Fire Emblem

To me, the king of sprg. I'll start with a main review and then go by the order I played them:

while the combat system may seem very simple, it has with a very challenging difficulty where every move need to be carefully thought and where hours sunk in. Combat uses a stone-paper-scissors system represented with 3 different weapons (spears, axes and swords) or magic (fire, ice, lightning or dark&light).

The battles are turn based, first the player moves all his allies and later the enemy does. As part of the challenge, if an allied unit dies, is death for ever and the story keeps going without his intervetions. Of course if the main character dies is game over.

Customization is based on the weapons/magic, those have a limited number of uses before they break and the number of equipped weapons is also limited, so it adds more strategy to the choices. Also characters can promote their classes with an item once they reach a determined level, making them stronger and sometimes adquiring new skills.

The setup is pretty simplistic, the game is divided in many chapters that are composed of: Story -> Preparation -> Battle -> Story. Even so, The game gets pretty long. Graphics are always very standard, though character portraits are well designed.

Also the story has an unusual epic feeling, unusual for a game and Intelligent Systems manages to keep this formula for most of their games. Also characters have strong personalities and are very interesting to know.

Did I like it? Very.
I think you will like it if you:
- Aren't scared of challenge
- Like srpg

(GBA version) My first Fire emblem experience, it really surprised me and got me really addicted. Keeps the simplistic setup and there's no exploration nor many optional things to do.

I rate my experience with a 9 out of 10.

A few new additions like a world map and more customization options. The story is great and surpising, because when I though I finished the game I really was just at the 50%.

There also a few additional modes that extend its duration.
I rate my experience with a 9 out of 10.

The big brother version and one of my favorites, where the "epicness" gets multiplied with an excellent plot, characters and many gameplay additions like new skills, items and races/classes.

I rate my experience with a 9.5 out of 10.

A remake from the first FE from snes, including more chapters and explaining the story of Marth, the icon of this saga. Of course some features are a bit dated making this game a bit weaker than usual. The touch screen is very welcome.

I rate my experience with a 8.5 out of 10.

The Path of Radiance sequel, very continuist on gameplay but with a brand new story with old and new characters. Very very enjoyable.

I rate my experience with a 9 out of 10.

http://xquickreviews.blogspot.com.es/2013/10/fire-emblem-awakening.html

I rated my experience with a 8.5 of out 10

Final Fantasy Tactics

To me this is an overrrated game, yes it is tactical and very fun but it has many lacks...

Challenge isn't very high plus I HATE random encounter on a game like this, because to me the battles are supposed to be long, strategic and epic. Having random encounters just trivializes the combats and become very generic and repetitive, plus having that "free grinding" can unbalance the entire game.

I appreciate the job variety, gives a lot of customization and choices though some classes suck a little :P.

The story is okay, with a few twists but I can't see what's so great about it, I aslo found characters boring.  Graphics: got nice sprites and music is correct.

Also I don't see the "Final Fantasy" anywhere, it should have been called Vagrant Tactics.

Did I like it? Yes
I think you will like it if you:
- Like srpg
- Don't expect Final Fantasy

I rate my experience with a 7.5 out of 10

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

The start is really bad, I mean, that snow ball fight... but it is a great game, there aren't many additions but it is pretty entertaining. I think the story is worse than the original.

Did I like it? Yes
I think you will like it if you:
- Like srpg
- Can get through the start

I rate my experience with a 6.5 out of 10.

Final Fantasy Tactics A2

More of the same gameplay (which is good), new story and new implementations, fun enough.

Did I like it? Yes
I think you will like it if you:
- Like srpg

I rate my experience with a 7 out of 10

Final Fantasy X

At first I loved this game, I think because I needed a to play a new Final Fantasy, but with the time (after 100% finishing it :P) I started to notice that it has a lot of things that I don't like

The combat is turn based again and without the active time battle, this time it uses turn order based on different parameters. It is very nice and has some challenging battles and lot of optional bosses to fight..

Customization is the key point here, each character has a grid with plenty of different paths to choose and skills to unlock giving the variety I always apreciate, specially with the advanced grid.

It looks awesome, there are many beautiful places to visit, though instead of a world map this time we get a cheap waypoint system. Also exploration is very limited because level design is very simplistic, I always knew where the treasure is. Music is superb.

I didn't find the story so interesting as in other FF games, it is very straight foward and with unrealistic behaviors. I hate Tidus, I hate Yuna, I like the other characters though.

The blitzball mini-game is a bit random but fun to progress.

Did I like it? Yes.
I think you will like it if you:
- Like jrpg

I rate my experience with a 8.5 out of 10.

Child of Light

The combat system is turn based using the usual active time bar with a few tweaks, like being able to interrupt the oponent when he is casting an ability, which mades me think of an strategy that keeps me interrupting the enemy as many times as possible. It is really fun and challenging (in hard mode).

The exploration is around 2D scrolling scenarios, with many secrets to find, combats and puzzles to solve, it is very interesting and reminded me a lot to the old school 2d action rpg.

