Look Outside

• Genre: Horror RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: A little. This is arguably one of those games it might be best to experience without having too much information. If you're already planning to play but haven't yet. It's best not to read too far in here.
• Time Played: 35 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Felt pretty good to me. I did the vast majority in a single run, but if I was playing a bit more linear, I could have knocked it out in half the time easy, and it's probably the way it was more designed to be played.
• Did I cry: Nah.
• Soundtrack: It's mostly pretty good, a little repetitive at time, but it has some bangers.
• Why I played: Alice insisted I play it, I kind of jokingly said I would play it after Adventures of Elliot with little intention of finishing Elliot any time soon, or playing something else and then saying "Yeah, and it will still be AFTER Elliot, even if I play 5 more games next", but I wasn't really feeling anything I've been wanting to get into so I just jumped right in.
• Jank: It's one of those games where you can easily click through dialog boxes and you may have to repeatedly read dialog, but that's partially on me for being impatient.
• Difficulty: Early on it's more about survival and using each resource carefully, but later on it's a bit easier - at least playing the way I did, so maybe combat isn't meant to be so easy. But the real difficult lies in the times where you need figure out how to proceed properly. It's a little difficult of a game overall, but nothing crazy.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm very please with this. I'm not sure I expected all too much, and at first I just along for the ride, but eventually it clicked and I was very interested to see how things would turn out... at every turn.
• Recommend to others: I definitely would. I think a lot of people would get even more out of it than me. Especially people who don't feel the need to do every little thing and go full-completionist as they play through a game. People who are interested in the game enough to give it a couple playthroughs. There is definitely enough variation in how things turn out to have a couple, if not a few more or less wholly unique playthroughs if you're not trying to do everything. I also especially would recommend it to anyone who likes eldritch/cosmic horror.
  

The first thing I would do upon starting the game is Look Outside. I would find myself at many points in the game wanting to Look Outside. Maybe this is the time there will be an answer when I Look Outside. In a game where you awaken to a mystery of something beyond your comprehension, it's hard to talk about the greater theme of the game without being spoilery, but I feel like I can at least discuss some things I liked/didn't like, etc.

Look Outside has some really fun and clever writing. There are a lot of unique characters to interact with, and even when brief, they can often feel like characters more fleshed out than those that appear in many other pieces of media. It helps their design often strongly leans into their archetype in a unique way. Or perhaps something about them has changed so drastically, just hearing them tell their experience makes them feel more alive than so many others. There is a surprising amount of character dialog - and so much of it is entirely optional, or even missable. Another reason I think the game might serves multiple playthroughs better - as long as you're not trying to mimic your prior playthough, that is. I'm not planning to immediately restart it, but I can even see how I would approach things differently a second time just to experience things differently and likely get a lot of dialog I didn't previously. 

Crescent Tower

• Genre: RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: There isn't much to spoil, but I do talk about the mechanics of the final boss.
• Time Played: 24 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Too long, considering about half of it is grinding, especially at the end.
• Did I cry: No.
• Soundtrack: It's fine.
• Why I played: It had cute art and I know a friend enjoyed it. They always get me with that classic anime pixel art though.
• Jank: The menus are pretty clumsy. When trying to optimize my class changes I kept having to go back and forth and back and forth. There are tons of times where I opened the wrong menu because it didn't have the correct information. Made worse by all the real estate on screen where they could have had some of the stats. I think maybe they felt it would be silly to have the same information on multiple screens, but having to exit all the way back to another to compare your stats or abilities is not the way to clean things up.
• Difficulty: I'm not sure how much of it is difficulty that required me personally to grind, rather than difficulty of the actual strategy required of the game. I do think there are some interesting things touched on some rpgs ignore, but ultimate the difficulty lies in it being a grindfest.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Overall I enjoyed it, so I'm pleased enough. It just managed to push my patience a few times.
• Recommend to others: Not really. There are overall better little dungeon crawlers than this one, and even though it has a lot of cool stuff, the last section really prevents me from recommending it. Or if you wanna play it, I'd probably recommend doing so on the easier mode.
  

