BLOAT: ✔
SIDELINED CHARACTERS: ✔
MOSTLY UNINTERESTING TILL THE FINAL PART OF THE GAME: ✔
holy shit it's Trails of Cold Steel III II I IV!!!!

Once again I am quite let down for what it could have been. Hidden between all the bloat there is a story that has been running for like 6 games, here they finally converge to a grand crossover and it decides to utilize the bare minimum. The characters from previous arcs sure are here but it feels like they are consistently not. This is a problem I think applies to everyone in the C7 cast too (once again); everyone is present but they're sidelines to contribute the bare minimum apart from their one or two character bits then let Rean do everything. Like sure here, at least, I will cut it some slack because this is a Rean game and by the end he finally gets his conclusion with his dad, his sword master, and the central plot point. Which is good looking at his own character perspective but I just wish he wasn't so damn involved with every.single.character. Every single person somehow has to involve Rean in their dialogue even if the main focus seems to be someone else and it gets really grating after seeing his name pop up what feels like every other speech bubble. This continues to be true because the best thing about these games is whenever something DOESN'T involve Rean; examples like: Ash, Olivier, Jusis with Rufus, Fie with Rutger and Juna wanting to represent the SSS and few more but these moments stand out to me because their own character comes on display and that is what I value in these type of games and it's a shame they didn't do this for more characters.

On the positive side, the final portion of the game was good and exciting. We got some well deserved fanservice. The gameplay is still fun; They give you so many tools to break the game which is always appreciated, and choosing your favourite in the last cast to build is cool. The game also looks really good at some portions and they at least tried to make the dungeons look somewhat different. Now, the ending even though sappy and safe, I enjoyed it.

Adding another negative, the music in this totally blows which is sad because I enjoyed CS3's the most.

TL;DR
+ Fun gameplay still
+ Fanservice
+ Graphix
+ Really good when it's good

- Rean
- Bloat n pacing
- Sidelined characters
- Really bad when its bad

Overall: 3/5

Kuro no Kiseki 1 is absolutely stunning and plays like butter. I am by no means an expert on turn-based JRPGs, but I've played a few, and oh my God, this has the best gameplay of them all for me. Trails gameplay has always amazed me and been my favourite, but this sets a whole new bar. They revamped the combat system and now allow you to move across the map with just your joystick rather than it being a separate move like before, making the gameplay and strategising even more interesting, especially in regards to AoE arts. But also, before you even get into your encounter with an enemy, you can engage in action combat to either have an advantage when you get into combat, or to go through groups of enemies and level faster if you feel the need to. Trails games aren't grindy in general, but if you choose to grind, it'll not feel like one at all in this game.

The technical impressiveness goes beyond combat gameplay. Persona 3 Reload, a JRPG by a successful company released 3 years after this game, still does the thing where if you enter a building on the street, you get teleported into like a separate level, and also the encounter system where you get teleported from the dungeon into a separate stage and then get back out once you're done. Not in Kuro. You enter buildings like it's nothing, and go in and out of encounters in the exact same room you were in, like it's no big deal. Which means that if you get into one in a narrow hallway, you will have less space to evade AoE attacks. It's amazing.

The music is very inconsistent in this one. Some of the stuff is downright amazing (as expected of a Trails game), like the boss themes or the jazzy city music, but otherwise you get letdowns like one of the normal battle themes that I found uninspired by Trails standards. And the OP is really fire and gorgeous.

Van is an amazing protagonist. Likable, a grown 24-year-old and in a unique line of work that sets him apart from other Trails and many JRPG protagonists, his "solutions" agency that deals not in black or white, but in gray, makes for some interesting stories and quests. His journey is really cool too, but that's impossible to discuss without spoilers, so I won't.

Unfortunately, despite initially seeming like the automatic best Trails, it has some issues I can't look past. The biggest problem is the pacing in the middle of the game, mostly in the penultimate chapter and the first half of the final chapter. There is so much repetition and padding, even by Trails standards. I was shocked after this wasn't a problem in Reverie and early Kuro 1. I think I finally started to feel Trails burnout because of this. Additionally, the cast is compelling, but sometimes the chemistry feels forced. Lastly, I won't hold it against the game for this, but it feels a little... too complete for its own good, unlike other first parts of Trails duologies. I played a bit of the beginning of Kuro 2 and it honestly feels like an unnecessary follow-up. Outside of those issues I can see why this is "a return to form" as a new arc for many, though I did like Cold Steel myself.

