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Cross Tails is a beginner-friendly Tactics RPG that has a plethora of customization for the asking price. It shares a lot of similarities with the Mercenaries Saga games (acronyms, abbreviations, combat mechanics, etc) which makes sense because those were developed by Rideon Inc. After finishing, I can say that this game has slightly more going on compared to the Mercenaries games.

It features a flexible and interesting job system with several classes to choose, mix, and match together. It also has a 2-sided campaign that comes with 2 routes each, and variable difficulty that can be conquered by exploring all the upgrade options (Faith, Runestones, Skills, and Class+Subclass combos) the game provides. It also has a significant QoL change that's missing in most older tactics JRPGs—a faster pace from streamlined leveling. In this game, as opposed to Mercenaries Blaze/Rebirth for example, you don't need to perform superfluous actions to "bring weaker units up to speed". There is a partially-shared exp system that reduces the need for such actions and allows the player to just keep playing through free battles and story missions in a more fluid way.

The game has catchy tunes! I could hear a bit of Egyptian-ish music in one of the stories. There was also some awesome bagpipe and violin action which I really liked. I'm a bit sad I couldn't get solid information on these tracks.

Additionally, there's so much customization that I genuinely appreciate coming from a relatively cheaper Tactics RPG (relative to titles like TS and TO:R). Coming from completing Mercenaries Blaze and Rebirth, This is a welcome change that partially justifies the 50% price difference compared to the Mercenaries Saga games.

The English localization needs a lot of work. The translation wasn't up to par compared to other Rideon games on Steam and it really shows. I saw the R-word on one of the class skills and while it gave me a chuckle, it didn't really fit as the name of a skill with the context of its description.

The story was so-so. The characters were alright, but the overarching story left a bit to be desired most likely due to the aforementioned issues with the translation. I found the Kingdom's characters to be lovable which is why I really hoped other facets of the story would put them in a better light. TL;DR has good characters but subpar line delivery.

Cross Tails is a relatively cheap Tactics JRPG that gives you 30-50+ hours of content featuring impressive customizability. It reminds me of an aesthetic cross between FFT WotL and the Mercenaries Saga games. I enjoyed it, but if poor localization/translation is a pet peeve for you then I'd either wait for them to address it or for it to go on sale.

FRONT MISSION 1st: Remake is a decent tactical JRPG in a very limited pool of mecha games. At its best, it opens the doors to the other Front Mission games. At its worst, it reveals its age through limited combat mechanics however faithful they may be to the original. Regardless, it was a decent 40h of solid gameplay that managed to provide a solid 60+ missions of content while avoiding being repetitive throughout NG+. Scroll down to the bottom for PC and Steam Deck performance issues.

As mentioned above this game has almost 60 missions. Each of these missions can be completed anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour depending on proper planning and progression (NG+). The ability to end missions swiftly really matters in this remake because the combat was not modernized enough to create engaging gameplay that other current tactics RPG titles offer. It's clear that they focused on recreating the game 1:1 so I wasn't really expecting to have my mind blown just from regular play. With that said, they did a good job of really bringing out the mecha appeal that Front Mission has been so excellent at through this basic medium. The ~60 missions are just enough to showcase the appeal of the genre.

As far as worldbuilding goes, all the dialogue surrounding current characters as well as characters from other games lends a lot to solidifying the image of war on Huffman soil. Not surprising since it's a remake, but I do think they missed some opportunities to make QoL changes in this remake. For example, Gina, in one of the EX-MISSIONS on the OCU side will still speak some lines even if she's fully destroyed within the first turn of attempting to escape. Something like this really breaks the immersion that the game tries to create. It's really easy to break that level of investment with just a few seconds of glaring flaws. Another example is when you try to recruit Alder for the OCU campaign. When you talk to him, the dialogue wherein he challenges you is cut short and another NPC abruptly starts talking to you about something completely irrelevant. Something like this really bothers me because remaking something while keeping bugs like this alive is not a show of love for a franchise that clearly deserves it. These 2 issues could have been solved easily with 1 round of modest quality assurance testing.

Playing the game on every graphic setting level is about 90% flawless. The only issue I ran into is that the game can soft-lock in the middle of a turn if your window loses focus from alt-tabbing or other reasons. To solve this, save your turn and reload the turn state. It will bring you back to functionality. Lastly, as I was close to getting the 100% on this game, I experienced a fatal crash that prevented me from loading and reloading into the Rebel Camp EX-MISSION. It crashes on load/deploy and I have not found a way to get past that issue.

