Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma

A spinoff of the Rune Factory franchise, which is in turn an offshoot of the Story of Seasons franchise, Guardians of Azuma blends action-RPG, town building and farming sim elements into a single experience.  But does it prove to be a compelling experience, or does its odd blend of elements just become a mess?

Story of Seasons (formerly known as Harvest Moon) is a series I'm familiar with, though not overly; it began as a late-era release on the SNES, and after finding success there, has since had a long string of sequels and spinoff games, mostly on handheld platforms.  Once Marvelous took over localization for the series in 2014 they rebranded it to Story of Seasons, which is the title it continues to use today.  Rune Factory is a more fantastical offshoot of the franchise that works elements of dungeon crawling into the format, making powering up your character just as large a component of the overall gameplay.

Guardians of Azuma (apparently a spinoff rather than a numbered sequel, though I'm unsure why that's the case) is the first Rune Factory game I've actually played, so I went in with only a vague idea of what to expect.  The general concensus I found was that these kept the farming gameplay of the parent series, just mixing in elements of action-RPGs and dungeon crawling.

That's pretty much what I got with Guardians of Azuma, though it also had quite a bit more going on than I anticipated. In fact the farming element is largely de-emphasized in favor of other pursuits.  Each weapon, subweapon and skill (farming, smithing, cooking et al) has associated skill trees, with each earning exclusive points through use.  Completing tasks during the day also earns you "All-purpose Experience" when you rest that can be spent on anything.

Combat in the game isn't especially deep, but is well-polished and fun.  In addition to your main melee weapon (which can also take the form of shortswords, greatswords, talismans, etc), you also have a bow for ranged attacks, as well as subweapons like your drum (which heals your allies and damages enemies) or a sacred sword that burns away corruption as well as dealing heavy damage.  Perfectly-timed attack dodges give a couple seconds of slowed time a la Bayonetta, and special moves run off of "RP", which slowly regenerates on its own or can be restored by food items.  One can also access special moves that run off "spirit bars" which fill gradually as you inflict damage with weapons or take damage yourself.

Farming does indeed function as it usually does in these sorts of games - plant and water seeds, harvest the crops to sell, get more seeds to plant, et cetera.  However, it also ties into a larger town-building element.  There are many quests to complete in each town, and doing so raises your village level.  As your level increases, more types of buildings and decorations can be placed and more villagers arrive, allowing you to staff buildings to provide services and automate tasks like lumber harvesting, mining and even farming.  Each unique building type placed also increases your character's stats.  Villagers all have a random assortment of traits which make them more suited to certain tasks than others, though this has a pretty minimal effect overall.

Finding crafting recipes is another major trope for games like this, and Guardians of Azuma has no shortage.  Most enemies drop materials, one can chop wood and mine spaces on the map to gain other types, and and hunting down frog statues in the field earns you food recipes (unlocking more as you report back to Croakie in town).

Another trope of these games is building bonds with named NPCs, and indeed, it's no different here.  Giving gifts, spending time and completing requests earns experience, and of course marriage can come if you raise affinity high enough with particular characters (and yes, same-sex marriages are allowed).  Most named NPCs can also accompany you as you head into battle, and keeping them in your party (and hearing their interactions) will also raise your affinity level with them.  Their AI also surprisingly good, though they do have their own HP and RP meters to keep track of, so keeping them in good shape with your extra items will go pretty far in helping you build bonds and clear dungeons.

Perhaps most surprising is how engrossed I found myself with Guardians of Azuma's narrative.  It incorporates surprisingly well into the theme of passing seasons and prosperity, and its cutscenes contain quality voice acting, emotive characters and even a surprisingly decent sense of humor, which is something I didn't expect.

So yeah, I was pleasantly surprised with Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma.  You can still see the Harvest Moon roots, but only just; at its core is a fun title that feels a bit like a blend of Dark Cloud and Ys, with quite a lot of content to see and some substantial replay value if you want to see all the romance options.  It may not be one of the genre's best or even a super deep game in general, but I was just after a fun RPG to play on my Switch 2, and it fits the bill quite nicely.  A fun way to spend a month while I wait on year-end releases like Ghost of Yotei, Dragon Quest 1/2 HD-2D Remake and Outer Worlds 2.

Developer: Marvelous
Publisher: Marvelous
Released: 2025
Platform: Switch, Switch 2, Windows
Recommended Version: I have only played the Switch 2 version but it runs flawlessly on there; no slowdown, stuttering or other issues.

Cyberpunk 2077

A controversial launch marred it, a big-time turnaround with numerous subsequent patches aided by a successful anime tie-in redeemed it, and now Cyberpunk 2077 is regarded as another modern classic from CD Projekt Red.  But is there anything here for me as someone jaded by open world design that focuses more on volume than quality, or is it done in once again by its own hubris?

Cyberpunk 2077 was a public relations disaster when it launched, for a variety of reasons.  Whether completely unnecessary health hazards to epileptic people, alleged exploitation of CDPR employees (later offset by a suspiciously large number of positive employee reviews appearing to offset negative ones), or a conveniently timed data breach that may or may not have been staged for publicity, the game was a pretty big font of negativity when it launched and continued to be so for some time after.  Of course, it had its defenders too; mostly people who decided it was the best game of all time years before they ever played a single second of it and continued to do so in spite of its horrifically buggy design and poor performance.

I passed it for several years for all those reasons, as well as just not enjoying the Witcher games at all.  Mostly because rather than showing you tangible evidence of themes and ideas and letting you draw your own conclusions, they instead sit you down every five minutes to smugly tell you all about how intelligent and important and poignant and progressive and visionary they're being, all while showing disappointingly little in the way of innovative design, compelling writing or interesting gameplay.  I mean, unless you count "follow quest marker and push confirm button until it says you've finished it" design, permanently botchable quests, no hard saves and guessing at which dialog options will lead you to a bad ending 40+ hours later as compelling; I certainly don't.  It's the equivalent of a pretentious film student roping you into watching his 20-minute magnum opus and then spending three hours explaining all the symbolism in extreme detail to make sure you get it.  Not because they have any novel ideas or anything poignant to say, but because they desperately want you to admire and worship them, preferably through your wallet.

Cyberpunk (the heavily-patched version) at least has more to offer in terms of gameplay than Witcher does.  Built as a gigantic open world game in a sprawling city, it feels like a logical mashup of elements from Grand Theft Auto, Deus Ex, Borderlands and Watch_Dogs.  You drive around, you get into fights with hostile NPCs, evade the cops, and complete various side missions, getting different dialog and rewards depending on your approach.  Going in guns blazing, using stealth to disable enemies and hacking to create distractions or destroy targets (NPCs and mundane objects like air conditioners, lights and even oil barrels can be "hacked" with destructive results, which makes little sense to me).  There's also semi-randomized loot in the form of armors and weapons with various random attributes and stat bonuses, and you get core stat upgrades and perks depending on your playstyle.  You can install implants to improve your character as well, either finding them about the world or ripping them off dead gangers and psychos; so long as you have the cash to install them, of course.

Of course, balancing all these elements out is never an easy job in a sprawling open-ended game like this, and Cyberpunk... doesn't really do a great job.  I mostly stuck to melee weapons as they consistently drop enemies in two or three hits, whereas even an average thug can absorb half a magazine of assault rifle ammo or more without even flinching.  Combat doesn't feel good in general either, with some very floaty movement, weightless action that lacks any visceral impact and strange hit detection at times - I've visibly leapt backwards from a boss enemy, saw their weapon fly right past me and still taken damage, while I've swung at them multiple times while they're a foot away and dead center on screen and never seem to land a hit when it counts.  Some of the earliest powers you get also afford you health regeneration at a pretty substantial rate, and you get free regenerating grenades and emergency health packs, so as long as you don't take too much damage at once you're pretty difficult to actually kill.

