While it sounds crazy enough to write a review about a game thats not even OUT LMAO. I why I can 100% confirm that this game will be my favourite game ever when it releases.

Rance X is from a series I'm genuinely not that familiar with. beside playing Mamatoto on my old PC years ago. Having played a few hours of Sengoku Rance on the personal computer and having watched like 3 episodes of Rance 01 anime and then dropping it out of boredom. You would genuinely be insane from a series where your intertest was never fully captured nor grasped to have the latest entry be your FAVOURITE GAME EVER?! Well here I will try to concretely enough explain my "My insanity" or for some of you guys "Stupidity" I'm assuming.

I found out about Rance X pretty late actually the game was revealed by Alicesoft in 2017. I accidentally stumbled upon the game in march pure on whim. I was watching videos about JRPGs and I saw the games promotion opening in my recommendations. I didn't even wanna click on the trailer nor did I want it to play YouTube Autoplayed it for me when I went to the toilet lol... but when I came back I was like "fuck it why not" and pressed replay and my mind was blown away... to most it's a standard trailer nothing outstanding or experimental enough for someone to lose their shit over it but man... I WAS IN. From the music and the narrator to the strong post-apocalyptic athmosphere but with a striking distinct visual style. It reminded so much of every favourite post-apoc series I love and it happens so rarely that I ever have such a strong sense of nostolgia from past of something in the present that I have no strong knowledge. But from the previously mentioned things and flashy gameplay and strong and striking character designs. I just knew it was the one. The JRPG genre is a VERY important genre to me because it helped me allot as a person throughout my life and I honestly watched allot of japanese media but super rarely has this same feeling been matched before. I literally searched up every information about the game since and don't think I've ever been as hype for something as this game. The latest Info dump just made me even more confident in my feelings. I rewatched each trailer over 10x and watched the gameplay showcases over 10x. Did as much research as I can on the people working on it. Theorize heavy about future characters , environments and potential story beats. I genuinely have 100% trust in this game and don't think I can get dissapointed really.

So it really a case of pure feelings of nostolgia , charm and trust that makes me so sure. I know this seems goofy asf to write this but I know myself the best so I know best what my true feelings on the game will be.

( P.S I've done this before and know how my expectations work so I really cannot be dissapointed. also I will do a follow up in November on this when I play it.

i found this game for like 14 bucks at my work and since it had been recommended to me by a friend a while ago, i decided to pick it up and finally give it a shot. i was then sucked into a rabbit hole that culminated in me getting into the SMT series as a whole and playing this game for 115 hours on my first playthrough. oops

SMT:N is probably one of the best rpgs ive ever played. of course, the story is phenomenal and is a heart wrenching tale of friends turning against each other in the wake of a colossal disaster, and the struggles of those at the bottom of the food chain vs the people who are at the top because they were just born that way. but also, nocturne has probably the most interesting system mechanics out of any rpg ive ever played. in a genre where it feels like a lot of the gameplay is just window dressing for a story, nocturne really hits it out of the park with its magatamas and press turn system, letting you customize your character to be literally anything you want, and letting you play off of your game knowledge to sweep the enemy team if you know what you're doing. the game also looks phenomenal for a 2003 PS2 game. (i did play a portion of the ps2 version to confirm this, but my main playthrough was done on the switch version, which suffered from some pretty bad frame drops at times)

of course, the thing SMT is known for (besides its younger brother, persona) is the demon summoning and negotiation, and nocturne does... an alright job with this. it gets the job done, but it feels somewhat frustrating even if you know what you're doing, and monsters can just deny you because they feel like it. there's also not THAT much interesting dialog to make up for this, and by about halfway through the game i just gave up on negotiations all together and resorted to the compendium and fusion to get all the demons i wanted. SMT3 also suffers from "i'm a 20 year old JRPG" syndrome and doesn't make it super clear where to go sometimes. i found myself wandering around feeling very lost sometimes, especially near the beginning of the game. the game is also famously REALLY fucking brutal. i recall at one point near the beginning, i spent an entire day of playing just grinding to be able to beat Matador, and that shit sucked. i ended up shelling out a couple bucks to get the shitty grinding DLC, which is really dumb, but i was struggling so much and i just wanted to start having fun again. that being said, i do eventually want to do a playthrough of hard mode (without using the DLC areas, of course) and i can respect the game's difficulty. the press turn system does somewhat make up for that as well, since if you know what you're doing you can totally sweep an enemy just by using the right combo of moves. still doesn't make up for puzzle boy though, i spent like 3 hours on that shit and then i gave up and use a guide. i admit it, im weak

