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.

Star Control II: the Ur-Quan Masters

A followup to the moderately successful 2D space strategy sim, Star Control 2 takes things in a much different direction.  Drawing heavy inspiration from Starflight, there is now a much greater focus on storytelling, resource gathering and following a trail of clues to defeat a powerful enemy.  But does this blend of simplistic, arcadey combat and complex storytelling work out for the best, or does it get lost among the other stars of early '90s gaming?

The original Star Control was a modestly successful game in its time; with gameplay encompassing a blend of strategic board control and arcade action, it worked both as a single player experience and as a two player head-to-head combat game, earning a following both on computers and from a Sega Genesis port produced by Ballistic.  There was an overarching story about a war between two factions - the Alliance of Free Stars and the oppressive Ur-Quan Empire - though it was mostly told in text blurbs at the start of each campaign and had little bearing on the gameplay save for determining what types of ships each side utilized.  Combat was inspired by one of the very first video games ever made - 1962's Spacewar! - and featured one-on-one top-down duels between two ships, with varying specs and weapons depending on the type of ship.

Star Control 2 retains the top-down combat in both single and multiplayer mode (called "Super Melee!"), but the rest of the game is completely reworked into a narrative experience.  After the Alliance canonically loses the war in the first game, the people of Earth are permanently imprisoned by a "Slave Shield" that encircles the entire planet.  The player, captain of a skeletal ship from a long-lost alien race called the Precursors, was stranded during the final leg of the war and thus was not imprisoned with the rest of humanity.  Aided by the crew of a space station orbiting Earth, they begin a journey to seek out other alien races, build a resistance force to the Ur-Quan and eventually reclaim their freedom.

Building on that, you start off with just your skeletal Precursor ship (and should it be destroyed at any time, it's an immediate Game Over) and a single Earthling Cruiser.  However, you have the option to build more Cruisers at the space station, and as you interact with and befriend other alien races, more options become available.  From the cowardly Spathi (whose Eluders are weak, but relatively durable and extremely fast) to the Pkunk Fury (with a short-ranged minigun and random ability to resurrect from death) to Arilou Skiffs (which can teleport and move independently of inertia), there are numerous options.  Enemy ships are equally varied, of course, and picking the correct ship type to counter their strengths is invariably a good idea.  Each ship has up to two weapons and runs off a slowly-recharging energy supply to ensure that you pick your shots carefully rather than just firing wildly.  If you're severely outmatched you can also press Escape to flee from battle, though you are left vulnerable for several seconds while the escape drive activates, so it's best saved as a last resort.

As in earlier games like Starflight and Elite, you won't get too far on a basic ship and little backup, so you'll need to purchase a boatload of upgrades to give yourself a fighting chance.  Crewmen also effectively serve as your ships' hit points and (of course) do not regenerate on their own, so you'll have to purchase quite a few replacements over the course of the game.  This is primarily accomplished through exploration - visiting other star systems and planets in search of raw materials you can trade in for Resource Units (abbreviated as RUs), which in turn can be spent to buy upgrade modules.  Resources are color-coded by value, ranging from common (cyan) materials worth only 1 RU apiece all the way up to radioactives (orange) being worth 8.  Scarcer still are "Exotics", colored purple, which are worth a whopping 25 apiece, but are very hard to come by outside of rare Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald planets.  Planetary surfaces come with their own array of hazards - violent storms, earthquakes and waves of fire on particularly hot planets, as well as wildlife that can damage you on contact and potentially destroy your landers.  Stunning wildlife with your landers' beams allows you to collect data icons, which indirectly serve as a secondary resource - by trading it to another race called the Melnorme, you earn Credits to purchase useful clues for your journey and an array of useful upgrade modules for your ship and your landers.  From making your landers more resistant to planetary hazards to more efficient fuel tanks to stronger weapons, they all prove quite useful, though the order you get them in is fixed and they cost quite a few Credits apiece.  The Melnorme also pay highly for the location of "Rainbow Worlds", of which there are only a scant few in the entire game, so those are well worth seeking out once you have the means.  Finally, they're a much cheaper source of fuel than your starbase (1 Credit per unit as opposed to 20 RUs), so they're invaluable for refueling your ship, especially when you're far from Sol.

Of course, the meat of the game is finding and interacting with other alien races; not just to add more combat ships to your repertoire, but they'll often give vital clues in the form of planets with valuable deposits or point you in the direction of other helpful races.  Of course, help rarely comes for free - you'll often have to complete some quest or another to convince other races to aid you in the fight, and at times you'll even have to get creative - coercion is a perfectly valid tactic.  The dialog throughout all of these encounters is incredibly inspired and often downright hilarious, succeeding in bringing the universe of Star Control to life and getting you raveled in its lore while rarely regressing into stretches of empty exposition.  Even without the 3DO version's voice acting, they still manage to add some personality to each individual race by having them all speak in different fonts.  Solid proof that a well-written narrative does leagues more to keep you enthralled in a game than any amount of empty filler missions could.

Despite being over thirty years old at this point, Star Control 2 remains a highly regarded game among fans of both science fiction and PC gaming.   There's little doubt to why after you play it for only a short while - with its relatively simple interface and combat but engrossing story, sharply written dialog, a massive universe to explore and countless secrets to uncover and mysteries to solve, a it's downright addictive experience.  It proved to be a big inspiration among industry names too, with developers on high profile titles like Fallout, Mass Effect and Stellaris citing it as a major influence.  Since it's also been made open-source and fan-ported to numerous platforms (with the title trimmed to just "The Ur-Quan Masters" owing to copyright concerns) and can be freely downloaded and played natively in Windows with the benefits of controller support and enhanced music from the 3DO port, there's little reason not to at least give it a chance.

Developer: Toys for Bob
Publisher: Accolade

Released: 1992

Platforms: MS-DOS, 3DO, PC

Recommended Version: As mentioned above the 3DO version of the game had its source code released in 2002, allowing for freely-available enhanced ports to numerous platforms under variants of the title "the Ur-Quan Masters".  These include HD graphics, native Xinput support and numerous gameplay extensions, as well as implementing the voice acting and enhanced music from the 3DO version.  Check out the vanilla version at this Sourceforge site, or the Ultronomicon Wiki for other versions of the Ur-Quan masters (including an HD remaster).

