Split Fiction

• Genre: Action Adventure Platforming Etc.
• Spoiler Free Review: Mostly, but the screenshots could arguably be the most spoilery as a good bit of the experience is finding out what parts of the game you encounter next.
• Partners: Alice
• Time Played: 15 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's pretty good. Some sections I might have liked to have seen explored more or revisited, but I can't complain.
• Did I cry: I got watery eyed a couple times.
• Soundtrack: There is some good music and even some vocal tracks, but it's mostly an undertone for the gameplay since the majority of the game has dialog spoken throughout.
• Why I played: It just seemed like it would be a great co-op game. Obviously the studios previous games were great co-op experiences, but this one seemed even better and a bit more aligned with Alice and my interests.
• Jank: It's mostly pretty jank-free, surprisingly with everything they do with the game. There a couple times it feels like the platforming could have been fine tuned just a bit, and just a few times it does actually feel janky, but it's such a small percentage of the game play, and it's otherwise impressive how much they pull off that I'll fully give them a pass on any of the jank that seeps through.
• Difficulty: It's mostly not that difficult and it's very forgiving when it comes to death/failure. There are some spots it's surprisingly difficult though, but most the difficulty comes from the times where it leaves you alone to figure things out on your own - which I appreciate.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm extremely pleased with Split Fiction, it's even better than I expected.
• Recommend to others: I would absolutely recommend this to anyone with someone they can reliably play through the whole game with. If you have someone to play co-op games with, you should definitely play this.
  

Split Fiction was fantastic. I'm not sure what really needs to be said. I definitely think it's one of the best and most impressive games that released last year. It just does so much in the game, explores so many genres, and types of gameplay, while generally retaining a familiar feel. Split Fiction is definitely something I would call a "gamer's game", something I think people who love games in general and play a lot of games will appreciate more than anyone else. But it's also much more accessible than most games I would call a "gamer's game". Something like Evoland - the first game I can think of I would also classify as such, is definitely more for people who are a bit more obsessed with games, and especially older games, and especially jrpgs, it's something I don't think everyone would enjoy. I think anyone would enjoy Split Fiction - it just has that much more to offer the more you already like.

Arguably the worst aspect of Split Fiction is the narrative. There are times it's clunky. Times it's cheesy. Times you really have to suspend your disbelief. Also just portrayals of the characters archetypes that are just very narrow or cliche. That said, the writing is still generally pretty fun and entertaining, and it doesn't fumble it so much you can't be emotionally invested, but the appeal and strength is definitely the gameplay and how seemless it is from the moment-to-moment.

It was loads of fun and that's what matters most, and so I have a bunch of screenshots I wanna share but these are arguably spoilery as finding out and seeing what you encounter is perhaps the best part of the game, so with that warning, everything below is just kind of in random order.

Mamon King

• Genre: Monster Raising(Life-Simulation?) RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: Yes.
• Time Played: 19 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's fine but I feel like it could use a bit more content to flesh out the experience a bit. Much of the time was spent kind of repetitively, once I got the hang of what I was doing.
• Soundtrack: It's what you'd expect for the type of game it is, nothing too special, but it's not bad.
• Why I played: I first saw the mish-mash of styles and mocked the game, but a post came up on my radar about how it was the dev's dream game and it caused me to give it a second look - early reviews were pretty positive and it had a decent launch discount, so I figured I'd give it a try.
• Did I cry: Nah.
• Jank: This is a pretty janky game. The visuals are a little janky, the style of the game isn't exactly cohesive - even when it comes to the monsters themselves, some using textures that other don't have. There are the occasionally glitches and needing to restart the game when you get locked out of menus. Nothing game breaking, but it's there.
• Difficulty: It's not too difficult until you get to the end-game stuff. There is a cap to how strong you can make your monsters and the end-game monsters meet that, so some of the last battles are determined with a mix of strategy and luck... well as long as you maxed out your monsters stats because otherwise you lose.
• Recommend to others: I think I would actually recommend it to those who are specifically looking for a Monster Rancher-like experience. That's about it. I don't think it does anything too new or too different to appeal to anyone else other than those who say "I wish there was a new Monster Rancher"
  

It's been a long time since I played a monster raising game, I use to really like them, but I guess the genre is rather niche within the realm of other monster collection and raising games. Like there are plenty of other games you "raise" monsters, but often with an entirely different set up. Like on a farm, where you walk around as your character and manage other aspects of the game. Maybe the Monster Rancher formula is just too narrow of a scope for a modern game, and is generally just meant to be the mechanic of another game. Like I just played Yahtzee the other night, except it wasn't Yahtzee, it was an entirely different, fleshed out game, with a card, and tokens, and victory points, etc. etc. that uses Yahtzee as it's mechanic. Rolling 5 dice, and rerolling your selected dice up to two more times to get the most optimal die.

