amphibious_ReViews

I first tried playing the original Super Mario RPG on my SNES Classic years ago. I was actually really enjoying myself, but I bungled the state-saving functionality and lost hours of progress in one disheartening swipe. After that, I put the game down with only a vague intention of returning. Fast-forward to the June 2023 Nintendo Direct and a full remake of the game was announced for Switch, opening up the door for me to try the game again without feeling too much like I was rehashing all of my lost effort. It seemed a little weird to be buying the game again, but playing it on Switch with this shiny new coat of paint was definitely worth the entry fee. As the progenitor of both the Mario and Luigi and Paper Mario series, Super Mario RPG obviously does something very right. This is evident in its solid formula that uniquely combines RPG tropes and Mario's more action-oriented roots. This combined DNA pervades the whole game, but is most clear in two key elements of the experience.

I was born late enough that all the discourse I heard about EarthBound described it as a hidden gem, so much so that I wouldn't even consider it "hidden" anymore. Fueled by these discussions and a curiosity about the enigmatic psychic kids in Smash Bros., I was excited to give the series a try. However, being who I am, I couldn't start with the sequel when there's a whole NES predecessor I still hadn't played. After multiple attempts over the past few years, I realized that was a losing battle and ended up playing EarthBound without finishing Mother (EarthBound Beginnings). While I'm a little disappointed that I couldn't maintain my motivation in the NES original, I'm ultimately glad I gave up because EarthBound is just so much better. The SNES is an absolute juggernaut when it comes to RPGs, but this game is genuinely unique amongst its peers, truly standing out amongst the crowd. EarthBound is obviously a JRPG, and it doesn't hide that fact f

We had all known the standalone chapter of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was coming at some point. It was announced alongside the expansion pass with a "by December 2023" release date, and had received a teaser in February that got me very hyped. I don't think anyone was prepared though when the full trailer dropped in April that announced the release date was a mere week away! I had been holding out for the possibility of a physical edition like there was with Torna , but with no sign of such a thing in the trailer, I downloaded the DLC that same night. I was in the final chapter of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and cleaning up the side quests at that point, but I kicked it into high gear just to be ready. Even so, I was not prepared for what Future Redeemed had stored up for me. This is a game specially handcrafted for the biggest fans of the Xenoblade series, and that means it was made for me. Serving as a prequel to Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Future Redeemed answers a lot of question

I was heavily invested in Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition when Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was formally announced. Even though I had been hearing the rumors for weeks, maybe months, at that point, the Nintendo Direct still had me giggling like a toddler on their birthday. Upon seeing a game that combined the worlds of the first two numbered entries, brought back old characters, and just looked excellent in its own right, I was sold before the trailer was half-finished. I was just wrapping up Future Connected when my pre-order arrived, but I was pretty quick about starting what would become one of my favorite video game experiences of all time. It was a slow journey, as I became a dad less than a month after the game was released, and a new Pokémon game came out in the middle of my playthrough, but oh boy was this the best thing I've played in a long time. It took a good while for me to understand my feelings about this game, but I can now confidently say that Xenoblade Chron

As the biggest multimedia franchise in the world, Pokémon has a lot riding on the timely release of its mainline games. Everything from cartoons to cards relies on the characters, locations, and pocket monsters introduced in these titles, so a delay of a game would mean the delay of everything else in the pipeline. Obviously, that can't be allowed to happen, so no matter what state a game is in when the release date rolls around, it's gotta come out. In the past, that hasn't been much of an issue for our pals at Game Freak. However, they took a huge gamble on their latest release by switching out the series' familiar linear structure for a brand new open world, and they paid the price. Pokémon Violet is riddled with performance bugs and graphical glitches that gave it a pretty bad name in the video game community. I experienced many of these issues myself and was disappointed by them, but I was far too impressed and engrossed by the rest of the game to really care that

