Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

@RogerRoger I really enjoyed your review and especially like the little anecdote of picking up a copy and playing on the snow closure school day. What a great memory that must be. And certainly plays into your continued enjoyment of the game even today.

@RogerRoger thanks for the tag! Yes I'm certainly interested in reading your modern takes on these classic Trek games!!

I didn't know there was an FPS version of Generations, ill have to track that down! Do you reckon you'll ever get around to reviewing some other older SNES/PC games? I remember there was a decent-ish looking DS9 game on SNES. I'm guessing probably not as you'd probably have to resort to emulation to play them but uhhh, I won't tell if you don't!

When I think Rambo in a Starfleet uniform, I think of Picard in First Contact! 😂

I have actually played this game, recentishly though, not when it came out. I think I played it about 5-6 years ago. I really don't remember all of the subtle details that you picked up on in your review but then again, I don't think I thought as critically about games back then. I mainly remember it just being a very good FPS set in the Voyager universe and I did very much enjoy playing it!

I'll have to track down a PC copy at some point because the holodeck missions sound really cool. To be honest, I'd like to just get all of them in some form or another. Bought and paid for, I have the reboot Star Trek game, Bridge Crew for PSVR (now updated to not use PSVR), Elite Force on PS2 and something called Star Trek Borg for PC/Mac which I've never played. I do have moody copies of all the retro console games (up to the ps1 generation) and DOS games on my computer but haven't had a chance to really play them.

Tom Paris looks like he's having a bad day in that last pic, if that is Tom Paris. He looks like his brains have been sucked out the back of his head, perhaps by that suspicious looking Chakotay behind him!!

I'm back to my old ways again, doing quick reviews of PS plus games. I've moved them over to the PS Plus thread though because I've moved away from the PS3 section of my spreadsheet. I've done about a dozen or so, starting from this post here if you fancy a gander

https://www.pushsquare.com/forums/ps4/playstation_plus_2017_o...

Don't feel obliged to read or comment on them though, just thought I'd point the out in case you were interested and I'm not sure if you frequent the PS Plus thread!

@RogerRoger Great piece, as always. Good build-up/introduction, especially for us non-Trekkies (or, as you put it, "folks who can't tell their Vidiians from their Hirogen," as I can indeed confirm I have no idea what those words mean, although, if I had to caution a guess, I'd say they were alien races in that universe), and I also found the personal anecdote rather charming. I had no idea this game existed, but it sounds like a fun shooter, and I really like that in-universe rationalization for being able to cycle through a ton of different weapons without physically having them on your person. Also cool to hear about a game this old featuring any sort of gay-oriented dialogue that wasn't intended as a "har-har" moment.

I looked for it on GOG/Steam, but apparently the publisher never bothered to re-publish it on digital storefronts. I'm guessing it's probably another hostage victim of the copyright issues that seem to have plagued the re-releases of a number of classic properties over the years.

My posts are gonna be a fair bit shorter then usual when looking through these as I have a LOT of reviews I missed to go through (Most was done through my lunch break) so apologies for not going as in depth as usual! 😄

Good stuff @Th3solution with A Plague Tale: Innocence.

Can't say that much about the game seeing as I haven't played it or even seen any screenshots of it, but it was a nice short and sweet review from you none the less.

Good to hear it's a pretty well done game on either playstation platform amd that you enjoyed your time with it!

Hopefully the second game continues and improves upon what they started here!

Unfortunately I rather loathed the game myself when I tried it (Though the wingsuit traversal mechanic was pretty fun from what I recall) but it was a great review @colonelkilgore on Just Cause 3. Certainly better then my first effort on here (which was before we even had this thread!)

Some rather nice screenshots you took throughout that too! Hope we see some more stuff from the gameplay king in here!

Wow.

What an absolutely fantastic review on the first Great Ace Attorney game @Ralizah! You may've gave the game a nine, but your review of it is easily a ten! Phenomenal stuff. Your passion for the series flows through every single word and I simply couldn't stop reading it.

I still haven't played any of the Ace Attorney games myself but you've only made me that much more interested in checking both collections available on PS4 out!

