Classics 3

Story Positives:

1. Animation is very top notch, both in cutscenes and in gameplay
2. Art design is phenomenal, with very well designed areas and entities
3. Direction in general for the cutscenes is fantastic
4. Music direction is perfectly keyed to suit the story presentation
5. The escape sequences in general are very well designed, with great music and intensity
6. The feels are real, both in the intro and the outro
7. Absolutely love that Atmosphere
8. And that incredible Tone
9. The Intro nails everything it needs to, good lord
10. Rarely good usage of Lighting throughout
11. Excellent Visual Continuity

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Music in general is good, and segues nicely into other songs as you move
2. Bash is a fascinating tool for both maneuvering and combat and is well used in puzzle and enemy design (also good audio cue)
3. Looping level design ties into the usual Metroidvania style of slowly expanding playable area
4. Pacing is good in controlling types of levels and challenges you face, with good ‘breather’ segments usually just after getting a power up
5. The controls are responsive, fluid, and precise
6. There are many very fun jumping challenges throughout
7. The additional challenges of the new Definitive area are very fun and well designed
8. The Forlorn Ruins were really, really fun and I loved the gravity altering mechanic for the level
9. Dash, and grenade are fun additions that add good mobility
10. Really good Intro that sets up how to play and how to explore pretty well
11. Very good Visual Continuity in assisting with navigation

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The Ginso tree escape was pretty badly designed gameplay wise, with unclear hurtboxes on the water, very low margin of error, no checkpoints, and worst of all rubberbanding
2. The Horu escape is also pretty badly designed, with very low margin of error, no checkpoints across a huge section, and heavy reliance on memorization
3. Bloom is way too high, to the point where (at sections) it’s legitimately hard to see properly
4. Aggregate: Heavy requirement of minimalized error in jumps a bit too often // The Forlorn Escape was heavily reliant upon memorization // Issues with visibility in the Mount Horu // Cutscenes are pseudo unskippable
5. Honestly that Outro was pretty lackluster, dull, and actively hurt the enjoyment of the finale

Story Positives:

1. Camera direction and usage (cartoon)
2. Animation in cutscenes is legitimately top notch, even now
3. Voice acting is quite good overall

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Guidance and direction in level design
2. General platforming is decent but aided by the quick respawns, frequent checkpoints, and lack of any real lives system which gives good pacing
3. Sound design is surprisingly good, especially in helping the player figure things out if they’re ‘stuck’
4. Visual distinction on interactables and color coordination on types of power ups

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The camera is just bad, bad, bad and consistently in the way of performing and enjoying the game
2. The camera also has an awful tendency of focusing on entirely the wrong thing, requiring either blind jumps or just getting hit or dying
3. Aggregate: The void escape isn’t that bad but it’s pretty badly designed (camera focuses on everything but the platforms and the characters, very little margin of error, no checkpoints) // If you die in a certain spot in the underwater area you respawn in completely the wrong area, requiring a game restart // Unskippable cutscenes
4. Legitimately dull and bad Boss fights

Story Positives:

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. The pause menu and the spell lists, item lists, equipment lists and who can equip what, what they do, and how much they cost / what strength they are being built into the game is pretty nice
2. Aggregate: Automap helps tremendously with this type of dungeon design // Animations / enemy designs // The option to play with the ‘ages’ version or original is good // Several generally good design decisions throughout

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Aggregate: Dungeon song (short loop, very repetitive) // Excessive button mashing to get through text boxes (opening chests, doors, etc.) // Severely limited inventory size compounded by… // …key items you can’t remove taking up inventory space // No real indicators of where to use the ice digger

Story Positives:

1. Camera usage and general cinematography is quite good
2. Doodad utilization and detail is great, especially in towns and indoors
3. Great back and forth of party members to NPCs
4. Lindblum Effect is great, with tons of NPCs and lots of dialogue and fleshing out of a living world
5. Character spritework and animation is good
6. Sue is really adorable and a treat
7. Sue’s sendoff is wonderfully heartfelt and sad, and helps show the direction the story is taking
8. World building is all over the place (in a good way)
9. Portraits are good but the way they add tone and expression is great
10. Dining / camping sequences are a fantastic way to have the characters talk with each other, cover recent events, and develop story
11. Justin & Feena grow together surprisingly well over the course of the game, and their dynamic is good stuff
12. Disc 1 is actually really good (pacing, tone, theme, tightness of storytelling and self cohesion)
13. The Intro has some really good stuff in it, and very quickly establishes the initial tone
14. Visual Storytelling is all over

Story Negatives:

1. The entire Pakon, kidnapping, forced-into-marriage thing is bad in its own right but its entirely played off for laughs (and honestly there’s a lot of ‘here’s some horrible thing, but it’s okay cuz it’s a joke!’ going on… and honestly a lot of the game just sort of brushes off horrible things as ‘it’s a joke’)
2. Inconsistent tone shifts between silly zany fun (falling from a cliff with no issue, ha ha they’re going to sacrifice us, ha ha it’s the zany military trio) and well reasoned and logical (Sue is too young to adventure regularly, cohesive world building, end of the world threat)
3. Aggregate: The five minute retirement feels exceptionally off, especially since literally the next scene is the ‘we’re all with you’s cene // Mullen’s VA actively ruins every scene he’s in, most egregiously during Leen’s death
4. Sadly the Outro falls flat, compared to the excellent Intro

Gameplay Positives:

1. Spell and weapon combo abilities are decent, but what really helps sell them is the variety of abilities and subsequent paths to power progression
2. Sound design is good for the time and pretty varied
3. Aggregate: Auto-battle is decent // Stat ups upon raising weapon and magic skills which encourages spreading out leveling without enforcing it // Music is pretty good // Decent enemy variety across zones

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The game’s approach to camera (most noticeably in combat) is actually nauseating, giving me and several viewers issues
2. Sadly the sheer quantity of combat necessitates a second negative for nausea and headache inducing camera in combat
3. Combat voice clip spam is pretty bad
4. Unskippable cutscenes
5. Some of the songs are actively awful, with far too short of loops and far too little music
6. There’s little delays in many actions in the game; between talking, selecting actions, animations, all of which contribute to a ‘drag’ on the game which makes it feel like it’s taking longer than it really is and makes the whole experience start to just… drag after a while
7. The Outro is pretty lackluster. The final dungeon is pretty boring, but made worse by disinteresting visuals, actively bad music, and many… many enemy encounters smashing you in the face, plus two bland boss fights (admittedly the final Baal fight was actually pretty good)
8. Aggregate: “Encounter rate” is honestly just too high, especially on disc 2 // The Warp dungeon is… not good, with confusing one-directional inconsistent doors, irritating encounters, and having to backtrack out (like most dungeons)

Story Positives:

1. IV: Niko is a surprisingly simple and complex person at the same time, and is probably my second favorite GTA protagonist ever
2. IV: Roman is… easily my favorite GTA character to-date, wonderfully human, flawed, enthusiastic, voiced, presented, everything
3. IV: Voice acting is top notch
4. IV: Motion capture animation is great as usual
5. IV: Foreshadowing / Babylon 5 Effect is extensive, with entire scenes taking on a whole new light the second time around
6. IV: Attention to detail in the city really helps fill it out and add to the feeling of being in a real city
7. IV: Doodad utilization is fantastic everywhere
8. IV: Pretty much the entire intro sequence just has absolutely fantastic storytelling and writing, teasing just enough while still having human conversations that sound natural and avoiding spoiling things early on
9. IV: The dialogue is some of the best written in the entire franchise, bar none
10. IV: The usual radio and satire plus for humor
11. IV: There’s a lot of detail and humor built into the websites, of which there are many
12. IV: The entire Vlad arc and how it showcases Roman, Niko, and begins the events of (really) the entire rest of the game is just poetry
13. IV: The final Broker mission, the reality crashing down on Roman and Niko, their dynamic, Roman’s voice acting, it’s just poetry
14. IV: Little Jacob is a total bro, Brucie is surprisingly enjoyable, and Dwayne is relatable
15. IV: Dimitri and Mikhail have surprisingly good dynamic and a ton of density to their relationship while they’re on camera
16. IV: Interconnectivity within this game is really tight, with the threads logically connecting everywhere
17. IV: The big mission where you go after Bernie and confront him is just poetry gold. The way Niko reacts, the way Bernie reacts, the astonishing amount of characterization Bernie gets in just one scene, Roman being there with him despite everything, it’s just great
18. IV: Packie is standout by himself but there’s also tons of great supporting characters
19. IV: The climax mission (no not Deal / Revenge, Darko) is just absolutely amazing in how powerful it is, how emotionally core it is to one of the game’s main themes, to Niko, to Roman… just, incredibly powerful, and the choice itself feels impactful
20. TLaTD: Animation / Mocap is, as per the vanilla game, quite excellent and really helps sell the characters (Ashley is a standout example of really well done animation)
21. TLaTD: Voice acting is excellent as per standard
22. TLaTD: The core plot of the downfall of the Lost and Johnny’s descent is really well done, for however depressing it is it remains powerful and well crafted
23. TLaTD: There are many interesting, varied, and well done characters in Lost
24. TLaTD: Johnny himself is a great protagonist, who manages to really sell the knight in shining armor thing while remaining level headed and also a pushover who tries his best but screws up and is a generally well done three dimensional tragic figure
25. TLaTD: Connectivity between this and the other two games is good, and the pacing of the plot is excellent
26. BoGT: Animation and motion capture are, as usual, excellent (special props to Tony’s)
27. BoGT: Voice acting is, once again, fantastic
28. BoGT: Connectivity and continuity usage are good, arguably at their best here as this one most clearly ties all three together
29. BoGT: Luis is surprisingly interesting when actually analyzed, and despite his generally straight-man attitude he is engaging to play as, especially alongside the contrasting Tony
30. BoGT: Yusuf is entertaining and a bro and just great whenever he’s on screen
31. BoGT: The extra context and fleshing out of side characters helps overall (Bulgarin, Brucie)
32. Generally good Atmosphere and Tone across all three works…
33. …even better since all three have different Tone from each other
34. Some good Banter between characters
35. All three have good Consequence Storytelling…
36. …as events logically follow each other and acknowledge what’s already happened
37. Bonus positive for Dialogue
38. And bonus for the Doodad design of the city
39. Second positive for the three games’ Intros
40. Great use of NPC Set Dressing for the city
41. Some great Story Sequencing in the two expansions
42. And some good Storyboarding in all three
43. All three also have some well done, if horrifying, Themes
44. A third positive for excellent Voice Acting
45. And some great World Building across the whole work

Story Negatives:

1. IV: The money gameplay / story segregation
2. IV: The post-Roman kidnapping up to about when Darko and Bernie re-enter the narrative part of the game is honestly just bloated and vaguely disinteresting
3. IV: Plenty of incidents of cutscene incompetence (almost always ‘hey let’s stare at them while they slowly get away’)
4. IV: The endings… don’t feel like they earned it at all. Both are horribad because tragedy but the build up, moment, and payoff doesn’t work in both cases. Plus there’s a lot of unpolished nature to them and they just didn’t feel like they had any impact other than brute force shock value
5. Aggregate: TLaTD: Improper connections with Jim, Johnny, and Ray // BoGT: Armando and Henrique // Luis just sort of survives the end game somehow via plot armor
6. IV: Really some serious pacing issues in what happens when, even if you just do primary story events
7. IV: This is related to the exceptionally bad middle game Padding…
8. IV: …which just drags and drags and drags

Gameplay Positives:

1. A: Custom radio station as well as new options to make it more radio’y
2. A: Surprisingly decent fast travel system (hail a cab, take a trip there, take a fast trip there, take an instant trip there, go anywhere you’ve discovered including mission points)
3. A: Aggregate: GPS // Micro improvements (better health, better guns, better air design, less frustration, driver AI and pedestrian AI improvements) // Different banter on replay // City design and layout
4. TLaTD: Aggregate: Formation driving and related bonuses // Terry being available basically whenever for resupply // The ‘calling for backup’ mechanic which also levels them // Comrades not being garbage
5. TLaTD: Mid mission checkpoints // Call bike functionality // Pacing // Grip improvements
6. TLaTD: Mission design is much tighter and better designed overall, to the point of having variety and enjoyment in missions
7. BoGT: Mission replay, smart dialogue skipping, mid mission checkpoint design
8. BoGT: Substantially better mission design in general and better variety
9. Good Built-In Cheats throughout
10. While not great, there’s some decent Cosmetics across all three protagonists
11. Bonus positive for the Taxi / Fast Travel system
12. Even better Penalty for Failure than the 3D games (lose some money, respawn at nearest hospital)

