jcboyer515

I think this game is incredible & brutal. The art & voice work is excellent & the setting is haunting. This is my low effort review for a game that feels like it pulls off exactly what it was trying to do.

There's a couple graphical errors & some small typos that I'm hoping will be patched out, but it wasn't anything that stopped me from really enjoying this game. I love visual novels & this game managed to check all my boxes despite having a fairly short length. The biggest part of enjoying a VN for me is the story & characters, & Necrobarista hits the nail on the head for good story & memorable characters. The art style has self-acclaimed anime influence, & I kind of agree, it reminds me of RWBY. My only complaint is that I frankly just wish there was an 'auto' button or feature in the settings, it's a bit tiresome tapping "A" for essentially every line delivered. Hopefully I'm not a moron & I just missed something somehow, but I've played a few games in my day & I couldn't find the option. I really really enjoyed every moment of this game & I hope to hear more stories from Route 59.

Totally excellent in every way. Can't recommend this game enough. 2020 goty

Still a great game. Was a bit disappointed with the graphical downgrade from an already not too terribly demanding game. The 3D models are quite blurry & jagged most of the time, which looks out of place compared to the sprites & environments that seem to have not struggled with its port transition. Oddly enough, there's two included options not present in the Playstation version where in the settings menu you can toggle the glare effects or whether or not shadows render, but unfortunately I can see little to no difference in graphical fidelity when they're disabled. Switch copy came with all dlc which was a nice gesture I suppose. Even with 720p being the max output (I think), there's frequent frame drops & even occasional screen tearing. So far all these performance issues are present in handheld & tv mode alike. I picked up this version to support the devs, but I'm already regretting it slightly since I paid more than double for this version. I'm either hoping that there will be future updates to improve these visuals or at least if Death end re;Quest 2 gets ported as well that a little more care will go into it. If you have the option, definitely buy this game on PS4 or PC.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This game was recommended on many lists for must-play Vita games, visual novels in particular. I inevitably heard that the first game is not as good as the other, which should've been my first red flag. The art is a little old styled & it's fine, plus the voice acting is fairly well done. The problem is the game itself; it's godawful. It's so nonsensical & stupid that it feels like it's insulting my intelligence. It puts many animes to shame in terms of ridiculousness. The protagonist of this game might be in the top 5 of which I despise the most. I wanna say based off how many times I tried booting this game up that I got maybe 5 hours in & it was agony the whole time. I hated basically every character & every situation that occured. The only way I'd ever consider getting to the "good" parts is if I was getting paid to do so. Clearly effort was put into these games but I don't want to suffer to get to the good stuff.

Horrible cop out ending. So much build up & mystery all just to be spit in the face by the people who wrote this story. I'm almost more mad that it started off really spooky & interesting just for a lazy conclusion. I have LITTLE HOPE for the next game in this series

Impeccable video game. I thought it couldn't get better, but every change from the original is truly an improvement.

Love it so far. I've put lots of hours (maybe not hundreds & hundreds of hours like some people) into the first Hyrule Warriors, & I hope to put just as much time into this one. Yes, the framerate occasionally struggles. Has it bothered me once or impeded me from playing the game properly? Absolutely not. I always like to play games in their original language if I can, & I was pleased to hear that it sounds like all of the Breath of the Wild actors are reprising their roles. There are a surprising amount of cutscenes with dialogue (except from the grunting Link, of course). It feels like much more collaboration with Nintendo went into the story for this Hyrule Warriors. This is without a doubt a Warriors game that looks like BotW, & I'm here for it. Still not sure if the story is canon as a prequel or if it just all takes place in the BotW universe, much like the first HW was just several canon Legend of Zelda stories inside of a non-canon story. Can't wait to see what other characters are playable. Very fun hack & slash game

A game so excellent, I bought it twice. Actually, I only bought it for the download code for Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram since I don't have a PC. But I still loved it & got that plat, here's my 10 to combat the negative reviews all the nostalgia-blind fanboys that didn't even play this gave. It's still a great story, even if some of the original lines aren't in this one.

Absolutely one of my favorite games I've ever played, one of the most intriguing stories that I have ever heard. I love Steins;Gate Elite. This game on my Switch was my first exposure to the series & I loved every second of it. Elite is quite literally a fusion of the original visual novel with the art done by the artists of the S;G anime, White Fox. It has more content than even the anime takes to complete sitting at about 25 hours just to see the initial story. Certain "choices" made seem mundane at first, until you realize specific ones impact the endings. I adore the characters & all the music. My play time is sitting at 65 hours, all tips gathered, all route endings completed. Even without the incentive for trophies or achievements. I 100% recommend this game for anyone into anime, fascinating stories, or interesting characters. This visual novel isn't perfect, but I've never been happier about buying a game I didn't know about on a whim.