Super Mario RPG (2023)

After nearly three decades of fans demanding a proper continuation for Super Mario RPG, Nintendo made an ambush announcement in 2023 that a remake was being made and that it would release before the end of the year.  Sure enough it did, and it was a quality job, appeasing fans of the original and ensuring it would win over many new ones to boot.  The game adds a few  new features and some tweaks to the core design but is very faithful to the original overall, even retaining most of the silly animations and jokes from the original.  Additions include some new fully-animated cutscenes, a couple new battle mechanics in the form of the Action Gauge and Triple Moves, Combos that grant cumulative bonuses for successful timed attacks and blocks, "special" enemies that are tougher than their normal counterparts but drop Frog Coins when defeated (making them considerably less tedious to farm), and quite a bit of new postgame content to provide new challenges to seasoned players.  The Action Gauge gradually builds as you go through battle, and once it's full you can unleash a Triple Attack - a flashy animation that does heavy damage and has unique animations and effects depending on who is in the current party.  Perfectly timed attacks will also gain added effects (such as normal attacks also dealing light damage to non-targeted enemies), while perfectly timed blocks completely negate damage.  The game now also shows little meters and indicators for most of the special move minigames that lacked them before, and timing seems to be a bit more forgiving overall, making it easier to hit goals like the 100-jump challenge.  True to the original but with plenty of flair of its own, ArtePiazza outdoes themselves again with another excellent remake of an RPG classic.

Developer: ArtePiazza
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: 2023
Platforms: Switch

Sea of Stars

A game which makes no secret of its inspirations by a company who already has one acclaimed retro-style game under their belt, Sea of Stars has been heavily compared to mid-90s RPGs like Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG.  But does it prove to be a legendary title like those games, or is this just another soon-to-be-forgotten game that mimics the visuals of the era and little else?

As tech in the world of games has gotten more and more focused on graphics and making huge, sprawling and beautiful but mostly empty worlds with only the barest basics of gameplay, there has been an increasing demand for games to go back to earlier times with "worse" graphics, shorter lengths, but retaining the polished design, quality writing and creative spark that made many older gamers fans of the medium in the first place.  

Naturally, many developers (mostly small indie studios) have answered the call, making their own "NES styled" or "SNES styled" or "classic styled" games to get a piece of that demand; sometimes quite successfully.  Personally I'm especially critical of games that mimic an 8 or 16 bit style of design, especially RPGs; the overwhelming majority of the time, studios just use that style as an easy in-road to peoples wallets while serving up an otherwise mediocre and uninteresting experience, their developers having no concern for the fact that retro games are almost universally remembered because they were cutting edge for their time, not because they looked and sounded a certain way but had no real substance beneath the hood.  Hell, when games from the '80s like Solomon's Key, Castlevania II, Montezuma's Revenge and Goonies II have leagues more depth than games of similar aesthetic made in the 2010's, there's some serious values disparity going on there.  But hey, if it looks the part and it sells enough copies to break even based just on that, who cares, right?

Obviously there are outliers to any rule, and I think Sea of Stars is an excellent example of one.  When Sabotage Studio makes a game patterned after classic titles, it's because they love them and want to share their magic with a younger generation.  Not just because they want a bigger install base, but because they want a new generation to share in the best of retro gaming's timeless charm, immaculate design and sense of fun. Case in point, while Sea of Stars has an overall similar aesthetic to Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana, some earnest dialog and self-aware humor reminiscent of games like Earthbound, and turn-based minigame-driven combat not dissimilar to Mario RPG, it blends in enough of its own elements to not feel overly derivative of any of them.

The exploration element in the game is also distinctly fresh, putting heavy focus on traversing the environment via handholds, narrow ledges and hopping over gaps and up and down small ledges, so dungeons have quite a bit more going on than just being the typical RPG "empty corridor full of monsters".  They also have a heavy focus on Wild Arms-styled puzzles, as well as ones involving your protagonists' abilities to unlock hidden secrets by manipulating the time of day.  These can get a bit drawn-out at times, but I never became overly annoyed by them owing to the brisk pacing and lack of random encounters; enemies appear in pre-determined places on each map and they do not respawn unless you completely leave the area and return.

Combat similarly draws elements from its inspirations - Chrono Trigger's three-party system with enemy placement and special move effectiveness varying from battle to battle - but also works in timing minigames for attacks, blocks and special moves similar to Mario RPG.  It's definitely not a 1:1 copycat of either, though, mixing in several elements of its own.  For one, characters can act in any order on your turn, but only once per round, which becomes important when enemies start charging special moves.  While they do this, 2-4 icons (termed "locks") will be displayed over them, and hitting them with attack types depicted on those icons will break locks, weakening the incoming attack or, if all of them are broken before their turn occurs, will stop it completely.

The game also encourages you to use skills and special abilities liberally, rather than conserving them for larger battles.  Your characters have relatively small MP pools (and they only grow a small amount with each level), with your skills able to cost easily half or more of your reserves.  Your normal attacks restore MP when they land, though, so you can use them fairly often without having to rely too heavily on restorative items.  Landing hits and breaking locks also fills up your Combo meter, which fuels more powerful moves involving two or three characters - not unlike the combination techniques in Chrono Trigger.  Stored combo meter also does not carry over between battles, so it's worth using them whenever you get a chance to.  Finally, landing blows on enemies with normal attacks causes them to drop orbs; holding down Right Trigger will cause your currently controlled character to gather them up and unleash a stronger, elemental-charged attack; this can be done up to three times in a single turn for an especially powerful blow.  Having a character be KOed in battle also isn't as big a deal as in some games - they will recover 50% HP on their own after a set number of turns (starting at two and increasing each time they're downed), though if all three characters are down at once the game is over.  If nothing else, a nice alternative to many of the Final Fantasy games where reviving allies mid-battle is an annoying ordeal of using a Phoenix Down on them, then watching as they get hit and KOed again right away.

Sea of Stars puts much emphasis on its cooking system, which is your primary means of healing during battle.  You gather various ingredients throughout the dungeon areas, as well as from fishing holes on the map (complete with a Breath of Fire-esque minigame).  Whenever you reach a campfire you can cook up food items to restore HP, MP or both to one person or your whole team, and it's best to weigh your options carefully as you can only carry up to ten meals at a time.

On a writing front, Sea of Stars is refreshingly modest - a wonderful change of pace from countless other modern RPGs that want so badly to present their writers as highly-cultured visionaries with messages too important to ignore, but who are just too full of themselves to pull it off.  Its world and storytelling is pretty formulaic RPG fare, but it makes it work by giving every location a distinct feel and adding some new elements to the traversal mechanics, so even getting around them rarely feels monotonous.  The characters are genuinely human - relatable, fallible and with strong chemistry between them, so it feels all the more impactful when the twists come around and lives get shaken up.  The sense of humor is admittedly cheesy (particularly the pirates who constantly rag on clichéd plot points from other games), but it never becomes overly irritating.  The world lore is conveyed in a clever way too - by finding various artifacts as you traverse the world, you can then have various legends read out during the game's campfire segments - several end up playing into story events later, with others just being there for fun.

