This is the most qualified review score possible, about 30% of this game is repugnant and hateful and oftentimes made me feel ill with its homophobia, transphobia and fatphobia.

.....the other 70% is tender, intimate, sweet and beautiful. What a cast. What a setting. The twists and turns are engaging even when you know the general outcome. Just an incredible game. It’s shameful that the other 30% threatens to overshadow the good, and it’s hard to argue against the general negative view people have of this game when there’s plenty more Persona and Shin Megami Tensei games that aren’t this hateful and cruel.

Kind of a letdown after the highest possible highs of “Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA,” but maybe that’s to be expected. The writing is as clever and thrilling as ever, but the boring locale and interminable, mandatory tower defense segments really suck all the fun out of an otherwise engaging game. Combat and level design is as fun as ever, but the poor optimization had my recently-rethermal’d PS4 Pro screeching like a jet engine during conversation sequences, and quiet as a lamb during the intense combat.

It’s clear Falcom is moving on from this engine and this game generally feels like a bit of a trifle; brief, less-inspired and coming off as something of a celebration of Ys games past. It’s hard to hold too many of these shortcomings against it when Falcom’s worst is better than just about any Action-RPG out there....but I did turn the difficulty to Easy just to get through to the end around 60% through.

When playing Ys VIII, I turned the difficulty up.

Saccharine, endearing and endlessly surprising. That kind of thing is par for Shu Takumi but this game really doubles down on what works about Ace Attorney and finds room for a great deal more sustained character work and sentimentality than the Ace Attorney games typically go for. The structure of the game leaves the first two cases feeling a bit too much like tutorials, and as a result the exciting parts of the game feel pretty backloaded, but when they kick in the game hits its stride.

There is a concerted (and applaudable!) attempt here to reckon with English racism and xenophobia but its simplicity and ham-handedness maybe starts to strain the limits of credulity towards the end, and the absence of any similar scrutiny towards the Empire of Japan left me wanting the game to deliver a more comprehensive politic, particularly as the latter part of the game leans hard into international intrigue and global relations. Clearly Takumi had these things firmly in mind, so here’s hoping that’s in the second one!

I sorta mourn this translation only coming on modern platforms, as this game is absolutely gorgeous and I wish it were possible to see these assets on that lovely 3DS display, but that’s obviously not the game’s fault. I’d say this ranks third among the Gyakutens Saiban, after 1) Apollo Justice and 2) Ace Attorney.

A delightful multimedia extravaganza, every animation meticulous, every lip-sync aligned perfectly with dialogue, all voice actors giving it 100%. Wonderfully written, charming adventure/minigame segments, and lavish beyond anything we in the west would've been seeing in 1996. An absolute treasure from top to bottom.


....except that combat. I actually stopped playing after getting two game overs on the next-to-last combat segment. I am generally not a tactics fan in general, but I get the feeling that this combat is especially perfunctory and under-baked. I'm sure later games in the series refine and complicate things in more satisfying ways, and I would give anything to be able to play them.

In all ways (except combat) the absolute apex of Games as Multimedia.

My assumption going into this from playing various Platinum games (and just PS2 games in general) was that it would be a level-based, on-rails affair. Shocked and astounded to see that it holds close to its Resident Evil roots, with persistent and freely-navigable spaces. The player-driven engagement with secret missions and some of the weapon pickups make this game feel really alive and exploratory in a way I have never felt from its descendants. The voice acting is charming and cute, and the plotting is impressively spare.

The combat is pretty impressive in how flexible and dynamic it is, but I tapped out during the first Mundus fight, whose circular arena and Dante-always-points-towards-Mundus attack restrictions make for disproportionate frustration. Still, really really charmed by this and could see myself doing a more involved playthrough. On to DMC3!