minneyar

Ignore the folks who are review bombing it -- this is a great game. Yes, it's a visual novel with tactical RPG battles. If you don't like reading, it's ok to not play it. If you *do* like reading, though, the dialogue and story are great.

A great start to my favorite series of all time. It is, first and foremost, a visual novel -- if you don't like reading, this isn't for you. But if you do, this is a great fantasy story with an original setting that is about found family, war, personal identity, and hubris. Between VN segments, you also control the characters in strategy RPG battles; they're fairly easy and the gameplay is simple. Honestly, if you're looking for a challenging SRPG, you'll be disappointed; but on the other hand, if you're a fan of great stories and aren't experienced with SRPGs, you'll still be able to get through it with no problems. It's also worth keeping in mind that this is just the first game in a trilogy, and each game gets progressively more complex and builds on the previous one both in terms of story and gameplay, culminating in the final game, Mask of Truth, which is my favorite game of all time. I can't recommend this series enough.

A great start to my favorite series of all time. It is, first and foremost, a visual novel -- if you don't like reading, this isn't for you. But if you do, this is a great fantasy story with an original setting that is about found family, war, personal identity, and hubris. Between VN segments, you also control the characters in strategy RPG battles; they're fairly easy and the gameplay is simple. Honestly, if you're looking for a challenging SRPG, you'll be disappointed; but on the other hand, if you're a fan of great stories and aren't experienced with SRPGs, you'll still be able to get through it with no problems. It's also worth keeping in mind that this is just the first game in a trilogy, and each game gets progressively more complex and builds on the previous one both in terms of story and gameplay, culminating in the final game, Mask of Truth, which is my favorite game of all time. I can't recommend this series enough.

This is absolutely one of the most impactful works I have ever experienced. It's hard to describe the story without spoiling it -- but I'll say that what makes this work special is the degree to which it explores human cruelty, revenge, hated, and forgiveness, especially the power that forgiveness has on the forgiver. It's a topic that has rarely been handled so well in any medium. On top of that, it has an absolutely amazing soundtrack, plus beautiful artwork in a unique art style. If you even remotely like visual novels, I cannot recommend The House in Fata Morgana highly enough.

It's not amazing, but if you're a fan of Utawarerumono and just want to beat up mooks with your favorite characters from Mask of Deception, you'll have a fun time with this. To get it out of the way first -- this game covers the events of Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception, but in an extremely abridged form. MoD is a 40-hour visual novel and it takes about 6 hours to beat the story mode in this game. Zan cuts out entire characters and story arcs in order to compress everything down, and it doesn't add anything new. If you're only here for the story -- which is fair, if you're a fan of the visual novels -- there's nothing here for you. If you haven't played MoD, this game is just going to feel choppy and confusing. The rest of the game fares much better, though. The graphics are good and the soundtrack is great; it's filled with high-energy remixes of Utaware tracks, and the special edition is almost worth buying for the soundtrack along. The gameplay isn't incredible, but it's fun; you pick a character and run around beating up lots of enemies. There's some variety to missions, and there are some that involve destroying objects or gathering resources instead of killing enemies. Every character is unique and plays differently, and the controls are responsive. Multiplayer also works perfectly well, although you may have trouble finding an online group if you don't have friends who you can get to play the game with you. The worst aspect of the game is the lack of content. Like I mentioned earlier, you can beat the story mode in under 6 hours, and even if you do all of the optional content in the game, you can get the platinum trophy in 15. It's nice if you want a quick platinum, but it's up to you whether that's worth paying full price for the game.

Mask of Truth is one of the best stories I've ever experienced. It is complex, emotional, funny, and carefully paced. The localization is fantastic, the music is beautiful, the artwork is gorgeous, and the characters are endearing and well-developed. I've been gaming for over 30 years now, and Mask of Truth is one of the pinnacles of the medium; its story belongs right up there next to the likes of Xenogears or Suikoden II. Other than gushing about the story, I should also mention that the strategy RPG aspects are perfectly acceptable, too. The battle system has been tweaked and improved from the previous game, and the main game is still pretty easy, but the bonus post-game stages are genuinely challenging and quite enjoyable. If you like visual novels, or even if you don't mind visual novels and are willing to give one a chance, you need to play this game. There is only one caveat -- this is the third game in a trilogy, and you need to be familiar with the first two parts in order for it to have emotional impact. The first game has never had an official release, but there was an anime series based on it; the second game, Mask of Deception, did get an English release, and it also had an anime series, but that adaptation wasn't very good. Both of the first two parts are good, but not as good as Mask of Truth. Still, they're worth going through in order to experience this game.

