Razzee

I know Crysis for a very long time, since this title was treated more like a benchmark than a game, but I never knew of someone who played the whole thing to speak fondly (or badly) of it. Bought it in 2015 (the backlog is slowly progressing) for a very low price and finished the campaign today. Despite the amazing graphics and physics (for its time), the gameplay mechanics are relatively simple, yet fun. If I had to complain about anything in particular, is the length of the campaign. I finished the game on Hard (without manual saves) in only 9 hours, according to Steam. It's worth buying to contemplate what's the "Can it run Crysis?" meme is about, but not at full price.

Story: I don't know how good or bad it was for someone to have a gloomy, brand new character like Nepgear as the protagonist when this game launched in 2012, but for me it was a good change of pace. She is more human and with wider margin for character development, compared to Neptune, who in contrast manages to keep her cool at all times no matter the circumstances. The guest characters this time, Gust and Nisa, are very well written and play important roles in the story; I just wish there were more events with them. One of the endings (Conquest) is unarguably one of the best alternate timelines in the whole series. Combat system: it scrapped altogether the combat, healing and combo systems of the original game, which were too unintuitive and complex. The characters are now able to freely roam the battle instance to position the characters, healing can be done at any time, and the combo system is more straightforward, with less customization required. Two things I truly dislike about it though is being unable to defend to reduce incoming damage and the SP system that makes turning on and keeping HDD form almost impossible given how much SP is required and how few is given through attacking enemies and using items. It's not the best battle system in the franchise, but ways better than the first game and paved a path for the developers. Envinroment/art: all dungeons in this game are fresh, with none being recycled from the first game or Trinity Universe. The graphics are not great and the performance is very poor in some areas. Instead of 2D sprites, 3D models are used during cutscenes, and I don't dislike this change at all, since it amplifies the characters expressions. Sometimes 2D sprites shows up, which adds to inconsistency. mk2 has way less CGs compared to the original and Trinity Universe, or they were poorly distributed. OST: not better than the original sound-track, but still solid. When playing with English dub, most of the events are voiceless, even the main ones.

Ever17 -The Out of Infinity- is proof that nothing cannot be taken at face value. It's about a drama that starts as a seemingly common date sim (although everyone may die drowned in a few hours) and unveils its true self on the fifth and last route, with plot-twists involving sci-fi elements masterfully foreshadowed and kneaded together. Every vital information is so well pieced together that you won't be wondering about many lingering plot-holes, if any. However, I must admit that the game demands quite some time to take form, but it pays off at the end, believe me. In fact, it's undoubtedly long and slow-paced by nowadays standards, therefore I suggest you to play the Zero Escape trilogy to know what the man called Uchikoshi Kotaro is capable of, since those three games are far better paced, in my opinion. Ever17 became my favorite among his works for developing tension without resorting to death games, which is a recurring trait of his recent works. I love everything about Ever17; the underwater theme park setting, the soundtrack, the characters, the art style, the plot-twists. It can't be stressed enough: if you are a fan of the author, the visual novel genre, or even reading books, you absolutely must let be carried by the story that Ever17 has to tell at least once on your lifetime.

The only elements Steambot Chronicles: Battle Tournament shares with its antecessor are the title and the presence of Trotmobiles. Effortless/repetitive quests, limited exploration, poor storytelling (75% of the laughably predictable plot unfolds at the very end of the game), lack of alternative routes among other things make no justice to the shadow of the original PS2 game. I took 32 hours to finish Steambot Chronicles, while this lackluster spin-off provided with enough content for only 6 hours. To be fair, being able to freely move with a Trotmobile within the city and short loading times are nice improvements.