Ultimately, a seriously good game, this series continues to amaze.

So, ask yourself, why are you buying this game?

Do you want a good Dragon Ball Z action game? There's plenty of fighting games out there using this brand, many even on PC, including the still actively supported Xenoverse 2 and FighterZ, both of which are far better at being action games and offer far more for that type of player.

Do you want a game that retells the story of Dragon Ball Z in a compelling way? That doesn't happen. The game will offer about a minute total per arc to scenes that actually attempt to recreate the visuals and emotions behind similar scenes in the manga or anime. The vast majority of cutscenes in this game though are flat shots where you watch the characters backs because CC2 couldn't be bothered to show their lips even moving (let alone the rest of the model, which are typically stuck with either their hands at their sides or in a default looping animation). The pacing of neither the manga or the anime is recreated, the tone isn't, the visuals fail as mentioned before, there is nothing here for a fan of either version of this stretch of Dragon Ball.

What about if you're a general RPG fan? Well, I hope you enjoy hours of cutscenes that are just what I described followed by the game telling you what to do. You have almost zero control over your party until presumably the endgame, and you will find yourself wasting wishes to Shen Long on resurrecting dead warriors, only to find out most of them want to fight Gohan who you almost never have an opportunity to play as once this becomes relevant (and when you do, the game goes "Actually, you can't go to the world map now!").

The fact that so many people herald this game as something good, like it's some great retelling of Dragon Ball Z is baffling. It fails in every regard to do that, ultimately being a cliffnotes version made by people who I honestly think don't like or outright detest Dragon Ball. No moment is given its appreciation, background characters completely change for no real reason other than, presumably, it was easier to work with a stock model (likely taken from another Dragon Ball game), and the part that made me stop and write this review was when the game had Trunks fight Perfect Cell, and it doesn't let you fight. Despite inserting meaningless fights before, fights that don't exist in any version of Dragon Ball (Goku vs Semi Perfect Cell, really?), they cut that one. And it's probably because they couldn't be bothered to do a Super Saiyajin Grade 3 Trunks.

Do you want a Dragon Ball game that loving recreates moments from the anime? Budokai on the GCN and PS2. It even has the original American opening music for English dub fans. Less lovingly is Ultimate Tenkaichi for seventh gen consoles, which redraws various anime scenes, but the game sucks.
Do you want a Dragon Ball Z RPG? Aside from the countless card battlers exclusive to Japan (many of which now have translations), there is also the Legacy of Goku trilogy for the GameBoy Advance, or Attack of the Saiyans for the Nintendo DS.
Do you just want Dragon Ball fanservice? Super Dragon Ball Z, Super Butoden, Hyper DBZ, FighterZ, Xenoverse, Dragon Ball Online, Budokai Tenkaichi 2 and 3, the list goes on.

Kakarot ultimately offers nothing. It does nothing well. Its presentation is bare, it cares little for Dragon Ball, its legacy, or how it existed (both on the screen and on the page). There is a notable Japanese commercial, showing generations of Dragon Ball fans, and how this game is comparable to the days of watching Dragon Ball Z on your TV. Ignoring everything I have said, I do not know how this game can even be compared to that when they didn't even bother recreating the anime's second opening, one which was around for nearly 100 episodes of the show's run, "We Gotta Power".

Also, they chopped off the actual ending and sold it as DLC.
Buy Xenoverse 2 instead.

Vanillaware i thank you for the meal. They once again did not miss. An excellently crafted SRPG with fun characters, good music, and of course, fantastic visuals. All of this formed to create a game that asked a very bold question: what if Genealogy of the Holy War was good?

