Zotol
1993
I've played a bunch of SNES games and this was always that one title that I never got around to. I'd always hear great things about Secret of Mana, and how it's one of the greatest games on the system. Being a fan of Square for a large portion of my life, playing this one was a no-brainer. I am shocked at the quality of this game, to say the least. I know I shouldn't be judging media off public reception so heavily, but man, this was disappointing.
This is the worst translation I have experienced in any video game. After finishing earlier today I have more questions than answers about the story. Conversations feel extremely robotic and not enough context is given about the world and the mysteries surrounding it. The story isn't anything crazy either but I feel like I would have at least cared for it a little bit if it was told properly.
The gameplay is atrocious. Almost everything about it is horrible and is what makes this game so bad. The game sports a charge system where you will have to wait a few seconds to do full damage, which you need to do if you want to do significant damage. This isn't an issue, but the rest makes it one. I genuinely cannot tell what the hell is wrong with the hit detection in this game. The hit boxes are horrible, and there is what I believe to be a chance of missing your attack, but, there is no indicator telling you that it missed. When enemies are toppled and you attack them, sometimes the attack will register a few seconds after you hit them, so it feels really weird. The AI is also dog shit at following you. My party members were constantly getting stuck on pieces of the environment and I had to constantly backtrack to get them to follow me properly. The games FPS constantly lowers too. The game can't seem to hold a proper framerate when there's any enemies on screen. Everything about the gameplay just feels gross to play. It's a simple game in nature, but everything just feels like it's working against you. All the boss fights are also really abusable because you can just spam the Sprite's magic in quick succession.
I'm shocked this game was also released in the state it's in. This game is really buggy. The biggest bug that I have encountered was party members getting stuck in walls. You can't progress on screen if your characters are not always in the vicinity of each other, so, it just left me soft locked in most cases. It even happened to me in the final dungeon once which really pissed me off. Other than that, it's usually just visual bugs.
The best thing about this game is the soundtrack, which quickly became one of my favorites on the system. It's so good that it made me think I was enjoying the game a few times.
This is one of those games where props have to be given for molding the genre, but, it really does not hold up in the slightest.
This is the worst translation I have experienced in any video game. After finishing earlier today I have more questions than answers about the story. Conversations feel extremely robotic and not enough context is given about the world and the mysteries surrounding it. The story isn't anything crazy either but I feel like I would have at least cared for it a little bit if it was told properly.
The gameplay is atrocious. Almost everything about it is horrible and is what makes this game so bad. The game sports a charge system where you will have to wait a few seconds to do full damage, which you need to do if you want to do significant damage. This isn't an issue, but the rest makes it one. I genuinely cannot tell what the hell is wrong with the hit detection in this game. The hit boxes are horrible, and there is what I believe to be a chance of missing your attack, but, there is no indicator telling you that it missed. When enemies are toppled and you attack them, sometimes the attack will register a few seconds after you hit them, so it feels really weird. The AI is also dog shit at following you. My party members were constantly getting stuck on pieces of the environment and I had to constantly backtrack to get them to follow me properly. The games FPS constantly lowers too. The game can't seem to hold a proper framerate when there's any enemies on screen. Everything about the gameplay just feels gross to play. It's a simple game in nature, but everything just feels like it's working against you. All the boss fights are also really abusable because you can just spam the Sprite's magic in quick succession.
I'm shocked this game was also released in the state it's in. This game is really buggy. The biggest bug that I have encountered was party members getting stuck in walls. You can't progress on screen if your characters are not always in the vicinity of each other, so, it just left me soft locked in most cases. It even happened to me in the final dungeon once which really pissed me off. Other than that, it's usually just visual bugs.
The best thing about this game is the soundtrack, which quickly became one of my favorites on the system. It's so good that it made me think I was enjoying the game a few times.
This is one of those games where props have to be given for molding the genre, but, it really does not hold up in the slightest.
Nocturne was a game that I originally hated. It has design artifacts that come across as dated and out of place in its era. But that’s exactly why I like it now and remember it fondly.
