ways, so there was no reason to not have one normally playable.

- 100% completion does nothing really. I know there's no rule that it HAS TO, but with how well everything was done and how fun it was, seems like a reward would have been nice.

Other than those very few nitpicks, I absolutely loved this game and had a smile the whole way through it, be it the game world, the music, or the community feel the online part has, this was an amazing game and I hope Nintendo keeps up this fun but weirdness.

Before hand. I had never heard anything about Dragon Quest IV. Usually when the series is talked about it's either the first trilogy or the later ones in the series, so I had no idea what I was getting into and that'll stand true for this trilogy as a whole.

Graphically, I gotta say this game looks really good. I had been playing the games mostly through the Switch remakes which are based off the mobile versions and use the same graphics engine, so I've been seeing the games look a bit too much like each other. This time I actually get to see a remake done in a different style, and I actually really like the character designs and how the monsters move and animate. While the world design really doesn't look too different than the last games, the dungeons and bosses on the other hand are on a whole new level. I'm actually shocked this game wasn't released on the SNES or GBA, because I feel like it would have fit on either because of it's Golden Sun-like design of the world.

Along with the world is a rather pretty soundtrack. Gone are the same tunes I was hearing in the past games, and here come so rather pretty sounding village music, and dungeons, and the fact each character has their own battle theme is a really great touch.

There's not really much to say about the controls and mechanics. It does most of the same stuff as the past games did on every level as far as movement and combat, save for the ability to rotate the camera while in towns and dungeons, that while not heavily utilized, it was something that created a few new paths and hidden items.

Now to the best part of the game that makes it stand pretty highly to me. I can't think of too many games that take the approach of having the hero not be the main focus right away. the game has other characters that have their own chapters where they go on their own adventures and build their own spot in the story waaay before the hero even gets to do anything. It's refreshing to see all these other people who will join the hero later, get development and agency on their own and not tied to the hero. It almost feels like everyone else grows and becomes a seasoned hero or heroine in their own right, so THEY can help the hero become the hero with their experiences. It's such an amazing way of telling the story and having you root for them while growing into your own. I really wish more games would follow this and hope it's something that the rest of the series learns from.

So with all the praise do I have any issues with the game? Well...

- While graphically it looks great, some of the towns have a weird frame rate drops at times, I dunno if it's the water moving or the towns people sprites, but its distracting when it happens.

- The world map could use some work. Not the world itself, but the map on the other screen is no help at all.

- I've complained about this I swear every game, but while I get the dialogue represents other languages that tend to make it sound broken, it gets waaay too distracting and makes the NPCs hard to understand and takes a little bit of tension out of the story in spots.

- Speaking of story, while I love the character and world building...again the villains especially the main one has VERY little presence to the point it takes to near the end to get ANY feel of real danger and stakes, I feel like this is a common complaint I make as well.

Dragon Quest IV was a really great game and I'm starting to see where Final Fantasy runs parallel with Dragon Quest when it comes to sequel structures, like Final Fantasy IV...Dragon Quest IV started the series with grander stories and more world building that the prior games barely touched. I really liked this game.

I'm one of those people who looked at the original Resident Evil 4 to be pretty much near prefect and never thought it would really need a remake, I felt upgrading the textures and cutscenes would have been enough since moving forward the RE-Remakes all seem to model themselves off the original with some modernizations...so I thought this would just be a modern glow-up and that's it.

I was wrong...dead wrong, this game is absolutely amazing and it was given so, very much care, it's as if the developers watched others play RE4 and built and tweaked around how they saw people play, as well as took the criticisms of RE2 and RE3 remakes to heart and just did everything right.

The game's graphics are absolutely stunning, the game really does look very close to a movie and every detail plus some was given to bring the original game to life all over again. They really are putting that RE Enine to work and it paid off.

I will say the controls took some getting used to, even though you can adjust the controls to different configurations and even one modeled after the original RE4, it actually put my muscle memory and past experiences at odds, I played using the RE4 (2005) settings but it took quite a while to adjust due to my years of 3rd person games like this adopting different controls, but that aside it plays smooth.

I'd usually talk about the story but I'm leaving that alone completely and will say it's amazing and very well done.

The game is definitely harder than the original and enemies and bosses are quite aggressive.

The only issue I had with the game at all is...and I'm not even sure if it's an issue or me remembering the old game and basing things off that, but the i-frames aren't as consistent as before leading to times you can get comboed quite easy and is a tad frustrating, but that's actually it.

I usually would say more but I'm staying vague because I believe people should go in as blind as possible to the game and just enjoy. I loved every second of it and it's a prime example of a remake done with a lot of love.

Now that I sit and think about it, I wonder if I'm much of a Fire Emblem fan or have I just enjoyed a select few of the games. That aside this game is absolutely awesome, I enjoyed every bit of it. Ah, for context I've only finished The Blazing Blade, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Three Houses and Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE. I had played Shadow Dragon, The Sacred Stones, Thracia 776, and Fates but I had quit or never finished one or a few of these games.

Alright starting with the graphics, this game is very pretty, I wasn't sure what to expect, because I stayed away from trailers and marketing outside the initial trailer. My only context for the game's look was the character designer was a VTuber model designer and it shows very well, other than that, I wasn't expecting such nicely done character designs as well as animations for attacks and dodges. I really feel they outdid themselves this time, environments look really good, the cutscenes are amazing, it's just a very pretty game.

Now with the gameplay, I was a tad worried when I saw they brought back the triangle weapon system mainly because I thought my gauntlet weapons wouldn't come back, but no worries there, they were replaced with something better. I also enjoyed that the weapon duration system was no longer a thing outside items and healing items. The characters now move instead of forcing to be an arrow on a grid to move. The game is actually balanced very well, I thought I was gonna steamroll a bit like Three Houses, but no, it stayed well balanced with a cunning AI. The menu was easy to navigate and everything went at a great pace as far as menus and such. Very solid gameplay, nothing super revolutionary aside from the "Engage" mechanic, but even that kinda acted like the support system of having units nearby when battling, just with extra bells and whistles.

The story, oh boy the story. I wasn't expecting to be so invested in the story, usually Fire Emblem has an interesting tale involving the characters, but it always seems like the kingdoms and factions take front seat to the characters so they feel less important. This isn't the case in Engage, I think the characters are interestingly written when they are in the spotlight and get better if you decide to do the support conversations and the main character's relationship with everyone else in the story was super interesting, I loved the story and Alear is my favorite Fire Emblem protagonist.

Lastly the music, this is something that absolutely is lackluster in every past Fire Emblem game I played so I wasn't expecting anything from engage music wise....and oddly the music turned out pretty good, nothing was bad about it and some were actually amazing. to go along with all that, the voice acting is really really good as well, I was shocked that the game is mostly voice acted.

Honestly I couldn't find any issue as I played, I mean I had nit-picky stuff that bugged me, but nothing worth mentioning because most was based off my playstyle and choices I made. Otherwise amazing game.