I know that this game is basically considered the Boogeyman in the Mother and even Nintendo community but I don't think I will ever waver from giving this game a perfect score. I will be honest though, they have a point. The encounter rate is obnoxious and the overworld and dungeon design is legitamately kind of awful, but this is one of the most charming games I've played in my life. The combat is simple but difficult enough to keep you engaged, the dialog is both funny and beautiful, the atmosphere is great, the story is excellent, and everything about this game just fills me with a sense of wonder. I am extremely biased as such a hardcore fan of the Mother series, but I just can't force myself to give this game a score under a 10.

Incredible. I'm biased as a complete Mother fangirl, but this game was just fantastic. It has a couple issues I'll acknowledge, movement kind of sucks, the early game is a bit boring, and sometimes things can be a little obscure, mainly optional content. But dude, this game is freaking EPIC! The story is really cool and clever in how it builds up the series. The writing is consistently quirky and hilarious. The combat, while time-based is not my preference, is still really fun and honestly way better than a lot of RPG Maker games. The world of this game is just crazy, there's so much in it with tons and tons of optional side quests, added context to things like races in the game, and LORE. This was just such a trip as a Mother fan and when I wasn't geeking out, there was awesome original stuff just around the corner. Loved this all the way through.

I've gone on record saying I quite enjoy Tales of Arise. It definitely has its issues, don't get me wrong, I get why it's not the most beloved game in the series. I hate the bosses, the skit system has been ruined, the pacing in the back half of the game is not very good, the AI was blehhhh, but in spite of all of that I enjoyed the game a lot. I loved the cast, the combat was super satisfying outside of bosses, the overworld and content was vast and investing, and I even thought the story was pretty good. However, what I think both haters and fans can agree on, is that after the credits rolled, we were done with Arise. It made some interesting steps forward and we wanted to see where the series would go from here. Of all the Tales games, this had to be one with the least potential for a continuation.

Which is why I remember seeing "Beyond the Dawn" trademarked and getting worried.

Was this a sequel? No, it can't be a sequel, what would they even do? An anime? A pachinko machine? It was certainly a... Weird thing to see announced. But, being the massive Tales fan I am, I had faith that Bandai Namco wouldn't do something unreasonable. Turns out this was a DLC taking place after the story, sort of like Tales of Graces' "F Arc." I became cautiously optimistic, while the arc had its flaws Graces' F arc had a lot of great aspects going for it and I think made the game stronger overall. Promising 20 hours of content, a ton of new stuff, and a wholely new story, I was curious to see what Bamco was cooking.

The first thing that made me worried was the pricetag. Thirty dollars. That's pretty freaking hefty for a DLC, isn't it? But hey, it's pretty long at least, I guess it sooorta makes sense. Then I was hearing from others that the game's length was... Actually more like 10 hours. Hell, someone I know claimed to beat it in less than 5. I'm not taking the price into account with this review, but I beat this campaign in around 10 hours, and for the actual amount of interesting new content this price is a complete scam, especially considering what this is advertising. I imagine you're only getting 20 with all the sidequests while going as slow as possible. Not cool Bamco. Not cool.

But whatever, I had borrowed a PS4 for this, I had set aside time for it, I was gonna play this campaign. And... I was kinda bored? Beyond the Dawn's structure is the first thing that kills it for me. All the overworld areas are reused. This makes sense, the whole world was pretty much explored (which is another reason this DLC didn't need to exist), but it makes every moment you're not in a dungeon just... Walking from cutscene to cutscene. Tales of Xillia 2 reused overworld areas as well but there were like. Goals. And places to travel to. Here it's just... Empty space with no whimsey in the slightest.

And the cutscenes themselves? I mean they're fine I guess. The story of Beyond the Dawn is not very special in my eyes. Most of it is focused around this new kid Nazamil with Dahnan and Renan blood and how she had an awful upbringing that effects her life now, and like. I don't know she's fine. I didn't really get attached to her, they spent a bit trying to make me feel bad for her and then suddenly I'm supposed to think of her like she's my best friend. I feel like I've seen the themes and story of Nazamil done with characters in the series like Phi or Artorious or... I don't know, point is she just didn't really feel that inspired or special. Other factors in the story are lesser focuses. They reference the current race relations of the world which is interesting but it doesn't go much further than "racism sucks." It's nice seeing the other characters a year later and how they're doing though, even if they don't have much to do. Shionne and Alphen are the highlight here, being as cute as ever, and I'll admit I genuinely really liked what they do with Alphen. Being seen as a hero and someone who ruined the world at the same time and how that's taken a toll on people. It was neat! The skits were also an improvement I think, much shorter and featuring more enjoyable interactions. I'll admit that there were some genuinely effective and well-written scenes throughout the campaign, but nothing felt especially impressive. It just leads to a really mediocre undercooked story.

