Retro Reviews from Memory
Welcome to a new segment where I review my favorite childhood games from memory, go back and play the game. Then revise my opinion because, let’s face it, some of those games from the 80’s and 90’s just don’t hold up. The Score above is provisional. I’ll be back (probably, maybe, like… solid 25% chance)* after I play the game again and write a new review and link it to this post.
Enough of the preamble… on with the review!
Honestly, I think this game was a horrible sequel to the original. It was grindy, the story objectives were vague and I spent more time on figuring out how to optimize the game system than just playing through the game. Now, to be clear, I love a good hyperoptimization system in an rpg. I sequence break FF1 and get the airship and complete the castle of ordeals before beating the volcano. I like turn based combat systems because they let you optimize for minimal losses and maximized gains from each fight. But this game was just too much, and maybe that is by design. Maybe I let my playstyle get in the way of a perfectly good game. If I play it again, I’ll try to focus less on optimization and more on exploration and story.
All that said, I fell off the Breath of Fire wagon pretty hard then I think I picked it up again on the playstation(? )** and I didn’t get more than an hour into that one. I think it was a rental or I borrowed it from a friend. In either case it didn’t hook me enough to rush back and play it, but maybe a playthrough of the entire series is in order?
Disclaimer(s)
*We should probably keep in mind that, when I was a kid, we didn’t have much money for games. Where others may have experienced the “rent before you buy” phenomena… that wasn’t really a thing in our house. I saved up babysitting money for an entire summer to buy the SNES. If we were doing well, I might get a single game for Christmas or my birthday, but they were almost always used from the swap meet or new from the discount bin. We didn’t have gamestop or many used game store options at the time. In any case, a LOT of my historical game memories are based on a rental window period that had to align with money, time (I had school, sports, occasionally a girlfriend, and a few part time jobs to juggle with my gaming habit), and whether my save file still existed when i rented the game a second time (assuming it was even available). Some games I didn’t play in their entirety until I got to college and had a tiny bit more money and a teensy bit fewer obligations. Which is to say, these reviews are patchwork at best. But let me know in the comments if you want me to replay any of these games and do a revised opinion review!
** whichever system Breath of Fire V was on…