Dialog in the game is also considerably more streamlined than most.  Outside of scripted cutscenes you're not locked into a separate dialog screen, instead just getting options for what to say next depending on the character you're currently facing.  There's usually little choice in these - you can generally just ask a second or third option for a bit more information before you're forced to pick the first one in order to progress to the next part of the dialog and ultimately accept or decline a mission; Ultima-level deep conversations these are not.  They're also punctuated with a lot of V's smarmy dialog and characters bouncing constant comic book one-liners off you, which is cute for a bit but gets grating when they have to cram it into every single exchange.  Hell, they never manage to turn it off even during tense moments.

Presentation wise I can't say I like the game much even when it is performing well.  The dialog is all well-acted and some of the radio tracks are honestly pretty catchy, but it's just not a pleasant game to look at.  The whole world is dingy, grimy and utilizes a pretty garish color palette and overbearing harsh lighting.  I suppose it fits the cyberpunk aesthetic in that regard, but it does get a little annoying when there's bright neon/sun glare in your eyes every 2 seconds and all your targets just blend into the constant environmental haze and clashing colors.  The only thing that does stand out are the weapons, which are painted in bright yellows, purples and blues; they look more like Super Soakers and Nerf toys than anything that can do harm.  It all controls decently enough with a controller, though if you're playing the Switch 2 version you can also utilize gimmicky Wii-style motion controls with detached joycons. I mostly just stuck to the Pro Controller; normally I'm not a fan of twin stick aiming but in conjunction with axis aiming it's good enough.

Cyberpunk 2077 is relatively competent at everything it does, but nothing it does is very unique, deep or fun.  It just feels like a mish-mash of every popular open world game and futuristic action-RPG made in the last 25 years, cynically engineered for maximum marketability and play time with little thought spared for giving it any identity of its own.  The gameplay kept me amused for a few hours, but with the repetitive setup, bare-bones core story and combat, uninteresting characters and dialog that's more tedious than compelling, I got bored of it well before the end.  It's the most competent CDPR project yet in terms of design; unfortunately being competent and being captivating are two very different things, and CDPR still has yet to get a grasp on how to do the latter well.

 

Developer: CD Projekt Red
Publisher: CD Projekt
Released: 2020, 2022, 2025
Platform: PlayStation 4, PC, XBox One, PlayStation 5, XBox Series, Switch 2, macOS
Recommended Version: Definitely avoid the early releases on PS4 and XBox One and go for one of the newer versions instead, or the PC port if you have a powerful enough machine.  The Switch 2 version is surprisingly solid though, with a smooth framerate and overall good performance.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

The debut title of French studio Sandfall Interactive, Expedition 33 got a lot of attention for its visual design and stated goal of bringing big budget turn-based RPGs back to the limelight.  But does this expedition reach its destination, or does it just stop short?

Clair Obscur was hyped up a fair bit before its launch, especially by its developers, who admitted that it drew inspiration from the Final Fantasy and Persona franchises, yet touted several added flourishes like quick-time events during combat.  It certainly made a strong first impression with trailers showing off its flashy presentation and relatively fast-paced design, and it sold like gangbusters on launch, breaking a million copies sold in only three days and having nearly 130,000 concurrent players on Steam at its peak.

Visually it's easy enough to see where E33 takes its inspirations from.  The game utilizes relatively realistic characters in worlds of fantastical monsters and surreal sights a la Final Fantasy, and the zippy movement and combat menus clearly draw inspiration from Persona 5.  It's also apparent in the combat system, with each character wielding a gun that can be fired multiple times per turn as long as they have AP, though unlike P5 you can precisely aim at specific targets on some enemies to deal heavy damage.  Gunshots are relatively weak otherwise, though they can be augmented with special properties to make them a more efficient use of your AP, and they come in handy against flying enemies (which tend to dodge melee attacks); they come into play out of battle too, where they can be used to stun and slip past enemies without a battle or solve the occasional puzzle by shooting at hidden targets.

The overall design of E33 showcases a few minor elements of Soulslikes as well, giving you a limited supply of healing items that can only be replenished at save points or by camping on the world map (though you can find or purchase upgrades to get more uses between rests), and enemies only respawn in an area once you choose to rest.  The game's backstory is largely filled in by finding logs of previous Expeditions that met with disaster, though it has plenty of its own narrative, characters and cutscenes as well so you never feel like you're just vicariously experiencing all the interesting events after the fact.

Combat in E33 is indeed turn-based, with a bar on the side showing each participant in the current battle and some attacks able to delay or cancel turns when they land; slightly reminiscent of games like Final Fantasy X or Grandia.  Also familiar is the ability to press buttons to power up attacks and dodge enemy strikes a la Paper Mario.  Also like Paper Mario, you have two major defensive options in parries and dodges; dodges allow you to avoid damage when successfully timed, while Parries have a tighter window.  However, Parries recover AP when successful, and parrying every attack in an enemy's combo will also give you a free hit on them.  Some especially large attacks must be jumped, and if successful the the entire team can do a followup counterattack for heavy damage.  Getting relatively adept at these quickly becomes key to survival, especially on higher difficulties where one or two good hits will usually take out a character.  Even on lower settings, though, combat in the late game gets downright brutal; enemies get five to eight attacks per turn and every hit has a chance to inflict a status effect that can stop you gaining AP or even render unable you to block or dodge at all, which is basically a death sentence on the next turn.  Basically you end up having to evade upwards of 20 consecutive attacks with no mistakes or you just get spiraled into oblivion, which is a lot more frustrating than fun.

Per JRPG-inspired title standards, there is a pretty big focus on unique character skills and customization present in the game.  Leveling up grants each character spendable stat and skill points, and each has a unique skill board on which to unlock new combat abilities (a bit like FFXII's license boards), up to six of which can be equipped at a time.  Further adding to this are Pictos, which grant stat bonuses and bonus effects (termed "Luminas") while equipped.  Once a Picto is "mastered" by winning battles with it equipped, the Lumina effect becomes freely equippable by all characters using their limited pools of Lumina points; the base amount is equal to the character's level, though you can also raise it by using collectible items.  Weapons likewise have elemental properties and traits that can be unlocked by raising their levels, though unlike Pictos, these can only be utilized while equipped with that particular weapon.  As a result new weapons don't serve as straight upgrades, but are more or less "side-grades" with comparable stats and traits, and one can increase weapon levels via items or (randomly?) by winning battles.

Building on this even further, each character has unique combat mechanics that can be set up to cleverly interplay with one another.  For example, Gustave builds up lightning charges by attacking and avoiding enemy strikes, and once powered up enough he can unleash them all at once in a single attack that deals heavy damage and can potentially Break an enemy, stunning them for a turn.  Lune utilizes elemental abilities that "paints" spaces on her weapon; said Paints can be spent to add bonus effects like extra damage or reduced AP cost for a later attack.  Maelle's mechanics are reminiscent of the Watcher from Slay the Spire, swapping between three different Stances - Offense boosts the damage she deals and receives, Defense reduces damage she takes and allows her to build AP by dodging or parrying, and Virtuouse doubles the damage of her next attack.  Special moves often get added effects when certain conditions are met, which can lead to some very fun synergies - for example, Gustave can Mark an enemy, Lune can follow up with Immolation to deal bonus Burns to a Marked enemy, and Maelle can instantly be put into Virtuouse by striking a Burning enemy, then follow up on subsequent turns with skills that take advantage of Virtuose state, having reduced AP cost or even keeping her in Virtuouse for another turn if they land.  It cleverly encourages the player to experiment with each character's available skills, Pictos and Luminas, and you can build some extremely powerful teams once you get into the swing of it.

