Rax/Maz/Jimbo 2021 Games Thread

[Raxivace]

Played through a bunch of stuff recently to try and (mostly) clear my slate before FF7 Rebirth. Some of these games again really deserve more than I've written about them here (Particularly Y0), so maybe I'll come back and edit more thoughts in here at some point.


Yakuza 0 (2015) – A really wonderful RPG. I’ve been meaning to get into this franchise for years, especially after Jimbo played this and man it’s just a lot of fun. The 80’s urban setting is really fun and atmospheric with all those neon lights and such, and Kiryu and Majima are just great characters. I really liked how their stories initially seemed very independent but gradually intertwined together. Both of the their stories are just really strong gangster movie stuff. Likewise the seriousness of the main story contrasted with how absolutely goofy the sidequests were was really something else.

I remember Jimbo saying the combat could be a bit simple (IIRC) and not all of the upgrades seemed worth it and I do think there’s a bit of an issue there, though I think that’s true of a lot of action RPGs like this. I otherwise found the base combat pretty fun, though I generally liked Majima's fighting styles better than Kiryu's.

Last thing I’ll mention is that I didn’t go as hard on side content as I would have liked because of time limit I was on and well there’s like a million of these games now, but I might go back really get into buying up property, running the cabaret etc. one of these days.


Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad (2006) – A largely mindless action game about hot babes killing zombies. I’ve actually owned this for a while now, but I wanted to start finishing up the chunk of Xbox 360 games I have left (As well buying the last bunch of them that I wanted before things got TOO ridiculously expensive).

I do think the combat is okay at its core even if a later game in the series like Z2 Chaos is a lot better. On most stages you have two characters, while you alternate between them. The two main ones are Aya and Saki who both use swords (Aya having two different styles where she uses one sword or two) while Anna uses a variety of guns. Probably the big gimmick here is that you can’t just keep wailing on enemies forever- as Aya or Saki you need to constantly be cleaning blood off your swords, otherwise they can get stuck in enemies as you’re trying to mow them down (Meanwhile Anna needs to simply reload guns when low on ammo). It creates nice mix of going on offensive and also having to step back and take a breather before beginning your assault again.

I do have to say more generally btw that the Xbox 360 as a console shows its age waaaay more than I expected going in. Some of this might just be a flaw in my system but it runs awfully sluggishly compared to more modern consoles, with load times in particular being pretty slow. Even just menuing about on the dashboard doesn’t exactly feel snappy. Also that the games are only on DVD’s feels very anachronistic these days despite the 360 having an HDMI port. I do plan on trying more 360 games this year, so I’m sure I’ll find more to say about this console.


Kanon (1999) – Pretty meh visual novel overall if I’m being honest, at least reading it in 2024. The basic gist is that protagonist Yuichi returns to his childhood hometown that he has lost most of his memories of. As he re-acclimates to the town he connects with a variety of different girls, most of whom he realizes he has some pre-existing connection with, and most of whom have some kind of tragic past.

This didn’t really land for me. I liked most of the girls themselves, but all five of the major routes of this game just kinda drag on and on. I do think this game deserves some major credit for being major entry in “nakige” genre (Which I guess are supposed to be melodrama games about making you cry more than anything else), and if nothing else a lot of the presentation of game elements feels modern here compared to other titles like Snatcher or whatever (Note I am not talking about the art style here). I think the problem though is that any time you end up on a girl’s route, there’s kinda boring formula of slice of life, slice of life, slice of life, slice of life, slice of life, SOME SAD REVEAL OF GIRL’S PAST, RUMINATING A BIT ON REVEAL, SLICE OF LIFE, climax. There’s little in way of actual drama which gets a bit tedious and tends to be flaw in some of these VNs.

Still even with that in mind, some of these routes drag more than others. Mai’s in particular is just really tedious to get through (Despite probably being influence on Fate route in FSN), and honestly the reveal about the nature of the “demons” she’s fighting is a bit much. Really the reveal of supernatural elements in some of these routes is honestly weird. Like the one route where Yuichi has to explain that one of the girls is some kind of fox spirit to his family and everyone just accepts this is a bit lol.

I didn’t hate the game overall but it just really wasn’t one of my favorites.


^Poor Ayu is never beating the idiocy allegations.


Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (2003) – Replayed this on a whim since it’s on NSO now. It’s still nicely strategic without being super overbearing about managing units or abilities or whatever the way some other SRPG’s can be. That makes it very easy to pick up and play without being too mindless. The first time I played this I remember a lot of my units died, whereas on my replay I had way less fatal errors of strategy. That shows I’m making progress in learning how to play these games well, if nothing else.

If I had one complaint is that extra modes like the Hard Modes or Hector Mode have to be unlocked by clearing Eliwood Mode once, which is just a bummer. I really wish there was at least a cheat code or something you could enter to just unlock those up front (A problem this games shares with the OG Resident Evil 4, come to think of it, where you don’t have Professional Mode upfront). I had actually intended to play Hector Mode here, but well I could just skip to it on NSO and I've long side lost the rom and related saves I had downloaded for this way back in the day. One I day I'll get to Hector Mode...


