Trails into Reverie solidified what I thought was never going to be a franchise I would think highly of. The trails series was a series that I picked off of the whim in late January/ early february to past time while I was waiting for SMTVV and FFXIV Dawntrail that would be released in June.

It was a game that I did not have much expectations of since I usually associated it with the Tales of franchise as being a series of games full of anime cliches and piss poor story, but Trails was a franchise full of anime cliches but broken down to the core to the point where it separates itself from the generic tropes. Throughout the ups and downs of the series and arcs that did not found all that enjoyable or Kondos hesitation to be able to kill off major characters, Trails was still able to become a series that I found myself enjoying and connected to.

Now this is a Trails into Reverie review not a Trails in general review. I had 9 other games to do so(ignore the impulsive hate comment of azure)

The gameplay in Reverie impressed me as they took the concept of Sky 3rd and made it playable. The addition of Reverie Corridor was the most fun I had in the Trails franchise as they rewarded you nicely for basically addicting dungeon crawling. Also made it very fun to build the trails dream team with basically every playable character in the 3 arcs. They added alot more minigames in reverie, Masters Vintage will always be fun, I unironically enjoyed Magical Alisa LS and I still hate Pom Pom party. Daydreams are similar to doors in Sky 3rd but much easier to get with similar quality (for reference Sky 3rd had like a requirement to defeat 10000 enemies or sum shit for a singular door we good off that).

The turn based combat itself is pretty much the same as CS3/4 but they added a new feature called United Fronts which is a more overpowered Burst attack (which also adds 2 Battle points) so that made the game unnecessarily easier but i am not really complaining.

The story in Trails into Reverie is a wrap up of the last 2 arcs separated into 3 routes of Lloyd,Rean and “C”. Trails to Walk was a great addition to the game as they made the story flow easy and smooth. I gotta give credit on how you are basically able to play each route at any order and will flow into another route perfectly without spoiling too much. Although there is an order that makes things flow a bit more easier but regardless you start and end at the same place

Since the majority of the story is set in Crossbell, naturally Lloyd would get the main character treatment but him having a whole route was at times tiring to play through since his arc was pretty much finished in Azure and not much was added to his character other than the concept of that the people of Crossbell never really believed in them but it had a meh execution. One thing they will always do well is the interactions between Randy and Lloyd but other than that not much of the plot was really apparent in his route at least compared to the other two.

C’s route was a breath of fresh air with a character that I did not expect would get the focus of but happy they did. Theres not much to say about his route without literally spoiling it so imma just talk about another character in his route that left an impression on me which was Lapis. Lapis is the robot or in this case a doll trope where they are built by another human (figuratively or metaphorically)and trying to find a reason/purpose to live blah blah. That trope can get boring especially when Trails did with similarly with altina,tio and fie (ish)so Trails decided off the rip to give Lapis a personality, so instead of a doll figuring out emotions it was her with an outburst of emotions of a child but trying to find her memories of her past. Lapis being surrounded with characters that had done immoral things in the past was perfect to her character but to C as well. The concept of accepting the good and bad of a human being has been apparent in the Trails franchise and they done it perfectly in C’s route. I would add more onto how much I enjoyed C’s route but I can’t rly say anything that doesnt immediately give away his identity

Best route for last, Rean’s Route was something I was most looking forward to despite the new protagonist in C: Rean was character that really made me appreciate the Trails Franchise. I am a proud Rean glazer even if he has a line of girls waiting to confess their deep profound love for him(which that would be a rant for itself but I played Persona).

Despite being the most “slice of life anime” protagonist at its base that is not just all he is. Rean is a brilliant character that explores the concept to be needed and to be the one who burdens all the problems since he believes himself that he is a burden due to a power he cannot control. As a result, Rean from the start of Cold Steel suffers from an inferiority complex which can be mistaken as humble whenever he gets a compliment but in truth, Rean finds trouble in being able to pay back people who has treated him as an equal. CS4 tackles his conflict perfectly as Rean is responsible for causing the Great Twilight which has caused never ending conflict. Rean had the power to stop this but will cost him his life, through this Rean found his reason to live which was to die for the people he loves to live happy.

This would be a main plot line in Rean’s route as they utilized the two endings from CS4 to challenge Rean’s conflict once more and this time it was how he can be able to be happy with the actions that he feels guilt for. Ishmelga Rean who was based off of if Rean successfully sacrificed himself was fucking genius Through the ending of Ishmelga Rean, Rean finds out that sacrificing himself never made the people who he loved happy but in a world where they all feel guilt to live in a future without him and regret that they couldn’t save him. There is alot more I can talk about his character but i already turned into a Rean Character analysis instead of a review, but he is the character that made me appreciate this franchise.