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Good stuff there about Shin Megami Tensei I @Ralizah. I've tried both SMT 1 & 2 via SNES emulation but I didn't beat either one (I [i][think/i] I got further in the second one but it's been a LONG time since I tried them).

I didn't know there was GBA version of SMT 1 (Yet alone an IOS port) either. I got a bit lost in the game myself so it's good to hear the GBA port is much more viable to play though as like you say the original presentation for navigation left a LOT to be desired (I'm also not keen on turn based where you have to select your team's actions all at once either)

The history lesson behind the series was a great addition too (I was somewhat aware of if but not fully) so kudos on that too!

Are you still playing through Nocturne btw Ral or have you finished that up now?

A shame about Shinobi Strikers being rather barren as a game @RogerRoger as the combat system does sound pretty good (I don't fully remember how the ninja storm games played but I do recall them becoming a bit button mashy after a while of playing)

I'm actually quite curious as to who your favourite Naruto character is, especially if they aren't part of the roster of masters already!

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I think I recall seeing Mecha Naruto and Revolution before but was equally as dismissive of the game as you were for similar reasons (That and my interest in the property had significantly started to wane by this point). A shame we did as the modes on offer do actually sound quite fun!

This one hasn't been ported over to PS4 has it? I think I saw the Ninja storm games are in the most recent PSN sale for £5 or so and have been getting a bit tempted myself to purchase one thanks to your reviews on the series! I assume Ninja storm 3 full burst would probably be the one to check out of the readily available options? 😄

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You know I'm not much of a Trekkie @RogerRoger so there's not a whole lot I can say but Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force seems to really treat the property with the respect it so deserves and sounds like a rather good adaptation of the licence to boot from your description of it. Especially as an FPS!

A fun read with some cute jokes and memories and with some great screenshots of early 2000's graphics that's made me feel a little nostalgic for that era!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy thanks Foxy, they weren't my screenshot though... I'm old and tech-phobic. I'd no idea how yo take a screen shot and post it here 🤣

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy lol that's a lot of content to go through. You're a trooper.

RE: Ace Attorney

Thanks! It can be a pretty difficult series to talk about without spoiling, given the genre they're in, so I'm glad the review turned out well. I've been a pretty huge fan of the series for more than a decade now, and I'm still just super stoked this collection was localized.

Probably going to blast through the second game after finishing God of War and Nocturne HD Remaster, as that'll be the last bit of time I have before SMT V takes over my life in November.

Speaking of...

RE: Shin Megami Tensei

It's funny you mention Nocturne, since I actually returned to it yesterday for the first time in a few months. I'm already well past the point I was at when my memory card crapped out on me. Now I'm stuck with a conundrum: do I go for the ending I'd prefer if I was in Demi-Fiend's shoes, or do I do the TDE, since it's the most complete and gives access to the largest amount of in-game content? Decisions, decisions.

Alternatively, I could always just leave a late-game save file to revisit and get TDE later.

All I know is that while it's a good game in it's own right, it's also helping to distract a bit from SMT V. Ironically, these last two months are harder to wait through than the preceding 4 years since the announcement were.

The pretty much constant advertising for it since E3 helps, at least. There's literally something new about the game everyday online, with the daily demon videos, multiple trailers, soundtrack teasers, etc.

I'm kind of tempted to keep my special edition sealed, but if someone else doesn't rip the soundtrack and put it online, I'm going to rip my own CDs. The music in this game has been fantastic so far.

SMT I, despite its sparse presence localization-wise, has been ported pretty frequently in Japan. There's also a PS1 port that I'd love to play someday (the music is better than in the GBA version, unsurprisingly). I'm tempted to seriously study Japanese for a few years and then just play the raw ISO of that version without a localization patch.

But it's interesting how different the GBA and SNES versions of SMT I are presentation-wise, despite the two platforms being fairly technologically on par with one another. SMT I didn't have to look as low-rent on SNES as it did. Just some changes to the color palette, added textures on the in-game tile-sets, and an improved user interface makes it feel dramatically more modern.

As always, thanks so much for reading!

