Kirby Air Ride 7.7 Overall ImpressionKirby Air Ride is a game of brilliant moments and clear intentions—a polished, joyful, but ultimately confined experience that excels in short bursts rather than extended play.Gameplay: Fun in a Small BoxThe core racing mode controls beautifully. Each vehicle feels distinct and responsive, encouraging experimentation with their unique handling and the satisfying drift mechanics. The "always advancing" sense of momentum is particularly fresh and engaging. However, this strong foundation is undermined by significant balance issues. On certain tracks, your vehicle choice can dictate victory more than skill does—such as on the final speed-focused stage, where only the fastest option can win. The copy-ability item system is a fun concept but lacks variety and balance. While the additional City Trial mode is a creative standout, its potential is best realized with a full group of friends, leaving the solo experience feeling limited. With only eight main tracks and one secret, the package simply feels too light for long-term engagement, especially when compared to genre **** Heart: Charm Over DepthWhere the game truly shines is in its immediate, infectious appeal. It possesses a strong "one more try" quality, making it perfect for quick, satisfying sessions. The cheerful Kirby aesthetic and upbeat presentation create a warm, inviting atmosphere. Unlocking new vehicles through the clever "checkbox" challenge system provides a tangible sense of progression and incentivizes mastering different playstyles. Yet, this sense of discovery is short-lived. With only one secret track, the world quickly feels fully explored, and the limited content ultimately restricts the game's emotional staying **** Mind: A Perfectly Executed Limited VisionThe game’s philosophy is one of pure, accessible fun. It feels like a tech demo elevated into a full product—and in that, it succeeds completely. It never tries to be a deep or complex racing sim; it aims to be a chaotic, welcoming party game, and it delivers exactly that. This clarity of purpose is commendable. However, this same focused identity is its greatest limitation. The "tech demo" essence caps its ambition and content, preventing it from having a deeper thematic or philosophical impact.Presentation: A Joyful Sensory ExperienceThis is the game's most unambiguously successful aspect. The visuals are vibrant and full of personality, with each track feeling distinct and animations that masterfully convey a thrilling sense of speed and lighthearted chaos. The soundtrack, though limited in the number of tracks, is exceptional—each piece is memorable and perfectly complements the stage it accompanies. The overall presentation works in harmony to create a specific, uplifting mood: it feels like racing through a bright, carefree summer day.Final ThoughtsKirby Air Ride is a delightful and highly polished experiment. It is a testament to focused design and pure fun, but its limited scope and balance issues prevent it from becoming a timeless classic. It remains a wonderful title to revisit for short bursts of nostalgic joy, rather than for deep or lasting engagement.Lasting Impression:Despite its philosophical stumbles, the game is effective, inspiring, and thought-provoking. It delivers genuine scares and leaves a lasting impression, encouraging reflection on its themes long after the credits roll. Its ambition to tackle difficult subjects is commendable, even if it doesn't fully stick the landing. FINAL SCORING BREAKDOWN️ The Hand 7.0 30% 2.10 The Heart 7.5 30% 2.25 The Mind 8.0 25% 2.00️ The Eye 9.0 15% 1.35Total 7.70
FINAL SCORE: 8.6 / 10 — RESONANT INTRODUCTIONCode Vein stands as a bold and stylistically distinct entry in the souls-like genre. Developed with clear inspiration from titles like Bloodborne and Dark Souls, it nevertheless carves out a powerful identity of its own—not through flawless execution, but through daring philosophical ambition, a strong character-driven narrative, and a striking aesthetic vision.
️ THE HAND – GAMEPLAY & INTERACTIVITY (7.8/10)A deep and customizable system weighed down by friction and **** game offers a robust action-RPG foundation. Combat controls feel responsive, and the weapon variety meaningfully impacts playstyle. The class and skill system is a particular standout—flexible, non-permanent, and encouraging deep experimentation. Progression is well-paced, with optional areas that feel rewarding rather than obligatory.However, the experience is marred by significant flaws. Punishing animation locks and poorly-telegraphed enemy attacks make combat feel sluggish and at times unfair. Enemy HP bloat, especially in solo play, turns encounters into wars of attrition. The companion AI, while a welcome accessibility option, drastically trivializes many challenges, creating a jarring imbalance between solo and assisted play. THE HEART – NARRATIVE & PROGRESSION (8.5/10)A compelling, character-focused story with emotional **** narrative takes a refreshingly character-centric approach. The amnesiac "Revenant" premise effectively hooks the player into uncovering the pasts of a well-realized cast. The story builds momentum beautifully, balancing plot twists and emotional moments on its way to a satisfying final act. The memory fragment system is a clever, mechanics-integrated method of delivering lore that avoids simply copying the "item description" style of its inspirations. Multiple endings add meaningful replayability, and the consistent tragic, bittersweet mood is enhanced by superb Japanese voice acting and a poignant score. THE MIND – PHILOSOPHY & THEMATIC RESONANCE (9.5/10)A flawlessly executed and courageous thematic core.This is where Code Vein truly excels. On the surface, it explores what it means to retain one's humanity while becoming a "monster." Beneath that lies a powerful, nuanced, and radical critique of oppressive systems. The game presents a world where the protagonists champion community, mutual aid, and revolutionary empathy over vengeance and individualism as the means to survive a hellish existence. It offers a profoundly anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist message, even advocating for the abolition of the state, all without being preachy. It handles these complex ideas with remarkable fairness, acknowledging the temptation of vengeance while framing empathy as the more difficult and revolutionary path.
️ THE EYE – ARTISTIC VISION & ATMOSPHERE (8.8/10)A bold and cohesive aesthetic **** game's "Gothic Industrial" style—a fusion of Victorian, anime, and Mad Max influences—is unique and full of personality. Character and boss designs are distinct and memorable. The soundtrack is masterful, using ambient dread for exploration and soaring, hyped-orchestral themes for bosses. The atmosphere is consistently oppressive and isolating, achieved not through typical horror imagery but through masterful use of apocalyptic skylines and lighting. Its only notable shortcoming is a lack of environmental variety, with a heavy reliance on caverns and ruined cities. CONCLUSION Code Vein is not a perfect game. Its gameplay lacks the polished, balanced feel of its inspirations, and its environments can grow repetitive. Yet, it triumphs through sheer ambition and heart. It is a game that dares to be intellectually substantial, wrapping a radical political statement in a tragic, character-driven tale, all presented through a confident and unique artistic lens. It is a deeply resonant experience whose strengths easily overshadow its flaws, securing its place as a memorable and important title for those seeking more from the genre than just challenging combat.
SILENT HILL f | 9.3
(Played first play-through on hard, and "very hard" on the next ones) Silent Hill f is a game of dazzling contrasts: masterful in its craft, troubling in its philosophy. It delivers one of the most atmospheric and emotionally resonant horror experiences in recent memory, with impeccable gameplay, storytelling, and art direction. However, its problematic conclusions about trauma and forgiveness prevent it from achieving true transcendence. Despite these flaws, it remains an unforgettable, thought-provoking work that earns its place through sheer artistic bravery and emotional impact.
This is like the 4t Monster Hunter in a row that I feel I'm playing the same game but reskinned, this is my last vanilla monster hunter, next time it won't even include HR in the disc/release, and it will be a "free update" yikes
9.6
Pros:
• Great story and super likeable characters.• After getting a good grasp the combat system is very fun and addictive.• Music is very good, I found a couple of new favorites.• Sublime moments that are at the series' peak, before and after this game.• In my opinion, one of the best final boss fights in the series.• Great art direction and character design, very thought provoking.
Cons:• The pacing can be clumsy at times.• If not fully grasped, the combat system can be not fun at all.• Summon animations can't be skipped and you're going to use them more often than not (the remaster version sort of fix this with x3 fast forward, but still).
As far as 2D Final Fantasy games I think this one takes the cake (not that easily mind you), it has everything to make it exciting, fun, intriguing, etc and goes above and beyond. Pros:
• Excellent music and art direction, from pixel art to immersion and cutscenes.
• Addictive combat that is rewarding and super customizable.
• Great main scenario and side quests that are well scripted and engaging.
• A high number a characters to develop and choose from.• Amazing pacing. Cons:
• The handling of some female characters is not that good in a few parts, nothing too severe but definitely is worth noting, it is a game from another era so it's kind of understandable but not except of critique.
Please don't be fooled by the anglosphere press reviews, they misunderstanding of this game is super misleading. If you like seinen manga like Gantz or Parasyte, Hong Kong movies or very creative and fun game mechanics give it a chance. Pros:
• Addictive and super varied combat system that is challenging and rewarding. I hope that other developers take notes on its counter mechanic.
• Incredible art direction, music and atmosphere.
• Story is cryptic and mysterious, best of it, it's greatly intertwined with the gameplay and mechanics.
• Unique to possible none other game, cast of characters Mixed:
• It has a mission progression system that might not suit some people.
• Missions have a similar structure but they explore various ways to make feel them different.
• There are not much diverse enemies however they always feel like a threat. This is a type of game that nowadays is super rare to find, where it bets to be more creative and bold instead of playing it safe, and I believe it succeeds, if you are on the fence of trying it given the reviews but you like the developers involved please give it a chance, you won't be disappointed.
An excellent game that is a complete package of everything good. Pros:
• Colorful cast both main and supporting, well scripted and engaging.
• Very fun and challenging combat system
• Great difficulty
• Very good pacing for most of the game
• Outstanding music and art direction
• Great voice acting from the original Japanese VA Cons:
• The story talks about delicate and important real problems, like class and race struggle (I think these are the core themes) but it drops the ball handling them at 2/3 of the game, showing the nearly simple (and dangerous) misunderstanding of these themes from the writers, and philosophically the game suffers a lot for this by the end.
It is more of the same from the first game, it is a bit longer so you "answer" a little bit more mundane/ridiculous stuff, so it's still is a low-key entertaining experience.
Pros:
• It has a cool parrying system that makes things more fun but is only mandatory to beat the last fight (which is good). Cons:
• It is basically an arena mode where waves of enemies keep appearing, so it's more an endurance challenge.
• Barebones story.
•It is very short and not very fun.
Kuukiyomi: Consider it! is a collection of minigame/decisions that will rate your "consideration" for other people or circumstances, I think it's a fun game that maybe won't give you much but at least will keep you moderately entertained while you are at it.
Pros:
• Unparalleled atmosphere, from art direction, music, character design, etc.
• Super engaging story, characters and writing
• Gameplay is very fun and addicting, the addition of the new bigger blocks ads challenge
• New route is added almost seamlessly to the main story
• New cutscenes and endings for extended context
• A well crafted experience for adults that is unlike any other game Mixed:
• Some themes might be delicate to some people
• To go to the new route you need to choose exact answers, would loved to be more of a range
Pros:
• Very pretty character art
• It has neat twists and turns
• Cast is likable Cons:
• Writing can be more edgy and less thoughtful often
• Is a short VN but the experience drags a little when uninteresting things are happening
A very solid tech demo that serves as small platformer game. At times it feels like a 3D Super Mario game while making its own thing, and the haptic triggers are fun too.
Pros:
• Very well written characters and story, super engaging from start to finish, I simply couldn't put the control down.
• Amazing music by Masafumi Takada, each piece evokes a lot in its several scenarios.
• The trials are extremely engaging, they make you feel like some sort of detective. Cons:
• Some of the choices on Trials sometimes feel a little bit unnatural.
Pros:
• Super fun gameplay and combat
• Fast paced weapon upgrading system, gives a lot of opportunity to try out gear loadouts.
• Great progression rhythm, a lot of meat not much fat.
• Great sense of humor. Cons:
• Story is OK but twists and developments feel rushed.
• Not much enemy variety.
• Environment feels and looks almost the same during entire run.
Story Mode Pros:
• Not deep but entertaining story that doesn't lose momentum.
• Fun to try some of the characters.
• Stage design is good, and the way that it interacts with attacks impacts feels pretty good. Cons:
• You can play only with half of the original roster.
• Character design is hit and miss, misses most of the time.
• Character fases are passable at best.
Pros:
• Amazing ambience, writing and charming acting.
• Good implementation of music and ambience sound.
• Terrific art direction and lot of charms to everything.