Crescent Tower isn't bringing anything new to the table necessarily, but it's a nostalgic jaunt that brings some interaction, puzzles, character art and class changes. It really drew me in at first, but then I needed a bit of a break when it just started feeling way too grindy in the middle of the game. Sometimes you get a random encounter 1 step after another. It's a little too much. I'd say on average it's like 5-10 steps, which is just too much for a game focuses a little more on an open exploration and figuring out the trick of the area as opposed to something with a linear path. It's not too complicated, but with all the other navigational quirks, it's possible you may just forget what you're doing exactly and get caught in a endless loop of random encounters because they're so frequent.

This wouldn't be so much of a problem if not for the way it soft-locks the level cap. It just gets to a point where the next level requires exponentially more experience than the last. This is exacerbated to the nth degree by the final area. I would say my last third of my play time is just spent in the last hallway before the final boss. The final boss has very high defense, immune to all status effects, resistant to all magic, and fully heals every round, so you can definitely be "too weak" to finish it, even with every buff on your own characters in the game. It's arguably not even about strategy at that point. Unless I missed some gimmick that was there and was just unnecessarily brute forcing the game. It's crazy that you can get to the point where it takes you dozens of battles to level up but still not be strong enough to beat the final boss. It can literally, based on the average experience the final enemies dish out, without using "special techniques" take 100+ battles to level up - not even close to a max level, just a level where you are still learning new spell levels.

It's just crazy how much the leveling up comes to a halt at that point despite the fact there are more levels that grant special skills. It's not a level 60-99 grind of your standard rpg where you learn your last skill at 60 or your skills are tied to something else so there is always new stuff to learn. This is like 14-15, 15-16. My highest level character was 16 and some classes learn abilities up til level 21 or so. I think this is where the "modern" mode differs from the classic and maybe it doesn't feel so restricting, and maybe I should have played in that. I started in it, but then I saw there was a little "modern" badge on my screen at all times. This signaled to me this is meant to be "little baby mode" and you are to be chastised for it because we'll put a reminder on screen at all times for it. So I restarted before I really even began to play in the classic mode, maybe that was a mistake, maybe those levels and skills would have been attainable in modern, but the game clearly didn't consider that the "intended experience".

So instead I grinded, class changed to get more abilities and increase stats, rinse, repeat, and eventually knocked it out. To be fair, it's kind of what I was in the mood for - I just thought I was gonna wrap up earlier in the day and move on to something else after, not keep playing for an additional 6-7 hours after I thought I was about done.

Final Fantasy VI

I am about to be "very harsh" on this beloved game. If you love it too much to read criticism, stop here. I'm not trying to change anyone's opinions, just expressing my own and venting a bit while I'm at it.

• Genre: RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: No, I talk about the story a bit. I try to be a bit vague though.
• Time Played: 35 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's fine, I drew it out a bit trying to do/find everything, but it's also helped by some of the QOL of the Pixel Remaster.
• Did I cry: I almost teared up once.
• Soundtrack: It's pretty typical Final Fantasy fare. Maybe it seems like nothing special because I've played plenty of games that reused the themes, and though a few are noticeable and recognizable, I don't think it really stands out too beyond others. 
• Why I played: It's been on my list of games to replay for awhile. I never finished it and I was having a discussion with a friend about how I could barely remember the game and he seemed to think I played far less than I claimed. To be fair I estimated at about 3/4. I was closer to around 60% - I just forgot so much of the game because it had been so long since I played. We're talking 25+ years.
• Jank: It's not too janky, I imagine the current iteration accounts for a lot of the old bugs. That said, I still had the game lock up on me a couple times in weird ways that required me to restart it.
• Difficulty: Kind of a weird one. I'd almost say it was pretty balanced for an old RPG. At least earlier on it felt like it wanted me to use everything at my disposal, but it quickly fell into the trap of old rpgs where special enemies aren't affected by anything other than pure damage, so the only real answer to your problems is grinding + maximizing damage output. I didn't use 80% of the spell list because 90% of the time they were useless.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm... disappointed actually. I didn't think I was going to completely change my mind - I considered it a mid-tier Final Fantasy of what I had previously played, but I think after finishing it, I may drop it a few places. I was hopeful that upon finishing the game I would see what so many others do, but I just didn't.
• Recommend to others: Honestly, I would not. There are plenty of people who sing the praises of Final Fantasy VI and I don't need or want to be one of them. If someone asks me if they should play it, I would say they should if they have exhausted almost all other options. There are about 4 Final Fantasy games I would still recommend it over.

