JEDI_BROTHERS Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 I'm so sorry I recommended that trash ass dragon ball game its so boring 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProfSeajay7 Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 On 1/4/2024 at 4:31 PM, ProfSeajay7 said: This sounds like an interesting game, Cassy. As for me... I'm trying to knock down both versions of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. Yeah, 90 levels of pure torture and then another 90 to get all the LEGO bricks. But I decided to do it to show that it is possible despite how f'king long these LEGO games are. (I already platted LEGO Jurassic World and LEGO Harry Potter, both titles). Seriously, I am not kidding. Had to put the PS4 version on the back burner to get one of these games prepped sometime before February. It's eating up my game time. Now I have to explore all the planets and get all the bricks. I got 100% in Tuantal Village. Argh. Also, Gylt is prounced 'guilt', as the 'y' is... you know, I am not going to bore you with English terminology. Just pronounce it 'guilt.' 😛 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted January 10 Author Popular Post Share Posted January 10 On 1/8/2024 at 8:58 PM, JEDI_BROTHERS said: I'm so sorry I recommended that trash ass dragon ball game its so boring It really is, isn't it? I'm just glad I watched the show alongside it or that might have been my first and only introduction to the DBZ series. Can you imagine? On 1/9/2024 at 9:18 AM, ProfSeajay7 said: Also, Gylt is prounced 'guilt', as the 'y' is... you know, I am not going to bore you with English terminology. Just pronounce it 'guilt.' 😛 Will do. I assume it has something to do with their previous game being called Rime, which is a four letter spelling of a five letter word. But that's...a really weird and specific thing to do with your game titles. Speaking of games with bizarre titles... Platinum #411 - FAR: Changing Tides Betcha didn't know the most obscure game I played last year also has a sequel. Well, maybe you did because I talked about it previously. Either way, we're back to navigating a big vehicle through a post-apocalyptic environment. But is this by FAR the best game I played this year or should I be CHANGING strategies? Let's begin. I forget if I did a NAP review for the first game, but I know I summed it up when I did my end-of-the-year awards, so you probably already know what to expect. This time around, the developers were kind enough to reward us with a platinum, although the experience is more or less the same. You play as a boy this time (I think? I'm also assuming you played as a girl in the first game), but you're still tasked with moving your ship to the right, collecting upgrades and fuel. The biggest difference is that you'll be spending a lot of time on and in water, as your ship becomes a submersible about midway through the game. That makes it a little more complicated than the first game, as now you have contend with your vertical positioning. As before, though, it starts out simple. Your first upgrade is a sail. The game never tells you what to do or how to use the upgrades that you find, but you learn quickly. The higher the flag, the faster your ship moves. Because the wind is always shifting, though, you'll occasionally need to reposition the sails. You'll also need to do that to avoid obstacles. Soon after, you'll get an engine, and now it's up to you to keep the fuel burning. That means finding items you can burn, but also being careful not to overheat the engine. If you played the first game, you already know what to expect. From here, you'll get a few more upgrades throughout the game, but the most notable is the one that allows you to use your fire hose to submerse the vehicle. You'll then have to move the ship up and down underwater (while maintaining your engine and speed) and hopefully not hitting too many obstacles in your way. I'm kinda glossing over this stuff because this is one of those games that is hard to explain but easy to understand once you're actually playing it. The challenge here is all about multi-tasking. Anybody who has played Oregon Trail knows what that's like. Now, I could tell you how great the atmosphere and OST are, but I have a good analogy for this one. I have a good analogy because the only thing I wrote in my notebook for this game was "Rocky II". (And unlike some of my past notes, I actually remember what that means.) You see, Rocky II wasn't really a sequel. Sure, Rocky I told a complete story and can stand just fine on its own, but Rocky II picks up right where the last left off, continues the story, and comes to a satisfying conclusion. It really should've been named Rocky I, Part 2. (Then again, Sly has never been great with numbering his movies. Looking at you, Rambo.) I feel like, with this game, you kinda need to play this game if you played the original. They go together like peanut butter and jelly. That's not always the case when it comes to sequels, but I think it applies here. And you can bet your bottom dollar than this is every bit as good as the original. Yeah, um... I don't really have much more to say. It's hard to talk about this game because it's all about the experience. It's a short enough game, you'll probably need to play through it a couple times because of a speedrun trophy (3.5 hours... it's a doozy), and there's at least one trophy (Steady As You Go) that made me really nervous. I'm not built for precision-based stuff. Other than that, very solid indie title that needs more players. Show some love to the developers if you get a chance. Maybe we'll get FAR 3: IN SPACE. Cutting this review short because I feel like my power is about to go out any minute. But hey, we're three for three. This one was kinda cheating because I already knew it was going to be good. Both because I played the first game last year and because I actually completed my first run through this game last year too. I just needed to do the speedrun trophy and some miscellaneous stuff this morning to wrap it up. Stay safe if you're experiencing bad weather too. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrickwallBill Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 5 minutes ago, Cassylvania said: I assume it has something to do with their previous game being called Rime, which is a four letter spelling of a five letter word. Gilt (with an "I" instead of a "y") and rime are both actual words! Gilt is related to "gilded" and rime is related to ice/frost. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted January 14 Author Share Posted January 14 On 1/10/2024 at 3:08 PM, BrickwallBill said: Gilt (with an "I" instead of a "y") and rime are both actual words! Gilt is related to "gilded" and rime is related to ice/frost. I guess that works for Rime, but I think "Guilt" is what they were going for with the other game because Sally feels guilty for what happened to Emily. Like, it's her main driving force, but it still feels like an odd choice for a title. I think they should've gone with Buli. Anyway, here's a game I finished in a single day. Not A Platinum #ButTheFirstGameHadOne - Figment 2: Creed Valley On the opposite end of the spectrum of FAR: Changing Tides, we have the ultra rare example of a game that had a platinum being followed up with one that doesn't. Not sure why, since this game was roughly the same length as the OG, but I loved the first game enough that I was going to play this even if it didn't have any trophies at all. But is this game worthy of its predecessor, or should its existence have remained a FIGMENT of our imagination? Dusty and Piper are back at it again, guys! For those of you who didn't play the first game (i.e. all of you) or remember anything I said about it (i.e. all of you), Dusty is the embodiment of Courage and Piper is the embodiment of Optimism. (Yeah, we're kinda doing an Inside Out thing. That's OK. That movie is a 10/10.) This whole game is essentially taking place in some guy's head. We didn't get to learn much about the guy in the first game, but he plays a slightly bigger role here. He's torn between working to provide for his family and, you know, actually being there for his family. Dusty and Piper are tasked once again with defeating the Nightmares in this guy's head. Much like the first game, this is a narrative-driven adventure game with some minor puzzle-solving and combat. That's not what makes this game special. What makes this game special is its whimsical charm, its humor, its voice acting, and its musical numbers. I absolutely loved in the first game how the bosses would shit on you in song format. It was actually pretty messed up for what would otherwise feel like a kid's game. Like, one of the bosses would tell you that you're going to lose everybody you love and another said she was going to suck your corpse dry. You still get that here, but there's primarily only one "boss" in this game, and it's that two-faced jester you see above. He/she is a little more chill than the enemies in the first game. Doesn't mean the music is any less good. In fact, I want to share one of the songs with you guys. (Don't worry. It's not a spoiler.) This is probably the hardest I've laughed in a video game since Lair of the Clockwork God. Nothing I say will convince you to play this game more than that. There is so much to like about these characters and this world. Yes, Piper is a little too peppy for my tastes, but she's balanced out by Dusty, who is a jaded asshole like me. You'll also come across a ton of Opinions in this game (such as the "discarded" ones in the video above). They're kinda like the NPCs of this world. Their personalities change, though, depending on whether the Mind is "Open" or "Closed". That's this game's main gimmick. By hitting Perspective Switches, you can alternate between Open-Minded and Closed-Minded. This affects the environment -- for example, it can change which doorways are accessible -- as well as the NPCs. An Open-Minded NPC may be more willing to help you, while a Closed-Minded NPC may not. But what I like is this game's emphasis on moderation and understanding that there are advantages to being both open and closed-minded. You don't really hear that much. Obviously, it's good to be open-minded about new ideas and perspectives, but it also makes you less focused. That really plays into this game's overall narrative too. It's not as simple this time as "bad guy bad", as the Jester is a more sympathetic villain. Both Dusty and Piper have character arcs too. That's actually kinda neat to see in a sequel (even if it probably is just a rehashing of the first game). I don't want to say too much. This is a game best experienced than read about. I do want to say enough to give people the willingness to give this game a try. I think the first game was one of my favorite indie games. It was certainly one of the most memorable. It's also the only game I've played this year that isn't overly depressing or lonely, which is actually a bit surprising since it does deal with some pretty dark emotions. I think it would hard to play through this game without a smile, and you can tell the developers had a lot of fun making it. For that alone, I think it's worth playing. I could talk about the trophies, but there's not much to say. Use a guide for the Remembrance Shards if you want. I tried to find them all on my own and failed in every level. Didn't take long to play through those levels again. It probably took me...6 hours to 100% the game? I kinda did it while doing chores and trying to weather-proof the house. Supposed to get really cold here soon. I suppose this was cheating, but we're four for four in 2024. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProfSeajay7 Posted January 16 Share Posted January 16 On 1/13/2024 at 6:45 PM, Cassylvania said: I kinda did it while doing chores and trying to weather-proof the house. Supposed to get really cold here soon. Suppose is a gross underestimation, Cassy. It is really cold, and I live in Texas, which is the closest of the United States to the equator, and it's icy! My exercise routine was shifted to the last two days of the week because of the cold and frost. The video was cute and the lyrics were all about opinions. Bad opinions that end up failing in the face of facts, but still cute. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted January 20 Author Popular Post Share Posted January 20 (edited) Platinum #412 - A Plague Tale: Requiem I'd like to point out that no matter how much I complain about subtitles, sequels should at the very least be numbered. I went for the longest term thinking this was the original game just because "Requiem" is about as bland and unimaginative of a subtitle as "Innocence" (which was the subtitle of the first game, which shouldn't even have a subtitle because it's a single entry). Nothing gets my balls blazing more than the gull of some developers to put a subtitle on their first game. Rant aside... *ahem* A Plague Tale: Requiem is the sequel to one of the best AA games I've ever played. I don't know how a AA studio put out a AAA product, but they did, and I was thrilled that the game got a second entry. If you haven't played the first game... well, let's just say it was set up pretty nicely for a sequel, if the game sold well. (I'm assuming it did.) You also probably shouldn't be reading this if you haven't played the first game because I don't honestly know how I can review this game without mentioning at least some of the events or characters that took place in the first game. I'll do my best to keep this review spoiler-free, but I really don't know if that's possible. I think you'd be very well-served to play the first game completely blind, and just know that it has my stamp of approval all over it, for whatever that's worth. Now, onto the sequel! APT:R continues the adventures of Amicia and her little brother Hugo, shortly after the events of the first game. Hugo is still sick and Amicia is still searching for a way to cure him of the Macula. What is the Macula? Basically, it's a disease that makes the host communicate with rats or something. I don't know. You can kind of think of it like the One Ring. It's very powerful, but it also corrupts the one wielding it. This game (franchise now, I guess) actually takes place during the bubonic plague in Eurasia in the mid-1300s, but it's obviously taking some creative liberties, giving people and rats superpowers. I actually think that's a really cool idea. Not only do I want to see more games that take place in the 14th and 15th century (honestly, one of the most fascinating times to read about), but I like alternate or exaggerated history in general. Because of the subject material, though this isn't a happy game. That makes it perfect for this month, where I'm apparently playing all sorts of depressing games! This is truly my winter of discontent. Now, let's get the characters out of the way first. I don't need to tell you that the graphics or voice acting are good. Everything that was in the first game is here. Amicia is...actually, probably one of the coolest female protagonists out there. Certainly