chad_pattan

No, this...this is a very awful game. Awful game. I don't think I have ever played a game nearly this depressing. Not because of the story, but because it's just a dull, boring, slog ****.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

No. No, this isn't a good game. Here's the problem with the game - it doesn't know what it wants to be. I'd peg it as 90% visual novel and 10% RPG. That's NOT a good mix. The bulk of the time you're advancing static images and text along (visual novel), then all of a sudden you get into a one-off fight that isn't very fun. Long stretches of non-action. The voice acting is good as is the art, but the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired.

I had completely missed this game the first time around. The last I recall was a news article that suspected the game would never be released outside of Japan. Four years later and I stumble across a 30% discount for it - a game I always wanted to play. Unfortunately, while I've got no issue with the story interconnects, I do have issue with the fact that they haven't fixed the underlying issues with both Layton and Phoenix Wright. Also, I'd preferred they not voiced Phoenix Wright's side, because none of them sound right. It also irks me to hear Maya call Phoenix "Nick" instead of "Mr. Nick" as the child she is. On the Layton side it's always the same. When Layton himself is solving the puzzle, it's dirt simple and straightforward. When the kid is solving, there's weird curveballs to the puzzle. I wouldn't call them mind bending, just annoying. On the Phoenix side, it still suffers from the situations where you'll find a clear contradiction but can't explore it because it's not "the" contradiction they want you to pursue. Situations like a guy's chocolate prints where he clearly always holds the chocolate in his left hand, yet the prints are right-handed. The storyline is still intriguing - as is frequently the case with both games - so I'm not bashing it. But I wish they would have fixed some of the underlying issues.

No. No, it's not a 10. It's not close to a 10. Too many glaring issues. Many people are overrating the game for the wrong reasons. Let me be clear: it's not garbage, but it's not some legendary epic, either. Story is just not worth writing home about. A guy blinks in out of nowhere, and not only does this never get questioned or explored, said guy seemingly doesn't care about getting home. Pirates join and seemingly forget they're supposed to be pirates. You get a ship so late it doesn't matter. Some spells are used for one or two quests, then pointless. Then there's skirmishes, which is this game's attempt to be a new version of Suikoden. Except that they're either way too easy or way too difficult. There's no middle ground. Additionally, some commands don't respond. Higgledies are largely pointless except for large bosses, and only then due to the fact that you can only carry a limited number of each item into battle - something that isn't told to you. The game lacks a useful purpose for all of the various team members. I mostly ran through the first half of the game with the same three characters, then switched two of them and ran through the second half with those three. Then come the artificial, glass walls blocking progress. You can't max your town or recruit everyone until after you've beaten the game. Why? Since there's no New Game Plus, there isn't a reason to keep playing. Speaking of which, the DLC weapons in the "Day One" edition has a bug where they won't show up until it's way too late. So that's another issue. Small issue, still an issue. Voice acting is piecemeal at best, instead of fully voice cutscenes ala World of Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest Heroes. Again, it's not a bad game at all. But it could have been MUCH more than it ended up being. All it has going for it are the graphics.

Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way. This is a Nintendo Switch game. It's not a PS4 game. Don't expect it to perform like a PS4 game. However, it's a strong contender against any PS3 RPG ever released. I'm not going to bore you with story. Here are the points that you probably most care about. It is true that the graphics are degraded in mobile mode vs. docked. But that should be obvious. It's not enough to impact the game negatively except for framerate drops which seem to happen more frequently than you might expect. Music is a standout with excellent compositions and presentation. Unlike Xenoblade Chronicles 3D, this is truly a JRPG in the finest sense of the word. There's no "MMO-lite" feelings here. If you want that, this isn't the game for you. This is an extremely complex game to master. There's just a lot of things going on - and while the game does things to help you out, it doesn't change that there's a LOT to remember and master. If you're not a fan of the way games used to be, with nice, lengthy, meaty cutscenes as a reward for your hard work, skip the game. There are a LOT of cutscenes and they're long. I love this. People who like games like The Witcher won't. You've been warned; don't come on here complaining and putting negative reviews. There are videos all over the place and every reviewer has called this out, if you didn't do research that's your fault. I'm not really a fan of the battle system. I'm fine with the "Final Fantasy XII" auto battle. What bothers me is the healing mechanics. There's no way to just adhoc use an item to heal. You either have to steal one (which doesn't heal enough) or be healed by Arts (which doesn't happen frequently enough). The first boss I fought mopped the floor with me simply because there was no way to heal. This seems to just be random chance, because the second time around I beat him having changed nothing in strategy. Which brings me to the other negative - unbalanced difficulty and damage. To me, something's wrong if the first boss you come to is stun multi-hitting you for 200HP when you only have 800HP. Then you walk through the next three bosses, come to a boss who kills you out of nowhere. Dinosaurs that can take you out in less than a minute when you're their same level, yet the final boss of the game gets wasted faster than the giant gorilla running around Gormott. It's a joke. I struggle to think of another game with difficulty this unbalanced. Lastly, the concept of "armor" is poor. It basically creates artificial difficulty, because you can't properly equip your characters the way you'd like to. Most of the accessories you can equip don't make a significant dent in the aforementioned obscene damage instances. Leveling up happens only at hotels, which means if you're out and about for hours, you might be underleveled simply because you can't get back to a town before fighting the boss. Much of your strength comes from the affinity charts which are tedious to fill out for the most powerful characters in the game. Not nearly as tedious as FFXII's but close enough. I also dislike the RNG mechanic for summoning. You basically are rolling dice for every Rare Blade summon, meaning it'll take a LONG time to get them all. I finished the game at 232 hours still missing Vale because I lost patience trying to get her. It shouldn't be like that. They really need to fix that to where Legendary Cores are a guaranteed summon. Even Chaos Rings 3 wasn't this bad. Summary: I like the game. Much better than 1/3D by far. I never played X because the Wii was crap. This game feels like it puts things back right, and is a welcome breath of fresh air in a desert of old school "J" RPGs.

This game has a bad rap. And it's undeserved. Background: this was originally released on the Xbox 360 as an exclusive. After that expired, the International version was released on PS3. The 360's main issue was the disc swapping that was necessary between planets - a throwback to Final Fantasy VII on the PS1. PS3 version fixed that but introduced other issues. Largely though it was the easier overall experience. If you never played this game, it is (canon) the fourth Star Ocean game, having nothing to do with the previous except Captain Kenny who has a partial cameo from older games. It's the first Star Ocean to really focus on space exploration and visiting new planets. The remaster (not a remake, mind you), doesn't change the underlying story. It's a great game, but temper your expectations. Many of the complaints from people online are people preferring the third Star Ocean: Till The End of Time, because of the battle engine. In my opinion that's all it had going for it; the story was terrible, the graphics laughable, the music forgettable. Also, people complain about Lymle, a childlike character, and Edge's English voice actor. Neither are worth skipping the game over. Lymle's a **** acts like a kid. Edge's English VA isn't great, but certainly not the worst (I'm looking at you, Tidus). Turn on Japanese if it bothers you. What made this game great was really 4 things: - The remaster graphics are EXCELLENT. Everything's much cleaner, easier to see, draw distance, performance, etc. Especially on a PS4 Pro. - The music was always good. - The Private Actions in this one far surpass any of the other Star Oceans by far. Just Reimi/Meracle/Edge alone will have you cracking up, and Welch is a star by herself, but watching Lymle fail to kick her is awesome. Meracle and Reimi are basically the anti-feminists, especially Meracle, who has absolutely no problem flirting. - Planetary exploration is what made Mass Effect 1 better than the rest, and it's on full display here. Some of it is "rails-ish" but in general, it's an absolute treat. So why an 8 and not a 10? Well, they didn't address the excessive bloom lighting that's been there since the beginning. It's annoying, because you can't fully enjoy the graphical beauty. Also, they nerfed the effectiveness of some of the characters; used to be that controlling Reimi alone with her special attacks would allow you to breeze through the game; she was significantly overpowered. Now she's still strong but not a tank like she used to be. Why change this? Let the player choose whether to use certain overpowered characters or not if they want their challenge ramped. Games like Disgaea, a game severely lacking anime cutscenes, have gotten people to this "I just wanna fight" and "I want obscene difficulty" mentality. If you don't care about story in a game, this game isn't for you, but if you want to feel like you're playing a book, complete with cutscenes (like the GOOD old days), great graphics, and characters, be sure to give this a try. It's well worth the $20 or so. More so than Integrity & Faithlessness BY FAR.