For some mad reason I got it into my head that I really wanted to play the entire Metal Gear Solid series through immediately, and so despite my ever increasing backlog I got right on it. For clarity, a run through of the entire Metal Gear Solid series according to me means playing MGS1-4 and not bothering with anything else. We don't talk about Peace Walker here, and we definitely don't talk about Ground Zeroes, and woe betide anybody who mentions The Phantom Pain.

I have to say, Metal Gear Solid has held up pretty well. And by pretty well I think I mean that it's held up better than I imagined it would hold up. The controls weren't very good even when it came out, but the fact that the whole game uses in-engine graphics rather than switching to FMV for cut-scenes means that you have the chance to get used how everything looks and you've never got that jarring, Final Fantasy VII, oh here's the bit with the good graphics and now it's back to LEGO.

The story in Metal Gear Solid is, I think, still brilliant. It's interesting, with great characters, and it gets a little out there, but throws in some real world history and some definitely not real world history, and it's really never lost any lustre for me. I actually think story-wise there's few games - even today - that can stand up to it. The voice acting is mostly pretty good, too, or certainly, it fits with the characters.

For as much as I love Metal Gear Solid, I found myself occasionally bored when I moved to Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. I was surprised by how good it looks with the HD visuals in the remaster, and certainly how much better than the original it looks. The gameplay is still whatever - I never played these games because I thought they had great combat or anything - but I had fundamental problems with Metal Gear Solid 2 when it released with the story and how it's told, and while that has softened somewhat over time, I'm still not crazy about it.

I know it's probably a controversial opinion because the game is a bit of a darling, but for me, Metal Gear Solid 2 is the weakest of the four main games. It can't really be played alone, unlike the first game, since the story relies heavily on knowledge of that story. It also feels like a middle game because the story isn't resolved, with a lot of baddies still in play by the end. It's good, don't get me wrong, but it's definitely my least favourite in the series for many reasons I won't bore you with.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a home run for me. Like the first game, it's a standalone story which helps, and it's got a really strong cast of ludicrous characters for Snake to go up against. While it's tough to ever top the baddies in the original Metal Gear Solid, the Cobra Unit here comes closer than any other cast in the series. Even Bee Man is good.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a contentious one because I know a lot of people don't like it for a lot of reasons and most of them I tend to agree with or at least understand on some level. But for whatever reasons this game gets away with it. It's like I've got a blind spot for it, where I know it's silly, and bloated, and there's issues, but I just don't care and I love it - it's like a Pirates of the Caribbean movie for me. It doesn't matter if you think nanomachines are dumb, or the sixty minute ending is absurd. I'm here for it.

Particular shout-out to Laughing Octopus who is a top boss, and one of my favourite in the whole series. And the final battle is one of my favourite final bosses in any game ever. I think one of the reasons that I love Metal Gear Solid 4 is because it just happens to tick so many of the boxes for things that I really like. I like long cut-scenes, I like lots of lore and story, I like ridiculous bosses, I like old men coming out of retirement for one last job, I like nostalgia, I like paying homage to an entire series that I love, and I like endings that just deliver. This game really does that, and so while I get the criticism, this is such a 10 for me, still.

Anyway, it's been probably seven or eight years since I played the whole Metal Gear Solid series, and as is always the case when I go back to a beloved franchise or game for a replay after a long time, I was worried it would disappoint. It honestly didn't. I loved the games more than I thought I would. Even in a world with your Last of Us's and your Tsushimas and whatever else you kids are playing, the series was an absolute joy to replay, and one I'll hopefully not take quite as long to get back to next time.

@Keith_Zissou 4 will always have a special place in my heart because of real life reasons - towards the end of the PS2 generation I actually became quite disillusioned with gaming and at the point right into the PS3 gen I didn't play much. I still gamed, but it's not like I was massively into it. I discovered going out, the pub, friends, etc. etc.

Metal Gear Solid 4 was one of the games that got me back into gaming in a big way - it was that followed by Mass Effect 2 a while later that really stirred the passion for gaming back into me. I'll always have fond memories of both games for that reason.