Of course a major selling point for any modern RPG is its worldbuilding and storytelling, and Expedition 33 succeeds in fine fashion here too.  The world it depicts is an extremely bleak one, kept under the thumb of a dark witch known as the Paintress, with human survivors largely relegated to a single town, finding joy wherever they can despite their bleak scenario, with a small select few embarking on the titular Expeditions in hopes of eventually hunting their nemesis down and freeing their world.  It tells its tale brilliantly through its imagery and emotion, adequately explaining itself without over-relying on naked exposition.  The acting throughout is fantastic, with dialog feels very human and organic - characters emote naturally throughout, getting into heated back-and-forth arguments at particularly tense moments and facing moments of indecisiveness, doubt, fear and pain, all acted with surprising credibility.  They even manage to find beauty in their unrecognizable ruined world, encountering constant bizarre sights and imaginative creatures, and joke around and make wisecracks to add a little levity to their grim situation.  Basically, they think and act like real people, which is not an easy thing to pull off in any medium, but especially in the oft-contrived realm of video games.  Even the story's antagonists have a surprising amount of depth and humanity and aren't just nuanceless straw men for the protagonists to knock down, which is something I've gravely missed in the era of armchair revolutionary rubbish like Persona 5 and Xenoblade 3 and Metaphor.

E33 takes care to keep hold of something so many modern games lack, which is pacing.  It's a fairly brisk game by modern standards, with a main story that runs about 25-30 hours and full completion taking around 50, which keeps surprisingly well in step with many of its inspirations.  One can experience the story again while keeping their powered up characters and weapons via New Game Plus as well, which is always welcome, and of course there's plenty of challenge for die-hard gamers through optional battles, hidden secrets and three difficulty modes, the highest of which requires some very on-point parrying and dodging if you want any hope of survival.  Personally I found one playthrough to be enough; it told its story very effectively and I didn't feel any real desire to punish myself with even more difficult and harrowing battles when the normal fights were getting into the realm of one missed parry being an automatic death.

I also would like to see a few more quality of life improvements; an option for more precise visual feedback on when to time dodges/parries would be welcome.  The camera does pan in slightly to tell the timing for melee attacks, but for projectiles and some of the flashier moves that have a lot of screen shake it can be difficult to judge at times.  The other is is that the game lacks a minimap for dungeons and towns, which can be annoying during some of the larger and more maze-like areas.  They do go out of their way to make each area feel very distinct, with a lot of distinct landmarks and a compass you can bring up via the quick-menu to help you navigate, but still, even a map screen that gradually fills in as you explore a la Ultima Underworld or Final Fantasy XII would be nice.  

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was a surprise to many gamers when it was announced, and though I was skeptical at first, I quickly found myself impressed by it.  Its story and characters are captivating, its gameplay highly polished and efficiently designed, and it's easily one of the most visually striking games I've seen in some time, showcasing a world that's bizarre, beautiful and strangely compelling in spite of its bleak and often depressing storytelling.  Its inspirations are apparent, with many of its mechanics reminiscent of elements from other games, but it blends them together in a way that feels surprisingly fresh and unique as a whole.  The fact that it's a relatively brisk and filler-free ~30 hour experience, tells a surprisingly strong and mature tale without relying on lame straw man villains or spoonfeeding you mountains of naked exposition, and costs only $50 at a time when games and even consoles are jumping in price is nothing short of commendable too.  Companies and fanboys are always eager to equate sheer runtime with a game's value, even when they rarely having enough compelling gameplay or storytelling to fill it, so games that maintains a high level of quality and solid pacing as they do it are becoming increasingly rare.  All told, an excellent first effort for Sandfall and a fine homage to the '90s/early '00s era of Final Fantasy.  I just wonder how many of the people fervently worshipping this game now are going to stick with it once the honeymoon period ends and how many are going to say they always hated it and go back to harassing Square Enix's social media interns about how Final Fantasy was the only good RPG series and it's been total shit since 2003 and the only way to save the genre is with an HD-2D remake of Final Fantasy VI that massively expands the story and gameplay and gives the characters more depth and is also somehow 100% faithful to the SNES version by perfectly recreating the high they felt playing their first story based game at age 9...

 

Developer: Sandfall Interactive
Publisher: Kepler Interactive
Released: 2025
Platforms: PC, Playstation 5, XBox Series

Recommended Version: I have only played the PlayStation 5 version but they all seem to be more or less on even footing.

Jeanne D'Arc

Loosely based on the story of the real Joan of Arc (though with many fantastical liberties), Jeanne D'Arc is Level 5's attempt at making a tactical RPG as well as getting a hit of their own on the PSP.  But does it effectively showcase their talents and provide a worthwhile experience for tactical RPG fans, or is it simply outclassed by its contemporaries?

As a big fan of tactical RPGs and Final Fantasy Tactics in particular, I... oddly missed this one when it launched on the PSP in 2007.  Even more odd considering it was developed by Level-5, a company that ranks among my favorite contemporary RPG developers; I quite enjoyed the Ni no Kuni games and a couple of the Professor Laytons, and Dragon Quest VIII and Dark Cloud 2 still rank among my favorite games of all time.  Odd, I know.

Having played it now, though, I found quite a fun experience.  The game has quite a bit of production value behind it for a PSP game with animated and fully voice-acted cutscenes (pretty well, at that), and Level-5's usual high-quality music and polished design are out in full force.  It makes good use of the PSP's limited control scheme too, utilizing the thumbstick for camera control and the d-pad for menuing and selection, though this does take a little getting used to if you're playing the emulated PS4 port like I am.

In terms of gameplay Jeanne D'Arc most closely resembles Fire Emblem than Final Fantasy Tactics, though Fire Emblem than FFT, though thankfully with FE's more annoying elements filed off - there are no permadeaths or breakable weapons or "Weapon triangle", though elemental affinities follow a similar pattern - Sol (Sun) is strong against Stella (Star), Stella is strong against Luna (Moon), and Luna is strong against Sol.  Some new gameplay elements are added though, like "Burning Aura" - striking an enemy creates one in the space behind them, and another character can then stand in it and attack for greater accuracy and damage.  They can also stack up to three times, allowing you to take down some particularly stubborn enemies with chained attacks.  If allies stay in close proximity (within 2 squares) they also get "Unified Guard" whenever an enemy attacks or counter-attacks, reducing their chance to be hit and taking less damage when they do - a good thing as enemies can generally take down characters in two or three blows.  Jeanne (and a couple other characters) also steadily build up points as turns pass, and once they have enough they can Transform into a substantially powered up form once per battle, gaining some quite powerful abilities - Jeanne herself gets Godspeed, which grants her another turn if she defeats an enemy (and can be chained multiple times in a single round as long as you keep getting kills).  It also surprisingly doesn't feel overpowered, particularly as each battle has a turn limit and some stages also end immediately if particular characters (or even any character) should be defeated, so utilizing any advantage you can quickly becomes key to victory.  As expected for a portable game, fights are fairly brisk - maps are generally fairly small and you can finish them in about 15-20 minutes on average, though they do get a bit more involved as the game progresses.