I'm coming into this game after playing Steins;Gate Elite, which was one of my all-time favorite games. It very well may be the best visual novel I've ever played, in my opinion. I just wanted to make clear before I give my review that I have never played the original 2009 Steins;Gate game. Steins;Gate 0 came out about 6 years after that game. While I'm almost one hundred percent sure that, other than localization, the concept writing is obviously what takes up most of the development time for the Chiyomaru games, I will go ahead & criticize the art for this game. I know there are many hardcore S;G fans who religiously appreciate the designs from Huke, even to the point that some fans denounce the considerably well done anime & upgraded version of the first game I already mentioned, Steins;Gate Elite, done by White Fox. Unfortunately for S;G0, there were several times where there wasn't a sprite made at all for scenes, I even got tired of the character backdrops that got used instead of new sprites. While I enjoy the art Huke has done, I think it's horribly inexcusable that SO many sprites were reused from the original game. I'm not necessarily blaming Huke, here. However, it was clear despite never having played the original that many sprites got used from the 6-years-older original, which is incredibly sloppy to me. Normally this wouldn't really bother me... but the sprites that are updated with winter outfits look very different than the original sprites, so the reused ones look extremely bizarre to be included. This is even more apparent with how different the styles are when the setting is in summer again & you're seeing new characters next to the reused summer sprites. There were also many, many lines with the "lip sync" turned on that the mouth did not animate at all while characters were speaking. I'm unsure about if the time allotted for development was the issue, if it was money, or what, but I hate seeing such a high quality written visual novel look so clearly cheaply made. Which brings me to the positive notes I had: this was still a very good story with characters I love. The voice acting is excellent & the sound design, as expected, is incredible. The music is very well composed & makes for a great tone setting. I was surprised about the Switch port not having any changes made to the several mistakes in the script, but for how many lines there are, there really aren't that many discrepancies (other than with the RINE text messages, sometimes those didn't make sense at all). Also the auto scroll feature is in dire need of adjustment, even at max speed the non-voiced sections move about four times slower than the voiced dialogue. I don't know how the original S;G handled its multiple endings, but I do wish the flags for the choices diverging was much more clear, but it's very easy to just look up how to achieve all the endings without getting spoiled. I know it sounds like I was very down on this game, but I did enjoy my time with it. Hopefully the upcoming Steins;Gate 0 Elite will be on par with Steins;Gate Elite and remedy my issues with the art in particular.

Wow, all the nostalgia-blind fanboys are hilarious with their positive reviews. This game is complete nonsense & an obvious very poorly made Mario Party rip off. Shuffle was a fitting title, however, seeing as it's total random garbage. Hopefully they never ever ever make a new one of these games, & if they do I expect several improvements. Followed suit by the many, many other poorly designed & optimized 3D Sonic games.

An interesting concept, with some decent UI elements. I imagine the Switch & PC versions play the best with the 360 degree investigation bits. For the Switch version, it's completely playable without the need for controllers. While it's nice to be able to use the touchscreen controls, this game has very poor accessibility. The audio (for the built in speakers, headphones not tested) as well as many other settings, needed immediate adjustments. Frankly, I can't get the widely used in visual novels "auto-scroll" feature to cooperate whatsoever. This is a point & click visual novel with some interesting art in my opinion. I'm quite unfamiliar with the Jake Hunter games, but I was under the impression that this was a prequel to the long-running series. I'm still very early in the game, which I try not to write reviews of things without getting at least halfway through it. But without criticizing the plot structure, I did want to put the localization under some scrutiny. I know it can't be a simple process, but it seems very subpar. I don't know if the game is supposed to be fully voice acted, but what's spoken as opposed to what's written (in English) seems to be very different. It's also very strange that there are several parts that are supposedly being spoken in English, because of New York being the setting. I've gotta say, it's very weird & unnatural to be introduced to an African American elderly man named Richard voiced in Japanese, & the line I'm supposed to believe he utters after they meet is "Oh, please, you'll make me blush." I do not need to know anything about this character to know that an older, dark-skinned American guy would never say this, especially to a foreign young man. Also when this Richard character first meets Saburo, the main character, he uses his "excellent deduction skills" to gather that Richard apparently has excellent posture yet he seems like a drunk. It also appears like Richard uses a walking stick to get around. These assumptions our protagonist made have no visual or contextual basis. I will continue playing this game & I will update my review if necessary, but the localization comes across as extremely inexperienced. It is very difficult to take the plot seriously with these inconsistencies. Perhaps if more of these games leave the shores of Japan, they'll consider putting more effort into making the lines more sensible. Or at least they'll make an auto-scroll that doesn't cut off the voice actors. I just hope there will be a satisfying payoff for getting to the end of this game.

