The story is absolutely dull and typical. It drones on and on with repetitive and meaningless dialogue. The combat is also very simple and annoying. Not really much depth to combat, it's only surface-level depth. all encounters end up playing the exact same way, no matter what type of enemy you are fighting. and there are a lot of enemies to fight. every enemy you use the same strategy, once you understand a character there is no more depth to combat. The best part about this game is exploring the overworlds and collecting intel.
This game is pretty, but visuals don't matter to me when gameplay feels boring. There is no incentive to grind, the monster encounters are easy (even on draconian quest), there is no resource management. Enemy encounters feel like an annoying obstacle rather than a meaningful experience you actually need to pay attention to. It feels more like an adventure game than a turn based RPG. I somehow enjoy the original Dragon Quest on NES more than this game and I don't understand how because games are supposed to be better these days???
Just reviewing X and not X-2. FFX does a really good job overall. It's not the most challenging game, but its design philosophy is to guide the player along and only introduce one mechanic at a time without making the game feel like a tutorial.
Very satisfying aesthetic and combat. It's quite a difficult game, but offers an old school cinematic experience with some great gameplay. The game forces the player at the very beginning to get familiar with its combat, and maybe a little too early because the spider is a really tough and unfair challenge for a new player.
This game is imbalanced and unfair. However, it is deeply satisfying to win against all odds, and figuring out the best demons to place in your party. The dungeon design will annoy the crap out of you, but give you an excuse to level up your characters. Collecting all the magatama in order to use new abilities is very satisfying. Magic builds for the protagonist are really horrible, status attacks are horrible, early game physical skills are horrible because of low accuracy, but when you go Strength with end game physical skills... when you finally get a demon that is a perfect counter to the boss that's been wrecking you... when you finally get your rakukaja and sukukaja buffs... it just clicks. It feels so good to take down mob after mob and seeing those exp and money numbers go up because you EARNED it through trial and error, strategy, and grit. Admittedly, I have not completed TDE because the Amala dungeons are really painful to go through on Hard mode, and I only play the game on Hard mode. But one day, I will grind my way to Lucifer.
9/10 because it's not very replayable due to the slow combat that doesn't reward you with anything substantial. Most enemies can be skipped since the reward is just some garbage equipment that you want to discard anyway. Other than that, Vagrant Story offers excellent cinematics, music, and gameplay with a unique focus on turn based strategic with action combat. The strategy comes from using the right type of weapon for a given enemy, along with utilizing spells, otherwise you will be hitting monsters for 1 damage per hit and get annihilated.
I can't think of a single flaw. The entire experience is a work of art that doesn't waste your time. Every NPC, every battle, every mini game, every piece of equipment, every side quest, every boss, every character is refined and tasteful. The story is deep and existential. The combat is highly rewarding and interesting. I wish the game was a little more difficult, but it definitely ramps up towards the end.
Something about older games just has a succinct, straight to the point narrative and gameplay that really makes a solid experience. They don't put a whole bunch of features in it that feels half-assed. Every feature in the game feels meaningful and fleshed out, and has purpose and uniqueness. Paper Mario TTYD delivers a unique and to-the-point experience (besides the side quests) that makes the player feel like every moment is a treat. Gameplay is super fun, both in and out of combat. Leveling up is satisfying. The characters are memorable and have... character. Mario grows through both stat upgrades and zelda style finding new items to progress in the overworld. Lots of fun and meaningful little things to do in this game, like cooking and playing the casino. Every level in the game is thematic, has different music, different characters. It feels alive.
This game does so much right. It's a compact experience with loads of tragic but meaningful events. It takes itself seriously in the story, which is a plus. Back then, you could actually write a story that was shocking and had characters dying. I don't know why the audience is so sensitive these days. Gameplay is generally easy (until the end of the game where you need to have excellent gear and grind a bunch) but the grind is not boring for some reason. It feels good because you have to pace yourself, otherwise you will run low on MP and have to go rest in town. It gives you lots of reason to grind levels and gold. Replay value because of characters having different playstyles. It feels like a really classic JRPG experience without the filler. The reason I give it a 9 and not a 10 is because the overworld is really annoying to explore. It's just a big empty map with a few scattered pieces of treasure and a whole lot of easy enemies to kill.