• Bite-sized adventure that doesn't have fat, only meat.
• Fun side minigame.
• Great overall rhythm.
• Adorable characters. Cons:
• Sometimes you have to speak to everybody to trigger advance because some objectives aren't clear.
_____ Play it on a Friday summer afternoon aroud 3-4pm in one sit.
Pros:
• Good music Cons:
• Bad writing/acting and uninspiring and boring story
• Stiff controls
• Ugly models
• Terrible navigation
• Short campaign that feels much longer
• Unfair enemy position to make you die and restart, it's more to memorize enemies than quick reflexes and reactions
Pros: + Good atmosphere + Nice tie in with the rest of the franchise + If you're into classic RE games this would feel familiar + Nice combat mechanics Cons: - Generic environment and characters - Easy to exploit - Forgettable - Feels limited on purpose Full review: ****/2022/07/09/resident-evil-7-biohazard/
Pros: + FromSoftware standard quality + Vast lore + Vast content + Replayability + Too many possibilities Cons: - Could be easily exploitable - Could be overwhelming ____ Full review: ****/2022/07/07/elden-ring/
Pros: + Great combat + Great music + Good story and characters + Addicting systems + Replayability Cons: - Some system clunkyness - Some of the important story moments are off
Pros: - Excellent story and characters (tearful, fearsome moments) - Ever evolving gameplay - On point music - Massive content - A lot of philosophy to chew on Cons: - Sometimes the story takes detours that may feel like padding, they aren't but they can be a little tiresome
Awakening Cryptic and brief the plot is, what I could recall is that in an unspecified time in the future the world has become overpopulated by humans, and for this reason, humans have kind of migrated to a virtual place that is not called the internet but it's basically the internet, and for unspecified reasons the rate of crime has been increasing in an alarming rate. To retaliate this crime symptom, humans developed the Project-K system to take care of this issue, the system it's managed by Eden, the most advanced A.I. ever created, many assume that it has developed self-consciousness of some sort, however, given the flow and speed of information Eden needs to process it has become overwhelmed by it, and because of its presumable self-awareness, it is starting to shut itself down. The objective of the game is for you (an unspecified floating body that shoots projectiles and can evolve into "higher" forms) to travel to the core and find what is going on with Eden. Creative State Rez Infinite's gameplay is at its core mainly an on-rails shooter, you start as a humanoid body flying in Matrix-like stages filled with conceptual enemies and places, you can't move your character but you can rotate your aim to a full 360 degrees, you can also shoot many of the projectiles thrown at you to avoid damage. Unlike many shooters where you have to be more precise when shooting, in Rez it's preferred to lock on enemies (maximum of 8) and let the trigger go to "kill" them with some manner of rhythm, this leads us to one of the key selling aspects of Rez, it's music. Each of the stages of Rez features a unique track by a different musician, all of their songs are unique but felt part of the same universe. At the beginning of each stage you start with only the barebone rhythm of the music, maybe just a bass beat to go along, but as you defeat more enemies and fill your evolution gauge (basically your health bar) the music starts to gain more complexity, along with that the vibration of your control that has been exquisitely calibrated to go with the rhythm as well, so it's impossible to even for a rhythmless person like me not enter in a semi-trance state and to the very least tap your feet at music's compass, so the better you play the game rewards you with a better ambiance to keep playing well. I can't think of many games that achieve this feat, only a handful of them, and half of them are by the same creator, so he knows how to infuse music into your brain. Rez Infinite synergy between music, senses, and gameplay is nothing short of genius. Contrary to many shooters, the difficulty isn't punishing (although losing means starting from the beginning of the stage) but, I don't think the challenge was what they were looking for, after all, there is an option to play every stage without worrying yourself to get in a failure state and just relax and have a trance session of some sorts. To trade-in for the easy difficulty, the game offers several modes and challenges that add to its replay value, things like “if you hit X quantity of enemies you’ll be rewarded certain mode”. Given that it has a brief campaign (around 2 hours depending on your shooting skills) it’s possible to unlock a mode where you play all the stages but in a single run, meaning that if you lose to the final boss, you’ll have to start from the beginning, as stated, Rez isn’t a hard game by shooter standards but this will add up some challenge or a perfect excuse to play its addictive gameplay. Creation The State of Art For this re-release, a new stage called ‘Area X’ was developed that serves as some type of follow-up to the original base game. It features PS4 gen visuals instead of PS2 so it looks pretty pretty (the original game looks beautiful but, you get it), it also has a fairly new control scheme where it’s possible to move around the void and follow enemies or run away from them. To me, what makes Area X quite good is its music, composed by Hydelic, it is more in the vein of Genki Rockets work on Child of Eden (a sequel (maybe) for Rez) and, it appeals more to my current musical sensibilities and tastes, it is a brief experience but, it captures and enhances the “Rez” experience quite well. Starlight Infinite At first glance, Rez Infinite might look like a pretty game with not much depth in its waters. But looks may be deceitful as it has some things to say within its cryptic narrative and, also from a mechanical point of view it is truly marvelous with all its creative and artistic decisions. Its difficulty and the short campaign will surely be a letdown for some but, making that aside, it is a truly wonderful experience that is hard to find elsewhere. It is the perfect game to enjoy on a Thursday evening after a busy day, just you, maybe a beverage or another type of funky thing, and the ever-growing as it was living being beating of the rhythm.
[HD Collection] PROS: • Ambient and mood. • Puzzle versatility, some of them require analytical thinking, and others just common sense. • Feels like a closure to the first three games. • Exploration freedom in the vein of the series. • Art direction it's still great. CONS: • 2nd half enemies are more unfair and annoying, while bosses are awfully easy. •Unlike Silent Hill 2, SH3 has a pretty straightforward narrative with only 2 endings (and a joke one). •It doesn't build up much tension. Mixed: • It kind of does have an interesting story and characters but given that is told very conventionally it loses a lot of the past game charm. •Music isn't as emblematic as the other two but there are a couple of songs with vocals that are amazing. •Compared to the original, acting has a similar quality to the original voice acting, which isn't that great but it isn't terrible like other games of the era, but in the more dramatic scenes the actors deliver.
The bones of the story might not be as groundbreaking but what makes it unique is the part where she needs to survive its pursuers with the help of the traps, there are some developments here and there but for the most part, the plot is pretty bland. Although sometimes the game will make you doubt if the characters are good or bad, so in a sense it also has some mystery element to it, but nothing that will make you burst with anticipation or to be surprised with many of its outcomes as most of the twists can be foreseen from kilometers away, still it is fun to see how the story unfolds and how its players will react with each event. The characters aren’t the most unique, they represent some kind of trope but for the most part, they are likable and fun to be around with, although they tend to have two sides to them, they all are one-dimensional but serviceable. The game is separated into chapters and from the very first chapter you can choose to do a side story before it, these side stories are linked to the chapter (not necessarily in a narrative way) so if you miss one you’ll have to wait for another playthrough to do it. They add a little more depth to the main narrative but nothing too meaty, you can also read enemies descriptions of the current chapter before you start your mission, they tend to add more insight on how they feel towards Alicia, but most importantly they are like micro-stories on their own, as they told you about the character and how they might be linked to a future or past enemy, these descriptions remind me a lot of FromSoftware’s item descriptions and they also have a Yoko Taro dark twist to them, many times I was most invested in these micro-stories than the main narrative so make sure to give them a read before you start a chapter. As much as intriguing the plot can be, the most interesting part by far is the gameplay. Each chapter has the same objective: to kill or scare away your pursuers with your traps, think of Home Alone but with deadly and inventive traps. You can equip three traps into three types: wall traps, floor traps, and ceiling traps, they have different cooldowns and they also tend to have some delay between the moment you hit the button and the time you activate them, so you need to consider timing to activate them. Each room in the mansion has its own traps, some of them have only one use and some others can be reusable, the fun part of it is that you can mix your traps with room traps to make bigger combos and earn more points. The way you lure enemies is very simple, you can only run away and activate the traps so basically you locate yourself between your trap and the enemy and wait for them to enter the activation zone, if it sounds simple it’s because it is and the enemy AI isn’t as clever to avoid them, although as you advance through the campaign enemies won’t be susceptible to some traps so you need to get more inventive. The problem with the fixed room traps is that many times it’s hard to understand how to activate them, and even when I finished the game twice I couldn’t activate a couple of them. Maybe some kind of cryptic hint would help to figure out how to use it without losing its mysterious nature. As you may expect, the fun aspect of the game depends a lot on how creative can you get with the usage of traps, so if you don’t experiment by yourself it could be easy to get bored, in this regard I recommend you to change your set of traps with each chapter this way you kind of force yourself to be more resourceful with what you got, or if that doesn’t bother you, it is easy to use the same traps and exploit them over and over, I like this free approach, however, it could rob much of its challenge as the game isn’t that difficult and get away from pursuers is certainly an easy task at least for the first two-thirds of it, after that, it has a considerable increase of difficulty but nothing too impossible. I don’t think it is a masterpiece by any means but it does what it is supposed to do right and that is to have fun putting traps to kill your enemies and to the hunted become the hunter, or at least it does it right in a more subdued way. Still, it is an interesting premise that I’m very glad that it exists and it is hard to imagine a game like this being made in 2021, at least not by a big studio like Tecmo but with an indie developer, I understand that there is a sequel (as Trapt is the 4th game in the series) that I’m eager to try even when Trapt isn’t that great from a narrative or mechanic perspective, but it’s hard to not feel allured to its unique premise.
Metroid Dread forgot about the more conventional narratives that were used in games like Metroid Prime 3 or Other M to do something similar like in Fusion, with some dialogues from Adam from time to time that serves both as lore building and exposition device. The most plot-twisty cutscenes are also pretty expositional by nature, and definitely would prefer a more interpretational approach but they’re not bad, they’re simply not great either. The story has some interesting twists, especially by the end but they also felt a little clumsy and forced to superficially add some stakes if you ask me, again, they’re not bad but aren’t great either. Dread also approaches gameplay and exploration in classic Metroid fashion, making it one of the better if not the best aspects of the game. Combat is ultra-fluid and it's a reminiscence of Other M, with fast-paced movements like dashing and the newly introduced counter maneuver (I believe it was introduced in Return of Samus). The combat shines the most while fighting bosses, all of them are mean and defying enemies that will kill you pretty fast if you’re not paying attention as they will take a full energy gauge in one hit, you have to rely on reflexes and common sense to beat them. The boss fights only will increase their intensity with each boss you defeat, some of these bosses or mini-bosses are reskinned enemies but they all have some kind of new movement or appear with a partner to make things more interesting and never feel like you’re making a chore or repeating yourself. There are stalker segments directly borrowed from Metroid Fusion, in these zones you are chased by indestructible machines called E.M.M.I. These segments add good tension while you traverse the map and since every one of these machines has a different ability and their zone layout it’s different between them (not to mention as you progress, they keep getting more complex) they keep things interesting and challenging. Depending on your tastes it may or might not offer replayability, after you finish the game depending on your difficulty and completion time you’ll be rewarded with an allusive image to a past game and unlock hard difficulty. In my personal opinion, the awarded images aren’t enough even if they’re cool illustrated. Haven’t played Samus Returns, I can’t say how much the series has evolved in the hands of MercurySteam so I’m not sure how much of this is an upgrade from that game, however, my time with Dread was mostly positive, as it borrows elements from other Metroid games like Fusion and updates them to newer times.