In short, Sea of Stars is a game that, while clearly inspired by the classics, is anything but a cheap knockoff.  Its inspirations are apparent if you're familiar with that era of role playing games, but it brings plenty of its own twists to the overall design and gameplay to keep it fresh.  The charming characters, modest writing, brisk pacing, gorgeous 2D animation (with some modern touches like dynamic lighting) and wonderful music (with a few tracks contributed by the legendary Yasunori Mitsuda) make it not just a memorable tribute to 90s-style JRPGs, but a fine one in its own right.  It's a true rarity - a game made by people who invoke the classics because they genuinely love them and know what makes them work, not because they want to use that connection as an easy inroad to being put on a pedestal and worshipped.  It admittedly does have a few balance issues and it runs out of steam toward the end, with combat becoming overly easy and the best ending locked behind doing basically every little sidequest in the game (which involves tracking down numerous hidden items and completing basically every side-mission in the game), but I nevertheless had a lot of fun with Sea of Stars.  I certainly hope it inspires other indie devs to bring a high degree of polish, innovate and set new standards in the way their old favorites did, too.

Developer: Sabotage Studio
Publisher: Sabotage Studio
Released: 2023
Platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Switch

Recommended Version: All versions seem to be identical as far as I can tell.

Valkyria Chronicles 4

Valkyria Chronicles was a slow-burn success for Sega on the Playstation 3 and a big hit again when it got a remastered release on Steam, but its later entries were not as well received for a variety of reasons.  Valkyria Chronicles 4 was released nearly a decade after the original game, but does it reignite the Valkyria's flame, or does this sequel also fizzle out?

Valkyria Chronicles was a definite fan favorite on the Playstation 3 and also famously became the top-selling game on Steam the week it launched there (surpassing other major IPs like Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed), leaving fans yearning for a worthy sequel for quite a long time.  It took almost a decade to happen, though, with a lackluster PSP sequel (with ill-thought-out reworked mechanics) proving a pretty big disappointment and the third game never getting localized at all.  Then came Valkyria Revolution; a spinoff title set in an alternate history which, while having an interesting premise, was too much of a jumble of gameplay elements to be much fun.

Valkyria Chronicles 4 was the first proper HD entry for the franchise, and thankfully, it also proved to be a return to form in its core gameplay.  The awkward split class system from 2, as well as the superfluous ArmoredTech class, are gone, snipers are back, and the balance overall has been significantly refined - Scouts no longer dominate 90% of the game, and obtaining A ranks on most missions requires far less painstaking perfection in movement and AP use (and generally allows you a turn or two to spare - a good thing as the maps are much larger and more complex in 4).  Your tank is also substantially more useful, only requiring 1 AP to move instead of 2.

A few new tweaks are added to the gameplay, that said.  One is the inclusion of an entirely new class called the Grenadier - they fire mortars with extremely long range (aided by allies' line-of-sight), which can deal heavy damage to soldiers and even provide interception fire over that same long distance.  However, they are hampered by having no short range attack, overall low movement range and having to stop and set up their mortar before they can fire it, which takes several seconds and leaves them open to attack while they do so; in short, you want to keep them well away from enemy fire or they'll get taken out easily.

Other balance tweaks are evident right away too.  Scouts once again have impressive move range, though their overall low durability and mediocre damage and accuracy ensures they're relegated to more of a sneak-attack and scouting role than a proper combatant (or sneaking in to capture unguarded bases).  Snipers and Lancers can actually hit things pretty consistently now without having to train them up at least a dozen levels first.  Engineers can also unlock a "Revival Ragnaid" to revive a downed ally and get them back in action right away, which is quite handy in later missions.

A major problem in the first game (again going back to Scouts being so overpowered) was that units with low move range would get left behind.  Valkyria 4 mitigates that somewhat with two new additions.  One is an APC vehicle that can load up to two infantry units and deploy them elsewhere; it's less well-armored than a tank, though, so while it can take a significant amount of small arms fire, Lancers, Grenadiers and Tanks are a major threat to it.  Another is that, once per turn, a squad leader can use the "Direct Command" ability to order up to two other infantry units to follow them; they will stay behind the leader even if they have a much shorter movement range than them normally, and can still move their full normal range afterward if they wish.  So, for example, it is possible to have a Scout lead a Lancer through a safe route to get behind a tank, at which point they can use their own move to get off a kill-shot and retreat to cover.

Another changeup is the Morale system.  When a unit's morale is high enough (usually after landing a kill), they'll get a boost to their stats that lasts for the rest of the round, or until they take another turn.  This ties into another new mechanic called the Brave System - when a unit is downed by enemy fire, there's a chance they'll get the option to take a Brave action.  They can Inspire an ally to instantly put them in high Morale status (as well as restoring 1 AP to your total), or choose to Stand Up, which restores their movement meter and makes them immune to all damage until they take their attack, at which point they will be downed as normal.  If downed on the enemy's turn they may also get off one final Counterattack before being put in downed status, potentially taking down their attacker too.  These effects have a low chance of occurring so it's not something you can rely on, but it's a nice bonus when it does happen.

As in the previous game, all of your units are relatively unique, with differing stats and Potentials (both positive and negative) that come into play on the battlefield.  Some sidequests can turn negative Potentials into powerful positive ones, though, so they're worth doing if you plan on using certain characters.  As in the first game you also have several paths for weapon upgrades to take, as well as special ones awarded for achieving certain ranks in missions or downing enemy Aces.  Grenadiers in particular benefit from this, as you can fit them with mortars better suited to taking down armored targets or infantry depending on the mission.  All units can now equip one accessory too, giving them a small bonus to their stats that can help offset some of their innate weaknesses or boost their strengths.

So, was Valkyria Chronicles 4 a successful return for the franchise?  I'd definitely say so.  It takes everything that made the original great - its storytelling, memorable cast of characters and inventive gameplay - and changes it for the better.  The gameplay is drastically rebalanced and substantially more tactical, missions are grander in scale and consistently throw new challenges your way, and the story is a gripping tale of a desperate struggle against an empire, with no shortage of tense moments and some very inspired character writing.  Not just another great wartime epic, but I dare say the best Valkyria Chronicles game to date.  Now if only we could get some Kiwami-style high quality remakes of 2 and 3...

Developer: Sega, Media.Vision
Publisher: Sega
Released: 2018, 2020, 2021
Platforms: Playstation 4, Switch, PC, XBox One, Stadia, Amazon Luna

Recommended Version: All versions are pretty much identical as far as I can tell.

Baldur's Gate III (Review #300!)

Can you believe I've been doing this for six and a half years now?  Neither can I.  Ah well.  For my 300th Full Review it's time to look at a revival of a classic CRPG franchise.

A beloved PC RPG classic, Baldur's Gate fell off the map for a long time as Interplay went bust, only recently coming back to prominence with some Enhanced Editions and, later on, being revived under a different company's banner; not unlike the similarly-beloved Fallout series.  But does Baldur's Gate III prove to be a worthwhile return for the franchise despite the major change, or is this just one comeback that never should have happened?

