It's a real shame to say but I think this game is too well made for me to enjoy it properly 😔

That may sound off, but my score is personal to my experience and my enjoyment, which unfortunately both grew more strained the longer I played for. To be clear off the bat, this game being a fully explorable map was not something I expected at all, especially not anything so big and complete, it's wild really. That aside though, the investigating areas and interrogating characters is exactly what I wanted, and there's a lot of that which was perfect... Until there was a little too much of it.

It feels strange to say, but without spoiling anything there is so, so much more to this mystery than it first appears. I was 9 hours in and suddenly meeting new characters for the first time uncovering huge new parts of the story that I hadn't even considered to that point. To preface, this is largely because of how *I* played, and I'm sure most people would've found this much earlier than I did, but therein lies most of where this game feel short for me to be honest.

Paradise Killer is so unbelievably open that you're quite literally just sent out onto the island. The nature of investigating means you're constantly finding new clues, hearing testimonies from people and then checking out their stories to see if they hold up. Which in a single game mechanic, translates to backtracking. You will speak to the same people so many times throughout the game that just travelling across the map to get to them becomes a chore. You'll retrace the same paths so many times it may take you 9 hours to realise that there's a whole other area you've never been to because you were planning on exploring it after you'd expended all the clues to be found in this location first 😅

To further this issue, at least for someone as directionally challenged as myself, the map simply isn't very helpful. Some locations require specific routes to be reached and even by the end of the game there were places I'd been to a dozen times and could still only access by climbing up somewhere nearby and jumping down to it from above. And to make this problem sting just that bit more, the fast travel system costs in-game currency (crystals you find around the map) to both unlock each travel station and then costs again every single time you use it. So lazily skipping to that one guy who's miles away from everyone else and then doing it again to come back costs 2 crystals. Which are also used for other things on the island, and are in finite supply, so by the end i'd run out and was forced to run the entire length of the island multiple times bouncing between suspects and key locations 😭

Anyway I've rambled more than I wanted to already, I don't mean to knock this game per se but a couple of frustrating design choices paired with too much freedom for my personal liking made for an almost too realistic Investigative experience. I'm a big fan of a lot of what the game has and does, but the case files grew too great for me to keep up with and constantly running back and forth and getting lost just made it feel like a chore to get through by the end, sadly.

If the idea of investigating this way appeals to you by all means please go play and love it, just know in advance that you have total agency over the order you do things which can very easily bite you when you decide to speak to A before B only to learn that B gives you a new question for A :p

Didn't expect this to be my next review but just wanted to share those thoughts I s'pose. Two things I can't criticise at all for this game are the art style and the music, my god is the island a vibe to be on when you first start😌

That'll do it, thanks for reading y'all. I'm working through Elden Ring at the minute (it's great, I suck! :D) so my next completions will likely be smaller games I've picked up on steam recently. Getting pretty eager for Apollo Justice though so anticipate a potential review for that maybe.
Take it easy🙏

Some quick micro-reviews for anyone interested in stuff I haven't talked about--
- FF13 was fantastic, really loved the setting, story and characters. Combat was fun but the level design could've been more interesting.
- Knowledge or Know Lady was dumb as hell, had a lot of fun with that.
- Max Payne 3 is unquestionably a Rockstar game pretending to be Max Payne but the gunplay is unreal so its hard to care. Also I started listening to Health so that's neat.
- The World Ends With You was great too, really enjoyed the narrative and characters in that, looking forward to trying NEO and hopeful that the controls will be less awkward.

"Even a fly lives for a day"

Final Fantasy IX is a very strange game. A decades-long reputation and countless Final Fantasy ranking lists made it impossible to go into this without expectations; knowing it's so widely regarded as one of or even the best entry in the series is hard to ignore, but I tried my best to stay reasonable, and even expected not to like it as much as 7, and to compare the two as little as possible as I played.
This worked out pretty well in the end, but unfortunately my thoughts on this game in isolation ended up being even more confusing as a result..

