After playing so many Kaga games (The old Fire Emblems, Tear Ring) i see a lot of the similarities in plot and execution. But somehow they keep sucking me in in a way modern FE just doesn't. Even when i found three houses quite decent, it just doesn't have the soul and ways the gameplay is used for story purposes. Still took me ages to do each Three Houses route, where this game i devoured in no time. The product value for this one is a lot lower than the playstation titles, but it doesn't seem to bother me. It even adds to charm. My favorite FE gameplay is having interesting maps and plot events, without all kinds of unnecessary bells and whistles. I might be Kaga a fanboy at this point..
I definitely play the sequel when i find the time, at the very least to support the guy.

This is completely on me, but i don't like revisiting levels for upgrades. I never went out of my way to collect every coin or letter in Donkey/Kong Mario, or the chaos emeralds in sonic. I'm more a " straight from start to end and done with it" kind of platformer player. This is a big issue with Mega Man X, because actual performance stuff like health on your life bar and armor is locked behind exactly those shenanigans. Sigma's fortress seems even balanced around you not going through there with just the dash upgrade (which i unfortunately pretty much did and it was hell). I quite prefer the old Mega Man where you get your whole health bar upfront. It's not better or worse in general, just personally don't like it.

I also didn't find most of the stages that memorable design wise. A lot of repetition, and a bit of waiting here and there, like the marble zone in the original Sonic. I don't know if i feel that way because i played the games in order without any nostalgia or i'm starting to get a slight Mega Man burnout. Might also be because i didn't go out of my way to explore for goodies.The bosses however were challenging but in a fun way.

What the game obviously does very right is the setting and design. The animal like theme of the bosses, the stages are beautiful, the intro stage was unique in both gameplay and looks. Zero's design is the stuff of legends, as is the OST.

The setting at it's core isn't that much different from normal Mega Man, just a little bit edgier and even more futuristic. Zero is just a better looking Protoman with his role in the story. It does a great job mixing the franchise up in a way which was desperately needed at the time.

Certainly a classic. It spawned a whole subseries, and by proxy countless Zero and other titles of the franchise.

The unique gameplay traits the characters have are a lot more creative than in ff4, pretty much a direct upgrade. The
Esper system however seems a step backwards from ff5. It's to easy to give everyone all the spells they need, making everything a lot more unbalanced than the job system of last game. If everyone has ultima and the right relics, the personal combat traits aren't even needed at all. Probably less of an issue back when guides weren't so readily available. I have to admit there is also is something enjoyable about how easy you can acquire powerful stuff, even having zero random encounters whenever you desire.

What i enjoyed most about this game is the designed ways to force players to use a lot of different characters. An assemble cast of 12 characters is crazy for a SNES game, and it's would be a shame if people would just use their four favorites. Having different routes for different characters and sometimes even multiple parties working together is a really smart way let players accomplish variety. Why isn't this used in many other games? Even with a lot of modern RPG's you DO end up with mostly the same characters unless you go out of your way to try other party members. Or they split up and you just follow the main characters that stay (or have to see the other route on newgame +) FF6 shows that it can be done in a single playthrough, and that you don't need a single main character to focus on.

Some people (on reddit) complain that ff16 is to dark for them (not the ff they know). FF6 seems to have very dark subject matter as well. Even monsters from past games have a darker design. The idea of the story itself is not that novel (instead of a new world, let's do changes to the old one), but really effective because of the dark presentation. Wouldn't have fit in the mostly lighter atmosphere of last game.

(slight story spoilers from here)

The desperation and hopelessness after an apocalypse (even the thought of suicide) really comes across with the music and choreography. The subject matter is dealt with in anime like Trigun or Devilman/EVA, but really raw for a SNES game. I'm surprised the suicide stuff got through the Nintendo of America censor police. Even though you don't see much of the villain in the second act of the game, a crazy despot that finally has real power that can cast judgement at any moment is a scary thought. Also shown really great visually on the worldmap (and with cinematics), it pulled all the stops with mode 7 and otherwise. I feel this is around the ceiling with what you can do on the system.

Looking for your party throughout the world, seeing them dealing with the apocalypse, it never was boring for me. They all go trough a personal arc, like Terra finally understanding what love is, or Cyan finally letting go of the past, Locke being able to love another after the love of his life passed away etc.

Like The other Final Fantasy games, the theme is about hope. And i find that theme delivered a lot more effectively in this entry, because here it really is grimdark before it gets better. And even then a lot of scars stay, you just have accept that and live with them. Something most adults in real life (or with a bad hand of cards dealt in life even children) have to eventually come around to. This theme is even more firmly established in personal arc of the main character in Persona 2, but the gameplay there is miles behind.

