Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition was provided by Nintendo for review. Thank you!
All screenshots below are from handheld mode.
When I got my Nintendo Switch, there were a couple of games I was so excited for and played to death. Of course, Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey were at the top of the list, but the other was Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (XC2). I love JRPGs, and XC2 hit all the right notes for me. I dove into the series, playing through the 3rd entry and the definitive edition of the first, and it became one of my favorite JRPG series. However, I never had a chance to try the entry that came out exclusively on the Wii U, Xenoblade Chronicles X, but with Nintendo bringing it back for the Switch, I had the chance to try it for myself!
Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition is somewhat like a swan song for the Switch. It's one of the last huge games to release for it before the Switch 2 releases, and the team decided to go out with a bang. This was regarded as one of the best open-world JRPGs, and after playing it for myself, I can see why. It's expansive, beautiful, filled with tons of content, has great gameplay systems, and has a solid story. Even with some minor gripes I found here and there, it's hard to deny just how amazing this game is, and how it has become one of my favorite JRPGs I have ever played.
This was my first time experiencing the game, but the changes in the Definitive Edition may convince veteran players to dive in again. There is brand-new story content, new characters to add to your party new skells, Quick Cooldowns, and a multitude of gameplay mechanic changes like Surveying giving extra rewards, affinity points being easier to obtain, BLADE levels have been erased, you can swap party members at a menu, and Battle Points can be reset. There are also some major UI changes to make Quests and Materials easier to track and increase UI clarity. And, of course, we can't forget the visual changes for better draw distance, lighting, character models, textures, and resolution.
The Xenoblade Chronicles series has always been characterized by complex and wonderfully told stories, and Xenoblade Chronicles X continues this tradition. On Earth, humanity was attacked by aliens, which forced them to leave the planet and find a new one to settle on. Now, you awaken and come to this new planet, Mira, where you have to scout the world, develop your new home, and find the Lifehold, which has the last remnants of humans hibernating in it. You play as a created and fully customizable character, which has a solid amount of options to customize, and team up with Elma, Lin, and others to save humanity.
You also don't have to play any of the other games in the series to enjoy this one. There are loose themes, gameplay mechanics, and alien races that are similar, like the Nopon, but this game is largely its own story and world that aren't connected to the other games.
As with other games in the series, it has a lot of exposition to detail the world and what is going on, and I love it. As a fan of the Kingdom Hearts series, I enjoy the long-winded details and complex scenarios that dictate the narrative. I would say Xenoblade Chronicles X is much easier to understand, but there are still lots of elements that contribute to the tale, like the aliens you meet, the tech you will use, and the world itself.
Even still, the story is wonderful and so interesting. There were a bunch of twists I didn't expect, along with some I did, and it airs more on the dramatic side with some good pockets of humor. The dynamic of your core team members is pretty well balanced, and I always enjoyed the playful teasing from Lin and Tatsu. I had a blast learning about what happened to start the events of the game, and I was hooked all the way through.
While Xenoblade Chronicles X's campaign is captivating, there is also a ton of side content and affinity missions, which can deepen your relationship with your teammates. It's a nice way to learn more about them. The number of side quests and affinity can topple into the hundreds, and it not only feels like there's always something to do, but there are ways to continue learning more about the story and the world.
If I had to make one critique, it would probably be the large number of cutscenes present. There are tons of them, including moments when you start a quest and are stuck in a conversation where you can't move. I found myself wanting to skip cutscenes and get to the exploring and fighting faster, the longer I played, but I would be missing out on dialogue and story building. Main campaign cutscenes weren't as bad, but the small dialogues for side content where I couldn't move weren't as enjoyable.
Along with the story, the visuals also keep up nicely. It's shocking that a game like this looks so great and runs as well as it does. It's shocking not only to see how great the game looks and the biomes of each region differ from each other, but also to see that it can all be explored with no loading screens, which is insane. A game of this scale and open world, running decently on a Nintendo Switch, is beyond me. Developer Monolift Soft continues to astound me with their optimization skills, and it's clear as day here.
I did notice some slight motion blur at the bottom of the screen when running around, and moving the camera around in close quarters areas and caves became floaty and obnoxious, but these issues are small and the game shines in the grand scheme.
With how open the world is, that also means there are enemies around that are way too powerful to take on. Since combat happens in the open, avoiding them will be imperative to get further in the land, but some are near-unavoidable and will kill you in one hit. I don't personally mind it, I like the open nature of the game, but I can see it being quite annoying for some if they are level 12 and they run into a level 51 enemy that targets them. Some enemies are easier to sneak by, but others can see or hear you, so you have to take that into account as you try to sneak by them.
Xenoblade Chronicles X's Combat is quite similar to the rest of the series and has multiple interwoven systems that make the longer fights more enjoyable and a bit shorter. In combat, you and your 3 AI teammates will automatically attack with a basic attack and have special abilities called Arts to activate on command. The Arts can range from dealing heavy damage, affecting the enemy in different ways, like toppling them when they are staggered or debuffing them, to healing or buffing your team. Some powerful Arts need a special resource you generate called TP to activate, but they can help turn the tide.
It may feel like the combat is slow initially, but with all of the mechanics, it feels much more engaging than it seems. Needing to pick and choose which Arts to use to deal the most damage, manage your TP, and swap between your melee and ranged weapons accordingly keeps everything engaging throughout longer battles. I appreciate that you have one of each and can switch them out with the press of a button whenever you want. There are also other mechanics like Soul Voices and Soul Challenges that can give you TP and extra buffs throughout the battle, and Quick Cooldowns to allow you to use Arts again really quick, but even with so much to think about, it never feels overwhelming or out of place.
Progression systems can be a little complex at first glance, but they give a lot of freedom in how you want to build out your abilities and which weapons to use. When you defeat enemies or complete missions, you will get experience to both level up your character and your class, which can increase your health and unlock new Arts to equip. Classes are more unique and have specific weapons and Arts that they can use, but if you level them up fully, you will be able to use those Arts and weapons with any of the 16 other classes. You will also unlock new passive skills that can augment your playstyle, and both Skills and Arts can be further enhanced individually.
We also have a bunch of equipment that we can gather, equip, craft, and customize. We can't upgrade the stats of each directly, but we can augment it with other passive improvements like increasing melee attack, critical hits against specific types of enemies, or even recovering health every time you use an Art. This, combined with the Arts, Skills, and Class system, there are a lot of ways to build out your character the way you want to, and I love it.
Outside of combat, you will go around the world and find treasure and unlock nodes. These nodes are used for fast travel and can have specific Probes attached to them that can give you materials to use for crafting. Some of these crafted weapons are awesome, so getting the crafting materials for them will be very beneficial.
However, there is one aspect of equipment that I wish weren't there. Specifically, I don't like the Item Level mechanic. Each item has a level associated with it, noting how powerful its base stats are. However, to use any item as equipment, you have to be either the same level or higher. I found so many higher-level gear that was perfect for my melee-focused build, but I needed to grind and level up 5-6 more times to use it. I don't mind grinding in JRPGs, but forced grinding to use specific gear isn't that enjoyable for me.
Speaking of forced grinding, I'm also not a big fan of forced progression goalposts for the main missions. To go through the next story mission, you will have to progress in some way, whether it be exploring a specific percentage of a biome or completing certain side quests and affinity missions. There is a level recommendation as well, which I do appreciate, but I wish I could just play through at my own desire instead of being forced to do certain quests or explore more of a biome. With how open the game is, the forced progression locks feel out of place.
And yes, you will be able to unlock a mech you can fight, fly around, and customize later on. It's essentially the same combat-wise, but it there is a special, exciting feeling going around the world in your own mech. These are called Skells, and while it takes a little time to get one, the wait is worth it.
There is also online multiplayer where you can squad up and explore the world together. There are options to just auto-assign you a group or create a private squad to just play with friends, as well as Global Nemesis Battles to have everyone work together to fight enormous enemies. These all give nice rewards, and while it isn't something I felt was necessary, I love having the option.
For full transparency, I do not have any programs set up to watch and record framerate, though it is something I am working on. This evaluation of performance is based on pure eyesight, which is sensitive to framerate changes.
Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition is an enigma to me. The game looks great, and is extremely open world with no loading screens, but it somehow runs really well. In handheld, it uses dynamic resolution between 540p and 720p, but even still, it never looks awful. I didn't encounter any moments where it looked too blurry. It also holds 30 FPS quite well, though I did notice some hitches and slight framerate drops when going into caves and running around New LA.