Impeccable writing. Such a fantastic story, with great 2D art & awesome music as well. I have nothing else to say, I think the writing for this game is brilliant & I absolutely love how real every character feels.

I don't know where the creators/devs are from, if they're originally non-English speakers, but it comes off that way because these dialogue lines are practically misogynistic when there aren't grammar errors. There was a lot of potential with this game, I got it on sale, but I deleted it shortly after trying it. The art is interesting but clearly budget. It's typical in visual novels to not ever show the protagonist really, but this game does this incredibly annoying thing where whenever the main character speaks, there's nothing but the background. The setting is interesting & the music is actually not too bad, but getting through the lines is very distasteful. Even the actual driving parts of the gameplay are not fun. You are relentlessly punished for performing badly when the controls are briefly given to you in a specific loading screen. When you pause, there's no options or controls. All in all, it might be the worst visual novel game I've ever spent money on.

This game is intense. Idk how anyone can say it's boring unless what you're used to is MMORPGs or creation sims where sometimes you have to keep track of many several things at once. Even still, this game throws a lot at you when you start; it's a learning curve akin to "you'll either learn it, or you won't". Luckily there is a generous difficulty gauge. From some devs at Lancarse (Etrian Odyssey, several 3DS Shin Megami Tensei titles) & the writer from Danganronpa fame, Takayuki Sugawara, here we have a modern day dungeon crawler. Being posed as an old school dungeon crawler, OBVIOUSLY the graphics aren't too much to get excited for. Altogether this game is a mystery survival horror/dungeon crawler/visual novel, which is a mouthful, but I feel like that is the most accurate description. The character designs are great, even some boss designs are memorable. Great voice acting, but the real winner to write home about is the story. A pretty huge portion of ZZ is reading, if it's not the story itself, it's tutorials or one of the many journals & notes you can find. While these notes aren't always directly plot related, they do an excellent job at maintaining immersion. Sony censored a scene or two away, mostly involving young children having underwear exposed; without getting too much into the spoiler heavy plot, there are points where this happens in a non sexual manor, but was taken out of the localized versions. It's ludicrous that so many people railed against this game for that censorship, I've even seen some try to claim gameplay mechanics were removed, but this is a total lie. If "boycotting" is your way of not supporting Sony's compulsion to do such a thing, that's fine. But it's gotten out of hand how many of these "user reviews" give out zeros because they are butthurt. It's also fine if you legitimately don't enjoy the game, despite how unlikely that is if you knew anything about the game or the developers involved. For old school dungeon crawler fans, the gameplay might be a walk in the park. But for anyone unfamiliar with this genre I will say buckle up. Truly I don't think anyone was ready for this insane story though, if you have any personal trauma, this game might hit a little close to home. Incredible game, watch out for Monokuma c;

An awful, terrible, annoying waste of time. All the people giving tens are wannabes that think if one person thinks something is avant-garde then they all should think it's a masterpiece, no matter the quality. Either that or they were just too blindly in love with the first game that they openly accept whatever trash Swery could conjure up. He's made good games, but this... is a bad game.

Pretty fun game! I don't know what I was expecting, but like a lot of other people I was interested at the premise. The game clearly is optimized for PC, it isn't as noticable in games like Gungeon. Regardless, the puzzles are intriguing & not always obvious. I don't like too much difficulty in puzzle sections of games that aren't exclusively just puzzle games. I find myself wishing on occasion that the AI & controls for the humans were a little bit better. Other than that, the monster controls are easy to grasp & almost cartoon levels of fluid. I haven't finished it yet but I don't regret getting this at all! I look forward to playing multiple times to make sure I get everything, plus it looks much more cool playing without the HUD.

