Length Warning. No, seriously. This is one of the longest reviews on Backloggd, if not THE longest. With that said, I’ve organized my thoughts and analysis between 36 titled chapters, so feel free to skip around and read whichever ones grab your interest. Spoilers for the Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy.

THE ORIGIN OF TOMORROW: A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF XENOBLADE CHRONICLES 3

Aionios (Greek: aionioß) · without beginning and end, that which always has been and always will be · "Without end, never ceasing, eternal". [you know, sort of like this review]

From the outset of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, director Tetsuya Takahashi, and more broadly the entire Monolith Soft team, set out with the express intent of merging the "Best of Both Worlds" of Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Funnily enough, though, in their attempt to assimilate the strengths of these two titles, which are similarly beloved but in very different ways, they veer in an entirely new direction which ends up forgoing much of the appeal from both of those games. An appeal, might I add, which is sure to fall short for certain sections of the Xenoblade fanbase, if not inherently because of its nature as an "artistic compromise". This is particularly true for the fans who are diehards of ONE specific Xenoblade title rather than both, regardless of if it’s for XC1 or XC2.

So, while XC3 can certainly be defined as a “union” of these two past games, it might be more useful to instead contextualize this union through one of a few distinct analogies. Think of XC3 as a chemical reaction of sorts. XC1 and XC2 are like chemical compounds, each with their own makeup which determine their unique appeal and merit. But through the Merge, the in-game union and catalyst which led to the creation of the world setting and subsequent narrative of XC3, those starting compounds were rearranged beyond recognition.

Second, it may be helpful to liken the union of these two games to conception. XC1 and XC2 are like the parents, which joined together to birth the child that is XC3. This offspring might be entirely composed of the genetic material of its parents. However, the rearrangement of their properties, not to mention the inherently unique circumstances of their existence, instead birthed something completely new; a game which carved out an entirely distinct niche in practicality.

Third, to relate this union to in-game terminology, you can even liken the existence of XC3 to an Interlink between XC1 and XC2. Two worlds being drawn ever closer together by their opposing attraction and narrative longing. In combat terms, this is represented by two members of Ouroboros combining to fill an entirely new role than either the Kevesi or Agnian member held prior.

Well, regardless of how you choose to look at this Merge, either literally or symbolically, the same truth remains. The end product may bear external resemblance to its predecessors, but the end result is different enough in practicality to have a predominantly unique appeal. Alongside this uniquely emerging appeal, however, has come a slew of issues, both major and minor. Many consider XC3’s villains who uphold their newfound status quo to be dull, underwritten, and sometimes even outright bad. Hell, you can even justifiably debate whether the main antagonist is a character or not to begin with. Even as someone who has massive respect for what they tried to do with Z as a villain (and succeeded in doing, I should clarify), I’m not gonna sit here and pretend Z has the same level of sauce as the likes of Egil and Malos.

Another predominant issue which arose from this Merge is that there is an ungodly amount of shit going on in XC3. And unfortunately, no matter how you look at it, the vast majority of that content and the ideas it presents feel undercooked. There are two games worth (hell, even THREE games worth if we’re counting the potential for expansion through a prequel) of ideas here. Two or three games worth of shit all “Merged” into one conglomerate. Even after a 250 hour playthrough, extensive research, and discussion with friends about the deeper lore, I’ve come out of XC3 with more questions than I came in with.

There is little point arguing that XC3 falls well short of what it could have achieved, particularly with its worldbuilding. Not just as a unique piece of art on its own merits, but as an idealized union of its predecessors. Hell, I don't even like XC1 or XC2 that much anyway. So what does this say about the “missed opportunities incarnate” that is XC3? This can't possibly bode well for a game that exists as an artistically homogenized conglomerate of two games I don't even like that much to begin with?

Well, you saw the rating. I’ll drop the facade: Against all odds, this is one of my absolute favorite games ever.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is one of the most ambitious, emotionally poignant, and thematically layered pieces of art I have ever experienced. Those criticisms I just called attention to were not hyperbole for the sake of misdirection. I won’t deny any of them, nor can you even really dispute them at all, for the most part. But despite the thousand different ways this game can be considered a majestic fuckup, it still manages to be pure magic from beginning to end. It single-handedly revitalized (and exponentially grew) my enthusiasm for a franchise that I’ve desperately tried to love for nearly ten years but never remotely have. Never, until now.

Also, interestingly enough, this game is... kind of ass. Like, more so than the previous two. But, if anything, that only further serves to make how strong my feelings are about what this game set out to do, and ended up achieving, all the more impressive.

As we approach the beginning of the analysis itself, I’d like to repeat my warning one more time. XC3 surprised me in ways I didn’t think possible. I really would recommend giving it a try for yourself before continuing. But if you’d rather just let me try to sell you on it, that’s cool too, I guess: So, one last time: Spoiler warning. Length warning. Really, I’m not stressing this again for nothing. This introduction might SEEM like overkill, but comparatively, it’s nothing. We haven’t even gotten started yet. If you intend on reading further, I’d recommend searching up one of the 10,000 generic “Relaxing Xenoblade Music” compilations or whatever on YouTube. They're all exactly the same. There is so much to say that I have no choice but to gush and rant about this game--for what will probably take hours to read. Whether I want it to be or not, communicating my feelings about this game is a utterly massive undertaking. And, considering how important it is to me as a piece of art, its MANY flaws and all, I can’t in good faith make any major compromises.

I’m completely aware that a text review of THIS scope inherently limits the audience of people interested in hearing me out to like… two people?? That said, I’d be appreciative of any Xenoblade fans or, again, people who just don’t give a shit about having the game spoiled for them to come along for the ride. This goes double for those who were let down by XC3, because I intend to explore ways in which this game can be seen as both a resounding, and yet gloriously human, failure. I know it’s a hell of a lot to ask, so again, feel free to skip around to whatever chapter’s material catches your eye the most.

Lastly, please do keep in mind that my intentions with the more analytical and worldbuilding-centric chapters were never to unearth mind-shattering revelations about the lore that have never been brought up before now. I’m far from a seasoned theorycrafter, and my limited knowledge on the Xeno games outside the trilogy doesn’t help. But at the very least, I hope to contribute to the conversation with my own perspective, perhaps sharing some manner of unique insight for you to consider along the way.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 means the world to me, and I never for a second saw it coming. Hopefully, by the end of this review, I can convince you to feel the same.

CHAPTER 0: ORIGIN (mine, not the big black robot egg thing)
(Preface, My History and Experience with Xenoblade Chronicles)

I guess I’ll begin with a quick rundown of my history with the franchise, since I do think this context from which my thoughts are coming from is important. But if you really couldn’t care less and just want the analysis, go ahead and skip to Chapter 1.

Anyway, I have not played Xenogears nor the Xenosaga trilogy (though I did manage to snag episode 3 on eBay recently, so… soon™). However, I have played the directly relevant Xenoblade Chronicles titles. So, XC1, 2, and now 3 (not X yet either sadly, though it does look insanely rad. That Hiroyuki Sawano OST tho). This is important since, from what I’ve gathered, XC3 does harken back to imagery and builds on concepts explored as far back as Xenogears. As such, I won’t be commenting on those much, if at all, here. This essay will be almost entirely focused on XC3 and XC3 alone. Even continuity stuff will be primarily glossed over.

As for my history with XC1/2, I’ll keep my thoughts on them to just this one section. Frankly, I don’t think my thoughts on either game are unique enough to merit talking about at length. Long story short: I’ve always considered Xenoblade to be pretty decent, but have never considered myself to give any sort of shit about the franchise in a serious way. Well, certainly not to the extent everyone else has always seemed to for either XC1 or XC2. I do distinctly remember XC1 grabbing me early on, and overall continued to far more than XC2 did for the majority of its runtime. Between its diverse world setting and legendary soundtrack, you’d be hard-pressed to argue how impressive or important of a game the original Xenoblade Chronicles was.

But in terms of its narrative? I genuinely feel like the coolest thing about the “narrative” of XC1 (if you can even call it that) was the story of Operation Rainfall. That shit rules. In terms of the REAL story, the character writing and design (for everyone not named Melia), its combat/gameplay loop, and my simple absence of emotional investment... I was pretty bummed to realize that XC1 didn’t quite do it for me. At least not the way it seems to for most other players. It’s the sort of game I had the most fun with when I was just wandering around, exploring its massive environments and getting lost in the field music. Like, rather than actually playing the game.

XC2 moved even further away from the sort of thing I vibe with. It did have the same aforementioned strengths as XC1, hell I’d even consider 2’s soundtrack more dynamic and consistent than 1’s, probably. But again, I noticed my long term enthusiasm for the series slowly diminishing through just about every other aspect of XC2; from major issues like its impressively lethargic combat/questing/gameplay loop, to countless minor issues. Just to name the first of my basic bitch complaints which come to mind: Rex’s salvager outfit having been carefully crafted by a team of elite scientists in order to create bitchlessness incarnate. No, the irony of assessing Rex this way is not lost on me after having finished XC3. Yes, we will talk about it a bit later.

Leading up to the release of XC3, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to bother buying it to begin with. I had trouble justifying such a huge time commitment for yet another entry in a series I’ve never been particularly fond of. My interest in Xenoblade had only continued to wane over time, to the point where I completely passed up on XC2’s various DLC updates, the XC2 Torna the Golden Country expansion game, as well as XC1 Definitive Edition’s new “Future Connected” epilogue game. However, after playing XC3, my view of the franchise has completely flipped on its head. The Xeno Series has, seemingly out of nowhere, established itself among those whose futures I find myself most enthusiastic about.

Well, in a roundabout way, I guess. It’s clear this is the swan song for Takahashi’s vision and the current saga’s ongoing narrative. So ironically, it only really succeeded at hyping me up for Takashi’s previous works, namely Xenogears and Xenosaga. I’ll 100% be playing both of these in the near future. But the ACTUAL future of the franchise is now entirely left up in the air once again. But, well, if you’ve played XC3, you’ve probably immediately realized why this is so incredibly fitting. An endless unknown, a future you largely cannot control or even predict; this is what XC3 says is worth fighting for.

Fighting to live- rather than to stagnate. Living to fight- rather than submitting to fearful contentment.

With that out of the way, let’s start talking about that one funni British anime shōnen game I actually DO give a fuck about.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

CHAPTER 1 - THE ENDLESS NOW: FIGHT TO LIVE, LIVE TO FIGHT
(Initial thoughts, Opening Cinematic, and Preliminary Themes)

“Fighting in order to live. And living to fight. That's the way of our world, Aionios. Cruel irony that it should mean "eternity". Because slowly but surely, our world is now dying. Even though we have yet to realize that fact." -Noah, Chapter 1

SUBSECTION 1: QUALITY OF LIFE
I know this review has already had a TON of framing, already, but we’re getting there, trust me. Anyway, let me just get my absolute first impressions out of the way before getting to the meat of the game itself. From the first moments I booted up Xenoblade Chronicles 3, I was repeatedly hit with pangs of hope to believe that this game might resonate with me the way I always hoped prior entries would. This actually started before I even began the game through its various quality of life options available in the menu. Yes, starting the first chapter by reviewing the options is thrilling, I know. It’ll be quick, just humor me. A hard difficulty setting was available right out of the gates, unlike in the original releases of XC1 and XC2. It gives you the option to review tutorials on literally any of the game’s hundreds of mechanics / systems, even going so far as to provide drills for the most important ones (i.e. combos, interlinking, chain attacks etc.) to ensure a thorough understanding of how they function. It might sound trivial, but if you played XC2 completely blind like I did, you know damn well just how stark a contrast this is.

But perhaps most importantly, to me at least, it gives you the ability to turn off the minimap and various HUD elements out the door. For a huge, modern JRPG release, this is a surprisingly rare consideration. Considering how big and open Xenoblade games are, this feature alone was an easy way to win me over before even starting a new game. When I play a game that emphasizes scope and exploration, I prefer to use my eyes to do so, rather than having them glued to the corner of my screen as I stare unblinkingly at a smol yellow arrow. I’m not sure why this is even remotely debatable, but for those who do enjoy that sort of thing, more power to ya, really. At least you’ll be able to play Dragon Quest XI without the burning urge to tape a circular piece of cardboard to the bottom-left corner of your TV. Anyway, once I booted up the game proper, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 grabbed me by the balls and seldom let go for the next 250 or so hours I spent within the world of Aionios.

SUBSECTION 2: THE OPENING CINEMATIC OF XENOBLADE CHRONICLES 3
Let’s start from the very beginning: Despite having zero context or explicit knowledge about the greater significance of this game’s opening cutscene, the abrupt time-stop and aggressively cryptic merge sequence that followed had my stomach-churning from the intensity of its visual presentation and sound design alone. Likewise, it had my mind churning in a desperate attempt to make any semblance of sense out of it. What was I watching? What did it mean? At that moment, just as Noah was, I was utterly helpless; incapable of anything beyond paralyzed, yet conscious, bewilderment.

The battle between Colony 9 and Colony Sigma immediately follows. This sequence only pressed harder on the gas, intriguing me further about the nature and machinations of Aionios (yes, the word choice reflecting XC1’s titans here was deliberate. No, there isn’t any huge meaning behind it, I just thought it was cute). The parallels to XC1’s iconic opening battle were effective at initially grabbing your attention, to be sure. However, what really kept me intrigued here was the incessantly bleak tone which leaked from every orifice of XC3’s opening cinematic. The battle takes place on Torchlight Hill, a commonplace battleground found on the Aetia Region’s Everblight Plain. A sprawling, yet decidedly lifeless, landscape. Nothing but brown, rocky terrain as far as the eye can see. The only thing lining its surface which resembled life was a sea of Kevesi and Agnian husks- corpses. Hundreds of soldiers, belonging to the diametrically opposed forces of Keves and Agnus, both of which run across the length of this barren land, paved with bodies, to clash at the battlefield’s center. Fighting to live. Living to fight. From the moment you hear this phrase, you as the player are indoctrinated into the conspiracy which is the Endless Now. A phrase which loops back onto itself evermore, like a Moebius strip. No beginning, no end, just continually looping for eternity. From the first time you hear this phrase, you are keyed in to what constitutes the entire thematic crux of XC3’s 250-hour journey: The Endless Now.

SUBSECTION 3: FERRONIS, STEEL GOD OF THE BATTLEFIELD
Of perhaps greater significance than the soldiers themselves, in hindsight, was the overwhelming presence of the two colonies’ respective Ferronises. A Ferronis is a mobile assault weapon which doubles as a shelter for each colony. Just as fallen soldier husks lay below the feet of their surviving comrades, those same surviving soldiers lay at the feet of the warring colonies’ Ferronises. These two giant hulking steel masses were, on the surface, the ultimate prize for the opposing colony, as the Ferronis is what holds the Flame Clock, along with all the opposing colonies’ life force housed within it. Thematically, though, the Ferronises serve to sow yet another seed within the player. They depict how, in the grand scheme of the Moebius conspiracy, these soldiers’ capabilities and contributions are explicitly predetermined and more importantly, utterly superfluous to the greater conflict. They don’t shy away from this fact, either. It’s made apparent from the start, as we see the Ferronises make their way across the battlefield, crushing countless bodies beneath their feet. Like a two-ton truck driving over a patch of earthworms.

Their presence, both literally and symbolically, completely tramples the individual soldier’s personal resolve and abilities. Whether they’re driven by motivation from the military ambition upon which they were raised and trained to uphold. Their brainwashed bigotry from Moebius-orchestrated propaganda. Or even their burning desire to avenge their fallen comrades. An individual soldier’s capacity for impacting the war is inherently dwarfed by that of a single Ferronis. Dwarfed to the point where their efforts might as well not exist to begin with. Each soldier is likely no bigger than a single bolt on these steel monstrosities. Not even the entirety of their most elite squadrons could hope to match the sheer firepower of a single blast from one of the Ferronis’ various weapon installations. And yet, both sides were unwavering in their pursuit of bloodshed- all to feed the ever-draining Flame Clock.

The name Ferronis (Japanese: 鉄巨神, Tetsu Kyoshin, lit. Iron Giant God) reflects both that of the Bionis (Japanese: 巨神, Kyoshin, lit. Giant God) and the Titans of Alrest (Japanese: 巨神獣, Kyoshin-jū, lit. Giant Divine Beasts). It’s clear that Moebius’ propaganda even bleeds into their naming conventions- at least in the original script. There is even evidence to back up the literal intent behind these names, given the nature of Origin as an archive of the two World’s pre-Merge data. This further emphasizes the machines’ overpowering significance, by comparing them to Gods. Gods which control the battlefield which happens to be occupied by the soldiers, who are naught but superfluous pawns in comparison.

This also serves to tie the Ferronises under that banner of “a product which embodies the best of both worlds”. Keep in mind that both Agnian and Kevesi Ferronises are later revealed to be constructed in the exact same facilities within Origin. Origin, of course, is a facility whose inception crossed multiple dimensions; an arc that quite literally sought to preserve the best both worlds had to offer. With the Queen of Keves Melia falling captive to Z, the progenitor of Moebius, the mechanical prowise and wisdom of both worlds has fallen entirely into their hands.

SUBSECTION 4: FERRONIS, LENS AND PROXY OF MOEBIUS
Because of this, it’s easy to extrapolate these Ferronises as the concept of Moebius themselves, carrying out their will on the front lines of battle. Because the soldiers’ efforts are largely individualized, it’s important that they’re dwarfed in comparison by something Moebius can maintain direct control over. In this sense, think of the Ferronis as the “Great Equalizer”, ensuring the Endless Now remains in perfect balance on the front lines. There are other means through which Moebius makes sure this is accomplished, like the intermediary of Colony 0, but more on that later.

Anyway, the Ferronises are Gods towering over the pawns which comprise both Keves and Agnus, watching them struggle in vain as they continue to propagate Moebius’ very own Endless Now. It’s an impressive personification of two of XC3’s most prominent themes. Not only does it reflect the individual soldier’s bleak powerlessness in this opening cutscene, but Moebius adds insult to injury in doing so through the “slice of godhood” known as Ferronises. They stand as an aggregate product of Origin, both of which are later discovered to be Ouroboros’ single beacon of hope (by proxy of Flame Clock liberation, and later, reclaiming and resetting the interdimensional ark). But during this opening cutscene, these Ferronises are the very embodiment of overpowering hopelessness. What was intended as the Queen’s own beacon of hope is now being used against them. To trivialize their individual efforts and keep them in check as they unknowingly play into the hand of Moebius’ continued prosperity.

They act as enslaved chess pieces subject to the whims of intelligent and tyrannical superiors (seen thru Consuls literally playing chess while sippin life juice). Keves and Agnus soldiers alike carried out the one and only act they’ve ever known. The act they were born to carry out. Were indoctrinated in through textbook propaganda to carry out. Were trained in the art of war to carry out. And eventually, were encoded to instinctually carry out- by what they falsely presumed to be their own free will: Fight to live, live to fight.

SUBSECTION 5: A POINT IN TIME, A THEMATIC MICROCOSM
In all honesty, this battle between Keves and Agnus can be viewed as a microcosm for the entirety of the conspiratorial conflict as orchestrated by Moebius. It even fits as such beyond this illusion of free will and trivial value depicted through the individual soldier. This battle is portrayed by the soldiers as an intense, high-stakes fight to protect the lives of themselves and their loved ones. And while this might be true on the surface, after looking back on this scene in hindsight, XC3 makes it abundantly clear that their struggle was utterly meaningless.

Each and every life lost in this battle would just be reborn to continue carrying out the cycle. Perhaps more importantly, this entire battle, despite resulting in the demise of ENTIRE colony through Colony Sigma, it was just one of the countless battles that took place on this exact strip of land. Not to mention, the one example of prior Everblight Plain battle records we’re explicitly given details how Shido, then known as All-Slayer Oleg, led Colony Chi single-handedly in the brutal onslaught of an entire Kevesi colony before the events of the game. Considering the long-term ramifications of this battle, even beyond the destruction of an entire colony, it’s clear that the battle between Colony 9 and Colony Sigma wasn’t even among the most important battles in this ONE specific battlefield. This fact only further drives home the futility radiating from every shot and line from this opening sequence. None of it meant a thing. Ironically, this is what made it so meaningful- through its thematic poignancy alone.

This bleak tone even doubles back onto that very first scene, which portrays the Merge through the eyes of Noah. Time quite literally stopped around him, a fact he was cognizant of given that he managed to resist the time-freeze for a few seconds beyond everything else. There was no one to ask for help, no one to explain to him what was happening. There was no means by which the young Noah could interfere personally. He was an ordinary child, standing there helplessly as he witnessed the literal apocalypse. Not just the destruction of his World of Bionis, but both Worlds. It goes without saying that, in a situation like this, ignorance is bliss. In this sense, it could even be viewed as an uncharitable argument IN FAVOR of the Endless Now. After all, freezing time indefinitely was the only was to avoid the horror and destruction that would arise from the impact of the Merge.

Anyway, Noah’s persisting sentience only served to further instill him with utter helplessness. The explicit meaning or ramifications of this scene aren’t made apparent to Noah nor the player until right near the end of the game. However, this does explain why these two scenes work so well in tandem in and of itself. It’s no wonder they were so effective in eliciting an intense response of discomfort even upon my first viewing, even if it was entirely instinctual or subconscious.

SUBSECTION 6: A TRIUMPH IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
Even outside the overflowing thematic importance which this opening scene establishes, it’s just phenomenally well put together in every regard (well, aside from the combat tutorial which babies you into submission as you wait 20 seconds for each of Noah’s arts to recharge). The way these scenes flow into one another symbolically (but also literally, through the interspersed bits of gameplay) is just… incredible. The way it illustrates that oppressively bleak tone in a way that completely overpowers the surface level action and intensity of war felt reminiscent of the opening to Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga. Just, yknow, without the cheesy Matrix bullshit (I say this as endearingly as possible btw, that shit rules).

But yeah, I’ll probably say it five more times over the course of this review, but this game is unbelievably cinematic from beginning to end. It was pretty early into the game that I first made the claim that this is the single most cinematic JRPG ever created. By the time you get to Chapter 5’s 1-2 straight hours of cutscenes, which bring you all the way from the abyss of despair to the soaring heights of triumphant catharsis, there’s little debating it in my mind.

The sheer awe generated from these cutscenes isn’t a remotely uncommon experience, either. Every single chapter’s big cinematic moments had me enthralled in some way or another. The directing, the voice performances (both EN and JP), the action choreography, the weight, the expressiveness, the tension and intrigue of its most cryptic mysteries, the countless pieces of accompanying music… It’s the best of the best, no question. I could list specific moments, but I’m sure they’ve already popped into your head by this point anyway. XC3’s main story is aggressively memorable. And this opening cinematic is only the tip of the iceberg in that regard. I know that generally, the characters do a lot of the heavy lifting in that regard. But it’s accomplished in no small part due to phenomenal cutscene direction and cinematic atmosphere, both of which help it live up to the lofty ambition of its premise and themes.

CHAPTER 2 - The Triumphant Return of Dresspheres, Tokusatsu-tinged Bullshit, and Gloriously Overstimulating Chaos
(Combat, Job System, Customization, and Role Definition)

The combat in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is bafflingly awesome. Who knew all it’d take for Xenoblade to have actual fun gameplay would be to rip off Final Fantasy X-2’s fashion-dictated class system and to ditch the Skells in favor of Interlink, an amalgamation of Digital Devil Saga transformation, pseudosexual fusion dance, and Tokusatsu? Much like XC1/2, the game still LARPs as both an MMO (main combat) and a turn-based game (chain attacks). Yet, in a complete turnaround from those two whose combat actively annoyed me, I’d be hard-pressed to find another non-turn-based JRPG combat system that I fuck with this hard.

I’m definitely of the opinion that prior Xenoblade games have had hugely underwhelming combat, but was never able (or just couldn’t be bothered trying) to articulate why. XC3’s aggressive polish and iteration on the past games’ combat made it blindingly obvious why that is in hindsight. It makes a bunch of changes and improvements, both major and minor. But if I had to boil it down, it comes down to three changes at its core: Character building, role-influenced customization, and in-battle control.

SUBSECTION 1: CHARACTER BUILDING
I’ll start with character building, since this is where the pre-battle strategizing comes into play. Let’s talk Job Systems. Everyone loves a good Job System, and for good reason. However, as someone who loves both job systems and defined character roles in JRPG combat, I often find myself at odds with the seemingly inherent tradeoff these systems present. Job systems let you go ham with customizing each character into exactly what you want them to be. But defined character roles also let the personality behind the character shine through by restricting them to a certain archetype. XC3 basically looked at the inherent conflict of this tradeoff and said, “you dumbasses realize you can just do both, right?” Like, it's actually insane how effortlessly this game dismantles the conflict while maintaining the unique strengths and personality found in both styles of character building.

Customization. Twenty-fucking-five classes. 25 classes to unlock. To learn the inner-workings and individual strengths of. To experiment within.To grind and train. To utilize in conjunction with other classes’ master arts through fusion art combinations, as well as synergizing with your plethora of other skills/accessories/gems/etc. Each with their own entirely unique take on the surface level attack-tank-healer designation. Five unique arts, one talent art, and four skills which grow stronger as you increase your class level. Two of those arts and two of those skills then go on to transfer outside the class in the form of master arts/skills, with the talent art being a fifth once you max out a given class. Any of which can be used alongside another class of opposing Agnian / Kevesi designation.

Oh (x1), and the hero which coincides with the class they unlock has several of their own completely unique arts on top of that, meaning you’ll further deliberate whether to use a certain hero or equip their respective dress-class on an Ouroboros depending on the circumstances. Oh (x2), this doesn’t even include the Soul Tree which is used to customize each of your Ouroboros Interlinks with various upgradable arts, stat bonuses, etc. Oh (x3), AND the Soul Hacker class works completely independently of these rules, serving as a blue mage who gains skills upon the defeat of unique monsters. At full power, this class boasts SIXTY-FUCKING-FIVE unique and completely upgradable arts, as opposed to the typical five arts. Additionally, there are SEVENTY-FUCKING-NINE skills spanning all three role archetypes from which you can mix and match. What the actual shit, dude. No, seriously, how did this game even get finished, let alone reverse-delayed? Anyway, whoever greenlit this class, I love them almost as much as I love Triton himself. Oh (x4), AND the upcoming DLC hero Ino also seems to work separately from every other hero, running on ether cylinders to guide her own unique method of customization. Idk, it looks like some Poppi shit, so I’m immediately sold, necc aside. Tiger Tiger sequel when.

SUBSECTION 2: ROLE DEFINITION
Role definition. Despite the absurd level of character build customization, XC3 maintains a surprisingly rigid sense of character role definition. This is achieved through a bunch of different means, such as: The Keves/Agnus split, role definition through individual job affinities/inheritors, master arts and talent arts, master skills, and the rigid role definition/consideration present in interlinking by trading off whatever two roles the pairing might possess in lieu of the rigid role of their respective Ouroboros interlink.

Once chain attacks come into the mix, the game doubles down on this role rigidity even further. Each character (including heroes) is given their own distinct baseline TP distribution, Chain Order, and Ouroboros order. Speaking of heroes, they too get their very own hero chain bonus on top of their likewise distinct Chain Order. These hero chain bonuses range from providing bonuses to the damage ratio, boosting individual TP, boosting party TP (even specific character boosts i.e. MIyabi to Mio), monster-specific bonuses, reviving inactive members, buffing/debuffing, healing, and so on. It’s genuinely nuts how much distinctiveness and role definition is maintained in each character’s combat capabilities (both Ouroboros and heroes) despite the former having just been described to have such insanely unrestrained customization options.

I’m not sure if Monolith INTENDED to have such ludonarrative cohesion in this double-sided customization system, or they just thought it’d be cool and it ended up working out that way. But man, the whole "Best of Both Worlds" motif (while most of the time refers to the game taking what worked from XC1 and XC2 and using them harmoniously) seems to permeate EVERY facet of XC3. To the point where it has the best of both worlds of a job system and rigid role definition- something that I quite literally did not think was possible until playing this game. Oh, and you can’t forget to respect the drip. Yumsmith Sena sweeps.

SUBSECTION 3: COMBAT ANALYSIS AND PLAYER CONTROL
Moving on from customization and into the actual meat of the combat itself, it’s fun. Like, REALLY fun. The setup again inherits this "Best of Both Worlds" motif, as it reflects both the six character setup from XC2 (drivers and active blades included), while otherwise reverting to XC1’s initial setup of everyone being a direct and controllable contributor. Considering there are now twice as many party members acting concurrently, I cannot stress this enough: This is absolute fucking chaos. Like, it’s chaotic to the point where if someone were to casually walk by a XC3 battle without any prior knowledge, the only plausible response would be, “what the fuck am I looking at?” Six characters (plus a hero) painting a monster in countless numbers. FF12 lookin ass lines connecting you to each monster depicting the current status of their aggro and the subsequent relationship/priority. The most fucked up looking Venn diagrams you’ve ever seen in your life in the form of field buffs scattered beneath your feet. Ten of the like fifty different symbols for buffs, debuffs, awakening, shackles, combos, ailments, etc cycling in and out next to each character and the monster you’re fighting. Your characters suddenly transform into fucking fusion robots and all that information is replaced with an entirely new set of skills and an overheat bar. Oh, and then time stops and the entire combat system changes as you initiate a chain attack.

So yeah, someone walking by has every right in the world to wonder what the fuck you’re doing if they’re unfamiliar with XC3’s combat. That said, considering the way this game paces out each of its multifaceted mechanics in such a gradual and easily understandable way, it is extremely rare that you’ll be playing and not know EXACTLY what is going on at all times. Seriously, I can’t stress enough how impressive it is that they manage to actually make this combat make sense, and yet they knocked it out of the park.

Trying to take in so much information at once while it’s constantly changing is already more than engaging enough to stay interesting for a game as long as this. But now, tack onto all of that the fact you can now change between characters at ANY MOMENT. Without a cooldown or any other sort of restriction. This alone takes XC3’s combat from what would already be a rather engaging system to unfathomably stimulating and hectic. In the more intense/challenging boss battles, it quickly becomes adrenaline incarnate. Apparently, Torna took the first step in this direction by allowing you to swap between your three party members on a cooldown, but here, you can swap between any of the SIX party members as quickly and frequently as you want.

It might not sound like a huge deal, since you still aren’t controlling all six of them at once, and thus a majority of the combat at any given moment is controlled by AI. That may still be true, but it’s a complete and utter game-changer when it comes to the player’s engagement and their potential for strategic influence. In past games, you control one party member, and once their arts are depleted, you’re stuck doing fuck all but using auto-attack. So you’re stuck there slapping at the enemy for 50 damage every few seconds until you can fight properly again. In XC3 though, the second a character’s arts are depleted, you switch to the next one and can start thinking on-the-fly to quickly make use of whatever tools they have available in the most efficient way possible. This might not make a monumental difference in how the battle goes about playing out, but thankfully the AI is stupid enough to actually merit shuffling around your active party member and doing as much on your own as possible. But above all else, you’re no longer stuck waiting for a shitty cooldown and constantly have your hands full of different ways to influence the fight. Put aside the customization and job system for a moment- THIS alone is an absolute goddamn game-changer.

