>>816 No problem anon.

Kishin Dōji Zenki: Battle Raiden – a Super Famicom action-platformer based on the '90s anime series of the same name. I have never even heard of this anime before but apparently it was quite popular in its day, lasting for over 50 episodes plus an OVA. Maybe I’ll check it out someday. But it’s interesting how some of these once prominent franchises just disappear into the void of time. But anyway, I usually don’t really play games based on shows I haven’t watched but this one caught my eye with its incredible graphics, so I decided to check it out. And I have to say, it’s actually pretty solid. The game is fairly easy, clearly targeted at a younger audience, but there are still a few cool boss fights as well as some platforming challenges. I guess to make it more appealing to the masses they gave you several overpowered attacks, both vertical and horizontal, that can pretty much deal with anything on the screen at any time and cost you nothing. There is one finite attack where you can sacrifice a portion of your health to do some massive damage to the enemy; this is actually a pretty cool mechanic that can be utilized strategically, but since the game is so easy it’s honestly not all that useful. What I didn’t like is how slow your character moves, like trawling through molasses. There is a short dash, which is better than nothing, but it’s not really incorporated into the moveset – you still have to come to a full stop in order to perform another action. Jumping is rather imprecise and flaccid, leading to some annoying platforming. You also don’t get to upgrade anything or get anything new throughout the game, which is fine I guess but feels like a missed opportunity since you can shoot fireballs and stuff. Like I mentioned, the graphics are amazing and what attracted my attention initially, everything is large and intricately detailed. There’s a nice variety of locations too, I especially liked the level where the sunny weather changed drastically to heavy clouds as you progress, it was quite breathtaking. There’s a cool opening cutscene with gorgeous anime art and I was hoping there would be more such goodness scattered throughout, but sadly it’s the only one minus the ending. You do get some interactions within the game itself which I guess is alright. The music is decent but not particularly memorable. The story was out of context to me, obviously, and I don’t know whether it’s just a stand-alone game or if it relies on the anime, but you can infer much of what’s happening either way. There’s a kind of Inuyasha relationship going on between the main protagonists, with a tsundere demon serving a girl. Actually, this predates Inuyasha by about half a decade. All in all, this is a cool platformer based on a forgotten IP that can be enjoyed on its own.

Thanks to JRPGanon I am beginning to understand why so so many JRPG tropes pop up in tranime to begin with, also thanks for the great synopsises on so many games, I wanted to start contributing here as well to anons but I haven't really played any games in the last couple months.

>>896 Glad I could help, anon. I hope you could start playing vidya again soon, and if you do be sure to post about them. Not only does it help other anons to find something they might like, it also helps to memorize the game you played better.

>>907 Now everytime I see the Big Dipper, I can throw the Roman Salute, thanks anon. SPQR.

El. Viento – a decent action-platformer from the early days of Mega Drive. Perhaps due to that, visually it looks somewhat drab, with a lot of ugly browns and horrible meshing effect that makes it hard to see stuff. But it's alright, gets the job done and at least the main girl’s sprite is nicely animated, even having actual turn frames. The game itself is pretty easy, almost surprisingly so – most enemies die in one hit and your weapons have incredible range, while every single boss has a simple exploit that usually involves the last power-up you picked up. A few of the bosses are quite creative though. I’d say most hazards come from some anal platforming you’re asked to perform but even then the game is pretty lenient and doesn’t deal you too much damage, even offering limitless retries on several occasions. It is only the final stage that gets somewhat demanding but it’s more annoying than challenging, with respawning bats harassing you all the way through. Apart from your limitless boomerangs, you also get 5 different abilities to unlock but since all enemies die in one or two hits, most of these end up being kinda useless. Why would I use a slightly bigger fireball than the one I already have when I already got this nice screen-clearing attack? It’s also weird that you just find those power-ups randomly lying around on a level and don’t get them after a boss fight or something. Few times you do get to use them in a creative way, like getting to some hard to reach places, and I wish there was more stuff like that, but sadly the whole thing is rather straightforward otherwise. I did like that the game is story-driven; pretty simple stuff but thematically reminiscent of something like Wicked City and you do get nice anime screens with dialog after every level, so you’re somewhat invested. Plus the main grill is cute. The music is fast-paced and not too bad, honestly; that whole ‘Mega Drive sound’ goes really well with these uneasy apocalyptic themes. Though it doesn’t really stand out in many ways, it’s still an alright action-platformer worth checking out if you enjoy the genre.