Story: I knew a good portion of the plot from playing Re;Birth1 a year ago, but there are some differences. Firstly, compared to Re;Birth1, the characters seem very self-restrained; Neptune is no longer a mindless pudding addict meme-maker, and I think that's a (really) good thing. In fact, the word pudding is never mentioned. She makes no jokes about Noire's loneliness every frame either. This sums up to the aura of hostility between each goddesses; they are reluctant to help Neptune in doing anything. The only real buddies Neptune made throughout the game are IF and Compa. Talking about them, since they receive more screen time, or I was not paying much attention, Compa is potentially a very funny character with her grandfather's quotes and other absurdities (like a part of one of the legendary weapons being a heirloom from her grandfather, who conveniently found it on his yard). Every optional quest has a little backstory read by 5pb on her radio channel. The problem with the story in this game is how slow-paced it is; Neptune finds the first Key Fragment very early in the game, then there is a lot of filler (go to dungeon, watch cutscene, repeat) with uninteresting stuff, just to resume unfolding on the late stages of the game. Compa says that the most important are the beginning and the ending, but this is obviously not true. In any case, the concept was well established for the sequels (which the developers apparently didn't expect to make, given how this game ended). Still talking about story, what surprises me the most about Japanese games is the amount of effort they invest on side content, which may not be viewed by the player, easily skippable if one does not pay attention. The game does not explain how shares work nor how to recruit the goddesses, yet there are voiced cutscenes after you recruit each one of them. Combat system: Trinity Universe cemented the path, while Hyperdimension Neptunia took the opposite way. It shares a lot of similarities with the previous game, since a lot of content was recycled from TU (most enemies, some maps); both are traditional dungeon crawlers, wherein a battle is triggered every X steps taken, creating an isolated instance. TU is a mix of RPG with hack n' slash mechanics; 4-button long combos are inputted to deal more damage, linking attacks from everyone in the party to unleash even greater combos and damage. Basically, Cross: light physical attack (high hit count), Square: heavy physical attack (low hit count), Triangle: magical attack (multi-target) and Circle: custom skill (eject, healing etc). I liked that system a lot (is there any other similar game?). However, the developers decided to scrap the solid system combat from TU to make something anew in HDN. The combo system is still there, but the player must create them with every skill obtained. Needless to say, but I just spammed the same combo for every character during the whole game; I'm not a fighting games player to memorize all these damn combos. They thought that "customization" was a good thing no matter where it was applied, although Cross Edge flopped for its wide amount of complex customization. The real issue is how healing takes place; there is a menu called "Item Skills", where you distribute percentage points to increase the likelihood of being healed or receiving different buffs during battle. Dying to a boss because my HP was at 51% and not 50%, thus not triggering the healing effect was utterly frustrating. To worsen things, some Item Skills are given priority over others (if you're at 30% HP, it's the Item Skill whose condition is to heal under 50% that gets triggered, healing in a smaller quantity of HP). Environment/art: dungeons are still large corridors with repeated layouts, but at least there is a greater variation of them here. I think the graphics are pretty good, mainly the 3D models for the characters, that no longer look like they are made of wax. The frame-rate is slightly choppy in some dungeons (factories) while stable in others (snow). I read that lowering the resolution to 720p amenizes the issue, but it didn't bother me that much. Oh, yes, there is a 3D Macaroon in this game (shopkeeper in TU). Of course, the major selling point of the game: living, beautiful sprites drawn by the talented artist Tsunako. I love her style. Talking about the sprites, they seem thicker in this game, as well as the manga-style expressions. The font chosen by NISA for localization is very stylish. Background images in cutscenes appear to be more varied. OST: I have read amountful comments stating that the sound-track is mediocre, but I liked it. Not every song thrilled me, but I think that each one of them suited well the themes for every dungeon where they play. During cutscenes the song played is changed to match the situation portrayed, which shows the care they had in making cutscenes. I ran out of words but, I suggest checking this game if you're a fan of the franchise.

All the three games present in this package aged extremely well and are on par with modern titles in several aspects. However, I had to give it a score of 9 since both MGS2 and MGS3 freeze during some cutscenes, both are not compatible with DualShock 4 and, besides that, the first game is missing - there is no code to claim it on the PlayStation Store either. I'd like to see them remade with enhanced graphics as seen in the stupid **** machines developed by Konami.

I just finished this game, at a loss for words. I once played Metal Gear Solid on a PS1 when I was younger, but back then I was unable to finish the tutorial. It's incredible how well this game has aged, it made me lose any sense of time I had while playing it.

