Neue Rezensionen von Shortchimp

6/10
Final Fantasy XIII is a pretty infamous FF game, as apart from of course FF2, FF13 is pretty hated FF entry by the community. Now that I have finally played this entry... I get their complaints... and I agree with some aspects of it.... but at the same time I disagree with some points that are brought up in discussion.

Story
To be quite honest, I am split on this story, as for some aspects of it I really did love. It has themes of fates and family all tied around, while having a simple goal in the beginning, save cocoon. While the story is easily character focused, it still had me interested enough to continue on this game. However it has a ton of issues that stand out. I don't think the story was well put together, pacing and just structure wise. Many points in this game just has the character blurt out these obvious "deep lines" where they monologue about something heavy out of nowhere, and while sometimes they did land, a ton of times they just stood out like a sore thumb. It doesn't help as well that the story in the very beginning is VERY complex/ convoluted, which I did like tbh. I know people complain that you NEED to read the datalogs to understand everything, and while I didn't fully explore them, a ton of details were given to you once during the story and as long as you were paying attention, you got what was their motivations, and if I forgot a detail, usually whenever you enter a new save or area it recaps the lore to you anyways. I think this story had a TON of potential, but just didn't land at specific points like how in the early game, its dumped on you while also having pretty unlikable characters (but ay, here is a ton of flashbacks to see they are all connected!), mid way point was good, but around late game it starts to have terrible pacing and slows down tremendously. Conclusion was bittersweet and I actually liked it, but MAN did the story just not land as much as I hoped it would.

Characters
This was easily the main focus of FF13, while the story was convoluted mainly, breaking the plot down, its honestly a pretty simple story of l'cie good and fal'cie bad (even if that is oversimplified). The characters however was what got the most development across the game, and for a bit I liked them... and hated some other arcs. I think overall Lightning's arc was pretty enjoyable, although wasn't my favorite character arc, which goes to Fang and Vanille's arc which easily went through the most development from the whole cast. I think Sazh was undercooked towards the mid way point after a certain plot point occurs for him, which I feel like can be blamed towards kinda resolving his arc too quickly, and he just stands around for the rest of the game till the VERY end. My least favorite arc was easily snow and hope's arc, cause good LORD was it annoying asf to watch their entire struggle be just cause of miscommunication. Literally, ANYONE ELSE could had just told snow the truth about hope but NOPE, lets just harm him so "Hope can develop his own character by himself!". It was just too annoying to watch. Most of the character's have bumps early game, but do start to become more likeable as they learn from their flaws and avoidable mistakes. Most of the good moments of this game revolves around them, and while I don't think it was perfect, it was pretty good, and what made the story also enjoyable.

Gameplay
Here is easily the biggest complaint of FF13... the awful gameplay... kinda? I think most of the complaints I hear about 13 combat is people who played a bit then quit, cause the combat early game compared to late game combat might as well be a whole different game. That however is easily the biggest issue of ff13, is that for NINE chapters out of THIRTEEN, the gameplay is WAYYYY too slowly introduced to you, and is easily the worst aspect about 13. For basically a huge portion of the game, you have like 2 attacks, mainly 2 party members that the game decides to give to you, and tells you to mash. A TON of the mechanics in the game is slowly dripped to you, and you aren't even allowed to choose your own team till the 9th chapter, which is WAY too long, cause once you do get past that, while also having to deal with the awful hallway level design till chapter 11, its easy to see why some people just never reached the end of 13. Once you do get past that huge gap and the game FINALLY allows you to explore on your own for the paradigm system, its honestly pretty good, but not perfect. This is probably the hardest FF game I've played singleplayer wise for the normal msq, as the game after awhile actually punishes you for reusing the same strat over and over, and I am GLAD about that. However, there are flaws that linger on still. For one, there is a TON of pauses in everything you do, the character turning, the paradigm shifting first time taking years, and even after that taking a bit too long, annoying enemy types that force lame playstyles, especially ones that are not only tanky, but are immune to status afflictions (luckily most bosses still allow debuff, it was mainly high hp enemies that did this). The paradigm system works the best when fighting enemies that require multiple strategies and pre-planning with the team, and falls when fighting enemies that require one hyperspecific strategy, or just early game where you barely have anything to work with at all.

Music
Again, Final Fantasy music hits again, and this time it was mainly about how beautiful the ost was in this game. While there weren't that many hype songs, there were a ton of tear jerking songs and a ton of just beautiful songs in general. The battle theme as well just hits, with that one violin part is just chefs kiss.

PC Port
I only complain about ports whenever I review when they REALLY stick out, and ff13's pc port was easily pretty horrible. Terrible remapping, terrible fmv audio quality without modding, annoying bug where if you don't plug in a controller at start, the game stutters like crazy every 1 second to check for a controller, crashes for anything (even just screenshotting randomly crashes), and even with the ff13fix mod, it STILL crashed. Its playable, but oh my god I would jump just TRYING to screenshot, cause if it crashes then its back to an older save cause there is no auto saving in this game.

