starcrunch061's PS+ Extra-ordinary journey

starcrunch061 · August 17, 2022

Hi all!

I haven't been posting here too often over the past few months, so I'm going to try to change that with a thread chronicling my trials, tribulations and triumphs over PS+ Extra games. I've been playing a fair share of them recently, and have played a large share in the past, and hope to give some thoughts on as many of them as I can think of. I'll be cutting off Extra in a month or so, but my hope is to get up a thread detailing some of my thoughts for these gems (and stinkers) that PS+ Extra has bundled together from the old PSNow, as well as more recent offerings.

I might also throw in a Premium title now and then, but given Sony's sluggish pace of releasing them, I doubt there will be too many of them available.

The hope is to write a review every couple of days over a game I've played. I'll begin with my recent blitz, but later will recall past glories. I will give some ideas about the game, as well as a personal grade and a recommendation to others. I hope you enjoy it!

Here is the list, which will grow with time. I don't want to put up games before I detail them, so it will be rather shallow to start, but it will get there.

LISTED GAMES:

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA (Rating: A)
The Caligula Effect: Overdose (Rating: F-)
Darksiders Genesis (Rating: B-)
The Technomancer (Rating: B)
Ashen (Rating: C-)
Maneater (Rating: B)
Nights of Azure (Rating: C+)
Assassins Creed: Odyssey (Rating: B+)
Celeste (Rating: C+)
Bloodborne (Rating: A+)
Prey (Rating: B)
Demon's Souls (Rating: A+)
Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition (Rating: C)
~~Key We (Rating: B+)~~ (This game is now removed from the service - a shame!)
~~Oninaki (Rating: D+~~) (Good riddance to bad rubbish!)
The Forgotten City (Rating: B+)
Rogue Legacy 2 (Rating: A)
Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising (Rating: D+)
Odin Sphere (Rating: B)
Sea of Stars (Rating: B)
Salt and Sacrifice (Rating: B)
Darksiders II (Rating: B-)
Star Ocean: First Departure (Rating: B)
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (Rating: A)
Star Ocean: The Last Hope (Rating: B+)
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness (Rating: C)
Star Ocean: The Divine Force (Rating: B+)

So, let us begin with the first title I took from the list:

YS VIII: LACRIMOSA OF DANA

I won't lie; I tend to avoid games that get gushing praise from the JRPG community. Ys VIII was one such title. The gushing over this game was pretty nauseating at times. It didn't help that Ys VIII had a very poor (and well publicized) localization at its launch, though this was later improved.

As it turns out, though, much of the praise was warranted. Ys VIII, for the most part, represents a relatively untrod evolution path for games from earlier generations. A game like Crystalis has been largely forgotten as games have become more narrative experiences, but that sort of DNA can be found here, particularly early on. The opening premise of the game is very simple, and very satisfying. Adventure Adol Christin finds himself in a bit of a bind as a ship on which he works is wrecked on a small, uncharted island. His goal is escape, while finding as many of the other ship passengers stranded on the island as he can. The terrain is rugged, with species of creature unknown to modern humans. As he continues to prepare his escape, he develops a strange bond with a girl from the past, Dana. Her world is threatened by an impending cataclysm which she wishes to avert. Obviously, the hope is that by working together, Dana can save her time, and Adol can leave his time...

...

...except that ultimately, that's not what happens. Instead, this being a Japanese game, we are treated to a trite "save the world!" plotline. Risking spoilers here, Adol is the "chosen one" (no fooling), blah blah blah. The story of Ys VIII ultimately is its worst enemy, as the plot coupons begin to mount ("Oh my God! You mean she's really...her?!?), each more ridiculous than the last. It's completely unnecessary, and spoils a perfectly fine adventure tale.

Happily, this game isn't really about story; its focus is gameplay, and that gameplay is front and center throughout the adventure. There is a great deal of sword play, involving multiple characters, each with their own special moves and quirks. Not all of them will be to the player's liking, but that's OK, as each character is functional in his or her own way, and inevitably, people will use the characters they like, while (mostly) ignoring the ones they don't. I can tell you one thing I love about this game, though: you have very focused and direct control over your characters. Want to swing your sword? Well, just press the sword-swinging button. Want to use a special attack? Press the special attack button. Want to dodge? There's a button for that as well. There's very little in the way of contextual changes to attacks, and such simplicity of control is very satisfying to me.

Gameplay generally consists of exploring new parts of the island in hopes of finding other shipmates. Some parts of the island are inaccessible until you find enough people from your ship, which is a pretty decent way to divvy up the world as story progresses. At times, you will be linked to the world of the past, and actions in the past will ripple to the future. Unfortunately, most of these actions are required by story, but there are some optional exceptions. At times, the island monsters will mount raids against your village. I found these raids to be pretty fun in general; it's a lot of fighting. Depending on your relationship with your islanders, they will help you in various ways during these raids. In order to build these relationships, you must help them in one way or another via side quests. This tends to involve fetch quests or monster hunting quests of a sort, though it never felt particularly intrusive or bloated to me. You also will find gifts for the shipmates over time, which will further improve your relationship.

The building of your village is fun, though not nearly as fun as it could have been. Generally, people are found as part of story progression, and their quests or their required gifts are locked by this progression. While it is mostly optional, there is no real meta-game to this; as a new area unlocks, you'll open the treasure chests there, finding the required gift, or opening the way to a required quest. You will pick up a plethora of materials throughout your quest, but outside of building village defenses (and some beds and a curtain at the beginning of the game), they play no real role in the village development itself. I would have like a bit of Level 5 town construction here, if only to have some use for the hundreds of pieces of material I collected over my adventure.

But this is a small thing, as is the disappointing denouement of the story. Overall, I give Ys VIII an A. Further, I would recommend this strongly to anyone with a hankering for an old-school feel, without an old-school look, and in general to anyone who is looking for a lengthy action-adventure. Enjoy!

Edited March 21 by starcrunch061

starcrunch061 · August 22, 2022

Time for another thrilling trip into the seedy world of PS+ Extra! Today's game on the docket is...

THE CALIGULA EFFECT: OVERDOSE

Every now and again, a bad game gets released. We know it. I'd personally rather that these games be warehoused, perhaps to be discovered later by some homebrewer or AVGN or the like, but business likely demands that these atrocities be foisted onto the public at large to re-coup some losses. I can accept this through gritted teeth. While I never played it, The Caligula Effect for the Vita is one such title

What I cannot accept is when the same piece of crap game is again unleashed on the public with some sort of addendum like "remaster", "remake", etc. The Caligula Effect: Overdose is one such game. Unleashed on the poor, unsuspecting PS4 crowd, It is likely the single worst JRPG I've ever played, taking the slot from previously putrid (but mostly forgotten) entries such as Cross Edge and Tecmo's Secret of the Stars. Initially, I thought that maybe the reviews had gotten the game wrong. Pretty much all reviews skewered this game. In fact, they didn't skewer it enough.

The game was developed (at least in part) by the team behind some of the Sword Art Online games, so you know what that means. Our intrepid heroes are trapped in a digital world. However, it's not a video game this time. Instead, it's a world created by a...virtuadoll? I don't know, but apparently, Japanese people like robot singing, and a singing robot somehow became aware enough to create a meta-world and trap 500+ people inside. In the world of video games, where a boy can travel between Disney dimensions while wielding a giant key as a sword, this still manages to beggar belief.

Our main character seems to sense that s/he is part of this ~~nonsense~~ madness, and in turn joins up with others who have similarly discovered this. They band (slowly) as a team, and given their exceptional ability, we can only expect that their team is exceptionally named, and indeed, they are...the Go-Home Club. Yeah. In this world, everyone is portrayed as a high school student, but in the real world, these people run the gamut of ages, genders and professions. Apparently, everyone descends into high school ~~nonsense~~ madness when given the chance.

Stacked against our heroes are the Ostinato Musicians. Now that's a name! I have no idea what it means, but at least it sounds cool. These atrocities have refashioned themselves as musicians, gaining fan followings in the tens of...tens. They want to stay in the meta-world, and further, they don't want anyone else to leave. So, they're jerks. But that's not to say that our heroes aren't a bunch of rotten-to-the-core individuals either. In any case, I've dwelt too long on this. In the PS4 version of the game, you can play both sides of the conflict, ultimately choosing the winner at the end.

Dialogue is both incessant and dull as hell. Cut scenes seem unending, and this is further magnified by the lazy graphical quality of the game. This is one of the ugliest PS4 titles I've seen, descending at times into the realm of Orc Slayer disgust. The character models for the party are bland. The in-game illustrations are amateurish (my 9-year-old daughter drew a picture of one of the characters that was every bit as good as what was displayed on the screen). The environments are often repeats of the same screen, over and over. In fact, in one hilarious instance, a city aquarium is literally the same fish tank, copied again and again. Despite one area being called "Jellyfish World", there's not a single jellyfish in the tank. And the dialogue itself is bland. It's not the putrid mess of, say, Tokyo Xanadu. It's just...boring.

But unlike Tokyo Xanadu, which was fun as hell to play, the gameplay in this turd is a chore to say the least. Combat is turn-based, and relies on this weird, "see what will happen before it happens!" mechanic. You can enter a command for your character, and then the game will show you how that command plays out. Supposedly by timing the attacks of multiple characters well, you can set up impressive combos. I never got this to work. Thankfully, on easy mode, it's completely unnecessary. The demonstration of the effect of your command is useful, though; sometimes, enemies will set up shields that can only be destroyed by one particular attack. Knowing this beforehand allows you to recalibrate your actions to destroy these shields, saving time. One thing that annoyed me, though, was that after you entered a character's commands, and moved onto the next character, you couldn't edit the first character's attacks at all, which made the unnecessary combo'ing even more difficult.

But like I said, I went the Easy Mode route, and man - is it easy. Early in the game, at level 9, I beat two level 30 enemies. The game allows you to power level at the beginning, which was fantastic. Moreover, when your levels get high enough, you simply pass by enemies without engaging in combat. Combat is mostly useless, anyway; all you get is armor (in the form of words or phrases), which is completely useless and likely worse than your starting equipment. The free DLC gives you better armor than 95% of the stuff that enemies provide, and you can use it from the beginning.

Dungeons...are a slog. They are very maze like, and while you will fill in a map on the screen, you will also often hit dead ends that require an obscene amount of backtracking. Were it not for the fact that enemies stopped caring about me after I hit a high level, I might have quit. It is incredibly frustrating to follow a long path to an empty dead end, when the only marker was a single left/right turn. Bosses are a very bad joke. Other than being a bit spongier, they are identical to rank-and-file enemies. They even have the same attacks. Despite all of this annoyance, if you skip the cut scenes, the game is very short. You have to play it twice, which would normally be a deal breaker, but no fooling - my second playthrough was two hours long.

And yet, were these the only issues, this game would have merely been a bad RPG. Given publishers like Idea Factory, there's certainly plenty of those to go around. What really makes this game tank, to the bottom of the list, is the friendship metagame which was obviously meant to be its hook. As stated earlier, there are over 500 people who are trapped with you in this world. But unlike your party and the antagonists, they don't realize that they're trapped. This affords you an opportunity to save these people by befriending them. The catch? For the vast majority of these people, you can only befriend them if you have somehow entered their circle. The design and execution of this is so broken, though, that it truly boggles the mind.

Let's begin with the mechanic. If you are able to befriend a person, you can do so by speaking to them. They'll exchange some bland pleasantries, and your relationship will then be initiated. In order to improve this relationship, you must continue speaking to them. After reaching a level of 3, your new friend will ask a favor of you. This favor is somehow tied to a mental issue that they have, and which you must resolve. By completing their favor, you then become a sort of friend-for-life (I guess?), and receive a reward (either a stat boost or an equip-able skill). It's a very simple system, mind you. The person will always be in the same location, for the entirety of the game. If you can befriend that person, you need to just spam conversation with him/her. This will raise your level from 0 to 3, after which, you'll be given a request.

But oh my God, I don't think they could have made this more clunky. Let's begin with the initial befriending. As I said earlier, you can only befriend people if you've somehow entered their circle. For most people, that circle...is a single person. There is a straight line of friends leading to almost every individual in the game. Each person apparently has two friends in the world, but since the friendship chains are lines, you only can befriend a new person if you befriended the previous person in the line. And of course there's no reason to believe that the previous person is anywhere near the new person you hope to befriend. Given that there are 500+ people...what a mess.

But even if you somehow crawl down the line to get the opportunity to befriend this person, the trouble is only beginning. While it's very simple to raise your relationship to level 3, becoming a "friend-for-life" is a royal PITA. Most requests require that you have befriended another (mostly unrelated) person elsewhere with a different mental trauma. You'll often need to recruit that person into your party, bring them to the other person making the request, and hope for the best. Of course, in many cases, the game doesn't bother to tell you who you need to bring. You can't sort friends based on their mental traumas, so you'll simply have to look down a ridiculous list to find what you need.

