Recent reviews by bigdingus04

First time playing Kingdom Hearts, and damn, the controls & camera REALLY pissed me off.

It probably wasn't so bad back during the PS2 era, but if you're a new player, you're definitely going to run into points where the camera & controls screw you over in multiple fights.

Also, definitely a skill issue, but I died to Trickmaster (first major boss) more than all the other bosses combined. Not exaggerating, it took me that long to get used to the camera & controls, and the whole "target the fireplace & use Blizzard to prevent him from using flames" NEVER worked, because my game refused to lock onto the fireplace!

The only other issue you'll have is the game crashes semi-frequently. It's not so often that you'll give up trying to progress, but once every couple play sessions, it would abruptly crash out of the blue. I never lost TOO much save progress, but it was annoying.

All that out of the way, it was still a good overall game. Story didn't make much sense (I still don't know what actual "Kingdom Hearts" is), and it's also funny that Sora has a family & friends back on his home island, but never says a word about them ever again (all he cares about is finding Kairi). but I've only finished KH1.

There's a reason this series has as many entries as it does, and it's because despite its flaws, it's still fun. Gumi ship missions can piss off though!

I've long wished to play games like Dragon's Crown, Unicorn Overlord & Odin Sphere on PC, but Vanillaware refuses to port their games to the platform.

Despite Sega offering to fund the port, they declined in fear of PC players "reverse engineering" their games & figuring out how they do their sprite work. Well now we've got a game that's just as pretty, with equally unique artwork, paired with excellent combat - No Vanillaware required!

Combine all that with roguelite progression, and this beat-em-up was exactly what I wanted from this game. It's special. And now all I want is more!

Co-op is fun, the depth to the combat & the combo system is fun, and combining power-ups & equipment to make unique builds is even more fun.

The only negative is that your initial runs are pretty much destined to fail, regardless of skill. It makes the game start kinda slow, as you know you're basically playing to lose until you can unlock more skills & powers.

One nitpick - I wish they included at least ONE feminine character. And no, I don't care about it being "woke" or whatever, it's just noticeable missing from the roster.

Anyway, great game - 9/10.

It's an EXPEDITION! People make maps on EXPEDITIONS!

Per Google - "Mapping is a fundamental part of expeditions, serving to navigate, document terrain, discover resources & CREATE RECORDS FOR FUTURE TRAVELERS..."

"But these are one-way trips dummy! They can't return to give maps to people, so what's the point?" - People who don't think things through.

Yeah, that would make sense if not for multiple things in-game, like their own mottos being "Learn from those who came before, and lay the trail for those who come after," and the fact that one of the main things you hunt for is logs left behind from previous expeditions!

So you're expecting me to believe that these expeditions left journals & other information behind, yet nobody thought to chart the areas they were exploring? Seems like that could've been helpful... Imagine if Lewis & Clark's expedition charted nothing of their across the US journeying to the west coast. How useful would it have been?

There's a reason why every other RPG of the last couple decades includes some kind of map. No, I don't want a map that shows me the entire area right off the bat. No, I don't want objective markers. No, I don't want someone to point me in the right direction (the game basically does that anyway with the lantern paths). I want it to make sense in-game as to why nobody thinks to do this. I want a black mini-map that slowly fills out as I explore, if only to feel like I'm creating a record for future expeditions & to help me not waste time going down paths I've already explored or to more easily find my way back to a specific point.

The Civilization games start you off with only a couple tiles illuminated on your map, and everything else is black. As you explore, more of the map is revealed. Then you have games like Xenoblade or Breath of the Wild, which are all about exploration. Somehow, being able to pull up a map doesn't hurt that experience at all... Shocking that even stubborn & defiant Nintendo got this right.

The whole idea that "you don't need a map" or it was left out intentionally to enhance the feeling of discovery & exploration feels like a cop-out. Plenty of other games with a huge focus on exploration offer a map.

It's easy to find the main path. That's not the issue. My issue is the abstract & psychedelic environments making side paths often look very similar, to the point where I accidentally wasted time going back through places I'd already been. Eventually, I lost motivation to explore. Enemies respawn if you reach a save point & restore your health. So do you want to risk grinding through a bunch of battles again, or just continue down the main path? I chose the latter.