The early 2000's was definitely a tumultuous time for western RPGs; Interplay's closure meant that Fallout - regarded as a savior for the genre by many - would go dormant for nearly a decade, controversially being revived by Bethesda in 2008.  Baldur's Gate, while developed by BioWare, ran on the Infinity Engine owned by Interplay, so it too fell victim to their financial troubles.  Bioware and the newly-formed Obsidian would continue to develop original games with new engines and publishers, and a decade later the offshoot studio Beamdog (and their division Overhaul Games) would develop Enhanced Editions of several of the Infinity Engine games, reviving interest in seeing the series return.  Despite Beamdog teasing a third entry for the series, though, it would eventually come to be developed by Larian Studios - a company hot off the success of their Divinity: Original Sin games and using the engine from them.  That meant the series' gameplay changed up, going from pausable real-time combat to a turn-based style, and like Fallout 3 before it, it would discard all the work done on a canceled early version of the game (Baldur's Gate III: The Black Hound) in favor of telling an original story.

Of course, Dungeons and Dragons itself has also undergone some heavy changes since the '90s, so the gameplay itself is also changed up a lot from the earlier Baldur's Gates, being based around Fifth Edition rules rather than Second Edition.  Later revisions of the ruleset are in numerous ways geared much more toward roleplaying and storytelling than simple monster smashing (and indeed, I've criticized other D&D games based on Third Edition and later rules for focusing so heavily on combat to the exclusion of everything else, since so many other mechanics go completely to waste).  Baldur's Gate III does it right, though - you're afforded a surprising number of options to deal with almost every situation, and while it of course makes sense to stay in line with your character's pre-built stats and skillsets, you're by no means bound to them.  You can bluff, intimidate, use stealth, arcane knowledge or just brute-force your way past almost any obstacle, favorable stats or otherwise.  Indeed, you can avoid nearly all combat with successful skill rolls, or at the very least find creative ways to turn things to your favor ahead of time.  Staying in line with a given character's principles as you complete puzzles also earns you "Inspiration Points", which allow you to redo failed rolls - always a nice thing to have when you get the notorious Natural 1 on what should be an easy roll (or just want another crack at a particularly challenging obstacle).

As mentioned, the game utilizes the same engine as the Divinity: Original Sin games, so combat here bears a strong resemblance to the Divinity games - gridless turn-based action with a heavy focus on field control and elemental effects.  Spells can lay down effects like acid, poison or fire that will damage enemies passing through them, while ice or grease can make anyone who passes through them slip and fall and water can be used to conduct electricity, damaging all enemies inside it.  Grease and oil can likewise be lit on fire to damage all enemies standing in it (and ignite them for further damage in subsequent turns).  One also gets a height advantage shooting down at enemies from above and a penalty for attacking enemies above them, and oftentimes you can lure enemies into a narrow corridor or around a corner to shield yourself from ranged attacks.  Barring that, you can also create clouds of steam or smoke to obscure their view, though this can also work against you as well.  At other times you can also weaponize the environment in creative ways, like knocking over braziers full of burning coals or even collapsing bridges to cause enemies to tumble to their doom, though you lose our on any treasure they may have been carrying.  In short, it's the first tabletop RPG inspired engine that actually lends itself well to that style of improvisation and creative thinking; indeed, it's very hard to survive without employing creative tactics whenever possible, as you're always at the whim of the dice to land hits with your weapons and most spells, so every advantage you can give yourself is a good one.

Character creation is something I always tend to dread in western RPGs, mostly because it's very easy to hose yourself unless you're intimately familiar with both the rules of the game itself and what the game is going to throw at you in advance, which results in a lot of tedious rerolling and frustrating game sessions where you're setting yourself up to fail and not even knowing it.  You may not think it given my choice of genre to review on this site, but I detest tedious overdone stat crunching and inane micromanagement in games.  It's certainly not necessary for a good RPG experience, especially since the genre (ostensibly) began as a means of storytelling rather than a dopey math lesson. Original Sin 2 largely averted inane stat-crunching by being a well-balanced game, but also by allowing you to respec your character at almost any time by finding the nearest magic mirror if your current build was just not working out.  Baldur's Gate III does a good job avoiding it as well, offering a solid explanation of all the skills and stats each race, background and character class provides, as well as giving you a pretty well optimized starting stat loadout by default (and when you level up); of course, you're also free to customize at your leisure if you're a die-hard min-maxer. Fifth Edition also largely does away with the issue of "Dump Stats" present in earlier D&D versions, mostly tying characters' abilities to stats and proficiencies they're expected to have.  So Bards, Paladins, Warlocks and Sorcerers cast from their Charisma rather than superfluously relying on Intelligence, for example, and having knowledge of a particular field gets bonuses based on a character's background and learned skills (and the subsequent roll bonuses they grant) rather than a bare stat roll.  All of this stuff contributes in various ways to letting you focus on enjoying the gameplay and the story rather than obsessing about the number crunching going on under the hood, which earns it a lot of points in my book.

Something else the game gets down (after so, so many failed attempts in previous western RPGs) is that the roleplaying element actually feels natural and well-done.  Rather than having a predetermined chaotic/lawful/good/evil scale that you're rigidly glued to the entire game, your choices throughout all feel valid, all have palpable consequences, and any of them can make you new friends or enemies depending on how you handle them.  Your party members all have their own personalities, backstories and motivations as well and will react accordingly to your actions, and may become offended or even leave entirely if you do too many things they dislike; though you may be able to mitigate this to a degree with successful skill rolls, peoples' patience will inevitably run out, so every choice on your long journey feels weighty and requires careful consideration.  Getting them to change the ways they're rooted in is no easy task either; it requires a long and subtle commitment and not just one dice roll at a pivotal moment.  All good stuff, though as ever, the attempt to fit character romance into a largely open-ended RPG experience feels very shoehorned and cringey, with characters trying to get in your pants mere hours after you meet them.  Considering Fallout and Star Control were already actively mocking badly-written nymphomaniac characters in the '90s and yet devs like BioWare and CDPR roared ahead with it anyway with no trace of irony, I don't think it's a problem that will be resolved anytime soon either.  The final act of the game gets pretty messy too, with far too many extraneous subplots tangled together and even trying to tie it back to the first two games with nothing indicating the story would go in that direction before that point, so it becomes a bit of an overblown mess, and I definitely don't recommend trying to go for anything resembling full completion in it.

But even with a few minor missteps and the baked-in frustration factor of having everything being built on random all-or-nothing rolls, Baldur's Gate III is a stellar experience.  The engine lends itself well to not just intense and strategic combat with a lot of subtle nuance, but to actual role-playing - creating a character, thinking how they would think, forging alliances with other characters, and seeing the consequences of your actions unfold in a surprisingly organic way without making every action feel like a trite good-or-bad pull on some overarching moral compass that determines which boolean endings you'll get.  The strong narrative, surprisingly good voiceover and never once having to rely on a dopey plot codex to get you caught up on what's occurring also speak well to its quality.  The game is still in early access as of this writing so it's still somewhat buggy, has occasional performance issues and is missing features that are clearly intended to be there, but once it hits Version 1.0 I'll eagerly be playing it for a good, long while.  Hell, it already ranks among the finest western RPGs I've ever played.

