welcome to the part of the website where i yap endlessly about stuff i like!! this page has a lot of stuff and might take ages to load sorry
here i pick an album i love each month and i talk about it! i listen to a bunch of shit so expect some drastic genre changes from month to month lol
on her majesty's request (1989)
pizzicato five
genres: soft rock, j-pop, lounge
fav track: homesick blues
i've never really been interested in music released prior to the 90s (except for a short city pop phase i had a few years ago...) so the fact that i've listened to this album every day for the past month says a LOT... some people would kill me for this but i didn't know 80s music could be this awesome Lol... i found this album after listening to bellissima (which is april 2025's album of the month, and which i love w all my heart) and doing some more research on this band. Maybe i love this one even more than that...
i am absolutely obsessed with this album. i feel like it gets more beautiful each time i listen to it. it's a very conceptual album, i almost thought this was the soundtrack for something when i first found it. the instrumentals and the composition are so interesting and creative, and i love how a lot of the tracks sound like they're telling a story. each section, sample, and beautifully played instrument adds something to the narrative. the production is so innovative for the time it was released in. vocal chops, electronic elements... it's insane that "satellite hour" is a song from 1989!! and of course, as with bellissima, MAN i love takao tajima's vocals so much... it's not only that his voice is super smooth and pleasing to hear, but i also love his interpretation of the songs. even if i have no clue what he's saying, he transmits so much! it really feels like he's not only singing but also playing a character, which only adds to the cinematic feel of the album.
i wanted to hear more from tajima, but he left pizzicato five one year after joining sadly (also the band changed its style a ton after that) so i checked out his later projects with his band and i did Not believe it was the same person at first LOL. he changed his singing style drastically from one project to the other, in my opinion his voice sounded a lot more natural and soft in his pizzicato era. i still really liked the album "eyes" from original love though! maybe'll listen to more of his discography and end up writing about him again LOL. i also found out he's still doing shows which made me happy to hear!
this is also probably the weirdest most niche album i've ever been obsessed with LOL and i dont mean that in a "i'm so different and cool" way i feel like it is actually only me and a bunch of middle aged japanese ladies who know this record and and listen to it lol... please let me know if im wrong i'd love to be... i was even a lil bit embarrassed to show this to my boyfriend whom i show all of the shit i listen to :P but i am very glad i found it... i love you 80s pizzicato five...
fancy that (2025)
pinkpantheress
genres: pop, dance
fav track: nice to know you
it was HARD to pick only one album this month bc i found a lot of awesome ones that i really really love... i ended up picking fancy that because i cant believe i've never talked about pinkpantheress on this site even though my music is super influenced by hers, and i've been listening to her all the time for ages lol!!
i've said this a lot, but personally one of the things (if not the thing) that i love the most in music is unpredictability. i absolutely love when i cant really predict where a melody will go and when it keeps surprising me over and over as it plays for the first time. and that is one thing that pinkpantheress always NAILS. her composition is so refreshing to hear to a point where it's hard to find a structure in her songs sometimes, yet they still manage to be super catchy and danceable somehow. it just makes a lot of sense how she can be the popstar she is and at the same time remain "alternative".
as for "fancy that" itself, i like it! it was really interesting to see her try new things in this mixtape, especially in terms of lyrics and overall tone. its a BIG change from her earlier releases and i do love seeing her have more fun with music. i also like that she was more involved in the production side of it. i think that the more producing she does, the more unique and personal it sounds. my favorite release from hers is still probably "heaven knows" though... not really because of the cleaner production or whatever (if you've read my other reviews you know i dont gaf about that) but i guess i just enjoyed the general vibe of that album more? i've noticed my favorite songs from this mixtape are the more sad sounding ones as well LOL i dont really know why...
the visuals for this era are so amazing too!! the video for "tonight" is so iconic i love it lol and i loved watching some of her performances at glastonbury and seeing her get more confident w the stage and such. i don't think i'll be able to see her live in the near future but i can only think about how awesome a pinkpantheress concert would be in south america omg she wouldn't be able to believe our crowds LOL i hope she does make a world tour at some point...
jungle hits, vol. 1 (1994)
various artists
genres: jungle, ragga jungle
fav track: have no fear
i had been taking a bit of a break from listening to dnb and jungle recently because i was struggling to find new tracks that felt, i guess, "refreshing" to hear. so i decided to go for something more oldschool (sounds contradicting but sometimes the old is more refreshing than the new lol) and, since i'm trying to listen to full albums more, i decided to give the jungle album a try. i ofc had heard a lot of tracks from it separately before, but listening to it in full is a whole different experience...
