Completely forgot to mention that Tears of the Kingdom was finished. I have a lot of mixed feelings toward this game. Let me start off by saying in terms of plot, I think it's superior to Breath of the Wild by far. Ganon actually makes an appearance as a living being you can have emotions about, rather than some sort of nameless force of calamitous nature. The tie between past and future is great, as well as finding out Zelda's actions and her ultimate plan.

The issue is the game is it's a sequel to Breath of the Wild and it constrains what Tears of the Kingdom was trying to do. Let's start off with these floating islands. Where the hell were they in the first game? They sure as hell didn't rise up at the beginning of the game like Hyrule Castle because there are no other giant holes in the ground. No one thinks this is weird? That there are suddenly islands? I also love how no one even really knew about the existence of the Zonai, but suddenly in Tears of the Kingdom everyone and their mother have a PhD in the topic.

The depths is a big discrepency. Although admittedly pretty cool to explore and kinda creepy the first time around down there, there's literally no point to it. Sure, yeah, 1.5 dungeons are down there and you can get extra equipment, all of that could've easily been written out. Like... even within the plot it doesn't make sense. So the Zonai were flying above in the sky until one day Rauru decided to come down and bang some Hylian priestess. Sure. But before that apparently they were mining in the depths to maintain their society and technology up above? They just... had a major industry and were collecting all these materials and someone no one on the surface noticed these massive amounts of minerals floating back up to the islands above? Honestly I think Nintendo designed the depths to create more content so players didn't realize they were redoing the Breath of the Wild map all over again.

Dungeons were still not of the same level of previous generations, but they were a definite improvement from Breath of the Wild. Probably the closest we got to a traditional Zelda dungeon was the Lightning Temple. I still stand by my stance way back in A Link Between Worlds on lack of linear direction: If you can go to any dungeon at any point, there's no sort of difficulty curve for any of them. Compare say the Deku Tree to the Shadow Temple way back in Ocarina of Time. I actually can beat the Deku Tree without taking any damage, that's how easy it is. But then compared to the confusing nature of the Shadow Temple, I feel a sense of accomplishment when I see how far I've come. Jumping around with Sidon in the sky didn't feel any different than using mine carts in the volcano with Yunobo.

One thing that boggles my mind is they replaced Teba with Tulin. Why? He was probably my favorite dude from Breath of the Wild. Everyone else was the same. Did Nintendo feel with Riju more grown up, little kids don't have representation?

Personally I didn't like the building aspect of the game. The first couple of hours I think I screamed a lot from frustration when some mechanation I spent ten minutes working on fell apart because I accidentally grabbed the wrong thing. Although I became skilled with it toward the end, it's not my cup of tea, although I can see other people really enjoying it.

Final boss fight was a major upgrade from Breath of the Wild. The fact we had to trade counter attacks, a nod to previous Ganon fights where you had to hit his move back to him, was a really nice touch. Props to Nintendo for that.

After all this, I still prefer Breath of the Wild. Maybe it's because by the time Tears of the Kingdom had come around, I was tired of walking all over this map. If Nintendo had developed Tears of the Kingdom on its own, it could've been very superior. Now I'm hoping they'll get rid of this open world shit and return to the Zelda I know and love, but given how popular Breath of the Wild was, I doubt it.

Final Fantasy XVI completed, and wow, I think it's my favorite Final Fantasy since IX, and I'm surprised more people aren't talking about it (focusing on VIIR2?). It's not a perfect game and has some glaring flaws, but I haven't had this much fun playing a Final Fantasy in a long time.