When you're not wandering around you'll end up doing the grand total of 3 new dungeons. Their layouts are typical Arise stuff (outside of the last one) meaning that they're neat and all but not really that interesting in layout. The problem comes in the battles. I mentioned the F arc earlier, which has many dope gameplay differences. New artes, an expanded version of a character you didn't (normally) get to play much, and an entirely new character! Beyond the Dawn has nothing new. No, seriously. The game plays pretty much identically, warts and all! Okay the AI seemed better, they died to dumb dodgable things less at least, but that could just be me. But the utter lack of things for Beyond the Dawn to claim as new makes this feel more like an overpriced sidequest, emphasis on overpriced because jesus christ $30 for nothing new in gameplay is some sad crap. I like Arise's combat, but I didn't get anything out of Beyond the Dawn that I couldn't have gotten out of the original with a way better structure. Hell, some things are taken away from you, having to unlock artes and such you already had in the campaign. What a bizarre decision to force in some level of progression since they didn't want to add anything new. I was at least hoping for Bamco to maybe go back on their boss design at least, but nope, still a bunch of stupid beefcakes that the game refuses to let you combo. What a disappointment.

But whatever, even with all of that I still would have written off this DLC as whatever, an overpriced disappointment. You know a sort of "well if you really love Arise there's more to do in it, a bunch of sidequests I didn't touch too." But no, they decided to drop one of the worst final dungeons in the series on me at the end too. Not only does it pull from the Tales design idea I was glad died of making the final dungeon a drawn-out gauntlet that will overstay its welcome and then offer you two more hours of content, something that instantly makes your dungeon tedious and horrible, it has you refight an almost identical boss THREE TIMES. It took me at least 12 minutes each time, and no it wasn't fun the first time either. It felt like a freaking punchline by the third time, where it was now throwing two giant unstunnable monsters at me at the same time! Great, now I have to manage dodging three strong enemies that I can not combo all at the same time! It felt like a freaking romhack, but whatever, one terrible version of a boss and a few bad ones throughout an overly long dungeon isn't the worst thing ever. It made me say I disliked the DLC, but I still had a grand finale to go through at least. Maybe Beyond the Dawn could pull through?

It's the worst boss fight in the entire franchise.

Now I can't be 100% sure on that, I haven't played the JP games or the spinoffs, and some come really close so I could change my mind later, but god what a DUMPSTERFIRE of a boss. Unlike some bosses in the basegame, this wasn't extremely frustrating with obnoxious mechanics, it's just the purest form of an Arise boss. Way too much health, some annoying abilities, and of course you can't combo it. But when I say way too much health, I mean WAYYYY too much health. It legit took me over FORTY MINUTES to take this dude down. I was playing well too, I never felt my chance of winning threatened once. The boss even has an ability to recover health if you don't take out their clones fast enough, which SUCKS because instead of being a threat my thought process was "oh god I don't wanna play this terrible boss any longer." But whatever, after so freaking long I finally beat the dude... AND THEN THERE WAS A SECOND PHASE. THAT ALSO TOOK FORTY MINUTES!!!! It has even MORE health, WHY?? Why is a significant portion of your DLC campaign ONE BOSS FIGHT, it took me over a tenth of my playtime!! Possibly even more! This phase was more threatening at least but god it just has such annoying attacks and does not. Freaking. END!

I was only half paying attention when the final cutscene played. I think I gathered what happened but I didn't care, I was so utterly worn out from that terrible endgame. This is a low for the series, and unlike other lows I can't make an excuse for it. This DLC flat-out sucks. The fact they're charging THIRTY DOLLARS for this game, a price tag you could use to buy some of the greatest games ever created around this holiday season is a punch to the gut of all Tales fans. Hopefully wherever the series goes from here takes no notes from this DLC. What a waste of time and money.