one last point before we move to the conclusion, this game's soundtrack fucking owns. if you haven't listened to it, please, i beg you, do yourself a favor and listen to the whole thing. that shit rocks, my favorite tracks are mystery, ikebukuro, pretty much all the battle themes, the kalpa music, and puzzle boy. such a good blend of aggressive rock with synthesized voices and ominous, droning synths that really just resonates with me

alright, now for the conclusion. nocturne is a phenomenal game that i cannot recommend enough. but is the MSRP of 50 fucking dollars worth seeing the game in widescreen and a larger resolution with full voice acting and a couple other things? iiiii dunno man. i got my copy preowned for a steal, so i would say 15 dollars was no doubt worth it for me, but the full price is kind of a ripoff, especially considering the ps2 version was like 10 bucks on the ps3 as a ps2 classic. phenomenal game with a couple of minor issues, if you plan on getting the HD remaster, wait for it to go on sale or try to find it pre owned at a gamestop or something.

It's a great remake, but the story and gameplay is middling. The combat is way too easy and requires very little thought and absolutely needed an MP system to prevent me from cheesing several fights, especially considering you get Full Restored after every battle. I appreciate how the storylines are homages to the tropes of popular movies and games. Reference culture is cool when you get it, but creates a cliche and dissatisfying stand-alone product. The main problem I take is that it didn't out-western, out-Mecha or out-2001 the original properties, nor subvert them. I've played or seen close to all of these influences, so I didn't gain anything from playing Live-A-Live in my understanding of how to tell these stories well. It makes passable, but functionally worse choices than the original properties made, which makes me question the creator's intent beyond paying homage. I don't dislike the game at all: it's fun, cute and pretty, and the bite-sized narrative structures made it very digestable and paceable in a way I think a lot of chunky RPGs could benefit from. Those just aren't the reasons that I play RPGs, it's two weak points are. As is, I can't but help feel that it was a testing ground for the much stronger and more polished ideas of Chrono Trigger.

Almost thirty years after its initial release, this is still bizarrely overvalued as an emotional experience, and the remake leans into this with a florid translation meant to shore up its artistic cred. "Look, your counter-cultural adolescent fixation is actually deep and literary after all!" Square now claims of a game where you can fart on a dinosaur until it dies. The effort to canonize games as art has given birth to a whole lot of anecdotal overexaggeration, but I seriously cannot comprehend forming a legitimate bond with any of these caricatures, cute and expressive as they are.

The dishonesty is a shame, because even taken at its truer comic-book face, Live a Live has always been ambitious and rich with the spirit of experimentation that characterized Square's best work in the mid-to-late 90s. Unfortunately none of these virtues extend to the inane battle system, in which nearly every character sports ten or twelve different moves when there are at most two optimal options for any given encounter. It is no coincidence that the best chapters in the game (Sundown and Cube) are the ones that downplay the combat the most.

The Distant Future, in fact, has always been the most interesting chapter for this reason. While many of the other chapters pioneer early iterations of genre systems - item synthesis (Pogo), a crude skill point gimmick (Shifu), performance-based storytelling/rewards (Oboromaru) - Cube's chapter is brave enough to ask whether JRPG storytelling can survive without any mechanical hooks at all (save the last boss, only necessary as a justification for the frame narrative). Does it succeed? Insofar as anything ripping off two of the best sci-fi films of all time will, sure, but it's also hampered by its lack of depth. There just isn't enough time to take any of these characters anywhere interesting, and that goes for every chapter. It's a double-edged sword, because the breezy pace is a positive (and this battle system could not support a 40-hour game), but none of our seven protagonists make for especially strong anti-hate thesis statements when the time comes to wrap the whole thing up. The narrative is left fundamentally wanting, doubly so if you have even basic knowledge of English prefixes and can predict what lies in store for the final chapter.