i of course love many modern jungle tracks, but listening to this reminded me that no matter how much modern jungle i listen to, i'll always be missing a piece if i'm not listening to enough oldschool jungle. i think this album holds the essence of the genre. i really love how these producers show very clearly the genre's reggae, soul and hiphop roots, but they also werent afraid of innovating, incorporating other genres, creating sounds and drum patterns no one had heard before. it is really awesome... it also feels so full of life compared to newer releases? it sounds more like community and raves, instead of lonely bedroom studios.
i can't help but feel like i am still missing an essential part of the charm of this album by not hearing it on a dancefloor though lol. if everything goes well and i get to play my first dj set in a proper event in a few months, i'll be sure to make it happen myself!! i got chills only thinking about being able to blast maximum style through the speakers LOL
i also noticed while listening to champion that a selena gomez song i listened to as a kid "samples" (more like copies the melody and lyrics of...?) one of the tracks in here LOL. what the fuck. the artists are not credited anywhere in the selena gomez song so more like straight up stealing... still interesting though.
i love so many tracks from this album that i wanted to mention some other favorites as well as the one i picked in the left section: surrender is so fucking GOOD and timeless. as it progresses, every time u think it cannot get better a new section of the track appears and blows ur mind. awesome!! i absolutely love the sampling in "maximum style", "ribbon in the sky" and "champion" as well. I LOVE SAMPLINGGGG
bellissima! (1988)
pizzicato five
genres: soft rock, j-pop, lounge
fav track: sunday impressions
what a wonderful wonderful album... i was Obsessed with two of the songs from this album years ago ("planets" and "this can't be love") but i think i tried listening to the full album once and didn't like it that much. i have no clue why, because i listened to it again in full a few weeks ago and wow... this might be one of my favorite albums...
there's something about the singer's voice that i absolutely love. it's so pleasing to listen to? im kinda picky about voices in songs sometimes, especially when they're high pitched (i almost gave up on trying to get used to ayumi hamasaki's voice but i loved the instrumentals too much lol) but the vocals in this album sound so... natural? i don't know how to explain it, the singer just flows with the music in such a perfect way lol might be one of my favorite voices ive heard... i also found out recently that this isn't really pizzicato five's main singer, but rather someone from another band that they invited for this album (takao tajima from a band called original love) so i might have to check that out :P
i also cannot believe how clean this sounds for being an album from 1988?? WHAT!! i'm guessing the version on spotify might be a remastered version or something, but still... it sounds so full and beautifully mixed. there is a TON of instruments being played in this album, and yet i can hear each one clearly. my music cant relate
in their bio they are described as "godfathers of the shibuya-kei scene" and i can totally understand why. this is probably not the album that makes that obvious, but i wanna point out that this record was released around the same time most city pop hits were released, and yet it sounds so much modern and experimental than the songs from that era that i've listened to. the way they incorporate jazz, soul, and some electronic elements into the typical city pop formula is so amazing and so ahead of their time. love this album so much. i was listening to this on my walk home from college the other day, and when that beautiful instrumental part in "sunday impressions" played i felt like i was floating LOL im glad there were not many people in the street bc i probably had a silly smile on my face. i have to listen to more pizzicato five
hyperdrama (2024)
justice
genres: french house, electronic
fav track: neverender
lets ignore that i skipped a month... i was busy doing the phoenix shrine okay
I FUCKING LOVE JUSTICE!!! this album isnt new or anything but im listening to it a ton because i saw them live a few days ago... it was so so beautiful that i'm not even going through post-concert depression right now, i'm just infinitely grateful and glad to have experienced a show like that! it is really hard to bring shows like these all the way to south america and i didnt think i would actually be able to see it live so yeah i'm just so happy i wrote a whole blog entry about it here if you wanna read it, but it's in spanish and it wasn't written with the most proper grammar so translators might struggle w it :P
anyways!! i really like hyperdrama! it was so surreal listening to some new justice when it came out because i found their music when i was like 15/16 years old, around a year after they released the album prior to hyperdrama, so they haven't released any music in the time period that i've been a fan of them lol (except for some live albums but u know what i mean) until this album released!! this was my first time experiencing a new release after 7 years of listening to them!! what the fuck!! and it did NOT disappoint!
i feel like it's a wonderful mix of the parts i like the most from cross (1st album) and the parts i like the most from woman (3rd album). audio video disco remains my favorite of them because i love that album with all my heart but hyperdrama is a close second... i know its very fake fan of me to pick neverender as my fav track lol but i really love it im not a tame impala fan but his vocals work sooo well with justice's style...