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII – alright, here we go, finishing the Toriyama’s waifu trilogy. It’s hard to believe they were still trying to make this happen and greenlit another XIII game, but anyway, just like with XIII-2 this is more of an expansion/mod/addendum than a sequel, and boy am I tired of seeing that same UI and assets reused by now. At least there are no QTEs here. But even more so than with XIII-2, this is so far removed from the original concept, it just needed to be its own new IP. So this time around they couldn’t think of anything better than adding a time limit to the game, which is a gimmick I can’t stand more than anything. I like to play games at my own pace and here you have a clock constantly ticking over your head. Obviously that’s just my taste, but I don’t see it working with RPGs – you have a fuckton of stuff to do, see, buy, find, consider, and then you’re constantly prodded to hurry up and be efficient with your time. They also redesigned the battle engine, I would say for the worse. You now control only Lightning and have a more direct command input, even able to move around during battles, but it all still runs on a gauge that depletes with every action. It’s like they wanted to make this an action-RPG but just couldn’t commit and the end result is this awkward system where you attack a few times and then have to constantly wait for the gauge to refill. It’s just extremely unsatisfying. Maybe this was another engine limitation, who knows. At the very least they ramped up the difficulty a notch. One thing that truly baffled me was an open text reference to Facebook right in the game’s datalog. Can’t think of anything more immersion shattering than being told to log into Faceberg for a better gaming experience™. On a positive note, they did put some commendable effort into building an entirely new world for this one, instead of re-using levels from previous games again. There are several reasonably large cities and wildlands to explore, all 100% open. Not gonna lie, these are pretty good. I especially liked the two main cities, they have a very unique look and atmosphere to them and it’s really fun just running around exploring stuff. It’s exactly what I wanted from the original XIII, was this so much to ask? But even though these are large, they aren’t large enough to sustain an entire game, which is why they decided to make it entirely side-quest based – you’re just doing menial tasks to extend the timer and that’s pretty much the whole thing. Underwhelming to say the least. The story continues to be terrible filler garbage that’s better skipped, as I started doing eventually. It’s nothing but meandering regurgitation of the previous games; I got so tired of seeing these same characters and plot threads, which weren’t good even in the original, stretched even thinner here. The music and visuals, on the other hand, continue to be great – these are like the only consistently positive aspects of this trilogy. Although about half of the tracks are reused from the two previous games. But what’s new does stand out and they even brought back some classic FF tunes as memes. Graphics are also expectedly good; the main draw here is the truly jaw-dropping lighting for the 7th gen, back then it was like seeing a nextgen project. And you can finally install the game, so loading times are no longer an issue. This game is a weird beast for sure. On the one hand, it’s this endlessly re-stitched corpse; on the other, it has some of the best things in the “trilogy”. They had this more or less original idea but did everything to make it as cumbersome of an experience as possible with the whole timer shit and awkward combat. This is all obviously the result of them not having a clear vision or direction for any of these games. XIII was a clusterfuck of a production by a headless chicken of a studio and they spent the next five years trying to salvage it instead of moving forward. After playing through all three games I can see them being fusion’d into one solid vidya, each had a few really great individual elements, but ultimately this whole project is the biggest waste of the generation, and perhaps emblematic of it. At least the game is completely shameless about dressing Lightning up in lewd outfits.

Comix Zone – a really cool beat ‘em up for the Mega Drive. This one in particular is interesting to me because I believe this was the very first game I ever played, I got my Mega Drive as a birthday present and this was the game it came with. I do remember playing it and its weird aesthetics are forever cut into my memory, but I never touched it again since the '90s. So I was pleased to find that it’s not just one of those weird things you remember from your childhood but in fact a very good game. The main gimmick is really cool, everything about the game has to do with you being inside a comic book – you jump over panels, rip through paper and escape it catching fire, while enemies are literally drawn-in in front of you. The story is near non-existent, it’s just a premise or even an excuse to have a guy stuck inside a comic book; kinda shame but I did like that the whatever “story” there is, as well as hints and flavor text, are all conveyed through in-game speech bubbles – you can stand and read them if you want or just get straight to the action. On that note, the game just oozes that top-grade '90s ‘tude, even enemies shit talk you. Truly the best era of masculinity. I also liked the clever usage of items throughout the game, for example, you can try and just fight a boss or you can get him to light a barrel, move it under him and have it burn his ass. You also get a rat that’s used for simple puzzle solving as well as finding extra items, which it literally scratches out of the “page” you’re on, and if you let it loose when facing female enemies they will scream and run away. The graphics are not very impressive technically speaking but they use them so creatively, with the whole panel look and general comic stylization, that you just can’t help but love them. The weird aesthetics they have going on help a lot as well – you go from apocalyptic ruins to a Tibetan monastery, to a desert and a ship graveyard. All with extremely popping colors. The animations are also really nice and fluid. And the music is just pure iconic Mega Drive, all farts are very upbeat and funky. The combat engine is nice, it’s not particularly complex, you get one hit button that changes depending on the d-pad input, plus jumping. It is still pretty impressive how many combinations you can get out of it considering it’s just one button. Get close to a wall – or panel border that is – and you can throw or smack enemies into it, which is the best way to deal with them. The game is not too hard, even without lives or continues it takes me like 20 minutes to beat it after a day of practice, especially since the final boss has an easy kill loop not sure if deliberate or not. But it is unfortunately very short overall, with just three levels and so only three bosses, including the final one. I wouldn’t mind if it kept going for another three or so. You do get an option of multiple paths in certain places which is a nice touch at least. Being this short has one advantage – it gets very addictive to just drop-in for a quick session. A very creative vidya and good memories.

