Platinum game is fun.

Platinum story is bad.

Time is flat circle.

I can understand the ire this game generates, but a lot of the things folks hate about this game I ended up finding a lot of value in. It's a cake walk compared to other FF games, and while this is the biggest knock against it for me personally, it didn't bother me all that much. The game's difficulty is balanced around the player drawing a lot of spells from enemies mid fight.

Speaking of, the junction and drawing system is crackheaded. But once you familiarize yourself with it you get into this groove with junctioning magic. As much as the game tried it still took me a while to comprehend, but once I got it down it all just clicked. It was nice to be able to have every spell at my disposal with every character.

The cast is another point of contention. I'll admit the supporting cast is weak compared to say FF7, but I think Squall really carries this game. His entire presentation with his inner monologue really puts you firmly in his shoes. I've seen it argued that he's kinda just an emo kid, and yeah, that's kind of the point. He is very much not equipped to be this protagonist, and he is fighting that every step of the way. It rules.

The last dungeon was pretty miserable, but aside from that the ending was just superb. I won't go into detail, but it's safe to say that for me personally, the whole ending sequence is probably my favorite moment across the whole franchise so far. The games FMV sequences hold up in general. It's no surprise that Square has been the one to beat in that department for this entire industry's lifetime.

The music is great. Triple triad kicks so much ass. I just left this game with a lot of positive feelings. I don't begrudge anyone who didn't vibe with this game, but for me it's looking like it's up there with FF7.

It can't be overstated just how perfect Dragon Quest localizations end up. There is so much charm bursting with every interaction in this game. I was a bit down on having recruitable monsters in favor of a traditional party at first but in the end it worked out just fine. When it did give you party members, there was an initial fear that they were too under leveled to end up at all useful, but the game is paced so that never ends up being a problem for long. The animations on the monster sprites are just superb. There is a masterful understanding of perspective at play with every encounter. The pacing of this game really is fantastic. I always enjoy the grind in this series more than some others, but it was nice that the game flowed more smoothly in regards to how often you would even need to grind. The party chat function did a lot in terms of connecting with your human companions. They weren't ever present in the narrative but they would offer some nice character and world building when you chose to engage with them, which I did constantly.

The biggest gripe to have with this game is how you can only take 4 of your 8 party members into most dungeons. That is where the majority of levelling is done and having party members miss that ended up rendering them useless. I never deviated from the team of 4 I always had on hand, and that made a lot of the experience a bit dull since I was incentivized to just stick with the same members and their limited spells.

This game is indicative of why Dragon Quest is such a revered series. They always implement new ideas while retaining all of the heart. This is an entry that shows what the series can be at its best.

This is the first game to give me the same fix that Stardew Valley did. There's a lot of quality of life features that bafflingly don't persist in future games, like having time stop while inside a building. There are also a lot of frustrating things to deal with. The process of refining ore is just mean, and I can't envision myself ever being able to fully upgrade any piece of equipment with how rare it is not only to find the better quality ore, but also how I could so easily lose that material entirely after refining it. The way you call animals to ride is also a grievance. There is not a situation in which I would not want to ride my fastest animal after being able to, but the way it shuffles them around makes it so that I kinda have to deal with what they give me. The translation is also just goofy at times, considering the curse of Natsume still afflicts this game. This game also runs particularly shitty on the Wii, so if you can procure it by other means I would recommend it.

All that said, this is still a solid farming sim. The location is very nice. The bachelor's and bachelorette's are all winners, as well as the sizable list of other characters. The goals the game provides are fun enough and fairly reasonable. You can fly through a lot of this game which ends up leaving a lot of space between story events, but that's when you just let the catharsis of running your farm take over for however many hours. Though I have a lot to complain about, they are all fairly minor. This was a relaxing game that I sunk a huge amount of time into.

