Ar Tonelico

A VNRPG where songs of a Reyvateil are the source of magic.

Pro
+ Great Ost
+ Well developed plot
+ As Grindy as you want it to be
+ Good Pacing (No dungeon felt too long or dragged)

Neu
= Really easy game (Didn't get close to a game over for the whole game)
= Graphics

Con
- Lots of lag and slowdown while doing certain things
- Some game-breaking glitches

Don't know why it took me so long to pick up this game, it basically combined most of the things I like into one game. Item creation was lacking from what I wanted so it's not worth playing the game for only that. The variance of the different endings are a bit lacking but it's the differences of what happened in the two different branches you can go through is nice. Overall if you wind up liking one of the two main heroine you'll probably like this game.

Extra Note: if you don't have a Reyvateil in your party, you can't run from battle... which bugged me in certain sections of the game.

Total Playtime 40:00~ (All 7 endings)

Overall Rating 8.6/10

Radiant Historia

Jrpg with time travel, conspiracies, backstabbing and a world that is about to end.

Pro
+ Great story and pacing
+ Fun and Unique battle system
+ Good length (20-30 Hours for regular ending, 30-40 hours for true)
+ Good closure (For true end)
+ Not a grind heavy game
+ Overall likable characters

Neu
= Soundtrack
= Graphics

Con
- Elusive and tedious side quests that are required for true end
- Certain boss fights are painful when under leveled/geared and may require some grinding

Extra note: There is a really high amount of bad ends in this game, 20+ but they won't lead you to game overs and will just bring you back to before the choice that you made that caused the bad end, so you are free to watch them without worries. Most of the bad endings are interesting and worth a read.

Overall one of the best games I've played of this type. If certain sidequests and chest weren't near impossible to find without a guide, this would be a near perfect game for me.

Total Playtime 32:25 (True Ending)

Score 9/10

999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors

A VN where 9 people get kidnapped and shoved into a sinking ship in which they have 9 hours to figure out the mystery of the 9 doors.

Pro
+ Amazing story
+ Great Character development
+ good BGM

Con
- Text speed is so SLOOOOOOOOOOOW
- Tedious puzzles

The main attraction of this game is the story, so if you are looking into playing it for the puzzles, look else where. Most of the puzzles are basically and really easy, just it's tedious to find all the parts of the puzzle before you can actually start working on it. If you have read other works by Kotaro Uchikoshi (infinity series), then you can probably see the true end coming from a mile away, otherwise it's a nice surprise. Lastly this game is kinda open ended so that there are some details you need to figure out on your own. Not as open ended as Remember 11, but nowhere near as conclusive as Ever 17 either.

Playing Time: 20~ Hours (Safe + True End)

Overall Rating: 8.8/10

Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter

Finally done with school so I created this because of tons of free time now. Dragon Quarters is an interesting game as the game itself is only a Breath of Fire in name, and other than having a Ryu and a Nina it is completely different from the rest of the series. Dragon Quarters is as similar to the Breath of Fire 1-4 as much as  Final Fantasy 12 and 13 is to 1-10.

The first thing that is notable about the game is that even from the start it feels completely different from of RPG from the era, there is a survivor horror feel from it. Another huge difference is that there are limited amount of times you can create a permanent save in this game. A simple synopsis of the game is that Ryu finds and rescues Nina and to save her she needs to be taken to the surface of the world. Though there is a minor problem, they are over 1000 meters underground. As you travel closer to the surface, the cities you pass are higher class. And of course it wouldn't be a RPG if there wasn't enemies and organization trying to stop you from reaching your goal.

Pros
- I found the battle system to be very enjoyable. It's kind of like FF12 battle system and instead of atb it uses Skies of Arcadia turn based, except per party member.
-The game is also decently challenging when you first get into it, this could just be lack of knowledge of the system but it has a nice difficulty for playing it blind.
-One nice thing about this game is that you should never get lost as it always marks on the map where you are supposed to be headed. No being stuck in a world map wondering where to go cause you missed a line of text in this game.

Neutral
-Music wasn't really memorable or bad, it was just there nothing outstanding.
-Graphics was pretty standard for the time that it came out, nothing wow worthy.
-Limited saves, one thing about the game system is that there is only a limited amount of permanent save available which cost a save token each time. The other part is the you can only make a single save per save file so no having a back up save either. Temporary saves are available but gets erased once loaded. This may bother some people, but didn't bother me that much.

Con
-The main thing that bothered me about this game was that you can make the game unbeatable if you didn't know about the system. This happened to me where I was able to get to the last series of bosses but couldn't finish the game. The game has a system where Ryu can turn into a dragon (big surprise >.>)however you have a limited amount of access to those powers, and once you reach 100% it's an instant game over. Only problem is that there are a bunch of bosses, especially near the end that are impossible to beat without his dragon form, so it is pretty easy to lock yourself out of beating the game.
-The other downside is that a lot of places of the game you have no access to the 1st playthrough, as they are unlocked through having a good score on finished the game.

Overall a fun game to pick up if you wanted something different in a ps2 RPG, though definitely not a must play for most people.
7.5/10