Bizarre how this game is trying to present wizarding world of 1890 as this secret island of progressiveness and liberalism with a few rotten apples here and there. Everyone is welcoming and friendly, there's no tension with teachers or rivalry between houses, your student buddy is a black girl from (soon to be a British colony) Uganda, a blind kid in Slytherin dorm complains about his father being a boomer blood racist, you can enter any bathroom in the school despite your assigned dormitory etc. It's truly a wholesome chungus version of Hogwarts, created as a smokescreen so you wouldn't think too hard about fantasy slavery and institutionalized stratification of wizarding society. The way to put distance between the game and woeful worldviews of the author. A scheme that doesn't pan out at all as the story uses goblin uprising as window dressing instead of the venicle to address inherent injustices of this fictional world.

But what if, for a moment, we try to disregard the elven slavery and goblin racism, Rowling's politics and hack writing. What will you find? Nothing short of another checklist open-world game. All the artistry, gigabytes of assets and hours of voice acting went into filling the wonderful recreation of Hogwarts with icons and one-button chores to raise your gear score. At one point the world map opens up with the massive grassland expanse full of goblin camps to clear. You'll find a Harry Potter game without characters to befriend or mysteries to ponder. There's no wish fulfillment, no secret life escapism — things that made HP the inescapable cultural phenomenon with millennials like myself in the first place.

I'm amazed it came down to this when Atlus figured out a socialite RPG framework 18 years ago. Like, a Hogwarts game with calendar system would still be junk food, but at least in somewhat inspired serving. I should be attending wizarding classes and looking for ways to break school rules with my scrunklo Slytherin buddies. Instead I'm mass murdering goblin population and checking with ancient magic hotspots so I can deal 3 more damage with "basic cast". The fleeting charm of opening hours evaporates as square socket structure of the game laids bare, and so is my desire to engage with such slop.

Look, I love this series like crazy, so it’s hard for these games to disappoint, but even I know this whole series is just loaded with exposition. The world-building is arguably, uh, terrible because it is purposefully made so convoluted as most of the mystery and drama of most of these games’ story scenarios comes from characters unfolding and connecting passages from their respective world’s Book of Genesis, until the cast of characters find themselves twisted into their world’s Book of Revelations. Tales of Berseria’s scenario does well, though, in pacing out their discoveries and exposition so it never feels like you’re being given important information so late into the game. There are plenty of moments of characters going “Ah yes, of course, it’s just like the earth synergy.” “Earth synergy? What’s that?” but it’s never to a point where it feels like it’s too overbearing, or lazy, or goofy. I played a lot of this game spaced out over the last seven months and never forgot the important details of how this world works, as it was given to me, and I think that’s a pretty good testament to how this game doesn’t overload you. Even in the last section, where other ‘Tales’ games might dump a lot of last minute stuff on you, this one feels like it’s trying to stay linear.

I also think expositional dialog works here because each of the main cast are of different backgrounds. Demons, priests, witches, pirates! Everyone has lived a different life and, thus, can bring different knowledge to a discussion about the world! This makes what could be heavy-handed expository dialog a little lighter as the cast converses like a bunch of strangers of different strokes coming together to play ancient history detective. Then, of course, we learn more about these characters that we like as we learn about the world and its mystery.

The characters are all great. The party of six are each hits, all of them just endeared themselves to me so fast and easy, and the perfectly consistent writing of their personalities and how they clash and interact just had me giddy during some scenes. Sometimes a family isn’t a nuclear family of parent and children, sometimes it’s a gay samurai and a gay pirate and a mean lesbian and a closeted youth group lesbian and a quirky trans girl and the cute little kid they all see as a little brother! And the mean lesbian herself, Velvet freakin’ Crowe, is such a great, great protagonist. She and this game’s villain are perfect opposite extremes of what this whole game is about: what is the point of hurting?