The combat gets stale pretty quickly, because you are looking at the same animations over and over again. Every enemy feels exactly the same because you use the exact same strategy against every enemy type. Group? Dazzle, Zap, Sizzle. Single? Attack, attack, Frizzle. Enemies have weaknesses to certain elements but it's almost pointless to remember them. I don't understand the love for Dragon Quest, every game is extremely campy and I'm the type of person that gets sick of seeing and doing the same thing over and over again. The visuals in this game are excellent, and the gameplay is fun until you fully get how to win against every enemy since every enemy is the same anyway. I don't care about the story if the gameplay ****.
Overall, it's a solid game with a lot of uniqueness. However, it is a bit dated in the fact that combat just isn't difficult enough and I think the materia system is genius, but not implemented well enough to create a satisfying experience. If monsters forced the player to have specific sets of materia equipped, or if they were just tougher overall, I think the experience would have been better. The 3D graphics are also really ugly. The monsters have smooth looking textures that just look wrong
Persona 4 is probably the coolest game I've ever played. It's incredibly stylish, the music is jazzy nior and hip-hop ish and rockin' all at the same time. It has such a unique and tasteful modern aesthetic, and made me feel like magic could really be real in the real world, that's how immersive it is. All the characters have so much personality and they're lovable. The combat is challenging and worth playing on Hard mode. Collecting personas was really fun, even if you're not going to use them. There are so many personas, and they all look really cool, especially the end game personas. Only complaint is dungeons are a little tedious with the repetitive music, but gameplay still remains really satisfying
Combat can get annoying when there is a lot of chaos on screen. There is not much of a way to avoid taking damage, especially because you only control one of three characters at a time. The combat is not as deep as it seems and mostly consists of mashing square and throwing out an ability at the right time for maximizing damage. The linear level design is riddled with characters doing a lot of climbing, ducking, going through doors, short mini games, and sidling on walls to fill time making it sort of a pain to replay. The story falls a bit short as it tries to get the player to like the slightly eccentric side characters. The story does a disservice to the original, because it feels like filler instead of a meaningful story. Overall, it is a good experience for the graphics, music, and combat. This is not the best action game out there by far, but it's not terrible. It does a relatively decent job of combining action based combat with strategic turn based mechanics with its ATB battle system.
Dragon Quest IX is not a game for everyone. I cannot bring myself to get to the post game. The biggest complaint for me is that the combat isn't strategic... almost at all, at least for the main game. Classes don't have any meaning because abilities aren't important. Your characters don't feel unique in combat whatsoever. It seems like post game is where the game shines, but the main story and dungeons are so dull that I probably won't make it through. There is nothing to learn in combat, just simply attack attack attack boom. If you're feeling extra you can select an ability that does slightly more damage. I guess the main appeal of the game is the fact that the monsters are 3D and your characters have all the armor and weapons equipped visible on them, as well as 3D animations. This is my least favorite Dragon Quest game, because I don't personally enjoy walking around a half empty map killing easy enemies over and over. If the game implemented some form of strategy to make it challenging, I could see myself enjoying it. However, the whole game feels like a bland waste of time.
The dialogue in this game is really boring and preachy. Characters talk far too much and it breaks immersion. The world building is actually pretty deep, but the dialogue and shallow characters ruin it. The characters give me a "trying too hard to say something meaningful" feeling. This game is terrible to play on Hard mode. It does a horrible job of balancing enemy encounters. You will find yourself either too low level for certain enemies, or you will find an entire dungeon to be a complete joke (even on Hard). Avoiding enemies isn't actually that easy. Oh, and spending in-game time going into a dungeon to find out you're too low level for it? Classic. Hopefully you didn't save over your game at the beginning of the dungeon. This game feels like a shallow version of Persona. It wants to be Persona, but unique, and it just fails. The best part about this game: the music. There is a good reason it won best music in the game awards 2024. Combat is pretty decent, but not well balanced or really that fun to grind levels in. The visuals are also quite stunning and make up for the lack of depth. I think the job/archetype system is not fundamentally as good as the persona system. In combat, you often find yourself to not have the proper team set up to deal with tough enemies, and it forces you to pause the game VERY OFTEN in order to swap out your jobs to have an ideal set up JUST to deal with ONE enemy. It's awful and the reason why nobody should play this game on Hard mode.
