Final Fantasy XV

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 77 Hours
• Too Short/Long: I think because of how the game progresses, it's somehow both too short and too long. Main Story is too short, extra content in the earlier part of the game is too long?
• Pleased/Disappointed: I really enjoyed it, and would put it in the upper half of rankings for Final Fantasy games.
• Why I played: I don't feel like I need a reason for a Final Fantasy game, but I recently picked it back up, wanting to actually finish more of my unfinished games.
• Recommend to others: I would, generally speaking, but I feel like most people who would actually have any vested interested in it have already played it or already plan to. I might be willing to try to convince people who didn't give the game a fair enough shot.

Final Fantasy 15 is a mess of a game. A game that started off as a spin-off and took so long to develop, several other Final Fantasy games - main line - spin offs - and sequels to the one it was supposed to be a sequel to, started and finished development within it's cycle. I'm sure there are a number of other games out there that start off as spin-off but become their own thing, but it's notable when it happens. There are probably more examples of the opposite - you know, needing to attach an existing IP to something, to get the attention. The game had to insert blatant advertisements for existing companies, to sponsor it's development. It had weird cross-overs that I'm not sure were wholly in earnest and not just another way to get a few extra bucks.

I mean, it might have helped if they didn't try to make this a whole multi-media project from the start. I think they thought this would be the new FF7. They were gonna have movies, ova's, spin off titles, etc, etc, from the start. And they did. But not because of the legacy the game left, like in FF7's case. They kicked it all off from the start, assured that this next Final Fantasy game would be so beloved the cash would never stop flowing.

Instead, you get a divisive mess of a game and franchise that's all over the place. Regardless, I don't think it all turned out too bad.

Final Fantasy XIII

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 60 Hours
• Too Short/Long: There are parts that drag on, both in the beginning, at at the end, so for that, I'd say it's probably too long. It should maybe be closer to the 40 hour mark.
• Pleased/Disappointed: It's not perfect but I'm pleased with it overall.
• Why I played: I've been meaning to finish XIII for a long time. I've started the game new three times since it was released, and this last playthrough I started 4 years ago. Once we moved I only managed to pick it up for a brief hour-two each year since then.
• Recommend to others: I actually do, I like Final Fantasy XIII a lot. It's in my upper half of Final Fantasy games. My first two false starts were 15-30 hours each, so I've played this one quite a bit.

I started Final Fantasy XIII before I moved. I also started it before I officially began keeping track of the games I complete, as a means of self-regulated accountability. I've only used this blog for the better part of two years, but I've been keeping some kind of record since 2020. In fact, this game was probably one of the ones I originally considered when taking this on. That said, for year 1-2 I didn't do a full write up, I merely logged the game down in a "Beaten" list.

Sclash

• Genre: Fighting
• Time Played: ~2 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's a bit on the short side, it's only 2 because I played around a bunch with some regular matches, but it's nice that it has a little story.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Regular. I'm not disappointed, but I'm not exactly wowed.
• Why I played: It's a fighting game and it has a nice art style.
• Recommend to others: Not like a strong recommend, and I'd have to play some actual two player before I can really know, but there are better options for this style of game.

I almost forgot to write about this one. I finished this before Moon.

There has been a trend "lately"(as in... for a good handful of years) of fighting games that try to capture the magic of the famous single strike stand samurai stand off not much seen for nearly 30 years in Bushido Blade. Slice Dice and Rice, One Strike,  Kiai Resonance, Blind Blades, you can argue Samurai Gunn to a degree, and there are a couple other non-Samurai single strike fighting games. This is another one, and it doesn't do much to set itself apart. It does have some great art, which I would say is the biggest thing. A lot of the others, while stylized, I wouldn't exactly say have great art.

It also has a story mode, with actual scenes and dialog and such, which can probably be completed in less than an hour, and then some additional ways to approach said story mode and other single player options, which is nice since most of the other games like this literally only have their standard vs mode. I can't say it's the best of the bunch, but I also haven't actually played it multiplayer yet, but considering there are only 5 characters and I've had a good amount of time to play with the mechanics, I don't think I'm going to suddenly be surprised by it's greatness. It's neat though, and I like the option to play a few rounds of this when it comes up in the future.

Doll Explorer

• Genre: Strategy/Puzzle
• Time Played: ~15 Hours?
• Too Short/Long: Long enough for the content it has, it was starting to get a little stale. I wouldn't mind seeing it as a bigger game though, with more options and customization.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Pleased, I like these games.
• Why I played: I played Witch Explorer, the developers previous game, which I really liked.
• Recommend to others: I'm not entirely sure I would. There are probably better dungeon-crawl strategic games in the form of rogue-likes with customizable decks of moves or something.