The finale in Reverie was a perfect conclusion to these characters/arcs as they are able and to finally move from the past and to the future. C as he can never truly redeem his past actions under his name but at least influence and lead a new life with a responsibility to live for the people he cares for. As Rean finally finds a place that he truly feels he belongs to and people who he can rely on. And I guess for Lloyd to finally free Crossbell after being colonized like a billion times. Im joking. Lloyd did have a couple good scenes in the finale which made me appreciate his character a bit more.

I just realized how much I typed but playing 9 long games was worth it for this game.

TL;DR Rean Schwarzer

This is probably gonna be one of my longer review since i have alot of mixed feelings on this game and its sad that i cant put this game any higher. I was waiting for this game as long as any other ff7 fan with high expectations, and i spent 100 dollars on this shit so this game leaving me with unsatisfactory rlly bothers me.

I want to start with the positives cuz dont get me wrong its not a BAD game by any means.

First, rebirth is one of the most visually beautiful games you will ever see, cutscenes, areas, land, characters all look better than it ever was compared to prior ff games and im glad to see how attractive the game looks, similar to OG, rebirth does a great job at getting comfortable and enjoying all the characters in the cast giving them individual dungeons, focus in the story and the constant back n forth between one half of a party to another allowing the player to have a chance to explore and play as each and every character. The combat is a big stepup from remake, with the addition of synergy attacks and vast combinations of abilities.


I am a little mixed(or confused)on the story but the one thing im satisfied the most is cloud and sephiroth as they have a huge stepup narratively compared to OG, i like how rebirth focuses more on the degration of a soldiers body and particularly how clouds psyche is affected+with sephiroth interference. Rebirth emphasizes on how powerful sephiroth is by manipulating clouds mind to doing things without a conscious such as when the visions he sees and his impact to attack other people such as when he attacks the sephiroth clones constantly or to the extent of attacking tifa, or he when he retrieves the black materia from aerith. rebirth rlly shows us how messed up and unreliable cloud truly is and that what looks like is going to be the main focus of next game has me hooked.

Now the positives of this game is unfortunately cut short as square enix still suffers from making an engaging open world game, mission layouts and pacing for when it comes to ff7. I never rlly had the love other ff fans when it comes to 7 and unfortunately its the same for rebirth as it continues to make this game feel like a chore, now to specifically what im complaining about is:

The open world, one of if not my biggest concern when starting this game was if square enix was able to create a fresh, unique and engaging open world that allows players to freely explore the unknown without some kid calling you every time you discover something or when you open up the map and dont see a whole checklist that makes up the exploration.

Oh well to no surprise im talking about rebirth, Now i full cleared the first three regions before i got absolutely bored of the other and half assed them and holy shit man this game did not change a SINGLE thing in each region, its the same thing every region, get chocobo,find towers, investigate summons,scan that crystal shit who even knows what that does, and do some battle challenges maybe a mini boss thats not rlly challenging and side quests which as per usual arent good. the open world is very limited and the only thing that is not marked on the map are chocobo stations but they are impossible to miss when a big ass chocobo is leading you to it.

this is like assassins creed type of open world, which are also not good, this was by far the biggest disappointment and it was sad that i didnt have the motivation to continue to explore the world by like chapter 8.

Another thing that bothered me is the unusual amount of mandatory mini games during the main chapters, there should never EVER be like 4-5 chapters where minigames take up majority of the chapter, like what type of bullshit was square enix on? Excluding the last 2 chapters, im sure there is more mandatory minigames than main bosses fought, and like 75% of the minigames werent even good and all the good ones were locked in late game where i was alrdy drained out and tired of rebirth.

Dont get me wrong i dont hate games that have 1 or 2 mandatory sections of minigames, i was even enjoying it in rebirth early in the game with minigames such as queens blood. But when u have filler chapters every other chapter it not only slows down the pacing but it makes the game (for me at least) disengaging, and its not like the dungeons are that good that it kept me going cuz even those were pretty boring and basic dungeons, the pure motivation to finish this game was cloud/sephiroth and the 100 dollars i potentially wasted.

I do wanna leave off a positive point of rebirth because i do think this game is more good than bad, as for example the last 2 chapters of this game was the first time i was like “i might’ve gotten my money worth” since it actually looked like square enix put effort and time intos the final dungeon and ofc the iconic scene and sephiroth boss fights. It sucks cuz the ending hooked me like the remake did and i know im gonna buy the next game, i jus hope that some of these problems are fixed/improved.

I do really want to like this game, i like the cast and the concept in ff7, and it sucks cuz probably im the only ff7 player who feels this way about this game because this is not the first time i have these mixed feelings about ff7, its every single ff7 game ;from og to crisis core to remake and now rebirth, where I enjoy the story but the gameplay keeps it from the score i want to put it at.

it’s unfortunate this game didnt live to the expectations not only i put on it but as well as square enix did and the only thing i can hope is it grows on me or the next game whenever it is, makes up for it but this time i should probably keep my expectations a bit lower.

I didn’t think i would be giving out the worst game i ever played contender out so soon, let alone a .5 stars but i cannot stress enough about how i disliked everything about this video game. I played this game hoping at the very least would be better than nier automata (low expectations because i didn’t like automata) but even then it failed.

