definitely not a bad game but its odd to me how much of this game just feels like a step down from rocket knight 1. the entire time i couldnt help but think that this game felt like it should have been the first rocket knight when you compare the visuals, level designs, and mechanics with the actual first rocket knight game. it just makes me wonder what happened here to land on this being the sequel to rocket knight. again, i do think this game is a decent amount of fun and i dont regret sitting through and playing it, but it just feels like theres some essence of the first game removed here that just confuses me how this could be the sequel to such a unique and fantastic platformer that somehow came out before this one. i will say though that ost went crazy so at least they got that right

a pretty fun little 3d mario game. the integration of mario 3d world power ups was neat and most of the cat shines were pretty fun to get. i definitely agree with what a lot of other people have been saying that this just feels like the first taste of a new 3d mario game that could become something much bigger when built off of this game's concept so i'd love to see where things go from here.

for me this pretty much just felt like a lot of the good things about a mario odyssey world with fun little obstacle courses that have different levels of involvement and some of the not good things carried over like some shines not feeling super rewarding due to just being out in the open or when the game just tells you exactly where to go to find more shines after getting the first 50. i also got all 100 cat shines because i could tell it wouldn't take too long to do and to me personally it didnt feel like it amounted to a whole lot other than just checking off the box of getting 100%. even still i dont feel like that time was wasted because i had a good amount of fun the whole way through, i think i just set my expectations too high for the final reward.

i dont really even think i despise this game but i tried to beat it twice getting further the second time, but honestly i just kinda came to a conclusion that it just doesnt feel worth it. when i think about going back to this game to try and beat it i just remember some level gimmicks like the submarine level or the booger bungee jump level that were just so awful to play through. the other stuff in the game i remember liking and not finding too bad and i really do love this games style, but in the war of attrition that is earthworm jim i just never felt like i had enough lives and continues to make it through to the end, even with abusing save states, so i doubt i'll ever come back to this game any time soon when i think about those things

this is one of those games i really wanted to like because i love the style with the game having you go through a comic book and it doesnt even play that poorly, but god it was just difficult as fuck and im thinking about how punching doors and boxes made you lose hp, why???? i just think about this every time i slightly consider going back and it just makes me really not want. i remember getting as far as level two and even though i had learned this game was really short i put it down at the time and thought id just try and go back sometime, not sure if thats gonna happen though, at least not for a while

on my first playthrough i considered this game to be just a bit better than dq 1 and 2 but i think i came to appreciate it more upon my replay. i feel like the first time i played i didnt really interact with some of the game's systems like personalities and messing with new classes and all that, and even though i still played it relatively safe with my party in this playthrough i at least tried some things differently from the first time i played like using martial artist instead of warrior, trying out two sages in my end game party instead of one, looking through personality guides online to try and make builds of characters in my party, so on. i think all of these things really made me appreciate the game a little more because the first time i played this i feel like i really just did not give a single shit about any of these systems and dismissed it as a minimally more in depth version of the first two dqs

with the gameplay, i seriously just love this style of very simplistic jrpg battle system. i think this game hits that perfect balance of giving the player enough options where it doesnt feel like you have to do the same things over and over, letting you use a wide variety of spells, weapons and armor to varying degrees of success depending on the enemy you're fighting. at the same time it's not overly complicated and some battles just boil down to letting you hit dudes and buff up your party if you dont really feel any desire to experiment too much. this is the type of shit i live for and playing on the mobile ports makes it the perfect type of game to play anywhere you are. the only spot where i would really criticize the gameplay is in a certain semi-endgame area where you fight a very important boss that will just fuck your shit up if youre underleveled and havent acquired the right spells yet, forcing you to grind for a little, something i remember having to do in my first playthrough at the same exact point. this experience never popped back up for me though, just at this one point in the game, although the final boss was a very close battle where i won by the skin of my teeth with two party members clinging on for dear life.

outside of the gameplay, something that really surprised me on this replay was how well told the story of the game's world was, i feel like some of these earlier jrpgs didnt really do story too well or just had very shallow stories, but this game really surprised me with some of its storytelling moments when talking to npcs in towns and exploring the world, one moment in particular that really struck me occurring earlier on with the little plot in the fairy village about the fairy princess and human. there were plenty of other little blips like this in the story that really stood out and surprised me that i felt like i didnt really take notice of in my first playthrough or just brushed aside. all that said about the story, i do think people make a good point that it's a little disappointing the way the party is just all blank slates who rarely, if at all, ever speak in dialogue. it makes sense considering the way the game's party system works of creating your characters the way you want them to be to craft your perfect party, but i do feel like considering how many personality types the game has it could have been interesting to see how all of these personalities could have different dialogue moments in reaction to the story beats. given, the game was made at a time where something like this was probably way too ambitious to realistically achieve, but maybe in the future with the remake coming out god knows whenever they could play with the idea of party members having dialogue idk

