Gaming History

Completed:

• Zero no Kiseki - 9/10 - amazing game! Awesome story and cast.

• Trails in the Sky 3rd Evolution - 8/10 - Love Kevin! Great ending to the Sky series. Kinda a Trails dungeon crawler, used so much magic!

• Cat Quest - 6/10 - short and fun, but I wasn't good at the combat and even short, it dragged on.

• Pokemon: Sword - 7/10 - another fine Pokemon game. Plattym5 sunk 170 hours into it and the expansions, I beat it at 40 and was done. Loved Dreadnaw.

• Ni no Kuni 2 - 9/10 - played for Sidequest and loved it. Sunk 50ish hours in. Loved the combat and skirmish and doing tons of sidequests and townbuliding.

• Evoland - 5/10 - Interesting to do different playstyles, hard bosses, under 6 hours, not interesting enough to try the second game.

• Nexomon: Extinction - 7/10 - This was a surprise hit for me. Tried it outta nowhere and loved it. I reviewed it!

• Mega Man Battle Network - 6/10 - When I was on a GBA kick. Interesting placement-based RPG about Mega Man as a computer program.

• Pokemon TCG 2: Team Great Rocket - 8/10 - How did I never know GBC TCG had a sequel. Got the fan translation & spent a dozen wonderful hours on it.

• Marvel Ultimate Alliance - 6/10 - Thought this would be good co-op with the kids since 4 can play. Camera almost beat us, and we reset a ton. Finally gave Plattym5 weak people and used strong people to blast through the ending.

• Grandia 2 Switch HD - 8.5/10 - Still a favorite, but I see the battles as becoming all 1 strategy. Love the cast and the battle system and upgrading skills and such an improvement from the first game.

• Graveyard Keeper - 9/10 - Had wanted to play for a year, waited for a Switch port. Played with the DLC and absolutely loved the game, near perfection. Stardew Valley with less NPC interaction, more humor, far darker. Let's open a hot dog stand at witch burnings!

• Puzzle Quest: The Legend Returns - 7/10 - Played the original long ago, and enjoyed the remake on Switch. Match-3 was very addicting, but this seemed harder this time around. Didn't do as many sidequests, just plowed through to the end.

• Golf Story - 10/10 - Perfection. Got really good at the golf and the dialogue cracked me up constantly! All the side stuff to do was worth my time as it was so well-made. Made in Australia, enjoyed in North Carolina.

• Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight - 7/10 - Another year, another Persona dancing game. Same as the other two pretty much, just with the new cast. Enjoyable soundtrack to dance to.

• DQX V1.0 - 8/10 - Would've been perfect if I could read it, but I played 35ish hours in 12 days to then record two podcasts to surprise Liam after his daughter's birth. Loved the DQ, hated the persistent online and Japanese-only, but good story.

• Let's Go Pikachu - 6/10 - AKA How I got Plattym4 into playing Pokemon games and RPGs on his own. We played this together and months later he became obsessed with Pokemon Shield. Fun co-op game that offers nothing for a single-player experience for those of us that have played the originals.

• Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE - 8/10 - Got a free code on whim for this and ended up loving the battle system. So great to chain together 8+ people attacking at once. J-Pop Idol dumb plot, but the battle system was just awesome. Persona-lite.

• Braveland 2 - 7/10 - Second game in a trilogy I picked up cheap in 2019. Plays like Heroes of Might & Magic, couldn't say if it had a story, just plowed ahead battling!

• Trails in the Sky SC - 8/10 - Years later I finally beat it! Did the translated Vita Evolution version: so so good! Excellent game and battle system. Really abused the arts a bunch.

• Fire Emblem Warriors - 6/10 - Worst musou I played, but still enjoyed it. Again, played with both kids, but we have zero connection to the series and found the graphics bland. Kill random dude 1000 times.

• Rune Factory 4 Special - 8/10 - One of my favorite 3DS games ever, and best series! Was as awesome as I remember. I reviewed it!

• Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition - 8/10 - Got my kids into musou with this game. The gameplay is really fun and I loved playing as girl Link, using crossbows.

Tried/Gave up on:

• Grandia Parallel Trippers - 6/10 - Got 5 hours in and lost my save. Weird card-based combat with all original Grandia cast and NPCs. Fan translated on GBC.

• Megadimension Neptunia VII - 5/10 - Got 10 hours in and was lost in the amount of subsystems

• Senren Kagura: Bon Apetit - 4/10 - Rhythm game that I could barely clear maybe 2 characters. Too hard for newbie me.