Docked mode is a bit better in this regard. The dynamic resolution ranges between 760p and 1080p and holds 30 FPS more often, according to my testing. I didn't feel like I was losing much playing handheld vs docked, and with both performing around the same and the biggest visible difference being a resolution bump, I much preferred playing on my Switch OLED.
Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition is another fantastic game from Monolith Soft and one I found hard to put down. The story is exciting, the world is beautiful and open with no loading screens, the combat is engaging, the progression is deep enough to customize our playstyle how we want, and there's a ton of content to play through. The progression locks for equipment and story missions are a little jarring when combined with how open the game is, but it doesn't do enough to detract from how great the game is.
Regardless of whether you are using a Switch or a Switch 2, this is a fantastic game to add to your Switch library.
Our review is based on the Nintendo Switch version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Lunar Remastered Collection was provided by GungHo Online Entertainment for review. Thank you!
There have been a lot of classic, noteworthy JRPGs I missed over the years, and with recent re-releases, I have finally had a chance to try them out. Last month, I got to finally experience Suikoden and see the impact it had on JRPGs, and while it has some dated concepts now, it was still awesome to see what made the game so unique at the time. Another JRPG series I have really wanted to try is the Lunar games, which have been described as one of the Best RPGs ever, and I got to find out for myself if the content stands with that high praise thanks to the Lunar Remastered Collection.
This remastered collection contains Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Eternal Blue Complete, the two expanded mainline games in the series. They were released in 1992 and 1994, originally for the Sega Saturn, but were eventually re-released on the PlayStation 1 with their "complete" editions with extra content. Both entries have been remastered with updated visuals for both in-game visuals and animated cutscenes, widescreen support, newly recorded English dubs, new musical arrangements, and some quality of life improvements like speeding up combat, customizing CPU behavior for auto battling, and the option to change the inventory management system so everyone shares a combined inventory.
When going back and playing these older games, it's good to keep in mind the time period they are from. With this being a remaster and not a remake, a lot of the elements from the original release make a return, for better or worse. However, some of those quality of life additions really help make it more playable, and there are a few I am so happy about.
The combat sees the biggest set of improvements, with new additions to help dictate how your allies behave during battle. Of course, you can manually control them in the standard JRPG turn-based battles you encounter, but with the auto battle, we can now more clearly define what they do. I ended up relying on auto battles the more I played, and having this option to more closely define how my allies conduct themselves was a great addition. I am also thankful for being able to speed up battles, since going at the regular speed could take some time.
Lunar Remastered Collection's combat and general gameplay are standard for classic JRPGs and don't stray too far from the beaten path. You choose whether to attack, defend, use magic or items, or flee battles. The most notable change from other JRPGs is needing to move your character within a certain range of the enemy to land certain attacks, but the rest is generally the same as others in the genre. Progression and equipment systems are also quite familiar. You get experience and money from defeating monsters, which level you up and increase your stats, and you can use money at shops to buy more items and equipment to make yourself more powerful.
Both Lunar games don't break any new ground currently, but I do like the presentation. Watching battles in auto battle mode is more entertaining than in other older games due to units moving around the field, and the simplistic nature of equipment and progression is easy to comprehend. The inventory and shop menus can be a little confusing to navigate, with some text blending into the background and the overall UI layout being a bit clunky, but it's manageable.
I also want to take a moment to appreciate that the enemies you fight are also seen in the world. Fights don't just pop up out of nowhere; you can try to avoid monsters running about and skip over fights.
One change that I think really helps with playability is the inventory. You can swap between classic or "remastered" inventory types, letting you choose between each character having a separate inventory or shared. With the extra work that goes into giving items to specific people I want them to have, I much prefer the shared or "remastered" type, and being able to change it on the fly is great.
The only other element I feel is worth talking about is movement. You will travel around the world and discover new cities and locations, and for the most part, it's pretty standard. The movement system is a little hard to control in close spaces like forests and caves, and I found myself getting stuck on rocks or random pillars.
While the gameplay is on the basic side, the story more than makes up for it. Both games sport an engaging and enjoyable story that has some unexpected moments. Lunar 1 follows Alex's quest to become an adventurer like his idol, Dragonmaster Dyne, while Lunar 2 follows wannabe explorer Hiro. Both stories are enjoyable to play through, and I was quite surprised by some of the events that happened throughout. I did get lost once or twice since there's no hand-holding to tell you where to go next, but the directions given aren't hard to follow if you pay attention to the conversations you have.
The characters are also really enjoyable to learn about. They have decent chemistry together and are just a hoot to interact with. I like the splicing of animated cutscenes, the voice acting is solid, and the balance of humor and serious elements is great. I loved the opening of Lunar 2, where Hiro and his partner/dragon Ruby fall into ruins and get chased by monsters and boulders, making quick turns and trying to escape. It was hilarious.
While you can save at any time throughout the game, I was also a bit surprised to see that both the classic and remastered versions of each game can access the same save files. This means you can play in the remastered version of the game, save your progress, and continue in the classic version that has older visuals and animations and the classic 4:3 aspect ratio. It's small, but I like being able to go back and forth.
There should be absolutely no problem playing Lunar Remastered Collection on the Steam Deck, regardless of which version you choose. It hits 60 FPS while sticking around 6.5W - 7W battery drain and works well with the controller. However, there are a couple of little oddities here and there to keep in mind.
The game's settings, whether it be the classic or remastered versions, are very scarce. There are almost no changes we can make other than resolution and Post FX, which means we are a little stuck. The game defaults to 60 FPS and can't be changed, so we need to set our SteamOS FPS/Hz rate to 60. I also found that the remastered game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, defaulting to 1280x720, but the animated cutscenes do stretch to the top and bottom of the screen. A little weird, but nothing game-breaking.
Outside of these, it will be no problem playing through both Lunar 1 and 2 on the Steam Deck, in both classic and remastered versions:
Both Lunar 1 and 2 have different settings to help make the game more playable, though there isn't much for accessibility. You can change how your inventory is sorted, how items are managed, whether messages come out faster and advance by themselves, toggle vibration and spell names, change audio language from Japanese to English, and toggle subtitles.
The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions or cloud saves, but it does have controller support. There are no HDR settings.
The Lunar Remastered Collection finally gave me the chance to experience two of the best JRPGs from the SEGA CD, and I was not disappointed. The story and characters carry the experience, and both Lunar 1 and 2 hold up in this regard. I was taken by the world, and while the gameplay feels a bit generic and UI clunky compared to today's standards, it isn't aggravating and has its charms. It's a good idea to keep the fact that this is a remaster of a 25+ year old game in mind, and if you can, you will not be let down.
The game also runs flawlessly on the Steam Deck, easily hitting 60 FPS with under 8W of battery drain for over 8 hours of battery life. There aren't many settings to change, but there isn't much that needs to! This is a Best on Deck game, and one worth playing on the go.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Atelier Yumia was provided by Koei Tecmo for review. Thank you!
When I play survival games, I tend to always gravitate towards gathering as much as I can and hoarding my materials. I like to make sure I am prepared for any circumstance and have enough materials to keep me occupied. Naturally, this got me into crafting a lot, which is how I started my journey into the Atelier series. A JRPG that revolves around gathering, crafting, and exploring easily roped me in, and Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land does a great job at keeping me engaged while also expanding on what is expected of this franchise.
When I think of any Atelier games, the first thing that comes to my mind is alchemy. The core of each game revolves around using alchemy to synthesize and create different items for both yourself and others. So, with that in mind, I wanted to see an alchemy system that is easy to understand but has the complexity to make the items I want more powerful in unique ways. I feel Atelier Yumia finds a way to balance this, making the system feel rewarding both during and after the process.
There are two key factors that make items stronger when synthesizing: resonance and mana. Increasing these will improve your item with better quality, stat upgrades, and more powerful item traits. These increase depending on the items you use as ingredients, which vary in size and quality themselves. The better quality the ingredients are, with a larger resonance area, the more Resonance and Mana will be accumulated. These ingredients can also have their own individual effects that further buff your item, like a further boost to the resonance area or increased health or defense.
Each item can have multiple cores, which improve different aspects of each item. For example, with Yumia’s weapon, we can have a core for attack power, one to give it extra trait slots, and one to specifically increase quality. All of these can have ingredients poured into them, giving many chances to increase their power and give them new effects like slowing down enemies, increasing your speed, and more.
To get the ingredients to craft, you have to find them in the open world, which has been refined to be quick and efficient for the most part. You run around a pretty gigantic open world, finding plants to pick, rocks to mine, trees to hit, and monsters to hunt, all to gather the best ingredients to improve your alchemy. Gathering is relatively quick with immediate pickups, but mining requires a 1-2 second animation. Luckily, most animations can be avoided by shooting the materials with your trusty gunstaff instead of mining them.