Nocturne embraces the dungeon design of its predecessors. I think it’s important for something like Nocturne to exist in the time period it was released in, since you had games like Final Fantasy 10 leaning more towards the simpler side with its linear hallways and simpler dungeon design. Yeah, it’s probably stockholm syndrome from older RPGs, but it’s fun getting lost in big mazes and getting items at dead ends, and it's cool to see Nocturne maintain this design in a 3D space.
The combat is really fun. There’s a big emphasis on buffing and debuffing in this game, and there’s a ton of different demons to fuse and teams to use which keep the whole game feeling fresh. There’s also this “Press Turn System” in the game in which you will get another turn for attacking an enemy’s weakness or getting a crit. You also lose another turn for missing your attack. This also applies to enemies, and it makes evasion buffs and debuffs the most broken thing in the game by far. I do think there should have been some balancing done to that. You can also skip a turn and give it to another party member, which is very handy if one of your demons is useless in the fight you’re in. There’s a ton of scenarios where this is fun and promotes a lot of different strategies.
I originally complained about how some of the fiend locations are random as hell and they give you no hints as to where to find them and it still holds true. It’s necessary to fight them all for the secret true ending or whatever, which is why it was annoying, but I find it more annoying that a true ending exists in the first place. I kind of wish it just had you pick which ending you want, without any of that “canon” stuff getting in the way. Looking at it from that aspect, the odd fiend locations don’t really bother me anymore.
The story does suck though. Conceptually, it’s pretty cool, but it suffers from pretty unrealistic character motivations which are important for a plot like this. I don’t want to go into detail because I don’t want to spoil in my reviews, but if you’ve played it you might understand what I mean. I know there’s that “nobody plays SMT for the story” argument or whatever, and yeah, I enjoy the other aspects a lot more.
Oh yeah, this game is a remaster too. Does it do well on that front? Well, no, not really. I’m more so glad that this is officially playable on modern hardware now, and so I didn’t have to mess with a PS2 emulator. The lighting messes up a lot of the environments and the soundtrack is still left compressed like it was on the PS2 version! Luckily, there is a mod to uncompress it which my friend insisted I used and I eventually caved and used it even though I don’t like using mods on games. It was definitely nice to hear the music in higher quality, and I honestly recommend everyone use it too, it sounds pretty bad without it.
I was always looking at Nocturne as some elitist, hardest RPG ever made type of deal, and I think my unenjoyment stemmed from the game not offering the challenge I was expecting. The truth is, no, Nocturne is not one of the hardest RPGs ever, or whatever, but it’s a real fun game that has a lot going for it.
Nocturne embraces the dungeon design of its predecessors. I think it’s important for something like Nocturne to exist in the time period it was released in, since you had games like Final Fantasy 10 leaning more towards the simpler side with its linear hallways and simpler dungeon design. Yeah, it’s probably stockholm syndrome from older RPGs, but it’s fun getting lost in big mazes and getting items at dead ends, and it's cool to see Nocturne maintain this design in a 3D space.
The combat is really fun. There’s a big emphasis on buffing and debuffing in this game, and there’s a ton of different demons to fuse and teams to use which keep the whole game feeling fresh. There’s also this “Press Turn System” in the game in which you will get another turn for attacking an enemy’s weakness or getting a crit. You also lose another turn for missing your attack. This also applies to enemies, and it makes evasion buffs and debuffs the most broken thing in the game by far. I do think there should have been some balancing done to that. You can also skip a turn and give it to another party member, which is very handy if one of your demons is useless in the fight you’re in. There’s a ton of scenarios where this is fun and promotes a lot of different strategies.
I originally complained about how some of the fiend locations are random as hell and they give you no hints as to where to find them and it still holds true. It’s necessary to fight them all for the secret true ending or whatever, which is why it was annoying, but I find it more annoying that a true ending exists in the first place. I kind of wish it just had you pick which ending you want, without any of that “canon” stuff getting in the way. Looking at it from that aspect, the odd fiend locations don’t really bother me anymore.
The story does suck though. Conceptually, it’s pretty cool, but it suffers from pretty unrealistic character motivations which are important for a plot like this. I don’t want to go into detail because I don’t want to spoil in my reviews, but if you’ve played it you might understand what I mean. I know there’s that “nobody plays SMT for the story” argument or whatever, and yeah, I enjoy the other aspects a lot more.