@johncalmc I really enjoy your little mini-review pieces that you occasionally drop and your Metal Gear Solid post was definitely… solid. Great thoughts, all. Except for the fact you ignored my favorite entry to the series, but I can forgive that I guess, because you made me laugh there at the end with the visions of you sitting on the porch complaining about “kids these days…” while you sip on prune juice in your rocking chair.

@johncalmc Nice broad sweep on this series. I really need to replay the first three games myself. Always wanted to play MGS4, but, having never owned a PS3, not being able to play that has always been one of my gaming regrets.

Personally, MGS2 was the sweet spot for me on PS2. It maintained the mechanical aspects I loved from the first game (hated that the dropped the radar and went with a camouflage system in MGS3) while giving it a far more thought-provoking storyline overall. And, if you like stupid characters, this one had a vampire! I also prefer the industrial theme to crawling around a jungle. The original game will likely always be my favorite, though. It was so impressive for its time, and it still has my favorite line-up of baddies.

I don't think your distaste for MGS2 is particular unpopular: the protagonist switch was hugely controversial back in the day, and Snake Eater has pretty much been the fan favorite since it released.

Ahh fair enough then @colonelkilgore.

I think the easiest solution is to just make a twitter account, link it to your PS4, share them over through the share button and then grab the links to the screenshots off of twitter

It's what I do and the only reason I touch that site

I did write that Danganronpa 1 review ages ago so I know all too well how hard it is to keep a review like this under wraps without spoiling too much! @Ralizah 😅

I hope the second game goes just as well for you Ral and it was worth the somewhat slow set up of the first! Not to mention the extremely long wait before these finally got localised!

RE: SMT I & V

I'm kinda glad I don't have a switch atm or that it's not also releasing on PS4 if only because I'd probably be in the same situation as yourself. Not to mention Pathfinder is distracting me immensely and there's no way in hell I'd manage to beat it in time for when SMT V gets round to releasing 😄

Though to be honest... I was initially excited for SMT IV even though I didn't have a 3DS at the time (and I never even ended getting it) and yet there's something about SMT V that just hasn't fully drew me in. I like the looknof it and everything (It in fact appeals more to me then SMT IV thabks to the more nocturney tone)

Maybe I'm still annoyed at myself for not liking Persona 5 and getting sucked into that hype and that's bled into this, making me more cautious?

I dunno.

It does look good though and hopefully that delivers for you too Ral.

Good luck if you decide on learning Japanese. It's not an easy language. Easier then r
Russian though that for damn sure. My partner's Eurasian (Russian on her dad's side, Japanese on her mother's) and tried teaching me some... I didn't too well besides the basics 😂

And no problem! It's always a pleasure to read through what everyone's written!

There was that Dragonball game @RogerRoger that released last year (... Or was it the year before?) after all that was an actual single player action rpg like game (Rather then the typical bandai anime arena fighter thst they seem to love) that seemed to sell really well.

I'm sure if they did something similar with Naruto it'd sell a whole lotta copies as well. I'd certainly be more interested in that then Dragonball (I seriously don't get the facination with that series myself!)

Yeah I had a go of Ninja storm 4 (There was a demo on the US store) and it was only a story mode fight between... I forgot the names at the moment and I'm not gonna cheat and look 'em up. Madora Uchiha and,.. Uhh... The first hokage. The wood one. Did think the voice acting was a bit weak but the set piece was good enough. I'm sure Ninja storm 3 will be just fine though and I really can't complain for a £3.99 sale price! 😂

I'm both surprised and not surprised to hear that it's Kiba. It's totally a Rog answer but just a little not quite who I was expecting either if that makes sense? (But I also get why he wasn't in Shinobi strikers as he's not the biggest most well known character either). I do quite like Kiba too... The fight Naruto has with him in the Chunin tournament was pretty memorable to me!

For me it's probably more the polygonal PS1 that's the more nostalgic era for me for similar reasons as yourself of when I got into gaming... But the PS2 era of character models certainly has it's charm as well!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Some games are just inherently difficult not to spoil for others if you want to talk about them in any depth at all. At that point, you have to weigh the pros and cons of every piece of information you reveal.