No More Heroes it's one of those franchises that I kinda don't love but can't resist playing it either. Its alluring punk and inspired B-movies spirit are some of the things that keep me getting back to it. While I'm not sure if creator SUDA51 has achieved the title of genius, at least not yet, one must commend his way of making games, unrefined but with a lot of heart and passion kind of games. The story takes place 9 years after the events of NMH2 and apparently 2 years after Travis Strikes Again, Santa Destroy has been invaded by space pirates led by the once cute and seemingly harmless Jess Baptiste VI A.K.A. FU. Although the narrative has more cohesion, it is also divided by episodes, literally, episodes with an opening and ending song (both of which are great by the way), these episodes are more or less self-contained stories which is not a bad idea but it is also a double-edged sword since it still separates the main narrative albeit less than the other games. It is worth noting that NMH 3 it’s more a sequel to Travis Strike Again than NMH 2 or at least that is my perception as I didn’t and regrettably haven’t played TSA. The story has many key throwbacks to TSA and a few to the numbered entries. If you played TSA then you’ll be rewarded by having faith in Grasshopper and expect some important twists related to that game. NMH 3 maintains the simple yet satisfying combat introduced in NMH 1, you have two types of attacks, light and heavy which can be used to connect pretty basic combos and once you completed a full combo the screen will prompt you to use motion controls to simulate a final slash, this slash was satisfying in NMH 1 and 2, and it is still quite satisfying in 3. It’s possible to change the motion controls if you don’t fancy them but I highly recommend keeping them. The main dish in this course are the boss fights, they always have been the center of NMH and they still are, every single one of them introduces a new boss with quite different mechanics and gameplay options, some of them have several phases but every one of them surpass your expectations and makes you want to meet the next fight as soon as possible, they make you forget the repetitive process of accessing them, so I assume a big part of the budget and resources were used in them. One thing the game excels at and isn’t debatable for me is its amazing presentation and art direction. From the very beginning when the game starts with a 2D mockup game in Beat em’ up fashion and right after that a beautiful and stylish animation kicks in about FU and Damon, from the tutorial cards and its classic bathroom saving scenery, it is just wonderful. The surprises don’t end just there as each chapter comes in with its own pieces of stylization, and every time a new graphic style comes in it is hard to not be smiling all the way through. Another highlight from the series is its music, same as the game and maybe Grasshopper philosophy too. It has a renegade/punk spirit that it’s hard to overlook, it doesn’t have a song with the iconic NMH 1 theme but it’s filled with leitmotifs here and there. The music’s so versatile that you also wonder what will be the next tune to hear. Maybe I’m over-excited about the soundtrack but it might be my favorite from the series. Sadly NMH3 only features an English dub, it has been this way since the start of the series but I was hoping this time around we Westerners could choose between Japanese or English VA. The result it's in line with the previous entries of the series which might sound great if you liked it, I sure like it back then when I was younger, however, the game has an over the top quality while going from whimsical to serious in many scenes, and it's on the darker more serious parts where the acting seems to miss the mark by far, in general, they sound more like caricatures than characters and that killed the mood of many scenes for me, serious or not. No More Heroes 3 still struggles to be an overall great game but it also delivers in different aspects, I don’t think I have played a game as committed with its style as this one. Some of its parts could be tainted with budget restrictions or questionable acting but I didn’t encounter any dull moment in my entire Spicy 23-hour campaign, it is rough around the edges but its edges are quite sharp. Goichi Suda stated that this would mark the end of Travis story for the time being to focus on creating new IPs that belong to Grasshopper and that could be a good thing, maybe 10 years later when the team has acquired more experience still we could finally see a less limited version of what their vision is for NMH 3, but for the time being, it is a satisfying conclusion for the series.
Your adventure begins just after you pick a male or female-presenting protagonist, then you’re prompted to a highly stylized and pretty good-looking motorcycle stage to finally hack and slash your way on foot through streets filled with Chimeras. It is a solid kick-off to a mostly solid game. After the prologue that introduces you to this post-apocalyptic world and its colorful cast of characters, the story develops slowly between 11 chapters. The story has its twists and turns but overall has a good flow that focuses on an event for every chapter to finally tie in with the main narrative. It is not the most groundbreaking story that you’ll encounter but it is pretty interesting and the writers made the right call of keeping it more personal and expanding it with the grander-than-life events that happen in later chapters. Platinum doesn't shy away from doing stories with darker tones, but I think that after working alongside Drakengard and NieR Director/Writer Yoko Taro they got somewhat influenced by his style of writing. The real meat, bones, and metal of Astral Chain is its fast pacing yet simple combat. Similar to other action games like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry your character delivers fast and devastating combos with different combinations, the unique feature of Astral Chain that differentiates itself from other games of the genre is the Legion system. Aside from your character, you can summon a Legion that will attack any enemy that you're targeting and move on their own to the next target till they're eliminated. In RPG-like fashion, Legions come in the variety of melee, ranged, and tank, they can be upgraded and equipped with different abilities and skills that can be easily adapted to your playstyle, this Legion system compensates the otherwise simple combat as you only have one attack button and that's all. What makes the combat so addicting and rewarding are the Sync Attacks, after you complete a fixed chain of attacks with your weapon of use everything will slow down by a fraction of a second and you'll be prompted to press the Legion summoning button to do a powerful attack, these synced attacks can also be triggered by evading and when meeting certain conditions if you keep upgrading a Legion. While the focus of the game is the action parts of it, it has some variety that comes with side questing and puzzle-solving, this could be a matter of taste but not doing combat could be either a hit or a miss, as it might spice things a little at the cost of feeling a little like an obstacle to its "true" gameplay. For the most part, side-quests are fun to do even when many of them don't aport much to the story, so pacing for every chapter will definitely be benefited by omitting investigations and just let you chose freely to hunt down quests or go straight down to the main story. When you inevitable arrive at the Astral Plane you'll be entering the puzzle parts of the game, these parts have some reminiscence of the shrines in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild but mostly on an aesthetic level, as its puzzles aren't as deep, they tend to be more in the vein of God of War games, where you need to push a block or hit different targets at once without thinking too much. Hidden in the options Astral Chain gives you the possibility of splitting the Joycons and play it co-op, I don't know if the dynamic between twin and Legion change or if you can play with two Pro controllers (a scheme which I highly recommend as maneuvering your character and Legion at the same time can feel a little bit uncomfortable with the Joycons) as I couldn't test any of this by myself, but it surely is a pretty nice addition that in a way feels like an old school hidden option of the SNES era. After finishing Astral Chain I was pretty happy with the time I had while playing it, it was satisfying, fast-paced and for the most time, it was fun. If I was required to condense the feeling of the game it will be "Heavy Metal the game". It is not perfect but it is undoubtedly a great game, in more than a way it feels like a culmination of Platinum gameplay, mechanics, storytelling, and art direction. In terms of gameplay, it doesn't reach the finesse of the likes of Bayonetta but it is still a blast to have. Playing this in 2021 and not when it came up, make me feel a little guilty, Hack and Slash games aren't as popular as before, so bad sales could destroy a potentially great follow-up to a game.
Product Number Three starts with an interesting starting setting but that sentiment wears off a couple of hours during the game. Both the manual and the game doesn’t give you much to work with in terms of context. The meta-story behind the game and the Capcom Five is far more interesting than the inside the game and that is truly disappointing. Same as its main story, the gameplay has its fair share of problems and it's also a sad thing as it could have the potential of being great and fun (and in a few portions of the game it is), yet buried under a lot of issues it does have some redeemable aspects. The first problem that the player will likely face is moving the camera around, you can only move the camera within the spectrum of a limited of fixed angles, it’s hard to explain without showing but think of playing a shooting game with fixed angles like classic Resident Evil games. Shooting is the main mechanic of the game and it's arguable the most fun part of it, you shoot enemies by facing them and the game automatically targets the nearest target and it will change upon destroying it, you can’t move your aim but you can change targets if needed with a dedicated button, what takes some of the fun is that bullets are shot manually and because it doesn’t seem to have a speed cap, you can deal more damage as long as you smash that button the fastest. This doesn’t sound like an issue but because enemies are HP sponges you’ll likely focus on dealing with them as fast as possible, the problem is that if you’re looking to have playing sessions from at least 1 or 2 hours or even more, most likely your thumb muscles or in my case, my forearm muscles (as I shot with my index finger for more speed) will get very tired by the end of the session and will be sore by the next day. The game has 10 levels to advance from and each level consists of 15 to 18 rooms that culminate with a boss battle at the end of them. Bosses can be a mixed bag, some of them are fun to fight, some of them are extremely easy and a few of them give you a good challenge. You don’t have a map and you don’t have to clear them up to get to the boss. But because the game doesn’t have a navigation system at all, you have to rely a lot on your memory to track your way through when you inevitably hit a dead-end or die, it doesn’t help though, that every room in the complex looks exactly the same and when going to the next level everything remains the same aside from an ever-so-slightly different color scheme.When advancing through the main game you gain access to different tiers of suits to dress Vanessa, they always come in sets of three and are specialized in defense, offense, and all-round, each of them has unique skills that you need to purchase and for the most part they will be extremely expensive that by the time you afford a suit for the 2nd tier you’ll likely unlock the next and better tier and ultimately stick with your weak suit for more time. Not everything is mixed or bad in P.N.03 art direction for a change it’s generally good, character design and mechanic design are top tiers, particularly the bosses, they are inventive and have a Ghost in the Shell inspiration to them that I like quite a lot. Everything has an early 2000s aesthetic and that includes the music in my case that is a good point as I can be transferred to another decade just by the sound of it and it goes extremely well with the art direction and tone of the game, it's techno-tropical sound with a sometimes androgynous voice chanting made-up words make for an upbeat soundtrack. I really wanted to like P.N.03 as it has all the things that I like in a game along with the direction of a living legend director as Shinji Mikami. When all is said and all is done, I don’t hate Product Number Three at all, it is mostly a mediocre game with a pretty good aesthetic and pretty neat ideas but poorly executed, but if anything I think that at least the developers tried to do something that is not conventional and that is always commendable. By this point, it is extremely unlikely that this game will have a remake or reboot of some sort but I think that it has a lot of ideas that could make a great video game, even a masterpiece. Anyway, as it is Product Number Three it’s not a recommendable game by any means, I hope a lot of people play it and experience it themselves because Who knows? maybe the next legendary developer will love it and see its true potential and gave the game a second chance at least in spirit.
The story has a pretty basic premise, you are this newbie adventurer craving for adventure, making a guild, and take the glory, then in your journey you found this mysterious amnesiac girl which you’ll unravel her past while searching for the glory of being an adventurer, it’s mostly generic but in some places it sort of points out to something interesting but it is told in the most boring ways. What makes these story bits more bothersome is that scenes are unskippable, if you die in a boss battle (which almost always are accompanied by a 2 minute or so cutscene) you have to watch it again, but in a masochistic turn of events you even have to get to the boss room, these are always in the 3rd level of a dungeon, so better not dying next time or you’ll have to make a 5-8 minute trip to the boss again. Given that in RO you could customize your character to a certain degree (gender, hairstyle, and in most servers color clothes) it was a major letdown that in RDS you couldn’t, at least for its single-player campaign. In terms of playability, Ragnarok DS plays in part like a point-and-click adventure. To move your character you click on any place and he will move accordingly, click an enemy and he will attack automatically, the same goes for the use of items, simply equip one of them on the shortcuts bar and when you need a potion you just need to click the item and then your character, it's pretty straight forward and it has some of RO DNA on it. Skills on the other hand were more a mixed bag, it has some interesting things like drawing a circle around the enemy or drawing a diagonal slash to activate a skill, on paper it sounds like a fun mechanic, however, more often than not my actions didn’t register. Bad registered skills and enemies won’t be the only thing you’ll be fighting in this game, as the AI has some major issues especially in the later parts of the story. Ragnarok DS offers you, seven basic classes that can transform into an advanced class, the class selection its OK, ranging from melee to ranged classes and one that specializes in healing. When you finish the game you gain access to two unique classes to this game: Dark Knight and Shaman, one specializes in DPS and the other is a support class. The game also features a reborn system similar to RO, on which after you hit a certain level you can reborn from the start but with better stats. The game has some pretty interesting navigation, to say the least, for example, towns aren't navigable, they’re just reduced to a selection menu with the places to go. For a fantasy RPG game the number of towns it’s quite low, and the same could be said for overworld maps, they have annoying labyrinthic navigation and back-tracking, there are not nearly enough areas to be and it feels too repetitive. It doesn’t have a fast travel system in any sort of way, late in the game fast travel it’s possible but only between two cities. You have access to teleporting items that make you return to a visited town in one of the two continents you can go in this game, however, they’re way too expensive for the majority of the game and probably wouldn’t use them because of that reason, so in the long run, you’ll be going to the same places over and over, making the same trails over and over. Quests normally aren’t interesting in regards to their story and you can only do one at a time, if you want to cancel the tavern quests (I couldn’t find if you could cancel NPC quests) you have to go to the specific tavern you got it and cancel it, if by any chance you want to try to do it again you have to watch its cutscene once again, even if you have completed it before, you can’t skip it. Ragnarok DS has a multiplayer mode called the Mirage Tower, this tower consists of sets of five randomly generated floors that end with a boss battle, these floors have randomly generated rules, but since the servers are shut down playing multiplayer was simply out of the question. Thankfully, it’s possible to play this Mirage Tower in single player, and for the most part, it’s kind of doable if you have enough money to buy healing items that is. Playing through Ragnarok DS was hugely lifted by the love if have for the original game, but getting my sentiments aside, this is a mostly mediocre game which is impossible to recommend to anyone that hasn’t played its online counterpart. It sure has some fun elements and maybe you can play it to kill time but you’re probably better by ignoring it, fan or not. Maybe when it first launched, its multiplayer aspect gave it more life and probably offered a better end-game experience, but since it's impossible to measure in the present day, we only have this low-effort game that was made to take off the money of RO players hands. If you’re itching to play it still, I think it's mostly playable and you won’t be having a bad time either, but it definitely will be a meaningless time.