Oh yeah, this game is a remaster too. Does it do well on that front? Well, no, not really. I’m more so glad that this is officially playable on modern hardware now, and so I didn’t have to mess with a PS2 emulator. The lighting messes up a lot of the environments and the soundtrack is still left compressed like it was on the PS2 version! Luckily, there is a mod to uncompress it which my friend insisted I used and I eventually caved and used it even though I don’t like using mods on games. It was definitely nice to hear the music in higher quality, and I honestly recommend everyone use it too, it sounds pretty bad without it.
I was always looking at Nocturne as some elitist, hardest RPG ever made type of deal, and I think my unenjoyment stemmed from the game not offering the challenge I was expecting. The truth is, no, Nocturne is not one of the hardest RPGs ever, or whatever, but it’s a real fun game that has a lot going for it.
(This review is my old take on Nocturne. It’s a very negative view of the game but I actually like Nocturne now. I completed the HD port and this is my more recent review for it.)
I want to like this game but I can't. This is one of the worst designed JRPGs I have ever played.
First let's start with this game's so-called "Difficulty". The only difficult thing I had to do in this game was use an insta kill shield before going back to auto battling. 90 percent of the boss fights in this game are an absolute joke. This is mostly due to evasion buffs being one of the most broken things in the game.
One of this games stand out mechanics is its "Press Turn System" which essentially allows you to transfer a turn to the next party member. Here's the catch though. If you get a crit you get another turn, but, if you miss your attack you lose 2 turns out of the 4 it gives you per player phase. This also applies to enemies which includes boss fights. This system is extremely abusable due to evasion buffs and debuffs. I was literally just using evasion up over and over again for every boss fight and then the bosses would miss their attack and not get a chance to do anything so I could continue auto battling with no repercussions. The good thing is sometimes they will have moves to remove debuffs on themselves or remove your buffs. I've barely seen these moves used though and most of the time the bosses were at the end of the game. Even still, the bosses are super unbalanced and extremely easy to beat. Oh, but there's also the bosses which have gimmicks like being immune to physical damage. So you can sit there for 10 minutes trying to use magic moves (which are very weak in this game) in a stall match waiting for enough turns to use the weak spells as the boss does 2 damage to you and wastes their turns because of the evasion buffs you have.
Now, my biggest problem with this game is the dungeon design. They decided to resort to picking a random path in dungeons for progression. It's super cool when the final dungeon in the game's gimmick is picking a path. If you pick the wrong one you get sent back to the beginning, which is really fun because of the random encounter rate! I swear any time this game has puzzles it's just hoping you went in the right door or area and hope you don't have to start over (which you will).
If you want to fight the fiends then I hope you remembered you probably should go back to the starting area halfway through the game for no apparent reason with no NPC in areas but the place mentioned having any hints or info on the subject. Every time I had to fight a fiend I was literally just going down the checklist of every area in the game including all of the little rooms scattered about in the towns.
The Demon Fusion system is really cool in concept but I wish it made some semblance of sense. It's not touched on beyond the fusion room guy telling you very basic info. It is basically just throwing shit at a wall and hoping it sticks. Hope you can fuse whatever you need from luck alone. I can't help but think that there are ways to make this system more understandable for a blind player, like possibly a graph displaying possible fusions and filling in with the fusions you've already created.
The story is not very good too, which sucks because the concept is actually very interesting. The world is wiped and there is a battle of reasons to determine how the new world will be run. The problem is that the characters have very unrealistic motivations (save for Futomimi) and are barely given any time for me to care about them, or maybe understand where they are coming from.
This is just the surface of this game's issues, there are plenty more but, I would be here all day. But, besides that I will say that I do like the art and world design in this game. It gives off a very unique feel I've never experienced before in a video game. That alone, was the only thing I can take away from this experience that I appreciated, along with some of the songs in the soundtrack.
I want to like this game but I can't. This is one of the worst designed JRPGs I have ever played.
First let's start with this game's so-called "Difficulty". The only difficult thing I had to do in this game was use an insta kill shield before going back to auto battling. 90 percent of the boss fights in this game are an absolute joke. This is mostly due to evasion buffs being one of the most broken things in the game.