Maken Shao: Demon Sword – an interesting hack-n-slash from Atlus, I quite liked it. The PS2 version I played is a remake of the Dreamcast one which was released two years prior (in ‘99) and overall this project is Atlus’ first attempt at several things: full 3D, voiced, non-RPG. And it definitely shows, the game has that unmistakable early gen/first venture vibe to it and is all around clunky but ultimately very enjoyable to play once you git gud at it. It’s actually pretty impressive for an early entry into the genre considering a good deal of them struggled with analog controls and 3D camera. You get all the things you expect from Atlus – unique story, fantastic art direction and character design, and some groovy tunes. Sadly the former is completely butchered by a truly abysmal localization but thankfully, through I don’t know what providence, the PS2 version has the original Japanese audio intact so the assrape is somewhat mitigated. The story itself is pretty good though it’s mostly unveiled through text lore. As per Atlus' tradition, there are decisions that affect your progression as well as game's multiple endings. Speaking about the story, funny how it talks about the rise of terrorism in Europe as well as falling out between China and USA. Really makes you think. Despite being a hack-n-slash, the game has a pretty slow pace, with each Boss and enemy type requiring a careful approach (like you’d expect from SMT games). I wouldn't say it's particularly hard but at the same time that's mainly due to the multitude of characters you can unlock and upgrade, some of whom posses near game breaking skills. So you can experiment and adjust your game style accordingly. It was actually a lot of fun leveling up all the characters and waiting to see what abilities they unlock at max power. The graphics are pretty decent but understandably low-tech at times, though I don’t know if the PS2 version was completely rebuild from the ground up or uses anything from the Dreamcast build. It definitely doesn't look bad and Atlus never were the hardware pushers anyway. Superior art direction and level variety elevates the game above its technical limitations as was so wonderful with pre-CY vidya. Music has that unmistakable Shoji Meguro sound and some excellent standout melodies. A solid experience.

EarthBound / MOTHER 2 - played this several times in the past but never made it past Moonside before, this time I beat the game, savescummed a lot at the end though which I'm not proud of and it was bretty gud, but I have some complaints. First off, everyone knows about the shitty item system where the game gives you key items you're not allowed to drop and you have to keep calling Escargo Express intermittently to not lose all your inventory space but I think that's better than these pussy ass zoomer games where you have unlimited space or key items are one-use and then disappear. I really like this game and even I can say it's massively overrated by the vast majority of gaymers, when it's a cult classic that blew up later on and made it out of its niche. The difficulty jumps in the latter parts of the game drag it down, I probably wouldn't have stuck with it if not for savescumming because my enjoyment of the game is directly correlated to how many of my party members are alive. It's massively style over substance, the graphics and music are some of the best on the SNES and the writing and story are charming but gameplay can be either way too fast or way too slow depending on where you are in the game. Unlike other JRPGs I've played it's not grindy at all and even if you consciously try to dodge encounters in most of the dungeons you somehow still end up at a level where you at least have a chance against the next boss, provided you have the items and equipment necessary. It might just be because I savescummed this time around but the money system is way more forgiving than I remember, I had a surplus in almost every town after Twoson or Threed. I liked the real-time ticking damage counter that gives you a chance to heal party members before they die as well as the way you go between party members at different points in the story, this game somehow simultaneously feels like both a test-run and a refinement of Pokemon, which was made by the same studio if I remember correctly. Overall, I'd describe it as a JRPG for people who don't usually like JRPGs, and as someone who falls into that camp I appreciate it and maybe if I play other JRPGs I'll end up liking those more. Excited to move on to Mother 3 which I've never played before. Sorry if this reads like garbage, too tired to make a good effortpost. >>1036 I remember playing this one as a kid, Genesis had so much raw SOVL it's crazy

>>1174 I wanted to try the Mother series but it's kinda been ruined to me by the soy reddit crowd. An unfortunate thing really seeing how this is one of those nippon classics they (the nipponese) hold in high esteem.

>>1177 You're probably not missing out on much, it really is just a slightly more artistically focused Pokemon game. The aesthetics are pretty top-of-the-line for SNES Genesis, 32X and Sega CD all looked and sounded better but you can find better gameplay in a lot of stuff from around that time.

>>1179 Yeah that's another thing, that it looks very casual with not a lot to it. It should have been just a small obscure game to enjoy but normalfags overhyped it to "best game evr XD".