This game (like 4 and 5) added a whole lot to the Final Fantasy mythos (countless stuff references in ff14), and it still holds up.

P.S: The Backloggd description of this games says "the first story that did not revolve around crystals", but unless i'm remembering this wrong ff2 also didn't revolve around crystals.

The first game has such a bog standard story that it makes the plot of the first Fire Emblem seem intricate. It's the typical destroy evil story, without many surprises or originality. Barely anyone in the party has much of a personality. It's by no means bad, and i enjoyed myself, it's just not standing out at all.

The many alternate routes are a nice addition, but sometimes feel forced narrative wise, like some of those old marvel 'What if?' comics where someone does illogical actions completely out of character just to get a bad ending. It also ends up with fighting many of the same characters in slightly different settings. I completed all the routes and by the last few it became a bit tedious, even with the built in 'go to the chapter with the branch off point' function it has.

The combat is an unique twist on the Fire Emblem formula, each character gains spells and equipable abilities through a skill tree. They can also field a few mercenaries that function as anonymous meat shields and become stronger/heal when close to their commander. Killing an enemy commander kills of the whole attached squad. This makes the map feel like a huge ongoing battlefield with actual armies, more so than what Fire Emblem recently tried(and failed) to do with Battalions in Three Houses. The game is a bit on the easy side, but as a huge strategyrpg fan it was an unique system to enjoy.

Also a great asset is the option to change into the original art and ost. 90's anime art has a certain charm that the new art has trouble replicating (and everyone has HUGE shoulderpads). It might be because i'm a 90s kid and grew up watching stuff with this artstyle, but Imo the vibe of the games fit the old art way better. At the very least i'm glad the option is there.

Langrisser II also doesn't have the most exciting plot, but i saw some characters i really liked. It does have a lot more alternate routes to complete, really tapping into what makes this series unique. I probably finish those routes as well, and it is going to take a while.

A classic turnbased strategycollection to enjoy for fans of the genre. It might even be a perfect introduction to the genre, because of it's lower difficulty. It is also completefriendly with the different routes. You will have a good time with it if your expectations for the story aren't too high going in. They are remakes of SNES titles after all. Not worth full price, but a good pick up target when on a (steam) sale.

I remember it being very buggy and quite low budget, and you couldn't play that many decks with it. But it did get me into playing the pokemon TCG for real against other people every week in officially licensed shops. You could even earn badges that way. And eventually even country wide tournaments. That brought me years of joy. It was around the time the the Team Rocket set came out until around the time Nintendo took over from WOTC. So i have a lot to thank this little promotional curiosity for(or hate for a lot of money and time spent).

Still have an complete base set and a lot of the other first sets in maps to this day.

While the pathfinder rules, gameplay elements and kingdom management all together were a bit to much of an information overload at times, the worldbuilding and story were worth it.
I believe this game is adapting a well known tabletop pathfinder campaign. What seems to be a simple rags to riches hero fantasy story, becomes something else entirely when all twists and turns are revealed. A slow burn longer than persona 5 royal. With sidestuff and companion stories included it can easily count 200 hours! What's even more insane is the fact that i have the feeling they had to scrap some content towards the end as well for budgetary reasons (Numeria gets a bit of buildup but is a big empty spot on the worldmap).
This game asks a lot of the player in a lot of aspects (time, mechanics, management, following the lore), so i wouldn't dare recommend as something anyone could like. But as an acquired taste it checked a lot of specific boxes i have a weakness for (i love DnDlike fantasy settings). It does have some flaws, and the very last dungeon is a major pain in the ass.

More a game that personally really clicked even with it's flaws. than a generally amazing game.

The only truly unique thing i saw is the flavor of starting the game by beating the final villains, that was quite novel for it's time (not anymore now, for example Fire Emblem Awakening and Engage).

It's a cardinal sin that a RPG this far in the console's lifespan still doesn't automatically target different enemy groups while the current target is dead. It had been done before, so it wasn't exactly rocket science. Also not easy to see what which item and learned spell does.

Feels somewhat low budget graphic wise even for 1993.
An obvious Dragon Quest clone indeed. It doesn't seem to have much of an own identity yet that it's sequel (from what i heard) definitely has. It does have a decent plottwist with the Lufia character. It's worth looking up the final part and the stuff with Lufia up on youtube, but not worth finishing the game for it. That would be +/- 15 min of content trapped in hours of slog.

