TJ_of_Carolina

The main strong points here are the story, the skill system, and the music. I won’t explain the story too much because it’s something to be experienced but it involves the soldier main characters awakening to their emotions and consciousness, whilst having to cope with violence and cannibalism being a necessity for survival even though they (Or maybe just Argilla) would prefer to be pacifist. There’s this consistent somber tone throughout the game which I love. The setting of the Junkyard is interesting. The endlessly warring tribes of the Junkyard obey the rules and doctrine of the karma temple, a neutral party that governs all, which they do not question at all until gaining their Atma. The tribes fight to try and conquer one another for eternity. There are some interesting plot twists that recontextualize everything. Much of the plot of this game is foreshadowing, and not much is actually revealed in the first game. I went into this game having bought both at the same time, knowing each game is basically 1 half of the same game, at least story-wise. The voice acting is excellent, especially for an English dub of a JRPG from 2005 (Final Fantasy X, one of the first major JRPGs with voice acting, released in 2003 2 years earlier) All of the actors have a lot of energy in their line delivery and deliver just the emotion needed. A standout is Angel who has a bombastic menacing villain voice. The skill system is enthralling, it gives basically every party member unlimited customization and potential. How it works is you can buy a skill from the grid for money, once you do you have to battle and eat enemies to unlock the skill for use. Once you get a skill you have it forever without having to delete skills on any of your party members. (Unlike nocturne or basically any other JRPG) You can give any party member any skill with grinding and by the end, each party member will have rosters of 70ish skills. You still can only use a certain amount of skills in battle but you can switch out skills in the pause menu in between battles whenever. This system actually makes grinding fun and engaging. I often found myself going after a boss on a “test run” to see what skills were necessary and would switch out skills on my next go to the ones needed. Digital Devil Saga’s bosses often shake up the formula with unique behavior patterns and gimmicks. To give some examples, a boss that’s invisible, a boss that eats the other enemies to grow larger unless you kill the others quickly, and a boss that mimics what you do. The music is some of Shoji Meguro's best work, really atmospheric guitar tracks. Even though I love the "Hunting" random encounter track even I got tired of it after a while of hearing it endlessly. Each dungeon has an ambient track that lends each area some personality. Samsara Tunnels is a relaxing bop and “Man’s Tomb” which plays for an early tomb dungeon feels appropriately claustrophobic, like you’re trapped in here. The game has a lot of headbangers. I was gonna list my favorite tracks but stopped because I was basically listing off the full OST so I'll just give the 3 best. “Danger” by Etro Anime was added in the English version as the opening and it’s perfect for the tone of digital devil saga. The Smooth female vocals are nice and the lyrics are thematically relevant despite not being made for the game. The first phase final boss theme is bittersweet and catchy at the same time. "Surely Once Again..." is a minute-long track that plays at the tail end of the game and it's just so effective when that guitar kicks in, sending off the game very well. I had a sudden emotional gut punch when that guitar started up. I don't know how to describe it but it sounds triumphant and sad simultaneously. The character designs are all memorable, I like Serph’s and Argilla’s more the more I look at it. The demon form designs of the main cast all look awesome and none of them are forgettable, especially Varna. I’m a fan of Kaneko’s art style which makes the characters look like renaissance paintings. The dungeons have a lot of samey corridors, This was fine enough for me as someone who loves turn-based strategic combat. To me the dungeons were vehicles to get to the battles. My one major complaint with this game is the obscenely high random encounter rate which seems to be everyone's complaint with this game. I eventually got used to it and starting behaving with the encounter rate in mind but it was a frustrating first couple hours. All in all, I liked this game and think it deserves to be less obscure, to be up there with persona 4 and 5 in popularity, I dislike how to this day Metacritic hasn't fixed the user score after a random guy decided to use a spam bot on all megaten games because he was pissed about Joker in smash. Not making this up. It's so blatant too, There are 126 negative user scores and not a single negative user review.

