monkeysaru

Oh boy, where do I even begin? My anticipations were high following Gear Detective. The first game was good, if a little empty and short. The second game expanded on the first, and was objectively better (although I personally prefer the first). I was hoping that this would continue, and that the third game would be even better still. Now I was hardly expecting a masterpiece of storytelling brilliance from the Parascientific Escape trilogy. That being said, I was at least expecting something that didn't read like it was written up on the fly. Unfortunately, that's precisely what the story of Crossing At the Farthest Horizon feels like. It feels like the writers were really bending over themselves to try and form a coherent plot-line that connected the previous two games, while also tying up the loose ends, and doing so without contradicting any lore they had already established. Now, taken on its own, the story of this game is far from bad. However, as a fan of the previous two installments, the structure of the trilogy begins to fall apart when you really stop and take a look at certain key details. I won't spoil anything, but little bits and pieces of lore are really obviously shoe-horned in, in a really obvious attempt to bridge gaps and fill in plot holes. None of these really felt natural, and they always stuck out like a sour thumb. Again, the standalone plot is far from bad, but when placed into the context of the trilogy, it never really felt like I was getting answers that had been there all along, so much as I was being told answers that the writers had thought up after they had already set up all of their mysteries. One of the characters, the game's main villain in fact, feels particularly shoe-horned into this particular game. And the game's attempt to connect something that the villain of Cruise in the Distant Seas had said about Hitomi's sister, to the actual truth behind who Hitomi's sister is, as revealed in this game, was so absurdly desperate. I'm not sure if this was a problem with the English localization, or an original script problem, but either way, it was such an absurd stretch of logic. It tries to invoke the same "metaphorically true" thing they did in Star Wars with Luke's father, only this game does it far less nuance. It just ends up giving you the impression that they didn't have any of it planned. Okay so the story doesn't connect well to the previous games. But at least it's decent on it's own, right? Well, that depends on what you mean. I said that the story isn't bad on it's own, and that's true, but even so, the story is not really friendly to newcomers either. On the plus side, the game gives newcomers a chance to turn on Character & Story explanations when they start a new game. These basically interrupts the story, whenever a returning character or key story element is brought up, and gives you a brief explanation about that person or thing. It's a handy thing for them to have included. But on the other hand, I REALLY wouldn't recommend playing this game unless you have played the other two. If you do, you'll probably become really confused really quickly, or at the very least, you'll be missing a hell of a lot of context. I also have a issue with the game's multiple ending. I don't want this to be a spoiler review, so I won't go into too much detail, but I will say that I think that, considering the nature of the game's endings, that they greatly suffered by sticking to the "good ending", "bad ending", "special ending" system from Gear Detective. The endings push their own perspective, to attempt to establish the events of the endings in this way, but in my opinion the outcome in each ending, especially the good & bad ones, are morally ambiguous enough from each other to be seen as both good, and both bad, in various ways. I would've preferred if the ending you get is more meant to signify what appeals to your own morals, as apposed to just being a "right outcome" or "wrong outcome" thing. It is, after all, your answers to specific questions that determine the ending you get. It would've given it some much needed complicity, instead of simply telling the player "you have the wrong opinions & so you got the wrong ending" One other thing I want to talk about is the typos and grammar errors. There's a LOT of them. As in a freaking TON. It was getting to the point where there would be some kind of mistake, be it spelling, grammar, or basic punctuation, on every fifth line of dialogue. No, that isn't hyperbole. It was at the point where I stopped noticing them after a while. My brain had just zoned them out. The typo minefield here is extremely peculiar, because the previous two games were competently translated. Sure, there were weird grammar quirks, and some mistakes here or there, but they were decent for budget games on the 3DS eShop. I don't know what happened here. Maybe the proof-readers had the day off.

Let's be real here: Sonic Adventure 2 is an awful game, and if this game was released today, it would be trashed to kingdom come. This isn't just because of things that have aged badly either. As painful as this is for me to say, Sonic Adventure 2 was never a good game. * The gameplay For starters, only 1/3 of the game is actually fun, the treasure hunting sections are abysmally clunky and have awful level design. Why they felt the need to make the emerald tracker only show you the location of one of the emeralds at a time, instead of any of the three emeralds, like in the first Sonic Adventure, is something that still boggles my mind, all these years later. The mech levels with Tails & Eggman are less clunky and well programmed, but are incredibly dull, and involves some extremely overly simplistic lock-onto-enemies gameplay. As for the only truly fun sections, the speed sections, even these sections are far from perfect. They're glitched to kingdom come, and honestly, playing through them in 2020 really demonstrates to me just how badly this game has aged. * The story The plot is fine as far as the actual story is concerned. However, the bizarre mismatched tone to the rest of the Sonic franchise makes the entire thing feel, at best, awkward, and at worst, downright awful. On the one hand, it's interesting to see them deal with more mature themes, but on the one **** we really need a sonic storyline involving a government conspiracy, a "sexy" government agent bat, and the shooting of someone's granddaughter? I'm sorry, but the story is cringe-worthy in the context of the Sonic universe. * The voice acting For the most part, the voice acting leaves a lot to be desired. Although I won't say it's "bad", per say, it sure as heck isn't good. Far too many lines fall flat, and sound like they were being read off a script. I don't blame the voice actors for this though, because it seems more like it was a problem with directing. It's honestly the type of voice acting I'd expect to get if you hired a robot who doesn't understand human emotions as the voice director. * The sound mixing Sweet jumping jacksticks is the sound mixing ABYSMAL. As in, objectively incompetently broken. This isn't an aspect of the game that's just "aged". This is not something they couldn't have gotten right at the time of the game's release. This is just bad, plain and simple. There is no excuse for how awful the sound mixing of this game is. Characters talk over each other, the music is often WAY too loud and drowns out the ****'s just a total mess in places. I don't know if this was some problem with the voice dubbing from Japanese into English, or if there was some other kind of problem, but there is NO excuse for it being this atrocious. * The new characters Shadow, as "brooding", as he is, is an interesting character. And while he gets worse after this game, turning into a dumb proxy for "cool edgy 12 year olds", this isn't the fault of Sonic Adventure 2, so overall, I have no issues with Shadow's role here. Rouge, on the other hand, is a character that I find silly. Who on Earth thought it was a good idea to put a archetypal sex-appeal character into a game for **** happens to be a bat, at that. Did the Sonic series really need a sexy bat? Rouge definitely isn't a bad character, far from it, but that she even exists as a concept just boggles my mind. The Sonic series tends to ignore the entire sex-appeal side of Rogue's character through her appearances, which makes sense, but it just begs the question of why they made her that way in the first place. I want to empathise here, this isn't some type of complaint about female sexualization. I simply don't think Rouge's character ever fit with the Sonic series. With her "sex-appeal" aspect never being used or even brought up in-universe, all it is is an out-of-universe gimmick for the players who like the idea of a sexy **** which case, yeah, that's just a little bit weird. Never got it, but again, like I say, she's not a BAD character. Over all, the new characters are all utilised as well as they could be in their debut, and aid to the Sonic cast's diverse range. Not necessarily in a good way following SA2, though, as future releases unfortunately demonstrate. And the conclusion: Playing Sonic Adventure 2 in 2020 is like watching that one video your parents took of you as a child singing "Who Let the Dogs Out" at your school talent show. You may have the memory of singing like an angel and leaving everyone a gasp, but the video is recorded proof that your singing was awful and everyone was laughing at you. As unfortunate as it is to say, in my opinion, it's about time that people take their nostalgia goggles off and admit that this game is not, and was never, as good as they remember it being.