I had the impression that Silent Hill 4: The Room would be the best in the franchise by a great margin, given how positively different it is, but the game becomes a drag to finish from the second half onward. Escorting a helpless chick is annoying enough but, to top it off, there is an arbitrary limit of 10 items to be carried and (for crying out loud, why can't I drop or discard items?), the more I return to the apartment, more likely it is to be haunted (random events). The developers wanted the player to return to the apartment every now and then to interact with objects in order to advance in the dream world, but punishing us at the same time is too much. To make the experience a bit less frustrating, the PC version got 6 of the haunting types removed. Of course, the game has good things. Animations, combat system and graphics are too ahead of the previous games. For example, the very first enemy, unless I'm mistaken, is a "dog", and it in fact behaves like a real one. If the protagonist acts like a prey, the dogs run and jump towards him like there's no tomorrow, what does not happen if Henry assumes a defensive stance. The other enemies aren't nearly as intelligent, but it may have been the result of a tight schedule to deliver the game in time. Still, it's a departure from the mindless steel pipe spam. I'm giving the game a score of 9 since it was made in parallel to SH3 by a secondary team which took a lot of risks in innovating what the older games set. However, while I think they took the right direction for most of the things, they apparently didn't know what to do with the game after the first half.

Silent Hill: Downpour is the best entry in terms of graphics, as well as making Silent Hill seem like a living city, given the amount of sub-stories. I liked the combat system and story too, but that's about it. Technically the game is a catastrophe - it suffers from constant slowdown, texture pop-in and I should mention that it even froze my PS3 once. Ordinary enemies are among the most generic of the whole series, though bosses are OK, especially the last one. Fans of the series should totally experience Downpour, but I suggest playing it through an emulator (RPCS3) or Xbox One. If the developers had more time to polish the game, it could have been well received, and the studio would be still in activity.

YAKUZA 0 is the best game ever made. It's not an easy task to put together a plot that incites interest of the player, a functional and fun combat mechanics, memorable OST, not to mention an infinitude of side content without quality pending more to one than to the other, but SEGA reached the sun with this game. Although I love the other games of this franchise as well, no one can be compared to 0.

Silent Hill: Ørigins lives up to its name. It plays very similarly to the first game, with the protagonist wandering within the misty city of Silent Hill. It was a bit shorter than the previous titles, but very satisfactory, mostly because the puzzles in this game are tied to the story, unlike in the Japanese games where puzzles only exist for the sake of extending the game artificially. Graphics are good and loading times almost null. My complaints are on the weird camera (that glitches and does not change its angle sometimes), the scarcity of save points in/between some areas. Also, it lacks a bit in the survival department, since it was... easy. At the end of the game I still had a lot of ammunition and healing items to spare. Of course, I explored every nook and cranny of the map, but that was an obligation in the games made by Team Silent, not something to be rewarded for. There are some flaws to be rectified but, overall, I think the studio took the right direction.

Silent Hill 3 is vastly superior in terms of atmosphere and graphics compared to its predecessor, but, although I liked the story being tied to the first game, the first half of SH3 is just filler. Heather decides to go home, but not before going through a subway station, sewers and a construction site packed with enemies for no apparent reason (other than prolonging the game), since she is not in Silent Hill yet. It's when she arrives home that the game really starts. Then, she heads to Silent Hill, the franchise's biggest icon, spending a very short amount of time in a portion of the city recycled from SH2. Overall, I think it's a more consistent game compared to SH2 (story-wise), but it's too linear (there are no shortcuts to previously visited areas, since the backtracking here is nonexistent) and items were poorly distributed, some even very well hidden from the player. The game feels a lot harder; I remember shooting ordinary enemies only three times in SH2, they would fall to the ground and die after stomped once, but here every monster is apparently using a bulletproof vest and can't be overwhelmed so easily. It's very frustrating at times to face 3-4 mini-bosses in narrow corridors. My score would be 7, but the PC version deserves a bit more, as I just had to install a fan-made patch to enable widescreen support and, much to my surprise, the game natively detected every button of my DualShock 4, except for the vibration function. It performs and looks very well for a 2003 game. It was ported by the original developers, after all.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Silent Hill is far from graphically realistic by modern standards, but I don't recall when it was the last time I felt goosebumps playing a game. The dreaded tank controls are awkward/frustrating at first, but I got used to it... and somehow started liking this aspect of the game, to my surprise. Tense and fun, but amountful are the cheap puzzles to keep the spectator busy and artificially extend the duration of this rather short game, negatively impacting my interest in the story, since it was barely developed even after some hours invested on it. With a clear objective in mind, that is to find his daughter, Harry is notably nonchalant towards the numerous abstract life forms he encounters during his search. No matter how exemplar of a father someone is, being so selfless and devoid of the most primitive sense, fear, is humanly impossible. Nevertheless, it's one of the best PS1 games I played in terms of atmosphere, graphics and soundtrack. Looking forward to a remake, if it ever happens.

