Recent reviews by Spidermango

Beautiful game with a great save/checkpoint system that doesn't waste your time. Combat wasn't a strong suit but the platforming and exploration was great.

Replayed this game across 2024–2025 after playing it for the first time on the GBA in the late 2000s. When I first played it, it was after I had already played 7 and 10, both of which I worshipped (and still do). It was hard for me to appreciate 6's massive cast after falling in love with the cast of 7 and 10. By comparison, it felt thinly spread and dated. Some of the cast have their charms, but not everyone got the same amount of limelight—the game would probably be over 100 hours long if they all did.

Coming back to the game now, it's still hard to shake those feelings when you compare 6 to its massively popular 3D successors, but I happened to be in the right state of mind to appreciate the game on its own. It really all came together for me in the final credits sequence, hearing another one of Uematsu's timeless masterpieces play while you see each and every character get their little moments with their companions.

For me, it recontextualized the entire journey, making me think about the personalities I had fleshed out for this cast in my own imagination. That's the beauty of limitation, I guess. Mog may not be as developed a character as Vincent or Auron, but the game gave me enough of his personality through his few words, dances, and his theme to let me fill in the rest over the game's long runtime. I spent a lot more time playing the game this time around and experimented with pretty much everyone. And just from including those more "minor" characters in my party and playing with them, I became more connected to them. The bigger characters like Terra have beautiful arcs overall too. Again, the limitation might be there compared to future titles, but there's enough there for the player to reflect a part of their "humanity" on these characters. They all stand out from a gameplay perspective too, each filling a specific role, which is further malleable by the whole esper system. 7's materia system will remain my all-time favorite, but I appreciate how flexible you can be with 6's giant cast and how broken you can become by the end without too much tedium.

Besides the cast itself, I loved the second half of the story a lot more this time around. It’s a simple message: in bad times, gather all your friends and never lose hope. No matter how bad it gets, hope is what can both push you toward comfort in others as well as help you overcome the odds. The music, of course, goes a long way in driving home the themes and feelings—effortlessly and wordlessly.

Anyway, it's a good game. A masterpiece, of course.

Masterpiece. Every aspect of this game has love and care put into from the artstyle, to every npc, the animations, the atmpshere. The music is phenomenonal, the entire ost has basically stayed rent free in my head since the first time I played the Wii version of the game in 2008. The story is substantial and long. I can see people thinking the game can start dragging in the final act and could have ended earlier but I think the prolonged journey pays off in the end. It's bittersweet when the adventure does end and you have to unimmerse yourself from the ancient Japan woodcut water-color setting and go back to reality but the revived Clover studios and Kamiya did bring us old fans good news 19 years later. Ammy is best girl. The Sun Always Rises. Can't wait for the sequel.

Fun game. Rips it's whole shtick from Hotline Miami though. Story was kinda intriguing at the start but fell short for me. Still, the music and gameplay is fun enough.

Short but amazing. Missed out on this franchise on the ps2 and finally got around to playing this port. Was right up my alley as someone who loves fixed camera angles and the simple but fun hack and slash combat. Can't wait to play the second game.

It's peak

Absolutely nails what it's going for. Atmosphere was great, music was amazing. The entire game just feels like it was made with a lot of care. You might think this is what ps1 survival horror games were like but not even some ps2 survival horrors had the quality of life features this game provides. I thought the story of the game was excellent too. Throughout all of it I was looking forward to every new bit of writing that would reveal more about the "mystery". When the reveal finally comes in the final act, it feels just a tiny bit cliche but that's a nitpick from me. I still thought it was well executed overall.

It's great to see indie devs keep this genre alive. It's inspiring even to play games like this that are so laser focused on what they want to achieve and getting it right with such small teams while the triple A publishers struggle.

Must play for fans of the survival horror genre.

Thoroughly enjoyed this game. It was nice to play a JRPG where for the majority of the game, you were just 2 kids going around solving local issues that slowly escalated in scope. The strength of the game is definitely the laid back atmosphere, world building, and the characters. The music is also amazing, the default battle theme is so good, you'll be upset when anything else plays. The story does a great job in creating opportunities for the 2 protagonists to grow and learn about world alongside the player. I also really enjoyed reading the in-game books and journals.

Combat is good but I think there's a lot of ways to improve it (which they hopefully did later in the trilogy). It's turn based but the characters can also move around on a flat grid similar to an SRPG. The positional aspect only really comes into play with AOE moves when things are grouped together or in a line but you don't often get to use those moves to the degree you might expect. It woulda been nice to also get bonuses to attack enemies from certain angles similar to SRPGS. The orbment system does its job but "maxing" it out feels a little rushed and the way the bonuses work to give you different elemental skills feels a little over-designed; another element I hope they polished in the sequels. Worst part about the game is there's way too many missable stuff. Hidden items or npc dialogue that leads to an extra quest etc. I ended up playing through using a spoiler-free walkthrough which was a pain and made it take way longer to finish the game.

I'd recommend the game still though for fans of JRPGs. The story wraps up nicely but also sets up the sequel in the last moments with a cliffhanger. Will definitely be checking that out.

Oh and ran flawlessly on the Deck, finished my entire playthrough on it.

Buy it. Now.

This game is such an absolute gem. An action game where literally everything syncs up to the background music. I remember talking with a friend about this exact concept back in 8th grade after playing games like Rhythm Heaven and God Hand and here we are now with the idea executed near flawlessly by Tango.

Players familiar with games like DMC or MGR should feel at home with the structure of this game but even if you're not, I think its a perfect entry point into that genre. It might be too good of an entry point since you'll start wishing you could time your combos to the BPM in all those other titles. The art direction is amazing, it's going to age really well. Levels are super detailed and fun to navigate, specially with the rhythm based platforming and movement. I played on Very Hard my first playthrough and found the challenge to be perfect. I died a lot whenever encountering more difficult enemies the first time and also the later bosses but it was super satisfying learning their entire moveset and then be able to perfectly parry and punish them in time with the superb soundtrack (can't believe they got NIN in on this).

If I had to make suggestions for a sequel: have songs with different time signatures (you could accommodate this with different weapons besides just the guitar...weapon switching during songs changing time signatures oooo) , more combos, more assist characters (though whats there is perfect for the size of this game). It's hard to criticize without nitpicking because I really think this game is pretty close to perfect.

F*U*C*K* microsoft, glad Tango will still be around and hope they revisit this IP in the future. Also long live the influence of Shinji Mikami.