• Ys Origins - 5/10 - Too difficult a game for APRG rookie me.

• Dragon Quest Rivals - 8/10 - Got 10 hours in and just stopped playing to wait for the Ace content, and then forgot and moved on. Excellent card battling system, sadly online in Japanese only. And then killed in 2021.

• Dragon Quest of the Stars - 5/10 - Dress up Dragon Quest idle game. Didn't last a week playing.

• Dragon Quest Tact - 5/10 - A mobile tactics game... so what's to love? Nothing for me, that's what. Others like it, my impression pulled punches.

• Earthbound - 6/10 - It was pretty fun, but eventually became sloggy. Would've been my jam 20 years ago, but I tried it too late.

Completed:

• Cthulhu Saves Christmas - 8/10 - Short, hilarious, funny spooky Christmas music. Zeboyd games writes amazing dialogue. My RPGamer review.

• Persona 4: Dancing All Night - 6/10 - good rhythm game, and a cast of characters I actually know for once, so I quite enjoyed it. Played it right after Q2, so good to keep the music going.

• Persona Q2 - 7/10 - My final Etrian 3DS game. Loved the stratum designs after popular movies & genres. The cast gets far too big, so I just picked my favorites and went! A bit too heavy "friendship" story.

• Grandia HD - 8/10 - Not as amazing as 20 years ago, but the combat and leveling systems are just the best. Great story - let's go on an adventure!

• Ni no Kuni - 7/10 - Quite a surprise to like this as much as I did from a story standpoint, but the battle system was pure ass. Kinda turn-based, kinda action, completely uncontrollable. My RPGamer review.

• Braveland - 7/10 - A very short Heroes of Might & Magic-esque game. Basic, but a fun 5ish hours of combat.

• Dragon Quest Slime Mori Mori 3 - 8/10 - I felt this outstayed its welcome by a couple hours, but it's basically Rocket Slime on ships. Great fan translation & got to talk to the people who did in on my podcast.

• Dragon Quest Builders 2 - 9/10 - Still no interest in Minecraft, but this was nearly perfect! Other than some too-long areas, I enjoyed every moment with it.

• Rollers of the Realm - 6/10 - Another fun little 5 hour RPG. Play pinball as the battle, hit opponents with the ball. Start in a village, move to the castle, beat the game. Simple, but makes pinball goal-worthy.

• Dragon Quest Builders - 7/10 - Finally buckled down and bum rushed nearly 40 hours of this in 11 days. Fun, but misses some continuity between chapters.

• Atelier Lulua - 7/10 - Hadn't played Atelier in 15 years and this was a nice step into the series. Enjoyed collecting stuff to craft. Combat OK, loved the checkmarks on the chapter system. I reviewed it!

• Octopath Traveler - 9/10 - I absolutely loved the battle system and breaking the hell out of it midway through the game. Eight separate stories were perfect for me, didn't need the overall narrative. I reviewed it!

• SteamWorld Quest - 9/10 - Never tried this universe, and a turn-based battle system played with cards was perfect. Absolutely loved the characters, the battles, the dozen or so hours of length. I reviewed it!

• Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed - 7/10 - Neptunia Musou. The graphics were extremely budget, but the combat was musou fun! Another dozen-hour game to blaze through. Plot? Who cares, kick ass!

• Kingdom Item Shop - 6/10 - A cheap, less-than-$10 digital game on the 3DS. Battle system on rails was kinda fun, and then selling everything when I got back to upgrade the shop!

• Yo-Kai Watch 3 - 9/10 - The battle system changed for the worse, but the story and the settings and everything were perfect. And Blasters built in. So damn good!

• Etrian Odyssey Nexus - 8/10 - A fine end to the series. Not my favorite (they took out some stuff remakes added), but it had a ton of throwbacks and shorter stratums & such. I reviewed this one.

• Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God - 7/10 - Good battle system, and I enjoyed gathering ingredients to make food and sell it. I reviewed it.

Tried/Gave up on:

• Romancing SaGa 2 - Yangus and I gave it ago. 20 hours in I wasn't making any progress and hadn't taken down any bosses, so was done.

• Pokemon Ranger 3 - I enjoyed the first two games and this started off fun. I got about 5 hours to try for a podcast and then shiny other stuff came out.

• Battle Chasers: Nightwar - This was OK and good, but just sloooooooowwwww. Slow walking, slow battles, slow everything. Not optimized for Switch and after a dozen or so hours, I couldn't take it.

• Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology - Choice paralysis got me with this one. Loved the battle system, the story was fine, but I couldn't follow after too much time traveling and then the extra area kept calling & I got to far away from the story and just got too lost.

