Tag Archives: RPG

Tales of Bersaria Review

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Tales Of is one of those franchises that is always amazing. I have yet to play a bad title in the series and it has been fun slowly catching up with all of the titles that have come out. They don’t release as often as in the past but I suppose that’s true for pretty much all of the big video game series. I have yet to play all of the Final Fantasy titles either but in this franchise I was even more behind so it was time to change that. I have another title that I’m in the middle of so you can expect another review in the future. For now though, I think it will be an uphill battle for any title to beat Bersaria. This was such an intense title.

The game begins with Velvet taking care of her brother with the help of her mentor Artorius. Unfortunately he betrays her one day when he sacrifices her brother and imprisons her in a monster tower. She is stunned by this betrayal and now lives only for revenge. No matter who or what she has to sacrifice, Velvet will avenge her brother. This begins her tale of woe and tragedy.

With a 30+ hour title like this, you can bet that the story will be taking a lot of twists and turns as it goes on. The main cast gets fairly large and Velvet really learns how to interact with each other. Any series with revenge as a core theme is going to have to deal with forgiveness, sadness, and the cycle of violence. The game deals with all of that very well and I agreed with a lot of Velvet’s decisions. Characters kept trying to get her off this path of revenge but she was fighting at every corner.

Mix that in with the incredible cinematics and ost and you have a very intense game. I always appreciate it when a game goes the extra mile to have fully animated cinematics in addition to the main cutscenes. The songs are all really good as well and so you will be on the edge of your seat the whole time. An RPG must have a great story to justify the long play time and this one certainly does.

The core gameplay is much more complicated than the average title in the franchise. You have to balance your 3 characters as normal but you can only attack based on the amount of gems you have on hand. You must steal them from your opponents while also saving some for defense and character switching. All the way to the end of the game I can tell you that I never fully understood this system. There are over 50 tutorials at the beginning of the game and they ended up just overloading my brain.

I had to rely on my old button mashing skills to find some good combos and then I stuck to those. I will say that items are incredibly useful in this game. You absolutely need them in order to keep on healing and to keep your status up. You can spam items like crazy in this game and you just have to watch out for the lag when using one. It is less useful in one on one combat. There are very few of those boss fights but they tend to be the most difficult ones when they appear.

There are also a lot of collectibles in the game. You can grab vegetables which permanently increase your stats. Yes, these are as helpful as they sound. You should always make a detour to grab those when possible. The treasure chests confused me a bit because they seem to actually respawn. I may have been imagining things though. I still recommend opening them all and using the pink chests when you have enough orbs set up. I was mainly doing this to get some trophies but ultimately I beat the game before I had opened enough of them.

In addition to the main story you naturally have a lot of side quests as well so the game is not lacking in content by any means. There is always a whole lot to do here and there are always ways to get stronger. The EXP gains dramatically slow down as you get to the end of the game but you should still be fine. Grinding is just a part of these RPGs after all and I have to admit that I always have fun with this part. It just feels good to watch yourself gradually getting stronger. It’s why I never like when an RPG has enemies auto scale to your level and fortunately this one doesn’t do that.

There are over 500 optional cutscenes as well which is a crazy amount. This game is just super detailed and I appreciate that. You really get to know all of the characters and I can say that this was a really strong main cast. I dare say that they are in one of the higher tiers as far as that is concerned. Artorius also makes for a great villain with how the game sets up his character early on. So you know the guy and he does think of himself as the villain. Break an egg to cook 100 omelets kind of thing. His plan has a logic to it without a doubt but it makes sense that Velvet would oppose this.

The production values are through the roof and I really have no negative things to say about this game. It is just utterly fantastic even if it has a really depressing ending. Perhaps one day it will get a sequel but I suppose I just have to recognize that these grand adventures often have a pretty sad ending. You’re not usually going to get to see everyone reach their happy ever after even if I wish that were the case.