Honestly despite the format obviously being different, that's not a joke. This game very much feels like FE4 in some ways and given the devs' obvious love for Fire Emblem (Alain is literally Marth), it makes sense for there to be some interesting similarities. The battles all take place on the overworld itself. The terrain that you see, the areas, that's what you're fighting on. The goal each time is to capture the enemy's main command post while defending your own and capturing outposts in between. It manages to convey that epic warfare feeling and actually gives weight to the whole "liberating" thing. I found myself looking to each battle and i legit started getting a bit disappointed when i knew i was running out of fights. Because it's just so good. The sheer flexibility that's on display here really allows this game to be replayed an endless amount of ways i think.

What i really like about the combat is that the battle forecast tells you exactly what will happen in that instance. It makes sense, given the sheer variety of factors that go into determining an outcome. Because the stages are real time, there's more that goes into the strategy than simply just parking your gigachad unit in a good spot and having enemies suicide on them. While there's normally no permadeath, the game still discourages suicide tactics since stamina limits how many times a squad can attack. Squads with zero stamina can't move, which isn't something you want happen to you in a real-time game. The enemy also plays by these rules though. Honestly, that goes for pretty much the entire game. Save for specific bosses, i don't think there's anything the enemy has that you don't.

Continuing on the gameplay, the classes all rock. Well almost all of them. But even the worst ones still fill their niches quite well and certainly have more versatility than Fire Emblem classes. For example, Armor Knights can actually do things. And the thing that helps all this versatility is that each class has both skills for in and out of combat (that is, map effects). For example, Armor Knights can negate damage taken from out of battle effects. Archers can make arrows rain down for AoE, bypassing enemy defenses because it's on the map. Witches can teleport the whole squad. There's quite a lot.

This write-up honestly doesn't cover all of it. Play the demo to get an idea.

When it comes to writing, there is a bit of a divide here. Is the writing as good as 13 Sentinels? lol no. 13 Sentinels' is still Vanillaware's magnum opus when it comes to storytelling. That said, there's a lot of elements to like here. The cast of characters is great and memorable and i like the game's take on Fire Emblem's Support system more than how Fire Emblem does it. I think Fire Emblem could learn something here, as Unicorn Overlord doesn't force it's Supports to completely stretch each conversation into the full CBA chain. I haven't gone through all the convos yet but i don't think there's a single character i dislike here. I also think the director is incredibly based for allowing every recruitable character to be recruited in one run. The game is inspired by Ogre Battle but not it's cryptic as hell character recruitment methods.

The game also has pretty good worldbuilding. You can get that through the convos, the Side Quests or just reading up the logs. Basically every location, however big or small, gets an entry and it does a good job at making the world feel alive. On the visual aspect, each country is very distinct from each other. I believe that visuals itself can serve as a form of worldbuilding, just look at Xenoblade. All of these elements, in my opinion, help support the main plot. The main plot itself is pretty basic but this is one of those games where you really don't get the full experience if you only stick to the main plot.

I really don't have anything really negative to say about this game. I do have a few minor nitpicks however. The Tactics system, as robust as it is, could've had a bit more specificity to it. And for how much control over things you have, a Path of Radiance-style "commands" system that you can give to AI controlled units would've helped. I also think it's kinda noticeable that the game ran out of money towards the end. In an interview they explained how they kept adding more and more recruitable characters which i feel kinda explains why a lot of the recruits are frontloaded into Cornia and Drakenhold. The Albion arc in particular is very short. Ironically, it's maps are probably the longest.

Vanillaware cooked, just like how they cooked all that delicious food in their games, good God, it's all gorgeous. I'd ask for a sequel to like, iron some stuff out but Vanillaware doesn't even do spiritual sequels so honestly, i'm ok with how this turned out. They spent 10 years on this game, ran out of money in the process, but it's ok because they put out an absolute banger. Want an FE4 remake? Just play this instead.

I'm tired.

I went through four 30 – 50 hours long games especially for Azure.

For each game except FC and The 3rd, a lot of stuff triggered me as hell and I was coping about Azure fixing them but it did not happen.

Why are the games paddled with useless stuff story-wisely?

Why do the games abuse of the «someone controls somebody who are themselves manipulated by another person»?

Why do I have to go through a lot of dungeons that have NO reasons whatsoever to exist except grinding?

