Cozy Anime RPGs 

Shit man, I work at Enzyme! So I can tell you what happened. We were an independent studio back in the day that did basically all sorts of QA stuff. We were bought out by Keywords a couple years ago which is a big worldwide conglomerate of studios that help with game/sound/tech design. I wasn't there at the time of summon knights, but one of my supervisors was. I'm not surprised about the cut corners, considering a lot of stuff was done on paper back then. Add to that that we're in Québec, there's an alright chance that this was translated by someone who's mother language might have been french. (That or it was done in the super tiny (like 5 to 10 people tiny) Japan office the company had back in the day).

“did we ever really leave the dark ages, or did our eyes just adjust?” is going to be circling my brain for the next 76 hours

Summon Knight: Swordcraft Story is such a great game. The fact that at the start of the game there are four different guardian beast partner options and there is a dedicated button to talk with them is such stunning content for a GBA game. Thanks for covering it. Hearing someone talk about more obscure games is so fascinating.

Hi Hazel! I believe I’ve left a grand total of like… 5 comments on RU-vid videos my whole life but just felt compelled to say something here. From the opening joke that was EXACTLY my brand of humour to the insightful and thoughtful things you’ve said about the video game industry and what games bring you joy, I have never felt so seen during my many hours watching videos on the internet. Thank you so much for creating these videos, it really means more to me than I could ever articulate. (P.S. I also will jump on the bandwagon of recommending Fantasy Life.)

Though brief, I was shocked to hear you talk about Moemon! I'm part of the new Moemon projects, and we've made lots of new sprites for ROM hacks. If you want, Hazel, please check our newer work! We even have some (very very jank) gen 4+ sprites

I want to live my life with the confidence that Nicki showed when introducing themselves as ‘Sharer of birthdays’

Whenever hazel posts a new video, I know that my defeated, dead heart is about to feel joy for just a bit longer. Thank you for your work.

this channel has such a unique vibe that you can’t get really anywhere else on youtube

I came back to this video after a few months and fell in love with it all over again. Your passion for video games is infectious, and I get the feeling that I'm going to be rewatching this one for years whenever I need some recommendations from someone who truly loves the medium. Thanks for making this.

Gosh I sank so many hours into Path of the ninja. Just wanted to comment on how as a kid from a small town in canada during the mid 2000s with little access to the internet, being a fan of Naruto was really fucking hard! For years my experience of the franchise was peripheral, occasionally catching random episodes that aired on late night cable when I should have been asleep, saving up my allowance for weeks to purchase a single manga volume I'd finish in an hour, and piecing together what little information I had of the story with what info my friends had gathered. It was like a big collaborative story puzzle! But Path of the ninja was the first time I ever had first hand experience of the whole chunin exam arch. It ended up being the first video game I ever fully completed because I was just so dedicated to finding out what happened to naruto and his friends! Anyways, fantastic video as always. So glad you highlighted several games I have never heard of before that I'm now very eager to go try out. Your videos always manage to steer me in the direction of some weird piece of media that I end up falling in love with. Thank you for all your hard work :)

I don't know how to accurately say this, but i love that a lot of Hazel's vids have the vibe of your cool friend telling you about some stuff. I love that 10/10.

I bought Gurumin thanks to this video and after an hour I love it. Feels exactly like a Threads of Fate style game, this is like the platonic ideal of cozy for me. I love Parin so much for her "I'm being rude, not shy! Bye!!" line when the weirdo adult in town tries to hit on her. Kinda weird decision to put it in the game in the first place but I'm glad she had the exact right response.

I literally sat here adding the majority of the games you talked about on Backloggd. I also personal know the person that did Grandia: Parallel Tripper's fan translation, and they were the ones to get me into Grandia to began with! Although I like Grandia II more, Grandia one really does have all those things you were talking about it. Honestly love your videos, they always seem to be so comfy

10:00 "There's also Witches Wish, witch I wish I could have played." Thank you for this line.

Grandia has a very special place in my heart, and I was so glad to see that it was the last game talked about (with like 30 minutes left in the video). You made me realize that the feeling that Hunter x Hunter had given me and reminded me of, was that same free spirit I once felt from Grandia at such a young age.

I literally teared up at the 40 minute mark. I had been doing work and listening to this casually and suddenly hearing the Shining Force theme song brought my heart to emotional bursts. My favorite SRPG of all time. So cozy.

I was planning to replay VANDAL HEARTS after watching this and it got a mention. The OST is already playing in my head. Thanks for another wonderful and nostalgia filled video!

