Nathaniel Nichols

my goty 2024. feels like a sequel to ogre battle. excellent music.. the open-world map interfacing to battles is brilliant. only wish the unicorn overlord class wasn't just a mere class upgrade, but happened in a cut-scene or was aquired thru a battle or something. the game is sick. please please vanillaware, do a sequel or another tactical rpg.

feels like the true sequel to super mario world & yoshi's island pure joy & creativity & some great music in the magma bog quite possibly the best 2d mario- so creative & wild hard to pick a favorite world, but they finally made a snow world that isnt boring.. desert & shing falls are rad the dolphin power-up is rad- i think we are ready for a super mario water world:D im blown away! this game feels so deep in the lineage of 2d mario that it feels like Nintendo might of had a bunch of this game's design in it's back pocket (a-la metroid dread). so good*

Not finished, but already my fav game ever! i will give my full review when finished. This is no joke the best rpg ever. By chapter 2 goated & keeps getting better. Monolith took all their good design choices & dumped the bad & pushed the story past the epic proportions that XC1 set. & don't forget those restful/tender moments that xc is so good at conveying:)) ahhhhhhh

Been into this game from the very first screenshots.. it looked how I imagined an Earthbound sequel could/should have looked. The game is beautiful. Love the little world & the train setup. There's so much novelty here.. detailed little animations that only happen once, the train stations, action sequences that are completely unique to themselves.. Games don't really seem to do this much anymore. This is such a charming experience. New Dam City is a sprite masterpiece, though this is where the pacing of the game goes awry. Great music, some very memorable: I dig "goodtime". This game feels like it is missing one city/location to be truly a masterpiece.. Would have loved to see a fantasy/mystical city setting. The game had it's share of bugs too, but the craft of everything else for sure overshadowed the bugs. I've always felt like there was a "next-level" to 2d games that devs weren't exploring & I feel like we are getting a glimpse of where it could go in Eastward- not to mention that the game has more heart than anything I've played in a long time. Tons of unique dialog for each level of progression. Um, felt like the forest location needed some reconciliation in terms of the games story.. I will for sure enjoy revisiting this lovely little world over and over again. Truly talented dev team. Looking forward to their next project!

i gave up on this game because of it's lack of an auto-save function which set me back more than once.. (i think 3 or 4 times, where i lost probably 4 or so hours of grinding). if random encounters can take you out, the devs gotta give us auto-save imo. it's a shame cause i was really enjoying this otherwise.. especially the demon combining system & some of the music. i still listen to that cadaver's hollow theme still, so good:) oh well.

Mario flies around in a hat & fights a bowl of soup 5 stars