Recent reviews by jmporkbob

An improvement on Ys 1 in almost every way. Ys 1 & 2 are two halves of one game, so don't start here though, play the first game first.

It's definitely the most archaic Ys game, but I would say to not let the bump combat scare you off right away. It's not that bad once you get used to it. You just need to hit them slightly offcenter instead of dead on. (And for god's sake use the d-pad for regular enemies. for most bosses, analog stick was better though.) Also save before you go out on the map and start attacking stuff, so you dont have to rewatch the intro when you die, lol.

Ys 1 has that certain 80s charm to it that's hard to come by. For it's time, the storytelling was definitely a cut above as well. Aside from a couple instances of it being uncertain what to do (talk to all NPCs to get hints on what to do and cause plot triggers, like most old school games), and an unfortunate bit of forced backtracking near the end, I think this game is very solid as it stands.

Second best entry point to the series, behind Ys 8, out of the ones I've played so far.

Can you play this game first in the series? Kinda depends what angle you're coming from, but let's see...

Can you play it first and not be lost in the story? Absolutely, 100%. It has its own standalone story that focuses mainly on new characters and local lore, and will tell you everything you need to know.

Can you play it first without spoiling the previous games? Again, yes 100%. It spoils very little about the previous games (the Sky trilogy). It basically says "stuff happened" and that's the about the extent of it.

Can you play it first and still have the optimal experience? Not exactly. You will more understand the weight of some elements if you know the previous games, their revealed lore, the factions in them, etc. A few characters from the previous games show up again, and one of arguably the best character arcs in the series reaches its conclusion here—having started 2 games prior. That arc still has enough buildup in this game to have some emotional punch, but it can't match what you'd experience if you played the Sky arc first.

But ultimately very much yes, Zero is a valid and acceptable entry point. All the previous games are available on Steam and go on sale for cheap, so up to you. If this game interests you more than others, you can't go wrong with it as a first foray.

A Shinto Hexen-like game, where you can tether up buildings, glide around, and otherwise parkour your way around Tokyo. The battle system is somewhat reminiscent of reboot era Doom, but not quite exactly. i had way too much fun traversing and fighting.

Story isn't anything mindblowing, but it was fine enough, and enough of a justification for the game to exist.

If you're mainlining the story it's probably not gonna take much longer than 10 hrs. But I was having so much fun ghostbusting and zooming around like Batman, Spiderman, or Breath of the Wild that I put 3x longer into it than that, and did all side quests. (Definitely didn't get all collectibles tho lol.) It's a pretty standard open city type environment. Wouldn't recommend at full price or anything, but at the right price can be a great time.

8/10 - On paper it sounds like it should be just an average game, and I guess in actuality it is. But I just had a lot of fun with the traversal and battles, I dunno.

Will you have the "best possible experience" if you play all the games in order, starting from Sky? Probably. I did, and don't regret it even slightly.

But can you start from the beginning of any arc? 100%, absolutely. It'll tell you everything you need to know.

This game is way more slice of life than any other Trails game. But just take that as it comes, and have a chill time. It's formulaic, but it's very intentional and it's going somewhere.

The PSVita bones are on display for sure, but the PC port itself is solid (and if you know the story that one person did the port by themselves, it's simply mindblowing).

To me, it just felt like the next Trails game. The transition into 3D was a bit surreal for a while, but it ultimately fits. Some design choices I don't agree with, but there's just so much I enjoy about this series for what it is and am continually impressed at the direction it's going that those things can't possibly cancel out what I love about the series.

Just go into it with the understanding that it's a different format to every other Trails game currently released in the west. Far less NPCs, and it ends up being much more battle/dungeon focused as a result.

Not knowing that put me off a bit early on, but it legit has some of the best nuanced character development in the series (both in the main game and the side stuff) as well as additional character backstories and world lore. Oh and one of the best soundtracks in the series as well.

You should do all 25 doors' worth of side content in my opinion. It was very worth it, and I solidly recommend this game.

Very solid, cute little game.

Pretty handholdy at the start, but once you finally have all the combat options unlocked, the battle system is pretty fun for a short game, even if the difficulty never gets truly challenging. (Hopefully they add a hard mode later on.) The combat is a lot less generic than I thought it'd be going in. It's sort of a Trine-like fight system, but better than in that series.

Sidequests are a bit repetitive, but that's kind of the point, and it never got truly egregious to me. The vast majority of the time I already had the resources the questgivers wanted, and I just marched down the street, upgrading their shops. You're not required to do them if you don't want to anyway.

Visuals are fantastic. I wouldn't say it's "high fidelity", but almost everything is appropriately detailed for the distance from the camera, and post processing is used masterfully. Screenshots or online video compression cannot do it justice compared to running it natively on your monitor. Calling it pleasing to the eye would be an understatement.

I didn't expect a huge track variety with a budget title, but what's there is good imo. Composed quite well, with an adequate amount of layers for each track's feel. The melodies aren't quite as front and center in all the tracks, or sometimes they trade the main melody off between different instruments, and imo that seems to lead to most complaints about them not being "memorable".

Charm, charm, charm. This thing oozes charm, and that's probably what elevates it more than anything. It's a great intro to the Eiyuden world, and the main characters get enough banter and fleshing out in the short runtime to make me look forward to the main game.

If you're not interested or don't want to be interested in Suikoden or Eiyuden, it might be a hard sell. But I think it's well worth a base $15 price point. If you're that skeptical, I'm sure it will go on sale in the leadup to Eiyuden Hundred Heroes.

I've been fortunate enough to only have encountered the rare, one-time shader compilation stutters that have almost no impact for me on my variable refresh rate monitor, and none of the longer and more regular half second or longer freezes or crashes I've seen from video of other people's play sessions.

So with that said, I can say that this game is quite fun. Not really the best thing ever made, but absolutely worth playing once all of the initial issues blow over and this gets fixed up down the line. Would I like the devs to put more PC-tier features and options into the game later on/in their future games? Absolutely, and I might not even consider buying those future games unless they do put more effort there.

This being my first FromSoft game, I can assure that—while the combat is very deliberate and can be difficult, especially to begin with—you're not gonna find yourself hardwalled at a boss that you are FORCED to defeat early on. If that happens (it probably will), just run off in various other directions for several hours (even longer??) while you familiarize yourself with the game mechanics. Once they start clicking, it gets very satisfying.

It may not be a perfect game, but it is a very good one and a work of high art. Done with a limited budget, at that. Definitely pick it up if you've been putting it off.