I just found a disc sleeve full of PS1 JRPGs at goodwill so this is good timing! Plus, any topic that comes from this channel is always a must watch.

All right, I didn't expect this video to bring in a guest to talk about one of my two all-time favorite series, very cool.

THANKKK YOUUU for including the title of the games in the upper corner!!

Wow! Hearing a mention of YMO gets instant flashbacks of my oldman's 70s music collections of Kraftwerk and YMO... and then Ryuichi Sakamoto's OST for "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" (an OST what has become one of my family's traditional Christmas music album to play on December... xD )

it's late for me, and I'm not able to find comfort. So I throw this on. Thank you for your opinion on media and having your friends come in on it too.

I have fond memories of the Naruto Path of the Ninja, because my Dad got me it for Christmas not realizing I didn't know anything about Naruto. I didn't come out of it a Naruto fan and he didn't actually know I like RPGs specifically (his favorite games are Galaga and Time Crisis, so kind of like your relative) but I had a great time. Also, thanks for putting all the game names, it's always a joy to discover new things to play

when she said "does brazil have phone games?" my heart screamed "THE ZEEBO"

I could write a bunch of stuff on how this video allowed me to remember a time on gaming for me wherer cozyness was THE feature I was looking for (even without me notincing it), but I'll just leave a great thank you for the list of recomendations and compliment the whole vibe of your narration... I don't know, I was such in a bad mood and your video lighten it up A LOT

I was happy to see Merry Gear Solid get a mention. Besides Hyper Princess Pitch it's the only Christmas game I can recall.

"Emerald Dragon" -> "Elemental Dragoon" If it ain't broke, don't fix it, eh?

Oh my fucking god. I've never heard anyone else ever mention Sega smash pack 2. I've spent fucking hours trying to figure out what the fucking rpg in the pack was because I remembered playing it when I was 6 and always trying shining force and dying. I never remembered what it was but that fucking battle screen stayed burned in my head into now, like 15 years later. The damn weird ass geometry of the area was just the goofiest thing. Seeing this now though. I need to try and find out which of these had the fucking futuristic rpg that I thought was phantasy start but it seemingly wasn't.

So happy you mentioned Yellow Magic Orchestra, they are probably my favorite band and rydeen is literally an INCREDIBLE song. They absolutely rule!

Yo that thing at 2:04:00 about the light switch being outside the bathroom was actually a thing at my grandma's house for like 15 years or so, i remember going to the bathroom as a kid and someone turning off the lights as a prank

Parasite Eve is a Christmas game.

so i was listening to yellow magic orchestra's first album earlier today and i was going crazy as i swore i recognised one of their songs from somewhere. thanks so much for answering this

This is the first video of yours I've seen and you are now in my top 10 RU-vidrs

Don't mind me, just re-watching all of hazel's videos while I wait out this drought. pls come back.

"I can also tell you stone facedly I liked pokemon mystery dungeon just as much as a child as I like anime women as an adult" are you me?

Man, I was really thinking while watching that you'd get down funky with ThorHighHeels, but there he is, right at the end lol

"Ressonance of Fate" on the to play list. I like that because it's on mine. It's been on it so long it got a remaster!

YOU KNOW ABOUT ETRIAN ODYSSEYYY! i honestly shouldnt be surprised but its the first time anyone has ever mentioned my favorite game in another context. i love making my own little map and coloring it in and such. also i think its so funny that, for a game with such hardcore mechanics, the style is very cutesy and colorful.

It's funny that you bring up Resonance of Fate as, it too, has a special Christmas themed mission in it. 😅

The games in this video are absolutely my vibe! I’ve had Grandia (in German for some reason!) lying around for years now, and have attempted to get all the way through on multiple occasions, but I think this video has finally given me the push (and explained the combat system in a way that it finally makes sense) to start a more serious playthrough! ^_^

I’m still utterly baffled by mid-2000s games aimed at girls who’s characters and mechanics relied on misogynistic stereotypes of girls. Like. C- for effort? I don’t know.

loved the heck out of this video. seriously so funny and full of love and relaxing. also got a few games i need to hunt down now. thank you hazel!

you remind me a lot of thorhighheels with your style, but you definitely bring your own personal flavor with a splash of relateability which I dig :) also, shout out to you making unique game credits out of game text boxes for EVERY GAME CREDIT...jeez that must have been so much work. you're an inspiration

The thing with Robo's Theme had me in stitches. Also, given your professed love for sprites in 3D backgrounds, I was surprised that Ragnarök Online never came up. Though I suppose the "MMO" part of the acronym cuts it out.