Overall, Tales of Bersaria is a game that I absolutely recommend all the way. It is a terrific experience. Some RPGs can take time to get going but this one starts off amazing within the first 20 minutes. I also had fun with the game’s built in customization which is a little cherry on top. Either way if you like action and adventure then you have to buy this game. It can hold its own with any RPG and gives you that somber feeling when it’s all over. You just want games like this to go on forever. The game is difficult but you can always grind your way through it, such is the art of the RPG.

Overall 9/10

Wild Arms Review

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It’s time for a really old school RPG. I’ve owned Wild Arms 3 for many years and hadn’t ever gotten around to it before. Well, now I’m one step closer to checking that game out. This one’s a whole lot of fun so I can only imagine how much they continue polishing the gameplay mechanics from here on out. Wild Arms is considerably long and it’s also quite challenging. If you’re looking for a great game to play, then you’ve just found one!

The game starts off by introducing us to 3 main characters. The first is a man who was cursed with the power of ARMS which some consider to be a sign of bad luck. The second is a bounty hunter who travels with his sidekick who looks like a rat in search of great treasures while also being on a quest of vengeance. Finally you have the priestess who has ties to royalty. The three of them are all brought together as an evil force seeks to resurrect all of the golems and destroy the planet. These 3 unlikely teammates will have to foil these plans but it won’t be easy.

Now this is a game that is well over 20 hours so you can bet that there will be a lot of twists and turns along the way. The game gets real cosmic by the end and just never stopped impressing me all the way. The story is really engaging and the cast actually gets rather large. The villains are also a lot of fun as we get a formal villain group. I always enjoy seeing that and each of the villains really got some time to shine. The main leader of the group in particular just kept getting up over and over again. He’s not someone who would be giving up very easily.

One of the phases to the final boss fight even got me good. He had me locked into an unwinnable situation where he attacked first with a teamwide KO move. So I had to rewind to the previous phase and adjust my strategy. Without rewind this would even be crazier. I would have definitely had to do a lot of extra grinding but it’s safe to say that this is one of the tougher RPGs. I’m curious if the next one will be quite as difficult as this game was.

The gameplay is a classic turn based style. Each of your characters get to use their attacks and then the opponents strike. The turn order is based on your speed. You can use normal attacks, magic, super attacks, and summons. You learn magic at the local shop by using talismans but can reroll your spells at any time. Buying the latest equipment is also very important here. As a result money is a premium currency throughout the game. You really can’t do much of anything without money. You’ll be left without items or weapons to survive the encounters with.

Generally I prioritize getting the weapons first and then the shields. It’s also important to note that you cannot buy MP items in this game. Meaning if you run out of magic meter then you have to go find an inn. For that reason I saved just about all of my MP items for the final boss. As the meme goes, that meant I beat the game while still having a lot of MP items left. Ah well, I still thought that was worth it. Better safe than sorry right?

The wild encounters are fairly aggressive in this game. You can expect to be fighting minions a whole lot and they don’t let you run away unless you are vastly overleveled. That’s something that I think the game could have toned down quit a bit. Towards the end of the game you learn a spell to reduce encounters but the catch is that it costs quite a bit of magic that you will need for the bosses. The final dungeons in general are really long and detailed so you can expect to be using a whole lot of magic left and right.

It also feels absolutely amazing to finally have quick travel by the end of the game. Trust me when I say that this title really makes you work for it though. You don’t get it for the longest time which means a lot of running everywhere straight into more minions to defeat. The enemies are always going to be tough enough to deal some damage and their curses can be tough to brush off. Make sure you buy some of every kind of medicine.

The game’s puzzles can be a bit difficult at times too. This is one of those titles that is just old enough where it can be hard to know where to go next at different points. There aren’t always obvious markers of where to go. So in those times just be prepared to visit each town over and over until you have a lead. I’m not the biggest fan of puzzles in general but I couldn’t say that any of these were unfair.

