RPG Ratings

[Dark Holy Elf]

Brigandine: Legend of Runersia at high 8/10. Good stuff. Really makes good on a lot of Brig's potential for me. Damage projections, quality of life, better balance, an endgame, more women, I am here for all of it. Definitely gonna be playing this more.
Final Fantasy 7R at 7/10. Very hard game to score right now, this is tentative. The gameplay is neat though not quite at the level that it could sell a game itself, and the reimagining and fleshing out of FF7's strong setting and characters is great. I'm extremely worried about any future games because there's also some stuff in this game that is totally drunk, and not in a good way.

Little rebalancing adjustments:
XCOM 2 to 7/10. I should have replayed it by now if it was gonna stay at 8. Still good of course.
BoF4 to 6/10. I dunno I wasn't feeling it in my 7's. Still good of course.
FF3 at 5/10. A neat game historically but watching Saika play it again certainly reminds me of its flaws. I tend to think the NES version is the better one but not by enough to move the needle.

And most importantly, Fire Emblem: Three Houses moved to "best game of all time". The gameplay is really good and the character work and themes it grapples with are somehow even better; I feel safe saying that no game is as important to me as this one; it really has meaningfully affected my life. You had a good run, FFT, I still love you.

[Cmdr_King]

Added Persona 5 at 8/10
Added Romancing SaGa 3 at 5/10

e4/3 Added Atelier Meruru at 7/10
e5/15 added Tales of Xillia at 7/10

[Dhyerwolf]

Added Trails 3 at 8. Definitely the best trails game, but it cuts out all the crap I don't care about (NPCs! Endless, endless....endless filler) in place of a tightly crafted story with a great vignette structure. Kevin and Ries are fantastic and the setup of the game is fun. Game was decently balanced as well (well, compared to what comes later), although still a bit too much emphasis on trash mobs.

Added CSTW at 4. It's not...actively bad, just it tossed out parts of BoD 7 that worked well for some boring and endless trash mobs. I did laugh when one of the director's notes at the end of the game was basically insulting their own dungeon design. While it features some polish boosts (the encounter thing is cool!), poor balance really limits it considering it's a 100% gameplay game.

[Tide]

4 Year update. Might be missing some games so expect some changes possibly. Major changes of note:

- Added lots of Trails games (Zero, Azure, CS 3, CS 4)
- FF6 and FFX switched places. I always imagine 6, 7, T to be the FF Golden Triad (most people who like FF will have one of these as their favorite), but the older me appreciates FFX a lot. Even in the story telling which I once wrote off. There's some interesting themes in regards to Yuna's pilgrimage to philosophies, ethics, and of course, religion that a lot of other games don't really manage to hit. And that's worth something I think. Also, the battle system is p.great and beats 6 and 7 to me nowadays pretty easily.
- Troubleshooter at 9. I waffled on this a bit. But considering after 300+ hours, I still want to play it, I'd say the spot is deserved. It's a game that has a lot of shades of FFT meets X-Com but has its own unique identity. I've sung praises to it a lot, so probably not news
- 3H at 9. This one was a no brainer. It's easily the best FE - probably better than Radiant Dawn but I waffle on which I prefer, so sticking it in 9 feels right. Flip side, less love for Awakening (certainly haven't replayed it) so it went down to an 8.
- I think I'm just not that into Tales game at all. Every time I look at my list after a few years, my urge to continuously drop them increases. Owing to the fact that I don't find any of the compelling or fun to revisit is a big part, and none of them are fun popcorn type games like SMRPG or Trials of Mana to me.
- Speaking of Trials to Mana, it sits at a cool 7 for now. As alluded to, its like a popcorn game ala SMRPG.

[Cmdr_King]

Added Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark at 8/10
Added Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny at 7/10

[Cmdr_King]

Added Final Fantasy Legend at 5/10
Added Super Robot Wars 30 at 8/10
Added Cthulhu Saves Christmas at 7/10
Added Get in the Car, Loser! at 8/10
Added Pokémon Brilliant Diamond at 6/10
Added Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky at 6/10
Added Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea at 6/10
Added Ys: The Oath in Felghana at 6/10
Added Planescape: Torment at 8/10
Added Live a Live at 9/10
Added The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero at 9/10
Added Pokémon Ultra Sun at 6/10
Added This Way Madness Lies at 7/10

[Dark Holy Elf]

New additions in the past year:

-Bravely Default 2: 8/10. CTB FF5-like with great music. I already have an urge to replay it. I probably would have by now if it wasn't overly long in that way every Bravely game is.
-Banner of the Maid: 7/10. French Revolution Fire Emblem with some promising but iffy writing and translation, class system is a bit vanilla but skills and battles are fun.
-Dark Deity: 6/10. Better class system and character writing than BotM but largely worse in most other ways (music, core gameplay, plot/setting, art). Still, FE-likes are good.
-Dragon Quest 11: 5/10. Is a Dragon Quest, probably the best one, but the series isn't my cup of tea compared to FF5 and Fire Emblem.
-Fire Emblem 4: 5/10. Though I did rate DQ11 above this particular Fire Emblem. Interesting game and neat for the time but definitely shy of actually good.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Cthulhu Saves Christmas added at lowish 8/10. Probably Zeboyd's best game, the gameplay is engaging in that Zeboyd way and the writing is probably their best too, charming enough pure comedy.
Triangle Strategy added at 9/10. Outstanding SRPG; really enjoyed the voting sequences, setting work, and most of the major characters (if not the supporting cast). Gameplay's good fun, a little sluggish at points and with a weak skill system, but the battles themselves and character differentiation are both a lot of fun. I replayed it almost immediately which is always a good sign.

