spykor
62 reviews liked by spykor
Crystal Project
2022
This review contains spoilers
Crystal Project is a game that could have been beautiful, but has been allowed to grow bloated, ugly, and inelegant.
Sending the player out to explore a vast world with little guidance and only a vague idea of what to look for is a tried and true concept that has persisted since the earliest days of computer RPGs for good reason -- it's fun to go on an adventure of your own devising. Crystal Project has clearly exerted stupendous effort in hopes of eliciting this classic sense of adventure, but while the game does have its moments of brilliance, so much of this effort simply feels misplaced. It is onerous to explore Crystal Project's world; the geography itself is purposelessly brobdingnagian, composed of towering landmasses that lack justification for their sheer scale, and a gaggle of frustrating design decisions produce friction every step of the way.
Lack of a robust fast travel feature is probably the game's most egregious issue, but the developer is taking steps to address this in recent patches, so I won't dwell on it. Suffice to say that the sparsity of fast travel in the game at release accomplished little but padding the play time. I frequently found that the most direct way of reaching any given location was to simply warp to a high point and glide down to it, which is really just fast travel with a commute.
The approach to mapping will seemingly remain an issue for the foreseeable future, however. Crystal Project is incredibly stingy with both the mapping feature and the maps you need to use it to begin with. By the time you've jumped through enough hoops to acquire a given map, you may not even need it anymore, and the actual process of mapping out terrain is incredibly tedious due to the fact that the mapping radius does not extend above the player. It's a lot of work to fill out your maps, and there simply aren't enough points of interest to make it worth your while. Recent Ys games automatically fill out the remainder of a map once you've explored a certain percentage; a system like that would help a great deal in developing an understanding of the terrain. (Personally, I would take Elden Ring's approach of simply feeding you map chunks that come filled out, as there is no actual reward or acknowledgement for filling out maps in this game.)
Ultimately, though, what I found the most abrasive was simply the act of traversing the game world on a basic mechanical level, in large part due to the mount system. Crystal Project gates large swaths of the world behind movement upgrades, which in and of itself isn't a bad idea -- it provides a loose progression to follow before exploration opens up completely. But in practice I can only describe the way this concept was implemented as asinine. Rather than simply upgrading the player character's own capabilities, Crystal Project forces you to swap between no less than four types of mount in order to effect various forms of mobility. Want to go fast? Switch to the Quintar. That jump is three blocks instead of two? Gotta go with the goat. And so forth. While it's cute at first, the mount system results in the player needing to constantly open a menu and swap mounts as the situation demands; forget assigning hotkeys, a quick menu (that you've likely populated with other items in addition to the instruments that summon the mounts) is all you get. As the mounts do not supersede one another, you are forced to perform this inane song and dance for the entire game. But you know what the funny part is? That isn't even my biggest complaint with this system. To be blunt, the goat feels extremely unpleasant to use. Every time you want to jump up three blocks, you need to swap to the goat and slowly charge up its full jump height, a process which completely breaks the flow of controlling the character. And believe me, you're going to need to jump up three blocks a whole lot. I am not exaggerating when I say that the goat is so utterly miserable to interact with that I would rate the game 2.5 stars instead of 2 if this single element were improved.
So it sucks to move around, sure. The world design itself could have still made up for it, but unfortunately Crystal Project's world is stagnant and barren. While the game certainly makes stabs at world building, in the broad sense, it is weirdly devoid of life, figurative or literal. The player is rarely rewarded for exploring, because there simply isn't very much of interest in the first place. You might come across some equipment that's soon to be vertically outclassed, or a pouch that lets you carry 56 potions instead of 55, but moments of genuine discovery are few and far between. There were times when I was excited to discover a connection between two parts of the map seemingly removed from one another, but for the most part it felt like I could get away with doing the bare minimum, since most of the meaningful rewards were located along the beaten path of the main story progression anyway. This problem is only compounded in the endgame, when any attempt at a story evaporates and there is nothing to do but wander a silent, unchanging world. I honestly found the experience quite eerie, stumbling across so many locales that lacked even the most oblique purpose from a narrative standpoint. Perhaps you could liken the experience to exploring a dying MMO; there is often a sense that there should be more, but there simply isn't.
I do respect the effort that went into crafting a world of this scale, but art that does not resonate with the audience can only be appreciated in the most prosaic sense.
And all of this is without even getting into the combat! The combat is, well, it's fine.
If I can opine for a bit (well, what else is a review for?) -- I consider job systems inherently flawed. They want to have their cake and eat it too, trying to encourage the player to commit to builds while simultaneously presenting a huge range of options and synergies. If you want to get the most out of a job system, you simply have to sit there grinding out levels for each job. It's an unnecessary attempt to stake out a middle ground between fixed character skillsets and full customization, carrying with it the frustrations of each. When a game actually asks you to fully engage with a job/class system, what it's really doing is forcing you to grind so you can spec into a narrow range of optimal builds, thereby ultimately stifling player expression. As someone who likes to commit to builds/strategies in RPGs, it always rubs me the wrong way when games suddenly pull the rug out from under me and force me to play in a strictly optimal way, often by designing bosses that are so powerful and/or RNG heavy that suboptimal playstyles simply aren't viable. I recognize that people find joy in the problem solving elements at play here, but I greatly prefer when I am allowed some agency in my party composition, when a boss I struggled with isn't completely trivialized by some munchkin build that you need a PHD to put together.
Anyway, rant aside, I did find the combat in Crystal Project satisfying for the most part. As objectionable as I find job systems, there is a certain joy in watching your party come together over time, in growing more powerful by virtue of your options expanding. As implied by the paragraph above, however, I have a lot of problems with the actual numerical balance in Crystal Project. Very frequently I would reach the boss of a given area and find myself unable to beat it with my preferred strategy, as my numbers simply weren't high enough. Almost every single boss I encountered required coming back to it later, once I had a few more levels under my belt, and this really detracted from an aspect I consider core to RPGs: the sense that you're growing steadily more powerful over time. The final boss and superbosses are particularly egregious on hard mode, essentially forcing you to use certain jobs -- and at that point why even have a job system? From a strictly mechanical standpoint, the only real issue with the combat is that the RNG for misses and crits meshes poorly with the otherwise mostly deterministic flow of battle, but this is a pretty big issue. I ended up lowering the difficulty to normal for the final boss, because my strategy simply would not work due to the enemies being able to randomly one shot my characters with crits, and I was unwilling to scour the entire game world in order to acquire the summons and blue magic necessary to put together something that could bypass the RNG... and really, the fight itself. (As an aside, blue magic is little more than busywork, as are adjacent systems like capturing monsters. All they accomplish is forcing the player to constantly run a blue mage or micromanage enemy HP -- there's no meaningful decision making or exploration involved.)
Honestly, there is more I could complain about with Crystal Project, like the woefully anemic story that left me wondering what the final boss was even trying to accomplish (and indeed, what I accomplished by defeating her), but I think I've made my point. The game does have sparks of brilliance here and there, but really what kept me going was my love of JRPGs as genre and not anything Crystal Project itself did. If you're wondering why I didn't give it an even lower score after spending so many words raking it over the coals -- well, I love JRPG gameplay, and Crystal Project has a lot of that, at the very least.
Sending the player out to explore a vast world with little guidance and only a vague idea of what to look for is a tried and true concept that has persisted since the earliest days of computer RPGs for good reason -- it's fun to go on an adventure of your own devising. Crystal Project has clearly exerted stupendous effort in hopes of eliciting this classic sense of adventure, but while the game does have its moments of brilliance, so much of this effort simply feels misplaced. It is onerous to explore Crystal Project's world; the geography itself is purposelessly brobdingnagian, composed of towering landmasses that lack justification for their sheer scale, and a gaggle of frustrating design decisions produce friction every step of the way.
Lack of a robust fast travel feature is probably the game's most egregious issue, but the developer is taking steps to address this in recent patches, so I won't dwell on it. Suffice to say that the sparsity of fast travel in the game at release accomplished little but padding the play time. I frequently found that the most direct way of reaching any given location was to simply warp to a high point and glide down to it, which is really just fast travel with a commute.
The approach to mapping will seemingly remain an issue for the foreseeable future, however. Crystal Project is incredibly stingy with both the mapping feature and the maps you need to use it to begin with. By the time you've jumped through enough hoops to acquire a given map, you may not even need it anymore, and the actual process of mapping out terrain is incredibly tedious due to the fact that the mapping radius does not extend above the player. It's a lot of work to fill out your maps, and there simply aren't enough points of interest to make it worth your while. Recent Ys games automatically fill out the remainder of a map once you've explored a certain percentage; a system like that would help a great deal in developing an understanding of the terrain. (Personally, I would take Elden Ring's approach of simply feeding you map chunks that come filled out, as there is no actual reward or acknowledgement for filling out maps in this game.)
Ultimately, though, what I found the most abrasive was simply the act of traversing the game world on a basic mechanical level, in large part due to the mount system. Crystal Project gates large swaths of the world behind movement upgrades, which in and of itself isn't a bad idea -- it provides a loose progression to follow before exploration opens up completely. But in practice I can only describe the way this concept was implemented as asinine. Rather than simply upgrading the player character's own capabilities, Crystal Project forces you to swap between no less than four types of mount in order to effect various forms of mobility. Want to go fast? Switch to the Quintar. That jump is three blocks instead of two? Gotta go with the goat. And so forth. While it's cute at first, the mount system results in the player needing to constantly open a menu and swap mounts as the situation demands; forget assigning hotkeys, a quick menu (that you've likely populated with other items in addition to the instruments that summon the mounts) is all you get. As the mounts do not supersede one another, you are forced to perform this inane song and dance for the entire game. But you know what the funny part is? That isn't even my biggest complaint with this system. To be blunt, the goat feels extremely unpleasant to use. Every time you want to jump up three blocks, you need to swap to the goat and slowly charge up its full jump height, a process which completely breaks the flow of controlling the character. And believe me, you're going to need to jump up three blocks a whole lot. I am not exaggerating when I say that the goat is so utterly miserable to interact with that I would rate the game 2.5 stars instead of 2 if this single element were improved.
So it sucks to move around, sure. The world design itself could have still made up for it, but unfortunately Crystal Project's world is stagnant and barren. While the game certainly makes stabs at world building, in the broad sense, it is weirdly devoid of life, figurative or literal. The player is rarely rewarded for exploring, because there simply isn't very much of interest in the first place. You might come across some equipment that's soon to be vertically outclassed, or a pouch that lets you carry 56 potions instead of 55, but moments of genuine discovery are few and far between. There were times when I was excited to discover a connection between two parts of the map seemingly removed from one another, but for the most part it felt like I could get away with doing the bare minimum, since most of the meaningful rewards were located along the beaten path of the main story progression anyway. This problem is only compounded in the endgame, when any attempt at a story evaporates and there is nothing to do but wander a silent, unchanging world. I honestly found the experience quite eerie, stumbling across so many locales that lacked even the most oblique purpose from a narrative standpoint. Perhaps you could liken the experience to exploring a dying MMO; there is often a sense that there should be more, but there simply isn't.