Sometimes, you'll instead have to recruit your potential friend-for-life while equipping one of those word-armors I described earlier. The words you need are of course never found in treasure chests. Rather, they are random drops by equally-random enemies. There is no rhyme or reason to this, either. I had to look all of it up online. (Yes - I befriended every person in the game. I'm crazy that way.)

Oh, and did I mention that you can only do one request at a time? Or that recruiting people into your party is incredibly cumbersome, requiring multiple menus and the like? You have to kick them out manually, too. What a pain.

I'm probably not explaining just how horrific all of this is. It's a nightmare to try and keep track of who is where, and who wants what. Further, while there are 300 skills to be earned, you can only equip 5 of them. Needless to say, the rewards hardly justify this nonsense.

More's the pity, too. Each student is fitted into a social network. One group, for example, are part of a murder investigation. Another group participated in a demon summoning. This might be interesting...if it ever manifested itself into the game. For example, a member of your very party named Suzuna complains that she is unpopular and that no one wants to eat with her. Yet, there is one group of people whose only interest in life...is eating with Suzuna. Did she force these people here against their will? Are they constructs of her mind, created to satisfy her odd urge? It doesn't matter - all you need to do is befriend your party member, and all of these people will be happy.

Blah blah blah. The point is this: STAY FAR AWAY FROM THIS "GAME". I read that this game was like Persona. Yeah, this game is like Persona in the same way that Little Adventure on the Prairie is like Super Mario Brothers 3. The publishers should be ashamed of re-releasing this pile of feces. Grade: F-

Edited March 17, 2023 by starcrunch061

starcrunch061 · August 31, 2022

Welcome back! Although my first two games have definitely been on the extreme as far as my ratings, I'm definitely a moderate guy for the most part. And to speak to that middle ground, we have:

DARKSIDERS GENESIS

The Darksiders series has, for me, been kind of a dud. Sure, the idea of the four horsemen of the apocalypse having their own individual stories is great. But for the love of the creator - can we get to the fireworks factory already?!? After the original Darksiders saw our intrepid War destroy the earth, we've been greeted with (what I can only assume are) prequels. The games have had different styles to them, but jacks of all trades are masters of none, and really, the only thing that stands out about the Darksiders series to me are its excellent voicework and its ho-hum mediocrity in almost every other area.

Darksiders Genesis doesn't break this mold in the least. In this installment, we play as War and Strife, as they attempt to foil a diabolical plot of Moloch to...do something. I think the garden of Eden might have some connection. Lucifer is mentioned a couple of times (though naturally, he never shows up - all hat and no cattle, that one). Our two brave horsemen ride through 16 or so stages, besting bad guys, fighting bosses, and solving absurd puzzles that someone apparently set into the universe.

Let's begin with our characters. War is your big brute with a heart. A melee character, he likes to pound enemies into oblivion from up close. He initially shows extreme loyalty to his mission, though later, he demonstrates that his real loyalty is with his brothers (and sister, maybe?). He's very good for solving puzzles...and mostly useless for anything else.

On the other hand, there is Strife, your fast-talking gunslinger who blitzes through enemies as if they were paper. As a combatant, he's so much better than War that it's not even funny. For the SP experience, ranged characters trump melee in all ways EXCEPT solving puzzles, since War is necessary for a great deal of them. Just watch as Strife mauls enemy after enemy in the arena. I'm pretty sure I could have gone forever with him there (I got bored of it around round 85 or so, and quit out).

The game looks a bit like Diablo, though the play is pretty standard hack-and-slash (or, run-and-gun) throughout. Enemies are stock, and many of them look alike. But there are a bunch of them, and you get to kill a lot, so that's OK. Bosses are a bit more interesting, but there are only four of them or so. For example, Mammon fights on top of a large pile of gold, and occasionally will pull new weapons out of that gold. Astarte rides around what appears to be a large bonfire, and you engage her on horseback. Apparently, if she manages to circle the fire 20 times, bad things will happen. I don't really know, though, because she falls very easily long before that (even on the highest difficulty). Dagon is a giant octopus thing that throws waves at you. These waves are instadeth on high difficulties, which sucks, because this game will never be remembered for its control.

But all in all, the combat isn't great, but it's passable. Enemy design is the same. Graphics are pretty stock. There are some big failures, though. This game has one of the most ridiculous platforming sections I've ever seen. Precise jumping is certainly not this game's forte, but apparently, the devs thought that a set of increasingly difficult jumps was just what the doctor ordered. In fact, in the first stage of this nightmare (which is actually the easiest, or so I've read), the platforms on which you land become smaller and smaller, until they completely disappear from view. Fall, and you're back at the beginning. I think Pier Solar's slippery game was less frustrating than this!

Puzzle solving with weapons and tools has been a part of Darksiders since the beginning, so naturally, it's here as well. Most puzzles are simple: use the correct tool in the correct place, and you solve the puzzle. Often, however, the tool you need for an early puzzle won't be obtained until later, so backtracking is necessary to obtain upgrades and the like. Upgrades come in the standard "extra max health" or "extra max stamina", as well as creature tokens, explained below. On the plus side, the game moved pretty fast, and I rarely felt like the backtracking was a terrible burden. As above, puzzles aren't obnoxious, but neither are they memorable. "Stock" again comes to mind.

In addition, stages will sometimes have additional side quests attached to them. Many of these side quests are involved in the trophy list, but all of them have in-game rewards. I'm always happy when my trophy hunting manifests goodies in the main game. However, these side quests are rarely interesting, as they mostly fall into "destroy this type of structure 50 times" or "collect X gold". There is one exception: you have to kill a particularly mini-boss without killing many of his minions. This was interesting, but due to some poor game elements, it was also annoying. Dare I say the side quest system is "stock"?

There are two strong points of this game. The first, as mentioned above, is the voicework. Kudos to the voice actors who continue to add some class to this mediocrity of a series. The second is the character development system. As mentioned earlier, you will kill a LOT of enemies in this game. Occasionally, these enemies will drop a creature token. These tokens can be accumulated and added to a character board to customize your individual characters. Figuring out this customization system is far more intriguing than anything you do in the game. Ultimately, to unlock the best upgrades, you need to collect a lot of the same tokens, but this never feels particularly grindy, because you are killing tons of enemies anyway as you progress through the main game and the arena challenges.

And that's it. The game itself isn't terribly long - I think I took 25-30 hours to plat it, so it doesn't outstay its welcome (unlike, say, Darksiders 2). The game has few high points, but even fewer low points. It's there, and that's that, much like the Darksiders series as a whole. I give this one a B-. If you're a fan of the series, you can raise that to a B+. If you dislike hack-and-slash types, stay away. Happy gaming!

Edited September 1, 2022 by starcrunch061

AJ_Radio · August 31, 2022

Great thread thus far.

starcrunch061 · September 2, 2022

Strike while the iron is hot, I say.

Well, we've had a couple of Japanese-style RPGs (one action, one...awful). Let's now turn our attention to the Western world with some...EUROJANK!

THE TECHNOMANCER

Developer Spiders have been a niche developer for some time. I recall their games at least as far back as Faery on the PS3, which released in early 2011. That game was a short RPG that was a bit wonky to play, but ultimately decent enough. It moved quickly, and seemed to promise a sequel which never materialized. In the years since, Spiders developed many more games (Of Orcs and Men, Bound By Fate. etc.) which were released to some critical and consumer scorn, but they hung around. It wasn't until recently, with the release of GreedFall, that they seemed to score a big success.

The Technomancer is one of these earlier offerings, dropping back in 2016. It was a sequel to an even earlier title, Mars War Logs, which flew far under the radar (the number of players on PSNP is far lower than for any of their other offerings). I know absolutely nothing about that earlier offering, but I know that the Technomancer was absolutely skewered by reviewers. I shied away from this title for some time, but decided to take the plunge since it's on PS+ Extra.

And the verdict? Well, it's not bad. In fact, the early portion of the game is fantastic. The game is divided into three acts (well, actually four, but the last act is really just the final boss battle), and the first act sets up one of the more interesting worlds I've seen. Humanity lives on Mars, and contact with Earth has been lost. Some humans have been mutated by Mars' atmosphere and radiation, and they are scorned and enslaved by the rest of the public. Control of Mars belongs to numerous corporations, who fight battles both in the boardroom as well as on the field. People are born into a station in life, and their last name reflect this station. A person with the last name of "Ward" is going to be a guard. A person with the last name of "Seeker" is a scientist. A person with the last name of "Rogue" is, well, a bad guy.

OK, so the naming thing is really stupid, but it does at least carry a whiff of the corporate ownership of Mars, where your job is more important than your name. And as you go, you'll mingle with all the different families, each with their own ends and means. Some of the families (such as the Rogues) won't like you; entry into their turf is forbidden, though happily, they don't shoot on sight early on. Complete some favors for them, though, and they'll change their tune, welcoming you to pass through their land, and even helping you should other people attack you. The first chapter introduces many of these families, and you'll have opportunity to work with them all, raising your reputation with each of them. It's open world the way open world should be, and I was really hoping for some Fallout (or at least Bioware) level decisions to be made here that would echo throughout the game.

However, at the end of the first chapter, due to plot reasons, the soldiers will dislike you, and from then on, the game become significantly more linear, with ridiculous plot coupons used to forward an increasingly ho-hum story. You will still have the opportunity to work with each of the groups, but you'll quickly realize that your choices are having very little impact on the narrative. The illusion of consequence is painfully present in this one, until the very end, when the realization that the fate of Mars hinges on a single choice you make after the final boss. Yes, there are some narratives regarding how the various factions fare in the aftermath of the game, but it has no impact on the narrative itself.

Another annoyance is that after chapter 1, when the army turns against you, travel between various cities becomes a major pain. You are often accosted by enemies, and on the highest difficulty, death comes pretty often. Make sure you save regularly.

Combat was really skewered by critics. I think it's fine, if a little janky. You have access to melee weapons, ranged weapons, and technomancer (read "electric") powers. If you are playing on the hardest difficulty (and you will be if you want the plat), enemy attacks can be brutal, so your ranged weapon is very useful. Melee weapons can be charged with electricity, though using them typically requires hit and run tactics. You often have an AI ally to help you; this ally is, for the most part, completely useless. S/he will likely be killed in the opening seconds of combat, leaving you to run around in circles, kiting enemies as best you while dodging their own ranged attacks. You also have explosive devices, which are more useful than you think. It's easy to set a bomb down on the ground, and enemies are hurt significantly by them. Enemies also have such explosive devices; they usually kill themselves with them, so that's good for you.

Character development follows the standard formula seen in many eurojank games. If you've played, say, GreedFall, you're familiar with it. There are talent points, which improve one of a few skills such as Science ability, Lockpicking, Charisma, Crafting, etc. Developing these traits allows you to shape your character, but they are terribly unbalanced. For example, Science gives you the opportunity to heal your teammates. Since your teammates die in seconds, this is completely useless. By comparison, Charisma gives you the opportunity to get through certain major questlines efficiently. It's a dynamite trait.

There are also various attributes, which have their own points. The attributes are strength, agility, power and constitution. These are a bit more balanced, but I feel that the average player on the hardest difficulty will pour points into agility (improving your ranged attacks) and power (improving your technomancer abilities). There are, however, enough point to fill both of these with a couple left over.

Finally, there is a skill tree. This is where you specify abilities that you will use explicitly in battle. Many of these abilities are incredibly useful, and it's fun to carve out a character from the abilities in place...

...

...or it would be if you weren't hunting trophies. However, the trophies in the game are very disappointing. I haven't mentioned trophies in previous reviews because, for the most part, they followed well with the games listed. But despite being a game supposedly about choice, the trophies here will pigeonhole you into a very rigid single playthrough (or 2-3 more creative ones). One in particular requires you to max out every branch of the skill tree. Since you only have enough points to max out 1 in a given playthrough, this means that you either hold off on skills for most of your playthrough, or sit through the game for another 30+ hours solely to max out another branch (and that sucks double, because obviously, you want to be able to choose the skills that work best for your playstyle).

With that being said, though, I actually enjoyed the challenge of playing on the hardest difficulty without using skills for my first 24 levels. I learned the combat system well, and once I could apply skills, the end of the game was mostly a breeze (the final boss is a drag, due to instakill attacks which can make you repeat the 20 minute slog).

So, how do I grade this? Well, despite its many flaws, I still enjoyed it. It does descend into mediocrity as it progresses, but even so, I think this game deserves a pretty solid B. Enjoy!