I have a lot of friends that are huge fans of Final Fantasy VI, so much to say it's one of the best games of all time, and at the very least the best Final Fantasy, and whether they know they're blinded by it or not, I'm chalking it 100% up to nostalgia. Don't get me wrong, I understand nostalgia plays a part in some old games I enjoy as well, and I try to recognize that when discussing them, I try to speak with a subjective tone "This is what I like" rather than "this is the best" but I also think it's easy to distinguish whether it's purely nostalgia or not, when some games can be introduced to someone for the first time to positive reception. Granted this isn't technically my first time playing Final Fantasy VI, but I had a better outlook toward it when my memory of it was much more hazy.

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.

Digimon Story: Time Stranger

• Genre: RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: Story-wise yes, content wise no.
• Time Played: 100 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's not that I think it was too long, but the pacing felt a bit rough. It has you trek entirely through some areas, then trek entirely through them again later. Plus you unlock most side quests at the end of the game, which should you do, will have you trek through each of these areas again. They could have broke it up a bit by having some more sidequests available throughout gameplay and it would have been more fun to go through these areas again if they were identical upon revisit aside from enemies.
• Soundtrack: Soundtrack isn't all that great in my opinion. There are a couple fun tracks, but most of it almost sounds like stock loops and it makes me sleepy listening to it.
• Why I played: I loved Cyber Sleuth, and my biggest complain with Hacker's Memory - at least up to where I played, was it was just more Cyber Sleuth. I had hoped Time Stranger was going to be an entirely new, refreshing experience.
• Did I cry: Maybe a little on a few occasions.
• Jank: Not entirely much jank outside of invisible walls - though they are intentional invisible walls, they still feel out of place when you're not looking at the map. I'd say the jank lies more in some of the actual design decisions and such. Like not be able to look at your digivolution possibilities/digivolve while they're in a farm.
• Difficulty: At first I thought the game was going to have some challenge, earlier battles of the game required me to restructure my party, adjust my movesets, equipment, etc. At some point, it just didn't matter and I used the same digimon/moves the rest of the game. It could be my fault for trying to create the ultimate life form/doing this games version of grinding a little too much.
• Recommend to others: I think I would to people who like Digimon, sure, but I'm more likely to recommend Cyber Sleuth. It's been some time but my memories of it are still fonder. There are places where Time Stranger stands above it in, but it's not enough to take it's place.

Digimon: Time Stranger was alright. I like Digimon a lot and it satisfied an itch for a bit, I'm sure, but it didn't blow me away. I see a lot of posts in either Digimon-centric communities, or anti-Pokemon centric communities, how Digimon: Time Stranger is proof that Digimon is finally beating Pokemon or something.

This is... just not possible. I love Digimon, but Pokemon, as a brand is just something you can't compete with. Pokemon ZA may have it's issues, but it's still Pokemon, and the people I know who played that vs Time Stranger is 10-1. Even if somehow Time Stranger managed to sell better, it didn't "Win". In the time since Cybersleuth since I mentioned it and Pokemon also released it's mainline Sun and Moon games that year, Digimon has released a couple seasons of new anime, also a couple movies/ova type things, and a new card game. 4 "real games", and a whole bunch of service games, most of which are service terminated at this point, 3 remain, though one is China only and the other South Korea only. Overall, 11 games. Which isn't too bad.

Pokemon by comparison has released over 25 games in that same time. Only 1 service game has retired and a far larger percent are "real games" 16 in fact, with 8 of them being mainline games. Pokemon has never stopped airing anime, and their card game has caused retail stores to have to/attempt to enforce regulations on card purchases in the past few years due to it's popularity. It's just not a comparison, these two "mon" franchises aren't even on the same playing field. But I doubt anything will ever "beat" Pokemon at this point. It's too established, too ubiquitous. It's like Star Wars, Lords of the Rings, Harry Potter. It's place in pop culture set.