SUBSECTION 4: MORE SINGLE-FIGHT GIMMICKS WOULD’VE BEEN NICE THO
To sneak in a small area of disappointment, I definitely would’ve liked to see more unique gimmicks or “puzzle” elements to bosses. If not in gameplay, then even just in the action cinematics would’ve been nice. There are definitely rumblings of this in the early game cinematics, specifically up through Chapter 4. Then, with the joint boss fight sequence between Consul N and Consul M, it finally comes to a head. Consul M has a completely unique Moebius power that takes the party a bit to figure out a solution for- and the solution itself was very clever and satisfying.

Even if we aren’t given the super nitty-gritty specifics of how it works, it’s clear that the Mondo was able to track M’s movements due to her and its ether properties as a Blade. Whether this is through ether displacement, propensity for tracking ether sensitivity, or ether absorption, it’s not clear. However, this is supported by the group’s first battle at Gura Flava. Eunie is able to disable Taion’s Mondo tag by filling it with enough ether to overload/overheat it. As an Agnian, M fights through ether properties as well. As such, it makes perfect sense that the Mondo, which can either sense, absorb, or disrupt that flow of ether, would be a perfect counter to the Moebius ability. This even shows tactical development on the part of Taion, who was only able to figure out this solution because of the way Eunie countered him earlier in the game.

To tie this back into that complaint I alluded to… This is basically the first and last time you’ll see anything like this in-game. Z has something similar sorta kinda, given that it’s another multiphase fight which sees your party splitting up and being supported by the various heroes. But it’s never a “puzzle” for you to figure out. It’s not something that will make you fundamentally reassess your game plan and fight under a completely different strategic pretense. I definitely expected more of this sort of thing from the end-game bosses. For example, the fight against D and Joran was a phenomenal opportunity for this that was totally squandered.

I’m not exactly sure HOW they’d go about doing it, since the combat is strictly set up so that attacking the enemy is basically your only means of interacting with them. But the conflicting nature of the fight could’ve done so well to set up a scenario where, for example: Joran is focusing his Interlink overheat, and thus you have to fend off fodder and protect him in the process. Then, D regains control, and you quickly shift to beating the shit out of him as much as possible. Stuff like that would’ve done a lot to make the more important boss fights feel mechanically distinct, which they simply don’t. That’s not to say they’re boring or anything, since again, XC3’s combat is more than capable of utterly carrying. But it still would’ve been better to see more of this sort of thing.

SUBSECTION 5: CHAIN ATTACKS, MISC. THOUGHTS,. AND CONCLUSION
Lastly, I’d like to talk a bit more about chain attacks. XC3’s chain attacks also manage to capture the "Best of Both Worlds" motif that nearly everything else in the game also seems to. They’re both cathartic in terms of their strategic depth to execute, while also being cathartic in the most mindless monke brain “victory lap” way I can possibly think of. That second one especially, the way it eggs you on with the instantly iconic chain attack music to the point you cannot feel anything other than utter conviction and triumph as it unfolds.

Even if you activate it with your entire party’s HP in the red and the boss still has 8.9 trillion remaining HP out of 9 trillion total (which is usually the case!), you can’t help but feel pure catharsis and hope during the duration of that chain attack. Well, that only lasts until you pick the wrong art and then the shit RNG gives you a healer on your random pick cuz you had to finish with an attacker… motherfucker. Anyway, the fact that it somehow manages to be both strategically cathartic and viscerally mindless in such a careful balance is yet another example of this game defying the odds to capture the "Best of Both Worlds" in one fell swoop.

Beyond chain attacks, there are plenty of smaller points to praise about the combat. For example, I love how combos can be built up with either offensive or defensive intentions/planning in mind. Launch-Smash combos provide extra damage at the cost of accelerating an enemies’ enrage status, whereas Daze-Burst combos provide an incapacitation window for your party to stabilize while also quelling rage for a short period of time. Another point worth mentioning goes back to customization; I love the sheer quantity of possibilities when it comes to fusion art combinations. You can do anything from double-advancing a combo (break w/ topple master art, launch w/ smash master art, etc), enhancing your smash effect by pairing it with a high damage ratio master art, pairing aggro reduction with a powerful heal to stay hidden, pairing aggro increase with a long form block art for efficient tanking, and so on. The fusion art system is incredibly simple, but could not be more elegantly incorporated. It boasts an absurd level of customization for those who really want to sink their teeth into making Agnian and Kevesi arts synergize in creative ways. I know I’m a broken record at this point, but again, taking the "Best of Both Worlds" and getting something new (and better) out of them.

For the sake of time, plus the fact that the rest of XC3’s combat depth is mostly similar to how it was in past games, I’ll wrap it up here. But yeah, considering how ambivalent I’ve been to prior Xenoblade games’ combat, the improvements made here and the way they salvaged the ongoing foundation of Xenoblade combat into something this good is nothing short of miraculous. I tend to be a fan of turn-based combat first and everything else second. But in the level of engagement, strategy, and customization found in XC3’s combat system, you’d be hard-pressed arguing against it being truly second to none.

CHAPTER 3 - The Methodically Unmethodical World Design of Aionios
(WORLD SETTING, SECTION 1: How XC3’s World, Map Design, and Aesthetics are Physically and Symbolically Informed by the Merge)

So clearly the combat benefits from the literal and symbolic Merge of XC1 and XC2 as much as anything. What about the World? Well… no, not at all. I should probably come right out and say that, across the Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy, XC3’s world is far and away the least impressive from a purely aesthetic standpoint… at least in terms of surface-level allure. The game has huge, sprawling vistas filled with secrets just like the prior games, but something about the world setting doesn’t feel nearly as aesthetically dynamic or even as methodical compared to the likes of Bionis or Alrest.

This was actually a huge point of criticism I held through the early hours of the game, which I worried might keep me from truly loving it overall. Like I’ve mentioned already, exploring huge imaginative environments while listening to the various field themes was what appealed to me most about the series prior to XC3. But compared to the likes of XC1’s Gaur Plains, Eryth Sea/Alcamoth, and Satori Marsh? XC2’s Uraya or the World Tree? I simply did not find any of the biggest zones in XC3 were anywhere near this aesthetically stimulating or inspired. Well, until the Cadensia Region, which was phenomenal, albeit a serious outlier. Point being, the likes of Millick Meadows and Eagus Wilderness simply did not do it for me.

Are they pretty? Yes. Were they “Xenoblade pretty”? No. At least, not in the way a longtime fan would come to expect. Thankfully, what I’ve come to realize about the world design of Aionios over the course of my playthrough is… I’m pretty sure this was intentional. Or maybe I’m coping. Probably both tbh. This is the main meat and potatoes of my thoughts on Aionios, so I’ll leave it for the end of this chapter. Before then, let’s talk about why I found (and still do to some extent, tbh) the major zones so initially disappointing.

SUBSECTION 1: SHORTCOMINGS OF AIONIOS
Don’t get me wrong, even the more aesthetically “”boring”” zones do still look nice. Each one is filled with varying amounts of distinguishing quirks or landmarks, and overall serve their purpose well. My favorite zone from the early game would have to be the southern Fornis Region. Each part of the region on its own isn't anything too noteworthy. Well, aside from the Dannagh Desert, which looks fantastic on its own. But the way they coalesce while maintaining distinct and rigidly segmented areas make it far stronger aesthetically than the sum of its parts. The rigidity of its visual theming alone makes it super memorable. I can’t really think of another Xenoblade environment that puts as much emphasis on aesthetic segmentation as this one does. It also boasts a surprising amount of verticality (albeit mostly gradual “sloped” verticality). This actually speaks to another major point of criticism I have about the bulk of XC3’s massive open zones: They’re more than sizable enough, but they’re mostly flat and lacking in both the verticality and interconnectivity needed to compromise their lengthy traversal time.

The flatness of XC3’s zones certainly bodes well for making them LOOK big and sprawling, but it only serves to inevitably sap the enthusiasm you have for exploring these lands thoroughly. I’m the type of player who avoids minimaps and fast travel like the Plague. Familiarizing myself with an area and learning its map is something I find extremely fun and satisfying. In XC3, though, I pretty quickly caved in and started fast traveling for the back-and-forth quests, especially fetch quests. Not because I don’t ENJOY traversal in this game, but because it’s blindingly apparent that it needed so much more to not make this a total pain in the ass.

The game probably could’ve gotten away without having sprinting if the maps were as tall as they were wide, but they just… aren’t. It takes way too long to get anywhere. Oh, and those little ladder shortcuts it sneaks in are, more often than not, completely futile at providing any sort of respite to the tedium of traversal. Hell, they even fail to simply compliment the map design in any sort of clever or helpful way.

This is the crux of my complaint: XC3 does not have significant enough traversal upgrades to match the size and layout of its maps. It’s lacking here, plain and simple. Sprinting, high jumping, gliding, flying, soft landings from high grounds, rentable Levnises, Interlink on the field for a quick vertical boost… This game is in desperate need of ANY single one of these. I haven’t played XCX, but knowing you get giant fucking Skells to fly around in makes this even more readily apparent. Not to mention… that knowledge kinda takes away from the coolness of getting a boat later on in this game. I like the boat, but… It’s not a giant robot, that’s for sure. Can’t say I wouldn’t have preferred to get even just a fleet of rentable Levnises or some shit instead. The autorun keeps it from being a SERIOUS problem, but that doesn’t change the fact it could’ve been much better.

XC3’s world design does still have its fair share of strengths. Admittedly, they mostly tie into worldbuilding which I’ll focus more on later, but the physicality and map design also play a part in these strengths. The Dannagh Desert’s flying whales and pink-gem palm trees felt refreshingly oddball compared to the theming of prior areas. The previously mentioned rigid segmentation of Southern Fornis was another highlight- in no small part because of the aesthetic contrast it provided with the adjacent and verdant Ribbi Flats.

SUBSECTION 2: ENVIRONMENTAL STORYTELLING
Perhaps the biggest draw in terms of XC3’s world design relates to its interconnectivity; namely, the inherent mystique generated by the Merge as you encounter more and more areas which resemble the likes of Bionis, Mechonis, and Alrest- especially seeing them after having been reduced to ruin. It does give you a bit too obvious of a push at recognizing this early on. Hell, the box art literally having Uraya and the Mechonis Sword was uh, not exactly subtle. Not to say it was MEANT to be subtle, but hey, still. Additionally, many of the names/titles are retained from prior games.

But aside from that, it’s accomplished entirely through exploration and environmental storytelling. I absolutely loved this approach. Despite the obvious brilliance of past Xenoblade game’s worlds, I can’t recall any point where environmental storytelling was used to prod you with hints at the still unknown lore, mysteries, and ongoing narrative. Hell, the prodding even worms its way into the game’s soundtrack (through field themes, mostly). The near constant use of callbacks and leitmotif of XC1/2 areas never once got old and always kept me on guard looking for more audio-centric hints.

There are examples of environmental storytelling across the entirety of Aionios, so I won’t bother listing a dozen examples. I will say, though, the delayed realization that I could LITERALLY CLIMB up the destroyed Mechonis’ arm up to its fingertip and cannonball back down into the lake below was one of the most memorable moments of exploration in any Xenoblade game.

SUBSECTION 3: SPECIFIC REGION CRITIQUE (AKA THE ROAST OF MILLICK MEADOWS)
There are definitely some great individual regions, such as the Cadensia Region like I mentioned earlier. This region is basically just a Wind Waker sequel built straight into an already incredible game. Cuz why the fuck not. Like, Queen’s BEANS man. It feels like half my playtime was spent exploring that one region alone. And you better believe that Yasunori Mitsuda field theme certainly contributed to that… Probably my favorite song in the entire game ngl. On the opposite end of the open zone spectrum, though, we have Milick Meadows.

Milick Meadows was an extremely rare example during XC3 where there wasn’t much sugarcoating it- I felt abject disappointment without much of a silver lining to counteract it whatsoever. Let’s start with the- er, single positive. The field theme is phenomenal. But tbh, that just made how underwhelming this area was in reality hurt even more. Let’s frame the moments leading up to you discovering it. You’ve just finished the intensely cryptic Gura Flava sequence. You’re finally ready to begin your journey after having assembled your party. You have more questions about the game’s events up to this point than you know what to do with. Then, you’re immediately set free out into the game’s next big zone: Millick Meadows.

This was all the motivation I needed to start exploring to find out as much about this world and the events that transpired as possible. Unfortunately, the near (but not quite) Gaur Plains tier field theme is where the positives begin and end with Milick Meadows. Basically, you descend the hill, go across the river, and head out into the next area. That’s it. Oh, and you activate a Ferronis husk and can go get killed by overpowered bats in the nearby cave if you want… Seriously? You can’t tease me with what looks to be Gaur Plains 2.0 and have it only be a 30-minute linear ass excursion. This place should’ve been like… ten times bigger at the BARE minimum. I know that sounds like overkill, but just look at the Cadensia Region. There was nothing stopping them from making Milick Meadows truly reflect the freedom that Ouroboros was just granted following Guernica’s sacrifice. The disappointment even gets doubled down upon later when you realize the ability gating opened up an entire new section of the map to explore… Wow, maybe this was a misdirection? Maybe they wanted a delayed reaction sort of approach to its scope? Nah. It’s still tiny as fuck with barely anything cool to do or see. But enough roasting the poor little Meadows. Let’s move to the biggest point I want to make about Aionios as a world setting.

SUBSECTION 4: JUSTIFYING THE SHORTCOMINGS OF AIONIOS THROUGH THE THEMATIC IMPLICATIONS OF THE MERGE
Anyway, back to the biggest takeaway for this chapter. The thing about XC3’s world setting I took the biggest issue with (even above some of the areas not being themed interestingly) was this: The environments felt paradoxically visually cluttered and messy, while also having very little in the way of aesthetic inspiration. In contrast to prior examples, the "Best of Both Worlds" motif here feels a lot more like the “Worst of Both Worlds”.

However, come the end of the game, it becomes abundantly clear that this was intentional. It’s only natural that the violent Merge, which essentially equated to apocalypse for both worlds, would leave Aionios as a primarily tattered wasteland with some rather fucked up geometry (further emphasized by the Annihilation Event). On top of that though, it almost seems like the more standard theming of most areas was intentional as well, though I’m… not sure why, exactly? The biggest zones which house the main story content are often relegated to aesthetically standard renditions of fields, desert, sea, mountains, etc. Now, these areas are still impressive and beautiful due to their huge scale. But it’s clearly a far different approach from XC1/XC2. Like I said before, they’re pretty, just not “Xenoblade pretty”.

On the contrary, it’s in XC3’s secret areas tucked away from the external outside world where that trademark Xenoblade inventiveness shines through into the world setting. Lost Colony, Cotte Fountainhead, and Malevolent Hollow are easily among the most aesthetically distinctive locales in any Xenoblade title. This design philosophy is applied way too consistently across the whole game to just be a coincidence, at least in my mind. Areas to the effect of the three I just listed are almost exclusively found in secret caves far off the path from the main zones. So… what’s the deal with this approach? I mean, it literally might’ve been just to make stumbling onto a secret area feel more special. But with this game, the answer is rarely that simple. Especially since, yknow, I can’t really see them making a sacrifice to the giant zones which take up 90% of the map just for an occasional pleasant surprise. That said, I do have something of a guess to justify- or at least explain the logic behind their approach.

Aionios having such a strange design quirk gives off the impression that these secret areas were sheltered from the proverbial “impact” of the Merge. As such, they retained their luster- and therefore, their sense of aesthetic identity. This does beg the question, though; why would the two Worlds merging be detrimental to the broad visual inventiveness of Aionios’ world design? Honestly, this is where I’m sort of at a loss on the matter. Especially since it seems to be at odds with the game’s design philosophy in nearly every other regard: Merging the "Best of Both Worlds" in order to create something new and greater.

Maybe they first tried to approach the world in this way by designing even more chaotic and messy environments, but decided the messiness needed to be dialed back in? I’m not really sure, and would love to get some outside input on this because I’m stumped as hell tbh. Personally, I would’ve loved to see them go full on clusterpunk by mashing together multiple different themes and color palettes (possibly derived straight from 1 and 2’s areas) into one new environment. Maybe even just in a few specific areas rather than every area in the game. If not just for the sake of avoiding this approach becoming paradoxically more homogenized in the sense that it would apply to everywhere.

Quite honestly, even as someone who places huge importance on a game’s aesthetic sensibilities (hell, I consider XC1 at LEAST a strong 7/10 based almost entirely on its setting and music alone), I do still like this game’s unconventional approach to world design. Despite the originality of this subversion, though, one still needs to consider if this falls under the “just because a subversion is intentional doesn’t make it good” umbrella of consideration. I WANT to deny this notion outright, but even after learning all the narrative context behind the intent, I’m still finding myself hesitant.

Would I have preferred the entire setting to be more oddball with its theming and color palette similar to, like, Xenoblade X or something? …Honestly, yeah. Probably. Especially when you consider that this game repeatedly capitalizes on its "Best of Both Worlds" motif in so many other facets. That said, I can't say I've ever seen a game with such a bold and narratively-resonant subversion through its aesthetic and world design alone. Even if the sacrifice to its visual inventiveness was a bit beyond what I would’ve liked, it is worth praising the effort and paradoxical inventiveness anyway.

CHAPTER 4 - HOW TO CREATE A DYNAMIC AND THEMATICALLY INTEGROUS WORLD SETTING THROUGH… FORMULAIC MILITARY CAMPS (NO, REALLY, IT WORKS. TRUST ME).
(WORLD SETTING, SECTION 2: Introduction and Analysis of the Colony System)

Even within the context of individual nation’s provinces, every single colony in XC3 is shockingly memorable and distinct. I think the reason the colony variety impresses me so much is due to the surface-level rigidity of XC3’s structure and gameplay loop. Put simply: you explore, discover (insert colony name here), talk to its people and commander, fight the commander, fight the Consul, liberate the colony, help them survive without the Consul, Rinse and repeat. Clearly, the repetition of this cycle is dangerously primed for monotony. Especially since there’s, what, over 25 named colonies in total? Not to say you explore every single one, but it should be apparent that this game had the cards stacked against it in this regard.

Yet, every last colony is shockingly distinct and memorable. Depending on the colony’s adjacent environments and geography, there are so many different roles and jobs that prop up across Aionios. For example, the farmers in Colony 9 and Tau. Specialty mechanics and Levnis transporters from Colony 30. Collectopedia managers and resource transport from Colony Iota. The conspiratorial war intermediaries of Colony 0. Pirates and Fishermen of Colony 15. Plus the different variations of florists, farmers, and saffronia harvesters found in Colony Mu and the Lost Colony. And so on. Aionios’ dynamic geography plays such a crucial role in the jobs and specializations of each colony. In turn, this plays a huge part in why the world setting feels like a vast, living, breathing world- in a way no other Xenoblade game has ever accomplished prior.

It would’ve been SO easy for Monolith Soft to fall back on the phenomenal combat and job customization, merely having the World serve as a more undercooked or understated backdrop to your exploration of Aionios. Countless games take this easy route as a tradeoff for being a “huge 100+ hour experience” at the cost of none of its locales being developed, memorable, or, well… Interesting. Yet, much like it does in countless other aspects, XC3 manages to provide “the Best of Both Worlds” in this respect. The game is unfathomably long, and yet, each and every colony manages to be deeply memorable and distinct.

They’re not just memorable and distinct in terms of the characters present or the aesthetic backdrop, either. Every single facet of the World Setting feeds into each respective colony in a way that makes the world of Aionios feel distinctly and unmistakably… alive. Each and every colony has their own side quests, geography, culture, history, import needs, export specialization, intercolony relationships, politics, military strengths, technological capabilities, internal and external priorities, and so on.

This isn’t even getting into the fact that each Colony has its own Consul, along with an entirely unique set of character relationships with said Consul, the Consul’s relationship with the Colony itself, different roles, different levels of presence, different motivations- different means to which they propagate the Endless Now… All of which culminate in an entirely memorable and distinct story arc within every single Colony you come across.

Naturally, the story arcs which define these colonies all play out in VASTLY different ways for the most part. Even if a majority of them end with the final story beat of Noah smashing the Flame Clock and bringing liberation. Besides, this sort of HAD to be the case anyway. Not just for hugely important thematic purposes (revolving around the implications of intercolony unification, Ouroboros’ journey to self-discovery and purpose, etc). But also for the sake of gameplay logistics as well. After all, you wouldn’t be able to get much done in terms of exploring characters or worldbuilding within a Colony that still actively hates you and is still indoctrinated in Moebius propaganda.

Speaking of which, the Moebius-enforced “ranking” system also does a fantastic job at framing these various distinguishing factors. It often serves as a literal determinant, for example, the lower-rank colonies being undersupplied, which can cause a ton of different problems. But even in a subsurface sense, this ranking system fuels their conspiratorial edge beneath the surface via the illustrious but ultimately disingenuous Gold rank. It is through Moebius’ colony ranking system that their homogenization and depersonalization efforts are carried out. This is done to offset the perceived individuality, and thus humanity, of enemy colonies.

After all, it’s easier to buy into destroying another group for personal gain when it’s either you or them, right? That goes doubly so when, to you, the enemy is defined by just two things: A resource through which you can provide for your friends and comrades, and as a generic slate of soldiers which are defined by their Rank and the propaganda you’ve been fed on their faction. This ranking system alone effectively throws a veil of depersonalization over the enemy, and as such, plays a crucial role in maintaining soldier morale in the ongoing war.

As such, it becomes far easier for Moebius to morph the truth of what defines that colony (the laundry list of distinguishing factors which make them unique that we just went over) into whatever supports their propaganda. The way Moebius oversees soldier manipulation through propagandized “motivation” can even be roughly likened to propagandist justification of genocide in order to garner domestic support and pride. Nurturing and capitalizing on bigotry through propaganda, miscategorization of the enemy, and “slaughter as self-defense”. The methodology isn’t identical, and I’m definitely not an expert on the subject by any means. But it brought enough similarities in mind that I felt it worth mentioning.

As a final point about Moebius to end the chapter, the colony format perfectly supports their conspiracy in a pragmatic sense as well. The entire World of Aionios and all of its inhabitants (save for the nation-ambivalent City) are overseen by Moebius from within Origin. They specifically seek to lock the two factions in a war which neither could hope to win, in order to propagate the Endless Now. Therefore, it would only make sense for Moebius to provide “homogenized” colonies (in structure but also in perception through propaganda). On the surface, these colonies all serve the same purpose. They’re all manipulated into conflict through the same means. And they all receive the highly-motivating Castle aid (food, weapons, tools, ether, etc) in correspondence to their colony rank.

CHAPTER 5 - SO MANY COLONIES AAAAAAAAAA
(WORLD SETTING, SECTION 3: Analysis of Colonies in XC3)

As for the specifics as broken down by colony, it’d probably be easiest to just go down the line. There is quite a lot to each colony and their respective Heroes, so getting to all of them would just be overkill. But I’ll try to hit on SOME of the colonies along with their most important and distinguishing characteristics:

Colony 9: Otherwise known as Aionios 2022 Farming Simulator. Led by Commander Zeon. This is the first colony you’ll visit properly in XC3. It’s a compact garrison surrounded by the vast Yzana Plain on all sides. Following the inexplicable disappearance of Noah, Lanz, and Eunie, the previous commander steps down, resulting in a leadership crisis. The people turn to Zeon as the most suitable candidate, but much like Bolearis of Colony 4, he and a few vocal dissenters remain hesitant in his capabilities. No, I’m not going to name any names. Cough. Cough cough.

Bolearis’ lack of confidence stems from his inability to replace his legendary predecessor Silvercoat Ethel. Especially after having been abruptly swept into the role in response to her death. Zeon of Colony 9’s lack of confidence, however, is derived from the guilt he harbors in having authorized the destruction of Colony 9’s Flame Clock. Despite the colonies’ dwindling capacity for self-subsistence being out of his control, he still takes responsibility for the outcome they’ve found themselves stuck with. His people are starving from limited rations, they lack leadership and direction, and the cliques are beginning to lean further and further towards desertion.

As such, the outset of Colony 9’s narrative is rather bleak- as most things in XC3 tend to be initially before eventually morphing into hopefully optimism. Following their collaboration with Colony Tau, Colony 9 ends up having one of the most drastic turnarounds of any colony. To the point where its later quests and community dialogue become surprisingly lighthearted and optimistic. Thanks to the insight of Yuzuriha, commander of Colony Tau, Zeon leads the effort to incorporate their growth patterns of the spongy spud, a crop native to Tau’s Maktha Highlands.

Due to the Spongy Spud’s short germination window and high yield, it completely turns Colony 9’s food shortage on its head. Along with the fact that its people actually have something to do (tending the fields), this greatly increases morale and stability. It’s a pretty simple story, but the way it encapsulates XC3’s theme of societal unification, especially since it features Kevesi/Agnian collaboration, is extremely effective. Plus, like, these two are just really fucking cute, okay? Gimme spud buds DLC right now, please and ty.

Colony Gamma: Led by Commander Shido. As the other active (living) colony within the lower Aetia Region, Colony Gamma is rather close in proximity to Colony 9. Otherwise, it’s completely different. This extends beyond the Keves/Agnus dichotomy, and is most notably distinguished by its geography and layout. Where Colony 9 is deep in the canyon of the Yzana Plains, Gamma is high in the floating autumn mountains. Despite being spread horizontally similar to 9, Gamma is far less dense, featuring a large lake and dedicated training ground for soldiers and Levnises alike. Lastly, its amber-laden trees extend far into the sky, a backdrop which is completely unlike any other Colonies’. The way Ouroboros interacts with the colony is also quite different to Colony 9. Instead of doing the work yourself, you simply instruct them on how to better protect themselves. With Colony 9, you help connect Zeon with Colony Tau, gather the farming materials, and protect the fields from monsters firsthand. In Colony Gamma, you simply help Shido in training the Gamma soldiers to better prepare them in fending for themselves.

Colony 4: Led by Commander Ethel, later Acting Commander Bolearis. It’s larger, giving off the impression that it’s more like a residential outpost than the previous two colonies. It’s smack dab in the middle of the sprawling hot Eagus Wilderness in both directions (from Millick Meadows to Ribbi Plains). As such, the colony feels far more like an intermediary or proxy zone born out of geographical necessity. This “proxy” status is further emphasized by its status smack-dab between the Agnian Colony Iota and Kevesi Colony 30, both of whom Colony 4 cooperates with as a proxy, given that Iota resents 30 from their defeat in a prior battle.

Colony 4 also marks your first exposure to the colony ranking system, as they are demoted harshly from Silver Rank (second highest, 2nd tier) to Dirt Rank (lowest, 7th tier). This demotion was a message- a response to Ethel’s refusal to kill Cammunabi in their first encounter. It’s rather admirable to see how some of the colony continues to back their commander, despite the toll her decisions have taken on their quality of life. The demotion alone forced its people to expand their hunting route into dangerous and uncomfortably distant territory, alongside stricter rationing. Their Consul support and Castle aid is scaled back considerably as a result.

Not to mention, regarding those supplies from Keves Castle (which were already far more limited in both quantity and quality), Consul K used both emotional and iris manipulation to force them into attacking Ouroboros in order to earn the supplies. And after this fails, Moebius takes this threat to its furthest extreme by involving the lives of everyone within Colony 4 via the Kevesi Annihilator. Ethel’s aforementioned “free” actions are also quite effective at priming the player for one of the game’s broader themes- the importance of free-will.

This action then comes to a head during Ethel’s dramatic final clash with Cammunabi in the Maktha Wildwood. A bit of an unrelated thought, but: The way this battle clearly parallels the battle between Bionis and Mechonis feels very pointed, if not a bit on the nose. I really dig the implications in hindsight that their “death by design” achieved through resisting Moebius is a glimpse into true causality. Naturally, the battle between Bionis and Mechonis exists within the natural flow of causality. So for this spirit to be made manifest as they craft a truly meaningful “death by design”, not to mention happening right between both Ouroboros and Moebius is fantastic. It basically serves as the “Crys Death” equivalent for Ouroboros as a whole, rather than just Noah. It strengths their resolve, prodding them to ask questions about the path they must take and the sacrifice it may require.

As one last disjointed thought: Ironically, Ethel actually saved the lives of everyone in Colony 4 by choosing to spare Cammunabi in their first bout. We learn in Eunie’s Side Story that she had a friendly rivalry (camaraderie may be more accurate, I suppose) with Colony 5’s late Commander Orsoyla. Their respective colony accolades mirrored one another to the point where their individual Rank promotions came one after the other. Considering Orsolya’s recent promotion to Gold Rank (and, well, we know what that entails) and Ethel’s demotion as a result of her refusal to kill Cammunabi, it’s safe to assume their fate would’ve soon followed. It’s a rather understated truth, but one that I really appreciated. Particularly because of how it falls comfortably in line with the game’s encouragement of defiance in the pursuit of free-will.

Colony 30: Led by Commander Yuz- uh, I mean Rudi. A haven for Levnis engineering and mechanics in general. And uh, Nopon I guess. It’s relatively compact like Colony 9, but instead of residing within green plains, Colony 30 appropriately rests atop steel girders high above a lake reservoir within a mountain range. My favorite thing about Colony 30 lies in its specification. This mechanical specification is immediately apparent from the second you step foot inside for the first time. Levnises surround the front gates and line the inner perimeter, serving as both security and commissions for adjacent colonies. That’s right, in much the same way Colony 4 serves as something of a proxy zone due to the practicality of its location, Colony 30 is a proxy due to its production and quick delivery of Levnis commissions and repairs. As such, it serves as a mobile hub which mirrors a small-scale production of the sort of thing you see later on in the Keves Castle factory.

CHAPTER 6 - THERE’S STILL HOW MANY MORE COLONIES??
(WORLD SETTING, SECTION 4: Miscellaneous Colony Analysis)

So uhhhh bit of a confession here. I did plan on going into detail on ALL colonies, since they do all deserve substantial credit and a moment in the spotlight. But… I’ll be real with you, the Xenoblade wiki is kinda just straight up hot ass. It barely has anything written about XC3 whatsoever, let alone XC1/2. Not throwing shade at the contributors or anything, but there definitely isn’t enough there to serve as a jumping off point for the purposes of analysis. Maybe I’m just spoiled by the Kiseki Wiki. But still, there’s something to say about the fact that the Kiseki wiki has more written about the validity of a random Liberlian journalist's birthdate than the Xenoblade Wiki does on entire main characters. Well, anyway. Because of that, I think I’ll just quickly throw a few more miscellaneous defining factors of these colonies from memory and leave it there.

AGNIAN COLONIES: Colony Tau operated largely through self-subsistence, having adapted their own entirely distinct subculture. After liberation, its citizens migrate across the map to various other colonies in order to expand their horizons and seek out their own unique place in the world. Colony Mu’s Consul doesn’t even make them fight, and holds an incredibly unique dynamic with its people through her past life as Ichika. Similarly, the Lost Colony doesn’t fight AND is built on top of the ruins of an old Castle. Plus Nami stuff, but we’ll get to it in the Taion chapter.

