Valkyria Chronicles II

A tactical srpg with a modern atmosphere, using guns, bazookas, tanks, etc.

The gameplay is very fun and addictive, as usual on sprg the battles are long and entertaining, giving the player many ways to approach encounters.

But it gets old and repetitive after a few hours due the lack of depth and customizaton, the battle strategy will always be very similar, with a few scripted moments but I got used to it and got bored because I was always doing the same thing over and over again.

The story follows the modern japanese trends: a group of anime looking students that are up to save the world from evil looking characters.

Graphically looks good, very anime-ish though - and I'm starting to hate it, more variety on designs please! Music and voices are very good.

Did I like it? Yes but got bored eventually
I think you will like it if you:
- Like srpg
- Don't hate anime style

I rate my experience with a 6 out of 10.

Final Fantasy II

Combat is turnbased, with the usual setup with enemies on left side and party on the right side. This time classes don't level up with experience but with another method based on the actions and weapons used in combat. Character customization also includes equipment and magic. Also a new feature is the "back row" position, feature that usually allows the character to do/take less physical damage while increasing their ranged damage.

Unlike some modern rpg, there is a enjoyable world map with many dungeons and town with the addition of the chocobos as transport method. The encounters are random but that can be avoided with the chocobo.

The story is a bit more complex but we still find the typical infinite justice japanese heroes, so I didn't enjoy it much but it doesn't hurt as the interruptions are minor. At least this time the characters have names and more personality.

While is not the epic experience that started with FFIV (imo), it is an enjoyable game with addictive battles, that may feel a bit too easy right now. Music has some excellent tunes and graphically looked good at that time, I recomend the psp version now.

Did I like it? Yes.
I think you will like it if you:
- Are curious about the Final Fantasy beginings
- Don't hate jrpg

I rate my experience with a 7.5 out of 10.

Final Fantasy I

The saga start, featuring a nice world map with lots of exploration to do, finding dungeons, towns and random encounters and traveling with different vehicles.

Combats feature a pure turn based system, with enemies on one screen at the left and players on a different screen at the right side. This system was really fun though now feels very dated.

At the game's beginning the player can chooose the 4 heroes between a few classes, these classes are the final fantasy usuals and the choice is very welcome for me. Character evolve with the usual experience levels and customization is just about the different equipment.

The story is very light and characters generic, with no personality and not even a name. Of course this is forgivable on a game from 1987. Graphically looked simple but it has improved with the many re-releases, music has a few tunes that now have reached the epic status.

Did I like it? Yes.
I think you will like it if you:
- Are curious about the Final Fantasy beginings
- Don't hate jrpg

I rate my experience with a 6.5 out of 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 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.

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.

NIS Special

Disgaea 2

New story, new characters and a few new features. Nice for people who wanted more Disgaea but it is not very refreshing, plus I miss Laharl.

Did I like it? Yes, but...
I think you will like it if you:
- Like srpg
- Don't need a FFTactics story

I rate my experience with a 6 out of 10.

Disgaea 3

Cool story and characters, a whole lot of content but it feels dated, I already know all the tricks, grinding, etc. so I got bored and had to force myself to finish it. Ugly graphics.

Did I like it? I got bored as I progressed
I think you will like it if you:
- Like srpg
- Don't need a FFTactics story
- Aren't tired of the Disgaea combat style

I rate my experience with a 5 out of 10.

La Pucelle Tactics

The game before Disgaea, it is weaker on content and characters but still very funny to play and follow the story. It has some kind of feature similar to "geo panels" that makes it unique too.

Still it has a whole lot of features, way more than the usual srpg but I barely remember them.

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

I rate my experience with a 7.5 out of 10

Phantom Brave

This game has the Disgaea style but feels older and more classical. I got bored before I finished it, I think it will pleasure a srpg fan though.

Did I like it? I got bored
I think you will like it if you:
- Love srpg

I rate my experience with a 4.5 out of 10.

Disgaea

This game came out at the perfect time because there was a heavy lack of srpg on ps2, so it was taken with open hands by the community and got great sales for a japanese title like this one.

The main gameplay is very classic, tactical turn based combat with grid movement. But then I found some very special features that I hadn't seen before:

- Character Throwing: The player can throw away his allies to reach places that aren't easy accessible, or just to get to places quicker. The enemies can also be thrown, for example this can be used to get them closer or away from allies and also can be used to fuse the enemies which increases their level.

- Geo panels/symbols: Colored panels that give a bonus effect on the player that stands on it depending on the symbol it has. Symbols can be moved and broken to change the color of the panels. I'm not gonna explain all the possiblities but it is very entertaining, it is like having a puzzle inside the scenario that can be solved to get more bonus.

- Character creation: It is huge, there's a lot of classes, from the usual mages to weird monsters and can be promoted to superior versions, upgrades, armor, customization (up to lv9999!), huge.

- Item world: Each item has a whole world inside of it and can be explored to improve the item. did I mention that there's a huge lot of items?

- The assembly where new characters, stages and other features can be obtained with the assembly's approval.

The story is nothing special but it is very humoristic and characters are hilarious, I wasn't used to a game like this. Visually looks very ugly though I like the character designs, music has very nice tunes and I liked the english voices.