I also finished Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island -- a lot of soys and retro gayming redditors love to suck off Nintendo and claim they never made a bad game but in reality even the majority of first-party games released for the SNES looked, sounded, and played worse than their NES counterparts. Yoshi's Island is one of the few games in the SNES library that is an exception to this rule, as it actually utilizes graphical, sound, and gameplay mechanics that put most games to shame. I could go on about the processing power and sound capabilities of the Sega Genesis compared to the Super Nintendo but judging by the other threads up right now it seems /kong/ is smart enough to look past the rose-colored glasses that most redditors and cuckchan /v/ users have concerning Nintendo. Yoshi's Island has some of the most visually appealing spritework of its time and clearly served as inspiration for the GBA and DS where other SNES and Genesis spritework became antiquated only a few years after release, and the same goes for the soundtrack, which makes full use of the SNES soundchip putting it ahead of many games of that time. In terms of gameplay it tends to be far more creative than any mainline Mario game with mechanics like fluttering and egg-throwing which allows the player to do way more than the typical platformer. It isn't especially challenging but also not the type of game you can just blow through in an hour either. One complaint I have is that the bosses were way too easy as most fights were just mindless egg-throwing and lacked a lot of the creative chops present in the level design. Definitely earns its spot as one of the defining games of the Super Nintendo.

>>1191 I know most of them are good and whatnot, but I haven't actually played any of the first party nintendo games.

Recently I finished the half-life 2 mod Raising the bar redux, it is a recreation of the 2001-2003 storyline of the half-life 2 beta that anon likely downloaded if he is in his late 30s to mid 40s all the way back during the 2003 leak. It mixes in some aspects of the later playable beta build we got and the final release but adds attempts to add all the cut content/remix into the early beta style things from the final release it add. I really, really enjoyed the gritty, dark aesthetic of the mod and the full realization of the beta models and concepts when put on screen, it is certainly the mod that tries to recreate the half-life 2 beta with the most accuracy to the source-material/original content. Gameplay is pretty similar obviously to half-life 2 episode 2, although I've heard that episode two mods can struggle in performance compared to vanilla half life 2 so perhaps in hindsight the modders should have used have used base 2 as starting point, but its a little late for that I guess. Performance on my pc wasn't the best sometimes, probably due to the fact that I was to lazy to switch to a newer wine instance, and of course the aforementioned rumors about episode 2 I heard, that being said I am sure if I switched to a newer version of wine it would run fine and it probably runs fine on a winbl0ws pc. I liked that the original half life 2 had very few cutscenes and the parts that were (((cinematic))) you could still fuck around a ton, shame that so many games took the "cinematic" nature of half-life 2 but forgot to make the game more than a movie. kojima

>>1191 >but in reality even the majority of first-party games released for the SNES looked, sounded, and played worse than their NES counterparts I feel like it is more that nintendo never evolves, because there is no reason for them to since the stagnation seems to just make them even more shekels.

>>1200 >half-life 2 beta Hey I remember that shit. Good for them them made something like this. >I liked that the original half life 2 had very few cutscenes and the parts that were (((cinematic))) you could still fuck around a ton, shame that so many games took the "cinematic" nature of half-life 2 but forgot to make the game more than a movie. I also like that HF2, though trying to go for "photorealism" in some ways, avoided the fugly pit and went for a more stylized approach in character design instead of just scanning someone's mutt and calling it a day.

>>1207 yeah Alyx looks like shit in the newer iterations and art due to the photo-realism and the fact that they actually try to make her look mixed-race, rather than just making her tan and calling it a day. An interesting point is Alyx looks pretty hwite because originally her father was meant to be captain vance, a hwite man, also she would have hwite hair but Valve cut vance and fused him with based nigger Eli, hence Eli's slightly lighter skin and one Aryan eye, it is also implied Eli's wife was also a mutt due to alyx's piercing green eyes, which might be the canonical explanation for why in the original games Alyx isn't an ugly nig-gook-mutt.

>>1208 Yeah I never thought Alyx was some mutt, she doesn't even come across as a mulatto or a quadroon or whatever. I always assumed that Eli adopted her in the post apocalypse and he was just a father figure. There are zero non-huwite features on the original Alyx. Of course she must be made ugly in the current year.

>>1212 In the original beta Eli was vance and his wife's friend and basically had been like her uncle or grandfather, he only became her dad after valve fused both the characters together.

>>1213 Was it ever stated that he's her biological father?

>>1219 Yes, but keep in mind both Eli and his waife are part hwite and have some aryan phenotypes to them mostly the eyes and the lighter skin so that is why Alyx won the genetic lottery in the first game when it comes to being cute despite her mutt status.

