Tony Allevato

The one QoL enhancement I need is an "X" and "Y" icon off the corner of each equipped weapon on the gameplay screen. I can't remember which one is mapped to which, and to make matters worse, I've wasted so many bombs because decades of JRPG muscle memory has me trying to press X to enter the menu.

I never even understood the Chrono Trigger comparison. The only similarity I could see is that the encounters take place on the same field? As if that's the thing that makes CT great.

Thank you for being brave enough to say this so that I can agree with it. Chained Echoes never clicked for me and the constant adulation makes me wonder what I'm not seeing.

The update pack is my excuse to replay it. Not that I should need an excuse to replay a SaGa game, it's sort of mandatory.

The mobile game really has an incredible story, and I'm glad folks who aren't into gacha games (even ones that don't require buying into them to play the main content, like CotC) will get a chance to enjoy it.

I'm only worried that the English VA for Auguste won't be able to top JP's "Mahh-velous".

a girl in a pink jacket sits at a table with food ALT: a girl in a pink jacket sits at a table with food

This Squeenix fanboy is eating well from today's Nintendo Direct 😋 Adventures of Elliot in particular looks SICK.

My body is ready for Fintopath Fanteler III.

80 hours into my Dragon Quest XI playthrough. I'm a good ways into Act 2, and I've been lamenting how long it was taking me to get a couple of my favorite characters back. Well I just got to the grove in Arboria and I. AM. FURIOUS. How could they do this.

Jeez, Cloud of Darkness, leave some room for everybody else.

Perfectly cut screa—

Please! I was afraid to read some of the DQ ones because I still have so many games in the series left unplayed.

I'm so excited to actually play Echoes of Wisdom now. I'm not frame-rate-obsessed in general, but it felt so frustratingly janky after a couple hours that I had to drop it.

The best part is now I have a whole backlog of DQ games to catch up on. So maybe waiting a couple decades to appreciate the series has paid off?

Anyway, I'm like 60 hours in now, and I've barely scratched the surface of Act II. Not sure if that means I'm terrible at the game or if it's just that big (disclaimer: sometimes I doze off playing it in bed so that might have inflated my play time).

But when DQ III HD2D came out, I caught up on all the online discourse about the series and XI was frequently cited as one of the most loved entries. I loved the way Toriyama's art translated into the 3D models, so I figured I'd give it a shot, and...

...I get it now. It's such good comfort food.

Even in the late '90s emulation/fan translation scene, I never got around to playing DQ V or VI, despite all the praise they received. I was drawn more to all the unreleased Final Fantasies, Romancing SaGas, Seiken Densetsu III, Tales of Phantasia, Star Ocean...

Between that and just feeling like the early DQ/DW mechanics were pretty clunky compared to the Final Fantasies of the day, I never *loved* DQ. Enix skipping the Super Famicom releases in the US probably didn't help, either.

When I was a kid, I almost beat my local rental store's copy of Dragon Warrior III but had to return it for a short break. I went back a week later and someone had rented it in the meantime and replaced the board in the cart with one from Solstice. 😭 To this day, seeing Solstice infuriates me.

I can't believe I slept on Dragon Quest XI for so long. Playing the S Edition on my Switch and it's fast become one of my favorite JRPGs, like, ever.

Which is saying a lot from someone who's sort of resisted Dragon Quest for decades. (Hear me out!)

Absolutely unhinged decision to raise the price of 5-year-old systems by $80 or more. So grateful I got my Series S as a free Verizon FIOS sign-up perk—it's the only way I've been able to play Tales of Arise, Visions of Mana, and FFXIV.

That was the area that convinced me to turn off the chocobo music when I first heard the theme. I've heard people say that version of the battle theme was "too much" but I love the heavy organ too.

I got a bad grade in kindergarten for penmanship because I was using my right hand even though I'm left-handed. You'd think that the visible cast on my broken left arm would have tipped the teacher off. Hoo boy, did my mom raise hell and I didn't have any problems after that.

The big thing that blows me away with OT is how much backstory each NPC gets. It's one of the only RPGs where I'm excited to talk to every single person and do the path actions to read the random blurbs the writers put in. I'm hard pressed to think of another game that feels as "lived in".

Jumped back into Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana after a break. It's taken 20 hours to even interact with Dana at all, and that's only in interstitial scenes without any of my other characters. They really should have called this game LACK-rimosa of Dana

Instant follow, nun.

Mercenary wearing a tricorn hat (Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven)

Palamena wearing a tricorn hat (Visions of Mana)

Apparently when I pick character classes in JRPGs, I have a type: women in tricorn hats. Is there a deeper meaning here?

(Left: #RomancingSaGa2, right: #VisionsOfMana)

I just got an RP4 back in April and can't rationalize upgrading this soon, but all the photos like this where it looks like the image is just gorgeously painted onto the screen is making it *really* hard to not mash the Buy button.

I started the first one (PSP) recently but it was more dialogue-heavy than I feel I have time for in my old age. Is that a common theme through the series or was it just the intro? I *really* want to experience them since they're so highly regarded, but the backlog feels intimidating.

Visions of Mana might have the most adorable renditions of the recurring Mana monsters in the whole series. I feel legitimately horrible for slaughtering them.

The first two Lufia games are begging for a modern remake and HD-2D would suit them perfectly.