Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

@Tjuz No worries. The type of reviews that overflow the word limit for individual posts are EXACTLY the sort of content this thread is meant to host.

Great review! It definitely hits on the highs and lows of these more old-fashioned JRPGs... wonky systems and subpar tutorialization, but also tighter pacing and writing, and, crucially, charming characterizations that hit on a variety of different tones and moods. One thing I love about older JRPGs is that, no matter how serious they got, they also rarely avoided the opportunity to be silly at times, and I think that's a quality that's sorely missing in the current industry. I also feel like the pixel art creates enough distance from realism for these shifts to not be jarring (imagine Sabin suplexing the phantom train in PS5 graphics!)

Interesting approach to an affinity system. I liked the social links in Persona quite a bit, as well as the systems in Fire Emblem (especially Three Houses, with its heavy Persona influence), but will confess that Xenoblade 1 drove me crazy with the affinity stuff. I'm curious to see where I'll land when I eventually play this.

True enough about the lack of pure sci-fi settings in JRPGs, even today. Although I do think pure fantasy settings, like in Lunar and Dragon Quest, also became rarer, with the science-fantasy model picking up in the 16 bit era. I think that's actually part of what gives DQ its own sort of unique appeal today: you don't need to worry about the story collapsing into sci-fi tropes.

I think Monolith Soft has historically done best with this: Xenogears, all of the Xenosaga games, and Xenoblade Chronicles X all feel like almost pure sci-fi (with some fantastical elements, but nothing that would push them into the science-fantasy realm). And while it's science-fantasy, I did enjoy the much heavier sci-fi influence on Xenoblade Chronicles 3 compared to the previous two.

If you've never played the Phantasy Star games, they also tend to lean a little more heavily into the sci-fi side of things. Particular II and IV.

I expect you'll probably enjoy the remake of Star Ocean 2, considering the remake has been highly praised, and it's regarded as one of the best entries in the series.

@Th3solution I love a good game that can give me plenty to do, but I think the points made about bloat are perhaps tied to other forms of media and how users/watchers/gamers expect to be able to consume content. We have huge franchises of shows especially, that have spin-off seasons for characters or time periods in-universe (big examples being Game of Thrones and Star Wars). Perhaps this is catering to the "we always need more and can't let our favourite thing end" flavours of media output & consumption.
That's not an argument for it being always bad or always good, just noticing a trend that may or may not be attractive to certain types of people... we're all different!

@DemonStar89 This is true. A version of ‘bloat’ can sometimes be from cross media content not letting an IP rest in our minds.

@Tjuz Wow, a really great review! I’m glad that you seemed to enjoy Star Ocean, despite some of its quirks and old school trappings.

You bring up some interesting contrasts between retro and modern RPGs, and games in general. I suspect Star Ocean wasn’t far removed from the era when games came with an instruction booklet that one had to read in order to understand its systems and setting. I wonder if a manual for this game would have explained some of the things you had to search around online for, or if it would have alerted the player to the unspoken effects of the background affection system. In my limited experience, those little tutorial books were not very comprehensive, but they usually contained some critical information in the day and age of not having very good internet resources to refer to. I even remember large full-sized strategy guides that you could buy as a supplement to those RPGs back then. I’m not sure if Star Ocean First Departure goes back quite that far, but it sounds like it still has some of the cryptic elements from that bygone era.

And I hadn’t thought of it quite in the way you describe, but I do agree that the modern game design seems averse to have missable content. Games mostly have maps and menus with checklists and frequent tutorials which permeate the experience all the way through. I think the death of game manuals began not only with evolution to include the tutorial during gameplay, but also with the introduction of loading screens where they started dropping instructions to the player during that downtime. Interestingly, now that loading screens are becoming a thing of the past, design has had to improvise again. Modern games I’m playing now have the option to stick around on the loading screen if wanted because otherwise they flash by so fast that you don’t have time to read them. Most of the tutorials are now imbedded in menus, and optional battle arenas.

