Ahhh trails. The definition of a game I needed EXACTLY when I needed it. Moving cities, going to university, not having a single close friend nearby. Feeling isolated and extremely lonely and finding this game on sale for dirt cheap on GOG I decided to give it a whirl. During that period of time the cast of Sky 1-3 became a fill in for a lot of the loneliness I was going through to such a degree that whenever I replay the game the title screen is enough to reduce me to tears. Thanks trails for helping me get through one of the worst periods of my life.

There are a few things I dislike about this game, chief among them are the insanely high encounter rate and most of Nortune (especially the fucking sewers). However once you get Thames this game is incredibly smooth sailing.

Gameplay is not the most stimulating considering every time I fought monsters for a bit I'd proceed to open my menu, check progress on deathblows, close menu, over and over and over (might have just been a me issue). Also inputting the same combo over and over to grind up deathblows, having to watch the animation tends to get a little stale. Had it not been for the incredibly interesting world/lore and an engaging story I don't think I would have been able to get through this game.

Overall I'd highly recommend this game with an emulator to make some of the encounter rates more bearable. When this game gets going, it gets going. Easy recommend (with emulator).

As someone who was very disappointed by Cold Steel IV this game managed to rekindle a lot of my love for this franchise. I went into it with extremely low expectations and ended up playing over 10 hours a day (on my days off). My enjoyment stemmed in part due to having taken the first real break from the game (having caught up a few days before cold steel IV), and also because of the different structure the game.

Mechanically this game continues the cold steel tradition of adding a new mechanic with united fronts being thrown into the mix. However the real enjoyment of this game for me came from the Reverie corridor and more specifically daydreams. By exploring the corridor you unlock orbs that will let you see flashbacks for members of your party (like the doors in sky 3rd). It was nice actually getting to sit in shoes of characters that normally the game wouldn't focus all its attention on, letting you see side stories from Sky, Crossbell and of course Cold Steel.

Structurally the game is unique compared to other trails games. It allow you to play as three separate parties where you get locked out of them and are forced to play the other parties until they are all caught up, before moving onto the next act. It works in some ways and falls flat in others. Some stories are significantly more interesting than others, leaving (for me) Rean's act to be a slog. C's route was the easy highlight for me.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised by this game and at the time of finishing it (July 2023) its my GOTY. If you like modern trails games you should love this.

Visually and musically an absolute vibe. The tone is fairly bleak but was also shockingly funny. The gameplay is point and click adventure with some light turn based combat. Thankfully you aren't pixel hunting as by default everything you can interact with is highlighted. As for the combat, I really wish there was something more too it. It is so undemanding that I wonder why it was even added.

I would say that the visuals and soundtrack are what I'll remember this game for, rather than any particular parts of the narrative. Chex2Cash is going into a playlist ASAP.

The fourth Ys game I've completed and easily the most...bland. I played it, I had an OK time. The narrative I fully admit to skimming through to get to the gameplay. Coming off Origins I got a bit a whiplash at the writing. While I know I could just refuse to heal, the fact that you can stock up on 40 health potions trivialized every single boss fight in the game. Where origin the first run through felt like I actually had to learn boss patterns, in this game I simply had to time a dodge and spam moves, drink a potion if I goofed, rinse repeat. I imagine a year from now I'll struggle to remember anything about this game.

This game had all the makings to be my favourite Ace Attorney game. No psychic shenanigans. The music being the best the series has ever produced (in the four games I've played thus far). Some absolute bangers are finding them straight into a spotify playlist ASAP. This game also has my favourite supporting character in an Ace Attorney game, a Mr. Herlock Sholmes. He is fucking hilarious and grew on me far more than I initially expected. By the end of the third case I was convinced that this would top Trials and Tribulations as my favourite game in the series. However it loses a lot of enjoyment in one place in particular; very slow pacing.

Thankfully once each case gets going my grievances tend to fade away, but there are some parts in the investigation periods particularly where I just wanted things to hurry along. Also during trials some of the solutions would be glaringly obvious but you had to spend 3 minutes to let the in game characters to come to very obvious conclusions. However when this game gets good, the case is in its final stretches, the music is blaring, objections reigning out from each side, the game really scratches that Ace Attorney itch.

