reviews | The Lore Repository

Results of category reviews Reviews of stuff I've finished

Trials of Mana review

August 26, 2023 | Reading time: ~1 minute

I've finished the game, and my thoughts mostly echo my initial impressions. Trials of Mana is a simple, fun RPG with deep party-building mechanics, tons of potential for build diversity, some replayability, and fun hack and slash gameplay.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built review

August 13, 2023 | Reading time: ~1 minute

I've only read one Becky Chambers book before this one, A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, but it seems like her books follow the same general themes: futuristic, peaceful societies with little to no violence, a healthy dose of optimism, and characters that have the personalities of modern...

The Wager review

August 7, 2023 | Reading time: ~1 minute

A riveting historical narrative that takes its time to get going. The story of the Wager is honestly one of the more interesting little historical episodes I've ever heard of. It's got it all; a shipwreck, a mutiny, desperate struggles to stay alive, and at the end of it all several different...

Light Bringer review

August 2, 2023 | Reading time: 2 minutes

A titan of a novel that in some ways takes the series back to its roots while simultaneously driving the plot forward and crucially developing many of the major players. In the 4 year wait between Dark Age and Light Bringer, I admit many of the finer details and smaller characters were lost on me....

River of Stars review

July 20, 2023 | Reading time: 2 minutes

Guy Gavriel Kay is my favorite author, so when I say River of Stars was a bit of a disappointment, it's in the context that it's still one of my favorite reads of the year. However, it's definitely still in the lower tier of his work in my opinion, never reaching the heights of Lions and the...

Final Fantasy XVI review

July 8, 2023 | Reading time: 2 minutes

I spent roughly 34 hours completing Final Fantasy 16, and while I had a positive experience overall, I don't feel that the game lived up to the potential shown in the demo. The graphics look great, especially in the Eikon battles, but there are some significant framerate issues even on performance...

About

My name's Mike, and this is the Lore Repository - my spot online where I can write out my thoughts on games, books, tech, movies, and anything else I find interesting.

My biggest project is my Game Library Project. I have a ton of games collected throughout the years, and have barely played any of them. Check out the linked post to learn more about the project, and click here to be taken to the category page where you can see all my posts for the project.

Another project I'm working on is my Pokemon Living Dex Challenge, where I try to obtain one of each available Pokemon and transfer them into Pokemon Home.

Yet another project I'm working on is my Old School RuneScape "Completionist" Quest, where I'm attempting to max out all skills and see everything the game has to offer as a completely new player.

Other content comes mainly in 3 forms:
• Reviews, where I post longer-form review writeups
• Thoughts, short & quick first impressions posts
• Guides, detailed how-tos and walkthroughs

Click the links to go to each category's page, filtered by newest post.