KEVESI COLONIES: Colony 5 isn’t as fleshed out, other than Commander Orsoyla and Ethel being longtime friends and competitors. However, it still provided the stage for the massively important revelation of the Gold Rank conspiracy. Colony 11 has the unique honor of being a direct subsidiary of Keves Castle, as it is stationed directly next door. The accompanying unique circumstances play directly into the party’s proceeding raid on the Castle. Colony 15’s Consul T doesn’t give a flying fuck, as he’s just a demensia-ridden DILF pirate fisherman who betrays Moebius to free himself and his crew- letting them go do their thing while he goes adventuring with the party. Also, his father-daughter relationship with Fiona is the cutest shit ever conceived by humanity. No, I’m not exaggerating for the 500th time, I would never.

In short, the way these colonies are distinguished from one another is phenomenally impressive. It is admittedly true that you deal with the majority of colonies you come across in the same surface level manner. They’re often faced with similar struggles; for example, lacking resources, unsent comrades, ideological uncertainty resulting from their sudden and newfound freedom, etc. But the devil is in the details when it comes to colonies in XC3. These similarities rarely extend below the surface.

Even just aesthetically, the similarities are always just surface level. Yes, they’re all tiny military outposts built under a giant mech. Though, I’d argue that in and of itself is plenty cool and unique. But as I've just illustrated in extensive detail, each and every colony is unique in every facet. From its presentation, to its structure, to its storytelling. The game makes fantastic use of Aionios’ dynamic natural geography, situating these colonies within the varied landscapes in ways that actually make sense.

But their visual and aesthetic individuality is only ever the tip of the iceberg. Each colony tells an appropriately personal story within the confines of its walls. Some of these stories are more obvious than others, and like, Colony 30’s story for example, would have largely been possible to tell through its setting alone, though the added exposition never hurts. Through varying ratios of environmental storytelling, NPC dialogue, corresponding hero quests, and the bevy of expositorily-illuminating side quests, every single colony in XC3 has a narrative identity strong enough to coincide with its aesthetic identity. They are an absolutely perfect foundation for keeping XC3’s 200+ hour gameplay loop feeling fresh. It strikes a near-flawless balance of familiarity and structure, while also maintaining a more than satisfactory sense of individuality and mystique.

Is the phrase "Best of Both Worlds" starting to get annoying yet? Well, don’t get mad at me, but it DOES just so happen to apply here too. Not my fault that this game is so thematically consistent.

CHAPTER 7 - “WANO SYNDROME”: AIONIOS AND THE LORE DENSITY PARADOX
[Wano Syndrome, The Value of “Idea Density” vs “Idea Meticulousness”]

A bit of a warning is probably necessary for this next chapter. Compared to my other points, this is far more abstract and honestly, leans more into being a thought experiment than it does focusing solely on XC3. My thoughts on XC3 are definitely still relevant here though, but I do feel a bit of priming is necessary regardless, since this does get a bit weird. K thanks.

Next, I’d like to talk about XC3’s narrative thoroughness in conjunction with a phenomenon which I like to call “Wano Syndrome”. It’s a term I’ve coined in reference to the most recent story arc of the One Piece manga, but is surprisingly applicable to a ton of different works with similar properties. To define it as best I can:

Wano Syndrome: a phenomenon which afflicts a piece of media, causing it to be paradoxically way too fucking long and/or dense, while also somehow managing to be substantially rushed and/or underdeveloped.

[Disclaimer: I make vague mention of things from various games in this next paragraph, though nothing is explicitly mentioned by means of spoilers. But in case you’re someone who wants to be 100% blind going into a specific game, skip ahead if you see a game title this pertains to.]

To give a few more examples outside these two works, to help better illustrate what exactly qualifies as “Wano Syndrome”: I’d be willing to apply it to the following works:
-Trails of Cold Steel IV (lacking background/narrative focus on the Ironbloods, the War of The Lions, the children of Valius Reise Arnor V, Ishmelga’s origins, etc.)
-Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk (underdeveloped settings aside from Refrain itself, lacking buildup and characterization of the new endgame cast members)
-Fire Emblem: Three Houses (idk gimme more political shit)
-La Pucelle Tactics (worldbuilding, church history, more flashbacks)
-Ys Origin (Kingdom of Ys detail, Priests, Fact Family/Clan of Darkness)
-Märchen Forest (more background on the Castle / outside the Forest, more slice of life outside the prologue)
-Live a Live (finale party interaction and unique skill utilization, generally lacking depth outside the immediately pertinent and bare-bones main plot- even if its brevity was probably intentional)
-Shin Megami Tensei V (lacking detail and background on Tokyo’s ruin, characterization of the Bethel branch leaders).

So yeah, it’s clearly not one specific thing which defines Wano Syndrome, so hopefully these examples better illustrate what I’m referring to here. I’m not even saying all of these points can be inherently considered “flaws” to begin with, rather, things I enjoyed enough to wish there were more of. But for the sake of the argument and for brevity (Queen knows this review needs more of it), let’s just call them shortcomings for now. Nearly all of these issues are relatively major shortcomings for examples of media which place great emphasis on painting dense and well-developed worlds. And yet, what I find fascinating about “Wano Syndrome” is that it seems to be present ONLY in media I have considerable narrative investment within despite these shortcomings. In other words, while “Wano Syndrome” is at its core a wholly negative affliction, I’ve only found examples of it exclusively within games I don’t just enjoy, but LOVE.

By now, I do think I’ve done a decent job explaining what sort of media I’d consider worthy of the “Wano Syndrome” moniker, but here’s one more analogy that takes media out of the equation entirely. Think of this comparison in terms of paintings. Just uh, keep in mind I don’t know shit about paintings. Anyway, Painting A is a photorealistic landscape painting- hell, if this is too generic, let’s use the Mona Lisa. All the theoretical detail is right there for you to see, it’s mechanically sound, and technically speaking, it’s highly impressive to the point of perhaps even being “flawless” to some. Personally, outside its mysterious history of theft, I find it boring as shit.

Painting B, on the other hand, is a surrealist landscape- let’s use the Persistence of Time if you’d prefer a real example (I know, two of the most normcore paintings of all time. I warned yall). It’s obviously rather abstract, to the point whereupon one’s initial viewing, its thematic depth might be too ambiguous to be immediately communicable. But given the proper engagement, there’s a lot more density and value one can glean from observing it, no matter if you ever “truly understand” the entire breadth of the painting’s meaning or intent in the end. Now, “Wano Syndrome” applies more to a work’s density of ideas and the meticulousness by which they’re explored, but there’s a comparable sentiment to be considered here.

Compared to the painting example, the ambiguity of these game examples are a bit more of an objective shortcoming, as the depth that IS there simply isn’t as thorough as it could’ve been. But the biggest takeaway I’d like you to absorb from this explanation is this: XC3 made me realize that the “objective” shortcoming of this aforementioned ambiguity might not be a bad thing whatsoever.

I know this chapter probably feels a bit abstract even now, but please, bear with me a bit longer as I break down its significance. By now, you’re probably asking: why is this important? Well, as I just alluded to, XC3 was THE single game which I feel helped me better understand the implications of “Wano Syndrome”- more so than any other piece of media I’ve ever experienced. It single-handedly provided me with a revelation that this shortcoming has virtually no negative bearing on how much I will end up enjoying or resonating with a fictional world as a whole.

In a vacuum, XC3’s worldbuilding proved thoroughly lackluster through its absence of meticulously detailed / organized concepts, character backgrounds, and so on. Admittedly, the ambiguity in character writing is where this shortcoming is felt most negatively. But even in spite of this, I can probably count on one hand the number of fictional worlds I’ve found myself more overall enthralled and invested in than XC3’s Aionios: Its fascinatingly unique world concepts, weird approach to continuity and interconnectivity, the sheer quantity and density of its countless compelling plot threads, the worldbuilding which spans more than two dozen unique settlements under two diametrically opposed banners, a mysterious organization of conceptually vague antagonists, the direct political intrigue of Swordmarch City via the Six Houses and their respective Founders, the indirect political intrigue found in the composition of Keves and Agnus’ castle/colony structure, the interlaced threads of narrative and theming found in every seam of the game’s design… I could keep going, but you get the point. It’s irrefutable that just about every aspect of XC3’s world and narrative are criminally undercooked or left out of the spotlight entirely. Yet, in spite of each facet of XC3’s construction falling short of what it theoretically could’ve been, it still manages to be unrelentingly compelling and enthralling from the strength and density of its ideas alone.

Naturally, the first takeaway from exploring this idea of “Wano Syndrome'' would be that narratives which are large in scope and meticulously detailed resonate deeply with ME specifically. Well, yeah, that much is obvious and not particularly helpful in a more broad sense. I’ll often still resonate with art which prioritizes these goals. Even when it definitively fails in living up to the level of thoroughness which it could theoretically have achieved. More importantly, though, I don’t think this is just a result of my own personal taste- rather, it’s more of a baseline truth than one might expect.

Put simply, this shortcoming might not be an inherent negative. Consider the nature of mystique and the ongoing narrative examination which stems from this form of ambiguity. One could reasonably conclude that, by taking “Wano Syndrome” to its logical extreme, an afflicted work’s own shortcoming can paradoxically work in its own favor through this ambiguity rather than against it.

…Still with me? I know that was hella weird and probably the closest I’ll come to incomprehensible rambling. Don’t worry, none of the other chapters are like this. I think.

CHAPTER 8 - HOLDIN OUT FOR A HERO (QUEST)
[Heroes, Ascension Quests, Side Quests]

Although XC3’s major story beats do hit the mark near universally, there are several points where things felt decidedly rushed. Aside from the brevity of Chapters 6 and 7, the one area I felt this most clearly was in the Hero characters’ “Main Story” involvement. The early game especially was the biggest culprit of this. I would’ve been hugely appreciative of Ouroboros getting more time to spend with Ethel. But immediately after her Hero Quest, she fucks off to the Castle and later dies before getting a chance to rejoin. This really minimized her potential for relationship building (especially among the three Agnians, who only knew of her prior through battle rumors). The Kevesi party’s attachment to her did provide some emotional weight to her death scene. But given that most of our time interacting with Ethel is as an antagonist under the influence of Consul K’s iris manipulation, there wasn’t enough time to develop a true emotional attachment to her character in the way our party, particularly Noah, had.

Isurugi’s early game stuff flew by way too quickly as well, and for similar reasons. The iris manipulation poised him as an antagonist for most of his involvement in the “main story”. He is then immediately punted to the sidelines once Consul J reveals himself to be Joran. Not only did this lack of screentime and focus harm Isurugi’s character, but Taion’s by proxy. I do feel Taion’s character eventually got the satisfaction it needed through his Side Story. However, because of Isurugi’s guilt for the role he played in supporting Nami’s dream to see the world, an act which led to her eventual death, he keeps himself out of her new life in the Lost Colony. This does feel appropriate in terms of his character and their history. Unfortunately, though, this doesn’t do him any favors in terms of providing him with the screen time he desperately needed (and deserved, frankly).

This probably would’ve been less egregious if Isurugi’s own ascension quest was more character driven, but it just wasn’t. Well, at least for him specifically, anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I love this quest. It not only does a great job at providing much-needed levity before the bombastic climax against Z, but it highlights the growth of Ouroboros’ quite brilliantly.

Think back to the “clothes changing scene” at Gura Flava when the group first came together as Ouroboros. They feel shame over their newfound knowledge, but do not understand why (this will be more important and expounded upon later on). But in this scene, after having traveled together and in some cases fallen in love (not to mention learning what sex is), they are entirely cognizant of why stripping down would lead them to becoming flustered around one another. On the surface, one could brush this off as tropey fanservice. But as the game bluntly hits you over the face with during the initial bathhouse scene in Chapter 1, that is never the case. This scene, without any dialogue to directly suggest as much, illustrates their growth as a family, their growing romantic bonds, and most importantly, their growing humanity; all of which come full circle in this scene despite its unassuming simplicity.

I know Monolith Soft was probably hesitant to make any more of the side content mandatory, given the fact that the game is already so incredibly long. But I really do wish that heroes were made Mandatory. It might sound like a rather arbitrary thing to suggest, but it would only serve to benefit their corresponding relationships, scenes, and interactions. By not having to account for the players who might not yet have a specific hero in their arsenal, more pre rendered cutscenes and main-story dialogue could’ve incorporated various heroes in order to provide them with more screentime and interactions amongst each other. Think of Rudi’s partnership with Isurugi and Nina, Zeon and Yuzuriha’s (absolutely blessed) bond, Monica and Gray’s mutual trust and respect, Miyabi’s apprenticeship under Manana, and the budding camaraderie between Triton and (his adopted daughter idc) Fiona. These are great, but I would’ve loved to see more relationships in this vein.

Similarly to both Ethel and Isurugi, the sheer number of supporting characters and their respective plot threads lead to quite a few major plot beats getting shafted. Joran is another strong example of this, though I didn’t feel his character was impacted as substantially as the former two. I was invested in Joran’s character arc from the moment of the initial reveal, especially since it formed a compelling and surprisingly sensitive foundation for Lanz’ character arc. But by the time his emotional payoff came to fruition at the Cloudkeep in Chapter 6 (despite being a phenomenal scene in hindsight) it didn’t quite hit as hard since, well… I hadn't seen Joran more than once or twice in the past 75 hours.

Beyond these three, I’d say this applies to Cammunabi (alright he and Ethel kinda get a pass for having literally been dead), Monica, Ghondor, and Ashera to name a few. I'm not saying ALL of these characters needed more, as I thoroughly enjoyed every single one of them. But more scenes of just about any sort- be they dramatic or casual party interactions, anything would’ve been welcome. Hell, I'd even take the Chrono Cross approach of “your chosen party member will say the same sort of generic thing regardless of who it is during cutscenes” cheap shot. Plus, it’s not like they couldn’t throw some flavor text in their given how many fewer party members this game has compared to Chrono Cross. Anyway, the point is that seeing Ethel stand around in the background while the entire game goes on like she isn’t there just… doesn’t sit well with me.

To speak generally about the sidequests in this game for a bit: They’re incomparably better and more interesting than the side quests of prior Xenoblade games. Like holy shit. Here's a completely random example of a XC3 quest premise I've pulled straight out of my ass: Some Swordmarch City Lost Numbers rando wants to propose to his rich gf with a literal rock from a distant island because it's shiny or whatever. So he’s training to swim 10 straight days to reach it. He then asked the resident furby for advice on endurance training, who recommended repeatedly jumping off a 3rd story balcony. Sounds like a hell of an outlier, right? Well, not really, actually. This is one of the most irrelevant and straightforward fetch quests in the whole game. Yet, even something THIS pointless still gets some weirdo shit thrown on top of it to make it genuinely fun and worth your time.

Perhaps my single biggest disappointment in terms of character writing was the lack of proper ascension quests for the dead duo. Er, the dynamic.. defiant… dead… fuck it, Ethel and Cammunabi. To be fair, Cammunabi KINDA got something resembling a substantial conclusion, I guess? But Ethel really didn’t get anything other than a quick cutscene or two. Her revival and maturation should’ve been a HUGE deal, when in reality, it ended up feeling more like a gameplay bonus than a proper story beat.

While it’s certainly a very welcome gameplay bonus, I was a bit let down that her job rank immediately shot to 20 without getting any sort of quest upon rejoining the party. Even if it was just something basic or lighthearted to make up for lost time and catch her up to speed with everything that transpired in her absence. Though, I definitely do concede that looking back and telling her EVERYTHING would be thematically counterproductive. The game constantly pushes a core principle of “never looking back”- a fact which is very consistently upheld through these revivals.

For example, Taion never explains everything to Nami, nor does Isurugi ever come to visit and talk to her for his own satisfaction and resolution. Garvel and his crew DO go back to the original colony eventually, but it’s never strictly to return to their old lives. Miyabi, despite her partial understanding of past events, moves on with her new life by taking on responsibilities as a Lost Number and general member of society within Swordmarch City. Mwamba and Hackt are uh… there, I guess? Kinda, but not really? Can’t say it isn’t in-character for them…

Likewise, Ethel and Cammunabi are committed to using their new lives to look straight ahead to the future. Ethel’s conviction with this goal is particularly compelling. She actively chose to shorten her own lifespan and sacrifice a potentially safe and peaceful life within the City just so she could contribute to the party and look after herself- rather than shackling someone else to do so on her behalf. Again, this conclusion to her arc was INSANELY brief to the point where it’s basically just a footnote. Still though, the substance behind this abrupt conclusion to her character is more than adequate in terms of thematic and emotional weight.

And with that, we can finally move on to the main cast of XC3- Ouroboros. I don’t want to drag this much further, but I will preemptively say that this is easily one of my favorite casts of main characters in any piece of fiction, period. The diversity, the interactions, the growth, Ouroboros has all of it in spades. A huge contributing factor of this is the change in approach to party assembly. Whereas in prior Xenoblade games, you’d slowly assemble a party over the course of most of the main quest, your main party in XC3 is complete about 1% into the game. It might seem anticlimactic, but this massively beneficial towards your growing attachment to them as a set group, it gives each of them time to breathe and be given individual focus, and more.

Not to mention, on the flip side, all six of their character arcs persist throughout the entirety of the game. No more “you got your time to shine, now chill in the back of every cutscene for the last 60 hours” garbage. Each one of them sees gradual growth from beginning to end, never once losing their personal stake in the ongoing narrative. Plus, while getting the entire party at once might appear to have its own set of drawbacks, the Hero system covers its weaknesses beautifully. It allows the party to still “grow” in numbers, and aside from the fact you can’t control them, it does a wonderful job of substituting in for the standard sense of party progression that would have been otherwise lost entirely.

If I had to provide one gripe as to the main cast, it would be their lack of upbringing diversity. I mean, this was inevitable considering the careful deliberation of the world through Moebius’ conspiratorial colony system. The homogenization IS definitely intentional. That said, in comparison to XC2 especially, where characters like Vandham, Morag, and Zeke provided such a dynamic range of experience, maturity, and backgrounds, it’s only natural that this approach would feel a bit flat by comparison. Though the heroes provide a ton of variety, thankfully. Aside from that… I literally have nothing else but the highest praise for Ouroboros. They’re excellent, plain and simple. With that said, let’s tackle them one at a time and get to the heart of why this group is so goddamn special.

(continued in comments lmao)

Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God is not very good. In fact, one could easily make the argument that this game is flat-out bad in some pretty deal-breaking ways. That said, I enjoyed nearly every minute of the 40+ hours I spent with it--outside of a rough opening which almost compelled me to drop it immediately. Because of that, even if those shortcomings still need to be addressed, and I’ll certainly still be doing so throughout the review, I’d instead like to focus on giving credit to Marenian Tavern Story for the things it does shockingly well. Ultimately, because it doesn’t excel in ways that are apparent or expected just from looking at some video or screenshots, not to mention its relatively niche demographic, this game was pretty much doomed to obscurity. Because of that glaringly obvious lack of budget and its mobile game roots, it's understandable that most people who’ve come across the game would give it a short leash- or hell, even pass on it without so much as a second look. But honestly, that’s kind of a shame.

There's a ton of reasons that all contributed to why I feel this way, so hopefully I’ll be able to explain it well enough. To just give a tldr though, Marenian Tavern Story provides a very comfy experience with immaculate vibes. It’s a very solid JRPG romp with a shockingly robust cooking sim interwoven between its lighthearted narrative and engaging turn-based combat.

Personally, I was drawn in because of its phenomenal character designs and promotional art by Shoutaro. From that alone, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this game might be overlooked as a low budget equivalent to the likes of Atelier, Recettear, or Rune Factory. Well… I was kinda right? It certainly fits that mold in terms of genre and tone. But after playing, the best comparison I could think to draw for Marenian Tavern Story is Zwei: The Arges Adventure. Not in terms of gameplay or anything, but in the sense that both games are utterly fucking CARRIED by a deceptively addicting gameplay loop. In both games, it’s ultimately because of the gameplay loop, alternating between the interwoven combat and cooking (or trading food in Zwei’s case), which makes it hard for you to put it down until the credits roll. That said, I think Marenian Tavern Story is generally the stronger game of the two- even in spite of its repetitiveness, budgetary and technical restrictions, and even its outright poor quality script.

It’s worth reiterating: Marenian Tavern Story does not make a good first impression. Like, at all. Those first few hours nearly led me to dropping the game outright at several points. But again, I’m happy I stuck with it. First things first though, I should probably get my biggest complaint with Marenian Tavern Story out of the way, as it’s glaringly apparent from the second you boot it up: The game’s writing, specifically the game’s prose, is… astoundingly awful. The subtext buried under the dialogue would be charming enough to keep it afloat, but it’s painfully undercut by consistently awkward and clumsy dialogue. Oftentimes it was so bad that I literally couldn’t resist rewording the dialogue in my head outright just so it would sound better.

This issue was present in just about every character to varying degrees, but to me it was most clearly apparent in the Maggiano family butler, Romano. Despite serving the prototypical butler archetype, there was practically no effort made in Romano’s dialogue to reflect his refined and sophisticated demeanor. Aside from peppering in the occasional “Master Gino” and “Madam Patricia” honorifics, Romano talks just as informally as the energetic teenager Patty and her very young brother Gino. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that the game tries to portray Romano as dorky in a dadly kind of way, and conversely, Gino is quite mature and refined for his age (albeit under Romano’s tutelage). Romano sometimes acts chirpy and jovial, and again, the subtext beneath the dialogue itself is more than charming enough for a simple, lighthearted narrative like Marenian Tavern Story. Romano’s dorky jokes play well due to the fact that only an airhead like Patty would genuinely fall victim to that kind of lame and transparent teasing. That said, the actual prose does not reflect these characteristics at all.

Elias is another prime opportunity by which the game could’ve created contrast through its dialogue. Elias is a well-mannered foreigner and scholar at a prestigious research institute, and yet his dialogue is just as informal and loosely constructed as everyone else’s. To give a tangential suggestion at how this could’ve been more interestingly handled: Elias could’ve had a refined dialect in the same vein as Romano, but in an entirely different manner given that he’s a foreigner from overseas and Romano isn’t.

Then, over time, Gino’s vernacular could’ve gradually shifted from being similar to Romano’s (his butler growing up) to instead being similar to that of Elias’. This approach would not only help set Elias and Romano appart in terms of personality, but also reflect Elias’ growing brotherly bond with Gino. I’m glad their relationship was at least touched upon at a couple points, since it’s only natural Gino would quickly attach to the hip of Elias given their similar personalities and fascination with reading/researching. Additionally, this approach would also work well to set up comedic scenes where Romano grieves at having Gino “stolen from him” given how overprotective he is of the Maggiano children, having watched over them since the day they were born. Plus idk, Gino’s bond with Elias was just cute af and I wish we got to see more of it. But yeah, the fact that none of these characteristics or character dynamics are reflected in the dialogue in any form is hella disappointing and a huge missed opportunity.

Likewise, Bellatina is yet another prime opportunity for dialogue contrast. Elias might be a foreigner, but Bellatina is an Amiella- a completely different RACE from the other party members. Bellatina spent most of her life living separate from humans entirely, in a society with animistic cultural roots. Even still, there’s nothing about her dialogue that sets her apart whatsoever. It’s worth noting that yeah, she does spend a lot of time around Stella before the game starts. Plus, her characterization in general is admittedly at odds with my complaints here. Bellatina did spend most of her life feeling like an outcast from the other Amiella both in terms of her personality and physical makeup. So it makes sense she would embrace that rebellion which naturally developed from her background. That said, the script again makes no effort to communicate this character building within the dialogue itself.

For example, because of Bellatina’s lively demeanor, this contrast would have easily been portrayed through some sort of unique dialect. That even would’ve perfectly set up the sort of charming scenarios where, because of her rebellious nature, she tries her best to talk normally, but once she inevitably gets excited or worked up, the Amiella dialect starts to leak back out.

Keep in mind that there’s a distinction to be made here between dialogue and personality. These characters all have sufficiently well-defined and varying personalities, but the script does almost nothing to reinforce or emphasize them. It’s through the physical characteristics of the script itself-- intonation, dialects, tonalities-- where Marenian Tavern Story completely fails to communicate these characteristics in an even remotely convincing or effective way. As a result, the cutscenes, which are admittedly quite fun and charming at their core more often than not, instead leave you wrestling with sloppy and halfhearted composition- just to be able to fill in the narrative gaps it presents.

Oh, and before I wrap up my criticisms about the script, I want to make it abundantly clear that I’m aware this is asking for a lot- too much, in fact. Obviously Kemco can’t exactly justify shelling out resources for localizations of the same quality as XSeed's work on the Kiseki Series or anything even remotely like that. Nor does it need to, frankly, since the gameplay loop is the main draw for a simple and lighthearted game like this to begin with. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth pointing out that this game clearly has a lot of missed potential with the world’s setting and character writing. I’m sure this is also true with the original japanese script, but clearly it’s doubly so with this half-hearted localization. A better script COULD have made its hundreds of little skits and cutscenes an absolute blast, rather than just being kinda cute but ultimately frustrating and disappointing.

The premise of Marenian Tavern Story is admittedly pretty unique and effectively serves to get things moving quickly. Even though I did feel like the rushed premise made the game’s sloppy introduction feel even sloppier than it already did, its brevity might’ve ultimately been the saving grace which kept me from dropping it. It’s not made apparent just how great its gameplay loop is from its opening hours, so had it not gotten things moving as quickly as it did, I might’ve just given up had the opening dragged even slightly longer than it does. But anyway, the nature of the premise itself is pretty unique.



In other similar games from the genre, you’ll find yourself building up a tavern (or a farm or guild or shop or whatever) from scratch or continuing the family business. But in Marenian Tavern Story, you’re straight up forced to do so specifically in order to weaken Coco, the God of Poverty. After Patty’s younger brother Gino accidentally destroyed a monument which Coco’s spirit was bound to, the God forged a pact with the boy- essentially cursing him and everyone around him with misfortune.

By treating the God of Poverty Coco to some of your tavern’s dishes as offerings, as well as growing the tavern’s value and reputation among customers, his powers are gradually suppressed. In turn, the weakening spiritual hold of the God’s curse leads to further prosperity of the inn. This serves to fund new and improved recipes and cooking appliances, renovations to the land (via your farm/orchard/fishing hole/mistweed/etc). So yeah, the process just continues to feed into itself from there. It’s simple, but it serves as an interesting union between narrative and gameplay progression. The way the story builds from there, with the introduction of characters like Elias, Varl, Stella, and Bellatina, works well with this ever-present ludonarrative progression serving as the game’s foundation from beginning to end.

Patty is a fairly standard protagonist, but she gets the job done. She’s sweet, hardworking, and is a good leader for the group because of her tendency to draw different types of people towards her while also seeing the best in people. I particularly enjoyed the airheaded moments which stem from her moral simplicity, and the ensuing teasing from characters like Dante and Erika. Another great airheaded moment that comes to mind is when Varl opens up to Patty about his time serving in prison. He details his least favorite food, cutlet on rice, due to the negative association he developed in prison since it was the only thing they served. Meanwhile, her ditsy one-track mind couldn’t help drifting towards curiosity about the new dish, so she still begs him to teach her the recipe- as if she didn’t hear a word he said once she realized this was a chance for a brand new recipe to cook for the tavern.

The way Marenian Tavern Story uses Coco as a subversion of the mascot stereotype also deserves praise. Typically, the magic animal creature is some cute, upbeat, and well-loved member of the group. Despite how much he tries to fit this description with his constant quips, Coco is none of these things. As the God of Poverty, he’s unmistakably self-interested, gluttonous, and harbors an instinctive love for disorder and failure. Hell, the entire game’s premise is centered around getting him to go away. That’s not to say all the characters are purely cold to him or anything, since that’s not in their nature- particularly Patty’s nature.

That said, Coco often gets left out of conversations and is sometimes outright ignored because of his laziness and constant self-indulgence. It works well for comedy’s sake, yeah. But more importantly, it’s an interesting departure from the generic mascot character archetype while still allowing for a lighthearted dynamic with the party since Coco’s powers weren’t chosen and are understandably out of his control. This even serves to make him weirdly endearing in a way. He’s not acting maliciously, just… without inhibition. So yeah, he catches a deserved amount of flak, but it’s mostly all in good fun.

Moving on to another point of criticism, a much more baffling one at that, is a surprising lack of basic continuity or detail in its worldbuilding. It’s a glaring hole which plays a huge part in the fact that Marenian Tavern Story really does get off on the wrong foot. Like… you’re telling me that Romano, the butler who has served the wealthy Maggiano Family for 60 years, three generations, has never once gone into town to shop or even pass by the vacant Golden Branch Inn? Not to mention, where is the opening scene even taking place? We see Romano walking back towards the villa with Patty and Gino, assumedly from some highway between the villa and Cookoro or Casanavi, but it’s left entirely unexplained despite being the site of Coco’s monument. What about the fact that Patricia and Gino had never once met the Mayor of Cookoro? Not to mention, doesn’t the fact that Patty and Gino haven’t previously met Erika the shopkeeper suggest they’ve never even once gone to Cookoro town- despite Cookoro being situated directly between the villa to the north and Casanavi to the south where their inn is located?

Those opening cutscenes just feel… insanely slapdash. Even compared to the later cutscenes, something about those early ones feel particularly rough in terms of both dialogue and the subtext beneath. I understand that it was likely done for the sake of getting the player into the gameplay loop quickly, but MAN does it feel thrown together at the last minute. The script itself I’m more than willing to give a pass, since again… obviously Kemco can’t justify shelling out resources for any sort of outstanding localizations, much less a good scriptwriter for the original game--I can only presume. Oh, and don’t get me wrong, a quick introductory setup on this scale can be totally fine, and is honestly greatly appreciated if done correctly imo. But jeez, in these moments it really does feel like Kemco plopped a bunch of individually pre-written characters into a blank slate of a setting and THEN decided to start figuring out where things would go from there on-the-fly.

Combat is… pretty solid, actually. The biggest disappointment is easily the “positioning” system. It’s really only there to show the “rows” of allies and enemies, so you can’t actually “move” on the grid. Hell, you can’t even switch rows while engaged in battles akin to a classic ATB-era Final Fantasy game. So yeah, contrary to the first impression it gives you, the grid simply does not provide any sort of pseudo-SRPG depth, nor does it ultimately matter much at all. There’s a few attacks which have different attack ranges based on the position, but the grid ultimately feels rather half-baked. Combat also has a few other minor irritations, like the whole “recovery items are percentage-based rather than fixed amounts” thing and your exploration sprite not changing even when Patty isn’t present in the party. But those are just examples of things that bother me personally without really mattering much in the grand scheme of things.

While the combat is disappointing in some areas, it's still very much serviceable thanks to its fast pace, large skill pool, and somewhat robust weapon customization mechanic via rune orb synthesis. A surprisingly significant part of the game’s overall runtime was exploring dungeons to fight monsters and gather ingredients. But for people like me who love dungeon crawling and grinding, this was a pleasant and more than welcome surprise.. Part of this is due to a high random encounter rate admittedly, which I know turns many people off. But the dungeons are often packed with multiple paths to explore and secrets to uncover. Hell, it even dips its toes into ability gating with some paths being blocked by boulders which can’t be broken until way later.