First I'm gonna say this, unlike a lot of early players for this game, I was not a backer or a religious follower. Some time ago I saw that a silly indie RPG in a modern setting with a unique concept for combat was being made and I wishlisted it. Outside of a few snippets, I didn't know much before playing it.

This game starts off really wacky and I love it. Its simply throwing joke after joke, minigame after minigame, and its all really fun while establishing the game's really silly and hyper sense of humor and wacky variety in gameplay. And I'll say it now, the humor is the highlight of the game for me. It consistently had me laughing at almost every cutscene that attempted funnies and a good chunk of NPC dialog got a solid nose exhale out of me. So in terms of being weird and goofy, the game gets an A+ for me.

Then it just, and I'll keep this vague for spoiler reasons, randomly pulls a... Very dark twist out of nowhere. It's completely jarring, and I don't think it was supposed to be a joke. For a minute it kind of plays up the guilt and scale of what happened. "Okay" I thought, "this isn't what I expected at all but, hey, I wasn't immediately into how dark Omori got, and that's one of my favorite games ever." The only problem is that Knuckle Sandwich doesn't really focus on that. Knuckle Sandwich doesn't really focus on... Anything, unfortunately. Right around here, completely contrasting that, you get a big exposition dump about some sci-fi fantastical nonsense on how the world works as we explore some weird glitch world. So already I'm a bit confused on what they want to explore, and then when you get out the game begins to set up a mysterious conspiracy sort of maybe loosely related to what was dumped on you probably, Bus Driver isn't entirely sure at least.

Like, okay? Is this a grim comedy with dark themes, a modern fantasy adventure, or a conspiracy mystery story? It feels like the game tries to do all three at once and can't really focus on any of them. Even outside of story content, the required overworld minigames pretty much vanish after you get party members and not too long after the burger joint the game is named after just goes into the background until near the ending. This game is so dissociated it feels entirely different at the beginning, middle, and ending. The dark stuff after the mystery properly begins outside of a couple vague references completely vanishes until and I'm not joking the last section of the last proper dungeon of the game. The weird fantastical stuff also vanishes for large chunks of the middle of the game as you're exploring more of Bright City, my man Bus Driver stops hooking you up with info outside of a few set points once you get far enough, and even then all he usually has to say is "Maybe the info is here? Idk."

The conspiracy angle I guess fits this game the best, but it just doesn't explore it well enough. You spend a huge chunk of the game chasing a rival party that ends up meaning very little in the grand scheme of things. And god the actual twist on what's really going on is so freaking silly and hardly set-up since the game spent so much time exploring other stuff. The main "foreshadowing" is a running gag where I can't even tell how it would work in-universe. This would be fine if the game was all silly and goofy, but no right after the villain does some disastrous crap that's so freaking jarring, and then the game just... Moves on! Like yeah sure nothing to explore there.

I just did not care for the endgame of Knuckle Sandwich at all. It pulls back in the other two concepts it was exploring in a haphazard way that just seems so confused. Elaborating on the dark stuff after hours of not acknowledging it, pushing the fantastical elements front and center to the point where after the final boss the game just delves into complete goofy nonsense that while pretty funny feels like it undermines the game, and again, has a really unsatisfying twist of a conclusion.

So yeah... I'm not very big on the story if that isn't clear enough. However, I don't really have only bad to say about "story" scenes surprisingly enough.

Once again the humor is excellent, whenever the game is doing dumb Mario & Luigi-type shenanigans, I was fully into it. The many scenarios that crowded the middle of the game were also pretty amusing or interesting. Yeah doing random crap around this cruise ship is pretty much filler, but it's fun, and that's what I was looking for. I liked some of the characters, too. None of them are explored all that much, but I was happy when Echo, Thea, Bus Driver, and especially Brightside were around. The overworld was nice too, NPCs are great, sometimes they feel like they have their own little punchlines and progression as they appear throughout the game. The dungeons were fun too, nothing crazy but I think they struck a good balance of puzzles versus combat. I didn't find much in the overworld to explore outside of those, but what I did find was neat. Got really into the arcade minigames especially.

But hey, the story isn't what got me interested in the game. It was the combat, and... Yeah, it's pretty good! WarioWare is a series that has a special place in my heart and the idea of combining it with a typical turn-based RPG sounds ridiculous yet sort of genius. Dodging enemy attacks never got old to me, I love how sometimes the minigames make sense for what the enemy is and sometimes it's just "Play golf and avoid hitting the cow." While most are pretty basic with ideas I've seen many times before, they were still fun with very few exceptions.

