RoyalGhost
2015
It's incredible. You don't have to be weird about it. And like, be weird and enjoy it but you know what I mean. I'm glad it's not 2016 anymore I guess. There are lots of really good rpgs. People should play more of them. Toby Fox is very upfront about his influences and I think they are games that are at least as good as this one.
Anyway, this game is absolutely worth playing. It is very short and quite well written. The music completely owns and I think remains my favourite part about it.
Anyway, this game is absolutely worth playing. It is very short and quite well written. The music completely owns and I think remains my favourite part about it.
Beat this game like three times. It's one of my favourites ever. There is a lot of writing about this game out there from people far more eloquent than me you can read about. This is a game chances are you already have an opinion about anyway.
It's just very free. The systems interact in a delightful way nothing else has been able to hit for me. The Master Quest version really pushed me to play creatively. All timer.
It's just very free. The systems interact in a delightful way nothing else has been able to hit for me. The Master Quest version really pushed me to play creatively. All timer.
2023
Can't believe they made a bad main entry Final Fantasy, but here we are. What a load of dogshit. I hated this game so much that I started playing every Final Fantasy from 1 in response to it. I am currently half way through 6 and having a delightful time. Square-Enix please make jrpgs I'm begging you.
The Abnormal Mapping podcast episode on it sums up why far better than I ever could.
The Abnormal Mapping podcast episode on it sums up why far better than I ever could.
1996
It's Mario 64. If you're not giving this five stars I am silently judging you. Probably loudly judging you too, you child
1994
Wonderful time. If you can't enjoy this I don't want to know you.
1999
The year was 1999 and Square-Enix had all the money and momentum in the world. God what a game.
2017
It's just not great. It's still a Yakuza game. I dunno why I think the Dragon Engine just feels bad here. It's strange to me because Yakuza 6 came first, you'd think the combat would be better in Kiwami 2 but it just isn't. This is the result of a breakneck development pace. It's wild how long they were putting out a game pretty much every year.
The story is not bad, exactly. Kaoru is cool, The Dragon of Kansai is an exciting thing to stack up against Kiryu. The drama is compelling and well rendered.
Unfortunately for me, Yakuza's politics tend toward conservative and that shows up all the time. There's a pretty passively racist attitude toward non-Japanese asian folks that is all throughout these games, and Yakuza 2 really steps in it because it's a major plot point lol. If you can deal with this caveat, you might find something you enjoy here still. I did.
I'm harsh in my criticism of it, because it's bearing a lot of the sins of the franchise along with 6 for me but it's not a bad game.
The story is not bad, exactly. Kaoru is cool, The Dragon of Kansai is an exciting thing to stack up against Kiryu. The drama is compelling and well rendered.
Unfortunately for me, Yakuza's politics tend toward conservative and that shows up all the time. There's a pretty passively racist attitude toward non-Japanese asian folks that is all throughout these games, and Yakuza 2 really steps in it because it's a major plot point lol. If you can deal with this caveat, you might find something you enjoy here still. I did.
I'm harsh in my criticism of it, because it's bearing a lot of the sins of the franchise along with 6 for me but it's not a bad game.
It's fine. It's not botw and the writing is actively terrible to downright offensive. Too much going on the loop feels perfunctory and all of the wonder is gone. Didn't finish doubt I'll go back. I didn't dislike it but I push back hard on the way people talk about it.
2005
One of the best jrpgs ever made in my estimation. Radiata Stories is tri-ace's standalone game that is in conversation with the genre as a whole in 2005. With mechanics inspired by the Tales of Series, Suikoden, and of course Tri-ace's own library, Radiata Stories is a very interesting game.
The story focuses on a young man (Jack Russel lol) whose father was the strongest Knight for the Imperial hegemony and a young woman who is the heir of a highly distinguished noble family. While working in a squad, the woman (Ridley Silverlake) is badly injured and the squad is forcibly disbanded in retaliation by the girls father. The captain (Ganz Rothschild) and Jack are disgraced and forced to leave the knights. This is where the game truly starts.
A core mechanic of Radiata Stories is that the world is persistent and the NPCs have lives. They move around on their own schedule and many of them, I can't remember if all of them, are recruitable!
When forced out of the army, Jack and Ganz attempt to get a job with the local mercenary guild. They take Jack and not Ganz, and the two separate. The rest of the game revolves around recruiting folks to go adventuring with, and the main plot.
The Main plots got multiple paths, and ultimately the story becomes about Imperialism vs indigenous populations. There is more going on with Ridley than at first glance, when she nearly dies earlier in the game the method of saving her changes her nature fundamentally.