Edited September 2, 2022 by starcrunch061

starcrunch061 · September 13, 2022

So, returning with another Extra offering. This is the first one I didn't plat, so keep that in mind as you read the review. But today, we talk about

ASHEN

Ashen, an indie soulslike from developer A44, bills itself as "a tight, 3rd-person, skill-based action RPG about guiding your wanderer through a newly lit world". I suppose the fact that your character is a "wanderer" is true, but overall, this is a poor excuse for a summary, which seems apropos, because Ashen is a poor excuse of a game.

Where do I even start? Well, to begin, Ashen plunks you into a world where people start telling you...stuff. Apparently, this world has gone through multiple ages, and apparently, the trigger for these ages is a bird of light called the Ashen. When the Ashen appears, stuff happens, and then the Ashen disappears, and...other stuff happens. Honestly, I don't know. The game seems to want to channel a Journey vibe, which might have worked if no one spoke. But since people are speaking, you naturally want to understand the narrative. Ashen's possesses neither coherence nor cohesion, however.

You are set along your way by a one-armed blacksmith named Bataran. This dude is a LOT taller than you, so apparently, he commands authority. You and another random guy (Jokell) then walk in this dark place, until you appear in a light place. Bataran tells you that the Ashen has re-appeared (apparently due to the existence of light), and then says to find his hammer and his spark, so he can start building a town. And it's just as random as I'm making it out to be.

Finally, when you get that spark and hammer, you can save, and you learn your true goal is to find the Ashen. And, thankfully, the game doesn't stray from this path - your entire purpose is to find the Ashen. You take the most circuitous route to this destination, of course (quite literally, as you find out that the Ashen has been only a few steps away from you since the beginning). This route takes you over the entirety of the known world (or so I thought, but the DLC puts paid to this idea, though). Apparently, even though the Ashen has only just sprung up, the world's been going on just fine. Sure, there are a lot of jerks, but there are also plenty of merchants in cities. Some characters hint at long associations with the world. I guess they all were in the dark for years, and when the light game, they said...eh.

Ultimately, you find the Ashen, and do some rebirth ritual (despite the fact that the Ashen was supposedly alive the whole time - I told you the narrative lacked coherence). You are betrayed by a trusted ally, sort of, and then you beat the final boss and the game ends. There's some talk about "elder darks" like Sissna and Roak, and you even meet a couple, but it's hard to figure out exactly what these elders have been doing. It certainly doesn't seem like they have worshipers or anything (although their dungeons are full of denizens, they're pretty random, and some of them actually seem to be people who, according to the narrative, oppose the elder darks).

But whatever - Souls games certainly don't live off of their storylines. Ashen's lore might leave a bit to be desired, but it's about the gameplay, right?

Well, the gameplay SUCKS. Seriously, it is atrocious. This is one of those examples of an indie being graded on a curve. Remember Lords of the Fallen? Remember the complaints about its loose control? Well, Ashen makes Lords of the Fallen look like Nioh in comparison. The control is god awful. I mean, reprehensible. You have the standard Dark Souls abilities of dodging, attacking, blocking, but oh my God - are they terrible. The dodge roll deserve particular scorn - I have no idea the direction I will travel when I dodge. I pray I don't dodge off of a cliff or into another enemy. Through 1.5 playthroughs, it made zero sense to me. Apparently, it makes zero sense to your AI companions as well - you will marvel at their incredible ability to take a Peter Pan off of a cliff.

Yes - you have AI companions, and yes - they might be the worst AI companions that I have ever seen. Against quick enemies, marvel as they use charge attacks. Watch as they bypass an enemy directly in front of them to attack one that is two screens away. And of course, grit your teeth as they commit suicide again. And again. AND AGAIN. Sometimes, they don't even appear, for some reason I never figured out in my 25 hours with the game.

But even worse than the AI companions are the assigned MP companions. Ashen has a unique idea to pair up players by allowing other players to inhabit the bodies of your AI companions. Presumably, in their game, you are inhabiting the body of their AI companions as well. It works about as well as you think...that is, it's total crap. How do you know when a human is in your game? They just run off somewhere. Probably, the place they're running to is important in their game. But how am I supposed to know that? All I see is my previously AI companion now chucking spears at distant enemies, and running off to God knows where. It's a mess, and unless you are planning to play with a particular human, I recommend turning off MP. Yes, you'll have to deal with the shitty AI, but at least that AI has the same goal that you have.

For the most part, these mistakes are easy to overlook, because the main game is so easy. There are a couple of annoying choke points, but you have a large health pool and stamina pool, and can usually brute force your way through the sloppy battles and loose controls.

But then...there's Children of Sissna difficulty. In this difficulty, your stamina is cut by 50%, and your health is cut by nearly 2/3. At that point, every issue with this game becomes crystal, since pretty much any enemy will one-shot you for the duration of the game. Even if your AI companion is completely useless, s/he serves as a little bit of a meat shield. Without that companion, and with the atrocious controls, the adventure will just stall.

Yes, I'm certain there's a "git gud" component to this game, but I see no reason to get better at a game that doesn't even respect me enough to give me decent controls. Stay away from Ashen. Overall, because of its relatively easy 1st playthrough, I give it a C-. It is kind to more casual players, in the sense that you have quest markers and the like, though it's hardly remarkable.

If you're a die-hard Souls fan, I actually reduce that grade to a D. Remember - just because it's an indie darling doesn't mean that it's good, and Ashen is a (remarkably unpolished) turd.

Edited September 13, 2022 by starcrunch061

maisie666 · September 13, 2022

Thanks for the Ashen review, i ve been on the fence, and even bought the dlc for a couple bucks. Always on the lookout for a good soulslike, maybe steelrising once its had a few patchs.

starcrunch061 · September 20, 2022

Returning for a new title. Today, we stay in the West, and consider

MANEATER

Well, here's a title I've known about for some time, but only just got to play on PS+ Extra. Maneater tells the story of a shark brutally ripped from its mother at birth by a cruel, relentless shark hunter. The entire game focuses on your effort to get revenge on the hunter and the rest of mankind. The game is framed by a "nature show" format, and narrated well. The whole experience is pure silliness, as your shark will live in both fresh water and salt water, and even walk on land for a time.

The game has a standard "sandbox" feel, with main story quests as well as side quests. There are numerous collectibles to find, and as you complete objectives, you'll gain experience in the form of various proteins, fats, etc. Using this currency, (which includes mutagenic pollution), together with the magic of...Darwinism (I guess), your shark will evolve in numerous ways. Your evolutions are...equipped like armor(?) so you can switch between these evolutions. This is useful, as one evolution might impart greater attack and defense, which is useful for sinking ships and the like, while another might grant increased speed, which is helpful for the Superman-like ring races.

All in all, it's a pretty fun idea that is slightly marred by technical issues, some pretty severe. Slowdown is endemic, and at times, the action will come to a full stop. This might signal a crash, but usually, the game will start chugging again if you're patient. Battles with other sea life are sloppy messes which will have you mashing buttons for the most part. But the battles are so easy that it doesn't really matter; if you're losing a battle, it's not due to your lack of skill, but rather a lack of experience. Go around, chomping less dangerous sea life, completing quests, etc., to get necessary protein currency, and before long, you'll be overpowering them. Boss battles take this sloppy mess and multiply it by 10. They're still (strangely) fun, but there's nothing strategic to it. Go up and bash that ship. Occasionally, you might be able to chomp the captain, ending the battle early, but later, the game is on to you, so the captain will be inside of a cage that's more annoying to destroy than the ship itself.

Usually, a steady stream of narration annoys me, but I found the narrator in this one to be funny, and at time, laugh-out-loud hilarious. He will repeat things, but the writing is pretty good (I never got tired of hearing, after I had just massacred many humans on a beach, that the attention span of man is short, or that the hunters were going to grab a beer at the bar, etc.). Collectibles (usually in the form of various pollution in the water) elicited funny asides as well. I ultimately bought the DLC, which is also quite solid.

All in all, I give the game a B. That rating would be higher, but the technical issues are nontrivial. Enjoy!

Edited September 20, 2022 by starcrunch061

starcrunch061 · October 10, 2022

Work sometimes slows me down, but the thread chugs on! Today's offering is another niche Extra title, called:

NIGHTS OF AZURE

I'm no fool. I know what I'm getting into when I pick up a title from Gust, or Compile Heart, or Idea Factory. They're hardly selling me top quality gameplay. Known (insofar as they are known) more for their...provocative images, they tend to sell fan service eye candy together with some barebones RPG experience.

Nights of Azure pretends at a bit more, but frustratingly, falls back in line with standard practice from these companies. Developed by Gust and published by Koei-Tecmo, the game follows one girl as she seeks to protect another girl. And...that's about it. You play as as the protector, Arnice (or Anders, depending on where you're looking). There's some bad stuff in the world, and another girl named Lilyisse (I think) is expected to sacrifice herself, blah blah blah. Honestly, the story in this game is completely optional, and completely disposable. The point is, you run around, smacking stuff with your sword, while your helpers (known as "familiars") assist. You'll play through various chapters, until you get to the end, at which point you'll do a lot more grind-y crap to get the platinum.

Let's start with gameplay. Nights of Azure has very basic swordplay, but it's quite satisfying. As you travel through various levels, you will encounter groups of enemies which generally must be dispatched. To fight, you run in and hack away for the most part. You have available to you a dodge, as well as a few spells, but for most of the main game, I was pretty much just running in and killing, when I wasn't using the abilities of my familiars.

That's right - in addition to your own fighting prowess, you also have the ability to recruit 4 helpers from various monsters you've found throughout the course of the game. In order to find a monster, you must find their appropriate "fetish", and using this item, you can summon the monster into being. Different monsters fight quite differently, and all in all, this system is far richer and more intricate than a game like this might suggest. While you can push through many battles using whatever familiars you want, as the game wears on, you'll want to find a solid team that covers a lot of possibilities. There are classic DPS-healer-tank familiars, as well as a few hybrids. Familiars develop along standard lines...gain experience, and the familiar will gain levels. Every two levels, you get a choice between abilities, which allow you to further customize your familiar. Finally, each familiar is born with an innate ability that can be changed over time.

This innate ability is quite important, as the proper innate ability can give you additional stat increases as you level, or even allow for breaking the level cap of 10. Others might let you take a death blow in battle and recover. This means that, as you form your final party for the grindfest at the end, you'll want to start with an innate ability that gives you additional stats, and then when you cap at level 10, change to another innate ability that extends your cap to 15. Finally, you'll change to yet another innate ability to further power your familiar.

The point is, there's much more going on here than you would expect, and you might think that with such a rich set of possibilities, the game would present you with challenges worthy of your efforts. And...you'd be terribly wrong here. Oh, the game certainly has some challenges (notably in the postgame), but these challenges are generally cheesed, rather than overcome. The best party will still be wiped out by the postgame bosses without some kind of cheesing mechanism. This is unfortunate.

The main game is pretty fun, though. As someone who rarely cares about story, I didn't mind the barebones one found here. I enjoyed boss encounters, as well as developing my familiars into a formidable party. As you play, you can take on requests from other people living in your hotel (don't bother asking why you live in a hotel). These requests are fairly stock (kill these monsters, retrieve this item), but they're not bad. In fact, some requests seem to have the intention of giving you some insight into other denizens of your hotel. It doesn't really work, but it's still fun enough...

...

...until it isn't. At some point, the novelty of these requests wears off (for me, it was around the 30 mark, and I'd say I'm more patient than most). Incredibly, in order to get the platinum, you have to do 300 of these requests. 300! There is nothing in-game that counts your requests, and there is little reward for doing these requests (the best rewards are more fetish items, which in addition to summoning familiars, will also power them up, but most of the time, you'll get a useless accessory). There is also a coliseum, with its own rewards, but to get the good ones, you'll need to win your battles with panache. Battles are rated as 1-star, 2-star or 3-star depending on your performance. I rarely got the 3-star tier, where most of the good rewards are. There are a few postgame bosses, but they're few and far between. For the most part, you'll spend the second half of your 30--35 hour journey doing some really mundane crap, over and over.

Still, I can't bring myself to hate this game. I would give it a C+. If you are a bigger fan of Gust than I am, bump that to a B-, though I imagine anyone hunting the platinum trophy will get very sick of this by the end. Happy gaming!

Edited March 17, 2023 by starcrunch061

starcrunch061 · October 26, 2022

So, back to a mainstream title today. A confession: I didn't play this game on Extra, though I imagine that it's the same (sans paid DLC). So, I give you

ASSASSINS CREED: ODYSSEY

The Ubisoft experience is a bit of a meme nowadays, thanks to some funny Bloodborne and Elden Ring images. But I won't lie - I enjoy that Ubisoft gameplay loop. There's just something about a series of small missions pasted all over the world, with only the barest of narratives linking them.

Assassins Creed: Odyssey doesn't change this experience in any way whatsoever. If you enjoy the loop of Far Cry, or Assassins Creed Origins, I imagine you'll like this one, too. It is an eternal recurrence of the same, but that "same" is still a pretty decent gameplay experience. You'll still be clearing out bases. You'll still be killing targets. You'll still be snoring through inexplicably bad cut scenes. And you'll be doing it for 80-100 hours.