Last Positives/Nitpicks
- Camera controls are finicky, if you turn too quickly it just resets position, and controls don't control well on wasd (console game so makes sense)
- Didn't do the side content (its just hunts), would like to go back, just wish there were other side content to explore the other regions, cause the hunts just felt placed there instead of having interesting stories to go back to (again, only did early game hunts so maybe they do change).
-This game really is the definition of 20 hours to get good LOL
- did not like how poorly explained the upgrade system was, even though its a pretty important aspect to getting stronger (and they had 20 hours of tutorial to teach and just barely talk about it).

Conclusion
Final Fantasy XIII is easily flawed, and while I am glad I stuck through the TERRIBLE first 20 hours gameplay wise (even though I still liked the story, just not so much some character arcs), I did end up finding a soft spot for the game later on, even if it still had many issues surrounding the story and character instead of gameplay being boring. I am not really in the camp that this game is god awful like some of the community says, but I am also not in the game that this game is a hidden masterpiece and misunderstood. I think I land somewhere in the middle, that this game was good, but way too flawed to be considered anything above that. I enjoyed my time with the game, and while I did enjoy my time with it, I was glad it was over in the end, and thankfully the ending was pretty good even though it was bittersweet thanks to the themes of the game.
6/10

Outward was a game I got in thanks to SSeth's video about it, and I finished all of the main quest lines including the DLC alongside a friend. This game is super conflicting for me, as on one side I LOVED the time I had with this game, but that was thanks to having a friend to brute force through the pretty awful mechanics this game has in order to enjoy the beauty of this game, even if it has its rough edges

Story
I am going to be honest, I forgot most of the story of this game apart from how you start as a poor fellow who has to save a village. Overall the story has branching paths asking which side you want to pick, where you have to help the faction you chose for the war that is happening. Most of the story is told through random NPCs, as this game doesn't have story as the main focus which is fine. There is a TON of walking in between the story content, some fun and worth, others felt like time wasters. The DLC was a bit too much for the padding, as it forced you to build the city (more on gameplay), and would cause HUGE gapes in between the story just to focus on the city building that required chores amount of material to finish. There were also just a ton of bugs that caused issues during COOP and had us use DEBUG to fix the flag. The beauty of the game mainly comes from how YOU tell your story, as for a majority of the game, you are treated just like how anyone else would treat a random stranger, and you have to EARN your power and respect to get what you want... of course till the Three Brothers DLC where you are stopping Gods so kinda ends there LOL.

Characters
Forgettable, as while they were interesting at the time, they don't get fleshed out as much apart from a few dialogue lines. They also are just HIDEOUS to look out. Even the main quest givers are pretty forgettable, and again, isn't the main focus of this game due to the obvious lack of budget to fully voice act (they only voice act the first 2 sentences if lucky), and world building for them.

Gameplay
Now here is where it can make or break for others. The game is obviously meant to be hardcore, with punishing deaths, survival mechanics to worry about sleep and hunger, storage, and other mechanics like souls-like that makes the game challenging, but very rewarding to play through. My favorite part of this game is how they treat magic as ACTUALLY a gifted feat, as you have to fight your way through a magical mountain, fighting monsters just to be able to cast even the simplest spell, as you have to trade your life for your magic (which I messed up and traded wayyy too much health so thank god for COOP). It is clunky, you will die to things that don't seem to hit, but overall it is super satisfying to play through, especially figuring out builds with the intentional limited class system to build who you want to be. What is a bit annoying however is the walking distance cause oh my GOD is there a ton of walking. Fast travel does not exist till the DLC and even then is made inconvenient to do so or cost a ton of gold to transport. This would be fine if you were given maybe a horse or something but NOPE, you have to get your lazy ass to walk miles upon miles to get to anywhere and after awhile became a bit too much. I get its for the hardcore experience but with the slow stamina without potions and buffs, would had made it a bit too much if it weren't for playing alongside a friend.

Music
Pretty relaxing, and enjoyable at times. Not OST of the year, but did immerse me into the world and helped me be part of this world which was nice.

Last Positives/Nitpicks
- WALKING, EVERYWHERE (bring a friend)
- Transition to definitive edition deleted my character and had to start all over which was super annoying
- so many bugs, had to cheat to make a new build cause the new update basically broke one of my builds
- I love buffing in this game, super satisfying to have rows upon rows of buffs cause of the items you crafted alongside spells you bought.
- that three brother grind for the msq houses was too much holy.