Gameplay wise this game also felt a lot more engaging, being able to interact and spin around pieces of evidence to discover clues that actively would be used to turn trials around, most notably an ENTIRE FUCKIN' BUS being evidence in which you can explore. My only real grievance with the mechanic would be that you don't get an indicator to show you've examined a particular area when dealing with evidence. This means that at times during trials I would miss a clue thinking I'd already pressed on that particular prompt. There is also the deductions of Herlock Sholmes which conceptually interested me but often went on longer than I wanted them too. The jury system also was a surprising addition but one that added to the gameplay. Summation soundtrack SLAPPING also helped.

Overall I really liked the game. The music is really freaking good. If you can tolerate some pacing issues here and this game is well worth playing.

I don't regret playing this game, but it wasn't really good either. While I almost certainly am dumb as shit for not realizing this, I managed to make it to the final stage and final boss before actually understanding that this was a puzzle shooter. I had simply been shooting everything, assuming that the RNG gods decided whether or not I lived or died. Maybe there is some tutorial out there but from my initial session of hitting new game, to reaching the final boss, I never once actually knew how the puzzle segment of the game worked. Not holding your hand is fine is some cases but kind of baffling in this one. If you can almost beat the final boss (I literally doubled KO'D with the boss and had to reset) before understanding truly how the mechanics of the game worked, something has gone awry. I can't stress enough how frustrated I was thinking it was the games fault for me constantly getting, what I was initially dubbing as "impossible" runs, because spamming shots worked around 70% of the time. The biggest frustration with this game is definitively the run back to bosses. While in most schmups you get to learn all the patterns of enemies and master the game to the point of doing it in your sleep, in this game with its puzzle aspects, you are actually have to do light puzzle solving EVERY TIME you die to a boss. The boss run isn't something to be memorized but something to be solved. Couple this with annoying environmental enemies that damage you, as well as accidentally dying by boxing yourself in, it really left a bad taste in my mouth. Upon mulling it over I'd definitely say the game was more fun than not, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, not even enjoyers of puzzle and schump games.

Full disclosure: I played co-op and skipped 95% of the cutscenes. My review is strictly from a gameplay point of view. This game has some very satisfying movement options and gun-play. It suffers from being an open world game and having lots of extremely repetitive missions and visuals. You very frequently are walking through similar looking hallways, or doing the exact same objective. Open world really ended up meaning that you were going to do extremely repetitive actions such as clearing out FOBs, fighting absurdly tanky mini-bosses, running out of ammo since all the enemies are miles away from you and you need to cross and open field to rearm yourself. What initially started as a surprisingly good time quickly just become average, and then, towards the very end, a chore. Not the worst, not good. Average. Honestly the only reason its a 6 and not a 5 is because I watched no cutscenes, and was playing with a good friend. Decent co-op experience.

Shockingly good. This is only an 8 out of 10 due to a few levels (mostly in the later half of the game) that really annoyed me, particularly e4m2 (fuck the platforming) and e4m6 (fuck lava floors), which felt designed that upon first run through you'd be out of heals and die. While e2m6 has the benefit of once you know what to do its fine, e4m2 really just...sucked.

I definitely plan on replying this one day with a secrets guide, and could easily see myself trying to beat levels faster and faster. The fact that a game from the early 90s is better than most games coming out today blows my mind.

There are some games where after playing you can look back and say "man, there was a good game under all of that", but in exoprimals case, even after unlocking new games modes, several new characters, I was like "man, there is a completely bland game under all that padding and obtuse progression".

Intriguing in concept due to my enjoyment of the EDF franchise but really fell flat, with the friends I tried it out with tapping out after a bit over 1 hour. I was a bit more optimistic towards the game, but the fact of the matter is that the lobbies frequently take you into one map where you walk a few steps, kill dinos, walk a few steps, kill some more dinos, over and over until you get a PvP or PvE end scenario where you FINALLY learn if the match is going to be evenly matched or not. Thats a lot of down time to just get absolute diff'd in the final stretch.

