spykor
FE1 is outdated. I think that's just a fact of life, but I'm making my judgement on the game that exists, not the fact that modern technology is capable of and has created better games. I'm trying to be fair to the game because it's old.
So, with that said, FE1 is actually pretty good! You can see that the core Fire Emblem gameplay loop started off very strong from the original. Several of the maps, while ugly to look at and very green due to technical limitations, are actually well designed and clever. This game does have some oddities and UI jank, such as the way the game handles items (the storage system that is the early archetype of the convoy) and the way that magic works, but you get pretty used to it after a few chapters and honestly, it's not that bad.
The ending falls off a little bit. The last few maps (21, 24, 25) are not that great, throwing a lot of bullshit at you for you to deal with. The final boss is only susceptible to Marth with the Falchion, which creates two problems:
a) you can softlock yourself out of being able to win the game in Chapter 19 if you don't get the spheres, or Chapter 22 if you don't get to the village with the spheres
b) Marth is not an amazing unit and if he can't get to Medeus and survive, it's over
But overall, I think this is a good game and an excellent start to the series. If you can get used to the quality of the NES, it's a worthwhile play if you're into Fire Emblem the series, if only to experience a historical relic.
And also, Bantu is good in this game. Never forget what they took from us.
So, with that said, FE1 is actually pretty good! You can see that the core Fire Emblem gameplay loop started off very strong from the original. Several of the maps, while ugly to look at and very green due to technical limitations, are actually well designed and clever. This game does have some oddities and UI jank, such as the way the game handles items (the storage system that is the early archetype of the convoy) and the way that magic works, but you get pretty used to it after a few chapters and honestly, it's not that bad.
The ending falls off a little bit. The last few maps (21, 24, 25) are not that great, throwing a lot of bullshit at you for you to deal with. The final boss is only susceptible to Marth with the Falchion, which creates two problems:
a) you can softlock yourself out of being able to win the game in Chapter 19 if you don't get the spheres, or Chapter 22 if you don't get to the village with the spheres
b) Marth is not an amazing unit and if he can't get to Medeus and survive, it's over
But overall, I think this is a good game and an excellent start to the series. If you can get used to the quality of the NES, it's a worthwhile play if you're into Fire Emblem the series, if only to experience a historical relic.
And also, Bantu is good in this game. Never forget what they took from us.
"Better than the other two routes" is hardly a glowing review but it's enough to be passable. While Birthright is fairly straightforward, very easy, and somewhat boring, it is also largely bullshit free, which is not something I can say of my recent replays of Revelation or Conquest. The infinite weapon system is still here, which is still a negative to me, but the game is much much easier to get by with using just iron and steel Hoshidan weapons the whole time. It's fine. A nonstandard Fire Emblem that funnily enough fails to really stand out, and is just an okay time.
2021
This review contains spoilers
Death's Door is good. The main game is largely fun, with mostly good dungeons with only a couple of things to nitpick. Sometimes dying leads to you making a fairly long walk back to where you died, but the game mostly mitigates this in its dungeon design by having you permanently unlock shortcuts as you go on. The first two bosses are great, the third one is bad with some funky hitboxes and not much warning before its attacks, and the final boss is decent. There's a good incentive to explore with lots of trinkets and bonuses around. There's no map though, which is a little annoying at times. I think Death's Door is a good, albeit short, combat-puzzle game that I enjoyed the main game of a fair amount.
Then you beat the game and postgame starts and the game becomes suddenly much less good. The postgame is based around you having to complete 7 tasks, many of which are not intuitive and not explained to you. You just have to stumble around and hope that you achieve goals, or look it up. You also do most of these in the world's night, which makes the world somewhat sparse and lifeless with very few enemies in most regions. Of the seven tasks:
- The ghost task is obtuse but easy to stumble upon the right answer by accident at least. Not telegraphed well but they are around immediately after it turns to night.
- The gravedigger fight is not telegraphed at all (that you have to get the trinket first) but it's a rather good fight at least.