Playing just Yahtzee just doesn't do it for me, there needs to be more, and maybe that's why that style of monster raising has fallen off. Not that there were tons in the genre to begin with, but between the first couple Digimon World, the aforementioned Monster Rancher, and one of my favorite games - Dragonseeds, there are at least a handful.

Anyway, Mamon King does have some modern sensibilities and feels quick paced and offers a good feedback loop. Despite using a calendar, I didn't hate it, as it works to help you plan for your days so you know what is coming up. Also there is persistent saving so there is no save-scumming, you just have to go wit, which probably worked out better for me because otherwise I would have done it constantly. Though there were two times I still wish I could have done it because it would have saved me a lot of gameplay time where I just kind of had to waste time, and the time wasted could have felt a little less wasted if there was more variety to the game play. I'm always for more mini-games, especially in a game like this that is practically built for having mini-games. Though it's little board-game traversing expedition was pretty neat and well implemented.

Some of the monster designs are pretty cool, but most are... okay. Maybe just not entirely to my taste, but it doesn't exactly make me want to play with more than I did. It lacks any kind of multiplayer, which is fine I guess, but most of these types of games have multiplayer. It's a staple to be able to pit your monster against your friends. Not that any of my friends are going to play this... or any of the other monster raising games I have played historically.

GO THERE

• Genre: Action
• Spoiler Free Review: Nothing to spoil.
• Time Played: <1 hour
• Too Short/Long: It's pretty short.
• Soundtrack: It has some cute tracks, but it's only a few.
• Why I played: I was gifted it for my birthday, thanks Rey pt. 2!
• Did I cry: Nah.
• Jank: It's a pretty simple and straight forward game, not much to jank up.
• Difficulty: A little bit more difficult than SHE SAVE, but only a little, maybe just because of being a little bit more complicated.
• Recommend to others: Still probably won't go out of my way to with this one, but it's also a cute little game and I'll keep an eye on what else the dev may do in the future.

In this game you have to GO THERE. There is where there is a like Tori Gate with the dragonest dragon, but also the dragons are the friends you make along the way. Much like SHE SAVE, it's just a simple boss rush game with a handful of stages, but in this one your character mostly heals and has a piddly little attack, but you gain the friendship of the dragons you fight and can use a couple of their abilities and switch between them in battle as you progress. This obviously appeals to me very much and is even more of an appropriate game to have played on my birthday.

SHE SAVE

• Genre: Action
• Spoiler Free Review: Nothing to spoil.
• Time Played: <1 hour
• Too Short/Long: It's pretty short.
• Soundtrack: It has some cute tracks, but it's only a few.
• Why I played: I was gifted it for my birthday, thanks Rey!
• Did I cry: Nah.
• Jank: It's a pretty simple and straight forward game, not much to jank up.
• Difficulty: It's not too difficult and I only had to retry a battle or two, but it has some challenges after you beat the game that are really difficult.
• Recommend to others: Probably won't go out of my way to, but it's a cute little game and I'll keep an eye on what else the dev may do in the future.

She save, she protect, she attack, she heal. She save is just a little game with very cute/cool pixel art. You play as a girl and do kind of a boss-rush things where you fight big screen covering dragons. I kinda love the idea and it would be cool to see a more fleshed boss, but I also really appreciate the art and the music was cute too. A fun little birthday bonus!