The game runs admirably on both the highest and lowest settings without noticeably reduced performance. The biggest issue with playing it on the Steam Deck is that missions/levels sometimes fail to load and get stuck at 100% of the loading bar without any signs of making it through. This happened to me about 8~10 times over the course of playing 35h regardless of graphics settings. While this doesn't completely stop me from finishing the game, it does force me to sometimes replay certain levels because the autosave feature in this remake is underdeveloped and only saves at the start of missions it manages to load into (at least to the member select phase).

Despite some performance hiccups and questionable QA moments, I still recommend this game to fans of the genre (Mecha or Tactics RPGs). It's an important bridge to the more modern Front Mission games and I think I can recommend this to my friends when it dips down to at least a 30% sale. This remake gives a solid amount of content and except for 1 fatal crash, none of the performance/QA issues ruin the experience entirely.

I wish I could perform a before and after brain scan/MRI to really drive home how this soon-to-shut-down gacha warped my brain. Every day was a short burst of dopamine directly massaged into my brain. Who woulda thought consistently getting freebies would feel this good. While I no longer subscribe to any gacha game (Genshin/Super Mecha Champions), Mega Man X DiVE accomplished a few things for me:

• I'm looking forward to the offline version! It's likely that I'll buy it.
  
• I rediscovered my love for the franchise! This gacha is on the casual side considering all the assist options but it rekindled my interest enough to potentially buy Mega Man Battle Network in the near future and get a non-gacha experience.

This is the first time I have ever seen an offline version of an expiring gacha game to come (though I'm sure there are other examples) and I think other developers should take note. Lemme cut this review short because I need to book an appointment with my therapist.

Etrian Odyssey III HD easily has the most content out of the 3 available games. I think less floors per stratum was a good choice because it cancels out the lack of checkpoints ergo the Geomagnetic Poles from EO2. This is also counterbalanced by the addition of Sea Exploration as a large discoverable expanse. Ultimately, Sea Exploration left a bit to be desired since it felt more experimental than anything. There's a lot of room for improvement especially with Sea/Oceanic quests. Regardless, I enjoyed 3 the most out of all currently available titles. It's different enough from the first 2 while keeping a lot of the improvements going from 1-2. Looking forward to seeing more Etrian Odyssey games on Steam!!

JSL is a Solid VN. The premise is spending a year in Japan with Arisa and Choco and that's about as simple as it gets. It's just the player and 2 characters. No fluff and what is present in the VN is done well. Good character design and adorable use of Chibi art to transition between scenes. The passage of time has good pacing and the game highlights the seasons, festivals, and other celebrations to great effect.

I couldn't find out what VN engine this was made on, but it looks similar to what KARAKARA uses. Super responsive menu/UI and I wish more VNs had this layout. JSL is quite the steal ($1.29 CAD) considering the high quality!

Overall, EO2HD is a more pleasant experience than the first. The additional jobs were a saving grace and did a lot to break some of the monotony in EO1. Some skills were changed and balanced in ways that made sense. Ultimately, I think all the good QoL changes made the game friendlier and easier but I mostly attribute that to retiring adventurers being a lot more sensible. Solid 7/10.

Tales of Arise is a solid JRPG offering gorgeous landscapes, fluid combat, and a dynamic cast of characters, not to mention the story of rebellion draws parallels with some of my favorite titles.

To start, the landscapes in this game are breathtaking!! It took me a while to fully appreciate the picturesque world of Dahna, but upon reaching Triselda Highway everything just clicked. Before picking up this game, I had yet to see such beautiful expressions of wildlife specifically in a JRPG setting. I found a tranquil cow enjoying a nap on a small patch of grass and hung out with some piggies on a busy ranch. From that point on I became a little bit more observant. It was kind of the perfect time for it too because Elde Menanica was when the game truly opened up not just in vibrancy but also in all other types of progression.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2989145719 https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2989145689
Another thing this game has going for it is the free-flowing combo-based combat system. I'm personally very happy with how it was implemented especially since FF7R left me wanting more in the combat department. Whether you are using the stalwart Kisara or the deft Shionne, Tales of Arise has many playstyles to cater to a wide audience. There's a plethora of moves for every character, and most if not all of them are gorgeously animated. It's extremely satisfying spamming Boost attacks and Mystic Artes as you pound your way through the game.

