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Final Fantasy XVI was Almost My Perfect Final Fantasy

Been working on this for awhile. Not perfect but I had to get this out. Hopefully, I can finally get back on track with these blog posts.

Final Fantasy XVI almost gets it completely right. It continues the franchise’s recent trend of action gameplay and moving further away from its turn based roots. The developers have chosen to make Final Fantasy XVI more in line with other AAA third person affairs in hopes of finding a larger fanbase. It largely succeeds at that but not without making some pretty major missteps. A tale of…

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God of War: Ragnorak is amazing but…

Finally back to blogging!

God of War: Ragnorak is a remarkable video game. Honestly, it has everything that I want in a video game. It’s just not enough for me, personally. I feel as though it doesn’t push the formula of 2018 enough. And in doing so, I feel less impressed with it. That’s not to say Sony Santa Monica didn’t do a great job with it. They absolutely did. In fact, I think Ragnorak is a better game than the…

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Backlog Chronicles: What I've been playing lately

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero Raiden IV x Mikado Remix Kamiwaza: Way of the Thief

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Sonic Frontiers is my Dream Game

Sonic Frontiers is great. It takes me back to a time where I was a Sonic fanatic. Archie was making comics, Sonic cartoons were all over the tv, and there was always a new game coming out. Now in 2022, we have a new cartoon coming, two Hollywood adaptations, IDW making comics, and of course, Sonic Frontiers. Early preview coverage looked worrying, I must confess. The first preview video left me…

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Babylon's Fall: Where Did It Go Wrong?

I wanted this game to be amazing. Unfortunately, the task was just too tall for two of my favorite game companies.

Babylon’s Fall has got to be Platinum Games’ biggest failure. This was to be their biggest project. A Destiny styled action role playing game that fell flat on its face at release. The game did so poorly that Square Enix is pulling the plug on it eleven months after release. I spent a week obsessively playing the game so I can get the platinum trophy before its shuttered. Let’s take a little bit…

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Demon Slayer -Kimetsu No Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles Review

The Hinokami Chronicles is the best anime game I've ever played. I mean that specifically for the single player.

The Hinokami Chronicles is one of the best video game adaptations of an anime. There, I said it. A retelling of the first season and the Mugen Train arc, the game beautifully adapts the story into an engaging video game. Those who’ve played CyberConnet2’s previous anime games already know their prowess with faithfully recreating a passive experience into the interactive medium. I want to be clear…

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Backlog Chronicles: Three Games You May Have Missed

Backlog Chronicles: Three Games You May Have Missed

Having a backlog is inevitable. We live in an era with more choice than ever before. Fall is just around the corner and you know what that means. The year’s biggest releases are about to hit store shelves. Before things start getting crazy, I have three games I want to talk about that deserve your attention. They came out earlier in the year when everyone and their mommas were talking about Elden…

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Disgaea 6 Review: Funny and Heartwarming but

Disgaea 6 Review: Funny and Heartwarming but

Disgaea 6 is the first game I’ve beaten in the franchise and that’s a real shame. I’ve always had an interest in the franchise and I’ve played a few of the games here and there. I’ve enjoyed them all fine but was always pulled away by something else. When I was younger, I really didn’t finish many games. As an adult, I’ve been a bit better with that but I don’t really have much time to go back to…

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Square Enix Has a Strong Second Half of 2022

@SquareEnix has a lot of potential bangers around the corner.

One of my favorite game publishers is Square Enix. They work mostly in the JRPG space but they always find a way to make games that take the genre in interesting directions. With the first half of 2022 done, I wanted to take a look forward at what they have coming in the future…and boy is it a lot. Live A Live (7.27.22) – Switch Live A Live is one of those SNES games that SquareSoft refused to…

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Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin Review

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin Review

Stranger of Paradise sounds like it should be a dream game for me. Combine the fast paced and thrilling combat of Nioh with the story and depth of Final Fantasy. To an extent, that’s partly true but a few missteps keep from being the dream collab that I expected. The Origin of Chaos For as long as I could remember, I’ve loved Final Fantasy. The story and the worlds of each game always found a…

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Monark: A Grindy Take on Strategy RPGs

Took awhile to get this review out but this is a pretty long game. Really enjoyed the experience! Thanks @NISAmerica for providing a review code!

Monark is such a weird game for me. When I originally got the code I fell in love with the game. Everyday I couldn’t get enough of it until I did get enough of it. Monark is a strategy role playing game and a rather good one. It’s just that it’s easy to forget that fact when you have to repeat battles over to stand a chance in the next story encounter. In a more traditional role playing game,…

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Why Enjoyed the March 2022 State of Play

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Labyrinth Legend: Short, Fun, and Grindy

Had fun with this little game from @NISAmerica

I knew absolutely nothing about Labyrinth Legend before playing but I’m glad I did. Labyrinth Legend is a retro inspired, indie dungeon crawler. It’s one of a few indie games, like Giraffe and Annika, being published by NIS America. Apparently, it first released on mobile and PC back in 2020 and has now finally hit the Nintendo Switch. These seem like the perfect platforms for it to be if you ask…

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Deathloop: It Kind of Overstayed Its Welcome

Back on my blog grind with my long overdue review of Deathloop.

Deathloop really is a hard game for me to talk about. The whole time I was playing, I constantly confused my friends and coworkers with my feelings on the game. One minute I was heaping praise and the next I’m talking about putting it down. At release, Deathloop got a bunch of perfect scores so my interest was through the roof. Unfortunately, that’s not the experience I had. Deathloop is about a…

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2022: The Games I'm Looking To

2022 is gonna be pretty huge. I made a list of what I'm hyped for in the next year.

I won’t lie to you. 2021 was a strange year for games. Not a bad one, mind you; just a weird one. Most of the notable games of the year were indie darlings and strong Japanese role playing games (my genre of choice). I’m sure the continuing crisis that is COVID-19 played a huge part in the lack of tentpole AAA titles. 2022 seems to be a return to form with a lot of big games coming out. Unlike…

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Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Review

Final Fantasy is one of the most important franchises to me and it meant a lot to finally beat the very first one. I wrote some words about it.

For years I had never played the original Final Fantasy. For some reason or another, the multiple ports of the game just seemed to past me by. Then in 2018, I started playing the mobile port and I was captivated by it. Unfortunately, I never finished the game because something happened to the device I was playing on and there was no cloud save. Though I wanted to try again on a different device,…

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Ys IX Monstrum Nox: A JRPG Take on the Open World

Finally got a chance to write my review for Ys IX!

Ys IX Monstrum Nox is a game with a small budget but big ambitions. It’s very clear that developer Nihon Falcom doesn’t have the budget of a Square Enix or Bandai Namco. However, this doesn’t stop them from making as big a game as they can. I spent three months devouring this game inside and out. I wanted to see everything it had to offer and I was not disappointed. It’s a game that feels…