Doll Explorer is a cute game, it's a sequel to Witch Explorer, which I really enjoyed, if I recall. Witch Explorer being a little bit more up my alley, as a Tower Defense Shmup. I'm not sure if this falls into more of a strategy game or more of a puzzle game, but the main gameplay consists of placing little cards in a queue, then executing your move. You'll perform those action in order, and some have special combos. You want to prevent getting hit, but also escape the poison fog creeping up from behind.

It does a good job of balancing all the working parts and making you think about your moves, and can feel pretty rewarding when you really nail each aspect of it. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty fun little game, and has cute art.

Moon: Remix Rpg Adventure

• Genre: Adventure
• Time Played: ~20Hours?
• Too Short/Long: It's a pretty solid length, but there are times where it feels like you are wasting time, or at least I did, because I didn't know what to do.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Pleased.
• Why I played: Moon is a game that has come up a bunch throughout the years in the space of "weird japan only games" and then it was released in the US officially in 2020. It's something I've always been interested in playing.
• Recommend to others: I may just recommend it to people who like weird old games or adventures games with rpg tropes, but with the warning it can be quite obtuse.

Moon somehow managed to invoke a strong feeling of nostalgia for me, despite never playing it. There were so many instances I felt like "I've seen this exact thing", I've read this, I've done this, and heck, maybe I have. Moon has been covered by a lot of random sources on the internet as an example of a weird Japanese game that exists out there, somewhere. Pretty much all of Love-de-lic games have at some point or another. But it wasn't just that, I almost find it hard to believe it's a game that was only localized recently because the writing just so perfectly captures the era of when it came out, 25+ years ago.

Moon specifically focuses itself around rpg tropes and within it exists the meta of you being the player accessing the game world. From the perspective of it's citizens, you are a spirit inhabiting the clothes of a you that used to exist, but died, in the game's world. But the theme of the game is love, and instead of going around slaying monsters, you help out the monsters slain by the would-be-hero. You also do other stuff that would be akin to sidequests in an actual RPG and play mini-games. It's like an RPG, except it's just a walk-around point and click style adventure game. You have no stats or progression beyond your health, which is just a timer for how long you're allowed to do stuff without dying.

You just have to make sure to get back to bed in time to not die. It's a cute game, even if some of it's puzzles and what you're supposed to be doing at certain times are obtuse. I got frustrated on one part for like 3 hours and almost gave the game up. I even tried looking it up online but nothing helped at all. There aren't exactly the best resources for this game, despite how much I may have read about it in the past.

Time Crisis

• Genre: Rail Shooter
• Time Played: <1 Hour
• Partner: Brooke
• Too Short/Long: It's fine for an arcade game. I would likely be a little disappointed if I had a home version. Then again, I would have gotten more play out of it if I wasn't playing with unlimited continues.
• Pleased/Disappointed: It's fine. Pretty standard light gun shooting game.
• Why I played: We were at an Arcade for Brooke's birthday.
• Recommend to others: If you're looking for something to play in an arcade, sure, but not to like, buy, specifically for this.

I'm writing about this way late because I realize I had a draft of it sitting on blogger that was never published. Maybe I debated on including it or not for whatever misc reason but now I'm deciding to, we rolled credits... and the draft sitting here on the back end is annoying me.

There isn't much to say about Time Crisis, it's a fun romp of a rail shooter, if a little short and imperfect. Later Time Crisis are entirely improvements. It's made for arcade though, so what can you expect.

In Stars and Time

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: ~25 Hours? Not entirely sure, it's one of those games that keep the timer runner when the game is in sleep mode, so according to it, like 80+ hours.
• Too Short/Long: Even using the smaller number, it's way too long, for what it is and for what it overs, a lot of that time is spend revisiting the same areas, reading the same dialog.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Disappointed.
• Why I played: Because it seemed neat, had a good trailer, overwhelmingly positive steam reviews.
• Recommend to others: I wouldn't really recommend this one.

In Stars and Time captured me with a snappy trailer that showed some cool art and entertaining dialog. I like time loop stuff, generally speaking, but I know when it comes to games I can grow weary of playing the same stuff over and over, so it's a bit of a balancing act, but some of my favorite games are time-loop based and require you to redo stuff over and over(Nier, ZeroRanger, Void Stranger, Astlibra, Outer Wilds), and it's probably fair to say the most of those can have a level of tedium to them. In Stars and Time is just not rewarding enough to warrant the level of tedium is has.