But it seems clear, some of the purpose of hidden content and cryptic systems back then was to make the games replayable. In an era when there were a lot fewer options, it was nice to have a game you could play through a few times and get some slightly different wrinkles during the playthrough. Many games still do have multiple endings and optional missable content, but not quite in the same way. I’m not sure exactly how to describe it, but there’s definitely a difference. Maybe it simply has to do with the wealth of reference material we have now with online walkthroughs, YouTube tutorials and guides, and trophy checklists, as opposed to retro games where there simply was no way to find out some of the missable bits except for just brute forcing multiple playthroughs and obsessively checking everything in the game.

Personally, I’ve become spoiled by today’s game design and doubt that I would have the patience to teach myself the critical gameplay elements as you’ve described. The exception is the Souls games, and their retro style of throwing the player into the world and expecting them to figure it out does being another level of satisfaction that modern games lack. However, I think the difference is that there’s large volumes of organized and exhaustive reference guides online which makes them feel more manageable.

So do you have plans to proceed with the series straight away? Or even make another run through this one? Or has it whet your appetite for more retro JRPGs? (I feel a Final Fantasy attempt incoming…😅)

@Tjuz, not a lot to say on the title itself as it isn't one really on my radar, but I still thought it was a great piece of writing I am very jealous I didn't write myself 😂

I tried Eternal Life of Goldman demo on PC and it looks incredible! If the price is not too steep, I'll there Day 1. This will be the talk of the town when it's released.

Rolled credits on Monster Hunter Stories 3 today.

I just kinda... wish I had more to say? But I just sorta… don’t.

In 2021, Stories 2 absolutely took over my whole world, man. I played over 100 hours of that on PC. I started another playthrough on Switch. I just don't usually do that with single player games, but that game it just sunk it's teeth into me so deep.

It took the core Monster Hunter formula I love, and translated it faithfully into other things I love, turn based party RPGs and monster catchers. Like it was basically my dream game, and by and large delivered in every way I could have ever hoped for.

Monster Hunter Stories 3 then, is in my mind, about as close to an objectively better game as a sequel can be. It took all of the best parts of the previous games, and refined them and polished them into basically their ultimate forms. It is hard to imagine how I could have loved 2 so much now I have beaten 3, thinking back to all of 2’s brutal difficulty spikes, and just how much friction was baked into so many systems there. 3 really feels like it went after every pain point in 2, maybe some you didn't even realise were pain points at the time, and fixes them.

There is just so much QOL and improvement of things everywhere, it cannot be understated. But I also wonder if maybe that is also sorta the problem with this one? Maybe it is too focused on the "mistakes" of the past, and isn't looking forward enough?

It is technically a true sequel, new setting, characters, story, mechanics etc but when I think about it, it is probably closer to those like JRPG re-releases or something, where they just release the same game again, but restore a bunch of cut content and refine the game feel and visuals and sell you it again at full price. Like it is reductive I suppose in a way to call it that, cause 3 is more than that, but honestly maybe it isn't enough more than that. Maybe it is too close to a Monster Hunter Stories 2 Royal than it is a Monster Hunter Stories 3. Maybe being in a no man's land between the 2 is a problem regardless of how close it leans to either or.

Maybe the problem is 2 already delivered me almost anything I could ever want from this concept, so that if you are going to just offer me more, and not something truly different, then actually I am already still full from my Stories 2 feast. And I get that sounds kinda strange, especially as trying new things can have disastrous results, but I am just trying to find any reason in my brain why I just never loved this.

Maybe it is just because you can beat it in around 40 hours, and there is zero content after the credit rolls (although you can go back to grind the game out and take on side content that sorta feels like it is designed to be played after you face the final campaign boss, but isn’t organised in that way), so it just doesn't have enough runway to take over your life like 2 did.

All I know, is there is just something missing here for me, and I don’t know what it is. I should love this game, it should take over my whole world like 2 did. But instead the credits rolled and I’m just sorta done.

It is an objectively great game that I think is still somehow just sorta okay.

I’ve just finished a replay of Double Exposure in preparation for Reunion, and it hits differently now we live in a Timeline where the sequel actually exists.

