ryuzaki57

I can't shake off my disappointment. It has exceptional graphics, world design, gameplay and atmosphere, but From forget the "game" part of video game. A "game" is supposed to be fun, and it cannot be so if people aren't able to progress in the game. Elden Ring WAS fun and never frustrating because it's an RPG, in which you always have a progression margin. Elden Ring was nowhere as hard as AC6, and you could always steadily get stronger while exploring. AC6 has no exploring, you can't get stronger, and features much more difficult controls than ER. Loadout strategy or boss specifics is very poorly explained, leaving players clueless on what they should even do to win. I spent 70€ on a game that I'm unable to enjoy; and i'd say that's a problem. Things like are just gonna drive more people towards GAAS. Bamco should really rethink this.

Going from an internationally RPG to a dancing game is a bold move. But that is no problem for fearless Atlus who suddenly throws itself in the select club of ryhtm games, sending Persona 4's party onto the dancefloor. Persona 4 Dancing All Night won't party its way to success by merely copying the competition. The disco-themed opening and menus make it very clear : we're far from the Vocaloid universe here. The general design is a gigantic tribute to the 70s'. Among other curiosities, the accessory shop is old-fashioned teleshopping, the “collection” menu is a shelf full of LPs and listening to music is done by a good old jukebox. This one works extremely well, because it doesn't when the Vita enters sleep mode. Other specificity : nearly all the songs are in English. Project Diva players will be thunderstruck but they will no less appreciate some very good compositions. Time to Make History is the best one while Snowflakes, Shadow World, Best Friends (+ another one I'll be talking about later) are enjoyable in their own style thanks to their lively tempo. That said, there are no more than 20 songs original songs or so in-game, and there are a lot of remixes of some to make the Free Dance mode a bit longer. On a character point of view, Persona 4 Dancing All Night is rather unsatisfying since every song can only be played with the preset character : no way to experience your favorite music with your favorite character. That is a real pity, and even more so when you consider that Atlus's game displays peerless graphics and animation. Still, the choreographies look a little too classic compared to the ideas behind Projet Diva's clips or even the artistic side of IA/VT Colorful's. On a personal level, I am appalled by the fact that Naoto show up in her Persona 4 version only. I know this makes no sense but let me explain : as I do things the other way around, I got into the Persona series by reading the manga called Persona X Tantei Naoto. So from there in my mind, Shirogane Naoto looks like that. Therefore, if they show her dressed like a boy, speaking with a boy's voice, in a rhythm game where visual and sound aspect are dramatically important, I say NO. Beyond that and that's rare enough, the Japanese voice cast of Persona 4 Dancing All Night is not that convincing. I'm not that good at Persona 4 Dancing All Night, but I would say that the game system is not completely so either. The buttons you have to push are displayed on the edge of the screen and the moving are neutral. It is very confusing and you also have to manage the scratch with the L/R buttons at the same time! Needless to say that you get lost in the first hours, but fear not, because as always in the genre the brain naturally adapts to the new interface with some training. Eventually, it is not difficult to master at least the normal mode. Huge mistake : the lack the colors on icon. If Sony implemented damn forms and different colors on the Playstation buttons, it's not just for show! All this make Persona 4 Dancing All Night less intuitive than the competition. Undoubtedly an added value compared to its rivals, the story mode in Persona 4 Dancing All Night is long enough to keep you busy for more than a dozen of hours. Several people went missing as an eerie video mysteriously airs on the web at midnight. Come to help Rise for her comeback in the idol business, Persona 4's team get thrown into a parallel world where they will intend to pin the culprit and rescue the victims. Even if it does seem really dull at times, especially by its stiff structure and uneven story-telling, the narrative contains enough humor and suspense to renew its interest, let alone the miscellaneous direction in cut-scenes and the surprising illustrations. I was telling you that Persona 4 Dancing All Night was cutting itself from the Vocaloid craze, but that's actually not completely accurate. Because if you talk dancing and ryhtm on PSVita, Hastune Miku is never too far. Atlus will market a dozen of DLCs priced from 0 to 800 yens (count up to 5-6€ in EU, 2 of them being free). The Heaven Remix that features the virtual singer is violent techno hardstyle served by explosive highs, but still very interesting to play and listen. The modeling and animation of Miku trenscends everything you could see in Project Diva : it's so bloody GORGEOUS! Marie's DLC song, Break Out Of.. appears as classic pop music. Not especially a wonder in my honset opinion, it is nevertheless quite the challenge because icons go counterclockwise, despite the rest of the game keeping to clockwise rotation. Even though Persona 4 Dancing All Night is definitely a enjoyable experience, it remains “weaker” than other rhythm games on Sony's handheld. It does have a stye of its own, a interesting story and a decent tracklist, but misses the cue in its game system and overall content.