Gameplay Negatives:

1. A: The car controls are just not good, and the bike controls are actively awful
2. A: The controls remain irritating throughout a 50+ hour game
3. IV: Poor coding
4. IV: Excessive and very railroaded tutorializing
5. IV: Hard crash issues
6. IV: Frequent bugs which legitimately inhibit gameplay rather than just being quirky or cosmetic
7. IV: No mid-mission checkpoints combined with long missions
8. IV: Samey ‘go here kill this’ mission design combined with ‘go here and have a shootout’ mission design
9. IV: The fat and padding of the middleish section of the game is real
10. IV: Lack of music in mid mission
11. IV: It’s way too easy to accidentally, permanently skip dialogue and cutscenes and there’s no real method to re-watch or re-listen
12. IV: Outro missions are… astonishingly badly written
13. IV: The missions themselves are entirely too railroaded, to the point where they actually become boring (have to just ‘follow calmly’ during a ‘high speed chase’ kind of deal)
14. TLaTD & BoGT: Lack of music in mid mission
15. Bonus negative for those awful, awful Controls
16. As tends to be normal for GTAs, the Difficulty Curve is all over the place
17. IV: Almost no thought at all put into Encounter design, usually just being a smattering of dudes with guns…
18. IV: …which also ties in with the bad Enemy Variety
19. IV: A second negative for the aggressively bad Tutorialization…
20. IV: …which is honestly some of the worst Tutorialization I’ve seen in gaming

Story Positives:

1. The opening cinematic does a lot, good, and in a short period of time. The basis of the mythos and the background threat we face, the hints of what the Grey Wardens are (whispers), the golems and the dwarven armies, and the fact that our enemies have complex armor and weapons all helps establish things very quickly, smoothed over by Duncan’s excellent narration
2. Voice acting is excellent throughout
3. Voice acting continues to be awesome even for minor characters (also good voice direction)
4. The codex… has so, so, so much lore in it
5. The way the setting is built around magic and the Chantry is frankly fascinating and some awesome world building construction
6. Dwarven society is legitimately fascinating in how its structured, how it utilizes (and mis-uses) the castes, and how screwed they really are while relying on those they abuse the most
7. Dwarven Commoner Origin by itself is very well done, very well written, has great exposition and good gameplay and story segments while simultaneously showcasing a lot of the setup, characters, and world
8. Human Noble is well crafted, and crucially is integral to the overall narrative in tying you directly towards the main plot and the Loghain plot
9. Dwarf Noble intro is fantastic, with great insight into Dwarven culture, politics, and setting up several good character bits for later
10. Doodad usage and attention to detail are just excellent
11. The game manages to make me laugh even to this day, many times
12. The game has legitimately branching narrative and allows a surprisingly large number of permutations of how the story can go
13. Banter between characters is excellent
14. The Fade is a good insight into the characters, and the Tower itself is (mostly) a reasonably done section of the game with good elements
15. The Dalish quest in general is interesting and well done, with a reasonably well done twist, but the ‘best’ ending is great, the ‘kill the elves’ ending is appropriately horrible, and the ‘kill the werewolves’ ending is just as messed up
16. The NPCs in general are fun, well acted, and memorable
17. A second plus for the sheer quantity of quality NPCs
18. The Harromont vs. Bhelen decision itself is probably one of the better decisions in the game, and the entire Orzammar section is pure gold and has lots of interesting quests, lore, character moments, reactions, options, and paths
19. The non-question of the Darkspawn propagation (deliberately unaddressed in the narrative) served wonderfully to build up to the reveal of what Broodmothers are and how they work, and is incredibly, beautifully horrific
20. The entire section to procure the ashes, the Gauntlet, the Spirit of Regret, there’s some good character stuff there and some good world building too
21. The escape sequence in Denerim has some real comedy gold in it and is well designed story wise regardless
22. The Landsmeet is a fun culmination quest, with a lot of permutations on how it can function and turn out, depending on how its designed
23. The lead up to and initial strikes against Denerim are awesome, and Alistair’s big speech is a fantastic moment that still gives me chills
24. Choices actually matter
25. The Outro in general is just as epic and fulfilling as it should be, depending on how it’s played (either the funeral if you die, or talking to everyone and seeing the end/continuation of their arcs)
26. The Epilogue is arguably the best Bioware ending ever done in my opinion and does a lot (a lot) to acknowledge your choices throughout the game, even if most of it is effectively retconned by future games
27. The romance options in general are fairly well designed with just about some of the best romance quests and companions in gaming
28. Morrigan and Alistair’s romance options gain a second positive for sheer quality and quantity
29. Alistair is the lovable snarker who hides a deeply insecure man who desperately wants a family to call his own, something he’s never had before. His voice actor is amazing and his character is fantastic
30. Morrigan is one of my favorite companions across gaming, a woman torn between harsh pragmatism and internal idealism and forced to choose between intangible and tangible. She has many layers to her, and seeing the reality of the woman so utterly lost by something as simple as being given a gift with no desire for something in return is telling
31. Claudia Black really deserves special praise for elevating Morrigan so. Her voice acting is top notch, and she adds incredible nuance and tone to lines that, otherwise, would probably be substantially lacking
32. Zevran is a great, amusing character who hides the pain and grief he carries with him, his coping mechanisms forcing him to adapt as he goes while secretly hating himself. His romance is also one of the better ones as it pries open his shell and shows the broken man within
33. Duncan, despite having relatively little screen time in the main game, gets a good showing in each Origin and serves as a great grounding point for several elements of the game, and is enjoyable regardless
34. Wynne is a bit naggy but ultimately just trying to do her best with the limited time she has to impart upon those after her, and she’s a genuinely caring person who’s been around the bin many times
35. Leliana and her sordid past, her desperate desire to be more, and her constant worrying about what her true nature is are all excellent
36. Sten is probably my second favorite Qunari across the franchise, being seemingly coarse and rude but ultimately just being very blunt and basic in his approach. He’s the perfect type of soldier, one who questions you because he needs to know you’re doing things the right way for the right reason
37. Oghren is not as great as the other characters, but there is still a fascinating tale in his backstory. The incredibly skilled warrior (he survived the Deep Roads by himself for weeks!) who was forced to come home and adapt to civilian life, a task he failed miserably at because he didn’t know how to handle himself, who then lost his entire family and his wife to obsession. His turning to drink to wash over all that is understandably tragic
38. Shale isn’t as in depth or as fascinating as the other characters, but she does have the HK-47 factor going for her; she’s hysterical, and makes me laugh to this day
39. Loghain is surprisingly complex of a character, especially on repeat viewings, and you can see a lot of what he does and why through his eyes and see how things make sense in his twisted way of thinking
40. Shale’s quests
41. Leliana’s quests
42. Morrigan’s quests
43. Alistair’s quests
44. Oghren, Sten, and Wynne’s quests
45. The Hungry Deserter, Bandits on the Road, Unscrupulous Merchant,
46. The assassin’s quest chain
47. Cammen’s Lament, Elora’s Halla, Lost to the Curse, the poetree
48. A Mother’s Hope
49. An Unlikely Scholar, Lost to the Memories, The Chant In The Deep
50. Zerlinda’s Woe, The Dead Caste, The Golem Registry, Pearls Before Swine, The Crimson Oars
51. Everything to do with Master Wade
52. The Last Request, Unbound, Hearing Voices, Fazzil’s Request, Lost Templar, Tortured Noble
53. Aggregate: Some Babylon 5 Effect (notably with Loghain) // Little hints and details of the various Origins creep up in the story even if it’s not yours // The Architect, while not having much screen time, is a fascinating and interesting character and the source of tons of debate about his purpose and methods
54. Awakening: The rulership and Keep mechanics add some wonderful flavor and enjoyment to the element of being landed
55. Awakening: Party banter is, once again, great
56. Awakening: The main companions aren’t as fleshed out as Origins’ but they’re still good, and still enjoyable characters for the most part
57. Awakening: The core plot is actually quite fascinating, and the idea of so upsetting the status quo with talking Darkspawn (and Darkspawn factions) is a well unveiled mystery
58. Awakening: Voice acting is the usual high quality standard
59. Awakening: All the Keep quests
60. Awakening: Nathaniel’s quest arc, Anders’ quest arc, Sigrun’s quest arc
61. Awakening: Nathaniel Howe is a great character, only limited by his screen time // Sigrun is enjoyable whenever she’s present // Justice is fascinating is suffering heavily from last-character syndrome
62. Awakening: Anders is easily the best character in the game. Sadly.
63. Awakening: Long-Buried Past, Memories of the Stone, Burden of Guilt, Maiden in Distress, Lost Dragon Bones
64. Awakening: Brothers of Stone, Last Wishes, Law and Order, the Orphans quests
65. Awakening: Preying on the Weak, Til Death Do Us Part, Out Of Control, Rumblings From Beneath
66. Witch Hunt: The setup and dangling threads are well done and presented and, honestly, are super engaging. The lack of follow through is not this game’s fault
67. Some of the best Bioware Animation style in their catelogue, helping each cutscene
68. Fantastic, serious-yet-silly Atmosphere and Tone throughout
69. Constant Background Lore helping to flesh things out
70. Legitimately Branching Narrative in almost every major quest arc
71. So, we have to talk about the Dialogue, because…
72. …it’s easily the best written Dialogue I’ve seen in…
73. …the entirety of Bioware’s body of works
74. Second positive for excellent Doodad usage throughout
75. A second positive for Humor and making me laugh more than a few times
76. Bonus point to several scenes having good Music Direction
77. A third and final positive to the absolutely fantastic Outro
78. Good Visual Continuity amongst regions
79. A third and final positive for the Voice Acting and how awesome it is
80. Third and final positive for that World Building (which is funny if you think about the next game)

Story Negatives:

1. The City Elf Origin… is too much. The way sexual violence is portrayed is not well done and honestly has issues with edgier for edgier sakes, artificially stupid evilness (which the player can be a part of), and general squick
2. The fact that the party is not all present is a personal irritation but even ignoring how much I don’t like that (and missing out on personality, characterization, and banter) there’s also the fact that they’re effectively just hanging out at the camp doing nothing while we’re off trying to save the country
3. Anora’s voice acting is probably one of the worst in the whole game, but it really shows when you hear her ‘big epic speech’ prior to Denerim which juuust fails, laughably so
4. Aggregate: The lack of knowledge as the method of story construction // Ostagar, while epic and with a lot of good stuff, still sort of contrasts and contradicts several key character and plot points that the rest of the game posits // The Origins, really, don’t have anything to do with the rest of the game and are unsatisfactorily brought back up in almost every case // The fact that the game is so incredibly limiting in how Loghain can survive the Landsmeet is just aggravating
5. Awakening: The game has aggressively bad continuity with DA:O with regards to importing (and while this is for behind the scenes reasons that is understandable, it still makes the story suffer substantially for me, especially going into Awakening immediately after DA:O)
6. Awakening: Oghren… is just not Oghren in Awakening, and moreover he’s just crude humor

Gameplay Positives:

1. Multitude of dialogue options allowing for the player to vary up their personality significantly
2. A second positive for consistently good and varied dialogue options
3. A third and final positive for dialogue options and consistent usage throughout
4. Smart autosave (zone lines and plot areas)
5. Toolset was released by the developers, meaning mod support
6. All Roads Lead To Rome gameplay design
7. In addition to this, there is a degree of branching quest design at several levels (especially because of the whole ‘supposed to be standalone’)
8. The Mage Origin, while doing some good stuff story wise, really shines gameplay wise (tutorial, ‘town’ section, dungeon section) and has good events, escalation, presentation, and pacing throughout
9. Dwarven Noble Origin has some good general gameplay design, with multiple optional sections, multiple paths you can take through segments (Trian being a big one), and good pacing in terms of types of encounters (‘town’, combat, town, dungeon, etc.)
10. Proper and well fleshed out difficulty options (changes many, many things including the literal AI scripts the enemy run)
11. A second positive for just incredibly work and effort done into proper difficulty modes
12. The core concept of the Fade ‘dungeon’ is actually pretty interesting and, honestly, fun. The different forms having their own specialities and abilities and using them to progress through a series of pseudo mazes is pretty fun…
13. Mages are actually quite well designed, with good kit and variety of options and lots of fun spells, plus the combination system where you can combine spells for greater or different effects
14. The Cauthrian fight is one of the better designed fights in the game, and is probably one of the best ‘supposed to lose’ fights I can think of in RPGs. It is defeatable, but if you don’t it’s followed by the Escape sequence where the game gives you the option of trying to sneak out, or try to sneak/talk/break in with party members of your choice, putting how to progress through it entirely in the player’s hands depending on setup, preferences, or elsewise
15. The Landsmeet is great in how many paths and methods it can progress, and the quests and lead up, and finally the fact that you can lose fully and still progress is generally good design
16. Choices actually freaking matter (at least for this game)
17. A second plus for, within the game of Origins, a huge amount of branching choices that are significant alterations and also really making the player feel like their choices, their decisions, have a substantial impact on the world (this is of course excluding the sequels)
18. Enemy variety and design is pretty decent, with a large number of enemy types that require different strategies and usually have things designed to work with the terrain they’re found in
19. The random encounters on the overworld are good, manually crafted encounters that don’t overstay their welcome and usually are involved in one quest or another
20. The Outro was quite good, with fun design for Denerim, the tower, and the final boss (ballista, summoning adds depending on your choices, nameds, putting a vendor in the final area to do a final restock and resupply, splitting the party between sides)
21. Aggregate: Dialogue log for missed conversations // Ability to change difficulty on the fly at will // Ability to enable or disable blood splatter // Gambits and related benefit to customizing your party and how they operate
22. Aggregate: Spell combos are neat if not properly fleshed out // Kit from traps, potions, and poisons // Gold design is actually pretty good, where you have plenty of things to spend your gold on and how much gold you have is all about how thorough you are in exploring and looting
23. Awakening: Several quality of life changes that help flesh out things (stamina potions, the bank, respec books, bombs, enchanting which is incredibly useful, etc.)
24. Awakening: I love the choices and actions of being a ruler, and each choice you make has impacts and results throughout the expansion
25. Awakening: Quest structure and flow is good except for main quests
26. Awakening: Kit is better overall than in Origins, mostly because of being added to
27. Special positive for the Enemy AI design
28. The gambits for the party members are very well designed…
29. …despite the flaw for it, this makes the party actually useful
30. Good talent trees for Alternate Leveling
31. Core Combat is quite balanced and fun
32. Good Character Creation design
33. Good and smooth Difficulty Curve
34. A second positive for excellent, manually crafted Encounter design
35. Leveling is nice and smooth and rewarding
36. A whole lot of Information is in the Game for deciding what to use and when
37. The Intros do everything they need to do…
38. …and they do it very well, getting across pretty much all the types of gameplay you’ll see in the game by the time you finish Ostagar
39. A second positive for that fantastic Outro; the city, the tower, and the final boss
40. Power Progression Curve is quite smooth, and each level feels significant

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Memory leak (per request; A memory leak is, in very simple terms, when the active memory the game generates to help it load things doesn’t get ‘cleaned out’ regularly like it should, leading to it storing more and more and more until it effects game performance and slows things down to a slog)
2. Spiders (complex issue, but in short, there are very very few games that deliberately try to make their spiders as horrifyingly realistic as possible and this is one of them, and given the commonality of arachnophobia and the relative ease with which a toggle to just alter them would be–as evidenced by the no spiders mods–this ultimately detracts from the game by effectively forcing some players, such as myself, to download a mod to play the game at all)
3. Audio balancing issues with music (it’s either too quiet or too loud)
4. The combination of lack of respec, the fact that the game is not particularly well balanced, and the ability to build yourself into a corner either in terms of capacity or playstyle (general fun factor), and the fact that you don’t really feel how your class plays until hours and hours into the game leads to… a negative
5. The lack of gambits functioning for the unit you’re controlling which leads to deadsticking which is irritating for the melee builds and, on top of that, the toggle already exists in game to turn gambits off but universally does not apply to whomever you are currently controlling
6. …the Fade, to continue from earlier, is a good idea badly implemented. While I did legitimately enjoy several aspects of it (forming the Positive up above) the fact is the initial section sucks, it’s unnecessarily harsh (especially on harder difficulties), the backtracking is real, the whole section is a bit too long for having to endure boring terrain, visual effects (which can be turned off admittedly), and music… and all of that is compounded by the fact that you don’t start off with the forms necessary to progress and, frankly, have fun
7. Rep system and connected problems with rep being tied to dialogue and gifts, the inability to bring all party members to conversations, major events having no rep impact if the characters weren’t present, rep gating abilities and content, etc.
8. While the gameplay of carefully planning out encounters can and is fun, especially with proper difficulty options, there’s just a few too many encounters across the game to the point where it gets old after a while
9. Bugs. Several bad bugs and several hard crash bugs.
10. There are several songs that I actively dislike in this game, made worse by the fact that they’re the most common songs that play
11. Aggregate: There are several elements of Amgarrak which are just irritating to push through, especially given how easy it is to be completely screwed build wise // The final Archdemon defense encounter of the Darkspawn Chronicles DLC is just awful, with entirely too much relying on RNG and not actual skill, plus the encounters leading up to it are honestly just one long boring slog
12. Aggregate: Lockpicking is just kind of not well designed in this game, with so much of the loot being trash and then the occasional great loot, and hardly any significant quest or non loot usage for it // Various bugs and crash issues // The limited nature of Loghain and how to procure him which, among other things, pretty much guarantees his build is crap by the time you get him (especially compared to Alistair)
13. Awakening: Bugs. Game breaking bugs, quest skipping bugs, possible-to-skip-conversation-and-quest bugs.
14. Awakening: The problem is the game sort of needs to be played in a certain fashion, or ‘broken’ by recruiting someone (Sigrun or Velanna) and then abandoning their quest in order to have real time with them
15. Awakening: Memory Leak 2.0
16. Awakening: The Outro to Awakening was, at best, more of the same and ultimately just devolved into another series of fights against the same types of enemies we’d fought to that point

Story Positives:

1. The opening credits crawl contains some surprisingly great animations and exposition therein without a single line of dialogue
2. The scenes around being captured, Rowd’s speechifying and the seemingly callous way he allows his own people (who are teenagers for goodness sakes) to be whipped to death while he admires the sunset and talks about himself, only for it to be flipped and Flik and crew to rescue us… is brilliant. It establishes Rowd, helps set up Luca, sows the seeds for Jillia, and endears us to Flik and Viktor
3. Intro: Slow build, the ‘chores’ which lead to the escape, the reveals, slow escalation of conflict, good perspective of the ground floor, establishing much of the setup and premise, and the initial events of the war
4. Spritework and animation is quite good and really helps sell the ‘cutscenes’ of the game
5. The core first arc’s plot is actually quite good throughout, with the emphasis not just being on the war but on the shifting perspectives of the war and the consequences of the war
6. Consequence writing. There’s plenty of specific moments and elements actually show real consequence regarding actions which helps both investment (continuity) as well as logical progression of events (Siege of Greenhill)
7. Comment Box adds some wonderful flavor lore to the characters
8. Several characters are interesting or engaging in their own way (Nanami, Miklotov, Camus, Georg, Anita, Oulan, Sierra)
9. Another plus for good characters (Flik, Annabelle, Fitcher, Simone are all enjoyable characters in their own right, only hampered by a relative lack of screentime)
10. The Massacre of Muse is just as horrifying as it should be, and is a great showcasing of both Gorudo, Blight, and the Highlanders who follow Blight (including Jowy) but the follow up where you find the totally empty city is a wonderful one-two punch to help emphasize the moment
11. The follow up scene where (some of) the knights of Matilda switch sides and turn on Gorudo is just awesome
12. General quality writing (IE instead of stupid decisions for drama’s sake or other nonsense there’s actual tactics on display and proper portrayal of strategy)
13. Luca Blight is a one-dimensional character, but they do a really good job of embracing and portraying it, and he has a weird staying power and memorability because of it
14. Lindblum Effect in towns and keep, with lots of variance in what NPCs say and the slowly burgeoning feeling of a full army filling out your keep
15. The endings are decently well done, and do a good job of showcasing what happened (in brief) to everyone you recruited
16. Good general Background Lore
17. Good Internal Continuity for most of the game, as it pays attention to basically everything that’s happening as it’s happening
18. Narrative Pacing is well constructed for pretty much the entire first chunk of the game

Story Negatives:

1. Doodad usage is actually pretty bad in this one. While it’s okay in towns, there’s just too many areas that are just too bare, and it hurts (especially in dungeons)
2. Translation issues just… everywhere (bad translation, wrong translation, and rarely there’s literally no translation)
3. The entire second story of the game hinges on some ideas that are just… not present in the narrative, and the entire thing feels like it’s trying to force the ‘friends must fight each other’ arc without actually earning it in any way, which is even more aggravating because it would take so little for the story to push that on screen
4. Several long stretches, mostly in the final parts of the game, where it just sort of slogs onwards and the Padding is real
5. The game really fails at its core Theme with ‘friends fighting friends in war’, for reasons I’ve already discussed regarding Jowy

Gameplay Positives:

1. Animations are excellent in combat, some good stuff
2. The Keep itself is mostly interesting in how many people slowly fill it out and how we can see all the people we recruit
3. The Let Go system is great (effectively removing encounters that are too low level for you) and the leveling system itself is quite good (variable experience relative of your level to the enemy’s level, which means there’s effectively a grind ‘ceiling’ at which point you get very little or no experience… but there’s also a huge catch-up mechanic where you get tons and tons of experience if you’re underleveled)
4. Cooking is great fun (provided you save first) and I enjoy getting recipes and items for even more cooking fun
5. The Viki / Mirror option makes getting around so much better and serves as a functional hearthstone / waypoint system
6. The Luca Blight marathon is just as epic and fun as it should be (awesome fight, possible to lose and progress twice, maintains health across, possible to beat first)
7. 79 party members and 6 sized party, which allows for a decent amount of ‘bring your favorites’ and a lot of possible combinations
8. Aggregate: Unite system is pretty cool // Equipment setup is a cool feature (3 slots for items and accessories) // The ability to sort and organize all units (not just party members) at the Keep is a nice quality of life feature
9. Good Level Scaling system to help you catch up and discourage grinding

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Unskippable cutscenes (which is especially bad due to how limited saving is)
2. Walkthroughitis (both with searching for the 108 as well as quest flag hunting)
3. Tactical battle RNG focus (attack, defense, Rune, specials, but really it’s all about the dice rolls… even when overwhelmingly stronger or weaker)
4. Dungeon design is awful throughout (boring, repetitive screens with no variation or events of interest except for the occasional push puzzle)
5. Aggregate: Interface design is not great in general // No music in tactical battles bug // Mandatory dice game to progress the main plot // Encounter rate // Inventory management (very limited space, irritating to move items around) // No mid-mission checkpoints on the Luca Blight fight
6. Some irritations with Saving

Story Positives:

1. Doodad utilization is quite good in everywhere except dungeons and helps flesh out towns substantially, along with…
2. NPC Chatter and stories which develop as you progress through the regional story, which contributes to…
3. World building; there is so much history and lore to the backstory of the world that it’s silly and basically everything (NPCs, journals, side quests, and even character tidbits) are in service of it
4. Perspective (low to the ground); the entire story is effectively the events of one group of one kingdom of one continent and not a particularly large kingdom at that. It’s all very ground level and works well to keep things grounded
5. The theme of the game is pretty enjoyable; journeying and exploring the countryside on foot, studying to become a better bracer, adventuring, touring areas and their sights and cuisine (which also helps the aforementioned world building)
6. The entire Ruan segment was pretty good; lots of good foreshadowing, a fairly understandable and reasonable build up of the regional story, the regional story itself was simultaneously personally and locally impacting, and the big climax with the Mayor was good (right up until it was bad, but that’s neither here nor there)
7. The dynamic between Joshua and Estelle is quite nice really; While it could be better (especially the romantic angle, which the game pushes too early) the fact is the two bounce off each other well, have good chemistry, and grow naturally together throughout
8. The internal continuity is good stuff, with connecting points throughout
9. A second positive for internal continuity; with individuals, smaller plot threads, little stories, historical points, and even minor traits being brought up multiple times throughout
10. Weissman’s big scene is a truly excellent scene and really highlights the kind of villain he is, and the build up and foreshadowing to his reveal was very well done throughout
11. The playable epilogue is good for the usual reasons, letting the player just skip it if they want but also containing tons of follow-through dialogue for many of the NPCs (named and otherwise) we’ve interacted with throughout the game
12. The final scene between Estelle and Joshua is easily the best written scene in the entire game, and beautifully encapsulates both characters and their chemistry, as well as being a fantastic cliffhanger
13. A final plus for just how well done the cliffhanger is, in that it immediately created a massive desire to know what was going to happen next
14. Pretty good Babylon 5 Effect for various tidbits (notably Joshua and Weissman)
15. Lots and lots of good Background Lore
16. Lots of Consequence Storytelling (something that I believe is a hallmark of the series)
17. Dialogue has issues but when it’s good it’s great
18. Foreshadowing!
19. Quite good Localization