Conclusion
Even after all my complaints and giving the game a 7.5/10, I still can't underestimate how much I loved this game, ESPECIALLY in COOP. There is no other game like this one for a COOP Hardcore RPG, and for all its flaws, is a really unique RPG that I haven't experienced before, even if its a rough diamond at that. I can't excuse the many flaws of the game, and I could never picture myself playing this solo, BUT for how unique the experience was alongside just how much fun COOP was, I still love this game, with all the long hauls to make enough money to just find a place to sleep and pay off the debt, to the funny combat experiences with a buddy. I do hope they learn from the mistakes of this game and make a new, even better game while following all the beauty the game had.
If you are playing solo, idk if the game will be that great, but if you are playing COOP, this is easily one of the best COOP RPG you can play right now.
7.5/10

I did finish Only Up in a single day, took my 208 minutes to finish the game. This game is a rage baiter in order to get you mad over huge amounts of lost progress, and it doesn't have the cleanest platforming, but DOES have some pretty sick shortcut skips (if you want to risk huge amounts of progress if missed). I liked this game, but it ain't a good game.

Story/Characters
Don't fall, blah blah, random text generated lore. None of it makes sense apart from random quotes which range from telling me to give up, to saying may the force be with you at the very end. Also a ton of asset flips with surface level quotes so lol.

Gameplay
Rage inducing platforming, nothing new, and of course the controls are pretty jank. There are however pretty good mechanics in the game that I did like, which are the shortcuts in the game that give me a fun gut feeling as I skip through huge portions of the map, but at the risk of losing it all if I miss the shortcut and fall even further below. Other than that, you just jump across a bunch of asset flip platforms that just feel like the developer scrolled down free assets and just dragged a bunch of assets to create a platformer. It does have a ledge grab that makes the game a bit easier for precision jumping, but overall this game will just deflate you.

Music
huh? there is like 3 generic songs, and of course only one that stuck was the song that plays when you fall a ♥♥♥♥ ton just to rub it in.

Nitpicks/Last Positives
- So many falls were cause my character just slides off a platform or fails to ledge grab, which was infuriating.
- Slow motion did help for panic platforming
- a ton of "Twitter clip bait platforming where you lose HOURS worth of progress for simply not knowing", why?

Conclusion
This game was fun... when I finally finished the game. It isn't a good game, but I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy my time with it and finally beating it. It is not the best rage inducing platform, but if you are looking for a 3d getting over it style where you just jump across a bunch of random assets, this gets it done, but play with a friend to prevent losing your mind while you go along the game.
4/10

9.5/10
Final Fantasy XII: Zodiac Age was the FF game that quickly bit my curiosity while I was playing through all the Final Fantasy games, as just like Final Fantasy IX, it flew under the radar due to releasing basically around the same time the new generation console was releasing. I knew about the flaws going into the game, especially the comparison to star wars to FF12. But even after all that... I still think Final Fantasy XII was one of my favorite Single-player Final Fantasy games.

Story
The writing in this story, is simply amazing, Especially during that first half of the game. While usually the single-player FF stories are simple in concept with good to great execution, Final Fantasy XII takes a more complex, political and war focused story, and I LOVE it. Especially that first half, the writing and story was just super engaging while also giving an overarching story with multiple arcs. I do realize that around the mid to end point, the story all of the sudden decides to up the pace a bit too much to rush to the end, as if they ran out of time and had to run to the end. The ending did hit, but getting there was very obvious how much the pacing changed. Other than that, I loved the politics of this game, and the morality of both sides being quite understandable, with one side wanting to side with the Gods to avoid a war, while the other side wanting to push the Gods away to give Humanity their own freedom, no matter the methods. I feel like if this game had been given another shot to fully fix up the small hiccups, this game and the story could be a Masterpiece 10/10, but the sudden shift towards the end was the the only issue I had.

Characters
Before getting into the Characters, something FF12 does probably one of the best, if not the best, is the world building. My god the world building is just phenomenal, it helps that this is the first FF game with a free camera (not counting FF11), and it allows the world to be explored fully compared to a fixed camera. Cause of that, the characters in this game are just super believable. Vaan, Ashe, Balthier, Basch were just outstanding characters. Fran and Penelo were also super interesting, but especially Fran I felt like was a bit too underdeveloped compared to the rest of the cast. I do feel like the characters could had used just a TAD bit more time in the oven to flesh out, which is what I pointed to the whole rushing towards the end, but other than that I just loved the characters still. Ashe's journey towards accepting her role as a queen, even with the hesitation due to having to deal with the Gods, and especially Balthier's attitude towards the crew and just how he develops as the character was just amazing. Vaan's arc from rags to helping the queen was also super interesting, and his relation with Penelo was interesting, but his conversations with especially Ashe and Balthier were probably the best character interactions. The guest characters also add a ton, especially of course Larsa, but of course, not as developed (apart from Larsa) for the main casts. Lastly the Voice acting and cutscenes in this game was just AMAZING, a bit compressed for the voices, but the flow in conversations just felt more natural compared to FFX's voice acting.