Developer: Larian Studios
Publisher: Larian Studios
Released: 2020 (PC early access), 2023 (Full release)
Platforms: PC, macOS, Playstation 5, XBox Series

Recommended Version: Only available on Steam Early Access as of this writing.

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride

The fifth game in the Dragon Quest series marked its first entry on a 16-bit platform, and fittingly, it attempted to change things up both narratively and in terms of design.  But does it prove to be another engrossing entry in a legendary franchise, or does this prove to be an unworthy Quest? 

Dragon Quest is of course an extremely popular series in Japan, but didn't fare nearly as well in North America.  Despite its relative unpopularity overseas, though, it still attained enough of a following for Enix to localize all four entries on the Famicom, with the last coming as late as September 1992 - just over a year into the Super Nintendo's lifespan.  Dragon Quest V was the first not to be localized, reportedly due to programming issues that couldn't be resolved, and wouldn't be until many years later on the Nintendo DS; in the meantime, Enix mostly became known as a publisher of other company's games (mostly RPGs) until the early 2000s, when they would merge with Square to become the single biggest name in Japanese RPGs, Square Enix.

Dragon Quest V was one that intrigued me for a while; series creator Yuji Horii cited it as his favorite on at least one occasion, and it was said to turn a lot of the series' tropes upside-down in its story.  This is certainly evident right away as the story starts off with your main character as a young child, following his father around the world on a search for the Legendary Hero who will save the world.  The story is considerably more grounded and personal this time, centering on a lifelong trial for the protagonist and everyone who comes into his life - friendships and alliances are forged, he marries and has a child, learns the secrets of his family's past, and undergoes very personal hardships and tragedy before the game ends.  While not the first JRPG to introduce such a personal element to its storytelling, it certainly set a trend, seemingly inspiring some story beats and character building in later games like Final Fantasy VI and VII.  Having a multi-generational dynamic as part of its storytelling would also become a somewhat common trope in Japanese RPGs after this one, seen in games like Lunar, Suikoden, Harvest Moon and Fire Emblem, so Dragon Quest V seems to have been a pretty influential title in more ways than one.

Fitting its more personal and turbulent nature, the game's playable cast is also much larger than any prior game in the series.  Many allies join throughout the journey, coming and going as the story dictates.  As mentioned, your main character also marries during the game, and his wife becomes a playable character - all three choices (two in the original SFC version) have slightly different playstyles and equipment choices too, and you're locked out from recruiting the other two on that playthrough once you've made your choice.  In a new twist for the series, you can also recruit monsters to your side - after defeating them in battle, they have a chance to ask to join your party, at which point you can then add them to your wagon or drop them off at a "Monster Den" for potential later use.  This is a surprisingly full-featured addition, too - each monster has unique equipment choices, stats, learns unique sets of spells and even have widely varying max levels, though they may ignore your commands if their Wisdom is a very low amount (below 20).  Some prove to be rather gimmicky - the Goodybag monster is resistant to many elements and status effects and has quite high stats, though a low level limit of 7 and a capped Wisdom of 5 limit its long-term usefulness.  Slimes are another example; being the archetypal low-level mook enemy of the series, they have unimpressive stats and low growth per level, but surprisingly can equip some of strongest gear and, should one raise a Slime to level 99, they will learn one of the most powerful attack spells in the game.  Metal Slimes and their variants also make very powerful allies, though the odds of recruiting one are extremely low (1/1024 according to most guides), so it's highly unlikely you'll get one without copious amounts of farming.  They do still retain all of their usual resistances and weaknesses, too, so that can give you an edge or become a liability in certain scenarios.

So, there's a lot there in terms of storytelling, emotional impact and nitty-gritty party customization for the powergamers in the audience, but of course Dragon Quest V doesn't skimp on the side-content either.  The series mainstay of collecting Mini-Medals to trade for rare prizes persists in all versions, as does the casino where one can win medals to trade in for powerful items.  From the PS2 remake on, several more get added - a game-spanning quest called "The Knick-Knackatory" where you basically inherit a museum and put various artifacts from your adventures on display is probably the centerpiece there.  The Pachisi board game returns from Dragon Quest III as well, though under the name "Treasures n' Trapdoors", serving as both a means to acquire rare items as well as tweak your characters' stats with a hefty luck element involved.  A small bonus dungeon is added too, which ties the story back to Dragon Quest IV a bit and adds some powerful recruitable monsters to play with in the post-game.

So, having now played it, I can see why Dragon Quest V is considered a high point for the series.  While the core gameplay remains essentially unchanged from the 8-bit entries, it definitely upped the stakes in terms of storytelling and forging an emotional connection therein, giving the player character a very personal stake in the adventure and making its twists and turns that much more gripping.  Monster recruiting added an interesting if slightly underdeveloped new element, though it was relatively novel in RPGs of the time; though predated by Shin Megami Tensei and later taken to runaway success with Pokemon, it did also lay some of the groundwork for Dragon Quest Monsters, a game focused entirely on recruiting and training DQ's iconic critters which has become a fan-favorite franchise in its own right.  But beneath it all, Dragon Quest's high degree of polish, refinement and developer passion makes it shine, taking the player on an engrossing adventure that ranks among the best of its time period and a high standard which many other Japanese RPGs aspire to equal.  It's been criminally overlooked in the west for ages, but any serious fan of the genre should strongly consider giving it a playthrough.

Developer: Chunsoft, ArtePiazza, Matrix Software
Publisher: Enix, Square Enix
Platform: Super Famicom, Playstation 2, Nintendo DS, Android, iOS
Released: 1992, 2004, 2009, 2015
Recommended Version: The later versions add a number of tweaks over the Super Famicom version, including some extra content (mentioned above), having a party size of four rather than three, and some extra items and weapons to utilize.  The only version to be released physically in the west was the Nintendo DS port, though the later Android and iOS ports are based on this version as well, which make it the most affordable way to play the game in English.

X-COM: UFO Defense

Microprose is a name well known to old school PC gamers for their in-depth simulation games that don't sacrifice playability and fun along the way. X-COM was a combination of a turn-based tactical combat game and a business sim, having the player build and manage an army to repel an invading alien force.  But does the game's complexity and high degree of challenge still play well today, or is it left behind by numerous other games of similar concept?

(The game is known as UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe and X-COM: UFO Defense in North America. the 2012 remake combines the two titles together into XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which makes Googling rather tricky!)

Widely regarded as a genre classic, XCOM: UFO Defense is a game that can be pretty intimidating to newcomers - per the time period it had a rather hefty HUD of icon-only buttons and unlabeled bars, and there was no in-game tutorial - all of its mechanics were instead laid out in a 133-page manual that goes into eye-watering detail about every facet of the game and its intricacies.  Even the first thing you see is rather jarring, as you view a zoomed-out 3D model of the Earth and choose where to place your first headquarters, then once you've done that, you just sit and watch a clock tick down and wonder what to do next.