Cyberpunk 2077

• Genre: RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: Trying to be. Posting some story/dialog screenshots at the bottom.
• Time Played: 140 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Definitely feels a bit long because there is just so much stuff. I definitely feel like some of the gigs are there just to pad it out, but many of them still manage to build on the world, and some are even relevant to greater storylines. So it's hard to say it's actually too long, but almost any game that's more than 100 hours could probably stand to cut some content.
• Soundtrack: There are some amazing tracks, and while it may have some licensed, or some that had some collaborations, I think the vast majority was at least originally created for the game, and that said, damn. There are literal albums worth of music of a handful of different genres, and some real bangers in there.
• Why I played: I love cyberpunk as a genre, but prior to this game's release, I didn't really care. I saw an overhyped generic mess that overselling and uninspired. And maybe that wasn't entirely fair, but at least it wasn't quite as far off at release. After the game saw some revisions and made improvements, they never rereleased/updated the PS4 version, but PS4 players could get a free PS5 upgrade. Somehow that also meant people would sell PS4 copies for like 15 bucks, so I snagged the game on the cheap to give it a shot.
• Did I cry: Maybe a couple times, but more early-mid game than later on.
• Jank: At some point in its life it seems like this may have been the jankiest out there, and that might not entirely be true anymore, however, it's not without jank at all. All huge open world games experience some degree of problems. The more there is, the more that can go wrong. There were more than a few instances I had to restart the game because I literally couldn't continue playing. The main thing I somewhat frequently encountered, was a state where I could not bring up any menus and if I interacted with something that brought up a menu-like UI(like hacking panels), it would not come up and I would get stuck. Also sometimes I would get in a permanent state of combat or be unable to use any of the fast travels. The first time I experienced this I thought it was a story thing, so I was driving literally everywhere for many missions. I ended up restarting the game for an unrelated reason and found I could fast travel again - many hours later.
• Difficulty: I was playing the game on Normal originally, as I usually do and was finding it quite difficult at times. Eventually things evened out and then I found myself in a situation where I just couldn't level up any further. A quick look online suggested that you get more experience on Hard, so I switched to hard. It was hard at first, but eventually I got so powerful that "hard" was easy. I could have continued to very hard, but I worked hard to get where I was an liked feeling powerful toward the end of the game. Also, that final mission was still very difficult, I even considered switching back to easy, but I saw it through. Point is. There are so many variables in this game, it's probably hard to pinpoint what the perfect difficulty is. It's a very action heavy action game, but it's also still an RPG. Eventually your equipment/abilities/etc. could surpass what the game can offer.
• Recommend to others: This is not the same game it was at release, and as it currently is I would definitely recommend Cyberpunk to anyone who is vaguely interested. It may have some problems, but overall, it's just such an impressive game on so many levels. The effort that this game took, to put everything together is just unfathomable. The term AAA game is thrown around these days just to describe any potentially high quality, expensive to make, non-indie game. Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the very few games I would say fully fits the AAA descriptor. This is a AAA game as defined. I feel like this is to games what Avatar(2009 film) was to 3D films. It's not the first, it's not the best, it's not going to be everyone's favorite, but it is arguably the definitive experience when you refer to it.

My little bullet points got a bit more out of control than they usually do. So where do I begin? At the end. Finishing Cyberpunk 2077 left me with that feeling I only occasionally get upon completing a game. A tightness in my chest, a strange combination of adrenalin and hyper focus, with a relieved exasperation. It's a complex feeling that occurs after certain... uhh... game changing, games?

I'm still honestly not even sure if Cyberpunk 2077 makes "the list", but I feel like it's only fair to put it to test. I'll wait until I come down from this feeling, whatever it is. Maybe at the end of the year I'll reevaluate. Especially since a few sequels to games in my favorites list are queued up to be played now. I imagine it might have some changes coming.

