This is an obvious paid Ace Attorney fangame and that will understandably put people off. I won’t sugarcoat the flaws of this game: Amateur writing, breakneck pacing, inconsistent art, VERY messy ending… I am sorry for being harsh, but this is far from achieving true excellence and if you come with the high expectations of a mainline Ace Attorney game, you will be disappointed.

But despite it all, I have to seriously congratulate the team, because I did not expect to enjoy myself as much as I did. The characters in Tyrion are so incredibly likeable, and the way their relationships are built throughout the entire game achieved the exact same comfort space the original AA universe managed to do for me back in the day. The writer takes many tropes from AA but makes them their own in a familiar, but fresh perspective, that consistently brought a smile to my face (the relationship between Tyrion and Celeste is the prime example to this).

I was very surprised at how well-built the world was, the way the cases are connected to each other feels incredibly cohesive. They managed to reuse assets in really clever ways that crafted a believable world with clear direction and consequences. And all the new gameplay mechanics are well executed into this fantastical world with above average solid cases. This game is very smart by having its first and final cases being the best of the experience, considering they are the most important part of AA (I would even argue of most stories). And I NEED to mention the music. I cannot complain how little of it there is because every track is absolutely fantastic and elevates what the writing lacks.

So yeah, Tyrion is not a masterpiece, but I am incredibly happy I bought it. Likeable characters and fantastic music with some fun murder mystery action mixed in is the entire reason why I fell in love with Ace Attorney in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, this experience can be polished in many ways, but the writer and his small team should be proud of this one and I will absolutely buy Tyrion 2 whenever it comes out.

I only ask there is less Marvel humor next time in place of sincere ingenuity. My friend and I laughed so hard whenever “Well… THAT was awkward” jokes popped up time and time again. Maybe it served their purpose?

-----------------------
Case Ranking:

Fantastic:
Case 4

Great:
Case 5 and Case 1

Very Good:
Case 3

Good:
Case 2

Three Houses might possibly be the most divided I have ever felt with a game. For everything amazing this game does, there is something terrible that meets its match, and I am not sure it fully balances out.

This is the most in-depth world building and character writing we have seen in the series since Tellius. But the actual story is terribly told, paced and structured so it doesn’t hit as it should. Unit building is complex and free form, making it one of the most flexible and customizable games in the series. But the map design is weak, and balance is out the window, making for a mediocre gameplay experience that sacrifices unit individuality in favor of little substance. This is one of the most ambitious games in the entire series, with fully explorable environments, in-depth unit building, and three different stories with their own unique casts! But the monastery drags, unit building is tedious, and it’s arguable this should have been a game with two story paths at most. It has some really standout female writing for a JRPG, building some extremely strong willed and memorable women with some great social commentary of the patriarchy! BUT…but actually I don’t have anything bad to say about this. Edelgard hype is justified, she is unlike anything else I have ever seen in the genre. But everything else, and I mean, EVERYTHING ELSE feels like great ideas with questionable execution at best.

Three Houses is frustrating because it’s close to being the excellent game it tries to be, but at the same time it's also so far away from its lofty ambitions. It’s even more frustrating this is the most popular game in the series, because it tries to be more of a life-sim RPG hybrid than the strategy game series I actually cared about. A real fear of mine was that this would be the direction of the series going forwards, and while Engage thankfully proved me wrong (for now) this will always be a dark sheep in the franchise for me.

Three Houses is a mess I respect, because its sheer ambition is commendable, but a mess nevertheless. As a tactical RPG it is mediocre, and as a narrative experience it wobbles. Deserved Three more years in the oven, me thinks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have had some specific beef with this game for the longest time, to a point I refused to buy a Switch and play it, even as a massive fan of the series. As an addendum I will post some of this beef as scattered thoughts, so that you can hopefully understand why it’s one of my least favorite games in the series.

-This is without a doubt the most viscerally ugly game I have ever played. I have hated the work of Chinatsu for the longest time, long before TH was announced, and her work here is just as terrible. I find most character designs painfully dull, if not outright repulsive. The graphics and presentation are somehow worse? Poor cinematics, poor textures, poor scene direction, poor menus... This is a game that makes me mad over how ugly it is.