Well, the basic flow of the game is thus: you're given the worldwide view, and from there you can click on your base to manage your team's loadout, purchase new equipment and soldiers, or research new tech.  At first, your units are pretty pathetically armed, just having pistols and the odd rifle or grenade, and they're generally none too accurate with them either - rather a problem when even the most basic enemies in the game wield deadly plasma weapons that can kill with one good hit and have no visibility problems even in the dead of night.  Yep, it's one of those games - you'll be going through a lot of redshirts until you manage to have a few survive to earn promotions, improve their skills (through repeated practice a la games like Darklands and Elder Scrolls) and see new tech get researched that improves their survivability by leaps and bounds.  Just a couple solid hits from a heavy weapon will still drop a heavily armed, highly trained soldier, that said, so learning to avoid being in harm's way as much as possible is often a better plan than trying to be Rambo.

Anyhow, on the world map you wait for a UFO to arrive (turning up the speed is generally a good idea, as they take quite some time to arrive), and once they do, you send out an aircraft to intercept them and (hopefully) shoot them down.  Obviously a standard Earth aircraft stands no chance against a massive mothership, so at first targeting only the smallest of UFOs is the best plan.  Once a ship is shot down, you can deploy your troops to the site to battle the aliens and salvage whatever's left, which is where the majority of the game's action takes place.

The game's combat is equally complex to its business sim element, pitting your squad against an unknown number of aliens across Earth's many different biomes - everything from deserts to farmlands to forests to the arctic.  They're pretty ruthless too, often hiding out in small rooms and around blind corners for a soldier to enter, then immediately killing them with a reaction shot.  So, checking corners to find them is the first step; after that, it's a good idea to kneel (or even go prone) to increase accuracy and reduce your own chances of being shot.  One can also rely on other tactics like unmanned tanks or grenades, but these tend to be quite destructive (destroying useful alien artifacts caught in their range) and quickly become obsolete against larger threats, so they should be used sparingly.  At least once a month you'll also have to endure a "Terror Mission" - a battle against several dangerous, otherwise-unseen alien types in crowded cities, with aliens actively firing on civilians, and much more prominent environmental hazards - exploding gas pumps, collapsing roofs, aliens shooting at you from upper floors inside houses, and so forth.  Later on the aliens will also become aggressive toward X-COM itself and begin attacking your bases, which, if you don't have good enough defenses to shoot them down, will result in gradually more aggressive in-person battles on your home turf, with a loss meaning the complete loss of the base as well.

That's all pretty rough, so how do you even up the odds?  Why, by taking advantage of a transplanted component of games like Civilization, of course - Research.  You can create a few things without having to venture into the field at all, including some more useful (and ammo-independent) laser weapons and handy things like Medkits and Motion Scanners, but the vast majority of your tech will require you to engage your enemies and scavenge battlefields.  Completing a mission successfully will have your team gather up just about every single salvageable thing at the site, from alloys to Elerium to weapons and yes, even alien corpses.  All of these then be researched at your home base and applied to a whole lot of useful things for future endeavors - Alloys will allow you to build armor, researching the aliens' weaponry will let you use it yourself (not just in on-foot combat missions, but aircraft weapons and base defenses as well), researching components of their ships will let you build better ships of your own, and dissecting dead aliens will often give you clues to their specific tactics and any weaknesses they may have, which will definitely help you out in future encounters.  Even more valuable, though, is your ability to defeat aliens non-lethally and capture them to study them in further depth, which unlocks highly powerful abilities like psionics (a notorious game-breaker in both their hands and yours) and is ultimately necessary to find the aliens' base of operations and prepare for the final battle against them.  So, while you will see a lot of dead soldiers, destroyed equipment and maybe even lose a base or two over the course of the game's campaign, as long as you manage to get some new tech out of it, they might just be acceptable losses.

The business sim element comes into play behind the scenes, too.  At the end of each month you'll be given an evaluation by all of X-COM's member nations, and those that are happy with your progress (often because you shoot down UFOs and stop terror missions in their territory) will often agree to increase their funding; inversely, those unhappy with your progress will give less funds, or if too many aliens land there, may be swayed to make a pact with the aliens and leave X-COM entirely.  Money is also rather tight at times, so selling surplus items in your stores is often a good idea.  Just don't ask why there's a high-paying gray market for spare alien corpses; I'd... rather not think about it.

So, while there is a lot to take in and the unwieldy interface and punishing difficulty make it a game that's bound to drive off a lot of less-experienced gamers, X-COM is a classic for good reason.  Its gameplay is fairly complex, yet quite fun and rewarding to learn, and seeing the gradual change of a bunch of barely-trained misfits into badass armored soldiers who can snipe aliens from a mile off and mind-control them to do a lot of the dirty work while never exposing yourself to harm is quite fun and rewarding.  There's not a huge amount of overarching story - most of the game's lore is told to you through research screens and a brief bit of narration at the very end - but it doesn't mean it's a game that won't give you plenty of fun tales to tell.  A true PC classic and well worth playing, especially as there's a lot of great player mods (and a source port in OpenXCOM) to make it very playable even today.  Really, the only downside is that never really got a worthy successor for over two decades - it had a slew of decent-to-terrible sequels later in the 90s and early 2000s, and it wasn't until 2012 that it got a reboot that finally did the prestigious name of X-COM justice.

Developer: Mythos Games
Publisher: Microprose
Platform: PC (DOS/Windows) Amiga CD32, Playstation
Released: 1994, 1995, 1998
Recommended Version: I've only personally played the DOS version, but I have heard that the Playstation version is missing some elements of its computer counterparts (like dynamic lighting).  The DOS version is also the most widely available nowadays, being available on Steam for about $5 USD.

Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds

The original Ultima Underworld was a groundbreaking and strongly acclaimed game whose influence is still felt in games today, and it's sequel does its best to carry on that legacy despite a crunch-heavy development cycle.  The concept is a solid one - the Avatar discovers a way to enter various worlds the Guardian has already conquered, attempting to discreetly stir rebellion against him and ultimately undo a powerful spell that has Britannia under siege.  To that end, you travel to numerous distinct locations - some familiar, some very alien (the mechanical world of Talorus being a particularly bizarre one) and witness firsthand the twisted machinations of the Guardian.  The original game had one large dungeon with eight labyrinthine floors, so having more variety is a nice change of pace, even if these new worlds are usually much smaller in scale (Mostly between 2-5 floors, and not nearly as densely designed). The downside to this is that Ultima Underworld II's progression is considerably more linear than the first - while you do occasionally have to revisit worlds to complete tasks started in others, each world is for the most part a self-contained story that you see nearly all of your first time through. The same skill system and stats return from the first too, with surprisingly few changes save for a handful of new spells to cast (and some older redundant ones removed).  Unfortunately, this also means that most of the skills that were largely useless the first time around still are - some even moreso with the advent of spells like Open (which completely removes the need for the Picklock skill) and Mending (ditto for Repair).  It doesn't break much new ground in terms of design, but UU2's brilliant writing, creative puzzles and challenging-but-never-unfair gameplay still shine through, creating another memorable, deep and immersive adventure that's well worth undertaking. 