I read a couple of poor reviews, inspiring me to finally finish this game because I knew I'd be sad it was over. I actually bought this game sometime in late 2019 on an absolute whim, it was on sale for like $8 in the eShop. I tend to scope out other reviews just so I can verify I'm not buying some random pos, & this game seemed to have mostly good ratings. I was completely blown away! I love visual novels, & VA-11 HALL-A essentially plays out as such. If you're one of those morons that doesn't like games where interactivity is limited & likes to complain about that, I suggest playing a different game genre (like, I dunno, any other game). This is one of the most mature, relatable stories I've ever seen in my life. I was blown away by almost every character, becoming more & more interested in all their stories, all for it to come to a satisfying, bittersweet conclusion. The graphics are a clear shout-out to older games, probably 90's PC games. Mostly well rendered, the art appears as very cohesive pixels that are quite charming. In my opinion, even though everything else about this game is pretty excellent, one other thing stands out: the music. Clearly Michael Kelly (aka Garoad) played the demos or early access to this title, because he 100% nails the soundtrack. I actually felt like the music in the jukebox for VA-11 HALL-A could've really been music I'd hear at a bar in 50 years. It may seem silly saying it loud, but the music was just that spot on for me. I even listen to the ost's in my free time! I can't recommend this game enough, it's fantastic.

Repetitive story beats, repetitive gameplay, repetitive animations, et cetera. Don't feel too bad for Game Freak,Sw/Sh are also some of the best selling Switch games. The story, like many Pokémon entries, is 100% inconsequential. It turns out to do a really good job making gym battles incredibly fun to complete. The music especially shines in these games, making for an immersive tone. This wasn't a surprise, as most fans of Pokémon usually thoroughly enjoy the single player experience even though the story is never award-winning material. Wild Pokémon are much more fun to catch! Taking a beat from the adorable "Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee", you can now see all the creatures walking around before you initiate a wild encounter. Everything still seems like a typical Pokémon game. I don't want to discuss graphics too much, but it did happen to impact the 'next gen innovation' (which is "Dynamaxing", or "Gigantimaxing" for certain Pokémon) that was added to specific battles. This term, put simply, refers to fighting with literally just bigger versions of Pokémon. Gigantimaxing is entertaining when challenging gyms, but there was an even bigger issue than the graphics: the online. This has basically almost ruined the enjoyment of the game for me. I'm not talking about the extremely optional online battles with strangers or friends, but another feature of these Dynamaxed Pokémon. You can find dens with these special critters in "Wild Areas", the parts of the map that feature decently large spots where you can control the camera angle for the first time in a main series Pokémon entry. To battle a wild Dynamaxed Pokémon, you must team up with 3 other people. The other 3 can be idiot, worthless, garbage, childish AI, or 3 other human players connected to the internet. With one of the 4 players having the opportunity to temporarily Dynamax for three turns, you must defeat the wild giant before your Pokémon get KO'd 4 times total, or 10 turns pass. AFTER beating it, you're given an OPPORTUNITY to catch it. For many Pokémon players, one of the best parts is being able to catch the big special ones, legendaries & stuff. The online connectivity is abysmal for a first party title. Rarely working, I'd say on it's best day it's about a 50/50 shot if you're able to find a team of people to join with no issues. It's extremely frustrating that with two updates released already (time of writing 06/20/2020), that nothing has been done to address these problems. I truly can't defend the practice of selling underdeveloped games. I bought Sword & purchased its expansion pass, $90 total. With this massive of a flaw & such a modest production (minimalist art/animations, no voice acting still) it's utterly shocking to me that Game Freak decided to exclude Pokémon from this generation. The HD textures didn't justify the means, so we're left with a Pokémon that came out seeming even more dated than the 3DS games, with scores & scores of Pokémon being willfully excluded for the first time ever. Even if you pay a subscription fee for Pokémon Home, the new version of Pokémon Bank for trading from the old games. Even if you only buy one months worth of the Pokémon Home service, with a Nintendo Switch Online account you're paying $82.99 ($112.99 with dlc) for a Pokémon game that can't even work with most of the Pokémon. As of the Isle of Armor part 1 dlc, some mild things were added but it was not a lot. Only a couple hours of story, a few new Pokémon became compatible for trading, but the biggest addition was another Wild Area with some of those newly available Pokémon wandering around. Any other things included with the Isle of Armor were cosmetic, such as unlocking the ability for your Pokémon to follow you (again, à la "Let's Go" or the HG SS games) & more clothes. It's a disappointment to say the least. Clearly I'm nostalgic for this series, since I've put in about 180 hours into 2 playthroughs so far. But to forgive this game for the clear robbery it's committing just because I liked this game when I was young is even more depressing, like I'm being used. Unless part 2 of the dlc, The Crown Tundra, has something MASSIVELY interesting to add, I'm not even sure if I'm interested. Unless there is some DRAMATIC improvements to either this game or the next mainline Pokémon games, I don't think I wanna support this series anymore.