While the game design of this 2D fighting game is fairly classic, its playable characters aren’t. You’ll have the great pleasure to play as the most famous heroes/heroines from a dozen of series. Characters well-known in the West as Asuna and Kirito from Sword Art Online come alongside less renowned ones like the basket-ball star schoolgirl Tomoka from Ro-Kyu-Bu, plus some guests like Akira and Pai from Virtua Fighter (who have a tendancy to gatecrash every fighting game since they don’t have their own anymore). In terms of game modes, you have the usual suspects : Arcade, Story, Training, Survival, Time-attack and Versus await you. Arcade feels a bit repetitive, but the point of an arcade mode has never been to tell a story. In fact, the little narrative behind it, however simplistic, proved intriguing enough and features surprising metaphors. For example, the girl designed by Kei representing Sega’s last console asks you to save the dreams. In other terms, in FC, you must save the Dreamcast! On the other hand, the story mode exclusive to the console version turned out to be no more than a series of mini dialogs. I did expect a lot more substantial content. The whole game is nevertheless extremely well dubbed and transcribes the atmosphere of the Dengeki series in an astonishingly wonderful way. Should it be Taiga’s extravagant behavior, Miyuki’s Magic or Tomoka’s shoots, FC spares no effort and goes as wild as needed to delight the fans. Kirito is especially cool : everything in its lines, attitude, moves and of course its amazing Double Edge Sword remind us of what’s amazing in Sword Art Online. Selveria being an unlockable playable character also is a huge plus, and she’s an extremely effective character and fun to play on the top of that. Graphically speaking, the 2D sprites on PSVita have a lovely feel in them, but animations look a bit jerky. The 2D models during talk parts are the ones from the novels and not from the anime. It kinda gives a fresh look to the characters and the animation are rather cute/fun despite no lip sync. Music is way above your average fighting game, with a beautiful theme song and quite great and entertaining composition. Each character’s movelist being ten lines or so, you could believe that FC lacks depth. Far from that, it’s actually a vastly technical game. You just have to spend some time online to ascertain that : skilled players build impressive combos, proof of a vast amount of time spend in training combining moves with one another. The annoying thing is that it makes it difficult for people not used to 2D fighters to enter the fray online : FC’s gameplay tuning is made for experts. It’s really a shame because the controls are quite fine even on PSVita, on which the stick allows you to perform half/quarter circles with ease. Adding to traditional combos and moves, FC has 3 original elements : a support character, a kirifuda and a Climax gauge. The support character attack or defends depending on whether you press X ou X+direction. Effects and range being quite different from one another, there’s already some training to do in order to find the one that fits your way of playing and calculate timing in battle. Kirifuda is a special move a bit more powerful than the others or a boost that gives you some advantages. They’re pretty uneven : Selveria fires a whole magazine of her personal rifle, while Shana’s is an all-cancel that refills a bit of her Climax gauge. The above mentioned gauge is used either to give an additional blow to the square button combo (consumes one bar), or unleash extra powerful techniques known as Climax Arts (two bars). Here’s the problem : the latter are next to impossible to execute successfully in a serious match. The range is short most of the time and normal guard blocks them. The only way to have them hit is to imbricate them in a longer combo. Good luck with that… Consequently, it is often more beneficial to use the extra square hit which is a lot more practical. Further in this logic, this almost unbreakable guard discourages risk-taking and tends to turn online battles in defensive/long range confrontations which is hardly fun. Let’s stress that unlike the 3D fighters I know, here you can’t perform combos unless you actually hit your opponent, so no approaching while being covered. You’ll have to cautiously monitor your distances if you don’t want to become full of openings. Last point, FC is rich of bonus content. There’s whole range of customization items such as colors/plates/icons and even the authors’ & voice actors’ autograph, plus some well-chosen illustrations and a chapter to read! Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax is a very enjoyable fighting game, so well-thought for its targeted audience that it’s impossible to get bored if you like Dengeki series. It is just sad that gameplay arbitrations make online less fun than it should have been.