Meanwhile the graphics for the game are definitely ahead of their time. I enjoyed all of the effects and the colorful backgrounds. Additionally after the credits we see a bunch of hand drawn illustrations of what the characters would have looked like. That was definitely neat and I also thought that the soundtrack was pretty good. There may not have been any tunes that made it to my playlist but I was still satisfied all the way through.

Overall, This is the kind of game where you get a ton of bang for your buck. There may not be much in the way of replay value but RPGs really don’t have to rely on that. You get to just go in and have a bunch of fun all around. The story is really good and I always enjoy turn based combat. Mix those two elements together and you have all the makings of a great game. Wild Arms does not disappoint! I eagerly look forward to playing the second one.

Overall 8/10

Sword of Vermilion Review

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It’s time for another old Genesis title. This is actually the last one that I had yet to play so this feels like a really big milestone. Older games can be really hit or miss and it all comes down to if they had good quality of life features or not. This one doesn’t really have anything like that unfortunately so it ends up being a bit of a chore to get through. I don’t see how you would have had much fun with it back in the day.

The game introduces us to a hero who must stop villains from destroying the world. There are 8-12 rings of power that have been scattered as if they were Fire Emblems. If they are not united quickly, then all hope is lost. This hero is rocked to his core when he finds out that his father isn’t really his dad and everything he knew has been a lie. Still, he emotionlessly processes this and goes on the journey. There will be time to grieve later on.

Okay so there are some different gameplay styles here. The main one is an overhead style like Legend of Zelda where you have to walk through the map and go to the next town or dungeon. Here is the twist though, random encounters will attack you every few steps. This means you are in battles nearly constantly. Yes, you can run away but often times it will be difficult to do this without taking some damage. You will be surrounded on all sides and attacked. Additionally sometimes the enemy will appear right on top of you which causes unavoidable damage. That was super annoying.

Then the overhead map is not visible so you are walking in the darkness. To get around this you need to find a map. You can get this by talking to everyone in the town after a special event has happened. You did that and still didn’t get a map? Then you have to do it again! Sometimes it can take up to 3 times for someone to give you a map. I don’t know how you are supposed to know this initially and so I played the game for close to 2 hours scrambling around in the dark before I had to go online and find out what was going on.

Once you have the formula, then that helps a lot because the game sticks to it. You will be going to all of the towns and getting the maps. Towards the end of the game they will stop giving you maps and then you have to find them randomly outside. That part is rough but fortunately in one of the last towns you get a new item that lets you activate a fake map for all areas. Super awesome but way too late in the game for that. Then you also have the caves which are the same thing but even worse. You are wandering through them in total darkness until you buy a lamp or get a luminous spell. That lets you see your immediate area but the rest of the map is dark until you find the map in there.

I spent a good amount of my time in the game just wandering around the caves. Not a good feeling, trust me! I must have gone around in circles so many times with dead end after dead end. The game took me nearly 20 hours to complete when the actual campaign is much shorter than that. The enemies also deal a whole lot of damage so you’re going to want some time to grind them down in order to build up both EXP and money. If you are lacking in either category then you’re in trouble. You need the money for high powered equipment and you need the exp in order to buff up your stats. Both types of grinding can take a little while and you will need to head back to town often to heal.

The game does get better by the very end because that is when you have all of your quality of life upgrades but man does it take a long while to get up to that point. That’s really the problem if you ask me. You shouldn’t have a game that is this painful to get through. The problems all boil down to the crazy high spawn rate and the lack of a map. The game should definitely provide you with one while exploring the caves and land or at least heavily reduce the spawn rate. Doing both things at once is diabolical.

I’d also say that the boss battles can get a little cheesy. You have to swing at fireballs coming at you while also taking down minions before you can reach the main boss. Then once you’re there, if you touch him you will end up dying. So you have to slash from a safe range and your sword doesn’t go very far. It makes every boss fight a matter of inches instead of just letting you relax and slice away at him. The Switch Online allows you to rewind which is something I had to do a whole lot of here. Without those features I don’t know how I would have gotten past this.