Odyssey takes us back to the time of the Peloponnesian Wars between the main players of Athens and Sparta, together with a deluge of smaller states which allied with one or the other. This was an interesting time in Greek history, and if your only knowledge of the period is the movie "300", it's definitely worth your time to read up on some facts . In particular, Athens was far more than a bunch of "philosophers and boy lovers", and in fact, Sparta was far more well-known for its boy love than Athens...but I digress. The point is, the major powers of Athens and Sparta are displayed here, and they both get their just due.

You are a Spartan by birth, though you were betrayed in your youth. You become a mercenary in one of the small states of Greece, only to find that you have a far greater destiny <snore>. Yeah - this isn't so different from the dreck in a Kemco RPG. I mean, it's really bad. All kinds of interesting players will cross your path, but ultimately, your own story is rather a cliched bore. You'll kill a lot of people, and ultimately save the world, sort of, in the future, but you have little to no effect on the world around you. This was a disappointment, but it's not so ridiculous. After all, you're taking part in a well-known history. It's not as if you're going to go all Inglorious Basterds on Greece, killing off Socrates and Lysander and Alcibiades (all of whom have an unnecessarily "authentic" Greek spelling and pronunciation to their more-well-known Latin approximations). You'll do some killing, and other people will do other killing, and...that's the story.

Happily, the gameplay makes up for this. For a lazy franchise, Assassins Creed still gets combat right. Want to be a brute warrior who slices and dices? Be my guest? Want to be a stealthy hunter who kills from the shadows with bow and blade? More power to you! Assassins Creed has a varied ability tree, and then allows you to put points into improving these abilities. I made use of around 3 abilities for the entire game (a "predator" head shot with a bow, a "critical assassination" from the shadows, and a "hero strike" which allowed me to use my assassins prowess in melee combat). With the massive number of remaining points I had, I was able to improve each of these abilities quite a bit, making for a great character.

Control is pretty good, though I find it a little delayed. Maybe I'm just getting old. Graphics are solid, but unspectacular. They have a certain technical prowess, but aesthetically, they're very boring. In fact, I enjoyed the austere desert in Origins far more than the varied landscapes of Greece. Main game missions are simple, but fun. Usually, you'll have to fetch an item from a group of guards, or kill somebody. Sometimes, you have to clear out an entire fortress, but unlike Origins, there is no trophy for doing everything in the world (thank God). There are numerous other missions that change daily. These are similar to the "radiant" missions of Skyrim, but I found them to be boring and stupid. For example, a woman might tell you that she lost a treasure at sea, which is now guarded by sharks. You might think your mission is to get that treasure, but nah - she just wants you to kill sharks. Any shark, in any place. They're pointless, though they can be useful when combined with stuff you naturally have to do for trophies (such as killing mercs).

The game has three main overarching themes. The first is to see the passage of time in the war, and how your destiny is affected by this. The second is to eliminate a very large, very influential "cult". Finally, you have you personal development through leveling, acquiring armor, and moving up the mercenary ladder (yes - someone in ancient Greece ranks mercenaries the way we rank college football teams). The main game missions generally fit into these themes decently. The extra missions add little to them overall.

There's not much "assassin" in this Assassins Creed game. I mean, you do kill people, but it's not like the world is turning on your assassinations. Other than two of the cultists, most of the people you meet and kill are complete jobbers. This isn't like assassinating Rodrigo Borgia or anything. If I didn't know better, I would think that this was an unfinished attempt to make an open-world RPG, and instead was re-purposed as an Assassins Creed game. (Speaking of RPG, this game pretends at RPG elements, but as far as I can tell, your choices have little effect on anything. I guess my family reunion at the end might have been different with different choices, but it would have made little difference, anyway.)

Expect a long game. I can't imagine people finishing the plat in less than 70 hours - it took me 90, personally (no guides, but little messing around, either). There is a free DLC that puts a cap on some of the stories in the game, and gives a little more info about some of the characters. It's not bad - it fits pretty seamlessly into the game itself. The paid DLC is a mixed bag, but I don't think it's free on Extra, so I won't comment on it here.

Oh, one thing: the voice work is terrible. I played as the male hero (Alexios), and the voice acting is positively hilarious. Other characters are similarly bad (in particular, the female hero, assuming her voice is the same as her iteration in the male's game, is also very bad). I can't think of a single memorable well-voiced character. Enjoy that, I guess.

All in all, this is a B-grade game. There's no question that this was an assembly line production. But it's a satisfying gameplay experience. Overall, I'll give it a B+. If you're a massive fan of these games, move it up to A-. (Even for the biggest fans, though, there are issues with the game, so I doubt it goes A or A+.) Enjoy!

starcrunch061 · November 18, 2022

Well, we're back with another review. Today, it's

CELESTE

Hmmm. Celeste garnered fantastic reviews. I mean, FANTASTIC. It's currently sitting at 91% on Metacritic, with accolades such as "best-in-class" gameplay, "important" story, etc. etc. And certainly, it's a nice-looking 2-D platformer with more care taken for storytelling than you might ultimately fine. It's got that kind of after-school-special story with a little bit of weirdness to cut the saccharine nausea. Were such a tale to be on TV, it might have been a kid's version of Night Gallery or something...

...

...OK, enough already. When it finally comes down, the "important" story of Celeste is only important because it's a video game story and because it centers around a girl. There. I said it. The fact of the matter is, the story in no way stands on its own; it's a now-too-trite tale about a young woman climbing the metaphorical mountains in her life by...climbing a real mountain. There are stranger elements of the story, but in the end, our intrepid heroine will overcome by coming to grips with the fact that, rather than hiding her seemingly bad traits, she must instead embrace them. You've never heard that before, huh?

But whatever. It's an indie platformer, so who cares? I certainly didn't play Celeste for its story, after all. So let's get to the mountain climbing! And...uhhh...yeah.

So, what we have here is one of those hard-as-nails games which requires a large portion of coordination. Think of a Super Meat Boy style game, but with more verticality. Celeste has moves at her disposal. She can jump, and she can dash. She has the ability to move up walls, but holding onto a wall for an extended period will tire her, until she falls. She can recharge on solid ground, though. Later, she obtains more jumps and dashes (I think). And...this game is very hard. VERY hard. Honestly, it's one of the hardest games I've ever played.

One thing that hurts is a poor control scheme. While there are plenty of times you'll die due to your own incompetence, you'll also do a Peter Pan in the wrong direction due to unpredictable dash controls more often than you should. It's been a while, but I distinctly recall wishing that more buttons were used on the controller.

There are plenty of checkpoints, and while you might not be able to backtrack once you reach one, you can always restart a stage, which is nice. Collectibles take the form of strawberries. In game, collect enough strawberries and...you make a better strawberry pie at the end (another great part of the "important" story). For most people, the difficulty of the game will lock them down long before they sniff at the end of the game.

However, there are also "accessibility" options which make the experience much easier. You can make yourself invincible, with infinite jumps and dashes, so anyone can get through the story. There are also extra "challenge" stages that are unlocked after certain collectibles are found. These have no story to them, but the accessibility options still work here, so feel free to continue blowing through the trophies. Honestly, though I may sound as if I'm poo-poo'ing these options, I was thankful for them. Frustration mounted pretty early for me in this one, and at some point, I decided just to blow through it.

Is Celeste a good game? Honestly, I don't really know. A lot of it stinks of "modern" sensibilities. The story is an after-school special. The underlying platforming is fine, though it doesn't approach that of, say, Super Meat Boy. That's hardly a damning indictment in itself, but at the end of the day, I was glad to be done with this one. I give it a C+.

starcrunch061 · January 2, 2023

It's been a bit, huh? Well, we're back, and today, we'll review:

BLOODBORNE

Hell yeah! Now that's what I'm talking about! While I know there are some holdouts, most people accept that the story elements in FromSoft games are...lacking. Worse, those that are present can be very, very stupid sometimes (don't even get me started on the nonsense of Dark Souls 3). Bloodborne won't win any converts, but I'll say this for it - its fever dream quality is the best place for creator Miyazaki's strange visions. For whatever reason, all of the elements of the nonsensical plots of Souls games (and you can throw Elden Ring in there, too) work for me here.

In Bloodborne, you are ostensibly some dude with an illness, who makes a trek to find a cure. And then, a bunch of weird stuff happens. I mean, a bunch of weird stuff happens. Brain-sucking demons? We got 'em. Space aliens? Why not. Scholars who turn themselves into (apparently vacuous) spiders? Yup. Parts of the brain masquerading as giant, invisible enemies? Bring it on. There's also some church. And werebeasts. And hunters.

It's a metric ton of video game nonsense, but it all works, because of the equally nonsensical environment. A seemingly Victorian industrial city gives way to a deep forest, which might lead to a medieval castle, or some strange mental hospital. Was there a swamp? Of course there's a swamp. And let's not forget a complex of underground(?) caves which require rituals to enter. Or some dream land that you can only enter if you find insight and talk to a doll. It's gloriously strange, and allows the nonsensical narrative to flourish. I tend to tune out stories in games, but with Bloodborne, I couldn't help but be interested. Because you never know when...vampires might appear around the corner.

The gameplay ditches the slow block and counter mechanics of earlier Souls games for a more fast-paced action extravaganza. Oh, don't get me wrong - this isn't Devil May Cry or anything. There is still method to the fighting madness. But with the ease of regaining hitpoints (injecting yourself with blood has never been simpler!), you might find yourself going in all guns blazing for many of the bosses on a first encounter. They'll probably kill you, but at least it will be furiously mad!

Graphically, I still love this game to this very day. The environment is stellar. Enemies are memorable. While there's not nearly as much customization in your armor as in, say, Dark Souls 2, it looks so damn good. I know that Bloodborne probably doesn't amaze as much today (not enough God rays, I guess), but aesthetically, it's hard to find its equal. The music is far more bombastic than in earlier entries (unlike Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2, the excellent-but-more-subtle Motoi Sakuraba doesn't compose the tunes here). But it works. When you fight, say, that Cleric Beast, and the music pops up, it sounds like it was made for the battle. When you hear its reprise against the much-more-deadly Vicar Amelia, you know she means business. And don't get me started about the crescendo-mad choir in the battle against the Abhorrent Beast. I love the sounds in this game.

The game is hard, though less annoying than previous Souls entries, mostly due to the ease of regaining HP. This allows you to have more fun fighting, as opposed to turtling behind a shield, hoping that the boss doesn't have some insta-kill attack. In fact, few bosses in Bloodborne have such an attack (the worst example is that stupid Crow assassin, but he's completely optional). For the most part, bosses seem fair, assuming you have a grip on your weapons. Oh, and I did mention? Your weapons are Transformers! They can morph into different forms! It's completely unbelievable, but it's really good. I like the wheel weapon, myself.

All in all, this game is a grand old time. I wouldn't mind seeing a cleaned-up version for the PS5 (like so many other PS4 games have gotten). But even if the PS4 version is all that's available, it's well worth your time to play it. I give this one a grade of A+. It would merit an S (my highest grade), but the load times on the PS4 feel long, even today. Also, the Extra version of the game does not include DLC, but do yourself a favor and pick it up. It's fantastic.

Happy gaming!

Edited March 17, 2023 by starcrunch061

starcrunch061 · January 24, 2023

Well, in our erratic trip through the PS+ Extra library, we come upon what seems to be a pretty polarizing game in the community. I admit up front that I do not yet have the platinum trophy for this game, though I have finished it, and done a majority of the trophies, seeing multiple endings (you are welcome to check my progress here and dismiss my review if you desire). But today, I give you:

PREY

As I mentioned earlier, Prey seems to have a lot of vocal hate, and a nontrivial amount of vocal love. Developed by Arkane studios (which is also responsible for the Dishonored games, among others), Prey follows a tragedy which befalls a research station in outer space. You are the brother/sister of the chief scientist, and are tasked with...well, a few different things. Do you save the people on the station, or kill them because they may be infected? Do you save the station itself, as well as all the valuable work therein, or destroy it due to that selfsame work which poses a hazard to all life on earth? And, more personally, do you atone for your own checkered (but unremembered) past, or simply move forward, ignoring any apologies or redress for your (potential) wrongdoing?

All in all, the game has a pretty interesting hook, and I was on board at the start. The weird behavior of scientists, the ersatz nature of your life - all of this makes for a pretty tasty introduction. However, as the game goes through its turns, I became less and less involved in this hook. An example (which shouldn't spoil anything): early on, while taking a test, I was asked to find a place to hide in a room. The room is empty, save for a single small chair. After some initial confusion on my part, I crouched behind the chair, much to the confusion of the scientists observing me. What were the scientists seeing that I wasn't? But later, as we moved into the space station (and its hazards), no one seemed to look askance at me. My behavior seemed as natural as anyone else's, and I completely forgot about this intro element. A tantalizing potential for self discovery was left by the wayside.