I’ve alluded to it several times by now without going into detail, so I’ll do that now. The gameplay loop of Marenian Tavern Story is super addicting and fun- and pretty much indisputably its biggest draw. However, the odds were stacked against it for making a good impression even in this regard. It has clear mobile game roots; featuring skip tickets, a world map with reused zones via “hard mode” versions with better drops, a “premium” currency (no micro transactions in the console version tho thank god), and so on. However, once you get past the first couple dungeons, the phenomenal gameplay loop quickly begins to find its footing. It’s admittedly on the simple and repetitive side, yeah. But the gameplay’s effectiveness hinges on the great sense of progression and interwoven combat and cooking sim mechanics. The surprisingly steep difficulty curve also serves to emphasize this, as I wiped several times to a few of the bosses and had to completely rework my strategy. But like I mentioned, the success of the gameplay loop is mostly thanks to its tightly interwoven combat and cooking sim mechanics.

Combat in Marenian Tavern Story is pretty self explanatory, so I’ll be spending much more time analyzing the cooking mechanic and why it’s so well integrated. Cooking, and subsequently selling dishes in your tavern and providing Coco with offerings, is surprisingly in-depth with TONS of combinations and adjacent variables. Considering the frankly absurd number of recipes and ingredients, I was pleasantly surprised that you don’t ever end up with a million ingredients you’ll never use in lieu of spamming the few best dishes with the highest EXP/Price bonuses. This is accomplished through a joint effort between the “offering” and “customer interest” mechanics which I'll expand upon later. Additionally, the low ingredient cap (initially 99) is another key reason why you’re constantly using every ingredient and item you find despite there being so goddamn many. This low restriction encourages you to sell off more common items while actively preventing you from hoarding. You do get upgrades which raise the cap later on, but because your tavern is more popular by then (so you’re selling a ton more dishes every single day), it scales up pretty well. So even when you end up buying hundreds of things like salt, milk, and eggs, you can be damn sure that every single one of them is going to get used. But this even applies to some of the more obscure ingredients- everything gets used.

It would’ve been VERY easy for Marenian Tavern Story to devolve into “Hoarding Simulator” due to the sheer quantity of ingredients, equipment, and consumables. But the customer interest mechanic solves this issue with grace. Not only does it prevent you from spamming the most optimal dishes every single day, but it gives inherent value to EVERYTHING you gather and earn in battle.Despite the simplicity of the cooking sim, which is ultimately nothing but menuing, it is because of this customer interest system that it feels so alive, so dynamic, and so incredibly satisfying. It revolves around multiple customer-driven variables. For example, weather determines if customers will prefer cool and refreshing drinks/dishes/etc (summer) or warm, comforting ones (winter). It also takes tedium and repetition into account, meaning that if you serve the same dish over and over, it will gradually lose interest and sell less over time.

This customer interest mechanic even provides “new customer” interest bonuses. In other words, you are rewarded for offering brand new individual dishes, as well as multi-dish combinations that work well together or follow some sort of theme. By doing so, you’ll be shown an indicator that these dishes will “get more customers”. As such, this customer interest mechanic directly (and separately) measures the dynamic interest of your returning customers AND the interest generated from potential brand new customers. This also serves to give you something valuable to do after hitting your income goal to increase your tavern level. Because your tavern rank only gets reevaluated on the last day of each cycle, it would’ve been easy to tempt you into sleeping through the cycle’s remaining days after hitting your profit quota and waiting for the cycle to restart. After all, you wouldn’t want to waste your highest-priced dishes AFTER hitting the profit quota since they wouldn’t be counted towards anything. However, because you can experiment with new dishes and dish combinations to bring in brand new customers every single day, this customer interest mechanic incentivizes you to make the most of every day while also frequently mixing things up.

This depth was already way more than I expected as is. However, if I had to pick one area I wish was expanded upon, it would be the role of food specifically when used as a consumable. For example, this could’ve been expanded by giving each party member “preferred” food groups in a similar vein to Coco’s “cravings” (which i’ll discuss next). This could give extra variety and strategy through providing exp/stat boosts/hunger filling/etc. Also, it could be a clever way to integrate each character’s favorite and least favorite foods which were detailed in dialogue in order to give them actual gameplay significance. Even without this factor, the cooking/food system is still VERY impressive imo. There’s so many different variables, yet they’re all used to great effect. It encourages experimentation and iterative engagement, all the while actively discouraging you from taking a more stubborn or mindless approach if you want to grow the business efficiently. You’ll constantly find yourself tinkering with the uncovered “hint recipes” and testing out countless brand new dishes- each with their own unique properties both as a dish in the cooking sim AND as a consumable for combat.

The dynamic nature of cooking in Marenian Tavern Story extends to Coco’s aforementioned offerings as well. This is because every week, Coco has different cravings that will provide a bonus multiplier for his satiation bar. Along with the general profit quota, this satiation bar is another quota that must be met by the end of each cycle in order to weaken his powers and raise your tavern rank. Thankfully though, by focusing on the classification of dish Coco is craving, you’ll fill his satiation bar much quicker than you would otherwise. On top of being a required quota for raising your tavern rank, raising Coco’s satiation bar also gives you various rewards as you get closer to 100% satiation. Similarly, the game’s “trophy” system provides rewards through a pseudo-achievement system which also rewards experimentation and variety just as Coco’s different cravings do. The rewards from both Trophies and Coco’s offerings are surprisingly substantial. They range from ingredient and potion restocks, to rare weapons, unique armor, accessories, kitchen appliance and backpack upgrades, and even rune orbs you can’t get elsewhere.

One more point about the cooking sim- it is very well integrated into the combat portion of the game in spite of these two mechanics being quite different. The tradeoff between serving dishes at the inn or putting them aside as consumables for the exp/stat bonuses is simple but very effective. For example, you can cash in by serving the dish at the tavern in order to buy better equipment or other consumables. Or, you can level up faster by eating the dish to kill more monsters and gather more ingredients for future dishes that way. It might’ve been worth trying a Zwei-esque exchange system through tiered food upgrades, but the fact that food gives stat bonuses rather than HP like in Zwei kinda prevents that tradeoff from working as well as it does in that game. Plus, as I mentioned, the gameplay loop works in part because it specifically DISCOURAGES hoarding. Whereas in Zwei, you’re specifically incentivized to horde as much as physically possible in order to trade everything in for better dishes. These tradeoffs and the cohesive integration of distinct gameplay systems is by far the biggest reason the gameplay loop of bouncing between cooking and combat works so well. Individually, they’re nothing too noteworthy (especially combat). But because of the way they are interwoven and impact one another, it ends up being far greater than the sum of its parts.

Another strength of Marenian Tavern Story is the sheer volume of content. Sure, it’s a budget game and, again, the execution of its script… leaves much to be desired, put nicely. But I personally felt like the surprising amount of “meat” on the game’s bones more than makes up for this in the end. I’ve already mentioned the mind boggling amount of recipes, which draw from several hundred ingredients, totaling close to a thousand unique dishes. Hell, every single dish even has 3 different tiers of quality depending on your quality of tools. On top of that, many dishes even have double that amount through “deluxe” recipes which unlock as your ingredients improve to the next tier (i.e egg to garuda egg to dragon egg). Not to mention, just like the equipment and consumables, each of these dishes features a unique description. Sometimes these are just cute flavor text, but sometimes they can be very useful in solving hint recipes. On top of a unique description, every item has a unique buying and selling price, and dishes even have unique exp and/or stat bonuses. I came into the game already expecting the cooking to have some amount of depth since it’s pretty obviously the main focus. What I DIDN’T expect though was for this game to lean into it this goddamn hard.

Oh, and this level of detail doesn’t just apply to the ingredients, consumables, and equipment, either. This same level of detail and quantity is present within the game’s “event” cutscenes. The number of unique events, between main story and sub sequences, also totals over 300. It’s still not a massive script on the level of a Kiseki game or anything. This is notably in part because most of the NPCs don’t have ANY changing dialogue during town exploration throughout the entire game. But even so, there was unquestionably a serious effort put forth here to give unique scenarios between all of the different main character pairings to populate its 40 hour runtime. Even though the script holds them back, they still do serve to flesh everyone out and breathe a bit of life into them since you’ll be getting new skits (especially at the tavern) almost every single day.

These specific areas where the game excels through quantity really help dilute the game’s more neglected and/or underwhelming areas. For example, it's true that the game’s low budget is blindingly apparent even at a glance. But it trickles into smaller details as well. For example, there is a complete lack of ANY visual cues to reflect changes in weather or seasons (or hell, even a basic day-night system for that matter). However, its utilization of the “customer interest system” gives the game a way to still take these variables into consideration. But despite these visual and budgetary restrictions holding it back, Marenian Tavern Story doesn’t just make passing mention of these variables through text and leave it at that. It goes the extra step to make these details actually matter by giving each variable a degree of influence on the socioeconomic properties of the tavern’s management.

The soundtrack is pretty noteworthy too. I adore the main tavern theme in particular, and it’s still stuck in my head days after finishing the game. The mix of “swing” and “straight eights” melodies right next to one another make it super memorable and addicting, even if it does very much fit the typical “tavern music” mold otherwise. Casanavi’s melodic sea shanty is also super catchy and fitting as Marenia’s port town and trade hub. The theme of Cookoro, whose name is seemingly a pun on kokoro (heart in japanese), serves its name well. It’s a rather heartfelt and homely tune which grew on me quite a bit as the game went on and it began feeling more and more like home, fittingly enough. It’s kinda understated, yeah, but I love the backing strings especially. They reminded me of some of the midi orchestrations from Harvest Moon Back to Nature. Plus idk, it just gives the town a super cozy feel. The field/dungeon themes are fantastic too, my favorite probably being Sunny Hill. The soundtrack does have a few questionable tracks too tho. For example, the upbeat track for the Marino Strada dungeon is hella corny and off-putting with its bizarre double-time melody. Overall though, for a game whose soundtrack I couldn’t even find ripped to Youtube, it's lowkey fantastic.

Lastly, it’s very much worth noting that this game does NOT play like a mobile game despite its obvious mobile game roots. The in-game visuals, map interface, and thinly veiled microtransaction cover-ups certainly make it initially come across as some generic mobage shovelware. There’s a metric fuckton of menuing, it’s dungeon and grind heavy, and the combat very much holds its own in terms of depth and satisfaction- none of which exactly fit the typical mobile structure. I’m especially thankful for that last point, since a typical mobage autobattle system would’ve utterly ruined a combat-heavy game like this. In essence, I guess that’s what I’m ultimately trying to get at here:On the surface, Marenian Tavern Story may be very low budget and employs certain elements reminiscent of predatory mobile gaming practices. However, these factors never detract from the game’s strengths, and with this console release, those microtransactions were completely removed and integrated into simply playing the game. Moreover, once you sink your teeth into actually playing the game and engaging with its multitude of interconnected systems and mechanics, it’s easy to forget it was ever a mobile game to begin with. In practice, the game almost entirely feels like a proper console RPG built from the ground up.

Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God is definitely not for everyone. Even for the people it IS for, it falls short in some pretty significant ways. However, if these aforementioned strengths sound enticing, I’d say it’s worth giving a fair chance beyond its underwhelming opening hours. I personally found myself enthralled by its rock solid turn-based combat, and even more so by its shockingly deep and engaging cooking/business mechanics. But what really elevates the experience into being truly worth your time is its confident fusion of these two distinct halves into one whole. While certainly respectable on their own merits, the way these two halves are used in conjunction, in order to bring out the best in one another… that’s what sets Marenian Tavern Story apart; as a rewarding and highly addicting experience that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Spoiler warning for the entire Kiseki Series, including Hajimari no Kiseki and Kuro no Kiseki. Also, rampant speculation warning for Kuro no Kiseki II: Crimson Sin including a few pre-release teasers. Oh, and obligatory "this is going to be long as shit" warning. If you just want the tldr on if it’s good or not: Duh, it’s Kiseki. Go play it. Shoutout to Zero Field for being absolute legends.

Despite being the 11th entry in the massive overarching narrative of the almost two-decade spanning Kiseki Series, Kuro no Kiseki is an absolute breath of fresh air. It marks the first game in the long-anticipated Calvard Saga, as well as the first game in the second half of the overall Kiseki Series as a whole. But, perhaps more importantly for many, Kuro is also Falcom’s first major opportunity to acknowledge and address the complaints voiced by long-time fans with the shifting direction of the Kiseki Series- a shift which began in Crossbell and fully took shape during the Erebonia Saga. I’ll get more into specifics later on, but suffice to say, the new-look writing staff makes an admirable effort at steering the direction of the Kiseki Series back towards its roots, and does so in a way that I think many Cold Steel detractors will be very appreciative of. But even as someone who personally views the entire series as shockingly consistent in terms of overall quality--though the different games/arcs all have their own unqiue avenues in how they arrive at that quality--Kuro no Kiseki is an incredibly refreshing change of pace in many ways. From not just Cold Steel (which is, overall, my favorite arc), but also the entire Kiseki series up to this point.

Don’t get me wrong, Kuro does fall short of prior Kiseki games in several fairly notable areas. To be fair, some of these shortcomings feel like the result of Kuro being the game to suffer the full brunt of pandemic-specific disadvantages--including a pretty startling lack of voice work (tho what's there is as good as you'd expect), just to give one of the more overt examples. In addition, it’s the first entry since Cold Steel 1 to have been developed mostly from the ground up (new engine, new region, mostly new characters, etc). However, some of the game’s other “shortcomings”, particularly the focus on Almata rather than Ouroboros (which I’ll get more into later), are more like deliberate subversions rather than something to outright criticize.

With those considerations in mind… There’s still a number of changes and shortcomings that need to be addressed first and foremost. Kuro no Kiseki removes all minigames, the abyss difficulty and enemy scaling options introduced in Hajimari, and all in-game novels/books (aside from newspapers). It needlessly obscures the AT Bar turn order, which used to be far more readable even at a glance. It outright removes AT Bonus manipulation via turn delaying and S-Breaks; which was the mechanic I’d considered the defining trait of the previous 10 games’ combat systems. It reuses many of its most important end-game boss battles and has several moments where the gameplay padding is about as thinly veiled as it possibly could be.

As mentioned earlier, the Kiseki Series’ longtime antagonistic force, Ouroboros, has almost no direct relevance to the central conflict of Kuro no Kiseki. The only three active members of the Society who even show up in Kuro are oftentimes content with sitting back and watching the game’s events unfold from the sidelines. However, they do eventually contribute towards the collaborative efforts to thwart Almata once they’d begun to pose a legitimate threat to the Societies’ long-term plans. Keep in mind, their inaction is directly following the Grandmaster of Ouroboros announcing the start of the Eternal Recurrence Plan, the final phase of the Orpheus Final Plan, at the end of Hajimari no Kiseki. So, surely the Society didn’t send the Fourth Anguis to Calvard for no good reason, and the specifics of this third phase are still unknown. That said, there’s really no arguing that the antagonist of this first game is Almata, not Ouroboros. But for the record, this is the “weakness” of Kuro I take the least issue with personally, as both Trails from Zero (D∴G cult) and Trails of Cold Steel 1 (Imperial Liberation Front) also both had different main antagonists. Not to mention, Almata more than serves their purpose lore-wise and was a necessity, given some of the newly introduced plot elements that are set in motion with Kuro.Not to mention they had essential ties to various key forces, including the aforementioned D∴G cult, Heiyue, Garden, and most notably the game’s main protagonist, Van Arkride.

With this many shortcomings, it might sound like the Calvard Saga has gotten off to a relatively rough and/or slow start. Well surprise, surprise, it’s quite possibly my favorite starting entry to any Kiseki arc at best, and 'as good' at worst. If anything, these detractions only serve to emphasize that Kuro does a hell of a lot right in so many other ways… Not to mention, its shortcomings make the possibility of further improvement and iteration in its upcoming sequel, Crimson Sin, an even more exciting prospect. Both the narrative and mechanical developments of Kuro have tremendous potential in how they can push the Kiseki Series to even greater heights. This first entry alone pushes the series forward in some ways that are immediately apparent, such as its revamped combat , a gorgeous new in-house engine, a tonal shift which is noticeable from the opening hours, etc.
However, it also makes significant developments for the series in far more deep-rooted and sometimes understated ways, such as the narrative intrigue surrounding the Five Demon Lords, Epstein’s prediction and the Oct-Genesis, Marduk Company, the motivations of Roy Gramheart, and so much more.

I tend not to break up my reviews into categories since tbh they’re usually a pointless restraint. But considering how much I ended up having to say about this game, I ended up using some very broad headers to categorize my biggest ideas, if not to make it just a bit more digestible. Those headers being MAIN PLOT, WORLDBUILDING / CONTINUITY, COMBAT, UNANSWERED STUFF / SPECULATION, and MISCELLANEOUS. So if you just want to skip around to a particular point, just look for one of the dividers.

MAIN PLOT

It was super refreshing to start an arc with a duo for the first time since Trails in the Sky FC. You get about 10 hours of time with just Van and Agnes before any other party members join. It might seem trivial in the greater context of this 150+ hour game, but it proves very helpful for getting to know the two of them better individually and building up their dynamic as characters. Seeing the two fight monsters and support one another, fulfill spriggan requests together, and travel around Edith loading up on sweets was cozy as hell and an absolute treat. Their dynamic is certainly different from that of the series’ previous duo Estelle and Joshua, since it’s more of a mentor/protégée type of deal. But the dialogue and chemistry between Van and Agnes is still surprisingly comparable in terms of quality imo. Their relationship feels super believable and respectful, and their growth both as individuals and as friends was simply outstanding. By the end of the game, I was genuinely caught off guard by just how attached to the two of them I ended up becoming. The way Agnes rallied the rest of the Solutions Office to not lose hope in Van, despite having lied to them and made a decision to carry his burden alone, sealing himself away from the world as Demon Lord Vagrants-Zion. Then the bombastic scope of that climax is immediately juxtaposed with a gentle, intimate car ride between the two of them as he brings her home… Seriously, their relationship was set up about as well as it possibly could’ve been.

I think the way Kuro slowly introduces characters, while still placing that tiny extra bit of emphasis on Van and Agnes, is something most Kiseki fans will be thrilled about. Particularly those who took issue with the structure and dynamics found in Class VII. Cold Steel understandably gets a lot of flak for taking the polar opposite approach- since it introduced all of Class VII, aside from Millium and Crow, right at the start of CS1. Personally, I think the class divisions prior to field studies made this problem a bit less egregious than it’s typically made out to be, but the issue is still there nonetheless.

The contrasting moral compasses of Van and Agnes work to amazing effect. At the start of Kuro, Agnes is outright incapable of using the sorts of logic and methodology that Van employs to finish a Spriggan request. But over time, their mentorship and bond deepens, and she learns so much more about the world around her. As a result, Agnes gradually becomes more and more determined; not just to collect the Oct-Genesis, simultaneously deepening her bond with her family and uncovering the greater truths which her great-grandfather Professor C. Epstein urged humanity to discover. But all the while, another purpose unknowingly emerged through Agnes’ newfound determination: to support and comfort Van through every difficulty he’s endured and will continue to endure in life. This works very well as an emotional dynamic, of course, but it even gets used to great comedic effect as well. As she grows, Agnes suddenly finds herself doing things “the Spriggan way”, more often and more egregiously. By the end of the game, she often catches flak about it from the other party members, given her previously demure and naive exterior. Hell, by the very end of the game, I even started seeing a bit of Renne influence in her, and… I’m not sure if that excites or terrifies me. Particularly with the way she tricks Van about the Solutions Office not actually being permanently disbanded- teasing the surprise as “payback” for lying to them back in Genesis Tower.

Van Arkride is, likewise, a phenomenal main character. He sets himself apart from all five previous Kiseki protagonists early on, and only continues to impress more and more up through the game’s finale. I won’t go into a ton of detail about his character, even though I think he’s pretty unquestionably the best written character in the game, and is already among the best characters in the entire Kiseki series. Mait’s write-up here does a phenomenal job at breaking down why he’s so endearing and compelling, so I’d recommend reading that first if you’re interested. With that said, I’ll try to provide some extra insight about why he impressed me so much in a few other ways.

On top of being incredibly lovable and relatable, Van is a refreshingly pragmatic and self-sufficient character. A good example of his pragmatism can be seen in Chapter 1 when he saves the broken down bus in Creil. With this scene, you’re presented with a nearly identical situation from that of Trails from Zero, when Estelle and Joshua helped the SSS rookies save a broken-down bus full of citizens off a highway in Crossbell that was surrounded by monsters. But in Kuro, Van finishes the job, tells the driver that “he’s no volunteer”, proceeds to give him his business card, and then demands reimbursement for his time and efforts. Van even cheekily nudges the busdriver to “put some gusto” into the negotiations when explaining the situation to his supervisor.

Van’s behavior here which yeah, on the surface is a tad dickish sure, but it's honestly just pragmatic more than anything else once you dig a bit deeper. Van did demand to be paid significantly more than what the Bracer Guild charges, yeah. But it’s worth mentioning that the Arkride Solutions Office is entirely independent and self-sufficient, whereas the Bracer Guild is a Zemuria-wide established NGO (non-governmental organization) with financial backing directly from the renowned Epstein Foundation. Therefore his higher price tag, especially for an unforeseen emergency that he happened to get caught up in, is more than justified. These small details do wonders to not just provide humor, but further characterize Van in subtle yet effective ways. Likewise, it’s true that the first tenant of his Solutions Office (specifically for his accepted 4SPG requests) sets a fixed hourly rate of 1000 mira no matter the request. This tennant is, to be frank, comically rigid considering the vast range of clientele he gets requests from as a morally gray “fixer”. But even in spite of that rule (which I’m sure Van made deliberately stubborn), Van is still not just pragmatic, but also extremely perceptive in how he selects and views requests based on their individual circumstances.

The obvious foil to this Creil bus driver example would be the scene in the Prologue where Agnes offers him 50,000 mira for his continued service- yet Van still only accepts from her a single bill. Despite the lengthy, ambiguous, and clearly dangerous nature of the request, Van still takes all of the context of the request into account and thus accepts it. When you initially view this scene, you figure Van’s kinda just being a nice guy by not immediately snatching this huge wad of cash from some seemingly normal high-school girl. Hell, he even falsifies an additional layer of artificial motivation for having accepted the request, mentioning that it “seems like it’d be interesting”. But in reality, a lot more consideration and analysis went into Van’s decision than you might first think. Van isn’t even just taking into consideration that he put this young girl’s life in danger when they were ambushed by mafioso as they recovered that first Genesis, nor that he was impressed by her stubborn resolve which forced him into taking her along for the actual mission itself- despite being just an inexperienced and vulnerable client.

The point of much greater importance there is that Van took his own personal connection to Agnes’ 4SPG into consideration; and because of his connection, there was no way he could possibly refuse it. Van was able to deduce that the Oct-Genesis was directly related to his own traumatic yet ambiguous past. In the Finale, we find out that, as a child, Van was subjected to inhumane experimentation by the D∴G cult due to his demonic resonance. This culminated in the (mostly successful) extraction of his Diabolic Core by high-ranking Prince of the Cult, and later Kuro no Kiseki’s main antagonist, Gerard Eldarion of Almata. Despite Van’s traumatic ties to this experience, he was still able to temporarily cast aside his emotional turmoil and analyze the events of the Prologue from an objective standpoint. As a result, he was able to make sense of these seemingly unrelated puzzle pieces and ultimately arrived at the decision to continue helping Agnes- not just for her sake, but for his own. In fact, it was in this exact decision that the events of the Calvard Saga were truly set into motion. Van concluded that the Oct-Genesis were the missing puzzle pieces which serve to unify his own PAST (his D∴G cult experimentation and extracted Diabolic Core), the events of the PRESENT (the circumstances which lead Van and Agnes together, incited his Grendel transformation, and securing the first Genesis), and even their FUTURE (after Agnes shares with him the journal which detailed Professor Epstein’s prediction of Zemuria’s potential apocalypse).

The Oct-Genesis is the puzzle piece which allowed Van to finally begin tying everything together- specifically due to its role in his mysterious transformation into the Grendel. Well, more specifically, the Blue-Darkness Clad Demonic Gear Ogre… but that’s a total facefuck of naming conventions so I’m just gonna call it “Grendel” from now on. It’s kind of a lot of explanation though, so bear with me for a sec… but imo it’s worth recounting since there is a definitive connection that can be drawn from this initial scene between all of these different narrative fragments that Van was able to perceive. So basically, Van’s Grendel transformation was initiated by resonance with the First Genesis in conjunction with his Xipha’s MK-ESV004, the experimental Hollow Core he was contracted as a tester for by Marduk Total Security Company prior to the start of the game. This resonance granted temporary self-awareness and free will to “Mare”, the Artificial Intelligence housed within the Experimental Hollow Core’s Core Quartz (really rolls of the tongue, huh). Prior to the incident, Mare only possessed “personality” within the rigid limitations of current AI programming technology. However, this resonance with the First Genesis not only granted her free will, but also froze time around them and allowed Mare to manifest as a projection of sorts- a projection capable of elaborate communication with humans. Shortly after, Mare swayed Van to “don the nightmare” and take the Grendel.

So yeah, a lot to unpack obviously, but doing so is worthwhile. This scene alone confirms that the Oct-Genesis is the missing puzzle piece between Van’s own past, present, and future. And even if it’s understandable had he not put everything together right then in that moment, he was still able to recognize a thread of correlation between the 50 year old orbment prototype, his own state of the art experimental Hollow Core, and his lingering demonic resonance- more broadly, the mysterious Diabolic Core even long after its extraction. So yeah, even if he doesn’t have all the answers right away, Van clearly isn’t your average oblivious protagonist where you’re meant to learn about the world alongside them. This isn’t always a dealbreaker, but given that we’re now 11 games deep into the same ongoing narrative, the approach Kuro takes with Van’s mental and physical capabilities make a ton of sense and is extremely refreshing. He’s not only well-established with personal and business connections across Edith and “beyond” (no pun intended), but he’s pragmatic, self-sufficient, and very perceptive.

I won’t write at-length about every character like that or I’ll be here all day, but there are a few I’ll touch on briefly. Feri is a great starter character. Not only is her assault sword fun to use in combat, but she’s surprisingly sweet and endearing. Her fixation on combat tactics and strategic practicality, even when the situation doesn’t at all call for it, is passed off initially as a comedic character trait, but there’s an understated degree of emotional sincerity to it as well. In particular, her love and respect for Ayda really shines through, particularly through her determination to have Ayda’s customized rifle fixed properly all on her own. This is because, in the Jaeger way of life, one’s weapon is an extension of one’s self. So for Feri to treat it with such love and care even after her passing is quite a powerful display of her affection and appreciation for everything Ayda did for her. Not just as her mentor, rival, and fellow Jaeger, but as a genuine older sister figure. That said, I definitely wish we got more background on the two’s relationship, because it sometimes felt more of a “take our word for it” type of friendship. The scenes we did get between the two were good, yeah, but Ayda’s death lacked the weight it probably should’ve had because we just didn’t quite get to see enough of her.

Despite being sweet and endearing, it’s worth mentioning that Feri actually ended up becoming my least favorite main party member by the end of the game. This was in large part because of her dialogue quality, which frankly, fell off a cliff after her arc was resolved. Like 90% of her “main story” dialogue in the mid to end-game (esp when Kasim isn’t there) boils down to “idk wtf is going on lol”. I mean yeah, it absolutely makes sense that this young kid would be deeply confused with how many mysterious plot threads are present throughout Kuro, but MAN does it get old after the twentieth time. She’s not offensive in any way though, and her being my least favorite main character is more a result of the other 8 main characters being SO fantastic- rather than Feri being bad. Trust me, she’s not quite the soggy piece of bread that Elliot was (I kid, he’s still a sweetheart… that said, there’s not much arguing that Falcom did him dirty compared to the rest of Class VII).

The Oracion Arc, despite being a bit padded in terms of gameplay, is a phenomenal endgame chapter. The death game is a totally fresh concept from everything Kiseki has done prior. On top of that, it excels at providing motivation and intrigue to every single one of the many distinct factions. The Gralsritter participate since they have jurisdiction over the retrieval of artifacts, which all three Wardens and Gerard himself use as weapons. Iskariot participates on behalf of the broader Papal Guard jurisdiction to exterminate Almata and Garden as heretics. Ouroboros felt the need to intervene because Almata had established itself as a potential threat to the Eternal Recurrence Plan following the Creil tragedy. That said, the Society ultimately left cleanup to the Arkride Solutions Office after Van confronted the Thousand Oathbreaker for his plan to employ biochemical warfare in the ruins below Oracion. Heiyue participates in order to reestablish themselves as the top crime syndicate of Calvard’s underworld, given that Almata is their only direct competition (who, not to mention, “crosses their line” which I’ll talk more about later). The Bracer Guild, Marduk, and the CID participate due to the bomb threat attached to the death game’s consequences being a threat to the lives of each of the former capital’s 280,000 citizens. Ikaruga was there to…uh, do something for the President?? That one’s a bit unclear but I got to team up with Shizuna so honestly idgaf.These extremely varied motivations serve as great worldbuilding while also creating a beautifully chaotic web of moving parts for the ongoing narrative.

Likewise, the way the Oracion Arc uses player choice to determine your alliance within the death game is honestly kind of genius. The alliance mechanic gives legitimate agency to every choice you’ve made up to that point, without impeding the linear nature of the series’ big-picture narrative. Like yeah, it leaves room for variance regarding WHICH team you ally with in order to stop the Reactor Weapon, but the end goal is unchanged regardless of who ends up helping you. I was definitely skeptical when I heard rumors that Kuro no Kiseki had “player choice”, since the previous ten games didn’t (harems don’t count stfu). But the way Kuro handles your choice through the alliance is real fuckin clever. If I had to nitpick something, it’d be that Cao Lee, Kurogane, Walter, and Lucrezia aren’t actually playable. But still, I was blessed with the opportunity to slice dudes up with MF HIME so I can’t possibly complain. Really though, the alliance system was wonderfully incorporated. It perfectly complements the death game’s inherent structure as a clusterfuck of moving parts through many uniquely motivated factions. I genuinely can’t think of a better way to tie in so many different characters from throughout the entirety of Kuro and actually have them all be relevant to this extent.

The combat segments leading up to Genesis Tower were fun, since getting to fight around the environments you’re so used to casually traversing was a good change of pace. However, it definitely suffered from significantly worse camera and like… arenas that clearly weren’t suited for fighting. Not a big deal, but the issue was significantly worse here. More importantly, the cutscenes felt pretty lazy. Each group coming to save the Solutions Office right when they arrive at each district was Cold Steel III “That won’t be necessary” levels of corniness. I don’t hate the collaboration aspect at all, and it’s honestly a decent way to give you a bit more time to mess around in combat with all of the guest characters before the final dungeon. But the way it’s presented was super formulaic and predictable. Also, dear lord Falcom, fuck you for that Renne PTSD flashback… Pls just let my girl be happy already. Jokes aside though, it was actually a really powerful scene that caught me way off guard. Plus it was a good way to bring her closer to Van and Agnes since they hadn’t seen that side of her history firsthand despite their prior relationship. After that, everything from the Genesis Tower up to the credit sequence was straight heat. I’ll be talking about it in the later sections tho so I’ll just leave it there for now.