I'll start with the issues, and I think number one is the items, which affects the game twofold. First is there's a completely fucked up weapon upgrade system. Literally after I get a shiny new sword, barely an hour later I've gotten another one. It's like Square didn't track when a player should get trying out something new. The second is the rewards for exploration or epic battles don't matter. There are maybe a dozen different upgrade materials in the whole game, most of which you get pretty early on. So I'm literally running around the final area and finding fucking sharp fangs, which I started collecting way back in the beginning when Clive was like fifteen. Yeah, (some) bounties have good drops, but I literally defeated Bahamut and got forty bloody hides, of which I already owned hundreds. None of the accessories felt like game changers either, so opening up treasure chests felt like meh. You need a sort of nice reward for effort. If I'm gonna walk across the map for some distant treasure, it better not be five of what I already have hundreds of. It's annoying because they put so much effort into everything else, so literally hiring one dude whose sole job is this I feel shouldn't've been hard.

Then there are regular battles. Let me say this first: boss battles were amazing and I was completely satisfied with them. But XVI suffered from the same issue as Hogwarts Legacy: too little variation in enemies and you're way overleveled early on. There's no incentive to fight regular enemies on the map because you're not getting much EXP since you're already way over, their drops are pointless like every other item, so they're more or less just an annoyance you avoid. I didn't put any effort in trying basic encounters, and I beat the game one level below max. So what's the point. Given how much effort Square put into the battle system, it's a shame they didn't let me flex my muscles with it more often.

This is a personal preference but I think others would agree: I'm a big environments fiend, and you don't get to explore any of the major cities. Hell, you never see the Iron Kingdom's capital even in a cutscene. The cities are just dungeons, so you're basically there as a continuous fight so you don’t have time to appreciate the surroundings, and when you do everything is in the process of being destroyed or already is. You don’t even get to visit what should be a moderate town, Port Isolde, and even Northreach felt like a minor checkpoint before the capital moved. All that's left are small towns or even just hovels. I wonder if they were trying to save resources on environments; Oriflamme looks amazing from the outside, I can't imagine having the render all of that.

That being said, dungeons are following the trend of a linear path with perhaps a quick diversion for treasure. There's no puzzles, no thought (although a good portion of the time the dungeons are mid-battle of a large attack so there isn't time). XVI isn't alone in this; I've noticed most RPGs in recent years don't do the puzzle route as much anymore.

Another minor complaint is at times they would shove the point down the player's throat until it became fantastical. Yes, slavery is bad and people abuse slaves. However, I cannot imagine even in the cotton-picking South some person would purposefully have other people's slaves be killed by a giant wolf. That is someone else's property. Slaves to that extent are safe from others besides the master. Some dude is not going to go out and start murdering slaves randomly because even the law protects the master's possessions. It just doesn't make any sense.

Now onto the good things: pretty much everything else. The plot is solid and feels like Final Fantasy returning to form. Big crystals that need to be destroyed, kingdoms falling, a higher power controlling things behind the scenes... One thing I appreciate, and I think many recent games have lost this, is XVI had many sidequests that had us check in on friends we've met along the way and continue with their subplots. You never really forget these people and it shows how a network of connections and bonds is maintained. Even Eastpool, which was massacred fairly early on, rises up again much later on.

Another factor that I think is important is I just like Clive a lot. He's also my favorite Final Fantasy protagonist since IX. Don't get me wrong; I did like Lightning but if I ever had to work toward a common goal with her in real life, I probably would punch her in the face. I have no idea how she was ever in the military because she has zero sense of teamwork, and she acts like an asshole to even people who are actively trying to help her. Clive in constrast is very mature, has strong leadership abilities, not overly angry or obnoxious or lonerlike, and is just trying to do good in the world. He does make mistakes, but they're reasonable ones that happen because he didn't have all the information or there were circumstances he couldn't've foreseen, unlike other protagonists who do things you know are wrong and stupid but they do it anyway for the sake of plot. He makes the effort to play with the kids even though he isn't great at it, and they admire him for that. Even when he's angry in the beginning of the game, he's still respectful toward Cid and says, "Thanks for saving me, I have nothing against you or your group, I just have my own path I need to take." He recognizes his own weaknesses, and in such situations seeks assistence or delegates to others. He feels like an actual, filled-out human being, and kudos to whoever wrote him.