Story Negatives:

1. Empty Text issues almost throughout the entire work (except the ending), which artificially pads the run-time
2. Cutscene incompetence combined with ‘defeating an enemy in combat and, whoops, they’re totally fine afterwards’
3. The narrative has some severe Pacing issues, lurching around a bit too much
4. Aaand there’s a few sections of pretty bad Padding

Gameplay Positives:

1. Notebook and its info serves to put the information into the game rather than relying on FAQs or strategy guides
2. Leveling system (catch up mechanics, where the amount of xp you get is relative to its level vs. yours, aka its easy to catch up if you fight higher monsters and it actively discourages level grinding)
3. The ability to retry battles (and optionally lower the enemy stats), and the ability to escape with 100% success rate
4. As usual, a plus for good New Game Plus (can select what carries forward as well as the difficulty)
5. Aggregate: The ‘use CP to hijack turns’ system is a neat mechanic which allows you to have a little more control over the turn order // The orbal system itself is mostly just kind of there but I do like a few things about it. First, I enjoy the combo system and being able to use differing ‘weighted’ quartz in combination to try to access new and different spells. Second, I like how each character has an orb clock device thing that allows for some customization but still inclines itself towards certain types of setups, allowing for both ‘character matters’ and ‘player customization’
6. Aggregate: Visible enemies on the overworld which can be avoided or snuck up on which is good for the usual reasons // Ability to hold down A in combat // Color coded map design // Ability to save anywhere // Hold A down to interact with stuff automatically in the overworld // The fast forwards toggle

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Intro is pretty bland gameplay wise, and the initial sewer tutorial dungeon is linear, heavily tutorialized, and boring
2. The amount of time necessary to do side quests in order to have the money in order to afford food and items in order to be able to recover from encounters is just a whole lot of padding for no real gain
3. Trash encounters in general are not super well designed, usually involving too many enemies which have too irritating of attacks which require you to treat them seriously, which would be fine except A: There’s too many of them and B: There’s not enough reward for doing them. This is compounded by the general design of needing to use magic and arts for most fights with a lack of proper memory cursor
4. Unskippable cutscenes (which is saying something in a game where cutscenes can take 20+ minutes)
5. Dungeon design reminds me a lot of Suikoden 2’s; long, boring corridors with enemies, occasional chests, and samey graphics (and no map!)
6. Lazy difficulty aka health/damage multipliers
7. The Outro is… not that great. The ‘final dungeon’ is just another dungeon with a different skin and music and ultimately has the same issues every other dungeon has. In addition the enemies are quite sloggy and the final four encounters are also quite sloggy and have to be done with no checkpoints. Granted this was not originally supposed to be a ‘final dungeon’ but for this game it’s just lacking
8. Core Combat is just not fun to play, with a nice big empty field and no real tactical choices

Story Positives:

1. Kreia’s voice actress (Sara Kestelman) is just amazing and manages a wonderful emphasis on enunciation which just adds so much to her portrayal
2. HK’s voice actor is, as usual, just amazing (Kristoffer Tabori)
3. The atmosphere and horrifying approach of Peragus is just fantastic and wonderful and creepy and mostly optional
4. The Princess Peach segment with the droids on Telos station and on Nar Shaddaa is pure gold, and is hilarious to this day
5. The Atris segment is really well done. A lot of good information is dumped very quickly and there are many methods you can use to peruse the conversation to learn even more. It’s also good writing in general, and well voice acted
6. The overall theme of ‘broken’ is a very powerful and well portrayed one at almost every level in the game; people, planets, systems, the Force… the whole thing
7. Internal continuity in showcasing how events interact and impact others within the game
8. Usage of external continuity and tying in threads, ideas, and specific points from Star Wars (EU)
9. The quality of the dialogue is generally good stuff throughout
10. Smart exposition in terms of how the game exposits on KotOR1, the war, the Exile, et cetera
11. Korriban’s tomb and the way it weaves the past into the Exile’s character, while expounding on how the war was, how Revan was, the mentality of the Jedi, is all great stuff
12. Kreia is a fascinating, fleshed out character who is simultaneously engaging, hypocritical, and just as broken as everyone else
13. Atton is seemingly basic until you really dig into his backstory, which not only elevates Star Wars as a whole but shows how diseased people can get
14. Visas Marr is beautifully broken and voice acted, and is a great showcasing of a Force user who is seemingly Dark but ultimately isn’t, plus she’s directly tied into the themes and plot of the game
15. Handmaiden has a fascinating backstory, and her struggle with herself and the inconsistencies in the world around her are a treat to go through
16. Hanharr is, let’s be honest, utterly insane while retaining lucidity. He is a level of deranged and despicable that even the Sith don’t adhere to, yet insists upon it with forthright determination
17. Goto is an amusing character, with a good voice actor and a nice insight into broken droid logic // Mira and her combination of idealism in a sea of cynicism is a nice touch // HK-47 doesn’t have much presence but he’s a treat as always
18. Nar Shaddaa’s overall story and plot is great; showcasing the consequences of war, introducing several interesting side characters, and the unravelling of the ‘bounty’ plot as well as the reality of the broken galaxy is good stuff
19. Dantooine is surprisingly fun and engaging, given how simple it is. For the most part it’s about stabilizing (or destabilizing) the region, but also shows the immediate wake of war, the scars, in not just the terrain but the people and how tense and fragile their hold on things are (and Vrook is surprisingly decent too!)
20. Onderon and Dxun combined are both good fun. We see a nice insight into the Mandelorians, we get some good backstory woven in from Nadd and Kun’s times, and the civil war itself is nice little dilemma to solve
21. Darth Sion only really gets three scenes to him, but all three are oozing quality. The voice actor nails it, the idea behind him is fascinating, and his tragic horror story is great stuff
22. Atmosphere. The game oozes a wonderful atmosphere throughout, this permeating gloom of a diseased and dying galaxy, both at the macroscopic and microscopic level, and it adds tremendously to the feel
23. Despite their later betrayal, the Jedi Masters are well done side characters, both in how they acknowledge your past and your choices, but in how they each unveil more of the story and your exile
24. While it doesn’t have the same impact as the first game, there is still some good Babylon 5 Effect going on
25. Really good Background Lore everywhere
26. One of the better examples of Consequence Storytelling
27. A second positive for the Consequence Storytelling
28. Second positive for Dialogue design
29. Excellent External Continuity, not only to KotOR 1 but also the whole of Star Wars
30. I’ll give it this, the game makes me laugh more than a bit
31. Good Story/Gameplay Integration in the Exile and their companions
32. Good Music Direction (really adds to the gloomy tone)
33. Good general NPC Set Dressing, especially in some of the more populated areas
34. Really good narrative Pacing across each individual world
35. Really engaging, interesting central Plot
36. Central Themes of being broken, wounded, and recovering…
37. …are really excellently projected, presented, and discussed
38. Good Visual Continuity
39. A third positive for excellent Voice Acting
40. Some of the best World Building in a Star Wars Game
41. Second positive for that World Building
42. And third

Story Negatives:

1. The limited party problem is, as always, an issue in a game with heavy character focus that also relies on influence to see and hear all their stories
2. The conclave on Dantooine is astonishingly frustrating, especially given how it totally ignores your choices (other than to kill them) and turns the Masters on you, while also insisting on something that is arguably wrong, combined with one of the worst examples of exposition in the game
3. The early parts of the Outro are… not particularly well done, with the rushing obvious and the seams clearly visible
4. Malachor V is… clearly disjointed and off, with references to events that never happened and then dialogue which barely makes sense and random events happening randomly and just blegh
5. The ending is disjointed and off and bad and made even worse by suddenly stopping rather than any form of concluding
6. One last negative for a total lack of payoff and dropped character arcs in the Outro
7. Aggregate: The fact that character creation locks you out of party members // The Disciple in his entirety // The cut content is substantially blatant, to an extent I’ve yet to see in another game. There’s plenty of games with cut content but this one overtly leaves in references to the HK-50 factory and even has a ‘we’ll go there later’ bit, as well as expounding on its purpose in the narrative, and it’s just… not there

Gameplay Positives:

1. The tutorial is actually quite good. In addition to it being fully optional (and being able to skip it after starting it), doesn’t force you into actions, doesn’t rip control or time away from you while explaining things, and flows naturally as you repair and stabilize the ship and Exile
2. The first dialogue boss with HK-50 is awesome, and one of the better dialogue bosses I’ve ever seen. It’s bypassable, has ways to use skill checks or bypass those, and has plenty of nice, juicy, meaty conversation to peruse through
3. Nuance and variety in dialogue options
4. Planets in any order for replayability, same as the first game
5. Customization and crafting of equipment and items is good stuff and allows decent variety in playstyle
6. Build variety and setup is pretty well done and allows for multiple playstyle while still being viable
7. Aggregate: Message log (partial) for missed messages // Combat roll log to show exact roll numbers in combat // Darth Sion’s boss fight (combining skill checks, dialogue boss, and combat into one)
8. All Roads Lead To Rome quest design everywhere
9. Decent party AI design
10. Smooth Difficulty Curve
11. Game is pretty anti Grindy
12. Good Gameplay / Story Integration with the main characters, and the nature of how the Force powers unlock and work
13. Smooth Power Progression Curve
14. Fun little side sections with the droids
15. Good and smooth Save System
16. Most worlds have good Visual Continuity to help you figure out how to navigate

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The usage of Influence is wonky and often-times arbitrary, can lead to locking out of content, and is buggy besides
2. Bugs? Bugs
3. Combat music and going in and out of combat, plus the combat music itself kind of sucks
4. Malachor V sucks as a dungeon in general but is even worse for what is effectively the final dungeon. It’s a bit bland, but the enemies are boring and repetitive, and the Remote section is unnecessary and even more tedious (whether or not you clear the way)
5. The Outro in general is lacking and just kind of… boring and bad, from the moment you start Dantooine up until the Trayus Academy
6. Aggregate: The fact that character creation locks you out of party members // Partially skippable cutscenes // The game reverts hotkeyed items and skills to default at every zone line which gets really annoying // The ‘Sten sections’ for Atton and Mira aren’t as bad as they could be but I still wouldn’t call them good
7. Aggregate: Run speed issues, same as in the first game // Lazy difficulty options // Goto’s ‘yacht’ is just kind of dull, and isn’t properly balanced for 2 party, is absent any real ‘content’ // The cut content is substantially blatant, to an extent I’ve yet to see in another game. There’s plenty of games with cut content but this one overtly leaves in references to the HK-50 factory and even has a ‘we’ll go there later’ bit, as well as expounding on its purpose in the narrative, and it’s just… not there
8. I’m sorry, but that Outro deserves a third negative for being just… one of the worst Outros I’ve ever seen

Story Positives:

1. Storyboarding is quite good, not just for the time but in general
2. Animation in cutscenes is surprisingly good, quickly and effectively getting across what’s going on
3. A second positive for the continued excellence of storyboarding and cutscene approach
4. Character moments are probably the best parts of the story overall, with semi frequent ‘pauses’ in the narrative for the party members to interact with each other
5. Visual variety and design of towns, dungeons, etc. is all pretty neat
6. The Queen Fury sequence is great, with a little moment for each of the characters talking about them and theirs and learning about them
7. The game manages to make me laugh pretty frequently
8. Rose is an interesting character in her own right but ultimately feels like the main character, and by far has the most interesting arc and scenes
9. Dart slugging Lloyd is just the best moment in the game up to that point
10. There are several sweet, side moments throughout (usually for NPCs) that are good, human scenes
11. The CGI cinematics are reasonably well done and do a good job of adding to the story
12. Aglis, Zenebatos, and Mayfil are fascinating areas, giving insight into how the ancient Wingly evil nation functioned and exactly how screwed up it was
13. Meru is just plain adorable, and honestly could be argued to be the heart of the party, managing to overcome her species’ prejudice and the cultural inertia simply by being that legit of a character
14. The actual ending is great, with probably the best song in the game playing over shots with no dialogue that showcase our party members and what their lives are like, and how things have moved on (and of course, that glass for Lavitz)
15. Aggregate: Lavitz is a decent Obi-Wan character and a bro // Haschel is amusing early on in the game // Kongol is pretty simple, but good for when he’s there (and a consistent source of amusement)
16. Good Doodad placement throughout the towns

Story Negatives:

1. Shana being booted from the party basically ‘because plot’ really doesn’t work for me, especially jarring because it’s the first scene that felt actually stupid up to that point. Further, Shana in general is horribly utilized from about disc 2 onwards
2. Miranda in general doesn’t work for me, but the fight against her ‘mother’ representation is awful and the ‘correct’ path being to forgive her mother who abandoned her as a child is just awful
3. The CGI ending is… not good. It’s not very clear what’s going on (in contrast to most of the other CGI which is well storyboarded and directed), the voice acting is the worst in the whole game, and the entire sequence feels just kind of… lacking at best)

Gameplay Positives:

1. Dungeon variety is pretty decent overall
2. The game goes out of its way to be designed in such a way to be fairly anti grind by giving most of the gold and experience in boss fights, with an absolute pittance in trash encounters
3. Gold economy is surprisingly well designed, with gold being relatively scarce but also quite valuable, and never too rare or plentiful
4. A generally smooth and well done difficulty curve, combining additions, levels, equipment, and gold pretty reasonably
5. Aggregate: Percentage potions // Health triangles // Encounter triangle color // Defend heals // Boss design in terms of mechanics tends to be decent // World map showing you your current destination if zoomed out

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Unskippable cutscenes
2. Slowness. There is a delay in almost every action, the menu has slow framerate, actions take several seconds to load, etc.
3. The opposite of quality of life is everywhere in this game. Menus take forever to load, combat takes a while to load, the menus and in-combat menuing are both lower fps and tend to ‘lag’ a bit, there’s no memory cursor or otherwise of any significance, items and abilities don’t priority target, saving takes forever, entering menu resets the music, backtracking, and having to go through dungeons to traverse the overworld
4. Bosses just start to have way too much HP after a certain point…
5. …compounded by the fairly short-loop boss songs
6. Aggregate: Menu and interface translation // XP Distribution weirdness // Occasional difficulty spikes // The entire process of making laws is a bit irritating, not just because of the binary failstate but because you can’t ‘undo’ if you’ve started the process // Getting stuck on terrain (which can get irritating at times)
7. Aggregate: What is effectively a second, aggregate negative for the slowness, boss HP, and music issues

Story Positives:

1. While there’s not much to the story, the intro does do a good job of quickly establishing what’s going on and why (a Belmont kills Dracula, but now he’s back and we’re not sure why, which is the mystery…) // This is then followed through with the encounter with Richter, who refers to this as ‘his’ castle, aaand // The establishment of the core bedrock of almost the entire series (with Lisa’s death)
2. Excellent visual design which lends itself towards good visual continuity (mostly in the background)
3. Atmosphere just oozes without going overboard or horrible
4. Great Doodad utilization and placement
5. A second positive for great Visual Storytelling throughout the castle

Story Negatives:

1. Voice acting was never this game’s strongsuit but the PS4 version loses the ridiculous charm, making it even worse
2. Honestly, that voice acting is just terrible

Gameplay Positives:

1. The music in this game is good stuff
2. The music in this game is great stuff
3. The spritework in general is excellent, among the best of the era
4. Clear visual distinction in level design. The backdrops, despite being busy, are well distinguished by palette and style from the foreground so you don’t get ‘lost’ in the backgrounds
5. Leveling is basically unnecessary, but the design of leveling itself (xp of enemy = relative of its level to yours) is great, and basically means the game has absolutely no level grinding
6. Animation on Alucard by himself is fantastic, with tons of frames of animation and lots of variety for his various moves, movement, standing, idle, attack, hurt, death, etc.
7. The weapons each have different swing arcs and speeds which is awesome because it matters more than the stats themselves, and allows for several different playstyles (and of course you can equip a second weapon to vary it up more)
8. The level design and map design incline towards exploration (parts of the map that indicate where you haven’t been or where you can go, the familiars pointing out things, etc.)
9. Directional design (like other good Metroidvanias, the game ‘directs’ you in a certain path without requiring it by virtue of what you can access and where, up to the first major split when you hit the library… and of course both areas, the catacombs and the chapel)
10. Circular level design. There are lots of times where you go through areas, and in so doing ‘loop’ back to an earlier area and unlock a shortcut, which makes getting around easier and easier as you go
11. Gameplay flow is excellent, with everything moving and flowing so smoothly you barely notice the time pass (between navigating, discovering, fighting, looting)
12. Boss design is actually really good, with great variety visually and in terms of attacks, vulnerabilities, etc.
13. A second plus for boss fights being varied and awesome fun
14. The inverted castle (work and effort)
15. Royal Chapel, Bell Tower, Alchemy Laboratory
16. Colosseum, Olrox’s Quarters, Marble Gallery, Outer Wall, Library
17. CLock Tower, Underground Caverns, Abandoned Mine
18. Enemy variety is through the roof, with dozens upon dozens of different enemies which have different methods of attacking
19. Enemy usage is also great, usually combining enemies properly and/or making sure they compliment the level design of wherever they’re placed
20. There are many feasible ways to play through this game, leading to plenty of possible builds
21. Maria and Richter mode are good hard mode additions which are fun in their own right
22. Replayability is, as per usual for this type of game, through the roof
23. Aggregate: Clear visual indicators of status effects (mana refill) // Bosses give bonuses in addition to simple xp and levels // Audio indicators of multiple aspects of the game // Item distribution is pretty good, at least in the normal castle
24. Animations really help you with planning attacks and avoiding enemies
25. Good Backtracking design, per Metroidvania norms
26. Other than the Street Fighter moves, the controls are very tight and responsive
27. The Core Combat is just fun to play
28. Being able to use the moves and forms offers some great Core Mechanics
29. The game knows exactly what enemies to throw at you where…
30. …along with a gradual scaling up of bosses, both of which make for a great Difficulty Curve
31. Really excellent Enemy Variety, as mentioned earlier
32. Special mention for how great the Spritework is throughout
33. The Intro does everything it needs to to get you into the groove and feel how playing can and should be
34. The distribution of Itemization across the castles is very well thought out
35. While not the best, the Map does have some good indication and is very quick and easy to check
36. As is honestly the truth for many Metroidvanias, the game has great Replayability
37. Great Sound Design, especially on the enemies
38. Thought is always put into Terrain Design…
39. …even ignoring the Inverted Castle, it’s always intended to challenge you and help encourage different approaches
40. Game has great Tutorialization…
41. …no, really, it essentially doesn’t stop Tutorializing for the entire first castle, with slow but clear escalation of actions, obstacles, and enemies
42. The Visual Continuity of the castle always helps you navigate and figure out where you are and where you’re going
43. An additional positive for clear and distinct Visual Distinction

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Street fighter inputs are inconsistent, painful, and a bit too much
2. Aggregate: There are plenty of secrets in this game which have no real indicator of where they are // The drop rates of basically every item in the game is awful (which leads to tons of grinding for drops if you want them), so you have no real idea what drops what that’s useful // And both of these points lend themselves towards some pretty bad walkthroughitis
3. Aggregate: Item use is just a pain in this game, combined with… // The menu in general is not what I’d call well designed // The music usage drops off in quality in the inverted castle
4. Partially because of the aforementioned, but honestly there’s just a lot of Info that is completely not in the game
5. Save points are too distantly scattered, and saving is just kind of a pain

Innovators and Codifiers: 1

1. Codifier:Effectively started the Metroidvania genre, along with Super Metroid

Story Positives:

1. Rosalina is an interesting and surprisingly fun character for her initial entry into the series
2. Storytime and the storybook is legitimately heartwarming and fun
3. Lovely, wonderful Atmosphere and Tone of adventure and fun
4. Doodad utilization is, per Nintendo standards, excellent
5. Visual Storytelling is everywhere in the various ‘galaxies’
6. A second visual storytelling positive
7. A second Doodads positive

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. The music is just fantastic, despite being orchestral
2. Good, automatic checkpoints that are semi frequent in almost all levels (including mid boss in some cases)
3. Controls are tight and responsive, to the point where the Switch version noticeably improves over the Wii one
4. Creative usage of gravity mechanic in almost every stage
5. Gravity Mechanic Mk. 2 (seriously, they do such wonderful stuff with it)
6. Tutorialization in game design (pound icons near enemies that are defeated by pounding, frost flower on top of spigot to let you know you can walk on said spigot, circles on the ground in natural patterns that indicate where the danger zone is, etc.)
7. Hints in initial camera and name of star for objective
8. The music easily deserves a second positive for sheer joy and awesomeness
9. Exploration indication is all over the place, either with coins, writing on the ground, enemy placement, or whatever
10. Sound design is the usual Nintendo excellence
11. Visual design is very distinct, easy to see and process, and generally well stylized
12. Prankster Comets as mutators to levels
13. Bosses are creative and fun (Megaleg, Petey, Bowser)
14. Bosses mk. 2 (Kamella, Twister Top, Bowser Jr Armada)
15. Bosses mk. 3. (Mole dude, Baron Brrr, Kamella 2)
16. The second Bowser fight and final Bowser fight are great fun
17. Space Junk
18. Battlerock
19. Ghostly
20. Gusty Garden
21. Freezeflame
22. Melty Molten
23. Dreadnought
24. Flipswitch
25. A second plus for Flipswitch
26. Sweet Sweet (great, creative stuff)
27. Levels plus: Honeyclimb
28. Matter Splatter (more creative stuff)
29. Second Matter Splatter positive
30. HUD and UI (Luigi messages, indicators on map for comets, completed galaxies, and which levels to select for hidden stars)
31. Lovely, lovely Animations
32. Very smooth Difficulty Curve
33. Encounter layout and design is excellent
34. As usual for Mario games, great Enemy Variety
35. Second positive for that Enemy Variety
36. Despite being a Wii game, this game is very Graphically gorgeous
37. The Intro perfectly sets up gravity mechanics, power ups, bits, and is fun regardless
38. Excellent variety of Powerups
39. Love that entire Outro, usual Bowser’s Castle excellence
40. Great Pacing throughout the levels
41. Some good Quality of Life features
42. Second animations positive
43. The game’s ‘brickwork’ is universally excellent…
44. …helping to distinguish and vary up each level…
45. …which also adds to visual distinction…
46. …and visual continuity across stages
47. Love the power ups, some really inventive and fun stuff…
48. …and the distribution thereof is great across the levels
49. As is usual for the series, the game is quite replayable
50. Probably some of the best terrain design in the series…
51. …right alongside the greats

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Low health beedleeps, which aren’t the worst I’ve heard but it’s pretty bad
2. Aggregate: Frustrating individual stars (clearing trash, clearing trash 2, daredevil comets) // Handheld mode weirdness for cursor interaction // Flower power up music (short loop, associated with hard stars, starts over constantly)

Story Positives:

1. Visual continuity of overworld maps and their progression ‘out’, from planet to system to cluster, etc.
2. Absolutely delightful adventurous Atmosphere and Tone
3. Per usual, great Doodad usage
4. Great Visual Storytelling
5. A second visual storytelling positive
6. A second doodad positive
7. Music absolutely helps set the tone

Story Negatives:

1. Lots and lots and lots of empty text (almost all from Lubba)

Gameplay Positives:

1. Music is the usual excellence for the series, with several songs I love to this day
2. Music mk. 2
3. Yoshi may be a bit of a gimmick but he is very fun to play and adds actual variance to gameplay rather than just being an extra health bit or attack method
4. Gimmicks! (water-to-ice lever, expanding/shrinking water to change what you can access, enemies that ‘eat’ away the floor, slowly increasing numbers of clone Marios, slides, rolling snow over lava, the gravity arrows in the background, slow-mo switches and fast obstacles, lava waves temporarily removing platforms)
5. The ‘clone Marios’ offer great increased challenge that’s entirely in the player’s control
6. Exploration indication! It’s still a thing and it’s still awesome (pretty much prevents Walkthroughitis)
7. Checkpointing is the same good standard as 1, with the added bonus of being optional
8. Power ups are very fun to play with, have their own distinct rules, and really vary up possibilities in levels (drill bit, clouds, the roller ball)
9. Tutorialization in gameplay? (Yoshi and spinies, cymbals with smash symbols, lowerable platforms that reveal bits, sections of rocks being ‘scarred’ to show what’s safe and what’s not)
10. Gravity mechanics and continued creative use thereof. While not to the level of Galaxy 1, there’s still some great stuff here
11. Hints in initial camera and name of star for objective
12. Sound design is polished, awesome, and indicative
13. Visual design is fantastic, distinct, and stylized despite the older console and resolution
14. Comets as mutators remains amazing, in fact is arguably better than before
15. Comets mk. 2, I love the comets in this one
16. A third positive for the sheer number and quality of the comet stages
17. HUD and UI continue to showcase all the info necessary and help you find what stars you’re missing and where
18. QoL features (Notifications of comets spawning, can select a mission regardless of comets, automatic saving instead of manual, game over returns to hub instead of title, Mailtoad sound spam is gone, tracking time in levels for speedrunning, improvements to stage icons, fast-forwarding text option)
19. The entirety of World S is awesome and wonderfully challenging
20. Spin-Dig Galaxy
21. Fluffy Bluff and the wonderful cloud gimmicks
22. Yoshi Star galaxy
23. Flip Swap Galaxy is just awesome to move through
24. Rightside Down Galaxy is one of the funner ones…
25. …earning a second stage positive
26. Puzzle Plank galaxy
27. Hightail Falls galaxy and its Yoshi pepper gimmick
28. Boulder Bowl Galaxy is great fun
29. Cosmic Cove galaxy is awesome
30. Honeybloom Galaxy really runs with the bee mechanic
31. Tall Trunk galaxy and the blimp fruit
32. Cloud Court galaxy and the clouds
33. Haunty Halls Galaxy is, as usual for the series…
34. …one of the best levels in the game
35. Freezy Flake galaxy
36. Rolling Masterpiece
37. Beat Block galaxy
38. Supermassive galaxy, continuing the trend started all the way back in Mario 3
39. Flipsville galaxy and its rotating gravity mechanics
40. Starshine Beach galaxy and the piantas
41. Chompworks galaxy
42. Sweet Mystery galaxy
43. Honey Hop Galaxy
44. Space Storm galaxy and the pseudo escorts
45. Slipsand galaxy and the funneling sands
46. Shiverburn which is just as good as Freezeflame…
47. …earning a second positive
48. Boo Moon galaxy which is as usual excellent
49. Upside Dizzy Galaxy which continues the gravity fun
50. Melty Monster galaxy, where we have to navigate between Magmaarghs
51. Clockwork Ruins, which though frustrating is a great challenge
52. Flash Black galaxy would get two positives if it was a bit longer
53. Slimy Spring galaxy
54. Bosses (Rollodillo, Diggaleg, Sorbetti, Gobblegut)
55. Bosses mk. 2 (Megahammer, Glamdozer, Squizzard
56. Bosses mk. 3 (Prince Pikante, Bowser Jr’s Boomsday Machine, Whomp King)
57. Super guide is a great feature that optionally allows you to just get past a level and disable it at will
58. Lovely Animations
59. Nice, smooth Difficulty Curve across the levels
60. Manually placed Encounter designs
61. As usual, great Enemy Variety
62. And a second positive for Enemy Variety
63. Very lovely Graphics
64. As per usual for a Mario game, really great Intro
65. And as usual, that Outro is very fun and enjoyable
66. Usually good Pacing
67. But even better Pacing than usual
68. Second positive for Visual Distinction
69. The gimmicks deserve a second…
70. …and frankly, a third, positive
71. Second animations positive
72. The game’s ‘brickwork’ is universally excellent…
73. …helping to distinguish and vary up each level…
74. …and adds visual continuity across stages
75. More positives for itemization through power ups and…
76. …and the distribution thereof is great across the levels
77. As is usual for the series, the game is quite replayable…
78. …earning a second positive for the possible ‘routing’ and general variety and fun
79. Probably some of the best terrain design in the series…
80. …right alongside the greats, like its predecessor
81. The ‘overworld’ isn’t much but it does offer good sense of progression and overall choice in how to proceed
82. An astonishing third positive for Enemy Variety

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Wiimote waggle as a mandatory element of gameplay when it only provides a button press
2. Low-health beedleep!
3. Control jank (bit wonky to aim, timing issues on button presses, etc.), waggle is imprecise when precision is required and causes so many issues
4. Aggregate: Music reset on flower power ups // Lives reset upon restarting console // Grinding for bits for the last level unlocks // Frustration stars (Chimp’s point minigames, purple star levels, tilting flying levels)

Story Positives:

1. The intro music is really hard to describe just how much it hits me every time I hear it
2. The Intro does a great job of quickly and efficiently establishing place, setting, main plot, initial characters, and scope… plus Patrick Stewart is awesome
3. Books are extensive and very interesting and fun to read
4. Doodad utilization and placement
5. The Kvatch intro is just awesome. The slow walk up the path, the NPCs freaking out, the sky turning red, the first Oblivion gate blaring in the background, and the first charge into Oblivion
6. World building of regions, references, sub cultures, etc.
7. The scheduling and mundane routine of NPCs isn’t as good as it could or should be, but still does add to the feel of people rather than NPCs
8. Martin is a good character; He has an arc, characterization, he’s engaging, he’s a good leader, and generally enjoyable to work with
9. Manker Cameron’s Paradise is wonderfully, horribly messed up in so many ways
10. The Outro of the main quest, the lead up and finale of Martin’s sacrifice, the final confrontation, great stuff
11. Fighter’s Guild is an engaging chain and Oreyn himself is one of the better side characters of the work…
12. …and the quests around Water’s Edge, helping the poor woman… and then killing her unknowingly
13. The Mage’s Guild is an awesome arc which feels nicely varied and fun…
14. …and ties itself in neatly as things progress towards the Mannimarco showdown, and the whole arc feels satisfying and fun
15. Whodunit has surprisingly well written (and a lot!) of dialogue that changes depending on how exactly you do it and in what order
16. The Dark Brotherhood is, as usual, satisfying and well constructed and has a nice twist, though it falls apart a bit at the end
17. The Thieves Guild quests falter a bit narratively but do good connections and continuity within themselves and with other quests, have a couple of cool characters (Amusei!), and has a nice little finale
18. Quest stories (Cheydinhal Painter, Cheydinhal Mage, Cheydinhal high justice
19. Chorrol Defend The Farm, Daedric quests, Bloated Float
20. Bruma Fake Vampire, Bruma Pale Pass, Hackdirt, Mazoga
21. Bravil Rat quest, Chorral painting quest
22. Through A Nightmare Darkly, Caught In the Hunt
23. Bruma Two Sides of the Same Coin, Imperial City grave robbing, Order of the Virtuous Blood, Noble’s Daughter (forsooth!)
24. Shivering Isles: The intro to the Shivering Isles is poetry, with Haskill, the Mania/Dementia metronome, the butterflies, and the initial peek into the various madnesses within as we interact with the characters in Passwall and make our way past the Gatekeeper
25. Shivering Isles: Shivering Isles dialogue is the only dialogue in the game actually well written, with lots of variety to the various mental illnesses suffered by those within
26. Shivering Isles: Sheogorath is as awesome as he always is, well voice acted, interesting, and fun
27. Shivering Isles: Side quests in Shivering Isles aren’t the best, but there’s a decent amount of them and they’re enjoyable
28. Shivering Isles: The main plot-line of Shivering Isles is great, culminating in a huge sea-change for the setting (even though it never matters again)
29. Generally great Atmosphere and Tone of the medieval countryside
30. Generally good and interesting Background Lore
31. Second positive for fantastic Doodad design in towns
32. While each quest arc ignores the others, each arc has good Internal Continuity within itself
33. After some thought, a second positive for the Outro managing to be one of the better, more investing sequences in the entire game
34. Some fantastic Visual Storytelling in the towns and cities

Story Negatives:

1. Voice acting for everyone who isn’t one of the big 4 is just… repetitive and lacking and actively ruins several scenes
2. Either the voice acting actively saps nuance and subtlety from quest stories, or the quest stories are too simple for the complexity they should have
3. Aggregate: Several of the quest arcs have really stilted, jerky progression // The appearance of several characters (including Manker Cameron and Mannimarco) actually detracts from their respective scenes and narrative impact // Good lord the voice acting actually hurts cutscenes
4. We really should mention how… actively bad the Banter is, both with friendly NPCs and in combat

Gameplay Positives:

1. Full mod support…
2. ..earning…
3. …three positives
4. Full mod encouragement and resources and tools…
5. …earning…
6. …three positives
7. Depth of modding…
8. …for two positives
9. Archery is intuitive, fun, and awesome to use. The arrow you use matters, the bow you use matters, your perks matter, how long you hold the bow matters, and no matter your skill whether you hit or not is all on you
10. The perks that are good are great and offer mutators and new abilities instead of simply being stat modifiers
11. Stealth is enjoyable, if substantially flawed
12. The class build system and design is actually excellent (disregarding levels), which tracks what you do to give suggestions, there’s prefab templates for new players, and you can customize your class
13. The Intro is fantastic, with only a few minor complaints and a lot of things done right (tracking abilities, access to all methods of playstyles, good pacing and progression of events to guide player into playstyles, etc.)
14. Jeremy Soule’s music is just phenomenal
15. A second positive for just some fantastic overworld and atmospheric dungeon music
16. Good fast travel system (discover points of interest, warp to any point from anywhere as long as out of combat)
17. The overworld map is actually quite well designed; It’s pretty, visually indicative of areas to interact with via roads and labels, and neatly tracks all the interactable spots to warp to
18. Build variety and kit possibility (there are an absolutely huge number of possible builds you can do that are viable in this game)
19. Quest branching and multiple outcomes in most quests
20. Alchemy is fun to do, fun to combine, very useful, and modular to a high degree (rather than making a specific item you just add variables to potions)
21. Magic crafting and making your own spells is awesome and there’s a huge variety of what you can do with it, both mundane and broken
22. Magic crafting is sufficiently awesome in its structure and availability of what you can do with it
23. Enchanting is just as awesome as crafting and just as fun
24. Dark Brotherhood and bonus objectives in assassinations
25. Whodunit is easily the best crafted quest in the game, with no less than six possible methods of progression and incredibly non-linear approach
26. Quest positives: Cheydinhal painter, Cheydinhal Mage, Cheydinhal high justice, Bloated Float, Bruma Pale Pass, Chorrol painting quest, Through A Nightmare Darkly, Caught In the Hunt
27. Knights of the Nine: Actual and fun dungeons and puzzles in the KoTN chain
28. Shivering Isles: Ghosts of Vitharn, A Better Mousetrap, generally more polished quest design and a recurring ‘two choices’ theme
29. Aggregate: Character appearance options // The compass is pretty good, giving an idea of what’s nearby, where the quest objective is, and is unobtrusive but still easily visible // A bonus aggregate for Whodunit being just a really, really well done quest
30. A second positive for that built in Console and the cheats it adds
31. Good and interesting Character Creation… even if it never really matters
32. In addition to good Fast Travel, the game has good Fast Travel design, allowing you to warp to any explorable (of which there are many), encouraging you to get out there and just roam end explore before you even start questing or adventuring
33. And consequently, the game does a lot to Encourage Exploration, especially in the overworld
34. A second positive for that absolutely amazing Intro, which does so much to establish everything you can do in this game, tracks it, guides you, and is just very tightly constructed and fun
35. Good thought and effort put into Itemization across the game, both from drops, stuff that’s just out in the world, and quest rewards
36. Second positive for a really awesome overworld Map
37. Mentioned earlier, but the Overworld design is great. There’s a clear range of what you can see from where you are that helps inform where you could or should go, and there’s clear ‘paths’ that you’re guided towards but don’t have to follow
38. There’s so much to do and it’s so much fun that this game has great Replay value
39. Quick and easy Save system and quick save/load
40. Bonus points for Tutorialization in the Intro, but also…
41. …several quests throughout the game continue to help Tutorialize on newer concepts and ideas