This game has a bad rap. And it's undeserved. Background: this was originally released on the Xbox 360 as an exclusive. After that expired, the International version was released on PS3. The 360's main issue was the disc swapping that was necessary between planets - a throwback to Final Fantasy VII on the PS1. PS3 version fixed that but introduced other issues. Largely though it was the easier overall experience. If you never played this game, it is (canon) the fourth Star Ocean game, having nothing to do with the previous except Captain Kenny who has a partial cameo from older games. It's the first Star Ocean to really focus on space exploration and visiting new planets. The remaster (not a remake, mind you), doesn't change the underlying story. It's a great game, but temper your expectations. Many of the complaints from people online are people preferring the third Star Ocean: Till The End of Time, because of the battle engine. In my opinion that's all it had going for it; the story was terrible, the graphics laughable, the music forgettable. Also, people complain about Lymle, a childlike character, and Edge's English voice actor. Neither are worth skipping the game over. Lymle's a **** acts like a kid. Edge's English VA isn't great, but certainly not the worst (I'm looking at you, Tidus). Turn on Japanese if it bothers you. What made this game great was really 4 things: - The remaster graphics are EXCELLENT. Everything's much cleaner, easier to see, draw distance, performance, etc. Especially on a PS4 Pro. - The music was always good. - The Private Actions in this one far surpass any of the other Star Oceans by far. Just Reimi/Meracle/Edge alone will have you cracking up, and Welch is a star by herself, but watching Lymle fail to kick her is awesome. Meracle and Reimi are basically the anti-feminists, especially Meracle, who has absolutely no problem flirting. - Planetary exploration is what made Mass Effect 1 better than the rest, and it's on full display here. Some of it is "rails-ish" but in general, it's an absolute treat. So why an 8 and not a 10? Well, they didn't address the excessive bloom lighting that's been there since the beginning. It's annoying, because you can't fully enjoy the graphical beauty. Also, they nerfed the effectiveness of some of the characters; used to be that controlling Reimi alone with her special attacks would allow you to breeze through the game; she was significantly overpowered. Now she's still strong but not a tank like she used to be. Why change this? Let the player choose whether to use certain overpowered characters or not if they want their challenge ramped. Games like Disgaea, a game severely lacking anime cutscenes, have gotten people to this "I just wanna fight" and "I want obscene difficulty" mentality. If you don't care about story in a game, this game isn't for you, but if you want to feel like you're playing a book, complete with cutscenes (like the GOOD old days), great graphics, and characters, be sure to give this a try. It's well worth the $20 or so. More so than Integrity & Faithlessness BY FAR.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

**** a 10. Not close to a 10. I actually first played this game way back in 2006. Mind you, this is fresh off of thoroughly enjoying the masterpiece (at the time) that was Final Fantasy X. I remember quite clearly being disappointed, as was my friend, at this game. Running into battle felt strange and clunky. I quit at the first quest outside of Rabanastre. Fast forward and I'm MUCH older, much more mentally refined, and yearning for RPG goodness on the PS4. So I figured I'd give it a chance, thinking I'd be more patient with it, after watching videos of it online. Reality is this: The game plays much smoother than before. It's nowhere near as clunky, nowhere near as boring, and I can't tell you why. There are frustrating parts, but generally it's improved. The real problem is with pacing. I got absolutely slaughtered at a part where just a moment prior I felt overpowered. Regular peons were killing my crew. It wasn't levels; my folks were dishing good damage. It's the fact that they were taking way too much damage compared to what my armor said they should be. The limitations of the license system forcing weak armor early on didn't help matters. There are also strange Gambit-related issues where you'll have your Gambits set to do a specific set of tasks, and the character will just do the opposite for no reason, forcing you to issue commands directly. Lastly is the town event system, where you'll have to foot it LONG distances across town to meet people or run errands. Fortunately there's a button to speed things up, but then your character will walk like they're drunk, running into things. This is NOT a bad game, don't take a 7 as indicating such. That's a great score. But put it this way: I got this game for $27 at Best Buy thanks to a rewards certificate. I couldn't justify paying any more than $30 for the same game they sold over a decade ago with some prettier graphics.