Equipment upgrades are found in shops (naturally), but you also find plenty in the course of completing story battles, and should your levels ever be lagging, you can take part in "free battle" maps to power up, so you shouldn't ever get stuck.  In addition to the usual complement of weapons, armor and shields, you also find plenty of "Skill Stones" that grant abilities for different types of weapons or simply change a character's elemental affinity, making them stronger against certain enemy types and weaker against others.  Skills are generally linked to using certain types of weapons (can't use a sword skill with a spear or a dagger, for example), but there is a surprising variety therein - one sword skills gives all nearby allies an attack boost, another spear skill grants a 7-space linear attack, while a particular dagger skill allows one to steal items from enemies mid-battle.  There are also generic spells that recover HP or equip elemental damage, and can be used with any type of weapon equipped.

All in all, Jeanne D'Arc is well made, quite enjoyable tactical RPG experience.  Maybe not one of the genre's defining classics, but it manages to hold its own on the PSP - a platform that gave it some stiff competition with games like Tactics Ogre, Valkyria Chronicles and Final Fantasy Tactics.  A worthwhile alternative from a company with a lot of passion and talent, particularly as you can get it for dirt cheap nowadays on the PlayStation 4.

 

Developer: Level-5, Japan Studio

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Released: 2007

Platforms: Playstation Portable, Playstation 4

Recommended Version:  As of July 2024 the game is available on the PlayStation 4/5 as a downloadable title, though it's simply an emulated port of the PSP version (with rewind and savestate functionality added).

Star Ocean: the Second Story R

A remake of a PS1 semi-classic, Star Ocean: the Second Story R keeps the elaborate design of the original while giving its presentation and performance a massive upgrade and adding in some new content.  But is this Second Story worth revisiting, or is it best left in the past?

Star Ocean is a game I remember playing in the Playstation 1 days, but didn't really enjoy; while it had a good concept in trying to bring western-style character skills and crafting mechanics into the JRPG format, it was plagued with a really dopey script, serious performance problems (including numerous post-battle freezes), a generally buggy and unbalanced combat system and some pretty heinous sound design, including some infamously bad voice acting and audio mixing even by the standards of the time period.  So I just kind of forgot about it and never really bothered checking out its sequels for the most part (other than briefly trying out the third game).  But after seeing it had gotten a remake on modern platforms by Gemdrops (and was on sale for exceptionally cheap during 2024's Black Friday sales), I figured it was finally time to give it another chance.

Well, having now played some of the remake I can state that the script is still pretty dumb, with a lot of really dopey dialog, childish humor and a general campy tone, but it's made considerably more bearable by the surprisingly high voiceover quality.  Spike Spencer and Eden Riegel voice the two main protagonists Claude and Rena, and they perform their parts with the same high quality they put into any project.  The rest of the cast gives their all too, so it becomes a much more bearable experience.  Combat is much faster-paced and considerably less buggy now, though there's still some dumb quirks, like stopping short while pursuing a running enemy and swinging at air over and over again until they finally decide to stand still long enough to be hit.  Your caster allies blow through their MP at a terrifying speed, resulting in me telling them to just avoid damage and cast only when specifically instructed to.  Another new mechanic is Break Gauges - basically enemy now has an "armor" bar alongside their health, and once it's broken they'll be stunned for a little while and take extra damage until they recover.  Bosses likewise have these, and when broken they'll unleash a shockwave that also stuns any another enemies in the battle it hits, making it a good strategy to target them first.  Formations are a bit more practical now - there wasn't much point to them in the original owing to the real-time and chaotic nature of battles, but now they grant cumulative bonuses as you land hits on enemies and avoid sneak attacks and stuns, which vary depending on the formation you choose - everything from bonus experience and money to extra damage.  Seemingly taking notes from The World Ends With You, up to five encounters can be chained together back-to-back, granting substantial bonuses to your gained experience, money and items if you manage to survive them all.  Hitting various milestones in battles (number of enemies fought, damage dealt, et cetera) fulfills a list of Combat Challenges, which often give rare items or experience/skill point bonuses when fulfilled.

But of course, the selling point of Star Ocean is its incredibly elaborate skill and crafting systems, and there's definitely a lot to unpack in Second Story's case.  Not only can you upgrade character stats and combat skills to enable things like faster casting, doing extra damage, shortening stun time or automatically dodging attacks, but there are a ton of non-combat skills as well - everything from Mineralogy to Herbal Medicine to Music to Biology to Aesthetics to Cooking, which lend themselves to item-based utilities and/or stat boosts for anyone who learns them.  Some more abstract ones (like Poker Face) lend themselves to higher-level skills like Pickpocketing, so even if it does nothing on its own, it usually serves a higher purpose.  Even some that seem pretty useless at a glance have surprising utility, like Bunny Call - this summons a giant rabbit you can ride on the overworld over virtually any terrain (just excluding the ocean), allowing you to both avoid random battles and reach many treasures that are otherwise out of reach.  Unlike in the original version, you don't have purchase skills at shops - everybody has all of them available to purchase at the start.  Instead, skill guilds now offer various missions you can complete for rewards, usually in the form of money, items or extra skill points to spend.

Many of these do of course pertain to random battles and powering up, and I found these to be quite a lot of fun to tinker with.  Scouting can raise or lower the encounter rate, Training allows you to take a penalty to your stats to boost experience gains, and Effort lowers the amount of experience needed to gain levels.  All of these combined with an experience-boosting Formation and the aforementioned chained battles mechanic allow you to power up at a surprising speed, and the Enlightenment skill lets you get less money rewards from battle in exchange for more skill points.  Determination lowers the point cost of all skills (so yeah... always max that first), and Purity bizarrely just gives an escalating cash payout each time you take it.  As you can imagine, all of these are quite abusable early on in the game, though as Star Ocean famously has a quite steep challenge curve on the highest difficulty setting, so they're pretty much necessary to make any headway in that mode.

Crafting is an enormous part of the game too, and there's a lot to cover under that umbrella.  Making new weapons and armor and combining weapons with materials to transform them into other weapons is of course present, but one can also create musical works, cook meals with various effects, boost the effect of mundane healing items with Herbology (boosting their low 22% heal to a whopping 52% at max), transmute materials into stronger stuff, raise Appraisal to get better prices in shops, and paint portraits to sell.  Perhaps most broken of all is Writing, which allows a character to create skill books and teach them to other characters at minimal cost, saving tons of skill point farming in the long run.  There is of course a substantial random chance to all of this, with cooking in particular being somewhat annoying - rather than choosing what you want, you simply get one of a list of random items based on a particular ingredient you're using.  So if you're after a particular type of food for some reason (like completing a mission), you just have to keep buying ingredients and rolling the dice until you get it.  Failed rolls occasionally get you bad items too, like Bounced Checks (which cost you money to sell and continually deplete your cash as long as you have them in your inventory), so that's something to beware of too.

Several modern conveniences are added into the game as well.  As mentioned above, the game's presentation is massively improved; not just with the voice acting, but by giving its audio and visual design a massive overhaul.  Like many of Square's modern titles it utilizes a blend of 2D sprites for the characters (the same one as the PS1 version, in fact) and 3D backdrops, and it works surprisingly well here - the environments are gorgeous to look at and a joy to explore.  Another addition is fast travel - one can quickly zip to not just any town they've previously visited, but any shop or even mundane house within that town, and even to the entrance of most dungeons.  Private Actions (unique dialogs to build up affinity with characters) are now activated with a press of a button while you're in town, rather than on the world map, and items that can be created with a particular skill are now given convenient in-game lists so you don't have to go digging through an online guide every 5 seconds.  The Voice Selection is now actually completable, unlike the original PS1 game, and there is indeed a trophy for doing so.  There are a total of 99 possible endings to achieve based on the affinity you've built up with characters by the end, though you only need 15 to get the trophy for it, and it's fairly easy to just restart, use items to build up affinity with a different character and finish the final boss again to get new ones.  There are also trophies tied to getting each and every recruitable character, though, and some characters are only recruitable if you choose to begin as Claude or Rena, so you will still need to do at least two playthroughs.  Finally, my personal favorite new addition is a fishing minigame.  Yes, you can indeed fish at just about any body of water on the overworld, and even trade in fish for various unique rewards with an NPC named Lure.  Plenty of fun.