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Boring, lazy difficulty (damage, health)
2. The difficulty design is flat awful, even worse than the norm because all it does is apply a linear and lazy damage taken/dealt modifier to the player only
3. Durability is lazy and boring, as it serves as a minor irritant that doesn’t really add anything to gameplay other than wasting your time
4. Level scaling. First, the level scaling itself is quite linear and boring in its design, affecting both enemies and quest rewards, punishing the player for doing quests before leveling…
5. …and second, it actively punishes the player for not optimizing their build, as enemies gain both equipment and stat boosts dependant solely on your level (and not your power output capacity)
6. Dungeon design is not interesting, engaging, or fun
7. Dungeons are practically copy pasted (thanks to their design limitations) with samey layouts and samey visuals
8. The Oblivion dungeons get particular notice for having all the problems of regular dungeons but add new ones; Irritating to navigate, especially bad lighting, and semi mandatory
9. The leveling system is not great. You generally get weaker as you level, it’s astonishingly unnecessary, it feels counter-intuitive, and you can easily build yourself into a corner
10. Lighting issues that basically mandate a torch and/or Light spell which barely helps
11. Another negative for general jank of connecting gameplay systems (level scaling makes leveling worse, leveling makes combat worse, combat makes dungeoning worse, dungeon design makes questing worse, etc.)
12. While not a huge issue, certain aspects of the menu are minor irritants and you have to deal with them all the time (selling, moving on the map, an ever-increasing inventory size)
13. The dungeon design not only continues to be bad in Shivering Isles, but actually gets worse with the long, twisted, samey, hard-to-see, bad-mapped ‘roots’ style dungeons
14. Pathfinding is not the worst, but it’s actively bad to the point of causing issues with quests, including escort quests
15. An additional negative for the ‘final dungeon’ of Shivering Isles being another long, boring, irritating roots dungeon with only one minor gimmick to it, which is escorting NPCs slowly to a destination
16. Aggregate: Bloated and unnecessary perks // Melee combat combines with… // Entirely too easy to hit allies which can then aggro them (and yes I know about the yield thing) // Occasional bugs which limit or hinder progress
17. The lack of recall or teleport spells means a lot of weirdly irritating Backtracking through dungeons
18. Third and final negative for what might be the worst Difficulty Options in gaming
19. While you can get used to the Interface, it’s just… not good
20. There’s several large sections (almost all in dungeons) where it’s legitimately hard to see what is where, making for bad Visual Distinction
21. If I’m honest, this game is best played with a Walkthrough, as there’s just so much that it’s so easy to miss, even when just counting basic things like quests

Story Positives:

1. Localization is one of the better localizations even up into the PS2 era, with proper and well done nuance and interpretation of everything
2. While very stylized, I’m still quite fond of the Brickwork
3. Text stylization in how it’s rendered adds to tone and makes it feel more like actual dialogue
4. Guest characters are usually used as a form of narrative insight (Pokey is useless, Picky is worthwhile, King helps or tries to, Buzz Buzz destroys everything, etc.)
5. Tone and humorous, quirky tint
6. Flavor lore (NPCs and newspapers)
7. The creepy atmosphere and general stylings of the Happy Happy Village are just wonderfully horrible
8. The Jeff section is fun and a nice break from events, effectively being a Princess Peach section which introduces Tony and Brickroad as well as the critical Andonuts
9. Narrative threads connecting across the main plot
10. Music isn’t the best just to listen to but is always well utilized to help the tone and atmosphere of the scene, being generally well directed
11. The doodad utilization in towns is fantastic, giving each one a distinct feel and also helping sell the ‘modern’ environment
12. Moonside is just sort of awesome and wonderfully atmospheric, weird, and properly creepy
13. Poo’s little side story in Dalaam is short but sweet
14. The main plot is actually quite well constructed, with a good patterned escalation and stakes, and excellent usage of tropes
15. Pokey has a fantastic character arc throughout…
16. …and is probably one of the more unique and interesting villains I can think of, being someone who has no real redeeming or strong traits but by effectively stumbling sociopathy he just sort of lucks into being more and more of a part of the problem, until he finally becomes the problem
17. Lots of gameplay and story integration that helps sell the storytelling
18. Magicant and its significance, presentation, and neat tidbits
19. The Outro is one of the better Outros in video game history in my opinion, including the alien architecture and sounds of the cave, Pokey’s presence and significance, what Giygas has become at this point, and finally…
20. …the way we defeat Giygas, which is awesome, impacting, emotional, and still got tears from me to this very day. Plus it’s one of my favorite ‘power of friendship’ moments in fiction, having been properly set up and paid off
21. The playable ending, with many many many new things you can talk to and see
22. Dialogue honestly pops in this one
23. Really gotta give the Humor a second positive, still gets me laughing to this day
24. The Intro does a lot right; Establishing the modern but down to earth setting, the stakes and plot, and the quirkiness of the whole work
25. Lots of good work with NPC Set Dressing helping to flesh out the world
26. The story is excellently Paced, with events flowing at good, varying tempos, all the way up to the finale
27. Along with this, the Story Sequencing is very logical and well constructed

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Localization and usage of formatting in text to add to presentation
2. Interface and convenience / QoL features (L button, equip in store, sell after equip, smart-usage of start / b, etc.)
3. The game’s Intro does a lot to set up and establish how combat, interface, etc. work without sitting you down and shoving tutorials into your face as you go throughout Onett and we get in-action tutorialization, as well as good flow of events
4. Rotating HP system is an awesome mechanic that adds another option for tactics in combat
5. Your Sanctuary effects (free total heal after boss and enemies fleeing from you)
6. Surprisingly flexible routes and paths you can take through events in the game, which makes exploring it more enjoyable and removes most frustration and irritation from events
7. The Happy Happy Village ‘dungeon’, the Carpainter boss fight, Paula joining and the many little things done to make the new party member not dead weight are all good game design
8. The playable ending, which is rare in and of itself, huge, and has lots and lots ot do
9. Aggregate: Magicant goes well out of its way to prepare you for fighting it solo, and is incredibly lucrative in terms of equipment, experience, stat ups, and items // The Giygas fight and how we end up defeating him is just fantastic
10. Aggregate: Gameplay and story integration constantly // The Monkey Cave is probably the best dungeon in the game, sadly enough // Good and consistent visual distinction of many areas in the game, keeping things fresh and varied
11. Good Enemy Variety, with lots of enemy types and attacks to deal with
12. Decent Fast Travel system across towns and major areas
13. On the plus side, while the game has difficulty all over the place, the Power Progression is nice and smooth, with not just stats but new abilities and unlocking access to new equipment pretty well curved out

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Unskippable cutscenes, ironically made worse by the wonderful text rendering code
2. Inventory is entirely too limited and clunky and irritating in early / mid game
3. Combat background images and weirdness
4. The menu system in general has almost no convenience or quality of life features at all; It takes a while to do almost anything, and the player has to basically force themselves to get used to the system
5. Encounter rate (while ‘possible’ to avoid enemies, the enemy patterns and layout of areas makes that unlikely, and trying to ‘despawn/respawn’ them can lead to bad or worse conditions)
6. The RNG of leveling can lead to some long term issues if you have bad luck
7. Aggregate: Magicant comes out of nowhere with no warning, which can screw you over if unprepared, and is designed to effectively be incapable of avoiding encounters (narrow corridors in the first area, slowing water in the second) // The final dungeon can be very very rough which is fine except it’s exceptionally easy to die, especially during the final bosses, and have to do it all over again
8. Aggregate: The Homesick status effect is sort of wonky in how it’s applied, how often it can happen, and how much it screws you over // Another combined negative point for RNG and enemy encounter frequency
9. Aggregate: Another negative for how much Homesickness and… // RNG can totally screw you over
10. Aggregate: The music restarts every single time it fires up (leaving combat, entering an area, etc.) // The Paula Is Kidnapped section of the game has several issues, especially since it can screw you over in terms of what items you have on her and Paula falls behind (more or less permanently) as a result of no experience across 3 dungeons and bosses
11. While I love this game, I have to admit the Difficulty Curve is all over the place, lurching between too easy and too hard often
12. This is especially noticeable during the Intro, where most players who don’t know what they’re doing walk into a grind wall right off the bat, and then have to slog their way through an overtuned dungeon and boss
13. A second negative for the generally awful Inventory design, especially given how long it takes to do anything with it (especially if you want to bank items)

Story Positives:

1. Camera, lighting, music, and general direction is excellent for cutscenes
2. The combat banter and chatter (which is optional!) adds to the flavor and tone of combat and scenes
3. Tension. So, so much tension
4. The initial infection. Good lord, the initial infection. “Cut us loose!”
5. The voice acting is just great in general, as per usual for Homeworld games, but in this one they have the unique flavor of sounding more ‘normal’ like the miners they are and in over their heads
6. The music is used to great effect to enhance the mood
7. Story pacing is just fantastic, keeping highs and lows and fluidly moving through story beats
8. Everything about the Beast is just wonderfully horrifying
9. Mission 15 is just phenomenal. The characterization, the world building hooks, the Bentusi, the voice acting, the dialogue, it’s just so good
10. The final mission, Mission 17, is awesome. The big fight against the bosses is neat and all but the way the Beast interacts with us and the Taiidan, the terrified Bentusi aiding us, and finally one of my favorite quotes from the game; “You are what all life is to us. Food.”
11. Lovely, lovely, lovely Atmosphere
12. Great usage of Cinematics, part two
13. Fantastic dialogue
14. Best External Continuity of the original trio, connecting neatly to and from Homeworld 1 (mostly in how it follows logically in the ‘now what’ story in the wake of the happily ever after of 1)
15. Aaand great Internal Continuity as well, keeping track of and following events throughout
16. Special praise for the entire Outro
17. And the Plot is just fantastic
18. The Story Sequencing is extremely logical and well constructed
19. The Intro does everything it should. It doesn’t just set the stage, it really establishes how pathetic and worthless you’re perceived to be; the nobodies mining on the sidelines for no profit or gain but to continue existing
20. A second positive really needs to be mentioned for moments in general. “Let us go!” “You are what all life is to us; Food” and the most under-stated but powerful of all. “This is the Kiith Somtaaw warship Kuun-Lan.”
21. The core theme of sacrifice, true heroism, ‘now what’, and the strength of the un-regarded nobodies is awesome

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Proper interface to allow for a 3D RTS
2. Proper HUD to allow for a good 3D RTS and helping you to immediately be aware of what’s going on
3. The (entirely optional) tutorial is very good at getting a player to know everything they need to know and how to play a relatively complex interface
4. Good and decent amount of options with regards to interface, audio, etc.
5. First missions tutorialization. Mostly fighter and corvette class enemies, your base gets regularly hit, there’s a nice resource node a ways off to encourage you to learn how to move your HQ, and finally a peak at how enemy capital ships operate
6. Persistent fleets is a great idea to begin with, but it also works great with the veterency system (since you’re actually encouraged to keep and endure your best ships), and it adds what is effectively a strategic layer to the tactical gameplay
7. The game goes out of its way to properly scale up what you have access to and when in line with mission structure
8. Gameplay pacing is fantastic, with ups and downs in intensity and difficulty before the ambush, followed by a nonstop escalating of intensity thereafter
9. Mission variety is good, fighting against any boredom or similarity familiarity that might bog the game down
10. Mission design continues to be good, with lots to do and varied objectives that help keep things fresh
11. Mission 15 is a great intensity point and vary point; having us fight something way above our pay grade, showcasing what the Bentusi can really do, unique and fun mission objectives, and continuing the escalation to the finale
12. The final mission, Mission 17, is actually quite well designed. Two very unique bosses back to back with ways to side-step their abilities and multiple possible strategies with tons of resources (or mines if you prefer) to help, and of course the Super Acolytes
13. Core Combat of the space RTS is quite fun
14. Good Save System
15. Great Sound Design
16. Special mention for the entire Intro being legitimately fun, well constructed, and well tutorialized

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The nebula escort stealth mission can go to hell. It commits almost all of the typical sins of gaming design while simultaneously being not as polished as most other missions and lacking the variety they tend to have. It involves escorting a ship that won’t move unless two separate conditions are met, while keeping a fast and mobile force always ready to defend against scouts, which doesn’t matter because eventually the enemy attacks anyways with overwhelming force, and gathering resources is effectively not happening thanks to the constant movement and the mines and enemy attacks, but finally and worst of all the dialogue spam is at its worst the entire mission
2. Long stretches of empty nothing which can be pretty boring
3. A huge problem with visibility (it’s relatively easy to have enough ships to literally not see an entire battle at once) because the render radius is so small
4. Exceptionally limited ship variety, for a huge swath of time (effectively using just one type of ship for almost a dozen missions). More than anything else this limits tactical options, which you do not want to do in a strategy game over an extended period of time. Just Marines is fine… for the first two missions
5. Aggregate: Sound balancing is off in many scenes, to the point where voice acting either is inaudible or the music is // Bugs on almost every playthrough which can cause serious issues, including soft-locking
6. As much as I love this game, the Difficulty Curve yo yos up and down massively throughout the missions
7. There’s a weird irregularity in the usefulness of new ships which makes for an inconsistent Power Progression Curve

Story Positives:

1. The premise of the game’s initial few chapters is actually quite cool, running around and restoring cycles of life and working your way up to Humans
2. Fyda, Perel, Meilin, and Elle (princess Elle) aren’t great characters by themselves but have cool moments and are generally enjoyable supporting cast
3. There’s some good flavor throughout the whole game, mostly tiny little things (buying an apartment or a croissant, freeing a bird, etc.) that helps make it feel more fleshed out than it otherwise would be
4. The ‘economic sidequest’ is surprisingly engaging, as you run around helping the big three towns develop and grow
5. The twist that you’ve been a pawn of Dark Gaia for almost the entire game is handled pretty well, including the fact that your Yomi was Dark Yomi, and that this has all been a move to take control of this cycle
6. The Prince Liem tidbit was actually pretty cool, and probably one of the better scenes in the early game
7. There are periods of the game which have good Story Sequencing
8. While a bit weird at times, the game has good Brickwork…
9. …and good Spritework as well