The other members of the cast are great too. Jill is very badass but a bit quiet and subdued, but given her time in the Iron Kingdom that's understandable. I thought Joshua would just be a plot point, but he really grew into his own. Cid was fun to be with, and I was sad when he was gone. Gav as always was cool. The enemies were great too. Benedikta died early on, but they threw in a great backstory with the little time they had. Kupka was an idiot and not deep, but you could feel his love and pain. Dion's path was surprising and I never knew what his next step was.

The battle system is definitely the best in the series. It was cool to experiment with each of the summons, and really it can be tailored easily to your style. No one I've asked equipped the same three summons. It feels like they were trying to reach a God of War level of combat, but simultaneously they fumbled on the actual fights. Again, bosses were amazing, but regular fights were just meh. I guess that's why they threw in so many boss fights so frequently.

In terms of music XV was definitely better, but I wouldn't stick my nose up to this. As with many aspects of the game, there were a lot of throwbacks. Prelude and the Final Fantasy Theme came up repeatedly, but also On the Shoulders of Giants had the traditional Final Fantasy regular battle opening. And also randomly for one of the times you fight Ultima, it's the FFI world map theme. I've definitely heard better, but I could listen to this OST on its own. The lyrics however are stupid. From what I'm understanding, they tasked the English translator to provide them, and considering this is the dude that wrote out "such foul attaint may not be sublimed through gainstanding," you can tell where this is going. I'll give a few examples:

A sickle forged of adamant
To server the man from his hooded past
No more a slave to sorrow's gloom

In onychine eyes burn chthonic doom
An evil hidng from the sun

Blinding, he screameth eschaton immanent
Now in its wake yawned lightless abyss
Yon gaping maw his circumfix

I feel like this written by a high schooler who believes using as much SAT vocabulary they just learned makes them sound more intelligent. I don't know why anyone would compose this.

Visually it's all right. XV had a prettier environment, but this wasn't bad, especially when you're walking around Rosaria. I touched on how you never explore epic architecture, but the nature is beautiful. Unfortunately in the second half of the game when everything goes to shit, the world gets this haze over it and nothing is appealing to look at (which isn't unusual; other Final Fantasies, especially VI had catastrophic situations in the second half of the game). I guess that's kinda the point; the Blight is wiping out everything and actually Clive's efforts could ultimately be for naught and it's too late.

Which is how I'm going to end: It's a very depressing game. There's a lot of death, a lot of tragedy, a lot of loss. Clive lives a totally fucked up life, and he's not alone. The fact I still enjoyed this never-ending sadness demonstrates how well it was done. Totally recommend, play it as soon as you can.

Also... can we address that whole Barnabas and his mom thing? They had literally one scene with that and never mentioned it again. What the fuck was with that?

Switch version of Super Mario RPG completed. This was one of my favorite games from my childhood and I played the original several times so I had a pretty good memory of everything, and what took me by surprise is how faithful the developers were to the original. 99% of everything was the same. For example, I don't think they changed the 90s translation at all, except for a few lines about the modernity of autosaving and Culex musing about how the party is 3D rendered whereas he's still a pixel. Even the choreography for the cutscenes were exact, down to how many times Mario would jump or Bowser would weep. Not a single dungeon was changed down to the layout or the positioning of the enemies. The game is basically as it was first published thirty years ago but for upgraded graphics.

However there are two parts they tweaked and it does affect gameplay: The first is the introduction of team attacks, and they are very powerful. The second and more important is you can switch your party members out midbattle. Oh Geno is now a mushroom? We'll just replace him with Peach. The boss is weak to lightning? Time for Bowser to bow out in favor of Mallow. Instead of bringing only three people to the fight, you have the whole party.

Honestly I think Super Mario RPG has stood up to the test of time as a good game. If you want to relive your childhood, I'd say try this out. And if you've never played before and want to see what we had in the 90s, plop it into your Switch.

(Also, can I just say I'm blown away Yoko Shimomura made the track for this? Comparing it to Street Fighter II, Parasite Eve, and Final Fantasy XV, it's a completely different tone. I had her sign my original SNES cartridge, I think she was a bit surprised someone brought it.)