I have played more than ten games this year, but I'm going to limit this ranked list to five. The games not included in this list I don't feel too strongly about to include or write about. (note, some of this writing I adapted from earlier posts/reviews on these games)
FIVE - The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep
I am not familiar first-hand with the Bard's Tale original series, so I cannot speak much to how Barrows Deep incorporates elements from its history. While I have played several Japanese dungeon crawlers like Etrian Odyssey and Elminage, The Bard's Tale IV was my first foray into a western game of this style. Before I say anything else, I want to emphasize that The Bard's Tale IV is not a game driven by its storyline or by its characters. In fact, while the game will give the player pre-written characters to use in battle, you can change these out for player-created units if you choose. At its core, the game uses a race/class system that doesn't stray too far away from the expected. Your unit abilities are derived from their class and their race, of course. It's a tried-and-true system.
Combat itself is where Barrows Deep especially shines. Without going into all the details of all the battle elements, it all amounts to how a selection of unit skills from their class tree, positioning of units on the battlefield, use of Opportunity each round, and management of SP, and use skills each battle all come together to create a compelling, flexible battle system that hooked me. There are enough moving parts here that, yes, you'll eventually find strategies or patterns that might be a little too effective, but the satisfaction of putting together a team that trounces most foes is still quite addicting.
While combat is a key component and the absolute highlight of The Bard's Tale IV, it's worth bringing special attention to the game's use of environmental puzzles. In fact, this game is as much of a first-person puzzle game as it is an RPG. Put simply, The Bard's Tale IV is way more puzzle-focused than I would have ever imagined it would be. From expected block-pushing to sliding puzzles, gear puzzles, line puzzles, and the like, you'll be spending a significant amount of time in every region of the game completing these puzzles to proceed. There are even moments where you'll have to solve 3 or 4 puzzles in a row to continue on, and you might find yourself doing that for 15-30 minutes in between battles, depending on how fast you can solve them, of course. I personally didn't mind the heavy use of puzzles, but I was still surprised at just how many were thrown at me, and it's definitely a significant portion of the gameplay loop. The final dungeon in the game is basically one giant puzzle, as an example.
One place where Barrows Deep strongly falters is in the story it tries to tell. Starting out, some of the characters that join your party have no clear motivations to do so; they just get added to your party because the game needs to fill your roster somehow. Character interaction is also a rarity. While characters will occasionally banter with each other as you explore the game world, it's usually superfluous chatter that doesn't have anything interesting to say. Really, they are mostly just units acting as tools for the player in battle more than anything else.
For the first 2-3 hours of the game, I tried to immerse myself in the world lore. I exhausted dialogue options, and I tried to keep track of the histories and characters that were brought up in dialogue. But I quickly came to the realization that I really just couldn't bring myself to care about any of it. I just wanted someone to point me in a direction so I could explore more and fight battles. I was enjoying the combat elements enough that dialogue sequences actually became more of an interrupting nuisance than anything actually driving the game forward. Barrows Deep is a game for mechanics nerds first and foremost.
The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep has a satisfyingly deep and flexible battle system, surrounded by heavy puzzle exploration and a narrative that doesn't manage to stay interesting. There are some really neat systems at play here for those looking for intricate combat, but performance issues and a lacking storyline make it a hard sell to a larger audience.
FOUR - Valkyria Chronicles 4
The original Valkyria Chronicles is a special game. Unlike just about anything that came before it and with a compelling cast of characters, it was definitely one of my favorites in the PS3 generation of games. While VC3 improved tremendously on the disappointing VC2, it still didn't quite have the same touch that the original did (the map style and game pace is different enough I find it hard to compare, to be honest). When VC4 was announced - sharing most similarities to the original Valkyria Chronicles, I had really high hopes for it. I even replayed the original on PC in the run-up to VC4. VC4 had a high bar to reach if it wanted to surpass VC, but, I'm....not sure if it did all-around. It's a worthy enough followup in any case.
On a gameplay front, it's very close to the original. I remember hearing that it was a step up in difficulty from the original, but I actually felt it was pretty breezy most of the way through the main game, which was actually a little disappointing. New additions like Ship Orders, Direct Leader Command, APCs, and Grenadiers in general basically allow the player more ways to cheese the game - and scout rushing is still pretty effective as it was in the original. (In fact, Direct Command and APCs make scout rushing even more effective. You can now rush longer distance through more gunfire AND bring two friends with you!). I'm not sure if this is really a bad thing though, sometimes it can be incredibly fun to see just how thoroughly you can dominate a map. I also was kinda weirded out by the normal mode skirmishes in that you can complete most of them in one turn easily for some reason? It made getting money and EXP trivial if you wanted to purchase upgrades or boost units a bit. It seemed like the game /wanted/ me to clear the skirmishes in one turn, as it is not especially tricky to do, at all - I even remember saying to myself out loud 'why did they make these so simple to clear?' Having played the original VC just earlier in the year, I'm certain the skirmish map design was not so straightforward there. Anyways, I digress.