Life and Clue are very fun, mouse trap is ok and the rest are forgettable. I'd buy a full game based on Life, its most of the reason I come back to this one

Gameplay and persona fusion is exciting and remains so throughout, at times the game felt too easy compared to the earlier persona games, sometimes not really requiring strategy. but it does get progressively harder. The music is phenomenal and is the best part of the game. The story starts off strong with Kamoshida, a well written villain with great buildup, but the quality of the writing drops off from there and gets gradually worse. Character portrais are fun to look at and the UI is stylish. The voice acting is generally wonderful even if the script isn't as great, the most well acted character is definitely Ryuji, certain lines were so great that I found myself replaying them in the audio log. The game has some very useful quality of life features such as an a dialogue log you can access in case you missed something or to just replay lines if you want to, and you can fast forward dialogue.

The game has horrible gameplay pacing and everytime you get to a new area the enemies are almost twice your level, requiring a lot of grinding. Leveling takes a long time and requires fighting many, many enemies much stronger just to gain one level. The story is mediocre and has a lot of highs and lows, at certain points I found myself struggling to care, The plot twist at the end is the best part about the story

My favorite game of all time, great story and characters, unique premise and an emotionally satisfying ending if you pursued the true ending. The game has a better difficulty curve than P5 and is more challenging, requiring strategy while not being *too* hard. The story is very emotionally charged and the true culprit once you find them is a very well written villain. The cast is great and I found that I liked all the cast. The game picks up right about when Kanji Tatsumi joins your party and gets better and better from there

I can understand why some would say this game runs out of activities fast but I had fun with it. Part of it is making your own fun by adding Miis from various shows/games/movies or miis of famous people or politicians and watching them interact. The comparison to Animal Crossing isn't very accurate although they likely have similar demographics. In Animal Crossing you have decent control over events and control a character directly, in Tomodachi Life you are a disembodied character that oversees, caters to, and kind of parents multiple characters and what happens is random. One similarity is the quirky cultural localizations

The best Tony Hawk game in my opinion. Fully customizable characters, can buy new clothes, haircut, etc. You can destroy landmarks to add to your own personal park which the plot revolves around protecting. The story is the one of the few Tony Hawk stories worth caring about

A fun and exciting shooter. This means something, coming from someone who generally doesn't like shooters. There is a large variety of guns and even some character customization. The story is actually interesting and Handsome Jack is a simultaneously amusing and Hate-able corporate leader. Little bits of story can be found through audio clips you find in the world. Shooting enemies is oddly satisfying. Probably one of the best shooters i've ever played (Side note: Why are the games seperated by console release? They're all the same game)

It's good for what it is, a PS2 Era business/management sim. My Dad found it going for only 2 bucks and I've gotten that money's worth and more from it. It has a bunch of options for what to do with not too much depth, but enough to be interesting. Some of the optional minigames such as golf, racing, and trampolines are fun. You can market your park to attract certain demographics, which is as simple as pressing X twice on a specific magazine, you can talk to park goers and even flirt and matchmake, you can design custom tracks, hire and train cheerleaders, groundskeepers and mechanics, etc. One complaint is that the areas you can put carnival rides and stalls and whatnot get crowded pretty fast and you'll soon not know where to put what

Good game with interesting choice of spouses. The greatest and most memorable aspect is the fact that your character and the world ages over time, with hair graying and you actually get to see your child grow to be an adult. This is a unique mechanic that should come back in future Story of Seasons games. The seed maker makes the crop farming part easy and caring for animals is fun. The way you interact with your child has an effect on what your child grows to be like

Essentially Mario Party with Mii characters. Has various modes like a Bingo card, traditional Mario Party style board, etc. The highlight of these modes is the globe trot mode which allows you to tour the earth as a board and do odd jobs for a quick buck, visit tourist traps, and so on. Worth it