Conceptually, this game rules. It displays a more competent understanding of the internet 20 years ago than a lot of media does today. The World and its inhabitants cooperate to emulate the feeling of an actual MMO. This game also has the best UI I could ask for in a game like this. It's stylish and helps elevate the generally good writing this game has. But unfortunately that's where my praise ends. The act of actually playing the game is brutal. As you make your way through the barren crusty landscapes and make your way into the same few designed dungeons you have been, you must interact with the absolutely dreadful combat. Attacks miss more than they hit. Navigating menus to command your party to do simple actions is tedious, and when you don't do this some of them are actually useless. The camera controls feel like they are made for someone with three hands. It's just frustrating when such a promising game drops the ball on something so fundamental. Also, I get that this is the start of a multi game series, but more than ever this feels like I played ⅓ of a full game. If the next entries can just give me gameplay that's tolerable, they'll probably be awesome.

This game lives or dies by how much you value charm. The aesthetic is absolutely choice. It’s creative and every detail is worth taking a few seconds to comb over resulting in an earned “aww well that’s nice.” It genuinely takes me back to being a kid going ham with the bristol board. Gameplay is split into 3 parts. First being the regular level to level completion. It’s got the blinding polish you'd expect from a nintendo 2D platformer, except about a thousand times easier. The second is the reverse side of every completed stage which is a time trial to find The Poochy Pups. This part is quite a bit of fun, but, while I think seeing what all of the crafts were made out of is a funny concept, all the levels end up just looking like more bland versions of the stage it’s based off of. I can only laugh at the idea of Yoshi-O’s or whatever so many times. Lastly there is searching for crafts, which can only be done when both the aforementioned levels in a world are completed. This ends up being the most optional and most tedious gameplay option. You are given quite a few things to find in the levels, but are only allowed to find them one at a time. This leads to going through levels upwards to 5 times just looking for crap in the background. It’s the most braindead part of an already trivial game. It can be fun when you just wanna dink around for a bit, but doing it all in succession kind of messes up the pacing. This game, with all of its game modes, is quite long. A lot longer than you’d expect. It really wrings dry every conceivable gimmick you could apply this art direction to.

This game makes me feel like a baby child (complementary).

This game is just 3 long side quests back to back. There is hardly a narrative through line. I wasn’t so down on this game at first, but after every major junction, when I became aware of the structure of this game, I felt my soul leave my body. No choice I made mattered. There was no deviation from the intended path, no matter how much the game insisted there was. The characters are all good, except when they interact with whatever the plot is at the time, where they become unreasonable dipshits because that’s what the story needs at that time. Otherwise the character writing is quite good. That seemed to be Biowares most consistent strength when they actually made video games. There just isn’t enough of it. A major character in your party just leaves a third through the game for no real reason. They are barely brought up at all throughout, and then suddenly at the last chapter they rejoin as if they never left. They do this because every decision you make will have them leave in some way, but the way it was implemented with my choice was just bizarre to witness. I really don’t have much to say regarding combat. It’s Dragon Age combat. It’s bad. I honestly recommend playing this game on easy to circumvent it as much as possible. But the most egregious part of this game is the levels design, or lack thereof. The whole game takes place in one city and a few areas outside. Every cave you go into is the same reused cave design, starting you at different points and blocking off areas as the game dictates. Every mansion is the same as every rundown house. You are constantly going through the same locales for the whole 30 some odd hours, and it just tanks your immersion. Against all odds, I do still enjoy most Bioware games, but the cracks really start to show when you expose yourself to too much of it. Great dating sim though awooga.

Feels like, oddly enough, your average western RPG but with actually good combat. I seem to be only able to identify this game in referential terms, so forgive me when I say it's like Dark Souls mixed with Dragon Age mixed with Elder Scrolls mixed with DMC. The quests were kind of mind numbing, which was both good and bad. This was a perfect game to just shut my brain off and just waste a day, but at the end of it I didn't feel like I got much of value. You can very clearly see some quality of life features added, even though I didn't play the original release. The pawn system was neat, but it seemed like everyone had the same set of armour for a set of levels because it was objectively the best they could have, so I'd often have a group of everyone in a princesses dress which, while hilarious, made combat kind of a nightmare to look at. The writing was very true to the era, and felt very immersive, but the overall narrative was just bland. This is a good game to pick up when you just want to drool at a screen for 10 hours, and I'll probably pick it up again eventually, but for now I think I'm good.