better than that twat Lara Croft. I think she's only supposed to be 15 years old in this game, but (a) she's mature beyond her years because of what she had to go through in the first game, and (b) I think that was actually pretty old back then. Hugo is just a kid, which would make you think he's going to be aggravating, but... I don't know. I think it's going to depend on if you have siblings. If you DON'T have siblings, you'll probably not like Hugo. I also think that would make it harder to connect with Amicia, who is absolutely DEVOTED to protecting him. It actually gets to the point of being unbelievable because I'm not sure any sister loves her brother that much. (More on that in a second). If you DO have siblings... hm. Well, depending on whether you love your siblings or want to strangle them, I think you'll understand where Amicia is coming from. I realize this probably sounds like an escort mission game, but it's really not. If anything, it's almost like YOU are the one being escorted because your AI companions (you get several throughout the game, but usually only one at a time) are practically invincible. It's not quite that because sometimes they'll run into trouble and you'll have to help them, but usually those events are scripted or just because you got too close to the rats. There are...a lot of rats in this game. I'd consider this to be a stealth adventure game, even though there is some combat (both optional and mandatory) and puzzle-solving. You know how it goes at this point. You'll get some sections where you sneak past enemies, and other sections where you're pushing around objects and climbing on things. You'll also get a lot of exposition. It's a very well-paced story, even if it is a bit formulaic at times. That's actually the main complaint I want to make, which...yeah, just let's get to that. I have one complaint with this game, but it's a major one, and it bothers me that I have to make it. If I could say something to the developers right now, it'd be... Asobo, are you listening? Please, please, PLEASE stop trying to be Uncharted. Those games were ridiculously good, but they were also ridiculously ridiculous. It was just a zany adventure game with some quirky, lovable characters and some wacky, over-the-top scripted scenes. Nobody took those games seriously. They were fun, but they weren't poignant. They weren't trying to tug on your heart strings or dealing with an actual plague that killed hundreds of millions of people. Ya took a great idea and slapped Benny Hill music over it. What do I mean by this? What don't I mean by this? There's a section where you're piloting a FLAMETHROWER ON A CARRIAGE WHILE A TSUNAMI OF RATS CHASES YOU. Sorry for the spoiler, BUT WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, ASOBO? And that's not even the craziest thing that happens. It's just one of many. There are so many times in this game where I sighed and thought to myself, "Did they really need to do this? Did they think players would get bored or shut off the game if the action wasn't dialed up to 11?" It's...honestly the most depressing thing about this game. It frustrates me to no end when I feel a developer or writer or director is selling out because they don't trust their product to stand on its own. This is such a good franchise and it's held back because it wants to pander to the AAA crowd. I almost wish combat was removed entirely because then it could just be marketed as a stealth game. Which would not only make it easier to tone down the over-the-top parts, but would make the whole story and the characters more believable. Take Amicia, for example. Fantastic character. She uses as a sling as a weapon, which makes sense. She's a 15-year-old girl. She's not going to pick up a broadsword and cut down a fully armored soldier. That's fine. Not every character needs to have every power and know how to use every weapon. I thought the parts of the game where Amicia was the most badass was when she WASN'T fighting enemies head-on. In fact... I don't want to go into a spoiler here, but there IS a part in the game where Amicia DOES try to use a sword and it's awesome. Probably one of the best scenes in the game. And she's completely overpowered the entire time. That doesn't mean she comes across as weak or that the viewer would think less of her. That makes her REALISTIC. THAT'S A GOOD THING. I am SO FREAKIN' SICK of games being too afraid to show weakness in main characters. Amicia is HEAVILY FLAWED. She's aggravating at times. She's so obsessed over protecting Hugo and she refuses to listen to anybody, even when they're clearly right and have her best interests in mind. And I know this seems like a rant, but I'm ranting FOR this game, because it did this part RIGHT. Amicia is wonderful. She puts Lara Croft to shame. My ISSUE is the developers -- SOMEBODY on the team -- decided that Amicia should turn into the Hulk not once, not twice, but COUNTLESS TIMES throughout the game. Like, OK. I'm going to rant some more. I'm pissed. So, like, you get to this scene early in the game where you're in a closed room. Your AI partner is begging for you to follow him. Instead of doing that...you know, the thing that would actually BENEFIT Hugo, being that it's Amicia's primary driving force for EVERYTHING in the game, she decides to do the "I WILL KILL YOU ALL!" thing that...okay, I liked in the 2013 Tomb Raider game, but that was near the end of the game, where Lara had a ton of weaponry and experience. You could argue Amicia had a lot of experience killing from the first game, but there are about...I dunno, A DOZEN armed soldiers that start dropping from the ceiling and you're basically killing them with a few rocks and some sandbags in hand-to-hand combat. It's fuckin' stupid, guys. I'm pissed that scene exists. I'm pissed so many scenes in this game exist. Because you know what? They do this SEVERAL TIMES. And not just with Amicia. They have Hugo turning into a killing machine too. And that's not really a spoiler because if you've played the first game, you know what his powers are, and it's actually one of the first things that happens in this game. But I'm fine with Hugo doing it because it makes sense in the context of this world and the story they've created. Hugo DOES have the power to kill. That power both scares and hurts him. That's GOOD CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. There's an ACTUAL CONFLICT here if Hugo is forced to use his powers. THAT is what the game should've been based on. How willing would you be to use the greatest weapon at your disposal, knowing that weapon would cause harm to the person you're trying to protect? And they touch on it. I mean, it's part of the game. But my point is it should BE the game. That's where all those ridiculous scenes should've been concentrated. Get rid of the stupid parts of the game where Amicia becomes Super Girl. The best parts of the game are when she's hurting and she keeps pushing on. That is so much more impressive. She gets absolutely WRECKED later in the game. Not just one time, but over and over. I think she gets her shoulder broken at one point. I know she gets her face busted in. It doesn't stop her from moving forward. It's almost at the level of Spec Ops: The Line, where you feel the only way you feel you can win the game is by putting down the controller. You know that it's only going to get worse, everyone tells Amicia that it's only going to get worse, and yet she's so driven by finding a cure for Hugo that nothing will stand in her way. (Except bad writing, I guess.) And it's not just... No. I have more to rant about. These scripted scenes, guys. This game is like...I dunno, 16 or 17 chapters? They're long too. I can't tell you how long it took me to play through the game because I did it sporadically throughout this week while working on the house, but it is simply too long for the story it wants to tell. That's not to say it's unwelcome. Don't get my rant confused. I very much enjoyed my time with this game. The problem ultimately comes down to story beats. While the overall pacing was good, the ups and downs -- the parts of the story where you're supposed to feel the characters are at their strongest or weakest emotion states -- are all over the place. They're also too numerous. We've already gone over the trigger-happy Amicia and Hugo parts. They bounce between these a lot. But what this game loves to do is introduce something that makes both Amicia and Hugo very happy...and then immediately take that away or destroy it. I believe this is called idiot ball? A lot of media does this. It's basically a way to keep the story from ending. Obviously, without conflict, there is no story. The job of the writers is to try to (realistically, hopefully) engineer a situation in which conflict can be introduced. There are good ways and bad ways to do this. Typically, idiot ball is a bad way. I'm going to pick on one of my favorite shows ever because it actually has some of the worst idiot ball I've seen, despite being a wonderfully crafted show otherwise. In Breaking Bad, there are several times -- especially in the earlier seasons -- where Walter and Jesse had a good thing going and could possibly have a happy ending, but Jesse suddenly gets stupid and starts taking drugs or skimming meth off the top. He doesn't do this for any plot relevant reasons. He does this because the writers backed themselves into a corner. Dexter and 24 are even worse at it, as are most serial shows. I honestly can't stomach them any more because of this, despite their popularity and their overwhelming presence in television today. And there are many reasons these problems exist, but it primarily has to do with having too much time to fill and not enough material to fill it with. That is partially why a longer game does not equate to a better game. I don't think idiot ball exists in this game. At least, not in the traditional sense. You could argue Amicia would be better off listening to the advice she's given, but she doesn't do things or act in ways that would only serve to benefit the plot. That's good. Hugo too. I understand their motivations, their fears, and their actions. It'd be idiot ball if, say... Amicia and Hugo were living a comfortable life, they get into a fight one day, and Hugo decides to randomly run off the blow their cover and gets kidnapped. That doesn't happen. However, I would argue it IS idiot ball that Amicia and Hugo aren't doing just that. There are times in this game where it feels they COULD be happy together. I mean, yes, Hugo is dying and Amicia knows that, but Hugo repeatedly says throughout the game that he's okay with dying. He's come to terms with it. Amicia is the stubborn one who forces him into situations that not only scare him, but (uh, spoiler?) cause a LOT of people to die. And again, it's not just once. It's repeated. This game is just beating you over the head with how impossible it is for anything to end happily. I don't think that's a good thing, even if the characterization is very well-done. And now that I've completely confused you as to whether or not I liked the story... let's get into the gameplay. So, yeah. You're mostly sneaking, slinging, and looting your way through combat sections. You can craft a bunch of simple items to help you. I'm actually not even sure how they all work because some of them can be combined with other items in your inventory or with objects in the environment to produce some interesting effects. For example, your main crafting abilities are fire, smoke, tar, and some smelling salts that rats really like for some reason, but they can be combined with your sling, clay pot, crossbow (eat your heart out, Lara), or simply hand-tossed. I'm not exactly sure why you need some of these. For example, most enemies die in a single crossbow shot (on Normal difficulty anyway, which is what I played), so I don't know why it would matter if you applied fire to it. But if you shoot a fire arrow at something wooden, it'll burn, which is actually mandatory for crossing some sections in the game. Similarly, tar makes fires burn better, so sometimes I found throwing tar on enemies and then lighting them on fire would kill them, but sometimes it would just sorta bother them for a little bit? I'm sure the tutorial explains how this works, but it seemed random to me whether I could kill some enemies or would simply have to sneak around them. That said, there is a skill tree, and it's actually one of the better skill trees I've seen in a video game. There are three categories: Prudence, Aggressive, and Opportunism. They each only have four upgrades, which makes it a very basic skill tree, but the way you obtain them is dependent on your playstyle. The stealthier you are, the more points you get into Prudence. The more violent you are, the more points you get into Aggressive. I assume Opportunism has something to do with using alchemy, which is the crafting system and probably simply tied into being violent. I don't know. I don't read tutorials. You can get also upgrade your weapons, so that's a thing. Naturally, you won't be able to max out your skills or weapons in a single playthrough (despite each of those being tied to a trophy), but a partial NG+ playthrough isn't bad. I did it today while watching the snow fall outside. There are some collectibles too because, hey, why not copy that from AAA games too? (Stop it.) At the very least, at least a lot of the collectibles tie into the story nicely. I like that you can get flowers for Amicia and feathers for Hugo, that they actually wear on their head. That's a nice touch. Should I rant some more? I feel I haven't done it justice yet. So, there are rats in this game. It's kinda what this series is all about. In the first game, they were fuckin' terrifying. I remember actually being bothered by the fact that they were on screen. Their beady little eyes and their squeaks. I mean, forget about the fact that they're spreading a plague. The idea that if you get too close to them, you'll get swarmed and eaten alive is downright horrifying. Reminds me of those centipede things in Rain World. Now, those things got my goosebumps popping. Here... again, it's the over-the-top use of rats that makes them more silly than scary. Think Sharknado instead of Jaws. You know what I mean? They want the rats to come across as more clever and evolved than the rats from the first game, but they're no longer terrifying because they're everywhere and they're used in such ridiculous ways, like a rat tornado. How am I supposed to be scared when I'm too busy laughing? Now, obviously, you don't want to get eaten by the rats. That's where most of the game's puzzles are. You need to figure out how to get through the rat-infested sections. The only place you're safe from them is in the light, but how you're going to produce light is sometimes tricky. In fact, sometimes you DON'T want light. For example, if an enemy is holding a torch...gee, it'd sure be nice if that torch would go out and the rats would eat him for dinner, creating a distraction that would let you pass by. That's where your smoke grenade comes in use. (It's not an actual