WORLDBUILDING / CONTINUITY

Kuro no Kiseki more than delivers when it comes to expansion and iteration on the worldbuilding of Zemuria and beyond (again, no pun intended, I promise). In fact, it’s probably the single aspect I found myself the most impressed by throughout the game. Maybe that shouldn’t be TOO surprising since, I mean it’s fucking Kiseki… this has always been its biggest selling point. But even then, Kuro goes to surprising lengths to finally begin pulling back the curtain on topics which have been shrouded in mystery since the series began. The Ancient Civilization of Zemuria, Aidios rewriting the world following the Great Collapse, the Beyond, the false and true natures of modern day Zemuria… You get the idea. Much of the specifics are still unknown of course, and honestly I might have more questions than ever right now. But the Kiseki Series’ continuity, interconnectivity, narrative cohesion, use of old characters and plot threads, and the sheer level of detail within every seam of the world it’s crafted never fails to inspire awe in me. In a way very few pieces of media have ever even come close to accomplishing. I can tell you this much, only in Kiseki will you get 15 straight lines of dialogue about the properties, geographical trends, nutritional benefits, economic interest, and processing potential of Zemurian camel’s milk in comparison to that of cow and sheep’s milk. Certified Kiseki moment. Seriously though, most of what I have to talk about in Kuro revolves around this world building and continuity. Though there isn’t really a clear starting point, so I'll try my best to keep my organization of these points somewhat orderly.

I guess I’ll start with my thoughts on Garden, since I have quite a lot to say about it. Garden is probably the organization I’ve been most eagerly awaiting since it was introduced in Cold Steel IV, and even more so after Garden defectors Swin and Nadia became main characters in Hajimari no Kiseki. Those two certainly haven’t disappointed me yet, given their incredible backstory in Three & Nine and their fantastic chemistry with Rufus and Lapis in the Picnic Squad. That said, it was rather surprising, perhaps a tad bit disappointing, to see Garden taken down completely after just one game in the spotlight.

The Wardens weren’t as compelling as Swin and Nadia, but Emperor, Arioch, Olympia, and Melchior all definitely have some degree of intrigue. But I dunno, I guess I was expecting them to be… more of a threat, I guess? They’re basically all out of commission or flat out dead by the end of Kuro no Kiseki. Not to put down the efforts of the Picnic Squad or the Arkride Solutions Office, since they’ve got plenty of heavy hitters in combat too, of course. But maybe it’s my fault for having such high expectations? Honestly though, I don’t think it’s too unreasonable for me to have expected the top overseers of an organization of elite assassins, who enslaved children and groomed them into their own personal killing machines, to put up a bit more of a fight.

To be fair, they certainly weren’t a slouch in terms of direct narrative significance, particularly here in Kuro. Garden’s remaining three Wardens were contracted by the quickly surging mafia, Almata, prior to the start of the game. Even though both Almata and the Wardens were taken down by the game’s ending, that was only possible through a massive collaborative effort. It took a resistance force including the Arkride Solutions Office, two enforcers and an Anguis of Ouroboros, the Bracer Guild, Marduk Company, Heiyue, two Holy Knights of the Gralsritter (and a third grandpa “retiree”), Orbal Net direction and manipulation by Renne, and direction from both the Calvard Intelligence Division and even President Roy Gramheart himself showing up in a fucking mech (best scene btw, his bickering with Harwood was amazing). When you take the combined manpower of all these factions into consideration, it’s no wonder Almata and Garden buckled under the weight of Gerard’s lofty ambitions. Plus, they did manage to get pretty damn far with their plan. They successfully executed and recorded the effects of several Genesis units, lured Van into the ruins of Vashtar Palace to incite the resonance of his extracted Diabolic Core within Gerard, and even summoned the Genesis Tower and triggered Pandemonium.

Despite Almata’s eventual failure, Garden specifically DID manage to leave one serious long-term impact on Calvard with the annihilation of Creil Village. Gerard was the one who was capable of executing the Reactor Weapon, since he was the wielder of the Apeiron relic which triggered its detonation. However, it was actually Melchior’s suggestion to begin with. So you can certainly make the argument that they were equally culpable for the tragedy which sparked that multi-faceted resistance effort against Almata- both in Oracion and in Edith during Pandemonium.

Additionally, I do very much appreciate that Kuro provides a concrete explanation to justify Garden’s vulnerability as an organization. It not only lends credence to their sudden downfall, but also gives insight into why they were unable to stand on their own two feet- and thus operated as contractors for Almata to begin with. During the Arkride Solution Office’s meeting with the Thousand Oathbreaker and Golden Butterfly prior to the Oracion arc, Harwood explains that Garden has essentially existed as “leftovers” ever since its creation. Following the clash between Ouroboros and the Order of the Moonlight Horse in S. 1194, the Order’s remnants (excluding Harwood, Lucrezia, and even Sharon who became Anguis/Enforcers) merged with the remnants of the D∴G Cult under guidance from Harwood himself. But, much like both the Order and Cult, it seems both Garden AND Almata are completely defunct organizations moving forward. I’ll talk more about what I think the future holds for Garden’s surviving members later on, but I’ll leave it at that for now. So to conclude, Garden’s impact was definitely different from what I expected, and their downfall was surprisingly quick. But there’s really no arguing the massive impact Garden left through both a giant crater in northwest Calvard and its resulting impact on the ongoing narrative.

Moving away from Garden, Kuro makes an admirable effort to further flesh out the logistics of longtime established details of the series.The best example of this that comes to mind was in Chapter 1 with the second Genesis. The second Genesis was exploited by Melchior in Creil Village to reanimate the corpses of an Eisen Schild Jaeger Corps division (including Ayda). This eventually culminated in his efforts to join their energy together into a demonic being. But originally, Epstein’s experiments in life force manipulation through this second Genesis were used to engineer regenerative orbal arts such as Tear (the healing spell). It's fantastic to see them provide a technical explanation towards these sorts of details that we’ve just long taken as a given for the Kiseki Series. We just accepted that orbments allow the casting of arts, without questioning why or how those functions were created, so it’s great to get a definitive answer.

Walter finally gets some much needed characterization in Kuro as well. Back in the Sky trilogy, I found him right alongside Luciola as being very bland and one dimensional villains. But here in Kuro he’s a lot cheekier, he has connections with Van through his prior request, and has shown a genuine passion for cars and motorcycles comparable to Van’s. Kuro also recontextualizes his previously depicted character trait of his (being obsessed with battle and destruction) in a more sociopathic light. This is a more than welcome change, since it’s way more interesting than when he used to come across as some generic villain who’s obsessed with finding a good fight just for the sake of fighting. This can be seen most clearly through his interactions with Van in Chapter 1. Van states that for someone like him, who treated Ryuga, the man who raised him, and Zane as commodities- it simply isn’t possible. There’s more subtle characterization for Walter thanks to his decent amount of screentime, which frankly shocked me considering how little Ouroboros plays an active role in the game to begin with. I loved seeing the vice grip Kilika still has on both his and Zane’s nuts. It won’t ever not be hilarious how quickly she can get them to behave even if they’re actively going for each other’s throats. I also adore how Walter’s past relationship with Van was baited as some tragic event that resulted in the death of Van’s protégée or something (Vans “I’ve found a replacement” line to him clearly serving as a red herring via Agnes). But nah, as it turns out, the dude just chucked Van’s car at a Panzer Soldat and it exploded. That shit had me in tears.

Similarly to Walter, Heiyue, the Kiseki Series’ longtime staple crime syndicate, got a solid amount of focus for the first time since the Crossbell duology. Despite being one of the largest crime syndicates in the Republic of Calvard, their role as a “balancer” is an intriguing one imo. They obviously have no qualms breaking the law as a means to an end. However, they set a very strict “line” in how far they're willing to go. That “line” is defined as anything that infringes on basic human rights, i.e human trafficking and dealing drugs. Well… Cao Lee specifies “addictive drugs', and knowing him that probably slyly suggests between-the-lines that they don’t shy away from dealing ALL drugs. Almata of course saw a sudden surge in power following Gerard taking over Enrique as boss, and quickly began to pose a threat to Heiyue’s status as the premiere crime syndicate of Calvard’s underworld. Not to mention, Almata is more than willing to cross that “line” in their stead. As a result, Heiyue pursued any means necessary to protect their control over their home turf on their own terms; a means which led to Cao Lee contracting the Arkride Solutions Office to investigate within Langport while Yin was away in Crossbell.

Heiyue’s gray morality was most clearly apparent during the Langport arc, but they certainly contributed within Oracion and during the Finale as well. Heiyue is probably Zemuria’s best example of truly gray morality, alongside the Arkride Solutions Office. They set a “line” which, when crossed, they won’t hesitate in what they consider to be lawful action. However, anything that falls short of that “line” is fair game- regardless of the suffering their actions might cause. Getting to see Gien Lu firsthand, Heiyue Elder of the Lu family, was pretty interesting as well. His motivations reflect the syndicate’s gray morality quite clearly, as he conspired with Almata by indirectly giving them the third Genesis (and deceived the Solutions Office) in order to awaken Tycoon within Aaron Wei. Gien backed off after Aaron refused his offer, then of course Rixia and Elaine intervened to protect them. But it should be interesting to see what role Gien and the other Heiyue Elders will play down the line. Especially after the Finale suggested he would be working alongside Professor Hamilton in regards to Far East Zemuria’s ongoing desertification crisis.

Kuro’s continuity isn’t perfect of course, though. One specific hiccup that comes to mind is Ayda’s background. Prior to her role in the Eisen Schild Jaeger Corps, she was apparently a commander in Zephyr AND “like a sister” to Fie Clausell. Uh… if you say so?? Idk man. To me, it’s kinda hard to buy in on something like that when Fie never once mentioned or alluded to an “older sister figure”, despite Zephyr being such a small, close-knit squadron. Especially when you consider how important Xeno and Leo, not to mention Rutger, were to her during her childhood and early adolescence. Also, I feel like this revelation kinda downplays Sara’s importance in Fie’s backstory. Because before now, Sara was the only female figure Fie could rely on and look up to (well, there’s her childhood rivalry thing with Shirley but that’s way different and less important ofc). Maybe there is some semblance of foreshadowing for this, but I sure as hell don’t remember any. To me, it just feels like a rather lazy retcon for the sake of getting Feri and Fie to be closer, since they’re both Jaegers and the writers probably felt like Feri needed more character interaction (which is true tbf).

In direct contrast to Ayda’s background, Van’s web of connections to past Kiseki characters was extremely thorough and very well implemented. His connection to Renne goes as far back as S. 1203 (just after Sky SC), as she hired Van through their mutual connection of Meister Joerg Rosenberg in order to help her evade Novartis. Additionally, Van was confirmed to be the assistant mentioned by Dingo Brad who again helped Renne with the Ronald case detailed in Hajimari no Kiseki’s “Beyond the Genesis”. Again, Van took several requests from Joerg in the past, including helping Joerg relocate from the Doll Studio as a result of the ongoing commotion during Crossbell’s push for independence. Another request Van took from Meister Joerg included helping Swin and Nadia evade the pursuit of Garden after having killed the Warden Emperor and defecting from the organization.

This triangle of connections between Van, Renne, and Joerg even served a greater purpose of bringing Van and Renne closer during her Finale Connect Event. I certainly wouldn’t doubt if the triangle of connection soon became more like a “square” of connections, given that Swin is returning to Calvard in Crimson Sin. This connection becomes even more likely when you consider the fact that Renne and Swin worked together in Rufus’ Route during the infiltration of Joerg’s Doll Studio during Hajimari no Kiseki. Back to Van and Renne though, I really liked the Connect Event as we got to see Joerg’s letters to the two of them. The letters showed Joerg's ongoing compassion for Renne even years after she left the Doll Studio in Crossbell, urging Van to look after her in his stead. Joerg even provides eerily well-timed advice for Van (not that it got through to him, but no surprise there), telling Van to “never turn your eyes away from your own soul”. Considering the decisions Van makes shortly afterwards in Genesis Tower, I found this to be pretty interesting timing. The Connect Event really made me curious to see if we'll get even more presence from Joerg later on, especially when it appears as though he was present at Marduk Company headquarters during the credit sequence.

Moving on, the Republic of Calvard is a very well established setting in Kuro no Kiseki. From its history, to its internal disputes, to the core values which defined its revolution and persist in the modern day, etc. You learn pretty early on about the Democratic Revolution which took place about 100 years ago, or 50 years prior to the Orbal Revolution. This includes the adoption of the Republican Constitution, which was put in place to counteract feelings of superiority and subsequent discrimination by decendents of the fallen Royal Kingdom of Calvard. This behavior was most prevalent towards immigrants, even citizens, who hail or descend from Eastern and Middle Eastern Zemuria. As such, this nationalism has always been a geographical issue, even before the desertification exacerbated these demographic trends. However, immigration is mostly a nonissue in southern Calvardian cities such as Langport. On the contrary, Langport openly embraces their tradition and culture, something which is made very openly apparent through its Eastern Quarter. Much of its architecture and cuisine, for example, comes from the Eastern Zemuria.

However, some areas of northern Calvard, such as Messeldam, still dealt with a much higher volume of bigotry, radicalism, and other complications resulting from feelings of racial superiority even 100 years after the Democratic Revolution. In fact, the nationalist movement gained significant traction in recent years with the advent of Calvard’s newfound technological superiority over the rest of Zemuria. Reparations from the Empire of Erebonia following the Great War (which took place in Trails of Cold Steel IV), as well as the turmoil spurned by Crossbell’s ongoing struggle for independence (Hajimari no Kiseki), propelled Calvard into becoming the lone political and technological superpower of the entire continent. This was notably accomplished under the direction and leadership of Roy Gramheart, 23rd and current President of the Republic of Calvard.

Hell, Kuro even connects the Republic’s ongoing nationalism into the ethno terrorist conflict seen.back during the West Zemuria Trade Conference. I had completely forgotten that back in Trails to Azure, the trade conference was attacked in a JOINT effort. Not just by the Imperial Liberation Front, but also by the Republican Nationalists, an anti-Immigration group operating out of Calvard. It was easy to forget about the latter group because of the fact that the Imperial Liberation Front was a major point of focus during Trails of Cold Steel and Trails of Cold Steel II. Hell, we even got to physically experience BOTH sides of the Imperial Liberation Front’s pinsir attack on Garrelia Fortress and Orchis Tower, since the Crossbell duology and Cold Steel 1 and 2 took place concurrently). However, the ILF’s attack ended in failure with Gideon and most of the ILF troops getting outright massacred by the Red Constellation. As a result, I just kinda assumed that was the end of ILF’s relevance, and therefore, the end of the much less important Republican Nationalists’ relevance too.

Well, now we’ve arrived in Calvard, and have since learned way more about the ethnic immigration conflict. It’s a conflict of both historical importance (driving force behind the Democratic Revolution) and of modern importance (Desertification leading to more western immigration, Almata using the subsequent nationalist movement as a front/scapegoat, etc). This is a great example of why you simply can’t rule out the importance of even the most seemingly insignificant details in the Kiseki Series. Additionally, you have to take into account the economic boom that ensued from Erebonia’s post-war reparations, combined with President Gramheart’s far greater “leniency” when it comes to shady dealings and business practices (if him being introduced by hacking into the fucking Celestial Globe and striking deals with the Grandmaster didn’t make that obvious enough). Point being, the four-year period during which these circumstances took place all served to give more and more ammunition for this nationalist movement. It was then capped off by the public's focus on the Great War taking the nationalist movement out of the limelight, thus creating the perfect set of circumstances for this radicalist movement to be revived.

The public’s growing air of superiority as members of the continent’s biggest superpower can definitely be used to parallel this revitalization of seemingly outdated and dying nationalist beliefs. Keep in mind, this is all in spite of the fact that the marginalized people from Middle Eastern Zemuria, many of whom are struggling greatly with the desertification crisis, have been instrumental in Calvard's rise to technological superiority. Professor Latoya Hamilton, also known as the “Mother of the Orbal Revolution“, was finally introduced properly during Kuro no Kiseki. She is the third and final disciple of Professor C. Epstein, and played a leading role in many technological developments and projects across Calvard. Professor Hamilton’s eastern heritage, altruistic demeanor, and technological achievements make her the prime example of the importance of eastern influence within Calvard. Not to mention, they also make her a prime example of the leader of the Democratic Revolution Sheena Dirke’s pillars of ideals. Professor Hamilton’s achievements include bringing orbal technology westward into Calvard at the start of the Orbal Revolution, drafting the proposal which lead to the creation of the Verne Company, mentoring Yan Cronkite and Quatre Salision, construction of Tharbad’s Orbal Dam, designing the Langport Trade Center and Louzhou Bridge, and a ton more.

There’s also an unspoken truth and reaction to the aforementioned nationalist stirring, even if it’s not a belief held by the majority, that can be seen in various ways. An example of this unspoken reaction can be seen through Nina Fenley, a character you interact with firsthand. As one of the most famous actresses in Zemuria, her middle eastern heritage and “typical eastern traits” are hidden away from the public eye. This is done intentionally in an effort to widen her appeal to the broadest possible demographic, nationalists included. It’s an effective and believably grounded depiction of discrimination. These sorts of truths are made all the more personal to the player through the young and impressionable Feri. Like Nina, Feri is another middle eastern character, and is an even closer friend and coworker to the Arkride Solutions Office. As a result, it’s through Feri that the anti-immigration issues are made personal to the player. Given the fact she is suddenly confronted with this topic, on top of her family disownment AND mourning the death of her sister figure Ayda, these seemingly outdated issues are communicated effectively in a way that you’re actually given a personal stake in.

Aside from your own personal connections formed with these issues through Feri, Nina, and even Saara and Shahina to a lesser extent… The historical context provided in Kuro makes it clear that these harmful nationalist beliefs have permeated the political foundation of Calvard since its very inception. Sheena Dirke, the leader of the Democratic Revolution, audaciously promoted the erasure of nationalist ideals; the very stance which fueled her popularity among the Fallen Kingdom’s commoner and immigrant majority. Her core values were detailed through the Republican Constitution’s Three Pillars: equality, freedom, and unity. These pillars will be very important to understanding the nation’s ongoing conflict (though freedom less so than the other two so far… it only seems to be portrayed in minor ways, like Aramis High’s emphasis on student autonomy via observational studies). After the preexisting nobility lost their good faith due to a great famine which led to widespread suffering among commoners and immigrants, the Democratic Revolution began with the only 20 year-old Sheena Dirke as its leader. However, it was clear that even after garnering nationwide power and support, Dirke’s values remained unshaken.

The measures Sheene Dirke took even AFTER being established as ruler of Calvard prove this beyond a doubt. A prime example of this was her founding of Calvard’s prestigious Aramis High School. Dirke reemphasized these pillars of unity, equality, and freedom into the very skeleton of the school. In doing so, she ensured that the following generations would be raised with a set of ideals that wouldn’t lose sight of these three pillars in place of destructive nationalism. The pillar of unity can be most clearly seen in the founding itself of Aramis High, since Sheena did so alongside Aramis the individual, a renowned artist and close ally of Sheena during the Democratic Revolution. However, equality was just as important to its founding as a result of Dirke’s emphasis on international inspiration. Both the foreign institutes of Liberl’s Jenis Royal Academy and Erebonia’s Thors Military Academy were used as templates for Aramis High throughout its construction and establishment. These factors highlight Dirke’s drive to “combining many, regardless of race, nationality, ideology, or creed; and channeling them into something even greater.” These values extend to just about every facet of Aramis as a school even in the modern day. As one modern example, this can be seen through both Aramis High’s “abroad” student demographic (equality), as well as the school’s yearly observational studies whose locations are left entirely to the students’ discretion (freedom and unity).

The impact of Dirke’s three pillars extend beyond Aramis as well. Basil’s development is a great example of this, since it actually resulted from both these pillars of unity and equality working in tandem. Again, Basil accepted Professor Latoya Hamilton’s proposals despite her Middle Eastern heritage. Through the state of the art orbal technology she brought from her research under Professor C. Epstein, Hamilton unified aspects of both the old and new, channeling them into something greater: The Verne Company and New Town. New Town was formed through the unity of Craftsman Street and the Basel Institute of Science, which date back to the middle ages. Professor Hamilton’s proposal led to this unification effort, resulting in the birth of the Verne Company itself. The Verne Company was obviously crucial to establishing Calvard as a leading nation both technologically and financially due to its many breakthroughs in orbal technology (most notably the orbal car).

I won’t babble on about Calvard orbal car development too much, but it needs to be given some degree of attention. After all, it is the most notable invention and export of the Verne Company, and has long been detailed as such since Trails in the Sky. I like that the Verne Company utilizes intercompany division, somewhat similarly to how the Reinford Company created the Four Factories near its headquarters in Roer. This division strategy not only allowed for a more controllable degree of management despite the exponential company growth that both Reinford and Verne inevitably saw. But it also encouraged competition and specialization within the factories’ individual sectors. This can be seen even more clearly in the case of Verne compared to Reinford, as the Verne Company divides its car development between four major licenses: Leno, Ingert, Red Star, and ETWS.

Verne’s license division allows each team to craft orbal cars with unique strengths and appeal. Since they’re all still under the Verne Company umbrella, the division encourages them both to freely collaborate and compete with one another at the same time. As a result, it’s a win-win situation that greatly strengthens the overall end products of the Verne Company. Lastly, their focus on various individual specializations greatly benefits their customers as well. Between the four licenses, Verne provides many distinct styles in their lineup (pickup trucks, off-road, motorcycles, limousines, sports cars, taxis, etc) which can closely fit a broad range of consumer tastes. Through these distinct demographics, each of the four licenses can hone in on specific innovations which address exactly what their consumer base is looking for. An example the game provides is: Leno’s compact designs are in high demand among the elderly, and so the newer Leno models have redesigned seats, safety features, and instrument display catering features for increased accessibility. So not only does this division tactic encourage innovation, collaboration, and competition within the company overall. But it also broadens the demographic for their customer base while simultaneously providing highly specialized products to suit the individual buyer. Sheena Dirke’s founding pillars can be applied to the Verne Companies’ business philosophy as well. Their business model takes advantage of collaborative efforts, channeling it into something greater. Not to mention, they make products for a vast range of customers, regardless of their age or background.

Dirke’s pillars even hold influence beyond Calvard’s physical borders. This can be seen through the countries’ diplomatic strength when collaborating with bordering nations. For example, its previously military-grade RAMDA Orbment was developed in a joint effort between the Verne Company and the Epstein Foundation, who operate out of Leman State. Another example of this unity can be seen in Basil’s Cerise Drug Store, specifically via the joint products they’ve developed alongside the Principality of Remiferia, who stand at the forefront of Zemuria’s medical development. Through the combined efforts of Verne’s manpower and Remiferia’s cutting edge doctors and medical scientists, Cerise Drug Store was able to create more affordable, yet also more effective, medications for the people of BOTH nations. Just as Sheena Dirke dreamed: they combined their unique strengths, channeling them into something greater.

There’s a few other miscellaneous tidbits about Calvard as a setting I find pretty fascinating. For example, the Epstein Foundation’s presence has recently declined within Calvard despite thriving mostly everywhere else across the continent. This is thought to be related to the imminent replacement of Professor David Callaghan’s widespread RAMDA production (which was a joint effort w/ Verne Company) with Professor Yan Cronkite’s superior Xipha unit (produced solely by Calvard). President Roy Gramheart pushed this subsequent policy far more aggressively than other nations, setting Verne apart from even the Reinford Group’s actions. This is particularly noteworthy given his relation to Professor C. Epstein, as well as his ties to the Marduk Company, who Risette claims have begun widespread military testing of Calvard’s 6th-generation battle orbment.

I know I’ve hammered in a ton of historical and political details here. But clearly a ton of thought and work went into ironing out their details, and so I do think they’re truly worth praising in kind. The way Calvard’s system of values is so well integrated into its history, and by proxy the narrative that has unfolded within its borders, has quickly made it one of my favorite settings in all of Kiseki. Not to mention, it’s by FAR the most believably crafted setting in Kiseki. It’s just so… consistent? Like, even within the context of the tiniest facets of the Kiseki Series’ long-term continuity. It might not yet have the huge bombastic lore background like Erebonia does; with the Hexen Clan, the Gnomes, the Sept-Terrion of Steel and Seven Divine Knights, the War of the Lions, Zoro-Agruga, Noctfamilia, Hamel, Black Alberich, Ishmelga… Yeah, all that shit’s nuts. In contrast, I think Calvard’s strength as a setting lies in the thoroughness of its thematic and narrative cohesion. Plus there’s still plenty more time for the Calvard Saga to drop some bombshells on that level later on, since most of the stuff I just mentioned wasn’t expounded on til the second half of the Erebonia Saga. For now… I don’t think Falcom could’ve possibly done a better job in establishing a foundation for Calvard in just a SINGLE game.

Moving on, I need to praise the incredible continuity and world building boasted by one side quest in particular: Chapter 4’s “Gathering Ingredients for Painkillers”. Sounds thrilling, huh? Well trust me, it goes way harder lore-wise than it has any right to. Throughout Kuro no Kiseki, there are moments where even some of the most niche and inconsequential NPCs in the series’ past, some of which haven’t appeared in EIGHT games, saw their return in Calvard. One minor example of this is Sorbet from Grancel who got a name drop during a scene with Renne. But more importantly, Ray from Zeiss. That’s right, fuckin tomato dude is back. It’s not done just as a one-off gag, either. Not in the slightest. I actually have a ton to say on this despite it being just a totally optional side quest, but it’s worth it… well, at least for an aspie hyper-fixated Kiseki nerd like me.

Ray is currently working abroad on a joint research project with the Basel Institute of Science’s Associate Professor Esmeray, leading bioengineer and fellow Epstein disciple much like Ray’s own boss Albert Russell (though she’s more like Tita, George, or Quatre- a “2nd gen disciple” via Latoya Hamilton). Basically, Ray and Esmeray are working on a joint project to develop specialized painkillers in conjunction with the development of the latest model of prosthetic limbs. The new developments for these trial limb prosthetics provide vastly improved user control and functionality, since they can now be connected to the user’s nerve endings directly. Unfortunately, nerve connection is a new development and so they haven’t yet worked around the issue of the intense pain caused in neural prosthetics during the connection process. This is where their joint project comes in: specialized painkillers for long-term use. Painkillers in Kiseki are said to be made with plant-based ingredients, and so Ray’s long-standing expertise as a renowned botanist (surprise, surprise, he’s not just into tomatoes) is crucial to the development of these new specialized painkillers.

Oh, but there’s more. This side quest even goes on to integrate the Kingdom of Liberl’s pre-established geography to the current narrative in an insanely clever way. As an employee of Zeiss Central Factory, Ray works out of Zeiss, the adjacent city to Kaldia Limestone Cave in Liberl. The ZCF had previously developed the Arve Sovereign Serum in order to treat Agate after he was poisoned protecting Tita at the (also geographically adjacent) Carnelia Tetracyclic Tower during Trails in the Sky. Because of that prior medical development, Ray determined that the same active ingredient used back in the serum’s development, Zemuria Moss, met Esmerelay’s criteria for this new painkiller as well. Zemuria Moss could be used for producing specialized painkillers to soothe the nerve pain of prosthetic clients, while meeting her criteria of having weaker long term side-effects and dependency when compared to standard anesthetics.

The attention to detail and utilization of Zemurian geography also works perfectly in the context of providing a solution to the request at-hand. Basel is also situated directly adjacent to Liberl’s eastern border- right next to both Zeiss and the Kaldia Limestone Cave where Zemurian Moss was found in the past. Ray had determined previously that the Septium Veins, and the subsequent energy and moisture they produce, are key in allowing this particular strain of moss to grow. And again, Kaldia Limestone Cave and the cave which lies just outside of Basel are very close to one another despite occupying different nations, meaning the exact same septium veins run directly beneath both of them. Wow. Like… I don’t know who thought this level of detail and consideration was necessary for a random ass “gather x ingredient” side quest, but fuck. I am all about it.

But nah, it doesn’t stop there either... Because why the hell not- let’s get Erebonia involved too. George Nome, the now-renowned engineer from Erebonia, and likewise 2nd-gen disciple of Epstein (through G. Schmidt), is also working on furthering the development of prosthetics. Ray befriended George during his trip to ZCF, which makes sense for a few reasons. They both previously had Tita Russell as a mutual friend and coworker. Not to mention, George loves food and Ray is THE tomato dude, so. Anyway, that collaboration opens the door for even more joint research and multinational collaboration on the development of prosthetics and their relative painkillers in the future. George’s research focus on prosthetics kinda seemed a bit too random to me at first, as if they wanted to incorporate him for the hell of it. But then it hit me. George played a direct role in the attack on the Courageous, an incident which led to Victor Arseid having lost his arm. Since George is in full redemption-arc mode, of COURSE he’d want to help Victor out and make amends for his betrayal in the Gral of Erebos.

Alright, that’s it, promise. Well, nvm I lied… I still wanna gush about one more aspect of this a bit. This frankly absurd degree of continuity and world building integration clearly isn’t just done for the hell of it. This collaboration between nations serves as a living reflection of Sheena Dirke’s founding pillars of unity and equality- again leading to the creation of “something greater”. Additionally, the joint research is being done for the sake of overcoming a massive natural barrier in the medical world of Zemuria. Again, widespread use of artificial limbs isn’t yet viable because of the pain they cause during nerve connection. Esmeray even describes the pain as similar to having a limb severed outright. That level of intensity and discomfort obviously makes it unfit for public use. As such, its use is currently limited primarily to Calvard’s underground, like in Jaeger Corps for example. But this joint effort to produce a specialized painkiller could serve as a huge step forward in how medical technology can improve the lives of patients from all involved nations- Calvard, Liberl, Erebonia, and beyond. To give ONE last noteworthy point (I mean it this time trust me), these details even bear fruit on a personal level shortly after during Almata’s invasion of Basil. Following the Arkride Solution Office’s battle with Garden Wardens Melchior and Olympia, Risette loses an arm and a leg (revealing her entire body to be prosthetic) in order to protect Quatre. Afterwards, if you actually did this side quest, that same painkiller you helped Ray and Esmeray develop is used to make Risette’s operation on her prosthetic replacements more tolerable.

I swear man… Only in Kiseki will random ass details like that even get remembered, let alone be used in such clever and meaningful ways. Kiseki isn’t satisfied to simply mention that it remembers these details and stop there. It goes the extra mile to give purpose to mentioning these cameos in the first place, providing development to longtime characters while making careful use of previously established geography and narrative detail in the process. Like… I can’t be the only one who thinks this shit is nuts, right?

Moving on… The cause-and-effect nature of Kiseki’s worldbuilding never ceases to amaze me. Events and conflicts always seem to have some sort of impact on everything that surrounds them. The way events bounce off and react to one another makes it feel like Zemuria’s history writes itself. Well, saying that is a bit ironic since there ARE literal examples of history writing and predicting itself within Zemuria, like with AZOTH, the Third Causalities Describing Engine artifact from Trails of Cold Steel and Hajimari no Kiseki. This nature of cause-and-effect can be seen in continent-wide events, for example, the desertification phenomenon of Zemuria’s Far East leading to Calvard’s immigration crisis, demanding the efforts of Yun Ka-Fai, Professor Latoya Hamilton, and Heiyue elders including Gien Lu. But that same cause-and-effect trickles down to the smallest of details as well; for example, Van’s occupation of Spriggan was an underground business quite literally “born from the diversity that is the Calvard Republic” which is only the case because of Calvard’s diverse underworld and large immigrant demographic to begin with.