• Strange Journey Redux - Gave it like 17 hours. Fun except for black maps and warp maps. I knew there was another 50 hours ahead of me and just couldn't do that much more.

Completed:

• Pokémon Moon - 8/10 - It was a great end to Pokémon on the 3DS. Really enojoyed the island settings and ultra beasts and such.

• Persona 4 Golden - 9/10 - One of the best games I've ever played. Got me into Persona. Great battle system and I enjoyed the cast and side characters enough to become invested in their stories.

• Dragon Quest VIII 3DS - 9/10 - Great port, so many fun little new things to do and see. Nice that enemies were now on the field. Went farther in the Dragovian Trials than the other times.

• Ever Oasis - 5/10 - I wanted it to be Fantasy Life, but it was more like a city-building and Zelda game. It was disappointing to me, an average game that was annoying with its puzzles & not always having things to solve the puzzles in dungeons.

• Dragon Quest Heroes 2 - 9/10 - Loved it. It's more open-world and has so so so many more quests to do. Hard to power level. There are classes to master with the two MCs. Fun game all around.

• Yo-kai Watch 2 - 8/10 - Good game, more of the same Level-5 goodness like the first, but you go back in time and meet your grandfather and tool around early century Japan with yo-kai.

• Legends of Heroes: Trails in the Sky - 8/10 - Was playing this as Hurricane Irma knocked our roof around. Amazing game that hooked me into the wider series in general. It's a bit basic in look, but the battle system has become a favorite through the years.

• Monster Hunter Stories - 8.5/10 - Most unexpected game that I fell in love with. Not a MonHun fan, but this became MonHun Pokémon and I was entrhalled by the world and gameplay.

• Etrian Odyssey V - 7/10 - It was kinda unmemorable, but fun. I think this was the first post-game that I made it all the way to the end and beat. Good dungeon-crawling experience though!

Completed:

• Yo-kai Watch - 8/10 - Came out of nowhere to be a hilariously fun game. Different take on combat was good. Just love the Level-5ishness of it.

• Etrian Odyssey Untold 2 - 9/10 - Definitely near pinnacle Etrian Odyssey with so many differnt systems going on while adding story and content to Etrian Odyssey 2. Food & grimoires were good additions to solid dungeon crawling.

• Knights of Pen & Paper 2 - 6/10 - An enjoyable mobile experience. Nice to play on iPad, funny as heck. Basically a D&D campagin as a turn-based RPG.

• Dragon Fantasy - 7/10 - Great to finally beat this game on Vita after having it for years on mobile and barely touching it. Nice retro feel to it but great humor to take it throughout.

• Bravely Default - 8/10 - Sitting in the rocking chair at 2am with my son, I fell in love with him and this game. Great characters and customization to the battle system, disliked the end loop, but overall great.

• Bravely Second - 9/10 - As much fun as the previous one, and without annoying loop, I liked it even that much more. Jobs & skills & customization galore!

• DQVII 3DS - 9/10 - It finally came out!!! Yay, so happy that one of my favorite RPGs got ported and pretty much remade for the 3DS.

Completed:

• Denpa Men: They Came by Wave - 6/10 - Fun to walk around outside and catch men by WiFi signals. Made by some DQ people, combat and spells felt like it.

• Dragon Quest V mobile - 9/10 - A classic and amazing story and monster recruiting and picking a bride. What could it do wrong? Be on mobile.

• Etrian Odyssey: Untold - 9/10 - A great remake with all the modern conveniences of EOIV. Really liked the story they added and the extra levels and the grimoire stone system.

• Knights of Pen & Paper +1 - 7/10 - Fun and funny, a mobile game that kept me enthralled enough to finish it. A D&D campaign with lots of humor and turn-based battles.

• Fantasy Life - 10/10 - Amazing game with so much to do in all the different life job classes. Played this ARPG easy combat game for over 120 hours, doing the DLC and almost everything in the game. Maybe 98%'d it.

• Shin Megami Tensei IV - 6/10 - Took almost a year of stopping and starting to beat it. Didn't care much for it other than fuse demons.

• Dragon Quest VI mobile - 7/10 - It's DQVI all right, and now on mobile, because that's better, right?

• Persona Q - 8/10 - Really really liked this Etrian Odyssey take on the Persona series. This was my first look at Persona and the characters were nice, but the EO parts are what really rocked, as well as the music!!

• Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below - 8/10 - Put 100 hours into this game doing almost everything, power leveling to 100 and coming close to platniuming it. My first musou, and a great one!