I suppose the realistic answer is I would have had to keep on leveling up and getting stronger but it would really be an annoying process from start to finish. Boss battles are supposed to be fun, not an active chore that you try to avoid. That’s the big error that this game makes, it simply isn’t fun to play. More than once I would beat a boss and go back to base to talk to the king, only to find out that I missed an item in the dungeon and have to go all the way back. The game keeps on hitting you with the most random effects like in another instance hitting me with a super poison that cannot be cured and the only way to stop it is to find a plant deep in a random dungeon.

The graphics aren’t bad, they are pretty standard for the Genesis. The soundtrack also isn’t impressive but again it’s nothing crazy. So I can’t fault the game in those areas. The game simply struggles across all of its gameplay mechanics and not thinking of the player in how they all work. This is really an experience that is more for people who really want to take their time exploring a new world. Even then, I dare say that they will have a much better time with almost any other game. I mean that quite literally as there are very few games to get under a 5 for me.

Overall, You should definitely give this one a skip. It’s not the kind of game that will change your mind on retro experiences in general. This just makes you wish for a return to the 2026 type of titles that just wow your mind with how amazing they are. You want a game that plays very smoothly and has the top of the line graphics and music. Those are the games that really get to you. Go play Kigndom Hearts for PS2 instead of this one.

Overall 3/10

Crusader of Centy Review

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It’s time for one of the last Genesis games that I hadn’t gotten around to yet. A long time ago I started it but never finished the title. This time would be different, this time I would finally get to go on the full journey. Unfortunately I would not say that it fares much better than the first time. If I’m being honest, the game just isn’t all that good. Not every game is going to be the next big thing so I get it. This is also a much older title so they didn’t have a lot of the modern quality of life features by this point.

The game starts by introducing us to a kid who has just become of age and must now leave home with his sword to fight off the monsters. It is a tradition in the village and so the boy looks forward to dealing as much damage as possible. His pet dog will accompany him on the journey. As the hero goes forth into the unknown he meets up with a lot of other animals who join his party. The monsters are powerful but they can’t stop the lead. The plot takes a turn when time travel is introduced and the monsters decide to start a dialogue. Is the kid really on the right side?

I think the biggest tragedy in this game is how ambitious the story is. This is absolutely not a story that was ready to be told by this rpg. One character even mentions how humans are the real monsters and the story is getting really emotional but doesn’t really have the time to delve into this. We see how the monsters have been getting genocided by the humans for dozens of years and there was nothing that could be done. Through time travel the hero is able to right some of these wrongs but it’s not so much a happy ending as it is one about dodging the problem entirely. Sometimes that is the only way to get past an issue I guess.

Where the game falls flat is with the puzzles. Often times they are way too vague with no real indicator of what to do. One of them revolves around scouring the beach for a single spot where you steps don’t appear on the ground. This means you have to jump on that spot in order to proceed. Another puzzle has a similar gimmick but it takes a while to get to every step and you have enemies trying to hit you at all times. If not for the powers of constant rewind thanks to the Nintendo Switch Online, I’d have died so many times. It is hard to get your health back in this game too because there are no potions or healing spells.

If you want to get health back then you have to keep on slashing some grass and hope to find an apple. It’s a much more tedious process compared to what it should be since the apple spawn rates are incredibly low. The main gameplay style here is that of an overhead platformer. You have to jump and slash away at obstacles and solve puzzles by moving things together. You get about 12-16 animals and each one has a different power that lets you solve more puzzles. These include fire breath, super speed, boomerang sword throws, swimming, etc.