one last thing i wanna say is that i shamelessly used a guide several times on this playthrough even if it's a game id beaten once like 4 years ago. i feel like there were a few key items, uses for key items, or requirements to get key items that just felt obscure in how you were supposed to attain any of these things. sometimes i would be like ah yeah thats just me not paying enough attention or being stupid but other times there would be a key item on the ground in a town in a little corner that i didnt bother to check with no indication anything would be there and i just know if i hadnt checked a guide i would have been stuck for longer than i needed to be. at the same time, there are some things that i felt checking a guide was an absolute must for like some item descriptions that just werent given if you dont have a merchant in the party or if you wanted to make any sense of the personality system that can just change on a whim if you give a character a random accessory. as much as i think the personality system is a really cool idea, it was so annoying having to check before giving someone an item that might completely derail their stat growth i put them on or might not

im really glad i came back to this game and went through it one more time because my appreciation of it definitely grew and it's making me want to play more dragon quest and other jrpgs that were probably inspired by this game. having played this game really opens your eyes to how much it inspired in so many other jrpgs or references in things like shows and movies and this game proves that it deserves the recognition it gets. dragon quest fucks

i don't really play this that often but when i remember it exists i always have a good time with it. as someone who's a pretty casual pokemon fan that plays through the story of the new mainline game that comes out every few years it's a good challenge of my memory and im pretty sure every time ive played ive failed so it always has me striving to get a win one of these days. the real issue is if you still haven't gotten around to one of the games in this series you're probably boned on a given day's puzzle, had a few times where i just blankly stare at anything relating to gen 9

a decently fun game that i felt like was worth playing, but i might have set my expectations a little too high for. the combat is pretty basic but i liked it, i just wish some things like leveling magic and weapons didnt take so long or the hit detection was a little better, it felt like shit to charge up an attack for so long just for it to whiff so many times. the game does give you some options with how you wanna play it with the ability for any character to use any weapon, the charge attacks that you get with each weapon level up, and the sheer number of spells two of your party members can use, so even though it is a pretty basic feeling game there's a lot you can experiment with. the story was pretty light in this game, honestly a lot lighter than i was hoping it would be, but it was still ok, nothing spectacular but still a safe, decent story. also i dont really know how to categorize this but something i would notice every time before like most boss fights was the fade to black then them putting you in a boss arena, this shit bugged me so bad because the transition was so terrible, rarely would there ever be any dialogue or anything before these moments it just transports you in and you gotta get in there and start fighting. this might just be a weird nitpick but it just looked so bad every time and it felt like they just didn't know how to introduce some of this game's bosses which made some of them feel like they just kinda exist and dont really have much purpose until you find out why they're there after the battle.

two of the things the game does really well though are the world and the music. i remember when i first started playing it really did feel like i was going on a grand adventure with so many questions about what was in store. i do think some of the game's settings do get a little bit stale when most of the palaces look very similar or the same with palette swaps, but overall i still liked the vibes this game's world gave me while moving through the story. the music was also fantastic and definitely elevated the game's world and the vibes of this game, during my playthrough when i wasnt playing i would be thinking about some of these songs and theyd get stuck in my head, and honestly im probably still gonna be thinking about some of these tracks.

overall even though i do have some issues with the story and combat of the game this did get me interested in the mana series and i really would like to come back and play more of these games because i think there is something here with this game's formula, it just didn't feel quite fully realized here and i bet future games that i've heard get a lot of praise fulfill what this game couldn't

for the fortnite audience who probably isnt that familiar with the rhythm game genre, this is honestly a really good way to introduce it to a very large playerbase. for me personally as someone who is a bit more familiar of the genre and has liked rhythm games for a while, i think it's an ok rhythm game. the charts are actually pretty well done and a lot of fun to play, but even on expert from the songs ive played i havent felt extremely challenged yet. not to say that's a bad thing, im just hoping that in the future once more people are familiarized with rhythm gaming and get better at fortnite festival the difficulty level will increase some for the harder difficulties. also while the 4 chart types for each mode are all very well put together, it's a little disappointing how similar the gameplay is between each instrument. when i talk about this game with friends i call it "fortnite rockband" but it isn't quite there yet given rockband has all the peripherals that make that distinction between the gameplay of each instrument and instead each instrument is just played on the same keyboard keys/controller buttons. given this mode did just come out last month so it's hard to criticize it too much when im sure they have plenty of updates in store for it and there's always potential that physical plastic guitars make a comeback if this mode stays alive for a while. given they've been updating the mode with a few new songs every week so it's getting good support to keep it alive which makes the future of the mode promising