It's hard to believe that this game was the precursor to Haunting Ground. Story filled with cliche, bland characters, repetitive game-play, extremely short (I spent 7 hours) and zero replay value. Since your pursuers are always spawned in the same place every time, following a strict script, their presences offer no suspense, fear or even jump-scares at all during the game, just sheer annoyance. To be fair, the animations and cutscenes are very smooth and stand out for a early 2000s game, but everything else was pretty much forgettable. Technically OK, with loading times to move between areas being very brief, almost unnoticeable, though it's slow to open the inventory. It's heartbreaking for me to bad talk about a game, since it's the sort of entertainment I enjoy the most, and I respect the developers' hard work, but they should have sought a format other than videogame to present it, be it anime, movie etc. The "horror" of survival horror, its genre, stands for how horrible Clock Tower 3 is as a game.

Very intriguing storytelling, but both combat and item search systems are totally broken. It's very hard or impossible at times to defeat so many enemies. Backtracking is a routine, and 5 seconds worth of loading time separating you from the room next door also sum up to the frustration, thanks to having to use the dog to find every damn item. Aware of the poor combat mechanics in advance I went for the Rusty Sword to make my experience a bit less frustrating and I recommend anyone reading this to do so. From my understanding, the story is quite simple but how it is told is so convoluted and bizarre. One of the adults in the game is depicted as a pedophile, though it is not true... They did it so people would pay more attention to the game? No wonder it was banned everywhere. It's worth playing at least once, if you can overlook the broken combat and item search systems, but I didn't and still wouldn't pay what people are asking for an original copy nowadays. If you love Rule of Rose and want to show appreciation for their work, the only logic method to support the long gone Punchline in the current time is to buy their only other game, Chulip, digitally available as a PS2 Classic for the PS3. Supporting the studio founded by the director of RoR, Onion Games, is an option too. Buying an overpriced DVD that will inevitably rot away won't be of any help to them. Spend wisely. Taking everything good about RoR into account, I'm giving it a score of 7 because I refuse to believe that budget was a problem for the developers, since it was commissioned and published by Sony as an exclusive for their console. It deserved more love, and I honestly want to know what went wrong along the way for the game to be launched in such a unplayable state.

Having played it a few days ago, what impressed me more about Haunting Ground is that it never received a sequel or a remastered version till this day. I played it on a 4K televisor with component video cable and it looked pretty good graphically, since it supports progressive scan. With its engaging story, game-play, clever level design and bizarre cast of enemies trying to hunt down the poor waifu material throughout the game, it hooked me from start to end. It could just explain things a bit better and be a lot longer (I took only 10 hours to finish my first playthrough), but it probably ended that way because the developers were not so confident to spend too much money on a new IP right off the bat. Although a very short journey, Haunting Ground is a masterpiece **** I will never forget.

Steambot Chronicles is an unique experience. Very early in the game, you're introduced to a mecha whose legs are controlled separately by each analog button (similar to both treads of a tank), and it may be frustrating at the start, but you get used to it fast and start to like it. The story is non-linear, with choices given to you during most events of the game. Some do not make any difference, others allow you to join a bandit faction, turning the protagonist into a villain, for example. Customizing your trotmobile is very fun, as there are many different components to buy and collect. Playing instruments is not so soothing as it could be, since the English voice actors apparently had no experience with singing at all, and even in the Japanese version (which is hard to find on the Internet) songs are sung in the same unpleasant to hear English. No dual-audio option. There are some side-quests, but good luck trying to trigger and finishing them by your own, since it's too convoluted and time consuming of a task to know what to do next, without resorting to a guide. Moving inside cities with your trotmobile is always a sleep-inducing travel. Well, there are many good and bad things regarding this game, but it's a consensus among who played it that Steambot Chronicles was too ahead of its time when launched. I recommend playing the undub version of this game to make it a more enjoyable experience but, by all means, play Steambot Chronicles.

Metal Saga is a sandbox RPG which gives the player a lot of freedom, has a very nice soundtrack, interesting world setting and on point humor. It's a game both merciless and merciful, because although you're very likely to engage tough enemies you're not prepared to fight with ease, should you die, there is no game over, you can be resurrected how many times you want. Now, the problems: it lacks voiced lines (and I mean it, no one has voice in this game) and it's packed with a frustrating amount of loading times, even moving between two areas that share the same textures! This game was meant to the older model of PlayStation 2 and is one of the very few titles to support HDD installation but, by the time it was launched, the "Slim" model was already the most popular model of PS2. There is a side-quest to search for 80 "Big Medals", but two of them are glitched (if you pick up one, the other disappears), and this bug exists in all versions of the game. I highly recommend to play it on an emulator to get rid of the annoying amount of loadings but, whatever method you play Metal Saga, it is worth checking. There are not many games like the ones from Metal Max series.