As far as gameplay goes, it's pretty standard stealth first-person. "Stealth" is the key word here; enemies tend to be damage sponges, so avoiding them is often significantly safer (to say nothing of faster) than engaging them. You'll encounter a LOT of locked doors as you progress, and happily, there are many ways to get through them. Maybe you can lift a key off a dead body. Maybe you can hack the door. Maybe there's a window to shoot out. Or a ceiling grate to pass through. This was very welcome to me, and kept the game moving. There were a few unfortunate instances where you simply had no alternative but to find a key, and I definitely remember that as the most annoying part of the game.

Enemy variety is sorely lacking. There are like four enemy types in the game. There's a mimic enemy that will annoy you, but it otherwise fairly harmless. There's a phantom enemy that comes in three or four flavors (regular, fire, electric and maybe one more that I can't remember), there are a couple of flying enemies that can control man or machine, and there's a giant enemy that you can just run away from for three minutes, and it will disappear. Somewhat disappointing, but again, I was rarely engaging them. Oh, I guess there are also humans and machines on the station that can attack you if they're controlled by a flying enemy. I don't really count them, since they're not terribly deadly.

But anyway, you go through the game, picking up what you can. There are various guns and other devices, though I found the wrench to be the most useful weapon. There is a strange object called a GLOO gun which shoots solidifying matter, allowing you sometimes to scale walls. This was a cool idea in theory, but I found ascending these GLOO blobs to be incredibly tedious (and mostly unnecessary, outside of trophies). Ultimately, you'll gain access to the entire station, and even the nearby space outside, and you'll learn what's necessary to complete your objectives. There are multiple endings, and I found the ultimate denouement to be entirely satisfying. It was a great cap, explaining a lot of the oddities I had forgotten from earlier.

So, all in all, we have a pretty good game...sort of. But there are issues. First and foremost is performance. This game was released on PS4, and it runs like a turd. I'm pretty sure I heard the PS4 wheezing as it tried to load up a new area. Load times are extreme (as long as 45 seconds in one instance!), and you'll need to pass through areas a lot (particularly if you're playing blind). It runs much better on the PS5, though load times are still nontrivial (definitely the longest I've experienced in my short time with the PS5).

The game has some cool story beats, but it plays like every other first-person game I've ever played. I crouch. I sneak around. Sometimes I kill things, but most of the time, I run away. There's nothing wrong with this; not everything has to innovate. But it made the experience feel much more humdrum than the story might demand.

Trophies for this game are a slog. It's certainly not the hardest trophy list ever, but man - is it annoying. The trophies force you into very regulated playthroughs. You have to complete the game without any abilities. You have to complete the game once with human abilities, and once with alien abilities. Why put such strictures on a game where choice is front and center?

Moreover, some actions should have been important within the game, but are only made important by the inclusion of a trophy. For example, it seems useful to verify the life status of each of the researchers and other humans on the station. That should be something which is valued within the game. Alas - your only reward will be a silver trophy. You'll come across tons of emails and recorded messages throughout the game, and many of them are useful to you, as they provide door codes or safe combinations, etc. But as in CyPunk77, I felt a disconnect between the communications of the space station, and the actual goings on within. I had hoped that these emails might provide more insight into the predicament, but mostly, they're fluff. And the few times that useful story information is provided, it's very localized to person writing/speaking the message. Is this realistic? Sure. Is it fun? Questionable.

All in all, I didn't dislike Prey. But neither do I find it particularly spellbinding. Overall, I give this one a B, but this assumes you play it on the PS5. If you have only the PS4, drop that to a C+ for performance issues, and a C- if you intend to go for the platinum (good luck with those load times as you try to locate the dozens of people on the station!). The story is worth your time. The gameplay might not be. Happy gaming!

Edited January 24, 2023 by starcrunch061

starcrunch061 · February 3, 2023

Quick turnaround this week. It's time to review the first fully-PS5 game I have played on Extra. So, with that, I give you

DEMON'S SOULS (PS5)

I recently wrote a mini-review of my experience with this game on the "Most Recent Plat" thread, but now, it's time to dig in a bit more. Demon's Souls, as most know, was the game that put FromSoft on the Western map. While From had released solid titles in the past (among others, there is the Armored Core series, and King's Field, a personal favorite of mine), they were niche even among niche games. Demon's Souls didn't light up sales numbers or anything, but it was by far From's most successful title in the West at the time, and its slow burn really put people onto the now-ubiquitous "Souls" experience.

While numerous other Souls games have been produced since then, the Demon's Souls storyline has never been expanded on, and never been re-released...until 2020, when developers BluePoint tried their hand at a remake/remaster/whatever (I hate people that argue over these meaningless terms, so just take whichever one best fits your own description). BluePoint is no stranger to remasters and re-releases; it's pretty much their oeuvre. Most recently, they remastered the classic Shadow of the Colossus, to much fanfare (and some minor complaint). For me personally, Demon's Souls was one of the main reasons I wanted a PS5, but unfortunately, supply issues kept it away from me (and others). Finally, 2+ years later, I got a hold of my PS5, and since Demon's Souls was on PS+ Extra, I expanded my subscription, and here we are.

So, what's the big deal? Why the fanfare for a remake? Well, Demon's Souls improves in a LOT of ways over its predecessor. Graphically, it's (obviously) a different world. The game has a spanking look to it. Environments are clear while remaining menacing. Enemies and characters have exceptional detail. The color is improved. Weapons and armor look good. All in all, there is both visual improvement, and aesthetic devotion to the original release. While plenty of games have missed one or the other of these, Demon's Souls joins that pantheon that includes the Medieval and Spyro remakes, but unlike those games (which were working from PS1 originals), this one improved immensely from a PS3 release.

Musically, the game is a feast for the ears (is that a thing?). This was one of my main concerns about a re-release; having heard Square butcher so many of their own soundtracks by remixing or re-recording them, I was fearful of what might happen. Even Souls games have gone from the subtle excellence of the original Dark Souls to a more bombastic, Hollywood sound of Dark Souls 3. That's not to say that Dark Souls 3 is bad, but I would be concerned if the same composers decided to rewrite the music of the original.

Happily, BluePoint gets it right. Boss themes are at once different, and the same. The Flamelurker is a great example. There is a strong orchestration in place here, but ultimately, the underlying theme is the Flamelurker tune from the original Demon's Souls. In the original Demon's Souls, both the Tower Knight and the Penetrator had the same theme. That's not true in the remake, but again, you can hear the underlying "Boletarian Knight" music in both battles. It's reminiscent to variations on classical themes written by other composers, and it works exceedingly well.

But graphics and music isn't what it's about. It's about the gameplay! And here, I can say that the gameplay has improved, though I'm not quite as excited about it. Combat bells and whistles remain the same. The control from the original Demon's Souls is almost identical here, so you'll feel right at home immediately. Weapons feel different; I had read complaints that weapons lacked weight in the remake, but I never experienced this. Maybe I used extremes too often, but I felt a great difference in long sword, mace, and great sword. Lock on is solid here, and I never felt that the game wasn't doing what I wanted it to do in that regard, with one exception; the Tower Knight battle can be very annoying due to shifting lock points. This was an issue in the original as well, but it wasn't improved here.

My main gripe with combat is that it all feels too easy. Yeah - I know; I've played for a long time, so naturally, I know what I'm trying to do. But it seems far too simple to block attacks with a shield, even if those attacks should be ones that floor you. The Flamelurker is a great example: equip that Purple Flame Shield, and you can pretty much tank through everything he shoots at you. It is far less frightening when he goes into full-on rage if you can just keep blocking him with little penalty. The False King is one of the easiest battles in the game. He has incredibly poor tracking in this remake, often targeting empty space well away from you. His Soulsucker attack has no bite to it, because he's so poor at tracking you. With the exception of Lord Rydell (his BP can do immense damage to you if you try to tank him, and you fight him in a long, narrow corridor), I can't name another enemy that gave me trouble.

I found the hit boxes strange at times (notably in PvP), and that tanking issue was apparent there as well. In one hilarious encounter, I was fighting a mage, who somehow managed to tank my Dragon bone Smasher with a mini-shield. I think it confused the other player as well; it took minutes before he realized that he could counter me easily, since I just couldn't do any damage. But at times, that Smasher really did a number on foes. While playing as the Old Monk, I would annihilate players with it. All in all, it was fun, but it seemed more random than I remembered.

Trophies in this title are good, and border on great. I thoroughly enjoyed getting the plat in this one.

All in all, I give this game a solid A+. Be wary of anyone who tells you that this experience is flawed because <insert random technical reason that you've never cared about before, but seems useful to prove that this game sucks>. The critics got this one right. It's not perfect, but it's a great experience, and I'm happy that BluePoint decided to remake this game. The only thing keeping this from the fabled S grade is a minor lack of difficult combat. Not everything should be easy. Happy gaming!

Edited April 5, 2023 by starcrunch061

TheBusToYoker · February 6, 2023

On 03/02/2023 at 2:46 PM, starcrunch061 said:

But graphics and music isn't what it's about. It's about the gameplay!

Exactly. And this is why pong will always be the example of gaming in its purest form every developer should strive too live up to. I ain't joking.

On 03/02/2023 at 2:46 PM, starcrunch061 said:

Musically, the game is a feast for the ears (is that a thing?).

No. But it sounds better than saying music to my ears. See what I did there? If anyone gives you shit, just say you got it from the urban dictionary. It's as real a dictionary as any to draw words and phrases from in building your diction. And a diction which will more likely be understood by everyone these days. I mean you could try describing *insert game* made me feel crestfallen, or *insert game" story was very peripatetic. You'd technically be more correct, but everyone will just think you are plain wrong.

I feel like such a peasant not having a PS5 at this point, and I have a 65" OLED TV! I would not recommend anyone plays most modern games on a screen that size. It's primary function is suppose to be for watching Blu-rays, but I'm using it for gaming due to the absence of having a monitor. Hopefully, from what I've read, PS5 stock will soon no longer be at Mad Max levels of supply. It wasn't like I was preparing to don bondage gear or anything to get my hands on one, honest.

Copanele · February 7, 2023

On 2/3/2023 at 4:46 PM, starcrunch061 said:

DEMON'S SOULS (PS5)

Nice one, big congrats

Yep, Demon's Souls is the main reason why I'd also grab a PS5, because BluePoint seems to have done a fantastic job in remastering this one. It did lose juuust abit of the soul (heh) of the original, but that's to be expected. From all the footage I've seen, this is not simply a lazy remake, this is an actual tribute.

On 2/3/2023 at 4:46 PM, starcrunch061 said:

Musically, the game is a feast for the ears (is that a thing?). This was one of my main concerns about a re-release; having heard Square butcher so many of their own soundtracks by remixing or re-recording them, I was fearful of what might happen. Even Souls games have gone from the subtle excellence of the original Dark Souls to a more bombastic, Hollywood sound of Dark Souls 3. That's not to say that Dark Souls 3 is bad, but I would be concerned if the same composers decided to rewrite the music of the original.

Damn...that's actually true I do kinda miss the subtle yet powerful soundtrack of the first Souls/Demon Souls game.

Dark Souls 3 still has a nice soundtrack but that's quite a good point!

Well, guess I should double my effort in searching for a PS5 now

starcrunch061 · February 15, 2023

Given another injection of PS+ Extra subscription, that means more games are played fresh. So, with no further ado, I give my latest Extra plat:

FINAL FANTASY XV (ROYAL)

Well, here we are. This is my first foray into a new FF game since World of Final Fantasy (which, incidentally, was the only time in the last 15 years that I paid full price for a FF game). I've been down on the FF series since the release of FFXIII, though I did play (at discount) both of its sequels, as well as (for free) Type-0 (God bless the library). FF XV was also actually at my library for some time, but I passed it up, hearing some pretty troubling things about the game.

But, here we are. Let's get this out of the way: Final Fantasy XV is a bad game. I will have some praise for this game, but nothing (NOTHING) can excuse the release of an unfinished game with the issues that this one possesses. Has this game cast a pall over Square? I don't know - certainly they haven't had the best luck with new releases (not counting VII-R, though even in that case, I would imagine Square is feeling trepidation regarding the sales of its impending sequels). Between terribly ignored (and possibly terrible) rehashes of old franchises like Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile, to completely ignored published properties like Babylon's Fall and Stranger of Paradise, Square is certainly in need of a hit moving forward, and this title might have been the catalyst for these issues.

But I digress; we're not here to talk about Square's trouble. So, let's get to it. This will be a long, rambling review. I don't think there are any real spoilers here, though; I use the tags mostly to organize the review into digestible components.

