lunarwhale
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RoboCop: Rogue City
2023
Is this the first movie tie-in game to elevate its source material?
Rogue City is the ideal AA game and will be pointed at for years for people looking for a more sane direction for the industry. Every single compromise deriving from a smaller budget comes with greater payoffs.
You shoot (mostly with your pistol), punch, and throw shit. You're a one man wrecking crew and it feels like it, but the tug between man and something less than that is everpresent as the core story beat. It's a struggle over whether robocop will succumb to the easy pitfalls of law & order fascism in a society that no longer functions for anyone but the powerful, or wield their power as a liberator and become more human even if it involves greater pain and sacrifice.
It's a far more convincing simulator of the character than any superhero game I've played, and it was already a tougher job to pull off.
Rogue City is the ideal AA game and will be pointed at for years for people looking for a more sane direction for the industry. Every single compromise deriving from a smaller budget comes with greater payoffs.
You shoot (mostly with your pistol), punch, and throw shit. You're a one man wrecking crew and it feels like it, but the tug between man and something less than that is everpresent as the core story beat. It's a struggle over whether robocop will succumb to the easy pitfalls of law & order fascism in a society that no longer functions for anyone but the powerful, or wield their power as a liberator and become more human even if it involves greater pain and sacrifice.
It's a far more convincing simulator of the character than any superhero game I've played, and it was already a tougher job to pull off.
Solidly enjoyable sci-fi gold box rpg and a pretty good console port (albeit with some things simplified/cut for space). The short run time of around 10 or so hours ensures it doesn't wear out its welcome. Has a straightforward plot that takes you across various planets and a number of optional sidequests.
It can be easy to land yourself in a bad spot so keeping a backup save from before the start of a mission is advised. The game boasts a pretty good number of decisions and skill-checks that can alter how scenarios play out, mostly in the form of granting you rewards for passing checks or making the "right" choice, but occasionally with some brief divergent gameplay paths.
Like many older rpgs there are a handful of skills with limited use (looking at you 'library use' and 'rocket repair') and others that are practically mandatory, but your 6-man party offers enough flexibility you should be able to easily cover everything you need and then some.
Combat is simplistic early on due to the mostly ranged nature of combat minimizing the effectiveness of positioning, though this becomes more necessary later on as aoe explosion attacks become more and more prevalent among enemy types. Plus there's a variety of different grenade types with varying effects.
Not an all time great, but a game that's easy to enjoy and could easily serve as a great introduction to older crpgs for those curious but that struggle with some of the more complex or esoteric games in the genre.
It can be easy to land yourself in a bad spot so keeping a backup save from before the start of a mission is advised. The game boasts a pretty good number of decisions and skill-checks that can alter how scenarios play out, mostly in the form of granting you rewards for passing checks or making the "right" choice, but occasionally with some brief divergent gameplay paths.
Like many older rpgs there are a handful of skills with limited use (looking at you 'library use' and 'rocket repair') and others that are practically mandatory, but your 6-man party offers enough flexibility you should be able to easily cover everything you need and then some.
Combat is simplistic early on due to the mostly ranged nature of combat minimizing the effectiveness of positioning, though this becomes more necessary later on as aoe explosion attacks become more and more prevalent among enemy types. Plus there's a variety of different grenade types with varying effects.
Not an all time great, but a game that's easy to enjoy and could easily serve as a great introduction to older crpgs for those curious but that struggle with some of the more complex or esoteric games in the genre.
This is an obvious paid Ace Attorney fangame and that will understandably put people off. I won’t sugarcoat the flaws of this game: Amateur writing, breakneck pacing, inconsistent art, VERY messy ending… I am sorry for being harsh, but this is far from achieving true excellence and if you come with the high expectations of a mainline Ace Attorney game, you will be disappointed.
But despite it all, I have to seriously congratulate the team, because I did not expect to enjoy myself as much as I did. The characters in Tyrion are so incredibly likeable, and the way their relationships are built throughout the entire game achieved the exact same comfort space the original AA universe managed to do for me back in the day. The writer takes many tropes from AA but makes them their own in a familiar, but fresh perspective, that consistently brought a smile to my face (the relationship between Tyrion and Celeste is the prime example to this).