>>1222 We'll she's not really mutt, they haven't redesigned her from the beta version to make her visually a mutt. I guess at worst she would be a quadroon and we all know that quadroons are huwite *chuckles* . I was just curious if in the final version they actually made Eli her biological father and not just an adopted one.

Tales of Xillia – ah, Tales games, even though they never quite rise above mediocrity most of the time, the longer you live in this clown world, the more you actually start to appreciate them for their reliability: they are always there to deliver a big comfy fantasy adventure, much needed to sooth ones tired mind. After the flaccid fart in the wind that was Graces, devs made significant improvements to pretty much every aspect of the formula. The graphics are great; a bit uneven in places and it's kinda unclear whether they're going for a full-on painted anime backgrounds look or a more conventional 3D style, since both kinda shift places at a whim, but the art direction here is absolutely fantastic and needs to be seen, probably one of the best of the era. The world is large enough and worth exploring, borrowing the FFXII-esque open ended structure this time around. The battle system is a solid variation on the good ol’ Tales battle engine, augmented with the new "Sphere Grid"-type of leveling up mechanic. They packed a lot of stuff for you to do in the game and even though most of it is ankle deep it’s still nice to have, after all, it's the small things that make up a good vidya. I had a lot of fun. The game is pretty long and while the story is your typical Tales endeavor – although admittedly on the better end of the spectrum – it’s still interesting to follow along. The characters are likable and the slight differences in narration depending on which character you chose as the protagonist is a nice touch. However, the whole thing is significantly undercut by a horrible dub and general script americanization to the point of tears, likely a lot of rewrites injecting gurl power and other such shit. This one sadly doesn't have dual audio but do seek undub if possible. The music is good but overall unmemorable, which is ironic seeing how the game comes with a bonus OST disc, but I can’t imagine listening to it. One downside to the gameplay I noticed is that they made the preemptive attack on the enemy both way too easy to execute and way too overpowered, so 90% of the gametime you’re just breezing through the encounters. A shame really because I think the battle system here is actually solid enough to warrant some challenge, but sadly the series as a whole suffers from the baby's first RPG syndrome and 7th gen already being significantly downgraded in terms of difficulty only worsens this issue. You do get a lot of merit for your buck with this one, so overall dare I say good shit indeed.

>>1233 you wanna know something interesting? the original team behind Tales of Phantasia or the creator left to form a new Studio called Tri-ace the same studio that made Final Fantasy 13-2 but their biggest game or I would argue one of the best jrpg namely the first Star Ocean and Valkyria Profile 1 on ps1 and PSP. Also another interesting thing, this Tale of Xillia game made the Japanese see "tales of" series as a genuine competitor to FF games in the Japanese market.

>>1240 >Tale of Xillia game made the Japanese see "tales of" series as a genuine competitor to FF games in the Japanese market. lolno not even close. Tales of Symphonia put the series on the map as a legitimate RPG contender, it was extremely popular. But it was Tales of the Abyss that was phenomenally popular in Japan and skyrocketed the series into the top franchises over there. It still has the most fanart of the series to this day.

>>1242 "Tales of" series was popular before but after FF13 and then the trilogy like ff13-2 and lighting return that is what made some people nervous or look at FF with another light along with the failed FF14 before it was re-released, also before ff15 and the other spin off's, And in many ways it made some look at "Tales of" as the third or second contender or within the top 3 JRPGs in Japan. I just remember reading it, but it was a long time ago, it might've been Xillia 2 but that gen FF fell on it's butt and then you also had the problem of Shin Megami Tensei wasn't released on any consoles, just handhelds. But the top 3 now is as it has always been dragon quest, ff and then SMT.

>>1244 Xillia is literally one of the worst selling in the series so no, it definitely wasn't some break away hit. In fact all the best selling games in the series are the old ones. >But the top 3 now is as it has always been dragon quest, ff and then SMT. SMT has never been in any top 3. It's a niche series. Persona maybe.

>>1245 When it comes to SMT or the Megami Tensei series of games are huge and Persona is within that universe, it is the spin off that is more popular than the actual mainline game of the Shin Megami, and there are many Spin off's of SMT like Soul Hackers 2 last year that took some inspiration from Persona but in general SMT makes it's money back in Japan. The "Tales of" then I mean within the PS3 and 360 generation, so that means on PS3 in Japan then the released games would've been Tales of Graces F, Tales of Vesperia, Tales of Xillia, tales of Xillia 2 and lastly Tales of Zestiria which is cross-gen with PS4. So, I meant "Tales of" as a series being seen in a different light as the major or big jrpg on that PS3 console generation because there wasn't really released anything when it came to JRPGs. I am gonna try and find that article of Tales of Xillia, if it wasn't Xillia 2 that was seen in a different light as the "Tales of" as that was comparable to Final Fantasy then it was gameplay, first week sales and other things like good word of mouth.It could also have been another Tales game and I am misremembering.