Dragonyhm

• Genre: RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: Yes.
• Time Played: Not really sure, it doesn't track it in any way, and I played it while doing other stuff frequently, and generally short bursts. My best guess is... ~15 hours?
• Too Short/Long: It's pretty much just right for what it was. It may require a bit too much grinding to pad the time, but that would be expected for a game of the era it's trying to imitate.
• Soundtrack: Mostly game boy beep boop sounds, but it's fitting.
• Why I played: Via some ad or something I found out about modretro doing a bunch of "new" game boy games. Game Boy-esque indie games are nothing new, but this was exclusively a physical release.
• Did I cry: No.
• Jank: There is a little jank here. Despite being a pretty simple game. I'm not sure if this is on purpose to imitate the era, or just poor game design. Considering I had to restart the game boy a few times to fix the issues, I wouldn't quite chalk it up to intentional jank.
• Difficulty: As a turn-based rpg with only one playable character, you constantly need to heal via some method or another. I wouldn't say it's explicitly difficult, but in my mind, how much I need to heal equates with difficulty and the game requires you to heal a lot.
• Recommend to others: It was a cute game, and I enjoyed it. But it's only available via physical Gameboy cart, despite being a relatively new game. There is a demo on itch, so there is little reason for it to be only on this cart outside the gimmick, so I can't really recommend it to people on that alone. If everyone had their gameboys and was playing those? I might recommend it if we were still actually in original gameboy era.

No screenshots for Dragonyhm as it was played on my GBA SP. Which is a shame, because like Estique, it has some really cool old-school art. Technically I probably could have played this on my Retron because it also has a gameboy slot and taken some screenshots there, but I'm not going to now. I went for the full original experience I guess.

Dragonyhm is one of a good handful of games that ModRetro has as exclusively physical games I guess to further support their new Gameboy-like console. Similar to the Analogue Pocket, but more loyal to the original style. Hard for me to drop a couple hundred bucks on a a console that only plays original game boy/game boy color games in the year 2025. Thankfully they're designed to play on original hardware, and I do have a handful of GBA SPs laying around. I wish I had the extra bright SP, or DS played regular gameboy games. The lack of saturation in the front light display which I have not used for quite some time was quite noticable and maybe cause a little eye strain. I don't know how we managed without even that prior to the SPs release.

Back to Dragonyhm specifically though. It was a cute game. I really appreciated the detail to getting the whole old school experience. The instruction booklet we great. Cool art, details on how to play, how to advance. It was very nostalgic. The game really feels like something that could have come out 30 years ago. It's a turn-based rpg somewhere between an Final Fantasy Legends or Pokemon Red/Blue. 

The biggest downside with this turned based system is it's too much like a traditional turned based system and there is only one character, so you always need to heal him and there are very few way to mitigate needing to heal. You can increase your defense and lower the enemies attack, but that takes several turns. Generally speaking enemies are doing about 1/3 of your health at any given time, so a lot of battles end up being attack, heal, attack, heal, attack, heal.

I find you can do single character turned based rpg mechanics, with some kind of gimmick the prevents damage entirely a bit better. Still, as long as you're willing to endure that aspect, it's a fun little game. I enjoyed exploring it's world, leaning it's story and the writing and character interactions were mostly decent/cute/nostalgic. It's not going to blow anyone's mind, but it was fun for what it was.

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time

• Genre: Action Rpg
• Spoiler Free Review: I don't think things are really high stake enough to spoil in this game, but there might be some spoilers of things you get.
• Time Played: 80 Hours
• Too Short/Long: I feel like I wrapped up the story just as the game was growing a little tedious for me, so I'd say just right. That said, you can definitely extend your playtime and play much more, or maybe even shorten it a good bit if you want to play a bit more focused. I feel like this has more variety in the "Just right" amount of playtime than most games will.
• Soundtrack: There are some catchy tunes or otherwise generic fantasy world tunes that are fitting for the setting and style of game, but nothing I'm gonna really jam out to on it's own.
• Why I played: I loved the first Fantasy Life and had hopes they were going to make a new one for years, so I was really excited for this one.
• Did I cry: Most of it, even the most dramatic aspects are pretty light hearted, so there isn't much worth shedding a tear over.
• Jank: It's mostly jank free. I feel like the jankiest aspect might be intended game design. Basically out of bounds enemies will become invincible and then eventually return to their start position. This can break some enemies entirely though who won't return. I had a challenge where I kept pushing the enemy out of range and it would become invincible without returning and I would have to leave the area and then come back and restart the fight a few times before I could actually finish it.
• Difficulty: Generally the game is pretty easy, as you can always get better equipment. However, it could be considered a bit tedious to engage with all systems, and late game enemies are pretty strong. Late game might out pace some players before they are willing to put in the effort to face them.
• Recommend to others: Fantasy Life is a really fun game that I would recommend to most people. It's gameplay loop is just a constant stream of dopamine. Make better stuff, fight stronger enemies, get new things, make better stuff, etc. You're always getting something, which makes for a lot of moments where you just wanna keep going to get the next thing.