The combat remains almost the same in regards to playability, you can choose between 14 weapons. Each of them has unique mechanics on which you have to take into consideration several factors like positioning, speed, and timing to get the most of them. This weapon versatility is one of the beauties that Monster Hunter has to offer in regards to gameplay, once you break the obtuse learning curve of its mechanics and tutorials, there is a lot to chew off for everyone. Sadly there are no new weapons and aside from some tweaks for the majority of them, they feel relatively the same as past installments. There are new tweaks that have changed the hunt experience, for starters, to advance through the main plot you're tasked to do 4 to 5 quests to advance to the next rank, so instead of the game forcing you to follow a set of specific quests you now can choose between 8 quests (just to say a number) and complete 4 of them. Rise introduces Rampage mode, and it uses a similar formula but it is more complex and has a more clear Tower Defense type of game structure. At first, I didn't prefer it that much, because as with everything else with Monster Hunter it's filled with new poorly explained mechanics, but once you get used to it you can have some fun with this mode, especially while playing co-op, you have to make a lot of installations management so doing it solo can overwhelm you pretty easy. Maps range from the typical forest with ruins to underground caverns in a volcano, excluding the arena and Rampage mode there are only five areas, each of them is designed with verticality and wirebug displacement in mind. In terms of offering something new, they feel somewhat common, Monster Hunter World gave us the standard five stages but they were exciting and different, the area selection in Rise not only has pretty regular areas but some of them feel as if they are expansions or recreations of past areas. Monster Hunter Rise features 34 large monsters to hunt. Of these 34 large monsters, only 11 are new (one of this is the Rampage one) and the other 23 are returning monsters from different generations. These new monsters are mostly based on Yokai or Japanese creature folklore and are pretty neat in design. After finishing the last monster battle, the story ends abruptly in a cliffhanger, it teases you with story bits and a monster that could easily be in the main game, and different from MH World this time around there are no more Elder monsters, no new weapon upgrades, just the ability to change the second color in your HR armor sets that frankly, it isn't that noticeable at all. With Iceborne and many updates after, we got layered armors, sadly, the only layered armors that we currently can have are tied only for amiibo or paid DLC. In MH World at launch you could get two versions of the same armor when reaching High Rank, here you only get one and that's all, more importantly, (and I know that this has been the case since the past games but that doesn't mean that it is a good thing), the armors for the returning monsters are basically the same as always, I would love to see new designs for each monster with each new installment, Rise has a Japanese theme so imagine all the missed potential. Sports sequels like FIFA 20XX are released yearly and for what it seems, their upgrades aren't as big as other genre sequels that take from 3 to 4 years in development, but being yearly developed, I think it is kind of justified. Monster Hunter Rise was in development for at least 4 years, in that amount of time, other sequels have been made that offer a lot of new content, so speaking only in new content, Why Rise has a free pass in terms of giving us new stuff? To me it is kind of unacceptable, this is a sequel to a now AAA property, Why does it feel more like an expansion with a full price tag? My time with Monster Hunter Rise has been a bittersweet one, it is undeniable that I have had fun while playing it with my friends since the first demo was released, however, it has a lot of issues inside and outside the game that I think I'm too old to overlook. For starters, this is a good game as any of the last games to enter, it is still filled with cumbersome and unclear tutorials that will easily overwhelm any newcomer, but once that bridge is closed, its new mechanics and QOL changes will take a lot of your days, in a good way. For veterans, I think this is a good time to think about what we deserve as consumers, are we really ok to accept a new sequel disguised as an expansion? What Capcom is doing here with Monster Hunter is basically giving us the same game over and over again with only the bare minimum of improvements to be passed as a sequel. I still love the franchise, but for the time being, I'm kind of done with it, unless the next installment looks like a true sequel I'm probably skipping it.
For starters, the story goes more or less like this: after some time in exile a mad and evil scientist called Andross has been attacking the Lylat System with different kinds of weapons, and the Star Fox team is called to find out what is Andross planning and stop him from doing so. It is pretty much that, and while it may sound basic (and definitely it is) it works incredibly with the tone and overall rhythm of the game. You take control of a battle spacecraft called the Arwing, its mobility and functions are basic but effective: you move vertically and horizontally while the ship goes its way. The core mechanic is to shoot as many enemies as possible while you evade obstacles and projectiles, it is also possible to throw bombs that are limited but more powerful, as well to increase your power by shooting two beams at the same time. Most of the stages have a rail structure but some of them will start or end with a battle on which you can take full control of your Arwing's direction. Every stage will culminate with a boss battle that for the most part will be pretty easy but introduce you to a disposable but pretty fun antagonist. The combat is pretty solid, my only issue is that your ship can get on the way and you need to relocate a lot to see what it's coming your way, this can be a little tricky as your shooting reticle depends on your Arwing's position, it is not hard to get used to it but if you receive enough damage one or both of your wings will blow up and your aiming will be incredibly compromised as it will be hard to get a steady aim. I'm not sure if this kind of aiming and damage was a thing back in the year when it was released but it certainly is not present on the few shooters that I have played and I find it brilliant, it is a simple mechanic made for a simple game but it adds a whole layer of tension when you're on the verge of exploding. The game lets you choose from two game modes at the start of the campaign: 3DS mode and N64 mode. 3DS mode let you use gyro controls and it seems that enemy HP has been tweaked, N64 mode apparently retains the same difficulty and controls from the original, and also you can shot your comrades in this mode, a thing that sometimes can be annoying since they like to appear out of nowhere into your shooting range but it is to add some difficulty into a rather easy game, not to mention that I can't play with gyro controls and 3D on. Aside from the Arwing, in a few planets you will be using a tank or a submarine, while they don't feel as good as the Arwing mechanically speaking, they still feel like they should. The tank feels heavy but destructive and the submarine while I think is the clunkiest it is also a little more versatile in terms of your arsenal. These scenarios add some versatility to the game and while they are not the most fun to play they are a breath of fresh air. You can unlock several routes and mix them to add replayability but it's still a pretty short game, each playthrough took me around one hour and it took me 3 playthroughs to play them all and unlock the "true ending". It is not an issue at all because its flow is greatly made but keep in mind that if you're looking for a long experience you probably won't find it here unless you're into having the highest score possible. Visuals have been upgraded to look good on a 3DS screen, it is not the best 3Ds game you will find but it looks good and the framerate is pretty stable. The thing that I like the most about its graphics is that they have their original appeal and don't deviate much from the N64 art direction. Character design and story have a Tokusatsu and classic Japanese action show stylization to it that works incredibly well with the puppet-like characters. This stylization is well translated to a Saturday morning cartoon style, normally I wouldn't like a choice like this but it is pretty on spot. Although I don't prefer that everyone sounds jerkish and snotty most of the time, it might be a thing of the original script but who knows, it would be great to have the option to play the original Japanese voice acting. Speaking of which, it seems that they cast the original actors from the N64 game and they sound good and replay their roles without any noticeable issue. For an experience crafted 24 years back, Star Fox 64 3D holds up pretty well with its solid gameplay and charming stylization, this remake celebrates its glory and for better or worse it doesn't try to rectify or upgrade what could be done. I would like to have Japanese audio and maybe a deviation from the original script but these are just nitpicking. Its simple story and gameplay may not be the most memorable things that will change your life or at least mine, but they make up for a pretty fun rail shooter.
The King of Fighters '95 is the second installment of the once upon a time hit series of the same name. It continues the basic but great formula of having teams of three characters to fight other teams. A lot of the characters from these teams were taken by other SNK series like Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, and Psycho Soldier, just to name a few. Although it is an upgrade from the last edition, it is far from being the ultimate fighting game. The story is basic but serviceable each team receives an invitation to the annual tournament of KOF but with the distinction of being signed by just an ‘R’ letter. To get a story ending it is mandatory to select a preset team as this time around it's possible to choose individual characters to make your dream team. This new feature of getting to choose your preferred characters enhances your multiplayer experience greatly in an arcade environment, to give you an example when I was a kid I remember going to a local store where they have this particular game and while playing sometimes you will be challenged by a better player or older person, chances are that this kind of duels always attracted a small or big crowd and if you were lucky enough another kid that you didn't know by speaking to, but by fighting each other before, may lend you a hand with one of your characters and try to beat the challenger, this kind of events let me feel like I was in a Shonen manga, as this duels often ended with more challengers and even real three-person teams full-on with an unforgiven but roaring audience, basically your rivals of today became the allies of tomorrow. I am pretty sure that circumstances like this were foresighted by the developers, so it was a genuinely good meta-mechanic. However, this edition of the game is tied to the unmoving chains of a console therefore having a challenger, let alone a crowd it's pretty limited by your circumstances. In the heath of the battle when having a mob screaming behind you is easy to magnify and embellish a flawed game, stiff controls, and so on. So how does KOF '95 fare by itself in the comfortable but solitary spot of your living room? For the most part, OK. The gameplay at least from my perspective seems pretty similar to KOF '94 but with some tweaks here and there that make battles somewhat better. Combos are easier to pull off (at least the basics) and doesn't feel like you need to be extremely precise, don't get me wrong, there is still a big learning curve, but if you're going to tackle this game in a more casual or relaxed way, you'll have a better time with it than KOF '94. Playing multiplayer is the optimal option but not everyone has the luxury of playing local with other people nowadays. The arcade mode has some story to it if you play with the default teams as aforementioned, and although this time around is more interesting than the last game, as a Rival team was introduced with some antagonists for the other star teams (Iori Yagami being the main one of those), it certainly doesn't hold up by itself. Some endings are better than others, some of them add some to the lore and even tease you with events for future entries, and others don't even concern with the story and just show you a silly cutscene. They're not bad but they're not great either, also there are a lot of localization issues, this is not a problem at all, since probably the original staff needed to translate by themselves without a professional translator, and back in the 90's the game industry was another, nonetheless, this being a re-release would benefit to re-translate the script and make it more similar to the original, so it is more like a missed opportunity. The art direction maintains the standard and it adds a little notch to the bar. Stages are pretty, especially the Fatal Fury stage which is in a Mediterranean harbor it seems, I can almost smell the breeze while fighting there. Characters while they look good, most of them seem like recycled assets from the last game, there is nothing wrong with that but they don't seem more polished either in terms of animation. This port has the option of playing it with scanlines which add more depth and richness to the sprites, it is not by any means a perfect simulation, but it improves the visuals so it is recommended to turn it on. King of Fighters '95 was a beast when it was released on Arcade machines, but the passing of the years it's kind of noticeable since it keeps almost the same DNA of the last game with not much noticeable upgrading, as almost every team is the same and the U.S.A. team was simply replaced by the Rival team. Still, you can have some fun with it and it certainly has its charm even when playing it solo, although the preferred experience if possible is by playing with several people, to remember or try to recreate its past glory.