So, with all that said, Star Ocean: the Second Story R is an excellent update of a flawed PS1 title, upgrading pretty much every element I disliked about the original while keeping everything good intact.  The story is still nothing special (and the dialog pretty moronic a lot of the time), so don't come in expecting intelligent science fiction or any particularly deep characterizations. But there's no shortage of elaborate mechanics, challenging battles and intricacies to discover, and the quick pacing of the gameplay and strong soundtrack make it a fun journey to undertake.  Gemdrops did a fantastic job updating the game, and I wouldn't mind seeing them remaster some other forgotten games under the Square Enix umbrella.  Like say... Bahamut Lagoon or Treasure of the Rudras?

 

Developer: Gemdrops, Tri-Ace

Publisher: Square Enix

Released: 2023

Platforms: Playstation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, Switch

Recommended Version:  I have only played the PS5 version but they all seem to play pretty much identically.

NetHack

One of the most famous names in roguelikes and one of the longest continually-developed games of all time, NetHack is a legendary title in many ways; not least of which is its unflinching difficulty level.  But does this minimally-presented adventure still hold merit today, or is there little reason to visit it now with the surge in other well-known, fiendishly-tough dungeon crawls?

Arguably the most enduring RPG of all time, NetHack debuted in 1987 and is still under active development today, continuing to get bugfixes and new features with each patch that comes out.  A fork of an early game simply titled "Hack" that was a clone of genre-definer Rogue, Nethack features similar, yet much deeper gameplay.  You make your way through a 50-floor dungeon seeking an artifact in the name of your god, hoping to escape the dungeon with it and achieve transcendence.  But of course while you can make anything sound easy, getting the task done is a pretty monumental achievement; so much so that people who have played hundreds or thousands of rounds of NetHack can count their victories in single digits.  Even being able to call upon divine intervention from your god only gets you so far; it's something best saved for when you're in a very dire spot, as calling them too frequently or frivolously will anger them and possibly bring down their wrath upon you.

Yes, NetHack is legendary for its extreme difficulty.  In addition to cursed and unidentified items to deal with, you also have to manage your character's hunger; get hungry and you start fainting, which puts you in extreme danger; go too long without any sustenance and you die.  You start with a few rations and can occasionally find more, but for the most part you're reliant on eating slain enemies.  Only specific ones, though - eating critters like rats or bats will poison you, while undead can cause food poisoning, which is almost always fatal.  Partaking of cannibalism or eating cats or dogs will likewise aggravate all monsters in the game, making you an easier target.  The flipside is that some critters will also grant you resistances or temporary benefits like invisibility, but the only way to know is to experiment (and die a lot) or look up a spoiler list online.  Meat also spoils fairly quickly unless you store it in tins, so it's not something you can easily hoard in large quantities either.

That's just one aspect of the game's difficulty, too.  There's plenty of traps waiting to snare you, dump you to lower levels or poison you and no shortage of monsters with nasty tricks to inflict on you, like being poisoned or paralyzed or cockatrices turning you to stone or werebeasts infecting you with lycanthropy, causing you to uncontrollably morph into one of them; all of which will severely hamper you or bring your run to a quick end if you're unprepared for them.  Similarly, going around equipping items willy-nilly is a very quick way to screw yourself.  Find a nice weapon or piece of gear that seems too good to be true for the stage you're at?  Yeah, get that guy identified before you even think of putting it on.  Oh, and be sure to carry backups, because metal equipment rusts and falls apart when exposed to acid, water and other hazards.

Something else Rogue didn't really have was character classes - you just started up the game and went for it.  This is definitely not the case in NetHack - you get to pick your gender, your alignment, and, based on those, one of thirteen different classes.  Some fit into the usual Dungeons and Dragons inspired archetypes like the Knight, Priest, Monk, Rogue, Wizard and Barbarian, while others are a bit more silly.  Cavemen, for example, are not penalized for cannibalism or eating tripe rations, but have relatively weak weapon and armor options.  Archaeologists are very clearly modeled on Indiana Jones, starting with a bullwhip, leather jacket and fedora and a few convenient items.  Tourists can be considered the "joke" class of the game, as they generally have a lot of money to start but very lackluster equipment and low stats, plus shopkeepers charge them more and give them less money when they sell items.  Each class has very distinct capabilities and strategies to employ as the game progresses, so learning their quirks, advantages and disadvantages is key to success; or at least, not dying so quickly.

Each class is optionally accompanied by a starting pet ally; some (like the paladin's steed) can be ridden, while others have useful traits like detecting traps or helping you find cursed items.  They also fight alongside you and require food to stay alive, and can even change into new forms if they live long enough to gain experience.  Monsters of all sorts in the dungeon can also be tamed, charmed and controlled, which goes a surprisingly long way in keeping you alive - after all, enemies attacking them aren't attacking you.

Another thing you can turn to your advantage are shops, where you can of course sell various items, identify things and buy others to give yourself an edge.  It may also be the first roguelike with the badass shopkeeper trope - if you anger the shopkeeper by attempting to steal things, damage his goods or outright attack him, he'll go hostile, wielding his arsenal of items with lethal force (including wands that cast Death and other nasty things), or summon an enormous horde of Keystone Kops to attack you.

I've only covered some of the basic elements of NetHack's gameplay in this review, but it serves to highlight my point: there are hundreds of variables and endless possible permutations thereof, and figuring out how to deal with them is mostly down to trial-and-error and learning to utilize subtle clues, with one slip-up putting you at serious risk of death.  But that's also the game's strongest trait.  Nethack's dense and addictive design, solid sense of humor and endless replayability gave it strong appeal in 1987, and its ongoing development ensures it will continue to do so for years to come.  It may not have top-notch voice acting, movie-like cutscenes, achievements, epic music, amazing sound design or even graphics (unless you install and enable tilesets), but it's got tons of depth and timeless design, and that's enough to make it an immortal classic.

 

Developer: The NetHack DevTeam
Publisher: The NetHack DevTeam
Released: 1987+
Platforms: PC, Linux, Mac OS X, Windows CE, OS/2, Unix, BeOS, VMS, Haiku

Recommended version: They're all based on the same source code so they all play pretty much identically at their core.  I'm personally most fond of the MS-DOS build since I can run it in DOSBox on virtually anything.

Fantasian: Neo Dimension

A game met with much anticipation as it's been hinted to be their final game project, Fantasian sees Hironobu Sakaguchi return to write and produce and Nobuo Uematsu to compose the soundtrack.  But does it serve as a high note to go out on for two legendary names of the industry, or does this final fantasy just not bring the magic?

Mistwalker of course was founded by Hironobu Sakaguchi after his departure from Square Enix in 2003, and while they did produce a few decently-received games for the XBox 360 and Wii, they hadn't really done a high-profile release since 2011, mostly relegating their output to lower-stakes mobile releases.  Fantasian seemed to mark a return to form as a narrative-driven cinematic RPG reminiscent of the old Final Fantasy games, and despite being exclusive to Apple Arcade managed to amass a decent following - enough for Square Enix themselves to codevelop a port with Arzest and give it a wider release on consoles, in effect bringing Sakaguchi and Uematsu's careers full-circle.