Fate/Samurai Remnant - Additional Episode 1 "Record's Fragment: Keian Command Championship" (2024) – The first DLC for FSR. Its basically just tournament of sorts where you pick a Master/Servant pair from the main game, fight some guys, and then by the end of it you’ve unlocked two new Servants for the main game and two extra moves for Iori. Fun enough for what it is, but pretty repetitive.

[Raxivace]

I've been really enjoying FF7 Rebirth lately, but I haven't played much the last few days since I've been rewatching NGE so I can see EOE in theaters in a few days. Meanwhile I did beat another game I've been playing on the side.


Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright (2015) - The sister game to Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest, which I played and reviewed here years and years ago. I wasn't the hugest fan of Conquest, but there's just enough about it that I liked to make me want to play the rest of the FE Fates games at some point.

While Conquest was fairly hard game with lot of weird objectives and map gimmicks, Birthright is much easier game with mostly straightforward "Rout all the enemies" maps. In addition, Birthright allows you to grind non-story maps to level up your characters which Conquest didn't let you do (Unless you bought certain DLC map). So the game design philosophies are honesty pretty different between the two.

Birthright is also just really easy. I expected an easy game so I even played this on Hard Mode despite it being my first run of the game, and honestly Birthright Hard is still much easier than Conquest Normal. On top of that, Conquest would often throw some really annoying ninja enemies at you a lot that could debuff your guys with their regular attacks, which Birthright never really did. Most enemies were only a little tanky or had some long range attacks, but that's nothing too bad.

Really there's only two kinda tricky chapters in this game- Chapter 5 which is part of the game's prologue anyways (And has typical hard mode RPG problem of only being hard because the game hasn't really opened up yet), and I found Chapter 23 somewhat tricky because Camilla can spam AOE attacks from across the map. Most of the rest of the game is pretty straightforward, nothing too bad until you get to Chapter 13. Once you get to Chapter 13, god kind Ryoma joins your squad and now the game is basically done as Ryoma can more or less solo the entire rest of the game on his own (Or at least paired up with a unit like Corrin). Not since Shinji Ikari with EVA-01 in Super Robot Wars V have I seen a unit THIS broken in an SPRG before, and honestly Ryoma is probably relatively better all things considered. Even Chapter 23 would have probably been much easier for me if I just forwent even launching my entire army and only sent out Ryoma and Corrin. Even for easy game this is pretty ridiculous- sure, you don't HAVE to use Ryoma but I shouldn't have to limit myself even playing on Hard Mode.

Birthright's story is also much simpler than Conquest's. While Conquest has Corrin siding with Nohr to somehow mitigate their invasion of Hoshido, Birthright has them siding with Hoshido in much more standard FE plot of fighting against invading kingdom of Nohr. There's really not much going on here storywise (Though I do have to say, having a unit auto-die in cutscene because I didn't get A Rank Support with Corrin for them was uh, interesting decision), but I do have to say it was somewhat affecting to occasionally have to fight and kill units I remembered from Conquest using the Birthright crew. Still even with that in mind, I think Conquest not only gives the Nohr characters better scenes, but probably the Hoshidans too. Like Takumi was probably MORE sympathetic character as your enemy trying to avenge his family than he is as your ally here.

This all makes me think Birthright was probably meant to be played before Conquest ultimately. Not just because the difficulty curve from jumping from one game to the other would be far more reasonable (I.e. learning basic Fates mechanics in Birthright and then really testing yourself on them in Conquest), but even story on paper I can buy starting from more classic FE premise of Birthright into far murkier one Conquest. Even something like Ryoma being overpowered god-king unit, all Nohrian scum should bow before his might becomes more sensible because hey once you play Conquest and actually have to fight OP Ryoma yourself, oh shit here he comes with his OP skills, that's frightening! But for whatever reason I decided to play Conquest first and struggled as a result and ultimately had lesser experience. I did still enjoy Birthright I guess in kinda mindless way, but its nowhere near one of my favorite Fire Emblem games.

Lastly there's also third FE Fates game, Revelation, which I'll play eventually. That has a pretty poor reputation online, but its supposed to be "golden route" of sorts where the game has both the Hoshidan and Nohr characters working together. At the very least, I'm curious to see how that plays out.

[Raxivace]

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024) - Yeah this game is excellent. It basically takes everything that was good in FF7 Remake and improves upon on it wholesale. The combat is given more depth not only with additional party members, generally expanded movesets for returning characters, but the game changing addition of Synergy Skills (Where two party members being able to do attacks together that not only doesn't cost ATB, but charges BOTH character's ATB!) and Synergy Abilities (Two party members basically being able to do a mini Limit Break together) as well. There's tons of exploration and challenges to find in semi-open world, characters, gasp, actually interact with each other and have a party dynamic. There's tons of minigames, including a card game called Queen's Blood 'that's second only to Triple Triad IMO. Story cutscenes are not needlessly dragged out with bland British voice acting etc. There's actual character customization and the setup you go into battle with actually matters! Female characters, gasp, actually do stuff and are involved with the narrative!

