(Finished on 3/1/2024)

Decided to finish this up as I was about to hit '600' played games on here and as it turns out, Final Fantasy 6 is pretty goddamn good.

What do I have to say that people haven't been saying for 30 years? Since I was a kid I've heard nothing but the gold standard for this game, being described as near fine-art levels of excellence with regards to its writing, themes and characters. While I do agree, and I'll go over my own thoughts later, the one thought that stood out finally going through it all these years later was: "man this is just a really fun RPG!".

Leading up to Final Fantasy 6 we had several games that, by all means pushed the rpg genre forward- but to what extent? FF1's D&D like party structure helped mirror the experience of a campaign across a set narrative, while 2 forgoes this, invents a new amorphous stat growth skill system to distinguish party members and rotates across several party members with new 'baggage' in the game's ongoing plot. FF3 forgoes this further by returning to more blank slate characters tackling a 'job' system in which you gradually unlock distinguished jobs, a system that is only expanded on further in FF5- only for the fourth game to stick solely on party members with set classes, a stronger emphasis on the story and more distinguished character arcs. It's a lot of bobbing and weaving between what elements make a Final Fantasy- a topic we see as recently as last year with the release of 16. Early on, however, it was an odd balancing act between thematics, actors and class mechanics- the only thing that stayed relatively static was the iconoclastic future-medieval world and, as Sakaguchi joked: 'blue textboxes'.

I guess by comparison, in the west we at least had a straightforward upgrade from 1 to 2 (4) to what we got as Final Fantasy III (6).


FF6's cast is great- genuinely glad there's a strong mix of characters I already understood were good through osmosis, on top of some surprise stars based on just good they are in battle. Whenever I start an RPG, there's always the thought I have of 'what is my final party gonna look like' and while I had that thought initially this game dashes that thought process pretty quickly. Throughout the first half your party gets split up several times, bringing about their own journeys across the world and meeting new faces throughout. Much of the game is spent divvying up your party either by way of the plot or in the pursuit of several of the games’ character sidequests. I was wondering less and less just how my party would look and moreso what ‘level’ I’d be ending the game at considering how many other characters you’d be palling around with (Around ~35!).

FF7 accomplishes this somewhat similarly, and while I slightly prefer that game’s cast its hampered by a smaller total party, a party size that's one man smaller and the lack of switching out your protag. I love Cloud, we all do -even if you can't admit it- but I do wish I could enter sections just as three of my other members. Here, there’s practically no protagonist. You have 14 total characters by the end of the game and the worst of the bunch are either outclassed or dont have as much use time by the end of the game. Even the primary face on the box art (not Mog, sorry bud) isn’t all that present for most of the game’s adventure. As the game’s second half has our party separate- the character we hone in on isnt Terra but Celes, you don’t have to meet Terra for quite some time in the ruined world.



Honestly I think my biggest complaint is I kinda think there's a lot of fluff spells/skills throughout. It's a weird disconnect coming from 5, which has the capacity to be broken in two, has a lot of moments where you absolutely need a certain party comp on top of quite a weird onboarding process as to what classes are better than others. 6 on the other hand, while not the easiest FF isnt all that complicated throughout most its battles. All things considered I think most of the hardest fights in the game come ‘before’ the game’s actual final boss.

-Strago is a blue mage, now a staple of the franchise...in a game where Gau exists- who is already kind of a pain to understand with all his 'Rage' skills to scroll through and obtain while grinding on the Veldt.
-Cyan is a strong character with a stronger arc...but pales easily compared to Sabin and Edgar on top of coming somewhat after both of these guys. Bushido easily pales in comparison to most of the other character mechanics.
-I don't even really know what Umaro does
-Mog gets points for being a great option as Dragoon but man the Dance mechanic is unreliable

Also while I do like the Esper system a lot I think getting the stat bonus out of levels can be kinda weird when getting back characters you haven’t seen for some time. Once I got to the world of ruin Shadow and Gau were so much squishier/less versatile than other members of the party which kinda put a damper on me wanting to use them regularly. At the very least there’s some pretty good grinding spots for both EXP/AP so its not too hard to get people back on par, I just didn’t feel it super necessary.

Lastly I'll touch somewhat about the story/presentation, but it's somewhat hard to talk about. Namely, its hard to think about something that hasn't already been brought up! I usually don't care about this kind of factor in reviews but genuinely I knew most of this game's plot beats since I was 12. That said, sheesh this game came out in 1994.
The secondary issue in expressing how powerful Final Fantasy 6 feels in this entry's narrative also lies in how much it strides in its world, lore and characters compared to its previous games. 4 pushed the boundaries for how a narrative can be told in this genre, but 6 respects and sits you down on this notion. It's not overtly grimdark, nor too melodramatic- it provides a great deal of whimsy but never edges on cheesy. Its a wonderful blend of fantasy flavors throughout, while offering several highlights that bucked the usual structure of the series up to this point. I strongly envy those that never saw this coming on its initial release.

I'll also admit- I technically played this on the 'Pixel Remaster' version of the game (I just kinda liked this box art more). It's a pretty alright version, although to be honest I figure its not imperative you play the newest remaster. Part of me kinda wanted to check out how certain fights/animations played on the SNES version, and while you can mod the steam version, without these mods you have to deal with some pretty bloated menus and terrible font choices (even with the new update).

