Umu
67 reviews liked by Umu
It is hard to express all of my issues with this game.
Let me start that the majority of this game is like a huge step back from its predecessors. Ar Tonelico II is still one of my favorite games of all time, so it was hard to live up to it as a sequel. I never expected it to be perfect, I just want to have a solid game that could wrap up the trilogy.
What I got was a smaller cast which is somehow worse developed than the big one in Ar Tonelico II, and my favorite character didn't even originate from this game. Aoto is a horrible main character fit for the series, both Lyner and Croix were very understanding even if the former was a bit stupid. Aoto is the total opposite where he is kind of rude, and usually does things his way even while entering the girls’ cosmosphere. I still can’t get over the fact where a girl did her trauma dump in her cosmosphere and Aoto responded with: “Idiot, If I knew you had a traumatic past, I wouldn’t have constantly bullied you.”. Is that really you should be saying to a girl who already felt at her lowest point?
Speaking of the girls, they added a new kind of gimmick to them which in the end didn’t make them any more complex than the girls in the first game? A cool thing that Ar Tonelico II did to improve over the first game, was making the girl you didn’t pick in the split still plot relevant throughout the game. So even though I couldn’t go past their cosmosphere after a certain point, I still feel like I didn’t miss out on too much, because in the end the two main girls are going through their own personal struggle together. Now, that whole thing isn’t present in Ar Tonelico III. It just felt off that the two main girls were lacking and didn’t even try to do something like in AT2. And on the topic of reyvateils, holy shit did they butcher the whole gameplay system around them. In battle you just charge one song, you don’t get any new songs and you just spend the whole fight building this one song just to one-shot everything. No strategy of healing to a Healing Song if your party is low (healing comes from a regen of the singular song you are charging), or no buffs etc.
Speaking of the battle system, I will keep it short. It is once again, a straight up downgrade from both the first two games. I already talked about the songs, but the combat from the vanguards are not any better either. It is a super dumbed down version of Tales of combat with a weird “rhythm” like mechanic and no resemblance of combos, it never felt satisfying and didn’t evolve how the game could use its reyvateils in any way.
But wait, what about the plot? Let me tell you that the entire game is back loaded. On top of everything just happening fast in this game, it just doesn’t feel satisfying most of the time. Things just do not get built up well, and the moments are over before you realize. This game has plenty of Hymns, but for some reason, 90% of them are all in the LAST STRETCH OF THE GAME. They just happen at a fast and constant pace and songs like COSMOFLIPS didn’t feel earned when played despite the song being amazing. It doesn’t apply to all of the songs, but the fact that it happened annoys me. I never had this problem in the other two games.
I think the soundtrack is pretty nice, a bit of a unique choice as it is more of a silly style than the others though. I think it is very cool that the normal battle theme has a LOT of variations and I have to give the game huge credits for managing to make it work. But it is very unfortunate that the game somehow doesn’t have boss themes? The first game had a stupidly amount of boss themes, which made things fresh. The sequel had technically two, one for the main story and the other one for IPD battles, but despite the former getting repetitive at least you felt the battle was different. Ar Tonelico III does not, which I would be fine with, but with the fact most of the hymns were back loaded at the final part of the game annoyed me.
The game didn’t have to be better than Ar Tonelico II, but it makes me very sad and annoyed that it ended up as something that left me empty. The game had some cool stuff and I like a lot of the concepts, but it is hard to look back at it from a good light. Most of my enjoyment came from the stuff and characters that were specifically set up in Ar Tonelico II.
If you have a PS3 and a copy (emulator is unplayable), go ahead and try it for yourself. Maybe you will get more out of it than I did, but if you can’t acquire those things let me tell you that you didn’t miss much if you fully enjoyed your time with Ar Tonelico II. Go continue the series with Ciel Nosurge by watching a youtube playlist of that one followed up by Ar Nosurge (which you can actually emulate)
Let me start that the majority of this game is like a huge step back from its predecessors. Ar Tonelico II is still one of my favorite games of all time, so it was hard to live up to it as a sequel. I never expected it to be perfect, I just want to have a solid game that could wrap up the trilogy.
What I got was a smaller cast which is somehow worse developed than the big one in Ar Tonelico II, and my favorite character didn't even originate from this game. Aoto is a horrible main character fit for the series, both Lyner and Croix were very understanding even if the former was a bit stupid. Aoto is the total opposite where he is kind of rude, and usually does things his way even while entering the girls’ cosmosphere. I still can’t get over the fact where a girl did her trauma dump in her cosmosphere and Aoto responded with: “Idiot, If I knew you had a traumatic past, I wouldn’t have constantly bullied you.”. Is that really you should be saying to a girl who already felt at her lowest point?