One of the best handheld consoles with impressive First Party support, and less shovelware than the previous DS. The 3D feature, despite naming the console is probably the least noteworthy aspect of the system and if you're like me, you'll screw with it for the first few weeks and then never use it again except by accident. I later got the confusingly named New 2DS XL which removes this feature in exchange for a lower priced "New" console and I don't miss it at all. Much more interesting features are StreetPass and the play coins, which give you an incentive to take your console with you outside. The console recently got remakes of the earlier Mario and Luigi games, and an assload of other JRPGs like Bravely Default and its sequel, a Xenoblade Chronicles port (Only on the "New" consoles) Fantasy Life, Etrian Odyssey, etc, which makes this a great console to pick up if you're into JRPGs. The console also has Animal Crossing New Leaf, the best game in the Animal Crossing series as of this typing. Aside from the games, the system itself is capable of reading fancy AR Cards which can be used for games or taking pictures of Nintendo characters chilling in your house. The 3DS Camera **** though. Just like the 3D feature, you likely won't use AR cards or the camera much at all after the first few weeks of the system. The home, start and select buttons feel a little too titanic which is thankfully fixed in the New redesign which makes them regular buttons like they should've been The original 3DS model had some design problems, such as the bottom screen scratching the top everytime you close the system due to differing sizes, which is more noticable if you turn on 3D. And the trigger buttons will wear down with use through no fault of the player, and at least on trigger button will stop working if you play a lot. Thankfully these problems are fixed with the unfortunately named "New" redesign, which changes the design of trigger buttons, adds ZL and ZR buttons as alternative trigger buttons (Or whatever you want them to be) and makes the two screens more even. If you're reading this right now and haven't bought a 3DS, buy one of the "New" consoles, don't buy the original. You can get New 2DS XL for 150 bucks as of this typing, which is 20 bucks less than what the original 3ds was selling for originally (After the price cut) and it's worth it, also comes preinstalled with Mario Kart 7

Great game with interesting story and characters. The sphere grid allows for a lot of customization to a party members abilities and after some time eventually one party member can make it to another party members portion of the grid and thus gain their abilities. Grinding a lot doesn't necessarily guarantee a win if you don't choose the right actions in your turn, although it helps. I'm just gonna warn you now Evrae is an extremely difficult boss and it will take a while to grind once you get to it because of weak enemies in the area

A very empty game. There is an option to leave your store, but you can't have it be closed while you're out, so customers will show up anyway and be dissatisfied. There is no dating option like HM (Although the Blue Feather is still here) only friendships, and the characters aren't actually that interesting. To get certain events requires specific conditions that you're going to need a wiki pulled up to know. Other than stocking your store with a small variety of inventory there's not much to do and you will get bored fast

I didn't really get much entertainment value out of this game despite spending 40 hours on it, I really wanted to like it but it requires oodles of time I felt I could be spending on more enjoyable games. Its more action with minimal RPG elements. I liked upgrading my equipment and stuff but to even kill another monster after your first (Which takes significant time for a first boss on its own) requires a lot of grinding and is pretty difficult. Fighting the monsters themselves is a slog and you have to hit, hit, hit, throw a paintball to track it and try and follow it as quickly as possible when it inevitably runs into the other area. The game is incredibly difficult and needlessly time consuming. I've noticed this game is very highly rated everywhere I looked which makes me think it serves it's niche well but the learning curve is just way too high. I still occasionally pop in the game to give it another shot or try and get something out of it but it turns out to be a waste of time It has non existent story and the mechanics are not explained very well. There are multiple locations you can get quests from but these are basically just cosmetic as you can access the same quests anywhere and all locations have a blacksmith, a vendor, a home for you and a palico shop and nothing unique to that area

The best life simulation out there so far. Makes significant improvements from previous games including seemingly small quality of life changes like donating multiple things to the museum, switching tools with the D pad instead of bringing up your inventory constantly, Being able to stack items like fruits in your inventory, etc. One of the biggest additions are Public Works Projects which can be used to improve your town, these are mostly aesthetic but some Projects have their own uses. You will find yourself grinding for money even more than in other games due to the works projects giving you another thing to pay off. The dialogue is not as interesting as the GameCube original but that's the one thing the original has over this game. The Welcome Amiibo update also adds Happy Home Designer style touchscreen furniture moving which is very convenient.

A good game. I've heard the main complaint with this game is that it doesn't innovate on the previous DS Harvest Moons, and I haven't played those which might be why I like it. Tending to animals is addictive. Spouses are interesting, particularly Reina and Oracle. You can only get upgrades to your house/bed/farm etc or fix the tunnel one at a time once a month which arbitrarily lengthens the game a few in game years. You can buy new fancy carts, harvest bees, raise fish, etc.