Every time you get an animal you can bet that there will be some new puzzles involving that creature. Then when it comes to the boss battles, they tend to have weaknesses to different combinations so you need to switch up your animal combinations until you get to the right one. At least in this area I can say that the boss fights were creative in a fun way. One of them was a Pac-Man homage as you have to eat all of the fruits before moving on to the next level. If the game focused more on the boss fights than the platforming we would have had a good game here.

The pacing just died every time you have to solve another puzzle or go through the same world for the 3rd time to see what changed. You can boil this all down to the game just making things tedious instead of fun which is often one of the critical issues that an older game can make. As long as you can get past that, then you’ll be in a better spot. Newer games tend to at least give you some hints on the puzzles if you are stuck long enough.

Either make the puzzles clearer or give more ways to solve them. I think the animal gimmick is actually decent if handled right. I always like unlocking more skills as I get through a game. It almost has that Metroidvania feel to it and the best ones in that genre do allow you to get stronger. Throw in a level up system and a way to get through each world quicker whenever you have to revisit one. If you follow those two tenets then typically you can survive some level of puzzles. It is a tight balance though.

The soundtrack’s okay but not exactly something to write home about. As far as the graphics go, I thought they were decent. Certainly not bad or anything so I wouldn’t dock any points there. It is clear that the game had a vision and that’s important. There isn’t going to be much replay value here as the game just ends. It does have a bit of a cliffhanger for a sequel so that was bold of the game. The runtime is fairly decent, I’d say this will last you around 5-6 hours in total and probably more based on the puzzles.

Overall, Crusader of Centy is one of those games that just hasn’t aged well. I’ve always said that if I grew up in the old days of consoles, I may not have ended up being a big gamer. I feel like there were just too many games like this one which simply weren’t a whole lot of fun. You would have your high moments but the low ones overshadow it. At the very least maybe I’d just focus on Nintendo games for a while there. Still, if you have the Switch Online then you may as well try out this game since it’s free. No real reason not to right?

Overall 4/10

.Hack//G.U. Last Recode Review

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It’s time to jump into the world of .Hack GU. This series always looked like a blast but I wasn’t able to jump into it for a long while because getting Part 4 of the original series was really tricky. Well, now I’m here and the series lives up to the hype. It does a good job of bringing in the best parts of the old games while dropping the annoying parts (Cores grinding) so the whole thing feels very streamlined. It also has a whole lot of content within the games outside of the story which is already at least 35-40 hours between the 4 games.

The games follow a guy named Haseo who plays an online MMORPG called: The World. This game allows you to have a good time with your friends as you clear various events and get treasure. One day, his teammate is murdered within the game by a mysterious player named Tri-Edge and she falls into a coma in the real world. Haseo spends a lot of time getting all the way to the max level in the game and tracks down Tri-Edge. Unfortunately he is defeated and somehow reset back to level 1. Haseo will need to regain his strength and also find some way to beat this guy. Normal power is not enough, Haseo will need abilities that transcend that of the game itself.

Right away you’ve got some high stakes here. Tri-Edge is somehow able to murder players from within the game and that makes everything scary. He also looks like Kite, the main character of the first 4 games. So something odd is going on and as the games continue you get a lot of plot twists and new events going into this. The story flows rather seamlessly and the collection even brings a mini 4th game that works as an epilogue to the events. It’s technically a really short game compared to the first 3 but is still a lot of fun to play through. The games are all similar but still different so lets break this down a bit.

The first one has your basic 3D action gameplay. You are able to fight enemies at different locations and gradually get stronger. You have a bike that you can use to travel across areas with great speed and ultimately make a lot of headway. Your main weapon can be swapped a lot as you grow stronger and you can seamlessly link combos. The hub world feels pretty large and you will meet a lot of characters. You gain levels rather quickly as well so even if you are underleveled you can fix that without too much trouble. The sheer amount of content can even be a little intimidating with all of the quests outside of the main story missions but that is a good problem to have.