-The concept of playing as a teacher, with your students as the rest of the playable cast, was off-putting to me. When you add being able to date them into the mix, regardless of their age, it’s genuinely uncomfortable. I will clarify I don’t judge people for not sharing my sentiment, I am aware it’s a personal thing.

-I have played and enjoyed plenty of homophobic, transphobic and well, generally morally questionable games, but Three Houses is one of the only ones that genuinely made me FURIOUS over how its male gay romance options were treated. It’s a pity because this game was a giant step for lesbian romance in FE.

-This is partly my fault for pirating this on the Deck, but the text size is TINY. I haven’t played a game that strained my eyesight this badly in forever.

-Hottest take? I think the overall cast is a mixed bag and I can’t agree with the common fanbase perception of being the best in the series at all. The house setup understandably sets the entire house as the main characters for that specific route, but the reality is that some characters are a lot worse and irrelevant than others. I think Blue Lions are probably the best of the three main casts, I am generally positive on most of them and their chemistry as a group (at least from the little I saw), but I found some real stinkers in Black Eagles and Golden Deer that negatively impact the experience in a way the series had never struggled in the past. Most Fire Emblem games have some really bad characters, but they were rarely the ones shoved at the player’s direction. It’s important to remember the series was explicitly built in a way where you could create the army that you wanted with your favorites, and it worked beautifully. Choosing a whole cast of characters you know nothing about at the start of the game that hopefully you like to carry the huge majority of the narrative is ass backwards to the philosophy of the series.

-I touched on it before but I really dislike how manual unit building and everyone being a blank slate is a core element of the experience. Fire Emblem is at its best when each character feels unique and interesting. Stats, skills, levels, classes… they can tell so much about a character with no words. I think how effortlessly the series flew over concerns of ludo narrative dissonance was a strong reason why I fell utterly in love with it. I am not going to deny experimentation isn’t great and healthy, but this is a similar case as Radiant Dawn and Genealogy for me, where the experimentation directly hurts core elements of the experience I love and replaces it for… a half assed teaching simulator I didn’t want.

-Three Houses’ premise, tone and character interactions fall apart in a conceptual level that bothers me a lot. Why are the heirs of these three territories participating in mercenary missions and putting their lives at risk? In fact, why do the nobles push for their children to join the monastery, instead of breeding armies of crest babies? Why can the students move between houses so freely without no political repercussions? Why are most of the students interacting with each other so casually, when they are directly interacting with high-rank nobles that could (and will) completely shape their future? If you don’t take your premise seriously, it’s hard to take anything seriously.

-I still love this franchise in its current state, but probably the most boomer doomer elitist thing about it I can state is that the turn wheel may have permanently damaged the series. It was already bad in Echoes. It’s terrible in Three Houses and it directly affects the game design in very negative ways. Why do so many people defend it? Guys, this is not the Classic vs Casual debate, this actually affects the core game design of the entire experience. I try to completely ignore the turn wheel in my playthroughs (and fail, because it’s so damn tempting), but I cannot ignore terrible enemy reinforcement spam if I play in Maddening. Let’s not even mention how the narrative bends around it’s inclusion very poorly.

The different stories and how they play with the genre are interesting enough for a sensible chuckle, but it often feels like they lack the depth you would expect. As for the narrative, the amazing presentation and unique settings carry the experience, as I was mostly underwhelmed, even when the stories predictably come together at the end. The battle system present in all the stories shines when you are under leveled, but is otherwise mediocre.

It’s a curious experience with some standout segments, but I think this was a much more interesting and revolutionary game in 1994. Definitely a "you had to be there" game, I don't think it says anything particularly meaningful in this day and age.

It’s Katamari Damacy but with varied levels, more polish and some lame extra content attached. I really liked the first game and I had a lot of fun here too, but I think everyone telling me the second game was so much better and basically replaces the original colored my opinions. As simple as it was, there was something triumphant about making your katamari bigger and bigger in the same exact environment, which was already taken to its logical extreme in the original. There is also a series of levels with the same exact idea here, but most of the new meat is in the extra stages, which do take the concept in creative, but totally directionless ways. I am not sure how you could make a sequel to KD worthwhile, as We Love Katamary ends up feeling like a (well-designed!) DLC level pack. There is some metacommentary about sequels and how hard it is to surpass expectations, which is very ironic and arguably proves Takahashi’s point.