I was very surprised at how well-built the world was, the way the cases are connected to each other feels incredibly cohesive. They managed to reuse assets in really clever ways that crafted a believable world with clear direction and consequences. And all the new gameplay mechanics are well executed into this fantastical world with above average solid cases. This game is very smart by having its first and final cases being the best of the experience, considering they are the most important part of AA (I would even argue of most stories). And I NEED to mention the music. I cannot complain how little of it there is because every track is absolutely fantastic and elevates what the writing lacks.
So yeah, Tyrion is not a masterpiece, but I am incredibly happy I bought it. Likeable characters and fantastic music with some fun murder mystery action mixed in is the entire reason why I fell in love with Ace Attorney in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, this experience can be polished in many ways, but the writer and his small team should be proud of this one and I will absolutely buy Tyrion 2 whenever it comes out.
I only ask there is less Marvel humor next time in place of sincere ingenuity. My friend and I laughed so hard whenever “Well… THAT was awkward” jokes popped up time and time again. Maybe it served their purpose?
-----------------------
Case Ranking:
Fantastic:
Case 4
Great:
Case 5 and Case 1
Very Good:
Case 3
Good:
Case 2
But despite it all, I have to seriously congratulate the team, because I did not expect to enjoy myself as much as I did. The characters in Tyrion are so incredibly likeable, and the way their relationships are built throughout the entire game achieved the exact same comfort space the original AA universe managed to do for me back in the day. The writer takes many tropes from AA but makes them their own in a familiar, but fresh perspective, that consistently brought a smile to my face (the relationship between Tyrion and Celeste is the prime example to this).
I was very surprised at how well-built the world was, the way the cases are connected to each other feels incredibly cohesive. They managed to reuse assets in really clever ways that crafted a believable world with clear direction and consequences. And all the new gameplay mechanics are well executed into this fantastical world with above average solid cases. This game is very smart by having its first and final cases being the best of the experience, considering they are the most important part of AA (I would even argue of most stories). And I NEED to mention the music. I cannot complain how little of it there is because every track is absolutely fantastic and elevates what the writing lacks.
So yeah, Tyrion is not a masterpiece, but I am incredibly happy I bought it. Likeable characters and fantastic music with some fun murder mystery action mixed in is the entire reason why I fell in love with Ace Attorney in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, this experience can be polished in many ways, but the writer and his small team should be proud of this one and I will absolutely buy Tyrion 2 whenever it comes out.
I only ask there is less Marvel humor next time in place of sincere ingenuity. My friend and I laughed so hard whenever “Well… THAT was awkward” jokes popped up time and time again. Maybe it served their purpose?
-----------------------
Case Ranking:
Fantastic:
Case 4
Great:
Case 5 and Case 1
Very Good:
Case 3
Good:
Case 2
This review contains spoilers
Chadley may be an interesting avatar of SHINRA's desire to dissect and extract every nugget of value from the planet, and therefore reflect the modern player's desire to do every peabrained activity if it has a node on a world map but he still SUCKS.
Rebirth is boring open world busywork in between the actual interesting bits that made Remake such a fantastic game. I still like those bits, I still like the whole conceit of these sequels, but this is an unnecessarily bloated recitation of those elements.
The sidequests are not far removed from the pointless overworld nonsense and are as weak as they were in Remake. The world at this fidelity just isnt as symmetrical or foreboding as it was on PSX; the party dont fade into the background of the world, they tower over it with far more colored in personality. I believe, for a number of reasons, that this is fine considering the nature of the game's existence and what it's saying about FF7 as a cultural product, but it also means that the more this new series becomes a by-the-numbers AAA rpg the more a contradiction arises.
Rebirth is boring open world busywork in between the actual interesting bits that made Remake such a fantastic game. I still like those bits, I still like the whole conceit of these sequels, but this is an unnecessarily bloated recitation of those elements.
The sidequests are not far removed from the pointless overworld nonsense and are as weak as they were in Remake. The world at this fidelity just isnt as symmetrical or foreboding as it was on PSX; the party dont fade into the background of the world, they tower over it with far more colored in personality. I believe, for a number of reasons, that this is fine considering the nature of the game's existence and what it's saying about FF7 as a cultural product, but it also means that the more this new series becomes a by-the-numbers AAA rpg the more a contradiction arises.
Sea of Stars
2023
This review contains spoilers
A beautiful and perfunctory RPG experience. Perhaps the most disappointing experience you will have this year.
