sinistral2099
Boring and doesn't respect your time as a player.
2021
This game was originally localized for the NES but never released and that's a shame. It deviates hard from the JRPG formula that we know today, and really experimented in some neat and surprising ways. Not my favorite Final Fantasy, but definitely a worthy entry in the franchise.
2023
Total playtime: 103 hours.
There is nothing bad that I can say about Octopath Traveler II. The developers improved every criticism I had about the first game and delivered a truly remarkable gaming experience.
There is nothing bad that I can say about Octopath Traveler II. The developers improved every criticism I had about the first game and delivered a truly remarkable gaming experience.
This game has one of the most mature and well written stories in the franchise. That said, there are a lot of systems and mechanics that make this game hard to recommend. It plays like a single player MMO, almost as if Square was trying to recreate the feeling of its online predecessor, Final Fantasy XI, in a single player game.
2002
Robot Alchemic Drive (RAD) is a love letter to giant robot fights, tokusatsu movies, and kaiju films. The voice acting is hilariously bad. The control scheme is atrocious. The plot line is nonsensical. In spite of all this, the game is one of my favorite games on the Playstation 2. I'd even go so far as to call it a hidden gem. The game is very self aware of how ridiculous it is and leans into that. The result is a game that will make you laugh and smile while you play it. It's not difficult, but it is fairly long at 15-20 hours. It's developed by Sandlot and published by Enix (prior to the Square-Enix merger), and this game's engine went on to power the Earth Defense Force games. Give this game a chance and it will work its way into your heart.
1999
What if, when making a sequel, you took everything about the original that made it unique and discarded it? Then, you created a UI that was even less intuitive? Then you retconned the plot and made it confusing beyond all belief? That's Parasite Eve 2.
I hated every moment of this game.
I hated every moment of this game.
Blossom Tales 2 improves upon almost every aspect of the original. The sprite art is more detailed, the cuteness is dialed up, the writing is sharper, the dungeons more finely tuned, nothing overstays its welcome. It is an ode to the childhood of someone who grew up in the 80's.
1998
This game has a lot of plot holes, but it's still a largely enjoyable ride from start to finish.
2021
Really cute homage to Minish Cap with some pretty rough edges. Overall a good first offering. Hope to see some of the kinks worked out in future sequels.
The game is a bit wordy for a Zelda-like, and the jokes don't always land. The difficulty curve needed to be smoothed out. That's really my biggest complaint about the whole experience. In the beginning you're always seemingly one hit away from death, but thankfully there is little to no penalty for death as it just starts you back at the beginning of the room you died in. Once you get enough health to survive, the game becomes trivial. Salt Candles are the ultimate weapon in this game. I overlooked them at first until I was forced to use them and then they became my weapon of choice for every boss fight.
The game is a bit wordy for a Zelda-like, and the jokes don't always land. The difficulty curve needed to be smoothed out. That's really my biggest complaint about the whole experience. In the beginning you're always seemingly one hit away from death, but thankfully there is little to no penalty for death as it just starts you back at the beginning of the room you died in. Once you get enough health to survive, the game becomes trivial. Salt Candles are the ultimate weapon in this game. I overlooked them at first until I was forced to use them and then they became my weapon of choice for every boss fight.
Not my favorite game in the franchise, but a solid entry. It does a lot to try and consolidate the series' scattered lore. This HD remaster does a lot to alleviate the complaints I had about the original (mostly related to the motion based controls).
A decent story. A few twists and turns that I didn't see coming. The animation and artwork is beautiful. Really glad they remade this game and localized it.
Cute game. A more refined gameplay loop than the original, which one would expect from a sequel. The game does a great job of getting you from out of one round and into the next one quickly so you don't feel like you're slowing down.
The map mode was one map longer than it should have been as the final map just felt like a chore to slog through at times. The game sometimes throws brawlers at you that have incredibly long hit sequences (I think it says Nemesis on the screen for these?) and they're so long that they really break the flow of a good round. It can also sometimes batch brawlers and/or bosses together and those are only fun when you use a revenge token because it gives you more time to regenerate health. I appreciated the ability to slow the speed down, but on the final map there were still times when it was too much to keep up with. From an accessibility standpoint this might represent a problem for some players.
Watch the ending video. It was extremely wholesome. I look forward to seeing the future games these devs put out.
The map mode was one map longer than it should have been as the final map just felt like a chore to slog through at times. The game sometimes throws brawlers at you that have incredibly long hit sequences (I think it says Nemesis on the screen for these?) and they're so long that they really break the flow of a good round. It can also sometimes batch brawlers and/or bosses together and those are only fun when you use a revenge token because it gives you more time to regenerate health. I appreciated the ability to slow the speed down, but on the final map there were still times when it was too much to keep up with. From an accessibility standpoint this might represent a problem for some players.
Watch the ending video. It was extremely wholesome. I look forward to seeing the future games these devs put out.
The game is beautiful and the drifter feels great to play. There are some pretty large pain points though mostly having to do with a combination of factors that can lead to bosses one shotting you with almost nothing you can do about it. The story is never explained, and only hinted at through cryptic visuals, leaving it entirely up to the player to interpret.
A very cute game from the team that went on to develop The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. The story is fun, the puzzle solving aspects are good. The fight mechanics leave a lot to be desired.
There is an English fan translation patch available from ryanbgstl.
There is an English fan translation patch available from ryanbgstl.
This game tells a really good Batman story but it is plagued with bugs.