grenade.) So, yeah. Sometimes you're murdering innocent people so that you can you get to the next checkpoint. Anything for Hugo. The story tries to make you hate the people Amicia is killing. It also does its best to make you feel bad for them. Like... OK, I gotta talk about one section in the game, but it's fairly early on. So, you get to this section where a guard is trapped. He's on the opposite side of a walkway from you. Now, the guards up this point aren't hesitant to skewer Amicia on sight (because, in their defense, she's technically not where she's supposed to be), but this guy is a decent chap. He's scared, which is understandable. This again is good characterization. The two of you form a sort of rapport. You help him cross his section and he helps you cross his. The whole time, you're aware that you can't fully trust him because everybody in this game who isn't named Hugo is a terrible person (another idea this game beats to death). Sure enough, at the end, he recognizes that Amicia is up to no good and suddenly arresting her is more important than the millions of rats that are killing everyone (ANOTHER idea that's done to death -- seriously, the number of times that killing Amicia takes priority in this game is ridiculous). At the very least, I liked how it tried to humanize some of the enemies. (As a side note, I also really liked the enemies in the first chapter that had beehives or baskets on their heads. I wish they were present for more of the game because they were a lot scarier than the stereotypical guards you get for the most of the game.) There are also some scenes that just seem out of place. For example, you get this...we'll call him a semi-comedic relief character. (I actually really liked him. The best chapters in the game are the ones where he joins you.) He has this kinda antagonistic relationship with Amicia, where he was actively trying to kill her at one point in the story, so she understandably doesn't fully trust him. And then you get to one part where he almost gets eaten by a swarm of rats, and she...teases him? Hugo does too. It's really bizarre because it comes after watching rats do some pretty awful things to people, and obviously that should be affecting Amicia and Hugo emotionally. I think a scene like that would've worked better if it was, say, a single rat that appeared and startled the semi-comedic relief character. But even then, it seems wrong for our main characters to be making light of the very thing that's bringing an end to civilization. I realize this is 90% rant and 10% review. What do you want me to say about a sequel? It's more of the same? If you liked the first, you'll like this too? No, I want improvements. I want a AA studio to come out and say, "You know what? We can stand on the shoulders of giants." I loved the first game for that. I don't even know what other games these guys have developed. (Looking it up, I bet most of their employees don't either.) There's a reason I pick on Lara and Nate all the time. Those were good games, but they were AAA games. They play like AAA games. If you're going to copy something from them, copy the graphics and come up with your own story and gameplay. Don't slap white paint everywhere. Don't have your AI partner tell you what to do if you're stuck for more than twelve seconds. And don't fill every scene with "heart-pounding excitement" because it's probably not as exciting as you think. It's distracting. It physically hurts me when I want to get engrossed in a story and I'm running from a giant swarm of rats like Crash Bandicoot running from a boulder. (I'm not even joking. This happens MULTIPLE TIMES in the game.) You're so close to greatness here and you just...don't...get it. And hey, maybe I'm the problem. Maybe this is what they wanted. But there's a very big tonal difference between, say, Uncharted and The Last of Us. If you're going to pick one popular Naughty Dog series to imitate, I think you picked the wrong one. I'm not even sure how since the latter is literally almost the same story, but I can understand wanting to do what's been successful. I just hate seeing opportunity squandered. That's why, when I go on these rants, it's because I care passionately about games and I really did enjoy this story. But I know something is wrong when I spend most of the game thinking, "You know what would make this better? Literally anything else." Anyway, we are NOT leaving the game on that note. I still enjoyed this. In fact, it might be my favorite game this year so far. I can tell you right now that it'd be impossible to do the 2024 awards the way we did 2023 because we're at five titles now that would already be competing for top billing. They were also all very depressing. I'm a little concerned about my mental state again. Regardless, I really hope there's another sequel in the works. I tried to look it up and the most I got was the developers weren't going to do a third game originally but now they are. I'm curious if they'll stick to Amicia's storyline or something more modern (perhaps VERY modern?). They could even go backwards in time. There are a lot of plagues that have...well, plagued the world. Personally, I think the game sets up pretty nicely for any of these things to be a possibility. My guess is they'd jump to 2020, which I think would be in poor taste for several reasons. We'll see. I would absolutely recommend this game and this series. My bitching this time comes from the heart. You'll know when it doesn't because I'll tell you. I actually took some time off work this week so I could just sit in bed and play it. I don't play a ton of these narrative-driven adventure games, but this is one that's been on my wish list for a while and I told you before that I was going to make playing through some of the "bigger" titles in my backlog a priority this year. I might keep the rest of them a secret for now, but I will tell you that this won't be the only sequel with a deadly pandemic that we'll be playing in 2024. So, once again, I get away with cheating by playing a sequel of a game I already knew I liked. I'm still counting it. Five for five. Will I actually take some risks with my next game, or will I continue down this path of relative safety? Well, if you've been stalking my profile, you'll see this isn't the only new game I have going. I also have about ten other games downloaded and ready to go for whenever I press play. Edited January 20 by Cassylvania 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Copanele Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 5 hours ago, Cassylvania said: Platinum #412 - A Plague Tale: Requiem Damn that was one great review for a (rat) tornado of a game! Makes me double down on my self promise that this year I'll give these games a go, I swear! Also, as a proud older brother, I want to see how realistic are Amicia's protective tendencies, whether she balances the love for her brother Hugo with the desire to strangle the little runt sometimes 5 hours ago, Cassylvania said: I realize this is 90% rant and 10% review. What do you want me to say about a sequel? It's more of the same? If you liked the first, you'll like this too? No, I want improvements. I want a AA studio to come out and say, "You know what? We can stand on the shoulders of giants." All I can say is...totally agree! Damn, nailing the point there! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted January 22 Author Popular Post Share Posted January 22 (edited) On 1/20/2024 at 3:40 AM, Copanele said: Also, as a proud older brother, I want to see how realistic are Amicia's protective tendencies, whether she balances the love for her brother Hugo with the desire to strangle the little runt sometimes In my opinion, she sways a little too far to the protective side to be considered realistic, but I don't think "realism" is what they were going for... unfortunately. Speaking of games that bend the rules of realism... Platinum #413 - Kona My winter of discontent now brings us to the frozen tundra of the Canadian wilderness to solve a murder with some possible supernatural elements. But is Kona a "KO" of a good game, or should you just say "NA" to this one? (Well, I thought it was clever...) Let's find out what it's all aboot, eh? This was a game I had planned to do as part of my justify-a-PS+-subscription-in-2023 thing, but it was removed from the library before I could do it. Fortunately, the game is always on sale for the price of a gas station burrito, so it wasn't too much of an inconvenience. Plus, you know me and wintertime games -- gotta play them when the weather is cold. So, the game has you playing as Carl, a private detective investigating the murder of a wealthy businessman in a small (like, VERY small) Canadian town. Naturally, it's not as simple as it first appears. You'll have to solve several mysteries that are going on -- AND stay alive. Yeah, it's got some minor survival elements. You gotta keep an eye on your health, temperature, and sanity. Not hunger or thirst, though. I'm actually a little surprised by that, considering you have the option to drink water and booze, but whatever. Not every game needs to be The Long Dark. (Although that was set in Canada too, and when are they going to drop Chapter 5 so I can finally see how that story ends?) Now, the first thing to point out is this is a very lonely game. It's basically just you and the harsh elements. This is good because the game does want you to be on edge, and making you the only person in town certainly achieves that. I would actually say this tiptoes the line of being a scary game. There are maybe three or four jump scares that you'll encounter, and one of them got me pretty good. I don't want to spoil which one. I imagine it'll get you too. BUT it's mostly scary because of the atmosphere, not because you're being hunted the whole time by some unkillable creature. The story is OK here. I won't go into detail because it's a mystery game, so there's no point in spoiling anything. But there's nothing you, the player, have to solve. I'm pretty sure you could just go through the game blindly, just clicking on everything you see and never reading anything. In some cases, though, reading the notes you find will help you to figure out where to go next or what you're supposed to do. In other cases, you'll just be lost. There are various houses and cabins scattered throughout the map, so your main objective will be searching each of them and the surrounding territory. The way you save the game is by starting a fire, which you can do in pretty much every building and at various campfires. These fires never go out, so every one you light is like a new safe point you've opened up. Kinda cool. I like that checkpoint system. Other than that, there are some minor puzzles, I guess. I had to brute force one because I didn't get it. I also had to look up a guide for where to find a certain object. That latter one in particular feels like bad game design. Like, because this is a video game and I know how video games work, it was clear to me that I needed to do A to get to B to get to C, etc., but it wasn't clear to me what "A" was, if that makes sense. Like, there were only two areas I hadn't explored yet, but I didn't know which one was "end game" and which was necessary to do first to unlock the end game. In retrospect, it should've been obvious, but the object I needed was something that I thought would be found in the other area (because it logically would make sense to be there). Turns out it was just some random object I forgot to click on early in the game because I already interacted with that object. I'm being vague here on purpose. Fortunately, being "lost" in this game isn't a bad thing. You'll stumble across a lot of things by accident, which will aid in your survival. You'll also find reasons to go back to places you've already been. For example, there's a treasure hunt that'll take you all over the map. You could do it all at once or whenever you have a reason to go back to a particular region. Or you could be like me and stumble across the "last" treasure spot first by pure accident, rendering the whole scavenger hunt useless. My biggest complaint is with the trophies in this game. You'll probably only need one playthrough, but there are a lot of "complete the game without doing XXX" trophies. Not only is this a lot to keep track of, but it prevents you from using a lot of items in the game that could make the playthrough more fun or interesting. For example, you're not allowed to use a vehicle the whole time. I didn't mind walking, but Carl has a weight limit and you're not able to deposit items in your truck if your truck is, you know, not with you. That means you'll spend a lot of the game being unable to pick up logs, which you need to start a fire. (Another complaint is how some areas will have an infinite supply of logs and others won't have any. And no, you can't chop down trees to get more. I don't think? Huh, I never tried that...) Anyway, cool little game. Probably the weakest of the year so far, but I still liked it. I'll say six for six. One of the things I forgot to mention is that there's a narrator, kinda like from The Stanley Parable, and he does a really good job setting the tone of the game. Depending on the situation, it can feel unsettling, melancholy, or lighthearted. I also like how text will sometimes appear on screen as part of the environment when you inspect certain objects. They're both neat ways to show what Carl is thinking, without having the character you're playing as actually talk. Really good soundtrack too, by the way. Possibly the best part of the game. Edited January 22 by Cassylvania 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted February 14 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 14 (edited) Platinum #414 - Tales of Berseria OR AN UNREALISTIC PORTRAYAL OF SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS Tales of Berseria is the second Tales game I've played, despite swearing off the series after Arise (a game I thought was OK, but not worth the time investment). That's right, boys -- we have a JRPG that I've already been conditioned to hate. This could get ugly. But is my momentary lapse in judgment a Tale worth telling, or is this another entry I couldn't Bear(seria)? (What is "Berseria" anyway? Do they even say the word once in the game? I think they just string together random syllables until they find something that looks good.) Tales aficionados can tell you better, but I'm pretty sure you don't need to play these games in any particular order, as this seemed to be a self-contained story. That's good because I remember nothing about Arise. It also means I need to explain a little about the story, and I'm not sure how I'm going to do that without spoiling the inciting incident. In my eyes, the inciting incident in a story is generally NOT a spoiler. It's the reason the story exists. It's usually found in the title or summary of a book or movie. Like, is it really a spoiler if someone tells you Liam Neeson's daughter gets taken in Taken? I had a family member get mad at me once because I mentioned the plot of a movie was that a father wants to see his