by genessee
Showing 1-10 of 10 items
his is it. The culmination of game design and game archiving, a game of outstanding game design, archived for play, about a game company that doesnt even exist. You want throwbacks? You want genre mashups never before-seen? You want tight multiplayer gaming? Wierd vignettes into "what if there was way more crosspollination of ideas between continents and formats"? If 8-bit game designers knew what deck builders were, and made a game from that, and it wasn't deriative? I'll be honest, I'm only halfway thru really looking thru this; I've "cherried" one, beaten 4, and havent even dusted off like 15. But that's the genius of this; everyone will have new gems that'll blow them away long after purchase, games they'll blow thru, games they'll dislike, and games that'll be something they'll return to for years. Its like those illicit discs from yesteryear, or a box of carts from who knows where; each game is 50c, so one or five that you dont like isnt a problem with this absolute unit of value and quality. Its literally one of the most important games to come out this decade and is really good to play on top. That's special.
Welcome to The Reverse Vanillaware Game, where the story is servicable, and the gameplay is exemplary. It's probably the most refined of the Ogre Battle subgenre out there, allowing some sick Death Squads Of Death. Even "bad" units can be made to be useful and shine if you're a sicko like me and like getting under the hood and mixing it up. There's a care to this while leveling, were classes plateau and allow others to really sing for a bit; I like that. Art's better, music is still Basiscape goodness...I'm only gonna really ding it for the northern area's abuse of "vast hordes of flimsy fast combo-oriented parties" that I disdain from a SRPG.
Ah, SaGa games that make sense...mostly. Going from a storybook TTRPG to a more Planescape one, EB has a loose...plot? Maybe? We need a Vaatividya for these things...anywho, its funny, betrayals happen, alot of open-ended world-building happens, vignettes ala Dragon Quest happen. It's good if you take it at face value, just dont expect linearity. Now, the combat and character building did the SaGa thing of throwing decades of series concepts into a big vat, but also having Trade and Train functions to keep your team and gear up to date for new strats for this really neat take on combat. Its a 3D timeline. That you and the enemies fight over to "link" together and stop the other. Really goes well with the older stuff like Conditionals and moving characters around the timeline. Also has the best song, not of video games, but of 2024. Ito's really hit a new level now with this "defend your dissertation on the game's systems against the end boss while amazing tunes play" like how Hamauzu did it.
This is one of those games that feels perfect to play from the drop. Your little Vic Viper slides around like buttah, spinning and jumping and shooting like its nothing. MA also has outstanding world and character building design, giving us both freedom and funneling us thru the world and powering up in the right ways at the right time via constant ticks upwards of tech points per level up and also the big jumps of new powers found in dungeons. Masterful. And its a viiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiibe. A smooth ambience music soundtrack bordering on pure ambience in places is a delight. It's also one of the few games now that does Monster Closets right, especially for how many there are. That's talent.
From the dark bowels of Python, The Young Ones, and Little Britain, comes self-effacing slapstick and odd, odd people. I cant even begin to devote enough words to how good their comedic timing is here, or the perfect use of awkward pauses and build-up. The goofy voices are easy, tho and somehow get the point of the sentence across despite accent, yelling, and braces.
As the series emerges from the confused erraticness and cleaning up from that as it barrels to completion, Daybreak shows thats over and its ready to end on its feet. The Trails Conversations are extremely numerous, probably the most in the series, giving this tale alot of gravitas and indirect "showing by telling" that's just good character writing. And it takes the place of another field of critters to slay for some slow leveling; like Reverie before it, just have interesting characters bounce off each other and sometimes go deep instead of cramming it at the end. I like Van. The reason he does stuff, says stuff, does this job, relates to others like this, all makes sense. He's like a few of the facets of previous protags but without any of the mishandlings. Durante's PC Smorgasbord Of Options is the industry standard. Its insane other devs/porters wont learn from this embarrassment of riches, especially in audio. Some of the combat stuff was erratic; Shards was fun, as was the semi-return of Quartz lines, but the timeline is a confusing mess making Artes hard to gauge when they'd actually go off, and there's no turn stealing with Supers. The end is also very...overly sentimental? Like, it was for the last game of an arc? So you'd have dangerous characters hanging around like neighbors and reused job plots. Makes the Finale take 3 times as long as it needed.
Man, I really wanted to get deeper into this, but got caught in that "you have two Fighters you love but only enough time to Git Gud in one" quandary that SF6 won out on, even if one hand washes the other with these two.
A good Roguelite Hybrid is always good to fix the grind 'n gamble of Roguelites, so why not pachinko? Fun powerups and boss concepts, but the game freezes up sometimes.
I'm nowhere near as down on this as some have been. I fear people have compared this to Suikoden 2 only, as its a really damn decent worldbuilding JRPG. It is a game carried by its cast, its music, its spritework, and its worldbuilding. Hearing Naruke again after an absence was a delight. The cast, as seen above, has that comedy timing and clashing personalities down pat. Huge personalities are a surprisingly rare thing in alot of games dominated by archetypes, so this was very welcome. Its also one of the best pixel art going now, a much rarer thing than those termed that now. Its got issues, hence the #9. Unite attacks and most mages are pretty useless, some Duels are flat busted (its random for spectacackle's sake that can screw you), and there's bizarre graphical bugs. Overall, its good. Murayama can rest peacefully.
A fun thing, basically a speed run deathtrap game with asynchronous multiplayer ghosts guiding/warning the player. The randomizer is a bit off tho, as some later rooms are either nearly empty of danger or have ALL THE TRAPS.