Unimpressive ftp game. Don't be surprised seeing this game is filled with microtransactions, just like any other "free" game. If not for the silly high expectations I made for myself, it's possible I could've brought myself to enjoy this bite sized online game. The artistic design definitely has a charm to it. I'd say it's very ARMS & Splatoon inspired, which is also why I might've had those high hopes. For some reason the game was unveiled two whole years ago at 2018's E3, & weirdly overhyped even for back then. The game's online is mostly stable, occasionally giving an error code very similar to the abysmal demo GungHo ran briefly before the official release. Combat is simple & the gameplay seems quite unbalanced. So if you're easy to please & short on cash, Ninjala might be worth a little bit of your time. Wasn't that into it, personally.

I was convinced to buy this game since it's apparently one of the more highly revered JRPG's on a system that's well known for mostly being a JRPG machine. From what I gathered, this is apparently the 9th entry to "The Legend of Heroes" series. I've heard that while it's better to play these games in order, it's ultimately not legally possible to play them all in English. I was also convinced by other reviewers that it wouldn't be THAT confusing to use the newer, easier to access titles as an entry point... This was inaccurate. Another reason I was initially interested in jumping into a new-to-me Japanese series was that I was under the impression, due to the raving reviews users have given it, that these games lacked "anime tropes" that several Japanese-heavy influenced games have. I jumped into the prologue with high but cautious expectations, for them to basically be immediately ****. One of the very first things that happened was the protagonist had a "tripping & falling" moment with a blonde girl, where your face ends up nestled between her breasts. Other than that, every single character introduced is the most absolute cringey animoo stereotype that you could possibly think of. This is coming from a big anime & JRPG fan. Most of the dialogue was very boring exposition, the combat was fine I suppose, but nothing a turn based battle system hasn't done before. Perhaps I will return to this review to update it & I'll admit how wrong I was. In fact, I hope that happens. But all I can say is don't always trust other peoples opinions, sometimes you just gotta see for yourself if you like something.

All the judgmental gRaFiX fanboys are really treating this amazing game poorly, along with some original Xenoblade Chronicles fans? I don't really understand how you can be a fan & crap all over this game when all the creators did was try to make it better. Which they did. Btw I did also wanna point out that all the graphics obsessed individuals constantly bringing up "it's even worse than the original", is just a lie. It mostly maintains its new HD quality on the dock, looking absolutely beautiful compared to the old XC. Even in handheld it looks fantastic. It does dip below 400p at it's worst (off the dock), but it's never ever gonna be looking bad. 720p is the native output, so it always looks more impressive than the Wii version. Just because there's less pixels in any given game compared to another doesn't automatically make it garbage. Many people would agree that games like Chrono Trigger or Super Metroid are much better than most current day game releases. This is all subjective I suppose. Anyway, XCDE even surpasses XC2 in terms of graphical quality, which is very evident in handheld. This is an impressive feat since they are both enormous games. Many anti-XCDE complainers mention that many assets of the initial game build were used in the Definitive Edition, & it seems to be the case. I'm not going to ignorantly say it's a port when so many things have changed for the better, but it was a little obvious looking at some of the NPCs that several of them were just glossed & res'd up. While I will concede that I thought they were doing a tiny bit more in this department, it does make sense with the development timeframe Monolith Soft was working with that this was the end product. Nintendo holds these guys to a release date just like any other publisher would for an exclusive game. With the studios of Monolith branching into what it's becoming, while working a new IP as well as Breath of the Wild 2 most likely, it's crazy that they got the engine to run as efficiently as it does. Overhauled UI for most screens & menus, added voiced story content, many lines & musical scores were rerecorded but still have the option for original sound. New video player for unlocked cutscenes, new easy & expert modes, & Japanese voices for the first time. I will say one thing that truly disappointed me was no added voice acting for heart to heart conversations. It's not perfect, but I really love every addition & improvement that was made to a game that I already loved. If I'm being honest it's more of a 9.6 out of ten, but we're rounding up for all the haters (:

Idk why PS4 user reviews would be so low, Unist is one of the cleanest, best performing 2D fighting games that's ever landed on console. Must be the salty fans that bought [cl-r] without realizing if you already owned [st], there wasn't much a difference. All PC & PS4 versions got automatically upgraded to the current edition, although you still have to purchase the new fighter if you were wanting to check him out. Highly recommend, especially if you've played similar titles such as BlazBlue, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Skullgirls, etc, & enjoyed those.