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.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

• Genre: Action Rpg
  
• Spoiler Free Review: Maybe spoilery if you read too much into what I say or analyze screenshots too closely.
• Time Played: 100 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's pretty much just right. I did everything in the game and feel pretty satisfied with my time. Earlier in the final act, I definitely wanted more time with game, and it gives you plenty more to do.
• Soundtrack: This has an absolutely amazing soundtrack. I immediately downloaded it after finishing the game. The fact it was 12 USD for 8 hours of music feels criminal.
• Why I played: Leading up to it, I was pretty excited for this games release and shared a few trailers here and there, I thought it looked like a pretty stylish RPG.
• Did I cry: Yeah, maybe at a few points in the game.
• Jank: This is a pretty polished game. Off the top of my head I can't really think of any jankiness.
• Difficulty: It's pretty up there for turned-based, story-oriented RPGs. The combat is really good, and the characters are each pretty different, each utilizing their own gimmicks, but it can be pretty punishing getting the timing right to parry or dodge.
• Recommend to others: I definitely put this high on my recommendations to others. Above many games I consider my favorites, just because I feel like it's more likely to find appeal to a wider audience. It has a lot going for it in every facet of the game. I would say the biggest hurdle for most people is going to be the difficulty, but I'm also speaking as someone who sought out all the optional content. Like many rpgs, you can definitely come to out level your opponents, so it shouldn't be too inaccessible, even for those who can't get the timing down as well.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 far exceeded my expectations. From the trailers, I just thought I saw something really cool and stylish. An RPG that finally had flair to rival Persona 5's UI, and hype battle music. While they're very different styles of games, I definitely think it succeeds in that aspect. Better? That's a matter of taste, but few rpgs ooze style in the way these games have and I think that has a lot to do with Persona 5's success. I think it similarly will be a reason that Expedition 33 goes unforgotten. 

Maybe weird to compare the game to Persona 5 at all, but I think it's the first thing that comes to many minds when you think "Stylish rpg". I do think they share more than that superficial aspect of it too, but I'll try to keep this review more or less spoiler free. Which now that I think on it, make it hard to discuss a lot of facets of the game.

It's one of those experiences where you kind of go in knowing that people don't know why things are happening, so you're constantly unravelling the story alongside them. That makes every revelation and moment to moment kind of a spoiler, where the main story is concerned anyway.

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.

Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven

• Genre: RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: Since there isn't too much to spoil story-wise, the biggest spoiler may be in my screenshots.
• Time Played: ~60 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Some sections can feel a little long compared to others, but overall it feels about right. Which is actually surprising because often the more story-light rpgs at this length can grow tiresome, but I think the structure of the game helps subvert the normal rpg fatigue.
• Soundtrack: The soundtrack is not it's strongest point. Originally an SNES title, it only has just as much music as it needs. While I don't think the game is too long, and people playing it more efficiently than me can probably knock it out a good deal quicker - I was trying to do everything and that does mean hearing a lot of semi-repetitive tracks over and over. The new renditions of the music are great, and it does feature both full soundtracks, but 20ish tracks isn't quite enough to carry a 60 hour experience. At least they had three entirely separate tracks for the Dancer scenes.
• Why I played: While my experience with the SaGa series isn't entirely robust, I have played a few of them, and even more games directly inspired by SaGa. I have a friend who considers it one of his favorite games, and had wholly planned to play the original version prior to this remake but never got around it, but upon checking out the demo I was instantly sold on the new version.
• Did I cry: There isn't much to cry about this one, which is odd to say because I think it was because of rpgs I put this category here. I cry with almost all rpgs. Even "sillier" ones like Pokemon and Digimon, but this just doesn't really carry those kind of moments. It's not really a character story driven game. It might have had a moment or two that made me involuntarily sad frown.
• Jank: Most the game is jank-free. I wouldn't say it's the MOST polished game, but mostly free of jank. I played the Switch version and there is almost constantly texture-loading issues where textures resolution updates like a couple seconds into any given scene, which I imagine are not present in other versions(and maybe not if you play on Switch 2?) but besides that I maybe ran into one or two quirks the whole game.
• Difficulty: It can be pretty challenging. In fact, I would argue that's the point of this game over many other rpgs that are more meant to tell a story. The combat is really good and engaging, but sometimes requires catered set-ups utilized to perfection. The game can punish you for it, but you're meant to learn and proceed with a new party. I just wish it took the punishing aspects out that can prevent you from accessing content entirely.
• Recommend to others: I definitely would recommend it to anyone who likes old-school jrpgs, and have already gone out of my way to recommend it to a couple people. I do have to mention the fact that this game has "consequences" for your actions though. You can easily lock yourself out of aspects of the game permanently, and for someone like me that's a very stressful aspect of the game.

