Epic Battle Fantasy 4
Epic Battle Fantasy 4 (EBF4 for short) is the fourth installment of popular jRPG-esque series
that originated as web browser games. The series is basically a parody of famous Japanese RPG games (mostly Final Fantasy). If you want some more preview on the older games, I suggest you read my review on previous game, EBF3 (which is also on Steam), if you haven’t already.
But to keep things short, I’ll just give you a small preludium:
the series started as free browser games that were made for fun and played to kill some free time, and even EBF4 itself can be played via your browser, but there’s also an expanded, paid version (AKA the one I’m reviewing now), and it’s not exactly cheap, 11,99 USD. Some professional games cost as much, and thus, the game will be judged like one.
– Real player with 202.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best RPG Funny Games.
Well first let me tell you that I have followed the series on Kongregate while it had only released Epic Battle Fantasy 1 and to be honest the first and second game wasn’t that great but then the third instalment came to the series and it changed everything becouse it had absolutely everything an JRPG could offer for a flash game.
I played Epic Battle Fantasy 3 about 5 to 10 times and when beating the game it gets a bit repetative so I usually came back for it every other month or so. Even when I had played it 9 times it was still as fun as it was the first time I started the game. But years passed and one day in 2013 just before I was about to turn off my computer I just wanted to check my Kongregate and there it was, Epic Battle Fantasy 4.
– Real player with 82.7 hrs in game
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
Just finished the game. And, I plan on going back in for New game +. Because, you know… gotta do something til part 3 comes to PC.
First, If you’re new to the series, I recommend playing the first Trails of Cold Steel before this one as this is a continuation and you’d be missing out of great story and character development. Also, your clear data from the first game works with this one if you want to start the second game with a bonus. I actually got into the entire story from playing the Trails in the Sky series, but I don’t think its required to play before this one.
– Real player with 193.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best RPG Anime Games.
After the Sky games I never thought I’d actually be giving a negative review to one of these games. But after slowly becoming more and more irritated with this one I have to acknowledge that the Cold Steel ones, or at least the two we have, really aren’t as good as their predecessors to the point I’d frankly recommend against buying this one. I enjoyed the first one well enough, but since it leads into this one I wouldn’t get it either.
I won’t say any twists but this does give away the general plot of the game, if the description up top didn’t, so click away if that bothers you. I’ll also be mentioning a twist of the last game, but I assume you played that if you’re reading reviews for the second one.
– Real player with 168.0 hrs in game
FINAL FANTASY III
I had actually been dreading this version of Final Fantasy 3, since Square Enix’s releases of mobile games on Steam have been very hit or miss, mostly the latter. So, I’m honestly surprised to find myself recommending this release, to the point it might be the best version of Final Fantasy 3 to date. This game has tons of smart changes that make this the most definitive way to play this game, the finest of the Famicom released trio. With a lot of nice QoL changes, this game plays like it has the best features of the 3D release and the original Famicom version.
– Real player with 112.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best RPG 2D Games.
Final Fantasy III is a NES game so ambitious it feels like a SNES game. While it has the tropes of old like the Dragon Quest combat, the party of blank-slates, and Vancian magic-system, it stands as a highly ambitious work that measures up with the classic SNES trilogy.
After the stinker that was II the series went back a step and took to making a bigger, better, and more original version of I. Four light-warriors, four crystals, but now twice the length in a world twice the size.
You have versatility. You can change your job at will. You can swap magic around instead of forgetting expensive spells. You could make a lot of weird party combinations work.
– Real player with 68.2 hrs in game
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd
Okay… okay… deep breath… THIS GAME IS AMAZING!
After completing all that I could do in my first playthrough, I am now ready to offer my thoughts on this stellar experience. But first, let’s get a few things out of the way; if you already enjoyed the first two chapters, you are going to love this one and you MUST get this game, due to it being absolutely important to the overall story, HOWEVER, be prepared to have some changes thrown at you: Estelle and Joshua Bright are not the main protagonists in this one, and you are not able to explore the entirety of Liberl, instead the world is one long colorful dungeon with a hub area you reside at. If you are a true fan of this series, then none of these changes should be a problem. Moving on.