Sea of Stars has no good reason to be an rpg other than back of the napkin ideas the devs must have had since childhood. Equipment are all small incremental flat stat increases, with only certain accessories even broaching the idea of customizability. One of them (the abacus, which lets you see enemy HP) is so vital though that there is little point in thinking about it. Characters are flat and largely unexciting, dialogue is uninventive and exists in the same space as settlements in this game. They need to exist, and in large quantities, to check the right rpg boxes, but they're superficial pitstops with little to admire besides the art. Eastward and Chained Echoes do so much more in a similar genre space with their settlements that I cannot give Sea of Stars a pass.
Combat itself is serviceable, but SoS gives neither the tension of difficulty or resource management, nor the thrill of customization and experimentation (your characters will still only have about 3 skills to use apiece by the end of the game). If this was a simple action rpg it might have received lower scores, but it would be a healthier game simply from the surgical removal of unnecessary fat.
Boss encounters are actually structured cleverly enough but even on Hard they never hit hard enough to seriously endanger your party, healing is plentiful, and even a stray KO is only a temporary inconvenience since your party member will self-revive with half health after only a couple of turns.
Dungeons and puzzles, such as they are, are busywork lovingly crafted to trigger the bespoke animations that are the actual heart of the game. More often it felt like I was plodding through Mario Maker autorunner levels, or a Sony game's climbing section.
The story is atrocious. Anything attached to the writing is nails on a chalkboard. It is in desperate search of conflict of any kind, but refuses to develop its MCs and their buoyant tagalong sidekick as anything other than the most bland genre versions of themselves. So you get a situation, with no conflict and no pushback, where the game has to pull conflict directly from its rear in deeply unsatisfying ways, falling into jrpg tropes disseminated, dissembled, and parodied decades ago and doing them in the most bland ways you can imagine. The character assassination required to do this is YiiKian in nature but even YiiK had the foresight to engender some kind of conflict to move the story forward, instead of just-so macguffin scenarios and jiu jitsu ass pulls.
The journey becomes predictable in its unpredictableness, a stale bowl of refried bean jrpg pastiche.
So, now the positives (with caveats).
Sea of Stars is the prettiest game released this year. I don't think it's particularly close. If you want to play a spectacle game, avoid FF16 and play this. It is arguably the best looking 2d rpg I have played.
But there are two exceptions to SoS immaculate graphics. First, the portraits are amateur, ill-fitting and immersion breaking. The problem is not necessarily the artistic skill at work, but the game's entire lack of identity. Chrono Cross has a divisive art style for its portraits, as an example, but it all coheres much better than SoS. Second, animated cutscenes play at random intervals of the story. They remind me of the CGI cutscenes inserted into SNES classics by Square when they ported the games to the PSX. Unnecessary and distracting. The pixels can more than speak for themselves and with how underwhelming the rest of the game is, they have to.
Sea of Stars has no good reason to be an rpg other than back of the napkin ideas the devs must have had since childhood. Equipment are all small incremental flat stat increases, with only certain accessories even broaching the idea of customizability. One of them (the abacus, which lets you see enemy HP) is so vital though that there is little point in thinking about it. Characters are flat and largely unexciting, dialogue is uninventive and exists in the same space as settlements in this game. They need to exist, and in large quantities, to check the right rpg boxes, but they're superficial pitstops with little to admire besides the art. Eastward and Chained Echoes do so much more in a similar genre space with their settlements that I cannot give Sea of Stars a pass.
Combat itself is serviceable, but SoS gives neither the tension of difficulty or resource management, nor the thrill of customization and experimentation (your characters will still only have about 3 skills to use apiece by the end of the game). If this was a simple action rpg it might have received lower scores, but it would be a healthier game simply from the surgical removal of unnecessary fat.
Boss encounters are actually structured cleverly enough but even on Hard they never hit hard enough to seriously endanger your party, healing is plentiful, and even a stray KO is only a temporary inconvenience since your party member will self-revive with half health after only a couple of turns.
Dungeons and puzzles, such as they are, are busywork lovingly crafted to trigger the bespoke animations that are the actual heart of the game. More often it felt like I was plodding through Mario Maker autorunner levels, or a Sony game's climbing section.