i think one of the things i love the most about justice's production is how much they love sampling.. the other day i found out that for "generator" they used a plugin called "rave generator" which basically contains a ton of stabs and sampled synths from the 90s and 00s. i have it, and i couldn't believe how they made such a beautiful track in a grammy-nominated album with a freeware plugin with a bunch of crunchy aliased samples lol. i really love how they prioritize creativity and experimenting with sounds and samples over cleanliness in their tracks. i don't listen to a lot of other "mainstream" electronic music but i really dont think that any other current producers are doing it like they do. people call them daft punk's successors, but to me they are much more than just that!! i feel so lucky to be able to listen to new justice music, not to mention to SEE THEM LIVE!! truly legendary producers... i hope i can experience a new justice album again someday :3
tall tales EP (2024)
dwarde
genres: breakbeat hardcore, jungle
fav track: mix it
who said EPs cant be included in "album of the month" huh... it is MY website and I make up the rules
so i've been practicing DJing for a while now with my controller and it's been really fun just doing small sets in my room. but around a week ago some cool people invited me to practice using a CDJ for the first time... and well it was scary LOL especially at the beggining since it took me a while to re-organize my brain but also omg i had so much fun... they of course had a much more powerful soundsystem than my bedroom lol and playing my favorite tracks in those big ass speakers in front of some other ppl was the best feeling ever!!
but the track that made me feel the best when i played it was by far "mix it" by dwarde & gand. i cannot express how much i love this track and how much it makes me want to dance :P the vocals, the piano, the DRUMS and the bass, and the way it's beautifully mixed and mastered so it all hits even harder, ITS SO DAMN GOOD!!
this EP made me realize how much i love breakbeat/oldschool hardcore. i love jungle too dont get me wrong but sometimes i want to hear something with a bit more of a constant rythm and heavy kicks while still having the breaks and chopped drums, and this ep is exactly what i want to hear more of. i really hope i can find similar releases to this one...
i found about this EP thanks to "a break from reality" (a super sick jungle/dnb/hardcore radio show that u can check out here) they played the track "aqua" and i absolutely loved it and it led me to find this so shoutout to them!
SMILE! :D (2024)
porter robinson
genres: indie dance, pop
fav track: mona lisa
ive always liked some porter songs ever since i was a teenager listening to edm n stuff, but for some reason i never really connected that much with worlds and nurture. i loved virtual self SO MUCH btw (i'll probably write about it at some point it changed my life) but when it comes to his main alias i think my life events + music taste never aligned with the releases if that makes sense lol so a few months ago i gave smile a listen just thinking it could have some songs i liked as with the other albums... and i ended up loving the whole thing so much aaaaaaaaaaaa
i think that what made me appreciate this album in the first listen is how sincere the lyrics sound and feel... probably because it's not something i usually expect from electronic music? it's not like we don't have ppl that talk about feelings at all but i feel like a lot of ppl end up picking one feeling to talk about in order to fit a certain image or brand they want for themselves, or they write about things on a very surface level in order to keep their relatability and etc...
but smile is personal and silly and awkward and cliche and real as fuck and thats why i love it!! i love that it's an album about being human and struggling with stuff and deciding to either cry or laugh about it. i love how it loves cliches and it's not afraid of saying stuff your parents or someone older than you might have told you at some point. i love how it's not mysterious or vague and how it doesn't try to be something that it's not. kitsune maison freestyle is probably the silliest song on the album but it's one of my favorites, because i think that these days we really need to be reminded of the most obvious things we constantly forget like "hey everyone is struggling, even the people who look really cool on instagram" LOL do u know what i mean...
it's been a while since i've been so obsessed with an album honestly lol it might be partly because with this one there's the Extremely rare occasion where there is a chance of the artist who made it coming to where i live to perform it... literally nothing confirmed yet he might not even actually come but the possibility of it happening makes me so excited LOL i dreamed about going to the smile tour 4 times already im losing my mind!!!! GRAHHH porter robinson please announce the fuckin south america dates and argentina better be there...
seeyalater stratocaster (2022)
ippo.tsk
genres: vocaloid, indie rock
fav track: john frustrante
i'm getting into vocaloid in my twenties i might be cringe but i'm free...
i really really like this album. i found one of the songs years ago and liked it a lot but only a few days ago decided to check out the rest for some reason?? and im very glad i did!!
i really needed something like this i think... maybe its bc these last months i've been listening to a lot of instrumental only electronic music, but the lyrics and guitars in this album hit hard for me lol sometimes u need to put the breaks down n be emo for a bit u know...