But let me give a more detailed and multi-faceted example of this “cause-and-effect” writing. Take the deep seated anti-immigration sentiment among Calvard’s royal descendants, for example. The burning tension of extremist disdain came to a boil through many instances of ethnic terroism, both domestic and foreign. A prominent example of foreign terrorism can be seen during the West Zemuria Trade Conference. The domestic terrorism, on the other hand, is most notably cited as an important factor in Calvard’s economic depression prior to the Great War. As a result, the incoming reparations from the Erebonian Empire served to anesthetize the nationalist conflict brought about by that prior economic depression- and as a result, the instances of ethnic terrorism which were incited by this sentiment. It’s only several years later, when that economic boom brought about by a temporary influx of Erebonian funds has begun to dry up, that these nationalist beliefs have begun to surface in the public more frequently once again.

The effect of the quickly depleting Erebonian reparations goes beyond spurring nationalist and even ethnic terrorist activity, though. It has a direct negative impact on the lives of ALL of its citizens. In the multiple years since the depression, they’ve understandably grown accustomed to their newfound prosperity. So, obviously they wouldn’t be too thrilled to give that up and go back to their way of life from before the Great War- and even less going back to the depression. But this also serves as a concrete determinant for President Roy Gramheart’s future course of action- both above and below the surface. After being elected, President Gramheart quickly won the public’s favor even over Former President Samuel Rocksmith who was also fairly well liked. This was because of the fact that Gramheart put a significant portion of those Erebonian reparations in the hands of the people.

But as a more important result, President Gramheart’s actions created a “cool-down period” of time after the Great War. During this cool-down period, the public was thriving financially, the nationalist controversy was largely quieted, and his personal approval rating as President remained very high. This cool-down period gave President Gramheart the time he needed to prepare and develop his true plans beneath the surface. Above the surface, he told of his plans to guide the nation into the modern world, with all the bad and good that comes with it. Below the surface, he most notably plans to do further research into “other possible worlds”- in other words, the Beyond. In less sinister and more appropriate terms for the public eye though, President Gramheart said he plans to guide the nation into a position where they can maintain their status as the political and technological superpower of Zemuria, even without the influx of Erebonian wealth to boost them head and shoulders above them and other surrounding nations.

It won’t be to the extent of his successor President Gramheart, but I do think Former President Rocksmith’s role in the Calvard Saga is going to be an important one. Particularly through his guidance of the Arkride Solutions Office. I view him as a thematic foil to President Gramheart, in a similar (albeit far more understated) way that Prince Olivert was a thematic foil to Chancellor Giliath Osborne. One can draw many parallels between Rocksmith and Olivert, who during the Erebonia Saga played the role of guiding Class VII along their “third path”; a path separate from both the Noble Alliance and Reformist Faction during CS1/2. He then served a similar role in CS3/CS4 by guiding Class VII as the Radiant Wings, acting separate from both the Erebonian Army’s Operation Jormungandr and the continental Alliance forged by the Weissland Army under Operation Mille Mirage. However, while Class VII forging their own path was already plenty appropriate back in the Erebonia Saga, I think the Arkride Solutions Office is even more thematically predisposed to this sort of “Third Path” ideology. This is because of the moral extremism of the Republic of Calvard’s primary factions (other than maybe Heiyue, despite being the major crime syndicate, ironically enough). This extremism would prevent the Solutions Office from moving forward if they strayed too far towards either moral extreme. Former President Rocksmith explains their moral predisposition best in this quote:

“Our nation is about to sail into stormy seas, and there will be many who wish to shine a light upon our vessel, yet just as many who wish it to be seeped in shadow. Yet you are quite unlike both the Bracers, who pride themselves as allies of justice, and the Calvard Intelligence Division, which is wrapped in bureaucratic red tape and festering with political pressures. You fixers, Spriggans as you call yourselves, are one of the few forces who lie directly on that border between light and shadow.”

On the surface, Calvard’s changing of the guard can be seen with Rocksmith losing reelection to Roy Gramheart. But naturally, the shifting tide runs much deeper. Personally, I think the tragedy of Creil Village perfectly encapsulates the internal conflict of Calvard’s shifting tide in a more truthful light. Creil as a village was the spitting image of Sheena Dirke’s pillars of freedom, unification, and equality. They were a regular exporter of vegetables and other resources to all of Calvard, and thus played a key role in the big-picture cooperation of the Republic’s trade and economy overall. More importantly though, since the terrorist attack was largely viewed as a “statement” from Almata to the rest of Calvard, Creil Village’s embodiment of the nation’s founding principles painted a massive metaphorical target on their back. Whether it was tourists, strangers, immigrants, foreigners, even dangerous Jaeger Corps like Eisen Schild openly on the run, the people of Creil welcomed them with open arms- giving them food and shelter without any need for even basic explanation. In addition, Creil’s welcoming nature and emphasis on equality made it particularly appealing for Eastern and Middle-Eastern immigrants. So naturally, it had one of the largest Eastern and Middle-Eastern demographics that could be found anywhere in Calvard. These qualities made Creil the perfect scapegoat for Almata, while proving all the more poignant for onlookers across Calvard (and beyond) in the process.

Creil also serves as another strong example of cause-and-effect world building within Kuro no Kiseki. Not just because it led to the cooperative resistance against Almata between many unlikely parties, but even on a smaller-scale. This can be found in an NPC conversation between economic consultant Huckleberry and Republican Congressman Polanski following the tragedy's announcement. The two discuss the political and economic consequences of such an incident- on top of the obvious civil unrest. It’s a political issue, as it places massive pressure on the Republican Party in how they address an attack on this scale, including but not limited to President Gramheart’s executive ordered State of Emergency. But it’s also an economic issue, due to the ensuing panic it created for both the greater public as well as with domestic insurance companies. When combined with the loss from Creil being a major exporter of produce, it places massive pressure on the government to avoid another depression like they saw prior to the Great War. This isn’t even taking into account the personal and emotional ramifications of a tragedy on this scale. Lakshar and Kaina are orphaned. Everyone and everything they’ve ever known disappeared overnight. I’d be surprised if they don’t both develop survivor’s guilt, especially since the only reason they were spared was because of Kaina’s car breaking down the day before.

Not to mention, the Creil incident even has a direct impact on members of the Arkride Solutions Office. Of course, there’s Van’s long term relationship with mentor and friend Dingo Brad being lost when he sacrificed his life to report the incident. Not to mention, Van even started his countrywide journey with Agnes and Feri in Creil. But the impact I felt most compelled by was, surprisingly, Judith’s. The famous black-and-white orbal film that was shot in Creil decades prior was the same one she experienced with her mother, and was ultimately what inspired Judith to become an actress. It was her inspiration to follow her family path- which of course isn’t just limited to becoming an actress, but to inheriting her role as the Phantom Thief Grimcatz. Judith even had a dream of starring in a movie of her own set in that same village. In doing so, she hoped to inspire someone in the next generation, the same way that she was by that classic film. But with Creil gone forever, her dream was stolen from her just before she was able to make it a reality. It’s simple, yeah, but I found it to be a really compelling scene while also serving to solidify her desire for revenge against Almata. This revenge even gets another interesting twist of intrigue later on, when the Warden Arioch praises Judith’s performance in Golden Blood prior to their fight in Genesis Tower. It’s another simple moment, but it effectively humanizes Arioch despite being an immortal shell of a warrior, while at the same time, bringing Judith’s desire for revenge into question for even just a moment.

It’s amazing how deeply rooted Kiseki’s cause-and-effect world building can sometimes be. A single event like the tragedy of Creil, or even Hamel, can have such vicious and multifaceted consequences. But at the same time, this cause-and-effect can even be seen within the most seemingly minute or even straight up pointless details. For example, pretzels. Pretzels obviously aren’t important to the story whatsoever. Yet even still, they are treated with that same type of care as the things that actually DO matter. Pretzels were an Erebonian specific treat, but were eventually introduced to Crossbell once it became an Erebonian Province following its annexation. Crossbell’s long-standing political and geographical reputation as a proxy at the border between Western and Eastern Zemuria is of great importance here, as well. The resulting spread of pretzels into Crossbell led to Crossbell developing their own unique version of pretzels using eastern spices imported from Calvard and honey from Armorica Village, Crossbell’s famous honey exporter.

Lastly, I’ll just touch on a few more random bits of continuity and worldbuilding I thought were neat enough to mention offhand: I liked seeing Lakshar’s admiration of the Bracer Guild (specifically Toval) that he developed after having read Carnelia, inspiring him to become a Bracer of his own. Lakshar’s potential for growth is made even more interesting after the Creil tragedy, as it seemingly inflicted him with survivor’s guilt. Lakshar’s trauma could serve as a unique foundation for a Bracer character, influencing him to become overprotective and endanger his own life for the sake of others. Zane and Walter were finally reintroduced into the story, both getting varying degrees of additional characterization. Walter got more, but Van and Zane’s banter was also fantastic. Gambler Jack and Halle were formally introduced, serving as Van’s local informant during the Langport arc. We got to see Rixia covertly operating as Yin once again. President Rocksmith got some much deserved focus and characterization, particularly during the Longlai Arc. We saw individual instances of the Republic’s anti-immigration movement, such as the double agent who transferred into the CID via the restructured Erebonian Intelligence Division on behalf of Lechter. We saw another example of this nationalism through Julian, an Erebonian exchange student from Thors Military Academy who is studying abroad at Aramis High. Julian describes the skepticism and apprehension he faced from others when he spoke about his decision to study abroad in Calvard, given the fact that relations between the two countries have only just begun to normalize. He also revealed that Class VII is still an ongoing thing apparently, which I found... bizarre, but alrighty. Last but not least, we got closure and development for the traumatized children mentioned in Elaine’s episode in Hajimari no Kiseki’s “Beyond the Genesis”. That ending where the traumatized little girl, who was left mute after the incident with Almata, finally managed to speak and thanked Van for comforting her during her PTSD episode made me ugly cry, ngl. Easily one of the most cathartic and hopeful moments in the entire game. Hell, that incident alone can even be taken as a microcosm for the entirety of Almata’s influence within Calvard. Despite the death, suffering, and trauma they managed to inflict on the country, there’s still hope for those victims to heal with the help of those around them. And considering how closely this outlook fits in with not just the mute girl, but Van himself given his backstory, I’m glad he’s the one who comforted her. It’s a beautiful way to show how much he’s already grown and healed thanks to those around him.

COMBAT

I don’t have nearly as much of interest to say about Kuro no Kiseki’s combat, but I’ll try to hit on the important stuff at least. The best way I can describe this revamped combat system is: A valiant effort I guess? There’s definitely a ton of room for improvement, though. It takes some fairly ambitious steps forward, but some of those steps proved a bit overzealous, since it does stumble in some pretty easily avoidable ways. I won’t spend much time explaining it since I’m sure anyone reading this would already have an idea of how it works. But I do have some thoughts about the execution of this new direction.

Combat in Kuro is generally more straightforward, and not always in a good way. It suffers from obscuring and even outright removing multiple layers of strategy that were present in all of the previous entries. What’s baffling about this though is… they didn’t need to, like, at all? Some of these changes were completely unrelated to the big-picture combat renovations, which in and of themselves were a point of controversy among the fanbase. Me included, since I’ve always adored Kiseki’s turn based combat. Thankfully though, the changes weren’t nearly as extreme as most of us thought they would’ve been.

Anyway, Kuro has a significantly smaller roster of playable characters, with only 14 (several of which are brief guest appearances) compared to Hajimari’s 50+ character party. I’m not even holding Kuro’s much smaller roster against it, since this change was both obvious and sort of inevitable. Not just because Kuro’s combat system saw more changes than in the 10 previous games combined, but also because Kuro looked to rebuild the direction the series had been trending in many ways. Also, considering the amount of menuing and shopping and orbal/equipment maintenance that was necessary in Hajimari, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this was something Falcom got a lot of complaints about. Personally, I adored Hajimari’s massive roster. It allowed for tons of experimentation and for some incredibly fun and interesting character pairings across the three completed Sagas, especially through its Group Missions and Door of Trials mechanics. Not to mention, it led to the most absurdly large scale boss fight in the entire series against the Elysium-manifested Demiurgos.

SCLM (Shard Circular Linked Metafield) is pretty much a direct mechanical upgrade to the already innovative ARCUS system from Cold Steel. It provides the same benefits and more, while also being more strategic due to its incorporation of on-the-fly positioning. Additionally, the inherent tie between SCLM and the S-Boost (and subsequent Shard Bonus and S-Craft) mechanics makes it a crucial and well integrated factor in most battles.

The new UI looks pretty slick and modern IMO. It leaves plenty of screen space for the action while still providing most of the information you need. I love how they’ve retained the “each button dictates a different action” setup. Kuro implements this again, and with fewer buttons total (main actions use 4 buttons, which is down from 8 in Hajimari) while retaining much of the same functionality.

However, the new turn order interface is the exception to all of that. There is SO much less visual clarity than it used to have. Not to mention you even need to hold down a button just to SEE the turn order. Dunno what the deal with this change was, but clearly you shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken.

While the turn order interface isn’t great, it’s nothing egregious. The removal of AT Bonus manipulation, however, is honestly kind of baffling. Like… to the point where I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it. It was such a foundational aspect of strategizing in all previous Kiseki games, since you would plan all of your moves around whatever AT Bonuses happened to pop up on-the-fly based on whether or not they lined up with your actions. But now, there is very little you can do to manipulate AT Bonuses whatsoever. I guess this change might’ve been made to try and make Kuro more challenging? I mean, I know prior games struggled with having extremely exploitable combat builds (evasion tanks, endless delaying, etc), but… clearly THIS wasn’t the way to buff the difficulty. If anything, Kuro was still easy as shit, even on Nightmare. Especially after the steps Hajimari took in providing a sometimes brutal and over-the-top challenge for those who wanted it.

More importantly though, the negative consequences of Kuro’s removal of AT Bonus manipulation is twofold. First of all, it removes a satisfying and essential layer of strategy which had defined Trails combat since Sky FC. This alone wouldn’t be a big deal, since they clearly wanted to change things up in Kuro. But second and more importantly, its removal takes away much of the variety and on-the-fly strategizing during combat. As a result, this makes a vast majority of battles play out, well, almost identical. There’s definitely variance depending on your party members, builds, and the enemies ofc. But regarding AT Bonuses… all you can really do in Kuro is sit around and hope you luck into good bonuses like CP+ or S-Boost+ sooner rather than later. If there’s any silver lining, it’s that you can manipulate the AT Bonuses slightly once you get five party members, since you can start swapping them in and out on the same turn. By leaving a character with buffs and full CP in the reserve, you can at least bring them in during a critical hit bonus in order to take better advantage of the given AT Bonus. Not a replacement for the traditional AT Bonus manipulation ofc, but it’s something at least.

This lack of battle-to-battle variety is made worse when taking into consideration just how crazy long this game is. Admittedly this issue is made slightly worse for me since I'm using a spreadsheet and therefore can’t do a ton of orbment management or experimentation without it being tedious and confusing. I just wish that, since the number of party members is so low, each character had a couple more crafts, some team-up combination crafts like in Crossbell, a second S-Craft, something along those lines. Plus, all the unique craft animations were such a joy to watch that I just wish there were more of them! Hopefully they can stockpile these animations and the number of crafts and party members will continue to increase in the sequels.

The gridless movement is definitely a system I enjoy and always have since it was introduced in Cold Steel 1, but I think this game officially goes too far in making it blatantly easy to position yourself exactly where you want at all times. In the older grid-based titles, it could take you several full turns to run across the length of the battlefield. But here in Kuro, you can often move to exactly where you want immediately. Keep in mind this feels even more braindead because of the fact that movement no longer consumes your turn at all. Before, you’d have to choose to move INSTEAD of performing an action. Now you can do both with no punishment whenever you want.

This movement simplification also trivializes the “speed vs movement” tradeoff through footwear equipment- which the game clearly tries to push through its different shoe options. The speed bonus is the obvious better choice every single time, since even with a low MOV stat, you can move wherever you need to anyway. If they wanted to get rid of positioning altogether, that’d be one thing, but it takes the complete opposite approach. A large majority of arts and crafts in fact have situational properties (often some form of line/circle/cone radius, amplifications for attacking the side/behind an enemy, etc). So this movement simplification not only trivializes the potential depth of these properties, but is seemingly at odds with what it’s even trying to accomplish through position-based combat to begin with. More attacks that physically move your opponents like in past titles would’ve been appreciated. It could be an effective work-around to increase strategy and inhibit player movement, so I’m not sure why it’s no longer used.

Moving on, a point of praise I have for Kuro’s new combat is that slow default combat speed is, finally, no longer an issue. I don't think anyone will argue that for the most part, combat animations and arts on the default speed have simply been too slow for all past Kiseki games. Again, considering how increasingly long these games are, it was only made more and more problematic. Hell, Falcom themselves clearly know this, since the speed-up function has been an included feature for a long time now. Thankfully, alongside the revamped combat, speedup is no longer necessary. Though it does still provide an option to skip long arts animations and S-Crafts for those who want it. Well… unless it’s an enemy S-Craft, then you just have to sit and watch while they slap your ass for like 20 seconds.

Lastly, I definitely need to talk about the field combat. Field combat is easily the biggest change for Kuro no Kiseki’s gameplay overall, and I definitely think it’s a step up from the simple enemy advantage system it replaces from past games. That said, it’s still too basic and easy for the most part. Ranged weapons are kinda inherently broken since most of the enemies literally can’t do anything to you from afar. Plus, dodging is much easier when you’re not right up in multiple enemies’ faces anyway. I’m more than willing to give this rough field combat a pass since it’s completely skippable AND it’s their first attempt at an ambitious hybrid combat system like this. However, I really do hope it gets some serious adjustment and balancing to give it actual depth in Crimson Sin. If I had to single one thing out, the enemy hitboxes are probably the biggest complaint I have currently. Honestly, most of the hitboxes on the enemies' field attacks are straight cheeks. You’ll sometimes get hit by attacks when you’re literally standing behind the enemy, standing 5 feet off to the side, etc. That alone makes most field combat devolve into roll spamming since it gives you a shitton of I-Frames. Then, using your auto charged special, you get an easy stun and deploy shards after getting a bit of free damage. Then you can start doing, yknow, the actual combat. Seriously though, it’s kinda tough to be harsh on something like this that’s ambitious, experimental, and 100% optional. Plus, while I’m usually not a fan of purely action combat systems, the hybrid concept Falcom has created here is a really fascinating idea. It not only makes “fodder” battles go by quicker, it makes them more satisfying and engaging. Not to mention, having the option to do a bit of field combat at your own discretion lets you break up the monotony and switch things up whenever you feel like it. Sure it’s pretty rough for now, but Kuro tries something totally new and works pretty great conceptually. For that alone, it’s still an effort worth praising imo.

UNANSWERED STUFF AND SPECULATION

I’ve already given my thoughts on Garden as an organization in Hajimari/Kuro in the worldbuilding section. But the future of Garden, in Crimson Sin and beyond, is another subject I’m still quite curious about. Though admittedly, I’m a bit pensive about it given my slight disappointment in Garden’s quick extermination. In Kuro, we saw the death of its remaining three Wardens (except Olympia who I suspect might return). Therefore, it seems exceedingly likely that both Almata AND Garden are joining the ever-growing list of defunct organizations within Zemuria. With that said though, I find it hard to believe that the influence of Garden won’t live on in some capacity. Now, the extent of that influence is up for debate, but I really do hope we’ll get a lot more from them. It’s certainly possible that the previously groomed assassins prior to Kuro will play a bigger narrative role than the wardens themselves. I’m certainly hoping that’s the case, and Swin being confirmed for Crimson Sin is a promising sign in that regard. But since I’ve been burned on Garden a bit already, I’ll keep my expectations in check for Garden’s future relevance.

Likewise, I’m very curious about the role of the Septian Church, and more specifically, the Gralsritter and Iskariot, special force of the Papal Guard. Askeladd was an understated yet fascinating character imo. As vice-commander of a previously unnamed group within the Septian Church, he always had an air of mystery that drew my attention. This also made me excited to see the eventual commander of Iskariot, since their identity is kept strictly confidential for when their assistance is needed as a trump card of sorts. Even with just Askeladd though, I found that there was a surprising bit of depth to him beneath the edgelord hood. Even in spite of him being “all business” and rather secretive, we still got glimpses into his personality through both his internal conflict and being another disciple of Bergard. The introduction of the Iskariot special forces also gave some much needed insight into the bigger picture of the Septian Church. We get a better idea of the Church’s long standing internal diversity and the sometimes conflicting objectives of its various factions. We’ve been familiar with the Congregation for the Sacraments a while now, given that it’s the faction which the Gralsritter fall under. But Iskariot, and more broadly the Papal Guard, instead falls under the jurisdiction of the Congregation for Divine Worship.

Likewise, one of the few things that’s already been confirmed about Crimson Sin is that the fourth and eleventh Dominions of the Gralsritter, Celis Ortesia and Rion Balthazar, will be playable. Having a playable Dominion duo is super interesting in and of itself. But beyond that, it really does make me wonder what their greater motive within Calvard will ultimately end up proving to be. Especially considering, yknow, a fragment of Van’s Diabolic Core still lingers inside of him. And in the Finale, Demon Lord Vagrant-Zion warned Van that his return was inevitable, before withdrawing into the ether. Naturally, Holy Knights of the Septian Church and the Seventy-Seven Devils which are described in the Church’s own scripture and testaments, uh, don’t exactly mix. As such, I’d suspect a loyal Dominion will be more antagonistic towards Van once they found that out- if they aren’t already aware.

Pandemonium, and by proxy the Book of Ezer, is another fascinating topic that I think might get lost in the shuffle following the defeat of Almata and Garden. Pandemonium, or the Pandemonium Shift, is a phenomenon known by the Septian Church through the Apocrypha known as the Book of Ezer. Because of this knowledge, the Septian Church is actually well-equipped to slow or even halt the spread of Pandemonium entirely- by way of the various Primal Grounds scattered throughout Zemuria. Additionally, Bergard describes reading the text as taboo for anyone outside of the Gralsritter and Papal Guard.

But of even greater intrigue regarding these Apocrypha, Bergard states that “merely reading them scrapes away at your soul”. To me this suggests they hold greater truths about the world beyond just the phenomenon of Pandemonium. Perhaps the truths held in these texts might be a key (much like the Oct-Genesis) in stopping the impending calamity predicted by Epstein. It makes you wonder just how much the Septian Church already knows. Not to mention, why that information is kept under such tight confidentiality despite the help it could provide. We’ve already known for a while the Church tends to do shit like this, as the Congregation for the Sacraments was explained to have jurisdiction over artifacts back in Sky the Third. But this seems to take their mystery (and even red flags) to another level.

Lastly, I’m very curious about what these revelations about the Book of Ezer says about Van’s history with the D∴G Cult. Rion was able to deduce that Van had already been exposed to the texts despite not having any ties to the Church. This implies the texts were somehow leaked to a high ranking cult member or Prince, whether through them being a former member of the Church or some other means. This connection also gives more possible insight into the truth behind Rion’s cold demeanor towards Van. We still don’t know exactly how much Rion knows in terms of specific details other than this tidbit, but it’s still well worth keeping in mind.

Moving on to my last major point of interest, it’s worth looking back to the Prologue, specifically to the incident with the First Genesis which sparked Van’s initial Grendel transformation, once again. Seriously, the more you think about the correlation between these individual aspects suddenly interacting with each other in the way they do, the more questions start to pop up. Ngl I’m actually really glad Kuro gives basically zero information about what the deal with the Grendel is. Because without that one piece of info, it brings to light so many other possibilities about every other factor.

To rattle off a few of these questions their relationship brings up: What are the lore implications of an artifact-esque 50 year old orbment prototype being able to directly interact with a cutting edge Hollow Core like Mare? Does the Marduk Company’s prior contract with Van to test the Hollow Core indirectly confirm that someone in Marduk (Thorndyke?) knew about both Van’s Diabolic Core AND the interactions this Hollow Core would be able to have with the First Genesis? Did they know Agnes would come to him with the request about the Oct-Genesis to begin with? Regarding the timeline, the Marduk Company was founded concurrently with the joint extermination of the D∴G Cult. So who is the one that even provided them all this information about Van? Does the concurrent timeframe in and of itself suggest potential correlation between these two factions? How does Epstein’s prediction fit into all this?

Despite the fact that Kuro only provided scraps of info in regards to the true nature of Zemuria, the Beyond, and the Greater World, it was just enough to drive me nuts with theorycrafting in the best way possible. Seriously, the crackpot theories you can stir up about some of this dialogue, particularly surrounding Roy Gramheart and the Oct-Genesis, is kinda mind boggling. Epstein described the motivation behind his efforts in creating the Oct-Genesis as a means to “observe and measure the world”. More importantly though, in his journal, Agnes states that he sought a way for “Zemuria to co-exist with the world”. Additionally, Epstein cited them as the driving force that will “light the path towards uncovering the nature of THIS world”. Now, take a moment to consider that Roy Gramheart married INTO Professor C. Epstein’s family. This is what resulted in his own daughter, Agnes Claudel, becoming C. Epstein’s great granddaughter- her claim to inheriting Epstein’s journal and the driving force behind her seeking out his Oct-Genesis.

Now, think back to Gramheart’s appearance in the Celestial Globe in Hajimari no Kiseki, where it was revealed that he’s researching other possible worlds. Not to mention, McBurn, the only character in the entire series confirmed to have originated from The Beyond, is the exact character who initiated this meeting. McBurn infiltrates the Celestial Globe using the Demonic Sword Angbar, one of three currently known Divergent Laws weapons. It’s also worth noting that Roy Gramheart was able to intercept the Celestial Globe himself. Admittedly, establishing a line of communication and literally tearing your way into the physical Celestial Globe itself aren’t quite equivalent feats, but it’s still impressive nonetheless. Not to mention, Roy Gramheart did so without a Divergent Laws weapon, but instead had assistance from Marduk Company.

Like I said, Gramheart cites an unnamed connection through the Calvard Intelligence Division acting as his intermediary with Marduk Company… which to me raises a huge ass red flag on our resident four-eyed childhood friend. When you consider that, not even a year later, he would be promoted to direct presidential aide, René is definitely someone you’re going to want to keep an eye on in Crimson Sin. But getting back to Marduk Company a bit more… It really makes you wonder what they’re planning- or hell, what they’re even capable of. There’s dialogue from Risette which gives a bit more insight into them, saying, “their profits are their top priority, and to that end they seem willing to blur the lines between reality and fiction”. So yeah, to me at least, their financial drive suggests they’re not merely a dummy company like we’ve seen employed by Almata and Heiyue. But most importantly, Marduk Company’s willingness to BLUR the lines between reality and fiction stand in direct opposition to Epstein’s desire for humanity to discern the “true nature of the world”. But idunno man, that’s all I got. I swear, you gotta open your third eye to figure this shit out.

It’s kinda hilarious that Kuro has what is by far the most definitive ending of any first game in the four Kiseki arcs (right alongside Zero) on it’s surface. But in spite of that, Kuro leaves just as many unanswered questions as the likes of Sky FC, CS1, and CS3’s infamous cliffhangers in the process. Like seriously, there are SO many goddamn questions I don’t know where to start listing them all off. What is the Eternal Recurrence Plan? Will it be even more abstract than the Phantasmal Blaze Plan? How much will it conflict with President Gramheart’s own plans and how? Who is the replacement for Seventh Anguis that the Grandmaster had already found prior to Kuro? Who is the “real” Nina Fenley and what is her allegiance? What is that unnamed connection between the Mare Hollow Core and the revelations surrounding the Grendel and Van’s Diabolic Core as well as the Five Demon Lords? What is Marduk Companies’ endgame and motivation for studying Mare through the demonically resonant Van specifically? Are the Five Demon Lords related to Epstein’s predicted Calamity at the end of the year? What role will the final Oct-Genesis play and what powers will it possess? What about the remaining Sept-Terrion? Are either of these items the motive behind Roy Gramheart’s interception of the Celestial Globe, striking deals with the Grandmaster, and studying other possible worlds? Based on red Gnosis' demonification properties, combined with the drug “freeing you from the shackles of your humanity”, can we assume the Demon Lords have knowledge about the Beyond? Even if they did have knowledge about the Beyond, would they be physically capable of communicating it to humans? What is the meaning behind the party being unable to comprehend certain concepts which Mare tries to communicate to them? Would Gnosis allow a human to comprehend Mare’s omission?

(cont in comments lmao)

Cathedral is a huge step-up from developer Elden Pixels' debut title, Alwa’s Awakening. Alwa was… fine? It’s certainly not the most exciting or memorable Metroidvania game out there, but it had enough going for it that I was interested in trying their next game. I was curious to see if they’d be able to take the strengths of Alwa’s formula and inject them into a stronger overall package. Surprisingly, Elden Pixels has done exactly that and more with Cathedral. In fact, I’m kinda blown away with how clearly the game communicates its own awareness of Alwa’s shortcomings and addresses them within the very first minutes of gameplay. Cathedral is a massive refinement of the previously established Metroidvania formula while being longer, tougher, and more complex than its predecessor. Most notably though, it sets itself apart in the way it nails the moment-to-moment gameplay; not just in comparison to Alwa, but even to most other games in the Metroidvania genre.

Alwa’s Awakening is a mixed bag, but it’s ultimately a pretty respectable effort for the studio’s debut release. It has strong map design and challenging exploration given your limited toolset for traversal, but is ultimately held back pretty seriously by slow movement and frankly boring combat. Cathedral thoroughly fixes both of these issues with ease, as movement and combat are far snappier from the moment you start playing. The quicker movement is especially noticeable, as it's emphasized further by the more zoomed in screen size. In Alwa, you control this tiny ass sprite on a giant zoomed out screen. It makes the slow movement and sluggish (not to mention very short-range) attacks stick out even more than they already do. Not only are both movement and combat faster in Cathedral, but you have a much more reasonable attack range and toolset overall.

The “Duck Tales bounce” is always a welcome feature for 2D action combat, and Cathedral utilizes it well. I also like that there’s a timing aspect to it compared to how it works in like, Duck Tales or Shovel Knight for example- where you can just continually bounce while airborne. The timing makes it trickier to get down, but it provides a bit more precision and engagement during combat. You can also get varying heights on your bounces depending on how long you hold the button, which brings more depth to not just combat, but platforming too. Higher bounces are useful for platforming, since you can time the button press and conserve your double jump to get even higher than a normal double jump. Meanwhile, shorter bounces are useful for combat, since you can get a faster rhythm of attacking in order to deal damage even faster than your normal attack speed (especially if there’s a low ceiling to limit your height further). Alwa’s combat, on the other hand, was limited to the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-esque staff swing and a shitty magic projectile that takes forever to recharge…so yeah, calling the combat improved would be an understatement.