Valkyria Chronicles 4 is the cultivation of everything done right in the previous games. Watercolor artstyle, unique turn-based gameplay, heartbreaking story, orchestral soundtrack are back and made me feel at home. My only disappointment with the game is the characters from VC3 didn't make an appearance, nor were they mentioned. It's sad to see the PSP titles being mistreated like that by SEGA.

In the current year, I have come to know about Trinity Universe through a video, mentioning that it was a prequel of the first Neptunia game, I bought a new/sealed copy of this game from a shop two months ago, played it to its platinum trophy and I must say that Trinity Universe became one of my favorite RPGs, although mostly for its visual novel elements. The visual novel portion of this game is revolutionary, since the "Active Animation Adventure" system, which is present in almost every game from Idea Factory, was first introduced here, and it is simply gorgeous, with its living sprites conceived by the experienced illustrator Tsunako. Take a look at the "System" tab on the (still up) official website to know what I'm talking about. The gameplay portion (classic dungeon-crawler, similar to Mary Skelter) is not the best I have seen but it works well - it seemed balanced to me as I didn't have to grind a lot and dungeons are not that repetitive, compared to Neptunia. Loading times inside dungeons were not that bad either. If I have to complain about something in this game, is that the whole game runs directly from the disc, there is no install option, thus if you do something that demands more than the reader can load, the game may freeze your console. It happened to me once while I was browsing the art gallery. This is a known issue and can happen if you skip dialogues too. 3D models of the characters could have been better worked on (they look like from an early PS2 game, made of wax). If you're a fan of games from Idea Factory or visual novel in general, Trinity Universe is a title I highly recommend you, since it originated the Neptunia franchise, the system I mentioned before (present in IF games only) and, well, for what Trinity Universe is, a RPG with a silly but enjoyable story and likable characters (plus the jokes) that anime fans will surely feel familiar with. Adding to replay value, each protagonist has their own route, and every dialogue line is voiced - quite impressive for a 2009 game with low budget. Unfortunately, this game is not very accessible, since it is a PS3 exclusive disc-only game and physical copies are rare. I hope to see it remastered and ported to more platforms once the actual publisher loses its publishing rights.

I have played all the Project DIVA games, and I can assure that F 2nd is by a great margin the title with the best song selection to date. If I had to choose only one PD game to play for the rest of my life, that would be F 2nd, since almost all killer songs are there. Its only flaw is that the PS3 version runs in 1920x1080 (great) resolution but at 30 FPS, opposed to 60 FPS of Dreamy Theater. Being able to choose would be nice. But the best way of playing it is on the PS Vita. Platinum is four times "grindier" than the previous game, but it was not boring at all (except for the random events). The pinnacle of the franchise.

In a few words: poor song selection and grindy. Bad decisions were made when making this game. The latest entry in the Project DIVA franchise has some good songs, but overall the song selection is really disappointing, in my opinion. SEGA turned this game into a grindfest, since they removed the "Diva Points" system forcing the player to play the songs again and again to unlock accessories, modules, fulfill requests, drop gifts etc instead of letting us farm DP on the song we like the most. This is bad news since you must unlock modules and accessories, due to the addition of a "Voltage" system (a percentage which can be increased based on the modules/accessories you dress the characters in), otherwise it's impossible to beat some songs on the Extreme difficulty. There are no PVs in this game, it lacked effort. The platinum is extremely boring, as you have to level up the affection with every character to 10, and it takes forever (you can't pat the characters, and each gift fill like 2% of the heart). Consider buying this game if it's the only one you haven't tried yet. Any one of the previous games is better as introduction point.

Although not on par with its sequel, the song selection here is great and worthy of recognition. This game is the best as introduction point. It just has only one issue, that is the Western version not supporting cross-save. I'm not giving a lower score for this, since I'm reviewing the PS3 version, but it's worth mentioning that the Japanese PS Vita version of this game received a patch to work on the PS TV, while American copies are incompatible.