Premieres 2

Story Positives:

1. Generally logical and reasonable dialogue and events, which make the story fit together more coherently than a lot of fiction, and helps enjoyment factor
2. Voice acting is, mostly, spot on and well done
3. The little mini-stories and choose-your-own-adventure sections are fun, with neat story tidbits
4. Generally humorous tone is fairly well done, and put me in a good mood throughout
5. Crucey is just a great character in all his appearances, and his ‘defeating’ the villain was legitimately enjoyable

Story Negatives:

1. Carren is fairly poorly written and, worse, ultimately felt completely out of place in the rest of the story for how he was represented

Gameplay Positives:

1. Option exists to alter difficulty beyond just easy and hard, and these options are available in mid-game
2. Good visual distinction in combat, good HUD information and options including (but not limited to): Movement range, Visibility of attacks, Visibility of initiative, Ability to undo movement unless hurt or committed, Available actions and cooldowns, Easy to understand hotkeys, etc.
3. Multitude of convenience options, far too many to list here
4. Gameplay-wise it’s nice to vary up the main loop of kingdom, talk, and combat with the choose-your-own-adventure tidbits, which have branching paths and stat consequences
5. The choose-your-own-adventure stuff gains a second plus for continuing to be good and, honestly, one of the better parts of the game even by the end
6. Each character has a good and varied kit, with a lot of combo options across characters, and further customization options with perks and morphs
7. Good Enemy Variety throughout the campaign
8. Nicely designed HUD

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The game is lacking in further depth and complexity to its tactical and strategic layer; While both are good, both also lose interest the further into the game one gets
2. The lack of ability to save in mid-combat, even for emergencies, as well as inconsistent saving options (save in town but not in dungeons)
3. Aggregate: Lack of proper font scaling, or UI scaling, or related options // Voice clips on every action get very tiresome
4. Aggregate: Hitting escape does not cancel out of action, but rather brings up menu // Occasional irritation with scrolling menus completely ignoring the mousewheel // Similarly, some menus don’t acknowledge keystrokes at all // Having to click through each line of dialogue in each cutscene

Story Positives:

1. The humorous and parody tone was well done and funny throughout

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Reasonably well presented information
2. Mission scenarios are varied enough to stay fun and fresh
3. Very good options with regards to sandbox mode, with none of it requiring unlocks

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Improper and actively bad font scaling options (as is so common now days)
2. Every now and again there are incidents or problems and I have no idea why, which is immensely frustrating in a management sim. The amount of information granted is lacking regarding specific mechanics (food quality, increased revolutionaries, etc.)
3. Takes entirely too long for most things to happen, leading to long downtime periods with basically nothing to do but wait on fast forward
4. Several issues with the building of the Strategic Layer

Story Positives:

1. Generally good storytelling, cohesion, continuity, presentation of setting, and flow of events
2. Voice acting is superb in general, good and talented voice actors properly displaying nuance
3. Second plus for sheer quantity of good voice acting, even for minor NPCs
4. Excellent quest design across the board, with good all-roads-lead-to-Rome design
5. Well written and interesting characters, in-party and out (special praise to Xoti, Eder, and Atsura)
6. The internecine politics of the isles are, easily, the most engaging part of the story and had me hooked throughout
7. Second positive for politics of the isles
8. Despite an absolutely huge amount of content, the main meat of the quests never got old or disinteresting and never made me not care
9. Eothas is probably the best ‘deity’ character in fiction, wonderfully presented and beautifully shown in contrast to the other ‘gods’
10. The epilogue slides are well done, acknowledging a large amount of choices throughout the whole game, and serve as satisfying denouement
11. Aggregate: In-dialogue mouseover lore tidbits allow unobtrusive exposition // The mini-factions within factions and how they play off each other is fun // The party quests were mostly enjoyable
12. Good Background Lore
13. Very good Consequence Storytelling across the isles
14. Excellent Dialogue
15. Second positive for Dialogue
16. Great Doodad usage, rare for a game like this
17. Second good Doodad utilization
18. Great External Continuity in how it follows so seamlessly the events from 1, not just in the main plot but in character and background beats
19. Wonderful Internal Continuity
20. A second positive for Internal Continuity
21. Great NPC Set Dressing in those towns
22. Fantastic Plot, especially with how it so thoroughly changes the status quo
23. Usage of the side sequences with the fake deities as Storytelling Mechanic
24. Lovely Visual Storytelling
25. World Building wonderfulness
26. Second positive for World Building, per Obsidian standard really

Story Negatives:

1. The not-built-up, abrupt, lack of options, badly designed romance slammed into the PC out of nowhere by Xoti

Gameplay Positives:

1. The built in ‘Keep’ of designing your previous save is a great feature and allows you to fiddle with the world state without having to fully replay PoE1, in addition to the import option
2. Large array of options, far above and beyond the norm, for playstyle and difficulty
3. Good built-in console, allowing to fix bugs, bypass quests, adjust variables, mod, etc.
4. Excellent all-roads-lead-to-Rome quest design
5. Game has options for being as evil or good as you prefer, including being able to just kill everyone in your way (with consequences, of course)
6. Significant and ongoing effort into making the turn-based-mode viable, which drastically alters how the game plays and is very well done regardless
7. A second plus for the stellar quest design
8. A plus for completely avoiding the Trash Problem in a CRPG
9. Significant and well designed dialogue options
10. A second dialogue options plus
11. Aggregate: Difficulty options are adjustable on the fly and apply to new zones (though not existing ones) // Little mini-events, derived from reputations, companions, and actions help flesh out gameplay
12. Second positive for All Roads Lead To Rome quest design
13. Some good Gambit design in party AI
14. Second positive for that AI
15. Good talent choices as Alternate Leveling
16. Good leveling and anti-Grind
17. Between party members and talents there’s some good Kit
18. Surprisingly well designed Map, mostly for navigating (especially on the ship)
19. Save System is well designed

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Hard to nail down, but there are artifact design issues with the combat; these are helped by options, but these options mostly bypass the problem rather than addressing it
2. There are way, way too many areas which are just so, so dark and make it hard to see where I am, and where I’ve been
3. Aggregate: The time of day mechanic is, as usual, more of a hassle than anything // Swapping party members is needlessly time consuming and irritating // Pretty bad memory leaks and load times, leading to frequent restarts
4. Some serious issues with Visual Distinction, often