- The owls aren't that bad, but the constant "hoo hoo"ing is obnoxious until you find them.
- The Avarice chest is good and telegraphed well, you can see the stairs when you go to that area the first time in the game.
- The torches are not telegraphed at all and are somewhat hard to find in the dark.
- The Jefferson task is actually pretty good, just a bit of a walk since you have to go all the way across the map for it while doing nothing else of note.
- The seeds task is egregious and is VERY bad. Tying 100% seed gathering and planting into the true ending is a painful grindy chore, especially as you've been somewhat led to conserve them up to this point and have to backtrack everywhere to fill all the pots you've already filled.
And all of that is for.... a short cutscene. The true ending was a bunch of grindy stuff with a little bonus lore that amounted to virtually zero consequence. Which is a shame, because I really liked the first like two thirds of this game a lot! It's still fun, but don't bother with the postgame stuff.
Then you beat the game and postgame starts and the game becomes suddenly much less good. The postgame is based around you having to complete 7 tasks, many of which are not intuitive and not explained to you. You just have to stumble around and hope that you achieve goals, or look it up. You also do most of these in the world's night, which makes the world somewhat sparse and lifeless with very few enemies in most regions. Of the seven tasks:
- The ghost task is obtuse but easy to stumble upon the right answer by accident at least. Not telegraphed well but they are around immediately after it turns to night.
- The gravedigger fight is not telegraphed at all (that you have to get the trinket first) but it's a rather good fight at least.
- The owls aren't that bad, but the constant "hoo hoo"ing is obnoxious until you find them.
- The Avarice chest is good and telegraphed well, you can see the stairs when you go to that area the first time in the game.
- The torches are not telegraphed at all and are somewhat hard to find in the dark.
- The Jefferson task is actually pretty good, just a bit of a walk since you have to go all the way across the map for it while doing nothing else of note.
- The seeds task is egregious and is VERY bad. Tying 100% seed gathering and planting into the true ending is a painful grindy chore, especially as you've been somewhat led to conserve them up to this point and have to backtrack everywhere to fill all the pots you've already filled.
And all of that is for.... a short cutscene. The true ending was a bunch of grindy stuff with a little bonus lore that amounted to virtually zero consequence. Which is a shame, because I really liked the first like two thirds of this game a lot! It's still fun, but don't bother with the postgame stuff.
This game is very bad. Even for Fire Emblem. The story is completely off the rails, thankfully it's largely ignorable but some of the writing is truly atrocious. Characters act dumb and in really incredibly cringey ways. Comparing this game to Revelation, Camilla goes from acting like a totally normal person who maybe loves her sibling a bit more than most in Rev to a total crazy person in this game. And that's saying nothing about that cutscene at the end. Distasteful.
The maps are very bad. There are so many just absolutely atrocious maps in Conquest. The eternal stairway, the kitsune lair, the Hans/Iago chapter.. I know this game was designed to be a harder experience but it feels like some of the stuff they throw at you is just bullshit "because it's supposed to be hard!"
I already talked in my Revelation review that I don't like the infinite weapon system and that it strongly favors enemies over players. I don't like it here either, but I did find the number of enemies using BS weapons near the end of the game was at least lower here than in Rev.
The maps are very bad. There are so many just absolutely atrocious maps in Conquest. The eternal stairway, the kitsune lair, the Hans/Iago chapter.. I know this game was designed to be a harder experience but it feels like some of the stuff they throw at you is just bullshit "because it's supposed to be hard!"
I already talked in my Revelation review that I don't like the infinite weapon system and that it strongly favors enemies over players. I don't like it here either, but I did find the number of enemies using BS weapons near the end of the game was at least lower here than in Rev.