I do respect the effort that went into crafting a world of this scale, but art that does not resonate with the audience can only be appreciated in the most prosaic sense.
And all of this is without even getting into the combat! The combat is, well, it's fine.
If I can opine for a bit (well, what else is a review for?) -- I consider job systems inherently flawed. They want to have their cake and eat it too, trying to encourage the player to commit to builds while simultaneously presenting a huge range of options and synergies. If you want to get the most out of a job system, you simply have to sit there grinding out levels for each job. It's an unnecessary attempt to stake out a middle ground between fixed character skillsets and full customization, carrying with it the frustrations of each. When a game actually asks you to fully engage with a job/class system, what it's really doing is forcing you to grind so you can spec into a narrow range of optimal builds, thereby ultimately stifling player expression. As someone who likes to commit to builds/strategies in RPGs, it always rubs me the wrong way when games suddenly pull the rug out from under me and force me to play in a strictly optimal way, often by designing bosses that are so powerful and/or RNG heavy that suboptimal playstyles simply aren't viable. I recognize that people find joy in the problem solving elements at play here, but I greatly prefer when I am allowed some agency in my party composition, when a boss I struggled with isn't completely trivialized by some munchkin build that you need a PHD to put together.
Anyway, rant aside, I did find the combat in Crystal Project satisfying for the most part. As objectionable as I find job systems, there is a certain joy in watching your party come together over time, in growing more powerful by virtue of your options expanding. As implied by the paragraph above, however, I have a lot of problems with the actual numerical balance in Crystal Project. Very frequently I would reach the boss of a given area and find myself unable to beat it with my preferred strategy, as my numbers simply weren't high enough. Almost every single boss I encountered required coming back to it later, once I had a few more levels under my belt, and this really detracted from an aspect I consider core to RPGs: the sense that you're growing steadily more powerful over time. The final boss and superbosses are particularly egregious on hard mode, essentially forcing you to use certain jobs -- and at that point why even have a job system? From a strictly mechanical standpoint, the only real issue with the combat is that the RNG for misses and crits meshes poorly with the otherwise mostly deterministic flow of battle, but this is a pretty big issue. I ended up lowering the difficulty to normal for the final boss, because my strategy simply would not work due to the enemies being able to randomly one shot my characters with crits, and I was unwilling to scour the entire game world in order to acquire the summons and blue magic necessary to put together something that could bypass the RNG... and really, the fight itself. (As an aside, blue magic is little more than busywork, as are adjacent systems like capturing monsters. All they accomplish is forcing the player to constantly run a blue mage or micromanage enemy HP -- there's no meaningful decision making or exploration involved.)
Honestly, there is more I could complain about with Crystal Project, like the woefully anemic story that left me wondering what the final boss was even trying to accomplish (and indeed, what I accomplished by defeating her), but I think I've made my point. The game does have sparks of brilliance here and there, but really what kept me going was my love of JRPGs as genre and not anything Crystal Project itself did. If you're wondering why I didn't give it an even lower score after spending so many words raking it over the coals -- well, I love JRPG gameplay, and Crystal Project has a lot of that, at the very least.
they really put the “Fire” in Fire Emblem with this one
FE4 is easily the most ambitious Fire Emblem so far. at this point Kaga is done messing around, as of this point he now begins to showcase his full potential where it comes to this franchise. I don’t got much else to say right now so let’s just get into it.
no more Akaneia, no more Falchion, no more Marth, we’re heading to uncharted territory now; welcome to Jugdral. the story begins with the Kingdom of Grannvale, one of the many nations founded after the Holy War that took place a century earlier. although many years of peace take place, reports of the Isaach nation besieging Darna reach Grannvale and as Darna was an important landmark during the Holy War, Grannvale declares war on Issach with most of its military charging forward to deal with the situation. while this happens, the army of Verdane from another a neighboring nation invades House Jungby and kidnaps Lady Aideen (or Edin or Edain whatever translation you prefer). however Sigurd of House Chalphy (the son of Lord Byron who’s partaking in the war against Issac) has been left to defend Grannvale in his father’s absence and once he hears about this he sets forward to rescue Aideen with what little soldiers were left behind. unfortunately these events are what begin the next war of Jugdral and many tragedies will occur during this time. since it’s 2024, most people at this point are aware of the Second Generation that occurs during the second half of the game so I’ll provide a very brief summary of what happens there while trying not to delve too much into spoiler territory. seventeen years after the events of the First Generation, Sigurd’s son Seliph is now in refuge at Tirnanog, a village located in Issach (ironic huh) where after word of this hiding place is discovered by the new empire of this generation, Seliph emerges and begins a revolution to free the nations who are now under rule of this empire.
storywise FE4 feels like a more mature version of what Kaga was trying to achieve with FE3. no more long and/or crazy lore dumps outside of like two of them near the end of the game, the storytelling is very natural and delves into much darker topics than FE3, and FE3 was already darker than the first two games so you can imagine how serious it can get. of course there are some comedic moments though a majority of them come from optional conversations you can have with members of your army (a first for the series and something I expect to be in every game from this point onward) and a lot of those also come from Sylvia/Silvia: one of the only characters in the game that doesn’t take anything seriously to the point where she can have a potential conversation with another character named Alec where during the climax of the First Generation, she blames him for unintentionally getting her pregnant, and that’s not even close to being the craziest relationship in this game. besides those couple of moments this is very much the “seinen Fire Emblem”; protagonists and antagonists are betrayed left and right, children are abducted to work for the empire, other children are hunted down to appease a dark god, one of the female characters gets sexually assaulted (thankfully off-screen), another female is tortured to the point that she loses the will to live (also thankfully off-screen), and an important character is unknowingly manipulated to marry his half-sister who gives birth to the vessel of the Antichrist, no I will not elaborate on that. FE4 gets kinda wild, and for me the perfect example of the different direction that FE4 takes is none other than Sigurd, the Lord of the First Generation.
spoilers somewhat for the first half of the game, I’ll try to refrain from mentioning the big stuff since you really got to experience it for yourself but if you haven’t played the game yet you can skip this next paragraph.
Sigurd is a brilliant character since at first you’re expecting him to be like Marth or Alm and Celica from FE2, and well he is for the most part. he’s a noble, he’s friendly, he wants to do the right thing all that usual stuff. in fact he even accomplishes stuff better than the others since right away he starts off OP gameplay wise and he even gets married very early compared to the other Lords where that only happens at the end of their story, but the thing that separates him from the ones that came before is that everything he does has consequences. for Marth and the others while some bad stuff does happen to them, the things they accomplish benefit their world and they eventually get their happy ending once things are done, Celica admittedly screws up at least once during her journey though things do work out for her too, Sigurd on the other hand is what would happen if instead of having one major screw up, he’s constantly making screw ups during his entire journey. his early accomplishments are genuinely good as he rescues Aideen which in turn lets her convince another character to side with them, and then he saves Deirdre who he quickly falls in love with leading to their marriage and the birth of their son, however his rescue mission to save Aideen takes him to Verdane itself where he would get involved with the affairs there which ends with him seizing Verdane Castle. some of the heads of the neighboring nation Agustria views this as a threat so they chose to wage war against Grannvale and go after Sigurd’s army, which only leads to Sigurd getting involved over there and he ends up seizing the southern half of Agustria and uses it as headquarters as per orders. it gets to the point where Lewyn, a new recruit, calls him out for his actions and even Sigurd’s best friend Eldigan begins to think that he and Grannvale are attempting a conquest. although Sigurd has good intentions and didn’t intend for things to get so out of control, nonetheless he still plays a big part in contributing to just that. by the time you get to the end of the First Generation you realize that Sigurd has become an unwitting pawn for the antagonists and is responsible for a domino effect of war and bloodshed. it all cumulates to the point where after everything possible has gone wrong, he throws away his nobility and curses the enemy who broke the last straw.
in summary: Sigurd is a deconstruction of the typical Fire Emblem Lord that the franchise has established at this point. it’s all the more funny that the game that introduces the most complex Lord so far also introduces a basic traditional one for its second half. nothing against Celice—err Seliph by the way, I have no hatred towards him he’s a good character, unfortunately he doesn’t really bring anything new to the table like Sigurd does, Seliph’s not really that much different from someone like Marth in my opinion though I guess that’s not too much of a negative since Marth’s cool af. according to Kaga, there was supposed to be a Third Generation where characters of both the First and Second Generation would join together but it didn’t end up happening, probably because they were already pushing the limits of the SFC as is but I don’t think there’s an actual confirmed reason, anyway I think that would have been a good opportunity to flesh out Seliph a bit more but it is what it is. another character I really like is Alvis Presley, or Arvis for short. unfortunately any discussion involving this guy is major spoiler territory so as much as I’d like to I won’t be discussing him here, just know that out of them so far, Arvis is the best one at what he is from a character standpoint. okay story time is over, now it’s time to discuss the gameplay and there’s a lot to unpack there.
