Lariat_Tubman
1995
the first time i played this game i thought it had timed hits like super mario rpg, so i went through the whole game trying to find where the sweet spot was. crono with the rainbow sword has a 70% crit rate so i just thought i was really good at hitting the timing with him by the end of the game.
2003
square remembered that CTB was better than ATB for the first time in a decade, and then they immediately forgot about it in the sequel. still fun to run through with two dark knights and an alchemist.
phenomenal characters, world, and storytelling. some of the dialogue in skies will stay with me forever. but if you're going to make a game that's 60% combat, you need to design a fun combat system. the excuse of "this is how JRPGs were back then" does not work when your game originally released the same month, on the same console, as Grandia 2.
slicing your way through an island with your swords made of dinosaur bones as Sunshine Coastline blares in the background, max volume. every game should feel this good.
rock paper scissors but it also gives you an repetitive strain injury
2006
faction battles were a really cool idea but i feel like someone should have anticipated the entire playerbase joining the chinese jade sea spider-boat pirate faction instead of the stuffy forest dwelling weirdo faction. kurzicks never won shit.
2007
hey hey! tu tu! odio a tu noviaaa ♪
1995
putting in 2 quarters and wielding both guns on the arcade cabinet like ice cube in ghosts of mars
2005
the cruelty of grandia 3 is that it baits you with a fantastic story hook. you're introduced miranda, a super endearing former adventurer who left her old life behind to care for her newborn son, now old enough to be taking pilot lessons. she meets up with a cool gambling fisherman guy with his own boat and a dream of charting a map of the whole world. miranda struggles with leaving her son for the first time in their lives, but embraces the chance to explore the world all the same, and sails off into the unknown with the only other interesting character in grandia 3. we never see them again.
i would have loved a game about a single mom rediscovering her youth and that sense of adventure with her gambling addict fishmonger boyfriend. instead we get her shit kid and some anime stand-in characters.
i think grandia 3 is the pinnacle of jrpg combat systems, and all it needed was one character and a world to care about to make it perfect. we could have had a classic.
i would have loved a game about a single mom rediscovering her youth and that sense of adventure with her gambling addict fishmonger boyfriend. instead we get her shit kid and some anime stand-in characters.
i think grandia 3 is the pinnacle of jrpg combat systems, and all it needed was one character and a world to care about to make it perfect. we could have had a classic.
the portrait art is so good man. i can't believe they left it out in subsequent versions.
did a double take when they decided to call the 20-car race in each district a 'Race War' event
1994
rented from blockbuster as a kid in the hopes of getting to hear Warren G in the SNES sound font, only for every game to be played in dead silence. queen latifah is like 4 feet tall and looks like lil kim from def jam new york.
2007
the renbu system was messed up but the real crime is that this is the one where they stopped calling him Cow Cow.
slaps roof of car
this bad boy can fit so much Battle on the Big Bridge in it
this bad boy can fit so much Battle on the Big Bridge in it
2019
pointing at the screen like leo dicaprio when the credits say "and Queen Latifah"