As for the tone of SMT V, I actually prefer IV in that regard. Dark future/gritty 80s futurism > Dark fantasy/wandering around a desert any day. With that said, it's been pretty strongly implied in information dumps about the game since the E3 trailer that you and your friends aren't permanently stuck in Da'at and will be able to return to modern-day Tokyo throughout the game, which will give it a VERY different vibe. I could actually see light school life elements being woven into the game, which would give it a bit of Persona flair (they're already changing the way buffs work to align more with how they work in modern Persona games). With that said, they seem to be doubling down on the atmospheric and hostile feel of the game in other respects.

Interesting tidbit: the director of Shin Megami Tensei V also previously directed Atlus' Etrian Odyssey games.

I've actually studied Japanese before in University, so I know my hiragana, katakana, and some basic phrases and whatnot fairly well. What I'd like to do, and what's going to be incredibly difficult, is learn to read kanji at a level where I'll be able to appreciate video games and most literature. There are a ton of different approaches to it online that I've toyed with.

The thing about learning to read kanji is that the practice is fairly alien to an adult Westerner, so it'll take a TON of concentration, daily drills, and commitment.

@RogerRoger The first thing I did in both the UNS games I’ve played is rush to the options and change to Japanese audio because that’s what I’m used to 😂

No need for apologies @RogerRoger! I'm a filthy dub lover ha ha! 😄

At least in regards to anime. I typically tend to find something about the performances grate on my ears a little in Japanese (usually an over exagerated squeaky girl voice or something).

I've played PS4 two games with a sub only option (Digimon Cyber Sleuth: Hacker's Memory & Yakuza 0). Hacker's Memory was fine enough that I wasn't clamouring for a dub like I normally would but Yakuza 0 was really well done in that regard. They successfully pulled me in and got my emotions flowing when they needed to!

I did end up buying UNS3 the other day & I completely forgot Naruto was voiced by a woman in english (Especially as I've never seen the anime, only read the manga and played two games in the ninja storm series). That did end up giving me a good little chuckle.

Yeah I took a look at one of the trailers that has come out since I last looked at it and... I don't know what to make of that yet @Ralizah.

I do like how distinct the two series are from one another... No doubt there's some purists who are vehemently against any persona-esque elements getting pushed into SMT.

The buffs makes sense I guess as it was easy enough to buff yourself into being untouchable. Though after experiencing how SMT did it... Persona's method doesn't feel nearly as impactful either.

That's an interesting tidbit about the director though. Will you be drawing your own map I wonder? ... Probably not but it'd be fun if you did 😄

Good luck if you do decide to go for it Ral. My partner tried teaching my daughter on how to read kanji before that trip to japan. She was only 15 or so at the time and it did not go well for her. So I do know (admitedly through secondhand experience) that it'll take some serious dedication on your part.

I'll just stick with hello, goodbye, a few swear words and get my partner to deal with the rest! Not that I, or her really, have to deal with japanese much on a day to day basis

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I don't mind the change to buffs at all. Most of Nocturne is so easy once you figure out fog breath + sukukaja trivializes 90% of the boss fights in that game. I did kind of like the whole buff stacking element, but I think the Persona approach will be more tactical when paired with a combat system that isn't ridiculously unbalanced.

The weird thing about the EO director being involved is that the EO series is PURE dungeon crawling, and, based on the footage, SMT V looks like the least dungeon-crawlery entry in the series to date, with the focus shifting to huge overworld landscapes instead.

So your partner can read Japanese? That's interesting. And yeah, I'm not surprised your daughter bounced off of it if she wasn't really invested in the idea of learning it. It's like trying to learn to read hieroglyphics, lol. I had a few Japanese friends in my university (the school attracted a ton of overseas learners from asian countries), and one of them effectively told me they'd have never learned to read in Japanese if it hadn't been what they'd grown up with, lol.

Yeah the performances I thought were pretty well done in Yakuza 0 @RogerRoger. I think there was only one scene for me of a flashback pretty early on that was a smidge over the top. Otherwise yeah it really drew me in. Helps it has a pretty great script for the localisation.