Despite having access to SNES games since i was young, i never came around to this title. I only knew it was getting a lot of praise at the time. The music and the sprite work (like it's sequel that i knew a little more of) are indeed high points not only of the game but of the SNES library as a whole. The setting however is a bit wasted on a kind of bland story. I guess since this is kind of a sequel to FF Mystic Quest they wanted to keep it simple. But after having played so many retro titles it's painfully obvious just how by the numbers it is. It's basically the evil empire creating an all powerful fortress storybit from FF2 with a classic Macguffin hunt for items that power you up (that random monsters seem to have). Story beats also 'just resolve'. Like when there was an evil witch that tried to kill us. After the battle she just says that she will be a peaceful person from now on and that is it. I also saw Santa Claus somewhere but that must have been a fever dream.

The characters are also kind of bland and the translation is sloppy. This was par of the course for early snes RPG's, but makes the story and character interaction not a main reason to play this game.

The problem this games has is that the combat (for me) is also more of an annoyance than a reason to play this. A lot of other people complained about the abusive magic system, the weird hit boxes if you do decide to go the more physical route, the performance issues, forced menu hopping and the horrible AI. So I'm not going to deep into it. It's just not very rewarding or fun. They also reuse recolored bosses. I don't mind recolored normal enemies, but with bosses it's a bit lazy.

That leaves just the art and music department as being great. And while those on it's own can of course be a legitimate reason to try the game and enjoy it, i personally have to many games in my backlog to put so many hours in it anno 2023 just for that.

But i do respect the beginning of a (at a point) well regarded franchise, that seems to be the start of their kind of final fantasy action RPG style experiments. It did things in 1993 that people didn't see before, and the combat is clearly an early inspiration for Chrono Trigger. Also co-op in a RPG was quite rare at the time.

- Almost fully voice acted
- Story was interesting and it has an (ys world) east European influence. Also funny that the local lord is originally from the Ys roman empire, because in the real world the Romans indeed traded with that area.
- On the shorter side. These days that's a positive for me. The story didn't feel incomplete, so that just means that it didn't do needless filler to increase the runtime.
- Great quality sprites in the Falcom style
- Amazing OST, also love the violins in it
- Dungeon design that plays with height but not overly frustrating/confusing
- the amulets that give you different powers are much better than the different elemental swords in Ark of N. You don't need to grind endlessly to power them up. They even gave an easier dash option than the one in the last game. The dev team learned a lot from the mistakes they made there.
- really good bossfights even compared to the other earlier titles

This one checks all Ys boxes for me. Amazing remake.

I find the 'around the world' theme something that games do when they don't really know what to do with the plot (a lot of beat them ups did this as well), so i don't know how creative this really is. But i guess Castlevania didn't do that one before.

It did have some amazing set pieces, like the whole climbing up the tower of Pisa, the fountain in Versailles that became bloody (and was that supposed to be the ghost of Marie Antoinette as boss?), the German WWI skeleton soldiers. The Death bossfight was amazing since he teleports you to old bosses with the theme of real tarot cards. Like the tower, wheel of fortune and the magician (and death itself is of course one of the tarot cards). I don't like reusing bosses in general but this one was really clever. Last phase of Dracula was really trippy with the background like that.

Because i suck at these games i chose the 8 diagonal spear, and had a good time without too may frustrations.

Outside the setting it doesn't really break the mold in any way, but it's good comfort food if you like this kind of old school Castlevania.

I have to admit that i prefer 2d platformers above 3d ones (platformers is not really a genre i'm that into anyhow). Mainly because the graphics seem to disorient my eyes into slight nausea even when i'm playing less than a hour. Curiously i had that also when i was young when this game first came out, and that was the reason i tended to get pulled into the snes mario/donkey kong (and genesis sonic) titles instead. Old 3D graphics with turn based stuff is better on my eyes, but even then i still feel some discomfort. Same thing with very old shooters like Doom. It might be the combination of the style of 3d graphics, having to move a lot in all directions and the crappy camera.

I also discovered i'm not the kind of person for exploring every corner of levels just to collect things in a (almost) storyless game. I rather have either a more story based adventure, or a platformer more on the rails and less open worldy, more focused on completing the level than having to go back collecting. I don't know if there are any 3d platformers that are more catered for my tastes (there doesn't have to be).

Still, even when i'm one of the least suited people for the 3D platformer, i still see how extensive and iconic this game is when i watch play-troughs. I was alive at the time it came out, so i experienced just how jawdropping it really was at the time. Seems Mario popularized both platform genres immensely.
For personal reasons i can't give it 5 stars, but i get why for a lot of people it is.