One of this games stand out mechanics is its "Press Turn System" which essentially allows you to transfer a turn to the next party member. Here's the catch though. If you get a crit you get another turn, but, if you miss your attack you lose 2 turns out of the 4 it gives you per player phase. This also applies to enemies which includes boss fights. This system is extremely abusable due to evasion buffs and debuffs. I was literally just using evasion up over and over again for every boss fight and then the bosses would miss their attack and not get a chance to do anything so I could continue auto battling with no repercussions. The good thing is sometimes they will have moves to remove debuffs on themselves or remove your buffs. I've barely seen these moves used though and most of the time the bosses were at the end of the game. Even still, the bosses are super unbalanced and extremely easy to beat. Oh, but there's also the bosses which have gimmicks like being immune to physical damage. So you can sit there for 10 minutes trying to use magic moves (which are very weak in this game) in a stall match waiting for enough turns to use the weak spells as the boss does 2 damage to you and wastes their turns because of the evasion buffs you have.
Now, my biggest problem with this game is the dungeon design. They decided to resort to picking a random path in dungeons for progression. It's super cool when the final dungeon in the game's gimmick is picking a path. If you pick the wrong one you get sent back to the beginning, which is really fun because of the random encounter rate! I swear any time this game has puzzles it's just hoping you went in the right door or area and hope you don't have to start over (which you will).
If you want to fight the fiends then I hope you remembered you probably should go back to the starting area halfway through the game for no apparent reason with no NPC in areas but the place mentioned having any hints or info on the subject. Every time I had to fight a fiend I was literally just going down the checklist of every area in the game including all of the little rooms scattered about in the towns.
The Demon Fusion system is really cool in concept but I wish it made some semblance of sense. It's not touched on beyond the fusion room guy telling you very basic info. It is basically just throwing shit at a wall and hoping it sticks. Hope you can fuse whatever you need from luck alone. I can't help but think that there are ways to make this system more understandable for a blind player, like possibly a graph displaying possible fusions and filling in with the fusions you've already created.
The story is not very good too, which sucks because the concept is actually very interesting. The world is wiped and there is a battle of reasons to determine how the new world will be run. The problem is that the characters have very unrealistic motivations (save for Futomimi) and are barely given any time for me to care about them, or maybe understand where they are coming from.
This is just the surface of this game's issues, there are plenty more but, I would be here all day. But, besides that I will say that I do like the art and world design in this game. It gives off a very unique feel I've never experienced before in a video game. That alone, was the only thing I can take away from this experience that I appreciated, along with some of the songs in the soundtrack.
I like Silent Hill 2's story and especially it's incredible atmosphere. Although, I had trouble getting attached to the characters due to the voice acting. I was laughing a bit too much at some of the scenes when they're supposed to be serious. It's not out of place for the time it was released in though.
The gameplay is very stagnant. There is not a lot of combat variety as you will be fighting the same 2 zombies over and over again with the same strategy every time. Item distribution feels very unbalanced as well. I had way too much ammo and health pickups by the end of the game while I had used them carelessly whenever I needed. I was disappointed by this because I enjoy when survival horror games have emphasis on resource management and having to make decisions to preserve your inventory without wasting it all. I was playing on normal mode, but it felt like it was on very easy mode or something. I did enjoy the games puzzles for what they were though, along with the excellent soundtrack.
As far as this remaster though? Really good. I'm glad Silent Hill 2 is now properly playable on something that isn't the PS2. I remember it having some glitchy shadows at a part near the end, but other than that, it ran great and looked great.
The gameplay is very stagnant. There is not a lot of combat variety as you will be fighting the same 2 zombies over and over again with the same strategy every time. Item distribution feels very unbalanced as well. I had way too much ammo and health pickups by the end of the game while I had used them carelessly whenever I needed. I was disappointed by this because I enjoy when survival horror games have emphasis on resource management and having to make decisions to preserve your inventory without wasting it all. I was playing on normal mode, but it felt like it was on very easy mode or something. I did enjoy the games puzzles for what they were though, along with the excellent soundtrack.
As far as this remaster though? Really good. I'm glad Silent Hill 2 is now properly playable on something that isn't the PS2. I remember it having some glitchy shadows at a part near the end, but other than that, it ran great and looked great.
