Recent reviews by Balakiel ~Sensual Birdfeed~

Writing a quick review to just say the port works perfectly fine so far with zero issues, as well as my memory of why I liked this game in particular. note: do not buy the exp dlc, even if you want to skip the grind the game already gives you plenty of ways to do that on the offset. Bamco adding this dlc to each Tales game makes the game itself look worse than it is.

The game scaled up looks quite nice, generally a lot of wii era games do well with upscales because of the stylization but paired with the amount of per character animation I would say this actually looks better than most. The other remaster on ps3 they're pulling from probably helped. Everything is crisp and all the textures make sense, including the intro animation. It's completely possible they could have had a 1080p animation in their back pocket, but it doesn't look like a weird upscale or anything. The only thing I've seen that appear to have upscaling artifacts are some aspects of the UI which is fine by me.

It's news to me that a lot of people dislike this game in particular story-wise, I think the characters are quite good and they are much more the backbone of a Tales game than the lore or narrative, in my opinion. The framing of this going on over the course of a few years allows every character to have a significant growth to full changes in personality, and I think it adds something unique to the formula. I also like how the children act largely like children, and it's framed in such a way to keep you in that frame of mind. Nobody tells you about the politics of the region directly and things happen without your full understanding.

The combat is easy to learn but mechanically complex. I've seen a few reviews calling this the hardest tales game people have played but I find this one more intuitive than Vesperia and it's well tutorialized throughout. The beginning is slow because you don't have access to each characters unique gimmicks but I vividly remember how much combat grows as the game moves forward. As far as I know, this was the turning point in combat design for the Tales series from fairly simple inputs to mechanically complex. There were a lot of things in the symphonia-abyss-vesperia era that complicated combat but a lot of it was on the stat side rather than your reactive performance. If you didn't like Zesteria, Berseria or Arise you -may- not like this one.

The way progression designed is interesting, a lot of unlocks are tied to titles, which imbue permanent character buffs and have their own exp system. There is a menu on start to make these less grindy but honestly I love grinding out the individual titles and recall it being paced fine. Also a fair amount of outfits that are tied to titles and progression, finding and unlocking everything is very involved and fulfilling.

Another thing that changed with this one (probably as a result of platform) is that the way the map works is a series of connections between nodes, with each path being something like a standalone dungeon. I like this design and think makes it stand out from a lot of JRPGs. Interactive world maps are fun but I think there's a limit to how much detail you can put into a plain between towns without delving into full open world territory. Later games would improve this, particularly Arise, which has a fair amount of open space but it's all designed and well populated.

Overall I've yet to find any genuine fault with the port, and unless my memory is playing tricks on me this is one of my favourite Tales games for a reason.

This is a very very good foundation for a game, I like being able to actually see your upgrades on your person, I think that is something this game has over Halls of Torment. I also think there is a lot of potential in the map system for mini skirmishes. The armor and weapon systems make enough sense to grasp in a few plays, and each map is short enough to play between chores.

The performance is good, this isn't pushing thousands of enemies on screen or anything but I've played quite a few survivors-likes with poor performance, and this has fairly modeled characters.

I think what's going to bring it together is the amount of content, as well as what you're actually working towards. I think a good way to go about it would be to be able to unlock character or armour skins through gameplay, even just unlocking the skins already in the game would be plenty, because it seems like a rarity you would ever actually be wearing a matching armour set in the game itself.

I'm also wondering what sort of other meta-progression will be present in the full game.

Anyways, already more fun I've had with a lot of games in this niche and I'm excited for the full game.

I'm not really super into the storylines of these games but the Nobunaga ending is maybe the funniest scene in any game I've played

Even though the genre has been reinvented about 5000 times there is a certain simplicity of execution that Story of Seasons excels at that makes it a much comfier game to me than Rune Factory or Stardew.

This game is arguably less mechanically complex than even the GBA entries but that often works to its benefit. It doesn't become a micromanagement business simulator which I think, for as fun as that can be, goes against the spirit of the original game on SNES.