Pretty much everything I hated about FF16, FF7 Rebirth does the opposite. I don't know that I've ever seen two games so diametrically opposed in the same series release so close together before. It's honestly wild. I put about 40 hours into FF16 before finishing it and getting sick of the game long before that. I've put about 90 into Rebirth and still have plenty of more post-game stuff I want to do including a Hard Mode run. It's honestly a blast and pretty easily one of my new favorite FF games at this point.

Sure some of this is because I have preexisting love for this cast from the OG FF7, but I honestly do think this is much stronger model for the franchise going forward than bland "character action" approach of FF16.


Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020)
Final Fantasy VII Remake: Episode Intermission (2021) - Unfortunately a quest I was doing in FF7 Rebirth was bugged at one point (That has since been fixed in a patch), so I took the time to replay Remake and finished getting all the Trophies for the game and its DLC. I had never really taken the chance to play the PS5 version of the base game too, despite having played the DLC before which was PS5 exclusive at the time.

While Rebirth improves upon it, Remake is still pretty good even if I missed not yet having access to things like Synergy Abilities. I really enjoyed the Hard Mode run in particular, which cuts you off from being able to use Items at all and prevents Benches from restoring MP as well (Though they still restore HP thankfully). Since MP becomes more difficult to restore, this changes the game to mostly relying on Chakra and Prayer materias as a source of healing (Which don't use MP), and having to really rely on things like Elemental materia to negate uh, elemental damage and the like (Or to add elemental damage to weapon to just tear through enemies). It really wasn't as hard as I was fearing going in, but it was still fair challenge at times. It helped by using the chapter select feature, I did most of the Hard Mode run up to about Chapter 10-11ish to rack up more Ability Points for the party, then skipped to endgame to fight superbosses so I could get equipment called Götterdämmerung that not only starts you in battle with your Limit Break gauge at full, but charges the Limit gauge after you use a Limit as well. This really helped with going back to do the rest of the Hard Mode run, especially some of the harder fights like Rufus or Sephiroth.

The Yuffie DLC was similar on Hard Mode, though I wasn't able to get the Götterdämmerung until after I finished the run of the base game. Honestly I think her bonus bosses were harder for me generally. The Bahamut/Ifrit > Ramuh > Pride & Joy gauntlet in particular really gave me trouble for some reason. Everyone online said the Ramuh superboss was easier, but him in particular I really struggled against for some reason while I was able to get the much more lauded Bahamut/Ifrit fight down to a science more or less. I eventually got him, but idk what the problem was exactly.

If I have to nitpick something here, its that getting the Trophy for seeing all 9 dresses in the base game is really dumb. You end up having to replay Chapter 9 several times to do this, and its tied to the number of sidequests you've completed not only in Ch. 9 itself but Chs. 3 and 8 as well. I think the minimum number of runs you have to do is technically only 3, but that involves having a lot of foreknowledge I just don't think average player is going to have, since it involves doing minimum number of sidequests on some runs for specific dresses, and also playing Hard Mode Ch. 9 at least twice for the difference branches of side quests and getting the Manuscripts for additional Skill Points from each (Good luck fighting Hell House twice!). Its really silly bit of design, but most people aren't going to run into this and from what I can tell they learned their lesson for Rebirth which does not have anything this silly in its design.

Also man am I excited now to get around to my Hard Mode run of Rebirth at some point.

[Raxivace]

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (2001) - Got around to finishing this finally. Overall this is still a solid Zelda entry I think, though I don't think its quite as strong as Seasons. There wasn't any fatal flaws in the game or anything, but just a few too many annoying little things that added up to me. The first and I think biggest one was that some of the minigames were just a little too hard for mandatory story progression.


^The Goron rhythm minigame in particular I think is just a bit too much. I honestly struggled with it a bit, and the game makes you do it twice! Yes I know Seasons had a similar minigame too but I don't remember it giving me nearly as much trouble as Ages' equivalent.

A couple of bosses I think were just a bit too annoying too, like the Headthwomp from the second dungeon.


^I think its interesting to a Zelda boss from this kind of perspective post-Adventures of Link, though I thought the timing between the platforms and making sure the boss was on the right face was a just a bit much. Not like terribly hard boss or anything really, but just a bit annoying.

The last major thing, and I mentioned this was Seasons, is again the menuing being a bit annoying with the constant equipping/unequipping of items. The worst was when you get the Mermaid Suit and have to swim using it- I was so used to having my Sword equipped on B-Button, but while using that you can only use what you have equipped on A-Button. A bit annoying but again hardly fatal.

Ages still has some cool ideas though. The time travel theme may feel derivative after Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, but Ages still pxecutes the idea competently enough. The one dungeon you have to tackle between two different time periods is neat, even if its not as obvious that that's what you have to do as say OoT's Spirit Temple. I like the idea of there being a rival "hero" character to Link in Ralph, even if he's not super developed since this is still only a GBC game (He may be the most forgotten Zelda character in all honesty).