Gameplay
This is where a ton of people I noticed were either hooked, or turned off from this game. The Gambit system was basically the first time a Single-player FF game was NOT a turn based RPG, but at the same time I wouldn't consider it FULLY action based. People like to compare it to a MMO like FF11's combat, and while that is true when you turn it to Active mode, in Wait mode it almost feels like a bit of how FF7 Remake's combat works, of course without the combos and flashiness FF7R has, instead being a bit more slow paced and tactical. Grinding away in this combat style was just effortless, and probably contributed to me enjoying the end game as much as I did. Of course there were some issues, for example the characters basically do nothing unless you set their Gambit up with what is essentially, a If then list of what the character will go through, and if they don't meet that specific criteria, it goes down till it meets a criteria to execute that command. It basically automates the fighting depending on how you setup what they do, and I love that for many fights (especially towards the end), you have to adjust your party's Gambit in order to adapt to what is happening during the fight or environment. There are some downsides to it, some commands are scenarios are bit clunky, as there really isn't a true "If else" statement, or if for example, they have nothing to steal... don't steal. So they just constantly steal till that criteria is no longer met, which does make some strats a bit too annoying to setup due to that, especially with the physical technicks. Talking about technicks, a ton of the physical abilities just... suck. Even the good technicks, mainly are good for the magic casters. This causes the gambits to be a bit lopsided, where the magic users have almost not enough Gambit slots to setup what you want to do, while the melee users have basically no use for the Gambits, so their Gambit list is just Attack, Attack closeby, Attack the party leader's select... and Magic if they have magic spells. I do wish there were more useful Physical Gambits, especially with how not ALL scenarios are covered for the gambits, especially with how sometimes for example, the enemy has reflect and the caster STILL casts anyways cause of the gambit, killing a member cause of it. Of course you can just adjust the gambit lists to compensate, but it would just be easier to have a If Else statement to fix my issue of the Gambit system. Of course it means interacting with the combat to interfere with setup for character positioning and manually inputting commands for specific situations that wasn't accounted for, But I still love the combat system overall. Lastly, I am SO happy this game returns the Job system in Zodiac Age, especially with the Dual Jobs it just allows SO much flexibility and experimentation with each Job and characters, and the Esper system benefit which slots you are able to pick, so it allows strategic decision to who to give the Espers to.

Music
Really good and super unique compared to Nobuo's work, as this was done by Hitoshi Sakimoto, and his style just SCREAMS Tactics, and it carries over for FF12, which fits so well into the world of Ivalice. There are also some bangers as well like A Moment's Rest, Rabanstre's Theme or just about any of the City themes, Chocobo Theme of course, Boss theme, the return of Battle on the Big Bridge, Esper battle theme, and my favorite song, Time for a Rest. While I do think FFX still holds the crown for the best singleplayer FF OST so far, FF12 is still phenomenal, just like the rest of the series' OST (except you FF2). It just helps that this time, the new Remaster OST is actually so damn good, and is BETTER than the original compared to FFX's remastered OST, where it was a bit split imo for the quality compared to the original.

Nitpicks/ Last Positives
- Compressed Voice was a bit annoying at first, but easily got used to it
- Quickenings should had been shortened, after awhile it got a bit annoying seeing the same cutscenes for them
- Summons FINALLY have what I wanted, big monsters that fight alongside you instead of just a glorified cutscene like before
- The superboss Yiazmat was my favorite but DAMN does he take a long time to beat.

Conclusion
Final Fantasy XII is madly underappreciated, and WOW I did not expect to love it THIS much. It is easily my favorite of the Singleplayer World buildings, and the complexity of the Story was just my favorite, especially with the politics and the subtext beneath it. While the story and character developments stumble and rushes a bit towards the end, it doesn't RUIN the game as much as the community says it does.
9.5/10

9/10
Final Fantasy X is simply amazing there is no debate. For its time and even today does it hold up, and the things it innovated in the series and RPGs as a whole, especially with the introduction of voice acting in a huge RPG is phenomenal. I do believe I liked FF9 more, but FFX is still easily a top tier FF game, and will be the game I point to for newcomers next to FF6 whenever someone asks whats a good game to get into first.

Story
The story is pretty good, not as deep as the FF9 themes but is a very emotional story. Presentation style is improved tenfold not with just the voice acting, but the cinematics also being much much larger than previous FF games, allowing a much easier to follow story compared to previous FF games, where cinematics had to use body langauge due to the lack of voice acting or text on screen. Some of the strongest themes in FFX that is the most obvious is Religion, and the consequences of locking your view to a specific, narrow, view. The manipulative higher ups in religion that take advantage of the naive believers, and especially the pain others suffer when they are tossed away for what they believe, even if they all have the same end goal. The story is also unique that the player you play, Tidus, isn't even the main character of the story... its Yuna. Even as the supporting character you are able to experience all of the character's paths and struggles... except Kimahri who is very bland. Watching Tidus struggle with all the conflicts he has to deal with alongside Yuna was beautiful. If I had to take jabs at the story, I do like the themes and pacing of previous FF games like FF9 or FF6, but FFX's story is still easily amazing even to this day, especially when the obvious water scene with Tidus and Yuna. There were many moments in the story were I did shed a tear, which itself gives the story a huge bump up just cause of how much I cared for the plot ,even if the whole bad guy was bad cause he wants power was a bit samey.