>>1246 >the Megami Tensei series of games are huge They're really not. SMT 5 is the first to sell over a million copies. >Persona is within that universe Only tangentially. It is its own thing not related to any mainline SMT games, and never advertised as being part of SMT. They even count Persona sales separately. On that note, Persona series sold almost as much as the entire SMT series.

>>1247 >tangentially Megaten universe gets destroyed and re-created in the image of the new god. Persona is it's own thing? I don't know the first game in Japan had the name of SMT, then it was taken out later on but Persona had the demon summoning and some of the dark themes of SMT then it became more and more friendly and less doomsday dark like the mainline series and the spin offs. >SMT 5 being the best selling game yeah, I can see that since it was the first game that was somewhat normally marketed because of Sega and Nintendo worldwide. In the west the games where known but a bit to being niche. But it is a different story in Japan, then they have the whole anniversary thing along with anniversary editions of games.

Recently I tried out the half-life 2 beta recreation mod Dark Interval, it isn't as complete or polished as RTBR per say but it is still pretty cool, I like the general look of it as well, not as much as RTBR. Wish it didn't constantly error with the AI and keep me from progressing on Linux, otherwise I would have already completed it by now.

Spot Goes to Hollywood – a cool isometric platformer for the Mega Drive and another memory from my childhood, used to play it a lot during my school years. I actually recall trying to tape a walkthrough on VHS and send it to a vidya magazine, they would publish those and that was considered mad honor. I failed miserably because I couldn’t land a jump, kept re-recording it and eventually ragequit. Good memories. The game feels exactly how I remember it, as if I played it last month and not 20 years ago. One thing that struck me playing it now is how decently sized and open-ended the levels are, you’re free to explore and collect shit; there’s a nice verticality to some of them as well. You have to collect a certain number of “coins” to exit a level but other than that nothing bars you from going anywhere you can get to and the game is full of secrets to discover. You can also collect other stuff scattered about but sadly it’s mostly useless and apart from an occasional 1Up amounts to nothing but points, kind of a missed opportunity here in my opinion. Literally once in the entire thing you find boots that allow you to jump higher… for 15 seconds. There really needed to be more stuff like this, some buffs and whatnot to find, maybe extra weapons since all you get is one basic attack that takes forever to kill enemies with. The controls are pretty good, the whole isometric perspective thing can be hard to nail down and could naturally lead to some frustration but thankfully devs realized that and there’s an easy 99 lives code. You get used to it pretty fast and then it plays smoothly. The game’s not too challenging, in fact, the bosses here are a complete cakewalk the final one is almost insultingly easy and the only hard parts are the auto-scroll levels. The graphics are good, though it’s a bit hard to place – on the one hand, everything is impressively detailed and well animated but on the other hand, the color pallet is sorta dark and desaturated, and not very appealing. I raised the white balance in photoshop and it instantly made things look better. But oh well. At least it compensates for that with a great variety of locations, since the game is movie-based you get to visit all the major film genres, from pirates and post-apocalypse to horror and sci-fi. The music is pretty decent and reflects the locations nicely, although I think the game is kinda low on sound effects and also Spot’s squeak is annoying as fuck. All in all, this is a fun vidya. It’s pretty good despite being basically a commercial shilling a brand; probably the best ever made of that ilk. I actually went and bought 7Up for the occasion, so they succeeded 25 years later, oy vey. There's also a PS1 version that I need to check some time.

>>1246 SMT is a lot better than persona tbh anon.

>>1294 The earlier Perusona games were good, the series got heavily casualized as it went on due to normalfags' attention.

>>1298 Lol why even do that, peak (((american moment))) in cuckeo game translations.

>>1307 Americans are obsessed with niggers, mutt's law.