Final Fantasy 6, akin to a lot of other titles on the SNES have already had a swath of acclaim since its release and into the years spanning our communication era. It was hard to penetrate what made FF6 so special when first picking it up about 10 years ago, however I'm glad I've not only come around to beating it after so long, but also that I better understand the appeal of FF6 all this time. I expected to come out enjoying the usual things I had heard about the game- the cast, the characters, the music- but finally going through the other 2/3rds of the game I hadn’t previously seen more of it clicked. Every dungeon just has the right amount of new equipment or a new character or a new summon to spice things up, and when the party has so many options to mess around with, FF6 almost never gets stale.

Relogging

I have not broken your heart- you have broken it and in breaking it, you have broken mine.

The Hearts Connected. Despite Everything.

Through Patches Of Violet

Canto 6 Peak

I hate you pjm but good lord your quality for your games is just insanely high and thank you for bringing back ruina/lobcorp difficulty.

Not sure what the deal is but I found this quite a bit harder than every subsequent game in the series. And this isn't my first rodeo ... I 100% perfected FEVER, okay? I'm not used to seeing anything but "Superb" on my first runs, THANK you very much. Seems like maybe the timing window overall is tighter? Also the songs/challenges just aren't designed as well or with as clear feedback as in the later games. Many feel rushed and awkward. Their overall design ethos isn't exactly locked down yet - some of the songs definitely just require light memorization, and that's not something that I can ever say for anything else in the series after this.

Anyway, the joyous infinity that is RHYTHM HEAVEN's charm is present and accounted for in its debut, definitely. A game of constant smiling and rocking out to what has to be the best collection of music on the GBA. Just not nearly as good as any of the later ones.

self-loathing as a broken funhouse mirror, distorting and reflecting back everything you hate about yourself; you see it everywhere; on billboards, on tv, in everyone else. It all seems to reaffirm the ugliness you see in yourself; you can run from it but it'll always be there, right behind you. The only way to escape is to confront the man in the mirror, to look at the twisted parody you've become and choose to do something about it; as max says "It could destroy you, drive you mad. It could set you free"

a masterpiece

(Finished main game on 3/24, abandoned beating last couple of bosses 3/25)

Had to manage beating the last 25% of this game on a Dualsense with a broken left analog stick, privy to send me forward towards an attack I meant to back up from. Rather than wait out the arrival of a new controller or return it for a fix - I just really wanted to get this game out of the way.


Off the heels of Dark Souls 1, FromSoft had managed to get a hot streak going with its 'Souls' titles. DeS and DS1 managed to entice players seeking out new, harder, wilder challenges that overlay a world brimming with deeper scars. It was a turning point in the games industry during the mid to late 7th generation and FromSoft would be right to keep that momentum going with making a follow up to solidify Souls as a series. Somehow DS2 didn't end the franchise, which is one positive I can say about the game.

I already knew going into this that it was the weird cousin of the series and I would say I'm privy to weird mechanics or janky structure, unfortunately I only came to the conclusion that I don't think there's any single aspect of this game I thought rivaling its kin in quality nor scope. While I haven't played all the games in the series I have played the game to release prior and after this: DS1 and Bloodborne, respectively. The series would go on to evolve and morph into several different forms since then, yet around the time of BB's release I remember discourse surrounding the trio regarding the difference between Dark Souls' reliance on being more patient and slower in your approach versus Bloodborne's more aggressive, tit-for-tat, combat. Where Dark Souls 2 lied in this comparison I don't remember. Hell, across the several years afterward I didn't hear much about Dark Souls 2 outside of memes about how Dark Souls 2 is the 'weirdo' one. It was the only thing I really had to base my expectations on, yet really- what isnt weird about Souls games anyway? Regardless of its notoriety (and a fairly shoddy PC port that had issues with my controller), I tried to remain somewhat bright in my outlook and understand what fans saw in SotFS.


As a starter for this Soulsborne I decided to focus a bit more into a Dex-Hex build compared to the Sorcery-Spellsword in ER and the Pyromancer in DS. I will say, if Magic is what you're looking for this is a pretty good entry, having a lot of variety in its spells. Until Elden Ring this seems to be the title with the most variety and ease of access to its spell selection. Hexes are a neat type of magic, basing its strength off the weaker of your Int/Faith, requiring you to level both simultaneously, but soft-capping early. Once you hit the DLCs this stratagem becomes a little less valuable, so I respec'd into a more DEX focus build. I don't tend to focus too hard on combat in these titles although this time around everything feels much more ‘crowded’ and I'll touch on that later but it's usually a good idea to carry some ranged options, or in some fields of magic, an AOE (thank you Dark Fog...). Most everything surrounding the combat feels about the same as DS1 feels, although certain movements/animations feel just a tad off, even for Dark Souls. Certain hitboxes not feeling right, lotta bad locking on…I dont have the chops to elaborate though so it could just be my imagination.


What I will elaborate on, however, is the enemies with which you apply your combative prowess on. Dark Souls certainly has its fair share of notorious enemies, a grand array of memorable jerks that have just that one move that reaches you, attempting to down an Estus. From the literal Dragon Asses parading in Lost Izalith, the Giant Werewolves in Yharnam, the Caelid Dinosaur Crows- the list goes on.