– Real player with 241.0 hrs in game
Before you consider buying this game, it is of the utmost importance that you play through Trails in the Sky FC and SC first, as this game contains heavy spoilers for both and you will be very confused on the plot from the get-go.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd, the last game in the Sky trilogy, tends to be a rather controversial title among fans, as it is a “capstone” game of sorts, tying up the loose ends of the previous games and introducing plot points/setting up for the future games, namely the Crossbell and Erebonia arcs. Because of this, it lacks a couple of the things that caused fans to love the first two Sky games. That would be because this game has no board side quests or open world exploration; it has been described as a “dungeon crawler” of sorts. The game is set in an alternate dimension called Phantasma, which is influenced by the thoughts and emotions of those inside it, and therefore recreates replicas of many iconic areas from the original games as devil-filled dungeons, treasure and all (which seems to me like a very convenient excuse to lazily reuse maps from the earlier games…). That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though - it still maintains the two aspects that cause the Trails series to shine so bright among almost all other JRPGs - its soundtrack and storytelling.
– Real player with 171.9 hrs in game
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV
Good conclusion to the Cold Steel arc. The trails franchise is my favorite JRPG franchise, and this game keeps with that. Structurally, the game is sort of like Cold Steel 2, with a lot of wandering around Erebonia with no fixed base for a lot of the game.
By now the series has a lot of characters and plot arcs, that are a bit unwieldy at time, but it works pretty well. My only real grips is the forced character choices at times (normal for this franchise) and that there’s guest characters whose gear you can’t change, even if they were in your party and you gave them better gear previously. I hate seeing characters I gave top builds to just toss that away and be outright mediocre later on when the game gives them fixed gear and orbment setups that just don’t get it done.
– Real player with 208.8 hrs in game
If you love continuity in games then this is the game for you. The build up of playable and non-playable characters (love them or hate them), the world, and the story throughout the series was phenomenal and really hooked you up for the next chapter in the series.
– Real player with 208.3 hrs in game
DRAGON QUEST® XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age™ - Definitive Edition
Ignore my gameplay time, I played through this twice on the Switch version at almost 200 hours on each.
Dragon Quest XI is one of the best video games I have ever played.
In 1986, a bunch of Japanese game designers came together, took the RPG elements that were floating around in PC games at the time, combined them, ironed them out, and (mostly) streamlined them, and created a Famicom game not quite like anything before it. To ensure its success, they got Akira Toriyama for the art and character design when his manga, Dragon Ball, was flying off shelves. Pioneering the RPG sub-genre that would be known as the JRPG, Dragon Quest was born. Admittedly, the original hasn’t aged fantastically but was perhaps revolutionary for its time. The series was continued and, by Dragon Quest III in 1988, it was perfected. Every entry has taken the formula and added new layers, sometimes removing previous layers, but it still has the same rock hard core.
– Real player with 414.8 hrs in game
Before I get to the “good/bad” stuffs of this game, I want to note something that might make this game not your cup of medicinal herb tea. It’s “old-school”, so to speak. Visually sure the graphics looks pretty and all but the story and gameplay elements and even the music feels classic. It doesn’t bother me too much but probably because I’ve played several past DQ games since III. “Modern” gamers or first-timers to DQ however might dislike this.
Other reasons why you might dislike this game would be:
– Real player with 361.0 hrs in game
SaGa Frontier Remastered
This is a little bit late but I wanted to wait till I had more time in the game so I could give as good a review I can.
I’ll start with the cons first:
- The biggest problem with this game imo, is the lack of story. Everything feels super rushed and half baked, it feels like they were speed running when they wrote the stories. What’s there is good and the premises are cool, but it definitely is just not as good story wise as a lot of other rpgs out there (such as persona and ff games). The lack of dialogue works to the games favor in a way cause big text walls can be very boring, especially when you’re not super invested in the story anyway. If you only like games with good story I would skip this game for sure.
– Real player with 184.3 hrs in game
This game should really be the standard by which remasters are judged. I got the original on the PS1 ages ago and thoroughly enjoyed it despite its flaws. The remastered version does a lot to iron out the original flaws (the inclusion of the new journal helps immensely in keeping on track with stories and events, which was likely the biggest flaw in the original), restores tons of cut or unfinished content (big-yay here), and gives a new character to play. It also has an in-game artbook, and the ability to change the gamespeed between x1 and x3 (and tracks overworld and combat speeds separately, so if you prefer exploration at x1 and combat at x2-3, it’s got your back).