For starters, Grunty’s Revenge is the third installment of the Banjo-Kazooie games from the Nintendo era, however, chronologically speaking it serves as some sort of bridge between the two Nintendo 64 games. The story takes place right after the events of Banjo-Kazooie, Gruntilda (the main antagonist) takes Kazooie and then goes to the past to prevent the events that transpire in the first game, Banjo on the other hand goes to her rescue and that’s the basic premise. In theory, the story sounds great, with the potential of having some sort of Back To The Future moments, though, that was ultimately far from the truth. Aside from some cameos from the other two games, the story unfolds mostly in an uninteresting way, rendering the time travel mostly inexistent, I didn't remember that I was in the past till the end and given that the duration of the game was around 4 hours, that says a lot. That aside, one doesn’t exactly play a Banjo game for its storytelling, so how its game-play fares? For the most part, it’s decent. Banjo moves in 6 directions which feel good mostly, and it kind of replicate a similar feeling while moving on the 3D games, that I think it's pretty commendable, however moving diagonally doesn’t feel as comfortable, given that you’re using a D-Pad to move around, this is more pronounced on the platforming segments, which aren’t that many but if you want to go the 100% route you will have trouble with a few gaps that require precise movement and exact jumps that are more troublesome than challenging as they kind of have severe punishments as falling from a cliff just to climb it over and over. This is hardly new to the series because platforming and climbing vertical levels are one of the strong points of the franchise, yet navigating on Grunty’s Revenge can be an annoyance. This navigation leads us to one of the level's main problems: its overhead view. Grunty's Revenge is a 2D game with 3D pre-rendered graphics that simulate a 3D environment, the problem with this is that some stylistic choices of the level design don't work that well. Some gaps would appear nearer or farther than they are, this translates to invisible walls that often lead you to fall from places and poor exploration, it is not the greatest problem but it will persist till the very end of the game. The level design starts good, but by each level is unlocked it feels more similar to the last one, I can't pinpoint exactly what it is but they felt repetitive and uninspired, the pre-rendered look doesn't help at all as its looks didn't age that well, the two Nintendo 64 games stand out of how creative and colorful their worlds were, and I get that they were designed on a superior hardware but it is more a problem of art direction rather than power. The first two worlds were somewhat fun, they represent also the easiest challenges and puzzles of the game but you'll be entertained nonetheless, however, as you advance to the next levels the difficulty starts to increase, not with fun challenges but with annoying inflated mechanics as hazardous environments, invincible enemies and repetitive minigames. Most of the Jiggies you'll unlock fall in a similar pattern, so you'll have a sensation of Deja Vu for most of the time, in one level you'll be doing a fishing minigame while in the next you'll be doing the same but with different background and tweaked speed, that kind of repetition. A great thing about Rare games was their backtracking, they often put things at the beginning of each level to tease you with an unreachable area or item just to get back after some time when you have more power-ups. This doesn't happen that much here, as you'll get most of the collectibles the first time you enter a new level, just to get back an hour later for the 1 Jiggie that you couldn't reach and that's it. This is more pronounced when transforming into other animals, aside from the rat form, you won't be doing that much with the other 3 forms. This kind of repetition is also visible in boss fights since they're mostly the same, although the final fight can be more than a challenge. There are only 60 Jiggies in total and only 50 are required to enter the final boss fight, so it's easy to get a 100% completion if you're into that sort of thing. It seems that it has several endings depending on your completion time, deaths, and the number of collected items, given that is a short game I imagine that someone could play it a lot of times to watch those endings, it isn't that fun to play but it isn't also that terrible so I think that some people may do that just fine. Grunty's Revenge is not nearly as fun as its big brothers so it is hard to recommend, as it is mostly mediocre in every aspect, but for casual thoughtless playing, I think it works just fine.
[PSN version] The core of Final Fantasy V is its job system that has evolved in some way from the job system on FF III. You start as a Bare or Freelance class and each time you make significant progress within the story, you'll be awarded a new set of jobs to choose from. The beauty of this job system, however, is its skill mixing potential, once a character level up a job it will be awarded a new skill of that particular class, and now will be available to equip it with another job, so you can have healing Ninjas and summoning Thieves if you want to. Trying to make the most efficient killing machines within my party was a lot of fun, it reminded me a lot of my time with the Final Fantasy Tactics games, and is easy to see where they took their inspiration from. On the other hand, you also level up your character's base levels that in turn increase their base stats. These two separate systems have their own points and depending on the enemy you'll get a certain amount of each one, they are more or less balanced and to beat this game you don't need to do much grinding or any grinding at all. Aside from the normal battles, the more interesting ones might be the boss ones. For the first half of the game, these boss battles are pretty basic, where you need to take care of them and not die, but after you hit a certain point, the battles start to get trickier and challenging. Storywise, it has the classic approach of good versus evil. Final Fantasy IV presented a great story filled with nice twists and amazing characters, but because of the larger pool of characters, sometimes felt a little sidetracked. Final Fantasy V doesn't delve into the darker themes of the past game, neither have a complex story of politics and conquest, it is more a mix of the things that worked in the past games, and lands into a safe middle ground: not as simple as the first game but not as dense as the fourth. The drawback for the story is that the dialogue is way too simple, normally for games of that era, I don't mind that much their localization, but as the story unfolded and things get more personal and the stakes higher, I have this feeling that maybe the oversimplified dialogue replaced a better written and more beautiful script, I could be wrong as I haven't researched this topic but one can only wonder if the original script was this lighthearted and silly. What the game do great in terms of merging story with gameplay, however, is its rhythm and progression, Final Fantasy IV took some cues from FF II in this regard and make an incredible experience, yet, FF V might surpass it by some levels. Sometimes you'll be doing a dungeon, while the next destination could be just a town and an event, or in the next end, it will be a boss rush through many enemies. It never felt repetitive and I was always expectantly to see what will be next, throw side questing into the equation and you'll get a memorable adventure, my favorite aspect of the side-quests were the summon bosses that you almost casually met in the wild. Visually it looks quite similar if not the same as the SNES version or at least to an uneducated eye as mine that's what I get when watching videos to compare them. That aside, V has my favorite designs and sprites from the series to this point, enemy sprites are quite detailed and they look gorgeous, it always gets me how little things like eyes are abstracted to the point of being a couple of pixels and they also go the extra mile to convey emotion, it is mind-bending. Musicwise overall the soundtrack has aged pretty well and is solid, but there are some songs that stand-out above the rest, I'm not the only one to think of this as some of them are used in official arrangement and orchestral albums, I liked a few of them before playing this game, but I discover and fall in love with other ones too. Comparing sound to the original SNES version, the bass sounds a little deeper and other sounds may be different, but the transition is not as jarring, so overall I think that it sounds pretty good. I surely didn't know what to expect of Final Fantasy V, but after the great game IV turned out to be, my expectations were a little low as V is not that quoted on the medium, I imagine this must be because this game didn't see Occidental lands after many years have passed since its release, still, I was rewarded with a great experience. Some localization desitions may not aged that good or the challenge may be somewhat dull for some portions of the game, but it is impossible to ignore the charm and heart the developers put into the core of the game, being the story, the mechanics, or little details easy to overlook. Its greatness doesn't come with a darker story but with the freedom of its systems that lets you bend its rules as the very idea of fantasy does.
This remake, seems to be what developers were looking to make back in 1999 and for some instances even more. The most notorious overhaul is its gameplay, using the 3rd person perspective that the series has been using for a long time, is hard to go wrong. Even when they are slow, zombies move erratically, and it's not as easy to make headshots, so you want to take your time while dealing with them since ammunition is somewhat scarce. The evade action is back and thankfully, it is now a unique button to activate it. Foes telegraph their movements with manageable clarity, however, a type of enemy that appears in the middle of the campaign can be unfairly punishing as it is pretty quick and their attack patterns too irregular. Nonetheless, this mechanic is useful and fun to master. Nemesis is still a force to be reckoned with, so you will likely run from him whenever he appears or attack him with grenades to get useful loot. Since the camera is not fixed and you have better mobility, these encounters are a little easier than the original so, they also threw zombies to limit your space. I also like that all the boss battles are focused on Nemesis, and every time you beat him he's angrier in the next one, it makes this "rivalry" more organic as if Nemesis is trying to kill Jill not only because he is programmed to but because ****, it’s not only better handled but it makes the plot moving forward. I never felt like I was being stalked or chased by Nemesis ever. Each time he appeared was too obvious and unsurprising that it felt scripted, not that in the original you couldn’t tell when he was going to attack but here, the clues are way too evident. Still, his chases were fun even when you were waiting for them to start. Normal difficulty is a little challenging but not too much to the point that you’re most likely see a few continue screens here and there, but also not so easy that you’ll be wandering around as if you owned the place. Ammunition and health items are kind of limited but I didn’t encounter a time where I needed bullets. Here’s where the new remakes try to balance horror and action and at least for this game, in particular, it is in a safe middle ground with a small lean towards action, so in the end, even when it is good, it never excels with the horror nor the action. Yet, as I say, it plays in a comfortable middle ground, so it is still a great time, just maybe a little too comfortable. The story on this remake is more or less the same, but it has some tweaks that made it more appealing to modern sensibilities, you will also find some differences between the original and this game so “veterans” will get some new stuff too. The length of the campaign is similar to the original: short, depending on your difficulty and your experience with this type of game you'll likely complete your first run in 7 to 9 hours, so it is a short game compared to other AAA or big studio games. The game is also "bundled" with a download for a multiplayer complement called Resident Evil: Resistance, on which 4 vs 1 player matches take place, the premise sounded interesting but playing it was another story, it didn't help that all the other players were always too experienced and I was always the novice, so I did quit after some runs. I imagine this was Capcom's way to justify a $60 USD price for a game so short, I don't prefer this type of complements as in a few years when the servers are down you will no longer get access to it, but I imagine that other people would prefer it, so that's that. It may sound that I didn't like this game but I did enjoy it quite a lot, the things that I don't like are trivial for the most part, I'm not sure it is the definitive version to play part three of the series as it offers a lot of new stuff while cuts other from the original, but I prefer this remake better, it sure plays it safe but it also looks like a lot of the original intentions that couldn't make the cut were implemented while it maintains the original's essence. I don't think that its short campaign will appeal to everybody, but it has an arcade aura that challenges to play it faster and better that is kind of hard to not do it because of its short length, I still don't think that's enough to a $60 ticket, but I'm not an arcade person. As far as remakes go, this one might be one of the most respectful out there that also builds and propose new stuff from the source material, while maintaining its spirit. It is not hard to recommend it to both newcomers and veterans to the series, the plot is more centered on character development than its lore so is easy to pick it up and play without any before knowledge. Even when it has things I don't prefer, I like where this new direction is going and with some refinements and tweaks, I believe the future entries and remakes could achieve a true horror and action experience.