After playing Pokemon Blue and quite frankly not liking it, I had the brilliant idea of "what if I played a more modern version of the game game and see if I have the same complaints?". The answer is: mostly yes. There's less jank. Psychic types no longer Simply Kill You, but are still very difficult to deal with, even if you get your one or two dark moves (this is a pretty faithful remake and nothing got Dark other than evolutions of Gen 1 mon, sadly). Steel exists at least in Magnemite, but if anything it makes killing them easier now. Abilites are good and cool and I like that they were introduced here. Silph Co. is still putrid. The level curve is still obscene at the end of the game. The Sevii Islands are cool at least. But for me, the (at the time) modernization of the game still doesn't really make it add up to something good. Alas.
Rating includes Iceborne, played as one continuous game.
Absolutely a peak video game for me. It took me a good while to get into and figure out (monster hunter is infamous for not telling you how to play monster hunter, there is absolutely a barrier to entry) but once I took the time and figured it out, and started playing with friends, this game quickly became one of my favorites - I did a 100% run and played through from the beginning again afterwards too. Just completely perfect combat, with an intricate system that feels rewarding to master. I can point out small things that I don't like here and there, but there's never a time I'm truly frustrated at this game where I'm never enjoying it.
Absolutely a peak video game for me. It took me a good while to get into and figure out (monster hunter is infamous for not telling you how to play monster hunter, there is absolutely a barrier to entry) but once I took the time and figured it out, and started playing with friends, this game quickly became one of my favorites - I did a 100% run and played through from the beginning again afterwards too. Just completely perfect combat, with an intricate system that feels rewarding to master. I can point out small things that I don't like here and there, but there's never a time I'm truly frustrated at this game where I'm never enjoying it.
2014
It is honest to god amazing that they somehow fixed everything that was a problem with Bayonetta 1 and made a worse game.
The Good: QTEs are gone. Instant deaths are mostly gone and far more manageable. Backtracking is largely dealt with, sometimes there are one or two verses you need to backtrack for, but the Muselpheim are visible, compared to the Alfheim where you could go the entire game without even accidentally bumping into one. Most of the new weapons are fun. Umbran Climax is cool.
The Less Good: The combat is very sped up compared to the first game, and witch time tends to last much shorter, which leads to a lot of the combat simply turning into button mashing (I can hear the cries of "git gud" echoing now, I have beaten this game on Non-Stop Infinite Climax difficulty, so I do know what I'm doing). It's still fun, but it's not as good as the first game.
The Bad: The boss fights, with the exception of Alraune, are abysmal. Every time you have to fly for combat it just straight up becomes unfun. Some of the less good minigame verses from Bayonetta 1 are still here, albeit less bad (the After Burner verse is much better for not hurting your eyes with all the spinning the first one had, but I still don't love the combat).
Everything together just adds up to a fairly meh experience, not really adding up to the highs of the first game, even if it avoids its lows, which is disappointing because Bayonetta 1 is one of my favorite games, and I don't think this game measures up.
The Good: QTEs are gone. Instant deaths are mostly gone and far more manageable. Backtracking is largely dealt with, sometimes there are one or two verses you need to backtrack for, but the Muselpheim are visible, compared to the Alfheim where you could go the entire game without even accidentally bumping into one. Most of the new weapons are fun. Umbran Climax is cool.
The Less Good: The combat is very sped up compared to the first game, and witch time tends to last much shorter, which leads to a lot of the combat simply turning into button mashing (I can hear the cries of "git gud" echoing now, I have beaten this game on Non-Stop Infinite Climax difficulty, so I do know what I'm doing). It's still fun, but it's not as good as the first game.
The Bad: The boss fights, with the exception of Alraune, are abysmal. Every time you have to fly for combat it just straight up becomes unfun. Some of the less good minigame verses from Bayonetta 1 are still here, albeit less bad (the After Burner verse is much better for not hurting your eyes with all the spinning the first one had, but I still don't love the combat).
Everything together just adds up to a fairly meh experience, not really adding up to the highs of the first game, even if it avoids its lows, which is disappointing because Bayonetta 1 is one of my favorite games, and I don't think this game measures up.