let’s get the obvious out of the way. this is the first map of the game. it’s also the smallest. FE4 is a big departure (pun intended) in that all the maps of the game are jumbo sized and have multiple castles to siege, essentially making each Chapter in FE4 at least triple the size of the ones in the previous games. due to this, high movement units excel here while the lower movement units will usually be at a disadvantage since it’ll take them a while to get into the action and earn themselves EXP. it’s no surprise that the best units in the game are the mounted units AKA the ones with the horses who get a very nice 8 movement speed while others like Priests and Sword Armors (they’re just Knights with a different name) only get a measly 5 movement and while that’s only 3 less than the horses those extra three movements make such a difference. to help movement go a bit faster, there’s a new terrain called “Road” that only use ups 0.7 of your movement which will help alleviate the unmounted units while the horse units become even better. flying units don’t get this movement bonus because….well they’re flying but they’re still really good since being able to fly over forests and mountains is very valuable, also roads have -10% avoid so you have to be careful during the enemy phase if you end a unit’s turn on one. now you may be wondering why the maps are so huge, and it’s that in this game you’re actually traveling through the entire country the Chapter takes place in. a detail I really like is by the time you get to the next Chapter you actually start off in the same area where you ended your previous Chapter. FE3 did this a few times but here in FE4 this occurs after almost every Chapter making the world in this game feel really connected, and it is. as cool as this is however, this makes going through the maps in this game quite annoying as a good amount of them either have slow pacing or force you to hurry to get some useful items in time, a lot of these are actually during the First Generation so it creates a very rough first impression. Chapter 1 forces you to go through a giant forest (the section over at the bottom left) where all your units are forced to have all their movement speed sapped away while you also have to send another unit to recruit an enemy unit in the forest while making sure they don’t die because they’re also surrounded by a bunch of Archers, fun. Chapter 2’s another mess where you need to quickly get your horse units (your unmounted units are not getting there) to the castle nearby to rescue a new unit as well as three green units who are protecting said unit from a bunch of enemies and if one of those green units die at any point of the Chapter then you lose out on a very important and useful item and you don’t want that to happen. also if you’re not fast enough to get to the next castle after that (Turn 11 or earlier) then you risk the chance of a Brigand destroying a village with another important item before the two playable units that appear after the castle is seized to show up in that area, that village is also the first one that ends up getting attacked, granted villages take multiple turns to get destroyed in this game but still. Chapter 4’s not too bad but after you seize the castle at the top right you need to backtrack your way down to the two castles at the bottom as the pathway is blocked before then, you can Return or Warp your units back down but it’ll cost you a lot to repair those staves (yeah you can repair weapons in this game too) and at least one unit with one of those staves will have to make their way back on their own. the Second Generation’s maps are less of a hassle though they do suffer from some annoying enemy placement like in Chapter 7 where a bunch of Dark Mages are placed nearby your starting point and later on where you have to try to recruit another character surrounded by enemy units while making sure you don’t accidentally kill said character during the enemy phase. yeah can’t say I’m a fan of the map direction in this game even if I think it’s cool how they match up perfectly with Jugral’s layout, a shame since I’d like to stream this one to my friends but those huge maps are certainly going to make it a pain to everyone watching. every other game after this goes back to the smaller maps and personally I think that’s for the better.
besides the maps there’s still a lot of gameplay changes this game does to differentiate it even further from the earlier games. each Chapter you get a sort of base of operations in the castle you start off in. here you can do a good amount of preparation before you send you characters out, most of the actions you perform here doesn’t take up any turns (besides giving gold to another unit but I’ll talk about that later) so you can take your time in these castles which you should since using their services are pretty helpful. Blacksmith allows you to visit a blacksmith that’ll repair all your equipment at a cost, a first for a franchise and probably something that won’t reappear that often because this is just way too good. Pawnbroker replaces traditional trading in this game as now you’ll have to sell your items here and have another unit buy them if you want that unit to use them, in a way this is a downgrade since you now need to cough up some cash to give items to other units (the Ring items are especially pricey) but when you think about it it’s really only a necessary evil because most of the items you get in FE4 are surprisingly overpowered and freely being able to trade them off to characters back and forth could have destroyed the difficulty balance (Sigurd gets a Silver Sword in the Prologue there’s no way trading was going to happen lol). Supply lets you store items in case you have too many items (the max you can hold has been buffed from 4 to 7) and you want to keep them on the same unit to save them for another time, it’s not something I bothered with in the First Generation but it did have its niche uses during the Second Generation where the items can start to pile up. the Arena is an area that’s actually been in FE1 and FE3 but I never brought it up since I felt it’s not too important in those games, for a summary: the arenas are an area in various Chapters that allow you to fight opponents that are surprisingly more difficult than the ones you fight in the actual maps, defeating them rewards your unit with EXP and some good old cash. however the catch is not only can you not control your unit for this (a CPU will have your unit attack for you) but your opponent can actually kill your unit off so it’s very risky. (if you’re not abusing save states), in FE1 you actually can’t back out once you start but in FE3 you at least have the option to do that by pressing the B button during battle at the cost of not getting your money back and your unit being at low health. the FE4 arena is a little different as in this game each unit has a finite seven opponents they can face rather than the unlimited amount in FE1 and FE3, failing also doesn’t end in the death of your unit but rather they’ll only be reduced to 1 HP. after every Chapter the Arena resets with seven new fighters so it makes a great place to get units EXP and gold, provided that they’re able to equip a weapon. Augury is where you can find out the lover of your unit or the one they’re falling in love with while the Second Generation also lets you check who the parents of your unit are (another mechanic that I will explain later). lastly the Armory is where you buy weapons, though this time they’re in a limited capacity so you can’t just keep buying them over and over. new weapons will get added per Chapter plus they’ll stick around so if you can’t afford it or want to save a weapon for a later Chapter you can do just that.
besides the town stuff, you can also have a character guard the castle which is a new mechanic as enemies can now invade your castle to destroy it resulting in an automatic game over, though while this sounds crazy you really don’t have to worry about it since there’s only one or two Chapters where your castle’s in genuine danger since enemy units are rarely ordered to go after them and during those moments you can easily send one to guard with a Warp and Return staff that you should have at that point. guarding a castle provides the usual evade boost as well as a small HP regen after every turn like the forts from previous games, enemy castle guards also get these boosts too so you’ll have to be careful around them compared to regular enemies. class changes have been reworked in this time to only take place in your starting castle and well as needing to be Level 20 to class change rather than Level 10, though this time you won’t need an item nor will your level be reset (the max is now Level 30). staff use and dancing can be done in the castle at the cost of your unit’s turn, though I don’t know why you’d want to do that in the castle I didn’t even you can before I did this research for this review. lastly, units can give gold to each other as in this game each unit has their own amounts of gold they can hold (up to 50,000), a neat little detail that showcases this is how a character named Beowolf is recruited if you talk to him with a unit that can pay him 10,000 gold and once he’s on your team he has the 10,000 gold in his own inventory. the gold sharing is limited though as outside of the Thief class who can share with everyone, normally units can only give gold to their relatives or lovers which is a nice Segway into possibly FE4’s biggest new feature.
units can fall in LOVE. yeah that’s right you thought Awakening did it first? nah FE4 beat it to the punch almost 16 years earlier. brag all you want about Awakening saving the franchise (for better or for worse (probably for the worse considering the FE fans that I’ve associated with)), but there’s no denying it couldn’t have done that if it didn’t take one of its most well known features from Genealogy of the Holy War. kneel to your ancestors baby, you wouldn’t be here without them. anyway let’s go back to pretending it’s 1996. many of this game’s playable characters can fall in love with the opposite gender through methods such as ending a turn next to each other or having conversations with each other at points of the game which will boost both their love points and a slight stat boost, though there are a good amount of non-lover conversations that also boost stats so you’ll definitely want to have these conversations to make things a little easier. of course you could always have them fall in love naturally but if you want to do the cheese strat then you can clear all the enemies currently on the map then have the two soon-to-be lovers next to each other while you keep ending your turns until they fall in love, though just know that this method stops working after the 50th turn of each map so it may take another Chapter for them to reach the maximum love points. the only units you can’t make fall in love are Quan and Ethlyn who are already married by the time they appear in the game, Sigurd and Deirdre who automatically fall in love with each other because the plot demands it, and a few of the Second Generation units. the reason why you want units to fall in love is because not only do lovers get small stat boosts where they’re nearby as well as a small chance to get a critical hit if they’re next to each other (something you can’t do in normal circumstances in this game), but during the Second Generation you can get access to units who are not only the children of the characters from the First Generation but these units will also inherit items, stats, and skills from their parents which will make the tides much more in your favor. if you don’t pair up the First Generation units then the ones that didn’t score will have their children replaced with substitute units who don’t inherit anything and have inferior stats, though in turn the conversations they can have will provide bigger stat boosts so they don’t die to a small gust of wind, that said I wouldn’t know what they’re like myself since I made all the females in my playthrough have children (don’t take this out of context). I heard the dancer substitute is technically better but idk I really wanted Sylvia’s daughter to inherit the Knight and Leg Ring since extra movement along with movement after an action is OP, also it helps that dancing now refreshes all adjacent allies rather than just one.
speaking of Sylvia, Kaga decided to pull a funny prank regarding her and her potential lovers. there’s a conversation in Chapter 2 that Sylvia can have with another unit named Alec where the two will get 100 love points with each other. ideally you don’t want them to fall in love because Alec is a JOBBER you do not want him to pass his JOBBER genes to Sylvia’s children because you wouldn’t want your own children to be JOBBERS would you? you can always just not have them talk or be next to each other but then in Chapter 4 you can have another conversation with her and Erin/Fury/Ferry/whatever the hell your translation patch calls her where they discuss about Lewyn. Erin and Lewyn are probably both the best pairings for each other (and apparently canon according to FE5) so this is good because it gives those two 25 love points, but then it also gives him and Sylvia 50 love points and Sylvia starts off having 200 love points with Lewyn when she first joins your team uh oh! at the end of the day though, Sylvia’s children aren’t really combat units so if you get her a bad pairing then it’s not a big deal, and later on in Chapter 4 Erin and Lewyn get their own conversation that gives so many love points that Lewyn straight up tells her “I love you” wow Kaga really wanted these two to make out
alright some of the other changes and additions I haven’t mentioned yet. this is the first game with the “weapon triangle” system where certain weapons are given a boosted hit rate when facing a foe that’s equipped with a weapon less effective than yours. the easy way of putting it is: swords beat axes, lances beat swords, and axes beat lances, though in this game it’s more like: swords beat almost everything, lances beat swords sometimes, and axes are the “I want to die” weapon. there’s also a trinity of magic which is like the weapon triangle but more balanced: fire magic beats wind magic, wind magic beats thunder magic, and thunder magic bests fire magic, unless you’re the Forseti and Mjölnir tomes in which case you beat everything because you’re OP. the weapon level system has also revised to include weapon ranks where instead of leveling up until your unit’s skilled enough to use a weapon, the weapons they can use are instead based on their class and what weapon rank the class is capable of using, for example: Cavaliers can use up to B rank swords and C rank lances (stuff like steel swords and iron lances), Priests can only use up to B rank staffs (pretty much any staff that isn’t Fortify or Rescue), Axe Knights can only use up to B rank axes (not a good thing), Sword Fighters can only use up to A rank swords (good thing), and the rare Master Knight can use A rank everything and C rank light magic (you’ll never need them to use light magic) though only two characters get this class you’ll need to get them to Level 20 for them to access it. for me this is a lot easier to understand then in FE1 and FE3 where you won’t know when a unit will be able to use a powerful weapon until their skill is high enough to where the game says “okay you can use this now”, this is a welcome feature. this game also introduces the skill system which kinda has the same function as the Ability system in Pokémon where each unit has their own unique skill to differ from one another, though in the case of Fire Emblem a unit can have more than one skill at a time. lets take a look at Alec and Noish (or Naoise some of these official names are weird), the Christmas Cavaliers of the game. these two seem identical at a first glance but the skills they have make them a bit different from each other. Alec has Follow-Up which lets him do a follow-up attack if his speed is greater than his opponent’s and Nihil which protects him from critical hits and other combat skills. The Noish gets Critical which lets him perform critical hits and Accost which lets him repeat a round of combat if his speed is fast enough. these skills give them each different niches in the game so it’s up to you to decide which one you want to use in combat more often, but really both of them are pretty mediocre and you’re better off using almost every other unit (horses won’t be saving them much). lastly (I think) there’s the Holy Blood system where characters can have minor or major holy blood depending on their ancestors or in the case of the Second Generation depending on their parents. major holy blood allows them to use the holy weapon of the ancestor or parent they came from which are basically the OP game breaking weapons though you’ll have to go out of your way to earn a lot of these holy weapons through conversations or events. minor holy blood doesn’t do this but it does provide weapon level boosts and specific growth rates, which major holy blood already does to greater effect. since most of the characters in the First Generation have various kinds of major and minor holy blood, the pairings you create here can give their children in the Second Generation their own major and/or minor holy blood depending on their parents which can help them get the growth rates and weapon ranks that they’re in need of.