Even if it doesn't make good on its lofty pretenses, there is plenty to enjoy here and it's one of the more justifiable expressions of the remake fetishism running rampant through the industry right now. We should at least be thankful that we got this and not Bahamut Lagoon.

Game Finished In 2024 #6:

I Swear, I Really Didn't Mean to Finish Three Square Enix SNES Remakes In A Row but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time

Also, because One Piece Odyssey was too mid to continue playing.

Anyway, Live A Live is really good. Somehow, 20+ years later, it is still astonishingly unique among JRPGs and games as a whole. Not only with the inventive chapter structure, but also with the choice and combination of settings. How many other games do you know that contain scenarios about cavemen, cowboys, and psychics at the same time? But more than just thematically, each chapter of Live A Live contains unique gameplay mechanics, making each chapter stand out.

You can tell the game is great, because the remake really does not change much about the core game, and instead chooses small tweaks to go along with the new coat of paint. And boy, that new coat of paint. HD-2D is such a wonderful engine to make games in. I can't wait for the DQ3 remake. The multiple settings feel both unique and cohesive, thanks to the HD-2D at work. The OST is masterfully done too, giving each chapter further character, but bringing it all together at the end of each one with Megalomania, a truly excellent track. As a reminder, Toby Fox made Megalovania because he wanted to put Megalomania into his hack but couldn't get it to work. Megalovania would not exist without this game.

The game also maintains cohesion by sticking to a set of core mechanics that each chapter provides a slightly different take on. Those core mechanics add an almost SRPG feel to the game due to the grid based system. Conventional resource management more or less does not exist, as things like gold and MP are removed, and you are healed at the end of every battle. This streamlines things significantly, which helps the pacing of each chapter immensely. Live A Live chapters are not meant to be fully fledged JRPG experiences, and this allows for scenarios that wouldn't be possible otherwise. If there is only one thing Live A Live does well, it is taking this anthology format and doing as much as possible with it.

I'll now go through all the chapters and my thoughts on them, from least good [but, importantly, still good] to the best ones.

Prehistory:
While it's still good, there has to be a weak link, and I think the plot here, while cute in how it avoids using dialog due to the setting, is not that special. Mechanically, it's biggest addition is a crafting system, which allows you to craft the best equipment in the game early if you know what to do, but it means there's not a lot else to it. Despite this, I think this makes one of the best starting chapters due to how those mechanics let you get accustomed to the intricacies of Live A Live

Edo:
I think this one is kind of more interesting to talk about than it is to play. While it is very cool to have a sort of nonlinear structure, and to offer the choice between pacifism and bloodshed, because I wanted to do pacifist I found my nose buried in a guide most of the way through. It is also light on plot, because most of your time is spent exploring. It's cool to see what was likely a huge inspiration for Undertale, though.

Middle Ages:
I debated mentioning this one, because it's kind of hidden-ish, but on the other hand if you count the characters on the box art you'll notice there's eight and not seven so I think it's fair game. The plot is great, and the lack of a unique mechanic doesn't hurt the gameplay too much, because Live A Live's core is great.

Distant Future:
This one is great because it is almost entirely plot. Luckily, that plot is very good, and there is SOME non-combat stuff to do that's enjoyable. Plus, it makes the one moment there IS combat much more hype.

Near Future:
Another candidate for a good starting point, Near Future is a mecha setting which means it wins points by default. It's unique mechanic, being able to read NPC minds, isn't too special, and the world map is cool but not a particularly game changing addition. The plot has a lot to like, and the finale is especially amazing.