In fact, I actually enjoyed the post-game Hard skirmishes more than the main game maps to be honest. These ones seemed to bring out the best of the combat system, actually forcing me to coordinate my units and maximize my turns as much as possible. This is where the game shined best, in my opinion. I'm not sure what else to say here - the combat is as unique as it ever was, and simply getting to test me on new maps was very fun.
I really didn't feel the main cast much in this game, though. There were several moments that felt just so 'typical' in how characters develop in Japanese media like this. The characters are all a step down from the original cast. For example, the main romance in VC1 felt like a genuine relationship developing between two believable human beings, where the romance in VC4 is much more expected tropey with a couple of common character scenes I've basically experienced before in other games. Both VC1 and VC4's narratives falter near the end and the villains are both blah so that's basically a wash.
One thing I did appreciate quite a lot was the addition of Squad Stories, and how these were incorporated into the unit Potential system. This gives all the secondary characters more personality than they could get just being a name on a roster as they were in previous games. The variety in these maps was nice to see, too. Some were silly, some were serious, some were completely unbelievable, but it was a nice mix. On a gameplay front, these are essentially 'Limited Maps', where you have to use only a few characters to clear some objective, usually in a much more restricted fashion than you can in a normal chapter map. It's a cool little way to give these maps their own flavor.
VC4 didn't quite hit the heights that it could have, but it's still a solid followup to an extremely unique game, and I hope the series sticks around a bit longer.
THREE - Octopath Traveler
Octopath Traveler is one of those games that I wasn't really sure what to expect going in. While I have played several SNES or sprite styled RPGs, it's actually not a style I played much growing up, so there was not much of a nostalgia angle there. I am, however, a big fan of job system games like Final Fantasy V, which Octopath seemed to borrow a bit from, so that excited me a bit. But the game's developer, Acquire, didn't have an especially great pedigree. But I went in with an open mind, and I ended up enjoying the game considerably.
Combat is where Octopath really shines brightest. Much like Labyrinth of Refrain and The Bard's Tale also in this list, Octopath is centered on a job system that allows combat approach to be pretty flexible. As with most games with flexible systems like this, there are a couple class/character combos that are considerably overpowered but figuring out those powerful combinations in part of the fun. Even so, the game is not always an easy one. Some of the game's boss encounters, especially optional or quest bosses, can actually be tough tests of skill.
As an aside, it's games like this that make me laugh at the 'turn-based rpgs require no skill, only grinding' comments you sometimes see. Some of the bosses here can be pretty darn tough. Sure, you can probably waste time and grind it out for a few hours and take them down after some tedium. Or you can evaluate your foe's attacks and patterns, determine which characters/skills available to you can counter or mitigate the boss. Try thinking and experimenting sometimes! *cough*
Some people have expressed disappointment that 1.) characters didn't interact much at all and 2.) the game didn't really have an overarching storyline connecting all the character stories. But..neither of these things bothered me in the slightest. In fact, I quite liked that I could view the game as just 8 separated character stories that take place within the same world. I didn't need some epic combined storyline, nor was I really looking for one. It somewhat reminded me of something like Valkyrie Profile, where characters are developed through vignettes rather than a big sprawling narrative. I remember some people pointing to the game's somewhat hidden "final" boss as an 'aha, there IS a main story', but eh. I didn't really view like that. It was more just the game throwing its strongest punch at you. It was a cool challenge, and the thrill of clearing it is as cathartic as ever, but I don't think it's presence in the game was required or necessary, really. Similar to the character interaction, this isn't something I ended up missing at all. I just viewed each character in the context of their storyline, separately.
The character stories were pretty simple, some even pretty cliche, but I thought the execution for them was generally well done. Thorough enough to get me invested into each motivation, but not too drawn out to overstay their welcome. My favorite character stories in no certain order were Alfyn, Tressa, Ophilia, and Primrose. Oh, and the music was generally good, also.
I approached Octopath Traveler in an unusual way. Once I got through each opening chapter, I basically just ignored all the story content and went through the various paths/dungeons in a rough level order, collecting all the chests and stealing all the things as I went to every town. I stumbled across the various shrines and took out the extra job bosses, although I might have been a little underleveled starting out. After this, I did as many sidequests as I could figure out. Then I basically just marathoned all the character stories. Maybe a robotic way to approach things and I figure most people who are not-me would get bored of just fighting and looting a bunch, but it thought it was actually pretty enjoyable! The macro structure is a bit samey/gamey/repetitive. 8 sections of the map, 3 subsections each, each of those with a dungeon area. You do the same things in each of the game's 24 city areas. I don't even mean this as a criticism really, it's just not quite the typical format. The way I played effectively divorced 'gameplay' and 'story' as much as possible.