Story Positives:

1. Chapter 3 is more interesting in general than the previous setup; legitimately funny bits with the goblins, an interesting mystery build up with the cult, the curse, and the diseases
2. Generally good and well structured storytelling, with very few (if any) ‘because plot’ moments
3. Game does a good job of keeping track of your actions and choices to have the consequences of them show up later
4. The entire City on the Edge of Time section and its writing, voice acting, continuity, and consequence from previous choices and quests is awesome
5. The chapter 8 ‘save the kingdom’ sequence was great
6. A good epilogue, showing the consequence of virtually every individual quest done across the entire game
7. Aggregate: The ‘plague’ was brilliant in its construction for the setting // The continued emphasis on names and whom to trust in Chapter 4 was nice // Several genuinely touching moments, especially during character quests
8. Aggregate: Mouseover lore tidbits help exposition without interrupting narrative // When there is voice acting, it’s quite good // Lots of interesting background lore on the setting
9. Good Consequence Storytelling
10. Good Doodad design
11. Good Intro, really sets up the premise and concepts
12. Plot is very strong, when it’s present
13. Story Sequencing is well designed
14. Some good World Building for the Pathfinder setting

Story Negatives:

1. Several issues with padding, especially in the middle of the game

Gameplay Positives:

1. Lots of, and good variety of, difficulty options which can be altered on the fly
2. A second plus for truly fantastic difficulty options and curve
3. The game is a faithful, clearly well-thought-out recreation of Pathfinder and the module it’s based off of
4. The choose-your-own-adventure sections are fun and interesting, take into account skills, and have multiple branches
5. City building is good, with varying adjacency bonuses, picking and choosing what to have in which place, and generally makes the ‘keep mechanic’ better than any other game I’ve seen
6. The entire series of kingdom events, the bonuses you gain, and expanding your territory
7. Chapter 8 is fun story wise, but great gameplay wise by acknowledging your choices, and more or less forcing you to rely on those you’ve helped or hindered up until now to progress
8. Between classes and cross classing, there’s some legit Build gameplay
9. Second positive for Choice gameplay design
10. The Intro also is fun to play through, and serves as a good … uh, intro
11. The Outro is probably one of the better sections of the game to play through
12. Good overall Pacing across chapters
13. Quite a few good Quality of Life features

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The game basically cheats with its difficulty; It’s not just how unforgiving and optimized the encounters are, but enemies literally have inflated stats beyond what should be possible for their level, even on the Normal difficulty preset
2. Too much trash, too many encounters, leading to the Trash Problem
3. So I was asked to type up a full explanation of the Factory Problem and the Trash Problem since it’s so, so prevalent in this game: Each individual encounter takes quite some time to push through, and there are many, many, many encounters in the entire game. If on normal or harder these fights can be fun, engaging, and interesting, requiring tactics, knowledge of the system, and skill to defeat… but due to the sheer quantity of encounters this grows old. If cranked down to the easiest difficulty these fights become much easier but no less tedious, as you still have to slog through the same quantity of encounters. This is a nonstop problem, thus draining energy and interest in combat. There is, in short, too much trash, and that trash on any real difficulty is too aggravating for every single encounter, leading to… the Factory Problem and the Trash Problem
4. A third negative for the Factory/Trash Problem
5. A fourth negative for the Factory/Trash Problem
6. The original negative for the Factory Problem, as described above
7. Aggregate: Cannot charge out of range // Bug with slowdown tactical mode thanks to hitting the spacebar // Periodic crashes // Constant issues with button presses not going through, most notably on dialogue but also in menus // Occasionally double select party members bug // Memory leak issues requiring frequent restarts
8. Auto Battle is legitimately stupid

Story Positives:

Story Negatives:

1. The intro is, to put it kindly, not well done… bad directing, writing, pacing, with literally missable dialogue
2. The dialogue is more cliche’d than even I can tolerate, to the point where it actively detracts from scenes
3. The voice direction is almost universally bad, with the emphasis and tone off or actively wrong
4. The tonal whiplash and utter mess of scene flow is jarring as hell
5. The script, most notably the dialogue, is filled with gaping holes and is clearly a first draft
6. The final mission was even worse than usual; ended abruptly, no payoff, no satisfaction, and then a sudden cliffhanger of all things
7. The animation of characters actively detracts from scenes
8. The ‘characters’, if you can call them that, range from completely unmemorable to aggravating
9. While you could argue it’s ‘in character’ for them, there is a lot of cutscene incompetence
10. Second negative for just… the worst dialogue
11. Some games do well at maintaining internal continuity so it all lines up. This game actively sabotages its own internal continuity so it makes as little sense as possible
12. A second negative for an absolutely awful Outro
13. Pacing isn’t that hard to get right but here we are
14. At least padding is a normal thing stories do wrong… as does Anthem
15. Did I mention the plot is ridunculous?
16. Storyboarding is a good way to salvage an otherwise disinteresting scene. Or, in this case, make it even worse
17. We came up with a term over in the Last of Us 2 Review; World Destruction. It’s meant to be the total opposite of World Building, when a game actively wrecks its own setting. So… here we are
18. One last negative for bad writing

Gameplay Positives:

1. The double jump and jetpack mechanics for the javelins are actually really awesome, fun, and intuitive to use and control
2. There’s surprisingly good mid-mission checkpoints, and the ability to ‘rejoin’ a mission in mid-checkpoint

Gameplay Negatives:

1. An utterly unacceptable amounts of buggy, broken mess at launch
2. The basic gunplay is disinteresting, with multiple ‘types’ of guns having extremely similar sound effects, animations, and uses
3. Load times are truly terrible, even on an SSD
4. Multiple Crash To Desktops, as noted above
5. A second negative for a nonstop stream of CTDs
6. A third negative for the worst crash heavy game I’ve ever reviewed to date
7. The lack of variety in mission types is discouraging and boring
8. The lack of variety in gameplay missions actually gets worse the further in you get
9. The Challenges of the Legionnaires quest is the worst kind of padding; Repetitive, open-world X of Y content farming to progress the main story
10. A second negative for the Challenges of the Legionnaires quests, which involve randomization and far too many of each objective
11. A third negative for the Challenges of the Legionnaires for being long, boring, slow, and easily the worst parts of a bad game
12. Bad implementation of the height barrier; the barrier itself is variable, it forces linear navigation, it does damage to you, it can prevent you from recovering from it, and it helps showcase how the game was not actually designed with flight in mind
13. Grouping is a pain, with group members randomly kicked after each mission
14. Aggregate: Literally lying menu options // Having to manually reset resolution after each relaunch // Many, many side bugs and issues // HUD does not show party members well at all
15. The boss design, if you could call it that, is worse than most NES games I’ve played
16. The camera likes to jerk around awkwardly (probably because they didn’t originally build the game with flight in mind, and consequently it has no idea how to handle it)
17. Did I mention how difficult it is to group with friends?
18. Because in a primarily multiplayer looter shooter, it’s actively aggravating grouping with people
19. Good encounter design is usually praise worthy, but then sometimes…
20. …the developers just sprinkle random enemies wherever with no thought put into it at all
21. That’s okay though, because the enemy variety is…
22. …well, it isn’t. There’s the same three or so types of enemies with slightly different stats for the whole stint
23. While we’re here, did I mention the Intro sucks to play through?
24. I should also mention how the game lacks any proper design to itemization or loot
25. And how each ‘class’ plays barely differently from each other
26. And how the terrain is actively not designed for flight or… well, anything
27. Did I mention the Outro sucks yet? It’s one long slog against a boring dungeon with almost no enemy design or variety and culminates…
28. …in an absolutely tepid boss fight. But, in fairness, it’s the only encounter in the entire game that feels like any thought was put into it
29. Speaking of that itemization problem, did I mention the near total lack of power progression curve?

Story Positives:

1. Decent world building and background lore throughout
2. The voice acting on a few of the characters (notably Calia and Tealor) is legitimately excellent
3. The amount of effort put into the story and voice acting of a free, fan game is plus worthy
4. The layout and doodad design of cities works very well, crating a feeling of actual places you’re exploring (especially Ark)
5. The entire story around Silvergrove was great, aside from the bad voice acting
6. Brilliantly done story moments for both Calia and Jespar in their personal quests
7. The Intro does a lot right, with some good plot hooks and getting the player’s interest immediately

Story Negatives:

1. The game is too talky, which really hinders pace
2. A second negative for ‘too talky’, which to elaborate; It’s when a lot of dialogue says very little, with lines that go on too long and drag the pace of a scene down, with huge, huge stretches of exposition (especially towards the end)

Gameplay Positives:

1. The new music is actually quite good, and fits the scenes nicely
2. The console is extensive, well designed, and intuitive for searching, editing, changing, deleting, and fixing (Skyrim Point)
3. The dual ‘wield’ system allows for a good variety of builds and combat styles (Skyrim Point)
4. The general level design of dungeons, cities, and fast travel points is well done
5. Despite severe limitations of the engine, a lot of effort is expended to make interesting or creative dungeons, traps, events, and cinematics

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The difficulty curve is more or less designed to force grinding, not all builds are viable, and there is no respec option
2. There are general bugs, issues, and crashes (Skyrim Point)
3. The time-sensitive events, quests, shops, and interactions are bad by themselves, but with no proper ‘wait’ option outside of running to an inn it gets much worse
4. Moments of excessive, bad railroading
5. Repeated dialogue from NPCs and enemies both gets pretty bad pretty fast
6. This technically qualifies as an Aggregate but it is simply for the many, many issues that are a byproduct of this being a mod. Misleading dialogue, incorrect lines, occasional slip ups, bad directing at times, screwed up sound balance, et cetera.
7. Aggregate: The load times are just bad // Improper menu scaling, preventing some chunks of text from even being on the sceen // Bad sound balance // Cannot deal with bards during relevant cutscenes // The not-quite-paused, not-really-interactable cutscene style is just jarring

Story Positives:

1. Neku’s arc, while brief, is still quite good
2. Joshua remains a fascinating character throughout the majority of the game
3. The main plot is interesting and complex, without swaying too heavily into ridiculousness
4. Multiple interesting, memorable characters who all get either unveiled or developed throughout
5. There is an absolute ton of foreshadowing, as well as a tightness to the crafting of the plot, helping the Babylon 5 Effect
6. The cheese is real, and it’s delightful
7. The Intro is a little bit dense, but very well constructed as a mystery to get the player interested and engaged in what’s going on
8. Generally good Localization
9. Good NPC Set Dressing

Story Negatives:

1. A few too many scenes where characters just sort of brush things off, or do sudden 180s, or otherwise causing tonal whiplash

Gameplay Positives:

1. The graphics style is very distinct, maintaining a strong comic-book mixed with graffiti aesthetic
2. Good gameplay and story integration at many points (the variance in style between Shiki and Joshua is just one example)
3. Multiple options available to avoid grinding, including but not limited to; Difficulty options, the ability to restart a fight with different setup, alternate leveling options, etc.
4. The core gameplay conceit of different inputs for different attacks is pretty fun at its heart, and helps vary playstyle
5. The difficulty options are excellent; Variable level, variable difficulty, ability to change after losing a fight, new equipment loadout, and new stuff for new strategies isn’t worthless out-of-the-box allowing for more experimentation in builds
6. The New Game + chapter select is great, and not losing progress in mid-chapter while bouncing between chapters is even better
7. Surprisingly large amount of Info in the Game, mostly on the badges and how exactly they operate
8. Good overall gameplay Pacing between missions and combat

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Excessive and over-long tutorialization for almost all of Week 1
2. Unskippable cutscenes (until you’ve already beaten the game)
3. Enforced ironman mode, and only one save slot
4. The Switch docked controls are just… not good. They require precision, especially on harder stuff, and the controls can’t even come close to that
5. The amount of mechanics regarding the many, many systems are just over the top and, worse, don’t gel well with each other at all
6. The dialogue spam during boss fights is worse than usual, and gets worse further into the game
7. The obtuse grind wall in A New Day is stupid, badly designed, and far too heavy on Walkthroughitis

Story Positives:

1. The story is, in general, light hearted and fun, but also connects with Sun / Moon in several ways, and has several nice moments peppered throughout