Why is the narrative outline so repetitive (Even though Azure made it a bit better)?

Why are all the villains just random evil RPG characters (Except for Richard)?

Why do the games always ruin everything they builded up particularly the political stuff just for the sake of throwing plotwists at you and be like «Haahahaha lol I was the villain all along had a plan to gain an immense power to do/for [Insert random stupid motivation(s)]»

The only good thing at the end are the main characters that mostly are rather well written as well as the very fun and dynamic gameplay.

I'm pausing the game for now and will come back some time for the sake of finishing it, but right now I'm angry and saddened by the wasted potential that Trails is.

It feels mean to compare this to its predecessor but Virtue's Last Reward just doesn't have the sheer joy and thrill that Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors had. Its lore simultaneously wants to develop and exacerbate the insanity that 999 spent slowly unspooling, but it doesn't want to approach that level of multifaceted storytelling with nearly the same drama or heightened sense of panic. When I learned of a new element within the story, I didn't feel as strong of a sense of bewilderment or clairvoyance-level realization, but rather a sense of mild satisfaction. That's the thing that gets me about this game, I suppose: It works, but it doesn't tug at my emotions as much as 999 did. The chaos is ramped up but it just doesn't feel as urgent or interesting.

The character drama in particular is maybe my biggest gripe with the game overall. Every conversation is considerably longer and more quippy at the cost of information density, there's this sense of irreverence that feels extremely out of place. Of course, you could blame this on the advent of the Danganronpa franchise and its mockery in the face of certain death, but that series has its moments to refrain from indulging in its hypersexuality and humor in service of a bigger idea that climbs towards a hostile thriller screenplay. Additionally, the irreverence is used to help build onto the dread—were it not for Monokuma's complete and utter disregard for his subjects' lives, there'd be less panic among them.

The characters in VLR, on the other hand, are poised to joke and shove corny banter in nearly every conversation given enough time, such that it stands to kill a lot of the intensity that the holistic story builds. I would much rather a short, important conversation than a long one that stands to remove any given amount goodwill I have for the main characters. This lack of brevity is also not helped by the gargantuan amount of time that it takes between various novel segments, showcasing a very annoying dot moving across the map for every single possible migration of the characters. At a certain point in my playthrough, I started scheduling for these intermissions and texting friends over actually trying to remain immersed with a medium that ejected me from immersion to begin with.

That's not to say it's a bad game, far from it—once again in no small part to the thoughtful escape room design employed with a similar (but not exact same) grace as its predecessor. The increase in difficulty is something I rather appreciate, even if it comes at the cost of breaking immersion sometimes. I especially appreciate the safe system, though it has its drawbacks with certain room-end puzzles. The broader story itself, divorced from being attached to the game and the individual writing choices I dislike, is excellent scaffolding around the original lore that 999 set up. It's just a shame that this story had to shake out this way, because as a game it fails to excite me beyond its lore and individual chambers.

EDIT, 23-MARCH-2024:

My neglect to mention the very casual misogyny present in this game is starting to bug me greatly, so allow me to comment on the reality that Sigma and the rest of the characters either are victims or enablers of horrific womanizing. In a shocking departure from 999's relatively minute jokes about sexuality that are unimportant, minor facets of individual characters only appearing once or twice, Virtue's Last Reward takes the bold move to make Sigma a sexual harasser. In every possible route, he is poised to interact with at least one of the female characters with a variety of dehumanizing and, frankly, horrible sex pestery. He even remarks that Clover (who in VLR is small and skinny but an adult) is seemingly jailbait.

Misogynist characters are not inherently detrimental to a story if it is done with the tact and angling that it deserves. I hold the idea that depiction is not necessarily endorsement of the depicted. However, VLR's main character being an incessantly horny poon-hound who can be led to do just about anything with the promise of someone's panties getting stripped off is so irritating after 20 hours of playing the game that it ceases to be worthwhile as a facet of a character worth exploring. There is no benefit to it in this story.

Class of '09 is a game that will not resonate with men, It's for the girls. As a woman who is has always participated in mostly male spaces in both my hobbies (gaming and gym) and my studies (comp-sci). This game while hilarious resonated with me so much.