kids for Christmas. It's literally the first scene in the movie. So, as always, spoiler warning for like the first couple hours of the game ahead. Read at your own peril. (I'll do my best to hide the OTHER twists the game throws at you.) To begin, let's discuss the colorful cast of characters, because this is where the game excels. Because this is a JRPG, it's mandatory that you have a ragtag army of misfits. Interestingly, though, none of them are really "heroes". You're essentially the Suicide Squad (but a lot less crap than that game looks). This allows the characters and the game to have more personality than I was expecting. The six characters who join your team are: Velvet, demon boy, little kid, pirate guy, pretentious redhead, and the best character in the game. (Does it shock you to learn that I, worshiper of all things red, am choosing a blonde over a natural redhead? It should.) Each of these characters brings something unique to the story, but I only really want to talk about two of them. Let's start with Velvet. Velvet is... you know, we're going to need some help with this one. Ajna! Come here. AJNA: What is it this time? Are you going to make me do some weird fan fic thing again? I just want you to play the role of Velvet. You remember Velvet, right? AJNA: I guess... Great! OK, so... The game begins with Velvet, her little brother Laphicet (dumb name, I know), and her brother-in-law Arthur. They live together in a tiny village named Aball, after the death of Velvet's sister. This is where our game opens up. Of course, when you're a tiny village in a JRPG and the protagonist lives in you, you know you're getting fucked up. But what happens here, to the game's credit, is truly unique. Ajna, if you'd be so kind... Act like Velvet BEFORE the inciting incident. AJNA ("VELVET"): You're lucky it's your birthday... *sighs and puts on a huge fake smile* Good morning, world! It's a BEA-UT-I-FUL day! Golly, I sure do love my little brother Laphi! *pinches Laphi's cheeks* You're the best little brother in the whole wide world! I have to take care of you because you're terminally ill and will almost certainly die soon. Are you hungry, little brother? I will fetch you some prickleboar stew. Wait right here! *skips away merrily* I will play the role of Laphicet. *ahem* "Okay, dear sister! Please, be careful and hurry back! I do so love your company." AJNA ("VELVET"): Tra la la la la, I'm hopelessly optimistic about everything! *skipping through the forest* What's this? Prickleboars! Aw, you're so cute! I could just SQUEEEEEEZE you! *viciously murders all the boars with her axe and proceeds to harvest their insides* I wonder if we could breed these with more docile pigs. But what would we call them? Oinkleboars? Piggleboars? Teehee, no way! That's too cute. We don't want to discourage people from eating them! Okay, that was... uh... wow, you're really in character here, Aj. I like it. OK. Now, for the inciting incident. For this, we're going to need the biggest asshole we can find to play the role of-- RNGETA: Hey, losers! *busts through the door* I heard it was somebody's birthday and I wanted to give them a knuckle sandwich! Ronnie G, perfect! You're going to be Arthur, Velvet's brother-in-law. We're reenacting the scene at the beginning of the game. RNGETA: Have you ever thought about just writing reviews like a normal pers--hey, wait! I get to be Artorius Collbrande from Berseria, one of the greatest JRPGs ever made! OH, HELL YEAH! *rips off shirt* LET'S GOOOOOOOOO! ... Right. OK. Ajna, RNGeta was married to your sister and she's now dead. You love Arthur and would do anything for him. And...go! AJNA ("VELVET"): Oh, Arthur! I made you and Laphi some pickleboar stew! Would you like to try some? I know you work so hard trying to protect the people of this land from all its scary dangers. RNGETA ("ARTHUR"): Ahaha, I tricked you, Velvet! I actually HATE you and was just USING your sister because she was good in bed! Now, I'm going to sacrifice your little brother to the demons of the underworld so I can retain my power and not explain anything in greater detail than that until much later in the story! *begins stabbing Laphicet with a knife right in front of Velvet* "O, I am slain!" *falls into an enormous hole in the ground...and is eaten by a dragon* AJNA ("VELVET"): NOOOOOO! ARTHURRRRRRRRRR! I HATE YOU! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU! I'M GOING TO KILL YOOOOOOOOOOOU!!! *opens eyes* Uh, Ajna... You can calm down now. They get the point. AJNA ("VELVET"): I'M GOING TO BE LIKE THIS FOR THE REST OF THE GAME! ARRRRRRRRRRRGH! *murders everybody in a ten mile radius* Ajna! Calm down! It's okay! AJNA ("VELVET"): NO! I MUST KILL THE DEMONS! RNGETA ("ARTHUR"): No, Velvet. You are the demons. *pushes Velvet down the hole and tells the world how much of a hero he is* As you can see, the inciting incident has a dramatic effect on Velvet as a character. And no, none of this is a spoiler because you can clearly see by the box art and the opening cinematic (which is awesome) that Velvet is essentially a demon. RNGGETA ("ARTHUR"): Demons. Shut up. And she's not the only one. The first guy to join your team, Rokurou, is literally a demon. He's got the Two-Face visage and everything. And you get a pirate on your team, like I said, and...well, I guess the little kid and Eleanor (the pretentious redhead) are kinda good...but, for plot-related reasons, they are also wanted criminals. That's essentially what you are in this game, and it feels badass. I like not always having to be a do-gooder, even if Velvet's motivations are understandable and perhaps justified. Now, of course, the other really cool character is Magilou. She is of questionable importance on your team. That's partially why I like her. She's also insane. She kinda plays the role of the comedic sidekick, but instead of being a goofball, she's extremely pompous and absolutely steals the spotlight in every scene she's in. If Berseria was made into a movie, she'd be played by Al Pacino. She also wears books for a skirt, so I'll leave you with that image in your head. RNGETA ("ARTHUR"): Do you know why birds have wings? You can stop now. So, what makes these characters so good, besides their personalities and the story? Well, the voice acting. We are talking top tier VA work here, guys. In fact, given the script, this may be the most impressive voice acting performance I've heard in a video game. Why do I say it like that? Well, I played with English dubs and subtitles on. I'm pretty sure that's the default setting because I can't imagine why I'd do it any other way. These days, I try to avoid playing with subtitles because I always tend to read what's on screen, even if I can hear and understand what's being said. This distracts me from whatever else is on the screen, which is often a cutscene or, you know, basic gameplay. (And, yes, I listened to every cutscene, skit, and dialogue exchange in the game, save for some post-game content. I know some of you might call me out for that.) But here, because I can read faster than the characters can speak, I was often reading ahead and waiting for the audio to catch up. This led to many, MANY times where I read some text, cringed at how bad it sounded in my head, and then was amazed when the VAs were able to naturally work it into the conversation. This is especially true for the characters I've already talked about. It's less true with some of the side characters, and even less so with some one-time NPCs. And I realize that might come off as a slight -- with me praising the VA work, while criticizing the writing -- but I assure you it's not. And that... is where my praise of this game ends. I'm sorry. I have so many complaints from here on out. First, the combat... I don't get it. I mean, I did it. I played well enough to beat the game. But there's simply too much to keep track of. Maybe I'm just old. You got all these different artes you can map to different buttons, you can perform combos by chaining certain artes together, some artes are better against certain types of enemies, you can use BGs and Break Souls and Mystic Artes, but they have different gauges and different levels, and you can have four characters actively running around on the screen at a time and two in reserves, you have various gear that you can upgrade that skills but they require mastery, and then titles that increase various skills but there are different levels of that too... I'll be honest, guys. I played on a lower difficulty and spammed buttons. I didn't know what I was doing. I still don't know what I was doing. It's cool you can play as each character (and HAVE to for the platinum), but I almost exclusively played as Velvet. I don't think I would've even switched to anybody else if you didn't have to put a good amount of time with each character to level up their titles. You can also set how the AI will utilize each character (and even set the AI to play for you), but I don't know how important or necessary it is. The map layout is...not great. In fact, I'm going to combine this with my third complaint: the linearity. I think this would technically qualify as an open-world game, but we're REALLY pushing it here because you're often locked out of revisiting older areas until the end game. From a story perspective, this makes sense. I don't that mind, since I think the story should take precedent over mindless farming or backtracking in a game like this, but the game design isn't built around it. I feel if a game wants you to funnel you down a narrow corridor, that's fine, but don't make me WANT to go back. This includes not only revisiting older areas, but sometimes even warping or taking shortcuts back to previous areas. This becomes more obvious why when you play through NG+ and realize the game wants you to go to specific places because that's the trigger for the next cutscene or skit. So, you'll be temporarily locked out from doing what you'll logically want to do because the game has artificially decided that you can't until you reach that trigger point. This hurts replayability, in my eyes. Which sucks because you'll be spending a lot of time on NG+... I found the menus to be kinda clunky, but that's a minor gripe. So is how buying, selling, and upgrading works. I don't know how old this game is, but the menu system as a whole feels antiquated. To use my obligatory Dark Souls reference, I can play a Souls game and navigate the UI while in battle. Not easily, mind you, but I understand where to go to find certain things. It's almost like second nature. Here, I found myself entering the wrong menus all the time, or pressing the wrong button. L2 pissed me off the most. L2 is how you warp to other areas. Or, rather, it opens a window that allows you to warp to other areas. It's also how you can leave certain areas, like caves or dungeons. This game has one of the most sensitive L2 presses I've ever seen. If you even TOUCH the L2 button, the menu instantly pops up, and a single press of the X button will warp you out of the place you're currently in (assuming you have the item you need to do so). Do you know how often my finger accidentally hit L2, immediately by X? Well, considering I usually have a finger on each, A LOT OF THE TIME. There's also no autosave, which...sucks. I know it wasn't standard in older JRPGs, but come on. If you're going to allow quick save, you might as well implement atuosave. You run the risk of dying in every battle if you play on a higher difficulty, which you will likely want to do when you're grinding for the titles. SPEAKING OF GRINDING... My God. What were they thinking? I don't want to do a DQH2-style tirade here. This is bad. I think DQH2 was slightly worse because it relied on a lot of RNG, but I much preferred the gameplay. There's no jumping in this game, which sucks when you just want to get over a small ledge, and the difficulty balance seems all over the place. This is because you can sometimes engage two or more enemies at once on the battlefield (often by accident), which is the easiest way to go from wiping the floor with the game to just plain wiping...and having to load an earlier save. Finally, the trophy guide says time to platinum 110 hours. For that, I'm going to need you to come a little closer. ... A little closer. ... Come on, a little closer. I don't bite. ... *BLOWS THE BULLSHIT HORN SO LOUD THAT THE EARTH SPLITS IN HALF* MY ASS TAKES 110 HOURS. Maybe if you've played the game before or go in with a specific plan on how exactly to tackle every single trophy. I practically doubled that. And, sure, I was doing other things while I played. I left it idle for a while. I think it's safe to say most people will probably finish a game in 60-70% of the time it takes me, given how I'm rarely ever giving a game my full attention once it becomes a grind fest, but I think you're realistically looking at 150 hours at least. And since most of that is NOT what I'd consider "quality" content, I will NOT be recommending this game. At least, not if you want the platinum. If you're a normie who just wants a single playthrough, go for it. It's a pretty unique game. AJNA: I'm just glad we don't have to listen to your bitching anymore. Wait. Are you still angry Velvet or back to being Ajna? RNGETA: What's the difference? Hahaha! AJNA: I WILL KILL YOU! Edited February 14 by Cassylvania 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted February 15 Share Posted February 15 On 2/14/2024 at 12:11 AM, Cassylvania said: I practically doubled that. And, sure, I was doing other things while I played. I left it idle for a while. I think it's safe to say most people will probably finish a game in 60-70% of the time it takes me, given how I'm rarely ever giving a game my full attention once it becomes a grind fest, but I think you're realistically looking at 150 hours at least. And since most of that is NOT what I'd consider "quality" content, I will NOT be recommending this game. At least, not if you want the platinum. If you're a normie who just wants a single playthrough, go for it. It's a pretty unique game. An enjoyable review as always. I want to personally say I enjoy the Ajna/RNGETA bits. While the game may have taken 200+ hours, I'm glad we got this little microcosm of the story anecdote out of it As an aside, based on your review of the Tales games... I feel comfortable enough now finally voicing this opinion in public. Anime-style JRPGs are kind of like drugs. Persona is the marijuana of the games industry. Most people can chill with it, lots of people love it, and dabbling in Persona every few years now and then won't cause any long-term damage to your brain development. But some people aren't satisfied with Persona. They go chasing that high they once felt before they poured hundreds of hours into Persona 5, 5 Royal, Persona 4, 4 Golden, Persona 3, 3 Reloaded, and all the anime adaptations. It doesn't make them tick anymore. So they start scrounging the bottom of the barrel. I think the Tales franchise and The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel Insert Roman Numeral fundamentally find themselves in that offshoot. I've briefly looked at those games and they all come across as far more... plastic and less stylish. Not to mention the 100+ hours run time for the platinum. When all is lost, the addicts turn to the crystal meth of the anime JRPG genre. Xenoblade Chronicles. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted February 17 Author Share Posted February 17 On 2/15/2024 at 11:00 AM, realm722 said: An enjoyable review as always. I want to personally say I enjoy the Ajna/RNGETA bits. While the game may have taken 200+ hours, I'm glad we got this little microcosm of the story anecdote out of it That's good! I'm never quite sure if people enjoy when my roommates get in on the action. (I also think I did a pretty good at summarizing the basic plot of the game for once.) On 2/15/2024 at 11:00 AM, realm722 said: As an aside, based on your review of the Tales games... I feel comfortable enough now finally voicing this opinion in public. Anime-style JRPGs are kind of like drugs. Persona is the marijuana of the games industry. Most people can chill with it, lots of people love it, and dabbling in Persona every few years now and then won't cause any long-term damage to your brain development. But some people aren't satisfied with Persona. They go chasing that high they once felt before they poured hundreds of hours into Persona 5, 5 Royal, Persona 4, 4 Golden, Persona 3, 3 Reloaded, and all the anime adaptations. It doesn't make them tick anymore. So they start scrounging the bottom of the barrel. Yeah... I'll be honest too. You've heard the phrase, "I'm in my 30s, but I feel like I'm 20...until I hang out with 20-year-olds"? That's me, but with JRPGs. I think I like them...until I actually play them. Whether it's Tales or Ys or KH, I can see why people like them, but it just doesn't do it for me. Maybe it's because I've played Persona 5 Royal, Dragon Quest XI, Valkyria Chronicles (if that counts), etc. that I'm just not as impressed, because I've already played the best the genre has to offer. In fact, I might extend that to RPGs in general. I don't know any other genre that I'm so routinely wrong about. At one point, I think it was my favorite genre, but it's getting harder and harder to reach that high again. I feel like I'm always chasing that dragon. So, naturally, I just started Scarlet Nexus. Now that we're a few games into the year, I'd like to revisit what I was saying at the end of 2023, about my game selection this year. As you've seen, I've been trying to tackle what I think are going to be good games. That's not the only thing, though. I made a list of about 20 games that I really want to get to. (I don't want to show or reveal any games on this list because it's intended to be a bit flexible.) Consider this my bucket list for the year. These are generally games that have been sitting on my backlog for too long. I own them and I keep putting them off for a variety of excuses...usually because they're too long or too hard (or part of a series that is too long or too hard). I'm sick of making excuses. My goal isn't to do as many of these games as I can. It's to do them all. (There may be an asterisk after that, but we'll talk about that later.) For now, I'll say Tales of Berseria was the first game on that list. Scarlet Nexus was second. I had been threatening you guys with that game for a while now. It's kinda nice because it's a standalone JRPG, so I'm not going to feel obligated to play every game in the series. With Tales, Ys, and KH, that's a harder pill to swallow. If I had only played one game in each of these series, I could've maybe considered that a one-off, but part of me wants to see these JRPGs through to conclusion. I don't know why. Would probably be better off just playing another Persona game. But that's the basic plan for 2024, guys. We'll work on active games, bucket list games, and whatever cool-looking indie titles I come across. A couple bucket games each month should be enough to finish the list by the end of the year. Or at least start the list, if you know what I mean. I don't think I really care anymore how many unfinished games I have on my account. However, putting off Elden Ring needs to end. The hell is wrong with me? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProfSeajay7 Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 (edited) On 2/15/2024 at 10:00 AM, realm722 said: An enjoyable review as always. I want to personally say I enjoy the Ajna/RNGETA bits. While the game may have taken 200+ hours, I'm glad we got this little microcosm of the story anecdote out of it As an aside, based on your review of the Tales games... I feel comfortable enough now finally voicing this opinion in public. Anime-style JRPGs are kind of like drugs. Persona is the marijuana of the games industry. Most people can chill with it, lots of people love it, and dabbling in Persona every few years now and then won't cause any long-term damage to your brain development. But some people aren't satisfied with Persona. They go chasing that high they once felt before they poured hundreds of hours into Persona 5, 5 Royal, Persona 4, 4 Golden, Persona 3, 3 Reloaded, and all the anime adaptations. It doesn't make them tick anymore. So they start scrounging the bottom of the barrel. I think the Tales franchise and The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel Insert Roman Numeral fundamentally find themselves in that offshoot. I've briefly looked at those games and they all come across as far more... plastic and less stylish. Not to mention the 100+ hours run time for the platinum. When all is lost, the addicts turn to the crystal meth of the anime JRPG genre. Xenoblade Chronicles. Don't give me that sh**! I'm not into that hard meth, I'm more a casual druggie with the Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Disgaea series. The only time I sniffed glue was Tales of Symphonia back on the GameCube... and after Sheena died off, I regret giving her character a character entry in my Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic. Not touching any more Tales games after that. Yes, I did write a Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic with Sheena's character as a character. Go to Fanfiction.net and Search for "Sister of Anansi." 🕷️ Edited February 18 by ProfSeajay7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted February 20 Author Share Posted February 20 Platinum #415 - Deliver Us Mars Deliver Us Mars is the sequel to the smash hit* Deliver Us The Moon. But is KeokeN Interactive delivering us another success, or should this package...be returned to sender? Let's find out. *Trust me, guys. We need to actually begin with a disclaimer/warning here. Since this is a sequel, the obvious question is: should you play the first game first? Yes, you should absolutely play Deliver Us The Moon -- the fact that it'll help this story make more sense is just a bonus feature. (But really, they're standalone games if you must play this first, but I recommend just doing them in order). Either way, I'll avoid any spoilers, outside of the usual Liam-Neeson's-daughter-gets-kidnapped kind of stuff. So, in DUM (wow, unfortunate acronym), you play as Kathy -- better known as Kat. Really, this is just an excuse for the developers to put cat puns in their trophy names. The basic plot is that you and your older sister Claire are going to get your ass to Mars to find out what happened to your father. Which means, yes, we have yet ANOTHER game centering around siblings. Are you sensing a theme this year? Anyway, Kathy is...I'm not sure how old (presumably a teenager), but probably too young to be in the position she's in. She's only doing this because Earth is fucked otherwise. But she's smart and seems to know a thing or two about space, so why not have her fly a spaceship? It's not rocket science. There's definitely some tension between her and Claire, but the real tension seems to be in their relationship with their father. Dude was really tight with Kat when she was little, but he seems rather indifferent to Claire. Not sure they ever really explained that. The story is good, and probably the reason you'd want to play this series, but they had to make budget cuts somewhere. They chose the graphics for that -- namely, the character models. Yeesh. I don't really like what they did with the characters' faces. There are really only like four or five characters you're regularly going to see on screen, and the developers dropped the ball on all of them. Kathy is probably the best, but she's got this permanent Erica face going on. (You remember Erica, right? That weird live-action game I played a couple years ago and absolutely ripped apart because the female lead's only emotion was uncertainty. Yeah, Erica is now an astronaut.) It's not...terrible...but it's a bit jarring how she always look like she's one sneeze away from breaking every bone in her body. Maybe "jarring" isn't the right word. Distracting? Maybe that's better. There are actually quite a few little things I find distracting about this game. Take the cell phone logs, for example. They're a collectible in the game that have stored text conversations on them. Despite the majority of the game having a rather serious/dire tone, these are goofy interactions between two people, like a guy who is trying to get laid or someone literally texting while on the toilet. And every one of these collectibles ends with Kathy saying something like, "I should write this down for later," as if it's the most important thing in the world. I'm not going to fault the devs for not adding unique voice lines to every item in the game, but when you're making an immersive sim, the quickest way to break my immersion is by having what appears on screen not match what is being said. I'm also not sure how realistic the launch sequences are. It's kinda neat that they want you to feel like you're really manning a spaceship, but it's hard to take it serious when you're mostly just flipping colored switches and solving the easiest puzzles known to mankind. Fortunately, the actual puzzles in the game (the ones that involve redirecting beams of light) will scratch that itch for you. They introduced climbing for some reason, which never felt good to me. There are a few reasons for this, which will probably become clear if you play it. The first is that Kathy climbs by dual wielding pickaxes -- except she's really slow. You have to hold one shoulder button down while using the other to move Kathy's arm. If you're trying to move horizontally, that means you have to constantly reposition the back pickaxe to give yourself enough room to reach out with the front pickaxe. You also need a solid surface on which to attach. This sometimes means inching your way towards a surface that you can then reach across, or (more likely) not realizing that your pickaxe bounced off the surface and falling to your death because you already let go on the other shoulder button. Good job. Turns out Kats don't always land on their feet. You can also jump while climbing...which the game never tells you...and feels awkward to do, even once you get the hang of it. I realize that's a lot of complaining and I probably sound like I didn't like the game, but I did. It's just another sequel that didn't quite live up to the original for me. But it has its moments, and one of those is the ending, which saved the game for me. At the very least, this game and the original are good examples of how to do trophy lists. Not in love with all the collectibles, but at least there's a tracker, and the speedrun trophies aren't bad. (Don't worry. You don't have to speedrun the whole game. Just a few timed sections here and there.) I'm going to cautiously hold back on a recommendation, but I'm still counting this as a success in my "good games only this year" campaign. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted February 25 Author Share Posted February 25 (edited) Platinum #416 - Scars Above Scars Above is a third-person shooter developed by Mad Head Games, creators of...OK, I had to look it up, and I've seriously never heard of any of these games. But I feel we were playing it a little too safe with our game selections so far this year, so I decided to take one giant blind leap for mankind. But is this relatively short space odyssey punching ABOVE its weight, or is it a SCAR on the industry? Let's dive in. As I've said before, I sometimes like to follow up one game with another that fits it thematically. I actually have several space games in my backlog that I'd like to get to eventually, but this one stuck out to me because it's always going on sale for under $10 and -- well, I'll be honest here -- the main character is a chick wearing a sleeveless top. That's a good way to get my attention. And unlike the last game, where we were playing as a little girl named Kat who was barely old enough to drive a car (let alone a spaceship), we're now a mature woman named Dr. Kate Ward. A totally different name from Kat, for sure. And...just like Deliver Us Mars, the game begins with a four-man mission into space to check out a strange anomaly, where everything goes horribly wrong. I gotta say: as a marine biologist, I've always wished we invested more money into studying our own oceans than wasting our time in space. Ain't nothing good out there. Just death and crazy aliens that want us dead. Haven't these people ever seen a movie before? Naturally, you find yourself alone, stranded on a strange planet with enormous creatures who are even hungrier than me for Dr. Tanktop's meaty arms. When you first encounter them, you're going to realize you're playing a Souls-like with guns. I'm not sure I've played one of those before, but it somehow feels natural here. Color me surprised. You do have a melee attack, but you're more likely to be spamming the dodge roll when an enemy closes the gap because (a) it doesn't feel very strong, and (b) a lot of the enemies look, sound, and hit like a truck. Most of them have also weak spots, which are susceptible to gunfire. In fact, we got a bit of Genshin going on here because you have elemental attacks and elemental reactions with the environment. For example, an enemy that is treading through water will have the "Wet" status. It doesn't feel very good for them when you hit them with an electric attack. Similarly, you can freeze enemies and then shoot them with fire, or try to get behind them to hit their weak spot while they're unable to move. That's about as complicated as the elemental system gets, but I like its inclusion. It's one of the things that keeps combat engaging in Genshin because you're incentivized to pay attention to your environment and the attacks you are using. Dr. Resting Bitch Face comes equipped with more than a gun, though. Well, not as first, but eventually you gain access to a plethora of gadgets. These gadgets include things like healing injections, grenades, traps, and shields. They're also probably for people who play on a higher difficulty than me. I pretty much used the healing injections exclusively, since you can only have one equipped at a time and many of them share the same battery life. (Like most Souls-likes, you can reset everything, including enemy spawns, by