1996
This game is a skeleton. There's a lot here that was refined for the future Pokemon games, and I can appreciate that, but as a standalone game, woof, this is not great. I can somewhat forgive the UI for being rough, seeing as this game is from 1996 and was really the first go at Pokemon. I can forgive some of the weird jank, just because the game is aged. But there are some very bad design decisions in here. Silph Co. is a horrible dungeon. The early point of no return is rough. The level curve is reasonable until endgame where it just spikes brutally for no reason (no I do not enjoy grinding on the Elite 4, thanks). I can appreciate a skeleton, this game absolutely laid down the groundwork for the series, but as a game? Large chunks of it just aren't fun, and there's not much more to go on from there.
2009
This is one of my favorite games and I really wish I could give it a 5* because it deserves that rating in my heart. However, just because I have all of the quick time events memorized does not make them a remotely good mechanic. And even I don’t have all the alfheim locations committed to memory. But outside of that, it’s a great beat em up game that’s a lot of fun with incredible replay value. PC version plays like butter. Switch version has some difficulties especially in the final boss battle and the top of the tower in the last normal chapter.
This review contains spoilers
Honestly my memory of Fire Emblem Fates is worse than it ended up being on a replay. The story is completely unserious and very bad at times, but it's very "power of friendship" anime bullcrap, not as batshit crazy as my memory sold myself on.
The maps somewhat parabola. Earlygame maps are miserable, midgame maps are okay to even quite good, and the lategame maps get horrible again. The two part final chapter with a final boss with two phases is completely BS and straight up unfun with infinite reinforcements. There are also a lot of maps which are unfriendly to units which aren't fliers, but then place bows everywhere.
A shared problem I have with all three Fates games is that I don't like the weapon system. I find infinite weapon usage bland, but even worse is that the "better" the weapons get, the more drawbacks they have to using them, where the silver and brave weapons kind of loop back around to being kind of unironically bad. Naturally, this doesn't apply to enemies, since they have but one life, but they're not good weapons for player units.
Honestly, Revelation is just kind of disappointing. That's the game best summed up.
The maps somewhat parabola. Earlygame maps are miserable, midgame maps are okay to even quite good, and the lategame maps get horrible again. The two part final chapter with a final boss with two phases is completely BS and straight up unfun with infinite reinforcements. There are also a lot of maps which are unfriendly to units which aren't fliers, but then place bows everywhere.
A shared problem I have with all three Fates games is that I don't like the weapon system. I find infinite weapon usage bland, but even worse is that the "better" the weapons get, the more drawbacks they have to using them, where the silver and brave weapons kind of loop back around to being kind of unironically bad. Naturally, this doesn't apply to enemies, since they have but one life, but they're not good weapons for player units.
Honestly, Revelation is just kind of disappointing. That's the game best summed up.
2018
Review includes all DLCs.
You really just can't do better than this for a co-op party game. Even a few bad maps (6-2, and some of the Carnival of Chaos maps) don't hold this game back from being literally the best co-op party game I can think of. If you care about 100% achievements, which unfortunately I do, some of the achievements are completely unhinged, but it doesn't really detract from the game experience as a whole.
You really just can't do better than this for a co-op party game. Even a few bad maps (6-2, and some of the Carnival of Chaos maps) don't hold this game back from being literally the best co-op party game I can think of. If you care about 100% achievements, which unfortunately I do, some of the achievements are completely unhinged, but it doesn't really detract from the game experience as a whole.
2017
This game really did a lot for 3D Mario. Still shocked to this day that there hasn't been a sequel. The final Broodals robot boss is kind of awful, but everything else short of nitpicks is quite fun! An all around good time.
2011
This is a fantastic game, and is ultimately more fun with friends than alone. It really instills the feeling that you can do anything in this game, creative or not. Half point off because worlds tend to get lost to entropy, and many of the late bosses become bullet hell style, but it's still an absolute blast and one of my favorite games to replay with friends.
2010
I understand that this is a hot take, but I did not like Super Mario Galaxy 2. I did not like it the first time, and I did not like it on a replay. The reason why is that, to me, this game feels completely soulless.