I don't think many guys really see how differently you get treated. Even men who seem to fully accept as a friend can have ulterior motives or other you in different ways and I think a lot of the humour in the game relates to that. I found it funny even as someone who was heavily bullied in high school because a lot of what they're alluding to is correct.

I see a lot of the other reviews getting put off by the pedophilia jokes but tbh that's the reality as a woman. First time I was cat called I was 12, first time a classmate put his hands on me I was 13, and all of that just taught me to be open to getting groomed by older men at 15. It's the experiences some women face and I think the jokes are very cathartic for me in that 'you have to laugh otherwise you cry' sort of way. I don't say all this for any other reason than expressing why I enjoyed this game and that I think we should be able to talk about our experiences without it being taboo.

In total I thought the game was witty and towed the line incredibly well. It's not for everyone but it is for me. I think it requires a lot of nuance to fully unpack the game and I enjoy that they don't vilify men by portraying the fact that the main character is a sociopath and a terrible person who makes decisions out of her own self interest with little care for who it affects.

Everyone is horrible, it's funny and it's based on real experiences that people have. I don't think these ideas need to be mutually exclusive.

Anyway it's peak.

Super Mario World is a follow up of the divisive, yet iconic JRPGs, Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3. Like its predecessors, Super Mario World is basically just series of 25 minute long cutscenes that all follow the same basic structure over and over. And that is its main flaw.

After this game the franchise dove away from the JRPG genre and the mainline games became primarily platforming based. This game however is still a boring JRPG with a rough plot and almost no gameplay,

This time it repeats the idea of the previous games, starring Mario, Luigi, Peach and Toad however this time they include the new protagonist Yoshi who is voiced by Andrew Sabiston. Yoshi however doesn't really add much to the plot but to give Mario another character to work off of. Later games would flesh out Yoshi as Mario's mount along with some extra features which I think was for the better.

Most Chapters revolve around a generic plot that they repeat with minor variations over and over and it gets very boring very fast. The entire gameplay can be summed up as the menu that brings you to the level select and everything after that is just cutscenes that go on for too long.

The only redeeming quality of this game is that the characters are kind of fun. Plus every Chapter starts with this groovy little song that sound slike they're trying to emulate cave man noises in reference to Yoshi being prehistoric. Its neat and the cast is fun (yet can sometimes be annoying.) Thats all I have to say about it. I don't understand why this game is so well loved by everyone. Its definitely overrated.

Sloppening the 3rd: The Hundred Hour War (of MID)


SLOP III is a really strange one because it had every recipe to be an absolute giga-banger; graphical upgrade, soft-reset, new cast, time-skip and at times it is GOOD but it seems to be set on fighting against itself in the attempts to be consistently GOOD. The new cast is great (minus 98% of Musse) and so much easier to care about, but they're constantly sidelined because the story has to be structured to where 2 old cast members return to save the day woo! It rips them from their deserved utilization and slaps you with the "oh you remember this character!!! they were your favorite right!?" which got really annoying especially after being repeated 6 times simply because I only really care for 3 reappearing cast members (Fie, Jusis and Emma) and just don't like Rean. Not that this a new concept either, Trails SC did the same and while nothing inherently wrong with this structure; the fact it was so repeated and the returning characters adding bare minimum of additional value other than to increase the runtime is what irks me (clocked 70 hours by the time all of old C7 returned out of 110 total). The game did get better after everyone returned and from the end of chapter 4 uptil the end, it was actually GREAT. The plot point utilisation, lore-drops, twist, rising stakes, tension, action, simple final dungeon and most importantly no filler. It was EXCITING. Shame because this is what the game could've been throughout.

On the positive note; the graphical improvement is fantastic, few models look a bit wonky but are good, the environments look modern, sledgehammer is great, I love the button set actions, music is more enjoyable than previous games (imo), and once again the new cast is great.

TL;DR
+ Graphix
+ New cast
+ Better gameplay
+ Great final chapter
+ Good final dungeon

- Pacing issues
- Old cast
- Too much padding
- Rean (he just sucks)

Overall: 3.5/5