In the clip with the kids from the section about Lost Kingdom II, I had to pause and rewind briefly because I knew I had heard that first boy's voice from somewhere, until on the second listen I just realized aloud "Holy fuck, that's Mokuba!"

Just recently found your channel and thank you so much for these. More great stuff for me to put in the background while i work or wait for emails.

Love your channel! Your editing always makes me laugh, and i find them cozy and enjoyable to watch. Too bad about the Tenchi video, that one really took me back. (I had no idea what was going on in that show when I was a kid)

Oh thank god I decided to watch this video, and bless you for making it. Forever ago back in high school a friend gave me an emulator and a heap of ROMs with it. I played a ton of those games, one of them being Summon Night: Twin Age. BUT for over 10 years I couldn't remember the name! I had long since lost the USB stick of ROMs and I couldn't remember enough details about it to describe it. But here it is in this video. I'm so glad I can look it up to play again. I can't articulate why, but I have a lot of comfy, cosy feelings related to that game and its art style. Thanks for again for, inadvertently, helping me!

That robot noise from Sonic the Dark Chronicles just unlocked a memory DEEP in my brain thank you so much I definitely played that game ALOT as a kid To me a 'cozy game' I played as a kid was 'Imagine Figure Skater/Ice Skater' where you played as an anime girl ice skater and had to win tournaments while going from city to reskinned city. The Imagine games had a bit of a chokehold on me v_v

i dont speak english natively so that grandia pronunciation thing was very funny to me cuz i cant tell the difference for the love of god

Alright at first I just wanted to say this was a great video, but then I heard you mention graffiti kingdom! That’s one of my favorite games of all time and I still have the same copy I had since I was a kid! My friend and I would spend DAYS just making characters after school. It’s also probably what inspired my interest in drawing and eventually art in general. It’s a very important game to me. I’ve always wanted more people to talk about it. Just you mentioning it made my jaw drop!

Wow that megaman legends music at the beginning was so unexpected. Especially the track choice. Still loved it.

Shining Force mentioned! (Oh, the grip the shining force II had on me when I was 12... It was my somewhat first RPG too (which is a bit weird because it was in 10s???) and I was straight up addicted to it. Because of this video, I now decided to give it a shot again XD

That was quite the nostalgia trip, with a lot of my comfort games included. Just recently replayed Grandia after at least a good 10 years, and forgot how charming and comfy that game is. Definitely worth playing all the way to the end, as it's a great ride to the end. Some of the late game voice acting does get super cheesy, but I'll be honest, I totally love it.

gotta recommend Baten Kaidos. deck building turnbased, but you take a picture of whatever you want to use in battle

Oh my god Hazel, so many memories have been unlocked by this video.

I love your videos so much i can't function properly It has the best of critical long essay videos, the best of anime and game enthusiasm and the coziest vibe i could ever ask for. Im really picky with games i really only want to play shit that is "worth my time" but the way you talk about those games makes me wanna waste my day on them, for real.

I really enjoyed the part where you showed off your set up. Im an editor by day and night and I'm starting to feel the reprecautions of age. I'm 26 but my hands are perhaps a decade ahead of the rest of me. Been on a PC since mt dad bought a shit one at a garage sale when I was 5. Best thing he ever did for me (I love him). But keep up the great work. Your videos have inspired me to showmy personality and goofy self in myde videos. Keep the great work up Hazel :) Much luv bruv

loved the whole video, watched it while running on t he threadmill over mutiple days and the time flew by each time (:

The Sonic Chronicles fake-out at the beginning was amazing XD

That was a whole trip. Thanks, Hazel

The fact that you mentioned god damn Lost Kingdoms 1 and 2 gave me life, NO ONE remembers that game but me it feels like. And then I fucking died of nostalgia after you played the town theme.

whoa hey somehow I recognized your name + icon from the me in capris bandcamp page, you have truly great taste all around

Wow! I remember watching my boyfriend playing Lost Kingdoms II over a decade ago! I ahd forgotten until now! I was so fascinated by that card system!