When the game worked at its absolute best (two or three times in the 10 hours I played), the game was actually pretty fun. The problem was the enjoyment I experienced in-between all the other shit was less than playing any other online game that I enjoy. Hard pass on this one, especially with the length of matchmaking at the time I was trying it out (November 2023).

I'm sure there are other modes to unlock and new dino variants, but I have neither the free time nor the patience to unlock them. I honestly would have rated this game lower if I had bought the game instead of playing it on xbox game pass. I'd pass on this one.

This fucking game man. If I told you I immediately fell in love with it I'd be lying. This game has so many elements that, to the uninitiated, will seem like cons that its no wonder myself and others quit this game in the first act. All you need is a shift in opinion. Is Rex's battle shouts awful, or are you watching one of the funniest cutscenes you've seen in a jrpg? Does the lack of synching for english VA taking you out of the scene, or are you giggling to yourself when the lips move and no sound? I've got to say though when this game clicks, it fucking clicks.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a game that took me the better part of 4 months to complete, sometimes not playing for weeks, sometimes hours each day. This is not to say the game is particularly boring, its just that I really wanted to take my time with it. The sheer amount of random shit you can do (all very optional at least for my non-completionist brain) really allows for both short sessions before bed (levelling a blades affinity/doing side quests) or a big meaty session such as exploring a new area/progressing the main story.

The music alone carries whatever damage the awkward voice direction and occasional bad voice acting takes away from a scene. This is perhaps the single greatest soundtrack I've ever heard in a game, taking the place of my former favourites, the Nier franchise. No game has been shuffled and played in my day to day life quite as much as the Xenoblade franchise, and out of the I've played, Xenoblade Chronicles 2's is just unfathomably good. Nothing but the sweet promise of good music kept me from continuously loading up the game again. That first cutscene of the game, where you hear the orchestral soundtrack paired with the cloud visuals is, for the brief few moments before Rex opens his mouth, one of the most enchanting starts to a game for me.

After completing this game I just sat there for at least 10 minutes just kinda numb. A 4 month endeavour, finished. When something is such a constant in your life like this game is, the void left behind is palpable. For some reason despite having done side quests/blade affinity grinding in bed almost every day for 4 months (20 minutes here and there after work, or before bed) I knew I was done. Sure there were more generic fetch quests to grind, and yeah, I could farm core crystals and get all the blades. But when those credits rolled I knew I was done. So I sat there, tearing up just thinking about what a fucking ride it had been. I'm glad I played this game, I'm glad it has a stupidly large amount of content and has perhaps the GREATEST SOUNDTRACK of any game I've ever played. I'm glad I got to play one of the most enjoyable combat systems in a jrpg and an incredibly strong story (once it gets going). Really great game.

Only real complaint I have is pacing, which is my gripe with most jrpg's. One that immediately pops into mind is in Gormott, you can't just hop on a boat, you need to first find the titan and feed it. Or the implementation of field skills requiring you to menu just to open a chest/barrier. Just little blips in the matrix that take me out of the experience. Not a perfect game, but still insanely enjoyable.

Basically once you take all the cons (lip synching, questionable voice directions/acting, cringe anime tropes) into pros (this game is fucking hilarious), it really becomes something special. You just gotta fucking dive in and embrace the game in all its cringey and goofy glory.

It took getting the third orb before the game clicked for me. I think part of the reason for that is the game starts off extremely simple and then constantly builds upon the mechanics. What left me a little nonplussed at the start of the game I felt completely rewarded with towards the second half, where the puzzles solution had me grinning like an idiot.

Took me around 3 hours to beat, never overstayed its welcome. Probably my ideal type of puzzle game (my dumb ass never even felt compelled to look up a solution). Very pretty game with wonderful aesthetics and relaxing vibe, let down only by its very short run time and pretty easy puzzles. The truly good ones were far and few. Easily recommend.