The story is atrocious. Anything attached to the writing is nails on a chalkboard. It is in desperate search of conflict of any kind, but refuses to develop its MCs and their buoyant tagalong sidekick as anything other than the most bland genre versions of themselves. So you get a situation, with no conflict and no pushback, where the game has to pull conflict directly from its rear in deeply unsatisfying ways, falling into jrpg tropes disseminated, dissembled, and parodied decades ago and doing them in the most bland ways you can imagine. The character assassination required to do this is YiiKian in nature but even YiiK had the foresight to engender some kind of conflict to move the story forward, instead of just-so macguffin scenarios and jiu jitsu ass pulls.
The journey becomes predictable in its unpredictableness, a stale bowl of refried bean jrpg pastiche.
So, now the positives (with caveats).
Sea of Stars is the prettiest game released this year. I don't think it's particularly close. If you want to play a spectacle game, avoid FF16 and play this. It is arguably the best looking 2d rpg I have played.
But there are two exceptions to SoS immaculate graphics. First, the portraits are amateur, ill-fitting and immersion breaking. The problem is not necessarily the artistic skill at work, but the game's entire lack of identity. Chrono Cross has a divisive art style for its portraits, as an example, but it all coheres much better than SoS. Second, animated cutscenes play at random intervals of the story. They remind me of the CGI cutscenes inserted into SNES classics by Square when they ported the games to the PSX. Unnecessary and distracting. The pixels can more than speak for themselves and with how underwhelming the rest of the game is, they have to.
Separate Ways completes the RE4 remake by serving as a reservoir to catch most (albeit not all) of the memorable setpieces from the original 2005 game that didn't quite find their way into the main game.
In this regard it's a monumental step up over the previous version of Separate Ways even if it technically has to siphon away some of the base game's goodness to do so. The encounters here are solid and the pacing is fast. It does still occasionally dip into its precuror's tendency to rehash areas from the base game without doing quite enough new with them to justify it. That's not to say that it's without entirely new ideas as there's a couple of quite clever uses of old areas and some completely new ones (though a notable lack of battleships).
Little has changed about combat between Leon and Ada, the most notable addition being the use of Ada's grappling hook which lets her zip instantly to a stunned enemy to deliver a melee attack. It's a nice feature that helps alleviate those frustrating moments when an enemy is just a bit too far to get in for a melee strike, while still warranting cautious play and not ziplining yourself into the center of a pack of enemies. Aside from this one wrinkle all the positives and negatives of the original game's combat are still present. The game continues to impress with its frenzied and mobile combat, tight ammo economy and hardy enemies. At the same time the occasional awkward sluggishness of movement and super armor on late-game enemies remain sore spots.
The storytelling is of the same quality as the base game, which is to say that it utterly fails to exude the same charm its namesake so effortlessly channeled. Only Luis' charismatic performance is a reprieve from the otherwise dull scene direction in the remake. The rest of the remake's script can't help but give the impression that it's in a hurry to get itself over with.
Overall a practically mandatory addition to the game that's well worth the low price of entry. If you liked what the game had to offer already then this is more of it in a very well-made package.
In this regard it's a monumental step up over the previous version of Separate Ways even if it technically has to siphon away some of the base game's goodness to do so. The encounters here are solid and the pacing is fast. It does still occasionally dip into its precuror's tendency to rehash areas from the base game without doing quite enough new with them to justify it. That's not to say that it's without entirely new ideas as there's a couple of quite clever uses of old areas and some completely new ones (though a notable lack of battleships).
Little has changed about combat between Leon and Ada, the most notable addition being the use of Ada's grappling hook which lets her zip instantly to a stunned enemy to deliver a melee attack. It's a nice feature that helps alleviate those frustrating moments when an enemy is just a bit too far to get in for a melee strike, while still warranting cautious play and not ziplining yourself into the center of a pack of enemies. Aside from this one wrinkle all the positives and negatives of the original game's combat are still present. The game continues to impress with its frenzied and mobile combat, tight ammo economy and hardy enemies. At the same time the occasional awkward sluggishness of movement and super armor on late-game enemies remain sore spots.
The storytelling is of the same quality as the base game, which is to say that it utterly fails to exude the same charm its namesake so effortlessly channeled. Only Luis' charismatic performance is a reprieve from the otherwise dull scene direction in the remake. The rest of the remake's script can't help but give the impression that it's in a hurry to get itself over with.