On release, so many of my complaints with this game were coloured by the fact that it felt like we were playing an extended prologue to the "real" story which would seemingly take place in a sequel that didn’t exist yet and perhaps never would. While the pacing still remains largely woeful, the existence of a sequel at least retroactively justifies some of that setup. I’m about to dive into Reunion to see if this was all worth it, but having the destination in sight makes the journey slightly more palatable.

However, even with the sequel as a safety net, the narrative in Double Exposure still remains largely unsatisfying. Honestly, it feels even more so on a second run through.

As I started playing this again and half remembered things from my last playthrough swam up from somewhere deep in my brain, it gave me more information and time to really think about developments in this game, and how little all of it makes sense in the end. The phrase "life is strange" is doing some serious heavy lifting to explain away a story that is frustratingly both fixed on the mechanics of its universe, yet seemingly uninterested in ever facing head on when those mechanics create problems for the creative team.

The core issue, however, is the emotional void. The storm that rages within the heart of this story is one that is remarkably hollow, as flat, lifeless and soulless as the motel Max almost ends up trapped within.

Despite a middle section that drags to high heaven, I felt like I spent remarkably little time in this space or with these characters. As the game begins, so much "life" has happened for these characters already, and while some of that is referenced and pencilled in over the course of the experience - and this narrative device is nothing new for this series - I just feel like almost too much life has happened off screen. Which maybe sounds like such an odd criticism, but I think if you play this you’d know what I mean.

I guess the point I am trying to make in a probably too wordy way is so many of the major emotional payoffs miss here for me, cause they feel like they end up meaning more to the characters than they ever do to me the player. These characters are strangers to me, they are not strangers to each other, these emotional payoffs matter to them because they have experienced so much together. But I have not shared these experiences, and so I cannot share their emotions, not fully, not in the way I want. Not in the way I could interface with the other games.

I think about games like True Colours or Before the Storm, which to me are the heights of this franchise, and how every emotional beat was a dagger straight through to my heart. Those games took the time to make me care; the emotions were raw because they took the time to sync us up with the protagonists, so we experienced everything together. Double Exposure absolutely tries to reach for that same resonance, but like Max’s atrophied time travel muscle, as it reaches, it is blocked by a blinding headache, a bleeding nose and the resonance slips right from their fingers.

To be clear: I don't hate this game, no matter how negative this may all sound. It is absolutely gorgeous, and there is still nothing else on the market that quite captures the same vibe as a Life is Strange entry. Having Max back with a terrific redesign and her original voice is a treat as someone who has been playing these games for what feels like half of my life at this point.

I just imagine another version of this, a version that was more focused on existing as its own standalone, satisfying, singular package. A version of this that had adjusted the pacing of things. Maybe not even adjusted the pacing, just shifted some elements around and been more open to facing head on when the mechanics create narrative roadblocks. What a game that would have been.

If only Max could use her powers to fix that.

Finished my first play through of Life is Strange Reunion.

I think it might be great? But it is also kinda odd? Especially playing this back to back with Double Exposure (DE here on out). The return of Chloe feels less like a natural landing spot for this new arc and more like a "break glass in case of emergency" pivot of desperation, to the point of me wondering if that is why the response to this feels so mixed.

DE ended on an infuriatingly open-ended note, teasing some grand sequel where Safi would return with her super powered army and create chaos, where we'd have to deal with a Lakeport forever changed by two realities being collided into one another. Yet, in Reunion, almost all of that is rendered irrelevant and most of the relegation happens off screen, or in brief exposition dump scenes.

I have to assume the sales for DE were disappointing or something went sideways behind the scenes, because Reunion feels like a frantic course correction rather than the sequel they intended to deliver. Why leave DE flipping in the wind like that, if it was building to nothing? Why subject us to it at all? DE may have been a necessary evil to get us to this starting line, but Reunion seems to have forgotten the race it was supposed to be running.

So you may be asking then, naturally, if all of this is pissed into the wind, then what exactly is Reunion, beyond the game which reunited Max and Chloe? Well it is honestly just kind of like a 0.5 betweenquel bottle episode. Which probably seems insane, because if the last one was the prologue, and this is the 0.5, then are we waiting for a third game to get the "real" game? Well, it seems so.