I got Gururumin for my older sister and I before the eshops closed all it took was for us to see the 3ds themes and we knew we needed to try it

Honestly even though this video took me a week to watch in full, I totally wouldn’t mind a Cozy Anime RPGs Part 2 video. Grandia 2 was my go-to cozy game (on Dreamcast!) Way up until I graduated high school, even. And I recently ripped a new copy for my Dreamcast just this year because it’s impossible to get ahold of now, and the PlayStation 2 version is garbage. Grandia 2 is also a really good example of what I’d call “Catho-gothic” aesthetic in anime? It’s fucking weird. Always that weird shit where it’s not quite Catholicism but it’s definitely not NOT Catholic, and the people in religious power are almost always fucking evil for some reason.

one of my favorite pop-up book style game is still Ar Tonelico 2 for the PS2. where you look at maps (either on the overworld or in dungeons) from a single angle, like Resident evil or the first alone in the Dark, but when the camera moves in some of the larger maps you can see some of these are just 2d sprites basically propped up. you can kinda see through some corners where 2 of these pop-up things collide on more than one occasion and goshdarn I look back to this game and its style just very VERY fondly. because its a style you rarely see done that way because other games would "hide" these srt of imperfections but idk, this stuff screams "heart" to me.

ugh, i wish i could double-like or multi-like videos, because ones like these always make me have to unlike and relike the video just because of how incredible they are to experience. thank you for making such amazing pieces of work.

this intro still gets me every time I rewatch this lmaoooo

THANK GOD you mentioned Monsted world 4, its amazing !!

Your comment about modern Prestige games absolutely hits the nail on the head and you should keep saying it

I've been playing Trails in the Sky on and off for over a year and I'm only now getting close to the end. I just don't have the time or attention span to really focus on a JRPG like I did as a kid or teen. Being an adult means spending hours playing a game is almost always something I do while procrastinating on important tasks, and that requires switching tasks regularly, otherwise you're just enjoying a game and your lizard brain can't rationalize it away anymore. But anyway, it is so clearly an extremely competent, likeable and well-crafted RPG that it makes me want to play Falcom's whole catalog. It's really got that loveable 90s/early-2000s RPG vibe that a lot of games nowadays try to channel but few really succeed at. (Of course, it basically is an early-2000s RPG)

Ah, a fellow Petaluma kid.! I should have detected that distinct mix of eggs and arm wrestling while going through your content earlier.

The way this video makes me want to dig out my old DS. Wonder where the hell I put that thing...

your BGM choices are some DEEP cuts i absolutely love, never expected a video essayist to use music from the bible black VN but hearing it in your videos is a pleasant surprise lol i was glued to my DS as a kid so i recognize a lot of what you're talking about and it's really nice. i'm not fully into the video yet but a handheld JRPG series very close to my heart is magical vacation/magical starsign, if you haven't tried them i totally recommend checking them out! vacation was untranslated for a while but a patch came out a few years ago, and starsign was a pretty early english release for the DS! EDIT: well damn there it is! hellll yeah 😍 it really is a visually beautiful experience, i like playing it before bed because it's just so damn ass comfy

After reading that Polygon article I was scared this vid would be taken down! Plz Hazel if you're reading this, don't take this down, this is my faaaaavoriiite, take me instead

*Sees Golden Sun in the video and cries immediately*

I looove Summon Night so much as a kid! Girl protagonists in Summon Night is my favorite! There is lack of Female Protagonist for JRPGs. Especially if you also want dating elements. I love how gay she is as a kid. I just like it as a kid for girl protagonists to be nice and close to other girls. The Summon Night weapons are super nice, and I love the variety as a kid. I'm just starved for JRPGs with a female protag options

58:01 Huh, spotted a mistake. It says Dark Souls 3 in the corner, but this looks to be an older King's Quest game. 1:19:10 I used that guide when I played. I loved that guide. I wish that guide existed for 2 because I ran out of steam and couldn't continue onto the second game without such a crucially helpful tool. But I had a great time with the first game because of it. The person that wrote that guide is my personal hero. 1:38:12 Weird how much that area of the map reminds me of the world map around Alfitaria in Crystal Chronicles.

