Since I have not experienced a Final Fantasy title before VI, I thought to myself, "Why not experience the origins of this franchise that I love so dearly?" Fake fan, right? "JRPG" is my favorite genre and for the past year or so have been branching out to other franchises and origins of the beloved genre. Anyway, I am on spring break at the moment of publishing this review and bought the "Pixel Remaster" versions of I and II when they were on sale not too long ago.

After my fifteen hour journey, completing the bestiary and getting the platinum trophy, I found this entry to be really neat for what it is. Sure, it's a NES game pushing forty years old and the first game in the franchise, but it really has some neat stuff to it. Allowing you to pick four from six different classes at the beginning, in which I chose Fighter, Monk, Black Mage, and White Mage. I LOVED the Monk, which later upgrades to Master, because he hits hard and you do not need to invest any weapons in to him. The use of Magic in this game was quite interesting to say the least and was not a fan of it at first, but once everything opened up and I was able to learn higher level magic, it really clicked with me. I was fond, too, of spells like protect and saber that can stack and made certain encounters super easy. I like the range in which you can set up the different spells you want to use and are able to "forget" them in order to learn others that can prove to be more useful. The story is basic and that's fine because this a point in time when developers were realizing that video games can be used as a narrative rather than just focusing on gameplay. The journey is rather short and simple, but it's fine, and honestly a perfect palate cleanser after my one hundred plus hour grinds on Infinite Wealth, Persona 3 Reload, and Rebirth. I did not take advantage of any of the boosters until late game because I got absolutely destroyed by Warmech and the final boss. I believe I was around level fifty for everyone when I got to Chaos' fight. I did some grinding, turning the EXP booster up to max, as I tried to find that dang Warmech again and Iron Golem (this one thankfully took me only a little to find), and after pretty much reaching max level with everyone, took on Chaos and destroyed him.

I think that FFI is a great title for its time and while it was not as amazing to me as it may have been to those that experienced it at its birth, it really did a lot to set up the standard for the genre and spawn of the iconic franchise. However, I have Stranger of Paradise on hold, not sure why I never got around to finishing it, but I think I will appreciate it more when I get back to it and complete it with the experience of this game under my belt now.

I really can't believe I took as long as I did to play through this masterpiece. This game has left a huge impact on me and one of my standout experiences in 2023. One of the most unique stories in any of my JRPG experiences, a great and memorable cast, different, but fun combat system, and amazing OST ("Shevat -The Wind Calls-" always has me ascending, LOVE that track). The vocal theme puts me to tears, too, just like FFVIII's "Eyes On Me." Wasn't a fan of the platforming sections and obviously the localization is not the best by any means, but given the situation and time period, it does not take away from this amazing and one of a kind journey that we don't get anymore.

"Nintendo's Balan Wonderworld"

For a game so small and so simple, it feels odd having so much to say on it, but here we are. Nintendo has struggled to make Peach their own character for decades. There were a handful of games that came pretty close like the first 3 Paper Mario Games, Mario Odyssey, and, most related, Super Princess Peach. I have yet to play it, but the general consensus on that game is that it's "fine", but they were hoping Peach would get a game that would actually make use of her as her own character instead of making what can be somehow described as "2D Mario for Babies."

Well, here we are! This is that game! This is Peach's first solo game in 19 years and the first one that dares to make a unique gameplay style for her alone, similar to what they did with Luigi, Captain Toad, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and Wario. This has all of the makings of an incredibly successful game that would spawn its own dedicated spin-off series that would get a new game every once in a while. And yet... after playing this game, It's become apparent how little this game offers. But I'm getting ahead of myself as there is actually a fair amount of stuff to appreciate.

The game as a whole looks quite good. The cutscenes are incredibly well-polished, I love the new character and costume designs, I love the animations of Peach's moves in her costumes, and I love the stageplay theming and the little details done to make it pop like how the camera moves and how the stage props show up, it sells us on the bit here. There are a couple of technical issues with this game I'll get into later, but on a purely artistic level, this game is quite strong and manages to make a unique impression. I also really admire the ambition to, like I said at the top, give Peach their own type of game that fits her as a character. There truly is no game quite like this one in the Mario series.

But that seems to be where the good things kind of end for me, so let's start with some of the more minor issues and slowly build from there. To keep on topic, yes, the game from an art direction standpoint is incredibly strong... however, it's clear that this game is struggling on this ancient ass system because not only is the resolution, even in docked mode, weirdly low but there are a couple of moments where the game chugs down to comical levels. It's most noticeable in cutscenes, costume transformations, and some of the bosses near the end of the game. So that's not great, but to round out the aesthetic gripes I have with this game, I don't think I like the game's music all that much. None of it sounds as bad as say, Yoshi's Crafted World (keep this name in mind. It will be important later), but none of it really jumps out as all that good apart from a couple of songs in the Cowboy and Mighty Peach segments.

