Last year I played Persona 5 for the first time, a nice JRPG without a doubt, but not only did I not find the best JRPG of all time that everyone was praising, but over the course of the year I played two JRPGs that I liked much more, both from Stegosoft; Ara Fell and Rise of the Third Power.

If for many the RpgMaker style aesthetic could be a deterrent, in my case it was the reason why I decided to buy these two titles on the Limited Run website, because they reminded me so much of the good old days when my brother and I started projects on projects with: rpgmaker 2000, 2003, XP and VX.

I certainly didn't expect to find such high-level writing in these games, although the premises are simple, the story takes off immediately thanks to the engaging, well-written dialogues, which manage to define three-dimensional characters and with motivations that are for once true and not anime tropes.

Even the love stories and the strongest feelings are developed very very well, and both Lita in Ara Fell and Rowan in ROFTP emerge as two truly depht characters who enter my personal ranking of the best jrpg protagonists.

If in other games I played last year like Persona 5, Bug Fables or Cosmic Star Heroine, the protagonists take decisions very lightly and come out with a "Yes! Let's do it!", the protagonists of Stegosoft games are always thoughtful and ready to question every single thing.

Now I will continue to talk about ROFTP, maybe I will talk more about Ara Fell in the future when I dedicate a drawing to it (which I intend to do).

The battle system is really well animated and very fun, until the party is full it is also challenging.

However, the abilities of the various characters are not very varied, we soon end up always using the same strategy, even if the possibility of changing the formation of the active group at the start of each battle (unless the monsters have the initiative) can guarantee variety as each of the eight characters has a completely different class and playing style.

The music, although coming from a stock music site, has been excellently selected and is of high quality.

In addition to the romantic emotions, the humor is also handled really well, rarely has a jrpg made me laugh so many times.

Ultimately Rise is my favorite game of 2023 and I recommend all jrpg fans to play both it and Ara Fell.

Congratulations to Stegosoft for these two gems.

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