Characters
The characters in FFX are amazing... except Kimahri (I know he is the punching bag of bland characters). While I do think some characters could use some more time in the oven, the chemistry they all had and the interactions were super enjoyable. I especially loved Tidus's development, and the development between Rikku and Wakka as they come to accept who they each are, even if their beliefs are the exact opposite of each other. The casts I did like better than FF7, and it is a very high-top tier cast, but of course I did like previous casts like 6 or 9 overall. I do think lulu could had used a bit more time in the sun, especially cause I wanted to learn more about her relationship with her previous team, and while you do learn more about her summoner, it was Wakka's brother I wanted to learn more about, maybe FFX-2 will go more into detail for him, but that was a plot detail I wanted more of but didn't get much. Lastly the ending of the game is easily one of the best and will be burnt into my brain just watching how some of the character's arc wrap up in the end.

Gameplay
It was a refreshing experience to finally move away from the ATB system and to use the CTB system. While I do think some improvements could be made like the pacing of the system, especially with the longer animations not being skippable, I overall really loved the system. I liked it so much I did the endgame content and fought the superboss penance, which I think is easily one of, if not the hardest of the FF superbosses I have fought so far... It only took me 50 hours so idk if I will do endgame FFX-2 since that will be even longer. I loved the return of the Mix mechanic with Rikku, that was easily one of my favorite mechanics from FFV, and while some of the characters were pretty bad compared to the top 3 of Wakka Tidus Rikku, they were still very enjoyable to play with apart from Kimahri who not only has a bad character development, but easily the worst kit which is just sad LOL. The other content apart from the MSQ were enjoyable, Blitzball is fun for the first 5 games, but easily becomes repetitive and as you grind for Wakka's celestial, too damn easy. The enemy designs for the random encounters were enjoyable albeit kinda easy for the most parts, the boss designs were super enjoyable especially with how they now interact with the environment around you, giving shakeups to the usual boss battles. The superboss as well for penance was well designed, but I did avoid using zanmato cause thats just lame to have the power to one shot even superbosses. The puzzles were a nice change of pace, but I just did not like not being able to hold more than 1 sphere, and those long pauses for any action you take. I would know the solution minutes before but just had to wait for the long actions in between, which was easily the worst parts for them. Still nice they were in the game but were my more disliked aspects of the game.

Music
EASILY one of, if not the best OST in any Final Fantasy singleplayer game. I know that Final Fantasy OSTs are always a banger apart from FF2, but the FFX is just something special, and while some staple songs like the prelude aren't there, the new songs can easily make me tear up just hearing them, while the banger songs will be things I will listen to even after I have passed from this game. The battle theme is easily the best in the series no competition, and while it is a bit jarring when comparing to the seldom songs, I NEVER got tired of the song even after playing around 120 hours due to me completing endgame content. Zanarkand, Battle Theme, fight with Seymour, Isn't it Wonderful, etc. So many good songs it will probably be easier to list the songs I DIDN'T like, and even that list would be pretty short.

Last Positives/Nitpicks
-That Endgame Grind was TOO DAMN LONG, and having to go back and forth for the monster arenas just to grind to the real grind, which is fighting tonberry over and over was super annoying
- Wakka's Celestial weapon was EASILY the most annoying to acquire, 45 Blitzball matches minimum is just too much for how broken blitzball is as you level up.
-The voice pitching and some weird dialogue delivery were noticeable, but when hearing about WHY they had those issues due to technical limitations at the time, I was able to forgive it.
- Kimahri
- Would had liked to learn more about Lulu, was a bit weaker compared to the rest of the cast, but was still a pretty good character overall.

Conclusion
Final Fantasy X was a game I was expecting to like, and it met my expectations easily. While I don't think it is my favorite Final Fantasy game, it is still top tier and is an easy recommendation to anyone. Now I do know about how the fanbase says the games go downhill from here, but I am going to keep an open-mind and find the ones I enjoy, with FF12 being the one I am most looking forward to after this game. I will edit this review to include FFX-2, later on.
9/10

Edit: Just Finished FFX-2, overall worth it purely for the ATB combat gameplay, but the story is meh, pacing is all over the place, and apart from Sphere Break, has a ton of minigames that aren't that fun imo. Still the most fun ATB iteration I've played yet and worth at least playing through if played FFX, but just expect a different tone since this game does not take it as serious as FFX and has more upbeat humor compared to FFX... which makes the serious moments a bit confusing and didn't care as much as I think the game hoped I would.
FFX-2 7.5/10

7.5/10
Surprisingly, pretty good of a game for what it is. There is missing features for a visual novel like Logs and such, but for the simplicity of the story, it wasn't really mandatory. I expected basically nothing from this game, and while the majority of the time I did feel like was fine, it does get pretty good and explains why some of the gameplay decisions they made, especially the platforming mechanic for thinking pays off.