of course theres also the fact that its vocaloid and i'm starting to listen to a Lot of vocaloid... i don't know why now out of all times in my life but rn im listening to kikuo and inabakumori on repeat all day... I WAS MISSING OUT!!
so yeah send me your vocaloid recs if theres any vocaloid enjoyers reading this :3 im kinda late to the party but im addicted n i need more :P
lost paradise (1991-1994)
various artists
genres: jungle, atmospheric dnb
fav track: escape - the optical mix
i love jungle and hardcore! i found this album/EP on spotify randomly one day and i've been listening to it a lottt. i wish old DJs didn't have such vague artist names not only because there are tons of artists named "escape" but also bc this is probably just one of 8 alias they used lol... apparently this ep was this alias' only release? totally different vibe from the track on this album's vibe but still cool!
speaking of old jungle music today i searched "jungle hardcore mix" on youtube and sorted by last updated just 2 see what would show up and i 100% recommend doing the same lol... you'll get some of the usual "y2k videogame music mix" with the same 3 sewerslvt songs on them but a lot of other results are british dudes with their weekly or sometimes even daily jungle 90s mixes, who seem to somehow never run out of obscure-exclusive-limited edition vinyls to play.. shoutout to them
list of manga i've finished / caught up with! favorites are marked with a
this manga is Awesome... i actually almost dropped it like halfway because it turned out to be something i didnt expect at all LOL. that's not something that i dislike, but it's a kind of unexpected i never really encountered before.
when there is a character considered a "weirdo" in a slice of life high school manga, there is usually two ways the story will go: either the person wasn't actually a weirdo after all and was just misunderstood, or they are in fact a bit weird, but manage to change and start connecting with people. in both cases, progress usually happens thanks to another character that "sees the good in them" and helps them out. well i was pretty surprised to learn that there is a secret third option LOL
the weirdo in this story is genuinely a weirdo, nothing more Lol. he isn't evil or harmful at all, he is just a guy who has weird interests, is kind of annoying, extremely sincere, might seem creepy, and lives in his own world. and something very important is that he is insanely self condifent. he does not need anyone to come and save him, because he's just perfectly fine as he is! i really never encountered a character like this, and as i kept reading it made me think a bit about the expectations i initially had. like, why did i want this guy to change, anyway? this manga is not about the weird person trying hard to fit in and understand the "normal" world, but rather about trying to understand the weird, and realizing that there is actually not a need to change the way they see the world. it's not easy to like this character, he is not designed for the reader to instantly love them, but it made me realize that's not necessarily a bad thing. amazing manga, amazing ending.
skip and loafer might be my favorite manga... i really don't think there are many other ones that can compare. it looks like your average slice of life romance manga at first: a girl moves from the countryside to the city for high school, meets a cute and kind guy, there's the mean girl who wants to stop them from getting together, and other common troupes. but as i kept reading what i thought would just be a cute fluffy story, it kept on surprising me and proving my expectations wrong over and over again. everything about it feels so realistic in a very relatable, human way. this is very personal and not the only thing that makes it a good manga, but i love how it addresses so many little things that every girl and femme person might have felt anxious about at some point. romance, relationships, femininity, gender, jealousy, friendship... no matter how silly it might sound to worry about anything related to those things, the mangaka takes it seriously and gives some perspective on whatever it is. i feel like it healed my teenager self a little LOL. i really wish i had found about this manga when i was a teen. it feels like a warm hug i would've needed back then...
the manga does a really good job at making you understand the characters' actions, even those that might seem unreasonably mean or even morally wrong at first. it does not justify those actions, but rather it explains and shows different points of view, and how each person's background, trauma, and/or upbringing affects the way they behave. i ended up relating to the mean girl a lot more than i thought i would Lol...
there's a lot more i could say about it but i dont wanna keep this going forever... please read skip and loafer!!