I feel like I already covered so much in what is supposed to be short bullet points. So what else is there to say?

Keylocker

• Genre: RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: Story-wise yes, some aspects of progression and mechanics are kind of spoiled. Picture are not spoiler free.
• Time Played: 24 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It goes on just a little long. It could just be because each battle is pretty methodical, but I felt like the last couple chapters kinda dragged the game out a little bit.
• Soundtrack: Amazing soundtrack. It has some great music for both the rhythm sections, and more dramatic moments. Honestly great soundtrack all around.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Despite what I may say below, I did really enjoy the game.
• Why I played: I wanted to experience some Turned Based Cyberpunk Action, and it looks really cool.
• Did I cry: I did a little bit here and there. Mostly when the music hit at the right moments.
• Jank: HIGH Level of Jank, this game made me consider the fact I needed a jank category. To be fair, after considering some moments in recent games like Prince of Persia and Omochapon as a whole helped lock it in. 
• Difficulty: This game also made me consider a difficulty category. I'm sure I'll talk about it later, but it's worth noting how difficult I thought a game was in general. This one, for a turn-based rpg, was pretty difficult.
• Recommend to others: I probably would, but I would have to tell anyone who is interested to make sure you give gifts to people in the early chapters, or otherwise as soon as you can, and also you can buy weapons from some shops, and also maybe be willing to mess with the difficulty settings. Also the game can be janky. Also every chapter is a point of no return so to speak. But I WOULD recommend it.

While I have finished a few games since Tunic, most of them are relatively short, or in the case of Phantom Rose, a game played in many short bursts, off to the side of another activity. I've probably played 30+ more games this month, trying to find something to captivate me. Maybe it's just because I was so engrossed in Tunic while playing that, I just couldn't get into the groove for something else that required any thought on my end.

You could say, this game was the key to unlocking that which was closed off to new games for the past few weeks. Keylocker has a lot of style, a lot of really good art, a unique look, a unique sound, a lot of ways to captivate the senses, and for the most part I'm into it. There are a lot of character designs I really like. There are some that... aren't quite my style, but there is definitely a good variety and because of the world they built, I guess it would be hard to put anything in there and say it doesn't fit.

Crystal Project

• Genre: Platforming RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: There isn't really much to spoil in this game.
• Time Played: 85 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's a little long for what it is if you are trying to do "everything" because of the immense amount of exploration, if you're less of a completionist, it's probably not too long.
• Soundtrack: As far as I am aware, it uses entirely free stock music, but I feel like the creator of this game managed to find a handful of artists whose style perfectly emphasized the setting. Despite some most generic rpg beats, there are a few bangers I'll be listening to down the road.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Very pleased, I liked this way more than I expected.
• Why I played: I had a friend point it out some time ago and while the idea of a platforming RPG seemed neat, I wasn't exactly in a hurry to get a game that kiiiinda looked like Minecraft a little bit. It came back up on my radar in some youtube video and I was like "you know, that does look sweet.
• Did I cry: Probably one of the few RPGs I can say I didn't. Mostly because the story is pretty sparse.
• Recommend to others: I definitely would recommend to anyone who likes a good classic style japanese rpg. Like someone who can play any old Dragon Quest or the few Final Fantasy games and get something out of it. 

Crystal Project was a lot of fun. It's a big open world, turned-based RPG filled with platforming, and a good bit of that which requires some very precise navigation. While I would say it's mainly an RPG, the platforming aspect should not be understated. You just will not get everything out of this game if you expect to just walk around from encounter-to-encounter. You need to not just be willing, but eager to explore. It's almost as if it was designed by someone who like to go beyond the boundary of games, someone who likes to see if they can glitch to somewhere they're not supposed to be. You have to want to try to jump on everything - even things you wouldn't expect the game to expect you to.