Finally tackling the Linked Game stuff after all these years is cool too. I have to say the Master Sword in this game just shreds enemies though- I didn't even see any of Veran's transformations past her "turtle" form, and even Ganon himself goes down SUPER quick to this thing.

I do have to say that constantly going back and forth between Seasons and Ages for bonus items was a bit cumbersome, especially when in Seasons they wanted you to do some obnoxious task like completely filling your Seed bag up or whatever. These days at least its fairly easy to just generate the correct code for your respective game if that's all you want, but again this is just GBC-era titles showing their age a bit.

One thing I noticed playing this is that Ages definitely seems more themed after OoT/MM in terms of the NPCs and such that show up (You even have a Lord Jabu-Jabu dungeon here!), while reading online, it seems Seasons was more themed after Zelda 1. To me that suggests intended order of games is probably Seasons > Ages, but if this game ever gets remake a la Link's Awakening, I'd like to try Ages > Seasons progression as contrast. I'd have to wonder if something like the Master Sword would be more or less helpful in Seasons' endgame.

Anyways I'm glad to have finally finished both of the Oracle titles after all these years. They may not be perfect but they're a nice little duology overall.

[Raxivace]

Four Swords is one of the very few only Zelda games I've never played. Just never had a chance to. Maybe now that they're adding GBA to Switch I'll have the chance some day.

Dunno if you saw this, but they finally added GBA LTTP/Four Sword to NSO the other day.

[Gendo]

Four Swords is one of the very few only Zelda games I've never played. Just never had a chance to. Maybe now that they're adding GBA to Switch I'll have the chance some day.

Dunno if you saw this, but they finally added GBA LTTP/Four Sword to NSO the other day.

I did! I was really happy about that... funny though I didn't remember that I'd specifically posted about hoping for that. I'd have to actually cough up the extra money for the better subscription. This year has been all about movies rather than video games with my free time, but that seems like something that will be worth it.

[Raxivace]

Four Swords is one of the very few only Zelda games I've never played. Just never had a chance to. Maybe now that they're adding GBA to Switch I'll have the chance some day.

Dunno if you saw this, but they finally added GBA LTTP/Four Sword to NSO the other day.

I did! I was really happy about that... funny though I didn't remember that I'd specifically posted about hoping for that. I'd have to actually cough up the extra money for the better subscription. This year has been all about movies rather than video games with my free time, but that seems like something that will be worth it.

Well Idk, I wouldn't pay for NSO JUST for Four Swords but being able to play that game online finally is a nice enough side in addition to everything else.

[Raxivace]

Been a while since I've gotten an update in here.


Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy (2013) - The final game in Layton's prequel trilogy. This was...not my favorite Layton tbh, and honestly mostly because of how the story was structured. The Layton games not have ever had the best stories in the world, but the first five as well the Phoenix Wright crossover all did a decent enough actually having a climax they were building up to with mysteries about whatever location you were in being introduced and solved along the way. The mysteries may not have always been very good but there was an underlying narratmive structure there that made sense.

Azran Legacy starts out well enough with Layton and the crew finding out about a "living mummy" from the long lost Azran civilization, who somehow still seems to still be alive centuries late. To solve the mystery of the Azran, they need to find five artifacts called "Azran Eggs" that are scattered across the world. This is where the game loses me, because there's a large middle section of the game where you're journeying around five separate parts of the world that have one of these Eggs, which each have their own little mini-story arc. It just kind of kills the pacing and especially any sense of build up that Layton games usually have. What doesn't help is that these sections are designed to be done in any order too, so they can't really build on each other the way the other games do with filling in details about whatever goofy steampunk city or whatever you're constantly meeting people in and learning history about and such. The constant episodic stopping and starting here just makes the story feel like a slog, especially for a game meant to conclude a trilogy. It'd probably be fine as a TV show but as a game I just don't think this works.

The actual conclusion of the game is a bit whatever too with really strange reveals about Layton's family heritage He's adopted, and also his biological brother and father are evil. Also he's not actually Herschel Layton lol., and also a betrayal from a character that kind of comes out of nowhere Seriously wtf was that Emmy twist. Like yeah I know they have to explain why she's not around in the OG trilogy but still.

Yeah this just didn't quite land for me as much as I'd like. It's weird too since the last Layton I played in Miracle Mask I thought was a high point in the series, only to go to a low point with this one.


Stellar Blade (2024) - A Korean action RPG that takes heavy inspiration from Nier: Automata. I liked this game overall, particularly the more linear levels. The story may not be setting the world on fire (Especially with how derivative it is of Automata), but it was fine for what it was.

I did play this game enough to get the Platinum Trophy, and I do think there's just a fair amount of fat that should be cut off from that aspect. Just way too many collectibles in open areas that are just a bit too big I think for my tastes. Its particularly annoying here since this does the Kingdom Hearts 1 thing where you can't open a chest if you're engaged in combat, and here enemies can get aggroed from fairly far away and will keep chasing you for the longest time if you don't just stop to fight them.