Part 1: STORY

Spoiler

To begin, at its heart, FF XV is a buddy pic made into a game. This is put front and center when our four heroes are shown pushing their car into a filling station, while (a cover of) the great Ben E. King song "Stand By Me" plays. The scene annoys me on some levels due to some nonsense story background we're given, but all in all, it's a nice change of pace from the typically overblown pomposity of Final Fantasy titles. While FF XIII bored me to tears with nonsensical lore about funny-spelled entities like L'Cie and Fal'Cie, FF XV plays some small ball here. We've got some folks who are out to see the world, and are currently down on their luck.

You'll hear this refrain a lot in this review, but here is my first iteration: this could have worked well. And indeed, for a large portion of the game, it does work well...sort of? Yes, your character is a king, and yes, he has an ultimate destiny, but it's far less interesting than simply going around, helping the townsfolk, hunting baddies, and seeing the sites. I really wish this game had re-worked its story; e.g., perhaps our prince/king Noctis could have been...eighth in line for the throne? Knowing he'll never ascend, he uses his time helping his family by helping the commoners. Or maybe, Noctis could have had a terminal illness, and wishes to use his remaining time seeing a world he to which he was never privy within his castle walls (a "Final Fantasy" indeed!).

But somehow, we are to suspend disbelief at the idea that no one recognizes the king of their land, and that the king himself can't even get a car that doesn't break down immediately upon use? It just doesn't work. The king of Insomnia (Noctis? Insomnia? There's some of that idiotic name pomposity that modern FF is known for!). Further, our hero's kingdom is apparently the target of a ruthless neighboring empire which will stop at nothing to... do whatever the hell it is that they're doing. I had to ignore all of this nonsense, and in doing so, I rather enjoyed the first 1/2 of the game.

But ultimately, that "story" creeps in, and...yeah. So, as far as I can understand, your kingdom is attempting to make peace with its aggressive neighbors, the Niffleheim Empire. Your father is sending you away for..reasons, while this happens. Apparently, everyone knows the fix is in, and sure enough, the Empire betrays trust, and attacks your kingdom, subjugating it and killing your father. This empire is ruled by some...emperor (with a funny name I can't remember). He shows up in one cutscene asking about a crystal and ring, and ordering the death of you and your betrothed, who is possibly part of the empire, possibly a religious figure, and possibly some hippy. I don't really know.

Anyway, this Empire, for no reason whatsoever, announces that both you and your betrothed are dead. Literally within an hour of gametime, everyone knows this is false, and no one cares in the least. You go around helping people, while picking up what seem to be holographic weapons. Then, stuff happens, and someone in the empire helps you for some reason. The empire collapses for some reason, your party gets mad at you for some reason, then you move forward in time a decade for some reason. Then, you fight Cerberus, Ifrit and the final boss. And the game ends...maybe, but you're able to move through time for some reason, so it doesn't really end.

You might thing I'm making this up, but I'm not. Things just happen in the story, and you are expected to roll with it. Remember that emperor I mentioned? He never shows up again. In fact, he's only mentioned one more time; in one of the stranger events, after you kill a monster, the emperor calls out, bemoaning the fact that his plans were thwarted...somehow. You don't see him, you have no idea what happened, and you never hear from (or of) him again.

Normally, I wouldn't blather on about story, but people tend to care about that for JRPGs, so there you go. It sucks. I've heard that there is a movie and a comic that fill in the details. Screw that noise.

Part 2: COMBAT

Spoiler

So now, let's talk combat. FF XV tries at being a simplified action game, and this could have worked well. In order to attack, you press (and hold) . In order to guard you press (and hold) . To jump, press . Finally, by pressing , you can warp yourself instantaneously to another location, at the cost of a few MP. You are able to equip 4 weapons, and you may replace weapons with created magic spells from various elements and items you find on your journey. Your party members are AI controlled, and have one dominant weapon and one additional weapon/magic. For the most part, the AI works defensively, so your party members tend to survive pretty well, but do sub-standard damage.

As you battle, you can open up combinations attacks with your party members in various ways. Attack an enemy from behind, and your party member will jump in automatically and follow up. Perform a warp strike on a downed enemy, and you can begin a combo with up to 10 hits + 1 final attack. You can also call on party members to attack an enemy, provided that you have charged up a particular meter (a "tech" bar). These extra attacks are easy to pull off, and admittedly very useful. Everyone in your party is invincible during the animation (which is a bit long and repetitive), so if you see an enemy charging up a death shot, simply hold , and choose a party member with the directional buttons. As the game progresses, you can call summon spells. These are erratic, but highly destructive. The battle music will change, and you need to hold (for a long time) .

Ultimately, enemies will damage you. Losing all of your HP does not kill you, however - you simply fall into a KO state, and your max HP begin to drop. You have access to multiple healing items, and as long as you consume one before your max HP drop to 0, you'll return to the fight. Other healing items will actually top off your max HP as well. If the max HP of Noctis (your controlled party member) drops to zero, it's game over, but this rarely happens...unless an enemy has an insta-deth attack. The usual suspects possess these (Tonberries, Coeurls, Liches, etc.), as well as some bosses. Some enemies have the ability to lower your max HP without bringing you to KO state. Insta-deth kind of sucks, as there is no real tell for such an attack (and, in the case of Coeurls, at least, no way to block it), but without them, an already easy game would have become trivial.

All in all, it's not a bad system. There's a lot going on here. And at times (e.g. in the so-called Menace Dungeons, post-game dungeons with the toughest enemies, over and over), it's quite fun. But for the main game, two issues really bring all of this down. The first, to which I alluded earlier, is that the game is too easy. Rank and file enemies might provide a challenge, but you can just run away (rather simply) from any encounter. Boss fights are a very bad joke. They seem to be set piece battles that are scripted to be won at 100%. This includes the final boss. In a sad indictment of the game, I held during the entire fight, never guarding, only occasionally popping a potion to top off health (had I been more leveled, this too would have been unnecessary). This happens for multiple summon bosses as well. There is absolutely no strategy whatsoever in the main game.

The second problem is incredibly sluggish control. The game has issues with recognizing when you've swapped out your buttons. While some attacks are certainly unblockable, on plenty of occasions, you will press for a blockable attack, and it just won't do anything. Some attack animations are very long, and there doesn't seem to be a way to cancel them. This is acceptable (though undesirable) in a standard action game, but for a game where you're just holding a button, there's no excuse for this. Guard and jump should always trump attack. Speaking of jump, I don't think I ever used it in combat, and while I recognize the utility of a jump, it's incredibly annoying during the main game, since is also used for context-sensitive actions, such as picking up items or squeezing through tunnels. No fooling - I think that for any item which I picked up in the game, I initially did a meaningless jump, because while the context press was displayed on the screen, the game had not transitioned the controls.

One of the worst offenders is the summon. You can hold for what feels like an eternity, but that summon is only popping up when it wants to. I thought my summon was broken the first time (a story-scripted battle), but I just needed to keep holding the button.

At this point, I'd like to mention that there are two difficulty levels for combat: Easy and Normal. There is absolutely no reason to play on Easy unless you're looking for a 60-hour Ratalaika plat. I'll confess that I have not yet beaten Omega, but I've defeated every other challenge in the main game on Normal, and outside of a couple of annoying Menace Dungeons...there is no challenge.

All in all, combat is not putrid, and at times (much later in the game), it rises to fun levels. But as with so much else, it could have been much, much more.

Part 3: GAMEPLAY

Spoiler

Gameplay beats are decent, but flawed (what a surprise!). For the majority of the game, you are traveling the countryside in your car (the Regalia) with your buddies, helping out the common folk. They might need you to make deliveries, or kill monsters, or dig up old treasures, etc. It doesn't really forward any main plot, as I've mentioned earlier, but it's not bad. The problem is that there is nothing particularly rewarding about this in the game.

For example, there are a massive number of monster hunts throughout the game. Apparently, there is a hunter's guild of sorts, which you informally join by saving its hapless leader. Each town posts various nuisance monsters, and there is even a point system and ranking system associated with it. You might think this is like FFXII...and you'd be wrong. Because as far as I can tell, no one is actually paying attention to your rank. It can be a pain to find hunts (hunts are listed locally, so you'll have to drive between rest stops and restaurants to find them), and your rewards for progressing through the ranks are a bunch of worthless trinkets (seriously - the accessories you get for moving up ranks are likely to be far worse than random stuff you find on the ground during your travels). Most individual monster hunts reward you with Gil and healing items, though there are a couple of notable exceptions; one rewards you with a Ribbon, arguably the best accessory in the game. Some monster hunts are locked behind a rank, but there's nothing particularly special about them. For example, the lone trophy hunt, against the Adamantoise, can be taken on by any hunter. Not a great system. (Oh, and don't get me started on this abomination of a battle - this review is already far too long).

Quests tend to be concentrated to a few particular individuals, along quest chains. As you progress in the chain, you get better stuff (though not great stuff or anything). Some of them are really lame. In one sequence, you'll have to hunt down yellow frogs. Then, red frogs. Then rainbow frogs. There might have been other colors, too. BORING!!

This game has a bizarre fast travel system. Your car can drive pretty much anywhere with a road, and occasionally, you'll see parking places. Park in one of these places, and you'll unlock a fast-travel point (WARNING! You must park in the place! It's not enough just to make note of it! This set me back a little bit later in the game.) However, in order to fast travel, you must first return to your car, then choose a parking place, and then tell the game that you wish to fast travel. It costs a nominal amount of Gil to do this (5 gil, though the Royal edition of the game seems to cut every price in half, which was nice). You can also try to travel to a quest point; if there is a nearby parking place, you might get the option to fast travel, though the game has strange definitions of "nearby parking place". It's far more confusing than it needs to be.

But all in all, this portion of the game is OK. However, as I stated earlier, story beats will take over, at which point the game makes bizarre design decisions. It's well known that FF XV grew out of FF XIII Versus. But I believe that this game cannibalized a LOT of projects. One in particular is an oddball segment that seems to pretend at survival horror. The game tells you that you can hide from enemies (which ostensibly seems reasonable, since your weapons have been "turned off" - don't ask). At times, seemingly dead enemies will grab your feet, and you'll need to press over and over to escape. Other axe-wielding enemies will attempt to slice you to pieces. No fooling - I think this was a long-abandoned survival horror project.

However, during this segment, the game also gives you a magic ring...and a Nuke spell. I'm not kidding, either - you have a spell that will kill any group of enemies in the scenario in one hit. So much for the jump scares. Yes, the ring requires magic, but your magic charges so quickly that you can literally use it against every group of enemies you encounter.

For whatever reason, at some point, one of your party members hates you. I have no idea why. The game tries to explain it, but like so much else, it fails miserably. This leads to one of the worst segments I've played in a JRPG, where your party members bitch at you incessantly because you're not being sensitive or some nonsense. I generally hate when my party dislikes me for a character flaw I had no part in creating (think Tales of the Abyss for an example). But in this case, I'm not really sure what my party member did. That's how bad the storytelling is. This goes on for too long of a time. Then, you fight a Malboro, and everyone is friends again. Just. Like That.

If you're like me, you'll likely find yourself rushing the ending, so you can get back to the more entertaining part of the game. I skipped no cutscenes, but I might as well have. It would have made just as much sense.

Part 4: AESTHETICS

Spoiler

Square has long been known for its delightful graphics and absorbing music. So, why is this game so pedestrian? The open worlds looks empty and pointless. Character models have poor detail; one character you'll encounter a lot (a professor) looks like she blackens her teeth like some dame in 16th century Japan. Environments look OK, but nothing special. Dungeons are poor, repetitive nonsense. The main characters look remarkably stock - they apparently spend as much on hair product as on food, clothing and gasoline combined.

Music is forgettable in the extreme. Seriously, I can't think of one new tune. This is a first for me in a FF game. You can buy other FF soundtracks within the game, but unfortunately, you can only hear them while riding in the car...which you don't want to do, because you want to play.

Voice work is absolutely terrible. While I rather enjoyed the voices of the main party characters, the townsfolk are clearly more bored than I am during our conversations. All in all, this is a poor excuse for the supposed aesthetic powerhouse that Square tends to create.

In summary, this is not a good game. It is fascinating that the devs were able to make anything approaching a playable title from the assets given to them. I respect that. It's like a small town holding out strongly against a major power for a few days. But ultimately, that small town is overrun, and forgotten, and so too will be this game.

That being said, I didn't hate it. The plat didn't overstay its welcome (57 hours), and the post-game content is genuinely fun (I'm still playing it, after all). Certainly, it's a breath of fresh air to see a game take itself less seriously; after the painful notes of FF XIII and its sequels, I appreciate a smaller focus game (even if I'm forced to suffer through another "save the world!" end story). I think my best comparison is this: this feels like a Gust/Idea Factory game with a bigger budget. It's like Proud Clod in FF VII; a completely inept fool of a machine that you feel sympathy for, since it can't help who created it.

