Posts Tagged ‘RPG’

Title: Digimon Story: Time Stranger デジモンストーリー タイムストレンジャー
Platform: PC
Genre: RPG
Language: Japanese, English
Company: Bandai Namco
Summary: Finished Digimon Time Stranger with Royal Knights and did the Olympus XII fight, 36 hrs total. Need a replay some year in future cuz I didn’t know I could’ve heard way more shimono hiro if I’d played as the girl until after it was too late
Certain parts definitely are a step up from Cyber Sleuth, but battles suffer pretty much the same typical formula as cyber sleuth so that bums me up, but anyway setting it on Story mode so I don’t bother with that anymore KEKW. It does even have an Invincible mode if you die even under Story mode.
Lot of Personal parallels as usual, and for the first time I finally realized Mirei is basically Igor. lol

Characters:

Graphics: The fur rendition and dark changes are definitely noticeable, I do think they changed the game rendering engine but I’ll have to look into that later. XD;
Biggest complaint about the overall graphics/gameplay schematics is… everything is way too close up. Need options to zoom out… VERY badly.

Sound:

Replay Value:

Overall: Tentatively placing a solid 9/10 for this one. I realize this is the same score I gave the 2 Cyber Sleuth games in combination, but I do feel this game is wayyy more accessible as a gateway game for anyone interested in Digimon. I won’t give it a perfect score for its end flaws in the battle system (really is just the same ol’ with some QoL like 5x speed). You can really tell they put the budget into everything else EXCEPT reworking the extra-mild battle system. Not surprising Bamco behavior.
I contemplated demoting Cyber Sleuth score, but my personal appreciation for the characters in Hacker’s Memory won’t let me :D

Follow

Title: Pokemon Legends: Z-A
Platform: Switch
Genre: RPG
Language: English
Company: Gamefreak, Nintendo
Summary: Finished main Pokemon ZA story in 21 hrs, that includes a few hours of wasting time cleaning up the city, random Wild Area and parkour distractions, a few sidequests on the way, etc. Like many others, I agree Pokemon really does need voice acting… but y’know ‘smol indie company plz understand’

Characters:

Graphics:

Sound:

Replay Value:

Overall:

Follow

Title: PC – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Platform: PC
Genre: RPG
Language: English, French
Company: Sandfall Interactive
Summary: at some point you lose hope that people can still make good things until something like this comes

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a great reminder that the best things come when least expected, to the extent that even knowing what the main themes of the story are considered spoiler territory. This is how I like to make my own works too, just go in blind. But also kudos to legit spoiler free guides for stuff like missables that improved our experience in 2025.

Characters:

Graphics:

Sound:

Replay Value:

Overall:
Some minor gripes on this otherwise amazing game:
-White subtitles on white backgrounds
-No minimap, which is probably by all intentions to keep you immersed. Makes the game less accessible, but it’s a choice for certain and… it’s fine for regular re-players cuz it’s a good game for it ;X~

SPOILER TERRITORY UNDER CUT:
(more…)

Follow

Title: Visions of Mana / 聖剣伝説: VISIONS OF MANA
Platform: PC, also on PS4, PS5
Genre: Action
Language: Japanese / English
Company: Ouka Studios, Square Enix
Summary: SEIKEN DENSETSU…
Rip Ouka Studios… I can tell they really loved the Mana series with all the references it had, but the sales this game had did not meet up to stakeholder expectations :’)
(more…)

Follow

Title: Fire Emblem Engage ファイアーエムブレム エンゲージ
Platform: Switch
Genre: SRPG
Language: Japanese
Company: Intelligent Systems, Nintendo
Summary: Cleared Hard without skipping cutscenes, watching all the supports I got on the way etc, in less than 60 hrs.
Maddening also completed May 15, 2024.