I do have a few hang-ups with the game. Namely, the lack of an EXP share seem like an oversight, especially considering how the end-game in handled, and the quest design is a bit weird in places too where you are given very little to work with to know how to clear the quest (usually you just have to scour the other towns for the right NPC). But otherwise I quite enjoyed Octopath. I'm not sure I want a sequel, though.
TWO - Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk
Labyrinth of Refrain was a game I had had my eye on for a while. When it was originally announced for Japan back in 2015, I saw a dungeon crawler with a grouped-unit system that reminded me of The Last Remnant - one of my favorite games due to its strange yet cool mechanics. I was only just getting into dungeon crawler RPGs in 2015, but I already had decided back then that Labyrinth of Refrain was a game I was going to play, hopefully offering a neat twist on the DRPG genre. It getting glowing impressions in Japan worked to solidify my interest, but I didn't expect it would take three years to finally get released in English, thanks to several delays and a remaster pushing things back.
I also had no idea that I would appreciate the character narrative as much as I would, and it's a real highlight of the game. Labyrinth of Refrain can largely be described as a character study - and it highlights a 30-something paralyzed queer caustic witch named Dronya, and her forever upbeat and optimistic pupil Luca. The way the storyline unfolds the characters/relationship of Dronya and Luca is better than you would expect at a glance, and without getting into spoilers, the way they do this makes it especially memorable. The storyline also includes some heavy subjects, and the game handles it straight and seriously - something I appreciate greatly. I felt myself becoming significantly more sympathetic to Dronya as I learned more about her story, her character, and her struggles. But more importantly, it was simply /interesting/. A lot of JRPG characters trend too close to established archetypes, but Dronya's story was something believable and I found myself wanting to learn more about it as I progressed through the game.
Labyrinth of Refrain's 'Coven' gimmick is a very neat concept, almost like managing five mini parties as a whole macro party. Like with Barrow's Deep above, I won't go into all the mechanical details here, but it involves 5 groups of units that comprise of your party. Each group can have 1-3 primary units, 0-5 secondary units, and a formation. Doing the math, that's up to 40 characters to stay on top of. Luckily the game does a pretty good job in trying to minimize the amount of micromanagement the player has to do. There is also a class system in place for each unit in each coven, and later in the game you can effectively do some multiclassing, giving one classes's passive abilities to another. Combining all this, it's overall a very cool party system, something worth sticking to with a few tweaks and some balancing in future entries.
I do think the game's generally low difficulty does handicap it significantly though, and there was a weird balance overall where trash mobs were almost always trash and several bosses were significant jumps in difficulty. I didn't mind this too much because I enjoy boss fights in general, but the disparity in challenge was apparent. There's also a weird lack of boss encounters in the second half too. The first half dungeon designs were also notably better than the second half, especially the 'Umbra' dungeon. Coven includes a neat little resource management wrinkle that a lot of dungeon crawlers don't have with Reinforcement, an expendable resource that allows for various dungeon actions such as breaking through walls.
Labyrinth of Refrain was a surprisingly memorable experience with surprisingly endearing characters and a super cool party concept that could use a few refinements and tweaks to be something especially great. I'm eager for whatever sort of follow-up that NIS almost certainly has in store for this game.
ONE - Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of Elusive Age
Even though Dragon Quest XI is at the top of my list, I don't think I have too much to say about it relative to the other entries on this list. Dragon Quest is a series that has stuck to it roots. Unlike other series that have attempted to offer innovation or new ideas either narratively or mechanically, Dragon Quest mostly sticks to refinement of classic ideas. It actually puts Dragon Quest in a somewhat unique spot regardless because there are very few big-budget traditionally styled RPGs these days.
Every piece of Dragon Quest's puzzle simply fits together - the familiar combat, the skill/weapon system, the localization, beautiful locales, crafting, simple side quests .. there's no single element that feels overdone and they all add up to a wonderful whole. The way Dragon Quest takes largely self-contained vignettes and ultimately generates a larger grandiose narrative is also remarkably simple but engaging.
One place that Dragon Quest XI really shone for me was in its cast of characters. I was especially drawn into the relationship of sisters Veronica and Serena. Being a twin myself, sometimes the way twins are portrayed in media can be annoying or even insulting, but the way these two characters bounced off of each other was extremely believable. The rest of the cast was also endearing, and I felt that the balance between characters and their placement in the game's narrative was generally well done.
My largest criticism of the game, outside of poor music implementation, was how the post-game was handled on a narrative front. Without getting into spoilers, there's a pretty clear theme that the game is going for between the 2nd and 3rd arcs of the game, but I found that it ultimately leaves some weird implications behind, making the finale less satisfying than I thought it could be.
All-in-all I really enjoyed going back to this series. An extremely polished and comfortable game.
- Dragon Quest XI
- Octopath Traveler
- Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk
- Valkyria Chronicles 4
- The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep - See comments above, this line is just to make sure the vote counts if needed.
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