First, would be of course the gameplay of the game, now automata isnt known for its quality in combat, enemy variation, bosses, exploration just about everything but the story(which still is pretty underwhelming) and that doesn’t change with replicant but its much worse, the combat had potential to be better than automata but all of it went out the door with replicants poor enemy variation and boss battle design etc. You go from like 8 abilities with Weiss book to forced to having one of them in ur arsenal since all the bosses are in the air and dark lance is the only ability that takes out air enemies and all the other abilities are pretty much useless or take too much time when u can simply dodge or block, so i was stuck with dark lance and dark hand for the entire game.

Referring back to the point of enemy variation, replicant falls incredibly short on creating a grindy engaging rpg, all the enemies use the same attacks and pretty much are sponges which eliminates all potential difficulty of the game. The bosses aren’t much different, they are all usually in the air so majority of the fight ur spamming dark lance and waiting for the blue bar to slowly refill up to repeat the same actions. The boss fights are just straight up awful, theres no uniqueness or identity that makes any of the bosses stick out and they are basically just a bigger version of common enemies.

Exploration is downright awful, and the fact that majority of the game is a fetch and report just makes the world feel so dead and repetitive. the world building is hardly apparent and the only area with potential (the desert kingdom) felt rushed and poorly executed. Dungeons in this game are probably the most boring areas to explore and the puzzles don’t make it any better, it’s disrespectful to even call them puzzles cuz its just stupid shit that makes the game more tedious (PRIME EXAMPLE;FOREST OF THE MYTH)

The soundtrack of this game is actually terrible, i know people like to praise this game for its music but it literally sounds the same, high pitch choir with the same set of orchestra or it sounds like they took automata soundtrack and reused it, theres no originality in its soundtrack and the game plays the same 5 soundtrack the entire game which just becomes boring.

One last thing about the gameplay is its graphics and voice acting, the graphics look very awkward especially during cutscenes, characters barely show expressions on their face or it doesn’t even match the situation and the voice acting (Japanese va btw) doesn’t make it better, the quality sounds like it was recorded under a thick blanket.

Unfortunately the gameplay isn’t the only thing bad about this game, debatably not even the worst about this game, what i hate most about nier replicant is its story.
I honestly dont know where to begin, the story feels like if you gave the fans who wrote ANR (Aot no requiem which is a shitty fan-made ending for those who don’t know) the opportunity to make a story inspired from the concepts of aot. both protagonists start off with losing smth they care for and declare to kill every last of these creatures, difference is aot does it in a unique compelling way which makes the story amazing while replicant does the exact opposite.

Replicant suffers majorly from its poor execution and nier protag suffers the most from it as to me he was the only character who i thought was interesting but didn’t get the depth he deserved due to yoko taros tendency to put more detail on the ass of the main female lead and his unoriginal fetch quests that does not progress the plot. The one thing that bothers me the most is kaine, i feel like kaine wearing her undergarments cuz of her being unisex so she has the need to reveal herself to represent a “feminine” characteristics is an excuse for yoko taro to sexualize another female character and appeal it to players, cuz her concept was just awfully executed and jus poor writing all around. every other character is just there and don’t rlly add much

As I said before the plot of replicant hardly progresses because of its fetch and report for majority of the game so it literally feels like the plot gets split in two parts which is: Yonah is sick, protag ask popola about medicine for yonah, she will say no then send us off to a fetch mission for that whole first half then the time skip happens which turns to yonah gets captured by shadowlord, nier protag ask popola about shadow lord and yonahs wherabouts, she will say nothing important and then she will send you to a fetch mission, its horribly structured and hard to play through.

Its honestly hard to take this game seriously alot of the cutscenes have the most bullshit convenience or some dumbshit happening, like how many times did kaine nearly fucking died due to her having the reaction time of a sloth and how she forgets she has the ability to jump really fucking high, or the junk heap incident where jakob clearly dies trying to save Gideon after his clumsy ass almost got himself killed and then Gideon develops hatred to the robot who happens to jus be standing there, Gideon never shown any type of self hatred to himself for his brothers death and its jus stupid, another stupid cutscene is when emil blows up an entire town after he randomly goes on a rampage, just out of nowhere with no lead up or anything, and
had zero impact on the story, like it was forgotten right after that shit and his rampage never happened again, thats how random it is. I could go on and on about these stupid cutscenes but i would be typing the longest review ever.

The fact you have replay the game 4 times to fully grasp the lore of the game is absolutely terrible and it doesn’t make the game have replay value, it makes the game worse in fact especially since replicant barely adds any new content in each of its route. You shouldn’t have to play the game more than twice to grasp all the content of the game anything more than that is absurd.

In conclusion, nothing about nier replicant does anything i like in a video game and a complete waste of time, unless you like to look at an woman’s ass crack for hours and hours then i do not recommend this game.