For the first time, the scores aren't completely off the rocker. They're lower than I expected but people's reasons (generally) are acceptable. First context. This is NOT Valkyria Chronicles 4, so if you're going in expecting that, you'll be disappointed. No...this game might as well have been a totally different spinoff because it only shares very light things with the original series. In Revolution, you're actually a guy who is being told the history of a war in the 19th century when "The Traitors" were involved. Think of a 19th century version of Three Kingdoms; it's actually very similar. The story is told in terms of flashbacks and book segments that collectively put everything in perspective. I'm on the fence with the graphics. This is a game that could easily have been on the Switch. They're not bad, but certainly nothing here that screams next gen. Yes, the cutscenes are lengthy, but I love cutscenes anyway. People likely forgot that Valkyria Chronicles 1 had cutscenes nearly as long; they were just spliced together better. In Revolution, the only thing that makes them really annoying is the load times in between each one, which seems to indicate that Sega didn't put enough time into optimizations. The music is evocative of war and isn't bad, but there are very few distinct tracks. Chronicles had the same issue, but it had the advantage of unique songs per storyline battlefield. I would also point out that it's fully English voiced even at a low $39.99 price, unlike Koei who can't be bothered on their Musou games anymore at $60. The characters have personality, but they're explored very infrequently, even less so than Chronicles 2 (PSP). The development improves as the game goes by, but you start out as just a ragtag group with no real backstory. But the **** my, what a story. The game plays this out like you're in a digital novel, and it's captivating. The lack of character development hurts it a bit, but the underlying conspiracies and dark tendencies make you want to see more and more. It's easily the best part of the game. When you first start out, the battle engine will feel very pithy and light, but certain scenarios will result in your team members getting knocked out. There's a severe difficulty upswing with the storyline battles, especially with the Valkyria. Even some optional battles are hard enough that you'll run out of ammo and grenades, forcing you to fight toe-to-toe. It's not like Chronicles where rifles essentially had unlimited ammo; nope. I laugh hearing people say this has no strategy; the hell it doesn't. When you're surrounded by tanks and soldiers shooting and mines on the ground, and you're clean out of magic power and ammo and forced to melee, it's quite exciting. I like it. A bit slow, but some battles are really engaging. Don't judge it on the first few scenarios - trust me, it WILL get more challenging. Overall I haven't been able to stop playing the game, and I am eager to learn more about the characters. I doubt any of them will leave an emotional footprint like Isara, but perhaps they'll leave their own variation.

Here we go again, with me going "against the grain" of popular opinion. But I'm certainly not negative, I'm just realistic. Because you see, I loved Persona 3 even more than Persona 4. Persona 3 was much darker and in my opinion told a better overall story, despite Persona 4 having better gameplay and an easier transition into the battles. That's telling. It means I enjoy a well told story more than a well played game. But the hallmark **** story is character development. With that, let me quantify my 7 real quick. Animation: 4 points. Things are smooth and subtle things added to the experience that you wouldn't have expected them to take the time on, like some gal crossing her legs or someone getting up from a desk and running out of the room. It feels fluid and natural. Wonderfully done. Battle Mechanics: 2 points. I do enjoy the hide mechanic because it doesn't require a lot of effort or thought, simple button layouts, etc. I'm not a fan of the general battle engine, but it's not a dealbreaker, more annoying compared to the older games. Controls: 1 point. They're simple, they don't overuse buttons like Breath of the Wild or Dynasty Warriors Next, there's no "gimmicks" that I can see. Just a basic use of the button X most of the time. And that's it. First off you're looking at a 5-hour sprint before you can really PLAY the game. To be fair, 3 and 4 had lengthy intros too, but with those, they focused very heavily on character development so you could learn who people were before teaming you up. Here, you're just doing minutiae tasks like flipping signs from outside a door. I can easily see today's millennials getting bored and frustrated 3 hours in and returning the game. Second, there are parts where you'll watch a cutscene, walk 7 seven steps to a load screen, then another cutscene. Or you'll fight one battle, walk 10 steps, see another cutscene. It's jarring. I like cutscenes but they need to do better with the transitions from battle to non-battle segments. Third, the graphics are just too much, too "loud". They look like what you'd get if you allowed Amy Schumer to design the game. Fonts are blown out and difficult to read, colors are all over the palette with no real logic. I was the first to criticize NIER Automata for being too bland; this is too far in the wrong direction. I actually avoid the menu because I can't stand the way it looks - and fortunately, there's very little requiring you to actually go there. Fourth, the cell phone mechanic is terrible. I'm sorry. I get what they were trying to do, but it wasn't done well. Why are you having to manually advance text messages? Fifth, the music. It's not bad music, but it's a pale shadow of what Persona 3 was doing. "When the Moon Reaches Out to the Stars" just won't get out of my head 11 years after the fact. Most, if not all, of the songs in 5 are forgettable and too short. This isn't a bad game. It's not. But having played the older ones I feel this was a step back. If you'd never played a Persona, you probably wouldn't be as harsh. I'll gladly say though, even if you don't agree with my review specifically, that there's simply no way it's a 10. Not in any universe I can think of.