If you're wondering how the game is narratively for some reason, don't bother. The extent of the story is that you get trapped in a theater with some purple guys who make everyone depressed and you have to make everyone not depressed (See? Just like Balan! Like I said earlier!). There is one minor story beat that happens later that had me sit up for a second, but it's quickly reversed so that's great. Looove that. Now, don't get me wrong, I was not expecting this game to have a super deep story. But some people pre-launch were hoping at least for something small and comedic similar to the modern-day Paper Mario games, but it seems to be a bit closer to Mario Wonder in this regard. Nothing special, but it doesn't need to be. However, this flaw seems to compound when I talk about the other issues this game has.

Princess Peach Showtime, weirdly enough, doesn't feel all that fun to play. Which is weird coming from.. a Nintendo-published platformer? It's like.. usually the one thing they get right. Peach's controls are sluggish, janky, and imprecise at points. The controls somewhat improve with a couple of the costumes like swordfighter, but it never feels all that fun to use. The only costumes that I actually had a genuinely fun time playing with were the Dashing Thief and Mighty Peach. All of these different costumes control very simply and just feel like the watered-down abilities of characters from other games, it doesn't make me feel like I'm "powered up" it makes me feel like I'm caught up to where I should be. (See? Just like- wait.)

Also, if you were hoping for a single costume that would have its own dedicated section in the game that wasn't already shown in the game's numerous trailers, then I'm sorry to disappoint you, but apart from one you get at the very end, every single costume you get has been shown in the trailers. I guess this is the fault of the marketing, and I'd definitely take quality over quantity, and these are all distinct enough to where I couldn't think of too many more to add, but at least hide them!

This game is also PISS easy. Not like normal Nintendo Easy where the games are still engaging, like so easy it becomes boring easy, without any way of making the game any more difficult for yourself. Now, again, I didn't expect Peach to be a "hard" game, but I at least expected it to be on the level of something like Mario Wonder or Luigi's Mansion 3, which were also easy, but they were also fun and engaging. This game takes the easy scale so far in the other direction that it just isn't that rewarding. You get 5 hit points (or up to 8, if you want), combat arenas and puzzles are incredibly simple, and bosses never pose as a threat and can sometimes be defeated after a single round. The ones that drag are the ones that are less fun and the ones that start to be kind of fun and interesting end so incredibly quickly that I feel like I'm getting edged out of fun gameplay.

The result of all of this; the lack of any challenge throughout the game, the sluggishness of the controls, the mega-basic bosses, the fact that none of the costume mechanics have any depth, and the nature of this game having only a few levels per costume but them being weirdly long, makes this possibly the single most boring Nintendo Published switch game. There are a bunch of switch games I personally think are worse, and this game does have a couple of redeeming qualities, but when you are making a video game for entertainment, then it not being entertaining means it has failed its job. I was initially going to give it a middling 5/10, but the longer I thought about it, the more the game's sleep-inducing gameplay and lack of direction kinda made me sad.

Though, it's not all that surprising. Through data mines of the game's demo, we have found that the game was developed by Good-Feel, the creators of Kirby's Epic Yarn, Wario-Land Shake It, and the two most recent Yoshi games. I didn't really like Crafted World all that much either, but at least my expectations going into it were already on the floor and it was part of a series I lost any and all interest in. This is a brand-new game. And one, based on those data mines, we can tell has been in the works for a while. Its code name "PJ037" hints it started development in between Yoshi's Crafted World "PJ033" and Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn "PJ040". Seeing as how the latter was revealed in September of 2018 and the Switch dev kits released in 2016, I think I can safely assume that this game has been in development since 2017, which would have been a whole 7 years of development. When you play the game with this assumption in mind, you can easily see the cracks of a long and tumultuous game development cycle in nearly every corner of this game. It feels like a game that was born from the idea of "Hey! let's make a peach game!" and they didn't know exactly what they wanted that game to be so they just tried to sample a bunch of small and basic minigames to see what stuck. It lacks any kind of direction or any interesting elements aside from its stageplay theme and some creative designs. It feels like it was supposed to be so much more, or at least something different. Let's hope that whatever they plan to do with this series next, whether a sequel to this or a brand new thing, they come up with a more solid direction for the game to take.

Because, frankly, Peach deserves better than this.

Dropped at the two hour mark. I wouldn’t even say the game is even bad, just that it is really only made for children with how simple and easy it is. All you get is a jump, interact, and pose button, with all that the player just goes through each stage. Honestly the stages look really nice and you can tell there’s a lot of love and polish put into these, but there’s simply no challenge in just doing what the game tells you to do. There’s some element of exploration for the stars' shards, but even that can’t keep my attention. Competently made for what it is, but not something I’d ever recommend for anyone outside its target audience.