PEAK HAT ATELIER!!!! im not up to date yet but god this manga is so good in literally every way i dont even know where to begin. the most obvious aspect is probably the art. i know something such as "good art" is very subjective, but i think this mangaka is insanely good at making art that fits its world and characters. it looks like what i pictured fairytales to look like when i was a kid. it's taking me a while to read this manga because i love looking at all the details, clothes and expressions in every panel...
i love the characters themselves too! i think it's been a while since i read a manga that really had me rooting for them. their respective arcs have been beautifully writen so far. i really love how even though their struggles are mostly about dealing with magic and being witches, they feel so realistic and human! i could 100% understand the feelings of richΓ© or argott and empathize with them even though they're fictional problems on a fantasy setting because of how easy it is to draw parallels with real life, and i think thats really cool.. i really want everyone to be happy... especially qifrey ough I LOVE YOU QIFREYYYYYY
i love how unclear the line between good and evil is in this manga. it is all told in a way that has u questioning who is right and who is wrong all the time, and the more the lore and the cast expands, the more difficult it is for the characters and the reader to choose a side. this mangaka is also amazing at keeping the story interesting and revealing information at the right times to keep u engaged. truly an AMAZING manga and i cannot recommend it enough, no matter what sort of genre you like to read. became one of my favs! 100% recommended
just caught up with this manga! it was nice, i liked seeing a romance story told from a guy's pov. you never get to see their thoughts in most shoujos so i thought that was pretty cool...
i like the pacing, it's not rushing developments or relationships but also not dragging anything for too long. main couple is cute and all but in the end the one that really has me obsessed
is the one happening with the side characters LOL if you're up to date u know which one i mean... I LOVE THEM SO MUCHH need that confession scene NOW
one thing i'll say though... it's missing just a tiny bit of conflict lol. i don't mean toxic conflicts or cheap drama i mean that EVERY character in this manga loves to be insanely kind to everyone around them all the time, never disagree on anything with anyone, constantly apologize for the smallest inconveniences ever caused, and such. it's just unrealistic how nice and flawless everyone is, especially the female MC lol... give me some morally grey person or something... but its a cute and fluffy romance manga!
very interesting manga, never read anything like it before! it's set on imperial china and it's basically about a girl's life solving mysteries and working as an apothecary in the palace. it starts off as a sort of casual slice-of-life narrative and as it progresses the lore starts building up into something amazing. like for real the amount of lore is CRAZY (i had to start writing stuff down because i was getting lost lol) and the plot twists hit hard as hellll. i recommend it, but please remember it is set on a palace in imperial china so there is weird stuff going on with almost everyone's personal lives lol. maybe look up trigger warnings before reading/watching the anime.
apart from liking gojo a Very Normal amount, i like jujutsu kaisen as a whole... even though i cannot say i agree with some of gege's choices in some of the last chapters, this manga will always have a special place in my heart, being the first manga i read. i remember being surprised by how much you can transmit through this medium. i watched the anime first and i didn't really think that the manga would ever be as exciting as the animated version and i realized i was so wrong!! a lot of chapters had me at the edge of my seat just the same, if not more, than the anime. one thing i'll admit is that gege definitely knows how to keep battles interesting, exciting and consistent. wish i could say the same about character development Lol
list of all videogames i have completed! some have reviews/comments... favorites are marked with a !
undertale currently playing
xenoblade X definitive edition
2025
xenosaga I, II & III
2024
fire emblem shadow dragon 2024
nier automata 2024
.hack// G.U
2023
fire emblem blazing blade 2023
zelda tears of the kingdom 2023
xenoblade future redeemed
2023
persona 3 portable
2023
fire emblem sacred stones 2022
shin megami tensei 3: nocturne 2022
xenoblade 3 2022
fire emblem three houses 2022
xenoblade definitive edition 2022
zelda skyward sword HD 2022
zelda breath of the wild 2021
digital devil saga I & II
2021
pokemon platinum 2021
hades 2021
the last story 2021
xenoblade 1 (wii version)
2021
zelda ocarina of time 2020
zelda minish cap 2020
zelda skyward sword 2020
zelda twilight princess
2020
i love fire emblem games!! i always know before playing that these arent games that will blow my mind or do anything too unexpected, but when i pick one of these up i just know i'm gonna have fun and be addicted for a while..
it's pretty obvious now that i've played a bunch of them how the games' focus has shifted throughout the years to be centered more on characters and supports, but personally i enjoy (mostly) the whole range of the series. i really love the gameplay so i don't mind playing games like shadow dragon, where the secondary characters literally have 1 dialogue line in total, and spending hours just killing dragons and such. but if the game also lets me marry the cool guy with a sword on top of that then that's fine by me too u know...
awakening is, in my opinion, a pretty good balance between the "early" and "new" fire emblem and the support mechanics. i mean yes the units can get married and have kids BUT i think the supports are integrated into gameplay in a really fun way, and the social sim side of it doesn't feel as forced or shoved in your face as in newer games. there are a ton of supports and pairings for people who like that part of FE, but supports and pairings are also fucking broken in this game and you can basically make invincible units with that system so i think there's something in it for everyone...