I already know I'll be attacked because I'm not going along with "the flow" of reviews. So let's start out by quantifying that 6. For the record, the last Zelda I played was Twilight Princess. Last Zelda I beat completely was A Link To The Past. Last Zelda I enjoyed was Adventure of Link (the only real "RPG" of the bunch, IMO.) Graphics: 3 points. Yes, half the score is the graphics. They're beautiful. But they're limited, especially on the handheld. World of Final Fantasy on Vita is a great example of how it can be done. Story: 2 points. I feel that the story is compelling and interesting. You feel like you want to help the world. You connect with most of the characters. Nicely done. Sound: 1 point. Ambient sounds, voices, music, are all done decently. I didn't hear anything that bothered me, put it that way. But that's all the game has really. I get it - it's Zelda. It's a throwback to the first game. But quite a few things annoy me, and most of them have to do with UI (User Interface) decisions. You can't tell when weapons are degrading. I'm generally not a fan of the weapon break mechanic, but I can live with it so long as I can tell the life of my weapon, and I can repair weapons, ala Dark Cloud 2, or that I can easily create new ones, ala Dragon Quest Builders. Neither is the case here and it's annoying. Weapon strengths are illogical. Why it takes 9 swings to kill an enemy with an axe yet only three with a club makes no sense whatsoever. A fan leaf one-shots flying enemies yet a stick takes two, sometimes three hits. Why? Link will happily plummet to his death when you try to tell him to gently drop down from a climb to a ledge, and instead he jumps off the wall. I'd just as soon not have a jump from a climb at all. The button configs are a nightmare. Two different ways of using the Sheikah Slate rather than just one map with functions. Forced to move your thumb down to a touchpad that's not in a comfortable place just so you can switch weapons. Forced to press a tiny "minus sign" on the pad just to view the map and a tiny "plus sign" to view inventory. One trigger does something, one bumper does something else, another trigger does something ****'s too much! I thought FFXV's was bad, it's a work of art compared to this. The stamina bugs me only because it's so short. No human is that out of shape. At least let him sprint after a fast run. For all the criticism laid at the feet of Dragon Quest Builders I frankly felt that its battle "engine" was much more logical, as petty and simplistic as that was, for a very similar experience (legendary hero wakes up in a cave with no recollection of why they're there and now have to rebuild the world. Same. Exact. Story.) The world is massive, and while I do enjoy massive worlds (Dragon Quest VIII is an all-time great for me), the world has to interest me. Navigation is a pain in this game, and I assume they wanted you to feel the "realism" of it. But when you're playing a fantasy game, too much reality is not a good thing. (DQ8 and riding on a tiger to get around certainly isn't realistic.) Game directions are also lacking. You'll get instructions to go to a place, and in some situation it's a breeze, where in another situation they don't even bother trying to at least point you in the right direction. Again, too much realism. Yes, I know. "Explore". That's fine. But clear directions are a hallmark of roleplaying games, and it saddens me to see modern RPGs forget this. I discovered that the game feels much more "comfortable" in docked mode. The framerate drops don't bother me. It's a beautiful, well storied, average game. I'll keep the Switch in the hope the Seiken Densetsu Collection comes stateside *eeek*, and hopefully Octopath Traveler will be a much better experience. As for this, those that think this is a perfect game certainly must not have played Dragon Quest VIII on PS2 - thus far the only RPG to check off all of the boxes.