Near unmatched style and presentation for a PS1 title. Parasite Eve boasts a stupid, out-there, and self-serious story paired with an insanely good OST. Combat is surprisingly fun, short, simple, and easy for the time, which makes exploration less of a chore than most JRPGs that came out around this time. If I had any gripes about this game it's the limited inventory space and sometimes confusing intractability.

Basically, Mitochondria Eve makes me feel hot.

"To live life is not to walk through a meadow."

DQ8 is one of my favorites in the series. The game is charming in every regard whether it be story, party members, or NPCs. Being a less linear experience than a lot of the other JRPGs of this era makes the world feel sprawling. Exploration is and always will be a big part of the series and the rewards for going off the beaten path are usually worth it here.

The main issue most people will have with this game is how fucking slow it is. This makes getting the bell to speed up to traversal feel impactful. Unfortunately, the combat animations are still way too long so use speed-up in an emulator.

Revisiting this cast was fucking sweet. I love this group of misfits and their party talk is often hilarious. Their stories are pretty short, but they resonated with me. This is also the only game ever that has Yangus as a character. COR BLIMEY!!!!!!!

Overall, it's one of the best in the series I've played and a gold standard for JRPGs back in the early 2000s.

"Thank you so much, for allowing me to grow to the point where I can feel this way about myself."

The Trails series, on the whole, has always exceeded other JRPGs for me in terms of its character writing. Crimson Sin puts its characters to the forefront so that the overarching narrative from the previous games can take a break, and Falcom knocked it out of the park.

I was already a really big fan of the Solutions Office after Kuro 1, but they just ramped up my love of these guys. Falcom finally fucking remembered that a bigger cast like this needs attention to their relationships and development so that's what Crimson Sin sets out to do. So many characters get scenes where they can just be themselves. I'm still really confused as to why connect events are still limited. I'd highly recommend save scumming and seeing all of them because they are fantastic. I felt a lot of the "lesser" members gained so much through the events of this game as well. Quatre felt like he needed to be elaborated on and the wait most definitely paid off. His struggle to come to terms with his past and his "identity" was extremely mature given the genre's track record with these types of things. Swin and Nadia were two unexpected additions that honestly rounded the cast off super nicely. Nadia gets a lot of time to shine and is especially fantastic with Swin to play off of. While their portion of the story ends up leading to the weakest part of the game (Act 3), their character arcs come to an extremely satisfying conclusion after their introduction in Reverie.

As previously mentioned, Act 3 is the weakest part of the game. It's bloated (still not as bad as Cold Steel) and some of those routes could have been condensed. It may ultimately feel pointless while playing through it, but ends up serving an interesting purpose. This leads to the finale which has THE best boss fight in the series thus far. I hope they can execute something similar to this in the future because it was awesome.

OST is peak as usual, but some tracks feel a bit too similar to the last game. I guess this is to be expected when you're getting the same people to compose tracks for a lot of the same locations, but I feel like they could have mixed it up more. They stepped it up in terms of the placement of some tracks because MAN the first time they played this... shit hit.

I don't give a shit if it doesn't contribute to the overarching narrative. I WANT TO SEE VAN ARKRIDE GUIDE THESE YOUNG PEOPLE THROUGH LIFE WHILE BUILDING CONNECTIONS AND BETTERING HIMSELF BECAUSE THAT IS HIS STYLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

"Thank you, Van... For completing my 4spg."

"He tries to picture his dad's face by looking at his own reflection."

After finishing my 2nd playthrough of DQV there's no way it'll ever leave my top 5 games. This is the perfect Dragon Quest game because of the way it encapsulates exactly what the series is all about: bigass adventures, heartfelt stories, and funny characters. It's such an emotional journey the entire way through it's really hard not to resonate with the story. I was getting choked up AGAIN during this playthrough which I guess goes to show how good the story beats are much of a pussy I am. It's a struggle at some points seeing the most punished fucking protagonist of all time just have to keep going through it. This playthrough didn't take me very long either clocking in at about ~25 hours with very little grinding. I'd easily recommend this game to anyone interested in a 2D Dragon Quest game because it does more than just hold up today.

"You'll always be my lackey... Ha ha ha! No, you'll always be my dear friend."

The story felt personal, concise, and interesting until they decided to add in all this random shit that ends up feeling like padding. Kasuga is an awesome protagonist surrounded by characters that take up way too much screen time for how little interest I have in them. I get that it's supposed to be taking a more traditional JRPG approach, but I fucking hate the execution here. Every boss is a fucking huge damage sponge that you'll just end up using the same moves over and over on. I never felt like my characters were ever that strong in the main story even being at or above the needed level. The job system is somehow eclipsed by both games it was intending to take inspiration from. Change your class at any time to do very slightly different moves! Seriously, what was the thought process here?

This would be justified if there was any story incentive to back this up but it's so FUCKING boring!!!!!! Seriously, this may be a contender for the least interesting main narrative in an RPG I've played. By the middle of the game, it seems like they completely stopped giving a shit about trying to present the story in any meaningful way and just make your characters stand around so they can exposition-dump on you. In most games, I really wouldn't mind or even notice, but these interactions are so fucking lifeless and lacking character that it's insane that the side stories come from the same game. That being said the side content is really good and there's not a single reason to play this game other than that. Unfortunately, that's all it is - side content.

If enjoy bipolar storytelling, tonal whiplash, memes, and think Persona should be in college: you will adore this game.

LIVING IS IN YOUR GENES!!!
Genes, huh?
LIVE!!! I LOVE LIFE!!!!!!!!!
Life?
KEEP LIVING IF YOU LOVE LIFE AND GENES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Meryl?

The OST carries this game hard as fuck.

If you liked the gimmick levels in Damacy for some reason and want to play less fun versions of those here you go. The progression of building up from a tiny little guy to rolling up the entire world was so satisfying in the first game that a sequel wouldn't ever really work.

I'm a Katamari Damacy fan, not a Katamari fan sorry guys.

"Ark? The Earth is screaming."

Surprisingly, not my favorite in the Quintet Trilogy. The presentation is a massive step up from the previous titles, but it's also a big fucking downside for me because it feels like I'm staring at the fucking screen waiting for the slow-ass text to scroll for like 15 seconds per animation in a single (albeit kino) cutscene. It's a shame because this game LOOKS way fucking cooler than both Soul Blazer and Illusion of Gaia but ends up not being nearly as satisfying to play as either of them. You'll have to probably end up grinding at some point in this game which was NEVER a problem in either of the last two due to the unique progression which was scrapped for some reason for Terranigma. The puzzles also somehow got worse in this one. Not really sure what that's about so use a guide if you need to. There were a lot of times I felt the game was fighting with itself trying to take itself seriously then immediately following it up with some bullshit that breaks up the pacing. That being said, the serious moments by themselves are amazing.

The music is great, Ark and Yomi are fucking awesome, and the combat is... par for the course albeit grindy as fuck at some parts.

Terranigma is a massively ambitious SNES JRPG that really nailed its presentation and themes for me but not really much else. I can see why a lot of people like this game, but man it really got worse and worse for me as it went on. I guess this is a game I'd say I respect more than I like. Despite shitting on the game, I can't help but recommend it.