In Dark Souls 2 many of the enemies reflect the fallen kingdom and the surrounding areas, although coming off of Eldenring and Dark Souls 1 you can just kinda categorize certain mook types and aggressions as the game goes on. Where it starts to falter however is in 3 key details:

1) How many enemies you'll be facing
2) Where many of the enemies are placed
3) How persistent these enemies are

Oftentimes Dark Souls 2 will take an opportunity to present a sort of...scenario. One that feels like it sounded cooler in the level designer's head than in practice. Sometimes it's as simple as crossing a certain boundary and a horde of 4 or 5 enemies descending a tower in the distance to meet you, other times it feels more dubious. There's one instance late in the game where several enemies/beasts are caged up like experiments and a third party is monitoring these trapped monsters. The trope of 'the freed monsters turn on their captors' immediately comes to mind as you pull the lever to free these beasts, not realizing that games sometimes aren't that smart and you now have to contend with the third party and several new monsters aggroing onto you from mimics to ogres. I wouldn't mind, and you get some items out of it but it just feels like there were a lot of 'events' that were meant to be scripted out but just clash with the normal, actual game feel of a Soulsborne. I'll get into some of the 'world/area' event mechanics later but for enemies there's often too many in each area of a given map and often just feel too samey for much of the game.

Maybe a good chunk of that sameness across the enemy types is just how often you fight 'ambush' zombies/knights. I feel like for a good chunk of the game its just contending with these somewhat competent, agile Manikins and Alonne Soldiers and Heide Knights. They aren’t unmanageable on their own but they tend to use much more time/effort to take down than I’d like, especially when managing 2 or 4 of them (those damn Alonne Knights…).

Side note, however you get raided in this game way too often. I swear you get about 2 to 3 an area but it's never consistent as to when these guys might spawn, some areas have multiple invaders in the same area, too?? I'm sure there's story significance but I don't really care because invaders have usually been hit or miss in the series, and mostly miss in this game. The amount of times 'The Forlorn' has shown up eclipses the amount of times I died to most every boss in this game, I wish I were joking. That's not a flex on my skill, this person just shows up 12 times to annoy you.

Dark Souls 1 eventually starts to reuse certain enemies but throughout much of the experience you have pretty distinct and suitable adversities up until Lost Izalith. In addition, there weren't too many places that required you to look around corners and be cautious, other than a few in Lower Undead Burg(?). Here it's just a constant swarm of enemies dropping from out of eyesight tunnels, behind corners, and from several, several feet away. I swear the archers have the most absurd range, they will just continue to fire arrows or projectiles from much farther than you'd think.

Ranged enemies aren't the only ones however as close combat enemies, once proc'd, will also be incredibly tenacious in their pursuit. There are several areas in the game in which you'll prefer to just ignore certain mooks lying throughout a segment of the map, perhaps to backtrack to a sidepath you missed earlier. Careful now, several enemies decided to join you while you weren't looking! The Huntsman Copse I swear has the worst end of this, I've had boss runs where somehow the large Hunters chase behind me, even worse if you decide to be responsible and try to tackle the Executioners that ambush you from the cliffs. There are a lot of boss runs that have this issue, hell there's a lot of just 'running' where you pick up weird stragglers. Add in the factors I mentioned above like how many enemies some sections have and it just gets absurd. At least Fume Knight has a sober bonfire...

I think the primary example of this can be seen in the first area of the game, the Forest of Fallen Giants. Quite immediately there's a few details that feel off about the location, for starters there's an ogre just like, walking around? I don't know why. He just kind of ignores you, so you encounter the first group of enemies, one hiding behind the bridge, and deal with them deftly. You climb a ladder and there's just like 8 of them lying on the ground now, and a couple of firebomb tossers on a ledge. If you go out a side path there's also a cliff side with an item but there's just like a guy there. You can proc him 50% of the time and he just drops down and will chase you up the latter and this becomes every area from here on out. Just running through half a level and not being able to catch a break. Enemies that would otherwise feel fine to face just get super tedious and drag down certain areas of the game that much more. Although the area design is generally shoddy, with or without enemy combatants.


Immediately one of the weakest parts of Dark Souls 2 is the map design- a large step down from 1's intricate world. It's only been a few years since finishing Dark Souls 1 yet it's quickly become one of my favorites in gaming. Looking up from Blighttown and seeing the sky, the cliff and the tree of Firelink Shrine means so much. In Dark Souls 2 so many of the areas you traverse just feel so...disconnected and distant. Certain areas reminded me more of Spyro than of FromSoft, there's a certain style to how varied the level theme and structure are and its just not Dark Souls, or Bloodborne for that matter.

Maybe it's how certain areas in DS1 are connected that makes it feel so much more natural. Getting to Andrei’s Shop from the Undead Parish but also that bonfire acting as a hub leading out to Darkroot Garden and also Sen's Fortress feels amazing. In Dark Souls 2 it prefers to take you through tunnels and elevators and other means of transportation to reach new areas, everything is disjointed and unconnected. This comes to a breaking point after unlocking so many areas and just seeing the list of different, separate areas that feel so far apart... even though the Shaded Woods are just a brief walk away. By the end of the game you will have lit flames atop a large stone map, indicating the defeated major bosses of sections and I just can't point out what these flames are supposed to represent.

I guess the upside is there's a lot of openness as to what direction you can go right off the bat. Usually you head into the Forest into Heide's Tower but from there it's kind of up to you as to what 'Great Souls’' you want to hunt down, it just feels a bit more like I'm stumbling upon these more than anything. From what I saw a lot of people ran straight into Sinner's Rise immediately although after seeing the Flexile Sentry, I thought the area was meant for later. I don't know whether to praise it for its flexibility or prod it for its lacking sensible direction. Certainly other games in the series run into this same problem, no doubt. Bloodborne you might accidentally run into Cainhurst, Dark Souls has most of the Tomb of Giants available after beating Pinwheel but nothing much to do until you grab the Lordvessel, Eldenring is completely open world so you can just hit whatever. Although usually the games have been much more balanced or streamlined as to keep players out through other signs or hints than enemies being harder. Going into the Catacombs is already a farcical task until you gather a way to permanently destroy Skeletons and is completely off the beaten path. Bloodborne's manner of madness along with how each area is connected makes it so it's really hard to just stumble into an area with a higher skill ceiling than others.