The main campaign was notably entertaining and fairly challenging, I played it on hard and while it wasn't the most punishing experience ever, I did see the continue screen quite a few times. While the enemy AI wasn't that great, they were aggressive, and it didn't felt to me that they rely on extremely long HP to increase the difficulty, which I appreciate a lot. What I wasn't expecting to find on its campaign was interesting lore with colorful and charming characters or at least some of them. In contrast with its universe, the presented story is pretty basic, yet serviceable, what you need to know is that you're a pilot on a mission, which is ok after all is an action-focused game so the story and lore are more like a complement to its gameplay. The main character is more or less in the same knowledge as you, so you'll get some exposition dialogue here and there to give you enough information to move along through the events unfolding. The main star of this show, however, is the gameplay, mobility on land is standard for an FPS but once you add double jumping, sliding, and wall running to the mix, it adds a lot of energy and dynamism to the combat. Weapon selection is nothing to write home about but the basics are covered, snipers, assault rifles, shotguns, etc. everything is covered so it wouldn’t be a problem for anyone to find the right one. The stages evolve through the chapter and have a lot of diversity, so you will be seeing different types of environments. The rhythm of the campaign is great, and even if it uses the same formula over each chapter: take this item, then kill some enemies, then go to point B and take down the boss, it never felt tiresome or repetitive, since you will be making puzzle solving and fighting titans in the mix you always have a sense of going forward. The cherry on top of the cake might be the boss battles. These fights are basically a showroom of what each Titan is capable of doing and in that regard, the main campaign can be also like a tutorial for the online mode which can be quite fierce, still, single-player mode holds quite good by itself. It's worth to note that it is a short campaign, it took me around 6 hours to beat it, so if you're looking to play this game for single player, you have to consider this, still, its adventure is for the most well packaged of everything, and it has some replayability in the form of collectibles but nothing special. Online mode however is where most of your time is going to be. Before entering a match you’ll be selecting your type of pilot and Titan, each with a customizable loadout of skills and weapons. In the beginning, you'll start with a few selections of everything but you can unlock more stuff when leveling up your base level. To unlock things more quickly you can use credits (the in-game's currency), these credits are obtainable by achieving goals in battles like winning, level up a weapon, have a good performance, etc. this is called the merit system and the better you play the more credits you get. You can also level up each weapon and Titans, to unlock better mods and skills. As for the aesthetic customization, I think it was disappointing, each type of pilot and Titan are different from each other but you are stuck with their default designs, you can unlock and purchase color skins, there are a lot of them but frankly they don't look that different, I am all out for aesthetic customization but here I didn't care since the result would not be that different, this didn't affect my gameplay experience of course, as it is a superficial matter, nonetheless as for a game as online-inclined as this, it would benefit with more customization freedom. Titanfall 2 comes with a wide range of modes, but given the time I played it, each mode seemed almost dead or the queues too long to wait, everything except Attrition. Attrition is the main and seemingly standard online mode on which 6 vs 6 players go into death-match, the purpose of this mode is to gather 650 points before the opposite team to win, it is frenetic, it is fantastic but it is also unforgiven to newcomers. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy Titanfall 2 this much, I don’t tend to play a lot of FPS or TPSs but it is rare for me to get hooked this much by one of them. If you’re looking for a single-player experience I think this game will cover you up for a few hours but most of them will be good, however, if you’re looking for a deep and lengthy experience you may pass on this one or get it on sale (which I think on the PSN store goes pretty regularly). On the other hand, if you’re looking for a great online multiplayer experience look no further, although its customization is limited or repetitive, you’ll have a blast still. Like a good action movie, Titanfall 2 delivers in what is required and excels at it, its clever mechanics and gameplay fluidity overshadows its shortcomings and makes for a well-wrapped and satisfying experience.
Three Houses explore mainly three diverged “What if?” scenarios and gives you the illusion that you battle your dear friends to death. Its gameplay maintains the heights of past entries and adds a few tweaks. The battle system has a lot of diversity and customization to it. In terms of stats and classes, every character can be customized as you like. Tactical battles are one of the series' strong points and one that is still true for this entry. Conquering these fights has a great taste of satisfaction no matter how easy they can get but, the harder the more rewarding. Three Houses is not only tactic battles, that is just one of the sides of this multilayered work. I'd like to think that is more like three games in one: tactical warfare, dating simulator, and teacher simulator, although the latter is more like a bridge between battles and dating, it still comes with its complex systems. The dating sim and teacher sim are not as polished as their battle counterpart, but they're pretty enjoyable nonetheless. Your time within the game is divided by a monthly schedule. Exploring the monastery is the most "dating" part of the game and while it's pretty basic it has a lot of charm to it. Defining difficulty in Three Houses is nebulous, overall is OK with a tendency to the easier side even in hard, but there's a game-breaking element newly introduced to this game: Divine Pulse. This mechanic consists of rewinding time in battle, meaning that if you make a wrong turn and get yourself or a unit killed, you can rewind time as far as you want, at first you can only redo time a couple of times, but you can get 13 recharges at the end of the game. The problem with Divine Pulse is that it makes stakes non-existent, It also can make your strategies lazier, considering you can redo time at any time not only when a unit dies. I got mixed feelings towards the main campaigns overall. To some degree, depending on which house you choose, the events will unfold entirely differently in the middle of each route. My first campaign took me around 100 hours to finish, I didn't go full completionist, but I did a lot of stuff in the meantime. Even if you're rushing through, I imagine they will be still pretty lengthy nonetheless, so if you're planning to beat this game only once you better choose carefully which house you prefer the most, considering that each story has different values, and in my opinion, at least one is inferior to the other two by a considerable amount, it would not only impact the story you'll get, but also the enjoyment you will get from the game. Getting back to the main paths, you can have a different experience depending on what you choose, if you're planning to play the three main paths then this won't be a problem, although, now that I know what I know, I would prefer to do the paths in another order to get a better experience. Each path offers not only different events and endings but also have a theme that represents a little the struggles of its protagonist and class. Setting aside the things I dislike are nitpicks in comparison to the good ones, for what it's worth, Fire Emblem Three Houses is a massive experience and goes well beyond what a video game could offer from other media. The fact that three people could play this game and have three different massive experiences blows me away. I'm not saying that other games don't offer this kind of experience, after all, a lot of modern games have this "your decisions" matters structure, however, Three Houses is a beast of its own and it blurs the line of what replayability means.
I like to think that it doesn’t matter the patches and errors put into something; if the result is great, then it is great. NIER is not a brilliant work, not by a long shot, yet, the more I played I could catch glimpses of shining diamond light within this raw cut precious stone. The premise, if not the lore, is quite simple: we follow the exploits of Nier looking for a way to cure his daughter Yonah of a lethal disease from this medieval future called the Black Scrawl. In his adventure, he encounters several and eccentric companions as well as uncover the secret of why the current state of the world is as it is. The combat is simple, it has a three attack basic combo, charge attack, and a variety of magic attacks, it is pretty noticeable that the developers took inspiration from action games such as Devil May Cry and God of War, more likely the latter, still, it lacks the depth and impact of those games and it is more of a first stage version of those combat systems. The combat, aside from being simple it works for the most part, it is not that fun, but it is not terrible either, sure is better than those you find in DMC 2 or Dirge of Cerberus. The difficulty is sadly another unbalanced aspect of the game, I started playing in normal and it seemed fine at first; enemies did a fair amount of damage and so do I, but pretty soon, I noticed that my attacks were taking big chunks of health from my enemies. I did some side questing in between but nothing too heavy to overpower myself that much, and by the end of the 'first act' I was simply rushing through everything, so I switched to hard difficulty instead. Hard mode is peculiar, it certainly adds more challenge but in a very frustrating way. Enemies hit harder but their defense or HP is a joke considering their attack patterns and projectiles are telegraphed is not that hard to evade them. Only a few of the battles were thrilling, and the majority of them were more endurance tests. Nier (the character) starts at first somewhat as a blank slate, he doesn't seem to be very opinionated in any regard but the more you play the more you get to know that he is a pretty sweet guy that just happens to be big and muscular, he knows what rough life is like and for that reason he likes to help people if it is in his possibilities, one could say that he's simple-minded. But with the same ferocity he chooses to help people he annihilates his enemies without a second thought. It may look that narratively these two sides don't get well, but in the context of the game, it makes all the sense, this is a cruel and cynical world after all. In your adventure, you'll encounter a wide variety of eccentric and interesting people and some of them even join you in your journey to save your daughter. Although they start somewhat dull at first, the more you advance, the more you'll get to know them and the interactions get more interesting, and they offer more points of view to the side questing, I don't want to spoil or sound repetitive, but I liked a lot how the game questions a lot of conventions from RPGs and adventure games in general. The world-building is one of the game’s positive points, as I told you it is a cruel world, so NPCs alike will have motives to their backstories that range from depression to revenge in the rawest of ways, at times you’ll question yourself if helping somebody out was the right call. Although there’s sometimes a ray of hope, one can only feel pessimistic about everything even when you’re on the same page as the always positive Nier. The game has an experimental side to it also. Overall the acting is OK at its best, bad on average, and pretty awful on its worse. After beating the game I look for the Japanese audio for some events and it was heartbreaking to see how everything was almost different in a good way, as always with this kind of issue, I felt robbed from my experience. Although not everything related to sound in this game is bad, the music for a change is incredibly good. NIER’s world is depressing but it has a wide variety in regards to levels, and the music accompanies them beautifully, it has no right being this good but here we have it. NIER can be rough around the edges; its combat might not be that polished and the voice acting takes away too much from the experience, but after everything is said and done, I’m glad that I did play after all. Its themes and characters give me a lot to think about, and while maybe you need to do some meta-research to get the full grasp of everything, you can have quite the journey even with the bad aspects and all. I think this Yoko Taro rawly cut diamond can offer you a lot, maybe he and his team didn’t achieve the heights they achieve with NieR: Automata, not by a long shot, but there is certainly a brilliant aspect to NIER if only by glimpses.
Vanillaware is one of a kind company. They always seem to do the one thing that nobody is willing to do or better-said risk to do. Their work had always struck me as honest and filled with heart and soul. Although their art-style and storytelling is consistently great, their game mechanics are the part that at times struggles to hit the mark or to be on par with the other two said aspects. 13 Sentinels not only raised the bar way too high in regards to storytelling and art direction, while it may look deceiving, they've made a solid, raw and satisfying combat system that complements its story beautifully, both mechanically and narratively, to deliver a balanced and masterfully crafted experience. 13 Sentinels is a departure from Vanillaware's latest works that were more on the lines of side-scrolling action adventures, although here the adventure is navigated within the 2D realm, it is a different kind of game, it is more reminiscent of GrimGrimoire, but we will get there. Weird as it sounds, it stars 13 protagonists, and while it may also sound like the majority of them would be just side-stories or padded plot, every single one of them is interesting and necessary to the overall story. They're even thematically different between them; one could feel like a detective story while the other could be a slice of life comedy-drama anime, the range is vastly wide. Vanillaware is not a stranger in regards to having even five protagonists but in 13 Sentinels, they balanced it so well that every character has a lot of moments to shine, and it's never focused on the exploits of only one character; they're like cogs in a well-greased clockwork. To balance the plot progression, you start playing with one character, and when you meet certain criteria like getting to a specific point on their plot or advancing through the "battle mode" you'll be unlocking the other characters one by one. Each character has a percent meter so you don't have to worry about not knowing which one to advance to get the "best and most cohesive playthrough". Nevertheless, one of the many brilliant aspects of 13 Sentinels is that there's not a right order to play it. In my case, I changed characters each time I finished their chapter (A "To be continued" will be displayed on the screen), and I never felt any narrative issue playing that way, furthermore, the sci-fi story is filled with twists, and its non-linear narrative only adds to its intriguing and confusing (on purpose) story. This is a Sci-fi work through and through, not even great for video game standards but every media standard, and because every campaign diverges from one another in terms of themes and atmosphere, you’ll be encountering a broad range of scenes, from wholesome and comic moments to truly horrific ones, it’s almost incredible how they get away in mixing all this stuff. Another part that was on the top of its game was the original Japanese voice acting, they’ve gathered quite the cast with both veterans and newcomers, and each of them gave their heart to their performances, delivering their scenes like they were born to act them. Although I find the battle mode as everything in this game incredible well done, it is also the part that I think a lot of people could be turned off since what you see on screen are not the mechas neither the Kaiju, but abstract representations of them, this is not a bad thing per se, and the game relies a lot on effects and sounds to make every punch and projectile feel like they’re crushing the enemies and they get away with this illusion. This I believe was a budget decision, but since the focus of the game is its story, it doesn’t affect the experience, and even if it leaned towards a more combat experience, this mode as it is, delivers solid battles and damn entertainment moments that stand on its own. Think this mode like a good indie movie with limited effects, not because the effects are “basic” or “simple” makes it a bad movie. By the way, I recommend that you play it on intense difficulty, since normal difficulty can be a little too easy, the intense difficulty delivers just the right balance to maintain the stakes at a good height. While 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is a departure from anything Vanillaware has created before, it is also their best work to date, it is a well balanced and well packaged of everything you want in a Sci-Fi work and it goes beyond. It borrows some ideas and concepts for other media, mostly movies, and books, and makes its own thing, there are a lot of movie references (and surely other stuff) that are worth an entire study or article. The surprising part (as really anything in this game) is that they make them work in the game’s context, not only they've made them work, they owned them and created a timeless masterpiece that I believe in time it will pass to the hall of fame not only as a mandatory videogame but as a mandatory piece of Sci-fi.