genuinely just a very fun racing game put into fortnite that feels polished and is a little addicting sometimes if you're trying to climb the ranked ladder. it doesn't take too long to get used to and is really easy to pick up and play. also a good way to get some levels for the battle pass since you're heavily rewarded for performing well and ranking up. i do think some of the tracks all blend together a bit and it's hard to tell which track you're about to play on unless youve memorized the track names. also maybe by chance this was just my experience with the game but i did find it odd how the random selection of tracks didn't expand until i got into higher ranks, i feel like way more of them should just be playable from the get go no matter what rank you are. i get that some of the tracks are listed as higher difficulty than others but even still i think it would help with variety and getting better by having most if not all the tracks playable when you start playing this mode. im sure in the near future though the track list will greatly expand and there'll be a lot more to pick from no matter the rank. also one other thing that bugged me a little was that load times between races felt a little long especially when each race only lasts about 3 minutes or so and the wait time between each race is like 1 or 1.5 minutes, hopefully something else that gets addressed in future updates to the mode

i really enjoyed my time with this game despite initially being skeptical about how they could stretch out the midgar portion of the story given the fact in the original it's just one small piece of the much larger game. my enjoyment definitely shows considering i spent some like 37 or 38 hours on my file of the game and the fact that i wanna go back in and do the other side content some time before playing rebirth. i think most of the new story additions were pretty good, i really loved how they handled character interactions between the party and some of the new named npcs, i think they really nailed this game's visuals and atmosphere making it so that they could fully realize a vision of ff7 that wasn't possible on the ps1, there's plenty of enjoyable side content to go out of your way to do that actually feels worth doing, the soundtrack goes fucking insane for this game's entire runtime, and i think the combat for the most part is pretty enjoyable and challenging. this game just offers a lot that makes it feel well worth the time you put in, no matter how much time that is.

all that said though i think this game has a few blemishes that bring it down from really being perfect for me. as much as i do like the combat in this game sometimes it could get really frustrating the way some bosses felt like they dragged on for too long or the way the "active turn based" battles can feel sometimes where if you dont guard at certain times you just get knocked the fuck back for like 5 second intervals at a time where you cant control your character, completely breaking the pace of some battles especially when it happens multiple times in a row. another aspect i really have been feeling kinda ehhhhh on is the story, especially during the end game portion. i think prior to the ending a lot of what they did with the game's story was great, except for chapter 11 which i thought was really stupid given the story circumstances, but everything else was great. with the ending though, without spoiling anything, there were just a lot of things introduced that felt like they removed a lot of stakes from the story especially if youre someone who hasnt played the original and doesn't know what will happen going forward and i feel like with future parts of this game it will either be fixed and done pretty well or they go all in on playing things too safe and removing a lot of scenes that will make for emotional moments. for now i do feel very iffy on a lot of things about this game's ending and i think it will stay that way for this game in a vacuum, but im hoping with the continuation of the story that they can turn those aspects of the ending into something good for the greater story across all parts of the ff7 remake

i definitely cant rate this but i remember my experience with this game being a friend in high school constantly telling me i need to get on this game and telling me about how good it is so when i tried it out for myself i got in the game and had no clue what i was doing or what i was supposed to do and got lost in the first area and every time i tell that to people about my experience with this game they tell me yeah that makes sense. i even remember that high school friend himself telling me that he expected it would be possible for me to get confused on what i was supposed to do at the start and yet for some reason i still tried it out

i feel like a lot of what came of this game was just fine. the gameplay was just fine and so was the story. the music was pretty good though and i honestly love the character designs in this game even if some of them are a little silly or over the top. i will say though the last hour of this game was so insane and i honestly kinda wish the rest of the game had matched its energy because that was the potential i felt that this game couldve had and it just didnt really use it until the end. not to say those last moments were exactly the greatest written or anything but i think if the rest of the game had been like it it would have been significantly more entertaining. there are so many moments in cutscenes that feel like they could have been turned into cool gameplay segments and instead i just have to sit there and watch them play out rather than get the chance to have an interactive experience with those moments. honestly i thought with the sheer amount of cutscenes and how long they are in this game and the fact that the gameplay is just kinda meh it felt like they could have just made the story of this game into another ff7 movie, but i dont really know the logistics of all that and how that would've worked considering advent children had just come out a year before this game so they were probably just trying to milk that ff7 cash cow so soon after the movie. overall though its cool this game exists i guess, just wish they could have put a little more oomph into it