I've already spent about two/three hours on it getting used to playing one of these again. I went through the prologue of the story mode and it seemed quite cinematic in presentation compared to what I remember of the previous title? 😄

I wouldn't say Naruto sounds like a girl in any way rog but I can tell it's a woman doing the voice though if that makes sense?

Yeah that's true @Ralizah. Like you rightfully point out the SMT battle system is a lot more balanced then persona's so it should work out for it just fine.

I believe I played a demo for an EO game. 4 I think? Never fully played one though I did enjoy that demo. I actually didn't realise that series was in house... I assumed it was something they just helped publish and the Persona Q titles were a collab 😅

My partner's fully fluent in Russian, English, Japanese. She was in Mandarin Chinese as well as a kid and could read simplified chinese... But she hasn't kept up with that in years. She also knows a smidge of Korean.

... It helps she was a bit of a wunderkind

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy The same division of Atlus (R&D1, which houses Team Maniax) that develops Etrian Odyssey also develops everything SMT-related other than Persona. EO itself feels very much like a successor to classic SMT in certain respects, with the hardcore level of difficulty (before the inclusion of difficulty setting in the last few games, anyhow), focus on gameplay over narrative, deep skill customization, labyrinthine dungeons, eldritch superbosses, a fusion of rock and orchestral pieces in the soundtracks, etc. With that said, it's sufficiently different from the MegaTen franchise that the two have fairly distinct fanbases, although I deeply love both.

They teased a next-gen EO game years ago, but SMT V looks like a very big, very expensive project for the company, and I imagine development efforts at that division have probably been laser-focused on that game for years now. Even after SMT V releases, though, I'm not entirely sold on the idea of another Etrian Odyssey game, since the focus on using the DS/3DS touchscreens to construct giant, elaborate dungeon maps have been a huge element of this series over the years. We'll see.

The Persona Q titles were actually a collab between R&D1 and P-Studio (which develops everything related to Persona). The only outside collaboration with this series was with the Mystery Dungeon series. Unfortunately, the first Etrian Mystery Dungeon sold terribly overseas, and so the sequel never released outside of Japan.

Good lord! Your partner sounds like a language genius. I'm a bit jealous, tbh: I've struggled to learn foreign languages over the years. If I ever master Japanese, I'll probably go back to German and try to achieve fluency in that. I probably should learn Spanish, but I just... don't really enjoy the language.

You never have to apologise @RogerRoger. Soapboxy-Tangent to your heart's content! I didn't have much to say about it because it was a great point. As long as the voice fits the character and they way they're written then it doesn't matter who's voicing them!

I can't remember anything being on that similar sort've scale from UNS2... I guess there must've been a Pain fight... But I got nothin'! 😅

... The Yakuza inevitability strikes us all!

I humbly bow to your knowledge of Atlus' inner workings @Ralizah! It was really informative and very useful to know all that though so cheers!

As for my partner... I shouldn't really say too much but let's just say it's not just languages & she was in uni a bit earlier then your average joe/jane Ral 😄

I learnt french at school myself and uhh... Yeah I ain't gonna remember any of that beyond the basics. So good luck if you try re-learning German and have to do some spanish as well (Which is no doubt actually very useful to know in America)

Just finished Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition on Switch after roughly 47 hours of playtime. For the first 15 hours, the game was so unappealing to me due to numerous things but over time it became better and in the end, I really enjoyed my time with the game so I'm glad that I stuck with it. I wouldn't say that it's one of the best JRPGs ever made, but it's still a good one that's worth experiencing (as long as it's not your first JRPG that is).

When it comes to the story, I thought it was interesting once you got past the first 20 hours or so because of the characters. The protagonist Yuri is actually quite dark, which surprised me as JRPGs tend to have "good guys" as the protagonists. Once I realised that, the story and the characters started becoming more appealing to me. But it honestly shouldn't have taken that long for that to happen. I think my main issue with the story is that they use all these made-up terms like blastia, aer crene, apatheia and so on, and it's really hard to follow along, not to mention be interested when it gets so heavy on the exposition. Furthermore, the story is all over the place for the first 20 hours and that makes it even more difficult to follow along. Like in one moment you have this objective, but then you run into another objective, and then another one, and you keep getting side-tracked. This is less of an issue during the second half of the game as you always have one clear goal at a given time, which is good.

