Azure Saga: Pathfinder is a competent but generic game that will likely only appeal to fans of the genre, to fall back on a reviewer’s cliché. The cutesy graphics and interesting ecological sci-fi narrative are effective and the combat mechanics skilfully bring together inspirations from across the history of the genre, but it does little to innovate the JRPG. I spent most of my playthrough ticking off an imaginary bingo card of genre clichés in my head and was ready to shout ‘House’ way before the final boss.

It's got a great cast of characters and some interesting elements of combat all tied together in rather pretty art. Sadly, the music is a lot less memorable than the art and didn't do much to push scenes and tension along. Moreover, much of the exploration felt lackluster in comparison to the rest of the game, and I wish more had been done to make that a bit more interesting. Overall, I think a rather enjoyable game that's good for a play through if these sorts of games are your thing.

Azure Saga: Pathfinder is easily recommendable to people who can stand flawed games as the core of the world and the combat system are very enjoyable and entertaining for the price-range and can actually in some aspects be seen as a textbook example of how to make a good JRPG.