Then we have part 2 which adds some things like the vs battle mode, upgradable bikes, and the ability to equip different weapons at once. The combat is slowed down a little bit as you can’t link cancel your moves anymore. Still really smooth though and the rest of the game is just as intense. The first one’s story had the benefit of the mystery beginnings but this one also throws in the plot of temporarily getting trapped in the game itself. That would have to be a scary thing. Also I should mention that every game has an obligatory tournament which us fun to see. This game may have had the best climax and cliffhanger ending.

In part 3, things are fine tuned even more. There aren’t too many actual additions compared to the first two games though. At this point you are juggling multiple hub worlds in addition to the rest of the content though. It really feels like you are approaching the end of the adventure and there are a whole lot of bosses. It’s also fun to be fighting enemies while being over level 100 though. There aren’t too many RPGs where that is the case after all.

Finally part 4 is a much more scaled down version. You unlock a new form which seals all of your other equipments and most of the bonus content is turned off. It makes sense as this is purely to finish off the story. We get a lot of nice looking cutscenes and a fun epilogue. The boss battle at the end is also reasonably tough. I ended up making it to level 150 and hit the level cap at the end which was cool. In general the giant kaiju fights were definitely pretty fun. I wouldn’t say they were as good as the normal gameplay but they were a fun change of pace too.

So you’ve got a ton of content here. Aside from the story being about 40 hours long, clearing all the content and getting the Platinum trophy would probably add another 15 hours or so to it. It doesn’t look like an unreasonable platinum either but it’s not exactly a top priority for me while I work on games where I have a lower trophy score. If you’re worried about playing this game because of all the grinding from the original then you shouldn’t worry about it. This game has virtually 0 grinding which is a nice change of pace. You may have to get some levels but like I said that part’s pretty fast. I ended up doing a few dedicated level grinding batches and then I would one tap every enemy for the next 5-7 areas.

The graphics are also really good as you’d expect. Everything looked super sharp and the gameplay is on point. The colors are sharp at all times. Meanwhile the soundtrack is also great. It definitely has more of a rock motif to it compared to the old games but the openings to each title feel like classic .Hack. Likewise I enjoyed the endings for each of them. These games really kept The World as a mysterious kind of game which I appreciated. I may not have played “The World” if it were real but I can see the appeal.

Overall, .Hack Gu is definitely an elite title. I also think collections in general tend to be a buff when all the games are good. Individually these games would have all been 8s with the last one being a 7 but when they are all packaged together it becomes a 9 because of the sheer length. This is not the kind of game that you can complete in a weekend and that’s a good thing. I’m definitely eager to see how the next game goes in the saga. The timing of their announcing a new .Hack game now was certainly perfect!

Overall 9/10

.Hack//Quarantine Part 4 Review

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After 8 years since part 3, it was time to dive into the final part. This one is incredibly difficult to get a hold of because it is completely out of print. Usually it goes for hundreds and hundreds of dollars so you’re really expecting a grand climax here. It was definitely fun to see the ending and everything about the game was nostalgic. That said, it is fairly short next to the other games and you’ll breeze through it. The longest part here was definitely just grinding normal enemies for the virus cores.

The story begins with the heroes preparing for their final battle. The Wave is approaching and intends to end everyone once and for all. The World is in danger and if this attempt to stop the Wave fail, then it will be too late to save anyone who is already in a coma. To prepare for this, the heroes have to defeat phases 7 and 8 of the virus. Get ready for some long dungeons.

So the game makes up for a lack of new dungeons by having absolutely massive ones in the area that remain. One of them is close to 20 floors and that dungeon took me around 2 hours to complete. Imagine losing at the end of that right? The boss had 6 phases and he wasn’t even the final boss. Granted, the final boss technically had less phases with 5 but was still really difficult to defeat. These are styled as raid bosses so they are meant to take a long while. Of course that means it would be rough to die when you’re deep into a boss. Fortunately I never lost in a phase after the first one. The first phase of one boss did manage to take me for a spin several times but then I got used to him.