I really appreciate how easily areas blend into each other in DS1, and admittedly- the lack of fast travel for the first half of the game feels so much more refreshing. Sidetracking isn't really all that lustrous as straying too far from the main objective of reaching Anor Londo -or hell straying too far from Firelink- seems unwise, so the options aren't really there at all. Why are the New Londo Ruins so easily accessible from the start? Well, while its not intentional you are able to grab an early Estus upgrade by suicide running into the ruins, but the ethereal enemies and lack of any clear objective should clue you in otherwise. On top of that it serves as a nice connecting point between an elevator from the Valley of Drakes, another area that acts more as a highway for other areas' off ramps and the upper end of Blighttown.

Dark Souls 1 also prides itself on not having too much of one 'status' to worry about. Looking back there's a lot of areas and enemies that carry status effects of some sort, but as far as I remember there's only really 1 area for each status? Blightown, the Depths, the Catacombs, each have a focus on one status and after those areas are done you don't have to worry too much from then on. In Dark Souls 2 it feels like there's so many traps and statuses just randomly spread around the place. Several places have poison throughout the area like the Gutter and Harvest Valley, lots of enemies will proc bleed if they attack you, basilisks are just randomly everywhere. This gets incredibly annoying in the DLCs, namely the Sunken King areas where a lot of enemies carry stone status and there’s an entire subsection with statues that just hock stone loogies at you.


I don't even feel as though I hate Dark Souls 1's uncooked latter half as much as I hate the boss fight checklist here in 2. Dark Souls 1 opens on several of your late game bosses totaling the world and bringing about the age you now live in- Nito, Seath, the Witch of Izalith and King Gwyn. The hard thing to really compel with these titans is that by the end of the game these are admittedly...odd fights, bar the games finale. Nito is fine, if easier than I had hoped, but Seath is a complete nutjob being a blind dragon with this eclectic BGM and the Bed of Chaos is a complete disaster of a puzzle boss. They're chumps. They’ve fallen off. They're losers- you're coming in to clean their mess, and by the time you reach Gwyn you're probably just as hollow inside as he is. Whether intentional or not, the latter half of Dark Souls 1 feeling a lot more 'broken' does in a weird way resonate with several of your colleagues also going through their own crises- Solaire either completely turns on you or loses out on his sunlight; most of Siegmeyer’s options end in him dying or resigning that he is too weak compared to you. The two endings are either you burning at the kiln and continuing the age of Fire or breaking the cycle and issuing in the age of Dark. Obviously From Soft didn't have all the time or money to finish up much of the late game and it suffers a lot while playing through, but part of me enjoyed the final stretch being as discombobulated and somewhat more ‘open’ compared to the earlier objectives.

Dark Souls 2 on the other hand, the intro this time around involves an old woman spinning a tale about a long lost kingdom of Drangleic and much of the cast will reference this lost kingdom surely. The main objective is given to you by the leveling up maiden, the Emerald Herald: To gather the four flames from 'Great Ones' that are considered to be reincarnations of the four main baddies from the first game. As you obtain the Sacred Flames, you get interrupted by a massive being named Aldia. He gives some vague explanations and lore regarding your role in all of this, somewhat like Frampt or Kaathe. He's fine but spoiler alert you fight him and its pretty middling, kinda disappointing considering he's the titular "Scholar of the First Sin". Dark Souls 1 might have a pretty light story if you just go through it but its creation mythos feels so ingrained in every step of the process from the intro onward that its easy to discern what's going on. Dark Souls 2 has these weird gaps throughout the journey that make me stop and try and remember what the hell is going on anyway. I pretty much had the jist after all, its just not as interesting as I figured. Yes the Lost Sinner has some neat connections especially with regards to items you find in one of the DLCs no I did not see that because by the time I hit the DLCs that boss had jettisoned itself out of my memory banks.


Padding the journey to claim these sacred flames are a swath of middling boss fights. Keeping a mental note in my mind (tierlistmaker .com on one of 20 tabs on the other monitor) I recorded how I felt about each boss with regard to how fun of a fight they are and the ‘pageantry’ surrounding it. Yet there’s a major quantity over quality issue here, especially in the first half of the game. Until you hit Drangleic Castle the two strongest fights in the game are Pursuer and Smelter Demon among a morass of unremarkable, dull or easy as hell fights. It's hard to even appreciate the former because he just shows up everywhere in the following area to ambush you- funny, admittedly but really tiring.

Much of the game's challenge relied more on obscure prerequisites rather than constant player engagement, or at least the 'facade' of a challenging encounter. Dark Souls 1 works excellently to at least present the "facade" aspect, even if it doesn't execute all that well. While Bed of Chaos or Pinwheel are incredibly flawed either in the complexity, or lack thereof, of the fight, or just a couple of terrible hitboxes, they still have some significance or build up that makes those fights feel justified. In Dark Souls 2, fights like the Covetous Demon, the Royal Rat fights, Demon of Song, several Dragonriders Flexile Sentry, hell some of the ‘Great Ones’ just feel like throwaway fights. They feel more like what would become the minor boss fights in the Eldenring catacombs.