It's not that FFCCR is a bad remaster at all. Although superficial, it certainly adds a lot of things, like new rearranged music, new re-skinned harder dungeons, and a few other things. The fact is that even without these new additions, I would still get the game regardless. Still, I'm grateful that we get this game with all this new stuff. However, as they say, the devil is in the details, and with the precision of an ice pick that pierces a big chunk of solid ice, little details are the demise of these chronicles. But let's not get too ahead, and let's talk about the new stuff before we get there. The first thing you'll notice about this remaster is the HD graphics. The work fo the developers did in the Game Cube was outstanding in regards to art direction and visuals, and to find that they still hold up pretty well to this day is remarkable. Back in the day when the original launched, I didn't have a sound system to enjoy the music as it should, but now that I have one, it was like falling in love with the same person all over again. As far as new music goes, I could only recall two new songs, and also every new dungeon has a rearranged song with different instruments or vocals. In some cases, I even prefer the new rearranged work. Usually, a remastered game doesn't have the luxury of having new songs but the fact that they went extra with one of the strong points of the original game it's pretty amazing. When Square Enix first announced this game, they hinted that it will feature voice acting. I was hoping that it will have the option of hearing the Japanese voices, but as it seems for other important stuff, the voice acting was region-locked, so only Japanese audio for Japanese copies. I think the acting in FFCCR wasn't that bad; however, it wasn't that good either, so I turn off the VO. The new dungeons are counterparts of the original ones, that means that 13 dungeons (not including the final dungeon) have a new skin. They also come with new re-skinned and re-sized enemies with more powerful attacks and swarms of them. They can present a real challenge, but unlike the original dungeons that increase their difficulty by each cycle you complete (capped at LVL 3), the new ones have a fixed difficulty. Although they're hard, once you complete them, there's not much reason to replay them because the spoils you get there are awkwardly sorted between them. Given the number of enemies and difficulty, dungeons are meant to be played with at least two people. Which leads us to this remaster's main problem. The original game was a multiplayer game in its design, local multiplayer, to be precise. Sadly, FFCCR doesn't build upon the multiplayer design of the original. It builds around its single-player. While it's not as bad as a lot of people say, it certainly is a different, more condensed, and sterile experience than what you get while playing multiplayer. Now, instead of being in the same caravan. You and your friends can only interact in dungeons, so a big part of the immersion is severed with this decision. The main problem with this immersion-breaking decision it's more pronounced when doing dungeons together with friends. For some creative or technical desition, the only person that can get a Myrrh drop after beating a dungeon is the host, this means that for every one of us to complete a year playing together, we needed to play through 9 dungeons, and we could only choose from the exact pool of dungeons, so we ended repeating a lot of them over and over. The issue of advancing so slow through every year but getting stronger is that you overpower yourself too quickly, and it only makes your playtime more hollow and boring. Clearly, playing together with friends was not the objective of the developers when making this remaster, because is easier to play at your own pace but one can only have so much fun playing with strangers, and because there are only preset messages that are very limited, to say the least, communication with other players isn't that fun. So more often than not, you'll be paired with people that maybe isn't on the same page as you in terms of how you want to proceed, attack, or navigate. When everything's said and done, I have some fun playing this remaster with my friends, not in the way I would like and not even close to my experience with the original. Same with the NGC version it's hard to recommend this game and it feels like a huge missed opportunity, but if you played the original and liked it playing it solo I think this is the definitive version of that experience. But if you're looking for that game in regards to its multiplayer aspect, well, you better get some local friends and look on eBay for that GBA + cable link stuff.
Crystal Chronicles is a testament oh how creativity and limitations led me to one of the most immersive experiences of my life yet and also gave me some of my best memories playing with other people. [This is a multiplayer review] FFCC it is set in a world covered in Miasma (a poisonous and lethal gas) and Villages across this Medieval fantasy world send Caravans to venture in dungeons, forests, paths, etc. in search of Myrrh Trees, when a Caravan collect three drops of Myrrh from these trees they can restore the power of their village's main crystal so it can repel the Miasma from that zone for a year till its power vanishes and the process need to be repeated every year; this is the basic premise of the game. Contrary to almost any other Final Fantasy game which as a general rule they have a linear narrative, Crystal Chronicles goes with an open narrative, and it's focused on world-building rather than character building, but if you're open to this premise you'll not be disappointed by its simple but charming tone. Same with the narrative, its gameplay could be described as simple and maybe rudimentary at times, although I could say that its brilliance resides in its simplicity when playing multiplayer with the rather unused GBA connectivity of the Game Cube. In dungeons, every player have a radar that shows different things like enemies, treasures or to equip and unequip items, it also shows every player the objective of each player to complete, this could stuff like: kill your enemies with spells, pick up items, avoid physical damage, etc. At the end of each dungeon, every player sums their points to see who did their role the best and they're ranked accordingly, the winner gets to choose first from different artifacts that will increase their stats permanently so playing well while trying to keep the other players for making rack up their points is key to victory. The combat consists of three main actions: attack, defend, and casting spells, while spamming the attack combo (which has a certain rhythm for it to be executed) could be the easiest most of the time, the fun of playing multiplayer is to combine spells or charge attacks with the other players, these fusions can be tricky to pull off since they require perfect timing and positioning. When charging a spell your character will summon a magic ring and when releasing the button the spell will be triggered, to fuse a spell you need to have two to four rings positioned just right and be released at the same time, this mechanic is easily the most enjoyable aspect of the gameplay and if it's executed right it can make a Caravan almost invincible, at first is almost like a gamble but in time it can be a super useful and satisfying tool of destruction. Normally repeating dungeons to grind items or exp would be such a chore but FFCC gets away with it with its art direction and music. First and foremost the art direction is amazing, it has aged amazingly well, every location, dungeon, or character speaks volumes with just a glimpse of them, it has a lot of variety and it makes this world truly alive, not only they're flawlessly designed they are unique, the variety of levels is staggering, every place feels so detailed like a stage play. But... What truly steals the show to me, is the music, from the very beginning where you start your file and "Morning Star" kicks in (composed by Kumi Tanioka and sung by Donna Burke) you know that you're up to something special, Kumi Tanioka did an outstanding work with the music that is no short of a masterpiece, every song feels rich and crafted with the most care and detail that I can't think of someone disliking it, overall the game has this a little sad and nostalgic feeling or as one of the characters said: "You need rain for your crops to grow, so hopefully you'll have some rain in your journey" and the music captures this tone greatly, same as with the art direction, the soundtrack range is incredibly wide. As a little note, whenever you start a dungeon a brief narration kicks in that gives you some lore of the dungeon or the world, these narrations are also by Donna Burk which did a great work capturing a dreamy-fairy tale theme within them, they also become more personal till the very last one which is simply beautiful, so please don't skip them or at least heard them once. Of course, FFCC is not perfect by any means, certainly, it's two games at the same time, one for single player and the other for multiplayer. In single-player the experience is passable but all of the shortcomings from multiplayer become at times a chore and even a little hollow, but if you somehow manage to acquire 4 GBA with 4 link cables, you're going to have one of a kind journey with your companions, or at least to me I couldn't think of any other time (gaming or not) that I was more connected with my siblings than the adventures and adversities we have while playing Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.
The After Years is a direct sequel to the iconic 4th iteration of the Final Fantasy series, as its title suggests it is set several years after the events of the original, so you can see how our beloved or hated characters grow up and even meet some of their children. In theory and depending on how you see sequels, this could be a great experience but in practice, it is far from the mark. The game is presented in episodes, each episode stars one specific character that you follow mainly for that said episode, this decision might feel odd but narratively speaking it makes sense more or less, a lot of the stories are happening almost at the same time so you can see characters from other stories intertwine briefly and unfold the plot little by little, again, in theory this sound like it could be an interesting choice but in reality, it felt quite tiresome to start a chapter with a new set of characters and to increase their levels again and again, in no time you get tired to the core. Let's talk about the gameplay, it uses the ATB system so you know more or less the drift, the interesting new feature tho is a new command called 'Band' this band thing consists in combining two commands of two to five characters to make a more powerful defensive or offensive skill, is interesting since you have to do trial and error to find what combinations can be made, it uses MP to prevent extended usage of them or to exploit them which is OK. Another new feature is that now the potency of your attacks, magic, throws, and summons depends on the phases of the moon, this not only affects you but also the enemies so depending on the jobs of your party you need to choose wisely on which moon you're going to venture a dungeon, depending on your decision you might have a harder or slower time, although you can change the phase by resting in inns or tents. Now, taking aside the new features that can feel sometimes superficial, the gameplay remains the same as the original or at least the newer editions of the original, what it truly makes me reconsider quitting this game on more instances that I want to recall was first and foremost the grinding, to put you in perspective the original game took me 31 hours to beat, this one took me 44 hours, in the original, I did some sidequests while in TAY I didn't, why I comparing their length you say? I'm glad you ask, The After Years consists not only on similar almost identical events of the original with other characters but it also features every boss of it, dungeon and locations rearranged in a different order so in a lot of ways is like playing the original but with less charm and soul, combine this with over-grinding and you'll get a tiresome and unbearable experience, it doesn't help that you have to repeat and backtrack some dungeons in different events. Being an episodic game I imagine that it would be complex to a game like this be explorative on its design so I'm not blaming that much that they made it this linear, but keep in mind that you're guided literally to where to go next every time that you advance of the story, at least till the last episode where you'll be tasked to repeat a few dungeons again. The music is still great mainly because they're arranged versions of the original game with a few new tunes that sound like they belong to this game , I can even say that I appreciate some characters more after playing with them again, although the new characters are fine I think they're overshadowed by the older ones, I would prefer that the story focused more on them and give the veteran cast a more supporting role, however, it's nice that by the end of the game you get a huge pool of characters to choose from, so I guess is not that bad in that regard, also at different points of your adventure you'll find several instances where some characters can get permadeath, at least to me it affected my gameplay and narrative so it seems that several story branches exist so you can replay the game to see them all, it is indeed a nice touch for the hardcore players but in my case, I wouldn't mind keeping this game in an obscure place for a long time. As an RPG is at its best OK but for the most part it's generic and repetitive, however, being the sequel to one of the best FF entries and to completely recreate events, boss fights and almost everything from that game makes this experience cheap and tiresome, it is truly a big missed opportunity. I wouldn't recommend it to play it that much unless you're itchy to know what happens next to our heroes, in that regard it has some kind of payoff and maybe it even gives you the illusion that it was worth it but it is a 70% bitter 30% sweet experience, so if you're going for it just be prepared for an excessive, grindy and unbalanced game.
Even when Real Bout 2 The Newcomers felt mighty familiar or some choices seemed backward, I was always playing with a smile on my face. You know that old say about if something isn't broken don't repair it, and that is what the developers did with RB2. At first glance, you'll notice some tweaks here and there, especially from the characters you used in the past entry and at moments it might seem as some of them are clunkier but instead, they added complexity to some of them, you still have all-around fighters like Terry or Mai but already difficult characters to use like Mary have been tweaked if only a little to add more complexity to avoid button-mashing combos, or at least that I believe anyways. The roster is bigger than the last game (by 2 characters) and felt a little like those All-star games where the plot is not that relevant and are more focused in fighting, which is great or the better experience if you play with friends but from a single-player perspective, it felt a little backward, since a lot of the fun playing that way is to unlock stuff and get the endings for your favorite characters but the little sequences you obtain by beating the game are for the most part silly and stakes-free, is not a bad thing per se but they aren't as rewarding as a "story" ending. Another thing that at times bothered me a bit was the discrepancy between the damage of some special moves, for the most part, they were balanced but in a few instances, they felt too op in terms of speed and damage. The artwork and the sprite work are still great although it doesn't seem that they were trying to push the envelope to higher places, instead the maintained the quality in a safe spot. RB2 is so much fun if you play with friends, from a single-player experience it might be a little unrewarding or plain at times but even when it plays it safe in almost every aspect of its mechanics or artwork, it is still a pretty good game.