Effectively, in Reunion, the Abraxas House is brought centre stage, and the story combines stopping a future event, unravelling a past mystery and reuniting Max and Chloe. It flirts with "Final Destination" rules regarding Max’s powers and teases at real world cause and effect left by the Storm and the smoothing of the timelines, but these elements feel more like sprinkled on flavouring, rather than the meat I feel like they should have been.

What I will say though, is time travel remains the undisputed heavyweight champion of powers in this franchise. It is more than just Max solving trolley problems with timeywimey BS this time around too, the real magic here for me is in the small, granular choices that the power allows you to make. The ability to rewind (or choose not to) in minor moments creates a different kind of replayability than these games often have.

I tend to replay a Life is Strange favourite because I want to experience the full spectrum of emotions with my favourite characters again, but this story is far more focused on how every ripple can become a tsunami on the other end. I want to, when I have gotten over my frustration with this, go back and create more tsunamis, and see what they do.

I also have to give a massive shout-out to Rhianna DeVries. Stepping back into the role of Chloe is no small feat, especially as she was not the actress from the original game, but she easily captures that "scatty ball of chaos" we know Chloe as, perfectly. She remains "best girl." But her brilliance only highlights the tragedy of the supporting cast; after an entire game spent building up the Caledon crew, many of them are relegated off screen between games and barely have a presence in this one at all.

Ultimately, then, the game forces me to talk out of both sides of my mouth. Like somehow DE now seems even more like a waste of time than it did already. Reunion was meant to make all of DE seem worth it, but instead it makes so much of it feel worthless instead.

Yet, despite all of this, much like with the game's overarching narrative, it has always been you Chloe. It always will be you Chloe. And I can’t deny that seeing Max and Chloe together again is ***** magical. When they are on screen, the game reaches about as close to the heights of the franchise for me and so many of my issues with this game, just melt away.

Did we need a sacrificial lamb of a game to arrive here? Should we even be arriving here right now at all?

I dunno, but you'd give it all up for one more moment with the now Emerald Haired Girl, we've been destroying an entire town to save, for almost two decades.

It will always be you, Chloe.

@Pizzamorg I'm happy to hear that Reunion is finally lived up to the promise Max and Chloe fans had been hoping for! I haven't played it or Double Exposure as I personally don't love the characters, but it's been a long time coming for sure. Hopefully everyone will now be able to feel some finality to their relationship, however it ends. I did hear about how DE handled the Chloe situation, which honestly intrigued me, even though it seemed like it only pissed off the fanbase. Not surprised to hear that this new entry is more of a course-correction than anything to appease those people. I hope it still takes some swings and doesn't play it entirely safe in a fan-servicey way, but more than anything, I'm just happy for everyone that it didn't disappoint once again!

@Tjuz Yeah it is weird, because there is a lot of... what is the word, I guess like tribalism? In the LIS fandom space, those who reject anything Deck Nine creates for this franchise just purely on the principle it isn't Don't Nod. I recognise this is reductive and there is a little more nuance to it than that, but that kinda seems like the general gist to me.

In response, Deck Nine have effectively said they never did a true sequel to the first game in all this time, because they'd have to contend with a decade of a headcannons made by fans of the first game, and the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.

So with all of that in mind, the handling of Chloe in DE was just really... odd? If she lived in that first game, then the implication was that Max was so hard to live with, her survivors guilt, her trauma, the constant fear she could undo every mistake and you'd never know, resulted in Chloe and her breaking up. And all of this happening off screen and long before DE even started like... why? Max broke reality to keep you alive Chloe, so you can have that relationship and break up off screen, so DE can introduce a new cast of characters it then largely abandons in Reunion to bring Chloe back?

Like did we have any plan here whatsoever?

@Pizzamorg I haven't read your Reunion review yet (while I'm sure you've been considerate, I'm incredibly spoiler-phobic nowadays) but I did really appreciate your well-timed Double Exposure second run write-up, as I just finished my first playthrough yesterday. From that perspective, it was interesting going in knowing there's a guaranteed sequel out there. Kinda reminds me of when I played Mass Effect 3 years after its controversial ending had been fixed, and I had to remind myself of the context in which people first experienced it. That cliffhanger, the "Max Caufield Will Return" screen, and the post-credits tease would have frustrated me had I thought that Deck Nine were in danger of closing without making good on the promise.