There are a lot of Resident Evil-esque notes you end up picking up too, but most of them are honestly not very interesting. There's a lot of "Oh man I hope me and my buddy make it out of this perilous event!" type of messages next to two corpses. Seriously the game does this like, literally a hundred times. I really think "less is more" works best with these kinds of things, at least if that's mostly going to be the kind of notes you're going to find for the most part.

Collectible hunting also makes some already kinda annoying levels feel even worse. I'm mainly thinking of the conveyor belt level and later section where you have to fight your way into a space station. In both of these, there's a threat of rocket launchers that you can't really damage locking onto you and they're just really fucking tedious to trapeze around or hide behind cover from or whatever you're just looking for a Health upgrade or something hidden in the level.

The sidequests can be a bit annoying too since they often send up back into levels or parts of the open areas that you probably already thought were weird, but you just can't collect anything from because you came too early- I'm mainly thinks of examples like the teddy bear you can find or the cave with grapes growing in them. Its pretty obvious these are tied to some kind of sidequests when you find them, but lol can't get them yet! The exploration just doesn't feel quite as rewarding as it should as a result, even if its still not nearly as bad in this regard as like FF16 is.

The actual gameplay is mostly pretty good, and the main character EVE is fun to control in battle and basic encounters and boss battles are fun enough (Except those guys that swim in the desert, I hate those). I wish the "Tachy Mode" you eventually unlock felt a little more empowering, but its hard to say its useless too since one of the basic combat abilities it has pretty easily stun locks enemies...its just not the most fun part of battle. The platforming can feel a little janky too, but nothing like unplayable.

I think the thing is that I actually enjoyed the game much more on my New Game+ playthrough when I was just mostly beelining the entire game, fighting enemies and bosses. When you're going for collectibles and Trophies, the game feels a bit too tedious collectathon but well that's also a choice you have to make as a player to pursue I guess. When you're just rushing through things its a fairly fun action RPG first and foremost.


Super Mario Land (1989) - Pretty mixed feelings on this too. As just a video game it doesn't feel nearly as fun to play as SMB1 or 3 or World, but by that same token what can you expect not only from a Game Boy game but one from the 1980's at that?

I have to say, as a Mario title it feels weird. I know technically the setting isn't the Mushroom Kingdom, but there are some many strange little things here. Like why do Koopas EXPLODE when you stomp on them? Why do Bullet Bills come up and down out of pipes like Piranha Plants? Why do Fireballs bounce around like pinballs? Why is the final boss a side-scrolling shooter? I mean I'm not against any of these these aspects, they're just weird.

I wonder if the side scrolling shooter levels inspired those levels in Cuphead?

Also why is there a rap song based on this game?


^Not sure if I like this more than the Zelda: Link to the Past one or not. The DK Rap, uh, competes with this too.

[Gendo]

I haven't played Super Mario Land since I was a kid, but it was definitely a childhood favorite back on the original Game Boy.

[Raxivace]

I haven't played Super Mario Land since I was a kid, but it was definitely a childhood favorite back on the original Game Boy.

I also had a copy as a kid, but never got too far into it compared to Six Golden Coins. Not sure why, and now its hard to go back to playing on original hardware over roms or NSO for me.

[Raxivace]

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (2013 - Present) - I was initially never going to play this game. I had heard that this shared a lot of the same creative team as FF16 and well as you all may remember I hated FF16 so much to the point I had given up my goal since childhood to play every mainline FF game. Tbh I had also been hesitant anyways since FF11 and FF14 are MMOs and well that's not a genre I've ever been too deeply interested in. I had tried before with games like Lord of the Rings Online and Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine and they never really clicked with me.

This is all in addition to the original version of FF14 being so bad that Square-Enix had to publicly apologize for it and completely revamp the game as A Realm Reborn. It feels weird to look back on considering FF14 is one the biggest MMOs out there now, but this game used to be reviled. I think some of that is because of FF12 and FF13 being, IMO, less than stellar games themselves and there being a lot of weird anti-Japanese sentiment in western gaming outlets at the time too. None of this is to excuse any flaws FF14 1.0 may have had, but I do think it illustrates just how far the game has come since then. Still despite out that, the FF16 connection made me want to ignore this entirely.

I have a friend who has been wanting me to try FF14 for a while though, and it happened to be on sale on Steam recently. I decided to try despite my misgivings- I don't know if its because of just how my low expectations were or if stuff like the .hack games were priming me for this, but I ended up really enjoying my time with FF14 ARR. I have to specify here because I only did the game plus "post-ARR" that is meant to lead into the major expansions this game has, but I have not tried the expansions themselves.

What really surprised me was how this game just shares very little of FF16's flaws. Cutscenes for the simplest of fetch quests are not dragged out interminably! Quests themselves (For the most part) go very quickly! Your character does not slowly move across the map! There are, gosh, multiple classes you can have your character move into and there are entire sidequest chains directly dedicated into empowering that class! There are minigames! Female characters actually get to do things!