– Real player with 82.0 hrs in game
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III
This game is a blast. I think I got time-travelled to another dimension for about 250 hours or so.
Being honest, I have been pre-ordered those expensive games for years now, however, only few of them is worth the price they originally offered, most of them just don’t prove themselves worthy. Neither being fun to play nor being educational for gaining some knowledge I don’t know. Yet, this game is entirely on another level, it’s like digging out a grand treasure in a royal vault. Though it happened to be a random per-order I’ve made in the past.
– Real player with 297.9 hrs in game
The Legend Of Heroes: Trails Of Cold Steel III
Disclaimer: This review will not contain story spoilers.
Additional Note: It is imperative to mention that Cold Steel III features returning characters from previous trails games, the two last arcs; being the Sky and Crossbell arcs. It is very recommended to play and experience the other games before playing this game, even if you’ve finished the other Cold Steel games, you might be dumbfounded about some references. I would suggest either playing the previous titles or watching summaries on Youtube! It is a joy to having played the other games and seeing the characters featured in them return in this one.
– Real player with 271.5 hrs in game
FINAL FANTASY
This is where it all began and where it might have just ended. The word “Final” in “Final Fantasy” really meant a Final stretch for Square at the time. This title was either going to be a success or the nearly bankrupt company would be no more. Well we all know how that ended. Final Fantasy is a flagship for Square Enix for decades and this title started it all.
To be clear, you’re not really getting the original experience with this release. The old pixel art Final Fantasy games have been re-released and re-made so many times by now on various platforms, each making some changes to how the game works, a lot of people have different favorite and are ultimately going to be disappointed when another release does something differently. The original FFI came out on NES and GBA and if you want a real authentic experience, you’d turn to those. The game on NES was significantly harder and it’s what any purist really wants to play. My very first experience with FF I was actually on a Java phone back in 2007 or 2008 if you can believe that exists. The pixel remaster series we have here are far from the original feel. So what do we have on our hands anyway?
– Real player with 36.5 hrs in game
I’ve never played FF1 before now. It was an enjoyable experience, overall… There were times the next step in game-play was unclear, & I traveled the entire map, so it became a real grind battling the same monsters over & over again, & I still didn’t find any clue as to where I needed to go next. I ended up needing to refer to online forums to eventually figure it out, & I needed to do that many times after that, so I took the fun out of discovery, (but it was either that or continue grinding seemingly endlessly). There is a feature that allows you to battle automatically, but it isn’t without its flaws; it follows the last choices you made were, which may or may not be ideal for the monsters you’re battling. It became boring toward the end, but I eventually made it to the final mega-boss. By then I had become lazy & died the first try, but soon discovered the final boss was a real challenge, which once again made the game interesting. Of course I wouldn’t want every fight to be as challenging as that, perhaps it would have been better if there weren’t as many monsters while wandering dungeons, or perhaps the fight dynamics could have been more unique to make it more interesting. I also like to be able to complete all challenges, but for as thorough as I thought I was, somehow I missed some treasure chests & some beasts, that was disappointing, because I really don’t want to play this game from the beginning again.
– Real player with 33.8 hrs in game
Trials of Mana
A great remake for a great game, although not flawless. I compiled the items I wanted to highlight on bullets below for better clarity. Do bear in mind I’m halway through the game at the time of writing.
-Overall comparison to the original: If you’re one of those people feeling trauma over FFVIIR, rest assured that this game is extremely loyal to the original, at least up to what what current social standards allow (lookign at you, Sorceress class attack), the exception being the battle sytem, but we can all agree that the original’s attack-retreat-weapon charged-attack cycle with screen freezing magic wouldn’t fly beyond the SNES.
– Real player with 75.0 hrs in game
Trials of Mana is an excellent example of how to do remakes the right way. It is clear as water that the dev team learned a lot from the remake of Secret of Mana, because this sequel improves nearly everything that game did wrong. Gameplay is smooth and character models look great.
However, the game has some issues. The story is pretty simple and straightforward, as one would expect from older JRPGs; unfortunately the devs didn’t improve the plot from the original 1995 game, which shows. Villains are extremelly one-dimensional and can be described with few words. The main characters lack any form of development, and just kinda go with the flow. Also, the game is relatively short and not so difficult.
– Real player with 63.9 hrs in game