To be honest, I'd argue even historically-significant games known in their heydays for their scope and realism don't derive hardly any of their staying power from those qualities. Because the levels of scope and realism that are possible scale fairly directly with the power of the technology available and the amount of money and resources corporate executives are willing to hurl at a game, they're kind of destined by their very nature not to hold up as differentiating factors as time marches on. Of course, there are the odd games that are impressive for the scope/realism they manage to pull off on very limited hardware, but I'd argue those aren't impressive as much for the scope/realism in itself as they are for the same reason that video of someone making a photorealistic digital painting of Santa Claus in MS Paint is impressive. It's more about the flex of being ABLE to do the thing with such limited tools than it is about "the thing" itself. That said, I wholly concur with your closing sentiments... I think the games that really stick out in my mind, personally, are the ones I get a tangible sense of the developers' love, care, artistry, and passion from, even if the games end up objectively a little (or a lot) wonky because of it. Indie games have, to my knowledge, kinda always been a good place to go looking for this sort of experience in its purest, most unfiltered form, but I've even gotten it from the odd (usually earlier rather than later) installment in big-name long-running series, too. The first two generations of Pokemon, for example, I feel are absolutely bursting at the seams with that sort of loving artistic ambition. I love the oft-maligned Final Fantasy II for precisely how lofty its ambitions are for a NES game and how surprisingly successful it is at realizing them, even if it doesn't make it all the way there. For a long time now, I've firmly held that the biggest factor determining whether a work gets popular (and therefore more likely to be deemed "historically significant") is just reaching the right audience at the right time. There are tons of works in every medium under the sun that are no less powerful and generally meritorious in their own ways than the "classics" and the current big-name popular stuff that just didn't have the combined luck and marketing to reach many of the people who would resonate with them. I guess I'm preaching to the choir here, since you've mentioned having what I would infer are similar or at least adjacent feelings in multiple videos of yours I've watched at this point, but still! There's so much good art out there and it's always awesome to see a spotlight shown on some of the lesser-known stuff. Also, I really wanna play Grandia now.

I have seen maybe 7 hours of hazel videos while playing craftymine and let me tell you. I need to play old games

People who complain about the Grandia 1 English dub are probably the same people who would complain about the original SOTN dub. They're both perfectly fine for what they are and I'm totally not deafened by nostalgia.

I'm now exclusively referring to Christmas as "Present day, present time!"

grandia is heavily inspired by nadia and i just recently found out that lunar is inspired by macross true story

hearing nicky acknowledge ffv made me so fucking happy

I thought the Tenchi vid was just a fever dream or something, I found it was a coworkers favorite anime and was going to recommend it to them but tried to find it for hours and had no luck, and was so confused. Such a weird thing to strike down :( RIP

Gurumin looks gorgeous compared to most Falcom games today.

I feel obligated to point out that Shining Force does have Bikini armor, of a sort. There are a few hidden items that change costumes if given to the right character.

I know you mentioned at the start that you wouldn't really be that strict with what counts as a "cozy" or "anime" rpg but I have to say, I laughed my ass off when you started talking about Garfield 2: Royal Adventure.

SHITTING AND PISSING AND CRYING BECAUSE SOMEONE ELSE REMEMBERS THE DOG ISLAND. THE INTRO MUSIC TO THE VIDEO GAME ALWAYS MADE ME CRY BECAISE IT SOUNDED SO SAD. I WAS AN AUTISTIC KID.

Holy shit Izuna! I can’t remember how I bought that game, but I remember getting very frustrated with it (I only played the 2nd one) because every new character you got started at level 1 and you had to grind them up 😭

Split keebs are gonna be a great pickup for you imo. Also if tactical switches aren't your thing look into linear switches. They are much smoother than tactical switches and are usually much quieter. Whatever keeb you end up upgrading to I'd recommend a hot swappable one. That way of the switches it came with aren't your style switching them is stupid easy.

Hazel has the coziest channel

not only is the wolfenstein RPG considered canon, it officially connected wolfenstein with the DOOM timeline (which, coincidentally, also had its own mobile phone RPG)

Another hazel slam dunk I’m going to use to find new media to consume. Was pretty wild to see threads of fate get A one off mention I found it in a family members basement and am gonna try it out before long

Resident Evil 1 and 0 are cozy and are in fact, certified christmas games

First the BLADEE sample, then the Sonic R OST…. Are you my soul mate?

Yea! Brazil had a couple of games.

As a brazilian representative, I'm here just to acknowledge the Pizzaria Bate Papo reference. But sadly we never got a mobile phone game for it...

Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1-2 are def cozy anime games for me, as well as Rune Factory (series), Yo-Kai Watch 2, Chrono Cross, Persona 4, Final Fantasy 5... I'd even count Quest 64 and Chulip, even though they're not your typical RPGs. XD Moon: Remix RPG Adventure is more an RPG then Chulip, but both have this weirdness to them that I love so much~ I'd also have to add Okage: Shadow King, Ephemeral Fantasia, and Dark Cloud to this list.