The combat is pretty decent too. It's very similar to Xenoblade 1's system of moving around on a map while your special attacks have a cool down, though unlike XB1 you have a lot more moves and buffs to use at any given time. Because this is Final Fantasy, this is still pretty easy (Especially when playing with other players), but its fun enough and playing as an Arcanist (And eventually upgrading into Summoner) I still had to pay attention to what I was doing as a DPS.

I have to say the online components are just generally fun too. Maybe its because I'm not too used to MMOs, but it was entertaining just meeting random weirdos online, or running a dungeon with people, or doing the more extensive raids. The Crystal Tower quests in particular were a highlight of playing this for me, it was cool running a dungeon with like 23 other players. I wonder how many of those players knew that Crystal Tower was a giant love letter to, of all games, Final Fantasy III. You even fight Cloud of Darkness at the end of it!

That leads into another main aspect of the game- this is loaded with Final Fantasy references. From dialogue references like "Wild Rose" to or Titan being referred to as "Tidus", to mounts in the game being stuff like the FF15 car or the FF6 Magitek Walker, to random soldiers doing Zack Fair's goofy squats, to the Gold Saucer and Costa del Sol being here for some reason, to TRIPLE TRIAD BEING IN THE GAME. HOLY SHIT TRIPLE TRIAD! Honestly Triple Triad being here is huge since this provides yet another meaingful reward you can get from quests and dungeons in the form of Triple Triad cards, something FF16 was completely lacking.

If I had to nitpick here though, some of these aspects only feel like they exist as fanservice and not as something that necessarily as an aspect that makes sense for the story FF14 is telling. In FF7, the Gold Saucer exists as an example of the kind of genuine wonder that can be created by Mako Energy while at the same time, acknowledging that wonder comes at the cost of exploiting the planet's resources and economic dishevelment of local communities like Barret's. There's entire seedy underbelly supporting the operation too. It's really key to the central tensions of the game, something FF7 Rebirth really emphasizes. In FF14, from what I can tell the Gold Saucer only exists because its a cool thing everyone remembers from FF7. It's still fine here, mind you, and you still can go there to play minigames and hang out with people and such but a lot of the references here feel like that to me in FF14.

I generally like the story though I do have to say its not perfect. The characters are a little flat (Any attachment to them I feel is more due to fact I played this game for 70ish hours at this point), and there are a few parts where the story meanders a bit. The beginning where your create-a-character is just a rookie adventurer is a little dull since you're just doing random fetchquests for a like a farmhand and such, though it picks up once you're the "Warrior of Light". Though even after that there are still some kind of meh stretches- mainly thinking of the runup to the Titan fight here where despite it being emphasized that Titan could attack any day now you're put on fairly drawn out series of BS quests to prove you're worthy to some old heroes who fought him before and think he's too dangerous for you (He's not). Another kinda meh section is the run-up to Garuda. You need some special crystal so Cid's airship can break through their wind barrier, but you keep getting sent to NPC's that send you after the WRONG crystals, and then they say shit like "Oh you wanted X Crystal? I thought you wanted Y lmao. Go see Z about getting the right crystal" like three times in row on wild goose chase. It's like a bad comedy routine. Later on in post-ARR, I'm not thrilled at the section where you keep swapping between the hunt for Lady Iceheart and the hunt for "the Ivy".

Still I enjoyed most of the story. I like all the stuff about Ultima Weapon and the battle against it and such, and while people rag on it I like a lot of the post-ARR story. Stuff like the developing refugee crisis and how different cities respond to it are interesting to me, and is the kind of "political" storyline I thought a game like FF12 was going to be instead of a bad Star Wars ripoff. The post-ARR ends on an equivalent to Game of Thrones' Red Wedding was pretty exciting development too and I'm curious to see where the expansions take the storyline, all of which seem to have a higher reputation than ARR does.

FF14 ARR is a solid game and it just baffles me even moreso now that FF16 ended up the way it did. Seriously, what happened?

[Raxivace]

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree (2024) - The Elden Ring DLC is finally here and man is it excellent. The Lands Between is such a dense area, so many hidden little secrets and areas and sidequests, so many cool weapons and spells and such to unlock, and some very beautiful scenery. Its just so fun and really continues the base game's feeling of "Zelda 1, but for me" that I really loved so much.

There's been some controversy here about the the new progression system here in the form of Scadutree Fragments, which are used to increase the damage you take AND reduce the damage you take from enemies. It seems some people dislike it, but to me it simply incentivizes exploration. The bosses are pretty challenging for the most part even with them (Unless you're running like, op Bleed build with heavy shield) but still.

The one thing I think might sincerely be too hard is the final boss, Promised Consort Radahn who can be very difficult depending on your build. I really struggled against this guy when I was trying the Dancer weapons from the DLC that even do Bleed damage. Even with Summoning though I could not take him down.


