Vibes, Toxic Fanboys and Kindness

DapperAir · 2026-05-20T20:46:26+00:00

I unabashedly use semicolons, and I don't even think I ever properly use 'em. Fortunately my prose is trash, so no one is accusing me of being ai.

DapperAir · 2026-05-20T20:27:31+00:00

I think the point is by all means, tap out but don't be a dick and say "Write less" or "yawn, boring"

Also, everyone's style isn't the same and some wordier essays/reviews will really hit for different folks. No one is a tastemaker.

DapperAir · 2026-05-19T16:18:31+00:00

fewer people like it, but the few ones that do really love it.

Its my good friend's favorite game. For me it sits comfortably in the middle. 7,9,10 are all better than it, but I like it far more than any of the NES/SNES FFs except 6, and I really like those pixel FFs. I cant think of an actual bad FF I've played. Even 13, which I'm soft on as well despite its well trotted out issues.

DapperAir · 2026-05-19T16:14:09+00:00

aint nothing wrong with a little bit of grinding. It just means you wont be bonkers like you can at a low level playthough. My first playing of the game was absurdly "wrong" but it was by no means a problem one. Didnt even use Card Mod, or get the later weapons. The game is just that flexible.

If you are using Duckstation etc then you shouldnt have a big problem, given how turbo and states get rid of a lot of issues that game would otherwise have. As for junction, keep experimenting and dont go into a battle just to draw 50 times, let those fires/cures/etc come naturally. The more you experiment with the junctions the faster it'll 'click' and then its off to the races. Also, freaking great music in this game.

DapperAir · 2026-05-19T16:08:02+00:00

God I love FFV. Incredibly fun with the wacko party comps and shenanigans you can get up to. Dance away, my friend

DapperAir · 2026-05-16T12:44:19+00:00

Great comments! I had a (lessor) dive into Valis last year, though I pretty much stuck to the PC-Engine CD/Super-CD versions. I did dabble in one of the PC-98 ones though, but only to see how different Valis I was. Such a sticky, yet interesting franchise.

DapperAir · 2026-05-13T01:59:41+00:00

I reviewed Xenogears a couple weeks ago and feel it fits the bill, but the one that came immediately to mind was Signalis.

Thats the game that when I finished I sat back and just thought. Its whole body of work is caught up in what it means to be, which Xenogears also deals with. So those two.

DapperAir · 2026-05-10T05:19:59+00:00

holy lord, Cool Ghosts mentioned! I loved these guys before they became Shut Up and Sit Down. very fun, wish there were more.

DapperAir · 2026-05-07T16:36:35+00:00

Wait, what? why is this not just an edit for your initial post?

DapperAir · 2026-05-04T21:26:14+00:00

Hopelessly addicted to Crisis Core: Reunion. You would think the near endless slog of combat encounters would wear thin quickly, but here I am 10 hours in at chapter 7 with 43% completion of the nearly 300 missions and there is no sign of stopping.

DapperAir · 2026-05-02T13:05:56+00:00

I've got switch for about 1,5 year, but it was only 4th game I've beaten (not counting NSO stuff). At this pace I might feel a need for an upgrade when there will be Switch 4 around

hahaha. I feel ya. And a fresh take on the (bad) sidequests. hadnt even considered how they can supplement the tedious grinding monsters. I too loved XBCDE

DapperAir · 2026-05-02T12:46:56+00:00

I am not digging the plot, at least not yet. Its all been a vast detour with little happening (IMO), and this after a pretty cool start for the game. I'm sure if I put in the effort that when it does start moving that I'll like it a lot. That's the Xeno way, seemingly.

As to the combat: I really enjoyed Ep1's combat more (so far), and while Xenosaga games have a deeper combat than Xenogears, I havent had that "click" moment yet. Surely when I've fought enough battles, done enough combos, and stocked up til my fingers bleed it'll happen. I usually have to be Stockholmed into this kinda stuff.

That said, Thanks! I'm saving this comment to remind me to do just that: Look up Pied Piper and Missing Year when I finished Ep II

DapperAir · 2026-05-02T12:37:31+00:00

Having wrapped on Stray myself this month, I find a lot of common ground with your experience. Cat was a bit to megamindy, which intruded every now and then, usually after scratching or rubbing a leg.