Story/ Characters
Pretty cliche of a murder mystery, and while I didn't figure out at first cause I had a pretty ass theory, it was pretty easy to understand why they were the one who murdered sonic. The story does take a twist and turn, but it still keeps it the sonic way if that makes sense. Easily the best story out of any sonic game that I have played so far, and it pulls off what it wants really well. The characters as well are pretty interesting, but not very deep which is to be expected of sonic characters. They were still very entertaining to talk to and figure out their alibis, even how simple their reasons were. Tails accompanies you throughout the whole way and he is just a treat to be with, and most of the other characters were interesting enough, but of course, not enough to deep dive into who they are which is fine.

Gameplay
Visual novel with very simple and straightforward path. There isn't punishment for choosing wrong, and it is pretty easy to figure out what to do and the mystery the game throws at you. No voice acting but that didn't bother me, and of course no log, but never really had to use past knowledge of dialogue to figure out if they are lying or not so it wasn't that big of a deal. One thing I did not like was when you are forced to try to figure out evidence, the game uses a pseudo 2d platforming segment to basically collect coins and reach the end as it through spikes and other crap at you. It does get repetitive towards the end, and it made me wish there was a minigame that allowed me to figure out the alibi, but again, simple mystery so I usually figured it out before the minigame even started. The minigame does make sense at the end why they decided on it, but other minigames would had been nice if they do choose to expand on this (which I expect they won't but thats fine).

Music
Pretty solid, and some good music here and there. A ton of the music does sound a bit generic, but it works and I never felt like the music was too overbearing or was troubling me. Not going to be adding any of the songs to any of my playlists, but still overall pretty good.

Last Positives/ Nitpicks
-No Log, but simple enough story to forgive
-a bit too long during the murder mystery, especially when I knew what was going on before I even finished interrogating them
-Not exactly a sonic fan, but was still worth playing through, and its FREE.
- MFs forgot I was there right when we left the train like damn :(

Conclusion
Surprisingly, pretty good of a game. Of course its simple what it does and repetitive at times for the minigame, but is easily worth the playthrough, especially if you are a sonic fan. Best sonic story I've heard, but that isn't saying much for how bad Sonic stories usually are, if they even exist.
7.5/10

10/10
Persona 5 Royal took a bit to finally get ported to PC, but MAN was it worth it at the end. I have already played Persona 5 via PS3 Emulation, so a ton of the story beats and combat scenarios were very familiar to me, but the new content that was added, and ESPECIALLY the extra semester content, made it still feel fresh to me in the end.

Story
The story that was in Base Persona 5 is still mainly here, but has new additions to still keep the already known story to me, pretty fresh. The most obvious addition that allowed a new story-line to grow during the base story was the addition of Maruki and Kasumi, and even gameplay additions with the new boss mechanics adding to their story arc as a whole. While the base story is good imo, what makes the story enter God Tier is easily the Third Semester, where the writing just enters a whole new level compared to the base story. The villain as well was easily one of the best for the Persona antagonists, and even for villains as a whole for me. If it isn't obvious, Third Semester was just easily the best writing segment from the entire series, even for how small the segment really was compared to the rest of the game's writing. I do know people say that the writing for the third semester is so peak that it makes the base story kinda mid, and while I do agree that the third semester is a different tier above, the base writing is still really good, but is topped by p3 and p4 story for that segment. The whole theme for the base story is around Japanese Government Corruption, but I REALLY liked the theme around the morality of running away from the cruel current reality for a reality that even you wished for, as it allows the villain, and even the main casts to have second thoughts about what they are doing is even right.

Characters
For the base characters, they do remain mostly unchanged. There are additional dialogue and scenes that help flesh out the characters better than the original. There are still the issues I had with a few of the characters, especially pointing at Haru's arc being cut too short for her to be as fleshed out as the rest of the cast, but I still think overall, the royal additions made the base cast much better, even with their shortcomings that I think P4's cast overall were better for. However the new additional characters were just AMAZING. Kasumi's Arc and Maruki's Arc were just amazing, if there was one base character who had the biggest quality change was EASILY Akechi, who went from a bit underwhelming in P5, to one of my favorite characters in Persona. In Base Persona 5 he felt like just an obstacle who had the same powers as you but took a different path, to an opposite of you, who even with the bitter rival, is an amazing comrade to have alongside. The new Awakened Personas as well added a ton during the Third Semester, and would had only liked it if they were all voiced, but that is the nitpick of nitpicks I can make.

Gameplay
Persona 5 already had the best gameplay out of any of the Persona games, and Royal not only enhanced many mechanics, but also added new mechanics to make playing through it fresh. The game also as a side effect did become easier cause of it. Showtime was a really fun mechanic to play with, Higher rewards for Technicals, and the bonus skills for each persona added a ton to the combat. Grappling hook also added a ton to traversing, but EASILY the best decision they made was adding will seeds, cause not only did it make exploring the palaces fully worth it, but it also made accesories much more interesting to use, cause before it was just SP Adhesive 3, but now you have unique accessory that you have to plan who should use it for each character. While the game's difficulty was much easier thanks to quality of life making SP management basically non-existance after 1st palace, higher damage to enemies, and especially DLC personas avaliable (which I avoided), it wasn't SO easy that it was boring, and the superbosses were easily highlights for me personally. Guns were also made to have refill each battle instead of each time you visit mementos/palaces, but tbh just like the original, you stop using guns half-way through as you get much better abilities down the line, and idk if its true but it felt like less enemies had gun weakness compared to base P5. Mementos was also a point of criticism, but with the addition of Jose's flowers, actual new music per layer, and the addition of the third semester mementos makes going through the area waayyy more enjoyable compared to before.