Four years ago, Nintendo debuted a brand new IP as a part of their mobile game initiative. In less than a month from the writing of this review, that IP will be shelved alongside the likes of F-Zero and Kid Icarus . As someone who just picked up the game for the first time a couple months ago (just before in-app purchases were suspended), I'm disappointed that the franchise seems to be ending already, but I recognize that I didn't really do anything to encourage Nintendo to keep it alive. Nonetheless, I'm glad to have had a chance to play it, and I genuinely enjoyed it far more than I had expected to. As it turns out, playing a game in its end-of-life has its perks too. Dragalia Lost presents a very familiar gacha-RPG structure, but with fairly unique g for what it is. The summoning, team-building, upgrading, and just about everything else you do while you aren't playing through the stages, is ripped straight from the genre playbook. I actually had to double-check th

It took me absolutely forever to beat Final Fantasy V. I came off of FFIV on a high, started this game right away, and absolutely tore through its opening. I was really enjoying the game, especially thanks to all of the humor and pop-culture references included by the localization team. However, by the time I started to reach the late-game content, something just wasn't clicking, and I put it down for almost two years. Revitalized by all the time I need to fill in the middle of the night with my hungry newborn daughter, I went and tackled the rest of the game. It took me a while to realize it, but after finally beating FFV , I concluded that it managed to combine an upgraded version of FFIII 's class system and a lighter version of FFIV 's story and structure to make a near-perfect sequel. I was just too grinding-averse at the time to finish it in one go. Following Final Fantasy IV 's direction, FFV begins the game by introducing you to the party members one by one,

Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Connected has a reputation for being short, skippable, and simply not as good as Torna: The Golden Country . While I agree that it can't quite stand up to  Xenoblade Chronicles 2 's special episode, which felt far more like a standalone game, I think Future Connected has way more to offer than people tend to give it credit for. It may not have the longest runtime or the deepest game systems, but it still felt like a complete and well-rounded adventure, and I was thoroughly satisfied with it. Future Connected acts as an epilogue to the original Xenoblade Chronicles , but focuses on bringing closure to Melia's study, which was easily the most tragic of the main cast. The focus on Melia led to some creative decisions that, frankly, I loved! The most obvious of which is the playable party of characters. Instead of reintroducing the whole cast of the original game and finding some way to explain what each of them has been doing between games, your

After I beat Xenoblade Chronicles 2 , I immediately bought Xenoblade Chronicles 3D and, just as immediately, proceeded to never play it. I definitely wanted to, but with it stuck on my 3DS , I felt more inclined to play my growing library of Switch games instead. Luckily, the game made the leap a few years later with some pretty impressive quality-of-life and graphical upgrades. Now that I have finished it, I'm glad I got to play the Definitive Edition, but I know this game is a fantastic experience regardless of the platform you choose to play it on. The premise for Xenoblade Chronicles starts out pretty simple. Playing as a young man named Shulk and his growing group of companions, you must try to save the giant titan on which you live from an onslaught of autonomous war machines known as the Mechon. However, no small part of what makes the Xenoblade series so good is the fact that the is so much more going on than you understand at first, and you won't fully understand i

When I learned the DLC for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 came with an entire standalone prequel game, I was ecstatic! I was already loving the base game, and this was the most ambitious DLC I had ever seen, so there was a lot for me to get excited about. I didn't play it right away after beating XC2 since I figured it would be better to pace myself with the series, but it wasn't until I started hearing rumors of Xenoblade Chronicles 3  years later that I actually made it around to it. While the game is short and the story lacks a lot of the depth that the series is known for, I still think that Torna has earned its place as a recognized entry in the Xenoblade series. While I believe it to be a standalone game, I highly recommend only playing this after beating Xenoblade Chronicles 2 . Mechanically, I really enjoyed contrasting how the two games approached combat and sidequests; having obviously been cut from the same cloth, they still both have something unique to offer. Plot-wise

I consider Puzzle & Dragons to be the grandfather of all mobile RPGs. While the game itself might feel a little dated today, its mechanics will be very familiar to anyone who has played an RPG on their phone in the past decade. Player levels and stamina, normal and premium currencies, character summoning and fusion, story and event stages, it's all here. Frankly, most of those things are designed more around a player's wallet than their enjoyment, but the addictive tendency of games like this means that people are all too happy to accept the abuse and move on. That usually applies to me too, I did just play Pokémon 's take on this formula not too long ago, but I surprisingly just wasn't hooked this time around. I was actually really excited to play Puzzle & Dragons . I was hankering for some sort of match-3 puzzle game, and P&D 's blend of a super unique matching system and RPG elements seemed perfect for me at the time. When I first opened the app, I