oh yeah there’s this funny thing that I haven’t mentioned yet. on very rare occasions, you can access secret events by having certain units end their turns on specific places of the map. how are you supposed to know about these secret events? I don’t know! the three secret events I did was having Lex (the axe user of Generation 1) end his turn at a cliff (he also needs an Iron Axe for the event but he should have that in his inventory) so he can get a Brave Axe (Silver Axe but better), having Arden (Sword Armor) end his turn at a beach in Chapter 2 for a Pursuit Ring that he’ll pawn off to Rick Harrison because he will not benefit much from its effects, and Seliph heading south to the beach right before he seizes the final castle in Chapter 10, once again I don’t know how you’re supposed to know about these which is why I’m telling you how to access these events myself. some of the substitute characters have their own secret events but since I didn’t have any in my playthrough I can’t help you on those ones, I love Guide Emblem
the graphics got a glow up from the previous game as now the maps don’t look like the NES ones with more colors (not that that’s a bad thing). unlike the previous two games though there’s not as many cool set pieces like pirate ships or swamps or volcanos or all that other stuff as all the maps of this game take place mostly on grassy terrain with the occasional desert and one-time snow area, if there’s something visually FE4 really drops the ball on it’s that. FE4’s battle animations are also the best they’ve looked so far in the franchise and although they’re not as flashy as the GBA games with their fast anime movement and spinning weapon flex, I still appreciate the more grounded animations in FE4 while still having some cool movement on rare occasions (the pre-class change Seliph crit where he does the Final Cutter from Kirby is awesome). unfortunately it’s hard to find FE battle GIFs that aren’t from the GBA games so you’ll just have to play the game yourself to see what they look like :^))). the music also might be the best in the franchise so far and I think a contributor to that is every Chapter has its own map theme, we’ve come a long way from FE1 having a singular map theme for most of the game. here’s the Prologue theme and yeah this is fine it’s what I expect to hear from Fire Emblem nothing too amazing but it’s a nice theme to start off with. then Chapter 1 drops this banger out of nowhere and then I go “WHOA okay then”, it’s a very lovely and upbeat track which is kinda funny because this is one of the most frustrating Chapters gameplay wise and the beginning of when things start going out of hand story wise. Chapter 2 isn’t as catchy but it does have those Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and that’s always welcome, and once again there’s that mood dissonance with the calm tone because this Chapter is pretty annoying. Chapter 3 is another Mystery Dungeon-like track or perhaps Final Fantasy-like track since Kaga did take some inspiration from FF, anyway pretty chill, bad stuff happens. Chapter 4’s got those chiming bells which is a welcome instrument in my book and you can really sense the loneliness and uncertainty in this one even if you got a whole army to keep you company in this dire portion of the game. Chapter 5 is the turning point, no more positive or relaxing melodies (at least for the time being), things will go down, things will get worse before they get better, there will be bloodshed. that’s all the Chapter themes I will share here, but did you know there’s also unique enemy themes for every different army in the game? Verdane Army is the main army for the Prologue and Chapter 1 and they got a somewhat threatening theme but they aren’t so bad considering the majority of them are axe users. Agustria Army has a more militaristic vibe to it which makes sense so they’re more refined compared to the more savage Verdane Army, also these guys have horses so that helps. doot doot. doot doot. doot doot. doot doot. Silesia Army is the army theme for Chapter 4 and it’s every bit as cold and chilling as the Chapter it comes from, you know because there’s snow in this map? Thracia Army is the theme of the army that’s named after the fifth Fire Emblem game and while their theme has a slight goofiness to it, these guys are entirely composed of Wyvern Riders and they’re really dangerous, unless you got some good bow units. what a leisurely track. Neutral Army is a neutral sounding theme that plays when a neutral army begins their phase, but don’t let the name and music fool you, whenever this track plays, something bad always happens and there’s nothing you can do about it. all the castle town themes have their own unique tracks as well but I’m not going to post them all because there’s a lot of them so here’s the one that sounds like a Kirby’s Dream Land 3 map theme. here’s this game’s battle theme or otherwise known as the Silver Sword theme. personally I liked the one in FE3 more but this one gets the job done. the enemy battle theme is probably one of the weakest tracks in the game but idk I felt like including it, I don’t have much to say here other than there’s been better enemy themes. Mid-boss theme, second verse, same as the first. this theme is what plays when all the axe guys are dead and now you have to deal with the big boys (and girls), very intense track I like it it’s very much the “get serious or someone’s dying” theme. this is the first ever enemy recruit theme of Fire Emblem and I’m not sure if there’s more of them later down the line but either way it’s cool and has that “hey maybe there’s more to this enemy then you think" vibes, also this is me when I listen to this theme. ending things off here’s the Fire Emblem theme of this game that does a neat subversion with the mysterious intro before switching to the usual motif, I really like this version it’s definitely my favorite so far and I hope to see how far they can top it in later entries.
there’s still some other stuff I forgot to mention like how getting 50 kills on a weapon gives them a crit chance or how there’s a ranking of your performance at the very end of the game but god I have to stop somewhere, you could probably write a whole book talking about the stuff in this game. I’m simultaneously disappointed and impressed with FE4. there were some questionable gameplay decisions while there were some welcome ones. some of the plot twists I saw coming from a mile away but there were others that genuinely caught me by surprise. after finishing this game, I finally understand why all the other FE fans wanted a FE4 remake after news of it supposedly leak; it’s not because this game is the pinnacle of everything Fire Emblem and peak fiction, it’s because the game sucks. of course that’s an exaggeration, I really did enjoy this game, it actually reminds me of Super Mario Sunshine in that I love everything about it except for the actual gameplay (sometimes the gameplay is great though so it’s better than Mario Sunshine), maybe I’ll give it a higher rating if enough FEs disappoint me down the line. I do think it’d be cool if that remake ever happens so we can see all the gameplay improvements that the later games have probably done, also it’ll mean they can get rid of all those enemy portrait recolors of the same two sprites, all you FE4 players know what I’m talking about. I’ll be looking forward to Thracia 776 going back to the small maps because these big ass maps made this game took longer than I expected it to take, I thought I’d be at FE7 right now but here I am still lingering around back over here. I need to get a move on so instead of typing down my closing remarks, I’m just going to end the review right here, lol
if you ever think you’ve had a complicated love life, at least you’re not Lachesis
FE4 is easily the most ambitious Fire Emblem so far. at this point Kaga is done messing around, as of this point he now begins to showcase his full potential where it comes to this franchise. I don’t got much else to say right now so let’s just get into it.
no more Akaneia, no more Falchion, no more Marth, we’re heading to uncharted territory now; welcome to Jugdral. the story begins with the Kingdom of Grannvale, one of the many nations founded after the Holy War that took place a century earlier. although many years of peace take place, reports of the Isaach nation besieging Darna reach Grannvale and as Darna was an important landmark during the Holy War, Grannvale declares war on Issach with most of its military charging forward to deal with the situation. while this happens, the army of Verdane from another a neighboring nation invades House Jungby and kidnaps Lady Aideen (or Edin or Edain whatever translation you prefer). however Sigurd of House Chalphy (the son of Lord Byron who’s partaking in the war against Issac) has been left to defend Grannvale in his father’s absence and once he hears about this he sets forward to rescue Aideen with what little soldiers were left behind. unfortunately these events are what begin the next war of Jugdral and many tragedies will occur during this time. since it’s 2024, most people at this point are aware of the Second Generation that occurs during the second half of the game so I’ll provide a very brief summary of what happens there while trying not to delve too much into spoiler territory. seventeen years after the events of the First Generation, Sigurd’s son Seliph is now in refuge at Tirnanog, a village located in Issach (ironic huh) where after word of this hiding place is discovered by the new empire of this generation, Seliph emerges and begins a revolution to free the nations who are now under rule of this empire.
storywise FE4 feels like a more mature version of what Kaga was trying to achieve with FE3. no more long and/or crazy lore dumps outside of like two of them near the end of the game, the storytelling is very natural and delves into much darker topics than FE3, and FE3 was already darker than the first two games so you can imagine how serious it can get. of course there are some comedic moments though a majority of them come from optional conversations you can have with members of your army (a first for the series and something I expect to be in every game from this point onward) and a lot of those also come from Sylvia/Silvia: one of the only characters in the game that doesn’t take anything seriously to the point where she can have a potential conversation with another character named Alec where during the climax of the First Generation, she blames him for unintentionally getting her pregnant, and that’s not even close to being the craziest relationship in this game. besides those couple of moments this is very much the “seinen Fire Emblem”; protagonists and antagonists are betrayed left and right, children are abducted to work for the empire, other children are hunted down to appease a dark god, one of the female characters gets sexually assaulted (thankfully off-screen), another female is tortured to the point that she loses the will to live (also thankfully off-screen), and an important character is unknowingly manipulated to marry his half-sister who gives birth to the vessel of the Antichrist, no I will not elaborate on that. FE4 gets kinda wild, and for me the perfect example of the different direction that FE4 takes is none other than Sigurd, the Lord of the First Generation.
spoilers somewhat for the first half of the game, I’ll try to refrain from mentioning the big stuff since you really got to experience it for yourself but if you haven’t played the game yet you can skip this next paragraph.
