Played via the English fan translation Rhythm Heaven Silver.

They hit the ground running with the first entry in the series, its a shame this never left Japan, though some of the minigames definitely wouldn't have clicked with a western audience.
There are a couple stinkers here for sure - Quiz (?) - but lots of very solid minigames that were bound to be remastered in later entries.
I don't think this game is on the same level as DS, and definitely not Wii, but is worth a play if you have the means to.

This was it! This was the one that started it all! And I thought it was super cute! I played it with God Mode and I could (and did) fast forward, so that colors things! I also used a guide that I followed to the letter.

This was a very fun and cute little game. I thought it was neat to see the origin of the “you need a torch or something to light up a dungeon”, I liked that the sprite changed to hold its sword and shield, I liked that your little guy carries the princess, I like that if you stop at an inn while carrying the princess back to the castle you get a little “you were up late!” from the innkeeper, and I like the cute dialog from the NPCs

It’s wild to play the game that more or less created RPGs after a lifetime of playing RPGs; I can see why this game was the face that launched a thousand ships!

Cute cute cute!

A thoroughly miserable experience.

The only saving grace of these games is the charming art and music, other than that they are just extremely crude and dull affairs.

I won't lie, I am not a big fan of JRPGs in general. Most of the time I find their gameplay systems dull, repetitive, unengaging. I don't dislike all of them, of course. I don't even dislike all dragon quests, as I loved the other one I played (XI).

Generally, I can grow to like JRPGs that stimulate insightful tactical decision making, and those that have a compelling story and interesting characters. These games are direly lacking in both of these departments.

The story is the most basic, bog-standard schtick you can think of, the characters don't have any personality at all, and the locations blend together in my memory into a bland, generic blob.

On the gameplay side of things, 99% of battles amount to just doing basic attacks to one-shot pitifully weak enemies, in order to get meagre exp and gold rewards (aka, grinding. You'll be doing a ton of it). The other 1% are battles with stronger enemies, where you may have to employ the most basic tactics you can think of (aoe, buffs, debuffs, that sort of thing).

Both are about as boring as watching paint dry. If you use some sort of fast forward function, that is. Otherwise, on original hardware I guess it is more boring than watching paint dry.

The only challenge you might find are enemies with bigger numbers than yours, and more often than not the solution does not lie in improving your tactics, but in more harrowing, tedious, excruciating grinding. Aka, non-gameplay.

The second game has a very hands-free approach to exploration, which I can sort of appreciate in spirit. Unfortunately, the exploration process is never even remotely satisfying, as you are constantly barraged by random encounters that are, in 99% of cases, a waste of time.

The only thing that somewhat compelled me to keep moving, the only tiny nugget of satisfaction that this game is capable of stimulating, is the feeling of your numbers (levels, stats) going up. You don't get better at the game, gameplay stays mindless and basic, but you feel like you are advancing. It's like being in a hamster wheel, or on a tread mill. Except that those could be good, healthy excercise, while I would argue that DQ1 and 2 are actually actively harmful for you (or at least, for me). They just stimulate our monkey brains to feel good about our numbers increasing, while asking us to put in the bare-minimum amount of effort. Sort of like those zombie-like gambling addicts you can sometimes see hammering away at slot machines.

The only valuable thing about these games is their historical value. If you really, really, really, really care about that, I could advise you to give DQ1 (and only 1) a try. Otherwise, I suggest you to just look up the cool monster designs, and listen to the charming, catchy soundtrack, and never touch the actual games.

A bit more tolegarble than their NES counterparts by virtue of better controls and better difficulty, but still a grindy and at times just boring experience.

I've gotten through DQ1, but shrunken screen does no good for larger map of DQ2, so as soon as you get on a boat you have no idea where you're going and where you are. That, coupled with insanely high encounter rate, made me quit the game, likely for good. Unlike its predecessor, DQ2 has a party, and therefore more monsters to fight, which is a drag.

I actually think I appreciate the simplicity of the first game way more considering the second likes to give you 3-6 monsters to fight every 5 steps, which gets old immediately.

The entire SteamWorld franchise is one big flex. Almost every game dabbles in a new genre, bending and contorting it to fit the western robot-punk, vaguely post-apocalyptic aesthetic — but bringing with it some quality of life changes or spins on well-trodden formulas that feel completely unique. It’s never quite as simple as just slapping robots into a game you’ve already played before.

SteamWorld Build plants a flag in the ground of the land of city-builders with the lovely added depth of allowing players to burrow into the caverns beneath to extract the valuable elements and resources needed to continue expanding your soon-to-be metropolis. This feels in the moment like you’re playing multiple games simultaneously: Build your city until the balance of resources starts to skew into the red, then tunnel into the cavernous maw beneath to find new veins of ore to mine. Eventually, you’ll have cleared out as much of the underground as possible which sends you back up to the city to expand its reach and the inhabitants who live there as some will invent new tech for your mine shaft.

In this way, Build creates an impossibly sticky loop. Every action is rewarding, and every action feeds into another future action. As your city and mining operations each grow, they grow the possibility-space one plays within until you find yourself red-eyed and hunched, hungry and unclear of the time. Eventually you’ll need to just smash the eject button and go to bed.

Kid Icarus: Uprising is the best game on the Nintendo 3DS. Every mode in the game is fun, and what started as me playing the online again, before it was gone for good on April 8th, turned into a full replay. I really love how this game mixes story and character interactions into the gameplay, having every character talk while you play, using the on rails sections as playable cutscenes but keeping the challenge and openness of an actual game compared to a lot of modern games today. This game is full of a lot of the Sakurai design ethos in maximizing customization, fun, and challenge, similar to Kirby Air Ride, which makes me consider this both his best game and probably one of Nintendo’s best games ever. The story is great, the characters are all largely full of depth and well written, and the level design is amazing. The only way this game falls short to me is the controls, now a lot of people hate the controls as it hurts them, I’ve never had this issue somehow. My issue is instead that I feel like the controls are just not precise enough, I found myself sprinting when I wanted to walk, constantly falling off platforms because of this and fighting the camera to turn it at all. I think overall this is always going to be somewhere in my favorite games ever,.

We are forever cursed to wonder what a definitive version of Persona 3 would look like. To echo the sentiment of everyone: the decision to not include the female protagonist from P3P or other additional content from P3 FES was bizarre, and it's a decision that haunts an otherwise incredible remake.

I finished Persona 3 FES on PS2 a few years ago, and warts and all, I found it to be a really profound experience. I'm really happy more people will get to experience this narrative, and I hope they find it to be even half as cathartic as I did.

It's a game centered around death that makes the case our lives are beautiful because they end, and that the day-to-day moments where we find small joys and connections amount to something in total we have no words for.

If you enjoyed P4G or P5R, definitely give this one a chance. And while you're at it, maybe play FES and P3P too. Perhaps it's fitting we now have three versions of 3.