while playing i was reminded of my three houses playthrough a bit, except awakening is kinda what i would've liked three houses to be in many ways... one thing i loved is how robin (the avatar character) has an actual personality lol the supports just make a lot more sense when there are actual conversations happening instead of only one side talking and the avatar replying with "..."
but personal dislike for silent avatar characters aside, i just never felt like this much effort and care was ever put into any other FE game. i think they did a really good job at making each player's playthrough feel unique and personalized... there is a lot of reused dialogue of course, but i think it's insane that there are around 25 first gen characters with a bunch of S support options each, and each pairing you choose will have a kid, who has support conversations with their parents... the amount of possibilities is crazy... AND it gets even crazier when some (well maybe only a few) of the choices you make pairing wise can affect certain events in the story... i won't spoil i'll just say that the robin/chrom pairing is superior and canon in my books
so this section is when the review turns into me yapping about chrom and robin for a bit because I LOVE THEM!!
i think chrom is my favorite main character in the series lol i know he's a bit silly sometimes but i like how that kinda sets him apart from other FE lords... he's not a perfect leader who could never make a mistake, or a legendary hero with unshakable conviction and courage, he's just a guy that suddenly had a big responsibility fall onto him one day and he's trying his best to save the people he cares about (i like lyndis from blazing blade a lot for the same reason :P) he's just a kind of awkward dude who gets nervous when he's near his tactician that he is in love with and i think that's cool...
as for his pairing with robin i legit think it makes the story better!! chrom is the prince and the leader of the army and robin is the army's tactician, so ofc robin plays an important role in the main story and they're always travelling, working and going through all kinds of stuff together. it could be a great platonic relationship as well, but i personally love how much of a power couple they are LOL. during all of the war they're always there for one another, they trust and count on each other, and they make an amazing team together. so cute!!! them being a couple also makes it a lot more interesting lore and character development wise... i love to think about the bizarre outcomes it has for the awakening universe :P yes their supports are the worst kind of cliche anime humor but they go through enough awful stuff during the story to make up for it so i don't mind... AND THEIR KIDS!!! i love their kids so much i need them all to always be a happy family i'd write a whole other paragraph but this would go on forever okay back to the review
one thing i didnt like... this game is way too easy... it might be because i chose normal difficulty (i never know wtf to choose because difficulty depends a lot on the game... learned that when i started a new mystery of the emblem run on normal and i got absolutely demolished in chapter 1) but either way, it was way too easy to get insanely overpowered units, or even, it's hard to not do that... even when i chose lower level units so i could somehow make it harder it would take just a few chapters to have them oneshotting everything so it got kinda boring towards the end. and it sucks because there's a lot of cool mechanics like skills that i never paid much attention to since it was too easy for that to matter much anyway... definitely play this on hard if you have any FE experience lol
overall... i liked this game a lot! other than my issues with the gameplay towards the end i had a lot of fun. the cast had a lot of people in it that i did not gaf about but the characters i did like make up for it because i like them a lot :P good maps, good OST and good story (maybe it's because i wasn't expecting much but i liked it a lot actually). i think this is my favorite fire emblem! we'll see if that changes in the future when i play more of these silly games...
i had been wanting to play xenosaga for a long time ever since i found out it existed. i was a bit scared of the length because i've played long jrpgs before but three 50-hour-long games sounded like a whole commitment (and it was lol). still, around april this year i was really missing the feeling that playing xenoblade games gives me. i love xenoblade SO much, i think the characters, the plot, and the worlds monolith soft creates are wonderful and immersive and unique... so i played xenosaga (the saga that came before xenoblade) and it was as amazing as i expected, if not more. but i think that nothing, not even playing the xenoblade games, prepared me for the experience xenosaga is...
i had heard and read before playing that xenosaga was a very ambitious game given its budget and resources, and that the lore was quite complex and extensive, but oh my GOD there are truly not enough words to describe how insanely detailed and intricate the lore and worldbuilding in these games is.
tonnns and tons of interconnecting subplots, characters with insane backstories, a whole galaxy of planets with its political and economical system that runs it, and a timeline that goes all the way from the birth of JESUS to the year 4768... im not kidding LOL whenever i played i had my notepad app open to take notes of what was going on and with one of them (i have one for each episode) I REACHED THE CHARACTER LIMIT!! I DIDNT KNOW THAT COULD HAPPEN!
something that felt really refreshing in xenosaga (even though it is a 20 year old game) was the fact that it has no problem being very in-your-face in many aspects. theres a lot of social and political criticism, graphic violence and flawed characters. i'm not saying you can't find things like these in other JRPGs (the xenoblade games do have that in more moderate ways) but i don't think i've ever played one that gave less of a shit about anything other than telling the story it wants to tell and conveying its message like xenosaga does, and i absolutely love that...