Sigurd is a brilliant character since at first you’re expecting him to be like Marth or Alm and Celica from FE2, and well he is for the most part. he’s a noble, he’s friendly, he wants to do the right thing all that usual stuff. in fact he even accomplishes stuff better than the others since right away he starts off OP gameplay wise and he even gets married very early compared to the other Lords where that only happens at the end of their story, but the thing that separates him from the ones that came before is that everything he does has consequences. for Marth and the others while some bad stuff does happen to them, the things they accomplish benefit their world and they eventually get their happy ending once things are done, Celica admittedly screws up at least once during her journey though things do work out for her too, Sigurd on the other hand is what would happen if instead of having one major screw up, he’s constantly making screw ups during his entire journey. his early accomplishments are genuinely good as he rescues Aideen which in turn lets her convince another character to side with them, and then he saves Deirdre who he quickly falls in love with leading to their marriage and the birth of their son, however his rescue mission to save Aideen takes him to Verdane itself where he would get involved with the affairs there which ends with him seizing Verdane Castle. some of the heads of the neighboring nation Agustria views this as a threat so they chose to wage war against Grannvale and go after Sigurd’s army, which only leads to Sigurd getting involved over there and he ends up seizing the southern half of Agustria and uses it as headquarters as per orders. it gets to the point where Lewyn, a new recruit, calls him out for his actions and even Sigurd’s best friend Eldigan begins to think that he and Grannvale are attempting a conquest. although Sigurd has good intentions and didn’t intend for things to get so out of control, nonetheless he still plays a big part in contributing to just that. by the time you get to the end of the First Generation you realize that Sigurd has become an unwitting pawn for the antagonists and is responsible for a domino effect of war and bloodshed. it all cumulates to the point where after everything possible has gone wrong, he throws away his nobility and curses the enemy who broke the last straw.
in summary: Sigurd is a deconstruction of the typical Fire Emblem Lord that the franchise has established at this point. it’s all the more funny that the game that introduces the most complex Lord so far also introduces a basic traditional one for its second half. nothing against Celice—err Seliph by the way, I have no hatred towards him he’s a good character, unfortunately he doesn’t really bring anything new to the table like Sigurd does, Seliph’s not really that much different from someone like Marth in my opinion though I guess that’s not too much of a negative since Marth’s cool af. according to Kaga, there was supposed to be a Third Generation where characters of both the First and Second Generation would join together but it didn’t end up happening, probably because they were already pushing the limits of the SFC as is but I don’t think there’s an actual confirmed reason, anyway I think that would have been a good opportunity to flesh out Seliph a bit more but it is what it is. another character I really like is Alvis Presley, or Arvis for short. unfortunately any discussion involving this guy is major spoiler territory so as much as I’d like to I won’t be discussing him here, just know that out of them so far, Arvis is the best one at what he is from a character standpoint. okay story time is over, now it’s time to discuss the gameplay and there’s a lot to unpack there.
let’s get the obvious out of the way. this is the first map of the game. it’s also the smallest. FE4 is a big departure (pun intended) in that all the maps of the game are jumbo sized and have multiple castles to siege, essentially making each Chapter in FE4 at least triple the size of the ones in the previous games. due to this, high movement units excel here while the lower movement units will usually be at a disadvantage since it’ll take them a while to get into the action and earn themselves EXP. it’s no surprise that the best units in the game are the mounted units AKA the ones with the horses who get a very nice 8 movement speed while others like Priests and Sword Armors (they’re just Knights with a different name) only get a measly 5 movement and while that’s only 3 less than the horses those extra three movements make such a difference. to help movement go a bit faster, there’s a new terrain called “Road” that only use ups 0.7 of your movement which will help alleviate the unmounted units while the horse units become even better. flying units don’t get this movement bonus because….well they’re flying but they’re still really good since being able to fly over forests and mountains is very valuable, also roads have -10% avoid so you have to be careful during the enemy phase if you end a unit’s turn on one. now you may be wondering why the maps are so huge, and it’s that in this game you’re actually traveling through the entire country the Chapter takes place in. a detail I really like is by the time you get to the next Chapter you actually start off in the same area where you ended your previous Chapter. FE3 did this a few times but here in FE4 this occurs after almost every Chapter making the world in this game feel really connected, and it is. as cool as this is however, this makes going through the maps in this game quite annoying as a good amount of them either have slow pacing or force you to hurry to get some useful items in time, a lot of these are actually during the First Generation so it creates a very rough first impression. Chapter 1 forces you to go through a giant forest (the section over at the bottom left) where all your units are forced to have all their movement speed sapped away while you also have to send another unit to recruit an enemy unit in the forest while making sure they don’t die because they’re also surrounded by a bunch of Archers, fun. Chapter 2’s another mess where you need to quickly get your horse units (your unmounted units are not getting there) to the castle nearby to rescue a new unit as well as three green units who are protecting said unit from a bunch of enemies and if one of those green units die at any point of the Chapter then you lose out on a very important and useful item and you don’t want that to happen. also if you’re not fast enough to get to the next castle after that (Turn 11 or earlier) then you risk the chance of a Brigand destroying a village with another important item before the two playable units that appear after the castle is seized to show up in that area, that village is also the first one that ends up getting attacked, granted villages take multiple turns to get destroyed in this game but still. Chapter 4’s not too bad but after you seize the castle at the top right you need to backtrack your way down to the two castles at the bottom as the pathway is blocked before then, you can Return or Warp your units back down but it’ll cost you a lot to repair those staves (yeah you can repair weapons in this game too) and at least one unit with one of those staves will have to make their way back on their own. the Second Generation’s maps are less of a hassle though they do suffer from some annoying enemy placement like in Chapter 7 where a bunch of Dark Mages are placed nearby your starting point and later on where you have to try to recruit another character surrounded by enemy units while making sure you don’t accidentally kill said character during the enemy phase. yeah can’t say I’m a fan of the map direction in this game even if I think it’s cool how they match up perfectly with Jugral’s layout, a shame since I’d like to stream this one to my friends but those huge maps are certainly going to make it a pain to everyone watching. every other game after this goes back to the smaller maps and personally I think that’s for the better.
besides the maps there’s still a lot of gameplay changes this game does to differentiate it even further from the earlier games. each Chapter you get a sort of base of operations in the castle you start off in. here you can do a good amount of preparation before you send you characters out, most of the actions you perform here doesn’t take up any turns (besides giving gold to another unit but I’ll talk about that later) so you can take your time in these castles which you should since using their services are pretty helpful. Blacksmith allows you to visit a blacksmith that’ll repair all your equipment at a cost, a first for a franchise and probably something that won’t reappear that often because this is just way too good. Pawnbroker replaces traditional trading in this game as now you’ll have to sell your items here and have another unit buy them if you want that unit to use them, in a way this is a downgrade since you now need to cough up some cash to give items to other units (the Ring items are especially pricey) but when you think about it it’s really only a necessary evil because most of the items you get in FE4 are surprisingly overpowered and freely being able to trade them off to characters back and forth could have destroyed the difficulty balance (Sigurd gets a Silver Sword in the Prologue there’s no way trading was going to happen lol). Supply lets you store items in case you have too many items (the max you can hold has been buffed from 4 to 7) and you want to keep them on the same unit to save them for another time, it’s not something I bothered with in the First Generation but it did have its niche uses during the Second Generation where the items can start to pile up. the Arena is an area that’s actually been in FE1 and FE3 but I never brought it up since I felt it’s not too important in those games, for a summary: the arenas are an area in various Chapters that allow you to fight opponents that are surprisingly more difficult than the ones you fight in the actual maps, defeating them rewards your unit with EXP and some good old cash. however the catch is not only can you not control your unit for this (a CPU will have your unit attack for you) but your opponent can actually kill your unit off so it’s very risky. (if you’re not abusing save states), in FE1 you actually can’t back out once you start but in FE3 you at least have the option to do that by pressing the B button during battle at the cost of not getting your money back and your unit being at low health. the FE4 arena is a little different as in this game each unit has a finite seven opponents they can face rather than the unlimited amount in FE1 and FE3, failing also doesn’t end in the death of your unit but rather they’ll only be reduced to 1 HP. after every Chapter the Arena resets with seven new fighters so it makes a great place to get units EXP and gold, provided that they’re able to equip a weapon. Augury is where you can find out the lover of your unit or the one they’re falling in love with while the Second Generation also lets you check who the parents of your unit are (another mechanic that I will explain later). lastly the Armory is where you buy weapons, though this time they’re in a limited capacity so you can’t just keep buying them over and over. new weapons will get added per Chapter plus they’ll stick around so if you can’t afford it or want to save a weapon for a later Chapter you can do just that.
besides the town stuff, you can also have a character guard the castle which is a new mechanic as enemies can now invade your castle to destroy it resulting in an automatic game over, though while this sounds crazy you really don’t have to worry about it since there’s only one or two Chapters where your castle’s in genuine danger since enemy units are rarely ordered to go after them and during those moments you can easily send one to guard with a Warp and Return staff that you should have at that point. guarding a castle provides the usual evade boost as well as a small HP regen after every turn like the forts from previous games, enemy castle guards also get these boosts too so you’ll have to be careful around them compared to regular enemies. class changes have been reworked in this time to only take place in your starting castle and well as needing to be Level 20 to class change rather than Level 10, though this time you won’t need an item nor will your level be reset (the max is now Level 30). staff use and dancing can be done in the castle at the cost of your unit’s turn, though I don’t know why you’d want to do that in the castle I didn’t even you can before I did this research for this review. lastly, units can give gold to each other as in this game each unit has their own amounts of gold they can hold (up to 50,000), a neat little detail that showcases this is how a character named Beowolf is recruited if you talk to him with a unit that can pay him 10,000 gold and once he’s on your team he has the 10,000 gold in his own inventory. the gold sharing is limited though as outside of the Thief class who can share with everyone, normally units can only give gold to their relatives or lovers which is a nice Segway into possibly FE4’s biggest new feature.
units can fall in LOVE. yeah that’s right you thought Awakening did it first? nah FE4 beat it to the punch almost 16 years earlier. brag all you want about Awakening saving the franchise (for better or for worse (probably for the worse considering the FE fans that I’ve associated with)), but there’s no denying it couldn’t have done that if it didn’t take one of its most well known features from Genealogy of the Holy War. kneel to your ancestors baby, you wouldn’t be here without them. anyway let’s go back to pretending it’s 1996. many of this game’s playable characters can fall in love with the opposite gender through methods such as ending a turn next to each other or having conversations with each other at points of the game which will boost both their love points and a slight stat boost, though there are a good amount of non-lover conversations that also boost stats so you’ll definitely want to have these conversations to make things a little easier. of course you could always have them fall in love naturally but if you want to do the cheese strat then you can clear all the enemies currently on the map then have the two soon-to-be lovers next to each other while you keep ending your turns until they fall in love, though just know that this method stops working after the 50th turn of each map so it may take another Chapter for them to reach the maximum love points. the only units you can’t make fall in love are Quan and Ethlyn who are already married by the time they appear in the game, Sigurd and Deirdre who automatically fall in love with each other because the plot demands it, and a few of the Second Generation units. the reason why you want units to fall in love is because not only do lovers get small stat boosts where they’re nearby as well as a small chance to get a critical hit if they’re next to each other (something you can’t do in normal circumstances in this game), but during the Second Generation you can get access to units who are not only the children of the characters from the First Generation but these units will also inherit items, stats, and skills from their parents which will make the tides much more in your favor. if you don’t pair up the First Generation units then the ones that didn’t score will have their children replaced with substitute units who don’t inherit anything and have inferior stats, though in turn the conversations they can have will provide bigger stat boosts so they don’t die to a small gust of wind, that said I wouldn’t know what they’re like myself since I made all the females in my playthrough have children (don’t take this out of context). I heard the dancer substitute is technically better but idk I really wanted Sylvia’s daughter to inherit the Knight and Leg Ring since extra movement along with movement after an action is OP, also it helps that dancing now refreshes all adjacent allies rather than just one.
