Recent reviews by mirkosp

I've liked the Puyo Puyo franchise for a long time.
My first exposure to the franchise was back in the Sega Mega Drive II days. I was a kid, I had just started grade school, and on my 6th birthday I received the Sega Mega Drive II as a present from my parents. It was a bundle of console and a game: it came with the cartridge of Sonic Collection, which included Sonic, Sonic 2, and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine.
Now, I had already played Sonic a couple times on my uncle's console at that time, so I knew the game (and I liked it), and the fact that it had a sequel wasn't surprising to me (bear in mind, I was a kid in the 90s with no access to Internet or videogames information: I didn't know there was a sequel, it just wasn't surprising) but I knew nothing about the third game of the set, and reading "Machine" in the title I thought it would be a racing game.
Well, cue my surprise when it turned out to be a puzzle game. Most surprisingly, though, was the fact that it ended up being my biggest time sink on the SMD2.
I didn't have much experience with puzzle games up to that point, just some Tetris on friends' Game Boys (I wouldn't have a Game Boy of my own until a few years later, when Pokémon came out, and even then still no Tetris on Game Boy for me), but it truly got me hooked. There was something addicting about the gameplay for me, even as a kid, and I actually really liked the bgm a lot, so sometimes I would just play to hear the music while playing.
Fastforward to the Game Cube era, Puyo Pop Fever came out to the West, and I managed to eventually buy a copy a few years later; it wasn't an easy game to find around here, so it had to wait for when I finally had Internet and a prepaid credit card. I loved the fever mode, and spent hours in the endless fever.
I liked the game so much I ended up double dipping and I bought in on the Nintendo DS as well, so I could play it on the go when I felt like it.
Some time later, a sequel came out... only in Japan. And then other Puyo games came out, but they never made it over here.
I eventually ended up importing a Japanese 2DS to play Chronicles (got the limited edition with the OST included on day 1), though it wasn't quite to my taste (the puzzling itself was too simplistic in the story mode).
Then, news of Puyo Puyo Tetris came out, and it also was slated for a western release. Needless to say, I was delighted.
I bought the Switch version at launch, and when it was released on Steam I ended up double dipping.
If you've been reading up to now, you'll realise I've been digging this franchise for a good while, so you might want to take my review with a grain of salt, but I believe this is a strong entry in the series. It has to offer the best in Puyo and it comes with Tetris, and the Swap and Fusion modes are a nice twist, though I still find Fusion to be quite confusing; Swap's a blast, on the other hand.
If you're into puzzle games, this one's definitely a top pick. It has something for everyone, from the Puyo enthusiast that's been playing for years, down to the casual gamer that has only played Tetris every now and then.
The Story mode lets you get familiar with the various game modes at a good pace, with an increasing challenge, and the Arcade mode lets you simply play what you feel like playing, ranging from the good ol' infinite puyo, down to Big Bang mode, which is a blast (and Tetris Big Bang is even more addicting and fast paced than Puyo's Fever mode).
The biggest downside is that the online multiplayer is generally empty nowadays, but back in my days online wasn't an option to begin with.
Overall, yes, I wholeheartedly recommend this game; whether I'm too biased or not is up to the reader to decide.

This game is just too good to be rating it negatively.
Yes the port had some very glaring issues, but official patches already fixed the most glaring issues (especially the language ones), and then the user mods did the rest.
There seems to be a 60fps mod on its way as well, so honestly there's no way to keep giving this game thumbs down anymore. This is one of the better games in the Tales series, as well one of the most iconic JRPGs of its generation, and it still holds up to this day.
If you're into the genres, by all means this is the game for you. If you haven't tried any JRPGs before then this is a very good starting point. If you straight up hate JRPGs then I guess avoid this one: the story is very much fond of the genre's cliches, but the Tales of battle system made one of its biggest improvements in this titles, so action and fighting games fans might just feel right at home with its combo system (which admittedly requires you to invest some time and leveling up in order to get to the good parts of it).

I know many people who played this back in the day and are sitting this port out due to the technical issues. To them I say that now it's fine to step in and buy the game.

To those who have never played this before, I can only suggest to play it once on their own. And then play it over and over again (perhaps following guides from the second time around), because there are many things to do here, even missables and all, and I always found this to be one of the most replayable games out there despite its length.

Erano anni che non giocavo a Ikaruga. Mi mancava.
Questo gioco è difficile, molto, più di quanto io sia in grado di permettermi. E infatti riesco a fare discretamente solo Ideal (il primo dei cinque livelli), il resto posso al più tentare di sopravvivere.
Non è un gioco adatto a tutti, ma è sicuramente un ottimo prodotto, anche se lo consiglierei soltanto ai giocatori più esperti del genere che cercano qualcosa di particolare rispetto al solito "tieni premuto il pulsante di fuoco mentre eviti i proiettili nemici", visto che qui diventa molto importante eseguire catene di tre nemici dello stesso colore, mentre evitare i proiettili nemici è leggermente meno fondamentale, introducendo la meccanica dei colori per assorbirli.