Recent reviews by Ish

This small pixel narrative based game is engaging. It has a small runtime of a few hours so it certainly doesn't overstay its welcome. Put simply its an adventure game, the point and click match items style. Only there is some minor side scrolling and puzzles to work out that spread over rooms. There is a survival horror aspect to it as well, and the game doesn't do too badly at blending the two. Dialogue is often charming, as are the often dry comments while working through the puzzles, reminiscent of Broken Sword or Monkey Island. The graphics are often moody with specific ambient lighting and the story themes are kooky enough to hold your interest.
Not everything is perfect, some parts are clunky and the puzzles are either really easy or extremely abstract in their approach. If you're like me and dig a small short story wrapped in funky pixel style graphics you might be entertained by this as well.

I've played this through twice. Once on PS4 on release, and just now on Steam. Finished the original PS1 version three times. I enjoy the original's setting, characters, music and drawn out RPG elements. It requires a lot of reading like any original game, and you get a certain feeling on the tone of characters and story.

I think the Remake does build on this, from the voice casting to their wardrobes, brings them into 2020/22 without completely tarnishing the charm of the original game. I believe most of the actors came over from the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children movie from 2005. It fits in just enough to not take you out of it.
While it is not a 1-1 direct adaption from the PS1 original, it is very much true to the themes, tone, enjoyment and mix of drama with just enough whimsy to not make it droll. There are changes, and I did not like all of them; looking at you motorcycle boss. For the most part they serve two reasons; they fill out the story for better or worse or they facilitate space to demonstrate that they will not be following the original 1997 story to the letter. Mostly it was for the better, because if they followed the original the runtime would have been 20hrs or more, and much of the depth in backgrounds for many of the characters would be left in the air. The small mission that involved Jessie's home I think was one of the best injections of story, and fit in really nicely to add atmosphere, character development and served the greater plot.
With the elephant moved from the room i'll go to the main stuff.


The World:
These amazing sets and environments and locations all adhere to the 1997's style guide and feel like those top down locations have sprung to life. The Markets, Shinra buildings and streets look fantastic. That enough would get me to play this. That mixture, halfway between cyberpunk/steampunk with fantasy mixed in creates a unique aesthetic, and its great seeing that translated across the multiple slums and upper pizza housing.
I didn't pay much attention to the NPC design in the original as it was mostly polygon blocks with bands of colour strapped around, but the unique NPCs seemed to evolve quite well eg. Don Corneo's wobbling belly and fop hairstyle.
Story: I think most of the great stuff made it across to the Remake. Some things were watered down due to the elongation, but many of the best lines stayed in. While many of the additions didn't feel necessary, the good stuff overshadowed any cringe, bad or insert that didn't really fit (again buoyant motorcyclist). I won't say much about the latter 1/4 of this game (1/3 of full game) as it would be spoilers, but these were the parts I wish they didn't change as much as they did.

Combat:
Battles are frenetic with lots of moving around, switching focus. I became used to this style after playing FF15. But I'm still not sure I like it, and that it replaced a bit more controlled static original system of turn based. In my opinion, the battles are a piece of piss. I played the hardest difficulty ( a strange thing for a Final Fantasy game) which was Normal, but barely a sweat was broken. The desire to replay it on the Hard difficulty is low, but people might enjoy it to 100% the game.
The effects in the battles are nice, they have added many many more abilities that run off and unlock from each individual weapons rather than being tied to MP. The same Materia system is still there with no major changes on it.
Each character does feel very different in combat, that is worth noting as in the old game there was not much difference between running each of them, you just had Materia set and maybe a limit break to separate them. In FF7R for instance Barret moves slow, because he is a beefcake with a massive cannon for an arm. Tifa runs quick and she feels like a street fighter spryly bashing the living daylights out of whatever. Aerith runs like a massive dork but that's fine, I am happy that the attention to detail went in.
I think much of these things are overlooked by fans who are complaining still about it being broken up into 3 games. Well, regardless that FF7 was Peter Jacksoned, this is a little different as there is really a massive amount of things to 3D render, voice lines, its not remotely the same amount of information to be processed of the original game, and can you imagine how long that took to make? it would be a bigger game than any RPG out there if it were all put together as one game, it would be likely that it would stall and never be released, or end up like star citizen or duke nukem. So I'll take what I can get.

Graphics:
It looks great. This was made for PS4 and it has been upscaled, there are some blurs here and there, and it takes a bit of tweaking to achieve maximum clarity possible but for the most part it will look quite decent as its still a stylised game so there is no need for photo quality. I found some slight stutters in some areas which didn't last too long. Much of the out of battle scenes don't need full frames and you can notice some loss in battles which aren't a big issue as you are issuing commands, there isn't a huge amount of hair-trigger reaction time you need.

Sound:
Always thankful when games separate the volume dials for voice, sfx and music. Sound is atmospheric, sound effects in battle are on the cheesy anime style but in a good way, its not realism that is needed. Music is a blend of the old revamped midi tracks from the OG FF7 as well as ones done with an orchestra. The revamped ones you can collect through the game and offer tracks done in a myriad of genres of classics like Costa de Sol or Chocobo music.