I early on preordered two copies of 3H, one physical for the limited edition bonuses, one digital so I wouldn’t have to wait on shipping. For this one however, I’m just sticking with just the physical limited edition. The main selling point would’ve been an art designer that I really like (the character designer’s art is nice, but it’s not Kozaki Yuusuke or Kurahana Chinatsu levels for me), or confirmation of Kondoh Rei’s involvement with the music, and this title has neither of those. Many aspects I’ve heard about the game have been positive though, so I still look forward to it once it arrives within a week after launch. Just a few days to wait! XD

Also still seeking confirmation on Koei Tecmo/Gust involvement for this title? No one seems to have the full deets on this. I’ve been informed that this is this game is built on Unity though, so modding is fairly easy.
(more…)

Follow

Title: Live A Live
Platform: Switch
Genre: RPG
Language: Japanese, English
Company: Square Enix
Summary: Significantly better than I thought it’d be, after some dulling experiences with Squenix’s modern pixel games in general. But this one’s a big remastering of an old SNES title, and another good one to add to the resume after FF7:CCR

Big kudos to raising Akira out of joke status, I am a big fan
(more…)

Follow

Title: Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core Reunion
Platform: PC
Genre: Action RPG
Language: Japanese
Company: Square Enix
Summary: HQ Remaster of the PSP game, which was my first PSP game ever! Hello again, Gackt/Genesis.

A solid, enjoyable remaster. They nerfed Costly Punch apparently, but not enough to kick it off top tier move lol.
(more…)

Follow

Title: Switch: Pokémon Scarlet & Violet
Platform: Switch
Genre: RPG
Language: Japanese, English
Company: Gamefreak
Summary: Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse than Sword/Shield…
The bugs are hilarious. The lag is not fun. Speedrun oldies are all back. I still regret bothering with Sword/Shield and I’m mostly done with the mainline Pokemon games at this point, so I only backseat watched hubby play–aka suffer through the bugs and lag. Spoilers under the cut, but tldr spare yourself the waste of time and don’t care about spoilers for Pokemon at this point.
(more…)

Follow

Title: Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Platform: Switch
Genre: RPG
Language: Japanese, English
Company: Monolith Soft
Summary: I’ll probably never bother putting up entries for the first two, because neither of those two really left enough of a (positive) impression on me to bother. This one’s pretty decent though.

Also another big case of playing it on PC instead of the Switch adds a TON of QoL, just like with X. The biggest thing that keeps the Xenoblade series back from its “full potential” is Nintendo hardware. :V …but I’ll keep it in the Switch category here.
(more…)

Follow

Title: Trinity Trigger
聖塔神記(せいとうじんき) トリニティトリガー
Platform: Switch
Genre: Action RPG
Language: Japanese
Company: FuRyu
Summary: What is with Japan and these cringey names dealing with triangles and trinities these days.
(Note: I didn’t play the actual full game until June 2024)
In the most positive light, this game is the Three Houses lords Claude, Dimitri, and Edelgard partying up with partner Digimon and battling in a Secret of Mana style game.

Anyway, some comments about the demo, as the full game releases September 15 in Japan:

Very very much a Secret of Mana clone with even the composer for it on board (Hiroki Kikuta). I’d still give it a try since I love the Mana series so much. Honestly, having the same composer is enough for me to want to give it a full playthrough, and seeing the 8 weapon circle ring clinches it hard lol.

I actually just played a couple hours on the demo currently in JP eshop, and it’s still going (I thought it would be over after this boss fight but I guess there might be some more stuff afterwards). Overall, it feels mobile game quality (think Dragalia Lost), but at least I can see getting a whole console game experience out of it, and local coop will definitely be fun. The original price tag for the game is on the expensive side (7,800 yen), so I would expect a lot of content from the full game.

Overall… well, it’s rare to get a good local coop action RPG these days that doesn’t force you to deal with trashy gacha systems, and having a new Kikuta music experience is very welcome in my book. Looking forward to seeing more of this and hope there’s news for a western release (so that I can coop with my hubby who doesn’t read JP~).
(more…)

Follow