Overall a practically mandatory addition to the game that's well worth the low price of entry. If you liked what the game had to offer already then this is more of it in a very well-made package.
This review contains spoilers
four big catastrophes with zero casualties out of five
if crossbell is peak trails, azure itself is a smaller additional peak that's jutting out of that peak, reaching slightly higher, but it's also covered in a bit of bird shit that conspicuously spells out the words "sexual harassment is so funny, guys".
so it definitely has its pros and cons, perhaps more clearly defined ones than most of the other games in the series, in my opinion. first, the pros.
the gameplay is by far at its best, here. the addition of wazy and noel means the main playable cast offers just the right amount of variety to mess around with without being too little or too much, and the master quartz system opens up a lot of fun character build possibilities, making progression feel really addictive. i played on hard and it felt just perfect, many of the bosses were stiff challenges that frequently forced me to rethink my party composition, but trash mobs, at least if i got a double advantage (which is very easy to get, thankfully), went down nice and easy and never felt like a huge drag.
the narrative is much more exciting than zero's and for the most part it's a fun enough time. that's not really why i play trails, though, and thankfully azure is absolutely chock full of fun little optional conversations, entertaining npcs and interesting and varied side quests. this is where azure really shines for me, why i had such a great time with this game. the party banter is much more varied and natural than zero's--randy definitely still has his "OH MAN I WANNA HIT ON THIS CHICK" moments but for the most part it really felt like the writers had gotten sick of the repeated tropes in zero and started to write, like, actual dialogue and jokes between actual characters--and wazy injecting a bit of sorely needed edge and humor single-handedly saves and elevates many scenes and quests. wazy in general is a highlight and a real breath of fresh air in a series whose main playable casts are almost always very rigidly confined "good guys", not just smart and thoughtful, but kind and polite and mature and nice beyond belief.
on the flipside, this is where the fan service shit really starts. the way the game treats the elie/shirley scene is insane, and the literal beach episode just plain sucks. we also get even more female characters with huge boobs and revealing outfits, but at least with these older games, they aren't nearly as in your face as they might be, which is a small mercy. one that's immediately out the window with cold steel's move to full 3d, though...
i also found the finale to be really dull, to my surprise. i remember enjoying it quite a bit on my first playthrough some years ago, but on a replay, knowing all the twists and reveals, it really is just a linear slog from one corny ass shounen anime conversation to the next. everything gets wrapped up real neat, villains get their heartfelt moments and sympathy, nobody dies or is even seriously injured, any potentially challenging or interesting questions (like is kea unconsciously affecting others around her and what does that mean for her and people around her, or kea in general, really) get completely swept under the rug immediately and so on. just shitloads of jrpg fluff. trails' main narratives are very often completely at odds with the series' aim to create an expansive and believable world for me, and it's at it's most obvious during azure's finale. i just can't take these stories seriously.
the localization felt, for the most part, definitely improved here. gone were the clunky, robotic lines that were frequent in zero. i did not actually expect this, so it was a really positive surprise. that said, it did feel like azure had more of what i've seen people call anime-isms, and i think a more naturalistic and less word-for-word approach to the localization would have really benefited the game. it's also chock full of weird jrpg fluff about justice and delusions and whatever the fuck, but i'm guessing that's how it is in the original script, too.
moving on, with some trepidation, to a.. sort of replay of cold steel, and then reverie and beyond. my expectations are low, but it's going to be interesting to see if playing them after crossbell, as god intended, makes them a better time.
if crossbell is peak trails, azure itself is a smaller additional peak that's jutting out of that peak, reaching slightly higher, but it's also covered in a bit of bird shit that conspicuously spells out the words "sexual harassment is so funny, guys".
so it definitely has its pros and cons, perhaps more clearly defined ones than most of the other games in the series, in my opinion. first, the pros.
the gameplay is by far at its best, here. the addition of wazy and noel means the main playable cast offers just the right amount of variety to mess around with without being too little or too much, and the master quartz system opens up a lot of fun character build possibilities, making progression feel really addictive. i played on hard and it felt just perfect, many of the bosses were stiff challenges that frequently forced me to rethink my party composition, but trash mobs, at least if i got a double advantage (which is very easy to get, thankfully), went down nice and easy and never felt like a huge drag.