This isn’t the first text to tackle this subject matter, of course, we all know what the point of hurting is! It means we’re human! It means we’re alive! It is a quintessential part of the human experience to be met with pain, the hard part is processing it. The antagonist of this game (light spoilers) wants to rid the world of pain; it should be something that no one should experience, as it is only borne from faults that mankind are saddled with. Velvet wants revenge for her pain, it drives an all-consuming (pun intended, as the connection is made obvious in subtext) rage that she plans to use to remove anything in her path. Velvet’s costume, at first glance, seems a bit much; a very revealing mess of tattered clothing that someone might wear to a nightclub’s goth-themed event. Though, I think it serves a purpose. Velvet is also a daemon (sic), a blight on the world, seen as ugly and broken by the church that runs the entire world. Her outfit is just a reflection of how the enemy sees her, and any objectification made towards her revealing outfit just helps the metaphor that not only is the church disgusted by her, but they also see her as a tool.

Her arc is spectacular, and, like most JRPGs, the solution is friends. As a writer, though, I’ve grown less sensitive to the same kinda of stories, especially in games, and to me, what’s important is not whether your message is new, or even if the story beats aren’t familiar, it’s how you write characters and how you take them to where they need to be taken to. The path that Velvet goes on to see her friends clearly as they are is so great and so fulfilling, and so clear and beautiful, and in tandem, Laphicet’s arc and growth is so good. Ugh! I cried folks, I really did. This entire story had me in chains the whole time, and the ending was truly something else, and still has me thinking about it with a massive amount of emotion. I don’t think I’ll ever forget about Velvet Crowe. She’s up there with Guts and Maka Albarn as characters I will cherish forever.

“Your despair… how is it gone?”

Now, the video game part of this game was, well, less spectacular than the story, relatively. The combat in this game is maybe my favorite of the ‘Tales’ games I’ve played. It replaces mana points with a stamina meter made up of five points that get spent during your moves. It, for me, led to a much fluid style of play. High-hit combos are pretty easy, but still fun to land, the system was never too convoluted to the point where I found myself struggling to execute something, or was ignoring entire mechanics because I felt there was no need. The thing was, there were moments where I felt like I could just kind of brute-force a lot of situations. While I think this could be chalked up to the game being well-balanced to the point where, without me ever needing to grind, and I was the level I should’ve been throughout the entire game, I did feel like there wasn’t a whole lot of struggle, or strategizing. I just mapped artes to my buttons well, used the mystic artes when I could, and made it through pretty unscathed.

The struggle in this game, really, is dungeon design. When it’s not boring, it’s annoying, and the fucking two-hour-long final dungeon was plenty more enough for me! The dungeon “puzzles” basically come down to you walking from end-to-end hitting the right switches. I feel like, at least in exploration-rewarding JRPGs with encounters like this, the fun of dungeons can just be figuring out where to go. The final dungeon being this big fucking thing that was so annoying to navigate because of how the in-game map presents itself just drove me crazy, I cannot stress this enough. I detest the idea that the final boss needs this kind of carpet laid out for them, that you need to go through one final challenge leading up to the final battle. Buddy, the entire game was the lead up! Having already stayed up a couple of hours extra to finish the job, only to go to the location where I expected to fight the final boss and see a teleporter that took me to this huge complex with orbs and switches and bridges and doors and switches and warps and the most annoying monsters ever!!! It was a long night.

Though, the dungeons were my only gripe, and the very last one was the only one that was long enough to be a drag, to be fair. This is definitely my favorite tale that the ‘Tales’ series has ever told, though the video game itself didn’t exactly stand out next to other installments that I’ve completed.

There's a lot I could talk about when it comes to Ikenfell, a lot of things I loved. I could ramble on about the almost casually effortless way it handles queer themes, its excellent music, the well-executed and rare GBC aesthetic. I could point out how its world is focused, interconnected in a way that makes it painless to traverse, how its secrets are accessible or how it manages to forge a unique identity during a time when it is very easy for a lot of indie RPGs to feel very of a kind.

But that's not what I want to talk about. When it comes to Ikenfell, what makes it a game I have come to adore is the personal and the mechanical.

The personal side of Ikenfell isn't a new one. It's not the first RPG to elevate its characters beyond the plot, to treat them as more than tropes. But the way it does so, the pervasive nature of the interpersonal development of these characters, is difficult to approach. Each one feels like a person, someone with a life outside of this story and whatever moment of time they are inhabiting. Ikenfell spends as much time on the relationships between these characters, the exploration of this personal space, as it does on the plot itself. And it does so in a way that does not disrupt the flow of the game, coming as a very natural ebb and flow of plot, mechanics and introspection.