Certainly there's some neat lore connecting the events following DS1 to the destruction of Drangleic thousands of years later, everything is just 'awkward'. This is the awkward middle child between the start of the end in Dark Souls 1 and what I understand to be the near total death of everything in DS3. Again, it feels like there's a neat idea on paper but in execution there's nothing really tying myself to this new foursome of foes. Like of all the guys to get Gwyn's shard its the Old Iron King? Man, what a downgrade.

That said Majula is a strong hub, it feels a bit more 'lively' as a hub than most of your other hubs in a soulsborne title. It's not my favorite but it's a pleasant place to bring people to and unlock new shopkeeps. At the very least I understand the jokes about Eldenring being more akin to Dark Souls 2-2 now.


The other thing that gets brought up regarding Dark Souls 2 was that the DLCs were a step above the vanilla base of the game, 3 flavorful scoops on top of everything else!... Well, I guess they aren't wrong, per se. I'll at least say the DLCs feel like an upward momentum from Sunken to Ivory to Old Iron. A lot of these have shades of what would next evolve into Bloorborne's geometry. In particular Eluem's long castle walls blend into courtyards and branching into lower levels/caves. I did really enjoy rolling that snowball down to make a shortcut- didn't enjoy the Frigid Outskirts so much.

I'll cop to it, there were a few bosses I didn't get around to (namely I got so tilted needing to go back through the Pilgrims of Dark area if you die to Darklurker so I just gave up playing anymore, I saw credits sue me) but hell if I was going to go check out the King's Pets in Frigid Outskirts, namely because of how bad the boss run is. Low visibility, large map, constant ambushing by these Kirin type enemies, not even a bonfire on the map so you have to take a coffin loading screen after each death and all this for what I hear is one of the hardest fights? Two of a boss I already fought earlier? Nah.

Crown of the Old Iron King feels the most consistent in its quality, and its probably the hardest which is an odd balance if I had to say. The worst part about Dark Soul II isn't that its hard, its that its obnoxious. Dark Souls I was likened upon its release as a return to retro style, no holds barred difficulty and yet most of the difficulty throughout the first game felt more like tests of patience, skill and a bit of pattern recognition/manipulation. Arriving at Old Iron King felt like a return to this mindset as you tackle bosses like Sir Alonne and Fume Knight, easily two of the games most fun fights.


I don't really pride myself on not liking video games, I think generally I buy and play games that I think I'd enjoy. Critically, I tend to hone in on aspects I enjoy and I tend to be optimistic on titles despite glaring flaws or shortcomings. Opinions are certainly given, flexible, intangible ideas and I just tend to be easier on titles in general, but sometimes its just that hard to really find the points that gave me a rush to my neurons in a game.

In my head I think about how I felt about Pokemon X/Y across the entire spectrum of the series and that's where I think about it being the 'weakest' of the set. It's still in a series I enjoy across the bar and that generation had additions that were at least tangible throughout the later games. I think initially starting Dark Souls 2 I was wondering if I'd feel a similar sensation, a faint appreciation but lacking the right 'punch'. I can appreciate a handful of fights and the generally laissez-faire structure, but otherwise this is a package too cluttered, too unfocused and too halfhearted in its attempts to recreate the magic of its predecessors.

It's sorta hard to place Dark Souls 2, not because of some conflicting feelings but because it feels a bit hypocritical to the pathos of the franchise. While I still wouldn't consider myself an authority of some sort, much of the enjoyment I've had with the franchise comes from the spectacle, the sense and the sortie of its worlds. There's a tug-of-war sensation to the world of a Soulsborne game- when you've conquered an area you mostly just breeze by it without consequence. Here, rather than allowing you to conquer an area- a lot of enemies end up just despawning after beating them after a certain number of times, instead. As if the game just gives up after so many times. The game isn't so hard, nor is it that different on the surface, yet every corner hides just a tiny bit of faux pas- enough to temper my enjoyment much earlier than I would prefer. Dark Souls' 'Stockholm Syndrome' post Anor Londo, while a blemish on the game and a prime example to game developings' tendency to lose steam in the third act, has somehow shone brightly compared to Dark Souls II's Imposter Syndrome-esque design doc.

For god's sake, they tried making another Ornstein and Smough fight, in a game that already has literally Ornstein in it.

Holy shit I should've played this game when it released last year in 2023.

Hi fi rush is a huge departure from tangos previous works by being a Rythym hack and slach game that takes elements from Guitar hero and mixing them into a blender with a hint of Devil may cry and Jet set radio and what do you get?

One of the most FUN action games I've played in a very long time. Seriously in a era of endless rehashes of various franchises this game felt like a breath of fresh air that Harkens back to 00s cartoons all while having beautiful artstyle and goated ost to compliment it.

Seriously PLAY THIS GAME.

Finished 3/9/2024

And with that most of the 'Duel Monsters' era titles have been covered. The only ones left are some of the earlier game boy titles but I'll cover those last probably, for now say goodbye to Yugi on the cover here.

Between this, Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre and now Unicorn Overlord- I've been sort of on a tactics binge (been also looking to check out Front Mission). Strange that not only is Yu-Gi-Oh a pillar of my tactics understanding but its probably now the 2nd largest thus far behind Fire Emblem. With the lack of innovation there is in the card game during this era of YGO, I can't say the same for the games during this era as this is another distinct tactics game for the series. I had half expected this to be similar to how Duelist of the Roses operated but here we don't have nearly as...unique of a concept, but I think something slightly more enjoyable and also surprisingly higher budget.

I was shocked opening this game up and being greeted by Gramps, fully voiced! Prior to this I don't recall there being any voice acting whatsoever in any of the console titles so I was pleasantly surprised when this game had, like, FULL voice acting. There's not much of a story this time around but seeing the characters voice out interactions throughout a battle was a nice throwback to when I watched the anime as a kid.