Speaking of the girls, they added a new kind of gimmick to them which in the end didn’t make them any more complex than the girls in the first game? A cool thing that Ar Tonelico II did to improve over the first game, was making the girl you didn’t pick in the split still plot relevant throughout the game. So even though I couldn’t go past their cosmosphere after a certain point, I still feel like I didn’t miss out on too much, because in the end the two main girls are going through their own personal struggle together. Now, that whole thing isn’t present in Ar Tonelico III. It just felt off that the two main girls were lacking and didn’t even try to do something like in AT2. And on the topic of reyvateils, holy shit did they butcher the whole gameplay system around them. In battle you just charge one song, you don’t get any new songs and you just spend the whole fight building this one song just to one-shot everything. No strategy of healing to a Healing Song if your party is low (healing comes from a regen of the singular song you are charging), or no buffs etc.
Speaking of the battle system, I will keep it short. It is once again, a straight up downgrade from both the first two games. I already talked about the songs, but the combat from the vanguards are not any better either. It is a super dumbed down version of Tales of combat with a weird “rhythm” like mechanic and no resemblance of combos, it never felt satisfying and didn’t evolve how the game could use its reyvateils in any way.
But wait, what about the plot? Let me tell you that the entire game is back loaded. On top of everything just happening fast in this game, it just doesn’t feel satisfying most of the time. Things just do not get built up well, and the moments are over before you realize. This game has plenty of Hymns, but for some reason, 90% of them are all in the LAST STRETCH OF THE GAME. They just happen at a fast and constant pace and songs like COSMOFLIPS didn’t feel earned when played despite the song being amazing. It doesn’t apply to all of the songs, but the fact that it happened annoys me. I never had this problem in the other two games.
I think the soundtrack is pretty nice, a bit of a unique choice as it is more of a silly style than the others though. I think it is very cool that the normal battle theme has a LOT of variations and I have to give the game huge credits for managing to make it work. But it is very unfortunate that the game somehow doesn’t have boss themes? The first game had a stupidly amount of boss themes, which made things fresh. The sequel had technically two, one for the main story and the other one for IPD battles, but despite the former getting repetitive at least you felt the battle was different. Ar Tonelico III does not, which I would be fine with, but with the fact most of the hymns were back loaded at the final part of the game annoyed me.
The game didn’t have to be better than Ar Tonelico II, but it makes me very sad and annoyed that it ended up as something that left me empty. The game had some cool stuff and I like a lot of the concepts, but it is hard to look back at it from a good light. Most of my enjoyment came from the stuff and characters that were specifically set up in Ar Tonelico II.
If you have a PS3 and a copy (emulator is unplayable), go ahead and try it for yourself. Maybe you will get more out of it than I did, but if you can’t acquire those things let me tell you that you didn’t miss much if you fully enjoyed your time with Ar Tonelico II. Go continue the series with Ciel Nosurge by watching a youtube playlist of that one followed up by Ar Nosurge (which you can actually emulate)
Baldur's Gate 3
2020
This game genuinely feels like you just walked out of a session with one of the best DM's you've ever met.
The amount of options you have is incredible, and the creativity available to you with which you can approach combat situations (or avoid them entirely with a silver tongue!) just keeps blowing me away.
Act 2 is where this game really started to grow on me, where (if I recall correctly, atleast!) you can avoid literally every single optional boss through doing dialogue properly in some RIDICULOUSLY unique ways. It's so much fun, and it's the major reason it feels like such an authentic and fantastic DnD experience; it really just feels like a DM playing along with the astoundingly bizarre ways you're trying to dodge rough fights.
I could go on for hours about what I love about this game dude, oh my god. The world's gorgeous and ridiculously alive, the cast is FANTASTIC and the writing is, as a result, such a treat.
Gameplay's really solid and grounded; beautiful adaption of 5E in that regard, and the soundtrack is absolutely beautiful too.
I wanna go a bit more in depth about the cast especially because, god dude. They're so good. I love ALL these goobers. Some of em are definitely coarse at first, but once you peel back the layers you start to realize why they are the way they are - and how they develop from that by spending time away from the toxic environments they're used to is wonderful.
Autonomy is the major means of doing so, and I appreciate the way that's handled so much. Shadowheart's my favorite example of this; sometimes things will straight up get worse if you butt in too much and start guiding her in choices she has to make.