resting at a checkpoint, but you can also refill your gadgets simply by harvesting resources. This essentially means you don't HAVE to rest to get more healing items, so long as you can find enough of the shared resource to keep yourself topped off. I kinda like that.) While this is a Souls-inspired game, I didn't find it particularly difficult, but there are definitely some areas and bosses where I died numerous times. Part of the reason for this is you're often fighting in cramped environments, and you need to watch out for hazards. One of the worst is when you get to the snowy region and have to keep an eye on your temperature gauge, as maxing that out will instantly kill you. Maybe Dr. Lara Spacecroft should come equipped with more padded clothing. (Actually, she finds a jacket for that section, and then appears to randomly change her outfit throughout the rest of the game. Very odd.) The graphics are pretty good here, I think. Face models are a little stiff, like the last game I reviewed. It's kinda creepy when Kate's lips start moving. Hair physics are good, though, and I guess that's more important because you'll be spending most of the game looking at her from behind. Enemy variety seems to be where the budget was cut the most. Several of the later enemies are just re-skinned versions of ones you encountered earlier in the game. It also doesn't help that the game stops introducing new elemental reactions pretty early on. You'll have most of your weapons and gadgets by the end of the second chapter, and there are six in the game. It kinda means this is one of those games that starts out strong and then dips. That'd be bad for a longer game, but I think it's fine here. Just know what you're getting. You're looking at a single playthrough plat, unless you miss a couple trophies or one of the trophies glitches out on you. (Didn't happen to me, but I read it's a common issue.) Could be a good weekend game, if you're looking for a short adventure. I actually liked this one. The middling reviews that I glanced at had me worried, but most of my complaints boil down to: "I wish there was more of this." The story is kinda meh and the combat can get a bit stale towards the second half of the game, but coming from Deliver Us Mars, it was nice to have a little action. I'm going to recommend this one. I don't think it's going to win any awards at the end of the year, but it DOES keep my streak alive. (And for those of you wondering, yes, I consider Tales of Berseria to be decent enough that we're still flawless after nine games.) I may be a bit all over the place with this review, but I haven't been to bed yet and it's almost dawn. It's like I'm a teenager all over again. Maybe I'll learn to pilot a spaceship this time around. See you, space cowboy. Edited February 26 by Cassylvania 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProfSeajay7 Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 On 2/20/2024 at 12:46 AM, Cassylvania said: Platinum #415 - Deliver Us Mars 14 hours ago, Cassylvania said: Platinum #416 - Scars Above After seeing you bash a Tales game, which is understandable as I have Tales of Arise rotting on my PS5 library and not willing to try it despite my only personal friend boasting on how cool it is, it's nice to see you return to form. Haven't bothered playing games like this but your reviews are nice. Your reviews helped me avoid games that would have been a disaster for me. Didn't help that I blew $20.99 on a Deluxe Edition of LEGO Star Wars for the PS4, not realizing I didn't need to buy that game for my PS4 as I already had that version's platinum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProfSeajay7 Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 15 hours ago, Cassylvania said: I gotta say: as a marine biologist, I've always wished we invested more money into studying our own oceans than wasting our time in space. Ain't nothing good out there. Just death and crazy aliens that want us dead. I just saw a Splatoon documentary and I gotta say, you're missing out, Cass. If you love marine biology, these games are up your alley with lots of squids and octopi and you don't even have to play the multiplayer, they have great single player campaigns. (Coming from a guy who only played a little bit of Splatoon 2 and quit because he kept falling off the arenas. ) No trophies, but trust me, I do play games which don't have a trophy system, like Dragon Quest Monsters and Pokemon. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally-Vincent--- Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 On 2/25/2024 at 11:25 AM, Cassylvania said: See you, space cowboy. I see what you did there. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted March 2 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 2 Platinum #417 - Scarlet Nexus While the rest of the world is eagerly playing the newest Final Fantasy game, I'm out here doing God's work by working my way through slightly more obscure JRPGs. (Although Tose, the developer of this, also created the FF Pixel Remasters, so it's kinda like I'm joining them in spirit.) But is Scarlet Nexus the NEXt game you should purchase, or is it just a SCAR on the industry? Wait, didn't I just make this joke...? Yes, guys. It turns out I DO sometimes play the games I threaten I'm going to play. It's kinda nice to play a JRPG every now and then that doesn't have a million lengthy sequels and spin-offs. Having done very little research before beginning, it initially actually reminded me of two games. The first is Valkyria Chronicles, which is high praise, and the second is Haven, which is far less so. The only reason it did is because of the main characters, though. Not only do the protagonists in the platinum image look like Yu and Kay from Haven, their names are literally Yuito and Kasane. I refuse to believe that's a coincidence. Also, I definitely got Welkin (nerdy guy who doesn't seem to like fighting, despite being a soldier)/Alicia (your typical tsundere from every anime ever) vibes from these characters. But don't worry. This is NOT a love story. This is a story about friendship. And war. And it has a whole lot to say about the state of modern politics. If that doesn't instantly turn you on, I don't know what will. So, let's begin by having me butcher the basic plot of the game. Despite what you're probably thinking, Yuito (that's the dude) and Kasane (that's the chick) are both playable characters and they're at odds for most of the game. Right off the bat, you're asked to pick one of them to play as in your first playthrough. You'll need to do what essentially amounts to NG+ as the other in order to earn the platinum, but it's better than most games that do this in the sense that their storylines are different, making each playthrough unique. (Think Resident Evil 2 as Leon and Claire.) While you could technically choose either, I would STRONGLY recommend doing what I did and playing through as Yuito first. The reason for this is that Kasane's motivations and driving force are a lot more mysterious, so that second playthrough will help to shed some light on her actions. I don't think you're going to have a hard time understanding things from Yuito's perspective. (Also, if you carry out your stats to NG+, that makes Kasane a total badass from the beginning, which is how the game wants to portray her.) It's almost to the point that I'm surprised they even allow you to choose Kasane's story first. I don't want to say too much more than that. The game centers around the Other Suppression Force (OSF), who are a group of elite soldiers with special powers tasked with killing creatures known as Others. Yuito and Kasane are rookies in the OSF at the start of the game, but they're assigned to different platoons and eventually become the leaders of their respective platoons. They meet for the first time after joining the OSF, with Yuitio feeling like he's seen Kasane before, and Kasane being all, "...You're weird." Eventually, some shit happens, there's a rift among some members in the OSF, and their two platoons are suddenly at odds. The way the story is presented, you typically only get to see things from the perspective of your own platoon. Despite the differences in their storylines, the actual way the game plays is more or less the same with both characters. They both have four unique members in their platoon (five if you count tactical support) and they have a literally identical hideout that you can chill at between story missions and learn more about your teammates. By talking to them and giving them gifts, you strength your Bond with that character, making them more useful in battle. You've seen this kind of thing before. I don't want to go into great detail about every character, but I would like to give you an overview of them, since the cast is usually the best thing about JRPGs. If you do what I say and play as Yuito first, your four squad mates will be Hanabi (Yuito's childhood friend), Gemma (the old man), Tsugumi (the shy girl who likes plants), and Luka (literally Tanjiro Kamado from Demon Slayer). They're actually all pretty cool. Yuito is so fuckin' dense that Hanabi likes him. (Like, LIKE likes him.) Gemma has that hardened veteran vibe, even though he's probably only like 24 years old in the game, since anybody over 18 is considered an elder in anime.) Tsugumi talks...like this...which could be...annoying...but I feel for her. I also have a speech impediment that causes me to pause a lot. I think her excuse is being socially awkward. I get that too. And Luka is the size of a hobbit and uses a giant hammer, which I think is supposed to be funny, but it's not like it's a trope we haven't seen a hundred times before. I just couldn't get over the fact that he's voiced by the same person as Tanjiro. I kept waiting for him to talk about his sister Nezuko. Now, each character has a power. Hanabi has fire, Gemma provides a shield, Tsugumi has clairvoiyance, and Luka can teleport. These are useful in battle for obvious reasons (or not so obvious... Tsugumi's ability can allow you to see invisible enemies, for example), but sometimes they're necessary for transversal as well. Meanwhile, Yuito's ability is Psychokinesis, which is really just telekinesis, as he can move objects with his mind. In battle, you only ever play as Yuito (or Kasane), but you can "borrow" your teammates' ability through a cerebral connection called SAS. You can think of these kinda like temporary attacks or buffs that make Yuito more powerful. This is actually pretty neat for the same reason that I liked the elemental attacks in Scars Above; it means you're constantly on your toes, trying to think which ability will be useful for the situation you're currently in. Invisible enemy? Use Tsugumi. Enemy about to explode in your face? Call for Gemma's shield. Want to just murder everything in your path? Hanabi does. Facing the most annoying fuckin' enemy in existence, who turtles into his shell every time you get close, causing all your attacks to do zero damage? Close the gap with Luka. When in doubt, just start tossing cars or boulders around with Yuito. When you break an enemy's shield (indicated by a yellow bar beneath their red HP bar), you can perform a Brain Crush attack, which is usually an instant kill. I love how fast it is too. It's so satisfying to just make an enemy's head pop. I much preferred it over the Brain Field (done by holding L3 and R3 when your gauge is full), which has an animation that takes about three hours and can't be skipped. Battles in this game are very fast paced, which I enjoyed, and it's a nice complement to the much slower story and cutscenes. Also, I guess Wataru counts as a Yuito Platoon member. He never joins you in battle, but he'll offer you useful advice while you're fighting, such as "Water will make you wet" and "If you're on fire, it will hurt". He'll do this throughout the entire game and I don't think there's any way to shut him up. I know because I kept scouring the menus, looking for a way. Kasane's platoon... actually, you know what? In the spirit of the game, I think we need a female's perspective. A Kasane to my Yuito, if you will. AJNA! AJNA: What? I need you to act like a cold-hearted bitch who is actually soft on the inside but has trouble expressing her true feelings because she thinks it'll make her look weak. AJNA: ...Are you an idiot? Perfect! OK, tell them about Kasane and her teammates. AJNA: Oh. Kasane. Yeah, she was cool. She was surrounded by incompetence but kept her composure the whole time because of her love for her big sister, Naomi. Oh, right! This fits into our whole theme for the year. There are a lot of sibling relationships in this game. There's Kasane and Naomi, Yuito and Kaito, Luka and Karen, Wataru and Haruka, Arashi and Fabuki, Kodama and... AJNA: ...Right. Anyway. Kasane's platoon has Shiden, Arashi, Kagero, and Kyoka. They're all assholes. Shiden is a whiny bitch who thinks he's better than everyone, Arashi is a lazy slacker who is supposed to be the PR person of the OSF, Kagero is a jokester and a clown, and Kyoka...well, I guess she's OK. She's the de facto commander of the platoon before Kasane is put in charge. She's like everybody's mother. I got dommy mommy vibes from her too. AJNA: ...Why do I even entertain this? What about their powers? AJNA: Shiden can control electricity, Arashi can slow time, Kagero can turn invisible, and Kyoka can duplicate herself. In a way, I guess their personalities relate to the abilities they have. Kasane has the same power as Yuito. Haruka provides tactical support. I liked her because she's voiced by Cassy's least favorite character in Genshin. Every time she pointed out the obvious, often in a joyous and condescending way, and he screamed at her to shut up, I felt a growing warmth inside of me. Oh, we haven't talked about Karen yet! Yeah, get this, guys. The main villain (?) in this game...is a guy named Karen (pronounced CAR-en). When he's not asking to speak to your manager, he's trying to take over the world or something. That's where the Others come in. They're these hideous monsters that you're fighting throughout the game. They're given really stupid names that rhyme or use alliteration for some reason (Rummy Mummy, Brawn Yawn, Rat Rut... Booger Sabbat!?), and some of their designs are laughable -- like one of them has an actual spigot wheel for a face (you know, the thing on a garden hose that you turn to make water come out) -- but they're also horrifying. Like, when you're fighting the spigot enemy, it turns the giant knob on its face to spray water on you, and the creaking sound it makes is actually the stuff of nightmares. I wouldn't call it a horror game, but there are definitely some horror elements. The game also has a lot to say about politics, like I mentioned, and there's more to the storyline than you might expect or that I seem to be leading on. It's pretty good. Voice acting is very solid too, but I just kinda expect that when you're hiring VAs from long-running animes and other highly successful games. I just wish they would get actual kids to play younger characters. There's like one part in the game where you