Music
Still as great as ever. Of course the base songs banged, but the royal songs as well blended BEAUTIFULLY into the ost, and especially the final boss theme, I Believe, and January Theme were just phenomenal. The new battle theme as well was really good, doesn't beat time to make history for me personally, but still bops. Persona always had amazing music, its almost like Final Fantasy where you just expect good music, but P5R's OST is on a whole new level of amazing.

Last Positives/Nitpicks
- Really wish the frame cap was 144 instead of the weird 120 cap, cause it caused screen tearing and even with all the radeon freesync settings, would only go away with v-sync which I refused to use. Screen Tearing wasn't awful anyways so oh well.
- Played through with KB+M, and overall it was pretty usable. Main issues where Shift, the run key, would also scroll through text really quick, causing me to skip dialogue unintentionally. Obviously menus were designed with controller in mind so mouse usage that wasn't the pause menu was clunky.
- DLC is too broken, wish there was a way to disable it, cause its wayyy too tempting to use them.

Conclusion
Persona 5 Royal on PC has been a dream come true for me ever since i beat Base P5 back around 2020, and boy am I glad the game was just this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good. While I do think that P4G is a tiny bit better overall when it came to the story and especially characters for the base P5 segment, the third semester was EASILY the best story and character development out of the entire franchise, and I love it for that reason. Now that there is basically 0 reason to play P5 with this port, P5R is easily worth playing from start to finish, even with the daunting tower that is the game's length LOL.
10/10

7.5/10
Lunistice was an interesting game for me, as while I am not the biggest fan of platformer, and the focus of this platform game was to be a nostalgia trip for ps1 style platformer games, I still found a ton of enjoyment from this game than I thought I would. While it does have the flaws that I normally dislike from some platformers like lack of technical movement and momentum lack, The story was a surprising but tiny positive for me.

Story
The most you get for the story of this game will be the beginning voiced cutscene when you boot the game, and then the rest of the story is only if you get the secret notes and finish the true ending, where it talks about a cycle formed by an organization, and with letters sent by the main character to their parents as they go through the experiment of destroying the moon. However destroying the moon only causes the game to loop, but the glitches it causes is how the notes were formed to begin with due to being a glitch in the system, and with those notes is how you are able to finally break the cycle and become free. While the story is basically 5-10 minutes worth of content in this game, it was still pretty well done and I applaud the dev for that.

Gameplay
It has the mix of a sonic game but with the movements of Super Mario Galaxy, and while I did enjoy it overall, I really did wish there were more technical movements as it did become a bit stale due to lack of progression with how good I got with the movement. The level designs in the later levels were really good, but replaying them was not that interesting due to the linear design apart from 1 level in the game. Turning off smooth turning made the movement much much better though, as it removes that slow turn around speed and makes the game feel much snappier. In the end though it was a bit too easy for my liking, but the deaths were punishing depending on what checkpoint you last got, which would only really set you back at most a minute or 2. If there ever was a sequel, I think an additional movement option that allows for more freedom in movement and expression would go a long way, even though I didn't play the other 2 characters in the game.

Music
Pretty good overall. I do think there was some issue with repeating songs, or especially songs that sounded too similar, cause it would get repetitive as the game went on. The music rhythm and the last level were highlights easily for me, and I did enjoy the main theme that played throughout the game, but I did feel tiring of the music as I went on and on, and eventually did play youtube songs in the background when I was replaying the game, but for an indie dev it was really good still.

Conclusion
This game is easily worth the buy, as with all the issues I have with the game, it only costs $5 which is a STEAL for the content and enjoyment you get from the game. I don't think personally that it is one of my favorite platformers, and there are others that do better in certain aspects of this game, but I still think it is worth picking up this game especially if you like old school 3d platformers.
7.5/10

9.5/10
Final Fantasy IX was a FF game that I always knew was a fan favorite of the Single Player Final Fantasy, but I did not expect to love the game THIS much. FF9 is easily the best PS1 mainline final fantasy game, and is my personal favorite Single Player Final Fantasy game (as of writing this video). While I was edging if it was better than FF6, those ending parts and the monologue cemented it for me as easily the best PS1 Final Fantasy, and is the definition of a Final Fantasy game.

