Perhaps taking an offshoot route to play Nayuta in my not-for-the-faint-of-heart journey through the Kiseki series when I was and am admittedly dying to reach Cold Steel/Reverie/Kuro was a bizarre decision to make. End of thought.

Nayuta is a strange little game that, as someone who hasn't progressed past Azure and has only heard of things from this game's story loosely tying into the main Trails canon, there's really no set time or need to play it to understand the main Trails story. More of an "aha" moment if you see something in a future game that calls back to Nayuta, but doesn't feel like a major gap in the Trails experience if you miss out on it. I only really know this as many of my friends who are caught up with Trails skipped Nayuta and didn't enjoy the story of the games any less.

There's something interesting about how it's chronologically the next game in the series after Azure and before Cold Steel if you go based on release date, but that doesn't detract from the fact that Nayuta is largely its own thing and can be experienced anytime, whether that be before Sky FC or after Reverie if you really wanted to. I really had no clue what I was getting into other than a friend of mine (shoutout to @Stormowl0 for this recommendation and for drawing god tier Rixia Mao art) telling me it was really good.

Rather than being turn-based strategy on a grid, this is a full-blown action RPG with sword combos, magic spam, dodge rolls, and blocking galore! I could understand this as it is what Ys seems to be like (author's note: still need to play Ys), but what I was not expecting for it to be just as much of a platformer as it is an action JRPG. Turns out innovating the series by adding a jump button was done for more than show as enemies are often fought in a linear level-by-level format with precarious jump, traps, and pits you have to make your way around in the environments. I can't remember where I've heard this but I remember someone comparing it to Kirby 64 strangely enough, and I honestly find it very fitting for both games have a similarly whimsical worlds, a balance of combat and platforming in their level designs, and a silly little fairy girl that follows the protagonist.

Nayuta definitely isn't as easy as Kirby however and this is where I think some of its greatest gameplay strength lies: in how fast and frantic combat can get when you're in a pinch. It's not necessarily the most deep or thought provoking combat out there, you can spam magic quite a lot of the time to negate some challenges and swinging your sword mindlessly doesn't heavily punish you and is even encouraged at times. But playing on hard mode still required me to respect what enemies could do and at least know how to position myself and pull off timely dodges/blocks to not get obliterated by the high damage. Bosses were some of the most demanding parts of the game where magic spam was largely ineffective and you have to rely on playing aggressively to open up a weak point you can slash. The bosses in general were fantastic. While it may sound like average good video game stuff based on what I described, let me put it like this. Remember Twilight Fossil Stallord from the Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess and how, despite being another use-the-dungeon-item boss, the second phase had his head come off and you chased him down on your spinner in a thrilling, high-speed encounter? Imagine if nearly every boss had a cool twist like that, but was never gimmicky to the point where the base combat you know first and foremost isn't shafted (except in one boss which was the worst in the game because of this lmao).

The story while not connecting to the rest of a series as is often seen as a strength of the Trails series above other JRPGs, Nayuta has a similar general structure to its plot going from very, very, humble beginnings and then turning into Xenogears by the very end. It's much faster paced than even the shortest individual Trails game, so the characters don't quite the same level of screentime they would in Trails, but it was still enough to tug at my heartstrings and even get me misty eyed in some of the later scenes.

I'm very well aware at how disorganized and all-over the place these thoughts are, but it's honestly just kind of hard to sum up what kind of game Nayuta is. It takes so many elements from other games as it creates this fascinating JRPG-platformer hybrid with wild creativity and endearing characters and storytelling. It's something that, while not blowing me away quite to the extent that the Trails games all have so far with their jaw-dropping narratives at times, really clicked with me and carried the experience.

Man, it'd probably be more reasonable to let my opinion settle before making a bold statement, but this series hasn't consumed my mind over the past several months for nothing. I spent a good 90 hours on Trails in the Sky SC only to come out thinking "yeah, this is one of the best games I ever played."

I've barely scratched the surface of this series yet and I'm both amazed at how I simultaneously feel like I've already found an absolute peak story and that there's still so much more to uncover in this series' lore. The world feels incredibly fleshed out thanks to the abundance of flavor text and dialogue but it never feels like every answer is just given to you as there are always hints of bigger, more sinister events taking place behind the scenes. Even though Trails is often seen as a slow burn, I never found myself bored with the story as I found it interesting to let my mind wander and guess where the story will go and I can't say I've experienced many games that strike such a rich balance.

The stakes of the story in SC are much higher than that of the first game and that game's set of already established characters are all given time to shine in some of their most emotional and badass moments yet. It definitely helped that most of the characters were likeable from the get-go but now they feel far more fleshed out with backstories being explored and development taking place throughout the story. I don't want to give too many details for the sake of spoilers but I'll let you know that this game left me speechless more than once. And that doesn't even get into Estelle and Joshua's relationship which was a huge emotional Rollercoaster throughout the game and led to some of the absolute peak of JRPG writing if I've ever seen it.