I recommend having 100 revives, restoratives, and potions with you at all time. A single boss can have you using close to 80% of that. Also make sure to stock your allies with these as well for when the boss hits you with an unblockable/undodgeable one hit KO move. That may sound cheesy but every boss in the final game has this ability. It’s probably one of the only games I can think of where you can be taken down in one hit at level 99. That is super crazy but does reinforce how big teamwork is here.

You will need to set up your teammates with their orders and then dynamically continue to issue new ones the whole time. You really have to stay sharp because if you stop for even an instant then you might lose. Make sure you keep several different equipment’s ready for every part so that you can shift elements as needed. The bosses are constantly switching after all and so you have to do that as well. You can only hold around 30 types of items at a time though so you will always be running on full.

Another thing to keep in mind here is that the final dungeon has a ton of data enemies. These cannot be defeated until you have hit them with Data Drain. The problem? That increases your corruption levels. The more you do it, the more “glitches” affect your character. The effects are drastic like casting negative spells on your teammates or even losing entire level ups. I lost 2-3 levels during the final dungeon. There is even a chance that you can jump right into a game over screen. Fortunately that didn’t happen to me but I can tell you that I was definitely feeling the pressure here. My corruption level was deep in the red at the time so I knew that I was right on the border here. One wrong hit and that would be it.

The most annoying part of the game is definitely about obtaining virus cores though. Basically you have to hit enemies with your data drain ability and sometimes they will drop a core or an item. You then have to run back to an older world and best enemies to lower your corruption level and then try again. There is a lot of repetition here. Also you won’t get more than 1 EXP per enemy when you data drain them so this slows down your progress. You need a ton of cores for the final dungeons. I spent over half of my time in this game getting cores. There may be a faster way to do it but this was the best way that I knew.

I will say that the game does have a lot of replay value in terms of other dungeons. There are almost an unlimited amount of dungeons you could play through for fun. Additionally there are a lot of side quest dungeons to play through and even little games like tag against a demon. Those all help to add up to the play through if you want to have fun there. The game even has a post game with some more crazy dungeons. Getting trough that will definitely not be easy.

The graphics have aged pretty well. It definitely feels a whole lot like you are inside of an MMORPG. You get full on cutscenes and of course the text ones. The full voice acting also feels ahead of its time here. Finally the soundtrack is also pretty good. A lot of great tunes all the way around and at this point they feel pretty iconic. The 4 .Hack games really lasted a long while and it feels great to have made it to the end.

Overall, This was a fun way to end the saga. It was fun to be able to keep my levels from the first 3 games. Starting this one around the 70s after all was pretty impressive. I also like the way the level up system has a consistent 1000XP for each level and how much you get is just based on your level. I could do without the virus core mechanics though. It really feels like that doesn’t add a whole lot to anything. It’s more of a needless grind than anything. I suppose a lot of games ill have something like this to extend the play time but I’d prefer to have more main dungeons or something instead. Now I can finally go ahead and play the .Hack GU games and I can safely say that I have really high hopes for those. They always looked like a ton of fun. This next installment of 4 games shouldn’t take me as long as the first 4.

Overall 7/10

Final Fantasy IX Review

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It feels good to be playing through all of the mainline Final Fantasy titles like this. Final Fantasy IX is definitely one of those great games that has withstood the test of time. The game’s length is impressive and also delivers on great gameplay and a solid story. At the end of the day there is nothing to worry about as it delivers on every aspect of what you would want a video game to do. I highly recommend playing through this one whenever you have the chance.

The story introduces us to Zidane who is a wandering thief. He works with a fake theater troupe who go around robbing from kingdoms and doing whatever they want. Their latest plan is to kidnap princess Garnet but the twist occurs when Zidane finds out that she wants to be kidnapped. Well, the end result is the same now so he manages to get her away from the kingdom where her mother is trying to take over the world or some reason. She even intends to harm princess Garnet so Zidane will need to protect her. He may have finally found the love of his life so his days of being a flirt may be over.