Fantasian Neo Dimension

• Genre: RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: Pretty much spoiler free, didn't really talk about the story, screenshots have the slightest of spoilers, like party members you get later.
• Time Played: ~85 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's a little long for what it is. I thought I was going into a PS1-2 era rpg here, and when those pushed over 60 hours back in the day, it was noteworthy. "This is a super long rpg, it's nearly 80 hours!" and you'd see something about the length in everything discussing it. 40-50 hours would have really been the sweet spot for this.
• Soundtrack: There are a couple tracks that are pretty good, and it has the option to play music from a handful of more recent Final Fantasy games. I think it's necessary because this soundtrack isn't always the best on it's own merit.
• Pleased/Disappointed: At first I was extremely pleased, then it waned a little bit as I got tired of grinding, but overall, I'm pretty happy with it.
• Why I played: Fantasian's main draw for me was how it invoked classic JRPGs, and this has been a big year for me in revisiting some old favorites.
• Did I cry: I don't really think this game had any big moments like that. Maybe one or two slightly watery eyed moments.
• Recommend to others: I would recommend Fantasian to anyone who loves classic japanese rpgs, specifically PSX-PS2 era - maybe some weirdo PSP or DS games. It does a good job at invoking nostalgia despite being an entirely new thing.

I really did love this game. I'd have to sit with a bit to think if it's a "favorite of all time", and maybe it's not quite that, but it's really up there. I really enjoyed it and as I mentioned it did a great job at invoking nostalgia while being entirely it's own thing, and I mean it. It has these prerendered backgrounds, but these aren't primitive CG, they're photos/models build from actual real life dioramas, and that's amazing to me. There are so many areas in this game. Hearing about this aspect, I thought there just may not be a ton of areas in the game, but there are, and you can tell each was just so meticulously crafted. It really makes the world come alive in a way that modern games with their basic textured assets that may look "realistic", but in the end are the kind of copy-paste type thing you see in any game.

Metaphor: ReFantazio

• Genre: RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: No story spoilers, mechanical spoilers and minor spoilery screenshots.
• Time Played: 133 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's not too long necessarily, it just took me way too long. It can probably be wrapped up dozens of hours quicker, but I did everything and fretted over everything I did.
• Soundtrack: For a game in which the universe roots itself in music, the music is just good. It really fits the mood, and style of the game, but I won't be listening to it regularly besides a track or two.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm very pleased with this, while I'm not sure it makes the favorite games list, it comes close, and was thoroughly enjoyable.
• Why I played: I liked most of Atlus' games, but I'm tired of the school setting and calendars, which is why I liked Soul Hackers 2 so much. This dropped one of them at least. I wasn't too interested in "generic fantasy" at first, but it seemed to ooze style.
• Did I cry: Choked up a few times here and there a little bit, but it got watery eyed toward the end.
• Recommend to others: I really would recommend Metaphor to everyone, but especially those who like "modern"(as in the past twenty years) Atlus games at all. This is the best of them, by far.

First to address the new sections above. I meant to add them to the template during either FFXV or Visions of Mana and forgot both times. It wasn't as important for the others. But I figured the spoiler note is important, because occasionally more than just my wife reads these and I have as many as 4 whole unique visitors. Soundtrack is more of a reference for, is it worth listening to outside of the game? I think to a degree all soundtracks are, but some have some real bangers and are worth going out of the way for. Did I cry? I can get pretty emotional during a good story. Or just a really well set up moment in an otherwise bad one. I just thought it would be fun to keep track of. Most long story games will at least choke me up. But I probably didn't cry for Flamefrit or Metal Slug. Now on to the main course.

There is so much to say about this game. It was really great, and exceeded my expectations. The story has it's ups and downs, but when it's down its only in the sense of "I get it, I'm along for the ride" rather than downright bad, and when it's up, it's really up.

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.

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.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 27 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Just right, having just come off the last one.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm very pleased with this, it has almost everything I would have wanted in the main game.
• Why I played: Because I just finished Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
• Recommend to others: I would far sooner recommend people play this than the main game if it were at all possible to understand anything without pretty much having played every Xenoblade Chronicles game.