It's just a game where you inherit a farm, build it up, and ultimately establish a relationship with largely two dimensional NPCs (For what it's worth, I do think the characters are more interesting than most of the other games, but they're far from complex individuals with wants and needs) I did quite a bit on switch already but I don't remember if it even has simple things like fertilizer, you just plant crop and wait for crop and the level is based on how often you interact with crop in a rune factory-esque level up menu.

My main critiques is, some events really feel like they were gonna be playable and they just aren't, the easter egg hunt is a cutscene. Also there are some tremendously cute characters like Beth, Angela and Patricia who aren't romanceable, but that is part of SoS's ongoing mission of being a milf cuckold simulator which is charming in its own right.

Despite considerable ease of use introductions like almost immediate access to Sprinklers and backpacks, I think this is the game that is closest to bringing me to the same feeling as the original SNES game. I don't think this is worth a full 40 dollars or anything but 15-20 it's an easy recommend. It runs way better than it did on Switch and fulfills a niche that other casual farm sims have long worked past.

I bought the season pass this go and the expanded areas don't seem worth anything, unless you really want one of the bachelors or bachelorettes or the costumes or it's a considerable sale I would skip it.

If you want interesting characters with a lot of personality, You can't go wrong with any of the Rune Factories. If you want a straightforward farming game and don't have Mineral Town that might be your first go to, but if you're coming from Mineral Town or just didn't jive with the frankly cryptic progression of that game, this one is excellent.

Also Reina is cute.

It's not super deep or anything but it has a better gameplay loop than most porn games and I like collecting stuff. The first game is also essentially free with the bundle, which is also an okay couple hours, but this is a much better made (and optimized) game.

My critiques are: you should be able to cancel movement, if you accidentally click a cell across the map you need to wait for the character to finish the animation. Also I think essence gain should scale as you go up levels, but I'm only on floor four so maybe it does at some point IDK.

Pro Gamer Tip: always keep an extra couple thousand essence for gambling, gambling tiles pay 3:1 and the dice roll you have above a 50 percent shot of winning. 90 percent of gambling addicts quit right before they make it big.

Game of the Rear

I heard that this game had some technical issues but I didn't run into them and I'm getting a solid 60 at 125 percent resolution scaling from 1080p with very few drops and no tearing, I have a graphics card that's only slightly better than the recommended 970. It's nice to play a JP game that's optimized somewhat. or at least runs how I'd expect.

I haven't gotten super far into the game yet but I'm in the second main dungeon and all the little things are starting to come together. I like the art direction, the characters, and though it has the typical "hero with a thousand faces" type storytelling that the team is known for, to the point of referencing it directly in dialogue, it diverges in enough weird ways to not make it feel derivative.

The combat is interesting, and something you'd be used to if you've played any modern smt or persona game. Most of the core mechanics are the same as the baseline smt experience, with the addition of the press turn system that I think was introduced in nocturne, but I'm more familiar with in 4. I think this is a good system because it encourages you extremely heavily to play optimally, but on the other end of the spectrum can be extremely punishing to the point that a single mistake may be unrecoverable.

I had to pop down from hard to normal because, though I'm certain it's doable with enough knowledge of all the different archetypes and enough grinding with the archetypes for each of the characters, it came down to me doing a twentieth of a health bar to a character while he would wipe out my party in a single set of turns. In addition to the expected higher stat output, hard mode gives the enemies an additional turn in most cases, which is catastrophic in this game if they're able to take it. Even on normal, something as simple as being hit by a critical can lead to
1) giving the enemy an additional turn
2) being inflicted with a status ailment unique to this fumble
3) the enemy getting a free hit on you because this status ailment also makes it so their turns don't cost.