Did I like it? Haaaa-hahahahahahaaaaa!
I think you will like it if you:
- Like srpg
- Don't need a FFTactics story

I rate my experience with a 9 out of 10

SMT: Persona 3

Here Atlus shows us how to renew a good rpg:

- Step 1: Face-wash, adapt the graphic style to a more current and attractive one, while keeping the cool "disgusting" style of some designs. Also the jump from 2d to 3d is very well done. Same with music, it choose to go with pop music which gives it a unique style, plus the songs are excellently composed, I absolutelly love the soundtrack!

- Step 2: Maintain the core mechanics, dark atmosphere, challenging turn based combat, dungeon exploring, demons, fusions... Though it dropped the demon negotiation which is still a core feature on the Shin Megami Tensei main series.

- Step 3: New additions, appart from fusions, personas are obtained as a post-battle reward. And the main addition of the game are the social links. This consists in doing social activities with the many characters that appear on the game's world which allows to obtain more powerful fusions, new personas plus experiencing little but very interesting side-stories (damn you sun arcana!).

As negative points I would mention that exploring the tartarus can get a bit repetitive and the other negative point is that on combat the rest of the party are controlled by IA, giving problems from time to time. But thankfully this is solved in the PSP version of the game where the player can control the entire party.

Finally the story is dark, long and engaging as always, maybe this time I didn't become too fond of some of the allied characters but this was compensated by the other social link characters. Also the ending... it just left an awesome feeling on me, Cry Count = 2 (Chrono Cross was the first).

Did I like it? Yes, at the end I was speechless.
I think you will like it if you:
- Don't mind a "happier" Shin Megami Tensei atmosphere
- Like jrpg
- Don't hate anime style

I rate my experience with a 9 out of 10.

SMT: Persona 2

It's has been a long time since I played this, so pardon if some of the info is incorrect.

This is composed by 2 games: Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment which explain a similar story in some kind of parallel/alternate realities but still related between them.

Combat is similar to the first Persona, challenging turn-based random encounters fought with melee,gun and magic attacks where Personas define the strenghts and weaknesses towards different types of attacks and also the magical skills that the character has available. This time the fights use a normal turn-based formation abandoning the grid-formation system from the previous game (which is something that I  forgot to mention in the original review :S).
 Dungeons aren't 1st person anymore, now it has the 3rd person camera view that will continue through the next Persona games.

As for customization, there's the same tarot-card persona creation, fusions and demon negotiation with can end up with the demon fighting back, giving a present, giving tarot cards or spreading a rumor.
 Rumors are a new addition that plays an important role through the story and some also affect on the shops inventary, on the dungeon, and many other things.

The story is very interesting on both games, which one is better is a matter of taste, I think none disappoints. I keep loving the characters, I may like or not their personalities but their behavior is realistic, so disliking some of the characters isn't a bad thing, it happens in real life.

This time music is okay, I don't remember any special tune like in Persona-PSP. Graphics are nothing special with some cool demon designs.

Did I like it? Yes.
I think you will like it if you:
- Like Shin Megami Tensei atmosphere
- Don't hate jrpgs

I rate my experience with a 8.5 out of 10.

Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core

This is an awesome fan service, superb graphics, revisiting places and knowing more about Soldier.

The story is about Zack point of view of the events that happened on Soldier before the original game. I've erased all this game explained from my memory, I prefer the original story as it was and let my imagination fly.

Combat system is real-time action with a touch of randomness using some kind of slot machine system that I never understand quite well and it also keeps the similar looking commands from the original FFVII.
 Customization is materia based again but not very complex, I never cared much about it.

The game is fun but it felt too easy, I finished it without any effort nor dedicating much time to customization or battle strategy.

Did I like it? Yes
I think you will like it if you:
- Are a FVII fan and want more

I rate my experience with a 5.5 out of 10.

SMT: Persona

(Played on PSP)
I'm in love with this game, probably because is my first encounter with Shin Megami Tensei series.

My first and biggest surprise are the characters personality and its development. Until then I was used to the typical "hero of light and infinite justice", but on Persona I found that the characters are very realistic, I think they behave how humans would, not how they should (not quite sure if my point is clear).

The story and atmosphere are pretty dark, I wasn't used to find that on a game either, and I loved it. I wanted to keep going just to find more details about what was happening.

This is a 1st person dungeon crawler, random encounters and combat is turn-based with 3 basic commands: Melee Attack, Gun Attack (ranged) and Skills that uses the Persona skills. Personas are like avatars, each character has one and have their own skills and level growth. The combat system is fun, people complains that the random encounters are too frequent but there's something that helped me on that: I loved the battle vocal song! I just wanted to enter combats to hear it again and again ^^

Another thing that surprised me is being able to negotiate with the enemies, negotiation can end with the monster getting angry and attacking back, running away, giving an item or giving a spell card. There are many kinds of Spell cards and are needed to create new and powerful Personas, which is needed as they became obsolete as the party and enemies level increases. This system is pretty complex because personas can be fused where using items can change the outcome or the skills, and there's unpredictable fusion accidents too.

The rest of details are correct for rpg: usual shops, equipment customization, experience levels, 2d graphics and cool pop music.

Did I like it? Very.
I think you will like it if you:
- Are a dungeon explorer!
- Don't mind abundant random combats
- Don't hate pop music

I rate my experience with a 9 out of 10.