My theory is the devs didn't want to offer a map because it would expose how limited many of the areas are, and how they're mostly just winding hallways (think SMT Nocturne). But if that's the case, why do I want a map at all? Because in a lot of areas, these hallways all start blending together! Later in the game, certain areas open up & offer more verticality as well. It's annoying wasting time & fighting battles, only to realize "crap, I'm back here AGAIN?!"

"Skill issue!" - Yeah, probably is. But there's a reason every other RPG doesn't do this. Imagine playing Baldur's Gate 3 with no maps. I mean, why not? It would "enhance the feeling of exploration," right? Hell, you even get a top down view & can better see your environment in BG3, so it's less confusing than this game.

Other JRPGs I've played recently include Metaphor ReFantazio, Octopath Traveler 2 (black map that slowly reveals areas you've explored), Persona 3 Reload, FF7 Remake, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, SMT V Vengeance, etc. all have mini maps. But not this game! It's a Western "JRPG," therefore it's gotta throw in no maps & a parry system to make it seem more "hardcore" or whatever.

And yes, my Steam time is low. Bought it on sale after playing it on PC Game Pass thinking I'd want to come back to it. But I dunno... the in-universe & practical absence of area maps bugs me too much.

It's cool though, my lone review will be buried in a sea of overwhelmingly positive reviews. Oh well.

General Thoughts:

To start off, this game is probably better than the "Mixed" 69% approval rating it has on Steam. Most of that comes from people being upset that it doesn't have their language of preference, despite Octopath Traveler 1 & 2 supporting French, German, Italian, etc. Other negative reviews complain about an audio issue that doesn't seem to effect most people. Does that mean these complaints aren't valid? No, definitely not. But the game itself isn't some huge drop-off like the "Mixed" reviews would imply at a quick glance.

That said, here are my thoughts on the actual game, and as usual for my reviews, I will spend way more time focusing on the negatives, as these are the things that might turn people off on the game...

Cons:

• Lack of a Job/Class System - Unlike in OT1 & OT2, there is no mixing & matching jobs. The 30+ party members all come with a set job & that's it. Your main character starts with a job, then after mastering it can swap to another job. This continues until you've unlocked all jobs for your MC.
  
  The only problem is you're still stuck with that lone job when actually in combat. You can't mix & match to have a specific combination of weapons & weapon skills. You get the weapons assigned to that specific job class, the skills that come with it, and whatever mastery skills you equip.
  
  People make it sound like being able to pick & choose your mastery skills is an adequate substitute for jobs, but it's not. You can only equip skills that your job could already use. That means if you're a Scholar (this game's mage class), you can't equip any ability that uses a bow, sword, polearm, axe, etc. You can only equip tome, staff & magic skills. That's it. So if you're coming from Octopath Traveler 2 & made Oswald a Scholar who uses staffs, swords & polearms (and all the skills that came with that), you can't do that here.
  
  
• Cliche, One-Note Villains (at least 30 hours in) - The beginning 3 villains are extremely tropey. They're the typical mustache-twirling, evil evil evil villains who are just bad for the sake of being bad. Wealth, Fame & Power are your 3 starting story paths, each with their own villain, and each with very little to them.
  
  I was struggling not to fall asleep during some of the cutscenes early on, partially due to how slow things in this game are, and partially because of how boring & unoriginal their stories were. Then when you get past all this, you get thrown into a single long story with an even more evil villain. Thankfully, this story is better, but it's still a bit exhausting at times with just how much they want to beat you over the head with how much of a tyrant he is.
  
  I don't mind that they're going for a more mature & dark-themed story, I just wish it was better written. This is the only thing that still feels like a remnant of a mobile game, where everything had to be simple & straightforward for the sake of being easily digestible. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it feels so far.
  
  
• It's SLOW - I don't just mean the pacing & story is slow, I mean everything outside of combat feels slow. You can fast forward through cutscenes like you could in previous games, but when you do that, the voice acting goes away & you miss a lot of the scene. But if you just click play & let it go through at its own speed, every dialogue bubble is followed by a pause. Every character moves at a snail's pace. Every one of those movements is followed by another pause.
  