You gotta depend on your allies, trust them to do the right thing - and in doing so, you'll realize they've come a long, long way since the start of their journey. It's so fucking good. Genuinely so proud of their development, it's all really satisfying.
There's still some flaws here and there - Act 3 can definitely get a bit buggy at times, but with how ridiculously expansive this game is that's honestly to be expected, and with how ridiculously fun this game is it hardly impacted my enjoyment at all despite some surprisingly big ramifications on my playthrough.
I've heard critiques about how the ending is a bit slim, but if you've properly followed a character's arc through their personal quests and camp dialogue you've got more than enough of an idea of how they'll deal with the aftermath, so I didn't really feel like it had to be anything bombastic. It works just fine with everything you know at that point, IMO!
I'm already thinking of what I want to do in my second playthrough. There's SO much possible divergences from my first playthrough, and so many checks to hopefully not fail this time. And I don't think I'll be getting tired of it anytime soon!
The amount of options you have is incredible, and the creativity available to you with which you can approach combat situations (or avoid them entirely with a silver tongue!) just keeps blowing me away.
Act 2 is where this game really started to grow on me, where (if I recall correctly, atleast!) you can avoid literally every single optional boss through doing dialogue properly in some RIDICULOUSLY unique ways. It's so much fun, and it's the major reason it feels like such an authentic and fantastic DnD experience; it really just feels like a DM playing along with the astoundingly bizarre ways you're trying to dodge rough fights.
I could go on for hours about what I love about this game dude, oh my god. The world's gorgeous and ridiculously alive, the cast is FANTASTIC and the writing is, as a result, such a treat.
Gameplay's really solid and grounded; beautiful adaption of 5E in that regard, and the soundtrack is absolutely beautiful too.
I wanna go a bit more in depth about the cast especially because, god dude. They're so good. I love ALL these goobers. Some of em are definitely coarse at first, but once you peel back the layers you start to realize why they are the way they are - and how they develop from that by spending time away from the toxic environments they're used to is wonderful.
Autonomy is the major means of doing so, and I appreciate the way that's handled so much. Shadowheart's my favorite example of this; sometimes things will straight up get worse if you butt in too much and start guiding her in choices she has to make.
You gotta depend on your allies, trust them to do the right thing - and in doing so, you'll realize they've come a long, long way since the start of their journey. It's so fucking good. Genuinely so proud of their development, it's all really satisfying.
There's still some flaws here and there - Act 3 can definitely get a bit buggy at times, but with how ridiculously expansive this game is that's honestly to be expected, and with how ridiculously fun this game is it hardly impacted my enjoyment at all despite some surprisingly big ramifications on my playthrough.
I've heard critiques about how the ending is a bit slim, but if you've properly followed a character's arc through their personal quests and camp dialogue you've got more than enough of an idea of how they'll deal with the aftermath, so I didn't really feel like it had to be anything bombastic. It works just fine with everything you know at that point, IMO!
I'm already thinking of what I want to do in my second playthrough. There's SO much possible divergences from my first playthrough, and so many checks to hopefully not fail this time. And I don't think I'll be getting tired of it anytime soon!
Baldur's Gate 3
2020
I haven't the words to express how much I adore this game
It's an accomplishment I can't wrap my head around still, even at the end of my first playthrough. How a game like this even exists is beyond me, it hits ever mark all around and I couldn't ask for me
There's a lot I could go on about when it comes to its game design and how the gameplay develops but, as much as I adore it, those are not always the reason why I play games
My focus always lies on story and characters, and there's no shortage of that here
The campaign itself is amazing and has room to express so much personality in how you approach the story, but what takes the gold for me is the cast, your party members
I adore every single one of them, to the point where if you asked me to pick a favorite I would break down crying instead of answering. The way their inner conflicts align with the plot and how their development is present is just, incredible. and I'm glad to say it never falls off in the slightest all up until the end.
Completely and utterly enamored, already planning like three more characters and I don't think I'll stop playing it any time soon
It's an accomplishment I can't wrap my head around still, even at the end of my first playthrough. How a game like this even exists is beyond me, it hits ever mark all around and I couldn't ask for me
There's a lot I could go on about when it comes to its game design and how the gameplay develops but, as much as I adore it, those are not always the reason why I play games
My focus always lies on story and characters, and there's no shortage of that here
The campaign itself is amazing and has room to express so much personality in how you approach the story, but what takes the gold for me is the cast, your party members
I adore every single one of them, to the point where if you asked me to pick a favorite I would break down crying instead of answering. The way their inner conflicts align with the plot and how their development is present is just, incredible. and I'm glad to say it never falls off in the slightest all up until the end.
