Meghan Sullivan
Meghan Sullivan's Reviews
Repetitive combat, recycled enemies, and a boring story prevent this action RPG from taking off.
The Descent is a challenging yet unsatisfying experience that raises more questions than it answers.
Citizens of Earth is a quirky game with its heart in the right place and its head in the clouds.
For a few hours at least, Final Fantasy Explorers is a charming little adventure that's fun to play alone with your monster buddies or with real-life friends. But repetitive quests, the lack of a serious challenge until late in the story and a poor travel system eventually broke the charm spell that Explorers had cast upon me.
It looks like a game worthy of Zeus, but weak controls keep Apotheon out of the action-platformer pantheon.
World of Final Fantasy is a humorous adventure that is just too cute for words, but its combat and exploration aren’t diverse enough to support a campaign nearly as long as this one. However, I did enjoy it for a long time - more than 30 hours - before it wore out its welcome.
Even with a few stories left unresolved and a lack of new loot to drive me to explore its relatively narrow world, it was great saying goodbye to my friends and getting a sneak peek at what might yet be ahead for the denizens of Thedas.
Etrian Odyssey is a meaty adventure with dozens of dungeon floors and bone-crushing challenges to overcome with its competent turn-based combat. The story isn't perfect, but I was happily kept busy with exploring the world, battling bosses, and feeding the hungry citizens of my hubtown.
In a lot of ways, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is a lot like the industry it’s poking fun at: it’s colorful, loud, shallow, and entertaining. Even when it threatened to bore or frustrate me into quitting with pointless loading screens and weak puzzle solving, it always drew me back in with its dazzling combat and catchy music. The story and characters may not have a lot of depth or sophistication, but it has style and charm, and I’m a big fan of that.
On the battlefield, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shades of Valentia is a delightful look into the simpler combat of Fire Emblem's past. Elsewhere, it carefully guides the series forward into new territory. There's not as much depth as I expect from this series, but whether I was exploring 3D forests, shrines, and caves in a series first, or learning first hand why Fire Emblem's early entries are considered a formidable challenge, it was usually good old-fashioned fun.
Tales of Zestiria doesn't deviate too far from its competent predecessors, but it's not a carbon copy, either. It may have linear dungeons and a less-than-stellar story, but it's open-world exploration, enjoyable customization, and flashy new Armitization feature are enough for it to stand on its own.
The malleable quality of Fire Emblem's weapons-triangle and pairing systems make them a natural fit for the hack n' slash genre. Even when I could barely tell what was going on on the crowded battlefield and my troops were a little too codependent, I enjoyed directing the action and jumping in to be part of the carnage. And while Fire Emblem Warriors makes poor use of the Fire Emblem universe's story and history, we still get traces of the relationships between the characters that make it memorable.
Final Fantasy Type-0's gritty tone and fast action is a welcome change of pace.
Story of Seasons' kept me occupied for well over 30 hours, and even then I could have kept playing until the cows came home. It took awhile for the interesting options for running my farm and business to open up, but the mix of strategy and good old-fashioned simulation made it all worthwhile. It may not have the prestigious Harvest Moon name, but Story of Seasons is definitely the bees' knees.
I had a blast playing Final Fantasy: Curtain Call. It's easy to pick up and play, and the controls are smooth and responsive. (Though every once in awhile they seemed slightly finicky during field music stages.) Being able to play something that celebrates over two decades of excellent music brought me lots of joy, and serves as a reminder that Final Fantasy has some of the best music in video game history.
Persona Q is a 60-plus hour roleplaying experience that both charms and entertains. Though there were points when its puzzles completely stumped me, and the combat's steep difficulty, made me want to launch my 3DS into orbit a few times, the enjoyable battle system, deep exploration, and generous dollops of fanservice made it worth the effort.
Tales of Berseria is a surprisingly strong showing for this long-running series. Its tragic story of broken people fighting on the wrong side of history makes it utterly compelling, and its well-tuned combat more than makes up for its lack of interesting environments. Simply put, this is a tale to heartbreaking to miss, or to forget.
God of War 3 Remastered's update is mostly visual, but the action reminds us why we love this bloody series.
Nier: Automata is a crazy, beautiful, and highly entertaining journey full of nutty ideas and awesome gameplay. It may not include the most sensical story or compelling characters, but its frenzied combat -- coupled with beautiful visuals and a stunning soundtrack – make it too much fun to pass up.
Upgraded HD visuals make Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster on PS4 the best way to experience the world of Spira.