Vuvuzela
Audio is bad on Switch; particularly voices which are tinny af. Feels like they were up against the limit for storage size on the card and just cheaped out on compression and made all the voices just midi files or some garbage, and didn't want to include a free download/patch to make it sound good.
2001
So much more charm than some of the later ones--this iteration understood "coziness" in the right ways and made your villagers feel so much less generic than the newer ones.
I bought it on sale out of curiosity because I listened to people who insisted it was a game with great gameplay and I shouldn't be put off by all the schoolgirls with giant tits and how you strip them as part of the gameplay loop because softcore anime teen nudity wasn't the only reason to play it.
It does not have good gameplay.
It does not have good gameplay.
The Mario version is absurdly unforgiving in its difficulty, while the P&DZ part actually holds your hand and has a pretty reasonable difficulty curve. You'd expect the opposite, so that people new to the franchise who were lured in by the Mario tie-in would find it more accessible. Still a fun game and overall solid way to play a series that is otherwise primarily F2P.
So much better on the Switch since for whatever reason they made you run like 33% faster than on Wii U.
FUNKY MODE
Funny but they still haven't made the combat worth really engaging in as opposed to a punishment, bosses are obnoxiously long, and it generally goes on too long and is a little bit too-tuned toward early-childhood humor that's not as funny for an adult.
My friends and I got to vote pictures we took of each other with our 3DSes onto the megatron at Safeco Field. And I think we could see strike zone data for each at-bat too, long before they were making that nearly as available on the big screen? Shame it's retired now.
10/10
10/10
2024
Amazing game with a lot of combat depth. On lower difficulties, the game doesn't really force you to go TOO in-depth, but even on the standard difficulty the game definitely slowed down a LOT for me once I got past the first 3 areas just because there was so much to do with my units to organize and customize them as they got more skills and more AP/PP to use them. Unfortunately, you can kinda tell where they ran out of money (because Vanillaware) starting in the last main area, and the unfortunate lack of post-game shows it. But, at least there's some online PvP, even if you can only fight so many times per day.
That said, 2 legit flaws
1. While the character-writing is solid and way-less obnoxiously trope-y than Fire Emblem, especially the modern FE, the main character and his closest friends are utter cardboard. You can kinda forget how boring they are and get absorbed in the game, but come endgame the story sequences drag, being generic and predictable as possible.
2. Cavaliers not being the leaders of most of your units is almost always a mistake. Even when facing units that counter Cavs, they're still strong characters, and as leaders they're just twice as fast as any other unit. Which you can make up for with a skill that boosts movement speed, that makes the Cavs even just that much faster than the units that are on-foot. You don't really need to do this, but it's such a stupid advantage (especially with how it removes the time limit from ever being something you have to consider) and navigating the battle maps ends up feeling so slow without them. This removes a lot of the interesting decision-making around which character leads your units.
That said, 2 legit flaws
1. While the character-writing is solid and way-less obnoxiously trope-y than Fire Emblem, especially the modern FE, the main character and his closest friends are utter cardboard. You can kinda forget how boring they are and get absorbed in the game, but come endgame the story sequences drag, being generic and predictable as possible.
2. Cavaliers not being the leaders of most of your units is almost always a mistake. Even when facing units that counter Cavs, they're still strong characters, and as leaders they're just twice as fast as any other unit. Which you can make up for with a skill that boosts movement speed, that makes the Cavs even just that much faster than the units that are on-foot. You don't really need to do this, but it's such a stupid advantage (especially with how it removes the time limit from ever being something you have to consider) and navigating the battle maps ends up feeling so slow without them. This removes a lot of the interesting decision-making around which character leads your units.
2024
It has a good hook with the general vibe and mystery surrounding what's going on, and I love the creativity with the items and generally exploring is pretty fun. But while getting to the first ending is pretty reasonable, a pretty significant amount of the game's content works toward a true ending and is designed to be obtuse puzzles for the sake of being obtuse/for an audience that loves that sort of thing, and there's never really any payoff plot-wise--there's no big reveal that's going to explain the world. It's just a place that exists for you to do things in. Which, I mean it's not like the dev is obligated to have a greater meaning, but I think there's a substantial amount of mystique/mystery in the environment that serves as a hook here, so it's disappointing to never really see it addressed.
I think if you're someone that just wants a short, cute Metroidvania to explore and beat, this is probably a good bet for you once it gets to the $10 range on a sale. And then you can just play it through to the first ending and have gotten what you wanted. But so much of the "meat" of the game really comes down to gameplay that, for the vast majority of the audience, is just going to amount to "searching up a guide online and then crossing off a checklist as they go to place and press the right button to find a thing they never would've found there on their own." That is, unless you're a Metroidvania fan that wants to do things like comb over every inch of a game repeatedly for potential secrets hidden anywhere (even in the background), or figure out the correct way to decipher an extremely long sequence and the correct way/place to utilize the deciphered code, in which case, hey, this is going to be a 5/5 for you easily. But if that's not you, while the game is still good for a Metroidvania-lover, this game will not live up to the hype it has.
I think if you're someone that just wants a short, cute Metroidvania to explore and beat, this is probably a good bet for you once it gets to the $10 range on a sale. And then you can just play it through to the first ending and have gotten what you wanted. But so much of the "meat" of the game really comes down to gameplay that, for the vast majority of the audience, is just going to amount to "searching up a guide online and then crossing off a checklist as they go to place and press the right button to find a thing they never would've found there on their own." That is, unless you're a Metroidvania fan that wants to do things like comb over every inch of a game repeatedly for potential secrets hidden anywhere (even in the background), or figure out the correct way to decipher an extremely long sequence and the correct way/place to utilize the deciphered code, in which case, hey, this is going to be a 5/5 for you easily. But if that's not you, while the game is still good for a Metroidvania-lover, this game will not live up to the hype it has.
2012
Cool little experiment
2019
Really solid opening but you can tell about 1/3rd through the game where they ran out of time and balancing the game was thrown out the window, with a town of soldiers that are incredibly tough, then the rest of the game being almost entirely pushovers.
Not a bad DLC; it basically functions as you'd expect for an MMO's expansion to work--max level is increased on everything, here's a new area, and here's some max-level content that's good to tackle with friends. Unfortunately, unlike the base game, you do feel the "gear grind" start to set in here, where you realize the only reason you're still playing is to get better gear so you can do the content you just did more effectively, while I felt like the base game had things better entwined. If you like the game enough to get to the end and max out most of the jobs, getting this is a no-brainer.
2017
Only significant downside is the quality of translation. It's overall easier than most games in this genre, but it's very reasonable for more-casual fans, with well-priced extra content.
2019
Not a ton of replay value compared to other rogue-likes, as it's mostly just about the puzzle of figuring out how to beat some, and the harder ones are usually just hard because of less-fun impositions on the player. Very fun experience to run through that first time though.