destroyer3242

Long story short: If you loved the first one, you will most likely love this one as well. Both of the Bravely games are a hit or miss with people; You either like the story and where it takes it, or you think that it's something that sounded cool, but in reality you think it's boring. You either like the gameplay and how it tries to keep the genre fresh, but also familiar, or you think it's a gimmick that tries to continuously revive more classic styled jRPG games. You either like the characters and their quirks, stories, and designs, or you think that they're bland, one-dimensional characters that are stubbornly committed to how they are as characters. Bravely Second essentially takes what the first game did, and made steady improvements upon it while still keeping familiar to the first game. It still takes place in the same world, yet introduces new locations as well, so you will not very often find yourself doing dungeons you did in the first game (except in the case of side quests). But this also means that it is relatively necessary to play the first game before this, given that it's a direct sequel, which may be a difficulty for some who are looking to get into the series, which is why this is more **** for the fans. In addition, the general voice acting quality has also been changed; While the first game had good voice acting, but bad voice directing (MRGRGR), this game generally just has bad voice acting all around. But, how you handle it depends on how you handle voice acting in general. In my case, I found myself getting used to the English voices rather quickly, similar the case when I played Xenoblade Chronicles. It's times like these where I tend to believe that bad voice acting quality does not necessarily mean that it is bad for the characters that they play. Of course, if you can't find yourself getting over it, you can always switch to the Japanese voice actors. The main perk is that you'll actually be able to understand more than half of Magnolia's dialogue since she uses English instead of French. Despite all the flaws the game may have, however, I would still give it a 10, simply because, in my case, the flaws are made up by the story, the environments, the gameplay, etc. Once I got this game, I simply could not put it down until I beat it, and I would argue that it would tie with Bravely Default in one of my favorite games, and even more so one of my favorite RPGs.

(Note, this review is currently ONLY for Birthright, the other paths have not been finished yet) Ah, Fire Emblem. This series as a whole has been something I've been playing since the games first started coming out in America. As a whole, the series has continued to evolve over the years, changing its mechanics, stories, etc. However, despite these changes, however drastic they may be, there's always been a style of Fire Emblem, with its textures, characters' quirks, and combat system that is undeniably recognizable as part of a Fire Emblem game. So, now we enter into the Fates trilogy, given to us after the universally acclaimed entry, Awakening. It keeps a familiar feel to the game, while changing certain aspects of the game. The main change that you will notice right away is that weapons no longer break (other than healing spells). You might think this is odd at first, given how it is a staple of the series, but you'll later realize that it is necessary that they did it this way, and you'll probably appreciate it that Nintendo decided to do it. I can't get away with a review without touching on the censorship issues. Yes, they did censor parts of the game. Do I care? Honestly, not really. One of the issues people need to realize about localizing a game is that some teams believe that they need to make it culturally acceptable, so it's not immediately obvious to those who don't pry into the field that it is an international game. Is this a bad thing? Well, it depends on what is getting censored. A lot of people won't really care about them removing a 'minigame' about... petting... but the 'bond' feature is still present. My simple stance on it is that it is not negatively impacting the game, so I don't really mind it being changed. At least it's not Bravely Second getting bad endings censored. That's just ridiculous. So, as for the actual characters in the game, as you might expect after Awakening, each of them has their own little quirk about them. However, the series still suffers from my main complaint, which is where this 9/10 comes into play. The thing is with Fire Emblem games, is that each of the playable characters are all unique individuals, instead of being a unit with a generic model, image, and equipment set. This is what distinguishes Fire Emblem games from most other tactical games. However, the way it is implemented has always been a personal issue for me. This is because of the simple fact that characters that emerge into your story, their relevance to the story is as follows: 1.) You enter a battle. 2.) You begin to have some trouble. 3.) New character swoops in to save the day, and gets the spotlight for the rest of the battle 4.) Battle finishes. 5.) For the rest of the game, they're (mostly) irrelevant, save for a couple lines of dialogue here and there. 6.) Their legacy is carried on via any support conversations that they may have. What I always wished this series would accomplish as it evolved was the small hope that they would have characters that were NOT the main characters, have a true impact on the story. I mean this is the context of, for instance, you were originally going to take a path that you would have been able to get through originally, with person 'X's help, but because they died in a previous battle, you are no longer able to take the "easy way", and instead, have to do something else. Or, perhaps another ally refuses to join you because you let their friend die, and they can't trust you as a leader. While this is not really a major complaint per say, it's something that prevents the game from going above and beyond into something truly special, and incredibly complex. As for Birthright specifically, I like that they made the game slightly easier than other routes in order to ease people that are not that good at FE games (including myself, sadly) into the world without high punishment, while leaving room for wanting to play the other routes. The characters in Birthright's route are of personal opinion, but I found myself coming to really like a majority of the characters, for how much development some of them get, be it through support conversations for side characters, or the actual story for main characters. However, this being said, the game still has a large amount of content to offer their players, and if you like any good tactical RPG, you will most certainly appreciate Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright. Despite the game being easier than other routes, it still has the signature difficulty of the series, and will definitely challenge your mind. To give an estimate, my save file says I've played for about 30 hours, whereas my actual game time is about 50, played on hard mode, classic (which turns on perma-death), so, if you're like me, you'll be doing a lot of soft resets. This game will not hold your hand for more than a couple chapters, so, if you plan on playing, good luck, and plan carefully.