Ultimately, I give this game a C. If you prefer story to gameplay in your games, I drop that all the way to an F. Happy gaming!

Edited April 5, 2023 by starcrunch061

starcrunch061 · February 28, 2023

Back with another episode of the Extra-Ordinary journey, and today, we're taking a relaxed view towards gaming with:

KEY WE

Key We is a game about a pair of kiwi birds who decide to take a job at a New Zealand post office. Having worked as a mail carrier in my younger years (as my parents did before me), I have to say that...this had nothing to do with my selection of the game. Actually, my wife saw a copy of it in the library, and thought it looked cute.

And it turns out, Key We is both cute and fun! The game focuses on various tasks within the post office, including typing and sending letters, delivering packages for an octopus clerk, pasting words onto paper to form message that are then carried far and wide by cassowaries, and in general, just making sure that the mail flows. It can be played as a SP game; the controls are quite intuitive in "Quick Swap" mode, though I had no luck with controlling each kiwi with its own analog stick. But the heart of this game is its MP mode, where each person controls one kiwi completely, and must work together to finish the various tasks.

As the game moves on, variations of these tasks appear, as do various weather hazards, special holiday sessions, and the like. In total, there are 36 main tasks set across three seasons, which increase in difficulty as time passes. In addition, there are "overtime" tasks which are quite unlike any of the tasks in the main game (including one hilarious one where you must lead an orchestra of sorts). I found all of them to be a blast. Completing tasks is required for progression, so if you get stuck, you can't move on. Happily, the lowest level of satisfaction with a task is pretty easy to achieve. There are three in total (bronze, silver and gold). You are rewarded with stamps for completing each task (with more stamps given for better performance). Stamps can be exchanged for various cosmetic items, such as new colors, new outfits, and new "hairstyles". These items can also be unlocked by finding hidden collectibles in the main game, or completing overtime jobs a sufficient number of times.

Given that this is a SP/MP game, it's worth asking about balance. Honestly, it works on both sides, though I found the main game tasks were easier in SP, while the overtime tasks were easier in MP. Trophies do exactly what you want: complete all tasks at the "gold" level, purchase cosmetic items, find collectibles. You'll likely need a guide for the collectibles, though; they are nontrivial to find (I didn't spot a single one in my first playthrough).

All in all, this game is best in couch co-op mode. You'll have a blast trying to communicate the locations of moving letters on the typewriter, or missing "fragile" stickers for deliveries, etc. Sometimes, you have to operate machinery in tandem, so you'll need to work that out, too. But even in SP, this game is pretty fun, though a bit more repetitive. My one gripe was a control issue, particularly when I needed to send cassowaries on their way. For whatever reason, on both PS4 and PS5, my kiwi would just turn away from his task. Maybe it's just me.

Grading Key We, I give it a B+. Enjoy!

Edited April 4, 2023 by starcrunch061

Joe Dubz · March 17, 2023

Damn, why didn't anyone tell me Starcrunch started a checklist thread!! I've only made it through the first 2 so far, due to lack of time. But I'll be back for the rest and looking forward to your future endeavours my dude ?

starcrunch061 · March 23, 2023

Today, back with another Extra-ordinary review. Today, we have

ONINAKI

Hoo boy - where do I begin? Well, if you're an old-school JRPG fan like me, you were excited when Tokyo RPG Factory issued its mission statement, if you will. A subsidiary company of Square-Enix, it was to be a company dedicated to old-school RPGs like you might have played in the SNES/PS1 days. Given Square's (and Enix's) incredible pedigree, this seemed like a match made in heaven. Indeed, I have wondered why Square completely abandoned the old turn-based JRPG market. While freely admitting that this wouldn't be a huge money maker, there was still clear interest in the genre. Hell - Kemco has managed to release the same game 132,914 times. Squeenix should absolutely have thrown its hat into this ring, and Tokyo RPG Factory seemed like the moment that this occurred.

A few years back, we got our first release, a small title called I Am Setsuna. And it was...eh? I mean, there was clear potential, but it felt like corners were cut. All of the music was composed and performed on piano, and while it wasn't offensive, it lacked any sort of spirit (honestly, today people might suggest it was AI-generated). The graphics were passable - characters had a cutesy, Brave Fencer Musashi look (with only a bit more detail), but the environments were terribly bland, due to a decision to make everything (EVERYTHING) snowy. Gameplay was standard, and the game didn't overstay its welcome (I finished in around 9-10 hours, though the plat took much longer). All in all, it was a fine budget title that showed unfulfilled promise - and sold for $40. The game spawned a spiritual sequel (Lost Sphear, which I never played) - which sold for $50! All in all, a bit overpriced, and I would guess that most people picked it up on discount.

The third release, Oninaki, takes a bit of a detour from classic turn-based RPG to introduce an action component. There's nothing wrong with this in theory - Square also released some good action RPGs back in the day, including the Mana series. But in practice? This game is a mess. At times, it's an outright disaster.

Let's start with the good...sort of. Oninaki begins with an interesting story twist. Early on, you learn that you are able to converse with the dead that have not passed on. In particular, you meet a young boy who is scared to move on. Reuniting him with his (still living) parents, you seemingly threaten the boy that you will have to kill his parents if he doesn't move on. Of course, this is just a ruse - the child realizes that his time has passed, and in no way does he want his parents to die, so he tearfully says goodbye and moves on in a sappy (and poorly-written) scene...

...

...except, that's not what happens. Instead, the boy insists he won't leave without his parents, and so you slay both of them. Pretty interesting concept here. I was hooked at the beginning. And indeed, as you continue, you learn that the cycle of reincarnation is vital to the existence of the world in which you dwell, and that people give up their lives voluntarily all the time. Of course, there might be something rotten in this system, but at no point is it suggested that people don't believe in the system. The system isn't really used to oppress the poor, or the disadvantaged - everyone, from the upper strata to the lower dregs, believes in the cycle of reincarnation.

This is good. This is unexpected, and in a Japanese game, unexpected is always good. So, the game moves on these story beats - you are given missions to release the dead who got lost on their way to the next life, and sometimes release the living from their respective mortal coils. Unfortunately, the ordinary treatment of this world ultimately makes it boring - while I was surprised at the initial encounter between boy and parents, by round three, it's a ho hum part of the world, and nothing has really changed. Sure, there is a "big bad" hanging around, but it takes forever to understand the motivations of this person, who is actually controlled by another person, who is actually the reincarnated form of another person, who happens to be the brother of another person...<snore>

So, whatever. The story gets boring. Who cares? It's an action RPG. And the action...SUCKS. You initially start as a sword-fighter, due to a pact you've made with a "daemon" (there is some backstory here, but it's completely extraneous to the game). As you progress, you will make pacts with other "daemons", which grant you the use of other weapons. Each daemon has its own skill tree, with its own experience currency. Parts of the skill tree are locked by backstory of the respective daemons; I had hoped these might be fun, like the beast backstories of Final Fantasy X-2. But they're bone dry, bog standard boring. If you're like me, you'll likely skip them. But you at least have to unlock them, in order to get to the rest of your skill tree...which is mostly useless. Sure, you get new skills, and often more powerful ones, and yeah, you get a few passives here and there, but for the most part, this does very little in improving your character. I will note that the daemons' respective weapons are very different from one another. Personally, I found the gun user to be vastly better than any other daemon in the game.

Another development wrinkle, which was in I Am Setsuna (and, presumably, Lost Sphear), is the ability to upgrade your skills by affixing adds. As you use your weapons, you will occasionally (but regularly) "awaken". This basically means that your weapon, for a limited time, now does something new. Maybe that new thing is that none of your skills have a reload time. Maybe your skills add status effects. Maybe your skills replenish HP. The point is, the effects are generally good, but temporary. However, they leave a residual, equipable effect which is permanent. Each skill begins with 4 equip slots, though over time, they gain more (in one instance, I was up to 8 slots on a skill). This is an interesting idea, but completely unnecessary to crack. Don't think this is going to give you a "build" or anything like that. If you're like me, you'll add equips that raise power, lower cooldown time, raise critical percentage and add random status effects (very useful, as one effect is an insta-kill which triggers a shocking amount of the time, even on the hardest difficulties).

So, what does it add up to? Well, enemies will spawn around you, and you'll kill them, over and over and over again. That's it. Combat itself is a very bad joke - you move as if you're mired in molasses. Enemies can interrupt your skills, and many skills just flat-out suck, though AoE skills are great, particularly if you have added random status effects. As you perform actions, skill tree currency will drop. The game would like you to believe that these drops are based on enemy kills, but in fact, they are relatively regular drops that occur on any action, such as hitting an enemy, or even drinking a heal potion. Awakenings are more random, but still pretty regular. You will never trigger awakenings quickly in succession. And...that's the game. There are some bosses, but the only real difference is that they're bigger and mostly easier to deal with. My only difficult battle was against a totem pole with a guided rocket attack. I never figured out what to do in that one; I beat it by luck, when I managed to get the rocket launcher off the top of the screen, allowing me to thin the rest of the herd.

And that's it. You'll play through the completely linear game, picking up weapons and other equips Diablo-style. The weapons become a nuisance - they drop all the time, and while there is some progression, for the most part, you could stick with the same weapon throughout the entire main game (in the post-game, legendary weapons unlock, which are significantly better than anything you've found). You can combine weapons to improve them. This is necessary, but the system is incredibly clunky (you can only combine 8 weapons at a time, and combining weak weapons before strong will limit the effectiveness of the combinations and, ultimately, of the weapon). There are numerous side quests, in the form of lost spirits who need one last push to move on, but they're completely optional (although they do make the incredibly annoying plat pop sooner). There is a post-game dungeon, which might be the most boring post-game dungeon I've ever seen. There are unique bosses here, and what I can only assume is a "super boss". The game doesn't even acknowledge that you beat it, though. There is no reward whatsoever.

Three final points.

The graphics are substandard. There is no aesthetic style, and I probably don't have to tell you that technically, they fall by the wayside.
The game crashed on me. A lot. I had exactly 13 crashes during my plat run. Unacceptable.
Also, the game has a bestiary. Further, random drops can expand this bestiary, and give small side notes to the main story. The creature write-ups feel like the one place where a modicum of effort was exerted.

Tl;dr. Final verdict? Don't play this game. It's bad. I give it a D+, though if you're fortunate enough not to experience any crashes, you can raise it to a C-. But I wouldn't waste my time. The plat is very annoying, if you care about that, but there's not much reason to explore the game if you don't. The story has a decent concept, but is told poorly, and gets boring fast. Combat is terrible. Graphics are laughably bad, both in design and execution. There are plenty of good ARPGs from Japan out there. Both ~~Ys VIII~~ and Ys IX are on Extra. Stick with those. If you're looking to give Tokyo RPG Factory a try, steer clear of this one.

Edited July 1, 2023 by starcrunch061

starcrunch061 · April 4, 2023

Today, we take a break, and do some brief reviews for some Premium games.

Ape Escape

Solid title back in the day, but it's aged pretty poorly. Using the gadgets remains a blast, however. Few things are cuter than chasing around the apes with pants. If you've never played it, give it a go, but Ape Escape 2 might be a better option. Rating: B-

Wild Arms

One great thing about Premium is the ability to see some JRPGs from the past. Wild Arms is traditional turn-based goodness, but its high encounter rate and slow spell resolution haven't aged well. Soundtrack is quite good, though. A JRPG aficionado that hasn't played games in this series is missing out. Rating: B

Wild Arms 2

Few games improve more in a direct sequel than Wild Arms 2. This game brought forth a lot of improvements, such as the ability to cancel enemy encounters, personal skills to give characters a bit more diversity, a larger roster (which furthers that diversity), faster-paced battles, and much better graphics. The soundtrack is great, and there is a good story concept here. However, the localization is famously bad. Still, it's worth your time if you enjoy traditional JRPGs. Rating: A-

The Legend of Dragoon

Some games have aged poorly...and then there's Legend of Dragoon. High encounter rate, slow battles - they feel really anachronistic today. The polygon graphics might have passed muster in 2000 (though even then, they looked incredibly dated when placed next to Final Fantasy IX, which released less than six months later), but they look awful in HD (though cut scenes are solid). The rhythm-centered fighting mechanics work well enough, though the visual cues are way off at times. The soundtrack is so-so, and is so muted that it hardly matters. Still, the characters are likable, and the story is positively passable. Rating: C+

starcrunch061 · July 1, 2023

Been a while since I posted here. I haven't played a ton of Extra lately (I tried Returnal, and hated it, and I'm not in love with Inscryption), so I'm going back to the last title I platted from here, which was...

THE FORGOTTEN CITY

I tend to avoid games that tout awards that make no sense to me. The APA award for most realistic asylum simulator isn't something that sets my heart aflutter (I made that up). And so it was with The Forgotten City, which bragged about some...literary award? I don't know. It's a Skyrim mod, for crying out loud. I do like Skyrim, but...come on.