Story Negatives:

1. The way the text is displayed is not good, and the translation has multiple issues that just slowly get worse as the game goes on
2. There’s several cutscenes where what, exactly, is going on is just not clearly presented and it can get actively confusing
3. The ending is just kind of nonsense, a bit too preachy, and doesn’t even seem to understand its own point while simultaneously being massively unsatisfying
4. And there are areas which just have actively bad Story Sequencing

Gameplay Positives:

1. The entire Liem escort, assistance, and off-screen boss fight
2. Bosses: Shadowkeeper, Parasite, Stormkeeper
3. Animations are quite excellent, especially for the main character
4. The spritework is consistently excellent, not only easily distinguishable but well designed and cool
5. The Zelda-lite approach to dungeon design is a nice approach and the variety of puzzles is generally fun and interesting
6. Return-to-save penalty for failure is a good system and still penalizes you but not too hard, hitting a nice balance point between ease and frustration
7. The final dungeon of Beruga’s tower and airship are actually really cool, having the companions you’ve encountered up until now helping you along the way and actively participating, and there being actual objectives (the bombs) instead of just progression
8. Aggregate: Tutorializing via action, especially in the Intro // Health regen weapon in Intro // Boss fight ‘checkpoints’ per phases // The music, when it’s good, is great… it just doesn’t play often enough to justify a full positive
9. Aggregate: The brickwork and doodad utilization vary in quality, but when they’re good they’re good (notably the big three towns in late game) // The combat isn’t super complex, but it is fun and works well with… // …the varying types of attacks and how they do different damage to a few enemies here and there

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Unskippable cutscenes
2. Walkthroughitis (most notably in how the game doesn’t tell you some things you can do, or what certain enemy types are weak/strong to, or whom to talk to in order to progress, improperly labeled map aspects such as the river or desert, having to get certain items in the right order to progress, etc.)
3. The walkthroughitis is actively bad, especially in late game, to the point of getting in the way of just playing the game
4. The experience curve is just enough off that it interacts with the power progression curve such that you have to effectively stop and level periodically so that you are where you need to be
5. Music has too short of a loop often and gets irritating, and the songs that are bad are the majority of the music you hear in the game (especially dungeon songs)
6. The final boss is, honestly, awful. It commits most of the sins of boss design; long invuln phases, unclear directions, too much health, disinteresting song, too long, and too boring
7. Aggregate: Nauseating inderworld // Dark Twins boss fight // The shop menu is not good and is actively hard to see // Magic isn’t actively bad, but it’s not well designed at all and is only really useful a very small number of times
8. Some pretty bad sections of Backtracking, especially if you don’t know where you’re going

Story Positives:

1. The tone remains light and surprisingly enjoyable throughout, despite a relative lack of other elements of story
2. I never thought I’d say this, but after actual deep analysis the Brickwork of this game isn’t bad at all, and adds to the enjoyability of the experience

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Save design (can save anywhere, can save quickly and efficiently, multiple save slots)
2. QoL features, including X to save or Start to menu (shortcuts), hold down A, enemy ‘health bars’, percentage healing, DQ cheating AI
3. QoL features, overworld encounters, overworld interactions, jumping, Guest party members, mana system, restarting encounters option on death
4. Music is some great stuff
5. Honestly some of these songs are my favorite songs of all time, especially Doom Castle and the Pazuzu’s Tower as well as the Dark King final boss
6. The final dungeon is actually surprisingly well designed given the rest of the game, with actual gimmicks, looping design, new encounters, and redesigned boss fights
7. Aggregate: Falls Basin is a surprisingly well designed dungeon; Low enemy encounter rate, one room size, good puzzle looping, and multiple potential solutions // Pazuzu’s Tower, despite the encounter issues, is a well designed and interesting Zelda style dungeon // As is Spencer’s Place right after it
8. Surprisingly good Enemy Variety in how many there are and how they attack, as well as their weaknesses
9. The Intro is easily the second best part of the game, with everything being nice, smooth, and weirdly fun
10. As with most FF’s, the Visual Distinction is quite good

Gameplay Negatives:

1. RNG is something else in this game, with lots and lots of total bullcrap
2. Number of encounters drags the game down substantially (ironic considering how short it is already) which combined with…
3. …generally disinteresting dungeon design leads to the game, ironically, being much longer and sloggier than it should be. If the game was half (or a third) the length it’d be much more enjoyable overall
4. The Giant Tree dungeon deserves special mention for being just awful. Easily the longest, sloggiest dungeon in the entire game
5. The game’s fake difficulty really ramps up right about the fire quadrant, with lots of enemies who have the ability to instantly kill/paralyse/status effect you to death and effectively nothing you can do about it (status effects in general also suck, as most of them just force you to waste a turn)

Story Positives:

1. Voice acting is surprisingly good on the briefing guys
2. General plot and theme (the everyday combat of being in the empire while not being puppy eaters)
3. The entire Sepan Civil War is probably my favorite arc in the game, with fun missions, interesting concepts, and a great premise
4. Background implications and lore (Lack of oversight on Zaarin’s missions, Harkov being higher rank than Thrawn, the slow build-up of plot elements like the rebellion and the new Starfighter programs, seeing the underbelly of Imperial corruption, right after uncovering Harkov’s treachery you’re reassigned to the middle of no where with Thrawn and Zaarin, etc.)
5. Zaarin himself is a uniquely well crafted villain for this game. He’s an Imperial who’s got a lot of personal power through the military who was in charge of starfighter research in a starfighter game so he has the best fighters and uses them predominantly in his strategy, and since he knows so much about Imperial starfighter research he can unique cause issues for and damage to the Imperial starfighter infrastructure
6. Interesting and pretty cool in-gameplay cutscenes
7. The entire ninth (I think) Tour was pretty awesome, with a nice feeling of being screwed and having dwindling resources but in a way that made perfect sense and added to the enjoyment
8. The game does a pretty good job with internal and external continuity, connecting Hoth to Endor, explaining Thrawn’s activities during the third movie and the lead-in to the Thrawn Trilogy, explaining why the TIE/A (and I, D, and MIS) were not really widespread during and after Endor, etc.
9. A second positive for good External Continuity to the rest of Star Wars EU
10. The entire Intro works really well at establishing everything it needs to, putting you right in the wake of Hoth as well as how the overall campaign will flow

Story Negatives:

1. Suddenly Zaarin has captured the Emperor! And you’re flying with Darth Vader! And you’ve saved the Empire! Yay!
2. The excessive elbow nudging and writing for the player rather than the character of the Endor missions got legitimately irritating after a bit
3. Especially in the expansion missions, there’s some legitimately bad Story Sequencing as events just kind of… happen

Gameplay Positives:

1. HUD design (quick and easy to see, double radar, weapon indicators, shield and hull indicators, etc.)
2. Energy management system
3. Built in cheats which can be toggled on and off at will in flight
4. Good training VR missions
5. Secondary and bonus objectives as a form of optional content and increased difficulty
6. Lots of good mission design and varied objectives as well as gameplay / story integration in the main campaign
7. Aggregate: Ability to replay missions // Achievements with medals and rank which is completely cosmetic
8. The game Controls very well and very intuitively across the many inputs you need
9. Really good Enemy Variety in types of ships and how they fly and need to be dealt with
10. That Intro in the wake of Hoth is a lot of fun, and very enjoyable to play through
11. Aside from the expansion missions, the game has really great Pacing in its campaign design
12. Game is very Replayable, especially in the secondary and bonus objectives
13. Lovely dynamic music as events happen and depending on current status

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Core combat has issues which cause problems in some missions more than others (squadron AI is not super useful, ‘dogfighting’ consists of jousting, lack of speed/shields/hull in some combination thereof, etc.)
2. The capture Harkov mission (Chase after three ships, one of which is substantially faster than you, scan and disable them, also they’re in a minefield defended by TIE/A’s, also one of them will slam into the other upon takeoff unless you trick the AI first, auto failing the mission)
3. The expansion missions just do not feel as designed as the main campaign ones, with less thought into specifics of encounters, your ship, enemy composition, and objectives being a bit too pat. There’s also a lot of unpolished, or not QA tested, missions
4. Aggregate: Long periods of nothing where you’re just waiting // Total lack of mid-mission checkpoints // Start with half shields for no reason
5. The ‘party’ AI is absolutely awful, barely useful as anything other than fodder

Story Positives:

1. Voice acting
2. Good exposition and cutscene usage early on
3. The Intro does a great job of taking its time, pacing itself with stories big and small, and never really straying from the core themes of personal connections and political intrigue
4. Good supporting cast for the Intro: Marina, Belcoot, Lym, Ferid, Arshtat
5. The culmination of the Roy story arc was amusing and the big scene with Euram and the… ‘acting’ was hysterical
6. Political intrigue is the series’ hallmark and the first four chapters are ripe with it
7. Pacing through much of the first half of the game is great stuff
8. There’s a natural progression and escalation of events
9. Consequence storytelling is well on display, with lots of smart plot construction
10. Comment box is a great source of flavor lore as usual
11. Usage of True Runes as a main vector for the plot and a great examination thereof
12. Horror of the Nether Gate. They are described in full and they are not pretty
13. Proper build up and foreshadowing with Georg and Sialeeds
14. Georg is kinda awesome throughout
15. Supporting cast. There’s too many to list but they are pretty awesome and have a lot of little tidbits
16. Humor. The game still gets a chuckle out of me
17. The epilogue slides for each recruited character remain a good way to showcase what happens after the game ends
18. Aggregate: Mathias // Miakis // Viki
19. Aggregate: Lucretia // Lyon // Boz
20. Good Background Lore throughout
21. Internal Continuity is quite tight

Story Negatives:

1. Occasional dialogue issues and ‘as you know’, with some bad exposition
2. Sialeeds’ arc. You can see what they wanted to do with it, but the execution was severely lacking and honestly it just felt like way too much unnecessary conflict and drama between allies
3. Audio balancing issues abound in the cutscenes
4. Several instances of artificial drama and ‘noble heroes working for literal genocidal maniacs’

Gameplay Positives:

1. The leveling system is the same, good one from Suikoden 2
2. Lots of party members and 6 sized party, which allows for a decent amount of ‘bring your favorites’ and a lot of possible combinations
3. Keep mechanics are, as usual, fun and interesting with some nice side stuff and rewarding filling out the Keep
4. The Viki / Mirror option makes getting around so much better and serves as a functional hearthstone / waypoint system
5. Kit is not too shabby, between Training, Runes, equipment, and the four slots system
6. Setup for Major Battles has some surprisingly good complexity and customization
7. Duels are actually pretty decent in this one, with timing and voice clips and some juking
8. Aggregate: Unite system is pretty cool, with some cool combos both for attacks and spells // A pretty meh New Game Plus, but it’s better than nothing

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Unskippable cutscenes
2. Pretty bad walkthroughitis (lots of permanently missable content and esoteric methods of recruitment)
3. The trigger design of the game is actually pretty bad, harkening unto much older RPG design of ‘find the exact person/spot/thing to go to to progress’
4. Repeated instances of lack of checkpoints/saves in between difficult and/or lengthy battles (often crossing Major Battles, Bosses, and Duels)
5. The combination of walkthroughitis and ‘need to know what you’re doing’ means the game can be pretty grindy if you don’t know what you’re doing or have a walkthrough
6. A combination of everything just taking too long (animations, distances) and lengthy segments of walking across long stretches of town/dungeon/overworld just kills the gameplay pacing
7. The Outro really is not good. The final boss isn’t bad, per say, but it’s pretty generic. The lack of save points and anything interesting in the final dungeon hurts it quite a bit too, combined with a lack of good final music (in dungeon or boss)
8. Aggregate: Interface design is just… kind of lacking // Generally bad overworld design… // …combined with actively bad map design
9. Aggregate: Dungeon design // Music restarting upon reload problem // Strategy side kind of sucks, most notably in the interface and controls but also the ease with which you can be stunlocked, and the animations drag it out far too long
10. Aggregate: Encounter rate isn’t the worst but on top of… // The battle transition speed, it slows things to a crawl
11. Really irritating, slow Save System
12. Second negative for Unskippable Cutscenes