Fantasian was also a unique turn for Mistwalker in many respects.  The game was developed in Unity, and rather than simply using CGI backgrounds they actually built dioramas and digitized photos of them for the game, giving them a more realistic yet slightly surreal touch compared to the Playstation-era Final Fantasies.  That said all the characters in the game are still CGI models, so there is a definite and slightly awkward contrast there.  The Neo Dimension port adds voiceover in both English and Japanese, and it's well done in spite of the often-clunky dialog.  The game also invokes Lost Odyssey's Memories with its amnesiac protagonist and frequent flashback scenes told in a sparse, very wordy style with scrolling text effects and voiceover, which are easily the best part of the storytelling.

In terms of design it's a fairly streamlined turn-based RPG experience, with turn-based combat, a small handful of abilities per character, and items to inflict one-off elemental damage or restore HP or MP.  A bit like Chrono Trigger is the fact that most abilities have given ranges - a radius around the cursor or a straight line - and will hit any enemies in their path.  Spells can be angled into curved shots to hit multiple enemies - a useful tactic in many battles, and particularly battles with dozens of enemies.  Exploration is also fairly standard fare, having you wander through the labyrinthine environments in search of hidden treasures, which are often locked behind chests that require specific types of single-use keys.  The sudden camera shifts, paired with the fact you keep moving in the same direction after one unless you completely take your thumb off the stick and then move again, can get a bit jarring, but there is a convenient minimap in the menu to prevent it from becoming disorienting.

Yes, dozens.  There are frequent battles where you'll fight many enemies at once.  Sometimes these are boss battles, but more often they tie into another mechanic called the Dimengion Machine.  Essentially, what this does is store up to 30 (later 40 or 50) enemies you'd normally fight in random encounters, which you can then fight in one big marathon at any time you choose; typically about 10 will be on the field at time, with enemies replacing defeated ones until you've cleared them all.  They do go surprisingly quickly with line and area-clearing skills, though, and one can even tag small crystals that appear on the field with their attacks to get temporary buffs or bonus turns.

The game is fairly basic (and very linear) for its first half, but jarringly adds many new mechanics in the second.  Suddenly you have skill points to unlock character-specific ability trees, not unlike Final Fantasy XII's license boards or Dragon Quest XI's skill panels, equipment crafting, a tension meter as a new combat mechanic that operates somewhat like a Limit Break, and the ability to swap characters mid-battle a la Final Fantasy X.  My guess is that the first half of the game (initially released standalone on Apple Arcade) was criticized for its basic design, so they added many new mechanics to the second half in an attempt to punch it up.  It would have been nice to see them be integrated a bit more smoothly into the Neo Dimension port, but they opted to keep it as originally presented.  But worse than that is that the pacing takes a nosedive, with enemies barely giving a pittance of XP and the player having to slog through fights with 40+ enemies on a frequent basis owing to the absurd encounter rate.

Fantasian, for both good and ill, resembles an early '90s era Final Fantasy game more than any other Mistwalker effort I've played - it's got a familiar but enjoyable (to a point) gameplay loop, an archetypal story with a lot of goofy dialog and contrived plot points, a visual style that blends 2D and 3D elements reminiscent of the early PS1 era, and relatively brisk pacing with enough mechanical intricacies to keep you interested for the entirety of its ~40 hour runtime.  It doesn't hold a candle to the best of the Final Fantasy games, but it is much better than Mistwalker's previous overproduced and poorly-paced fare and frequently invokes the crisp, satisfying design that made the Final Fantasy franchise a classic to begin with; something so many other lame copycats have tried and repeatedly failed to do.  I should probably mention as well that I always felt Sakaguchi role in making FF such a legendary series was heavily overstated; yes he pitched the first game, wrote the scenarios of many of its classic entries and even directed the first five, but he was never its sole creative force; he'd always worked alongside several other writers and designers to flesh out their ideas and have them meld together in a satisfying way.  VI, VII and IX - easily the most popular Final Fantasies where he served creatively - were all especially large collaborative projects, and while he was their scenario writer and producer, other big names at Square like Masato Kato, Yoshinori Kitase, Takashi Tokita, Hirohiko Ito, Tetsuya Takahashi, Tetsuya Nomura and of course Nobuo Uematsu also played major roles in giving them their identities.  Sakaguchi can certainly make a project come together, but without all those other big talents there to help putty up the cracks, the shortcomings in his writing and design become all the more prominent; they've only become more obvious with the rise of so many other other fantastic talents in the field since his heyday too. Fantasian has some hints of old Final Fantasy's ingenuity, but they're sandwiched between a lot of baffling design decisions and some really bad character dialog and plot points.  As a possible capstone to two legendary gaming careers, it's better than Sakaguchi's last couple efforts, but still leaves much to be desired.

 

Developer: Mistwalker, Console ports by Square Enix/Arzest

Publisher: Mistwalker, Console ports by Square Enix

Released: 2021, 2024

Platforms: iOS, macOS, tvOS, Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, XBox Series

Recommended Version:  Neo Fantasian, in addition to the upgraded presentation, adds many balance tweaks, a difficulty select and the option to utilize the battle themes from numerous Final Fantasy titles.

Dragon Quest III: HD-2D Remake

Dragon Quest III is easily one of the most beloved Japanese RPGs of all time, and has accordingly gotten numerous updates, ports and remakes over the years.  HD-2D Remake is the latest iteration of the legendary title, giving it not just a visual upgrade, but adding in plenty of new content so that long-time players will have new sights to see.  But is this yet another worthy iteration of a legendary title, or is this remake more of an unmaking?

Dragon Quest III, even among western gamers, is regarded as one of the best 8-bit RPGs ever crafted.  With a captivating story, an enormous world to explore and working in a bit of Final Fantasy style custom party building, it has a lot to offer for any genre fan.  It's also one of the most rereleased games in the series, seeing iterations on Super Famicom, Game Boy Color, Wii, 3DS, numerous mobile ports, and even a prior release on the Wii (based on one of said mobile ports), and it's continued to sell well across all of them.

HD-2D Remake is of course yet another iteration, codeveloped by Artdink (who also worked on Triangle Strategy) and updated to use Square Enix's trademark "HD-2D" style - 2D sprites on 3D-rendered backdrops.  I've been pretty critical of it in the past as being overdesigned and honestly pretty ugly (though they did manage to make it look mostly decent in Live a Live's remake).  For my money, though, Dragon Quest III is the best looking game to use the style so far; there's no too-close blurring filters or harsh lighting covering up the beautiful spritework, and the 3D backdrops don't have massive pixels the size of dinner plates that just end up being enormously distracting.  Even the little details like birds flying off as you approach, each character visibly wielding whatever weapon they have equipped on the battle screen and the hero's shadow being off to one side in dungeons (as they carry the lantern in their right hand) are immaculate.  The music (composed by the late Koichi Sugiyama) is now given an orchestral remix and continues to sound fantastic, lending an epic feel to the whole journey.

The game works in many elements of later Dragon Quest games, as well as most of the later iterations of Dragon Quest III itself.  One such addition is the Personality system; as the game opens, you're asked a series of questions that determine your character's Personality, which gives bonuses and penalties to their stats (a bit reminiscent of the Virtue quiz from the Ultima franchise).  Recruited characters likewise have randomized personalities when created.  One can find books along the way to permanently change a character's Personality to another, or temporarily change it by equipping them with certain accessories.  A new element to this version is the fact that you have two accessory slots, and only items equipped to the Primary slot will affect a Personality change; equipping it to the secondary slot just gives any stat bonuses and ignores the Personality swap (unless it's a cursed item, which will always cause the change until the item is removed).  Stats are also reworked and rebalanced now, with Wisdom actively increasing the power of your spells and Luck now factoring into critical hit and random drop chances rather than just granting a miniscule chance to avoid status effects, so finding a particular Personality to match your character's abilities is now a more careful balancing act.