Story
The story may seem simple at a first glance, classic Fantasy, every staple characteristics of older FF, medieval, and characters who represent their job, with steiner being the knight easily and Zidane being the theif. But as the story goes on, it starts to delve into some pretty hitting themes, especially about the acceptance of death, and realizing your own morality as a human. Everyone in the story don't fit as a group, and they have their own journeys as they realize why they exist. Watching the characters experience a loss of themselves, and finding out who they are is what makes Final Fantasy IX special. While the story does take a bit to start up, it doesn't take too long before the train begins to go full speed. It is a story of what it means to be alive, and while there are a ton of references to previous final fantasy games, as this was Square's sendoff to the ps1 and wanted it to be for the fans of FF, they did a phenomenal job with the story.

Character
EASILY, EASILY, EASILY, the best part of FF9. The story revolves around each character's growth, and nearly all of them land for me. Zidane for example, is the one who helps each character discover who they are, and even helps someone who was artificially made to realize that even they have a purpose, even if they were designed to do only one thing in mind. It isn't till Zidane finds out that he himself was also designed just like the rest of the mindless folks you have encountered is when he begins to question his existance and for the first time, doubts who he really is as he pushes his friends away. Vivi is also another amazing character and contents with Zidane as my favorite ff9 character. Vivi throughout the game has to come into the realization that he was created with the sole purpose of killing the people he wants to protect so dearly. Vivi has to witness a black mage just like him, kill and destroy an airship of his own kind, and eventually in the game, accept the reality that due to him being built artifically, he is also going to die much sooner than he wishes. Despite this fact, he accepts who he is and helps everyone else discover who they are, even if he won't be able to see the sunrise with them. I can go on and on about each character's journey, but tldr is that the characters in FF9 are easily the best of the single player Final Fantasy games, and is what makes FF9 so special in my heart as my favorite Final Fantasy single player game (so far).

Gameplay
FF9 returns back to the roots, and it returns to a 4 player party, and FINALLY each character have their own unique role and ability that none of the other casts have, which now makes you think about your party composition instead of FF7 and FF8 (and FF6 2nd half) where you can pick any character you want, as only stat differences is what differentiates them. What makes the gameplay also pretty great is the synthesis system, and the fact that items now have abilities tied to them that become permanent after leveling up those items, which prevents the usual "pick the item cause it just has better stats". There are some issues I had with the gameplay, as the battle speed is just MUCH slower than FF8, and while there are unique abilities, combat is much simpler compared to FF8, and lastly the trance system is really good, but some trance from certain characters not being as impactful, and especially since trance is auto enabled can be a bit troublesome to plan for. Also the sad reality, is the card game, Tetra master, just isn't as good as Triple Triad in FF8. Luckily it isn't forced apart from one occasion, so it is pretty easy to ignore. This is also the last time the ATB system was in a Final Fantasy game, and while I will miss the system as I have been playing it for the past 6 final fantasy games, it is going to be interesting how each FF game from here on changes the core gameplay system.

Music
This was the last mainline that Nobuo Uematsu mainly composed, and thankfully he pulls the tradition of making the ost easily amazing (except FF2... sry Nobuo). The battle theme was top tier, and so many songs like Melody of life, Freya's Theme, Terra, Crossing the Hills, and especially the best song, You're Not Alone. I'm going to miss having Nobuo solely compose the mainline games from here on out, but I'm glad his last solo mainline went out with a bang.

Last Positives/ Nitpicks
- The pauses between each action can get pretty long at times
- Characters are so damn good man why don't more people talk about this game man
- I just love the game's return to the classic medieval, and I love the artstyle and easily aged the best of the PS1 mainline games
- Superboss was pretty good this time around, and the grind did exist, but thankfully was nowhere near as bad as the FF7 superboss grind
- Didn't do a majority of the side quests apart from the ones needed to do the superboss, mainly cause I didn't want to play tetra master

Conclusion
Final Fantasy IX is the most underrated Final Fantasy single player, and yet is easily the best Single player Final Fantasy game out there, as if you think of what Final Fantasy is, Final Fantasy IX perfectly describes what it is, Medieval Fantasy.. The Story was amazing and the characters are easily among the Series' best characters they have created. While it sadly is the shadow of its popular brother, Final Fantasy VII, it is easily the best of the PS1 mainlines, and I hope that more fans who haven't given FF9 a try due to maybe the art style, to give the game a try and hopefully fall in love with the game the same way I fell in love with the game.
9.5/10

10/10
(written just after beating the base msq, not yet for the post msq)

Endwalker was no doubt, my favorite Expansion of the entire game, even beating Shadowbringers by a bit which is something I thought was impossible. While I do think that if I were to isolate each expansion by their stories, Shadowbringer is probably the better seperate story, Endwalker just tied the entire game together into an AMAZING conclusion. While there were some lows, my god those highs were probably the best story high moments I have ever experienced period it was INSANE.

EASILY the best Final Fantasy Story, and my personal best story of all time. It does sadden me that the hydaelyn arc is now over, but heres to hoping the new adventure will be just as good, even if the scions are no longer officially together (for now).

Feelswalker man
10/10