It seemed like a really neat game and I'm looking forward to playing it more when it comes up on sale on Steam. Had some real issues with the font readability on the Switch, so buyer beware here. But the style and characters seem really neat, and I like the gameplay. I did get a little confused about the early city layout, which sometimes seemed obtuse for the sake of it, but that might have just been me.
Fair play to you, I think you're absolutely spot on with this one. It's a great game in short doses, but the grind eventually wore me down on it. That said, please please please someone, anyone, bring back the spirit of EA Big.
I'll be interested to see what you think if you play Eastward. That game has a lot going on for it and some really neat worldbuilding, but I also kinda bounced off it mostly due to vision problems (there is a lot of reading and the font was very small on my Switch). When it's on sale again on Steam, I think I may pick it up and try it on my Deck.
And I need to finish Monstrum Nox. I played the heck out of Lacrimoss of Dana and loved it. It was my first Ys game and I bought Nox immediately afterward, but I had some health stuff come up and it fell by the wayside. Soon!
I wish I liked Psychonauts 2 more. Love the characters, the world-building, the gentle approach to its take on mental illness and the fact that Raz makes horrible mistakes, but my God, that game is a chore to actually play. And it comes so close to being great. You can feel a better-playing game right there under the surface, but things don't quite magnetize right, or combat takes too frigging long, or the abilities feel sticky, or trying to control a bowling ball is a flipping pain... it's all a mishmash of enoughniggling little things that I just didn't have a lot of fun.
I really liked a lot of things about Lost Odyssey which made me really despise the parts of it I didn't. The short stories are fantastic, but the fact that they're not woven into the lengthy gameplay was a huge disappointment, and I kinda feel like this is the game that opened the doors to a lot of narrative choices like that in other games. I know that things like "budgets" and "time constraints" happen but still, but when I think about this game, more than just about any JRPG out there, I think about missed opportunities.
I don't know if I'd go so far as to agree with you on the soundtrack being as good as the Final Fantasy ones, but that is purely personal taste. It was a really, really good OST. The fuckin' kids singing part, though, turned me way off. The kids in this game were like nails on a chalkboard, but then again, I hate having kids in JRPG parties in general, so maybe that's just me.
That leveling system was pretty great, and a natural extension of what was done in games like Suikoden, which had a more rudimentary way of doing that. I remember liking the combat but it was never the high point, which to me was the world, if not necessarily the world-building (see my comments about the implementation of the stories).
I guess I just really wish this had been a novel. But then again, we wouldn't get that OST with a book, so... hm.
That is a hell of a list. God, I love crankin it. I'm sure the game is fun too.
Ba dum tisssssss.
But honestly, great read. Really stoked we got so much good TMNT stuff this year. Sports Story sounds like a pass for me, which is too bad. That and Dying Light 2 were my most anticipated games this year and eh.
sparky_buzzsaw's comments