Replayability:
Sure if you want a pseudo new game plus by way of the Hard Mode chapter select. You can go for 100% (needs 3 playthroughs)
or just to witness it again.

Summary:
Even though it is a portion of the true plot of the original game, FF7R Intergrade has a comparable play time to the full PS1 FF7. Even more so if you played hard mode or finished off collectables. The content is there, nobody is getting ripped off. I played the original in the late 90s and was glued to the screen for however many hours/days it took to drive my family insane with the looping midi music. It is lots of fun. And this does it justice and is an engrossing amount of fun.

Funky little CRPG game with pretty well written dialogue. It doesn't take long to finish, so don't expect a long playtime. Gameplay wise It is pretty tightly centered on a dialogue, nothing that will stretch you too far. Some elements early game and late game will send you brute forcing until you find the answer.
It is stylish in its 8 bit esq design set in the noir techno future. Music and sound effects are subtle but precise and don't get in the way. Most of the game takes place in a dive bar where you broker information from patrons mixing drinks (small mini game) to determine how to influence their answers.
Small gripes: Couldn't speed up text input, and didn't have a keyboard shortcut for skipping text, everything relied on mouse button. Where the story had room to breathe and go deeper it tended to play out more simply. Had lots of potential to flesh out both the bartending mini game and the neural AI angle.

In short: Worth a look, a decent indie short story type game from a small dev. Not groundbreaking in gameplay mechanics or anything, but the story that revolves around neural emotion inhibitors does raise some good philisophical questions about what would we do if we could eradicate mental illness if it meant sacrificing personality.

Very decent. More of a investigative detective game than a 'hacker' game, but certainly themed as one. Each assignment feels a bit like a digital escape room and requires some methodical thinking. Tasks are varied and mostly well written. Some dialogue is on the edgy side but it is easily overlooked.
Subtle and simple music sets a good scene without being too overbearing and invasive. Graphics are generally modelled on earlier bitmap style games, and the remote logins to custom alternate brand reflects this.
A fun and engaging game, well worth the price tag.

Not a full review but you should already know about this game by now if you are into CRPGs.

As a big tabletop D&D player, I can honestly say this is the closest you will come to playing D&D in a video game. Yes I am including the numerous big official D&D titles in that roundup. It captures the spirit, the turn based nature, the moral choices, rolling fantasy story that has tweaks from regular cliche aspects, it even allows for chaotic messing about; something that I think is paramount in shared roleplay settings. It does have very serious themes carried about by decent voice actors and writers. But unlike most of the official D&D type games it doesn't take itself too seriously. A good drama needs a balance of humour to be palatable and in the story rich settings it balances this in nicely.
This game is probably more fun Co-op, but it is captivating enough single player too. There is also big re-playability through difficulties on top of a function to run games like a D&D session as Dungeon Master if you have enough friends to can jump in with you.

An easy 10/10 for me

Ill put it out there, this game is not for everyone. However, in the small niche of games where you sort through information in a repetitive and stylised manner, this game is hands down the best you will ever play.

This game you are a border inspector in a fictional country probably based off East Euro country. Your job is to show up at work, check passports and entry documents under strict guidelines and rigorous protocol. All the while, your country is on the brink of a rebel uprising. This story develops over the 31 days you are in play. While you are crunching approve or deny stamps, this subtle story is fed to you through the lines of eager citizens or foreigners filtering in to seek passage. The main character of this game is the details.

While this might seem a very boring game, it oozes charm with the retro graphics, and stunted compressed audio. The border inspector actions you take within your booth become practised and after a while it becomes second nature. So much so that it becomes relaxing, and after a not too long it's addictive.

It can be a great game to jump into for a bit, as it can become weary maintaining that level of focus. It has repeatability as there are roughly 20 different endings. There is no game quite like it. I know, I've looked to try and fine more. It is iconic.

I highly recommend this game, it is an easy - 10/10

Glory to Arstotzka

You may be here because you played FF XIII, and you thought like me: "Hey they probably made this game way better because the last one was a single button mashing rail cart of a game devoid of player inclusive story."
If you buy this game you will make the same mistake I did, and it is a painful one.

Bad Stuff:
I'm sure there is a great extra-convoluted fantasy story tucked away somewhere in the numerous Datalogs most wont read. But I didn't witness it outside of that.
So much of the game stops you after 30 seconds of walking to subject you to a full dialogue of characters saying things in long form of little to no consequence.
Remember old final fantasy games where a nice rounded rectangle would pop up allow you to read quickly the interesting dialogue? That's gone now.
Also left on the cutting room floor is any real tactical form of combat, you get to pick battle styles once again in set styles then press one button for the rest of the game. How fun. You can go and see how many household activities you can do one handed with a wireless controller in the other mashing that one button while doing bosses or the random battles that pop up blocking you while you try and work out the inane puzzles you may find in the game.
There is an unusual amount of running back and forth to find certain keys or do fetch quests, which somehow dilute the already drivel injected plot. Many of them are frustrating and pointless. It's almost like they had a special team at Square-Enix dedicated to editing out anything that made this game fun.