Over the past 25 years, Pokémon's pop-culture dominance has grown astronomically, making it the highest-grossing media franchise of all time by a pretty significant margin. At the start of it all was a humble pair of monster-collecting RPGs that encouraged collaboration and competition between real-life friends, classmates, and coworkers. Now, over two decades later, we have received seven more "generations" of Pokémon games, each leaving that classic formula virtually untouched. Each of them saw massive success, showing just how strong the foundation is, but with repetition often comes boredom. Because the competitive side of Pokémon is so important, major adjustments can't really happen without running the risk of inadvertently damaging a huge draw to the franchise. However, with each successive release that avoids altering the formula, players' interest in retreading old ground fades a little more. Pokémon Legends: Arceus singlehandedly destroys that compla

Remakes in the Pokémon series have been seriously impressive in the past. Many even still consider HeartGold and SoulSilver to be some of the best games in the entire series. Each of the first three remakes in the franchise used an upgraded version of the engine from the most recent mainline titles at the time, incorporated every Pokémon  released up to that point, and added new story content on top of whatever the original had. This led them not only to be improvements of the games they remade but also of the current generation of titles as a whole. Pokémon Brilliant Diamond (and Shining Pearl ) does none of that. I wanted to get all of that out of the way at the start because, although they didn't live up to series standards, I still ended up having a great time with the Sinnoh remakes. I definitely think that this was the wrong direction for these games to go, but I'm not letting myself be too mad, as I ultimately enjoyed what we ended up getting. If you have ever played

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team was one of my GBA staples. I played that game until there was virtually nothing left to do in it, and then I still played more. The gameplay loop was okay, and I don't think the rescue missions alone would've been enough to keep me coming back, but I absolutely fell in love with the characters and the world, making it easy to dive in every time. Picking up Rescue Team DX was immediately nostalgic; it looked, sounded, and felt just like I remembered from the original, which I would say marks a fantastic first impression for a remake. Just like the originals, the main gameplay could be improved, but the story is a delight and kept me fully engaged. In Rescue Team DX , you play as a human who mysteriously woke up as a Pokémon.  With the help of your new partner, you have to try and figure out why you transformed while also helping the Pokémon you meet during your adventure. With your partner, you form a rescue team that volunteers to en

The biggest draw of the mainline Pokémon series for me is the collecting. I get a lot more enjoyment out of filling out the Pokédex than I do out of crafting the perfect team. However, sometimes a good old-fashioned Pokémon battle is just what I need. This urge really picked up for me once news about the Sinnoh remakes and Legends: Arceus started dropping more regularly, but I didn't want to start playing a whole mainline game with those right around the corner for fear of getting exhausted by the formula. That's when I remembered Pokémon Masters . I had previously passed it up thanks to its focus on battling over collecting, but suddenly it felt like the perfect fit. The battle system in Pokémon Masters EX  is far from traditional, but it works well and offers some unique nuance relative to the standard format. To start, battles are no longer one-on-one, or turn-based. Instead, you'll be directing three Pokémon , with the assistance of their trainers, in real-time figh

Square Enix really knocked it out of the park with this one. I try not to play 80 hour RPGs too often, just because I have so many games in my backlog that get held up by titles like this, but every once in a while I just have to give in. My original plan was to slowly make my way through the whole Dragon Quest series and reach this one eventually, but I heard too many raving testimonies to not play it while it's still relevant. Gameplay-wise, I pretty much knew exactly what to expect, but the breadth of the story and the depth to the characters surprised me. When it comes to modern RPGs, I typically expect impressive, fleshed out narratives that pick up the slack for their less impressive battle systems. With "pep," a temporary boost to party members' stats that can be sacrificed for powerful group attacks, being the only thing that separated the combat here from the first Final Fantasy , I figured out pretty early that it would be the same here. The story started