Staff Reviews

GRADE

A

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions  "Fans of Final Fantasy Tactics, the ten-year-old classic that masterfully combined an engaging tactical system of gameplay with a riveting storyline and characters, will likely seek and find gre..." Full Review »

GRADE

B

Front Mission  "Twelve years ago, when the Strategy RPG genre was still young and free of our bi-yearly installments of Disgaea, Squaresoft developed Front Mission. As it was a unique title which coupled inter..." Full Review »

GRADE

C

Grandia III  "In February of last year Square Enix localized the third installment of the Game Arts-developed Grandia series for North American shores to the clamors of moderate excitement. But while the pre..." Full Review »

GRADE

C

Heroes of Mana  "In the end, there was one. Having successfully thrown the World of Mana franchise to the dogs, Koichi Ishii’s final attempt at revitalizing his Mana series comes now, in the form of Heroes of..." Full Review »

GRADE

A-

Valkyrie Profile -Silmeria-  "Valkyrie Profile -Silmeria- has been a long time coming. Its literal prequel and sequel in continuity, Valkyrie Profile, has long been hailed as a cult classic, placing a simple battle system on a fra..." Full Review »

GRADE

A

Super Mario RPG  "In a way, Super Mario RPG is the prodigal sibling of the Kingdom Hearts series; a departure from typical Square fare experimenting with a style of play that, if not entirely original in the entire pan..." Full Review »

GRADE

C-

SaGa Frontier  "Karl Marx' incendiary essay pissed off a lot of people for suggesting that everybody take care of one another. Those angry neighbor-haters were proven right, as is common knowledge; what looked so goo..." Full Review »

GRADE

B-

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales  "Now, many of us have been playing Final Fantasy for a long time. A very long time. It’s great, of course: the more you play and the more you encounter cross-references, the more you feel “in-the-k..." Full Review »

GRADE

C

Dawn of Mana  " Dawn of Mana is tremendously successful in incorporating its story and character elements into the lore of the Mana series and allowing its plot to fit snugly within the rest of the World of Mana..." Full Review »

GRADE

C

Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime  "Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime is the type of game which pervades a demographic whose prime directive in gaming appears to be cuteness, adorable artwork, and unfathomably simple gameplay. In these ..." Full Review »