Developer: Looking Glass Studios
Publisher: Origin Systems, Electronic Arts
Released: 1993
Platforms: PC

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition

After more than thirty years of uneven success in the west but massive popularity in Japan, Dragon Quest's eleventh numbered entry was released to considerable worldwide acclaim.  But does the series' long-standing traditional design still pay off after three decades, or does it just begin to fall by the wayside after a slew of changes and innovations in its competition? 

It's been 35 years since the Dragon Quest franchise's debut, and surprisingly little has changed for its eleventh numbered entry. Even with a leap to gorgeous HD, some excellent orchestral music and high quality voiceover, it's instantly recognizable as Dragon Quest. Akira Toriyama's character designs, writing and design by Yuji Horii, the punny enemy and spell names, many of the music cues and sound effects, and the combat still being relatively simple turn-based fare with a party of up to four characters haven't changed a bit. Combat is visually three-dimensional and you and enemies move freely around the field, though this is purely a visual effect and has no bearing on the gameplay whatsoever. But if even the modern aesthetic is too much, you have the option to change the game to a 2D art style reminiscent of the Super Famicom Dragon Quests; even mid-run if you wish.

However, some nice quality of life changes are made for Dragon Quest XI S.  You can speed up battle animations and assign each character AI patterns to quickly deal with random encounters, then toggle them off at any time when you need to deal with tougher fights or bosses.  Healing after a fight is condensed into one simple menu command, which saves quite a bit of hassle, particularly later in the game.  Monsters are visible on the map, doing away with the irritation of frequent random fights and letting you engage on your terms.  You can give yourself a slight edge before a fight as well - if you approach an enemy in the field and then strike them with your weapon, you'll sneak in a free hit before the fight even properly begins.  Some added challenges are available right from the get-go too, labeled in the startup menu as "Draconian Quests"; things like making all the enemies stronger, causing an instant defeat if the main character is defeated, not being able to equip armor or use shops, or the rather annoying effect of "Shypox" which causes characters to randomly lose turns.  A nice way to give genre veterans more of a challenge, and the game even notes on the menu when you've completed a playthrough with one or more of these activated for the duration so you have the bragging rights.  (You can also deactivate them at any church if you find them to not be to your liking.)

It's not all standard '80s RPG fare, though.  After gaining levels you will earn Skill Points; these allow you to customize your party by unlocking bonuses, depicted in the form of grid with panels that flip over when you spend points (not dissimilar to Final Fantasy XII's License boards).  Generally speaking, these let you give your characters greater attributes, bonuses when using specific weapon types (extra damage, chance to parry or get criticals, et cetera) or learn new attack skills.  Some panels with particularly strong bonuses are also locked at first, and can only be opened (and points spent on them) when you unlock at least four panels surrounding them.  One can also freely respec their characters if a current build isn't working (or they just want to use a particular skill temporarily) by visiting any goddess statue or church, though this does carry a small fee.

Another prominent mechanic is "Pep".  During battle, and after taking several hits in a row, using a particular skill, or just randomly as a fight starts, your character may become Pepped Up, which gives them a boost to their stats for a few turns;  the exact stats boosted vary from character to character, but generally emphasize their abilities.  Pep wears off after a few turns, but it does carry over between battles as well, so any turns you have left on it after winning a fight don't go to waste.  Some particularly skills are also only available during Pep status, and generally (but not always) require two or more participants to be in Pep at the same time to use them.  Generally, these are quite powerful attacks that use every character's turn (somewhat similar to the Dual/Triple techs in Chrono Trigger), but the sheer power they offer makes them worth using when the opportunity arises.

Crafting returns again for this entry, this time in the form of the Fun-Size Forge, a minigame that allows you to turn various items into new weapons, armor and accessories. It's largely optional (unless you're playing with shops disabled), but generally worth doing, as items you can forge at a given stage will often be better than what you can buy at shops. If you do well at the forging minigame, they'll get some nice bonuses on top too, even boosting innate abilities like status resistances or stat bonuses.  It's worth it to explore around a bit whenever you reach a new area - gather up items you find in the field and scavenge for more jars/pots/chests whenever you hit a new town or dungeon.  Sidequests frequently award uncommon or rare crafting components too, so keep an eye out for those.

While the franchise is still quintessentially old-school in design even three-and-a-half decades out, Dragon Quest XI manages to stand out as distinct and memorable regardless.  Its traditional, yet highly polished gameplay remains its strongest asset, ensuring it's a game easy enough for newcomers to get into while long-time genre fans can tweak settings to give themselves more of a challenge or find obscure tricks to give themselves an edge.  The world of Erdea is brought to life in 3D in brilliant form, its environments managing to look like a gorgeous modern game, yet losing none of the colorful cartoon style and personality of Akira Toriyama's distinct art.  All the familiar sound effects and music cues that have been here since day one return, but the new stuff is great too - the voice acting is perfectly on-point, while the music is beautifully composed and adds tremendously to the atmosphere of any given area.  Dragon Quest takes relatively few risks with its fundamental gameplay, but when it takes care to hone the format it's followed for over thirty years to virtual perfection, it's hard to complain.  Whether you love DQ's adherence to tradition or hate it, it's one franchise that's here to stay.

Developer: Square Enix, Orca, Toylogic, Artepiazza

Publisher: Square Enix

Platform: Nintendo 3DS, Playstation 4, PC, Switch, Xbox One, Stadia

Released: 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021

Recommended version: Any of the later versions (released as "Definitive Edition") are the ones to go with, as they add new content and the redone orchestral soundtrack which sounds much better than the synthesized one.  The Playstation 4 version has this available as a downloadable upgrade to the original version (as well as a physical release), while the PC, Switch, Xbox One and Stadia versions all have it packaged in by default.

Divinity: Original Sin II

A sequel to the acclaimed and very successful Divinity: Original Sin, which promised to up the stakes and polish up many of the shortcomings of the original game.  But does Original Sin 2 follow up on these promises, or does it simply prove to be another underwhelming Divinity game?

Divinity is a franchise that's been around for some time, though to be honest, I never really cared much about it; all of its games just seemed to be average-to-crappy knockoffs of other popular RPGs, and given the middling reviews most of them have gotten, I'm probably not too far off in that assessment.  Divinity: Original Sin was the big breakout title for the series, but it didn't really hook me either - while it had some interesting and relatively unique gameplay features, but it also featured a sluggish and clunky UI that was no fun to use at all, dragging pacing, really painful writing and acting and far too frequent and slow combat, all of which contributed to taking me out of it pretty quickly.