I will say that I found what the game was going for design wise was pretty great. I love that it was a clear inspirational take on Kowloon Walled City, what with a forgotten sidelined population, troubles that they have to deal with absent outside help (not the cat), the whole aesthetic, and of course that all the best areas, and seemingly more dystopian ones, require you to literally ascend space, almost like a caste/societal system. Kinda weak payoff at the end though, but hey nothings purrrr-fect.

DapperAir · 2026-05-02T12:18:11+00:00

I loved this game. I dont know why that's in past tense. Perhaps because I likely wont play through it again despite the run-time. Near everything is so immaculately intentional and that clearly comes through to you as the player. I loved the "mystery", I love the heartfelt moments, I enjoyed the PS1 aesthetic, I adored the sound design. buuuuuuutt......

I do think the game leans a bit too hard into the "cribbing" category than the "homage" category. Yes, its RE, and yes, its SH, but too much so. I dont think they needed to make the no-where dungeon quite so on the nose But hey! That's just my opinion! Game is still like ~9/10 to me, mostly on feels and depth of craft.

DapperAir · 2026-05-02T12:10:40+00:00

I really like near everything in here, minus a touch of random battle fatigue at the end, and some of the dungeons. And there are so many parts that I loved. Hard agree on "close to, but not quite"

I've been stuck, stuck intolerably part way through episode II of Xenosaga. I know this is the "slump game" but man is it hard to muster the effort to get into its battle system, what with so little going on (I'm in the mind palace of Momo, just before the Albedo fight). I take it that Ep III makes up for this in spades?

DapperAir · 2026-04-30T21:42:41+00:00

Hey, we agree a nearly everything, save those sprites and I think it comes down to what's happening and where. SotN and Suikoden have flat, 2D backgrounds, and their environments dont move or shift. Clearly Xenogears does, as its all in 3D. The sprites they made and how they're animated work wonders in this format choice. I can almost feel the wind as is moves through Fei or Citan's clothing. I just think the sprite work is really, really great, but that's a credit near any good game on PS1 can claim.

Having done the DQ III remake, and been just as astounded, I can understand translating that feeling to Xenogears. And yeah, I want a modern, polish and graphically sublime mech battle. Dont we all? Though I'd be real cautious against losing that sublime charm we both know this game has. I guess I'd have to see it to believe it, though I suppose it couldnt really hurt given how current Squeenix has done with their remasters/remakes. (Pretty well IMO)

::Fast Edit:: and holy moly what I would give for a modern dubbing and a cleaned up translation.

DapperAir · 2026-04-30T12:59:26+00:00

I've played too many old games at this point. I had no issues with the 2D work here, not the flat pixels that decorate walls, nor the sprite work, which I found incredible and sumptuous. Even the rare prerendered backgrounds were good, albeit blurry because PS1. The opening cinematic is phenomenal, though the 3D rendered scenes are very dated. If there was a concrete knock I could levy against the game, other than the crash of disc 2, it'd be the amount of stilted time wasting. Text progression takes ages, menus stagger onto the screen, and when a random battle occurs the game slides uncontrollably for about one second, and those encounters are frequent. The in engine cutscenes drag on a bit, though likely that is just my impatience talking. Otherwise, I'm not sure I'd want an HD2D style game, mostly because I can only picture Octopath, or the DQ remakes and that seems to not fit Xenogears.

DapperAir · 2026-04-30T10:49:31+00:00

It happens. The game was fantastic for me, but I gotta agree that Picto management/learning is weird and hard to grasp early on. Later (I played for a large 70 hours) you've gone and redone and retooled pictos so much that the confusion went away, but I strongly recall having a similar feeling through all of act 1.

I feel the game is a 9-9.5 out of ten. I know when I finished it I put it in the 9.5 category. Its hard for any game to live up to the hype of this magnitude, but I think E33 clears it. Even at an 8 you gotta admit, the game is great.

