Ashtear

As a general rule of thumb, if it has dialogue, it's going to be pretty good, and surprisingly so a lot of the time. The Witcher 3 is still unmatched for quality and quantity of side quests.

This wasn't a particularly good open world game even for its time, so I'd say ignoring the map markers completely is often smart.

UIs in Hashino's games have been avant-garde for a while now, but Persona 5 was the first time I thought the over-the-top design was essential to the game. Persona 5 makes for an amazing case study in top-down game design, where every last piece of it feeds back into the concept of a bunch of idealistic little shits running around causing upheaval in crusty old power structures by way of thievery. The menus were a big part of the constant reinforcement of this theme.

After playing the demo, I'm not sure how to feel about the menus in Metaphor just yet. I feel like a lot of it relates to things I haven't seen yet in the game, though the use of the MC's body--the artwork is literally him from head to toe as you proceed down the menu--is interesting. Leonardo's Vitruvian Man is referenced in multiple spots in the game, and there's also some body horror stuff going on with some of the enemies, so I imagine the sense of one's human (humanoid?) body is important somehow. It feels a little bit form-over-function overall, but given the game's pedigree, I'm giving them a lot of latitude once I delve into the game this weekend.

Ah, okay, unfortunately I'm several games behind that point.

Which are you playing? I've only played five games in the series so far, and the amount of farming required varies a lot from game to game.

Chances are that at the start, it's a good idea to do your early recipes so that you'll get alchemy XP or have alchemy materials made that you'll end up using later.

I think the most damning thing about Star Wars Outlaws was that I completely forgot it had come out. It barely showed up in my news feeds, and literally no one in my gaming circles was playing it (not surprising after the report on its sales performance). Now it's got the problem of not being overshadowed, being a heist story after Andor blew me away with its take on it, and I just started Ghost of Tsushima, so far one of the best open world games I've ever played. Oof.

Ghost also does have smoother melee combat than either of Respawn's Jedi games, but lightsabers and force powers will always allow me to overlook a thing or two. The latter is one of the major reasons why I liked Survivor more than Fallen Order. They felt super limited in Fallen Order (even if it arguably makes sense with the narrative) and even Survivor had fights boiling down to hacking away with a lightsaber a tad more than I'd like. Still, lightsaber duels!

Hope you enjoy!

I blame Metroid Dread for that one. Such a bizarre design choice for Phantom Liberty, especially being very late in the game. At least Dread flipped that around.

Unfortunately, FromSoft wasn't on Tenchu until later in the series when it...wasn't so great. Still, that Sekiro started as a Tenchu concept is why I picked up the game in the first place. And like Tenchu, effective stealth is there, it's just especially challenging.

Now, Zelda: Skyward Sword is one I can't defend (and one of the reasons I'm surprised OP is getting crushed for this post).

The term is more specific than that, referring to runaway capitalism being the cause. Otherwise you'd just use something simpler like "worsening."

The original context comes from a 2022 blog post.

Can't help but feel like this is a step back for Brace Yourself on their music games. Loved the first NecroDancer and Cadence of Hyrule. Tried the demo, but this one just wasn't for me. Maybe I need a gimmick for these kinds of games--for Dance Dance Revolution it was the dance pad, Rez had the vibrator and the visuals, Frequency and Amplitude exposed me to new music genres, etc.

Elite Beat Agents and Theatrhythm both did well in the games that were just press-the-right-button, so I know there's an audience for this. I'm just not in it, I guess.

I don't know how well it's aged for a new player, but I found it very notable at the time for being dark, if not outright macabre, at times. We had very little of that in the 16-bit era.

Drawing from real-world locales and cultures was interesting, too. Ys is another series that does that to good effect.

It helps to understand that Chrono Trigger's story was the result of a bit of a struggle between Yuji Horii (aka the Dragon Quest guy) and Masato Kato, who would later write and direct Chrono Cross. Horii's end was light-hearted, which makes sense given his pedigree, while Kato liked darker stuff. That's why Zeal in particular is a shift in tone from the rest of Trigger.

One of the core themes of Cross is that actions have consequences, and I personally loved how the game pulled no punches on that topic with respect to Trigger's cast. The idea of repercussions is only hinted at in the first game, but it's there, and the revelations on the beach are heavily foreshadowed within Cross's story itself. It's a grown-up narrative from an era when players were starting to demand grown-up narratives. Its reception reflects that, as well; it earned some of the highest review scores among JRPGs of its era, and it sold well enough to require reprints. This was a game that was well-received in 2000, aside from the grumblings of a few upset Trigger fans. Cross hasn't endured simply because it was very much a game of its time, and it hasn't aged as gracefully as Trigger (especially its visuals).

I consider Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross to be an excellent cause-and-effect pairing, and Cross's connections to Trigger serve to enhance both games. I love the way Cross can reframe Trigger; I think it adds weight to the actions of a bunch of kids who stumble upon time portals and start messing with things. Time travel raises questions, and Cross's story is why I mull on those questions in my head whenever I replay Trigger.

Not that I've come across, unfortunately. Big part of why I keep trying roguelites. I know a lot of people like Slay the Spire for roguelite card battlers but I didn't get super into it.