Pode

 Rating: 8/10

All ages - no violence, just puzzle solving and really pretty graphics

Pode is a sweet story of friendship and working together. It's a puzzle-solving game where the little round light guy and the square rock guy have to solve puzzles to reach the surface so the light guy can go home again. The graphics are gorgeous. The game play is mostly intuitive. I did get stumped for a while with one of the powers for the rock guy.

There is no text, just pretty pictures and cool animations. Only a few of the puzzles require accuracy. It can get frustrating at times, though. You can play either by yourself or with a friend. Some puzzles are easier to solve one-player, others are easier with two-player mode. But none of them are super hard.

Overall, I really enjoyed this game. I'll probably play through it again sometime.

DragonQuest/DragonWarrior III

 Rating: 15/10 😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻

Ages 8+, violence (but not animated), some scary bits of the story, but mostly it's all still cartoons, a few very mild innuendos and gambling but those aren't necessary to the story

DragonQuest III is seriously one of the best RPGs I've ever played.

The game is a huge open-world experience that just keeps giving. You think you're down to just one last area, but wait! There is more, lots more. And that final boss? Not the final boss, there's more. The ending is hands-down the most satisfying ending I've experienced. That said, I'm not sure it would have had the same impact if I hadn't played the first two games. So go play DQ 1 and 2 first, then get ready to spend hours with this one. The story is that big, the world is that big, the whole experience is that big. Very little of it is grinding for levels. That happens organically as you search for the next pieces of story.

In this one, you are the HERO. You can't change your class. I tried. But you get to pick three friends to travel with you - names, classes, abilities, and all the rest. And if your friends aren't what you want for a particular area, you can swap them out with other friends. In fact, there's a whole inn in the first city just for your friends you create to hang out and wait for you. There are so many subtle things you can do with your characters in this game. If you want to micro-manage them in combat by picking what they do, you can. Or you can have them play automatically. You can set their preferred strategy for the auto-combat mode, too, so they will focus on healing or buffing the party or just slaughtering whatever monsters you are fighting.

They did some tweaking to the balance in this update which just made it that much better. I loved all of the story, although I really hate the apes. Still.

The world has very few hard barriers. You can explore whatever you can reach. The worst that happens is that your party gets slaughtered, but then you resurrect back at the first city. That only happened to me twice in the entire game. Usually if one of the other members of my party died, that was my cue to run away and get higher level characters before I attempted that particular challenge again.

There are some strategies to what class you choose for your companions and when to switch them to other classes. But mostly it was just fun to experiment and see what happened. A lot of the newer jRPGs get really complicated when it comes to combat. DQ3 keeps it on the simpler side, which I appreciate.

There are fun side stories and side quests to complete, that are actually part of the main storyline. The whole thing was just such a joy to play. It ticked off all my boxes for a good game - rich storyline, fun characters, some silly moments, monsters to fight that weren't too hard, a few boss fights that stretched my strategy muscles, and not too much grinding for levels or resources.

I'm a fan for life of the first three games in the DragonQuest series. This one was the perfect culmination for the trilogy. I actually cried over the ending, partly because I wanted it to keep going but mostly because it was such a satisfying and emotional arc over all three games.

Seriously, if you like the old-school exploration RPGs, go buy these three.

AER: Memories of Old

 Rating: 8 😸😸😸😸😸😸😸😸

Ages 5+, some reading but you can play the game without it

And again, no DragonWarrior 3. I really need more time to do that game justice.

AER: Memories of Old was another purchase-on-a-whim. I don't regret any of it. This is a very zen game. It's visually beautiful and doesn't really require any kind of rush or hurry.

You are one of the few remaining people in a world fractured into floating islands. You have the power to transform into a bird and fly everywhere. I have to admit, when I got lost early on with no idea what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to go, it was fine. I spent a couple of hours just flying around and exploring until I picked up the threads of the story again. But that's kind of the point of this game. The story is deep and meaningful, but only if you as the player fill in between the very sparse lines. There are several temples full of puzzles to solve. The game is overwhelmingly visual. The puzzles are pretty much all visual as well. There is no combat or tricky maneuvering, except maybe some jumping in one of the temples but even that was pretty simple.

The story of a major cataclysm is told through ghosts frozen in one point in time. You read their dialogue and make your own interpretation of what really happened. It feels layered in on top of the basic game play and not really integrated with it. One of the rough edges to the game, but it doesn't really detract.

Overall, I found this game relaxing. The music, what there was, was quiet and calming. The flying was fun. If you get twisted around and fall through the clouds, it's no big deal. You just show back up on the last save point you visited. I found the story intriguing and wished there was a little more of it and that it was more integral to the game play, especially solving the mysteries of the temples.

It's a beautiful little game and well worth the few dollars I paid for it.