Welcome home. Those are the words the president of Sony Computer Entertainment Asia addressed to Yuji Horii when unveiling Dragon Quest Heroes. There had indeed been nearly 10 years without a Dragon Quest title on a Playstation system. After a smashing success in Japan where it shipped 1 million copies, this action spin-off of the famous RPG franchise comes to the West only of PS4. Good thing since that's the one I'll tell you about. The now well-known studio Omega Force being in charge, it is a Musô-like game (like a Samurai Warriors) which is delivered to us. You thus have in hands an action-RPG like any other, where you'll level-up, learn skills, create accessories and do side-quests to get stronger. Combat is in real-time and each character has 3 or 4 combos with various combinations of square and triangle. It's kinda too few, but there are also 4 magic spells that you can activate quickly with L1, and a highly destructive super-attack you can unleash when your fury gauge is filled. Magic and physical attacks can be linked in seamless fashion so that control can be mastered in no time. Only drawback : dodging is set on R2, which not as convenient as circle (used in God Eater for example). But KoeiTecmo and SquareEnix haven't merely copied the Musô formula with a Dragon Quest skin. The game system is different. In Dragon Quest Heroes, you'll be very often defending a location or a NPC as monsters come from everywhere. You have to cover all sides at the same time : before you can clean one part of the frontline, monsters will alread been rushing on another side. In order to complete those missions, you'll be able to rely on ally monsters (that you acquire by picking up medals) and place them at strategic locations to have them hold the ground for you. There are dozens of them, actually the entire bestiary of the series! The game is pretty easy in its first half so that's a bit disappointing, and the enemy troops are always not as massive as in Samurai Warriors. That said, the challenge makes more sense in the late stages of the story, where stronger fiends make battles really fierce. Let's stress that some free DLCs in Japan throws you against insane opponents. The big letdown is the lack of multiplayer, despite it being traditionally a huge added-value of “Warriors” games. Before being an action game, this new SquareEnix title is a Dragon Quest, a true and pure one. Of course, you can play as legendary characters such as Alina and Manya from Dragon Quest IV, Jessica and Yangus from Dragon Quest VIII, Bianca and Flora from Dragon Quest V. 13 in total in you include the main characters created for this game. Both have a personality and fit in the Dragon Quest universe very well. Against you march numerous classic enemies of the series, like Slimes and Killer Machines. Not to mention gigantic statues and dragons which are impressive bosses. This title is a true rejuvenating experience because the it sticks to the Dragon Quest universe from back to front. Music, sounds and even the icons during the dialogs are the same as years ago! In the Japanese version, even the writing style is taken from former episodes, that is to say few kanjis and spaces between the words (which is traditionally implemented in games aimed at kids, like Pokemon). In the same way, dialogs are easy-going but keep to comic tone of the series, though it prevents the story to be surprising in whichever way. While you do feel nostalgic by playing it, it doesn't mean Dragon Quest Heroes is not modern. True, it's not the most complex PS4 game graphically speaking but it remains visually stunning. That's not for the character/background modeling, average for the system, but for the incredible flurry of sparkling colors, especially of magic and skills. Animation is of great quality too, as the rapid frame rate never drops. There are also lots of tiny animation details like when the characters are stun or exhaust the magic that make it a whole new Dragon Quest experience. The numerous cut-scenes are beautiful and extremely well directed, like in pretty much every SquareEnix title. The last artistic feature is the small blurry effect that occurs when you beat a boss, which is truly exciting for people like me who love to use their Share button. Dragon Quest's return on Playstation is a definitive success with that PS4 episode. It reunites both the old and the new and can appeal to any Japanese gaming fan. A fun and exciting game so fully Dragon Quest that it gives shivers of nostalgia.