The refinements to combat also allow Cathedral to crank its difficulty way the fuck up without ever feeling unfair. You do have a higher movement speed, but so do most of the enemies as well. They’re faster and more aggressive pretty much right from the start of the game. The extra layer of challenge and complexity makes killing enemies way more fun and satisfying. It’s not just more satisfying in terms of speed either. Killing even the weaker enemies sees them exploding with gold, health, and ammo pickups. So not only does combat always feel good and satisfying, but more often than not, it’s actually WORTH the risk you’re taking by engaging with them. In Alwa, combat kinda just feels like a nuisance- even putting aside how slow and repetitive it is. This is because, if you weren’t low on health (which isn’t often since the game is a cakewalk), there is literally no incentive for fighting. Well, other than getting the enemies to stop annoying you during platforming I guess.

Combat in Cathedral isn’t anywhere as much of a nuisance. In fact, it’s one of the game’s biggest strengths, since its engaging simplicity makes it consistently fun from beginning to end. It makes many subtle improvements to combat, like its reduction of invincibility frames. Alwa’s Awakening had the problem of enemies taking multiple hits to kill despite having significant invincibility frames and not enough hitsun. This made the already simplistic combat somehow both insanely mashy yet imprecise at the same time. Cathedral corrects this by allowing you to repeatedly strike enemies without having to smash through some arbitrary invincibility frames to actually hit the enemy more than once.

Another more notable improvement to combat is the charge projectile system being replaced with a resource-driven item system. In Alwa, you don’t get a projectile for like… 10 hours- during the final dungeon. Cathedral throws a bow and arrow at you within ten minutes and it’s immediately just as good, and arguably better, than Alwa’s magic projectile. Not to mention, the bow’s resource system is a lot more versatile and, well, fun. You can’t save up charges for your projectile in Alwa whatsoever- so you have to sit and wait like, what, 5-10 seconds? Just to be able to use it again one more time. I much prefer having the option to use my tools when they’re needed. Even if I screw myself over by being too liberal and running out of ammo, that’s a consequence I’m more than willing to work around in place of some annoying limitation.

The pixel aesthetic of Alwa was another of its strengths, and Cathedral’s are even more impressive. Perhaps it’s because the camera is drawn in so much closer, but it’s easier to appreciate the designs and level of detail within the game’s art for both the enemies and environments. Cathedral also features a lot more environmental variety, which helps each area feel distinct even beyond their unique puzzle mechanics and different upgrade focuses. For example, the dungeon areas feel very much in that same sort of Alwa vein aesthetically, but then there’s areas like Brightwind which feel completely different. While the dungeons are fairly standard medieval fare, its bright and overly saturated beaches look straight out of something like Alex Kidd or Wonder Boy.

The upgrade system really benefits the game’s balance, allowing the different areas to not only have aesthetic variety, but mechanical variety. This is because of the upgrade restrictions preventing you from using every upgrade at once- at least for most of the game. At first, this seemed like a rather unnecessary restriction, since it was frustrating to have the double jump taken away after getting used to having it. However, you quickly realize that the limitation is specifically placed in order to allow the different areas to maintain a degree of mechanical variety via level design.

Again, the “double jump vs dash” upgrade is the most notable example of this restriction.The areas you explore after getting the double jump upgrade are more spacious and spread-out to accommodate for your wider range of movement. Then, when you get to Brightwind and are forced to exchange it for the dash, the area suddenly becomes a lot more compact and focused around horizontal movement (dash and/or bone platform). Later areas are even crafted so that you’ll be rewarded with different paths depending on WHICH upgrade you’re using. It encourages experimentation, urging you to view the same rooms from different perspectives. These restrictions then make it all the more satisfying when you can finally use both of these major upgrades at the same time during the endgame. It might sound like a relatively minor change, but the game does a great job at providing distinct platforming challenges for each and every combination of movement options at your disposal throughout the game.

Cathedral also made significant strides through its accessibility and quality of life improvements. The map is clean and clear, allowing you to toggle between two unique layers. It even gives you the option to place a marker on rooms of interest. Easily the most useful accessibility feature though is that your map highlights ALL exits after having visited the room. This greatly reduces the potential for getting outright stuck- while simultaneously prodding you to seek out its multitude of secrets.

Input mapping is also fairly extensive, though I do wish it provided the option to map one action to multiple buttons, since I kinda wanted to map shield to both “L” and “A” for faster reflexes since it does take a moment to raise. Otherwise, I slapped the secondary item on “R” and removed the item toggles entirely for the majority of the game. Kind of a personal preference there, but I usually find toggling to be far too clumsy to be useful during fast paced combat. I’d much rather just pause and choose my new item manually, as you would in something like Zelda II or classic Mega Man. I did end up mapping toggle to “A” and using it to switch between two items at a few points in the endgame, as there were a few puzzles and encounters where it was basically required (looking at you, Conduit boss).

Considering the relative mainstream popularity of Shovel Knight, which at this point is among the most famous indie/kickstarter games ever, I’m surprised at just how under the radar Cathedral has flown given their surface level similarities. Especially because of its aformentioned accessibility and quality of life features, as they'd make Cathedral easy to pick up for even someone who’s never played a Metroidvania game in their life. I guess the difficulty might be a bit of a barrier, but it’s entirely doable with adequate exploration. Otherwise, it’s extremely beginner friendly: the maps show all possible exits on every screen, the more obtuse secrets and puzzles will have instructions/hints sitting right next to them, there’s a detailed quest log, there’s even an NPC in every town that straight up tells you what to do the second you get lost… you get the idea. Accessibility aside, Cathedral’s faster pace and more demanding combat made it a lot more of an exciting and engaging experience than Shovel Knight, at least for me personally. I admit it’s not a totally fair comparison, since one is a stage-centric 2D platformer and the other is a Metroidvania. But that stark contrast in their popularity makes it a comparison still worth mentioning.

Cathedral’s relative obscurity is a real shame though, since I consider it to be among the best Metroidvania games I’ve played- even among my favorite 2D platformers altogether. It’s a surprisingly meaty experience, boasting a huge map with nearly 700 rooms, of which can easily take you over 30 hours to explore fully. But it’s not just a far longer and more substantive experience than its predecessor. It’s also more demanding, more memorable, and much more mechanically satisfying thanks to dramatically improved moment-to-moment gameplay. In fact, it’s such an overall stark improvement to Alwa’s Awakening that I’m honestly a bit surprised, disappointed even, that Elden Pixel’s next game is yet another Alwa rather than something new- or hell, even just another Cathedral would’ve been cool. But I’ll reserve judgment in the hope that the improvements Cathedral made to its formula persist in subsequent titles.

Edit/Disclaimer: I only learned after finishing the game that the listing is incorrect and that Elden Pixels was only the publisher. Easy to make that mistake though since the games have a ton of commonality. But well, considering how much better this is than the Alwa games... it certainly explains a lot. Anyways, go support Decemberborn Interactive.

Rekkr, a title which translates to “Warrior” or “Champion” in Old Norse, is a total conversion fan mod of Doom II: Hell on Earth. More importantly, it is quite possibly the single most pleasant surprise of a fan game I’ve ever had the fortune of randomly stumbling upon. Rekkr is an intensely grim and atmospheric journey, bursting at the seams with variety in its aesthetics, combat, and environments. It makes resounding improvements to the gameplay formula established by the original two Doom games through excellent weapon balance and level design, effective use of the episodic format, powerful environmental storytelling, and so much more.

The setting of Rekkr was, from the start, my favorite aspect of the game and what originally made me do a double take while looking at some of the available modpacks for Doom II’s 2019 console re-release. On the surface, it has a seemingly straightforward Nordic fantasy setting as seen by its main character and the initial environments. The health system features potions, medicinal herbs, and physical armor pieces. You shoot a bow, smash dudes with a warhammer, and so on. Even the initial plot conceit doesn’t tip you off much either; essentially the King sends your clan on a kamikaze mission in a vain attempt to turn the tides of a war that’s seemingly already lost. Along with your few comrades who survived the battle, you’re shipwrecked on the way back to your home island, a disaster which wipes out the rest of your crew. As you approach your village alone, you find that it too has since been ravaged by the war.

It sounds simple enough. But once you actually start playing it becomes VERY quickly apparent (and I’m talking like… within less than 60 seconds) that such a simple description is a serious undersell for how unique the game’s setting and tone really is. This is accomplished in large part due to the stellar monster designs and the indirect insight they give you into the dark underbelly of Rekkr’s world. It does all of this without any direct dialogue, I should mention. In reality, Rekkr is a weird sort of fantasy/sci-fi hybrid with tons of uniquely unsettling and even straight up horrifying monsters who invade its seemingly standard Nordic setting out of nowhere. There’s zombie barbarians which animate the corpses of your fallen comrades. There’s severed floating eyeballs which dilate and fly straight at you full speed the second you make eye contact. There’s zombies who continue pursuing you even after their heads are blown clean off with teeth coming out of their open head holes and their extremities soaked in blood. There’s flying heads with pincer horns that explode on impact. There’s potion mimics with razor sharp bloody teeth. There’s glowing green and red-eyed metallic alien dudes who slowly creep towards you. Oh, and if those flying eyeballs are nearby, they can regenerate all of the other demons even after being turned into piles of flesh- an action which is accompanied by a gloriously awful splatter sound that makes your stomach turn every time.

Enemy movement is rather stilted compared to what you see in vanilla doom, as expected of a fan mod with entirely original designs. However, because their designs are already seriously creepy, I felt the lack of in-between frames of animation for their movement just added to the uncanny and alien nature of them. The juxtaposition between the setting and these hostile inhabitants gives the game an unmatched sense of foreboding. Meanwhile, it has an interesting mix of both primitive and advanced technology/weaponry used to combat them. You have a bow that shoot arrows coated in the souls of fallen enemies, a hand crank shotgun (it’s simple, but definitely my personal favorite of the bunch to use), a warhammer, staffs for both holy and explosive magic, and a BFG equivalent where you kinda just mind crush everything with magic fists.

Tom Jensen’s soundtrack is also a major point of note. The soundfonts generally feel reminiscent of James Hannigan’s work on Old School Runescape, but Jensen’s compositions feel more intense and identifiable as a whole. It's got some incredibly memorable tracks with moments of seriously bold execution. One example of that being the second mission’s theme. It has a section where there are bagpipes playing a single long note blaring loudly over the main melody which effectively struggles under the weight of this note in the background for like… 2 minutes straight. Certainly can’t say I've ever heard something like that done before. It really added to the atmosphere of the already vast and complex map design while exploring.

Jensen’s soundtrack displays an insane amount of tonal range as well. The second mission’s ambiance is immediately followed by a track on level three that’s somehow both ominous and grandiose at once. This is in large part accomplished by its diverse mix of organ, harp, synth, and string melodies which drive it forward. Then you get to mission five’s track which is an incredibly upbeat Celtic fantasy song.The inharmonious bagpipes both suit the environment and perfectly illustrate the game’s tonal dissonance, which here is created by the map’s farmland aesthetic clashing with the demonic enemy designs. That’s only describing a few tracks from the first episode, too. Every single one of Rekkr’s 36 maps features a unique composition, all of which I enjoyed.To point out just one more of my favorite tracks from much later in the game, E3M2’s “Close Action” is unbelievably effective at evoking oppressive claustrophobia as you descend through the endless tight corridors of Otherworld.

Rekkr goes above and beyond a standard reskin or overhaul of Doom, even in terms of its gameplay mechanics and balancing. I particularly like the game’s original “soul” mechanic. Essentially, your arrow (the pistol equivalent) uses ammo that runs on “souls”, a currency that is dropped by humanoid enemies upon death. However, after maybe three seconds or so, the soul dissipates and the ammo pickup disappears. It creates a complex and engaging relationship with the enemies, especially in larger groups. When fighting several enemies approaching you all at once, you’re incentivized to pick off enemies on the sides of the group, run in to grab their souls, and back away quickly in order to avoid getting too close to oncoming projectiles. It also requires extra engagement on the part of the player since the fodder enemies that drop them often take either one OR two hits to down, so you have to react quickly if they drop after just one shot. On the flip side, if you automatically assume the enemy will die after just one shot and they don’t, you’ll run in only to be attacked by the surviving enemy. This one mechanical change to combat not only makes shootouts far more engaging, but also much more aggressive. In Doom, you can snipe enemy groups from far away without putting yourself at any risk. But in Rekkr, you have to stay at least relatively close so you can swoop in to grab souls quickly. If you refuse to play aggressively, you will run out of ammo very quickly- a fact which is further accelerated by the game’s smaller maximum ammo capacities. Additionally, this system presents a tradeoff where you can either save your stronger weaponry for tougher enemies, or plow through a horde of fodder in order to stock up on the weaker “soul” ammunition if you’re worried about running low. This is yet another entirely new layer of depth this mechanic alone adds to every single encounter.

I was curious if recency bias was making me overly impressed by Rekkr’s combat, so I played a bit of original doom after completing Rekkr in order to get a direct comparison. Doom is still doom, so it’ll always still be fun. Still though, I was kind of taken aback by how much slower and uninvolved it felt after playing Rekkr.I can certainly imagine these additional elements of combat being exhausting for some on the higher difficulties. But for me, it adds a perfect amount of tension to encounters on the normal difficulty.

Overall, I can’t really see any way to view Rekkr’s combat as anything other than both a remarkable improvement to the system established in the original Doom. It’s not only more demanding and aggressive, but it adds further depth and engagement to every single encounter in the game. Even the most simple enemy encounters, which would otherwise just be fodder to mindlessly steamroll, require a higher base level of engagement and strategizing on the part of the player. The improvements may be subtle in terms of how small the changes themselves are, but in practice, they really do elevate every other adjacent area of the combat’s depth and balance in the process.

All of the weapons in Rekkr feel fantastic to use in their own unique ways. The combat admittedly didn’t click for me from the start, and it certainly takes some getting used to the different weapon types since they function completely differently from their Doom counterparts. But the entire arsenal of weapons excel in just about every way they try to set themselves apart. The starting weapon, the bow and arrow, is perhaps the best example of this learning curve. I certainly felt some initial frustration while using it, as shots can sometimes veer slightly to the left or right. That frustration was compounded by the darting and unpredictable movement of even the most basic humanoid enemies. To me though, its slight imprecision does seem to be an intentional design decision. For one, it’s the starting weapon and therefore shouldn’t be too amazing. I do think the slight imprecision and slower fire speed is a good way to balance its surprisingly high base power, since again, weak enemies drop in just one or two hits from it. Personally I found it WAY more useful than the Doom’s equivalent pistol, to the point it’s actually a viable weapon against most enemies. Even despite its drawbacks (no terrible pun intended), it’s both useful and satisfying.

The steelshot launcher, your next available weapon and Doom’s super shotgun equivalent, is insanely satisfying to use right off the bat- and is probably my overall favorite weapon in the entire game. It’s very powerful and the visceral reloading animation/sound are perfect. The crosshair spread is also a bit more generous than most other weapons, so it feels great trying to line up multiple enemies to take out with a single shot. In fact, because it still takes two spreadshot rounds to fire once (and again, maximum ammo counts are lower than vanilla doom), it feels like that sort of resourceful thinking is expected out of you. At least, if you want to be economical enough to make your limited ammo last until the end of the mission. I guess this is only tangentially related, but these factors lend this game to being more focused on ammo conservation (and thus rewarding regular exploration more) than Doom. Whether that’s a positive or a negative will depend on the individual. But I found it to lend even further tension to every encounter, as well as forcing me to make smart use of all my weapons and the game’s unique soul mechanic… rather than just spraying away with shotgun and rockets like in Doom.

The warhammer, on the other hand, was a rare example of disappointment. While I do appreciate Rekkr provides a melee upgrade similar to the chainsaw for when you run low on ammo, it’s significantly less enjoyable than the chainsaw in practice. The lack of hitstun limits its usefulness quite a bit, since enemies punish you quickly for getting too close and most of them hit hard. I think if it just had more range that would’ve been enough to make it a useful part of your arsenal (perhaps a bit more hitstun too). But as it stands, the warhammer just feels a bit too dangerous and not worth the risk to use other than for emergencies only. However, to give it the benefit of the doubt, one could make the argument that its weakness is beneficial to both the game’s balance and focus on resource management. If you did have a safe and powerful weapon like Doom’s chainsaw, the tension of ammo conservation would definitely be undercut.

The soul launcher, your next main weapon, feels just about as solid as it should. I appreciate that it doesn’t immediately outclass the normal bow like the chaingun does for the pistol in Doom. The different fire rate and power means that they each have different uses. It's a good option for mid-range combat and short-range crowd control. But again, you shouldn’t really use it exclusively due to its slightly lower power per shot- and because of the resource management aspects. It’s very easy to get a bit too liberal with your ammo usage, whereas with the bow it’s much easier to control.

The staff of rune explosion is another favorite weapon of mine along with the steelshot launcher. It’s sort of like a rocket launcher, but much more well balanced and versatile than its Doom equivalent. As you’d expect from explosives, it has crowd control and power capabilities, but its short-range and friendly fire properties make it a situational glass cannon. An additional benefit that is unique to the staff (compared to a rocket launcher) is the fact that its explosive runes drop to the ground shortly before exploding, unlike rockets from Doom which go in a straight line. This goes a long way towards solving an issue that holds back Doom from designing maps a certain way: The verticality problem.

If you’ve played Doom’s bonus fourth episode “Thy Flesh Consumed” or Doom II you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say “the verticality problem”. But in case you haven’t, normally in Doom, you’re far too defenseless when enemies are below you. Since their AI has no problems shooting straight up, but you can’t exactly look down to properly aim at the enemies (without physically moving down stairs or jumping off a platform), this creates a really annoying disadvantage for the player. As a result, the verticality problem acts as a stubborn limitation for those who are designing levels without this problem. It’s a shame too, because sufficient verticality is extremely important In creating layered and complex labyrinths.

Without verticality, dungeons quickly start looking like a corn maze. Thankfully, Rekkr ingeniously solves this problem just by introducing the staff of rune explosion. With this weapon, you can drop explosive runes down elevator shafts, shoot them down stairs, basically any circumstance that might suffer from this verticality issue. And because it’s the most powerful normal weapon in the game, you can be fairly confident that whatever you just dropped a bunch of exploding runes on won’t be bothering you when you jump down. Rekkr has maps with these same sorts of design that were found in Doom Episode 4 and Doom II, but unlike them, it actually provides you with a tool to deal with the situation in a simple but extremely clever way.

The holy relic is also a pretty interesting weapon when you consider that it’s Doom’s plasma rifle equivalent. Instead of providing a powerful, rapid-fire but short-range companion to the BFG, the holy relic provides a great long-range option, despite being rather slow and weak. Speaking of the BFG, it is pretty much unchanged in Rekkr with the God’s Blessing- just a bit more balanced by costing more ammo. Even if it’s only one change, I’m glad that’s the one they made since you’re kinda forced to use the BFG on the strongest Doom enemies. Anyway back to the holy relic- it uses the same mana ammo as the God’s Blessing, but more importantly, it isn’t a projectile. Instead, when you fire the holy relic, the attack reaches the enemy instantly. It’s a pretty lowkey property change, but it drastically alters the weapon’s potential for effectiveness. In most ways it’s pretty similar to the soul launcher- but this one simple change makes it much easier to hit targets from far away, since you don’t need to account for enemy movement in order to land hits. Because of this, it’s a much smarter choice for long-range combat than the soul launcher. Oh, and it has piercing properties too, making it more useful for fights in narrow hallways. These unique weapon properties are just another of the many possible examples of Rekkr’s unmatched combat balancing. It encapsulates the game’s combat design philosophy of providing two (three if you count its similarities with the soul launcher) weapons that use the same ammo type yet effectively fill totally different needs in combat.

Map design is also excellent. They’re often very layered with tons of verticality, providing a fun and challenging environment for key hunting. This is a particularly subjective point, but I think the setting and tone of Rekkr in general feels a lot more at home with the sort of “dungeon crawling” experience you get in boomer shooters than it does in a hellish landscape like doom (tho i like it in doom too- just not as much as I do here). I also really love that this game makes the extra effort to give maps a sense of visual physicality by interconnecting the ends of the previous map to the beginning of the next. Hell, it even has interconnectivity with the title screen, since the menu’s demo tape is actually a reenactment of the game’s initial plot conceit. It's something I find very valuable for crafting a cohesive world and experience, so I do wish the old dooms did something like this too. This interconnectivity does wonders for preventing the maps from just feeling like some level floating in a void that was created by some game designers- instead feeling more like an actual world. It creates a narrative throughline just by providing a simple and nonessential visual throughline. Obviously the actual level design and layout of the maps themselves takes precedence over interconnectivity though. Thankfully, Rekkr delivers just as well in that respect.

The interconnectivity of its maps isn’t the only way this game stands out visually. Rekkr’s attention to detail is also phenomenal and adds so much more narrative intrigue to its setting and world. it’s probably the best example I can think of environmental storytelling with zero dialogue whatsoever. My favorite detail is shaman’s brew asset which serves as both the supercharge pickup- though is used earlier in the game as an environmental detail. The shaman’s brew is a cracked jar filled with blue goo and severed eyeballs that are still alive and shift to look around the room. It legit gave me chills the first time I stopped and looked at the jar, only to notice they were alive and animated. Another example: The murder scene of your wife and child at the end of the first level is just straight up iconic. The way the scene is framed as you slowly continue down the long empty walkway and living room, and open the door to the back room… it kinda burns itself into your memory. It also sets both the motivation for the main character and sets the tone perfectly for the grim and mysterious adventure ahead.

Another amazing example is the woman’s room in the Dripstone Wharf level. You pull back the curtains and open the door to a room, only to find a floating eyeball who remains unconcerned with you, staring silently at the corpse of a young woman lying on the bed. Who knows what exactly is happening or even being implied in this scene, but it certainly makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Do these demons possess a capacity for emotion? Could this perhaps be a former human who was somehow transformed into their demonic form? If so, is this perhaps a former attendant or relative of the Wharf who just so happened to recognize her? Does this mean the demons can retain memories from their past lives too? The possibilities are endless when narrative is communicated through the environment as opposed to dialogue. Interpretation is left to the individual, and to me, that makes this method of storytelling all the more powerful.

These small environmental details aren’t all inconsequential to the main skeleton of Rekkr’s plot, either. They continually feed information about the plot and world to players throughout the game- given that they’re cognizant enough of their surroundings to seek them out and speculate. Perhaps the most narratively telling example of environmental storytelling in Rekkr can be found on E2M6, “Magnus City”, within a rampart of the Capital City. The level is mostly standard fare, and eventually you’ll come across a local lord’s throne room. Again, nothing too out of the ordinary for the naked eye. But if you prod around and interact with all the walls and behind the lord’s desk, you’ll find a series of hidden switches which reveal several hidden doors. Most of these doors reveal a small jail elsewhere in the castle. I know this is nothing too interesting or worth bringing up yet, but bear with me.

However… the switch behind the lord’s desk reveals a small cage in the wall from which a bunny skitters out. Again, nothing crazy, right? You might even just see that as a cute little easter egg (again, terrible pun not intended) from the level designer. This game is great at prodding you with these tiny details, yet it’s only when you start piecing them together do you realize the conclusions it’s trying to push you towards- given that you’re listening. I’ll drop the cutesy pretense and say this outright: These secret switches definitively reveal both a deep-rooted political conspiracy and human experimentation practices buried beneath the surface of Rekkr’s Royal Capital. First of all, the rampart’s garden and courtyard is the only other place in the entirety of the game where you can find corrupted and demonic bunnies. There is a bonus level featuring them, but that’s irrelevant here- I’ll explain why later. Anyway, those details when viewed in tandem suggest to me that: not only was this lord complacent in the King’s actions to conspire with Rok the Demon Lord, but both animals and humans alike were sacrificed through demonic experimentation in the process. Just a side note, but I’m guessing that inanimate objects were experimented on too I’m guessing, since there are potion mimics and tree demons among the demon army as well.

With that said, let’s take another look at the other seemingly normal secret. Castles having prisoners is nothing special, right? Well, if that were the case, then why were both the doors to the prison cells and the switches themselves kept hidden? Why would the switches be located in the room of the lord himself and not, yknow, right next to the cell doors? It should be clear these rooms housed people prior to their demonic sacrifice. Lastly, to give one final detail, it seems as though one of these prisoners might have noticed something wasn’t right about their situation also. Because one of these cells houses a corpse hanging from a noose. Honestly… the amount of subtle detail and character this game communicates in its levels without saying a word still blows me away. I can’t wait until my next playthrough so I can uncover even more of these sorts of moments.

Shifting gears, the aesthetic variety found within even just one of Rekkr’s maps is hella impressive for any game, let alone a fan mod. For example, the third mission alone features snowy fields, churches, and a fully explorable underground sector with storerooms and sewers, some of which are filled with toxic waste. Every single one of the 27 main missions feel different. Forests, castles, villages, open fields, even a lighthouse level near a port which is something only this game could pull off well because of its unique solution for vertical level design.

Hell, it even has the secret level I mentioned earlier where an endless swarm of demon bunnies come to murder you. Though, because of its cartoony aesthetic and tonal juxtaposition to the rest of the game, it feels like it must be a dream sequence or something- but that’s just my headcanon. Still hilarious tho. Especially because that demon bunny dream comes earlier in the game than the one stage that ACTUALLY has demon bunnies. That means the main character hasn’t even encountered them in the game at that point, which to me suggests more indirect storytelling.. Perhaps the main character harbors a degree of guilt or regret for hunting the harmless bunnies to take the health essence they carry. But alright, at this point I might be reading into things a bit too far, so I’ll cut the thought off there. Either way, it’s still a super fun and charming bonus level, though I’m just now realizing my goldfish brain totally forgot to play the other bonus levels… Well, if they’re anywhere half as good as that first one, I’m looking forward to them.

I also appreciate how the game handles secrets, and that’s without even taking the already discussed environmental storytelling they provide into account. It never really requires you to find those invisible walls or doors with no visual cue just to finish the level. Rekkr will often hide paths behind waterfalls, give walls a slightly different color to hint at their functionality, or even give doors levers or switches in order to be used. This design choice lends its focus more towards exploration and dungeon crawling than it does straight up cryptic secrets like Doom can often end up having. That doesn’t mean exploration comes easy in Rekkr, hell no. Some of these maps are mind bogglingly huge and complex to the point they took me nearly an hour to complete a couple of them. It can certainly still be satisfying to stumble upon some cool secrets on your own in Doom- and Rekkr does have moments of that as well. However, I personally find standard dungeon crawling to be a lot more enjoyable than smashing my head against every wall of a giant labyrinth for fifteen minutes hoping for one of the walls to rise and let me continue.

This review has already gotten way longer than I expected so I’ll just give some quick thoughts on Episodes 2 and 3 so I can wrap this up. Episode 2 doesn’t quite reach the heights of Episode 1 imo, but it's still fantastic. The variety in Episode 1 was far stronger, with every single level being very different in terms of both setting and map design. Episode 2 is mostly city environments since you’re now in the Royal Capital, though it certainly does provide some variance within that restriction. Castles, ramparts, marketplaces, underground cellars, a museum, a small town on the outskirts which is half baked into a cave system, a fully explorable sewer system, and more. The difficulty also seems a bit toned down, as I had much less trouble with combat in Episode 2 overall. That could be a result of me being more well-versed in all the new weapons by this point. But I do think it’s also partially because you get most of the weapons by the second mission- meaning the progression in strength isn’t as gradual as it was in Episode 1.

My favorite part of Episode 2 was, and I can’t believe I’m saying this about what is essentially just a Doom game since bosses usually kinda suck: the climax where you fight the “Former King” boss. In terms of the arena, it’s perfect. You have plenty of room to move around and the bullet patterns from the boss are wide but fair. There’s also tons of fodder enemies accompanying him, so the first phase is a good mix of picking off fodder and trying to snag the ammo pickups before the columns come back down and crush you. The second phase blew me away with its transition in particular; the Former King’s flesh splits straight down the middle and his skeleton starts chasing you down. Hands down one of the sickest moments in the entire game. He also starts launching eyeballs at you which start to resurrect all of the surrounding corpses as he continues to pursue you. So the fight becomes more and more frantic as you kill him and avoid the stragglers as quickly as possible. After he falls, you have to escape the leftover havoc into the secret door that opens. You descend down an endless hallway of corpses as it fades to black. Episode 3 begins.

Episode 3 was definitely a return to form in terms of map variety and challenge. The mission settings were hellish and varied, oftentime reminding me a lot of my favorite episode of the original Doom, Inferno. Rok is definitely my favorite final boss I’ve seen in a boomer shooter to date. His arena quickly becomes beautiful chaos, and the fight itself is entirely based on reflexes. No secrets, no obtuse gimmicks like Icon of Sin, you just throw hands with Rok until he eventually dies. Rok’s attacks themselves are purely reflex based- if you stop moving, you die. You have to dodge his consistent barrage of projectiles while dealing with fodder AND the previous miniboss at the same time.

Even when the arena is cleared out and only you and Rok remain standing, you have to stay focused for several minutes as you unload all your remaining ammo types into him. While his projectiles alone would be a bit too simple for such a climactic encounter, the fact he can mix you up with his fire attack means you have to pay attention to not only him, but your position in the arena and the angle of the incoming fire attack as well. This is made even more complicated by the fact that unlike the Fallen King boss, Rok’s arena is asymmetrical, containing a large stone pillar and a small lake of fire- both of which serve to throw off your strafing rhythm and keep you on your toes. The ending sequence also left an impression on me, but for the sake of spoilers, the fact that it’s pretty much completely open ended, and the fact that this review has already gotten absurdly long, I’ll just leave it there. It’s good shit.

I’m not really sure what else there is to say about Rekkr that I haven’t already said. It’s an absolute triumph of a fan mod that achieves almost everything it sets out to do. It’s worth noting that when it comes to boomer shooters, I’m certainly not well-versed in the more obscure ones. That probably came across clearly enough in my review for those who ARE well versed in them, but I figured it was worth noting here regardless. However, even taking that into consideration, I think I’ve made my case well enough that I’d still love the shit out of Rekkr even if I was more of a veteran. Without even having touched the Episode 4 expansion “Sunken Land” yet, this game blew me away and improved upon the groundbreaking foundation set by the original Doom in ways I didn’t think possible. I have a fairly profound personal connection to the original Doom, since playing the Xbox 360 version co-op with my brother over a decade ago is practically a core gaming memory at this point. But there’s no two ways around it: Rekkr has set a new personal bar for the height of this genre in just about every way that matters to me the most. What really sticks out to me the most about my introduction to this game is that I tried it on a complete whim. I’d never heard it mentioned or recommended before in my life, even though I’d just finished doing a ton of research on boomer shooter recommendations. It just happened to catch my eye while looking through some mods after finishing Doom and Doom II. Yet within an hour, it grabbed me even more than the original Doom. From there, my enthusiasm and appreciation for Rekkr only continued to grow throughout the duration of its legendary first episode. By the end, it had single handedly skyrocketed my interest in exploring Doom mods further. Not even in the hope I find something better. Just in the hope that I can discover more of these sorts of projects that resonate with my artistic and mechanical sensibilities even a fraction as much as Rekkr does.

Hylics may be a short and mechanically simple turn-based RPG, but goddamn does it make a lasting impression. The abstract aesthetic is obviously what you'll notice first, and for good reason. The first time I saw an offhand screenshot of the game's death animation, my immediate reaction was “there’s no way the entire game looks this good.” But it fucking does. The environments, attack animations, monster designs, you name it. In terms of providing ethereal, unique, colorful, and sometimes outright terrifying claymation and stop motion visuals, Hylics delivers 100%.