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. The dynamic between 4 moves and 6 Pokemon and the many factors related thereto lead to some great pre-combat strategy (Pokemon Point)
2. Good presentation of most of the necessary information, including but not limited to; moves, items, IVs, and stats
3. The game is very easy to play, for the very young who might be interested in getting started in the franchise
4. Visible pokemon on the overworld map, which stay through combat, is awesome and allows you to; Avoid the RNG of looking for specific mobs, remove the Trash Problem entirely, and allows you to home in on a specific enemy
5. Good fast travel system (doesn’t take up a move slot, can fast travel from almost anywhere, lots of nodes to warp to, unlocked before it’s useless)
6. A second plus for the visible encounter system (including how Repel just prevents spawning, how easy it is to avoid encounters, visible status changes between Huge and Little, etc.)
7. Aggregate: Some good convenience features, such as accessing the Pokemon Box anywhere, using the R keys instead of A, etc. // Music is nice and bouncey and fits the mood
8. Aggregate: Core gameplay loop is the usually enjoyable Pokemon standard // Reasonably well done difficulty curve, assuming you avoid the xp that is flung at you // Graphics are surprisingly detailed, with good terrain and background design
9. Usual Alternate Leveling positive for Pokemon
10. As usual, some good Builds in the Pokemon
11. Enemy Variety is good as usual for, y’know, Pokemon
12. Leveling is pretty smooth and anti Grindy
13. Usual Pokemon Kit positive
14. Usual Penalty for Failure positive for Pokemon
15. Good Visual Distinction

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Randomness in catching mechanics (Pokemon Point)
2. Only one save file, which is just ridiculous for a modern Switch game
3. The motion controls for capturing are genuinely aggravating, and made me want to stop capturing at all halfway through
4. Aggregate: Lack of any real difficulty options or ability to disable Experience Share // Far too many button presses required for many options // No memory cursor // Tree regrowth and no shortcuts for HM equivalents // Timers for legendary fights are hindered by animation time
5. Usual Walkthroughitis issues

Story Positives:

1. Interesting cinematic direction in showcasing events, especially good direction in the dream vs. reality and ending cutscenes

Story Negatives:

1. Disinteresting overall story but, worse, the ending is just blurgh with repeating elements, too short, too truncated, and no satisfying payoff to anything

Gameplay Positives:

1. The usage of physics as a primary combat vehicle is fun and interesting
2. A second positive for consistent and creative usage of physics
3. The level design is generally excellent, complimenting out-maneuvering and out-thinking opponents
4. The kick/physics attack and nearby terrain almost always ensures you have at least some way to deal with combat
5. Good tutorialization of events in cutscenes and/or scripted actions
6. The rope bow is an awesome tool, and a lot of effort was clearly put into ensuring it had many uses throughout levels
7. Aggregate: Visual layout of most areas is pretty well done // The cyclops fights were consistently fun and well done throughout // The game encourages exploration in just the right way
8. Good Enemy Variety, especially by the point at which you hit the ruins

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The game is just way, way too dark (visually), making it really hard to see where you’re going or what you’re doing many times unless you leave ‘detective vision’ on
2. The pao-kai fights are just awful, with nothing interesting done to fight them, make them engaging, nor are they well presented. This is particularly bad during the final boss fight
3. Aggregate: The game has no respec, forcing you to either restart or stick with a bad build // Platforming issues periodically, as per usual with the Source engine // A bit too easy to get turned around in many areas thanks to samey textures // Power attacks just don’t work about a third of the time, which sucks given how hard the game leans on them
4. Aggregate: Cutscenes are a bit too skippable, oddly // Despite trying to build myself well and making actual efforts, and on normal difficulty, I found myself dying often and being unsure as to why // Combat relies a bit too much on physics rather than game mechsnics, which causes issues

Story Positives:

1. A reasonably interesting narrative presentation during briefings, which gives good context for assassinations
2. The tidbits of detail to NPCs throughout the missions are just great, with lots and lots and lots of Lindblum Effect from chatter, interactions, and reactions
3. Aggregate: Reasonably good voice acting // Well presented main plot despite predictability // The usage of the ‘still’ cutscenes with voice acting was not only good, but was a great creative decision for budget and development reasons
4. Great random Banter amongst the various NPCs
5. This is among the best Doodad design I’ve seen in gaming
6. A second positive…
7. …and a third
8. The game is weirdly hilarious, both intentionally and not
9. Visual Storytelling of the zones is great

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Fantastic freeform mission design, even in the tutorial!
2. A second plus for the freeform missions, especially given their scope and scale
3. Nightcall is great for how much you can do, and the tension of the timer
4. The Finish Line is one of the better missions, with so so so so many things you can do in whatever order
5. Three Headed Serpent once again showcases wonderfulness in level layout and design
6. Chasing A Ghost is probably the most segmented of the levels but still great
7. Another Life is easily my favorite level in the game…
8. …which earns it an unheard of two positives for one level. The options for non lethal, non combat, non detected gameplay are through the roof here and I love it
9. The Ark Society is, once again, great
10. The attention to detail in NPCs, chatter, costumes, interactable objects, cosmetic background items, and general doodad placement is mind blowing
11. Challenges are a great idea to not only offer replay but prompt new ideas or routes
12. The design of unlocks and multiple paths to victory heavily emphasize not only replay value but variety of missions
13. Story Missions are a great design concept; they provide guidelines (without restricting) and can be ignored or completely toggled off
14. The dynamic Yoshi-Drums music relevant to current actions, status, and the point in the mission is all good stuff
15. A substantial post-game in terms of elusive targets, competitive multiplayer, and additional challenges
16. Amazing size and variety of kit in terms of what you can bring, find, and use in missions
17. Fantastic Enemy AI Design
18. I can’t over-state how much the All Roads Lead To Rome design is of the stages
19. Enough that it gets a second positive
20. Animations always help and inform gameplay
21. The game Controls beautifully
22. The Core Mechanics of stealthing, outfits, and scouting are great
23. The manually placed, designed, and crafted Encounters (both hostile and otherwise) are some of the best I’ve ever seen
24. Encounters, mk. 2
25. Encounters, mk. 3
26. A second positive for the sheer quantity of post-game content
27. And a third for the sheer quality of it
28. The game is legitimately gorgeous
29. And uses its graphics quite well
30. Great HUD design
31. The Intro level does all that normal good Intros do…
32. …but gets special mention for being a whole mini stage with tons of methods, playstyles, and options on its own
33. There are so, so many options for your initial Kit
34. And there are so, so many options for Kit you can get in levels
35. Good Map design
36. Fun little Optional challenge modes
37. The Pacing across and within stages is excellent
38. The game gets a second positive for Replayability
39. And a third
40. Great Sound Design
41. The Terrain is very clearly designed to assist the Stealth gameplay
42. So much so that it gets a second positive
43. Tutorialization as you play is fantastic…
44. …with great usage of events, timed NPC sequences, and kit to get you into how to play the game
45. The game is exceptionally Visually Distinct
46. …to an extent that’s so impressive, I would’ve sworn it was a Metroid game