There's many playable characters each one with their own set of skills spread around a "talent tree". Though only 2 characters can be used in battle, the player can switch between them in battle at 0 cost, but at least the difficulty had me switch characters many times to avoid getting wiped.

On the customization side we also find some kind of crafting system, not very deep but giving many different choices that matter on the combat.

Graphically looks great with 2d layered backgrounds a la Rayman Origins style, music and voices are fine. The story is fun to follow and the script is really crazy, I loved it! The game is short but intense.

Did I like it? Yes!
I think you will like it if you:
- Don't hate turn based rpgs

I rate my experience with a 8.5 out of 10.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years

(psp version)
While it is nice to see the original characters and how they evolved after the end, it gets VERY repetitive.

First because there is a lot of revisited dungeons and it gets very tiring, like "doh, here again?"

Second because the last chapter is just advance through and endless dungeon plenty of very frequent encounters with enemies with very high-hp, requiring alot of grinding (which I hate).

There are a lot of characters to choose from, each very unique but there's some stupid (hidden) requirement that If I don't go to a story place with a certain formation I will miss the good/extended ending.

What I appreciate the most are the new sprites for characters and scenarios, they are high quality and really makes the game look very modern and refreshing. But I'm sure this won't happen again, Square always messes up. Music is great as usual.

Did I like it? Only seeing Kain&co.
I think you will like it if you:
- Liked FFIV
- Don't mind heavy grinding

I rate my experience with a 3 out of 10.

Mystic Ark

While this can remind to the 7th saga, this time we got a way more classical jrpg.

On exploration abandons the 7mode (3d perspective) for the usual 2d perspective using tiles, giving it a very generic look, character sprites included. Combat still uses the 7 mode and bigger character sprites.

The combat is pretty much the same turn based one, this time with random encounters and with the possibility of having 2 allies. The feeling is different from the 7th Saga but still very fun.

This time the main character is choosen from 2 characters, I think the plot remains the same. There are lots of towns, shotps, dungeons and even worlds to visit, each world with its story and plot, I loved this.

Did I like it? Not very original but yes.
I think you will like it if you:
- Love jrpg
- Don't mind playing snes games

I rate my experience with a 7 out of 10.

Final Fantasy IV

My first Final Fantasy and probably the first jrpg I've ever played by myself, I think I was like 7 years old and got up to the moon where I found a difficulty spike and quit it (of course I finished it years after).

Many things were new to me, a deep story and very charismatic characters, I started to learn english just to understand them ^^.

Combat is turn based with the active time battle system that gives a more dynamic behavior that makes the combats very interesting. Encounters are random of course.

There are many characters and with unique skills that gives the game the necessary variety to not make it repetitive. There's no customization aside form the equipment.

There are many places to visit, the usual shops, towns and even other worlds, though smaller than the main one. The game is not very long but is very intense and with many secrets to find.

It looks okay (the psp review is excellent) and to me this is where Uematsu career takes off because it has a lot of excellent melodies. I think this is the start of epicness on the saga.

Did I like it? Yeah!
I think yhou will like it if you:
- Like jrpg
- Don't mind random encounters

I rate my experience with a 9 out of 10.

Dark Souls 2

I love Dark Souls because gives me a fun and balanced challenge, though this time I'm a bit disappointed because 2 things.

The first reason is because after beating Demon's and Dark Souls I'm getting used to the game style, so I know what to expect and many fightning tricks.

The second reason is that it seems easier overall, sometimes the bonfires are too close from eachother, trivializing the death penalty as I could return to the place I died in less than 5 minutes, so I didn't need to be as extra careful as in previous games.

I beat all the game in less than 40 hours without many troubles, I never found any road-block boss, just some area that was a pain in the ass to deal with as a tank, but I just slowly killed everything until they stopped spawning.

The story seems a bit light, but it's there for who wants to follow it and never interrupts the player who just wants action. Graphics doesn't look much better, I think I prefer Demon's Souls but don't really care much as the game is fun.

Did I like it? Yes.
You will like it if you:
- Want more Dark Souls pain
- Like challenging games

I rate my experience with a 8 out of 10.

Final Fantasy X-2

Ok after the weird start that can turn many people away, the game concept is very interesting. Graphically is very good, some models are very detailed and effects are cool. Music doesn't dissapoint either.

Customization is based in something called dress spheres, that it is like a Job system, similar to FFV but with less depth and variety, though they can be switch in combat giving some extra status if done so.

The combat is turn based but it leaves the system used in FFX for the more typical active time battle.

The story is not very interesting but we all know where it leads so we keep playing the mission based system to advance through the events. Again there's no world map, instead we find a cheap waypoint system.

But after many hours it stopped being fun, I found myself doing plain missions on very straight-foward places with repetitive random encounters and where dialogs and character interation was very poor. I wasn't really motivated anymore so I had to force myself for at least 10 more hours to finish it just because I wanted to watch the ending.

Did I like it? I got bored after a few hours.
I think you will like it if you:
- Want to know about Tidus
- Like jrpg

I rate my experience with a 5.5 out of 10.