Kinda wild how you are accompanied by a party full of magic users for half of the game. Having their long spell animations play out every couple of seconds really messed with the flow of combat, but it was also the most effective method to just have them go all out, so turning their spells off wasn't really justified. You don't really have a reason to play anyone else besides Cless (I know the names are different in the other versions but I played PSX) since he was the most active and also the only one who unlocked better moves by performing the ones he already had. You could have easily done that with Chester or Suzu but it didn't happen.

Speaking of Suzu, she arrived so late in the game that she didn't get a chance to catch up to the others in level before the game ended. It would have been a welcome addition if it was more significant.

I really, reaaaaallly don't like how it uses an equipment slot in order to give you manual control in combat. It really isn't worth it to use up an item slot, but the feel of combat is so much better when you have complete control of the character, otherwise they will just evade unprompted at seemingly random points. I love the incentive of using artes to acquire combination moves, but having this available to only one character is a huge letdown. When I felt like I was in complete control of the character, battles were enjoyable.

The dungeons are absolutely the worst part of this game. They were long, indistinct slogs that made me go absolutely feral. When they weren't long they had some horrible gimmick attached to them, such as taking damage periodically, or, most egregiously, involving random chance in order to go through the correct door, that actively seemed to give me the worst luck imaginable.

The characters were all pretty solid. Tales characters vary in quality, so having a game full of inoffensive ones is welcome. Their dynamic with each other worked really well. There were also some genuinely funny moments which seems to be a hard thing to pull off for this franchise. The villain was pretty weak. The game's ending is quite weak, in no small part due to the inconclusiveness of Dhaos’ motivations. They just kind of get thrown out after the game is already over, and it only gets touched upon briefly, and ultimately doesn’t even seem all that important to the narrative.

For a first outing this sets a pretty attainable standard to exceed. You really see the improvements that have been made to this formula throughout the years, but it is a solid start to a prolific series of games.

The writing style makes it feel like things play out as they would in an episode of an anime with the way things are paced and presented. It makes the whole experience enjoyably palatable. There were a few characters who I wasn't a fan of, not because they were bad but more that they fell into a archetype I don't particularly care for, like Ruluteih or Atuy. I also really liked a lot of the cast, my favorites being Kuon, Nekone, and Mikazuchi. I thought the huge cast would be a hindrance but they dole them out throughout the story in perfect pacing so they were welcome additions each time. The combat was pretty brainless, so I'd recommend playing on the harder difficulty. Combat isn't really the focus of the game though so it wouldn't be a big deal if you just coasted on the normal difficulty. That's how I went through it and it was still a meaty ass run time. The ending was great, and I'm very interested to see where this goes in the sequel.

I feel like all people need from an open world for it to be considered good is to be big and pretty. There isn't much to do in this world besides fight the various monsters that roam around or try to unlock areas on the map, which can be done with a press of the button.

The way progression is locked behind leveling up and doing side quests is silly. Even when completing the side quests it wants me to and most of the side quests available I'm still required to grind before I can progress. Or I have to unlock parts of the map, which I need upgrades for which I get from leveling up so I have to level up even more than I already did. This is asinine.

Not that I didn't enjoy combat. I wish there was more direct control with party members but considering this is an active game I get how that would be difficult and getting them to focus on specific types of actions does well enough.

The tone of the game was pretty milquetoast overall. I get the feeling it was leading to something better but I just didn't have it in me to go through any more than I did. None of the characters' personalities really stood out unless their personality was that they were annoying.

One aspect of the game that I wholly enjoyed was the music. More games need to just give their tracks a vocal lead because most of the time it makes the soundtrack more memorable.

My first endeavour into Xeno didn't fill me with a lot of confidence for other entries, but I'm willing to give them a shot anyway. More focus on the story would help this game a lot.

Also side note this was the last game in my Wii U backlog so I might as well just set the thing on fire.