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Improper text and UI scaling options, which is getting sadly normal now days
2. The always online requirements for unlocks and choices is just bleh

Story Positives:

1. The Skits offer additional flavor lore for developing areas, characters, and other aspects of story and are fully optional
2. A second plus for Skits continuing to be entertaining and fun throughout the game
3. Some legitimately amusing banter between characters helps flesh them out and keep them interesting
4. Estelle is juuust adorable and a generally good character
5. The Don is interesting, enjoyable, and well written
6. The ‘seduce the guard’ sequence was legitimately funny, cute, and entertaining… all three versions
7. The Yuri / Flynn dynamic is interesting, but most especially how it showcases the value and detriment of both perspectives
8. Judith is an interesting character who manages to balance being helpful yet distant
9. The plot idea of changing the status quo, solving the long term root problem of Aer, and effectively creating our own mac-guffins is pretty cool
10. Good overall Background Lore
11. Good Doodad usage in towns and cities
12. Generally good Voice Acting

Story Negatives:

1. There is a near-constant, fairly awkward amount of bad exposition
2. Action scenes are directed actively badly, to the point where it’s not just distracting, it’s actually confusing
3. A second negative for the action scene directing
4. Patty is just… badly implemented into the story. The character herself is fine, but the way they shoehorn her into and out of the plots is poorly executed
5. Unnecessary cutscene incompetence and fake drama
6. More cutscene incompetence and, worse, near-constant arguments about ‘keeping the party together’ which gets old less than halfway through the game
7. The desert sequence in its entirety is riddled with too many problems to list here
8. Awkward pacing in general
9. The adephagos is… not interesting at best, and actively detracted from the game’s final act in my opinion
10. Aggregate: Sodia’s arc was alright… right up until the (bizarrely directed) backstab scene, a scene which also had no payoff // Zagi in his entirety was juuust awful, every implementation actively worsening the story // Raven’s entire sequence of ‘I betrayed you no just kidding I’m dead but also I’m back’
11. Some pretty bad Empty Text issues, especially in the middle of the game

Gameplay Positives:

1. The core combat of artes, skills, and chaining is pretty cool once you understand it
2. Combat animations and background doodad placement are mostly good
3. Aggregate: The ability to switch which character you control in combat is good // In combat co-op is good // The ability to use move types to ‘vuln’ enemies for strikes is neat
4. Some pretty fun, interesting Boss fights
5. Good Enemy Variety
6. Good overall Save System

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Voice clips on action during combat, which just creates a cacophony
2. Extremely blatant, unnecessary, and redundant tutorialization… made even worse by the fact that they have built into the game a good form of tutorialization
3. Periodic occasions where you have vague directions but no specifics, leading to ‘who do I talk to’ incidents
4. A substantial amount of walkthroughitis in terms of game mechanics and side-quests
5. A lack of exit ports, tools to leave, or just good dungeon design, leading to a lot of backtracking to leave dungeons
6. Aggregate: Occasional No Music issues // Sound direction is actually pretty bad, most notably with music selection for scenes, and bad sound balance

Story Positives:

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Tight, responsive controls that feel very fluid
2. Good, dynamic Yoshi-drums style music that helps the atmosphere
3. The visuals are suitably cartooney without looking cheap, and are well colored and lit
4. Pretty good convenience features (Warp-to-level from a menu, indicators showing what you’ve collected and where, quick and easy retry options, auto-camera, swapping between soundtracks, exit levels before finishing, etc.)
5. Interesting variety of activities per level in the second game, making it feel a bit theme-park in design
6. The narrowed boss design in 2 lends each to feeling more fun and better designed
7. The additional characters in 3 add good variety to the levels
8. Good Animation design, helps with the overall flow of playing
9. The games have good Pacing when it’s good…
10. Good Princess Peach sections with the additional characters

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The final boss of the first game is bad, bad, bad. It’s frustrating in general, has no checkpoints (making you repeat already irritating sections that deliberately irritate for any mistake you make), and the fact that you are only supposed to reach Gnasty Gnorc in one specific way, removing possibility of skill or tactics
2. Across all three games there is a heavy emphasis on binary difficulty to minigames and challenges, meaning any mistake is final and requires starting over
3. Far too many moments, especially in the bosses in game 3, where you are actually fighting the camera rather than the enemy
4. Aggregate: The egg thief enemies are not only designed to be annoying, they succeed at it (the voice clip alone is awful) // The bosses in the first game are just awful, and actively boring // The final boss of the first game is a ‘run away from it’ thief fight, which deserves additional mention as being awful
5. Aggregate: General issues with precision on controls for harder challenges // Many of the minigames just aren’t fun, or worse, are irritating // 100%ing the game can become a chore rather than enjoyable, with too many specific collectibles being aggravating to acquire // Scorch was a generally terrible boss fight (Forced invuln, forced lock on making shots miss, can only shoot in an 8 axis, many adds which also get in the way of having to stand stock still to aim, and weapons take priority over each other with no way to select between them)
6. …the games have pretty bad Pacing when it’s bad

Story Positives:

1. The Support Conversations are as awesome as usual, containing the best story content in the game
2. The characters are interesting and endearing
3. The characterization in support conversations is good stuff
4. And a second plus for characters in general
5. Good Banter between the cast
6. Good opening Cinematic
7. Good Doodad utilization, doubly impressive since it’s well done even in the battlefields
8. Really good Localization

Story Negatives:

1. Characters are seemingly one note, but it’s okay they get developed in support conversations… which are locked behind an awful grind wall
2. Jeralt’s death was just… badly done in about 6 different ways (a minor wound kills, no attempt to heal, no attempt at recovery, sudden interference of diabolos ex machina, was broadcast way in advance, no attempt to rewind again) and it destroys any impact the scene should have had
3. Needless drama in refusing to explain one’s self or actually act like a human being (far too common to list individual examples)
4. Cutscene incompetence
5. The timeskip is just dumb… it’s badly handled, unnecessarily long, nothing has changed, poorly explained, and poorly presented (especially on Edelgard’s line)
6. The Edelgard story is lackluster at best, and actively simple at worst. A lack of complexity, consequence, logic, or development
7. Aggregate: I’m not going to list every incident but… there are so many issues with the second half of the game. The massive disconnect between the monastery and combat, the war stalling for years (and being resolved in months), conquering entire nations in two battles, being told literally incorrect information in narration, referencing events or introducing characters never expounded upon, Rhea’s ridiculous descent into moustache-twirling villainy, etc

Gameplay Positives:

1. The auto-advance, manual advance, rewind, and replay options in text are a great convenience feature
2. Generally good HUD with decent at-a-glance info, toggleable visibility danger areas, health bars, who hasn’t gone yet, movable area, attackable area, usual Fire Emblem stuff
3. Garreg Mach Monastery has a lot of legitimately good HUD features showing who you’ve talked to and haven’t, who has quests, where everyone is, activities, faction, and fast travel
4. Difficulty is an option, and perma-death is a separate option
5. Multiple camera modes and animation options for combat
6. The animations are surprisingly fluid in combat, with good transition in and out of zoom, and helping flow tremendously
7. The Divine Pulse mechanic and ease of use, being able to see every action on the turn wheel, and being able to rewind X number of times (depending on how far into the game you are)
8. Hits a good balance point of specialization between characters and what they can be
9. The aggro lines are a great new feature, showing who will target what next turn
10. The adjunct system to allow you to ‘bring’ more than the party limit and ‘carry’ weaker party members to catch them up
11. The customization of builds is good (Abilities, equipment, proficiencies, and passives)
12. General excellence in the complexity of combat
13. Bonus points for complexity of the Enemy AI Design
14. Auto Battle is really good
15. The entire Class and cross trading system…
16. …leads to some good Alternate Leveling Mechanics
17. The Controls are tight
18. Each battle’s manually crafted Encounters…
19. …deserves a couple of positives
20. This dovetails nicely with the Enemy Variety…
21. …which is also quite good
22. Pretty much all the Info is in the Game
23. Despite the repetition problem, there is legitimately good Music in this
24. Really enjoyable and fun Outro
25. Power Progression Curve is very smooth and well designed
26. Thanks in part to the multiple paths…
27. …but also the class and cross class system, the game has great Replayability
28. Good, well designed Save System
29. Good, clear Visual Distinction

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Music repetition and lack of variety in battle and town
2. A second negative for the music problem, as well as music direction issues
3. Grinding supports just sucks, especially given how much good stuff is locked behind it
4. The walkthroughitis involved in getting support conversations, recruitment, and most importantly unlocking Paralogues is as awful as usual
5. Aggregate: Various interface issues, such as; takes too many clicks to reach menu options // Lack of proper information of what you want at relevant screens // Lack of proper information on what you need to recruit // Lack of information on students who are not actively in your team

Story Positives:

1. Double effort in translation with proper localization, and subtitles that are more literal
2. Voice acting is good (with one big exception)
3. Doodad placement and design of the layout is fantastic, really makes the city feel real
4. There is a great level of detail put into cutscenes (taking shoes off for the mat, alcohol in drinks tilting properly, etc.)
5. Appropriately well constructed mystery for the first half of the game
6. Good pacing for the first half of the game
7. Several times it legitimately made me laugh
8. Game manages to stay low-tier and down-to-earth without losing impact or tension for the first half of the game
9. The Princess Peach section where we play as ourselves from the past was great
10. Genda is a delightful, interesting, complex character
11. Multiple support characters are quite good, including but not limited to; Saori, Kaito, Kashida, Hamura, and Ayabe
12. Quite good Animations throughout
13. A second positive for Animation quality
14. Intro is really excellent, and easily the best part of the narrative
15. Lighting is used to great effect on the city
16. Great NPC Set Dressing for the city
17. Cutscenes have good, well constructed Storyboarding

Story Negatives:

1. The entire sequence with Kaito and Adachi doesn’t work for various reasons (poorly constructed, fake drama, and no voice acting despite main quest mandatory)
2. Way, way, way too heavy handed and repeated emphasis on the ‘seemingly unconnected events’ of the incident that pushed Yagami out of practicing law
3. Yagami’s ‘meeting’ with Mafuyu is poorly constructed, but doubly worse because he somehow doesn’t recognize someone he’s known for years because she has a wig on
4. A bit too much unnecessary repeating and padding of dialogue
5. The chapter 9 is padding, with stupidity of characters, artificial drama, misdirection, which all combines in the story (which has already reached a natural conclusion point) dragging out unnecessarily
6. The pacing in the latter half of the game falls off completely
7. Construction of the mystery in the latter half of the game becomes simplistic to the point of insulting
8. Yagami’s voice acting is actively bad, which is especially egregious in an otherwise well acted game
9. Yagami is just a little bit too much edgy punk for me, to the point where I kind of despise him
10. Aggregate: Several weirdly off-key moments, including but not limited to; not quite nailing the humor, and silly side quests having nothing to do with anything (deflating their punch)
11. Man there’s some Fake Drama in this one, whoo
12. The Outro might be the worst overall part of the game… if not for that middle padding part

Gameplay Positives:

1. The escort quest (of all things) with Mufuyu was actually fun; She healed us, gave us EX charges, varied encounters, lots of weapons to use, and proper checkpointing
2. The last boss is actually really, really fun (as is the earlier fight with him)… it is properly dynamic, he has lots of counter attacks, there’s a huge variety of attacks, good visual cues, good opening windows, and no reliance on long invulns or other bad boss designs
3. Good New Game Plus is, as always, a positive
4. Aggregate: Difficulty is toggleable on the fly // Toggleable sprint instead of hold-down // Optional dialogue is skippable
5. Animations are useful and helpful in combat for figuring out what to do when
6. Controls are quite tight
7. Controls are the usual Yakuza quality
8. Core Combat is very fun
9. General Graphics quality
10. For all its narrative issues, the Outro is super fun to play
11. Game has a good Save System