The combat in Atelier Yumia has been iterated on a bit as well while still retaining the flair from the previous entries. I would consider this real-time combat on rails. You can move around in a circle around the enemy you are fighting with a selection of close-up and far-away attacks. Your choice of attack is important, as it can stun enemies, which gives you a chance to see what they are weak against and do some big damage. You can also swap to one of your teammates in real-time, with three of your six actively fighting and the other three taking on a support role.
It took me a little longer to get into the combat as much as I should have, but it is a lot of fun as you level up and get new mechanics. It can feel a little floaty at times as well due to main attacks not showing as much of an impact on the monster's health, but once you unlock Friend Actions, Precision Countering, and more powerful items, it gets way better. I found basic attacks and skills to be meaningless other than to stun the enemy to get their weakness and deal massive damage to them. But it is enjoyable to watch play out and swap between different allies.
However, the gorgeous open world is one of my favorite parts of the game. There are so many activities spread throughout the world, all dictated by question marks on the map. It felt rewarding to go out and find treasure chests, discover ruins, take on side quests, and restore shrines to earn new ingredients and skill points. I like how big the world is with the four distinct regions, and the ability to build bases and customize them the way you want to is nice. I appreciate that we can build energy generators to replenish the energy you use to navigate the world and Simple Synthesis to make smaller items you may use more often, like bullets or repair kits.
To encourage us to explore more, we also have the Pioneering Effort, which does a great job at giving a reason to keep exploring the regions. This list of actions to complete gives you bonuses the more you do and requires some travel around the world. This can unlock new recipes, different ammo types, and new buildings to create that can help you store items and cultivate ingredients.
I did find it a little hard to traverse the landscape at times. You can do triple jumps on some surfaces but not others, and the motorcycle you get later on doesn't have as much use as I expected. Using the motorcycle does help getting around on roads and flatter surfaces, but exploring cliffs and more condensed areas won't be as easy to get around.
Then, we have the skill tree, which is used to improve your synthesizing, exploration, and combat skills. There are some essential skills to get here, like the Friend Actions mentioned earlier or increasing the quality of all gathered items, so the upgrades make a difference in your gameplay. I much prefer this over the usual increased stats or combat abilities. However, the only way to get points is by completing quests and finding activities in the open world, and it can feel like a slog to get for later skills since it gets more expensive to unlock. Even still, it's a fun time to go around the world, and it's easy to get lost in all of the activities.
The story itself didn't hook me until the first 45 minutes were done, but after that, I was pretty intrigued throughout. The tale is based around Yumia investigating a new continent to further a research team's efforts to discover what happened on this land and why Alchemy is so stigmatized. Figuring out what happened to the Aladissian Empire and the atrocities that may or may not have been committed leading to the current state of the world is captivating to learn about.
I also liked how the characters were portrayed. I was worried that our protagonist, Yumia, would be a more stereotypical ditsy anime girl, and while she does have her moments, there were more times than I expected that she showed some backbone. None of the core team of six were too stereotypical, except for Lenja; she is a stereotypical timid, shy anime girl. Even still, I enjoyed learning about them and going through their personal side quests to discover more about who they are and their past.
While Atelier Yumia is a fun game, it’s a bit of a mixed bag on the Steam Deck. At the default settings with XeSS upscaling on balanced, we mostly get an average of 40 FPS, with some areas going to 26 FPS (like at your Atelier and some fights) and some going to 60 FPS (like at the Willeks Village). It can vary wildly, and it was hard to figure out my favorite way to play since I was constantly swapping back and forth between stability at a lower frame rate and varying smoothness at a higher rate.
There's not a ton of leeway since the CPU and GPU are being pushed pretty hard. However, I can only choose one group of recommended settings, and in the end, I preferred stability.
In the end, we do have to make do with some slight performance drops no matter what, which takes place mostly in the first region, but we can still have an enjoyable time in the game. I discovered that setting the in-game framerate limit helped performance more than a lot of the other settings, so with that set to 30 FPS and a mix of Standard and Low quality settings, we can play at a mostly solid 30 FPS with XeSS on Quality. This gives us solid visuals that aren't too blurry with XeSS.
However, we do need to utilize as much power as possible. There are enough areas and fights where the framerate drops, and to get the most stable experience, we need as much power as possible. So, we do have some high battery drain that fluctuates between 17W and 24W. I am not surprised by how demanding the game is, but there isn't much more we can do to enhance the experience without sacrificing quality. I did also try the Dynamic Resolution option, and while it works a little better, it also makes the game much blurrier.
Because it was nearly impossible to get to a solid 30 FPS without making some drastic changes that would make the visuals so much worse, I recommend playing this way:
I also noticed some minor stutters when picking up resources in region 3. It doesn't affect region 1 and 2. While it isn't the end of the world, it's still a little obnoxious.
This was more of a last-minute add, but after some testing, I feel it's a viable way to play the game. It will require a little more compromise, which is a bummer, but I was able to get a near stable 30 FPS in the areas that were having issues before. So, for this group of settings, we will need to actually bring the resolution down to 1024x576 and use the low-quality preset, along with XeSS at Balanced. It does make the game a little blurry, but due to the aesthetics of the game, we can use SteamOS FSR upscaling to make it look better.
It sounds weird to use two upscaling methods, and it can introduce a little bit of ghosting here and there, but it does keep the game more stable and still looks okay. You can bring the resolution down to 960x540 for more savings, but it does introduce more ghosting, and we will still need a 30 FPS lock. Still, it works, and it's more stable:
There are many settings we can change to customize our experience. For battles, we can toggle focus camera, auto guard, holding to flee, and skill camera. We can also change the camera controls, aiming speed, camera shake, map rotation, auto-save, aiming mode, auto-sprint, text size (set to 3), text color, and audio sliders.
The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, so there are black bars at the top and bottom, but it does have cloud saves and controller support. There are no HDR settings.
Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land is a fantastic experience with engaging mechanics and a solid story. Synthesizing items is addicting, the story is interesting, and the activities around the open world are fulfilling. Combat gets enjoyable later on, but it can feel a little floaty in general with basic attacks. Apart from some minor issues traversing the landscape, I didn't find much I disliked about the game, and I would recommend checking it out if you enjoy the series or just like JRPGs in general.
Playing on the Steam Deck is almost completely solid, with a fluctuating framerate. But outside of some areas in the first region and some very flashy combat, we can get a stable 30 FPS with the game looking quite solid. It needs some compromises, but in the end, it is playable and enjoyable.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Suikoden I&II HD Remaster was provided by Konami for review. Thank you!
I am a self-proclaimed lover of JRPGs, and I tend to enjoy them more than any other type of game out there, but there are still a few of the classics I have never played. I knew about Suikoden and its status as a legendary JRPG, but I didn't have the time to try it out. So, when the remasters were announced, I was overjoyed. I would have the chance to try these games out and see how great they were. Even though they feel dated in mechanics, it's a joy to see how Suikoden 1 and 2 innovated the space back when they originally released it with a narrative that captivated me.
For some context, Suikoden 1 and 2 were originally released on the PlayStation in 1995 and 1998, respectively. With the remasters, we can now play the game with some nice improvements. The background illustrations have been upgraded to HD art, effects have been updated, there are new environmental sounds and battle sound effects, the game will now auto save at certain points, you can auto battle and fast forward through battles, the UI has been refined a bit, there's a new conversation log (this really comes in handy), and much more.
A lot of how I feel about the game comes from its charm due to it still playing largely like a game from the '90s, and I enjoyed it way more than I expected. To avoid spoilers, I won't go too much into the story, but it gave me The Legend of Heroes vibes. The first game spans the world, with you becoming the leader of the resistance against a tyrannical government and the need to find and recruit the 108 stars of destiny to overthrow them. The second game continues three years after the first, with a new war breaking out and you being thrust into recruiting a new 108 stars to overcome calamity.
Both Suikoden 1 and 2's stories are solid, but I enjoyed the second one more. Suikoden 1 felt rushed, and too much happened too quickly to give me a moment's rest, while Suikoden 2 focuses more on character development and fleshing out the story more with an intriguing, memorable villain. There are more twists in the second game that caught me off guard, which was a nice surprise coming from the first game, which was milder. The second game is also a direct sequel to the first, so there are some great scenes that relate to what happened in the past. I won't say more on this, but I will say it is worthwhile to play through both games.