Another addition are two new classes. Thieves were seen in most of the prior remakes and mostly serve as speedy party members who inflict statuses and cause more frequent random drops from foes.  New to HD-2D (but not the series as a whole) is the Monster Wrangler - a class that learns new skills as you find friendly monsters, and indeed has a skill to tell you if such monsters can be found in (or near) the current area.  They have average-to-mediocre stats across the board, but also gain an early party-heal skill and can equip whips and boomerangs, making them a relatively versatile class. Some of their later skills are very powerful, like Boulder Toss (hits all enemies for physical damage) and Wild Side, which effectively gives them two attacks per turn.  Other classes like the Fighter  and Martial Artist likewise have MP and Skills added from later entries in the franchise, letting them use signature moves like Flying Knee or Leg Sweep to give them more combat options.

Friendly monsters lend themselves to another new element to this game (though again, not the series as a whole), the Monster Arena.  In the original game it was largely just a game of chance that one could earn money from; that's still true to a degree here, but it's been significantly expanded and now resembles the one from Dragon Quest VIII, letting the player choose a team of three monsters to fight for them and awarding prize bundles should they manage to win a series of matches.  The player can give them vague commands, but not take direct control of them, so while there is an element of strategy to it, there's also still a large component of luck.  Still, the prize packages are quite nice and can give you a pretty big advantage if you win them as they come, so it's a worthwhile endeavor.  As mentioned, the Monster Wrangler's unique skill can help you to locate recruitable monsters, but talking to NPCs will often give useful hints as well.

Exploration has been made a larger component of the game in general, too.  The map is now much larger to traverse and it's now dotted with plenty of small hidden areas to explore, often containing treasures, recruitable monsters and NPCs that give various clues (as well as the occasional important item like a Mini-Medal).  Numerous "sparkly spots" (as the game's achievement tracker calls them) appear too, giving you a small cache of items and equipment each time you find one, and a trophy for finding at least 100 of them.  There are several instances where one is visible but not reachable until much later in the game, though, so you'll have to do a fair amount of exploring and backtracking if you want to collect them all.

Many newer RPG features are added.  One is that you can transfer characters between saves, which works as a somewhat limited New Game Plus as you can only transfer one character per file; however, they will retain all of their experience, stats and any equipment you give them, though they cannot gain more experience or transfer their equipment to other characters.  Another addition is the Memory system, which lets you 'record' up to 30 NPC lines for later reference so you can keep track of important clues you want to investigate, and an optional map pointer leading you to your next objective.  There are also three difficulty settings now; "Dracky Quest" is effectively a story mode; your party cannot die and you deal more damage. "Dragon Quest" (normal difficulty) is the standard setting for DQ3 - fairly leisurely to start, but it ramps up quite a bit in difficulty as the game progresses.  Draconian Quest is a much tougher challenge, with tougher enemies that give much less experience and gold, your party inflicting less damage per hit and bosses regenerating health every turn, making it much more difficult than even the original NES release.  There is of course also a preorder bonus, giving you a few in-game items available from the start in the form of a few stat-boosting Seeds and some Elevating Shoes.  The latter are a mostly-useless endgame accessory that give 1 XP per step taken in hostile areas, but getting them at the start of the game does allow you to gain a few of your starting levels much more quickly, finally giving them some merit.

HD-2D remake may be yet another iteration of a game that's approaching four decades old, but I dare say it's easily its best one yet, keeping everything that made the original great while adding plenty of new content, tweaking some of its annoying quirks and of course giving it a gorgeous presentation, finally proving that HD-2D style to be a worthy one.  There's enough here to satisfy modern RPG die-hards as well as long-time franchise fans who have already played through the game multiple times, and of course Dragon Quest itself's immaculate level of polish and simple, yet captivating design returns in full force here.  A classic that only got better.

 

Developer: Square Enix, ArtDink

Publisher: Square Enix

Released: 2024

Platforms: PS5, XBox Series, PC, Switch

Recommended Version:  I have only personally played the PS5 version but they all seem to be more or less identical.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

Continuing the Castlevania franchise's very successful outing on portable platforms, Portrait of Ruin once again serves as a direct followup to an earlier game in the franchise - in this case, the Sega Genesis outing Castlevania: Bloodlines.  But does its new two-character gameplay and a heightened focus on puzzles and sidequests add to the experience, or does the Portrait get ruined by its own ambitions?

The "Metroidvania" style Castlevania games were of course quite popular on the GBA, so when Nintendo's new handheld system rolled around it wasn't long before they began to appear on that platform too.  The first, Dawn of Sorrow, was a direct sequel to Aria of Sorrow, utilizing similar gameplay with a couple new features mapped to the face buttons (being able to swap between two soul and equipment sets on the fly being the notable one) and some touchscreen gimmicks added; most annoyingly requiring you to quickly draw out a seal on the bottom screen or the bosses would regenerate a big chunk of health and continue the fight - a pretty annoying thing when the battles were already pretty difficult to begin with and fumbling with a stylus while focusing on dodging and attacking got to be pretty frustrating.

Portrait of Ruin thankfully largely exhumes the touch screen gimmicks (only utilizing them in a couple of bonus game modes) and instead builds on the idea of having multiple movesets, though this time it's in the form of two separate characters to control.  Jonathan is the more archetypal Castlevania protagonist, utilizing various melee weapons and sub-weapons like throwing daggers, axes and boomerangs (as well as temporary stat-boosting "stances"), while Charlotte is more of a mage-type character, with a weaker primary attack and generally lower physical stats, but with the ability to cast spells that can really lay on the damage (and be charged up for greater effect).  Not all of her spells are offensive, though - some can also heal, cure status effects, buff your characters' stats temporarily or even morph them into different forms.  Both characters share experience levels and the same health and magic meters, but have separate stats and equipment pages, with many items usable by one character but not the other.  Jonathan's subweapons gain SP when enemies are defeated with them, getting a power upgrade when you earn enough points.  These can be a bit grindy if you want full completion, but most players can get by just picking one or two that they like and focusing on using those.  Ironically I found the Shuriken to be one of the most useful sub-weapons despite it being among the quickest to master.

As in some earlier Castlevania titles, you can swap between Jonathan and Charlotte on the fly by pressing the X button, letting you adapt your strategies to traverse certain obstacles or deal with enemies a particular character is more suited to.  However, Portrait of Ruin expands on the concept by giving you a variety of ways to utilize both characters in tandem.  You can call out your partner briefly for one quick attack with the R button, or press A to have both characters active at once - generally to solve various puzzles by having them do things like stand in one spot to activate a switch, help push a heavy object or jump off their shoulders to reach a high ledge.  Pressing Up + A also does a team-up attack that generally drains a large chunk of your magic gauge and roots you to the spot while it's active, but can deal heavy damage when timed well.  While both characters are out only the one you're actively controlling takes damage, though if the other is hit they'll deplete some of your magic gauge instead; if the magic gauge hits 0 they'll be stunned for several seconds, locking you out of any ability to swap out or use any special or team-up moves until they recover.

Shops return once more so you can buy new equipment or potions for the boss battles, but new to this game are sidequests.  These are given to you throughout the game by the "Wind", and are rather bizarrely referred to in the menu as "studies" (and the act of working toward completing one is "studying").  Most of these are optional (you must do the first one to progress as it unlocks a key move), but they are are worth doing because they earn you powerful equipment, items or new skills.