^I eventually beat him by respeccing into a build based on this video, that could both tank and hit him with Bleed damage. At first it kind of bothered me that I even had to do this, but well Elden Ring makes respeccing easier than most other games I've played and even ties it to a boss in the base game players almost certainly come across. The other thing is that there is probably is some trick I and other people complaining just could not see here to make this easier. I'm not even talking about the videos of really OP players literally one-shotting the boss that are now coming out (And there are certainly a variety of those), but this game has such a variety of tools and such that it gives that it can be easy to forget about them. Even in the DLC itself, the swamp area with the seemingly invincible Frenzy guys straight out of BloodBorne actually have a few tricks to deal with them, beyond trying to play that section like its MGSV or Last of Us, such as parrying one of their attacks to remove their invulnerability or using an item or piece of equipment to silence your own footsteps to make sneaking around them much easier. Their might be some similar trick to the final boss I just couldn't see.

This DLC reminded me why I ever loved Elden Ring to begin with and after clearing the DLC, I started a NG+ run just so I could run through both the DLC and base game again. I'm still having a blast, its just so much fun. Not sure I'll do another big post about the game after I'm done, but I'm pretty comfortable calling Elden Ring my favorite of From's games.

EDIT: Finish my NG+ run. I ended up accidentally killing the final boss of the DLC in a very goofy way.



God I love this game.


Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (1989) - I replayed this recently through the Anniversary Collection. Not my favorite Castlevania but its still pretty fun. While this game has 4 playable characters (Trevor Belmont plus one of three partners you can unlock as you play through the game. It all depends on what route of levels you take too), I found myself mostly playing as Trevor this time around. I do think the difficulty is a bit high for this game compared to the original, but its not unmanageable. I really can't say I'm fan of how many bosses here have multiple phases or are just some kind of gauntlet (I feel like I fought the mummies several times in particular), though Dracula himself is notable here.


^I never understood how to avoid his opening flame pillars attack before finding this video, but even knowing this it still seems like you have to guesstimate a bit that you get just close enough to Dracula to hit him without the pillars spawning too close to you to the point you get trapped by them. Its still a fun fight but a bit frustrating.


Metroid Prime Pinball (2005) - I'm trying to finish off the last batch of Metroid games I have before Prime 4 comes out...the earliest being this piece of shit. I've heard for years now how "Actually this is good" or "This is great pinball game" blah blah blah. Well this is not only the worst Metroid game I've played, even beneath the original NES Metroid, but the worst pinball game I've ever played too.

The basic idea of the game is the weird kind of thing I should be into- the original Metroid Prime reinterpreted as a pinball game. All the pinball boards are based on Metroid Prime 1 locations directly, and there are enemies on the boards that straight out of Metroid Prime (Metroids, bug things, Space Pirates etc.) that will either try to shoot you or will grab you and directly try to throw you between the pinball flippers. Some boards have have special little pocket you're expected to roll into that will summon enemies and such for you to clear as a stage requirement to progress through the story mode (And clearing these stage requirements unlocks Chozo Artifacts, which you need 12 of the reach the Ridley bossfight). Most other stages have boss fights, and you damage the bosses either by rolling into them, Morph Ball Bombing them, or unlocking that boards battle segment which allows Samus to temporarily exit Morph Ball mode and blast the boss with missiles if you've unlocked them.

If you're just picking this up to play for a few minutes, its fun enough I guess. Its pinball. The big problem here is that, as far as clearing the "story" mode and getting to Ridley and then Metroid Prime itself, the game is just waaaaaaaaaay too difficult. There's no difficulty options whatsoever, and you only start with two extra lives which just isn't enough to clear even this short of a game. So many times I would fall through the flippers basically because of RNG, or because I got blasted by a Space Pirate missile in the wrong corner of the map, or because one of those god damned beetle things grabbed and threw me straight to my death. This is to say nothing of how if you die against Ridley, lives don't matter lol you just get a game over, or how ridiculous the Metroid Prime battle is.

The basic difficulty of this game either needed to be toned down or you needed either a lot more lives to start out with or for it to be easier to get more lives. Or some kind of save system, its really ridiculous that if you run out of lives you needed to start over from the very beginning! Even a lot of NES games weren't THAT cruel, and only restarted you at a world or had a cheat to skip ahead or gave you a code for continues or whatever. I was playing this on an R4 card originally but eventually I had to switch to emulator so I could use save states. This just wasn't feasible for me to clear otherwise. Make clearing the game without saves a special challenge mode or something, THIS is just unreasonable.

Bah. It's been a little while since a game has worked me up this much.

[Raxivace]

Last few months of games I've played:


New Super Mario Bros. (2006) - I was pretty surprised how stripped down this was compared to other Mario games, but well I guess the name is kind of a hint. I like the addition of wall jumps and such, but at its core this is just solid Mario gameplay. Love the boxart here too.

I thought the Mega Mushroom was a cool addition though, even if it kind of trivialized the last boss lol.