There isn't much direction for what you have to do next, which is where the conversation log comes in. Instead of having any quest log or markers, you get clues from the conversations you have and have to figure out where to go next. While I did get lost one or two times, I was generally able to figure out where to go, and I did enjoy exploring the world.
Suikoden 1 and 2 both have many gameplay elements retained from their original releases, which can make them feel dated in some aspects. Combat is pretty standard for JRPGs, where six people on the field can attack, defend, use magic in the form of runes, and use items. You choose what your six teammates will do, and then everyone will attack in an order dependent on their stats. There are also Unite attacks where some of your party can attack together. With regular battles like this, I appreciate how it's structured. Characters don't attack one by one and will generally help make the battles go faster, which is nice since they are generally slow.
I also want to make a note for some of these camera angles in combat, which I like. It makes the battles feel more dynamic when fighting, and it's awesome.
For progression, characters do level up and only need a fixed amount of experience to go up. It's a great system since it can help quickly level up lower-leveled allies to reduce the need for constant grinding. There is an equipment system where you can equip armor and other accessories, but every character only has one weapon that you can enhance by sharpening. You can also equip runes that give you magic powers, and each character has different slots to note the power of the magic they can use and how many times they can use it.
I like the way progression is handled, especially with the weapons. It's nice that you only have to focus on one weapon, and runes are an intriguing way to handle magic. The biggest issue for me is how inventory is handled. Suikoden 1 makes it so each character has their limited inventory, so equipping new armors and runes could mean scrolling through each ally and what they are carrying to find the right item, and running out of space happened often for me. Suikoden 2 improves on this with a shared party inventory and makes combat a bit more enjoyable with the ability to equip more runes per character. Suikoden 1's mechanics are solid and enjoyable, but the improvements made in Suikoden 2 are night and day.
Other than the regular random encounter battles, there are two other types: major army battles and duels. Both of these are more like rock-paper-scissors games, where you choose one of three options against the enemy, and whoever has the choice that is strong against the other will attack and take more of the enemy’s health. Major battles have one extra mechanic with special abilities, providing different effects like augmenting your attack or attempting to recruit soldiers from the enemy. They aren’t super fleshed out, but it’s a nice reprieve from the usual combat gameplay.
Suikoden 2 also iterates on the major battles, turning them more into Fire Emblem-esque grid combat. We still have a rock-paper-scissors system for which units are stronger against others, but now we can move freely around the field and use special abilities on certain squads. However, if one of your units dies in a battle like this, they could be permanently killed.
The way Suikoden 1 and 2 handle the allies you have is great. You recruit 108 different characters to your cause, who are scattered worldwide. Some are easy to recruit (just talk to them), while others may need more convincing (level up more or beat them at a minigame). It adds a new challenge and puzzle-like element to find and recruit everyone, figuring out what they need, and it was fun walking around to discover who would be fighting alongside me. I also appreciate that not every character is playable, with some providing a service at my base camp (like a storage shed or an item shop) and making me feel like I do not need to grind and work on each character.
Suikoden 2 expands on character development more than the first, making many of the people we recruit more meaningful than just finding a random dancer or gambling with some weirdo in the corner of an inn. It was a nice change, and it made everything I did much more meaningful.
Graphically, the remaster's improvements are definitely felt the most here. The backgrounds look fantastic, the new effects and sound effects are impactful, and it's a joy to run through towns and the world itself. The portraits and sprites also look great, and feel like they fit perfectly within the context of this remaster.
There shouldn’t be any issue playing either Suikoden game on the Steam Deck! They both run wonderfully at 60 FPS, look great, and feel solid. The game does default to 60, and for a good reason. The Steam Deck OLED can technically play the game at 90 FPS by enabling Vertical Sync, but it has terrible frame pacing with some stutters and choppiness that can be felt while moving around and fighting.
You can change the message speed, UI opacity, control type, and volume bars, but that's about it. There aren't really any options in the way of accessibility.
The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, but it does support cloud saves and controllers. There are no HDR settings.
Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars is a great remaster of two classic JRPGs that helped define the genre. It plays like a traditional JRPG for the most part, but the story, combat mechanics, camera angles, and progression systems are quite interesting. The improvements don't solve all of Suikoden 1's issues, like the individual inventory system and lack of character development, but it's still worthwhile to play. Suikoden 2 sports some fantastic improvements and is worth playing this way. This collection feels like the definitive version of these classics, and they are definitely worth experiencing.
It also plays exceptionally well on the Steam Deck without needing to change a thing, though I recommend keeping it at the base settings and playing at 60 FPS instead of trying to play at 90. Either way, this is a fantastic collection to play on the go.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Fairy Tail 2 was provided by Koei Tecmo for review. Thank you!
It's not often I get the chance to review a JRPG, and my experience with the genre is somewhat limited, but I think Fairy Tail 2 might be an excellent JRPG for newcomers to the genre to get started with.
I'll start by saying that although I think this JRPG is good for newcomers if you are new to the Fairy Tail series, you may want to go back and play the original Fairy Tail. The games are based on other media, and Fairy Tail 2 throws you in at the deep end, with the period covered in the game actually being the climactic part of the original manga. The continent the Fairy Tail guild occupies is being invaded by an all-powerful army from another continent, led by Zeref, the series' primary antagonist, and his loyal followers, all part of the "Spriggan 12", who play the role of bosses you'll need to fight against in the game.
This means that you'll be bombarded with a great number of characters that have various interconnected relationships that aren't really explained to you. As Fairy Tail 2 starts you off in the middle of a story, being a direct sequel to Fairy Tail 1, you should play the original game first.
I would recommend Fairy Tail 2 to JRPG newcomers because it is simple to play. The game Overworld is quite easy to navigate, and the combat system has enough mechanics to make it interesting without being deep enough to the point of min-maxing your characters and ensuring they have the best equipment, at least not at the default difficulty.
In fact, the game doesn't even have equipment like armor or weapons. Every character has their pre-determined equipment, and while they can level up and you determine what skills and abilities they upgrade, you can even automate this process with a feature called "auto-evolving," so the game will allocate points by itself when your characters level up.
So if an RPG or JRPG experience feels too complicated, really, all you have to get the hang of in Fairy Tail 2 is the combat, and then you can just enjoy exploring the world and progressing the story.
Fairy Tail 2's combat system has some depth without feeling overwhelming. Essentially, you have your basic attack (the X Button), which you can use up to 3 times per turn to boost your Skill Points (SP). Once you've built enough skill points, you can use your abilities with your Y, B, or A buttons, potentially multiple times in one turn, if you saved up enough skill points. The game uses a hybrid turn-based system, so while there is a "timer" you must wait before enacting your actions, you may act multiple times before an enemy does, or vice versa.
You will occasionally be able to do a link attack with a party member to deal some extra damage and use a Fairy attack with some supporting characters to pull off a special move, either to support your party or damage your foes. All of this is handled on a time basis with cooldowns, though, and it's pretty easy to keep track of it all, making the experience a pleasant one and not as monotonous compared to traditional turn-based JRPGs where you make 1 move at a time and then the enemy attacks back.
It can devolve into a routine of mashing X 3 times to build up SP, hitting Y to fire a special, mashing X, hitting Y, etc. But that's more reserved for boss battles, which can be tediously long. We're talking upwards of 20 minutes, which is a long time when you mostly repeat the same actions with little variation. This area could have been done with a little tweaking; the boss battles should be half the length they are.
This is actually a bigger problem than it sounds. The way the game is structured means you are essentially traveling from boss battle to boss battle, with a few smaller battles in between. A number of "big bad " are invading, and it's your job to defeat all of them, so that means you need to get through a sizable number of boss battles in short succession.
The presentation of the game is reasonable, although the screenshots in this review aren't really a fair example, as they are taken on a Steam Deck that has to run at lower settings. Still, the sounds, voice acting, and overall feel of the world are there, and it's quite a pleasant design. The music can get a little repetitive, as there seems to be just one music track used for "tense" situations, and it's used quite often.
The menus are laid out very easily, aiding the simplistic RPG feel I mentioned earlier. The amount of items in the game is pretty low, there are items for buffing your stats like Defense, Attack, Speed, and healing items, but that's about the extent. Every item in the game serves a purpose, so thankfully, your inventory won't get filled with random rubbish. Merchants also work in an interesting way, where instead of accepting currency, you merely supply them with the materials you find in the field, and they'll give you the item you want.
Fairy Tail 2 isn't the best JRPG I've played. The story, much like everything else in the game, is on the basic and 1-dimensional side and kind of feels almost throwaway at points, but it's one of the more easy-going, casual ones I've had the chance to enjoy, and if you are in the mood for an RPG-lite as it were, then Fairy Tail 2 might just be the one for you.