see Yuito when he's younger, and it's really hard to take that scene seriously when he sounds like an adult trying to sound like a kid. Same with some of the background NPCs. There aren't many of those in the game who are voiced, but I really wish they were as polished as the main cast. It just detracts from the game when the quality drops when a less important character starts speaking. While we're on the subject, I want to say something about the story's presentation. Cutscenes are very rarely animated. Instead, you get this comic book-style paneling that shows the characters speaking. This is a step above a static frame, but I don't know if it's any more engaging. For whatever reason, they let you control the camera when this is happening, allowing you to view the panels at a slightly skewed angle. Not sure what that adds. Instead, I used this downtime (which is probably like 40-50% of the game) to work on diamond art paintings. Have you done any of those? They're kinda neat. You can buy them online for a few dollars and they come with this pen and these shiny beads that you can use to create a pre-made pixelated drawing. I'm doing a couple anime ones while waiting for a Batman one to arrive in the mail. Gotta deck out my new gaming room somehow. AJNA: Literally no one cares about your bead "paintings" that are probably stolen artwork. Anyway, the voice acting is good enough that you'll know who is speaking, even if you're not looking at the screen. I like that. But if you do want to watch the "cutscenes", I think it's an interesting way to present a story, if the budget or whatever didn't allow for fully animated scenes. As far as my personal preferences go... I think the combat was pretty slick. It gets a little repetitive after a while, I guess. A lot of reskinned enemies and reused maps. Many of the Others are more annoying than fun to fight. For example, the enemy that turtles up when you get close -- there are ways to damage it from a distance, but sometimes you're waiting for that power to become available. If you're playing Kasane's storyline, you can slow down time with Arashi or turn invisible with Kagero, but I think Luka is your only option for attacking that enemy as Yuito. That slows down combat in a game that seems to want to go fast. Bonking enemies with thrown objects is fun, but you don't really control them. You just target them and press R2 to throw (or hold L2 and complete a QTE for more powerful environmental attacks). The game is also a little too...scripted? Like, the game does a lot of things that scream lazy game design, but then tries its best to explain it away. For example, I mentioned the hideout layout is the same between characters. This is obviously done because the developers were too lazy to create two separate hideouts, but it's less immersive that way. Similarly, Yuito and Kasane can bond with characters in each other's platoon. Since they're supposed to be rival factions for a large part of the game, they do this by first having the characters message each other (also by SAS, which is like text messages by brain, I guess) and saying something along the lines of, "Hey, let's meet at the local cafe and talk about our feelings. Also, don't bring up any relevant plot stuff because we have to make this scene believable to the player, regardless of where they are in the story." This can lead to scenes where two characters are enjoying a night on the town, despite having just tried to kill each other. On the other hand, I've always liked secret bases in video games, so it's neat to have this chill place you go in between battles and you can see it decked out in more and more furniture as the game progresses. It reminds me of me and Aj and that asshole who doesn't pay his fair share of the rent. AJNA: Uh, neither do you. Just wait, guys. Someday I'm going to have a pad as cool as the hideout in this game. Is there anything we're forgetting? Trophy guide says 2/10 difficulty and 60 hours to platinum. I'm going to have to blow the bullshit whistle here, but it's actually on the difficulty this time. Even on the easiest difficulty, you're going to die every now and then. That instantly makes it at least a 3. I always think of a 2 as something that requires the bare minimum of effort. I actually played on the default difficulty and dropped it when I got to a boss that kept wiping the floor with me. (Like, I thought it was a boss that was SUPPOSED to kill me, but the story didn't continue when that happens. Another time, I think I died to a boss twice, and the story did continue the second time...? It was weird.) So, I'm going to say this is a textbook 3/10. You're looking at two full playthroughs, but with minimal post-game grinding, if you're working on bonding and side quests as you play. And since each playthrough has a unique storyline, I think it has a very respectable trophy list. I'm glad I played it. Huh. I said something nice about a JRPG. And here I was beginning to think I stopped liking them. I don't think this is an amazing game, but it's probably underrated. I mean, I thought it was at least as good as Berseria, and everyone talks that game up. I see no reason not to play this if you liked that. And it means I'm ten for ten on games this year. Getting a perfect 10 wasn't easy. It's not like I've only been playing sequels to games I liked or genres that I always have good things to say about. In fact, this and Berseria were two of the games on my bucket list this year that I was most worried about not liking. Oh, wait. Since is a JRPG, we need to play everybody's favorite game: CHOOSE! YOUR! WAIFU! We have a lot of good contestants this time around, but I'm going to have to give it to Arashi. Her stance is a little awkward because she's slouched over all the time, but I like her personality, her tomboy voice, and the minimal effort she puts into a running animation. She's quiet quitting personified. She's also the closest thing the game has to a redhead. AJNA: She's a brunette. She has red bunny ears. AJNA: ...I'm leaving. Never change, Japan. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinastran Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 (edited) On 2/14/2024 at 6:11 AM, Cassylvania said: I have so many complaints from here on out. First, the combat... I don't get it. I mean, I did it. I played well enough to beat the game. But there's simply too much to keep track of. Maybe I'm just old. You got all these different artes you can map to different buttons, you can perform combos by chaining certain artes together, some artes are better against certain types of enemies, you can use BGs and Break Souls and Mystic Artes, but they have different gauges and different levels, and you can have four characters actively running around on the screen at a time and two in reserves, you have various gear that you can upgrade that skills but they require mastery, and then titles that increase various skills but there are different levels of that too... I'll be honest, guys. I played on a lower difficulty and spammed buttons. I didn't know what I was doing. I still don't know what I was doing. This kind of stuff seems so prevalent in JRPGs. Or at least that's been my impression the few times I've dared to start one. There seems to be some sort of culture over there that quantity equals depth and good design. What you just described here reminds me of Trails of Cold Steel. There is no reason for a game to have: 30-ish different status effects (!!!) Stagger mechanics Link abilities for different characters Two types of special ability/arts categories with different resource pools Gems that give different buffs and abilities Four different elements with corresponding resistances Four to five different weapon types with...yes...more corresponding resistances... I might even be forgetting something there... It's so bad. Cut the amount of stuff in half and you have a better, more engaging combat system. I wish Japanese developers would at least entertain the idea that less is sometimes more. Maybe then my track record with JRPGs wouldn't be so horrible. Anyways, would you say Arise was better than Berseria in this regard? And by the sound of your review, you don't actually need to bother learning the combat all that much to beat and plat Berseria? Edited March 6 by Sinastran 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted March 8 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 8 (edited) On 3/6/2024 at 12:33 PM, Sinastran said: Anyways, would you say Arise was better than Berseria in this regard? And by the sound of your review, you don't actually need to bother learning the combat all that much to beat and plat Berseria? My memory is a bit hazy on Arise, but I think I liked the combat in that more than Berseria (and the story in Berseria more than Arise). It could be different on a higher difficulty, though. Maybe if you were forced to learn the combat system, you'd find a use for all those intricate details. But it's definitely not necessary for the platinum. It's also hard to defend when I just got done playing Scarlet Nexus, which I thought had a much better and much more engaging combat system. (The Ys games I've played are better in this regard too...) And now, for a game with a lot less combat and a greater amount of violence... Platinum #417... ½ - Danganronpa 1 Reload Hey, it's not my fault they split the platinum over two games. But we'll just cut Monokuma right down the middle and deal with each game separately, since I think a 40 hour game is enough to warrant a mini-review. Plus, it's only a matter of time before I play through the second game... Okay! From the sick minds that brought you Zero Escape... and Zero Time Dilemma... and Danganronpa 2, 3, and probably a bunch of spin-off games... Dangthatsalongtitle is a mystery horror visual novel with a very simple concept: you are trapped in school with a bunch of classmates and the only way to escape is to literally get away with murder. It's probably the only way you could make school worse than it already was! But is this a DANG good time, or did I want to kill myself to escape this game? We're about to find out. So, to begin, you play as Sora from Kingdom Hearts Makoto, the most average kid ever. You have an average life, an average family, and an average personality. That basically means you're boring. But you're accepted at Hope's Peak Academy, a school where simply graduating is enough to ensure success for the rest of your life. Fourteen other kids are accepted alongside of you, but each of these students excels in some area. For example, one is really good at baseball. Another is a fashion model. Another is...good at writing fanfic...? Another is...rich? Another is... kinda good at swimming... I don't get it... Anyway, this is all just an excuse to give you a diverse cast of characters to interact with and murder or watch be murdered. This is actually a pretty violent game. I'd say it earns its M rating. But before you start devising a way to kill your classmates, I should point out this is essentially an on-the-rails kind of visual novel. While your actions do impact the story, you can't really change the order of events that happen, who gets killed, when they get killed, and who the murderer is. The entire story is scripted from beginning to end. It's probably good it was written that way, because I don't think the story would be quite as effective otherwise, but it does kinda take some of the tension away because your character is never actually in any danger, unless the game wants you to be. This actually isn't too different from a lot of horror games, though. I find once you start playing a horror game and seeing what can and cannot kill you, it becomes a lot less scary. In this case, though, that means the game basically has to stand under the weight of its own story. I should point out that this particular school is actually kinda nice inside. It's small (at least in the beginning), but all your basic necessities are provided. You have your own private bedroom (where only the girls' bathroom doors lock because Japan), a gym to exercise in, and all the food you could ever want. The only problem is there are security cameras and monitors everywhere, there's a creepy bear named Monokuma who is running the whole show, and any one of your classmates could try to murder you or each other at any moment. That puts you a little on edge because you don't know who you can really trust. Monokuma sets the rules. They're pretty simple. If a student is killed, you're given a short amount of time for investigation and then a class trial takes place. During the trial, you can present arguments or evidence to try to solve the murder, similar to something like Phoenix Wright. At the end of the trial, everybody votes on who they think the killer is. If they are correct, the killer is punished (executed). If they all wrong, everybody else is killed and the killer is allowed to walk free. Alternatively, you could just...not kill, and you'd be stuck in the school forever. It's quite the decision. Of course, Monokuma sometimes feels the need to "nudge" people towards killing by providing them with a little extra motivation... This is usually just a means of facilitating the story, but it can also serve as a clue for if and when the next killing happens. Obviously, I can't discuss the story here for spoiler reasons, but what I will say is the game does a really good at making you want to keep playing. That's actually the main reason I decided to stop halfway through the platinum to write this review. I can't remember the last time I thought about a game while I was at work or doing something else. This reminded me of being a kid, when I used to daydream about playing through the next part of my game. These characters are so ridiculous and I found myself really wanting to know who would be killed next and hoping it wouldn't be my favorites. And as each murder happens and we're going through the trial, I often found myself a step or two ahead of the game, deducing parts of the mystery that hadn't been even brought up yet. Sometimes this can be frustrating because you know where the contradiction is, but you're not sure when or how to point out. (This is because of how the gameplay during the trials goes... I don't want to get into it here, but you're sometimes "shooting" parts of an argument with "truth bullets", and it's not always clear which statements need to be challenged with which bullet...particularly because you can turn those same statements into bullets and use them to attack other statements and I told you I didn't want to get into it because it's confusing. It'll make a little more sense if you play the game.) Now, I don't want to toot my own hoot, but I'm pretty proud of myself for two things. First, I called the biggest (second biggest?) twist in the game almost immediately. I'll put that in a spoiler below. Don't read it if you haven't played the game. Second, you're given "free time" in the game to hang out with your classmates. This is similar to Persona, where you can use these moments to befriend a particular character by talking to them or giving them a present. I was worried