Also, making your second game about how much everyone loved your first game was a bit too masturbatory for my liking.

When you get over the fact that you can’t argue with the NPCs and it’s mostly a game of stats, this is a great experimental indie RPG. Time loops and amnesia are all tired tropes, but the story cuts straight to the chase and recontextualizes them into an addicting gameplay loop which kept me hooked all the way through. What shines in Gnosia is the excellent presentation; the unique character designs and haunting music contributes to an almost surreal atmosphere that will be hard to ever forget.

It’s too obtuse for its own good (I basically felt forced to use a guide by the end). Be warned this game requires a lot of patience from the player.

Dragon Quest XI is the epitome of the fairytale format in JRPGs. Crazy high production values, tons of features, and great exploration are the high points of this classic adventure. There is a space for this kind of game, but I am at a personal point in my life where very little of the actual meat of this game managed to catch my attention. There is charm in the locales and different cultures that inhabit them that definitely helps creating a compelling journey that will resonate with people, but the core elements that punctuate this game tend to be too basic and boilerplate for me to care about the overall experience.

I would be more generous with the game if the basic plotting didn’t feel written and planned by an AI. This is not hyperbole. I want more of the DQIV brand of Dragon Quest: switching from playable characters of completely different backgrounds (sometimes accompanied by different gameplay styles!) to frame a colorful world full of life and mystique, all to culminate into that amazing classic adventure story that feels earned after exploring the precious and varied world that now needs a hero. Not… the chosen one plot but with Trunks. I think you gather dragon balls at some point?

I would be even kinder to this game if the music was great. Music is an important part of gaming for me and I have huge appreciation for it. Dragon Quest XI doesn’t have a terrible, godawful soundtrack, but it’s pretty bad by JRPG standards.

I dropped this game very early, around the point where Veronica first joins you, but I have a strict policy that if a game bores me to death, I should always drop it, and after hearing the 50th loop of that terrible world map theme and basic attacking and healing for 8 hours, I was dreading every single session with this game. I don’t think Dragon Quest is for me.

This is an adorable game. The level of attention in the sprites and animations is outstanding, and the extremely charming Hamtaro and Nintendo touches makes this a truly wholesome "theme park" game. Unfortunately, under the pretty surface this is a mediocre click and point adventure game with plenty of clunky elements which makes it hard to slog through as an adult.

This game is obviously for little children, but I would imagine most kids would get terribly confused on how to procede at several points. I did as a fully grown adult!

Tears to Tiara 2 features a godly character dynamic between it's two leads, a compelling narrative and enough substantial themes to chew on to a point I can understand why so many have in high esteem this niche SRPG, but the terrible pacing and anime harem/power fantasy tropes killed all my interest in it. Childhood friend lolis, super saiyan deus ex machina powers, and scenes about motorboating titties are shamelessly mixed in with a somewhat heavily presented story about imperialism and slavery and it just makes me want to gouge my eyes out. Please know your tone.

The gameplay was serviceable and I heard it gets really good but there were too many red flags for me after several mediocre short battles (item spam, infinite inmediate retries, lack of combat window...etc) for me to care.

I don't want to spend 70-100 hours on this experience. Quit at chapter 2.

Song for Prism is another Bamco cashgrab to save the reputation and relevancy of the slowly dying im@s franchise. It contains all the elements popular in current popular idol rhythm game done in a very half assed way, with very little of all the things that made Shiny Colors gather an audience in the first place. The game practically screams it was completely rushed.

The idol customization is great and the game has good incentives to keep casually playing but all the signs point to another early EoS in 2025. It's just not good enough for the current market. This will only satisfy people who already adore the cast, and just want more of them no matter what form it takes.

Oath in Felghana maintains the frenetic combat system, the fantastic bosses and the great pacing that made other Ys games so addictive while fixing many of their shortcomings.

A fully realized world (directly tied to one of the only recurring characters of the series!), a weapon upgrade system that keeps the leveling pace more flexible, and a nicer difficulty curve are the major changes that make this a truly standout entry in the series and one of the best games of the genre.

The story sucks balls and the lava area is a particular slog but in such a short game you can brush it off for a mostly flawless gameplay experience.