I was enticed to play this for obvious reasons but the reality of the matter is that this is an insanely generic and boring platformer with no level variety whatsoever. Every level plays the exact same with the only difference being that the world changes from a pimple theme to a shit theme or something. You could tell me these levels were randomly generated and I would believe it.
The most infuriating thing about this game for me is how much of the screen your sprite takes up. This, paired with the slow booger tossing mechanic which is your main form of attack, makes it so you will constantly run into enemies you can't see unless you're just slowing inching forward, which is what I did for the entire game.
The most infuriating thing about this game for me is how much of the screen your sprite takes up. This, paired with the slow booger tossing mechanic which is your main form of attack, makes it so you will constantly run into enemies you can't see unless you're just slowing inching forward, which is what I did for the entire game.
1993
Disregarding the fact that this sequel dropped it's city sim mechanic from the first game, it is a visually stunning platformer with great enemy and level variety. Although, I do find that the boss design varies in quality. Some are a fun challenge with good patterns that rely on the games mechanics, some are piss-easy, and some have incoherent patterns that I did not feel were fair to fight. Unfortunately I also find the soundtrack to be repetitive and boring. It's unfortunate because Yuzo Koshiro composed the music again coming back from the first game and I don't find it to be nearly as good.
2000
Vagrant Story was a huge breath of fresh air and one of the best games I've ever played. The combat is on-field and you can stop time to go into your menu and pick your action. The combat also rewards equipment preparation and allows you to change equipment during battles in order to adapt and counter the enemies you are facing. This game offers so much utility in combat and continues to get better as you gain more abilities and magic. The soundtrack is beautiful, and the story along with the characters are very interesting. The character designs themselves look very inspired.
This game opts out of using a tutorial and throws you in with absolutely no explanation of any of its complex mechanics. Most of it is explained in the in-game manual, which I thought I would point out. I prefer this method of explanation instead of the game treating you like a baby whenever a new mechanic is introduced. If I ever had questions, I could cite the manual whenever I needed.
I can't recommend this game enough. Anyone should try this if they're looking for a non-traditional JRPG, or just a good game in general.
This game opts out of using a tutorial and throws you in with absolutely no explanation of any of its complex mechanics. Most of it is explained in the in-game manual, which I thought I would point out. I prefer this method of explanation instead of the game treating you like a baby whenever a new mechanic is introduced. If I ever had questions, I could cite the manual whenever I needed.
I can't recommend this game enough. Anyone should try this if they're looking for a non-traditional JRPG, or just a good game in general.
1994
Demon's Crest, being the third game in the Gargoyles Quest series, which are platformers with RPG progression, decides to open up the formula and let you tackle levels in your own order, Mega Man style. The difference being, in the Gargoyle's Quest games, they had linear structure. So, what's the issue here?
This game was not designed around the upgrades it gives you. Even from the very start the game gives you the ability to infinitely hover which allows you to bypass a lot of the level design. This, and other abilities give many sections no challenge. The only instances of this game I remember being a fun challenge was when I did not have a lot of health at the beginning and was forced to learn boss patterns. The bosses are well designed and fun but you can just tank through a lot of them later on. The soundtrack is also pretty boring and repetitive. It's a shame because Gargoyle's Quest 1 and 2 each are designed well and have you utilize your abilities equally throughout the games, instead of this games lack of thought out upgrade distribution.
This game's worth trying if you like permanent character upgrades. Not an awful game, but it still has glaring issues.
This game was not designed around the upgrades it gives you. Even from the very start the game gives you the ability to infinitely hover which allows you to bypass a lot of the level design. This, and other abilities give many sections no challenge. The only instances of this game I remember being a fun challenge was when I did not have a lot of health at the beginning and was forced to learn boss patterns. The bosses are well designed and fun but you can just tank through a lot of them later on. The soundtrack is also pretty boring and repetitive. It's a shame because Gargoyle's Quest 1 and 2 each are designed well and have you utilize your abilities equally throughout the games, instead of this games lack of thought out upgrade distribution.
This game's worth trying if you like permanent character upgrades. Not an awful game, but it still has glaring issues.