the narrative is much more exciting than zero's and for the most part it's a fun enough time. that's not really why i play trails, though, and thankfully azure is absolutely chock full of fun little optional conversations, entertaining npcs and interesting and varied side quests. this is where azure really shines for me, why i had such a great time with this game. the party banter is much more varied and natural than zero's--randy definitely still has his "OH MAN I WANNA HIT ON THIS CHICK" moments but for the most part it really felt like the writers had gotten sick of the repeated tropes in zero and started to write, like, actual dialogue and jokes between actual characters--and wazy injecting a bit of sorely needed edge and humor single-handedly saves and elevates many scenes and quests. wazy in general is a highlight and a real breath of fresh air in a series whose main playable casts are almost always very rigidly confined "good guys", not just smart and thoughtful, but kind and polite and mature and nice beyond belief.
on the flipside, this is where the fan service shit really starts. the way the game treats the elie/shirley scene is insane, and the literal beach episode just plain sucks. we also get even more female characters with huge boobs and revealing outfits, but at least with these older games, they aren't nearly as in your face as they might be, which is a small mercy. one that's immediately out the window with cold steel's move to full 3d, though...
i also found the finale to be really dull, to my surprise. i remember enjoying it quite a bit on my first playthrough some years ago, but on a replay, knowing all the twists and reveals, it really is just a linear slog from one corny ass shounen anime conversation to the next. everything gets wrapped up real neat, villains get their heartfelt moments and sympathy, nobody dies or is even seriously injured, any potentially challenging or interesting questions (like is kea unconsciously affecting others around her and what does that mean for her and people around her, or kea in general, really) get completely swept under the rug immediately and so on. just shitloads of jrpg fluff. trails' main narratives are very often completely at odds with the series' aim to create an expansive and believable world for me, and it's at it's most obvious during azure's finale. i just can't take these stories seriously.
the localization felt, for the most part, definitely improved here. gone were the clunky, robotic lines that were frequent in zero. i did not actually expect this, so it was a really positive surprise. that said, it did feel like azure had more of what i've seen people call anime-isms, and i think a more naturalistic and less word-for-word approach to the localization would have really benefited the game. it's also chock full of weird jrpg fluff about justice and delusions and whatever the fuck, but i'm guessing that's how it is in the original script, too.
moving on, with some trepidation, to a.. sort of replay of cold steel, and then reverie and beyond. my expectations are low, but it's going to be interesting to see if playing them after crossbell, as god intended, makes them a better time.
Boring and largely uninteresting but gives the same satisfaction as popping bubble wrap. The minute it asked me to do anything more than be on autopilot I was out.
Final Fantasy III
2021
It's incredible how good this game is.
Final Fantasy 3 doubles down on the goofy, tropey and whimsical adventuring of FF1 while expanding the scope to make it seem like a true sequel. In spirit and execution, FF3 is the actual sequel to FF1.
This game's biggest claim to fame is the job system. FF1's job system was something you picked at the very beginning of the game and stayed with you the whole adventure, with an upgrade towards the end. Final Fantasy 3 has jobs that are unlocked serially throughout the game, and you are allowed to change your character's jobs whenever you like. Anyone who has read my older reviews knows that I am a sucker for job systems, so I had no problem just eating this up. Surprisingly enough, the execution of the job system here was actually not bad for a first attempt. The game starts off by providing you with the jobs that were available in FF1, which immediately incentives you to pick the same party you would have picked in FF1, likely a Warrior/Monk/White Mage/Black Mage. From there, as more jobs are unlocked, you'll soon notice that the newer jobs are sidegrades or even upgrades to previously unlocked jobs. Meaning that you can, in essence, keep the same party composition for most of the game and succeed with no issues. This all culminates in the ultimate jobs which everyone in your party is likely going to be. While I certainly don't mind the linearity of the job progression like this, there is something to be said about the fact that most jobs are essentially a physical dps, a magic dps and a healer with varying degrees of proficiency.