In terms of the characters, what is fundamentally there is good but the problem is the awful execution of these characters through poor voice acting as well as poor writing. Whenever something serious happened, it was hard for me to sympathise because these moments weren't executed well at all. On top of that, the game has very stiff animations and so it makes it even harder to care about the characters when they're not expressed in the best way possible. However, I'll admit that when you play a game for almost 50 hours, you can't help but grow attached to these characters. There were even some moments towards the end of the game that genuinely made me smile (Flynn is definitely best boy! Gotta love his relationship with Yuri).

With regards to gameplay, it was hard for me to find it enjoyable due to the stiff movement in battles. The battles take place in real time on a 3D area but you only move in a 2D plane and while there is an option to move in 3D, you can't attack while doing so. My problem is that whenever you attack and finish a combo, the character just stands there for a whole second and it leaves you open for attacks. There's also no dodge button (there is guarding however), and overall the combat just feels incredibly clunky and not smooth at all. Moreover, there are a lot of difficulty spikes with the boss battles and after a certain point, I had to lower the difficulty from normal to easy just because I wasn't enjoying the game anymore. But once I did that, the combat became more fun because the stiff movement was a non-issue when you barely took any damage from normal enemies at that difficulty level (boss fights were still challenging though).

Now that I've talked about most of the stuff that I didn't like about the game, I'm going to mention the things that I did like. For starters, the soundtrack for this game is phenomenal. There are so many different tracks for each area and whenever you explore a new dungeon, there will always be a new tune to listen to and they were all fitting for that place. Not to mention that as you progress through the game, the battle theme will actually change over time to a completely new one and I thought that was really cool, I don't think I've ever seen a JRPG do that before. And the battle themes were great as well!

Secondly, I absolutely loved the variety in dungeons. There are so many different environments that these dungeons take place in, such as castles, ruins, sewers, forests, deserts, snowy places, cavern, crystallised caverns and so on. It was a sheer joy to arrive to a new area and explore the new environment there. Consequently, I loved that the dungeons weren't too long. Typically when you play a JRPG, dungeons tend to last for a long time and are confusing to navigate. However, in this game the dungeons are very brief and are mostly linear except for a few instances. Because the dungeons were short, there are tons of them in this game and I like that. As some already know this about me, I just love variety in all kinds of things and this game had a huge amount of that. That's something that I'll definitely commend the developers for.

So all in all, this game was an enjoyable experience once you get past a certain point (which I'm sure will differ from person to person) and I'm glad that I played through it. This was my first Tales of game and honestly, I think this title was a good starting point for me since it's on the Switch and it felt easy to pick up and play. I don't recommend it to people who are new to JRPGs since there are much better alternatives, but if you haven't played this series before and you're curious about it, then I'd recommend Tales of Vesperia.

@LtSarge Nice review! I actually picked up Vesperia DE in a sale on the Switch a few months back, but have never played it, so it's interesting to hear the perspective of another newcomer to the game and series (I've played a few minutes of another Trails game, but never really dug far into it).

Your issues with the combat actually echo my own experience with the demo for the game way back when it was still an Xbox 360 exclusive. It's a bit discouraging to hear that the combat doesn't really get better for you sans lowering the difficulty to make random encounters a non-issue. I think the combat is probably the biggest thing keeping me from really engaging with these games.

The approach to dungeon design sounds interesting (somewhat more linear and short, but also more frequent, and with more design variety). The issue of a story heavily relying on fictional terminology is an interesting one, as it is a common trap with fantasy fiction and was one of my (many) issues with Final Fantasy XIII.

The music being good is always a prime concern for me in any JRPG, as it can elevate even flawed experiences. And the length sounds very manageable. I think I'll be a little more optimistic now when going into the game, since I have a decent idea of what to expect from it.

Any idea when or if you'll play another Tales game? Arise seems to be getting a lot of positive attention right now. I thought about just jumping into that one, but something cheaper and portable is probably a better way to get my feet wet with these games.