In addition, this game has a strong premise with regards to its tactics. The objective is the usual- you have a base from which you select and summon a number of units, defeat all of your opponents capsules or defeat the base to win. However, each match has a 'deck limit' of sorts that limits you from taking in only your strongest and generally this isn't an issue as most of the game is utilizing monsters with advantageous attributes to stomp opponents. One thing to note is that there's eight attributes but these interact moreso in two 'wheels' of sorts.
Long story short:
Water > Fire > Grass > Wind > Water
Dark > Earth > Electric > Light > Dark

This leads to some interesting match-ups later on as Light focused duelists will incorporate Earth units as well in an attempt to counter Electric units you bring out.

Units are also fairly interesting in how they move around- generally tactics games have a 'movement' skill in which they operate off a radius on the game's grid. Here it feels more like Chess than fire emblem ever did as units are locked into specific patterns of movement, most akin to Rooks and Bishops moving horizontally or diagonally. There aren't any Knight patterns but a 2-square 'leap' movement in which a unit can hop in any direction but only 2 squares away (more of a dotted O movement than an L). On top of this, units have distinct attack patterns separate from their movement patterns so a unit may have diagonal movement but horizontal attack capabilities.

There are several other variables that arise during play, certain arenas will have a gimmick that alters elements of the field over time, certain tiles give a bonus to specific types, your base that you choose at the start of the game gives a passive buff, it was a much more intriguing game than I had initially thought.

There is a lot of obfuscation that bogs down the experience, on top of being an already clunky to understand tactics game at first. Certain mechanics like Fusion and Evolution require some prior knowledge of both the card game and also some creative thinking (game FAQs). In addition certain stage elements don't really tell you what's going on. Most of it can be inferred, but for example during Tea's stage the lights of the city dim down as the clock strikes midnight- snow begins to fall and holiday music begins to play... I don't really know if this has any effect, like giving your dark monsters a boost but uhhh it was pretty cool!

Lastly while leveling your units is imperative, you get units after battle based off what your opponent owns on top of Grandpa updating his shop roster after you beating each set of five duelists (with some shadow drops I never quite understood). It's important to note that the units you have early on can be useful later on, even if just to fill in gaps and use as cannon fodder as permadeath is not a factor here- thank god. The issue isnt really these cannon fodder but its moreso the mid units that land in a weird limbo where I can't tell if they've been powercreeped out by the new capsules or if I haven't put in the effort to make it good. In my playthrough I ran a Water base and used a number of water units in the start- namely Root Water. This would be my highest level unit for most the game but its usefulness waned as I couldn't find a good place to evolve it into High Tide Gyojin until the last couple of maps. Certainly once it evolved it was actually still comparable to most of the late game units but its just that weird predicament of not really knowing whats 'good' for your point in the game- leading to me buying a lot of new, but untrained units that might not have been all that necessary with proper planning.

Overall I was fairly surprised with how much I enjoyed this over Duelist of the Roses, and nearly most of the other Yugioh titles. While DotR might offer something more akin to a 'card-tactics fusion', Capsule Monster Coliseum feels more balanced and properly structured as a tactics title overall. Played this on my Steam Deck and while there were a few visual issues, especially with certain portraits- many of the stages look pretty great, the fully voiced dialogue is well appreciated and the music is pretty good overall. The thing that kinda tipped this over Duelist of the Roses was thinking about how I left off that game not having gone through Kaiba's (Rosenkreuz) route. Despite this, finishing CMC I found myself more likely to restart my progress and retackle prior stages with a better understanding, or hell try out a playthrough with a different, more useful base 'attribute'. I clocked in around 15 hours by the end, with a few half hours lost due to shoddy attempts so honestly for a tactics game as quick and as neat as this I can't be too upset by some perplexities in its mechanics. I'm glad that one of Konami's experiments to the YGO gaming formula paid off as well, just kind of a shame this also happens to be one of the last of its ilk.

Trying to organize my thoughts about the game is harder than organizing the puzzles in it.

In general I think the puzzles are fun to solve, and there are some good highlights around chapter 3, but it also has some big lows with puzzles with pixel perfect positioning (I'm looking at the tomato sauce cans) and just weird stuff when divining the developers intent becomes the bigger puzzle.

I could live without almost everything in chapter 5. But I guess if you really like cats the last sections works best, didn't do much for me though.

You could say the perfectionist inside me loves the concept of A Little to the Left, but then it also has trouble fitting everything neatly when there are some rough edges and extra bits that don't feel like they belong here.

Reading over my review of FFXVI before I posted this, I realized that this is by far my longest review I've written and probably ever will write (ended up being exactly 2500 words when the most I've done before is a little more than 1000) so if you're not interested in reading that, I'll sum things up with one sentence. Final Fantasy XVI had the potential to be great, but it just ended up being boring.