Huge spoilers but by the end of the game you're either siding with the humans or the non humans. This game doesn't really pull punches about it either.
Highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a good rpg that's a bit slept on.
The story focuses on a young man (Jack Russel lol) whose father was the strongest Knight for the Imperial hegemony and a young woman who is the heir of a highly distinguished noble family. While working in a squad, the woman (Ridley Silverlake) is badly injured and the squad is forcibly disbanded in retaliation by the girls father. The captain (Ganz Rothschild) and Jack are disgraced and forced to leave the knights. This is where the game truly starts.
A core mechanic of Radiata Stories is that the world is persistent and the NPCs have lives. They move around on their own schedule and many of them, I can't remember if all of them, are recruitable!
When forced out of the army, Jack and Ganz attempt to get a job with the local mercenary guild. They take Jack and not Ganz, and the two separate. The rest of the game revolves around recruiting folks to go adventuring with, and the main plot.
The Main plots got multiple paths, and ultimately the story becomes about Imperialism vs indigenous populations. There is more going on with Ridley than at first glance, when she nearly dies earlier in the game the method of saving her changes her nature fundamentally.
Huge spoilers but by the end of the game you're either siding with the humans or the non humans. This game doesn't really pull punches about it either.
Highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a good rpg that's a bit slept on.
This game is pretty good. Estelle is an all time jrpg protagonist to me already. While the writing is very.. 00s anime, overall I think it works. The strongest thing about it is definitely it's characters. Do yourself a favour and mod the Japanese voices in, the performances are all very good. The combat really doesn't get interesting until pretty late in the game but there is a good system here. Excited to play the next two Sky games.
2018
One of my favourite rogue likes for sure. Extremely tight and fun gameplay, charming characters, good writing, beautiful art. I have spent many hours playing this game on two different platforms. Still fun to do a run now and again.
2001
This is my favourite game of all time. There's really no question. A combination of hitting me at an age where it was massively influential to my taste and just being an incredible game on its own.
It's beautiful and tragic and vibrant. It's the pinnacle of Squaresoft as a developer right at the end of a decade of straight bangers. Every time I return to this game I have a wonderful time. It just makes me happy.
It's beautiful and tragic and vibrant. It's the pinnacle of Squaresoft as a developer right at the end of a decade of straight bangers. Every time I return to this game I have a wonderful time. It just makes me happy.
1990
GAME OF GAMES IT'S SUPER MARIO WORLD STAND UP, SIT DOWN CHILDREN. MARIO'S TAKIN YOU TO SCHOOL
2008
Superior version of Persona 4. Persona 4 remains my favourite Persona game.
Note: I agree with the majority of criticism about this game. There's a 1 star review not too long before this one and they're right damn it. It's hard to hold these two thoughts in my head but sometimes your feelings about a thing are complicated.
Note: I agree with the majority of criticism about this game. There's a 1 star review not too long before this one and they're right damn it. It's hard to hold these two thoughts in my head but sometimes your feelings about a thing are complicated.
This is an excellent game! Trails in the Sky SC is such a massive step up mechanically from the first game, while still largely just being an extension of it. The story is pretty regular anime stuff; honestly a lot of themes and the way Estelle affects the world around her is very Naruto-esque (positive).
The world is full of great npcs and constantly updating bits of dialogue that go such a long way in making me care about each of the towns. Estelle Bright continues to be a delightful main character and the way she interacts with the world and build relationships with people is like the driving reason to play this game I think.
Not really holding this against it but this game is ridiculously long. Tooooo long. Clear data is like 122 hours or something and I was not leaving it on without playing much. I'll admit I don't play games the fastest or anything though. It's also one of the more difficult rpgs I've played, at least in the back like third of it.
I think it's mostly balanced really well, the story's fun anime melodrama you don't need to think too much about. I really like the resource managing in this one a lot more than I did in the first game. I'm very interested to see what they do in Sky 3.
The world is full of great npcs and constantly updating bits of dialogue that go such a long way in making me care about each of the towns. Estelle Bright continues to be a delightful main character and the way she interacts with the world and build relationships with people is like the driving reason to play this game I think.
Not really holding this against it but this game is ridiculously long. Tooooo long. Clear data is like 122 hours or something and I was not leaving it on without playing much. I'll admit I don't play games the fastest or anything though. It's also one of the more difficult rpgs I've played, at least in the back like third of it.
I think it's mostly balanced really well, the story's fun anime melodrama you don't need to think too much about. I really like the resource managing in this one a lot more than I did in the first game. I'm very interested to see what they do in Sky 3.