The growth of these characters, catalyzed by a plot that pushes them into uncomfortable personal realities, is as much the focus of the game as the moment-to-moment story developments. A rarity in a genre that is often propelled by grand, sweeping themes and ever-increasing stakes. It's tempting to talk about the details, the ways it subverts expectations, how it handles its serious moments with a rare dignity. But it's a game I refuse to spoil, as the act of discovering these moments is the emotional core of the journey.

That alone would be more than enough for me to like the game. But the fact that the mechanical side is so polished, and in a way that suggests a keen understanding of the pitfalls of games that pull from the JRPG well, is what elevates the game to one that is, for me, an instant classic.

Moves. Skills. Think of the RPGs, particularly the JRPGs, you've played. Ask yourself how often you used the entire skillset on a regular basis. How about half of it? How many skills were simply different flavors of the same. Fire for ice enemies, ice for fire enemies. Raising magic defense when fighting spell casters, physical versus melee. Spells that are strict upgrades, rendering the previous version obsolete and thus not being new at all. Rote responses to rote situations and, in many cases, ones that aren't even required, with combat that favors brute efficiency over dynamic choices. Systems that are, ultimately, prescriptive, difficulty curves that expect average play and thus punish those who fully engage with the tools provided by dropping all pretense of a challenge.

Ikenfell does not have this problem. Each character has eight skills, with the last one earned notably before the endgame. In most cases, the very first skill will be the strongest. Everything else is a sidegrade. A weaker attack, but one that hits an area and clears traps. A stronger attack, but with severely limited range. One that allows you to approach from a different angle. An option for movement, or limiting that of the enemy. Healing spells with actual differences that genuinely matter. Every single skill you earn, beginning to end, will be useful on a regular basis throughout the game. There is no chaff at all, no extremely niche choices.

Movement in combat is best described as SRPG-lite, with a limited field and enemies that are quite mobile. Your opponents will also have specific ranges they prefer as well, attacks that hit in spreads and lines, near and far, and it becomes increasingly difficult to find optimal positioning as the game goes on. This is compounded by the lack of random encounters, with each mob pack having a unique combination of enemies. No two battles are the same, a dynamism that is sorely lacking in so many entries.

That dynamic nature is furthered by the timed hit system. All skills, offensive and defensive, and all incoming attacks are subject to this. But unlike other timed hit setups, they are of critical importance here. Hits can be bad, good or great. Buffs and heals will fail to take on bad, debuffs can be avoided with great. The difference in damage is very notable, both coming and going. And every skill on both sides has a different, uniquely animated timing to it, making the occasional mistake all but inevitable. To the game's credit, the tuning on the numbers is so solid that those mistakes will often cause you to change your plan, leaving an enemy alive or a character in peril.

But what about gear? Too often, gear is a series of largely linear upgrades, with accessories allowing a bit of variety. You arrive in a new town, you buy your new gear. You go into a dungeon and root around for a few ahead-of-the-curve pieces. You give a relic to this person, a bracelet to that one, to tweak their build just a bit or to prepare for a specific battle. Most of these decisions don't matter, so long as the number goes up and obvious mistakes are avoided.

Not so in Ikenfell. Gear that you find is of equal use to the gear that you buy, with every piece being a trade-off in some way. As in combat, the numbers are kept low and fine-tuned to such a degree that you will absolutely notice the difference dropping speed for an extra move makes, the defense you sacrifice for power. Meanwhile, special equipment is largely limited to collecting gems from secret areas and trading them in for items in a shop. You know what you're getting, and what you're getting isn't a strict upgrade. These, too, offer trade-offs, special effects at the cost of stats. Even the tired trope of ultimate weapons hidden in obtuse ways and bringing game-breaking stats and abilities is absent. Your best weapons will be acquired in the final area, through character specific trials and in time for you to make use of them in the ending hours.