Something else relatively new to the series is that there are multiple areas to explore now; not just one huge map.  Portraits serve as portals to sub-areas, giving the game a wider variety of locales than just "another big labyrinthine castle".  There's nine of them in total, ranging from a twisted circus to an Egyptian pyramid to a medieval village with numerous houses and shops.  Something slightly confusing is that rather than giving each map its own completion percentage, it simply accumulates them all together on the menu; so by the time I was most of the way through my first Portrait the completion counter was over 100% and kept going up as I continued in the game.  It tops out at 1000 once you've explored all ten maps, though you'll have to return to some areas to get items that aren't accessible the first time through, so backtracking is a definite requirement if you want full completion.

Portrait of Ruin is a game I didn't really pay much mind when it released, but giving it another shot on the Dominus collection made me realize I was missing out on something great.  It's a solidly designed game, and unlike Dawn of Sorrow, the new gimmick actually complements the gameplay quite well - swapping between two characters and tactically teaming up to take down foes and get past obstacles is surprisingly fun and intuitive.  The series of course maintains its usual high standards for visuals and music too, with the dark yet fun atmosphere of Castlevania fully represented even in the strange new locales you visit.  Even the voicework is surprisingly good, and of high quality for the DS.  Koji Igarashi strikes gold once again.

 

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Released: 2006

Platforms: Nintendo DS.  Also rereleased as part of the Castlevania Dominus Collection for PS4, XBox Series, PC and Switch.

Recommended Version:  The Dominus Collection port is an emulation of the DS game, with right-stick (or touchpad) emulation for the touch screen features.

Metaphor ReCraptastico

Normally I open these reviews with some kind of rhetorical question about the game and then give my opinion out in pieces over the course of several paragraphs, but this time I can't be bothered to even entertain the idea there's anything redeemable about this dungheap.  To be blunt, Metaphor is everything I despised about Persona 5 again, now with the added insufferability of a director so high on the success Sega bought him that he thinks he's a virtuoso who's beyond all reproach.  This is just another terrible retread of the modern Persona formula, now with even more obnoxious, overblown visual effects and word bubbles in 35 different fonts constantly popping up on screen coupled with some of the worst writing I've ever seen in any medium, let alone video games.  The dialog feels nothing like real conversation and entirely like one stupid teenager arguing with their sock accounts on Reddit; every character speaks with the exact same rapid-fire cadence and pattern, and every line is overwritten to cram in as many clichéd turns of phrase and snarky quips and glib one-liners as possible in some desperate attempt to sound clever.  Well, it's to cleverness what using a thesaurus 30 times in a tweet is to looking educated - phony as hell and doesn't fool anyone.  All the story's villains do heinous things without any hesitation and proudly spell out their evil ethos for you in plain, unambiguous language, because none of Katsura Hashino's antagonists ever have any nuance or humanity whatsoever; they're just straw men for him and other armchair revolutionaries to point at and say "Sure I never do anything that isn't manipulative or self-serving, but I'm not as bad as THESE guys so therefore I'm a good person, now worship me!". Likewise, there isn't a single scene in the game that shows any genuine wisdom, insight or plan of action regarding the social topics it's spotlighting, just empty virtue signaling and rah-rah hatemongering.  No thought is ever spared for how violence and vengeance just beget more of the same, or how innocent people suffer the most when giant egos in positions of power clash, or how taking one bad person out of the equation doesn't solve systemic problems or prejudices; nope, everything gets wrapped up quickly and cleanly and everyone immediately bands together to sing Kumbaya once you go punch the latest smirky straw man baddie around a bit and make smarmy one-liners all the while you're doing it.  This isn't storytelling, it's just Hashino transcribing all the loaded self-arguments and witty banter and juvenile power fantasies going through his own head every minute of every day so he can show off how smart he thinks he is and how shallow and amoral he thinks everyone else is.  Forget being insulting, he's actively scornful of his audience's intelligence; rather than letting you intuit anything through subtext or even context, the game constantly shows you a thing, then a character explains the thing to you in simple words, then another character (or two, or three) has to tell all it to you again five seconds later just to make sure you get it.  Seriously every other scene goes exactly like this:

Game shows the player a map

DIPSHIT FAIRY: This is a map!  Boy it's a well made map!  You know what a map is, right Main Character?
OTHER GUY: This map will show us to our destination!
YET ANOTHER GUY: Our destination is here!  Click the location on the map to lead us there, Main Character!

This is an M-rated video game, not Dora the Explorer.  Actually I take that back, it's demeaning to Dora; at least the characters on that show act like real people and not charismaless Beetlejuices.  This is a Sonichu comic with a budget.  There, that's a better analogy.

Metaphor, much like Persona 5 (and Sonichu) wasn't made because it had a poignant or personal story to tell, anything intelligent to say or to showcase any fresh, interesting or poignant ideas; instead it's just another soapbox for its writer to bellow about how cool and intelligent and heroic they are and hear it back on command from their imaginary friends. And of course anyone who criticizes him, his terrible writing or his childish, oversimplified worldview is just another irredeemable hate-fueled scumbag who needs to be destroyed at a future date.  People like this have never once led by example and never will, they just earnestly believe they're the first to ever come up with such amazing concepts as "equality" and "social justice" and expect their fans do all the hard work to make them a reality while they get rich and famous making shitty derivative art about it once every few years. Don't think Hashino's fanboys/enablers will ever practice his preaching either; all they ever do is emulate him and become more reality-detached idea guys who conflate talking about a thing on the internet (or doing it in a video game) with actually doing it.  He's twisted Persona - once a brilliant and poignant franchise about being true to yourself and finding value in your life, friendships and humanity despite their inherent flaws - into nothing but narcissistic ego-feeding, and the fact that Sega has the gall to charge you $70 for the privilege of sitting through 100+ hours of this smarmy bullshit again is just plain insulting.  Fuck that; if I want to watch assholes present their self-serving holier-than-thou blather as virtue I can go on Youtube anytime I want and get my fill for free.

Oh and you can spare the lame ad hominem argument about how I just hate this game for 'being woke' or whatever; I'm about as left-wing as you can get.  I've also consumed plenty of media that espouses leftist views and given many of them positive appraisals, because they did so in an intelligent, empathetic and sincere way.  I just hate when corporate toadies like Hashino oversimplify and exploit the current political climate and coat it in a thin veneer of art so they can score brownie points with idiots who think virtue is measured in arbitrary stat meters and social media Likes.  Hell, Hashino doesn't even believe in the 'movement' he's hyping up; it's all just part of a grand scheme to build a bigger pre-installed audience for his next game and reap more praise for himself and profits for the rich conservatives that hold Sega stock who, surprise, don't believe in it either.  Any positive actions or instances of hate-fueled harassment his works inspire are completely incidental to his own self-dealing, and there's about 500,000 times more of one than the other (I'll give you a hint: the good one ain't winning).  So instead of spending $70 to watch someone masturbate to the sound of his own voice, why not donate some of that money to MSF instead.  Or buy something made by an indie dev or musician or artist who would kill for a tiny fraction of the revenue this garbage will generate.  Or hell, even drop a few dollars in someone's GoFundMe with no expectation of anything back.  Doing one legitimate good deed, no matter how small, makes you a better person than winning by default against your imaginary straw men any day.  Sure as hell beats giving time and money to some pompous prick just to have him insult your intelligence in return, too.

Screenshot removed because looking at this game gives me a migraine

Developer: Atlus Studio Zero
Publisher: Sega
Released: 2024
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, XBox Series

PS: if you want to give the impression that your game's really 'progressive' and 'woke' maybe don't describe your idealized utopia using phrases that sound like fascist slogans; like, say, "one united tribe".  Or have a guy whose previous games contain homophobic and transphobic prejudice he's never apologized for deliver your message about unity, tolerance and caring for others. Just sayin'...