speaking of Sylvia, Kaga decided to pull a funny prank regarding her and her potential lovers. there’s a conversation in Chapter 2 that Sylvia can have with another unit named Alec where the two will get 100 love points with each other. ideally you don’t want them to fall in love because Alec is a JOBBER you do not want him to pass his JOBBER genes to Sylvia’s children because you wouldn’t want your own children to be JOBBERS would you? you can always just not have them talk or be next to each other but then in Chapter 4 you can have another conversation with her and Erin/Fury/Ferry/whatever the hell your translation patch calls her where they discuss about Lewyn. Erin and Lewyn are probably both the best pairings for each other (and apparently canon according to FE5) so this is good because it gives those two 25 love points, but then it also gives him and Sylvia 50 love points and Sylvia starts off having 200 love points with Lewyn when she first joins your team uh oh! at the end of the day though, Sylvia’s children aren’t really combat units so if you get her a bad pairing then it’s not a big deal, and later on in Chapter 4 Erin and Lewyn get their own conversation that gives so many love points that Lewyn straight up tells her “I love you” wow Kaga really wanted these two to make out
alright some of the other changes and additions I haven’t mentioned yet. this is the first game with the “weapon triangle” system where certain weapons are given a boosted hit rate when facing a foe that’s equipped with a weapon less effective than yours. the easy way of putting it is: swords beat axes, lances beat swords, and axes beat lances, though in this game it’s more like: swords beat almost everything, lances beat swords sometimes, and axes are the “I want to die” weapon. there’s also a trinity of magic which is like the weapon triangle but more balanced: fire magic beats wind magic, wind magic beats thunder magic, and thunder magic bests fire magic, unless you’re the Forseti and Mjölnir tomes in which case you beat everything because you’re OP. the weapon level system has also revised to include weapon ranks where instead of leveling up until your unit’s skilled enough to use a weapon, the weapons they can use are instead based on their class and what weapon rank the class is capable of using, for example: Cavaliers can use up to B rank swords and C rank lances (stuff like steel swords and iron lances), Priests can only use up to B rank staffs (pretty much any staff that isn’t Fortify or Rescue), Axe Knights can only use up to B rank axes (not a good thing), Sword Fighters can only use up to A rank swords (good thing), and the rare Master Knight can use A rank everything and C rank light magic (you’ll never need them to use light magic) though only two characters get this class you’ll need to get them to Level 20 for them to access it. for me this is a lot easier to understand then in FE1 and FE3 where you won’t know when a unit will be able to use a powerful weapon until their skill is high enough to where the game says “okay you can use this now”, this is a welcome feature. this game also introduces the skill system which kinda has the same function as the Ability system in Pokémon where each unit has their own unique skill to differ from one another, though in the case of Fire Emblem a unit can have more than one skill at a time. lets take a look at Alec and Noish (or Naoise some of these official names are weird), the Christmas Cavaliers of the game. these two seem identical at a first glance but the skills they have make them a bit different from each other. Alec has Follow-Up which lets him do a follow-up attack if his speed is greater than his opponent’s and Nihil which protects him from critical hits and other combat skills. The Noish gets Critical which lets him perform critical hits and Accost which lets him repeat a round of combat if his speed is fast enough. these skills give them each different niches in the game so it’s up to you to decide which one you want to use in combat more often, but really both of them are pretty mediocre and you’re better off using almost every other unit (horses won’t be saving them much). lastly (I think) there’s the Holy Blood system where characters can have minor or major holy blood depending on their ancestors or in the case of the Second Generation depending on their parents. major holy blood allows them to use the holy weapon of the ancestor or parent they came from which are basically the OP game breaking weapons though you’ll have to go out of your way to earn a lot of these holy weapons through conversations or events. minor holy blood doesn’t do this but it does provide weapon level boosts and specific growth rates, which major holy blood already does to greater effect. since most of the characters in the First Generation have various kinds of major and minor holy blood, the pairings you create here can give their children in the Second Generation their own major and/or minor holy blood depending on their parents which can help them get the growth rates and weapon ranks that they’re in need of.
oh yeah there’s this funny thing that I haven’t mentioned yet. on very rare occasions, you can access secret events by having certain units end their turns on specific places of the map. how are you supposed to know about these secret events? I don’t know! the three secret events I did was having Lex (the axe user of Generation 1) end his turn at a cliff (he also needs an Iron Axe for the event but he should have that in his inventory) so he can get a Brave Axe (Silver Axe but better), having Arden (Sword Armor) end his turn at a beach in Chapter 2 for a Pursuit Ring that he’ll pawn off to Rick Harrison because he will not benefit much from its effects, and Seliph heading south to the beach right before he seizes the final castle in Chapter 10, once again I don’t know how you’re supposed to know about these which is why I’m telling you how to access these events myself. some of the substitute characters have their own secret events but since I didn’t have any in my playthrough I can’t help you on those ones, I love Guide Emblem
the graphics got a glow up from the previous game as now the maps don’t look like the NES ones with more colors (not that that’s a bad thing). unlike the previous two games though there’s not as many cool set pieces like pirate ships or swamps or volcanos or all that other stuff as all the maps of this game take place mostly on grassy terrain with the occasional desert and one-time snow area, if there’s something visually FE4 really drops the ball on it’s that. FE4’s battle animations are also the best they’ve looked so far in the franchise and although they’re not as flashy as the GBA games with their fast anime movement and spinning weapon flex, I still appreciate the more grounded animations in FE4 while still having some cool movement on rare occasions (the pre-class change Seliph crit where he does the Final Cutter from Kirby is awesome). unfortunately it’s hard to find FE battle GIFs that aren’t from the GBA games so you’ll just have to play the game yourself to see what they look like :^))). the music also might be the best in the franchise so far and I think a contributor to that is every Chapter has its own map theme, we’ve come a long way from FE1 having a singular map theme for most of the game. here’s the Prologue theme and yeah this is fine it’s what I expect to hear from Fire Emblem nothing too amazing but it’s a nice theme to start off with. then Chapter 1 drops this banger out of nowhere and then I go “WHOA okay then”, it’s a very lovely and upbeat track which is kinda funny because this is one of the most frustrating Chapters gameplay wise and the beginning of when things start going out of hand story wise. Chapter 2 isn’t as catchy but it does have those Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and that’s always welcome, and once again there’s that mood dissonance with the calm tone because this Chapter is pretty annoying. Chapter 3 is another Mystery Dungeon-like track or perhaps Final Fantasy-like track since Kaga did take some inspiration from FF, anyway pretty chill, bad stuff happens. Chapter 4’s got those chiming bells which is a welcome instrument in my book and you can really sense the loneliness and uncertainty in this one even if you got a whole army to keep you company in this dire portion of the game. Chapter 5 is the turning point, no more positive or relaxing melodies (at least for the time being), things will go down, things will get worse before they get better, there will be bloodshed. that’s all the Chapter themes I will share here, but did you know there’s also unique enemy themes for every different army in the game? Verdane Army is the main army for the Prologue and Chapter 1 and they got a somewhat threatening theme but they aren’t so bad considering the majority of them are axe users. Agustria Army has a more militaristic vibe to it which makes sense so they’re more refined compared to the more savage Verdane Army, also these guys have horses so that helps. doot doot. doot doot. doot doot. doot doot. Silesia Army is the army theme for Chapter 4 and it’s every bit as cold and chilling as the Chapter it comes from, you know because there’s snow in this map? Thracia Army is the theme of the army that’s named after the fifth Fire Emblem game and while their theme has a slight goofiness to it, these guys are entirely composed of Wyvern Riders and they’re really dangerous, unless you got some good bow units. what a leisurely track. Neutral Army is a neutral sounding theme that plays when a neutral army begins their phase, but don’t let the name and music fool you, whenever this track plays, something bad always happens and there’s nothing you can do about it. all the castle town themes have their own unique tracks as well but I’m not going to post them all because there’s a lot of them so here’s the one that sounds like a Kirby’s Dream Land 3 map theme. here’s this game’s battle theme or otherwise known as the Silver Sword theme. personally I liked the one in FE3 more but this one gets the job done. the enemy battle theme is probably one of the weakest tracks in the game but idk I felt like including it, I don’t have much to say here other than there’s been better enemy themes. Mid-boss theme, second verse, same as the first. this theme is what plays when all the axe guys are dead and now you have to deal with the big boys (and girls), very intense track I like it it’s very much the “get serious or someone’s dying” theme. this is the first ever enemy recruit theme of Fire Emblem and I’m not sure if there’s more of them later down the line but either way it’s cool and has that “hey maybe there’s more to this enemy then you think" vibes, also this is me when I listen to this theme. ending things off here’s the Fire Emblem theme of this game that does a neat subversion with the mysterious intro before switching to the usual motif, I really like this version it’s definitely my favorite so far and I hope to see how far they can top it in later entries.
there’s still some other stuff I forgot to mention like how getting 50 kills on a weapon gives them a crit chance or how there’s a ranking of your performance at the very end of the game but god I have to stop somewhere, you could probably write a whole book talking about the stuff in this game. I’m simultaneously disappointed and impressed with FE4. there were some questionable gameplay decisions while there were some welcome ones. some of the plot twists I saw coming from a mile away but there were others that genuinely caught me by surprise. after finishing this game, I finally understand why all the other FE fans wanted a FE4 remake after news of it supposedly leak; it’s not because this game is the pinnacle of everything Fire Emblem and peak fiction, it’s because the game sucks. of course that’s an exaggeration, I really did enjoy this game, it actually reminds me of Super Mario Sunshine in that I love everything about it except for the actual gameplay (sometimes the gameplay is great though so it’s better than Mario Sunshine), maybe I’ll give it a higher rating if enough FEs disappoint me down the line. I do think it’d be cool if that remake ever happens so we can see all the gameplay improvements that the later games have probably done, also it’ll mean they can get rid of all those enemy portrait recolors of the same two sprites, all you FE4 players know what I’m talking about. I’ll be looking forward to Thracia 776 going back to the small maps because these big ass maps made this game took longer than I expected it to take, I thought I’d be at FE7 right now but here I am still lingering around back over here. I need to get a move on so instead of typing down my closing remarks, I’m just going to end the review right here, lol
if you ever think you’ve had a complicated love life, at least you’re not Lachesis
Final Fantasy II
2021
[heavy sigh] somehow Palpatine Mateus has return
Super Princess Peach
2005
I know a lot of people really despise this game, and honestly I can sorta see where they are coming from. but for the first game with the Princess as the main character.... it's not that bad.