Present Day:
I have a special fondness for this one, as it's the one I tried, along with Prehistory, when I attempted to play the SNES version years ago. The premise, a boss rush where you can learn the moves of each of the bosses, is basically an RPG version of Mega Man X, and while it is short as a result, the fact this is something that could basically only be done in a game with this format seriously elevates it for me, borderline excuse plot be damned.

China:
This one manages to marry a compelling story with unique mechanics amazingly. In this one, you play an old martial arts master who trains three students. The students learn in part based on what moves you use on them, incorporating that bit from Present Day as well. While it's best to focus on one student, luckily that pays off. Another excellent use of the format.

Wild West:
This one is my favorite because, surprise surprise, it uses the format amazingly. Much like Distant Future, combat is limited, but in this chapter the entire scenario is structured around it. There is only one real fight, and you and an entire town have to prepare for it. If you prepare well, the fight is made easier. If you prepare poorly, the fight will be one of the hardest in the game. This is accompanied with a timer, ensuring you have to budget the little time you have effectively. The story is compelling, and despite being one of the shorter chapters, gets you invested in the characters quick enough to make an impact.

It is kind of a miracle this game got remade. It was relegated to cult status for the longest time, but somehow, the game made enough of an impact to get remade. And it's a good thing it was, because the remake is a great modernization of an already very good game.

Probably the most disappointed I've felt in not enjoying a game that seems to be so beloved by others. The vast majority of the game feels like a prologue. Each character's scenario gives you a general idea of their personality, motivations, etc, but the short length of them didn't give me enough material to really come to care about any of the main cast as they barely felt fleshed out. Narratively, the majority of stories didn't pull any interesting takes, twists, or thought-provoking moments to get me invested in what was going on. Each story clearly took from other media genres such as Sci-Fi or Westerns, but they ultimately felt pretty... basic. Like watching a short-film where you already know what all is gonna happen 10 minutes in because it's just following typical genre tropes. That said, gameplay-wise I did appreciate how experimental Live A Live was in having each character scenario play out in mechanically different ways, with the Distant Future and Japan scenarios being highlights. Experimenting with ways to tell a JRPG story outside of typical JRPG gameplay conventions is pretty welcome, and that makes it stand out even among modern games.

The grid-based battle system is neat, but also suffers from that "20 hour prologue" feeling with the game constantly throwing mind-numbingly easy encounters at you. Even some boss battles could be cleared by just parking in one spot and alternating your Healing Skill and Damage Skill, or just damage-racing the boss if your character couldn't naturally heal because that's how the boss encounter was designed. Maybe you'll need to use 1 of the 20 healing items the game threw at you. It's such a waste of an interesting system, and while the combat does eventually open up and show its teeth with some difficult encounters, this happens when you only have around 3 hours of playtime left.

The game has cool and unique ideas, but doesn't do anything cool with them.

This remaster is a really good version of this game. There are quite a few quality of life changes that make the experience more streamlined and some restored and expanded content that add quite a bit to the experience.
I played the original release of SaGa Frontier when it came out on the Playstation 1, and I liked it a lot. It is a very unique RPG that does a ton of interesting things that aren't like many other (non SaGa) RPGs. SaGa Frontier doesn't come through with complete success, but it still has a lot of great stuff in it.

SF has of 8 characters to choose from, each of which has a fairly short, personal story to play through. The stories can be a bit ridiculous or lighthearted, but some have some poignant moments and fun (if campy) events. The new character added in the remaster (Fuse) adds a lot to this, since his story is actually a series of very short narratives in which he investigates each of the other characters, giving more context and depth to them.
Most of the characters also highlight a specific system (Blue is collecting all the magic in the world, T260G's quest focuses on robots and how their advancement works, Asellus does the same for Mystics), so playing through all of the chapters ends up being a tour of the world as well as a tour of the mechanics throughout the game. The human chapters seem to want to focus on each of the weapon types, but don't do a super good job of making this an actual part of the story or as mechanically necessary as the non-humans do, which is kind of a bummer.