Final Fantasy XVI is a perfectly serviceable video game. It doesn’t feel like it was hampered by external pressures, a tight development schedule, or constant rewrites and redesigns like the mess that was FFXV was. It doesn’t suffer from any game breaking bugs, egregious performance issues, or any of the other problems that most modern AAA titles release with. It feels like a (mostly) complete product that was what the development team wanted to make. They wanted to make a “dark” Final Fantasy game that’s heavily inspired by western dark fantasy with flashy action combat. The problem is that the game they wanted to make is, as a whole, incredibly dull. I’m not the kind of person to normally whine about the casualization of video games, but FFXVI’s core gameplay is so unbelievably basic when compared not just to the character action games it’s trying to emulate, but also to Square’s own catalog of action RPGS that it feels like a clear attempt to dumb things down for a larger audience. In the last five years, Square Enix has released Trials of Mana, NEO The World Ends with You, NieR Replicant ver. 1.22, two different Star Ocean games, both Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth, Stranger of Paradise, Harvestella, and Valkyrie Elysium. Dragon Quest Builders 2 as well if you want to count that as an action RPG. Go just a little further back and you have to add NieR Automata, The World Ends with You Final Remix, and Kingdom Hearts III + ReMind to that list. I have not played Valkyrie Elysium or Second Story R myself, but I have played all of the other games I listed for at least a few hours and every single one of them has a better combat system and at least a slightly more interesting plot than FFXVI. If the game was made by a different studio and pushed out as a new single player epic exclusively for the Sony Slopbox 5, then I’d probably look at it a bit more favorably when having to compare it more to games like Horizon or God of War than to NieR and TWEWY. That’s not the case, though. This is a flagship product from Square Enix. Square. Fucking. Enix. One of, if not the biggest names in RPGs and Japanese games as a whole spent years on this game and developed it alongside some absolutely fantastic titles, but somehow it ended up being overshadowed by their own back catalog and paling in comparison to its more direct inspirations.

On paper, FFXVI sounds rad as hell. You play as a guy who can turn into a giant fire monster in order to fight other people who turn into giant elemental beasts, swap between a bunch of different elemental powers, and even has a dog companion. You fight alongside characters like your childhood friend who wields both a rapier and the power of ice, a charming outlaw who smokes and can call down lightning at will, and several other less colorful companions. You’ll travel the world and destroy the very foundations of society in order to save mankind as a whole, all while fighting against an unjust system and freeing magic users who are seen as little more than monstrous tools by their own families. It’ll be a flashy action game with things like air juggling, perfect dodges and parries, and even a stagger system for larger enemies. The game definitely has potential, but it just doesn’t live up to that. Moreso on the gameplay side than the story side, so I’ll start by getting my story complaints out of the way first.

Starting with the characters, I actually like Clive as a protagonist. Yeah he’s kind of a standard brooding JRPG protagonist, but he has enough personality to keep things interesting and isn’t quite as aloof as someone like Squall or as generally disinterested as Noctis. Jill has a few decent moments, but just stands around or fights alongside Clive for most of the game. For being the main heroine, she has way less of an impact on the story than characters like Aerith, Rinoa, Yuna, and Garnet. Cid is great, though. I’m always a fan of that kind of dashing rogue character, but Cid steals the show whenever he’s around. Not only is he the driving force for almost all of the game’s first act, but his animation and voice just nail the whole devil-may-care persona he’s developed for himself while still making him come across as serious when he needs to be. Hugo Kupka is an asshole, but that makes for an effective villain so I didn’t mind it. Some of the side characters, especially the ones that populate the hideaway, are rather likeable, too. Everyone else just kind of sucks. Joshua is little more than a plot device for most of the game, serving to show up and either save Clive or dump lore on what the fuck Ultima is. Ultima himself is a pretty bland main villain, and even his mortal agents like the whole Waloed gang or Olivier are just boring. Anabella’s one-dimensional obsession with power and noble bloodlines is kind of funny, at least. The main plot itself also isn’t that bad, but it feels like the different arcs of the game (Finding the second Eikon of Fire, trying to save bearers, taking over as Cid and destroying the mothercrystals, Primogenesis, and finally the final showdown with Barnabas and Ultima) are kind of disconnected, especially everything that happened before the second timeskip. Clive pretty quickly just starts acting like he’s fine with having destroyed Phoenix Gate, killed hundreds of his own countrymen, and effectively having caused the downfall of Rosaria. As soon as Cid starts talking about how the mothercrystals are draining the aether from the world, any developments regarding the plight of the bearers is sidelined and shoehorned into side quests that are scattered throughout the game and then thrown in your face right before the ending. The same goes for most side plots such as the aether flood in Lostwing or Blackthorne’s whole character arc. Yeah they handwave this as needing to save the world itself before saving the people in it, but that’s a pretty bad excuse for dropping an entire core theme of your game in favor of leaning back on a somewhat standard FF elemental crystals and otherworldly evil plot. A lot of the Eikon fights also feel kind of shoehorned in, which is weird considering how heavily they were advertised. It’s almost like the fights were thought up first and the story was made as way to justify moving the player between them. Overall I thought it was fine, but a pretty average story overall. For a series that’s fondly remembered for its storytelling (I don’t think most FF stories are all that great, but they’re definitely a big reason as to why the series is as popular as it is) , that’s a pretty big failure.