Tales of Zestiria – after Xillia my expectations were set high for this one and I gotta say, I was not disappointed. Well, maybe a bit initially, the game takes its sweet time to get going and at first strikes you as a step down, but then by about 1/3rd it really opens up and becomes a real joy to play and explore. Shame you have to wait like ten hours for that to happen but it is what it is. At least the whole thing is 50+ hours long so in the end that wasn’t a big issue. Just like Xillia, the game continues to be inspired by the 6th gen's FFXII-styled RPGs and here the resemblance is even more noticeable. But this time around the game is truly massive, with large open-ended areas sprawling in multiple directions, often interconnected with one another. I honestly felt very nostalgic playing it, like I was back exploring DQVIII, FFXII, Phantasy Star Universe and the like. Nowhere near as big or complex as those but still a very enjoyable experience. Some really comfy and atmospheric dungeons in this one too. Visually it even looks more like a high-end 6th gen game rather than a big PS3 hardware pusher. Despite being somewhat low tech and rough around the corners the pop-ups here…, this is still a very beautiful game thanks to a truly stellar art direction and sheer variety of locations. I would often just stop and enjoy the view, with its large vistas and monumental architecture. There are some nice anime cutscenes present, as per tradition, but sadly it’s all digital vomit at this point. Musically the game definitely stands out over its immediate predecessors. This was the series’ 20th anniversary project so they got a whole bunch of composers to do the OST together, and the result is pretty solid: you get everything from the big epic score to very subtle moody melodies, to some Nordic motives and particularly great stuff in trial dungeons that I wish there was more of. What I didn’t like is what they’ve done to the battle engine, it was always simple and to the point, versatile enough without being overly convoluted. Here they just over-crammed it with a ton of needlessly complicated and mostly useless systems. Due to that you’re constantly pestered with tutorials, but it’s impossible to comprehend all of it on your first playthrough and there’s no reason to, really, since the game is pretty easy in general. No point in reading essays worth of text when you’re just always winning anyway. I guess it’s nice to have as an option but it’s an illusion of complexity. One other notable downside – the game lacks any side activities, like mini-games and whatnot, to add some variety. There’s not even a casino. The story is pretty good as far as these modern Tales games go, dare I say best grills and fanservice as well. However, one thing that undermines it all is the catastrophic, nuclear levels of americanization and redditfication of the translation; they put even the ones in Xillia to shame. I have never seen anything on this scale before. At least, mercifully, there’s Japanese audio present but it’s not gonna save you from the literal doge memes and SocJus lingo. I would literally sit in disbelief for a good minute or two after reading some of this shit. The above mentioned tutorials are also harder to comprehend because of this. Despite that I still enjoyed this one a lot. 7th gen was really missing games like this; I wish it came out in like 2008 and not 2015 when the gen was already over.

La Pucelle Tactics – an excellent tacticool RPG from Nippon Ichi, basically a predecessor to the Disgaea series. Extremely wholesome, I greatly enjoyed it. The story’s nice, it’s characteristically cutesy but mixed with surprisingly dark moments – somehow when bad shit happens to cute chibi characters it feels even more impactful. Although, sadly, the game is heavily censored in the west but at least there’s Japanese audio option available so you don’t have to suffer through the horrific dub. The visuals are overall superb with exquisite sprite work and gorgeous hand-painted backgrounds. It is however very much a PS1 game running on PS2, it even came out on CD originally. As such, the 3D battle backgrounds, while still pleasant looking, are very rudimentary and the 2D backgrounds are static to the point where you have to be content with a motionless fountain. There’s also this weird thing where you can rotate the camera on certain battle screens but not the others for some reason. But it was never too bothersome, really. Well, maybe the fountain thing. I mean, just don’t draw a fountain there if you know you can’t animate it. The music was one of the highlights for sure, it's extremely good and I wish there was more of it… perhaps also a downside of using a single CD. Gameplay wise it’s a pretty standard nip SRPG. Good shit. Notable gimmick being the ability to convert any monster in the game to your side so your party ends up being 50% monster-based. I found it generally too easy tho, mainly because the map screens are so small there’s just not enough room for grander strategies and it feels more like comfy chess matches. In fact, some battles get so tight you actually have to accommodate meta elements like spawn and exit squares that enemies can’t step on into your strategy, which was interesting. On a side note, I know it’s characteristic of the genre but the whole not being able to select your target when facing multiple opponents and missing the enemy with 1 HP remaining is ass splitting. The game just radiates that carefree atmosphere of better days; it’s now one of my all-time favorites in fact. Would very much recommend it. Haven't played the Disgaea series yet, largely because of the NISA cancer, but if it's as good as this I'll find a way to get to it eventually.

>>1513 >the NISA cancer Don't even get me started about how much they ruined the English dubs of Neptune, and how badly they fucked the subtitles.

>>421 Late response but I was actually playing through both DMC1 and DMC3 at the same time at the beginning of the year but as with most games I sorta just stopped, both are a lot of fun though, guess I just didn't have the motivation...

>>1515 They, they ruined entire generations of vidya so now you have to jump through hoops to enjoy the games.

>>1516 I can't imagine playing two games at once, that would definitely lessen the enjoyment of both in my opinion.

>>1520 Basically I was playing one with a fren and the other alone, I started the third game cause I wanted to continue playing with my fren as we were sorta taking turns playing.

>>1521 I see. Though playing with frens can be fun in and of itself, I found that it doesn't really translate to the enjoyment of the game, especially when you grow older. I remember back in university me and my pal really wanted to play some co-op game, I think MK Shaolin Monks or some shit, and it seemed like such a fun idea, so then we bought it and started playing it but then lost interest really fast. We never played anything together again. We were growing out of that age where just fucking about together is the primarily objective, but at the same time my personal individual enjoyment of games became only stronger with time.