There's more. A soft cap on leveling and an EXP curve that tops out perfectly just from fighting the enemies you find along the way. An economy that forces actual choices if you intend to use all of the characters. Three roles, with two options each that play out quite differently while providing you all the freedom you need to make an unbalanced team. Secrets that are both worthwhile and which want to be found. Consumables with multiple effects, and the need to use them if you choose not to rely on the (arguably too) generous save points to recover.

All of this is just to say that Ikenfell does more than provide a compelling plot and characters to care about. It builds systems to drive you forward, systems that feel like they require your engagement instead of simply shuttling you along. Dungeons aren't slogs, they're exciting opportunities to learn new enemies and expand your strategies. Itemization isn't fishing for the highest stats, it's an active decision with tangible impact and inevitable sacrifices. Numbers are small enough to easily track the differences made when one goes up or down a bit, and the choices for them are diverse enough that you feel like even small choices will change how a battle flows.

Everything matters, from the plot to the personal to the play of the game itself. It was the first time in a long time I felt I wasn't simply along for the ride in an RPG, part of a visual novel with just a bit more mechanical depth than usual. Ikenfell is a game in a genre where many titles are just stories that check to make sure you're still awake between cutscenes and, for me, a breath of fresh air that reinvigorated my waning love for RPGs.

The concept of the depths were very exciting to me but once I explored it and realised there is nothing there all of the charm and magic of the game disappeared. The building mechanics are cool and exciting at first too, thinking of all the stuff you could do with them until you realise the game never challenges you to think outside the box with anything. An empty canvas is boring and bland , back me into a corner and make me think and something interesting might happen. I hated the Divine Beast dungeons in BotW and the dungeons in this one are as bad/worse, an exercise in tedium.

Horizon is a bizarre feel for me -- something that should just be so right but comes out so wrong as I continued to play. It took effort to finish this game even though fast-tracking it would probably lower your completion time to a mere 15 hours. This game isn't really as much as a PS must-play as I thought, and many elements of the game were poorly thought out, leading to both myself and most reviewers of this game finding it boring to play, at least in the current year.

To start with the good: I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere, world-design, world-building, enemy-design, and thought poured into the story. Again, not some great new form of storytelling but Aloy is just the right amount of likeable without being some perfect badass, and learns to challenge her flaws and failings while she learns of what her origins are. The story can struggle at times, most of it is just Aloy and Lance Reddick talking back and forth about the plot and "the Old Ones". You'll be taking shots for every time the game introduces a new term they expect you to remember and care about. To put it bluntly though -- the people who made this came cared about it enough in this regard, it's beautiful, bold, and unique in fighting weird robo-dinosaurs and picking their limbs apart.

That's about all I can say being confident -- the rest of this game comes with major caveats to enjoy them, mostly gameplay and progression just falling apart at the seams despite it being built on a solid base.

The gameplay is foundationally good -- skillful shots blow apart mechs and shatter them into tens of pieces tripping the right trigger. This is a fun, "david-and-goliath" impact the game has. Most games have to have that so it doesn't feel like you're smashing pixels for 100 hours straight. However, everything else just feels off and unnecessary.

-There are about 7 elements, none of which are really
necessary outside of fire.
-Some enemies just barely even have weak points, while others will just fall over with a single shot.
-Battles are frustrating as the robots basically throw themselves at you with huge damage impact for the first 30, fuck, 40 levels to the point you feel like this game is unexpectedly hard.
-Human fights are so dry and dull, and about 1/3rd of the time and mostly in story missions, that's who you're facing.
-The side content can barely be called side content, it's just the "radio tower" system yet again with the occasional tomb to trek through or area where you can challenge yourself with enemies, but don't bother unless you have the god-tier OP armor that gives you a second health bar and enough shards to buy Meridian with.

I'm sure I'm missing more but progression, game-testing, and level designing were all missed. You'll be getting your ass kicked by corrupted zones even when you're 15 levels above it unless you play the game wants you to. And there's nothing that makes me more frustrated when games that claim they're about lots of choice and different gameplay strategies fall exactly on the face of that: I'd like to meet someone who played this game without using fire and precision arrows the entire time like I did.

End of the day, it's a fine game, but it's the ultimate "Sony" game with less quality than most of their other established titles. Here's to hoping when I play the sequel, it'll be better, but in the meantime, I'll take some time off with objectively better and playtested games.