Lastly, I enjoyed the serious portrayal of resource conflict, rebellion, and classism in Tales of Arise. If only slightly, it reminded me of Code Geass and Aldnoah.Zero especially when exploring the pain points experienced by the diverse cast. There were some parts that could be considered shallow, but I thought Rinwell and Kisara had particularly decent character arcs. The story wasn't perfect, but I enjoyed it. That change in the AMV once you reach the halfway point of the game is honestly really heartwarming.

This was the first Tales game I completed and it was a pleasant experience. I'm honestly looking forward to playing the rest of them.

Runs great on Steam Deck even with voltage/GPU toned down.

For my first dungeon crawler, this was a good experience in that what you see is what you get. It's got great upscaled artwork from what I could see compared to the old stuff. I would have liked more classes but I know playing through the sequels will solve that. I'm a little bit sad that 1 out of the already small pool of classes is completely useless against the final boss of this game.

The one drawback was that I don't think controllers were able to realize the full potential of the map drawing system. Definitely recommend this game to anyone interested in the genre. I'd wait for a sale though because $53 (Canadian) is pretty steep for the amount of content I got.

Triangle Strategy is currently my favorite entry within the tactics RPG genre.

It is a game that is admittedly very heavy on the story, but the story is executed very well from the voice acting all the way to the overall "flow" as you make heavily weighted choices that are felt throughout your playthrough. For comparison, TO:R has 3 routes but there exists a jarring contrast wherein both Catiua and Vyce seem borderline schizophrenic when going from 1 chapter and locking onto a route. In Triangle Strategy, the player can self-insert their own convictions when making decisions while the reactions or consequences affecting Serenoa's companions are written really well (Frederica in Roland's route for example). I was glued to my seat for the major turning points in the game especially since Team Asano made expert use of camera angles and panning (think of the Theater scene in FF6) to keep narration fresh. It wouldn't be a huge leap to say that this game provides a cinematic storytelling experience.

As for combat, while some may consider TO:R a bit more hardcore, TS has more variability and diversity in some regard. This may sound weird if you consider that you have a set of 30 unique/usable characters in TS as opposed to the army you can raise from various races and classes in TO:R, but hear me out for a second. TS has difficulty settings that can punish the most hardcore players for making 1 bad decision OR allow those new to the genre to learn the ropes and get a chance to appreciate the game. It's that variability in difficulty that gives me the confidence to recommend this to all of my friends. As for diversity, nearly every single one of the 30 playable units in TS lends to 2 styles of play (aggressive or otherwise). They each have their modestly developed backstory that's told really well through their character stories. I personally prefer this over how things are done in other titles within the genre. The maps also lend to that diversity as you see a broad array of map layouts (that do reappear to some degree) and not just an obnoxious repetition of height-based terrain (looking at you TO:R fortresses).

This is a game where choices do indeed matter and this is key to their design choice because it takes a total of 4 playthroughs to platinum TS. Each playthrough is different enough in a significant way (both story and combat) to keep things fresh and you can strategically speed through the common routes/parts thanks to the various upgrades you unlock. I haven't had this much fun hitting up NG+ 4 times over in a long while. You owe it to yourself to experience all the endings and the battles because there really is substance there. I broke down a little bit after completing the golden route thanks to the vivid change on the title screen. So emotional. So epic. Overall the tone of the game (and the slow pacing) reminded me a lot of Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans except I was the captain of the ship and I was the one making the hard decisions.

I treasure the time I spent playing this game and I hope a lot of newer tactics RPG players choose this as their first game. It's a special experience and to anyone who gets the 100%, I'll happily shake your hand in solidarity. Erador best girl.

I believe this is basically the "season pass". Based on what we got from Reunion of Memories, I think getting 2-3 more DLC updates of the same substance would get me my money's worth.

DLC #1/RoM is combat-heavy with a tinge of collectibles thrown on the side. Unfortunately, the extra chapters don't utilize the crew abilities that added depth to the exploration so if that's what you enjoyed most from the base game then I'd wait a bit before buying this. I personally leaned toward combat in the main game so overall the DLC was ok. There's a treat in the form of a nostalgic boss near the end so look forward to that.

Will update my review as more DLC becomes available.