Fairy Tail 2 sadly does not support 16:10 resolutions, so we're stuck with a 1280x720 resolution here, which means black borders along the top and bottom of the screen. The game's controller support is excellent, with both menus and gameplay working perfectly with the Steam Deck's controller layout.
Plenty of graphical settings are available, which can be a rarity for a JRPG, although we have to keep Fairy Tail 2 on the lower side of settings to make it run well on the Steam Deck.
Set the SteamOS frame rate limit to 40, and no TDP limit here.
For my recommended settings, you should change the "Overall Quality" setting to "Low" to get the basics in place. Then, raise the Frame Rate Limit from 30 to 60, go down to Intel XeSS, and raise it from "Balanced" to "Ultra Quality."
The game takes quite a bit of a visual hit at these settings. Notably, the texture quality is pretty poor, but as I already used over 5GB of VRAM, I didn't want to risk going any higher. Bushes can also look quite poor, but generally, the game holds up reasonably well, and bumping up the XeSS quality helps to produce a much smoother image.
Generally, the game stays at 40 FPS in the overworld with these settings, with some environments dropping to the mid-30s, although this is rare and only in specific areas. In combat, when a large visual effect is played, the game can often drop into the 20s, this isn't avoidable, but it also doesn't affect the game's playability too much.
The power draw stays on the higher end, mostly around 18W-21W. So expect a couple of hours of battery life from a Steam Deck LCD and around 2.5 hours from a Steam Deck OLED.
Temperatures are in the 60C-70C range, with some fan noise.
Fairy Tail 2 has some accessibility options. It has varied difficulty levels, the ability to change font coloring slightly, subtitles for all dialogue, even the overworld chatter, and rebindable controls.
Fairy Tail 2 is a simplistic approach to the JRPG genre. It has an easy-to-understand combat system, a fairly straightforward storyline, and minimal effort required on the part of the player to maximize the efficiency of equipment and items. It's a good compromise for someone who wants the gameplay and storyline of a JRPG without all the unnecessary party management. The story might be a little simplistic, but overall, the game is a good time.
The game runs pretty well on Steam Deck. You won't be getting a 60 FPS experience here, but 40 FPS with the occasional drop was perfectly fine for my playthrough. The controls work beautifully, and although we do get black borders due to the lack of proper resolution support, the game itself plays fine.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Farmagia was provided by XSEED Games for review. Thank you!
This review was created using an LCD Steam Deck. OLED testing will be carried out at a later date.
Farmagia was not at all what I expected it to be. This JRPG is a bizarre mix of dungeon crawling and farming, with a combat system that strongly reminds me of the Pikmin franchise. Expectations can be a double-edged sword, and while there are some interesting ideas, I struggled to get invested.
Farmagia’s fantasy world, Felicidad, is in turmoil from the evil new ruler, who has been rooting out all magic in his quest for dominance over humankind. His legions of monsters have taken over most of the country, and it is up to the player Ten to join forces with the last bastions of good to save their homeland. As stories go, it’s about as cookie-cutter JRPG as it gets.
While a few animated cut scenes are sprinkled in, most are told through static characters and backgrounds. The voice acting is pretty solid overall, but I had trouble relating with any of the characters. Ten is the typical JRPG protagonist. He is loud, brash, not afraid to get into a scrap, and has a habit of repeating information he should already know. Despite his idiotic moments, he was endearing in his passion to protect his home. Honestly, I was more emotionally invested in his pet Lookie-Loo, who did make me smile with his more humorous attitude.
The combat is where the Pikmin comparison comes from. These battlefields are small and cramped, with little room to maneuver around. While there are sometimes a couple of branching paths that hide treasure behind mini-bosses, the dungeons are mostly linear events with little eye candy.
The game has many critters to nurture and collect, and they fall between the classic trilogy of ranged combat, close combat, and support. On a small map, players must command their hordes of pets to take down enemy monsters. This involves clicking a button and target-locking on the monster you want to destroy while evading or blocking their attacks as best you can.
These open dungeons consist of several stages, with a choice between stat buffs for your monsters and item drops. These item drops usually include healing items and monster seeds that can be grown on your farm to get new monsters to battle with, as well as materials used for crafting potions and food to aid you in battle. While the dungeons come with a time limit, I never had much trouble clearing them without running down the clock, so the time limit mechanic is not too arduous. You can return to previous areas anytime you want if you need to grind materials or monsters, and there are checkpoints during dungeon rooms if you need to save and return later.
Most combat skirmishes were tolerable, but the boss fights ramped up my irritation with the combat. They usually took ages to defeat with enormous health bars and shields that must be whittled down slowly by your army of critters, all while timing blocks to deal with their attacks. Grindy boss battles with gigantic health bars will always test my patience, and I only felt relief when I finished the fight. It's a shame because the battles can look pretty cool on screen with armies of critters attacking enemies. Farmagia’s combat is more style than substance, and because it is such a big portion of the game, it dragged down my enjoyment.
Outside the combat runs, there are a few things to do. The farming segment of Farmagia is built around growing new pals to join you in battle, and there are many things to unlock, such as new tools for expanding the farm and faster harvesting. All actions on the farm take up SP, which can be replenished only by venturing into the combat areas. In the ranch, you can spend time with the pets, train up their stats, feed them treats, and watch little cut scenes that don’t add much but are wholesome moments.
The lack of overworld exploration bites hard, and there are only a few static places to visit: a pub and a magic shop. You can turn in little side jobs for the citizens for resources and buy new items, but there isn’t much else. If Felicidad had been more accessible for exploration, I would have appreciated world design more. Instead, we’re limited to small, linear dungeon romps and static scenes to pull that weight.
Despite these problems, I appreciate how far the game goes into its compendium. Every tutorial, monster, and character is lovingly set out in the codex menu with animations. It says something about Farmagia's gameplay when I find my favorite part of the codex.
I found the overall technical side of Farmagia solid across the board. I’ll go into more detail in the Steam Deck side of the review, but it played fairly well overall. The only problem I encountered was the camera during intense combat scenes, but that was during fights involving many enemies, and I had a larger squad of critters. Based on functionality, it plays well with decent enough visuals, though the gameplay did make it hard to enjoy.
While I was disappointed a bit, I cannot fault its Steam Deck performance. According to Valve, Farmagia is classified as Verified, with an Unknown rating on ProtonDB. Based on my experiences, this classification is pretty accurate!
Besides the aforementioned camera quirk, I had no problems with the default controls, and the dungeon sections ran great. Because Farmagia is more like a visual novel with its static scenes and lack of overworld exploration, only the combat sections put real pressure on the Steam Deck. It's surprisingly intensive on battery life without any modifications, but we have plenty of tools to rectify that.
I started testing at stock settings: uncapped TDP, 60hz refresh rate, and 60FPS. Even when fighting many monsters at once, the Steam Deck chews through whatever Farmagia can throw at it, even on high settings. Without any changes, however, the battery draw is intense during the dungeons, and I found it hitting 18 watts on average. While it was significantly less in the hub areas and while farming monsters (between 12 and 13 watts), this is still surprisingly heavy on the battery life, draining my LCD Steam Deck in less than 3 hours. I was initially concerned that the large amounts of text and dialogue would be rough to read, but it was perfectly understandable.
While the Steam Deck’s performance holds up well, Farmagia isn’t the kind of game that benefits from max settings, and by turning some of the graphics down with a 40hz refresh rate, I received much better battery life without sacrificing much quality. With medium settings and the 40hz refresh rate, I averaged a battery drain of just 12 watts during combat, which dropped to an average of 10 watts of power draw during other gameplay scenes. With the battery life averaging nearly 4 hours, I found this a worthy compromise while maintaining a solid 40FPS.
Because I am a sucker for battery life and enjoy squeezing as much power from my devices as possible, I played around with settings and TDP values to see what balance I could get. Farmagia is a strange case because the rest of the game requires little power apart from the combat sections. In some cases, it is almost a visual novel, but those combat sequences are frequent and very taxing on performance.
The best I could manage was a 5W TDP lock, all settings on low, and a 30FPS cap. This averaged a power draw of around 9 watts even during the combat scenes, although the frame rate occasionally dipped into the mid-20s, especially when performing power attacks. Despite this, these settings are still very playable, providing over 5 hours of battery life on the LCD Steam Deck.
Farmagia is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. It has impressive accessibility features, although it lacks colorblind support.
Players can adjust the camera's y- and x-axis, the confirm button, brightness, camera speed, and where the minimap is on the screen, including turning it off completely. Three difficulty settings can be changed at any time. While the font size cannot be changed, I had no problems reading text on the Steam Deck.