The gameplay just as good as slay the spire imo. There are multiple races and the combo's between them feel satisfying. Each class levels up with unique talents and passives. You can equip them with weapons and armor for ingame effects. The truly unique part is that you can recruit additional members. That really increases complexity and you're not glued to a single character class the whole run. Art is also top notch (something spire unfortunately doesn't excel in).

So why only 3.5 stars? The runs are quite short. That means that if you play this a whole lot (like after multiple successful runs) there isn't enough variety for my taste. They DID help fix that with additional assassins to hunt you down and multiple optimal challenges.
What it comes down to is that this is one of my fav games of the genre, but i just wanted there to be more of it.

I'll say try it out when you like slay the spire and can pick it up for cheap. You won't be disappointed by giving it a few spins.

The whole game is music themed. All three main party members have their own music instrument. A lot of musical themed games are mostly good at integrating the combat with music. This game is the opposite and is really good at making you feel like a musician outside of combat. The cast collects new songs for their repertoires (they are all really fun). They practice those songs on their journey, performing for the public on numerous occasions. No other game i played focused on this part of being a musician as much as this one does. To bad that part of the story goes to the background in the second half when it when it becomes less slice of life and more a world encasing main plot (like we expect from Legend of Heroes).

Speaking of the main plot, The blue tribe that we saw parts of in the last two games gets a lot of focus here. We get a full picture of the whole history of of the world. The civilization became advanced with musical spells, and how it doomed itself also had to do with sound. The witch island and the last boss from 'the prophecy of the moonlight witch' connects back to here. You also meet a lot of characters from the tear of vermillion game. I'm not going into more detail because of spoilers, i just say the blue tribe is the main connection between the games and the payoff for playing the other games first is definitely there. It was written as the connecting part between the other games, and there are no loose ends at the end of the trilogy.

The game uses the save files of the other games for some optional fanservice stuff like meeting all the characters from the other games, and you can play parts of the other games with the new party. This chronological anomaly makes zero sense and serves no purpose, but it's cute to see save files of earlier games in a franchise having usability in handheld games that aren't named 'Pokémon'. Not many games did that back then.

This is not the most approachable game of the LoH series by a long shot, but that's the story of this whole trilogy. It's not helped by the stiff translation, but at least the language of melodic music is universal. It's certainly the most unique entry in the way it presents itself and uses music throughout every aspect of the game. As a device in the story, the world-building, the puzzles, the lore of the whole trilogy and even in the slice of life parts. Also in the combat where you can combine music spells, but it doesn't save the boring combat system by a long shot. Still, for me the trilogy ended on a positive note (couldn't help the pun).

This game had ideas they directly used and improved for the trails series. It has the idea of the Bracer's guild (adventurer's guild created with permission from the crown and army) that works similarly. Adventurers do all kind of jobs the army can't do as flexibly, like fighting off monsters and all kind of noncombathelp people might need for about anything. There are famous adventurers everyone wants to hire, the better you are the more you earn. Your adventurer's guild membership is just a need to an end most of the time in this game, and the adventures guild as a whole gets mostly sidelined or just used as a plot device. There is no adventurer rank to increase for your party. Sometimes the bracer(i mean adventurer) district leader asks for help with jobs and we are like ' srry lol no time we have plot to do'. It's still a very clear origin of the Bracer guild in trails, where it (for the better) is more smoothly ingrained in the rest of the story, i might even say the red line as far as worldbuilding goes.

It also has the Church as an important player, and a dark cult that have different ideas of how to shape the world. Problems in the mines (the last game had that as well, seems to be a signature LoH theme). 4 elemental shrines (who's inside look a bit like the 4 elemental towers in trails) NPC women having a crush on a pretty boy in the party. In general the dialogue of almost every npc changes with each story event, more than in the last game and as much as in trails. Even some npc's you wouldn't expect and sometimes have to go out of your way for, have party members react with new dialog as well, depending on who you have at the time. Even some of the OST i'm pretty sure i heard in the trails game somewhere. Just listen "- Bonds −Sadness Overcome−" from the ost on the YouTube Falcom channel and you get what i mean.

There certainly is a connection between the games. The whole land used to be the three continents together, but a highly intelligent tribe that experimented with magic too much broke it in three pieces, with a big cleft of shadow in the middle (called Gagharv, hence why it's used as a name for the whole trilogy). The different pieces of the continent are El Phildin, (this game), Tiraswheel (last game) and the still unnamed continent of the last game. They all have ruins from the civilization that lived in all three of them.