If you sit on the title screen for a moment, you'll see images of the party members, each with a title and a thought related to their personality. Virtue: You don't need a reason to help people. Sorrow: How do you prove that you exist? May we don't... Devotion: Someday I will be queen, but I will always be myself. Solitude: I don't want to be alone anymore. -- These honestly make for a great first impression, and had me going in with even higher hopes that the characters would be fleshed out with rich and well written arcs surrounding their unique perspectives. I don't want to go on too long or trample anyone's love for the title, but I'm so disappointed that this ended up being untrue.
To be clear, a handful of characters do get some proper development and go through real growth. Zidane, Garnet, and especially Vivi, all succeed in this regard in my opinion, and make for some of the most interesting elements of the entire game. Steiner and Eiko definitely get their growth as well, but in a much more 'secondary' feeling way, with less ongoing presence, and this is even worse with Freya and Amarant, who seem to have their whole stories told in just a few specific moments with very little going on outside of those. (And then Quina honestly might as well not even be there I'm sorry. Their menu screen says "Indulgence: I do what I want" or something but what it should've said was "I like food, that's my whole character" 😅)

Anyway, due to this, the game fell a little short for me on the party front, and all the times I'd heard that the characters are so well written became a confusion as to how, when less than half of them even have a story to begin with. Freya's arc in particular is very powerful, and the concept is excellent, but as with a lot of the game's moments, it happens and then it's over, if that makes sense? There's no lasting impression, like being told an emotional story and then immediately putting a movie on. Idk this may just be me but I felt like a lot of scenes would've benefitted from being allowed to breath a bit more and giving me time with a soft song to let it sink in. Sure I could've just stopped playing and sat there, but that's not how I play :p

I've rambled a lot already so to quickfire some other thoughts I have: The combat in this game felt really bad, I'm sorry. Like all of it, I played on PS so I had the cheats to instantly trance and do 9999 damage, but even by the late game when I had good equipment and high levels the fights either felt unfair or just took way too long. The delay between every attack and whatever slows things to a crawl I never ever would've gotten through it playing normally. By the final area I still didn't have a single summon available on either summoner so idk what the deal was there, and after maxing out my levels and abilities to have a full party of Lvl 99's, Zidane's base attack was doing 4000+ damage and my summons were doing less than 1000.. why game 😅 This is probably me being stupid and not understanding something, but yeah not for me, big dislike. And phoenix down's reviving you with less than 0.5% of your hp is comically useless idk how you're supposed to do anything with that!

Narratively, the story took a hot second showing it's face but once it got going and especially in the endgame I ended up liking it. I can understand why the core principles and themes of the game resonate with people so strongly, I just think the execution of a lot of the arcs and the gameplay itself take away from it a lot more than I would expect for a game with a reputation so strong that when I started it the only common issue I knew people took with it was the battle intro being too long 😅

Ultimately, I definitely like this game, I dare even say that it's a good one, very good maybe. It's just a shame that the good is buried underneath so much that felt undercooked to me. Lots of really great ideas all thrown into a pot that's too small to fit them - some of it may be cooked to perfection, but you've gotta eat through a load of under or overcooked food to get to it, and that sucks.

People have been pretty vocal that this game should get a proper remake in the way that FF7 has been, with some even saying it should've gotten one instead of 7. I used to think this was just because they prefer 9, and the 7 v 9 rivalry will never end, but even as someone who prefers basically everything about FF7, I think I kinda get it. Neither game is perfect, of course not, but in terms of which game has the potential to be greater than it was if given proper time, care and a much improved execution? Maybe.. I believe that the best possible version of FF9 could improve upon its original more than the best possible FF7 could.

This ended up running a lot longer than planned so I'll cut myself off here -- hope you're all keeping busy with your backlogs in what's turning out to be a somewhat quiet year for the industry. I've not been reviewing/rambling as much recently because it takes me so long to type 20,000 words per game, but next on the docket is the latter 2/3rds of TWEWY and then honestly I might jump right back into Final Fantasy with my first proper playthrough of XIII, the controversy will continue :p
Thanks for reading everyone, hope you're well! 🙏

This game exceeded even my highest expectations in almost every way.

I could talk about it for hours but as with Remake I don't think it's possible for me to do it justice, it's peak. I've spent over 200 hours with FF7 Rebirth now and I could easily jump back in for a 3rd playthrough today.

This game is such an achievement, and home to some of the most beautiful scenes, characters and music in memory. If the final part is able to do even half as many things as well as this does, then we're in for a phenomenal trilogy of games.

As an aside, getting the platinum for this was insanely fun and surprisingly easy ... until the last few combat simulations. It took me around 40 hours over 5 days to get them done. I am begging that part 3 is easier 🥹
Thanks for reading folks, hope you're all doing well!🙏