  Your MC character says nothing, but they CONSTANTLY interject a speech bubble above your character that literally just says ". . . " as if to suggest you are saying SOMETHING, only you to have to fill it in with your imagination. I must've seen " . . . " show up at least 100+ times already. It adds nothing! And given how slow dialogue unfolds when you let it just play out, all the usual JRPG filler lines feel so much more drawn out... You know, like repeating a character's name in a standalone dialogue bubble after everything. MADE UP EXAMPLE:
  
  Alexis: "John, I'm feeling down today."
  You: " . . . "
  John: "Alexis..."
  John: "Yeah, things are tough..."
  Alexis: *Sighs* "John..."
  You: ". . . "
  Alexis: "Do you think we should help Billy?"
  John: "Hmm..."
  John: "Maybe, but what does *MC* think?"
  You: ". . . "
  John: "*MC*...."
  Alexis: "Ok, that settles it. We'll go help Billy!"
  John: "Alexis..."
  John: "Ok Alexis, let's get started!"
  Alexis: *Cheers* "John..."
  
  Now imagine that scene took 3 minutes, with 5 second pauses in between each line. It can be EXCRUCIATING.
  
  
• Not following 8 different stories - In prior games, the name OCTO-path was a reference to the 8 different characters & their stories. You don't have that here. And while that might not seem like a huge issue on the surface, you really start to miss OT2 & being able to bounce around tackling different stories at your own pace.
  
  It starts off well enough, giving you 3 different story paths to choose from (Wealth, Power & Fame). This made me think it would open up into many more paths, but after you complete those chapters, it actually consolidates into a single story. So when I was getting bored of that single story & wanting to do something else, I had no other options. I could see this big, undiscovered map, but had no story quests to tackle there. I went around & explored, but many of the towns & locations were blocked off from being able to visit.
  
  There are side quests, many being tied to recruiting one of the 30+ party members. The other ones often involve the rebuilding of your home town of Wishvale. The problem is these side quests are usually super brief. They're not voice acted, they give you one or two things to quickly do, then it's over. A lot of the time it just boils down to "do you have this dish they like/item they want?" If so, congrats, you have a new party member. Maybe it's just fast travel to one area, use your path action to hire a specific NPC, then go back to the quest giver & congrats, you have a new town/party member.
  
  You don't spend enough time with any of these characters to care about them, and so far, none of the people I've recruited or invited to my town have popped back up in the story for any reason. They were all one-and-done. That doesn't feel rewarding or interesting.
  
  
• Very little XP gain outside of the Main Story - This one is more minor than everything else. I noticed early on that all the random battles didn't seem to be doing much for me. At level 20, I started going to level 30 areas just to get some XP growth again. Outside of main story boss fights, I felt like I wasn't making progress at all. I wasn't even trying to over-level or anything, but I was stuck on level 20 for so long (then 21, 22, etc.) that it became unsatisfying.

Pros:

• Tons of Content - Definitely not a short game, and definitely not lacking in the content department. If you enjoy a big game that you can sink lot of time into, OT0 has you covered. I haven't beaten it yet, but I'm almost positive it's longer than OT2 & has more stuff going on, even if I don't always enjoy the stuff it's offering.
  
  
• Music - Still great. It has some returning tracks, plus plenty of new ones. All of them are awesome. This series never disappoints when it comes to the soundtrack.
  
  
• Combat - Still fun. The weakness/boost/break system is all here, and still works great. Having 8 party members in battle isn't the mess I thought it was going to be. Early game, you'll think it's super easy having so many more options than enemies, but it definitely balances out later on. Still wouldn't say it's super hard, but it's on par with the other Octopath games in terms of difficulty.

It's still very much an Octopath Traveler game, and it's still good overall - 7.75/10

Like most of my reviews, I'll spend most of my time talking about the few flaws & detailing what I didn't quite like, while telling you that all the positive reviews are very accurate. This is definitely a good JRPG, and I do recommend it. It's also an awesome way to get into the Trails series, especially for someone like me who's just been a passive observe, feeling overwhelmed knowing there's a dozen games in the series that are all connected.

Even better, it modernizes a game that feels very dated to go back & play. Many people won't mind playing the OG games & find them charming. But for me, I've had Trails in the Sky FC in my library for years, started it up multiple times, but could never get into it. This finally changed that & felt so much better.

TL;DR - Great JRPG. Read the other positive reviews. They're correct.

Now onto the bulk of my review, the complaints.

Cons:
1. Main story is very slow until the last 20% of the game. Everything up to that point is mainly going region to region & helping with random guild quests. You occasionally have some overlap with your guild quests & main story things, but otherwise, it's mostly just being introduced to a new region's party member & getting to know the characters. After you solve that region's main little quest line, that new party member leaves, then your 2 main characters go on to the next location & start anew.
   