Your comparison with True Colours is well-taken, even if I don't necessarily agree. I think the decision to start Double Exposure a good while into Max's new life was the right one, but you're also right to note that it robs us of making our own introductions to, and therefore forming our own first impressions of, the supporting cast. That was one of the biggest strengths of True Colours (and my personal favourite in the series, Life is Strange 2, with its constant cast changes and the fantastic feeling of uncertainty it generated along the way). But it also helped make Double Exposure feel cosy and "lived in" to me, and gave me insight while I adjusted to the new grown-up Max, who is unquestionably the star of the whole show.

It was interesting to reflect back on my choices each episode and think about which decisions I made "as" Max, which ones I made "for" her, and which I just made for myself. That's always a factor in these kinda games, but I felt it more than ever here. What that says about the game's immersion, I'm not really certain, but I sure as heck enjoyed the process all the same!

Anyway, thanks for sharing! I'll circle back and read your Reunion review once I'm safe to do so. I won't be jumping to the game right away, but it's top of my PSN wishlist now.

Tagging @Tjuz as promised, because this might be as close as I get to sharing my full thoughts.

@Werehog Appreciate it! I did try and keep it spoiler free in the details, but I know even referencing towards things can count as spoilers and I wouldn't want to rob anyone from something in their first playthrough of a LIS experience.

I guess like with everything LIS, it all just makes me talk out of both sides of my mouth. A part of me is like well in order to have enough time to get to the big hook at the end of DE episode 1, and then shift into a story about different timelines, starting DE basically in season 4 of a show we'd only seen season 1 of, was a necessary evil.

But then True Colors afforded us a more organic series of relationships and sense of place by having us arrive with Alex, but that didn't stop them from having a big hook at the end of their first episode either.

But TC also had plenty of its own pacing issues so neither is perfect really.

Choice in LIS is interesting in general I think, especially when you move away from the first game, which was largely a series of binary trolley problems. Deck Nine's approach is often focused more on smaller choices that change the texture of the fabric, rather than necessarily hurling us down whole new paths.

As the games often muse, observation alters a subject inherently, you can never quite replicate the authentic choices you make the first time through a LIS game, because the second time you play, you already know the outcomes of your original choices, and are naturally inclined to go back and correct some things, even unconsciously. This serves as a fun meta wrap around to the core conflict with Max's powers, and how it becomes almost an unconscious obligation for her also to keep rewinding until she gets things perfect.

One of DEs most interesting beats for me, was about Max making the choice to stop using this power and live with the choices she makes, after she lived for years with the trauma of your shared choice at the end of the first game. Because exactly that, Max didn't just make that choice. We did. It is a shame more isn't done with this and in fact it is basically abandoned in Reunion.

@Pizzamorg I do know what you mean. It's clear you love the series, and your criticisms sound like they're coming from a place of wanting the best for it, rather than just wanting to ride some kind of hater bandwagon like so many others on the internet. You've done a great job articulating your position, and I'll look forward to returning and reading your Reunion thoughts in due course!

And I do agree with you about Deck Nine's approach towards the choice system. I'd say it's an attempt to make everything less abstract and a little more personal. Case in point, their first original superpower was literally "empathy" (which I'll be honest, I chuckled at to begin with) and as you say, nothing has quite replicated that perfect gameplay hook / dilemma of Max's instant replay. I did very much respect that Double Exposure narrative beat regarding Max's decision to avoid using her own powers, and enjoyed how it played a crucial part in the final confrontation with Safi, to the point where I was genuinely dismayed at the imbalance of the final episode's statistics screen! Methinks more couldn't be done with that specific subject because of the need to incorporate the dual legacy of "Bay vs. Bae" throughout the entire game. Leaving that choice up to us, and then letting us see both routes play out, feels like it would've created an entirely divergent Double Exposure, so it's a compromise I'm willing to accept... otherwise they'd still be developing the blasted game!