I would call the lack of job variety a real negative if FF3 did not mitigate that through its encounter design. Something really awesome that this game does is that it sets up its fights with certain conditions that can only be accomplished with specific party comps. An early game example of this the giant rat boss fight. This fight comes at the end of a dungeon where you have to be mini, a status effect where your strength and defense stats are reduced to 1. The giant rat (which is actually normal sized) can absolutely maul your party while you do no damage to it if you are unprepared. The solution is to change your entire party to mages to use their spells on it to do damage and provide a constant source of healing. Another classic example is the Garuda boss fight; where you need to be a dragoon and jump out of the way before he wipes your party with a powerful spell. I know this puzzle like approach to bosses will frustrate some players, but I couldn't help but love it. Later Final Fantasy games would provide more flexibility in its challenges, allowing for more party comps as jobs become more multifaceted, but I can't help but love the simplicity of this design. It could be from the novelty of it all, but I wish we could get more games that approach its encounters in such a way.
Something else I want to bring mention is how amazing the sense of the scale is. You start the game in a continent that is roughly similar in size to the overworld in FF1. However, about a third of the way through, you realize that the starting continent is only a small piece of a much larger world. And then you come to the shocking realization that most of that world was actually flooded when the crystal's light faded. The mix of awe, dread, and melancholy that came over me, flying over this vast ocean that was once populated with life will always stick with me. The accompanying track, The Boundless Ocean, does such an amazing job of carrying those emotions forward to the surface. I was floored when I first came across it, I can't even imagine how some kid back in 1990 would have felt. The fact that this was the same game series that made FF1 only 3 years prior is mind boggling to me.
Beyond the grandiose things, FF3 has a lot of little fixes and changes compared to the last 2 games that make playing the game so much more enjoyable. First of all, the encounter rate is so much better. You can actually explore a lot of the world and a fair amount of the dungeons before being subjected to a fight. You actually do a lot of exploring on airships, meaning that this is the game with the least number of mandatory encounters when compared to FF1 and FF2. The actual encounter themselves are the best here too. FF1 random mods were too easily, FF2 mobs were so hard I just run away from everything; FF3 got it just right. Not too easy, but also not too hard. Dungeons are also much better, not the traps on traps on traps like FF2 and not the big empty rooms of FF1. All together, these optimizations make FF3 incredibly enjoyable to actually play moment to moment and a very rewarding game experience.
Last thing I want to mention, the music. My god. Words cannot even begin to describe. FF3 is generally among the lesser-known games in the franchise so my exposure to its music was minimal. Listening to all the tracks here for the first time was such an experience. It's goofy, lighthearted, melancholy, nostalgic, and exhilarating all in one. The beautiful mysticism of The Ancient's theme, the timelessness of Aria's theme, the quiet serenity of Amur, the hilarity of the 4 fake warriors of light, the previously mentioned Boundless Ocean. And the final theme, Everlasting World, a quiet, intimate, merciful piece that celebrates the beauty of life as it comes, in its little moments. Then to transition into bombastic, celebratory piece of resounding victory; to only to finish with the prelude, that iconic melody synonymous with Final Fantasy. Everlasting World is a goodbye to FF3, but with the hindsight of 30 years, it's also a goodbye to NES Final Fantasy. Starting with the next game, FF will transition into something more cinematic, character driven and dramatic. Beautiful in its own right, but very much different from the charm these 3 NES games have.
I think it's safe to say that Final Fantasy 3 is far and away my favorite NES Final Fantasy and a strong contender for top 5 FF. It's paced immaculately, designed confidently and plays like a dream. The music is transcendent, and the game experience is top notch. The game is fantastic and truly great. It's crime that it took this long for it to finally leave Japan, but oh so worth the wait. PLAY THIS GAME.
Final Fantasy 3 doubles down on the goofy, tropey and whimsical adventuring of FF1 while expanding the scope to make it seem like a true sequel. In spirit and execution, FF3 is the actual sequel to FF1.
This game's biggest claim to fame is the job system. FF1's job system was something you picked at the very beginning of the game and stayed with you the whole adventure, with an upgrade towards the end. Final Fantasy 3 has jobs that are unlocked serially throughout the game, and you are allowed to change your character's jobs whenever you like. Anyone who has read my older reviews knows that I am a sucker for job systems, so I had no problem just eating this up. Surprisingly enough, the execution of the job system here was actually not bad for a first attempt. The game starts off by providing you with the jobs that were available in FF1, which immediately incentives you to pick the same party you would have picked in FF1, likely a Warrior/Monk/White Mage/Black Mage. From there, as more jobs are unlocked, you'll soon notice that the newer jobs are sidegrades or even upgrades to previously unlocked jobs. Meaning that you can, in essence, keep the same party composition for most of the game and succeed with no issues. This all culminates in the ultimate jobs which everyone in your party is likely going to be. While I certainly don't mind the linearity of the job progression like this, there is something to be said about the fact that most jobs are essentially a physical dps, a magic dps and a healer with varying degrees of proficiency.