   
2. Little to no visual diversity in locations. This all takes place in one kingdom on this continent, split up between 5 major regions. It makes sense from an in-universe reason as to why everything looks similar, but it kind of makes the 5 regions feel kind of pointless. When you arrive in a new region in other games, you'd expect some kind of visual flourishes that would separate them from the last place you were at. But not here. The environments, architecture, trees & plants, cultural/clothing/decorative stuff, weather & landscape in general - all nearly identical.
   
   There's a couple segments in the game where you do something at night time, and even something that simple feels so refreshing after dozens of hours spent in bright, colorful, sunny daytime. Even some rain, snow flurries, clouds or whatever could've done wonders to mix things up. Changing building designs to look more distinct would've also been appreciated. Each main town of a region does have at least 1 building that stands out, but that's about it. At a certain point, seeing the same exact trees, bushes & little tufts of grass gets OLD.
   
   If you've played games like Metaphor ReFantazio & remember the cookie-cutter dungeons, imagine that but for the entire game. At one point you have to take some underground tunnels to get to another region, and there's one area that branches off & suddenly the tunnels & caves are all blue! That was probably the most exciting moment of exploration in the entire game, simply because the colors changed.
   
   
3. Which leads to a related issue - there's just not a lot of reasons to explore, especially indoors. Unlike other RPGs, there's zero hidden secrets, chests or items to be found exploring inside all those buildings. It's great that you can go inside (you know, opposite of something like Pokemon), but it's a shame they don't scatter some items around or sidequests from speaking to residents inside them to at least provide some incentive to explore.
   
   It's not a major issue, but half way through the game I just stopped checking out buildings that weren't shops. There wasn't a point, unless you like checking the 2 lines of dialogue each NPC has.
   
   
4. Heavy on the anime tropes - This won't be an issue to some people. I was fine with it. It's also good to remember that the original game is 2 decades old, so some of those tropes weren't quite as over-used at that point. You will know each character's "type" almost immediately, and nothing will really surprise you because of it. One of the tropes in particular might be a bit off-putting to some, as it definitely was for me (Spoiler on that below).
   
   The 2 main characters, Joshua & Estelle are not related by blood. However, Estelle's father ADOPTS Joshua as a child, then raises him with Estelle as brother & sister. In fact, the game goes to great lengths to beat you over the head with this. They constantly remind everyone they're siblings. Joshua always says Estelle is his sister, and Estelle repeatedly tells everyone "It's not like that! Joshua and I are family!" They also both call Cassius Bright (Estelle's biological father) "dad." It's not subtle, they don't say "he's LIKE a brother," or "she's LIKE a sister," or "that's my ADOPTED father," or anything like that.
   
   The reason I detail this is because the game then sets up a romance with them. Estelle starts fawning over Joshua, then does the tsundere thing of snapping at people or overly freaks out (in the anime way) to those who suggest she's into him, or when Joshua responds to a question in a platonic way to a question she asks & doesn't give the answer she wants (she's not a tsundere though). That might seem like no big deal, but it slowly builds into a real "Ok, I'm in love with my brother!" plot line.
   
   And sure, people who've watched plenty of anime are used to much worse. Defenders will claim "it's normal in most countries as long as you're not blood-related; it's only the US that finds it weird!" Wrong. It's not "normal" or even legal to marry your legally ADOPTED SIBLING! Hell, it's not even legal in many places to marry a step-sibling! But even if we ignore all that, they still could've made this so much less weird if only they stopped constantly reminding us that they both view each other as actual brother & sister!
   
   It almost feels like the writer(s) wanted an incestuous feel to it. Even when Estelle is inner-monologuing, she keeps reminding us that they're family. The whole "they're not blood related!" thing is a silly defense for this situation, too. Imagine right now that you found out your sister/brother wasn't blood-related. Think to yourself, would it suddenly feel acceptable to date them? Would your family think that's "normal?" If you told your friends/co-workers/neighbors "Hey! Good news! My sis & I aren't related, so now I we can finally date!" do you think they'd not find that uncomfortable & weird?
   
   Yeah, that's how this relationship felt. Again, had they just written it so Joshua wasn't actually adopted & that their father had just helped take care of him, or that Estelle & him were more like friends who grew up together, or simply just changing the dialogue to not have them beat you over the head with being family - this could've been less awkward.

And that's about it! Those complaints may be very minor to most people, but they were noticeable enough for me that I felt I needed to mention them. Still a very good game though.