Completely and utterly enamored, already planning like three more characters and I don't think I'll stop playing it any time soon
Limbus Company
2023
Imagine writing a whole two-game character arc that's a ridiculously potent metaphor for the personhood of women under capitalism with Angela only to turn around and fire an artist of yours the moment you get criticised for the most nonsensical shit. Absolutely spineless.
Limbus Company
2023
Throwing an employee's career to the wolves to appease radicals makes everything that PM has ever pretended to stand for completely hollow and the act of supporting them unconscionable. This is one of the absolute worst reversals I've ever seen in the industry and marks the moral death of the company wholesale.
I wish this game actually ended
I hope that I can write as beautifully and thematically powerful as Nasu does someday. Moved and resonated with me just like his other works have with me and I'm so happy to be able to read it after all this time.
This review contains spoilers
"All that matters is proving to myself that I am alive
I know that my life has no meaning, and that's why I can do anything"
I don't think any words of my own can encapsulate what this VN goes for, and what makes it so meaningful to me
Mahoyo is not only the greatest technical achievement I've seen in the medium, but also one of the most personal stories I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing
Exploring the sense of self is something that's extremely important to me, and the way this story goes about it is stellar. Every character in the main cast struggles with it in their own way, which on its own are already perfect, but where they shine is in how these struggles collide with each other and give room for growth between them
It's just beautiful, and very much affirming to see laid out this way.
I value media solely depending on how strong of a emotional reaction it gets out of me, and Mahoyo had me crying the hardest I've ever cried in the most mundane of scenarios, which in their mundanity validated how I feel about life and why it's worth it to keep going
I'm rambling at this point but, I just love it a lot
A whole fucking lot
Perfect story, I'm so glad I got to experience it
I know that my life has no meaning, and that's why I can do anything"
I don't think any words of my own can encapsulate what this VN goes for, and what makes it so meaningful to me
Mahoyo is not only the greatest technical achievement I've seen in the medium, but also one of the most personal stories I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing
Exploring the sense of self is something that's extremely important to me, and the way this story goes about it is stellar. Every character in the main cast struggles with it in their own way, which on its own are already perfect, but where they shine is in how these struggles collide with each other and give room for growth between them
It's just beautiful, and very much affirming to see laid out this way.
I value media solely depending on how strong of a emotional reaction it gets out of me, and Mahoyo had me crying the hardest I've ever cried in the most mundane of scenarios, which in their mundanity validated how I feel about life and why it's worth it to keep going
I'm rambling at this point but, I just love it a lot
A whole fucking lot
Perfect story, I'm so glad I got to experience it
The one Nasu VN I was completely blind on
Went in and I got character writing that spoke to me, I am a big fan of character interaction in the most natural/casual way possible. I feel like this VN did it perfectly, on top of the main cast being as excellent as they are.
On top of the "in between" the heavy action being really enjoyable, the action moments when they happen are engaging while giving me several emotions (looking at you Chapter 12).
Anyway, easily one of my favorite VNs. I think it made me realize how much I love this kind of structure in any media.
Went in and I got character writing that spoke to me, I am a big fan of character interaction in the most natural/casual way possible. I feel like this VN did it perfectly, on top of the main cast being as excellent as they are.
On top of the "in between" the heavy action being really enjoyable, the action moments when they happen are engaging while giving me several emotions (looking at you Chapter 12).
Anyway, easily one of my favorite VNs. I think it made me realize how much I love this kind of structure in any media.
Chained Echoes
2022
I soyjak pointed at like 10 different nods towards PSX/SNES JRPG's and even then I'm genuinely amazed at how well-crafted and unique it's world, story and characters are.
It's taken nothing but the best from it's inspirations and wears them on it's sleeve - and so it's an absolute blast to play through if you have any love for the genre whatsoever.
Gameplay's ridiculously good too, the Overdrive system keeps you on your toes and makes sure you don't just spam your strongest moves and I absolutely adore that it has a leveling system akin to Chrono Cross and gets rid of grinding entirely.
Just a really solid game on all fronts honestly, I absolutely loved it.
It's taken nothing but the best from it's inspirations and wears them on it's sleeve - and so it's an absolute blast to play through if you have any love for the genre whatsoever.
Gameplay's ridiculously good too, the Overdrive system keeps you on your toes and makes sure you don't just spam your strongest moves and I absolutely adore that it has a leveling system akin to Chrono Cross and gets rid of grinding entirely.
Just a really solid game on all fronts honestly, I absolutely loved it.
