One of my favorite games ever. I first played this in 2020, but for whatever reason I didn't finish it until 2021. I think it was because of the framerate issues that made the game a powerpoint presentation and the fact that I hadn't played a Wii game with the nunchuk control scheme in well over a decade.

This game has so much charm. I think the character development of Zael and his friends is what made me love this game so much. In the beginning, Zael's mercenary group gave off the vibes of "We're only together for the job, we're not really friends", but by the end of the game it's clear that they truly care for each other. I thought it was really sweet.

This game isn't very hard, in fact I learned that one of the jokes people made about this game was that it was so easy it practically played itself. It's also only 25 hours long, so if you want an RPG but don't want a 100 hour game then this is perfect. The only times I struggled was during the Kraken fight because of the wallrun move's wonky detection and the Zangurak fight because of the sword-stealing mechanic. Fortunately by the climax of the story, the game dumps experience points on you, so I was able to get leveled up from lvl 35 to 60(?) in the last stretch. I never tried out the multiplayer because it obviously requires homebrew and I didn't feel like doing that.
Not a day goes by where I don't think about this game. Mistwalker loves developing games for systems that nobody has or for systems that are on life support. Please play it.

The JRPG equivalent of Mass Effect, this is a truly special game that sadly looks like it will be locked to the Wii forever. Not only is the combat a ton of fun and the soundtrack is amazing (Invitation to Madness is one of Uematsu's best/most underrated battle themes), but the story is a perfect example of how to do romance well in a JRPG like this.

This and Lost Odyssey desperately need ports to anything else so more people can experience how great they are, but sadly that's unlikely to ever happen.