If the gameplay was great, then it could make up for a kind of dull story, but sadly it isn’t. Clive is limited to a single sword combo, a few special attacks (a stinger, a charged attack, an air combo, and the ability to press triangle to shoot an incredibly weak magic shot at the enemy or to add little magic flourishes to your normal sword combo), using the d-pad to make Torgal attack an enemy, and his Eikonic abilities. He also gets a limit break which basically functions like a DT/transformation in other action games that changes your combo into an unintelligible mess of swirling sword strikes without making it feel that much stronger. You can equip up to three of these at once, and outside of changing the element of your magic (this never seems to matter but maybe there are a few enemies with actual weaknesses), they give you access to different special attacks on a cooldown timer and a different ability mapped to O. These range from basic things like Titan’s block/parry or Phoenix’s pseudo-teleport dash to some things that are actually kind of neat like Bahamut’s Megaflare that’s charged up by dodging attacks while stuck in a mostly-defenseless charge mode or how using Odin’s ability completely changes Clive’s combo (every Eikon should have done this IMO). You can also equip up to two special attacks on each Eikon, and even mix and match them once they’re mastered. They can kind of change the way you play, but the combat’s core flow never changes. For small enemies, you just wail on them with your basic combo and Eikonic abilities, and with big enemies you just chip away at their stagger bar until they get knocked down, then you cycle through all of your abilities on cooldown for the damage multiplier. There are no branching combo paths, no changes to Clive’s basic move set with different eikons, or even different weapon types, and there are really only three kinds of Eikonic abilities: ones that are attacks, ones that are counters, and ones that add a passive source of damage. Yeah things like Rising Flames and Upheaval may seem different, but the only reason you’ll ever choose one over the other is because one is on cooldown. Since the overwhelming majority of your damage comes from the stagger window where you can build up a damage multiplier, the fastest way to beat an enemy is to stagger it and then just use all of your Eikonic abilities in order, assuming they aren’t on cooldown. This becomes even more apparent if you decide to use the “ultimate” abilities for each Eikon like Flames of Rebirth or Gigaflare that have significantly longer cooldowns than the normal abilities. Because of these things, every encounter plays out exactly the same, regardless of what enemy you’re fighting. You can’t even really mess around with different moves or try to fight more stylishly. The only real change between normal fights and boss fights is that bosses have some QTEs scattered between them and get interrupted by cutscenes three or four times per fight. I have no problem with the skill floor being low in a game like this, but when every single fight is so similar and the skill ceiling is just about as low as the floor is, it makes for a boring experience. Eikon battles are a little more interesting since Ifrit actually has different combo finishers depending on how far into the base combo you are when you press triangle, but that mostly begs the question of why Clive couldn’t also have more than one way to end a combo. The combat would have been tolerable in a 10-15 hour game, but since a playthrough of XVI can take well over 60 hours if you decide to do most of the lackluster side content like I did, it’s nowhere near deep enough. Since there are also only the absolute basics of an RPG system underlying it, there’s not much of a wider reason to fight enemies other than because you find it fun.

One Eikon fight comes close to redeeming this game, however. A little after the halfway point, Clive fights Hugo Kupka, Titan’s Dominant. Kupka has been on a five-year long crusade against Clive since Clive killed his manipulative lover/one true love Benedikta Harman. Clive wins the first fight by cutting off Hugo’s hands, only to be interrupted by soldiers from the kingdom of Waloed before he can finish the job. They take Kupka back to his home and give him a pair of iron hands. This is an excuse to stretch out the Kupka arc of the game, move the actual fight with Titan from Rosalith to the middle of nowhere in Dhalmekia, and to have a scene where Kupka struggles to eat with his hands and throws a temper tantrum while yelling fuck. When Clive finally arrives, he finds Kupka having a schizophrenic episode where the naked ghost of Benedikta is convincing him to use the power of the mothercrystal to finally kill Clive. A pretty standard fight between Titan and Ifrit ensues, but when Ifrit is about to win, Titan finds and promptly eats the magical crack rock that is the heart of the mothercrystal. Turning into a giant tentacled monstrosity, Titan erupts from the earth and this theme starts playing.
https://youtu.be/7L_6atLQouc?si=g40adyLy3WVG776G
It is important to note that almost every track in the game up this point has been pretty standard fantasy fare (a few songs like the hideaway themes are actually quite nice but most of it is kind of forgettable, especially compared to other FF soundtracks). A fight ensues between Ifrit and the newly born Titan Lost that involves Ifrit running up the tentacles like a Sonic the Hedgehog boss fight, ripping one of them off, and plunging it into Titan Lost from above while yelling “Heads up, Hugo” The fight continues with Hugo now back in his normal Titan form and Clive/Ifrit using the power of the magical crack rock to create a pair of giant hands that he uses for a grand total of one attack. It’s pure chuuni nonsense, and it’s great. The fight isn’t particularly good, but the spectacle and sheer stupidity of it all makes it an absolute joy to play through. The fight with Bahamut comes close, as Clive and Joshua end up fusing to make a super Eikon of Fire that’s just Ifrit with some more spikes and some feathers coming off of him, then they chase Bahamut into space and stop it from using Zettaflare (made famous by Donald Duck during his heroic act of self-sacrifice in Kingdom Hearts III) and destroying the planet.

FFXVI could have benefited so much from having more of that stupidity in it, or otherwise embracing the goofier side of the series. It alco could have just been more fun to play, but considering this was made by the director of an MMO I don’t think that was ever really on the table. As it is now, the game is mostly just dull, and the story isn’t nearly good enough to make it worth sitting through. It’s much more competently made than the absolute mess that was FFXV, but that’s a particularly low bar to pass. It’s not comically shitty, but that also means it’s not the kind of trainwreck that’s interesting to play through. I feel like I SHOULD give this a 2.5/5 just to be consistent since I gave XV a 2 and XVI is definitely a better game, but I think I actually enjoy XV more than this despite its laundry list of flaws so they get the same score. There are other things like how the game makes you hold R2 to open a bunch of doors or how Clive is never shown to use any abilities other than Ifrit’s/Phoenix’s outside of gameplay until the final boss, or how the Ultima Prime fight is just a cutscene with some QTEs thrown in that I could say, but I feel like I’ve complained enough to get my point across.

I do really like how you hear Torgal from the speaker on the Dualsense whenever you pet him, though.