I really liked the first Fantasy Life and really sung it's praises back when in it's day. I leave off on this one not quite as sure how I'll regard it in the future. I enjoyed it a lot, don't get me wrong, but maybe it just wasn't enough? Not that there isn't enough. The game definitely feels packed, just maybe a little shallow. Maybe I didn't spend enough time with multiplayer, or maybe the way I approach games now - with the goal of finishing them, rather then just something to play for the sake of playing, skews my perspective.

I definitely feel like you can get something out of it in both those regards, if you just want something to play and enjoy with friends, or something to sit back and relax and mess around with. We'll see of course because usually - as I say - when I'm finished, I'm done. But I might actually go back to this one when the DLC is released.

Witch Spring 4

• Genre: RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: Definitely spoiling some aspects of the main story. Screenshots also contain spoilers.
• Time Played: 23 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It has a solid playtime for the more miniature RPG it is. Easily could knock off like 5 or so hours if you weren't trying to 100% it.
• Soundtrack: The music has definitely improved over the Witch Spring games, and there are some catchy tunes when they need to be catchy and some exciting ones for the moments that are exciting. It fits the mood, but it's not going to blow anyone away.
• Why I played: It was the last Witch Spring game I haven't played(a version of) so I just couldn't wait for the possibility that they might port 4 to console too.
• Did I cry: I think this might be the least emotional Witch Spring game, but it stirred up some feelings at least a few times later on.
• Jank: R aside, would it be a Witch Spring without jank? There is some here and there such as being able to walk to places you shouldn't, such as passed doors or area transition exits, character running in place during cutscenes, but nothing as game breaking as some prior. Translations are still... really rough, but serviceable as long as you can parse what they meant to say.
• Difficulty: The difficulty of this one swings wildly in every direction. The game is built on power creep. Creep isn't quite the word though, as it happens hard and suddenly. You can always progress the story, but you're not exactly meant to always progress the story straight through. So you hit a wall, and you surmount it via training/grinding/crafting/side missions. Rinse and repeat.
• Recommend to others: As a whole I'd really recommend the Witch Spring series. It's tough to recommend any over Witch Spring R, which is a far more polished game than any of the others, but it's worth getting into the others if you liked what was in that. 4 while improved on many aspects, I feel like is definitely the last of them to play because it ties itself into the others more than the rest do.
  

Witch Spring 4 starts off toward the end of the events of all the prior games, mostly taking place after it, and while it is it's own story, it's largely a continuation in the fact that so many of the previous games' characters are present.

The first couple chapters aren't too long, but they establish the new characters place and her goals. Moccamori, the main character, is definitely a bit of a change of pace from the prior games' girl with adhd that wants to make friends, girl with ptsd who wants to make friends, and girl with autism that wants to make friends. She's a self-proclaimed queen and kind of a tyrant who starts the game already super powerful. There are some battles in the game you will never have to actually do outside of "quick hunt", which is basically instantly killing any opponent your stats far exceeds. You also start off slaying what were the equivalent of early bosses in prior games. 

Witch Spring 2

• Genre: RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: Pretty much.
• Time Played: 23 Hours, I probably wasted a good bit of time though.
• Too Short/Long: Taking into account I was wasting time forgetting some aspects of progression between gaps in play, I think overall it was just about right in playtime. Probably closed to 15 for a less completionist and consistent playthough.
• Soundtrack: It's fine, it's more or less just little melodies you expect for a casual mobile rpg, most of the time the volume was off though.
• Why I played: Witch Spring is becoming one of my favorite series, both Witch Spring 3 and Witch Spring R were among my favorites in recent years.
• Did I cry: It definitely choked me up a few times here and there.
• Jank: Witch Spring 2 can be pretty janky. Little bugs that occur here and there, control freezing, models left on screen during cutscenes that shouldn't be there, etc. It's all relatively minor, but I did have to force close the game several times. At least it boots up pretty quickly and auto-saves every time you do pretty much anything.
• Difficulty: It is not difficult, not really at all. There are a couple optional bosses that require a little more grinding than others, but you can easily over power most things with enough effort.
• Recommend to others: I like it but I would definitely recommend Witch Spring R over it. It's kind of a story repeat from a different perspective, and far more archaic. It might be an improvement over the original version of the first Witch Spring, but R is leagues ahead of it in every aspect. I just wanted to play as Luna.