So, as you can imagine, it took me a good while before I worked up the gumption to play its followup.  Released three years after the original, Original Sin II once again saw a highly successful crowdfunding campaign that raised over $2 million, and the developers seemed intent to take fan criticisms of the original into account to make a much more refined and entertaining game this time around.  They certainly succeeded in that regard, and it's evident right away - the game's engine and UI are much more crisp and responsive, the overall pace of combat and exploration is greatly tightened up, and the writing is much better, discarding the original game's distracting stiffness and having a far more natural tone to its prose and acting.  The dumb "two characters arguing with each other to boost stats" and rock-paper-scissors argument mechanics are completely discarded in favor of dialogs having a more Baldur's Gate-esque list of choices, with more options unlocking depending upon your character's race, profession, background traits and skills.  In addition, you have a choice of several pre-fabricated characters with unique character traits and backgrounds that add more story threads and dialog choices, or you can create your own character, which lacks these unique elements but grants you a greater degree of fine-tuned customization - a nice balance between classic CRPG character building and having a more narrative-driven experience as many more modern games are wont to do.  Custom characters also aren't totally left out in the cold, as they get a unique combat action (Dome of Protection) not available to prefabs.

There are certainly no shortage of options to pick from when building your character, prefab or custom.  There are four races to choose from (Human, Elf, Dwarf and Lizard), as well as undead variants of all four who are healed by poison but take damage from normal healing spells and potions.  As mentioned, each race has slightly different starting skills and bonuses (whether resistance to elements or bonuses to skills), as well as a single ability unique to their race.  Elves get the most interesting one of these from a storytelling perspective, gaining the ability to eat body parts of slain characters (enemy or otherwise) to view their memories and get information others cannot access.  Another nice thing is that other characters you recruit during the game are also not fixed - once recruited, you can tweak their starting skills via dialog options, tweaking their starting skills more toward a particular play style so you don't end up with a redundant party member.

There is quite a lot to tweak for your character's stats, broken up into four major categories.  Attributes are your basic stats, determining what your characters can equip, what abilities they can use and granting bonuses when wielding certain weapon types.  Combat Abilities govern bonuses with different types of weapons, though there is notably no individual skill for swords, maces, bows, et cetera - instead, they fall under the umbrellas of one-handed, two-handed, ranged or dual-wielded weapons (and yes, you can stack one-handed and dual-wield bonuses if you go that route).  Defensive abilities also exist, and will grant passive bonuses; Leadership grants a small boost to all allies' stats when that characters is within five meters of them, Perseverance will restore some Armor after being hit with certain status effects, and Retribution will reflect a small amount of damage back to your attacker, with the effect going up each level.  Skills govern your various spells and abilities, from elemental magic to necromancy to polymorphing to "Scoundrel" skills like backstabbing or knocking enemies out for a turn with chloroform.  Finally, there are Talents - these act somewhat like Perks from the Fallout games, granting you unique abilities that and unlock options you wouldn't see otherwise and can significantly change the way you play through the game.  A few of these include Comeback Kid (reviving once per fight with 20% health if you die), Executioner (getting some extra action points if you kill an enemy once per turn), Far Out Boy (getting more range with all of your spells), Lone Wolf (giving yourself a major stat boost if you're going it alone, which makes solo runs through the game significantly more viable), and my personal favorite, Pet Pal, which enables you to  talk to animals, unlocking a wide variety of amusing dialog snippets and even a questline or two.  There's a lot to experiment with, and the non-penalizing nature of the game's design ensures that it's pretty hard to stick yourself with a master-of-none and make the later stages of the game unnecessarily difficult.  Every major quest also has numerous different ways to complete it, allowing you some roleplaying opportunities and alternative ways to get the job done even if you do something like, say, accidentally sell/misplace a necessary item.

The much-touted combat of the first Original Sin returns here, and like the rest of the game, it keeps everything that worked while casting out everything that didn't.  First and most notable is the fact that combat is used much more sparingly this time, making every fight feel like an event and not just like filler included solely to waste your time and hit some dumb publisher-mandated length quota.  You have very granular control over your movement and aiming - if you can't hit an enemy's body with a thrown dagger or a spell, you might be able to barely target one of their limbs or the tip of their snout instead and still get that hit in.  Controlling the field itself plays a major part too - nearly every fight has you tossing around oil, poison, fire, ice and water in various combinations, trying to get your enemies in the thick of it and minimizing the effects on your own characters.   Oil and poison are also flammable, so you can easily dip your enemy in one, then set them ablaze to deal even more damage (though they can also do the same to you, of course).  Fire can also be extinguished, creating steam clouds that obscure vision and effectively block ranged attacks.  Setting up traps then teleporting enemies into them, dropping environmental objects like barrels or heavy chests on enemies for heavy damage, climbing up on ledges to get bonus damage with ranged shots.  The possibilities really do feel endless, and the fact that the game rewards creativity (and has a well-designed enough engine to grant you the ability to think laterally like this) really makes it a joy to experiment with.  That certainly doesn't end once the fight is over, either, as you can use nearly all of your spells out of battles too, letting you find hidden secrets, move traps aside and reach areas you can't simply stumble into.

To put it simply, Divinity: Original Sin II is a triumph, succeeding not just where it's predecessors fell short, but where virtually every western RPG of the last twenty years has too.  Like many western RPGs it's clearly built on the model of tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons, but it's closest I've ever seen to offering the same degree of freedom and flexibility as one of those.  There are no readily evident prefab solutions to any problem you face, and you're given enough freedom to to think outside the box when exploring and improvise tactics on the fly in combat, making it extremely rewarding to play.  The sheer amount of options you're given to customize your characters and interact with the world at large are nothing short of staggering, giving it tons of replay value on top.  Your actions over the course of the story significantly change the way events play out, your character, prefab or custom, still feels like they're an actual living part of the world you're in, and the game manages to have a surprisingly good sense of humor about itself without ever undermining the gravity of its story (or going too far in the other direction and coming off as stiff and pretentious).  Hell, if you want to take it a step further, you can also play online with friends, and one of them can even play as the "Game Master", subtly tweaking things behind the scenes to make the game as easy or difficult as they want it to be.  I fully admit I was skeptical, but after having played it, I say without hesitation that it's easily the best CRPG I've played since their golden age in the '90s and early 2000's, having enough depth to rival those with enough solid storytelling beats and puzzles to keep me invested, even if there are some irritating roadblocks at times.  Highly recommended.

Developer: Larian Studios

Publisher: Larian Studios, Bandai Namco Entertainment

Platform: PC, Playstation 4, Xbox One, macOS, Switch, iPad

Released: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021

Recommended version: As ever, I recommend the PC version if you have the specs for it; not only does it flow perfectly with a mouse-and-keyboard setup, but it supports modding via Steam Workshop, letting you tweak the game to your tastes and add even more fun and longevity to an already incredibly deep experience.