To sum it up, Farmagia is a pretty mixed bag. With the repetitive and grindy combat, predictable narrative, and linear battle environments, I struggled to enjoy this one. Fortunately, it plays very well on the Steam Deck, and I did like upgrading my farm. If you can pick up Farmagia in a sale and enjoy collection games (especially when they are cute monsters!), you might get some enjoyment from this one. It is a shame I found the combat so mediocre, but that is the thing with video games. Sometimes, they just aren’t for you.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this article, check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that will help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got you covered!
Dragon Quest 3 was provided by Square Enix for review. Thank you!
Dragon Quest has evolved over the last 35+ years and has become a staple in the JRPG space. The series has grown since its first release in 1986 and has become increasingly popular. With the most recent mainline game being Dragon Quest 11, Square Enix decided to remake the oldest titles and give them the HD-2D facelift, which we have seen in games like Octopath Traveler, LIVE A LIVE, and Star Ocean The Second Story R.
Now, we get to return to the Erdrick trilogy, starting with the first chronological game in this trilogy: Dragon Quest 3. It's a blast exploring the game in this new light, and while it did bring with it some original JRPG conventions I am not a huge fan of, I still loved the experience and highly recommend it to all JRPG fans.
The entire Erdrick trilogy spans across the first three games in the series, which starts with Dragon Quest 3 chronologically. You are the child of the legendary warrior Ortega, who failed in his attempt to take down the archfiend Baramos. On your 16th birthday, you are summoned to the castle by the King and tasked to kill the archfiend. So, you take up the quest, grab your three companions, and go on your way, traveling across the different lands of this world.
The story of Dragon Quest 3 starts a bit slow, and it can feel like you are going from town to town to get the items you need to complete your mission, which you are. It's a lot of going back and forth, collecting keys or orbs to progress and unlock the doors you need, but that doesn't stop the game from staying interesting. The side quests can be intriguing, and I enjoyed a couple of mainline quests, but the big twist that happens later on is what hooked me in. If it feels a bit slow initially, stick with it. It will be worthwhile.
Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake retains what makes the older JRPGs so special, including both the good and bad. There have been a few great quality-of-life changes and some new content that I really enjoyed, but some small nuisances add up.
The game utilizes turn-based combat, allowing you to pick what each member of your four-party team will do and attack them before choosing again. Each character can utilize a regular attack, abilities, or spells/magic to attack, with the latter two consuming magic points or MP. After battles, you will receive experience points to level up your team members and gold, which can be used to buy new items or resurrect your team.
The core combat loop is familiar to other turn-based titles, but some recurring Dragon Quest features are included. You choose each character’s attacks while your Agility stat determines when they will attack exactly. You also target groups of similar enemies instead of individuals (unless there's only one). Some spells and abilities can target only one enemy, all in a group or every enemy you are fighting regardless of group. Still, most attacks will usually be one random enemy in a group or every enemy in that group. This can sometimes be a little obnoxious, but some attacks can circumvent the group attacking, so that’s nice.
General combat can be a bit slow on normal, and while there are some nice animations to show monsters getting attacked, I felt it was taking way too long the more I played. One of the big new quality-of-life features is the ability to speed up battles, making them go much faster. It will be especially helpful when grinding becomes necessary to get through bosses and dungeons later in the game. You can make each team member act independently and utilize different strategies like going all out on enemies, fighting wisely with a balance of healing and attacking, or not using MP. You can also use this on your “Hero,” automating battles even more. Again, this becomes very nice for late-game grinding and is something I appreciated leading up to tougher battles.
Each character has their class or Vocation, which dictates the stats and new abilities/spells they get through leveling up. As you play, you can change your team member’s vocation. It acts similarly to reincarnating in the Disgaea games. Choosing a new vocation for your team brings their level back down to 1, but their stats are only halved. So, if you have a warrior with 200 strength, you can choose a new vocation like Martial Artist, and they start at level 1 with 100 strength stat. This makes them significantly more powerful than a new Martial Artist at level 1, boosting them as they level back up to where they were before. You also retain all the abilities and spells you learned, which can make your team overpowered if you do the grinding work.
There are multiple vocations, with different focuses, and even some hilarious ones, like the clown. This system was in the original game, but we have the new Monster Tamer vocation that gives us some abilities that other monsters have or allows us to use monsters to attack and heal others. I love these kinds of systems to consistently make my team stronger, and I used them all the time in Disgaea.
I like how they implemented it here, especially with all the abilities kept. I ended up having a team member who excelled in both physical combat with some devastating combat abilities and magic with spells that could obliterate everyone in front of me. It’s worth the grinding and investment; you can feel the results in real-time. I don’t recommend changing everyone's vocations at a time since they will still be less powerful than before, and you still need to kill enemies to level them back up.
You will travel worldwide in towns/kingdoms or along the world map when not in combat. There are random encounters when walking around, and no indication of when you will be dragged into battle, but I didn’t mind this nearly as much due to how fast and automated battles can be. As you explore, you may find pockets of supplies on the map or hidden in barrels and pots inside towns that include healing items and seeds, which can be used to permanently increase your stats. There may also be hidden areas on the map with some secret items and even some monsters to befriend. You can also use the Monster Tamer vocation to find some monsters.
There is a new Monster Arena in the game that allows you to battle the monsters you befriend and win gold and other great prizes. These can be found in most bigger cities, and you choose three monsters to battle for you at a time. There’s also a bank to deposit gold, so you don’t have to store it all on you, which is also a nice little addition. It's an interesting distraction and a nice way to get more equipment, seeds, and healing items to keep your party alive.
Most towns will have inns to sleep at, which heal your health and magic, churches to resurrect your teammates, remove curses, and save your game, and shops to purchase new equipment. The equipment increases stats and can have different effects, like hitting all enemies in the group on a normal attack or returning some damage when attacked. You can use weapons, armor, and accessories to increase your stats, though you may encounter some cursed items that you can't remove until you go to a priest to do it.
The biggest issue with Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D is how long it takes to get through text. I don’t mind the long walks across the map and going through towns to reach my destinations, and I don’t mind that some battles can take some time as well (you can speed this up), but going through some of the text can take way longer than I think it should. Most dialogues are fine, but the after-battle and leveling-up text takes a few seconds before you can move on while saving the game and resurrecting your team, or any action at the church, can take a little longer. With how often I had to save or resurrect my team, sometimes it started to get on my nerves. I appreciate that some spells you can learn and use outside of combat can heal and resurrect, but it takes a little bit of time to get those.
Traveling throughout the world may cause a small headache at first, but as soon as you get the Zoom spell, it gets significantly better. There’s also a lot of grinding that will need to be done to take down the later enemies and more powerful foes, but I didn’t mind this. It feels like an older, unforgiving JRPG, and there’s a charm to that gameplay style. It may frustrate some people, but I like it. There’s a difficulty selection that makes the game a lot easier as well if it gets too much, but even still, you’ll have to grind and get stronger as some enemies will heal, and you can’t get around that.
I also appreciate that there is a toggle to turn on an objective marker. It's a pretty big map, and while you can use the clues to find where you need to go, it's nice to turn on a marker to show me where to go next. I still need to grind and fight there, but knowing where I am going is nice.
I don’t know how often I have said this, but I know it has been very often: Square Enix’s HD-2D style is downright gorgeous. The detail of the world around me, the vibrant colors permeating from every angle, and how the 2D sprites navigate all work together seamlessly to create scenes I could print and hang on a wall. The lighting is a big factor here, which I find helps elevate the surroundings more than I expected. It makes everything around just pop out with color and shadows that clearly define the objects they are coming from. Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D is a beauty from start to finish.
The game has a full day and night cycle, which is nice to see taking place while roaming through the world. The villagers and NPCs will react to the changes, with shops closing and everyone going to bed. Seeing how the world looks and reacts to the cycle is cool. This is packed with a great soundtrack, which feels familiar to those who have played Dragon Quest games.
And playing this game on the Steam Deck will be a blast, even if it needs a change for optimal play.
Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake is a joy to play on the Steam Deck, and in terms of the game's content, it's perfect for portable play. However, I found a couple of little issues that I wanted to change up to make playing on the go a bit better and more stable throughout the game.
I have multiple ways to enjoy the game, but they don't differ much. It isn't an extremely demanding game, so small changes are needed to optimize the experience. Still, I want to provide options for those who want it! Each group of settings prioritizes visuals since I feel that's a very important part of HD-2D games, so keeping them as clear and pristine as possible will be a big focus.