Chronologically this game takes places before the last one, but that game gets quite a few references that makes it clear the other game is meant to be played first. There is an important character in the last game who is the only person in existence who can travel between the three continents with his special magic (Michel de Lap). This is the younger self of a character with a legendary reputation who lived in the village the two main characters from the last game started, and gave them his staff. It's really awesome they have the two games connect with him as a lone traveler between worlds, and this probably goes over the head of anyone who played the games in the wrong order, which is a shame. It will not have the same feels when he talks about how Tiraswheel is without even been there yourself. There are other things that are fun when you play the games in order. There are a few cute references (like the boar joke at the start, the name of a teddy bear which was the same as a real pet bear of one of your Triaswheel party members (Bang Bang), the origin character of the bookseries you can collect in the last game (and you can meet the writer). Michel de lap brought the book over and that's why it's in the last game, pretty cool. Exploding jewels. Cute stuff like that.

You however don't miss anything of the main story or will be confused when you play this as a standalone game, unlike trails.

I found the battle of gods as a backdrop of this story very interesting, a bit like final fantasy (and a lot of other JRPG) where both the light and darkness are not good and evil in the classic sense, and one cannot live without the other. Sometimes preserving the status quo is good, sometime change is. A bit like a centrist points in politics. There also is a third god that just cares about life, like a mediator between conservatism and change. I guess it's another version of 'everyone has a good and a dark side' that games like the persona ones explore more in depth.

In conclusion i honestly like the plot a lot, i feel it's almost on par with trails. The worldbuilding is also to be praised (sometimes a bit more hidden than in later titles), and it's less rough around the edges than the white witch one (but still an acquired taste). A true trails 0.5 , i quite enjoyed it and would rate it 4 stars (with keeping it's age in mind). Except the battle system is the same really bland one the last game had, and unfortunately brings the game down a bit. I personally found this translation better than in the moonlight witch (less mistakes), but it's not perfect. If Falcom really would integrate the Gaghav continent as one in their new titles as some rumors claim, these games really could use new remakes for sure!

Finished it, and it wasn't as bad as the internet told me it would be, i even enjoyed it at times. This is the first game of the Gagharv trilogy (not II), and weirdly enough i get the same roadtrip feel from this as the first game in the trails trilogy. Obviously not as extensive (and even less truly interesting things happening), but it certainly has the cozy vibe that is a signature of Falcom games (and what i love about them). It is a bad game, but you see an attempt at a certain story style that pays off for the company many years later.

Two children go on a pilgrimage to see some famous shrines with mirrors spread throughout the country.The witches were apparently using those to make prophecies. It's a relatively safe trip that is custom for children in the village to mature up, like a big trip will in real life. They get a silver dagger that is a pass for free lodging and travel, and only children (and witches, but those are gone) are allowed to look in the shrine mirrors. Interesting premise.

The two young main characters actually act how you expect children to, but have a certain kind of humor and charm that made them likeable for me. That surprised me because i dislike young children characters relatively fast. If you are looking for a more edgy/mature take on a mc however, you are going to be sorely disappointed.

The story is mostly roadtrippy, but not void of interesting world building, especially regarding the mirrors and the Moonlight Witch(in the coverbackground). The combat is bare without the gem system of trails, and the difficulty easy. But the focus is on the story and characters. Npc's have new dialogue regularly like in future entries. The translation makes it a bit harder to enjoy than the Japanese audience most certainly did. But the spirit of the text still shines through.

It's really trails 0.5 (or maybe 0.3), without interesting combat but with the same kind of charm, just really unpolished and (evidently) harder to fall in love with. Which isn't weird considering there is a 10 years difference between the two games. Diehard Falcom fans can potentially get something out of it. The translation has quite some spelling errors, and is a little stiff at times, but nothing so major that it completely threw me of. Music was fine for me, but like with persona 1 i didn't listen how the original sounded. I have no doubt it is bad in comparison to it.

It's like a SNESlike rpg in the combat and some story beats, and expectations should be set accordingly. it had some unique things, like the trippy cgi visuals of the prophesy in the mirrors. The story starts interesting, losses a bit of fuel in the middle, but ends on quite a strong note with some twists i thought were decent. They even make allegations to possible sequels, which makes me curious how those connect. In 2004 it wasn't uncommon of multiple games to connect the way Legend of heroes does, but in 1994 it probably wasn't done that much.

A remake where i completely see why it failed, but as a Falcom fan i can't help but enjoy even when it sometimes does everything in it's power to make it difficult. Definitely didn't scare me away from the sequels, since most people see this game as the worst of the trilogy. If this is the worst it has to offer i probably see lots to love about the others.