that I'd start befriending a character who would be killed off before I could max out their friendship (I assumed there was a trophy for this, but I didn't look because I wanted zero spoilers), but I somehow picked all the characters that survived the longest. It wasn't as obvious to me as the spoiler below, but I'm pretty happy that I was able to go through the game with most of my best buds intact. Spoiler I knew Junko wasn't dead. For once, I'm not blaming the developers or the writers for this. It's the artist's fault. You don't design a character to look like THAT, only to kill her off needlessly at the start of the game. If you haven't played this before, you're probably wondering if you can actually solve each mystery for yourself or if there simply aren't enough clues or too many red herrings for that to be possible. I'd say it's a mix of both. The first case, for example, was pretty easy to figure out, I thought. Almost too easy. It gets more complicated after that. There are maybe two or three times where I thought, "That's dumb" in regard to some particular aspect of a case. For example, there's one time where somebody screws with a crime scene just because...? It's a red herring, sure, but it was one put there purposely by somebody who wasn't even involved with the killing. Since that character has motivation to -- oh, I dunno, NOT die -- it doesn't really make sense for them to interfere with the investigation. That'd be like if I was being held at gunpoint and you were trying to sneak up behind to save me and I started screaming for my captor to notice. That said, guys... I really liked this game. You know me. I don't mince words. I've had my issues with visual novels in the past, but this is the best I've played. I'd put it above both Zero Escape, which I thought was too convoluted, and Phoenix Wright, which I thought was a slog at times. This is the most engaged I've been in a game that doesn't really have engaging gameplay. If I had some negatives, though... I mean, this is my chance to criticize the game a little to see if the sequel is any better... I actually didn't like some of the voice acting. First, some lines have voice acting and some don't. There's no consistency there. Second, some characters have voices that don't really match their personality. I'm mainly thinking about Kyoko. The VA does a good enough job (same person who voices Venti in Genshin because of course I'd notice that), but I'm not sure that voice works with that character. The art style is also all over the place. I think there are at least three distinct 2D styles that are used throughout the game. I really liked the one that was used the least, which is the Tim Burton-esque execution scenes. When you're walking around the school, though, all the characters are static cardboard pop-ups. I'm not sure why they even bother having the exploration part of the game, since nothing happens in the overworld. The music is really good, though, because it'll jump from being overtly happy to sinister and intense, depending on the situation. Like I said, I'm kinda iffy on the actual gameplay during the trials. There are a lot of moving parts and it's not as simple as just pointing out the contradiction. During the closing arguments, you have to recreate how the crime took place using images that aren't fully clear what they're supposed to represent, and you have to "battle" your opponent in a rhythm-based game that I was pretty terrible at. The concept is pretty good, though. Basically, your opponent is trying to distract you by calling you names or going "LALALALA!" and you need to select their dialogue with X, shoot it with triangle to remove it from the screen, and reload your gun with square in rhythm to the beat. Fortunately, even on the highest difficulty (which is what I played on), losing at anything during the trial just gives you the option to retry, with very little lost time. Lowers some of the tension, but I appreciate not having to redo the whole thing. I don't feel the need to talk about School Mode. It's neat for learning about the characters you didn't befriend during your playthrough, but I also ended up having to play through it like SIX TIMES because I kept screwing myself over in dumb ways, like not reading the directions or befriending the same character twice. Took about 40-45 hours to do everything in the game. I don't know how the second game is gong to compare, but this is a very easy recommendation so far. I'm probably just going to jump right into the sequel. Okay then... sweet dreams, everyone! Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite... Edited March 9 by Cassylvania 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted March 13 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 13 But before we get to the other half of that platinum, we have a little detour to make... Platinum #418 - Moonscars What? Did you think I was only going to play games you've heard of this year? You know that ain't how I roll. Developed by...okay, they've literally only developed this game, so we'll say published by Humble Bundle -- you know, the same people who published such classics as Slay the Spire, A Hat in Time, Ikenfell, and Unpacking -- Moonscars is a 2D Souls-like with a color palette as bleak as its world. (Think black, white, and red all over -- just like Othercide.) But does this game successfully shoot for the MOON or is it just a SCAR on the... wait, deja vu... Yes, my sole reason for playing this game was making that joke again. Let's get into it. So, we'll keep this one simple. This is a lot like the other 2D Souls-likes out there. I'd compare it to, say, Minoria, but I'm pretty sure that game has an even lower player count than this one. So, maybe we should start calling these "Souls-lites"? I'm going to coin that phrase. You hear that, From Soft? You can start sending me royalties. For all the free advertisement you get me from me in this thread, I deserve it. Anyway, Souls-lites are games that I'd say are shorter and less punishing than your typical Souls game. You'll die, but your controller won't get broken. I'd also say they're more focused on tight combat and less on unique builds or replayability. Here, you play as Gray Irma. There's a plot that I think could be interesting, but... okay, I have to explain my current gaming situation. My TV is on the opposite side of the room from my bed, which makes it good for playing visual novels that have large text, but not so good when the developers decide to use size 8 font. I'm a fast reader and I typically don't like to strain my eyes, so I kinda had to give up on this story about a quarter of the way through because I wasn't going to get out of bed every five minutes to see what the next NPC has to say. Hopefully this situation will be remedied when I get my new gaming room put together. But whatever. I'm mainly here to talk about the gameplay. As with any Souls-lite, you have the ability to perform a basic attack, charged attack, parry, and dodge roll (here, a dash). You can equip one special attack (I preferred the gauntlet, but you can try them all), two spells (one to each trigger button) and three amulets that do various things. You can also hold L1 to heal. You'll be doing this a lot. In fact, I'd call this Facetank: The Game, because you'll spend most of the game exchanging hits and healing yourself in the middle of combat. It's frantic, but it's actually kinda welcome. It reminds me a bit of Bloodborne, where you're encouraged to stay close to your opponent. Here, running away is a valid strategy too, but it doesn't take much to kill ol' Irma. Sometimes just healing a little bit is the difference between being able to tank one more time and dying. Most enemies have telegraphed attacks, so parry is probably your best friend. And your best friend is dating the amulet that heals you after a successful parry, so maybe equip that too. As for the spells... I dunno. I kept the default one because it was good for opening doors, which you need to do a lot. For the other...well, you have an extensive skill tree, but I went straight for the skills that let me summon a companion because if there's one thing I like even more than playing games, it's letting someone else play the game for me. I started out with the kamikaze demon, but opted for the doppelganger for the rest of the game. The problem with my strategy is that some enemies have a shield that can only be broken if you perform a spell on them. This is fine for grounded enemies, but the flying enemies in this game are SO annoying. Your doppelganger can't hit these in the air and the other attack is hard to land on a moving enemy. It's basically like trying to swat a fly. And even though you can regenerate mana pretty quickly just by performing basic melee attacks, it can be very frustrating to break through those shields. Not the worst thing ever, but enough to make me prefer the enemies that can kill me in a single hit because at least that seems fair. There are some other mechanics related to the phase of the moon, but I don't want to get into that. Let's just say the game gets harder when the moon is red. There's also some backtracking in this game, similar to a Metroidvania (in fact, it might be more of a Metroidvania than a Souls-like), and I guess it's somewhat of a platformer too. There's a mechanic you get towards the latter half of the game that is necessary to advance, but its implementation is a little awkward. I want to thank @littlelostkiwi for the mini trophy guide. I always appreciate the guide writers on this site, but sometimes it's nice just to have a simple checklist to go through while I play a game. This game is nice in the sense that you can just follow that guide and not worry about missing anything or having to print out giant maps or spreadsheets. You don't even need a collectibles guide because everything is marked in-game, as it should be. Of course, me being me, I still screwed up, didn't follow the guide correctly, and lost about four hours of gameplay because I didn't give the kitty his milk, but what would a platinum experience be without me finding a way to make it harder for myself? But one thing I want to do in reviews going forward is to talk less about the game's mechanics and more about my feelings for the game. I don't know why I always try to explain how a game plays. That's the hard part. It's much easier to tell you what I liked and what I didn't like. Here, I liked the experience. It was fast-paced and challenging enough to feel rewarding, but didn't overstay its welcome, which is honestly the #1 thing that I look for these days. Graphics and music were fine. Sometimes it was hard to tell where my character was when there was a lot going on, but that's my fault for using a doppelganger. I think the part where my character got crushed by the moving gears was bullshit. Since I do tend to play a lot of games that belong to only a handful of genres, one thing I've been thinking of doing is creating a tier list or a series of tier lists to compare similar games. I mean, I kinda already do that in these reviews. But I think it might be helpful in the future in comparing games that are alike. Unfortunately, my opinion is going to vary greatly if I decide to compare this to the Metroidvanias on my list versus the Souls-likes. One is a little more top-heavy than the other. I'd say it's...near Scars Above. I think I liked that game a little more because it wasn't trying to go up against a masterpiece in game design, but I'd be happy if every game I played was at least as competent as Moonscars. I think this is a good benchmark for future games. I will recommend this one, probably even over Tails of Iron -- especially if you're a trophy hunter. As long as you're using that guide, this is actually an enjoyable platinum, similar to what I had to say about Carrion last year. Cool stuff, but I'm going back to Monokuma now. I gotta see how that story ends. I swear my next platinum won't have "scar" in the title. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 Here I was looking forward to 2-3 new Cassy reviews after 2 weeks of essentially abandoning the website while on vacation and I’m shocked to discover that there’s nothing. 7 NEW GAMES AT ONCE CASSY???? Is that a record? You have some BANGERS in there (Paradise Killer I genuinely can’t wait) and some games I’m wildly curious about and have seen on sale in Potion Permit and The Touryist. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted March 24 Author Share Posted March 24 On 3/22/2024 at 1:07 PM, realm722 said: Here I was looking forward to 2-3 new Cassy reviews after 2 weeks of essentially abandoning the website while on vacation and I’m shocked to discover that there’s nothing. 7 NEW GAMES AT ONCE CASSY???? Is that a record? You have some BANGERS in there (Paradise Killer I genuinely can’t wait) and some games I’m wildly curious about and have seen on sale in Potion Permit and The Touryist. Utter insanity, isn't it? March Madness ain't just for basketball. But yeah, it's been a new week every night for the past week. I was doing a little housesitting for someone else and it helped to break up the tedium of not being near my PC. I feel lost playing games without PSNP/YouTube by my side. Either way, I do think this is a record, both for number of games started in a week...and number of unfinished games on my account. I think there's 19 now, if we don't include the impossible one. 16, I guess, if we include the DLC surprises. Not impossible for me to manage, but I'm certainly putting myself into some awkward positions going into spring. Consider this my way of finally getting to those games that I swore I'd play "someday." The real question now is: which of these games will I finish first? I mean, it's probably pretty obvious, but I got some shorter indie games that I plan to knock out over the next few weeks. I'm sure I'll have a lot of reviews coming soon! In the meantime... hm, I forget if I mentioned it, but the reason my gaming room has had even less progress than my completion percentage is that I had to tear everything down to the subfloor and I have a contractor coming out this week to even out the floor because walking across that room is about as uphill as...well, my completion percentage. There's a literal hump in the middle of the floor that runs wall to wall and I just can't have that in the one room of this damn house that I plan to spend any time in. Once that's done, I'll put back in the vinyl flooring, toss in some farmhouse trim to match the rest of the house (so much easier than traditional baseboard molding), and then I think we're good to move furniture in there. That's good because I'm not sure sitting in bed all the time to play games is good for my back. I'm not sure working on this house is either. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Wright95 Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 I think you are the final boss of trophy checklist bro 😆 This thread is unbelievable. Really loved the layout and the detail you go into! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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