It's a decent enough title created by the same creators of Starfy (aka THE GIGACHAD), and it's kinda surprising that it got released slightly before the resurgance of 2D Super Mario Bros games. But even without taking New SUper Mario Bros into consideration, Super Princess Peach does its own unique thing.
The Princess is fun to control as a 2D platform hero, and her unique mechanic that combines 4 distinct powers (actually 3, I dunno what's the logic about the green one) makes for some cool level gimmicks and interactions. Nothing is really well expanded and used at the strongest potential, but for what it is it's fine.
I know most people dislike the use of EMOTIONS to showcase the princess power, and I can see where these complains come from.... but also I kinda disagree with those statements since these powers are not just relegated to the princess: enemies of past titles are back afflicted by these emotions, and makes for some fun twist to all of them: you get Koopas that sings while walkings, goombas that cry and zooms into your face, and boos that are so pissed that they work the opposite as opposite boos...... also REX from mario world is an enemy, I love Rex. Overall all of thiese twists and recreations of past enemies and bosses brings for me a lot of charm to the title, thanks to the cozy vibes, great music and adorable artstyle and sprite works.
The addition of the differen forms for the parasols and a kinda decent collection of minigames (except the pre-boss ones) offer a bunch of variety that is always appreciated (even though the implementation of forced microphones to move around can result into some annoying phases).
The game overall is totally fine...... until you reach the final level and find out that "Yeah, remember those toad boxes that you imagined being optional to complete the story? NONO GO BACK, free ALL the toads only to get a chance against Bowser". That is one of the worst decisions you can do for a game, forcing an almost platinum completion only to have a chance against the final boss.
That alone drops the quality of the title immensely, since it forces you to replay over half of the pasts levels if you were not careful, dragging a small innocent title for way too long... not to mention that more unlockables shows up in each level after the credits, so you technically gotta come back a third time if you really wanna 100% it
Aside from that, this is not a horrible title: it works, it's fun and Peach I am sure had a good time.
Also this game teach me that if my mother laughs a lot, maybe a "magical sceptre" is hidden somewhere in my house..... thanks guys, I really needed that info when I was 10....
It's a decent enough title created by the same creators of Starfy (aka THE GIGACHAD), and it's kinda surprising that it got released slightly before the resurgance of 2D Super Mario Bros games. But even without taking New SUper Mario Bros into consideration, Super Princess Peach does its own unique thing.
The Princess is fun to control as a 2D platform hero, and her unique mechanic that combines 4 distinct powers (actually 3, I dunno what's the logic about the green one) makes for some cool level gimmicks and interactions. Nothing is really well expanded and used at the strongest potential, but for what it is it's fine.
I know most people dislike the use of EMOTIONS to showcase the princess power, and I can see where these complains come from.... but also I kinda disagree with those statements since these powers are not just relegated to the princess: enemies of past titles are back afflicted by these emotions, and makes for some fun twist to all of them: you get Koopas that sings while walkings, goombas that cry and zooms into your face, and boos that are so pissed that they work the opposite as opposite boos...... also REX from mario world is an enemy, I love Rex. Overall all of thiese twists and recreations of past enemies and bosses brings for me a lot of charm to the title, thanks to the cozy vibes, great music and adorable artstyle and sprite works.
The addition of the differen forms for the parasols and a kinda decent collection of minigames (except the pre-boss ones) offer a bunch of variety that is always appreciated (even though the implementation of forced microphones to move around can result into some annoying phases).
The game overall is totally fine...... until you reach the final level and find out that "Yeah, remember those toad boxes that you imagined being optional to complete the story? NONO GO BACK, free ALL the toads only to get a chance against Bowser". That is one of the worst decisions you can do for a game, forcing an almost platinum completion only to have a chance against the final boss.
That alone drops the quality of the title immensely, since it forces you to replay over half of the pasts levels if you were not careful, dragging a small innocent title for way too long... not to mention that more unlockables shows up in each level after the credits, so you technically gotta come back a third time if you really wanna 100% it
Aside from that, this is not a horrible title: it works, it's fun and Peach I am sure had a good time.
Also this game teach me that if my mother laughs a lot, maybe a "magical sceptre" is hidden somewhere in my house..... thanks guys, I really needed that info when I was 10....
Final Fantasy II
1988
In retrospect, it seems that during the mid-late 1980s developers weren't sure what video game sequels were supposed to be. Many maligned NES/Famicom sequels ignored what made their predecessor successful in favor of trying something completely different. Super Mario Bros. 2, Zelda II, and Castlevania II all come to mind, but perhaps the worst of the bunch might actually be the infamous Final Fantasy II.
When the game starts, instead of creating a custom party of any class like in FF1, the characters are all pre-set with only the name able to be changed. Hironobu Sakaguchi always wanted to create a great, epic story in the Final Fantasy series, in this was his first real attempt at that. Unfortunately this ambition proved to be too great for the primitive hardware of the time. The story is nothing special of course, there's a "password system" involving learning keywords from NPCs, then asking other NPCs about them to learn new information. This is a cool idea, but in practice boils down to the player asking anyone important everything they can to finally progress the game forward.
The most common complaint with FF2 is the levelling system, as opposed to traditionally levelling up like in FF1 (or damn near any other RPG for that matter), the playable characters level all of their stats individually through repeated use. Use bows, the bow stat increases and eventually levels up, it makes sense. This is how skill progression works in later games like The Elder Scrolls series, and it works there, but in FF2 its slow as molasses, progression is tedious and incremental, with improvements not particularly noticeable. Magic is the worst offender, with every spell having to be levelled up individually. This results in a single spell having to be furiously spammed to level up even once, and many of these spells are terrible and buggy in the original version, to make the process feel even more futile.
The player is given freedom to make the characters excel at whatever weapon type or magic they want, not that any of these really stand out from each other. The fourth party slot is different characters constantly swapping out with each other for plot reasons, and levelling these character's stats feels even less rewarding since they all inevitably leave before too long. And too long it is, as random encounter rates in this game are painfully high, think walking through a cave in Pokémon and getting spammed by Zubat but worse. Dungeon design exacerbates this problem, overusing the gimmick of having 4+ doors next to each other, with only one door leading to the correct path forward. Entering the wrong door teleports the party right into the middle of a room where the random encounter rates are ramped up even higher, sometimes only taking one step causes another battle to start.
I wish I could actually tell you any character traits of Firion, the main character, but I can't. Maria wants to find her brother, Guy speak beaver, that's about it. The main villain is mildly interesting but we don't get to see him until about 75% of the way through the game, and it takes a real masochist to not quit ages before that point.
The original version of FF2 is probably a 0.5 star experience, but I want to show a bit of lenience since the developers genuinely tried to be ambitious here, it just failed. FF2 is just one of many lesser video game sequels of this era, and I respect a swing and a miss in the RPG genre's infancy more than I would a carbon-copy sequel that barely changes anything. If for some reason you absolutely must play this game, then once again the pixel remaster is the way to go. Turning off random encounters at will makes the experience so much less painful.
1.0/5.0
When the game starts, instead of creating a custom party of any class like in FF1, the characters are all pre-set with only the name able to be changed. Hironobu Sakaguchi always wanted to create a great, epic story in the Final Fantasy series, in this was his first real attempt at that. Unfortunately this ambition proved to be too great for the primitive hardware of the time. The story is nothing special of course, there's a "password system" involving learning keywords from NPCs, then asking other NPCs about them to learn new information. This is a cool idea, but in practice boils down to the player asking anyone important everything they can to finally progress the game forward.
The most common complaint with FF2 is the levelling system, as opposed to traditionally levelling up like in FF1 (or damn near any other RPG for that matter), the playable characters level all of their stats individually through repeated use. Use bows, the bow stat increases and eventually levels up, it makes sense. This is how skill progression works in later games like The Elder Scrolls series, and it works there, but in FF2 its slow as molasses, progression is tedious and incremental, with improvements not particularly noticeable. Magic is the worst offender, with every spell having to be levelled up individually. This results in a single spell having to be furiously spammed to level up even once, and many of these spells are terrible and buggy in the original version, to make the process feel even more futile.
The player is given freedom to make the characters excel at whatever weapon type or magic they want, not that any of these really stand out from each other. The fourth party slot is different characters constantly swapping out with each other for plot reasons, and levelling these character's stats feels even less rewarding since they all inevitably leave before too long. And too long it is, as random encounter rates in this game are painfully high, think walking through a cave in Pokémon and getting spammed by Zubat but worse. Dungeon design exacerbates this problem, overusing the gimmick of having 4+ doors next to each other, with only one door leading to the correct path forward. Entering the wrong door teleports the party right into the middle of a room where the random encounter rates are ramped up even higher, sometimes only taking one step causes another battle to start.
I wish I could actually tell you any character traits of Firion, the main character, but I can't. Maria wants to find her brother, Guy speak beaver, that's about it. The main villain is mildly interesting but we don't get to see him until about 75% of the way through the game, and it takes a real masochist to not quit ages before that point.
The original version of FF2 is probably a 0.5 star experience, but I want to show a bit of lenience since the developers genuinely tried to be ambitious here, it just failed. FF2 is just one of many lesser video game sequels of this era, and I respect a swing and a miss in the RPG genre's infancy more than I would a carbon-copy sequel that barely changes anything. If for some reason you absolutely must play this game, then once again the pixel remaster is the way to go. Turning off random encounters at will makes the experience so much less painful.
1.0/5.0
Final Fantasy VI
2022
A really solid RPG that fumbles hard when you get to the WoR. Fun plot and characters up until that point, then it's nothing but grinding, doing annoying gimmick dungeons, no plot for hours, and party splitting to top it all off. Had high hopes for this with all the praise it gets, was let down at the end.
I dont know man it's wario ware on the wii, this fucks so hard.