xenosaga episode 1 was released in 2002 and i think it is a very "Y2K" game in many ways other than visually (every time someone uses kosmos as their y2k nostalgia icon without having played the games a fairy dies... its true...) i'm not really an expert on the topic but i think that this kind of ultra futuristic setting and pessimistic view on capitalism, individualism and technology was something that could have only been released around this time. i think we all get the idea that people were insanely supportive and optimistic about technology in the 2000s, but such drastic changes in everyday life also had people wondering how would such things affect the future in a negative way. i think xenosaga is a beautiful piece of media that represents every reason why people were scared of the future of technology. a story written before the online world started belonging less and less to the people that created it and slowly transforming into the dystopian world that was only a "what if" back then. (maybe it's not that weird that the third and last game before the saga was cancelled was released in 2006...) that is why it feels nostalgic even when i'm playing it for the first time 23 years later, but at the same time, its themes, topics and discussions are so relevant to the state of the world today that i forget it's an old game sometimes. it's such an insane experience lol
i think one of the things that make me think that xenosaga was miles ahead of any other videogame plotline at the time is the fact that there are cyborgs in the xenosaga world (and i wouldn't know for sure, but i feel like they were one of the most common ways to represent "the future" in media in the 2000s) and in this story they are absolutely outdated and thought of as antique, since AI and genetic manipulation has advanced to the point where it's possible to basically create human beings, with artifical personalities and intelligence, from scratch. and they don't just leave it at that, but they discuss the social consequences of it as well. there's constant conflict in the society and the government regarding whether the new "people" should have rights or not, or if they can be considered people at all, not to mention the role that businesses in charge of making the new "people" play in all of this... i don't want to spoil too much but i think you get the idea this game is crazy...
i havent talked about any other aspects other than story LOL but in general, even though the gameplay dragged on a bit sometimes (listen episode 2 had a Lot of potential but man those battles took way too long for my liking lol) i really loved this game. it was a wonderful experience and i'm very glad i decided to play through all three episodes even while being in college and barely having time to play lol
something i really wanted to add, without spoiling, is that i don't usually get emotional with any media, even if i really enjoyed it, idk why... but the ending of this game absolutely broke me lol i couldnt believe it but it made me cry... i was just telling my bf a few days before finishing ep 3 that i never expect too much from endings because they never end up living up to what you expect from them, and xenosaga made me swallow my words COMPLETELY oh my god i really don't think i'll see an ending more beautiful than xenosaga's... this game has earned a place in my heart forever... i love you xenosaga!!
i am very conflicted about this game LOL. xenoblade 1 is my favorite game of all time and i am in general very fond of the xeno games as a whole (except for xenogears which i havent played yet, and xenoblade 2 which sucks sorry) so even though i knew that X was quite different from the main saga, i knew i was probably going to find some of the things i loved from it in this game. and in many ways i was right, it definitely feels like a xenoblade game in terms of, for example, the beautifully crafted, immense open world it happens in. at the same time, i might have underestimated how much i'd miss the things that are present in 1 and 3 and not here lol. and there were also things i disliked regardless of the expectations i had, so let me begin...
i'll start with something i liked: women!!! cool women in the jrpg!!! the two initial party members and protagonists of the main story are women (add one more girl if you chose your avatar character to be one) and almost everyone in this world relies on them to save it. i really dont think female characters in jrpgs are as bad as i've heard people say, they often just dont bother paying any attention to their arcs, but i think i never encountered a game where the girls are leading the way as in this one, and i think that's really cool!! they are never put into any ridiculing situations or involved in any romantic drama, and they aren't depicted as glorious angels descended from heaven either. they are engineers, fighters, commanders, pilots who just try to live their lives as best as they can as they try to help out people in need...
in a similar topic, it was also interesting to have most people in the game be very normal looking and 25+ years old... as for the looks, i mean, having silly character designs is something i appreciate from jrpgs even if they sometimes end up looking ridiculous. but it does feel more realistic and in tone with the world and story when the characters actually look like they belong there. the age thing is awesome. i think i can count jrpg main party members that are over 30 and don't look 15 in one hand... this game isnt really scared of the characters not being appealing or particularly hot and young and whatever. (u could argue against that because of some of the armor designs, especially for women... but well generally speaking Lol) they stayed away from most tropes you'd expect from a japanese role playing game. pretty risky considering the game's fanbase idk why they did that but i think it's kinda cool. they DID release xenoblade 2 after this though LOL
before i move on to gameplay, story and such, i want to talk a bit about the parts i didn't like about the cast so uh... basically, if you haven't played this game, the way that most party members are introduced isnt through the main story, but rather you get to pick your party members from a bunch of side characters that you unlock by doing their respective missions. i didnt really enjoy most of those missions. i don't know if it's because the characters themselves arent super interesting, or because they aren't involved with the main story at all, or because the missions are very short and barely give you any time to care about what happens to them, but most of these really just felt like a chore... it's been really hard for me to be invested in a character's story enough to do the other 2 or 3 missions about them. most of them don't ever connect with other side characters either, so that's even less of a motivation.