The nice thing about this game is it has a very forgiving system where you can restart a battle from scratch and give you relatively frequent autosaves in dungeons to start from if you're screwed. I think this is more essential in this game versus smt and persona because the combination of both timegating AND battles that are unexpected and unavoidable, so you're most likely going to be blindsided with an insufficient team. I think this altogether makes a game that's just the correct amount of frustrating while giving you room for experimentation, my only gripe is that you can't change your team when resetting the battle, only when you die, which you also just kind of have to wait to happen.

Games like these kinda annoy me when they're overly reliant on things like criticals and misses but at least so far that's a relatively rare concern, with the only enemy I fought based around that barely tickling me with his attacks. They also didn't give early enemies the ol' instakill roulette attacks smt games are known for.

Overall, really neat and I'm looking forward to the rest.

I haven't powered through to end game yet and in fact hit a stopping point for the story (possibly a timegate) but I figured 20 something hours is probably a fair time to review.

I think this is good but doesn't have the quality of life you would expect from later rune factory games.

This is a visual upgrade to a ds game, I haven't played the original for a direct comparison, but the models definitely look really good, and the UI is crisp. I think they put more effort into the upgrade than they did with 4, but I feel like they probably didn't touch the core game at all.

The characters and town is nice. I think the characters are all charming and have a lot of work put into them, and this is the only one where I was split between like three bachelorettes.

On that note, you can only play male and romance the women, so it's a lot more restrictive on the sim life front than the other Rune Factory or Story of Seasons offerings on store, but there is actually a plot reason for this and they have relevance to the story, so I suppose you can view it as quality over quantity, but they still have all the cute boys as villagers so I'm sure a lot of the audience of this game was pretty bummed about it.

You cannot immediately grow anything out of season, and item management is a lot more tedious. I think normal story of seasons games can get a pass for this because they're juggling a lot less, but it kinda gets under my skin in this? There is a metric ton of inventory management in these games. I wish they implemented the tabbed inventory and the ability to pull up the inventory at the shipping bin the same way it is in 4 and 5.

Maybe late game will wow me, but I recommend this game on sale. Rune Factory 4 costs less, and much more fully featured in the quality of life, romance and farming aspects. 5 is less and while some consider it a weaker entry, it still retains a lot of the basic quality of life that 4 had, as well as letting you experience it from a more intimate angle. I recommend getting 4 or 5 first if you don't have them.

This game is a lot of fun, and I've enjoyed my ten hours so far with it just unlocking cosmetics and upgrading buildings. It's more than worth the asking price it has and is very comfy. I think it works best half paying attention to other things, though presumably multi with friends would help with potential lulls.

I also like how you have a little influence over the game cycle, whether you want something more active or mostly passive.

I think this game largely looks good with the pixelization pass on but I appreciate being able to disable it because it also hides a few small details, like certain shirts and gags on props.

I bought Mara day one because it was cute but was ashamed to say I never finished it. I really liked the visuals and the characters and this brings that back, while altogether being a solidly built (but easy) speedrunning platformer.

The levels are designed pretty well, and the limited movement makes speedrunning a level surprisingly satisfying. I think it speaks well to the art direction that the levels referencing the original, which I haven't touched for like... 4-5 years now, still feel familiar. Also I like that unlocking different shirts changes your character portrait, that's such an unnecessary detail that most games wouldn't bother with.

They sprinkle in just enough variety to stop the game from getting boring before you finish the second world, which is a thing a lot of games just don't do, and all of the side objectives are well done, even if they don't ever evolve beyond distractions.

My biggest critique is I think the cutscenes for doors opening majorly break the flow and are so sudden that I think the game is crashing every time it happens. Also you can't seem to play as the other three characters even though they already have the moveset of the main character. Maybe I'm missing something there, though. I just want to play as the catgirl.

I actually think this would be a good game to iterate off of, build more challenging worlds and maybe add one or two moves to the character. I would enjoy that. Also I distinctly remember Mika being in the demo of this game, I'm sad to not see her in the full release. I was hoping to unlock her or something.