This is legitimately the greatest game I have ever played. Do not listen to the people on the internet who say it's just overrated garbage. Heck, don't even listen to people saying good things about the game. In fact, stop reading this review and go buy the game. This is honestly a game, trust me on this, you do NOT want someone to spoil you on anything. I was one of the lucky few who got to play this game before it came to its ridiculously large popularity. I didn't get anything spoiled for me. I did not know anything of what to expect in this game, other than that I would be trying to not kill anyone in the game, seeing as it was one of its selling points. I did not know anything about the characters I'd meet, and the surprising amount of depth to the game. I did not know the experience that I would be in for. And honestly, that's really the best way to play this game. Doing so brings us back to the old days before everything was on the internet in 5 minutes, where there were never any surprises anymore, where every new game we played as kid was like a new adventure for us, filled with wonder and amazement, wondering what was going to happen next or what else we could do in those games. Seriously, if you're still reading this, don't listen to anyone about this game, whether they're praising it or criticizing it. Because in reality, this game is a true reminder of what gaming, at its core, is supposed to be: Fun.

Ironically, this has the lowest aggregate score out of all of the pokemon mystery dungeon games. Well they're wrong because this game is aggreGREAT. I remember playing Explorers of Darkness, when that one first came out, and I definitely loved it, improving on everything that Red Rescue team had. And, it had everything I could ever want in a game of this type, variety, personality, fun game play, and even a good story (which, in a pokemon game alone is already an amazing feat.)! But, something was missing. Something to give it that one final push, and fully secure it as something I'd love forever. Then, along came Explorers of Sky, which added the last bits to the game that I needed. Adding new dungeons to the post-story mode, making use of even more of the cool pokemon from Gen 4 that we were all still riding the hype train over (for the most part), adding little extra things around the place to spruce up the game even more, and what was possibly my favorite part: The side stories. Yeah, some of them were weak, but what they added was character development. Even if it was small, or insignificant on some of them, it was still necessary character development. You understood the character a little more after playing through their back stories. And then it closes out with a bigger side story that actually takes place during important parts of the game, from different POVs, which by itself was a relatively large amount of content for just being some additional 'junk' to justify an extra edition. Understand, however, that this review is not based off pokemon nostalgia, or anything like that. I don't really feel nostalgia for... well, any franchise anymore, because they've either become unlikable over the years, or they just aren't for me any more. No, the game was honestly that fun for me, as much as it was back then, and still is fun for me today, with all of the expansive things you can do in this game, how much there is to see, how much there is to explore. There's no nonsense about it either. You want to go explore somewhere, you can do it whenever you want (provided you met the unlock conditions). There are few times when you are locked into the story mode of the game, and even then, you have as long as you like to be able to prepare for these points in the game; it doesn't force you to proceed in the game. This is a good thing. Sometimes, I mysteriously like to take my time with games I like. Yeah, if the game ****, I'd like it to be over faster, but that's not the case with this game. It doesn't matter if the graphics in this game are old now, or you might find the story cheesy at first, or you just don't like pokemon anymore for whatever reason. You'd want to buy this because it is a great game. Also those modern ones with Gates and Super don't have ANYTHING on this one.