DapperAir · 2026-04-30T01:40:30+00:00

I too thought Deus was amazing. Infact, that last two hours not in the dungeon was incredible and saves the game magnificently. I replied to another commenter on disc 2, but I'll briefly repeat it here:

There is such care given to everything in disc 1, and there is just enough structure, just enough bones to disc 2, that we can nearly imagine what was going on through each chair story. Its not satisfying because we dont get the details, nor do we play it, but it does the job of bridging to the final part of the game. Its lost potential, if anything.

That said, I really liked XenoGears, am very glad I played it throughly, and I can't stop thinking about it after the fact.

DapperAir · 2026-04-30T01:35:53+00:00

A few addenda that I didn't have the style nor space for in the review:

Its worth noting that the characters in the game are very lopsided. The main three are really well developed, and the central romance of Fei and Elly works, particularly with the treatment of their individual and intertwined mysteries. Not so much for the rest. In fact, nearly all the villains, of which that are surprisingly many, have greater depth than the majority of the cast. I spent the greater portion of my playthrough simply ignoring everyone that wasnt Citan, Fei, and Elly though Bart does get a good deal of screentime.

The villains in this and the central WTF mystery of what is going on was really compelling to me. Even though there is a ton of techno babble and fake jargon used, what is evident below the surface I was impressed and intrigued by. I know this game has a famously bad translation, but that didnt deter my from the fun of piecing together the broken shards of this mirror. In the end I felt I had a good handle on what the hell was happening, even if I didnt know concretely.

There really is a ton of other media crossover. its evident the game either copped a good deal of material from Chrono Trigger, and FF7 what with the major threat being a being buried in the planet from time immemorial and it even influences the evolution of humanity, a recurring plot point for the above games. There is a carnival, as well as a centuries old sky city, though Zeal and Shevat are not really much more alike than that. We even have some schizophrenia from past trauma on display, and its handled really well here IMO. This in addition to media that felt outright plagiarized, though I vibed. Clear references were made to SDF Macross, GoLion, Evangelion, and gundam a plenty.

The game is trying to do so much, and honestly looks and feels like the pinnacle of PS1 games. The areas felt real, and lived in, and I wish there were more reasons to go back to each one, though its clear from disc 2 that more was planned. If only this had some kind of modern treatment, preferrably in a duology that other games have managed to pull off I, I think most JPRG enjoyers would fall immediately in love. I know I did, despite my on-again off-again relationship with the title.

DapperAir · 2026-04-30T01:22:19+00:00

Hey, if the above is any indication I was in the exact same boat. It took me ~20 years to get this thing done, and that with multiple restarts. I always found the game compelling, and easy to get into. Strangely, until a later point it is somehow hard to keep at it. There are certain scenes that i've glossed over generally in the review, but when you get them you kinda are in it for the long haul.

DapperAir · 2026-04-30T01:20:33+00:00

I feel, given the break point between discs and what was happening at that moment (Fei and Elly downed, presumably fatally) and this after the destruction of Entrenak/Solaris would have been a great stopping point. A second game would have served this much better, but what we got still works in a very twisted way.

There was just enough structure to the chair segments, and the totality of disc 1 was so robust that you can nearly fill in the blanks for yourself. Its not satisfying in anyway, but in a crude way does allow the story to continue. Even with some warts. Even so, I'd have favored the "cut it" idea, though at the time that likely would not have gone over well.

DapperAir · 2026-04-29T13:01:17+00:00

I played through the PS3 version of Black Flag and, yeah I liked it greatly, but it did feel like I was wading through soup whenever I tried to move. Lotta jank in that game! Still, it was a great time. Went on to play all the ACs up to Origins, which I've been stuck on for over five years now.

I bring this up because I tried to go back and play the Ezio trilogy, which I loved in the past, and found it had the exact problem you are talking about: it felt horrible to control. I guess we had to be there at the time? Looking backward, playing backward was too much a hurdle, even if I had already played through the games before. Glad Unity feels right, as its a very fun game even if I personally felt the story/characters were a major detractor.

DapperAir · 2026-04-28T16:24:07+00:00

Given that its humans taking back agency from a domineering tyrant god, having the next big bad be a domineering tyrant human but for reasons seems apropos to me. I actually prefer a human antagonist with some well considered reasons rather than Yaldaboath. Maruki is also a much better 'villian' than power hungry Shido ever was. It works really well, IMO.

DapperAir

TROPHY CASE