Spoilers ahead: for the puzzle and the movies/games
This page reveals all categories and answers for this puzzle. It also discusses plot details, story endings, and other spoilers for some of the movies/games shown.
easy
Turn-based JRPGs
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All four use a menu-driven turn-based combat system and each one is among the most cited entries in the genre. Final Fantasy VII brought the JRPG its largest Western audience. Final Fantasy X returned the series to a fully menu-based system after several entries had moved toward real-time input. Final Fantasy VI is widely cited as the peak of 2D sprite-based RPG storytelling. EarthBound applied the JRPG structure to a modern American suburb and used its turn-based format to land emotional hits that the genre's typical fantasy settings rarely managed.
medium
Games set inside a school
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hard
Sequels that abandoned the defining genre
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Each is a numbered or named entry in a long-running franchise that replaced the combat or movement system that defined the series. Yakuza: Like a Dragon swapped the signature brawler combat for a full turn-based JRPG system with job classes and party summons. Jak II replaced Naughty Dog's precise platforming with a GTA-style open city and third-person gunplay. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow abandoned the Metroidvania map-progression structure for a God of War-style action game. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link replaced the top-down perspective with side-scrolling levels and added an experience-points system that has never appeared in the series since.
tricky
Bosses who join after you defeat them
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All four games allow the player to defeat a significant antagonist and then recruit them as a permanent ally. In Chrono Trigger, the wizard Magus has been positioned as a major villain through most of the second act. Defeat him in his castle and a greater enemy is revealed; his allegiance shifts, and he can join the party. In Tales of Symphonia, Kratos serves as a mentor who becomes an adversary before returning as a voluntary ally in the endgame. In Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, the knight Hendrik fights against the protagonist for most of the game before his true character surfaces and he joins permanently. In Dragon Age: Origins, the traitor Loghain Mac Tir can be spared at the Landsmeet and conscripted into the Grey Wardens, turning the campaign's primary human villain into a party member.