Gideon Emery's Fenris got me through Dragon Age 2.

While P5's overall score hasn' t made the first impression of P4's the battle theme and victory screen theme are seared in my brain.

Let's see. It's never the Emperor. Maybe it's the Senators? Or that cool lady knight? Or that creepy kid? Nope. Nope. Nope.

By the time I reached the city with the sky trams the enemies were laying waste to my party. The next time I played I used a low level guide to junction my party into killing machines early on. I plowed through the rest of the game but have no desire to ever replay it.

I loved Super Mario RPG but never finished Paper Mario. The slow pace and uneven writing made it feel like a chore.

Sexy Gideon Emery, Bunny Lady, proto-Lightning and…
some characters I never used.

I ended up sticking with three characters and making them all self-healing tanks. I found my notes from back then where I'd written "who is the villain?" You see about 8 different candidates in the cutscenes but most of them are gone by the time you reach their fortress. The same thing happens in FFXV.

DAI and DA2 do interesting things with their gay romances. Who's the Betty and who's the Veronica? You think you know… till you don't.

I played the game first and loved it. I gave up on the Fables comics once I realized they had turned into X-Men redux.

True. "Becky" and Dr. T had the most useful abilities. They just weren't much fun to spend time with.

I’ve completed Persona 5. Like a holiday dinner I feel overstuffed, a little guilty and glad I was there. I was getting salty with the games’ 3rd quarter but flu season let me over level and race through an impressive finale. When the game finally steps up, clears its throat and says something it impresses. I’m sad…

Critics at the time were comparing it to the linear Final Fantasy XIII. The open world seemed pretty exciting when I played it in 2012. However since then I've played Witcher 3 and Breath of the Wild. Even FFXV, with its MANY faults, improves upon the visuals, party interaction and combat pacing.

Some grooves aren't lost. They're just gone. ~ Taylor Mac

I made my first runs of both games longer than they needed to be. I never really understood the combat systems and compensated by over leveling for hours. Now I'm trying to figure out Xenoblades skill trees and chain attacks. The game does a terrible job explaining them.

I'm dabbling in Xenoblade Chronicles and have found that the gameplay hasn't aged well. However the voice acting, characters and story are still enjoyable. Now that I know the plot twists I can appreciate the foreshadowing. I've sunk a lot of hours into bland RPG's with interesting narratives.

I can't remember why I found this game so difficult but it's the one 3D Mario I never completed.

Empty characters with barely coherent plotlines moved around for no other reason than to get to the next spectacular setpiece.

Just found the treasure in the seventh palace. I'm rushing through towards the end. I'm glad the board warned me that the writing has no nuance. The various corporate criminals you meet could have offered some temptation to the heroes and attempted to win them to their warped viewpoints. The traitor's big plan seems…

I couldn't STAND Rinoa. Team Quistis all the way.
I do wish the fan theory that Rinoa is Ultimecia in another time period had panned out.

It's interesting to follow the chain between Square games.
FF 1 through 9 (overworld, random turn based battles)
FF 3-5-Bravely Default (job/class systems)
FF 2-8 (complex, breakable leveling systems. challenge walls if you mis-apply them.)
FF 10-10.2-13-13.2 (linear levels + uneven voice acting + faster paced combat…