The best game in the series, although keep in mind I've played all the games before the norse reboot so my opinion may well change. Epic cinematic feel is the strong suit of the game, Kratos controls and pulls off outlandish stunts reminiscent of the ancient warrior epics he's based on. I usually don't like brutality in games but in this game it's entertaining

The gameplay is a bit dated and there is no shame in keeping a walkthrough up for dungeons, which is a necessity. Time traveling to change aspects of the future is interesting. The 3DS remake doesn't change much other than graphics and the map feature could have been improved. These reviews here are saying stuff like "If you see a negative review they are just trolls/hate zelda" but that's not true. It's a decades old game that was revolutionary at the time but newer games have improved on it's formula to the point where OOT is outdated, it didn't age as gracefully as Super Mario 64, another early 3D game. Navi isn't as annoying as her reputation makes her seem but she does tell you a lot of obvious stuff and repeats herself a lot. Like for example, saying there's something up with Death Mountain and you should check it out when you're already at Death Mountain. Majora's Mask is a better game overall

Aggressively mediocre party game at best. Very unoriginal and the controls are unresponsive and frustrating. We got it for 5 bucks and it still wasn't really worth it

When you first start playing the town is barren and the game holds your hand with annoying unskippable tutorials for an entire in game season. The beginning is extremely slow paced and tedious and you're expected to build the entire town from the ground up with required grinding for materials, and whether said materials show up is often down to RNG. After you've built your town the game picks up slightly but not enough to make up for the grueling haul in the first in game year and a half. Game's pacing is awful. If you're considering this game I'd say it's better to look at the newer Story of Seasons games which fix the pacing, or if you have a GameCube, I recommend A Wonderful Life

An immersive experience of being alone on an alien planet, exploring the planet and picking up suit upgrades. Wonderful sound track, the controls are even better if you're playing the Wii version, which allows physically pointing at the screen to aim your gun. Even though the game is technically first person shooting, the focus is more on exploration and your weapons are used for puzzles and other non combat things. The game is worth playing even for people who don't like FPS games because of this. Collecting power ups is satisfying and the player becomes stronger over the course of the game thanks to their efforts. Scanning is very satisfying and lets the player see the lore and worldbuilding if they so please

Overall good game, biggest complaint is the removal of the JRPG battle system and equipment of the previous Paper Marios, this time being a Platformer with RPG elements instead. The ability to change who you directly control (Can play as Bowser, Peach, Luigi, etc.) is cool and the game retains the leveling system of a JRPG even without the battle system. The game's strong suit is it's characters and story. The core platforming gameplay is more mediocre

A great game with unique locations and characters. Instead of the stock mario environments, we get fun chapters that each hold interesting ideas (With the exception of chapter 2, which has Pikmin like followers that are frustrating to command) the best chapter hands down is the Glitz Pit, a replayable area where you are a Wrestler. Another great chapter is one where Mario's body is stolen, a chapter taking place on a moving train with a kind of murder mystery going on, a chapter where you are captain of a ship crashed on an island, etc. Almost all of the chapters have their own unique idea to them. The companions, particularly the Baby Yoshi and Vivian are interesting characters. Recurring villain Lord Crump is a fun incompetent joke character. Some parts of the story veer into more serious stuff like a character having a deceased wife, a character's missing brother, etc.

Disappointing. After completing the facilities of the main town, which likely won't take long, all there is left to do is make houses for the oodles of random villagers. There is no grading your performance so you can just put down the 3 or 4 required items and your villager will still love it. It's very open ended but not in the usual good animal crossing way where you have the choice of many activities and can set your own goals. You don't have your own house, which would have been nice, instead after logging your work for the day, night automatically goes to day. There are villagers in town and you can visit past villagers you've designed homes for but there is much less dialogue than in the main games and they repeat themselves more often. You can upgrade your equipment and unlock new mechanics for home design with the Happy Home Handbook, but just like the facilities this can be finished pretty quickly and after that there isn't much to keep the player motivated