While most of the game runs exceptionally well on the Steam Deck, I found a few smaller issues. There are a couple of areas that do drop the performance below 60 at the default settings (everything maxed out), and there are more areas that have higher battery drain than I would like for a game like this (17W - 21W). However, I wanted to find a way to fix this without compromising the beautiful visuals, so I played around with the settings a bit and found a solution I was happy with.
There are two things I want to change specifically that should make it not only more stable but cap the battery drain at around 16W in the harder-hitting areas. First, we set the framerate cap to 45 FPS. The game still feels wonderfully smooth at this rate, keeping the experience stable. I also recommend bringing down the rendering scale to 2 instead of 3. Not only does this not affect visuals as much on the smaller screen, but it saves a ton of battery. The biggest difference I saw was some slight far-away blurriness and a little more graininess on some surfaces, but these are small, with the rest of the game still looking gorgeous.
I did try turning down other settings, and while reducing Shadows can help, some Shadows will pop in, which I didn't like. I felt like this was a great compromise to keep the game feeling smooth and looking great, as well as lowering the battery drain to save hours of charge so I could continue playing on the go without needing to plug in.
If you don't mind higher battery drain, you could use a 45 FPS lock with max quality settings, and it will stay very stable. It could sometimes bring battery drain above 18W, which I feel is way too high, but it's playable.
Of course, some want to play at 60 FPS as well, and to do so isn't hard! As long as you don't care about battery life, you can use the same Rendering Scale change above to get a solid 60 FPS throughout the entire game. You could keep the settings to their default (max quality), but some areas will drop to the mid-40s. They don't happen super often, but they do happen. I would say the Rendering Scale change is worth it for stability and keeping the visuals as pristine as possible, but if you can deal with minor drops here and there, you can keep the Rendering Scale up.
Personally, I think both groups of settings above are great for battery life, but if you want to maximize for portable play, there are a couple of extra changes to make. On top of the Render Scale at 2, I recommended lowering Shadow Quality to 1 and turning Ambient Occlusion off. It does impact visuals a little bit, but not enough to really make a big change to the overall aesthetic and atmosphere:
There are some nice settings to go through for Dragon Quest 3. As I mentioned, you can change the battle speed in regular and Monster Arena battles, which I love. You can also change the brightness, toggle the minimap, choose if the camera is a little more zoomed in, audio settings, an objective marker, and quest help text, how fast text is displayed, and whether you have to hold down a button to run, change voice and text language, and whether or not you want to alter the confirm button.
The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, so there are some black bars at the top and bottom. However, it supports cloud saves and controllers. There are no HDR settings.
Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake is a fantastic re-imagining of one of the best entries in the Dragon Quest series, even if it misses some quality-of-life improvements I would have loved to see. The game is drop-dead gorgeous and has a solid gameplay loop that I enjoyed. The extra features to speed up battles and automatically let your team fight help with late-game grinding, and the vocation system is a joy to play around with. The new content is also a nice touch, and I particularly enjoyed playing with the new Monster Tamer vocation.
However, there are some little nuisances here and there that I wish were touched on. Some of the text can take a long time to read, with some unnecessary pauses, which is in stark contrast to how fast-paced other parts of the game are, and it ends up feeling like a nuisance. It's small in the grand scheme, but it happens in almost every battle or whenever you need to save, and many other JRPGs go a lot faster when doing something similar.
However, Dragon Quest 3 is a joy to play on the Steam Deck. The small compromises don't hinder the performance and playability of the Steam Deck, and it deserves that Verified badge it has. Regardless of how you play it, whether you want better battery life or 60 FPS, it will be wonderful no matter what.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Monster Hunter Stories was provided by CAPCOM for review. Thank you!
This review used an LCD Steam Deck. OLED details will be coming later.
Before getting to try Monster Hunter Stories, my only experience with the Monster Hunter franchise was a game way back when on the PSP, and later Monster Hunter World. Sadly, I didn't particularly gel with either game. But Monster Hunter Stories takes a different approach to gameplay and art style. So let's take a look at it now that this Nintendo 3DS game is finally making its way to Steam!
Monster Hunter Stories adopts a much more colorful and "friendly" aesthetic than its main series counterparts. Graphics are stylized and shaded in a more traditional JRPG style rather than the somewhat realistic look most Monster Hunter games use. While the graphics don't particularly impress, they do the job well enough. This is pretty much a straight port of the 3DS version of the game, so some of the game worlds can look "flat." There's no 3D grass in grassy plains, so the graphics are probably more in line with what you'd expect from a PS2 or Gamecube game. The Monsters themselves look fine and are animated well.
There's not too much to comment on in terms of audio. A lot of the game's dialogue is voice-acted, which is nice. The game's soundtrack isn't particularly memorable, but it sets the theme for the game depending on the area you are in. Footstep noises might irritate, especially when you're on foot and not riding a mount. It would have been good if there was a separate option for footstep volume in the options menu, but alas, it's bundled in with Sound Effects as a whole.
Now, we get into the game's combat system. In battles, you and a Monster of your choice in your party will participate in the fight against one or multiple enemies, and the combat is turn-based, unlike the real-time combat usually seen in the Monster Hunter games.
Monster Hunter Stories adopts the tried-and-trusted rock, paper, scissors mechanic. One move counters another, but in itself can be countered by a 3rd move. The 3 basic attacks you can execute are Power, Speed, and Technical. Depending on the moves you and your enemies pick, you'll either have the advantage and deal bonus damage, draw and both deal damage, or have a disadvantage and take extra damage.
There are also special abilities, such as the ability to command your "monstie" in a fight to use a certain skills, or you can use items yourself to heal or give other stat boosts. The game's combat is focused on recognizing what kind of attacks your opponent will use and choosing the correct counter-move, as well as finding the enemy's weakness to deal the most damage.
There's a fair amount of strategy involved in what abilities to use when and when is best to attack or sit back and attempt a heal. I found the combat to be pretty enjoyable, it can feel relaxing and tense at times, depending on how difficult the fight is, and I think the game is balanced pretty well. There are no difficulty options, so that's an important thing.
The story is pretty basic. Unlike the Monster Hunter games, in Monster Hunter Stories, you are a Monster "Rider" rather than a Monster "Hunter," so your aim is to coexist with monsters when possible rather than hunt them down. While Monster Riders are usually confined to their village and the surrounding areas, the protagonist decides that he wants to see the world, so the story begins as you go on an adventure with your Monstie party.
Also, there's something to do with your childhood friend getting all angsty, hating monsters, and running off, so you must find him whilst the world is being corrupted by some dark force, but I'm sure that's all fine!
Monster Hunter Stories is a solid game. Don't be put off by its cartoonish aesthetic and lower price tag. This game is launching at $30, but that's not a reflection on how much fun it is or, indeed, how long the game is. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Monster Hunter Stories. It's a light-hearted adventure that, despite some technical shortcomings, has charm and beauty in its own right. As for the game's length, while it's not quite your typical 100-hour JRPG, it'll take the average player around 40 hours to beat the game, according to Howlongtobeat.com.
But can we be a Monster Rider on the go with our Steam Decks?
Monster Hunter Stories has few graphics settings to choose from, so this should be fairly simple.
The game does have good controller support. All the menus can be controlled with your Steam Deck without the need for a touchscreen or touchpads. Sadly, the game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, so you're stuck playing at 1280x720 with black bars along the top and bottom for this one.
As there are limited quality settings, I will provide just one preset, targeting 60 FPS.
In your SteamOS settings, set an FPS Limit of 60 FPS / 60Hz, and we won't have a TDP limit here.
We're running max settings for this one, which in this game means turning Anti-Aliasing On, having the Shadows on High, and playing at 1280x720 resolution, with an in-game frame cap of 60.
In these settings, the game locked at 60 FPS for me. The game is CPU-intensive on a single thread, so the graphics make almost no difference in performance. Lowering the TDP Limit just starves the CPU of power, which causes slowdowns below 60 FPS. If we want to maintain 60, we must keep the TDP at 15W.
Power draw tended to stay around the 19-21W mark for most of the game, interestingly even in menus and smaller areas, the CPU usage is still very high. Steam Deck LCD owners should expect around 100 minutes of battery life. Steam Deck OLED owners will probably get just over 2 hours.
If you want to save some battery life, you can lower your SteamOS FPS Limit to 40 or even 30, lowering the power draw from 19-21W to about 17W. It's a minor saving, though, and I'd rather have smooth gameplay. Even if you reduce the FPS limit to 40 or 30, the CPU usage still maxes out on one thread, so the power savings are minimal. This is likely a drawback of being a straight 3DS port.