I went a bit out of my way to play Witch Spring 2. It's a mobile game, but it doesn't work on my current phone, but I have an older phone it does work on. That phone felt "on it's last leg" when I last upgraded, but after factory resetting it and removing all the apps that run in the background, it functions well enough to play a game. Witch Spring 2, despite being a mobile game, is more like mobile games of old. Before monetization and service games. It's just like a 5 dollar game you buy and play. No different from most indie titles for other platforms. I know some of these kinds of titles aren't unheard of on mobile platforms, but usually when you say "mobile game", it's not what immediately comes to mind.

It's more of the same though. You go around collect pets, friends, and materials for making new spells and weapons. 3, and R are both improvements upon this one, but I've come to enjoy the series so much I went out of my way for it. Those two are the only ones available on PC/console. I haven't seen any word of 4 leaving mobile, so I may just have to play that on my old phone as well if I am motivated to do so.

Witch Spring R

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 42 Hours
• Too Short/Long: I only played so much because I think I did pretty much everything you can do. There is a bit of back and forth grind that it simplifies, but it could have been made a little easier with more shortcuts or more/better mounts and expanded the story a little bit, to be a bit longer.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Extremely pleased, pleasantly surprised, I think it's another for the top favorite games list.
• Why I played: I loved Witch Spring 3: Re:Fine. At time of writing, a tabletop roleplaying character I am currently playing is largely based off the character from WS3.
• Recommend to others: I definitely would. The problem is it's PC only right now and the devs don't seem to have any plans for a console port. So if you're amenable to PC games, don't wait. They seem to be working on other stuff for console. It feels like it should be a Switch game though.

Witch Spring R is a remake of the first, a mobile game that wasn't a micro transaction heavy service game but just a cheap little rpg for a few bucks. The improvement is DRASTIC. I've played a few remakes this year and this one is the biggest leap by far. This is everything built from the ground up, all new graphics, music, content, art, content/story that was in the 2nd game mixed in, etc. A fully new game. I didn't play the original, because at the time it wasn't localized, but I have previously watched some videos and stuff like that. I just found out all Witch Spring games are now localized and have to wrestle with if I want to figure out how to play them since my phone runs a version of Android that is too new for them, or just hope and hold out for more remakes/ports.

It's gameplay style is another reason I think it would be great on Switch. It's very easy to pick up and play and as you progress you get the ability to quick battle weaker enemies to farm them for materials, since you have to make/upgrade most of your equipment/items yourself. You can play it so easily in short bursts that it very much supports grab and go, or sit down play and being able to suspend games and walk away easily, is something the Switch seems to handle a bit better than other modern consoles, even though other consoles could do that as well, PC just seems like the worst choice... but it's the largest audience, I get that too.

Breath of Fire 2

• Genre: Turn-Based RPG
• Time Played: Doesn't track time, best guess is about 45+ hours.
• Too Short/Long: Honestly too long, as much as I love it, it could benefit from cutting out some unnecessary backtracking, a run button, and lowering the base encounter rate - or at least it's encounter reducing items could be more effective.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Very Pleased, always. This is one of my favorite games of all time.
• Why I played: This isn't the first time I finished Breath of Fire 2, but I barely remembered so much off the top of my head. Things came back to me immediately as I played, but I was missing it from my immediate recall.
• Recommend to others: It's hard not to recommend one of my favorite games of all time, but it's very much an early 90's JRPG and I feel like you need to know that and want to experience that before going in.

Breath of Fire 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, and I was worried this playthrough was going to change it, since I felt like I could remember so little going in. Even roughly 25 years since I first played it, I still love this game. To be fair, it was very nostalgic for me, I played it both on SNES and GBA, but this time I opted for the SNES version since it's on the SNES service on the Switch.

The SNES version is a bit rougher, especially in the translation department, but it's mostly the same experience. I would probably recommend someone playing it the first time to play the GBA version if they can, just because of some of the really rough translation issues with the SNES version.