Mechanically the game is straightforward, with most of the interest coming from how you build and set up your characters, rather than the individual battles. Learning the nuance of each of the different character types and what works best in certain situations is very rewarding. However, once you have this figured out the combat drags a bit, since you can just smash through everything with overpowered techniques.
You do have to recruit and outfit each character you want to use in every chapter and reacquire any magic you want to use, which is very tedious (especially in Fuse's case files, where he rifles through them so quickly).

The world and style of SaGa Frontier is very unique. It has a low-tech, sci-fi, magic heavy aesthetic and takes place in an open world that consists of multiple planets, each of which are different and somewhat interesting.
It is colorful and wild, with enemy designs that are often very surreal or just strange. They have a very mashed-up feel that can be somewhat off-putting, but worked well for me in this eclectic group of sci-fi worlds.

I had a lot of fun playing through SaGa Frontier again in this remaster. It delivers very well on the open world RPG experience, which is rare, even if the gameplay itself is fairly simple and straightforward. If you want a quirky, unique experience that isn't much like any other RPG you have played, SaGa frontier is worth checking out.

Expanding on the selectable protagonists of past SaGas, and reminiscent of Live A Live, SaGa Frontier's 'Free Scenario System' effectively splits the playable cast into seven individual mini-journeys, retaining the non-linear elements while also revisiting a few concepts from The Final Fantasy Legend trilogy. Despite the novel format, the result is a mixed bag: On one hand, it enabled a lot more creative liberties, boasting all sorts of ideas without ever really sacrificing tone or integrity. On the other hand, these stories are largely thin and self-contained, only loosely related to each other by their world and supporting cast. Nevertheless, the format yields a fair few creative displays, particularly the comedic Super Sentai-tinged melodrama of Red's scenario, and Blue's collection of wild and varied gameplay detours. Equally as varied if not more bizarre are Asellus' and Emelia's routes, while the rest are either dull or half-baked sketches. The weaker moments are at least somewhat redeemed by the experiments and visuals.

Unfortunately, combat suffers from the same issues as previous games: Too much emphasis on random chance determining builds without enough clarity needed to make them meaningful. Too often you're just repeating attacks in battle in hopes that a new skill or upgrade activates. The brutal difficulty also detracts from the experience. Level scaling systems can work in JRPGs - especially within a non-linear format, but here it seems more annoying than challenging. The major slip-ups prevent this monolith from standing above the sea of Squaresoft releases.

Oh man oh man oh man. I was chasing this one for a long time, every single emulator in middle school I would try to get this English patch to work and it would end up breaking for me some minutes in, so I was convinced I was missing out on this long-lost cousin that looked nearly identical to FF6 and seemed cinematic as fuck.

With this gorgeous remaster, I found out I was both write and wrong. After beginning multiple playthroughs just to get stuck for 30-40 minute periods, I've become a little weary to see this one through. Despite a tight af opening, the plot kinda falls by the wayside for the open-ended open-world esque exploration where adventure finds you. Which is all fine and dandy, probably revolutionary for the time, but makes for a dated and frustrating experience, especially when you have a battle system that feels equally as open-ended and has so many mechanics to wrap your head around with an anything but linear path to expansion. Once your party fills up you don't know who to keep and who to let go of(and lucky if your shittiest party member even is willing to part with you at all), annoying RTS minigames, a multitude of things dragged down this experience for me.

With that said, all the reasons I laid out for my annoyance is probably the exact reason why someone would love this game. If I were in middle-school and still had the hundreds of hours at my disposal to explore every facet of this game, I might have fallen hard in love. Some of my favorite pixel-art character designs are to be found here and this remaster is absolutely gorgeous and is the HD treatment that all the SNES era Square games should get, either this or the Octopath style but not that "pixel perfect" BS they're trying to peddle to the FF fans currently.

The saving grace of this for me is that I still have it on my phone, and can pick-up and play it as I please pretty casually, but with a DS emulator that's becoming more frequently my go-to I'm not sure if I will be making progress on this as often as I'd like, if at all. SaGa Frontier just seems more my speed.