I'M A DOCTOR [diffuses a bomb]
Portal Stories: Mel
2015
One of the best fan made mods out there. It doesn't gel exactly with valve's sensibilities, but it gets fairly close and introduces some new, well-built and varied levels for portal to expand on 2. It also has a VR component, though it's not the base game, just some extra VR levels.
Final Fantasy
1987
Oh great, I’m reviewing Final Fantasy. A game that has been talked about for decades. While I do sometimes talk about popular games, it’s stuff like this I’m inexperienced with that makes me feel I shouldn’t really be one talking about the subject. I want to someday talk about a lot of the entries in this series. Besides the spinoff Seiken Densetsu, I’ve never beaten a Final Fantasy game. After all of these years I’ve finally done it and here is my story…
It all started with that blue screen that gives a small amount of story with a nice song to accompany it. I guess to start weirdly would be the music as I wanna get upfront and say the OST as a whole is amazing for the Famicom. It was composed by Nobuo Uematsu and it’s some amazing stuff, probably some of the best of the 1987 catalog of the Famicom. Once you start a new save I got to pick my party. If you’re wondering who I chose and will probably determine if you’ll keep reading or not. I picked a Fighter, Red Mage, White Mage, and Black Mage. Really wish the letter limit wasn’t four letters so I just ended up using the closest canon names they had. So began the journey of Zest, Puff, Floe, and Teol!
Surprisingly it starts off pretty basic, saving a Princess from a guy named Garland. First I had to get ready and it can feel pretty daunting for me as I’m not really told what’s helpful for my team. Even weirder is you have to buy magic and not get it from level ups so it’s off to grind. Battles seem pretty simple but wow you can fight a lot of them at once, it feels like it can be daunting at times but with enough skill, It’s not too bad. The one nice thing about having mages is I can rely on both offensive and defensive magic. Though this weird spell charges mechanic is something I’m not a fan of and I’ll go over why later.
The first dungeon is short and you can’t even get every treasure in here at first and even the first boss Garland is a joke. So I beat him and save the Princess but obviously that’s just the beginning. A new bridge is constructed and when you cross it, one of the best things happens in the game. You’re given a bit of text as the title of the game and credits are shown, really giving me the feeling of “Yes, I feel so ready to save the day!”
Now I’m off doing things following the plot, going into dungeons, and even getting multiple vehicles to ride in. You get one pretty early which is the ship which is pretty cool. The world isn’t too big but it still feels like a big world especially once you get more into it. Then I eventually found what would be the first main dungeon that wasn’t a floor only dungeon and wow I wasn’t having the most fun. I kept having to leave the place to heal and I began to realize having spell charges really limits what I can do in fights. Though later on you’ll learn Cottages can heal spell charges which is nice. Since I wanted to preserve spells for bosses, I ended up just running away most of the time which isn’t the most fun thing to do in an RPG. It also doesn’t help that the Black and White mages are as frail as a piece of glass. It can be a bit frustrating at times.
Still going through the world, there’s some cool things here and there and beating bosses with relative ease, even ones like the Kraken. I gotta praise the design of monsters too, they really look nice and there’s a nice variety of them and while there are recolors, it’s understandable. The art for stuff like the box is also legendarily great as well and they are unforgettable. Even the player sprites are good looking too. The world also looks pretty nice too and I like how some parts like the Town of Melmond show the decay of the Earth thanks to one of the Chaos Four. I got a little sidetrack there, my bad.
The more I went through the game, I did start to really appreciate all of the magic I could use and even grinding wasn’t too awful as I didn’t do too much of it even for getting Gil. There’s also a cool airship you can ride late into the game and it’s so fast and fun but landing with it can suck sometimes. You even get to upgrade your characters with brand new sprites and abilities and it feels so good to see this happen! There are still some issues that pissed me off. The worst thing in the game has to be the poison status. It’s not even poison being annoying but it screws with your team placement, I hate rearranging it every single time! This is also one of those early RPGs where you can miss if you direct a character to hit an enemy that dies to someone else which can lead to strategy and thought but can be annoying when you feel it’s too RNG at times who dies at what. I wish it was easier to view stats for weapons and armor as it ends up being easier to use a guide for comparisons. I also struggled with inventory management and ended up throwing a lot of weapons and armor away. The game is also known for being buggy but I didn’t really have any issue with this regard.
By the time I got to the end of the game, I was ready but nervous. I was at level 34 and ended at 35. This dungeon isn’t too long but enemies can be dangerous so more running but you have to rematch all of the Chaos 4 again and they’re harder. Oh that reminds me, some might wonder did I fight the Warmech? No, I didn’t. Sorry. Oh yeah I forgot that place also took place in space? That’s really cool. This final place also takes place 2,000 years in the past which is something I would have never expected to see in a FF game. Finally I got to the final boss and wow it’s actually that easy first boss from the beginning but now he’s Chaos. This fight is rough and worse of all he can heal all of his health. I thankfully had a lot of buffs on so I was eventually able to defeat him and the game ends with the world saved. It was weird to see the game end on the characters getting amnesia? Like should I not feel happy it didn’t all end well? Maybe I didn’t read it right, oh well the world is saved!
I feel on and off about this game. I want to think I enjoyed it, regardless of the issues. I could have talked about more moments and I know this feels a little too small of a review but I just don’t want to bore people. In the end, I think it’s a good game. I find it such an interesting game for 1987 especially since it could have failed had Dragon Quest III not receive a delay. FF would become one of Square’s biggest IPs. Two sequels would get made on the Famicom and I’ll play through II sometime this year. FFI also got some remakes which first started on the WonderSwan Color. It also has a MSX2 version with a fan translation. Though I’m sure nowadays the Pixel Remaster is the go-to version for people looking to play the game. It was a good start but I’m wondering how the sequel will fare. Guess I’ll have to wait and see. Thanks for reading!
It all started with that blue screen that gives a small amount of story with a nice song to accompany it. I guess to start weirdly would be the music as I wanna get upfront and say the OST as a whole is amazing for the Famicom. It was composed by Nobuo Uematsu and it’s some amazing stuff, probably some of the best of the 1987 catalog of the Famicom. Once you start a new save I got to pick my party. If you’re wondering who I chose and will probably determine if you’ll keep reading or not. I picked a Fighter, Red Mage, White Mage, and Black Mage. Really wish the letter limit wasn’t four letters so I just ended up using the closest canon names they had. So began the journey of Zest, Puff, Floe, and Teol!
Surprisingly it starts off pretty basic, saving a Princess from a guy named Garland. First I had to get ready and it can feel pretty daunting for me as I’m not really told what’s helpful for my team. Even weirder is you have to buy magic and not get it from level ups so it’s off to grind. Battles seem pretty simple but wow you can fight a lot of them at once, it feels like it can be daunting at times but with enough skill, It’s not too bad. The one nice thing about having mages is I can rely on both offensive and defensive magic. Though this weird spell charges mechanic is something I’m not a fan of and I’ll go over why later.
The first dungeon is short and you can’t even get every treasure in here at first and even the first boss Garland is a joke. So I beat him and save the Princess but obviously that’s just the beginning. A new bridge is constructed and when you cross it, one of the best things happens in the game. You’re given a bit of text as the title of the game and credits are shown, really giving me the feeling of “Yes, I feel so ready to save the day!”
Now I’m off doing things following the plot, going into dungeons, and even getting multiple vehicles to ride in. You get one pretty early which is the ship which is pretty cool. The world isn’t too big but it still feels like a big world especially once you get more into it. Then I eventually found what would be the first main dungeon that wasn’t a floor only dungeon and wow I wasn’t having the most fun. I kept having to leave the place to heal and I began to realize having spell charges really limits what I can do in fights. Though later on you’ll learn Cottages can heal spell charges which is nice. Since I wanted to preserve spells for bosses, I ended up just running away most of the time which isn’t the most fun thing to do in an RPG. It also doesn’t help that the Black and White mages are as frail as a piece of glass. It can be a bit frustrating at times.
Still going through the world, there’s some cool things here and there and beating bosses with relative ease, even ones like the Kraken. I gotta praise the design of monsters too, they really look nice and there’s a nice variety of them and while there are recolors, it’s understandable. The art for stuff like the box is also legendarily great as well and they are unforgettable. Even the player sprites are good looking too. The world also looks pretty nice too and I like how some parts like the Town of Melmond show the decay of the Earth thanks to one of the Chaos Four. I got a little sidetrack there, my bad.
The more I went through the game, I did start to really appreciate all of the magic I could use and even grinding wasn’t too awful as I didn’t do too much of it even for getting Gil. There’s also a cool airship you can ride late into the game and it’s so fast and fun but landing with it can suck sometimes. You even get to upgrade your characters with brand new sprites and abilities and it feels so good to see this happen! There are still some issues that pissed me off. The worst thing in the game has to be the poison status. It’s not even poison being annoying but it screws with your team placement, I hate rearranging it every single time! This is also one of those early RPGs where you can miss if you direct a character to hit an enemy that dies to someone else which can lead to strategy and thought but can be annoying when you feel it’s too RNG at times who dies at what. I wish it was easier to view stats for weapons and armor as it ends up being easier to use a guide for comparisons. I also struggled with inventory management and ended up throwing a lot of weapons and armor away. The game is also known for being buggy but I didn’t really have any issue with this regard.
By the time I got to the end of the game, I was ready but nervous. I was at level 34 and ended at 35. This dungeon isn’t too long but enemies can be dangerous so more running but you have to rematch all of the Chaos 4 again and they’re harder. Oh that reminds me, some might wonder did I fight the Warmech? No, I didn’t. Sorry. Oh yeah I forgot that place also took place in space? That’s really cool. This final place also takes place 2,000 years in the past which is something I would have never expected to see in a FF game. Finally I got to the final boss and wow it’s actually that easy first boss from the beginning but now he’s Chaos. This fight is rough and worse of all he can heal all of his health. I thankfully had a lot of buffs on so I was eventually able to defeat him and the game ends with the world saved. It was weird to see the game end on the characters getting amnesia? Like should I not feel happy it didn’t all end well? Maybe I didn’t read it right, oh well the world is saved!
I feel on and off about this game. I want to think I enjoyed it, regardless of the issues. I could have talked about more moments and I know this feels a little too small of a review but I just don’t want to bore people. In the end, I think it’s a good game. I find it such an interesting game for 1987 especially since it could have failed had Dragon Quest III not receive a delay. FF would become one of Square’s biggest IPs. Two sequels would get made on the Famicom and I’ll play through II sometime this year. FFI also got some remakes which first started on the WonderSwan Color. It also has a MSX2 version with a fan translation. Though I’m sure nowadays the Pixel Remaster is the go-to version for people looking to play the game. It was a good start but I’m wondering how the sequel will fare. Guess I’ll have to wait and see. Thanks for reading!