They lock you into story mode about halfway through the game. You can't do anything other than story mode, and the couple of side quests in between. They removed the recruitment aspect and instead made pokemon so happy for being helped by you that they make you their masters forevermore. They shortened parties down to three (???) Random missions are replaced with a list of sidequests, all of which vary far too much in difficulty. The difficulty is not the fun kind of difficulty, given that you can be one-shot by 'miniboss' pokemon, even if you just spam items like nobody's business. They pretty much recycle content and personalities from previous games. The story tries too hard to deviate from their original formulas and it ends up being a bunch of nonsense. The allies you recruit are sometimes over 50, and legendaries, AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME. This game accomplished something, which is making me want to play Explorers of Sky again, which I did, and still had a blast, even years later. This game, on the other hand, is awful. It's not as bad as Gates to Infinity, but it's still terrible. There's just far too many elements that were changed in order to make the game "difficult" and too many good things removed in a forced attempt to keep the series fresh. Ironically, this is probably the game that kills the series for me. But hey, the first and second games are still, like, 10/10 amazing, some of the best games of all time, and underrated as hell. I'd say please don't waste your money, but this game gets a large amount of praise from users, so maybe I'm just bitter as hell. (also I was level 24 when I beat the game, in what I assume to be a game that has 99 levels. 10/10 best exp balancing, best game, best game, BEST. GAME.) But in all seriousness, I really hate this game. Like, a lot. Oftentimes, I can give games a higher score that I personally didn't like because they are still objectively good, But in this case, I refuse to honor this game with any objectiveness other than "m-muh 3D pocket man" and "m-muh childhood". This is not a good game.

Absolutely phenomenal game. It's made by Inti Creates, otherwise known as the minds behind other games like Mega Man Zero series, as well as the ZX series. Azure Striker Gunvolt was intended to be the spiritual successor to the Zero series, for obvious reasons why. However, as it stands on it's own, it's a fantastic game without the company's history considered. This was one of the few games that I do day one purchases on out of pure hype. The game itself is relatively simple. You play as a guy who jumps, shoots, and shocks people with electricity. You use your electricity by a gauge below your character that measures how much you have to be able to use before over heating. You can 'mark' enemies with your gun up to 3 times on a single target, and activating electricity will cause the marked enemies to be shocked by up to 3 bolts of electricity that lasts as long as you hold the button and the tag stands. It sounds easy, but the game is often designed to make the player feel more underpowered than anything. An enemy might have a shield to prevent you from marking them, for instance. Enemy placement might be in places that are risky to go to to attempt to mark the enemy to kill them. Even so, the game is relatively easy to learn for just about everyone. Mastering it, on the other hand, is the biggest challenge of the game. See, when you kill enemies or get special bonuses, you rack up a 'score' of sorts called 'kudos'. These kudos rise whenever you deal damage to an enemy with your gun or electricity. You can get additional bonus kudos through combat bonuses, such as double or triples (harder than it sounds), or air strikes, secret bonuses, etc. You are then ranked based on how many points you got at the end of the stage, and, depending on your time, the score is multiplied. C is the lowest rank you can get, and S+ is the highest. You'd think if you can get an S rank, an S+ rank is not too far off. But you couldn't be more wrong. The difference between an S and an S+ rank is not only simply not getting hit, but how efficient you are at slaying every enemy in the most efficient ways possible to rack up kudos combos. An example of this might be one stage that an S rank is required with 200k points, but an S+ is DOUBLE that amount. It's an insane challenge, but it's so incredibly satisfying when you work hard at it and finally get that S+ after memorizing stage patterns, paths, and where to execute doubles or triples to maximize your possible score. If there had to be one thing negative to say about Azure Striker Gunvolt, it's that it's tragically short, and casual players would beat it within a couple hours, but the replayability of this game is insane. Levels aren't tedious at all to repeat and go through over and over just to master it. It's not a chore at all, and you can accomplish some challenges to get some new parts for your character to do it again with upgrades to your character. And with the low, low price of $15 on the eShop, there is almost no excuse for any 3DS owner not to have this amazing game. TL;DR: It's only fifteen bucks. You owe it to yourself to buy this game.

Another installment in one of my favorite franchises of all time that naturally does great as a Kirby game, while bringing new things to the table to make itself unique. If you were on the fence about getting a 3DS all this time for some reason, now is the time to get one. Also my score is supposed to say 12/10 but this site won't let me go higher.