Tears of the Kingdom definitely improves upon the gameplay of BotW in terms of crafting and combat. And yet it falls flat on one very big aspect - the exploration.

My problem is not the map being reused here, I'm talking about the changes on how to traverse this map. TotK introduces a lot of (recycled) aerial islands which allow you to glide down to whatever location from the skies. It's cool in theory, but takes away the very core aspect of Breath of the Wild - exploring the map. You no longer need to climb mountains and horses are now completely useless in this game, all thanks to the new verticality introduced. Don't even get me started on the craftable Hoverbikes.

The novelty of the depths also wears off rather fast and navigating in the same dark caves just becomes a pain over time. They suffer from the same problem as the sky islands, they're too much of the same thing and thus come off as recycled and boring.

Despite those flaws, I still had a good time with the game. The cities are way more lively than in BotW and seeing what has changed over time is pretty cool. Hyrule still manages to feel fresh after spending many hours in the previous game. I also liked the new dungeons.

TL;DR: If you're a Zelda fan and liked BotW, you'll have a lot of fun with this game and the new spin on BotW's Hyrule. But don't just buy it for the sky islands and the depths or you'll be disappointed.

The game is very good, yes. You've heard all the positives by now anyways (in case you missed it, I'm talking about soundtrack, artstyle, characters, gameplay and level design), so I'm just gonna mention the small things that keep a very solid JRPG from being a 10/10 in my books.

The most apparent flaw in the game in my opinion is the pacing and how the story sometimes unnescessarily drags on just for the sake of padding the game's length. Sometimes the dialogue goes on for ages, just to resolve a matter that could've been solved in two or three sentences. Oh well.

Now the next issue is how the developers treat the Royal-only girl Kasumi Yoshizawa. Unlike many others, I don't believe that she feels shoehorned into the story and never overstays her welcome. Of course she's going to get screentime, but that's because she's one of the main additions to Royal and NEEDS that screentime to shine and stand out among the rest of the cast. Like I said, this wasn't an issue for me, but rather how they integrated her into the gameplay. I'm not going to spoil anything specific here, but I'll just say that she unfortunately joins very late in the story and you can't use her in your party any earlier. Really a weird choice if you advertise her so much, feels like Atlus just didn't bother enough to rewrite the story to include her earlier, since that would be very possible given the in-game circumstances.

With the main complaints out of the way, there isn't really a lot I could list as a negative. Atleast not enough for me to substract a whole star. As I mentioned in the beginning, the game is really good and the third semester in one of the best written arcs in the franchise, so I'd recommend anyone to play through this game atleast for one time - it doesn't matter if you've already played Persona 5 or never touched a JRPG in your life, the first playthrough of this game is magical and absolutely worth your time. Thanks for reading :)

Yakuza 6 was a turning point in the series in more than one way, so I felt the urge to express my thoughts on the game I've had for a while now.

This is the first entry made with the 'Dragon Engine', which also was used in the newer games of the series like Yakuza 7 or the Judgment duology. It's notable for the more fluid combat and ragdoll mechanics, but also introduced small changes like directly being able to walk into street fights without having to sit through the loading screens disguised as intros. I won't go too much in-depth about this, since the review is about the game and not the engine :p

Let's just say it feels very obvious that Yakuza 6 was the first game to run on the Dragon Engine, as the combat is really wonky and a lot of heat action moves from the previous games are just missing, even simpler ones. People love to meme about Yakuza 3 enemies blocking all of your attacks, but it's honestly almost as bad in 6. Not to mention that fighting groups of enemies at once in this game is a disaster, since they WILL stun you. Repeatedly. Very fun. Fortunately the combat in general was fixed in later games and Kiryu got a proper Dragon Engine moveset in Kiwami 2.

After complaining about the combat for a while now, it's time to name the strong aspect of Yakuza 6 - the story. It might be very divisive in some regards, but in my opinion it's one of the best stories in the franchise and has lots of well written and memorable characters. Without giving away too much, it feels reminiscent of Yakuza 3's story, but in a new light.

The side content in this game... exists. All substories in this game are voiced, but I only found a handful of them actually interesting and memorable. Substories are always a subjective topic so your experience with them might differ from mine. Some other new side activities include spearfishing (rail shooter), the gym (press some buttons) and the Clan Creator, which I won't go in-depth about because I personally hate that minigame. To put it short, you deploy troops in battles to take down other troops, paired with a pretty generic and boring side storyline.

In conclusion, Yakuza 6 has a great story, but suffers from the annoying early Dragon Engine combat and the side stuff is mediocre at best. Not the best game for a cohesive Yakuza experience, but still a good finale for the Kiryu Saga.

(Also it's locked to 30 FPS on consoles, just a heads up :p)