FFCCTCB starts pretty solid, you get a fun combat sequence, interesting narrative, and stylistic choices but sooner or later you'll find that something is a little off. The Crystal Bearers is a weird game, I don't see how it came to existence but I'm thankful that it did. I love the original game and it's my favorite game, but I'm also aware that it is by no means a masterpiece (at least combat-wise) however it has an incredible amount of charm in its narrative, lore, music, mechanics, aspects that I believe The Crystal Bearers inherit, alas for the most part in a shallow way but also on its own way. The big draw here is that this is a new story told within the universe of the Crystal Chronicles with some drawbacks and references to its lore but that's all, the most notorious part would be the combat system, you now control Layle a Crystal Bearer, one of a handful of persons that can use magic, Layle is a gravity wielder and it makes all the sense since it surely was a technical choice to use the Wii motion to its main potential, well sort of it. The original game lacked a lot in the combat department, it was simple, serviceable and repetitive at its worst, in this game the combat, in theory, should be a lot of fun, since you use motion controls to control gravity, pull and throw enemies at the will of your movements like a fantasy Jedi, it sounds like it would be a match made in heaven but in reality, it feels unpolished, the battles are always as follows: pull an enemy to you, throw it to another enemy or wall to deal some damage, rinse and repeat, surely you can throw objects like rocks, or furniture too, and some enemies require that spin them first or activate a status but are basically the same thing over and over, you control the camera with the directional pad and it's way too awkward and unnatural when you're in combat that it almost became a chore, it would benefit greatly to have a lock-on reticle just to focus an especifc enemy even if you still need to aim it manually (a thing that I like mind you) to attack it. Although since it's an action game I never felt that the passing was off or the battles too regular to be a huge problem, what I find it pretty odd and it was a nice surprise, is that I have a lot of fun with the minigames within the story, one moment you're sliding through a waterfall, another you're in a beach butt-fight competition, semi-shooter segments, stealth segments and even rhythm games, similar to its combat they're not so polished but they're so brief and fresh that they were always enjoyable, they even forward the main story so they feel with purpose. The plot is nothing to write home about and it falls in some of the conventions of the franchise but it's good, the characters are charm enough just to look forward how the story will unfold, unfortunately, I have some issues with its localization, mainly the dubbing, it seemed that the original intention was to make something in the spirit of Cowboy Bebop at least character and narrative-wise, but the acting is way too cartoony and dull (a problem that most RPGs from Japan have when they're dubbed that prevails to this day), it's not the worst acting and maybe you can't pass behind it but to me, it was distracting, although, I really fall in love with this Yuke character and also her actress was genuinely good portraying her. The rhythm of the game as I stated before it's OK for the most part, my only issue is that at some points the story needs you to backtrack a lot from point A to point C just to make you go point A again, it can be bothersome since a good portion of the game you don't have a way to fast-travel and you move pretty slowly when navigating, there are some Chocobos here and there but they were always far away to me and they're not that fast also. Aside from the main story, you can make some "side-quests" that are hinted in notes or newspaper, things like: "there's a bunch of enemies floating around in the beach, we hope that someone could take care of them" they're not cryptic but it's hard to keep track of them since the game would not track anything but the main campaign and since the only reward is extra HP and some materials, the game is not that hard and the combat isn't that fun so honestly you can skip them easily. A thing that it's worth to note is that this game looks absolutely beautiful, it aged incredible well that at times it even looks better than a lower PS3 game, I believe is mostly for the art direction and artistic choices. Another great aspect is the music, the original game has a masterfully crafted soundtrack, and even when this one doesn't get to that height of finesse it has a lot of personality and variability than it needed to have, and for that I'm thankful. The Crystal Bearers is quite the unique if a mixed title, it has a lot of good ideas that fall short for the most part, but the sum of its parts make for at least an entertaining journey.
Back in the day when this game came out, I was actively disliking it for being serious and dark, the fact that it was made for fans that didn't like Wind Waker bothered me a lot (since I loved that game), it felt like an unfair apology. In reality, I liked it more than I could admit at the time but in my teenage mind it was "far behind other Zeldas". 14 years later what started as a cleaning backlog game ended in a wonderful rediscovery journey. Twilight Princess presents a story more in lines like Majora's Mask or A Link to the Past, it is darker and it touches more serious themes than other Zeldas, is not that is a grim game but I liked quite a lot how they put stuff like revenge, inequality, privilege, etc., into it, they didn't go full-on with them but at least they question things that in other Zelda games where took for granted. I won't say that TP was ahead of its time however I can say that narratively is more in tune with our current discussions as in 2020. One of the main differentiators from other Zelda games is its art direction, which I have mixed feelings with it, it goes pretty well with the dark atmosphere and tone of the game but some character designs or more specifically the 3d models and textures didn't translate that well, It's not that the art direction is that bad, but for every amazingly designed character like Midna (your companion in this game for those unfamiliar) you have a generic fantasy looking enemy, pretty hit or miss. Speaking of Midna, she's definitely a top tier character in the franchise, she really grew on me the more time I spend with her, plot and gameplaywise, the other characters are great too, some of them can be a little annoying at first, as the kids from the first village, but as the story unfolds, every single one of them have at least one good moment. One thing worthy of note is that this HD remaster has Hero mode (hard mode) from the start, on which enemies do double damage and they don't drop hearts, I believe this is the definitive mode to play TP since the normal mode is extremely easy, and it gives an extra layer to the combat which is not that bad but is pretty basic. As for the gameplay and maybe the one thing that surprised me the most was the variability of everything, mechanics, boss fights, progression, etc. Unlike Wind Waker which is for better or worse a simple game in everything, in contrast, Twilight Princess is complex (for better or worse) in a lot of its mechanics, dungeons are massive and have exclusive mechanics alongside the item you acquire there, for instance in the first dungeon you will have the boomerang mechanic but also a second mechanic with some characters you'll find there, it adds a lot, the problem is that in some occasions this also translates as not so clear puzzles, poor navigation and backtracking and so on, but at least they try to make it more interesting. Another great thing is the music and its sound design, most of the tunes have this dreamy feeling and are also memorable and catchy, they capture perfectly the tone of the game and yet they sound like they belong not only in the Zelda franchise but specifically in the TP universe, it might as well contain my favorite Zelda songs, remixed or original. Speaking of rhythm, the game progression and the story have an incredible flow, the only instance on which I wasn't thrilled to play were those parts that you need to collect "light bugs" to free an area, they were annoying, not fun and at times unintuitive, they break my immersion a lot, at least you have to do this only 3 times so it's not that bad I think, other than this everything unfolds naturally and beautifully. It also has these interlude segments in-between dungeons on which you will be required to do certain things to advance the story, they're different, fun, and memorable, this kind of stuff is part of the Zelda series but here doesn't feel formulaic neither repetitive. So what's not to like about this game? In summary not that much, my biggest problem might be the combat, it is dully simple even when the game tries to make the illusion that is complex via the skills you will learn but hardly use through the game, enemies don't require much strategy and on the other hand, the boss fights are fun and creative, they also have a second phase when things get a little mixed and add some challenge or variety to the fight, nevertheless, they're way too easy. I wasn't expecting to revisit this game and liked it so much, even loving it, maybe graphically it didn't age that well like the timeless Wind Waker or even the divisive Skyward Sword, and it has some issues that in the great scheme of things are minuscule, but aside from that the game has a lot of heart, it's fun and rewarding, the story and its characters are memorable and if you're into collecting things this game has a lot of variety in that regard, if you're a veteran or a newcomer to the series please check it out.
This being my first visual novel I can't argue about how it compares to other works of the sorts, therefore my commentary about is based on my experience with novels and anime/manga. I did enter Higurashi not knowing anything about it and I'm not sure what is the best possible way of entering this series, however, I'll assume that you know at least the basic premise, if not, and you want to "play" this visual novel with zero knowledge about it you may want to stop reading this right here (I'm not giving away spoilers but to know the premise may "ruin" one of its twists). Getting back to the premise, maybe it would be more bearable to know what I was getting into that going in with zero knowledge. The story starts as generic as they come, the main character is a blank slate that transfers to a new school in a rural town in Japan, he knows some girls with generic tropes about them, like the cute one, tomboyish, stoic, etc. And in a sort of way it became like a harem anime, the story (at first) revolves in their interactions and their club activities that consist mainly in games and challenges since their club is about that, in this interactions you get to know more about the main character as well as the other characters and you get a grip pretty quickly of who are they, the problem is that they're incredibly boring and generic and this thing goes at least for the first 4 hours of my 10-hour playthrough, I was about to quit by this point. However, The promise of this story getting darker or more interesting keep me from quitting and in a way, I believe that it paid off more or less, as I said before I'll not spoil anything but when the story goes from harem slice of life to horror it was hard to consider quitting this time around. Although the story took a solid route from here onwards, some moments or twists were still generic or dull, so if you still didn't like the writing to this point, probably you'll still be turned off, for me tho', the first "scare" took me off guard and it was incredibly effective, however, this sentiment wore off a little since it kinda repeats this trick in a few times later in the story, that's not to say I wasn't enjoying it and the last chapters were so unsettling that I needed to take short breaks from time to time. This visual novel doesn't have any choices at all so you're basically reading the whole experience, the only choices you have come in the form of optional short lectures that give you more context about certain characters or events that I think they couldn't fit in the story naturally. Although I believe you can skip them since they're not that necessary to the main plot, they are also so short that it won't hurt that much to read them tho', probably you want to skip the ones about the classroom girls, since its more of the boring dialogues and interactions with them. Given the amount of time you have to invest to get to the better part of this visual novel is hard to recommend it, mainly because its 1st half is pretty weak, almost unbearable, however, once you get to the point where things get interesting, you'll be rewarded more or less of your lost time. As for me, I'm considering in giving a shot to the next chapter since I get somewhat hooked by the cliffhanging ending and where the story is going, maybe next time the writing is more focused and maybe you get to know the characters in more interesting ways, although currently there are 8 main chapters to this series so it's going to be a long ride.
It started as a Sonic game, but as soon as I started to notice the music was a little iffy, things started to feel quite different. I was looking forward to play Sonic CD, since is one of those games that have legendary status but the truth is, it was disappointing in several ways, not that I had a bad time, on the contrary I was having fun, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that a lot of stuff could be more polished. Starting with the stages layout, this time around the stages have some variability and openness that the past entries didn't have, they at times feel labyrinthic, which is a double edged sword since it spice things up but it also show how clumsy navigation can be, as always you have a lot of obstacles and unfair enemies that can hit you by just some frames after they appear on screen, and since the stages are designed with a lot of stuff and backgrounds, it was hard to tell apart which things were solid or not, again my issue with the past Sonic games was that they keep you from running and punish you hard for doing so, while a more passive and slow navigation is rewarded, but at least to me it feels wrong. One thing that this game excels are the boss fights, they're simple but more creative and fun than the past games, a pretty neat feature and one of the highlights of this game, I loved the penultimate fight the most, although the last fight lacks the epicness of the other games, is still challenging and enjoyable. Another key feature of this game is the "Time" mechanic, every stage has at least 4 versions of itself, present, past, good future and bad future, a neat feature in theory but in practice is messy and frankly confusing, I didn't understand till late in the game what was that about. This mechanic also alters the music from the stage and it also have 4 different versions, which takes us to one of my biggest issues, Sonic games always have had outstanding music, and it hit me hard when I wasn't digging any of the tunes of this game, they weren't bad but they didn't match neither the stage atmosphere or the Sonic musical style, to my surprise when I beat the game and did a little of research, it appears that SEGA US make an entire new soundtrack to "appeal" more its audience, it took me just 3 comparisons to feel like I was robbed from a great soundtrack, so if you can choose between the Japanese/European or US versions of this game, choose the JP/EU since it has the original superior soundtrack, although there's one track that I loved, and that one may be the boss fight theme, it's super dark and ominous, it feels also out of place but at least to one boss fight in particular fits perfectly. I played the Gem's Collection for the Nintendo Gamecube version of this game, it seems that it has a continue feature that I ignore if the original had, I think is a good addition since you can pick up your game whenever you want, although, this game is rather easy compared to 1 and 2. As usual, you can have a "good ending" if you meet certain requirements, is harder to obtain it and to me it's not that worthy but if you like this kind of stuff from the past game, you'll feel right at home and because is fairly short (1:15 hours more or less) you can master the stages to try to get the good ending fast enough. I didn't hate this game but certainly didn't love it either, I can see how for someone that played it as its starting Sonic can overlook a lot of my issues, but being this the 3rd installment of this series a lot of tuning and refinement would benefit it a lot.