GPU temperatures tend to hold around 70C, but the CPU is often at 80C or above, likely due to that high single-thread usage.
While the game only lets you save at certain points, it does autosave quite frequently, so don't worry too much about getting stuck where you can't save and your battery is running low.
Monster Hunter Stories has some basic accessibility options. You can enable/disable subtitles for cutscenes, adjust camera sensitivity, and remap controls.
Monster Hunter Stories is a fun, light-hearted adventure of a young adventurer off to see the world with their Monster friends. As a side note, you can play as a boy or a girl if that interests you! If you're after a relaxing game that airs on a JRPG's side but isn't as intense as many are, then Monster Hunter Stories is a great choice.
Performance on the Steam Deck is nearly flawless. The only two things I found that let it down are the high CPU usage, which causes high power draw (and temperatures), and the fact that the game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, so you'll have black bars. I couldn't make the framerate drop below 60, and the controls work fine on the Steam Deck.
You can buy Monster Hunter Stories with confidence that it'll work well on your Steam Deck, just make sure you stay near a charger if you want a longer play session.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Tales of Arise's Beyond the Dawn Expansion was provided by Bandai Namco for review. The base game was purchased by us. Thank you!
I have been a fan of JRPGs ever since I can remember and I credit two series for this. Kingdom Hearts, which is still one of my favorite games of all time, and the Tales series. Specifically, Tales of Symphonia, which released on the Gamecube in 2004, blew me away with its storytelling and visuals. While there have been tons of advancements in both narrative development and visuals in the genre, Symphonia will always have a special place in my heart, and I am happy that Tales of Arise doesn't spoil that view in the slightest.
As the Tales series has progressed, the overall narrative has stuck to more generic tropes in the JRPG series, and Tales of Arise does continue that. While I still found the story of liberating an enslaved people to be enjoyable, it is the characters that make it shine. The characters are interesting and engaging, and the side conversations they have makes each one stand out. I loved these moments and found myself feeling much more connected to each of the six charactes from these skits that I ended up enjoying the story even more.
NOTE: Each Tales game is its own story. While they have overarching themes, vocabulary, and gameplay elements, the stories do not intersect and each one acts as a standalone.
Then we have the combat, which I really loved. It feels like an evolution of the series, requiring more movement and acrobatics instead of just button mashing. You can button mash if you choose, but it isn't as easy and will need more strategy and thought to make sure you don't die. The artes (special moves) and way you utilize your team in combat is enhanced by the visual style and flashiness. I love the gritty, anime-esque aesthetic that the team went for, which made combat and just running around enjoyable.
The Beyond the Dawn expansion for Tales of Arise continues this trend and personally, I found it quite satisfying. If you enjoy the base game and want more, this is the perfect way to continue it. The story continues to be a bit generic, but it is enjoyable all the same. You will meet a young girl named Nazamil who is bound to fall under a curse, and now it is up to your crew to save her. The game takes place a year after the original game, so I won't mention any more of the story due to spoilers, but it was nice getting back with the crew again.
The expansion doesn't do a whole not new and will see you going through the old map, but if you liked the base game, you will enjoy the expansion. The one thing I will say that I wish I could do is use my old save file. The expansion has you using a set progress instead of carrying over what you accomplished in the main game. As someone who grinds, I would have loved to bring my overpowered team into the new expansion, but it didn't harm my overall experience. I would say the expansion is worth it if you loved the game already, but I would still find enjoyment in it as I love JRPGs in general. Thankfully, it is great to play on the Steam Deck.
For the type of game, Tales of Arise runs much better than I initially expected. With it being an open-world game, it can run at a decent framerate, but it does have some flaws. When testing, I also noticed that some settings being changed may help a little, but completely changed the overall look of the game, so I felt a lot of the settings shouldn't be changed.
For the recommended build, I tested a bunch of different setting combinations to get it as high as possible. The only setting I noticed that gave me any worthwhile boost, other than the render resolution, was shadow quality. I decided turning this to medium was enough to keep the visual quality and still get a mostly solid 40 FPS.
There are some instances and areas where this dips, but it isn't often and doesn't affect gameplay enough. Framerate can dip during some combat scenarios, but it also shoots straight back up to 40 as quickly as it goes down. I enjoyed the extra smoothness, even at the cost of battery life.
Usually, I would gravitate more towards a battery saving build for my recommended, but I came across to many areas where 30 FPS would dip unless the TDP limit was uncapped. So, this is a nice build to use if you are trying to save as much battery life as you can, but there may still be dips here and there in certain scenarios. For what it's worth, I prefer a better framerate if I may be encountering dips here and there.
Other than video settings, you can change the difficulty at will, input queueing time, vibration settings, map orientation, map markers, subtitle toggles, camera controls and speed, volume adustment, and key bindings.
Tales of Arise doesn't support 16:10 resolutions unfortunately, but it does have full controller and cloud save support!
If you are a fan of the Tales series, Tales of Arise will feel like an incredible evolution and great continuation for what the series can become. The world is great and the combat is exceptional. While the story can feel a bit generic, the characters and the way they interact more than make up for it. The expansion is a great way to continue the game if you liked the original, but it doesn't add enough for those who didn't enjoy to come back for another round.
It plays qute well on the Steam Deck for the most part, which is fantastic due to how big the game can feel, which is fantastic with all things considering. There aren't a ton of settings that can be changed due to how drastically the visuals can deteriorate, but it doesn't need many changes to enjoy!
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Sea of Stars was provided by Sabotage Studio for review. Thank you!
When leaning into nostalgia of popular games, you are opening yourself up for comparisons with games that are hard to beat. With Sea of Stars clearly influenced by JRPG classics like Chrono Trigger and Star Ocean, the game is going up against some of the most renowned titles in the genre. But I am pleased to say that Sea of Stars stands on its own as a unique, beautiful, and sometimes simple, RPG that rightfully deserves its own place next to the greats.
In the game, you follow Valerie and Zane on a quest that sees them become Solstice warriors and go on a quest to save the world. Along the way, you will meet new party members, travel to various different worlds, and grow as you fight and explore with your team. Sea of Stars does an incredible job handling the tones of each location, and while it does well with most of them, it feels like the more dramatic or sadder moments didn’t have as much impact as I would have liked. Regardless, I did feel the weight of their actions and the camaraderie the team shared, I just wish we had a bit more complexity to round-out each character.
The combat is a fantastic blend of simplicity and engagement, even if it can start feeling a little too simple towards the end of the game. You and your team will fight enemies in turn-based combat where you can attack regularly, use skills or items, or boost your attacks with life mana. As you fight, you can get experience to level up and food to cook that will heal you if used. You can also break through some enemy skills by hitting them with specific attacks.
The simple nature of combat, and building your character, is a mix of good and bad. Gone are the complexities of tons of different status effects with specific skills or items being able to cure them and having to manage everything all at once, but as a trade off, characters can’t change classes and you can’t pick and choose skills. Leveling up just increases all of their stats to some degree, as well as gives you an option to increase one of them a bit further. If you’ve played Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga, you know what I’m talking about.
Outside of combat, you will explode the incredibly vibrant, beautiful world that awaits you. Running through the wonderfully crafted lands, finding hidden secrets, taking on mysterious bosses, and acquiring legendary loot is one of the highlights of the game and completely captured my interest and excitement as I got to see what parts of the world awaited me. I even looked forward to backtracking to find whatever I could!
Overall, even with the simplicity in RPG elements, Sea of Stars succeeds in telling an engaging tale set in a gorgeous world. It does it’s job well, along with making sure it doesn’t feel too much like it’s infouenceszc but still enough to see the love of these games that was poured into it. And playing on the Steam Deck is by far the best way to play.
With no issues whatsoever, Sea of Stars plays perfectly on the Steam Deck. At 60 FPS and a battery life of around 5 hours, there are no compromises needed to enjoy this epic RPG on-the-go. This is great news too because playing this in the palm of your hands is definitely my favorite way to enjoy the game.
It doesn’t support 16:10 resolutions, so there are black bars, but it does fully support controllers and cloud saves. I was also initially worried about text size being a problem, but after playing, I can confidently say it’s not bad at all.
Sea of Stars succeeds in ways that a lot of other games influenced by classic titles can fail. It takes what made these games great and stands apart with its story and world that stand on their own. There is a little bit too much simplicity, especially as you get to the end of the 30+ hour campaign, but I never felt sad by it. This is an amazing game and it is a joy being able to play it so well on the Steam Deck. After all is said and done, I would easily consider this an essential to your Deck library.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back!