This is where I start nitpicking.

First off, attacking. There are three minigames for regular attacks, which are all fun, but the circle one is way too strong. It's just easier and has way more damage potential and often for me resulted in getting wins way earlier. There's also the minigames for special attacks which are fun but man you just don't get that many. Each character gets like two? I was getting really sick of using beat up on the protagonist, hell, he doesn't get many skills at all considering you have him the whole game. Equipping skills as items is an option but those are limited by your small, occasionally annoying inventory, and even smaller amount of equipment options.

Party member balance seems to be an issue in general. You don't get to choose your partner until the late game but I don't know why you would choose anyone aside from Thea, it took me a while to realize it but her flare up skill just freaking breaks her with how strong she can get on gop of her pretty easy skill attack minigames. Thankfully though I think the difficulty is handled well to (mostly) offset that and most other things in the game. You can customize minigame difficulty and how much damage you take in percentages of 10 perfectly to fit how hard you want the game to be, on top of other options like autoheal or disabling EXP all together. I thought a lot of this game was too easy but after customizing it it felt just right. Only thing that seems annoying with challenge runs using those are those undodgeable attacks that hit everyone, those just feel cheap. Only other complaint I think worth mentioning is that I think a lot of bosses go on just a tad bit too long, but don't let that distract from the fact that overall, I had fun battling in this game. It's fast-paced, fun, and always kept my attention with what they were going to throw at me next. I was never flat-out sick of battling, which even happens for combat systems I love, and I think this game's fast pace is to thank for that.

And this all makes me feel really conflicted. I was having a good time running through this game, laughing at all the ridiculous scenes, getting into fun battles with the goofiest systems, and absolutely digging the GBA-inspired aesthetic and music which is just overall really solid. However, now when I think about this game having beaten it, my thoughts are just soured by just how disappointed I was with the story and how unhappy I am with how it unraveled in the ending. I mean how much of this review was just me being confused on what it was even going for? I don't know, I feel like I'm being too harsh. This game clearly had a lot of heart put into it, but it almost feels as if the game was so excited to put out all of its ideas that it got kind of lost on the way of doing it. I guess it's decent overall? I do see a lot of potential here, and Andy Brophy seems like a lovable dude, so I'm definitely interested in seeing what he cooks up in the future.

Persona 3 Portable is a game I don't entirely hate playing as its still Persona 3, one of my favorite games, at its core, but I'm giving it this mildly exaggerated score because I do believe this should never ever be your first experience with Persona 3. Here's why.

- The lack of cutscenes, despite what some people tell you, IS a big deal. In the opening of the game, the story presentation was so bad without them that I legitamately had no clue what was going on, and I had played the game before.

- The combat sucks. It's Persona 4's mechanics duct taped onto Persona 3 and I find it a major waste. If I wanted to play Persona 4, I would play Persona 4. Playing Persona 3 Portable is watching mechanics put into a game not made for them and robbing the combat almost entirely of what was unique about it. I like Persona 4's dizzy mechanics and such, but I don't play Persona 3 for that.

- The overworld is awful. Dragging a cursor around it is of course worse than a natural overworld, but man it is made so much worse by just how ugly it is. If they at least put some effort into the menus or possibly remade the graphics go make an overworld work on PSP that would be nice, but instead we have this ugly as hell flash game-esque map.

- Introduced skill cards. Might be a bit petty but I've never liked these, skill cards are way too OP and make it comically easy to power through the game with a couple personas, and this game is unfortunately responsible for inventing them.

- The female route makes some wack changes. The music is excellent and some of the social links aren't half bad, but it isn't an awful idea but the party dynamics definitely weren't made for it with how being a girl effects it, and story changes like the big one you get for doing a certain social link are awful. It's still kind of interesting, but as the game tells you, never play it first. I think we'd be better off getting a Persona game with an actual female protagonist then as an option, but that'll probably never happen.

- Numerous dumb changes that exist for no real reason. Skills from having two Personas are items now. Why? They felt like it, I don't know.

- Option to date a ten year-old if you're not playing the rerelease.

- Said rerelease has AI upscaling and compressed sound.

Game sucks, play FES. Only positive outside of music from playing the wack as hell female route is direct party member control, but the original is livable without it, and if you REALLY want it, just mod or hack FES.