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Blur! An untoggleable blur! Headache inducing blur
2. The pixel-hunting point-and-click sections are a bit much, a bit limited, and a bit bleh
3. Tailing missions just suck. They’re time consuming, they like to try and trap you with gotcha mechanics, aren’t completely binary but if you do get caught you start all over, and are just padding
4. A second negative for the repetitive and repeating tailing missions
5. Third negative for tailing (bad, boring, irritating, frustrating, time wasting)
6. Autosave is actively badly designed, failing at its core design (helping to prevent loss from crashes or issues)
7. Aggregate: Button mashing to get up in combat (regular problem) // Key mechanic, aka remembering each key when opening doors // QTEs as filler

Story Positives:

1. The story, intentionally or otherwise, is delightfully cheesy

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Achievements to upgrade enemies is a neat option and fairly non grindy
2. Surprisingly large number of convenience features, in warping straight to events, doing quests without backtracking, etc.
3. The entire premise of the game (defeating enemies, capturing them, and using them as your combat) is enjoyable and pretty cool

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Mandatory motion controls
2. A second negative for the motion controls (the ‘shakey’ one physically hurts to do, is a huge waste of time, and can literally break a controller)
3. The Brigantia boss is just terrible. It has large windows of invulnerability regularly, is hard to aim at, requires you to hit a specific part of the boss with specific weapons that are short range, and goes into full random mode, and has way too much health
4. The Faery Lord boss fight is awful. He moves too quickly and (combined with auto aiming issues) means you can’t hit him while moving; when he stops moving he immediately attacks, his attacks are very quick and generally involve just getting hit to hit him, his attacks almost all knockdown or stun you, he has two trash mobs (one designed for area denial and one for constant rushing charge attacks) and they give nothing on death, if they both are killed the trash respawns, he has no visible healthbar which is further exacerbated by the fact that you can’t tell if you’re doing damage to him, and finally there is a mandatory trash fight with irritating and health-spongey trash leading up to him
5. The final boss fight is… not good. The first half is actually pretty good, but the second half is pure arduousness. The final phase has way (way way way) too much health and can hit you for a huge amount of your health with each shot. There is a large amount of visual chaos going on which chugs the framerate and makes it difficult to see attacks coming, and he has an absolutely insane ‘rip souls out’ sequence at the end of all of it

Story Positives:

1. The little skits at each boss battle are cute, funny, and enjoyable

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Proper co-op campaign mode
2. The visuals are nice, but how the game uses them is just incredible
3. Regular effort is put into varying up both level design and level mechanics
4. Additional plus for variety and creativity in level gimmicks
5. Boss fights are surprisingly fun to play
6. A second plus for boss fight fun and innovativeness
7. Aggregate: ChoGall style co-op mode is awesome // Ability to swap difficulty and players on the fly without any reloads

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The music is just bad, to the point where it hurts my ears
2. There’s no audio options at all, which is bad by itself but also means no way to bypass the music problem
3. Only one save slot, which is a negative for the usual reasons

Story Positives:

1. The localization is, as always, delightful
2. A second localization plus for quality and effort
3. As per usual for a Dragon Quest game, the puns are delightful
4. Malroth is a pretty awesome character overall, and grows wonderfully throughout
5. In Malhalla, there is good and a good amount of characterization and flavor to each of the monster NPCs
6. Aggregate: While overt, the overall theme of the game (destruction and creation’s joint power) is nice // The finale sequence with Hargon, Malroth, and the main character has some problems but was still enjoyable // Good bookending towards the end
7. Animations help with cutscenes frequently
8. Great Atmosphere as per usual, bit lighter in tone than the Dragon Quest norm but there’s still some good heavy stuff
9. Some interestingly well done Babylon 5 Effect for the second time through
10. Some legitimately enjoyable Banter between side characters and NPCs
11. A second positive for Characters, especially on each island
12. Great opening Cinematic
13. Surprisingly for a game of this, uh, type the Doodad utilization really helps flesh out each area
14. The External Continuity of how the game ties into Dragon Quest 2 is fantastic, and frankly impressive
15. Game made me laugh more than I thought it would, and as usual… love those puns
16. Internal Continuity is surprisingly tight, mostly showing up in Malhalla
17. Several great main sections in the islands and their story arcs
18. Music is well Directed for many scenes and areas
19. Each area has its own stories to tell in Visual Storytelling
20. The way the islands connect to each other and to Dragon Quest 2 makes for some surprisingly great World Building

Story Negatives:

1. As is usual for a Dragon Quest game, it’s just too talky; too many long sections of long dialogue where it’s unnecessary, dragging the pace down
2. The Babs gag of Island 2 hits way too hard and way too often
3. The blatant Idiot Ball grabbing of imprisoning Malroth on Moonbrooke is just awful at every level, and infuriating
4. I love this game, buuut it has a lot of Empty Text problems…
5. ..with just huge, huge swaths of text where nothing is actually said
6. A bonus negative for Fake Drama for everything from Moonbrooke up to the finale

Gameplay Positives:

1. Malroth helps you gather materials
2. Malroth being the ‘combat’ side of the equation and helping you battle is nice, and helps flow of gameplay a lot
3. The base premise is amazing (utilize a Minecraft-style gathering, crafting, and building element as the gameplay axis of an RPG)
4. Lots and lots of cool, fun, and interesting ways to vary your base building (anything from ‘screw it let’s just do it’ to ‘give me another five hours to set up the furniture’)
5. Blueprints, AI reactions to setup, and other things that help flesh out building
6. The inventory system is good stuff, and allows for stress free gathering and sorting
7. Separating combat from gathering items in both buttons on the controller and usage, preventing issues such combat screwing with your build (also helped by the ‘let’s repair things!’ mechanic)
8. Good fast travel (optional, multiple nodes, can do so anywhere even in combat)
9. Optional islands with scavenger hunts that give infinite use of some crafted materials henceforth
10. The Skelketraz section was good fun, and a good breather episode
11. Though not great, it’s still fun to build and explore with funs in co-op multiplayer
12. The manual placement of blocks and layouts in every stage (most noticeable in Moonbrooke) is good stuff
13. Furrowfield and the slow expansion of arable soil is fun and a great intro to the game
14. Khrumbul-Dun and the idea of passively gaining more and more ore the more you upgrade your town is really cool, and they vary up the terrain and encounters substantially
15. Moonbrooke and the constant attacks thing is probably the most fun part of the entire game
16. But having to grab resources from the terrain and building the ship in Malhalla comes close
17. Fun and interesting gimmicks across islands (constant attacks in Moonbrooke and salvaging material in Malhalla are big ones)
18. Good variety to boss mechanics and gimmicks
19. Excellent progression built into the game of how and when you gain blueprints, recipes, materials, tools, etc.
20. While not super awesome, the post game has a lot to build, craft, unlock, and find and is a good sandbox mode
21. Aggregate: Convenience features! Including but not limited to: Showing what quest items you need while crafting // Increased stack size // Craft with items in chests // Able to toss items straight into chests // Massive inventory space // Game ‘smartly’ selects quest NPCs over regulars when talking to a cluster, etc.
22. Aggregate: Infinite pot allowing you to add and remove liquids at will // The large scale hammer smashes, also hitting vertical height // The Trowel, which makes terraforming or ground alteration much better // The glove, allowing for movement of blocks without destruction
23. Fun and engaging boss fights at the end of each island
24. The post game gets two positives…
25. …for having some legitimately awesome building, construction, unlocks, and general fun
26. The entirety of Malhalla, the build up to the final dungeon, and the final boss make for a surprisingly fun Outro
27. The game’s Pacing is fantastic, bouncing effortlessly between exploring, scouting, building, fighting, and weaving in and out of tempo
28. Second positive for Pacing
29. As with many builder-type games, the game has tons of Replayability (special mention; as of this typing, I’ve actually played all the way through the game twice… and this is not a short game)
30. Surprisingly good and quick save system
31. Partially owing to the general DQ aesthetic, but there’s good Visual Distinction of blocks, enemies, drops, and interactables

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Unskippable cutscenes
2. The excessively long ‘dialogue’ bits with Hargon’s voice and Evil Malroth are just long long long, and keep being arduous the entire game (even through the final boss fight!)
3. The music is… not great. The songs aren’t bad but they’re short, loop too often, and have bad direction/usage
4. HP spongieness throughout the game (there’s a reason the needle’s the best weapon)
5. Forcing the player to go along with the Idiot Ball of imprisoning Malroth even from a gameplay perspective, even when it makes no sense to do so
6. Honestly, the Core Combat is just bad. While it’s improved from 1, it’s still pretty basic and dull, especially given how much of it you have to do
7. There are far too many enemy spawns that irritate you, especially on the central ‘open world’ island… I’m trying to build, dammit, go away ants!
8. Some honest issues with Sound Design, but the worst thing of all is that in multiplayer there is literally no way to turn off the in game mic

Story Positives:

1. Actually has all the dialogue available for all party members, despite a limited party size
2. While a bit hit or miss, there’s decent quality and quantity of world building; notably how well they mesh sci fi and traditional fantasy, and everything to do with the Frostlings

Story Negatives:

1. The writing across the board is fairly novice. Awkward romance construction, inconsistent connection of events, clunky expositions, overly flowery dialogue, unnecessary descriptions, etc.
2. The ending was poorly constructed, showcased, and executed. It felt like it tried too hard to explain things to shift into a very specific scenario
3. Aggregate The game, especially the finale, tries very hard to pull emotional tugs (let’s sacrifice ourselves to the final boss we were just trying to kill!) and it fails, even for previously invested characters // Story is hampered by a lot of illogical events, actions, and general cutscene incompetence // The party is actively stupid, repeatedly

Gameplay Positives:

1. Can freely swap skills out of combat for no cost, and can respec attribute spending at cost out of combat
2. Decent fast travel system (multiple nodes, acquire as you go, doable at will to and from the city)
3. Multiple options of playstyle which are adjustable on the fly (pausing, slowing, presentation of info, difficulty,etc.)
4. Good emphasis on builds; 7 characters, 8 abilities each, 4 slots for party and 4 slots per skill, with a lot of possible combinations of builds (further aided by the free respec, encouraging trying out new builds)
5. Aggregate: Area completion shown on loading screen and map // Generally good UI information presentation // Teleporting to City functions as a town portal // Rotating combat music, even on retries of the same battle, ensuring it doesn’t get old
6. Decent talent builds for Alternate Leveling

Gameplay Negatives:

1. While not actively bad, the core gameplay tower defense / RTS mode has no true variety to help flesh it out, meaning it got old about 12 hours in
2. The combat overall remains boring and stale, and given the length of the game drags it down
3. Several quests involve irritating, poorly done backtracking (further hampered by a lack of ‘toggle interactable objects’ button)

Story Positives:

1. Interesting background lore, almost entirely presented in unit and technology descriptions
2. Surprisingly good world building, which helps the scenario mode

Story Negatives:

1. Storytelling is frankly bad, with bad dialogue and bad events following bad sequences in a campaign that is not interesting
2. Honestly, some really bad dialogue
3. The story sequencing across campaign missions is just all over the place

Gameplay Positives:

1. Good UI information at-a-glance for the combat mode (indicators on range while moving, dangerous terrain, explosions or overwatch triggers, etc.)
2. Good color distinction and information display
3. Good, full mod support
4. Lots and lots of options for scenario setup (mostly for planet, but also for commander)
5. Core combat gameplay is very fun in an XCOM style; terrain matters, cover matters, lots of units with varying weapon types and abilities as well as customization
6. A second plus for combat enjoyment
7. Aggregate: The Dvar Prospecting mechanic adds nice functionality to the race // Auto battle out of combat options are good // In combat auto combat is good
8. Enemy AI design is legit
9. Lots of info available in game
10. Honestly the scenario mode really is great
11. As with any good strategy game, really good replayability
12. While not as well developed, the strategic layer is still enjoyable

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Campaign mode is just not interesting. It’s a series of grindy, inadequately designed maps with quests crudely tacked on and no interesting story meat
2. Aggregate: There’s simply too much at the strategic layer that isn’t apparent or well shown, leading to bad UI issues // The tutorial is not good, I was actively lost on some things until players informed me // No auto explore map options // No escape option in some battles despite escape vectors