As it turns out, The Forgotten City is a nice piece of gaming for its comfortable play time. The hook is a time-loop plot that works rather well. You're trapped in a city of ancient Rome by a mysterious power that keeps everyone captured in this loop. Obviously, you have to figure out how to break the loop, ideally saving the denizens of the town in the process. Various denizens have their particular routines for the (short) time you're there, and their particular problems. The trick, though, is that if anyone in the town "commits a sin", the town is destroyed, and the loop begins again.

Exactly what "committing a sin" means is unknown. Does suicide cause us to begin again? Murder? Stealing? Saying mean things? Part of the fun is seeing exactly how far you can go. The ultimate cause of the loop is for you to determine, and there are a few red herrings along the way. Just like other good loop games (such as Majora's Mask),solving problems in one loop will allow you to quickly dispense with them in the next. In fact, you even have a helper of sort, who will fix issues for you in a new loop as you try to learn more about your situation. If I had one issue, I found the ending to be a bit anticlimactic, which is ironic, given its nature., though the epilogue was quite satisfying.

Control is smooth and gameplay is fluid. I experienced no crashes or even slowdown during my many playthroughs. Trophies are great for the title, fitting well with your tasks. The game can be beaten without a guide, and allows you a great deal of freedom in your play. The plat might require a few looks here and there, though I myself only needed the trophy info to get the plat. Voice work is good, and exploration is fun. All in all, it's a solid experience that I recommend: I rate it a B+ overall, due to a (slight) lack of content.

Edited July 1, 2023 by starcrunch061

starcrunch061 · November 1, 2023

Having renewed Extra and Premium for another year, more titles are coming. HOWEVER, while I'm getting closer to plats on titles like Darksiders 2 and Star Ocean 6, I haven't quite gotten over the hump yet. So today, I thought I would give another look at some premium titles, but this time, the theme is...APE ESCAPE!

Here. We. GO!

Ape Escape (PS1 and PSP):

I reviewed this one above, but I thought I would add in in PSP incarnation. The original Ape Escape from PS1 is still a fun game, but it hasn't aged terribly well. The control is less tight than you would like, but the use of the dual sticks is still interesting. The PSP version removes dual stick use, and is a lesser game for the experience. I would give the original Ape Escape a B-, and its PSP incarnation a C+.

Ape Escape 2:

The main issue with Ape Escape 2 is that we are given the European localization, which lacks any real pizzazz. It's not bad, per se, but neither is it very good. I don't know - I loved the voice of Specter in the American version, particularly when he marveled at Yellow Monkey's gargantuan transformation. But this game was a solid improvement over its predecessor, in pretty much every way. Monkey soccer is still a blast to play. I give this one an A-. A shame it has no plat, however.

Ape Escape Academy:

Despite its dumb title, this is a pretty solid game. It's a shame that it's only a single-player game. But the school idea is solid, and the minigames are absolutely hilarious at times (the 1-yard-dash is a favorite). The final year of school is a parody of the old Kung Fu game, and it's fun. This game would have been a nightmare to plat without the ability to rewind and save state. I give this a solid B+.

Ape Academy 2:

Well, they got the name right, at least. But this sequel (which might not have ever been released in the US) is a pale imitation of the game before it. The minigames themselves are OK, though not nearly as memorable. But the whole, "let's keep fighting the same person over and over to raise our rank" is as dull as dull can be. The deckbuilding aspect is terribly unfun as well. Worth playing only if you're an Ape Escape completionist - I give this a C-.

I wonder if we'll ever see Pumped and Primed from the PS2 days? That game made me and my then girlfriend (and now wife) fight.

Edited November 1, 2023 by starcrunch061

starcrunch061 · December 6, 2023

Finally! Completed an Extra game that wasn't Premium. In fact, I've completed 2, so first I give you:

ROGUE LEGACY 2

I don't know why, but I always think this is called "Rogue's Legacy". Now that that's out of the way, Rogue Legacy 2 (hereby dubbed RG2 - I can't wait for trademark law to refuse my use of RG3!) is a great game. I really enjoyed the first one back on the PS3, and the second one pretty much improves on all aspects.

As before, you start as a lowly single character, who must invade a series of diabolical dungeons full of dangerous denizens and dastardly disasters of the environment sort. You have your trusty weapon, as well as a talent and a magic skill. Magic is expensive, but MP are returned every time you hit an enemy, as well as through random potions found in breakables. Talents run the gamut, and are typically tailored to your class (of which there are many). For example, a knight has a shield that absorbs a certain percentage of damage. An archer can build a canopy from which to fire his arrows (and further, arrows become explosive when fired from this canopy). You characters also have traits. These tend to be negative, but after some leveling, negative traits will add a gold multiplier to your character. Thus, that poor mage that has projectiles which go through walls might get an extra 50% gold every time she picks up a coin, or a treasure, etc.

While possible, it is unlikely that you will clear the castle, or a single boss, with your first character. After your imminent death, you can then choose between three heirs (the number of heirs can be raised later). These heirs have randomized classes, talents, and traits, and sometimes also wear special trinkets which have positive benefits. Though your original character dies, the line carries on - all gold earned can be used to upgrade your castle, which does all kinds of neat things like raising attack, or equipment weight max. You can also use your gold to buy armor and runes...provided you've unlocked the blacksmith or enchantress, and brought him/her the required blueprints. The armor you can wear is dictated by your equipment weight, and your runes add to rune weight. As the game progresses, you will also open a "challenge house", which awards a new kind of currency called "souls". Souls don't enhance your character directly, but they can be used to extend the limits of your enhancements from castle building.

Ultimately, you must re-enter the castle by spending your remaining gold. Of course, there are also ways to keep some of this gold, as well as gain stat boosts from the amount of gold "donated" to get back into the castle. The whole process repeats, over and over, until you are of sufficient stature to challenge the bosses and, ultimately, the king himself. Then, you can loop by adding "burdens" to your character, which raise the level of enemies, and even give new forms of the main bosses.

That's a lot of summary! But the point is, there is a great deal of content here. Add to that the obligatory tight control and solid gameplay that the original Rogue Legacy was known for, and you have a great follow-up to a great game. Further, if you feel that things are a little too intense, you can dumb down the difficulty a shade (or a lot). These "house rules" were a mixed bag for me, mostly because they seemed somewhat thrown together. Toggling flight was a pretty cool feature, and I personally hate contact damage in a game (why is my armored character taking massive damage from...a fish flopping on land?). But most of the difficulty adjustments are the boring "enemies do x% of normal damage". There are no penalties whatsoever for this, which I also find silly. Why not reduce gold gain if you reduce damage? Given the amount of grinding, it's hardly a big penalty.

And speaking of grinding, phew! There is a LOT of it here. Finding all the armor blueprints is annoying (even more so should you adjust the level of armor in the challenge room). But the worst, by far, is waiting for other people in the castle to become your friend. I think it was Hades when I first encountered this idea of people randomly choosing to read lines from a set list. It took forever there, and it takes forever here. However, unlike Hades, where story beats were locked behind this annoying system, the only reward for befriending castle denizens is a trophy and a few extra souls (which pale in comparison to the souls you'll get from the challenge room). In fact, strangely, the Chthonic gods rear their head again here, just like in Hades. Despite having a deep and abiding interest in Greek mythology from my youth, I probably have seen the word "chthonic" more times playing Hades and Rogue Legacy 2 than I had in my entire life prior to that.

But if you've come for solid gameplay, great enemy variety, great bosses, you're in the right place. The grind is annoying, and drops the overall grade just a bit, but I give Rogue Legacy 2 a solid A.

Edited December 11, 2023 by starcrunch061

starcrunch061 · December 6, 2023

And now, the second Extra title

EIYUDEN CHRONICLE: RISING

Well, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and while that doesn't have anything to do with video games, it is uncanny when a great game is followed by a really lousy one. And yet, here we are.

As with many, I am truly stoked to see the Suikoden devs back at work on a Suikoden-like RPG. Next year, I'll be playing Hundred Heroes along with many others, and I still think I'll enjoy it immensely. But this prequel has dampened somewhat my enthusiasm. Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is a nice looking game. It has likable main characters. But everything else? TERRIBLE.

Let's begin with the gameplay. Rising has a bit of an identity crisis. On first glance, it looks to be a town-building game, in the vein of something like Rune Factory. You will meet many people who wish to follow their bliss, which usually entails opening a shop. In order to open their shop, they'll need you to fetch various items for them. The mayor is willing to let you search out ruins for fabulous treasure, provided that you help these townspeople. So, you'll go into forest areas, or mines, etc. finding things like lumber, ore. Once you find the requisite amount, you return them to the townspeople, who will thank you by giving you a stamp on your adventurer's card. The game would like you to believe that by filling these cards, you get people interested in your town. Indeed, each time a card is filled (except for the last card), you get a small cutscene with people moving around town. You even get a change in music.

The problem, however, is that your adventurer card isn't doing anything to build your town. Your town grows as your sidequests are completed, sure, but your sidequests are gated by the game's main story. And what is this main story? Good question. From what I can gather, your first main character (CJ) got kicked out of her house until she dug up something really good. That's it. You get two more main characters later, but neither of them have particularly solid motivations (in fact, for one of them, you only find out about sick family members and pressure from unnamed empires at the literal end of the game).

But whatever - town-building games aren't made on their stories, after all. So what if I don't know what motivates them? As long as I get that lumber, we're good? Well, here's the problem: this is ALL YOU DO. Really, this should have been called Fetch Quest: The Game. Each of the 160 stamps required for the plat are a simple fetch quest. For some of them, you do nothing more than travel to another town screen, and talk to someone. In one sad instance, a person asked me to deliver an item to another townie...who was standing two houses down. And when you finish all the quests? THEY REPEAT! Every last one of them appears again, in exactly the same form. At least when they repeat, the rewards are pretty good.

Speaking of rewards, an interesting design flaw in this game is that you spend a lot of time developing shops, like an apothecary and a rune shop. However, every single rune and potion is given to you for free through progression or exploration (for potions, you get a LOT). There's hardly any reason to use the shops (though I did use the apothecary for pointless completion purposes). There is a farm as well, but you can just walk past the guy and pick the crops he sells. He even encourages you to do so. Meals from the inn actually give you permanent stat boosts. You will spend a large portion of your playtime just raising your armor and weapon to insane levels.

But hey - at least it helps fight enemies, right? Well sure...except that the combat in this game is the most bone dry, easy combat I've ever experienced. It's a monumental joke. You are locked to a single difficulty level, and I can't imagine anyone having a moment's distress from the pathetic enemies you encounter. You are given three combatants ultimately, with very different attack styles. Unfortunately, two of them completely suck. Your main character, CJ, is great. She has quick, powerful attacks, and defensively, she can double jump as well as dash. You have a power attacker (Garoo) with a large sword. He sucks. His weapon can break shields easily, true, but outside of a single boss, this is useless, since CJ can just dash behind a shielded opponent and hit their weak points. Garoo has absolutely no mobility, either. Your final character (a mage whose name I forget) is the worst of all. I literally never used her once I saw her attack (which looks like some kind of bubble-gun nonsense). She supposedly can teleport, but all I ever saw was her disappear and reappear in exactly the same spot.

Character movement looks janky, and the control has issues. It can be very unresponsive, and I had a persistent issue where my character would run in the opposite direction of where I pushed the D-Pad. Thankfully, none of this matters, because the game is pointlessly easy. After beating the game, you unlock hard mode, but it offers little challenge, either (though if you started a new game with hard mode, that might have been more interesting, were it not for the control issues). The main plot follows the dumbest plot coupons imaginable. In one hilarious instance, my characters wanted to equip runes, but had no means to do so. Thankfully, standing right next to them was a person who just happened to want to open a Rune Lens shop.

What else? I think there are 5 enemies in the game, with 4 palette swaps each. They all fight in exactly the same way. The bosses look different, but are just as uninspired (excepting, possible, a dragon boss that annoyed me a bit, which is the best I can say for any of the otherwise forgettable enemies in this game).

Ultimately, you learn nothing about "Eiyuden", or anything else, other than the fact that there is a town that serves smoked hot springs thunderbird eggs. Even the (presumptive) bigbad is off screen, and has the boring name "Mighty Dux". S/he only "appears" at the very end of the game. I don't know what this could possibly unlock in the upcoming Hundred Heroes, but I doubt seriously it's worth sitting through this.

This game is even short of mediocre. Although it took me only 17 hours to play, I felt it was about 12 hours too long. Kemco offers a significantly better experience. All in all, I give this a D+. It's saved from an F by a nice aesthetic, decent music, and likable main characters. I can't believe this was put up for sale.

Edited December 11, 2023 by starcrunch061

starcrunch061's PS+ Extra-ordinary journey

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