about missions. there are TOO MANY missions in this game. and they are all LONG and with a lot of TEXT. i really don't understand why people seem to think that more text = better missions when it comes to basic fetch missions and such. dude just tell me what you want and i'll get it so i can gain some exp. not EVERY mission has to have the character explaining their lives and motivations to me, especially with the huge amount of missions there is in this game. from chapter 4 onwards my map has been completely filled with green quest marks and i feel like i get one done and four more show up. yes i know im the one accepting them... but i still dont feel like there is a need for this many quests to exist lol
another thing i did like was exploration. considering i didnt know you could jump until like 20 hours into the game i think that is no small feat LOL. it has a system similar to breath of the wild where you basically unlock landmarks by reaching them and activating them, which is really fun for me for some reason. im someone that usually gets stressed with big maps because i feel like i have to check every corner and make sure i'm not missing anything, but somehow that doesnt happen to me at all with this game. i think it's because you can go almost Anywhere you want in this enormous world right from the start, in any direction (and the game actually incentivizes you to go and do so) and so it makes my brain understand that there is no "right" way to explore it. it gets even better later in the game with a certain addition, but i never felt like i was missing anything in the beggining.
the combat... it's alright? maybe i just suck at combat in this game but the main difference i noticed with 1 and 3 is that the outcome of battle is defined before the battle rather than during it, by checking every member's arts and skills and setting them up to sorta work together. sure, that is kinda true for the other games as well, and every rpg ever, but i still feel like there was much more of a difference you could make by doing certain things during combat. in X, not only i feel like there isn't that much to do, but what i can do doesn't seem to matter a lot. the tutorials SUCK, so maybe there are things i don't know. but everything related to combat and stats also seems to be needlessly complicated, described in vague terms, and hidden behind endless menu screens. that includes other mechanics, like this currency the game has called "miranium" which every character insists is the most valuable thing in the world yet i have a gazillion of it in my inventory because i dont see the need to spend it at all. with how much of a pain it is to set up a team that works, it really does not make me want to change it, and so it ends up being repetitive. i don't hate it, i think i managed to sort of understand the basics and build a team that works, but they could've done better imo.
and finally... story... this was obviously the aspect i was looking forward the most to. i knew this wasnt supposed to be a story driven game, that it focuses on side missions, exploration, etc etc, but that doesn't mean the main story is gonna be BAD right... well... the story in itself isnt, but the pacing is very weird and it doesn't make a lot of sense. there are not many story chapters and you only get to do one of them after you've leveled up a bunch, yet some of them last like 15 minutes, you go to fight someone, basically nothing happens and the quest ends. sometimes a few of those happen in a row. why is that even a main story mission. i'm not asking for insane lore drops each chapter, but you can still add a bit to the worldbuilding, expand on the characters' lore, have them interact outside missions... i really feel like half the dialogues were the characters describing where they would go and what they would do, then getting there and describing what they were doing, then reporting back home. all the game i was dying to know more about lin and more importantly elma, who is the main character if you don't count the avatar and until chapter 12 you know literally nothing about her... and i'm not talking about lore! i'm talking about never bothering to dig deeper into the personalities and minds of the characters past their initial impressions (like elma = commander, lin = smart kid, tatsu = comic relief and such lol). there isn't really any character development in this game... i knew it was a short story but i didnt know i would be begging for a crumb of story here damn...
so... this review turned out to be more negative than positive after all, but i did like the game. most of the complaints i have really only started bothering me later on, i really enjoyed my first 30 hours or so. i havent finished this game yet btw LOL but i am 70 hours in, and i think there's gonna be some huge lore reveals really soon that probably will have me screaming scrying throwing up and saying this is the best game i have ever played in my life. so i thought the review would be a little less biased if i wrote it now. ending this with my personal and only correct xenoblade games ranking: xenoblade 1 > xenoblade 3 > xenoblade X > xenoblade 2