Moco Moco Friends is a charming enough game that knows it's target audience: little kids. For anyone over the age of 12, the trek of completing Moco Moco Friends will probably make you want to vomit. But for the intended audience, it is a perfectly solid and charming, if generically competent, game. If there's one thing I have to give credit to the game for, it's the balance of the gameplay. Although the expanse of the playable world leaves a lot to be desired (the "world" is just a very tiny hub, with a warp point that takes you dungeons), the actual gameplay functions are handled well. The core gameplay is simple enough for little kids to be able to grasp, but it's also involved enough, with for there to be plenty to do and play around with. Another positive is the moral complications of the story. The story of the game is about a struggle between the two "forces" that exist, one of which is formed by positive emotions like kindness, selflessness, love & happiness, and, the other, negative emotions like hatred, selfishness, bitterness, & sadness. Although the story itself is pretty generic, it has a good message for children about how positive emotions and negative emotions are not necessarily all good and all bad; negative emotions can be valid and necessary, and sometimes positive emotions can be just as bad and dangerous as negative emotions. It's nothing too heavy, but for something aimed at really young children, it's a nice message, that offers some interesting dynamics to what would've otherwise been a VERY generic story. Unfortunately, the game isn't exactly flawless. One of the biggest issues the game has is it's restraint. With this being a game aimed pretty much exclusively at little kids, the script of the game is very kid friendly, as you would expect. However, it feels almost like whoever was in charge of the English localization for the game really wanted to try and appeal to any adults who might be playing, because the game is littered with little "adult" quirks. Nothing unsuitable for kids mind you, but that's the exact problem. Because the game is trying to appeal to both audiences at once, it doesn't end up appealing to either. Some lines will end up confusing really young kids, whereas the game never goes does anything with that, or ever takes any sort of dark/mean-spirited sense of humor too far, presumably out of fear of pushing it too far. So you're left with a bunch weird scenes, that don't really feel funny, or cute, or so-dumb-it's-cute, or cleverly written....Rather, the entire script just feels awkward and weird, no matter what age you are. That being said, I doubt the target audience of Moco Moco Friends would really notice this, or care about it in the first place. This is more something the game is missing, rather then any kind of flaw. The dialogue is, at the end of the day, very cute, colourful, and playful, and children will definitely enjoy seeing all of the nice cute characters bouncing dialogue off each other. It's also perfectly funny enough for kids, with some jokes that'll make them laugh. It's rare, but there are the occasional joke that's genuinely clever and made even an adult like me chuckle, so it's far from all bad. In the end though, I think the game's biggest issue is how "okay" it is. Yes, Moco Moco Friends is well made, and is perfect for it's target audience, who're going to find enjoyment in all it has to offer, but that's just it. It's perfect for it's target audience. It's such a tailor made game, as perfect for little girls as you could want from an entry level magical girl RPG, that it feels almost dull. To this extent, the attempts to spice the game up a little for the adults who might be playing come across as pandering, and, if anything, only help to make it more clear that Moco Moco Friends really is just a game made for little girls. Although a game like Moco Moco friends gives you the confidence that what you'll be be buying is something that will undoubtedly be suitable for your children, that is, essentially, the only strong reason I can think of to really recommend this RPG, above others. There are plenty of RPGs out there that are rated PEGI 3+ & ESRB E, and out of those, Moco Moco Friends very much falls into the "meh" middle ground. That being said, I do have to give the game credit. It could've been so much worse then it was, and at the very least, you can tell that the developers were trying to make a solid experience for young children. If you're an adult looking for a game for yourself, there's practically zero reason at all to check out Moco Moco Friends, with all the other games out there that can give you a whole lot more. But if parent looking for a child-friendly RPG for your kids, Moco Moco Friends is far from a bad pick, especially if your child is a fan of magical girl shows like Glitter Force.