From start to finish Future Redeemed was a joy to play. I loved the two most primary protagonists, two more were really great to see in this game and the last two were... good to exist in the game for story reasons, but didn't really have anything to offer after the cast of 3 and compared to the rest of the cast of Future Redeemed. The story was pretty snappy, always making actual progress to toward the main goal, not meandering and wasting my time, as was the dialog - even the side quest and random npc dialog didn't drone on and on like it does in 3.

Screenshots past this point very spoilery.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 154 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Far too long. One of the longest games I've played that did not deserve it's running time.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I didn't dislike the game as a whole, but I'm the length and abundance just wore on me so much that it's hard to say I'm "pleased" at the end of everything.
• Why I played: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 just seemed like it would appeal to me far more than the 2nd, I want to say I saw something earlier this year that made me really want to dig into it, maybe the Ouroboros forms and such? It's not quite what I expected.
• Recommend to others: I can't really recommend it unless you think More=Better and just want to stick with one game for awhile. If that's what you like, that this might have greater appeal.

I did like this game it - overall - it's just so hard to overlook how much there is to the game that doesn't need to be here.

Everything is just unnecessarily big or too much, the environment, the amount of areas, the amount of superfluous mechanics, the amount dialog. Everything could have been better scaled back. The amount of time you spend running around these huge environments is just ridiculous, and they're gorgeous, don't get me wrong, but there isn't enough diversity to warrant there being absolutely so much of it. Same for the monsters. It's great seeing so many different monsters of different sizes, but there are so many just everywhere. I avoided the vast majority of wild encounters and still ended up massively over leveled for end game, and I know I could raise the difficulty settings, but damn near all they do is inflate the HP bars of already overinflated enemies. It can take 5+ minutes in a battle to defeat something you out level by a dozen levels that literally does not have enough attack power to wipe out your party. You don't even need to participate in a lot of the combat, you can just let it play out - if you have the time.

Early game that's not so much the case, but later on - it's a little ridiculous, and maybe this isn't the case for someone who ONLY runs story content and isn't as good at optimizing their party, but I found it it very - not engaging, and I feel like the easiest solution to would have just been for there to be less of everything. Smaller world - that still could have been gigantic, because the sheer size of this world is just - It's immense. I don't think there is a game with more area to walk on where you can only walk.

There might be big open world games that have cars and aircraft that have bigger worlds, but this one did not. It had a boat for it's one area that is mostly water with scatter islands, but everywhere else you had to hoof it at excruciatingly slow running speeds. You get some upgrades to your running speed, but the most upgraded running speed feels like it should have been the early game default. At the very least we should have gotten like a 2x speed dash, especially because every single area is just so unnecessarily large and so long. I just don't feel I can convey this without repeating it multiple times.

8-Colors Star Guardians

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: ~5 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Fine for what it is, but I wouldn't have minded a bit more content.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm pretty pleased, it was a cute game.
• Why I played: 2023 was the year of Kamen Rider for me. So far it's looking like 2024 is starting off as the year of Rangers/Sentai.
• Recommend to others: Sure, it's not an expensive game, and it's cute. If you like Power Rangers or tokusatsu stuff in general, it's worth playing through.

Star Guardians is a cute little game that I believe was originally a game jam game? "Chapter 1" I believe is the game jam content more or less and "Chapter 2" which is heavily expanded upon refers to the prior at a tutorial. I believe that's appropriate. The bulk of the content is in "Chapter 2" but there are also arcade modes and other challenges to mess with once you unlock everything. 

It's pretty much just a turn-based battle game where every battle has a gimmick or trick to it. You don't really level up, but you do gain new skills to use in battle and expand your team. There is some cute/funny dialog between the Guardians between battles and even special dialogs for when/if you lose that will hint or outright tell you how to win. It might be worth losing each one once just because some of them go off into a tangent and since the writing is entertaining enough, might as well get what you can.

I wouldn't have minded a bit more too it overall. I liked the team, I like the archetypical and parody writing. Nothing deep, but fun. There are a few stand out segments that are kind of their own thing, and I wouldn't have minded more of that to extend the game, and maybe they could have expanded on some of the other chance interactions, but it was fun for what it was.