Guilty Gear (1998) - Finally got around to trying this series. Pretty solid fighter and I can see why this series held its own against the best of Capcom and SNK's titles. Really my only issue here is a technical one with the Steam port- apparently something about how modern monitors cause the game to run waaaaay too fast, meaning I needed to download a framerate limiter to play the game at a reasonable speed. Otherwise I think it holds up just fine.


KonoSuba: God's Blessing on this Wonderful World! Love For These Clothes Of Desire! (2020) - A visual novel/sim thing based on the anime series Konosuba, and really would only be of interest to people who were already fans of that. The basic idea is the gang from the anime finds a magical stone that can make magical clothes, which they're using to make amends with a corrupt nobleman who has accused them of stealing and wants to have them executed. To make the clothes though, you need materials, and you get those materials from assigning characters to specific tasks over an amount of in-game days and such. But you can't always get materials you need directly, you sometimes need to make other clothes first to open up other tasks you need to farm materials and so on, all while on in-game time limit through calendar system.

Again its kind of licensed game that's really only for pre-existing fans of the source material. I had fun with it for what it was.


Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024) - Went back and finished up the Platinum for this game. With all the various guides out there now on YouTube, Hard Mode wasn't too bad and most of the minigames except the piano one weren't that hard.

The hardest part though was honestly the VR challenges. Most of them weren't too bad actually, but there were two that were very ridiculously difficult- "Rulers of the Outer World" and "Bonds of Friendship".

Ruler of the Outer World was ridiculous five round gauntlet- the first three had you fighting two summons at once, the fourth round had you fighting a powered up Gilgamesh, and the final round had you fighting Virtual Sephiroth who frankly was just ridiculous boss fight that could more or less do anything he wanted, like disabling characters and such, in addition to high DPS. At least here you could form whatever party you wanted.

Bonds of Friendship only allowed you to have a party of Cloud and Zack and while you only fought one boss at time, this whole was a 10 round gauntlet and you're stuck with Zack's preset loadout. This was by far hardest thing in the game I feel, since there's little you can do to cheese this. Even with the "best" setup if Round 2 went badly for me it was likely I would just have to drop the whole run, and then Rounds 9 and 10 having you fight Bahamut and Odin repetitively were really difficult.

For both of these I had to rely on YouTube guides and even then it wasn't a sure thing to win.





That this second video even had to give steps as specifically as it did is pretty telling. Most other challenges didn't require to be as exact as these were- as long as you had good Materia setup you were good to go. Here you needed that, and the right steps, and RNG to kinda go in your favor.


Parasite Eve (1998) - Fun mix of survival horror and RPG elements. I liked the customization you could do for guns and equipment. The combat mixing ATB and real time is an interesting precursor to the battle systems of games like FF7 Remake/Rebirth too.

I do think the amount of combat could get repetitive though and combat itself sometimes felt a bit slow. I was a little annoyed that I got almost softlocked for saving past a point of no return, being low on bullets and healing items, but with save state abuse and the way MP (Called PE here) recharges I was able to get through the last run of bosses. It is a little annoying though that your PE stops recharging after a while if you don't switch your armor around. Just kinda weird and unnecessary mechanic that I didn't even realize was a factor in the game here until the very end.


Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation (2015) - The final route of FE Fates, this one focused on getting Hoshido and Nohr to actually join together. For a time I think this was digital only game (With exception of certain special edition cartridge which is now very rare), but with the 3DS online store no longer being online, well, lol.

This was again hardly my favorite FE game. The maps I think are mostly okay but they like throwing occasional tedious gimmick at you like making you waste turns plow through snow to discover enemies, or wait for platforms to move so you can traverse and stuff like that. I have to say I really am not a big of fan of the "Revelation" here that there was a secret third kingdom this entire time. It just seems to undermine the entire dramatic conceit of the Nohr/Hoshido conflict, especially once you get the reveal that Corrin is royalty of this third kingdom and not actually blood related to the Hoshidans at all. Corrin's initial dramatic arc is being torn between the fascistic Nohr who raised them but they actually have memories of and current emotional connections to, but being actually blood related to the victimized Hoshido who they have no actual memories of. There's legitimate argument to be made about which counts as their "real" family, is it about bonds or blood, but Revelation undermines entire dramatic conceit of the whole three games Fates project. One of the strangest things I've ever seen in gaming.

I also did all the DLC too. They're mostly okay, I particularly liked the "Heirs of Fate" DLC chapters that are a sort of alternate campaign where all the adult characters are killed off and the child characters have to solve the conflict on their own. Very Genealogy of the Holy War vibes. The biggest problem though is that the DLC is kinda harder in general and when you're locked to preset units, the difficulty can feel a bit overtuned. Which would be fine, except you can't save at the beginning of the map for some of these. If you need to reload, you have to load into main menu of the base game, and then click onto world map and select DLC menu, then select DLC mission, and then skip through cutscenes, and then finally you get back into the mission. It gets very tedious very fast if you're stuck on a mission and you're playing on Hard Mode like I was.