-Move Final Fantasy 5 up some, but it's still at 8/10.
-Dropped Fire Emblem Awakening to 7/10. Enjoyable but replaying it did drive home that yeah it is quite a bit weaker than Fates let alone 3H.
-Dropped Paper Mairo to 6/10. I don't have a big enough desire to replay it to justify it at 7/10, given that gameplay is its strong suit.

[Cmdr_King]

Added Final Fantasy VII Remake at 9/10
Added Fire Emblem Engage at 8/10
Added Shin Megami Tensei: Persona at 5/10
Added The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Zero 9/10

[Dark Holy Elf]

For the past few months I've been slowly reconstructing my RPG Ratings (I put the games in a random order then tried to binary-sort them, adding one game at a time until I had a full list and then making some final tweaks). Unsurprisingly I ended up with pretty similar ratings to before I started (and the top 13 was exactly the same!), but there were definitely some shifts, albeit nothing by 2 points or more.

List of rank changes:

9 to 10: Suikoden 3
8 to 9: Brigandine 2
8 to 7: Octopath Traveler
7 to 6: Mega Man X Command Mission, Fire Emblem Heroes, Bravely Second, Cosmic Star Heroine, Vandal Hearts 2, Final Fantasy Dimensions
6 to 7: Breath of Fire 4, Cthulhu Saves the World, Paper Mario
6 to 5: Fire Emblem SoV, Final Fantasy 13-2, Code Name STEAM, Breath of Death 7, Indivisible, Final Fantasy 4 TAY, Breath of Fire 3
5 to 6: Final Fantasy 3, Dragon Quest 11, Super Mario RPG
5 to 4: Invisible Inc., Wargroove, Suikoden Tactics, Wizard of Oz, Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon, Pokemon DP
4 to 5: Suikoden, Breath of Fire 2
4 to 3: Trails in the Sky, Wild Arms 2, Final Fantasy 4
3 to 2: Legend of Legacy, Project X Zone
2 to 1: Dragon Quest 9, Tales of Symphonia
1 to 2: Secret of Mana

List of more notable changes within each rank:

9/10: Triangle Strategy down
8/10: Suikoden 5 up; Shadow Hearts 3, Star Ocean 4 down
7/10: Final Fantasy 7, Shadow Hearts 2, Final Fantasy 7R, Legend of Dragoon up; Mega Man X Command Mission down
6/10: Wild Arms 5, Endless Frontier up; I Am Setsuna down
5/10: Lightning Returns, Brigandine up
4/10: Seiken Densetsu 3, Final Fantasy up

And finally, I added the six RPGs I've played since my last update (which was July 2022, 17 months ago). They run a very tight curve!

-Mario + Rabbids 2 added at low-mid 8/10. I don't think this game is quite as good as its (borderline 8 or 9) predecessor, but I appreciate its effort and it's still a heck of a lot of fun.
-Fire Emblem Engage added at high 8/10. While the story went in a frustrating direction this is still an extremely solid game from a gameplay perspective. Honestly I might be underrating it, it vs. the GBA games certainly deserves a closer look.
-Into the Breach added at mid 8/10. Very fun for what it is. Like Engage it wins zero points for anything story-related, and I don't think the gameplay is quite as good, but it's pretty close!
-Chained Echoes added at very high 7/10. Kind of Zeboyd-ish, though a bit closer to a traditional full RPG in both scope and design sensibilities. The story has some worth but is definitely a bit mixed and not able to carry the game, fortunately the gameplay is a lot of fun.
-Octopath Traveler 2 added at very high 7/10. Basically the same game as the first, with some QoL/systems updates but also a bit of a retread, and ultimately that mostly balances in my eyes. It'll probably be a daunting game to replay but I did enjoy it a lot.
-This Way Madness Lies added at low-mid 8/10. Basically a coinflip for it vs. Cthulhu Saves Christmas, both are great and can share the title of best Zeboyd game as far as I'm concerned.


With all these changes, average score is now up to 5.73, slowly drifting upwards from the 5 to 5.5 I once set for myself. If I live to be a hundred my average might reach that of professional game journalism! #lifegoals

[Cmdr_King]

Added my 2023 games which I think was...

The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure at 9/10
Super Robot Wars V at 8/10
Persona 5 Strikers at 8/10
Rhapsody II: Ballad of the Little Princess at 8/10
Fire Emblem New Mystery of the Emblem at 6/10
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean at 5/10

And of course the first 2024 game

Atelier Sophie: Alchemist of the Mysterious Book at 6/10

6/3 First half additions
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth at 9/10
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III at 8/10
NEO: The World Ends with You at 7/10
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV at 7/10
Added Tales of Hearts R at 7/10
lowered Tales of Hearts to 7/10
Added The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie at 9/10
Added Xenoblade Chronicles at 7/10
Added Xenoblade Chronicles 2 at 7/10
Added Torna -The Golden Country- at 8/10

[Dark Holy Elf]

Unicorn Overlord at 8/10. Good gameplay (which is both unique and well-polished), amazing spritework, kinda eh on writing. I think it would need either A+ gameplay or better writing to get a really good score, but I still had a lot of fun.

Star Ocean 4 down 1 to 7/10
Mario Rabbids 2 down 1 to 7/10
XCOM 1 down 1 to 6/10