Why did this game have to be this way.... Okay, so I'll start with some background information first. I... was really looking forward to this game, as I had not played a tactical shooter before and I thought that a game like this sounded very fun. I buy it the day I see that it's available, foolishly not looking into the reviews first. Oh boy, that was a mistake. The title screen alone bothers me because it's incredibly generic, with music playing at a very low level. The menu doesn't save changes to settings if you leave the game. This is the slowest game you will ever play. Movement speed is laughable, walking being slightly faster than a snail, running speed being faster than walking speed, and sprinting speed is if you were speed walking. This already makes the game seem stupid. And your team AI is just the worst. They walk with their legs, and by that I mean NOTHING moves on them when they walk. their arms just stay on their gun and move forward. When you run into an enemy, they do nothing except stand and get shot while shouting random garbage that is of no use to you. Speaking of getting shot at, you have ridiculously low health levels, and since there is no way to recover, this means that you are stuck with maybe 1 hit for the entire level. Enemies notice you way too easily. Play a game like Metal Gear Solid, and you can get noticed pretty easily, but the nice thing about it was that you got a chance to fight before you got shredded to pieces. Not in this game. The enemy sees you and shoots immediately without giving you a chance to respond. This seems ok, right? Just memorize the enemy movement? Nope, they don't really have a set route, they just move places and stuff happens. There's nothing like a radar either, so you can't plan anything ahead of time. The game tells you that those with a plan will do better than those that go in guns blazing, but in fact, you have a better chance for survival if you just run in blasting everything you can see. Doing mission objectives is tedious because of this, since you need to actually look for what you're supposed to do, and exploring to find your objective simply isn't fun because of enemies that can kill you in the blink of an eye, and you not realizing what just happened, and then you switch to a teammate that gets immediately killed because it took too long for the game to switch. Bugs do not seem to be an issue, because it feels more like it's simply filled with the worst design choices ever made. The reason this isn't a 0 is because there is ONE redeeming factor. The ONLY postive thing I can say about this game is that the team continues to patch the game, which tells me that there is still hope for the game's future as something maybe somewhat decent. But until then, this is probably the worst game I have ever played.

Absolutely amazing in every single way it plays. So why is this an 8 and not a 10? It's short. Really short. The game itself plays like Bioshock 1 and Infinite combined, with indeed variable combat options, plus the return of the weapon wheel, as well as not having way too much ammo at once. The story is fantastic, expanding upon the story of both Infinite and the first Bioshock, and the environments are incredibly enticing. I loved this DLC and was definitely worth the purchase. The high amount of quality put into this makes it an excellent piece to add to your collection. But the length will take you about 3 hours max (this is assuming you do and explore EVERYTHING) despite all that, making it a questionable use of 15 dollars when you look at DLC campaigns for some games, say Borderlands 2 that last for quite a long time for just the main quests. In the end, give it a try, but consider getting the season pass so you can save some money when you inevitably buy both episodes, and you can get Clash in the Clouds, which I thought was relatively fun, and the season pass will only net you $20. Note about the season pass, however: Get it after beating the main story of Infinite, as they give you 5 upgrades and 4 armor pieces soon into the game that you can't skip (as far as I know) and I feel that ruins the challenge a bit.

It's okay, the game has a decent control scheme without it being too frustrating at times, the touch screen is simple to use and activate color powers without it being annoying, and the gameplay and story are fine... However, the level design starts out fun, then progressively gets worse and worse as you play, with occasionally fun levels, then more bad levels. Example, Frozen Factory 3. I'm actually good at these kinds of games(usually), and how long did it take me to beat this level my first time? 20. Minutes. See, what some levels like the one stated base it around a dumb gimmick, and you do it over, and over, and over, until you finish the level. This formula almost always applies to the 3D flat land levels where you turn the camera It genuinely feels like the developers for the 3DS version, Dimps, tried to make it a puzzle platform in these kinds of levels. Cool. But, if you're going to make a level like that, make it short and sweet, don't shove it down my throat and tell me that it's my life for the next 10-20 minutes. If the game only used the 2D and 3D levels for the game, it probably would have been a lot more fun. But the 3D Flat lands are just tedious and just makes it not fun to play. The bosses are fun and somewhat challenging. What I know about the Wii U version is only from videos I have seen, but it looks far better than the 3ds version. I do know that Volcano zone is an actual zone on the Wii u. 3DS version? Boss rush. Also, the special stages... where to start with those. You fly around collecting orbs with the gyroscope, but it's so tedious to use the normal controls for assist that you will inevitably just walk around wherever you are to complete the level. Avoid, unless you really want super sonic. All in all, I would rather recommend the Wii U version, since it looks better in pretty much every way, but if you don't have a Wii U, go ahead and take a risk with the 3DS version, you might find yourself liking it.