Final Score: 8.75/10

TL;DR - It's great for Limited formats (drafting, sealed etc.), but it's only OK for everything else. If you're a fan of Magic the Gathering, this is a great way to play when you can't play with friends or go to a local game store.

Longer Review & my Criticisms:

The biggest issue is the huge lack of features & social systems, which is weird for a game as inherently social as MTG. There's no easy way to add friends from random players you meet in game or challenge them to rematches. There's no way to invite a friend to play in the same draft as you or set up custom drafts/sealed/cube with friends.

And biggest problem a lot of people would have - you can't play Commander & all games are 1v1.

You have Brawl as a Commander substitute, but it's a bummer they still haven't figured out a way to allow 4 people to play together. It's probably because they couldn't get that working with people playing on phone, but the simple solution would be to just disable that mode for those on mobile!

The game is just very singularly focused on the solo player experience vs random people online.

At one point, they had a really great format called Historic, but about a year ago they ruined that by introducing "alchemy" cards... Cards that are digital-only & have Hearthstone like mechanics that can't really function in the paper format. It felt like Historic was slowly building towards a pseudo-Legacy format, but then it devolved into a weird game that no longer feels connected to the main game.

I wish they had made Alchemy & all the digital-only nonsense its own format & left everything else as close to paper Magic as possible. I play this game because I want the 1:1 experience, not some other amalgamation or experimental off-shoot. Then again, this company made an "Un" set (a joke set) tournament legal in paper MTG, then went on to inject all kinds of corporate IP crossover stuff into the game, so they've long since abandoned caring about their OWN IP & are more than willing to disregard their legacy in favor of pleasing shareholders.

I could play Standard or PIoneer, but they let former get warped around a handful of busted cards that they refuse to address until the hype for those sets die down, and the latter is all but forgotten & abandoned at this point.

Maybe I could get into Timeless (all cards available on Arena), but man I hate seeing the "Universes Beyond" silliness in MTG. When every company is forcing crossovers with other IPs into their own products, it's starting to feel like there's nothing with its own identity, lore & world anymore. Magic had huge success for so long building up its OWN world, but now we have to see Godzilla fighting Spider-Man with Subway Train & Bagels with Shmear vs Avatar... it's ridiculous.

Another issue some people will have is how microtransaction-heavy the game is. You can slowly grind out wildcards to build a deck, but don't expect to have anything competitive for a LONG time. Once you finally build a competitive deck, better hope you really enjoy it, because grinding up wildcards for another one is going to take a while.

IMO, the best thing to do is either buy $20 worth of gems, do some drafts, and try to fill out your collection that way. If you win at least 5 of 7 games (before you get 3 losses), you'll be rewarded with more gems than you spent (plus some coins - the free in-game currency). You'll also slowly build up free wildcards this way, so at least you get to have some fun while building your library.

Anyway, if I have these issues, why am I still recommending? Because Steam doesn't have a "mixed" option, and it's a good place to play certain aspects of MTG. The game feels at its best when it sticks as close to the paper game as possible, and I hop on for a few weeks to draft when new sets come out.

Unless the new set is Spider-Man, then it's so bad that I play twice & drop the game until the next set releases. But hey, the pick-2 draft format was cool.

First time playing this game, and I'm loving it!

Pros:

- Basically everything, but the job system is a stand-out.
- Story is another highlight. Way more interesting than most JRPGs & strategy games, even today. None of the convoluted nonsense, over-the-top corny characters or anime cliches. It's more mature & well put-together (not mature as in "blood & violence" or whatever, but 'mature' as in its themes & competence of the writing).
- Voice acting is all really well done as well. Usually, I skip through a lot of dialogue since I can read faster than they speak, but I'm enjoying this enough to just let it play out.

Cons:

- THE CAMERA SUCKS! -

Start of the match - giant tree blocking your view.
Rotate to the left - a wall or rock blocking your view.
Rotate to the left again - the other tree on the map is blocking your view.
Rotate once more - now back to the first damn tree!

You can only zoom out slightly (one time), or you can hold a trigger button & toggle the top-down overhead view temporarily.

But once you let go, you're back to being unable to see your troops behind whatever map obstacles are in the way.

- Enemy level scaling: I don't think I've ever enjoyed enemy level scaling in any game. Some of you might enjoy this, but it really can bite you in the butt when just trying to unlock new jobs. When you're just leveling jobs enough to meet requirements for the next job, you never get really strong. Meanwhile, the enemies start hitting like a truck. I've read that later in the game you can de-level characters, but I haven't gotten there yet. Wish I didn't have to do that.

