It's true that all I asked of capcom was "more dragons dogma" but I think they took it a bit too literally. I had a great time and was thoroughly addicted up until the credits but there's just not enough new stuff going on for it to feel fully satisfying. Having a whole new world to explore is great but the enemies and bosses are largely repeats with quite a few not even making the jump from dark arisen. The story starts out a lot more comprehensible than the first game's but once you get past a certain point it becomes just as disjointed and bizarre and it lacks iconic moments to hang onto like the encounters with daimon and the seneschal. The vocations are great to play but again are lacking in fresh new content. The mystic spearhand is cool but playing it in the late-game just resulted in me getting stunlocked constantly which was pretty miserable. I guess having a good time despite glaring flaws is really in the spirit of the original game but I wish it was better.

A great game that throws charming character interactions, goofy minigames, varied environments, cool boss fights and compelling cutscenes at the player constantly. The only big flaw is its bizarre desire to copy the absolute worst aspects of AAA western games with its insanely dull and repetitive open world side content. I think the most important aspect to get right when you want players to fill out an open world checklist is making traversal of said world smooth and enjoyable and Rebirth's is neither. It's really easy to get stuck on the environment and the stiff, slow animations for simple things like climbing rough terrain or going over chocobo-specific obstacles makes exploration feel jank and awkward. Thankfully it's almost all optional, but it was a tad annoying thinking about all the EXP and materia I was missing out on. The game also forces a ton of slow walking segments which don't end up wasting a lot of time overall but it ticks me off personally, especially since the PS5's SSD is supposed to make this completely unnecessary to hide loading times. The combat is still good and the synergy attacks are a nice addition. It's really cool seeing the inactive party members on the sidelines and I like how the game constantly switches up your party composition to make everyone feel more involved. I'm still not really sure what to think about the new story material since the time ghosts still feel rather unnecessary and Nomura really needs someone to rein him in for those ending sequences, but overall I had a very good time.

Very cool game. Great artwork, cute girls, fun gameplay, a tad repetitive, yep it's vanillaware. Aside from the RTS aspect and focus on groups in battle it really felt like a classic Fire Emblem experience with a lot of similar story beats and mechanics which was very nostalgic. My only notable issue with the game is that there are so many actions being taken in battle, particularly in the late-game, that even with the fast-forward button watching the battles can take forever. This leads to a lot of skipping which is a real shame given how much work they put into the sprites and animations but the maps are still fun regardless. Along with the lengthy battles, the abundance of characters also makes regularly outfitting everyone and setting up their skill priorities kind of a chore. Thankfully the game was pretty easy overall so I didn't really have to put much thought into these but it does make me wonder if a smaller-scale Unicorn Overlord would've been a tighter experience.

Virginia is best girl btw

Straightforward, difficult, and satisfying. It could be frustrating sometimes due to Maximo's pathetic double jump and a few wonky hitboxes but once you get in the groove and get a hang of the different mechanics, it's an enjoyable romp that moves at a quick pace and never hits the level of frustrating difficulty you might expect from something like ghosts 'n goblins. The only thing that never stopped bothering me was the inability to control the camera with the right stick. I also found the little bit of story with its macho hero, fanservice-y damsels, cartoonishly evil villain and cheesy voice acting to be a pretty endearing.

An enjoyable sequel that improves on the first game in several ways but still comes out feeling a bit lacking in comparison. The gameplay in general is more polished with far less opportunities for frustrating deaths, you get a nice new hammer to play around with, and levels are more expansive with a wider variety of obstacles. While combat feels more developed than the original game, it still remains fairly simple and repetitive and there's far too much of it. I still had a good time but I definitely prefer the simple nature of the first game.

This game is radical. When I went through the standard intro of the hero being rescued from a shipwreck and waking up in an ordinary village, I thought I was going to be playing a JRPG where you travel from town to town and leave behind every NPC to meet new ones. I was pleasantly surprised to find Alundra is a top-class zelda clone with a well-written script and an impressively solid story centering around a single town that endures several twists and tragedies. The gameplay is also great with smooth, straightforward combat and complex dungeons that really feel like actual trials with their complex layouts and occasionally daunting puzzles. It could get exhausting sometimes with some frustratingly strict platforming sections and a couple of the endgame dungeons were downright labyrinthine, but overall it was a great time.