In terms of narrative, the game is, well… equally if not even more abstract than its visuals. NPC dialogue is entirely randomly generated, yet at the same time, it feels appropriately incomprehensible within the context of the world. I also had a bit of fun laughing at myself in hindsight for trying to make sense of all that dialogue, since I hadn’t known about that fact until after playing. There is however a bit of narrative to glean just from the way the game’s events unfold- mainly by way of the characters who join your party. I particularly liked how your first party member joins to lend you his unique ability of… being able to operate a water cooler. Genius. I mean, I’m joking about it, but buried underneath the mountain of nonsensical obscurity, there are some real nuggets of narrative and worldbuilding you can unearth from these small details. For example, the fact that he describes the paper cup as a precious archaeological finding suggests the possibility of Hylics taking place in post-apocalypse. So much of the game’s narrative abstraction through NPCs obscure any concrete narrative foundation that could have been there. However, there’s still enough plausibility in those details buried beneath the surface from which the player can speculate and draw their own conclusions.

Combat is fun despite its simplicity. In terms of the pace of battle, it’s very snappy (no pun intended... okay fine maybe a little intended). There’s a decent amount of customization and freedom to assign distinct roles in combat through the various equipment options at each tier of value. There’s definitely some strategy required to execute those roles optimally. Though I will say that the constant countering of some enemy types borders on the obnoxious when there’s seemingly no way to predict or respond to it in time early in the game. The death mechanic is also pretty bizarre, though I suppose it’d be more out of place for something to NOT be bizarre in a game like Hylics. That death animation I already alluded to earlier is insanely gorgeous and memorable.

Speaking of memorable, the soundtrack, holy shit the soundtrack. I was initially very surprised to see that its creator, Mason Lindroth, was responsible not only for the art, but everything else in Hylics- including its perfectly uneasy soundtrack. But with a game that is so abstract, yet still feels like a distinctly singular vision, it makes sense for that to be the case. Its guitar-heavy tracks which range from bleak and unsettling to warm and spacey couldn’t be more fitting if it tried. A few of my favs include Afterlife, Ruins, Tomb, and Basement.

I have some complaints, mainly in regards to the amount of backtracking and the game’s groggy midsection (that whole graveyard section was just… why). But in a game this compact, not to mention such a joy to simply walk through and take in its atmosphere, they were mostly inconsequential to my enjoyment. The game is pretty easy for the most part, I only got stuck at one point (somehow walked straight out to the part where you get the airship and just... didn’t activate it?? like how did that even happen god i’m bad). Other than that, Hylics is deceptively straightforward to play despite its aesthetic and narrative abstractions. It's a very easy game to just pick up and play through in one sitting.

The final boss might’ve been easy, but MAN that whole ending sequence took the atmosphere and abstraction to whole new heights. You go from transforming your whole party, to killing nameless hoards without any sort of struggle, to killing a giant orange on the moon who carries a hotdog and oh there’s level ups now apparently and oh you’re now level 67 and oh you’re rich now and oh also something about death-fate

oh

One of the weaker modern Falcom titles, but unlike its painfully dull sequel, Zwei: The Arges Adventure is simple enough and charming enough to be potentially worth playing. Especially if you're looking for a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Zwei is aesthetically great for the most part. It has strong background art which feels reminiscent of Legend of Mana’s isometric 2D style in the town and field. It boasts fantastic character designs- especially the main duo who feel straight up inspired by Mint and Rue from Dewprism/Threads of Fate. Pipiro’s big poofy robe with the fluffy cotton balls from head to toe is one of the comfiest and most recognizable character designs of the era imo.

However, the in-dungeon models, animations, and environments are much less impressive- the models in particular which border on uncanny. They’re super bug-eyed and have a creepy waddle when they move. Additionally, calling the attack animation an “animation” is kinda generous to begin with. It’s more like the model just dashes forward for a sec. Think Pokemon SwSh's attack animations but not quite as overtly hilarious. These areas of complaint aren’t anything too deal breaking, but when compared to the stronger aspects of the game’s visuals, it’s definitely kinda jarring.

While the visuals are solid overall, the writing is what grabs your attention from the start. In terms of like… plot? Hell no. The actual narrative itself has very little substance or intrigue to it. It’s purely just to get you moving in the dungeons and guide you towards the end. The dialogue, however, especially from Pipiro, is great at times. I think Falcom (or whoever translated it, xseed i guess? haven’t actually looked into it) knew this game would thrive off comedy and generally not taking itself seriously. The script is very light and oftentimes a straight up meme. Not in a bad way either, the quips consistently landed for me. Well... for a while, at least.

The script kinda lost its luster after the first few hours for me though, ngl. I think it’s because the NPC dialogue and actual plot were way below what I was expecting from a falcom title in this era, having played the Trails in the Sky trilogy beforehand. The script def makes a strong first impression, but you quickly come to realize that everyone’s dialogue other than Pipiro (and the occasional cringe gem from Pokkle) just kind of sucks. It definitely has its moments tho, Pipiro screaming “calm your tits” during Pokkle’s literal biggest character development moment fucking killed me.

Combat is not this game’s strong suit either. It’s clunky, mashy, and overly simplistic. Nothing actively bad, just thoroughly mid. The inventory/menuing is also worth mentioning cuz it was kind of a nightmare to play on controller at times. That is admittedly on me for stubbornly using it even though the game was clearly designed with a mouse/keyboard in mind and minimal gamepad support. But it's worth pointing out for others who share my preference.

Instead, the best aspect of the game in terms of gameplay is without a doubt the food progression system. Basically, experience point gains in this game are tied directly to eating food. You eat something, you get exp. This alone wouldn’t be anything noteworthy, but what IS noteworthy is the way the system is implemented. Experience in Zwei is an inherently risk vs reward proposition. By eating the food items you’ve gathered right away, you can use them as a consumable to get free emergency healing in dungeons. If you save up 10 of a certain food type, however, you can trade them up for a much better item in town- an item that will not only give you a bigger one-use heal, but will provide a bigger exp gain than those 10 items would’ve given you altogether. Eventually, you can even save up 10 of the exchanged dishes for another tier of item above that, which was extremely satisfying to see after finally saving them all up.

Therefore, aggressive and risky gameplay pays huge dividends for the player in Zwei. The longer you go through the dungeons while risking death by not eating, the more you will be rewarded with a relative amount of bonus exp when you’re finally back in the town. It's a really simple but brilliant mechanic that increases tension while in dungeons while simultaneously increasing the satisfaction of completing dungeons with a handicap. The entire gameplay loop revolves around this system of tradeoffs, and I’m thankful it does. Because along with the charming script, it was one of the few aspects of the game that actually compelled me to play it to the end.

Zwei isn’t very good in a lot of ways. But the satisfying gameplay loop and occasionally strong script carry it. I don’t really regret the 15 or 20 hours I ended up spending on it, since it was easy to quickly plow through the endgame once I was feeling ready to move on. But I doubt I’ll ever touch it again unless it’s to play the Typing of Ys minigame. That shit on hard difficulty was one of the most randomly peak and jarringly-brutal minigames I’ve ever played. Doubly so by comparsion, since the main game of Zwei is a cakewalk. I’d recommend the minigame for Ys fans on the merit of that challenge alone, plus some cool references to Ys Books I and II which are among my favs in the series. But... maybe only if you type over 100 WPM. If not, it’s basically impossible.

Otherwise, I’d only be comfortable recommending Zwei to hardcore Falcom fans. Or those who dig short, comfy, and very lighthearted (borderline to a fault) JRPGs without the narrative or mechanical substance to deepen your investment.

It’s basically Super Meat Boy but uglier and way sloppier. Not worth playing.

I’m not even much of a Super Meat Boy fan to begin with, but I can at least credit that game with nailing its sense of momentum and generally handling pretty well. This game does neither of those things. The main issue with its movement seems to be that there simply isn’t enough easing on it, especially when it comes to midair movement. This means landing on precise platforms is a total crapshoot and it generally makes everything feel way more slippery than it ought to. The base walking speed also feels too high, to the point where there’s barely much of a difference at all in the walk and run speeds. This makes it rather ambiguous if the level expects you to run or walk in order to make it through certain obstacles, resulting in more trial and error than should be necessary. This isn’t helped by the fact that spike hitboxes felt obnoxiously liberal, as these issues exacerbate one another leading to a serious lack of precision overall.

Screwing up the movement and momentum in a difficult and high-speed 2D platformer is pretty obviously a dealbreaker. But to give credit where credit is due, it’s certainly not all bad. The game’s toggle mechanic is a pretty decent concept that's used in a few unique ways. For example, wall jumping through a toggle platform and landing on the opposite side to prepare for a longer jump, and catching yourself under a toggle platform above a pit of spikes both feel pretty satisfying to execute. Though I still wish the mechanic was used more frequently, since it’s pretty much the only thing that sets the game apart.

The cutscene artwork, while sparse, is also pretty nice. The watercolor aesthetic is stylized and gives the game a colorful, lively atmosphere reminiscent of Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends. Unfortunately though, the in-game visuals aren’t anywhere near as impressive. The foreground art and assets generally look very cheap and flat. To its credit though, some of the background art is surprisingly unique and notable. The best example being the spider elephant things with pyramid huts on their backs that walk across the background of the desert level. It’s a fun design for a background element.

Overall, the package feels super cheap and sloppy, but there’s unquestionably some charm and care put into it. I just think the game fails on too fundamental a level to even be considered worth trying. It definitely needed more work to refine the movement and momentum of Ka himself before level design and boss patterns even started being created. To its credit, they’re certainly designed around Ka’s hectic movement, but that doesn’t change the fact it handles very poorly. You can’t build up a tower if the foundation is uneven- it’ll inevitably fall no matter the level of care put into placing its subsequent building blocks.

Also it crashed on me like three times. But hey, it was short and only like a dollar, so whatever.

Ori and the Blind Forest is a good-to-great game that probably should’ve been WAY better. None of its issues were anything that single-handedly bogged down my experience too much, but it’s filled with a bunch of minor irritations that really started to add up at a certain point. I still dig it overall, but I can’t help but feel let down since what should’ve been a free 9/10, genre-defining title ended up being more like a 7/10 that tbh I probably won't revisit.

I’ll start with the soundtrack since it’s without question the best aspect of the game IMO. The soundtrack is full of gorgeously orchestrated fantasy tracks that adds so much atmosphere to an already gorgeous game; from haunting to ethereal to whimsical... this is what we call a certified hood classic. Just, y'know, in terms of soothing and emotionally provocative video game OSTs, I guess. While I can’t say the game's visual aesthetic is something I vibe with too much, the soundtrack absolutely is. I'd be hard pressed to place a comparison in terms of other game OSTs, but more broadly, it does feel reminiscent of the earlier, more fantastical tracks found in Kevin Penkin’s OST for the Made in Abyss anime. And while I’m not sure I like the OST to that same extent nor does it have the same tonal range, it’s certainly right up there in quality and I’ll def be revisiting it in the future, especially for non-intrusive background music while reading and writing.

Mechanically, the game is sort of a mixed bag, though to start with the biggest positive- the movement and progression of movement are phenomenal. The versatile and free-form toolkit from which you can move around the map by the end of the game is top tier from my experience with metroidvanias and 2D platformers in general. You have so many options of traversal that it completely makes up for the restrictions placed upon you early in the game, which were a main source of my frustrations. Finding “in-map” upgrades always feels like a huge deal- huge enough that you feel compelled to revisit every inch of the already-explored map to see how you can apply your newfound skill and unlock new secrets and areas.

Additionally, even the “ability point” upgrades feel significant in that they help smooth out the edges of your already vast toolkit and become natural extensions of those more major ability upgrades. Everything you do in the game seems to feed back into expanding your ability to move more freely; upgrades lend you a wall jump, double jump, a glide, a dash, a bash, wall climbing, and much more. But even progressing in seemingly unrelated ways, like conquering temples, grants bonuses throughout the map. Conquering temples grants you a greater sense of freedom with your movement through rewards like creating huge wind gales to carry you vertically and purifying water sources which lead to previously uninhabitable areas.

The freedom of movement serves as a phenomenal foundation for this style of game, though unfortunately it is hampered by what is probably my biggest complaint: Lack of visual clarity. Personally, I really value readability in my 2D platformers, since precision is so important in them, and Ori simply doesn’t have it to the extent that I'd like. It makes a trade-off of visual cohesion at the expense of visual clarity in a way that is quite detrimental to the moment-to-moment gameplay. Enemy projectiles blend into the background, foreground foliage covers platforms and paths, overly dark areas muddle your surroundings and require you to turn the game’s brightness up and contrast down just to be able to see where you’re landing, etc. These sorts of issues brought a lot of unnecessary frustration to what should’ve been a satisfying experience- perhaps even a comfy experience given the game’s strong atmosphere.

This lack of clarity applies to some minor aspects of the game as well. The UI, for example, isn’t great in terms of readability either. Especially the health depletion, since it makes it look like you have more hp than you actually do from a quick glance. It, for some reason, slowly drains into empty orbs despite not ACTUALLY slowly draining in practicality. It’s basically like if Earthbound’s “rolling HP bar” didn’t actually allow you to tank fatal blows and the game just assumes you have whatever lowest number the HP will eventually roll down to. It’s… probably not as big a deal on lower difficulties where combat isn’t as tense, but minor issues like this are weird and easily avoidable obfuscations.

In terms of overall challenge, the game kinda gets easier as it goes, weirdly enough. I felt that a lot of the game’s difficulty tends to come from weird jank and intentional restrictions in the first half of the game. But because that stuff slowly disappears as you progress and collect upgrades, the endgame feels a lot more manageable and satisfying to complete. None of it is all that difficult because of its innovative spirit link system. The system allows you to create save points on the fly to regain health, serving as these sort of temporary save states, to quickly retry more challenging segments. But I definitely had the most trouble early on since the aforementioned lack of visual clarity compounded the restrictive movement to make a much for a much more frustrating experience than it probably should've been.

Another aspect of the game’s challenge I feel is worth noting is the balance of Ori’s strength and resource management, both of which I feel aren't great overall, for two main reasons. For one, the normal attack felt completely outclassed by the stomp immediately upon unlocking it. Maybe this was because I played on hard mode, but the normal attack quickly started taking upwards of 10-20 shots just to kill enemies on the main path, even after unlocking the spirit flame strength and quantity upgrades. Meanwhile, the stomp kills just about everything (in a fairly generous radius) right when you unlock it in just a couple hits- while also reflecting all enemy projectiles. It also destroys ground mines even if you land straight on top of them, making almost all enemies helpless if you can safely stomp near them. On top of all that, it also more often than not flips enemies over or staggers them so they are helpless for a few seconds, which is yet another benefit stomping has over using your main attack. So combat in the second half mostly amounts to reflecting projectiles back at enemies with bash and stomping repeatedly as soon as something gets close to you. To be fair though, it’s not that different from the early game combat which is also super mashy- just with spirit flame mashing instead of stomp mashing.

Secondly, the balance of resource management felt pretty weak throughout as well. I will say that I really do enjoy the spirit cell system which makes saving/healing and charge/dash attacks run off of the same currency as one another. It seemed bizarre at first but it actually works pretty well in practicality. It serves as a simple yet effective trade-off between offense and defense. You can save whenever you have energy, but if you’re confident enough, you can sacrifice the checkpoint for an additional powerful attack or two. However, early in the game I found myself constantly depleted of spirit cells, while in the endgame I had more than I knew what to do with.

The low point of the game for me was definitely the ice/wind temple since it doesn’t focus much on what makes the game feel so good to move and explore within. It mainly focuses on a weird gravity mechanic which slows your movement to a crawl, inverts your controls, and wasn’t taught through gameplay as well as it probably could’ve been. At that point in my playthrough I'd unlocked the portable light ball/bash combo so I was able to bypass the first half of the temple without paying much thought to gravity manipulation. But then all of a sudden, it expected me to use the gravity manipulation mechanic in a fairly sophisticated way and I had no idea what it wanted from me for a good 20 minutes before I stumbled upon the solution. An easy fix would’ve been to ban the portable light ball during the temple since it isn’t even used otherwise, so I wish they’d done that to avoid the possibility of confusion altogether. It also ends with a frustrating chase sequence which consists almost entirely of memorizing falling icicles and rocks- the latter of which instakilled me several times despite having 9 hp orbs at that point.

On the other hand, the fire temple which immediately followed was the highlight of the entire game for me. Not just because it’s your main opportunity to put all the tools you’ve collected to the test and implement them in tandem with one another. But also because it just felt a lot meatier, more substantive, than the first two temples (the first temple is also fine tho). It has like eight different sub areas that affect your exploration of the main area upon completion. More importantly though, it’s gimmick free and provides a challenge that is almost entirely platforming-centric.

The chase sequence is better in the fire temple too, though it had WAY too much screen shake. I get that it’s there to add impact and visual weight to the climactic encounter with Kuro, but at a certain point, it just becomes nauseating and distracting. I was also expecting it to go a fair while longer than it did, since it’s the very final challenge of the game. But it kinda just ended up being another short little trial like the prior two.I’m cool with the game not having boss battles or anything like that, but I definitely felt like the last chase sequence should’ve been multi-tiered or something. Oh well.

I won’t go much into narrative since I don’t really care about narrative one way or the other when it comes to 2D platformers or metroidvania. If it resonates with me, then cool. But if it fails to land for me, then there’s no foul either, really. The game’s opening cinematic is fairly impressive with the way it conveys emotion without any direct character dialogue (there is a narrator but tbh I didn’t feel like it added much for the scene and felt ultimately a bit unnecessary). However, I felt the emotion it captured was in large part due to the expressive animation and incredible score that accompanies it. Also, none of the story after the game starts properly did anything for me whatsoever. But again, that doesn’t really matter to me since it’s not why I’m playing this type of game to begin with.

While not the genre-defining experience I felt it probably could’ve been with some fairly minor changes, Ori and the Blind Forest is a very solid game. I didn’t really want to put it down from the moment I started, and once I unlocked the full range of movement, I pretty much played through the entire second half in one sitting. It may not have lived up to what I hoped it could’ve been, but it sets a great foundation for its sequel. So I’m pretty optimistic about seeing how it will further capitalize on the game’s cathartic sense of movement and exploration in the next entry.

Considering the popularity and longevity of Nippon Ichi’s Disgaea series, I found it pretty bizarre just how little info I could find on La Pucelle Tactics prior to playing. Even trying to gather a consensus on how the game is recieved today, never mind back at launch, was inconclusive. As a now 20 year old game as of last week, it seems as though La Pucelle has fallen into complete obscurity, even among dedicated JRPG fans. And after playing the game myself, I feel like that’s a real damn shame.

Those who see this game through to the end will find a cohesive and emotionally gripping SRPG. A deeply human narrative filled with lovable characters. A lively and unique medieval fantasy setting and aesthetic. A soundtrack that is among my favorites on the Playstation 2. And even beyond its tone and narrative lies even a surprisingly robust tactics combat system, the likes of which sets itself apart even from Disgaea itself in a few ways.

Above all else, I have to praise the game for doing a frankly wonderful job covering its vast breadth of subject matter, both narratively and thematically; from love and acceptance, to grief, trauma, revenge, and existentialism. All within a self-contained and impressively-concise package. Well, concise for better and for worse, for it certainly still left me wanting more. But that's not always a bad thing.

The best “sell” I could give for a comparison to La Pucelle Tactics, in terms of its tone and especially in its character writing, would be "Trails in the Sky FC but a standalone game". However, despite the lofty comparison, La Pucelle’s aim and overall appeal is far different from the massive, meticulously detailed and fleshed out world of the Kiseki series. The scope of the writing and world are far more measured, telling a complete and fully realized story in around 30 hours (plus, in typical Nippon Ichi fashion, hundreds of hours of additional gameplay to take on the absurd and otherworldly powerful superbosses- though this is of course optional). While I naturally grew more attached and invested in the world/cast of Kiseki, perhaps more so than any other game series I’ve played, that’s to be expected as it spanned over 1400 hours and 12 games.

La Pucelle isn't anywhere near as refined or extensive as Kiseki--or hell, even just Sky FC--in its script quality, narrative scope, or general depth. But very few things are even if they intend to work toward a similar effect--and that's fine. Not everything has to be, and La Pucelle knows this. In that sense, I very much appreciate La Pucelle's restraint, even if I do wish it went a bit harder on character study and better exploration of its supporting cast. But for La Pucelle to be charming and deep enough of an experience to merit that comparison, even despite having released TWO whole years (!) prior to Sky FC, is nothing short of amazing. Because of that status as a predecessor to both Disgaea (directly, but in a mechanical regard) and to Sky FC (indirectly, and in a narrative and stylistic regard), it was unquestionably ahead of its time. Hell, it even has dual audio options for the original release- something that was NOT industry standard at the time, let alone for some niche console SRPG. And thank god, cuz while the dub is... fine, the original voice cast--albeit with a fairly limited pool of recordings--is excellent.

Even in spite of La Pucelle's smaller scale and early 2002 release, this game still makes a monumental impression even twenty years after its release- primarily through its charm, its heart, and through the mechanical prowise of its strategy combat system.

La Pucelle is a game I would describe as both refreshingly and deceptively simple. The contradiction is best described this way: It’s refreshingly simple because of its extremely readable and charming script. Yet, it’s deceptively simple because its tone successfully veers into more serious and dramatic territory than one would expect. Its story and characters also have quite a strong ability to subvert expectations when compared to its (mainly Disgaea) successors. But like those successors, it possesses the same robust combat mechanics and progression system right out the gates- and even goes as far as having several gameplay elements unique to it alone.

I won’t make any definitive generalizations about the first four Disgaea games since I’ve only played Disgaea 5, and that was years ago. But from my understanding, much, if not all, of the Disgaea series is thoroughly lighthearted in tone. La Pucelle, while certainly possessing some of the charm and eccentricity of later Nippon Ichi titles, is a rather serious story from beginning to end. It leans further into dramatic territory as the game progresses, but even from the very first chapter of the game, La Pucelle does not shy away from some pretty fucked up subject matter for those who dig a bit deeper into the hidden lore and missables.

The game’s biggest strength, in my opinion, is it's incredibly fun and memorable cast of characters. By the end of the game, I found myself loving all six of the main protagonists, with Prier and Homard being my personal favorites. But even the supporting cast, such as Father Salade, Papillon, and Yattanya are all great and a lot of fun to watch. Although like I said, the game’s script length is definitely on the light side. But even in spite of the cutscenes being more sparse than I would’ve liked, I loved every moment of these characters coming together. Whether it be for lighthearted and whimsical adventure, for dramatic resolution, and everything in between. I loved discovering their unique circumstances, backstories, mannerisms, dreams, motivations, etc. Perhaps the outstanding character designs helped endear me to them, but I constantly found myself wanting even more interactions between the group. Watching the complete arc characters like Prier, Croix, Culotte, and Eclair undergo as they learn and grow through their own unique struggles is something I won’t forget anytime soon.

While the character writing is perhaps my favorite thing about the game, I think the world setting is the area I was personally most disappointed by. Thankfully it isn’t given much focus in the context of the narrative- and even then, it serves its purpose solidly enough. But there is very little in the way of exploring its various cities nor learning about certain points of interest in its history. There are definitely nuggets of info you can piece together about the world’s history, primarily through the flashback sequences, but it’s not as extensive as I would’ve liked.

In terms of the actually explorable setting, Pot Au Feu City was a great start. I adore it’s comfy vibe and the gorgeous theme “While Twinkling”. The soothing piano and strings bring back memories of Final Fantasy VIII’s “Balamb Garden” and the driving acoustic guitar immediately brought to mind Final Fantasy IX’s “Village of Dali”. I also really enjoyed exploring it initially because of its unique explorative presentation. Exploration is done on an entirely 2D plane, with several points where you can move in and out of the background/foreground. Maybe this style is more common than I’m giving it credit for, but I can’t think of a single other game, let alone another SRPG, where exploration is done from a purely side-scrolling perspective. It has a decent number of NPCs to converse with, a shop, the orphanage, an udon shop, and the Church of the Holy Maiden. The town definitely isn’t anything too sizable, but it’s cozy and a fun setting to wander around in for a bit. Unfortunately, this ends up basically being the central hub for the entire game- especially during the beginning and ending. There are no other towns in the game that reach this size, with the only other couple areas you can explore only being a couple screens long horizontally. This is definitely the area in which the game feels cheapest and most half-baked.

The narrative also falls victim to this feeling of being a bit half-baked around the middle third. Chapter 9 felt particularly rushed, which was made more apparent because it contains one of the more intense plot developments in the entire game leading up to this point. It essentially boils down to one mandatory boss fight and one “cutscene” fight afterwards. These may be really unique and emotionally poignant fights that more than serve their purpose and generate plenty of hype, but the chapter as a whole ends far too quickly. Again, the town that this chapter takes place in felt rather slapdash as well. There wasn’t much exposition, much less rudimentary worldbuilding and setup, as to what the town or its villagers are even like. It does set up several important plot points for later on, but in the moment it comes across as fairly disappointing. The basic skeleton of the narrative also feels pretty spoonfed at times. Certain details and foreshadowing is given frequently and somewhat blatantly given how barebones the script already is. Don’t get me wrong, it clearly wants you to figure out certain plot beats before the characters themselves do, but it does feel a bit in-your-face for my liking at times.

While these gripes about the plot and worldbuilding sound like somewhat major complaints, they weren’t anything I found myself being frustrated with. Especially given that the areas in which the game primarily focuses, that being its character writing and deep SRPG gameplay, more than make up for these areas which would otherwise feel far more lacking were that not the case. I’ve already covered the game’s characters, but the gameplay of La Pucelle really surprised me. Nippon Ichi absolutely nails its signature rich and engaging SRPG combat right out the gates on their first attempt.

I could go on for hours about every little facet of what made La Pucelle’s combat, from monster collecting to skill progression, so goddamn satisfying. For example, the freedom of customization and character building that is achieved through its skill learning system. It’s a deeply satisfying skill progression system that’ll feel right at home for those familiar with Final Fantasy IX’s weapon ability learning. Another would be how the dungeons have a sense of physicality since they are actually stitched together by “exit screens” which essentially turn maps into one long dungeon. This was a feature I really appreciated as someone who often finds the abstract nature of SRPG grids and map screens to really take me out of the experience; since they often make combat feel like it’s taking place in some square void. But for the sake of time, I’ll focus on a few of the specific areas I think La Pucelle nails with its gameplay most of all. The main area of which is in its “passive” or “unspoken” gameplay mechanics. In other words, its mechanics which aren’t explicitly outlined or detailed in tutorials, and are instead learned simply through playing the game and becoming familiar with how combat plays out in practicality.

The area which immediately comes to mind for La Pucelle’s “passive” mechanics involve the game’s freedom of movement. This might sound like a weird compliment to give an SRPG since movement is bound to a grid. But the way this game handles movement is unique in a really logical and awesome way. This freedom of movement is mainly accomplished through two distinct yet similar “passive” mechanics: which I’ll refer to as the “movement canceling” mechanic and “movement refreshing” mechanic from here on.

“Movement Canceling” is essentially the game’s permission to allow you to move your characters, have another character interact with them, and still allow that initial character’s movement to be canceled and for them to be moved again elsewhere. The initial character can be buffed, healed, they can change elemental portal directions, etc. This mechanic essentially gives you twice the range and distance of movement in order to perform actions with another far away character, while still allowing you to perform a “pseudo-action” in the process (a pseudo-action basically being any action listed above or anything else that isn’t attacking/casting/using items). Once this “pseudo-action” is performed, the movement can be canceled while still retaining the effects of the pseudo-actions which played out in the interim. It sounds fairly complicated when written out and explained, but it quickly becomes a natural extension of your toolkit once you get your footing with the game’s combat system. I ended up using the mechanic to my advantage in every single battle- and far more often in the 10 or so hours which lead up to the game’s ending.

“Movement Refreshing” is another useful and interesting “passive” mechanic. In La Pucelle, units are summoned from a starting “summon tile” one at a time. You can also deposit a summoned unit back into the game’s “summon tile” at any time- given you can reach it with your available movement squares. After depositing an active unit, you can summon them again on the same turn and be given another full turn’s worth of movement squares. Additionally, once the initial unit is deposited, you can swap that unit for any other inactive character and have them move the remainder of their given movement squares. This means in the many scenarios you’d like to close the distance between you and an enemy AND swap to a different character in the process, you can do both in just one turn. This is especially useful for turn optimization if the initial unit is running low on HP/MP, is poisoned, is at a stat/elemental disadvantage for the nearby enemy, etc.

While not directly similar to either of these passive movement mechanics, there is another similar mechanic where you can use adjacent units to attack during another unit’s battle phase, while still preserving the initial unit’s action command (e.g. they can still cast a spell, change equipment, etc). Additionally, it’s worth noting that the “movement canceling” mechanic and this passive attacking mechanic are not integrated with one another in the same way “pseudo-actions” interact positively with “movement canceling”. In other words, you cannot cancel your movement after engaging in battle with an adjacent unit in the same way you can with a similar other “pseudo-action”. This seemingly arbitrary restriction actually saves the game’s balance from being easily broken when you think about it. If you could “movement cancel” a unit’s position after participating in an adjacent unit’s attacks, they could attack upwards of seven or eight times in a single turn if all your other units are close to that initial unit. Which, of course, would be a serious abuse of both systems in tandem. However, if positioned near an enemy correctly, this adjacent attacking mechanic can be utilized to allow your stronger units to perform two actions in one turn- one as a supporting member of an adjacent unit’s battle phase, and one where they are the main attacker/spellcaster/item user. I really can’t stress just how much I appreciate that even “unnamed” or “passive” aspects of La Pucelle’s combat like this were given proper consideration when it comes to combat balancing. It does wonders for preserving the game’s challenge and sense of strategy, rather than allowing you to break the game’s mechanics over your knee without engaging with them whatsoever.

Keep in mind these are just the “unnamed” combat mechanics present in La Pucelle. There is also the “named” purification mechanics, the elemental portal and positioning mechanics, the monster collecting, the weapon element mechanics… You get the point. There is a ton of strategic depth here for you to sink your teeth into. Plus with the Dark World areas and post-game dungeons, there is more than enough content here to challenge yourself to master each and every one of these mechanics as little or as much as you’d like.

I think I’ve rambled long enough to get my points across. La Pucelle Tactics is easily one of my favorite JRPGs, let alone favorite strategy games. It’s a surprisingly unpopular entry in the long-running Nippon Ichi catalog that I think deserves much more modern attention than it gets at the current time. Hopefully that can be rectified with a re-release of either version through Nippon Ichi’s new “Prinny Presents: NIS Classics” collections, which have recently served as modern console re-releases for other older Nippon Ichi titles such as Soul Nomad and Phantom Brave. Either way though, I couldn’t be happier with the time I put into this game, personally. Whether it be watching the cast interact and grow as people, grinding and collecting new and unique monster allies, or pushing its rich SRPG combat and character progression systems to their limits, I loved every second. La Pucelle Tactics is without question one of my personal favorite games ever.