- Game speed can be pretty slow. You can hold RB/R2 on the controller (not sure on keyboard) to fast forward, but it's not that fast. Comparing it to Triangle Strategy which zips right through text, animations, etc.

- No War of the Lions content. I never played the original or WotL PSP game, so I don't know what I'm missing. However, it bums me out knowing I'm not getting the complete, best experience Square could've offered. Instead of making a modern, truly DEFINITIVE version of the game, they went the Atlus Persona 3 Reload route & only remastered the OG game.

That's basically it.

It's missing some of the modern QoL things other recent tactics/strategy RPGs offer (including Square's own Triangle Strategy, like a log for dialogue to look back on in case you accidentally skip something), but it's got more than enough other positives that more than makeup for it.

Conclusion:

If you like strategy/tactics games, this lives up to the hype & praise people heap on it - 8.75/10

I'm usually more interested in story-focused JRPGs, but this one has been an exception.

It's primarily focused on gameplay mechanics, party building & battles, yet it's done so well that it kept me hooked the entire way through. But be warned - you have to be willing to accept missing certain things on a play-through, as this game has quests/character classes/items you can't get all in one run.

You'll have to pick one thing or another multiple times, and depending on how (and when) you tackle quests, you can get several different outcomes or miss things entirely. And you might think "Oh, well I'll just use a guide!" but that will only help so much, as A) there is no way to get/do everything regardless, and B) there are very few guides for this game.

The latter is definitely annoying, as you might get stuck in a few parts, want to know enemy weaknesses, chest locations, puzzle resolutions, etc. & find that most info on this game is severely incomplete. At best, you'll find some half-finished user created guide for select early parts of the game, or potentially old posts on GameFAQs or Reddit, but there's a lot left in the dark. Sometimes, you can find info regarding the older remaster, but not everything is 1 to 1 with the remake.

All that being said, this is a remake done right. I've had more fun with this & Octopath Traveler 2 than pretty much anything else Square Enix has put out in recent years.

Getting to recruit dozens of different character classes, learning skills & magic abilities, upgrading those skills & abilities through use in combat, unlocking unique abilities for each class, unlocking new formations with each emperor generation, upgrading & forging new gear, and slowly building up your town buildings - all blend together so well!

If you're a fan of JRPGs in general, give this game a chance. It's hard to find anything wrong with it. The story could be better, but everything around it is VERY strong.

Highly recommend - 9/10

I mostly enjoyed it, but it started to feel repetitive after a while. The turn-based combat is interesting, the non-traditional leveling system through items & abilities is cool, but I slowly grew less interested to continue playing as time went on...

***Rant about something you all will likely find stupid below***

And I think it's because of something trivial to most people - lack of voice acting. You'll probably say "duh, it's an indie game," and yes, I knew this going in. But I've noticed that as I've gotten older, I'm having a more difficult time getting invested in characters or story that's spelled out slowly in silence via long text crawls.

I grew up with this being the norm back during the SNES, and it continued to be common in many games for several more generations. But over time, even smaller games added voice acting, and only a few major holdouts (like Pokemon) refused to do so.

This isn't a flaw to many seasoned JRPG veterans, so I don't think you all will find it as an issue. I just wish that once a lower budget game became popular, they'd reinvest in voice acting, as I believe it can be transformative in bringing characters to life. "I voice them in my head!" is a common response, but I like feeling these people have actual voices, where their personality & charisma (or lack thereof) can shine through.

Some games like Disco Elysium or Divinity OS went back & added VA after the fact, and it really made those games so much better. Those are bigger games, though not AAA by any means, so I'm not going to act like this is the norm.

But there's a reason why I can get so heavily immersed in the world of Octopath Traveler 2 & slowly lose interest in games like this, and I've finally accepted that I'm a VA snob.

So for the 1/1000 people who are like me, I would say skip. For all the normal people who have no problem with this, definitely recommend.

Ignore the "Early Access" label. This is a game that gives you tons of content & things to do, especially now that they've introduced Quest Mode to go along with the regular mode.

All 9 Kings are now playable. The only thing that seems to be missing is "Ranked Mode," which I'm excited to see, but otherwise this game is a blast for anyone who likes strategy and/or rogue-lites.