>>1522 How odd, the opposite for me, as I've grown older my interests have sort of waned, though I would say I am not much of what you would call a "gamer's gamer" besides the stuff I particularly enjoy. As time as gone on enjoying co-op like L4D2 with the few frens I got has been become even more enjoyable as I've gotten older, and the want to do it more has increased. I think it is because at this age I am sort of sensing my own mortality.

>>1524 Well that's good for you my nigga but I think the co-op stuff is more fleeting because like I mentioned you're enjoying the commutative process and not so much the game, you don't even care what the game is, everything is fun with pals. But then it becomes less and less fun because you're doing the same surface level thing. Whereas when you try to get into individual gayming, you get some really profound experiences.

The Story of Thor: A Successor of The Light – a superb action-platformer for the Mega Drive. Really good shit right here. It’s very much a Zelda clone but it has its own style and personality, more inspired by Zelda than simply outright copying it. And holy fuck does it look good, this is a very late-gen game, especially for Mega Drive, but it’s got to be one of the most beautiful and detailed game of the entire 4th generation. It can easily hold its own against the best SNES has to offer and I’m surprised MD can even run it. Though it didn’t escape the characteristic muted palette look. It’s also one of the few games on the system to have a save mode. All the sprites are large, intricately detailed, and fully animated. Clearly a lot of effort was put into animation and miscellaneous effects in general - for example, when you’re crawling you can see the character supporting himself with his hand on the ground, or how enemies would catch flame both from your attacks as well as accidental friendly fire. The score is equally impressive and is probably taxing the poor MD sound chip to the absolute limit. There sadly is no big iconic main theme of some kind. The world is beautiful and vibrant, with great variety of locations, it’s not as big as a Zelda world to explore but you are still given a decent freedom to wander about. Found a bridge? You can crawl under it and discover some goodies. Shame the story is rather basic, though; you can talk to people but they don’t say anything interesting, kind of a wasted opportunity here. The gameplay is really fun and surprisingly versatile, you get a pretty decent moveset and can use a variety of weapons at will. It’s really neat how you can even drop items from your inventory on the floor if you’re full or don’t need something. The main gimmick of the game is summoning spirits – you get your standard elemental familiars but the number of ways in which they can be utilized is really impressive and advanced. To summon them you need to find a corresponding element somewhere on the level, and it can be anything from – in water’s case – obvious bodies of water, to little creeks on rock surfaces, to a tiny drip from a ceiling that you don’t even register at first. You can even summon them from other enemies if they consist of or produce the element in question. You need to melt ice with a fire spirit to proceed further but you can also summon another spirit off the ice’s surface. The game often asks you to think about such things creatively to solve puzzles, especially for secret stuff. The variety of enemies gets pretty commendable by the end of the game, I liked the one enemy that’s immaterial unless you have a spirit summoned but then it starts attacking the spirit relentlessly, giving you but a tiny window to dispose of the damned thing. Zombies are also nice, they can give you a hard time but would literally crumble to dust if you’ll think of using fire. The bosses are also pretty cool. Though overall the game’s fairly easy, mainly because you have so much stuff at your disposal and can save anywhere outside dungeons, sometimes even in dungeons. But it does ask you to make some dubious platforming jumps at times. Though I wouldn’t call this game obscure, I’m surprised it’s not heralded amongst the greatest in Mega Drive’s library and the entire generation. I had great fun, often just taking my time appreciating the vibe of the backgrounds and music. Definitely a must play if you’re into 2D Zelda-type games.

Dawn of Mana (aka Seiken Densetsu 4) – a great little gem from when Square still used to make video games. Unlike all the other Seiken games, this is not an RPG but a rather unique action-platformer, which is why it being a numbered mainline installment is questionable, but it's still really fun nonetheless. The main gimmick of the game is that it is physics based – slashing around won't do you much good, instead, you have to use your whip to throw objects into enemies, smash them into one another, stagger and finish them off. The stronger you get, the more shit you can throw around. The combat engine is pretty basic and it's obvious that interacting with the world is the main crux of the game – knocking boulders on unassuming monsters, setting haystacks on fire and causing debris avalanches; all that on large sandbox levels with complex geometry. It’s pretty impressive to say the least and of course the game looks fantastic, with incredible art design and late gen technical prowess that you used to expect from Square. Music is extremely solid as well. The story is nice and simple but more of a fanservice for the fans of the series, especially considering the much shorter length compared to an RPG. All that gameplay freedom can make the controls a little bit unruly at times but that naturally stops being an issue once you git gud at it, and of course it's a great technical achievement that all of this works as good as it does. About the only downside of the game is that it's too repetitive, you do the exact same thing on every level and it’s a damn shame considering the variety of mechanics and puzzles that would work with this premise. The challenge level is also not particularly high, mainly because it's too easy to max out your stats on every level. All in all, a great vidya. It has that Kingdom Hearts/Dark Cloud/Okami vibe going on, comfiness levels through the roof and just good time in general.