Utawarerumono: Mask ofTruth is, without a doubt, one of the best visual novels I've ever played. It's a long game, but despite the length is well-paced and doesn't feel like it ever drags arcs out unnecessarily. The writing is fantastic and a pleasure to read, the music is fantastic, the character development is careful and intriguing, and the plot is filled with great twists. Compared to the previous game, the combat is balance a bit better, although still on the easy side; fortunately, there's an extensive post-game that is quite challenging. Really, the worst thing I can say about this game is that you need to play through its predecessor (Mask of Deception) and watch or play the original Utawarerumono in order to understand it at all. They're fine games in their own rights, but not on the same level as Mask of Truth. This game is the perfect end to the trilogy, and I highly recommend it to anybody who enjoys visual novels.

The fastest way to describe Scarlet Curiosity is as a budget Ys: Oath in Felghana clone with Touhou characters, with all the good and bad things that entails. The gameplay is fast-paced and mowing down waves of enemies is satisfying, but the small variety of enemies gets a bit boring after a while. There's a wide variety of different environments and areas, but the randomly-generated loot means there's not much to *do* in those areas other than just run to the end; there's no point to exploration. The soundtrack is great, but there are voices and the sound effects and sound design are otherwise nothing special. In a nutshell, it's a good game, but not a great one. You'll get 10-15 hours of play time out of it, and it's fun while it lasts, but you'll be ready to move on by the end. That's reasonable for the budget price, though. I'd recommend this to Touhou or Ys fans -- although if you haven't played the Ys games, you're better off playing them first.

If you're looking for an oldschool, turn-based JRPG with a strong story, great writing, and wonderful music, you will love Trails in the Sky. The game was first release for the PC in Japan in 2004; it later received a port to the PSP in 2006 that added some extra features, and the PSP version was released in North American in 2011. This is a release of the original PC version, but XSEED has added all of the new features in the PSP version back into it, so this is the definitive version of the game in North America. The story is set in the kingdom of Liberl and follows the adventures of Estelle and Joshua, two novice adventurers who want to become Bracers; essentially mercenaries who also serve as police and protect the people of the kingdom. The story starts off slowly and takes its time to establish the setting and develop characters, but over time it picks up the pace and they become involved in intricate political plots involving mysterious assassins and powerful ancient artifacts. The game ends with a shocking twist that will leave you pining for the sequel, which is scheduled to be out in English at the end of 2014. Don't let the existence of a sequel stop you from getting the game now, though; it's an entirely self-contained story in its own right. The Trails games are famous for the size of their scripts; the word count dwarfs any of their story-heavy contemporaries such as the "Final Fantasy" or "Tales of..." games. Almost every NPC in the game has their own unique dialog that changes after almost everything you do. While the story is the star of the show, the game shines in other areas, too. The combat system is a turn-based system that borrows a lot from JRPGs that were typical of the era, but it adds in a tactical, grid-based positioning system, and each character's abilities are fairly diverse and customizeable. The game also has multiple difficulty settings, and if a particular fight is too hard for you, there's a handy option to retry fights that also temporarily lowers the difficulty level. The game's soundtrack is also great; it's exactly what you'd expect from the same developer who created the critically acclaimed Ys series. Really the only complaint I could make is that the graphics are a bit dated by modern standards, but hey, it's a ten-year-old Japanese PC game. They still do their job as intended, and you're going to enjoy the game enough that you won't care.

Quite possibly the best game in the Ys series and also one of the best games on the PSP. This game consistently delivers fast-paced action that is challenging but never unfairly so, and it has one of the best soundtracks in the history of gaming to back it up. The story and graphics are fairly standard stuff, but they know they're second to the gameplay and never get in the way of it. The only real downside to the game is its length; a playthrough of the game will take most players between 10 and 15 hours. On the upside, there are several different difficulty modes, optional super-hard bosses, a boss rush mode, a gallery of unlockables, and a new game+ mode, so there's plenty of incentive to play through the game more than once, and the relatively short length and fast pace mean that it never feels like a chore to play through.