I am slightly disappointed that they mainly reused locations from the first chapter as I liked the new location the game starts out in, but I never found this to be a major hindrance as the aforementioned world-building gives each location enough depth to feel like fully realized settings and the new dungeons revealed in these previous locations contributes to the sense of mystery in this world. The combat similarly went through little change though I found it significantly more addicting this time around, but maybe that's because I actually made stuff resembling character builds and liked playing with the new arts/orbments. I'm almost inclined to do a second playthrough to experiment with more combinations, which rarely happens with RPGs for me.

Either way, I have no clue why it took me so long to try the Trails series. It doesn't really revolutionize the genre but the concepts, mechanics and storytelling are so well executed that I find it hard to call this game anything less than a masterpiece.

Xenoblade 1 has a lot of issues, especially compared to its sequels. The combat's pretty simplistic, the worlds can feel a little too big for their own good, the side quests suck, and besides Shulk and Melia, the characters aren't the most interesting.

That said, it still has a lot going for it, and it's impressive how many of the ideas it established still work in later games.


Edit: Also, the Wii version does not look better than this

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Forgot to log this even though I played it at a friend's house like forever ago. Whoops. Either way, it's genuinely an incredible tech demo. While I'm not personally super familiar with all of Sony's franchises so the references may not have hit me as hard as with people who grew up with these franchises, seeing the amount of care they were treated with and the fact that you can find cool references in nearly every corner was really damn cool. I really enjoyed poking around every world and I almost wish it was longer. Guess Sony's gotta last until the year 2122 so they have an extra 100 years to make references to in a future game that can be longer 🤷‍♂️

This games reception is probably one of the worst of all time and it affects a lot of people’s perception of when they do hop on this game and it takes away all their own opinions to formulate themselves and automatically prepares them to expect the bad and never any good. That being said, this game is a huge test to whether you are able to filter out the bad opinions and listen to your own opinions because honestly this is one of the greatest JRPG adventures continuing off from an already amazing game which is Xenoblade 1.

Getting this out the way as fast as possible, my only complaint was the checks on having certain field skills at certain points in the game and this is more towards the end of the game, this really hits the pacing and it feels just disconnected if you aren’t hitting those field skills correctly and I didn’t have any problems personally but I could see why people are complaining and this is because of the gacha system they implemented for blades. That’s basically my complaint and it’s not that huge, not even contributing to the overall combat and narrative.

This game is the definition if you have a lick of common sense, not for everyone but certainly for me. People who review this game as a hentai game is doing this entry in the series a big disservice. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is one of the most misunderstood games ever and it’s just unfortunately gonna stay that way. Following public opinion and sticking with it just makes you look goofy as hell, for the people who dislike this game, they can keep disliking cause it’s obvious that they are just birds Inna flock with no common sense at all.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is one of the best sequels to a series ever, this cast is one of my favorites excluding one character who contributes jack shit but yeah. I could see why people get turned away by the first four chapters cause it’s definitely slow and it has a lot to build on but what JRPG doesn’t have this same problem to let them cook. The antagonist group with Jin and Malos are really just one of my favorite pair of antagonists ever. Getting into the main cast and Rex, Mythra/Pyra, Nia are just my absolute favorites and just hit very hard especially alongside with the other cast members (again sayin excluding one). Xenoblade 2 cast is just beautifully created and how their characters feel so real on talking about how life is and their own ideals and what matters to them. Zeke also being one of my favorite cast members ever in a party group, the way he was introduced and handled throughout the game was just so good. Rex and Jin being foils to each other, mutuals characters dealing with their own inner strife such as Nia on hiding herself for most of the game until she finally is able to come out and be happy alongside Rex who was able to find his reasons to keep going which includes her, Pyra/Mythra and the party, just so much amazing things going on for the characters that’s just beautiful

The finale stretch is amazing as always for a Xenoblade game and reveals huge things especially more information about what exactly happens and also showing a bit of action in what happened before in XC1s plot that’s connected to the current plot. This story being connected with themes of healing your own wounds, getting up from despair, deciding for yourself whether you should keep going or stop on road, caring for others, carrying on for the next generation of people to take over. It definitely means something to me, something about not just adding into making sure we make our own choices for our future continuing on from xc1, but to make sure we rely on the people around us, to stick true to our own selves especially. The world will always get its way and it will fail the people, it will fail us and shit will happen and it could be tough to recover from it, but there’s always the hope and our own will to keep on going, to keep the people around you and to provide each other with comfort, and when that day comes when said person is to pass or it’s you that passes, we pass on ourselves and our important memories to provide for the future and to keep personally to ourselves to remind us. This world is not a pretty one and there’s always gonna be conflict and sadness, but there’s also the good times when we are happy, it’s as simple as Rex says it.

Thank You Xenoblade 2