To elaborate, it feels like the devs at Nintendo went "Wow, Super Mario Galaxy is a smash hit, let's make another!", then made this game, entirely missing what made the first game great. The galaxies don't have nearly as much character as the ones in the first game, rather feeling like a collection of level concepts or B or C list galaxies that they couldn't quite come up with a third star for to fit in the first game. The hub is much less spectacular, both the "faceship" and the world map that you have to navigate. It's a bunch of things like this which just kind of rip the magic of the first game away and leave this behind.
The most frustrating thing is I can't write it off as "terrible" because most of the gameplay is fine? I don't really like how you have to do nearly everything and play most galaxies to get to Bowser, but there aren't many stinkers, just a bunch of levels that feel uninspired. Some of them are even fairly fun. The game has good bones, it's using the same engine as Super Mario Galaxy. It's just the rest that leaves me feeling disappointed. Alas.
To elaborate, it feels like the devs at Nintendo went "Wow, Super Mario Galaxy is a smash hit, let's make another!", then made this game, entirely missing what made the first game great. The galaxies don't have nearly as much character as the ones in the first game, rather feeling like a collection of level concepts or B or C list galaxies that they couldn't quite come up with a third star for to fit in the first game. The hub is much less spectacular, both the "faceship" and the world map that you have to navigate. It's a bunch of things like this which just kind of rip the magic of the first game away and leave this behind.
The most frustrating thing is I can't write it off as "terrible" because most of the gameplay is fine? I don't really like how you have to do nearly everything and play most galaxies to get to Bowser, but there aren't many stinkers, just a bunch of levels that feel uninspired. Some of them are even fairly fun. The game has good bones, it's using the same engine as Super Mario Galaxy. It's just the rest that leaves me feeling disappointed. Alas.
God, this one is rough. It still has decent bones for being Fire Emblem, and mostly pulls from the same mechanics as Shadow Dragon, an entry in the series that I quite like, but this game has a few glaring problems:
- There is a lot of bloat in this game. The roster is even larger than Shadow Dragon's, but so many units join so late that they're extremely difficult to use, yet deployment is reduced in this game compared to its predecessor. There are also so many new items in this game, with a lot of them locked to the time based How's Everyone mode.
- Several maps which range from bad to terrible. The Anri's way arc is miserable, with a special shoutout to the map which is made up nearly entirely of desert tiles. The few chapters in a row where you run from Astram and co. are also pretty bad. Even some early chapters are weirdly difficult (dracoknights in chapter two).
- The narrative centering itself around My Unit really swerves it in a direction I don't really personally enjoy. I know the SNES game this game is based on wasn't known for a huge spectacle of a plot, but Kris basically took over Jagen's role and stole most of his good content.
It's not all awful. The mixed male reclass system is pretty good (unfortunately at the expense of female units, but they got some expanded classes too at least here). Including the BSFE maps and three bonus maps is neat. I largely felt frustrated when playing this game though, I have to say. It's still Fire Emblem though, so I'll probably come back to it again some day.
- There is a lot of bloat in this game. The roster is even larger than Shadow Dragon's, but so many units join so late that they're extremely difficult to use, yet deployment is reduced in this game compared to its predecessor. There are also so many new items in this game, with a lot of them locked to the time based How's Everyone mode.
- Several maps which range from bad to terrible. The Anri's way arc is miserable, with a special shoutout to the map which is made up nearly entirely of desert tiles. The few chapters in a row where you run from Astram and co. are also pretty bad. Even some early chapters are weirdly difficult (dracoknights in chapter two).
- The narrative centering itself around My Unit really swerves it in a direction I don't really personally enjoy. I know the SNES game this game is based on wasn't known for a huge spectacle of a plot, but Kris basically took over Jagen's role and stole most of his good content.
It's not all awful. The mixed male reclass system is pretty good (unfortunately at the expense of female units, but they got some expanded classes too at least here). Including the BSFE maps and three bonus maps is neat. I largely felt frustrated when playing this game though, I have to say. It's still Fire Emblem though, so I'll probably come back to it again some day.