Good Stuff:
I enjoyed the voice acting by Liam O'Brien and Laura Bailey, although somewhat wasted.
The proper cinematics are always a pleasure to watch. This does seem to be the most futuristic Final Fantasy has gone, its a pity that it was squandered. But the aesthetic in some zones was really cool.
It was good seeing chocobo racing back, but it was executed with not quite the amount of necessity.
Thankfully the abundant and superfluous dialogues are skippable.

This is the worst game I've played in a while. And the for sure the worst Final Fantasy numbered game I've played.

3/10

If you liked the first, you will be certain to like this as well.
Deadfire is not as linear as the first game and often I wasn't sure completely of my main goals. Playing a bit, benching it,then coming back some time later can be difficult to get back into. The game doesn't hold your hand or displays massive objective markers on the world map, and HUD which is good if you like to explore, but can be frustrating if you can't remember which port you are supposed to be docking at. That being said, it is a great game for coming across stories in the wild, solving them and then down the track surprising a quest NPC with a fresh head for them; accepting, then completing a quest within two dialogue options.
The dialogue, if you are okay at reading and enjoy deep lore and story is some of the best I've read in any game. Some NPC banter and character responses caught me off guard and had me doubling over. This game is not for you if you are the type that skips through options to get to the next fight, or sea scrim quicker.
It can be immersive, somewhat relaxing sailing and outfitting your ships, the soundtracks have variety and are wonderfully composed.
Combat will have a steep learning curve if you are skipping Pillars of Eternity I to jump into this. Characters you control rely on fine tuning in combat, and sometimes party dynamics just don't work and you have to switch around members. I think the game does encourage swapping, as many of your roster will have their own personal backstory and questline tied to them, but sometimes there's not time for every story when you find the right groove you may be like me and stick to your basic load out.
It is worth keeping in members like Aloth and Edér for certain moments over custom characters or pickups as they each have their own backstory that follows from the first game, plus their voice overs are fantastic.
Voice acting is on par with the first, and you can find certain voice over celebs lending their voices throughout the game. Honorable mention; Matt Mercer, Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey to name a few.
In certain narrative screens are spectacular artworks that fit scene, they capture the look of
a story book. In game 2D backgrounds are beautiful, and there is a huge variety in locations throughout.
Overall a great game, but there are some things that take a bit of time to get a hang of and a bucket load of reading that may scare of newcomers. Well worth it if you have the time invested to immerse yourself in a tale of the gods across the seas.

This game is a quiet and brooding addition to 3d side scrolling puzzle/platformers. It is thought provoking and immersive, with beautiful sound design and impeccable minimal map and lighting design. The subtle narrative background allows for an unobstrusive gameplay experience. Although its short playtime will leave you wanting more, the masterful devices in which the game tells the story through you will be satisfaction enough.
I would recommend setting time aside to play this in one sitting for a greater impact.
If you have played LIMBO, you know some of what to expect gameplay wise, but INSIDE has possibly easier challengers.
They are different beasts, but I think INSIDE builds on what LIMBO did, by injecting a moody and dark dystopian backdrop.
10/10

I played through the FFX remaster and am yet to play the X-2 at the date of this review.
When i first played FFX on PS2 all those years ago I didn't like it.
I felt the charm of 7/8/9 pixelated style whimsy dissolve as they tried to push the series into the future.The flashy 3D graphics at the time were not enough to wash away the terrible dubbed american voice overs.

I was so used to just reading the dialogue on pop up boxes, and these jarring accents just forced me out of my immerision. So I dropped the game about halfway through.

So I finally play this game again, a decade or more later. It still has forced Dubs. And they are too difficult to sit through so I found the Project X mod which allowed JP dubs with ENG subs. It's a game changer,quite literally.
I was able to get into the story more and thus started to enjoy the game. The levelling system (sphere grid) is possibly the inspiration behind Path of Exile's tech tree. Which adds an interesting dynamic and some freedom in character progression. It is a fun and open way to level through.
Battles are a bit more lenient in this game compared to the others, but perhaps I missed the harder content by barrelling towards the ending proper. I didn't see the Game Over screen until near the end. But I assume it would be challenging enough for new comers i'm sure.

The game's lore and story doesn't feel as rich as the other games and there are plot holes throughout. The mini game - blitzball is not for me. Quite straightforward and I didn't feel the insentives matched the time sink. Although I can see that if you enjoyed it you could spend tens of hours getting lost in the league. Mini games like chocobo racing/breeding and Triple Triad are more my speed.

Using the aforementioned dub fix mod, I can't find any major issues with the game at all, and fits well in the collection. Not the best of the games, but not the worst either. In many Final Fantasy forums this game is the most popular and most loves out of any other. But I just can't see fully why.
If you are a fan of the series, or you are looking for an easy game in the series to get into final fantasy this might be worth a go. Although I'd personally point you towards the original Final Fantasy 7 or 8 first.

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Good: First Major 3D Final Fantasy, Auron, Sphere Grid, Accessible, Fun Summons,

Bad: Flimsy Convoluted Story, Spotty Voice Acting/Translation, Blitzball, Lack of Challenge
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Verdict 6.5/10