I would call the lack of job variety a real negative if FF3 did not mitigate that through its encounter design. Something really awesome that this game does is that it sets up its fights with certain conditions that can only be accomplished with specific party comps. An early game example of this the giant rat boss fight. This fight comes at the end of a dungeon where you have to be mini, a status effect where your strength and defense stats are reduced to 1. The giant rat (which is actually normal sized) can absolutely maul your party while you do no damage to it if you are unprepared. The solution is to change your entire party to mages to use their spells on it to do damage and provide a constant source of healing. Another classic example is the Garuda boss fight; where you need to be a dragoon and jump out of the way before he wipes your party with a powerful spell. I know this puzzle like approach to bosses will frustrate some players, but I couldn't help but love it. Later Final Fantasy games would provide more flexibility in its challenges, allowing for more party comps as jobs become more multifaceted, but I can't help but love the simplicity of this design. It could be from the novelty of it all, but I wish we could get more games that approach its encounters in such a way.
Something else I want to bring mention is how amazing the sense of the scale is. You start the game in a continent that is roughly similar in size to the overworld in FF1. However, about a third of the way through, you realize that the starting continent is only a small piece of a much larger world. And then you come to the shocking realization that most of that world was actually flooded when the crystal's light faded. The mix of awe, dread, and melancholy that came over me, flying over this vast ocean that was once populated with life will always stick with me. The accompanying track, The Boundless Ocean, does such an amazing job of carrying those emotions forward to the surface. I was floored when I first came across it, I can't even imagine how some kid back in 1990 would have felt. The fact that this was the same game series that made FF1 only 3 years prior is mind boggling to me.
Beyond the grandiose things, FF3 has a lot of little fixes and changes compared to the last 2 games that make playing the game so much more enjoyable. First of all, the encounter rate is so much better. You can actually explore a lot of the world and a fair amount of the dungeons before being subjected to a fight. You actually do a lot of exploring on airships, meaning that this is the game with the least number of mandatory encounters when compared to FF1 and FF2. The actual encounter themselves are the best here too. FF1 random mods were too easily, FF2 mobs were so hard I just run away from everything; FF3 got it just right. Not too easy, but also not too hard. Dungeons are also much better, not the traps on traps on traps like FF2 and not the big empty rooms of FF1. All together, these optimizations make FF3 incredibly enjoyable to actually play moment to moment and a very rewarding game experience.
Last thing I want to mention, the music. My god. Words cannot even begin to describe. FF3 is generally among the lesser-known games in the franchise so my exposure to its music was minimal. Listening to all the tracks here for the first time was such an experience. It's goofy, lighthearted, melancholy, nostalgic, and exhilarating all in one. The beautiful mysticism of The Ancient's theme, the timelessness of Aria's theme, the quiet serenity of Amur, the hilarity of the 4 fake warriors of light, the previously mentioned Boundless Ocean. And the final theme, Everlasting World, a quiet, intimate, merciful piece that celebrates the beauty of life as it comes, in its little moments. Then to transition into bombastic, celebratory piece of resounding victory; to only to finish with the prelude, that iconic melody synonymous with Final Fantasy. Everlasting World is a goodbye to FF3, but with the hindsight of 30 years, it's also a goodbye to NES Final Fantasy. Starting with the next game, FF will transition into something more cinematic, character driven and dramatic. Beautiful in its own right, but very much different from the charm these 3 NES games have.
I think it's safe to say that Final Fantasy 3 is far and away my favorite NES Final Fantasy and a strong contender for top 5 FF. It's paced immaculately, designed confidently and plays like a dream. The music is transcendent, and the game experience is top notch. The game is fantastic and truly great. It's crime that it took this long for it to finally leave Japan, but oh so worth the wait. PLAY THIS GAME.
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
Painfully slow and perfectly safe roller coaster ride of mediocrity.