The gameplay is more of a classic Final Fantasy than the last one. You still have active turns so you can’t think for too long about what you want to do but you also don’t have to worry about enemies auto scaling to your level. If an opponent is too difficult then you can run around fighting minions for a while to get your groove back. You learn skills based on your weapons and if you win enough battles then you will master the ability and won’t lose it when you switch weapons. For this reason, I actually didn’t learn the ability to flee a battle until later in the game. It worked out though since it forced me to fight a lot and gain a ton of EXP in the process.

There is a new mechanic in the game known as stealing though. As Zidane, you use this to take something from enemies which is often a potion or some kind of status item. Bosses can drop some really good equipment though so I recommend using this when needed. Also if you use the ability around 700 times then you will be able to use a move that does the max amount of damage possible in the game. (9999) You will need a special piece of equipment to use this but can get is decently early on through synthesis.

I aimed to use steal as much as possible but in the end I didn’t use it enough for the technique to be handy before I completed the game. So maybe this tip isn’t actually all that useful. The main character really his like a tank in normal gameplay anyway so you should be fine. The game is definitely difficult the way any good RPG should be so you will definitely need to stop and train sometimes.

Fortunately the PS5 version lets you speed up the game by 3X so that makes the battles fast. Some of the animations are quite long so otherwise it would have taken longer. The game also has other options like an instant win mode but using those would be as if you weren’t even playing the game so I wouldn’t recommend that. You still want a feeling of pride and accomplishment from completing the title after all.

Meanwhile the graphics are definitely really good. They went all out on the big budget animations but even the in game graphics are really good. The game decides to show off near the very end by doing a long action segment while using the sprites instead of the CG models. Basically the game looks really good at all times. The soundtrack is also really good. I really enjoyed the battle theme. It was a solid remix from previous games and had an excellent start.

I also liked the main boss theme which was really catchy and Kuja had a good theme too. What really stood out was the final boss theme. Like the Jenova theme from FFVII, it starts out slow and then really comes alive. When you hear that fast paced tune come on, it really changes the whole dynamic of the fight. It just gets you really hype the whole time. It felt climactic as the ending should go.

The main game should take you over 30 hours and there is plenty of replay value here. You’ve got a lot of characters to challenge to card fights and tons of side quests and islands to explore. Getting the Platinum for this game would really be quite the ordeal. The trophies don’t exactly look hard but are definitely very hard. You’ll be here for a very long time so you’ve really got a tremendous amount of bang for your buck. It’s what every Final Fantasy fan looks forward to after all.

Then even if you’re just here for the story, it’s a masterpiece as always. Characters have to deal with their origins and what it really means to be alive. You have several fake outs for different characters as well as who the main villain is. A lot of characters all have their own agendas and are given moments to shine. This also may be Bahamut’s best game ever. He is treated as an unstoppable force and while he does get power creeped later on, his initial appearance is crazy hype. You’ve even got a big romance going on here if that’s your thing.

The game also balances the quality of life features well. At first you have to run everywhere, then you get a boat to speed things up, and finally you get a high speed airship. The game makes travelling fun and allows it to get easier as you go through the game. So this was a game that really thought of the player at all times and those little things really matter. There’s also a ton of variance in the kinds of builds you can have with your characters. So your gameplay experience may drastically differ from someone else’s even when using the same characters. You get to fight the way that you want to.

Overall, Final Fantasy IX is definitely an elite game. You’ll realize that early on from just how much fun it is and that feeling never really dies. With this I’ve played well over half of the mainline Final Fantasy titles which definitely feels good. I’m not all the way there yet of course but still making progress. If the long length worries you, I’d just say to pace yourself. A long game is a good thing because it gives you more time to learn about the characters.

Overall 8/0