In this turn-based tactical RPG, you play as Shô, a young man sent in an elite unit called the SEALED. This team has been formed in a hurry to counter a dangerous individual who calls himself The End, and seeking no less than to blow up the entire world. The battle system is very much like Valkyria Chronicles : each unit of one team act one after another, having a limited movement area. You also do have the possibility of having one or several comrades assisting your current character with an extra shot when the enemy is within range. This aspect is crucial to your progression for a very simple reason : your opponents will do exactly the same! Consequently, you'll have to be careful to keep your characters together so they can cover each other, all the more necessary that even the most common foes cannot be eliminated without the cooperation of several of your characters. Adding to this, every member of the SEALED posesses a supernatural power : Himeko can cast fire spells, Nagi can levitate, Yoko can boost her teamates' status, etc. something like the Fantastic Four, save that they are twelve. Each character can also allow a buddy whose turn is over to act again, which has a lot of practical uses.Every unit, friend of foe, has a stamina bar that gets depleted as damage is taken. If the enemy's stamina reaches zero, its defense will drop dramatically, making it extremely vulnerable to attacks. When a character's stamina jauge is empty, he goes berserk and attacks the nearest unit, even if it's an ally. A quite perilous situation which clever strategists will know how to use to their advantage. The architecture of the maps is well tought and encourages you to make the best use of the field around you. Technically speaking, Lost Dimension stands out by a decent modeling which kinda makes up for the bland environments. The particularity in Lost Dimension is that you have in your party several traitors, and you have to find them. Shô is gitfed with psychic powers and will know if there are suspects in the team he has been leading durng one battle. Of course, the suspects are not precisey designated : you just know you had 0,1, 2 or 3 potential traitors in your group. Up to you to switch members regularly and operate by elimination process so as to pin the culprit by entering his mind. This very unuasual setting gives Lost Dimension a tremendous appeal : the atmosphere is dark and oppressing. The SEALED members don't know each other at all and no one can be trusted. The music, very efficient to make you dive further in suspense, features slow and equally opressive. Shô, with his natural empathy, will be able to gain the trust of his comrades in arms. They will thus share their own story and show their hidden personality, and some of them are far from shallow. Kojirô's true self for example gave me the shivers. Whatever your friendship might be, you have no room for hesitation : at each floor of The End's giant tower, you will be asked to give a name. The problem is that... it is not your decision alone! Every character votes to get rid of another. From time to time, they will come to ask Shô's opinion, and you will be able to influence them in voting for the traitor, provided you have found him/her already. If you still haven't got a clue when the time comes, you will be at risk to lose an honest buddy, who will be disintegrated, leaving nothing but a small object you can equip to inherit his abilities. The search for the traitors has a big influence on how the story goes and has also a huge impact on the final battle. If you're not rigorous and impartial in your choices, you might be completely unable to clear the game! That is actually Lost Dimension's biggest flaw : the progression system isn't flexible one bit and you can't set the team you'd want. Not that long (between 10 and 20 hours to reach the summit), you can through it a second time quickly despite a new game+ that is far from generous. Lost Dimension is an extremely innovative RPG, its atmosphere is unique and the gameplay is rock-solid. For all those reasons, it really deserves your attention and it would be a shame to see it bomb a second time. It's very rich and complex tactically speaking and S-RPG fans should enjoy it despite a somewhat unsatisfying progression system.

Hyperdimension Neptunia U Action Unleashed has 10 characters, which includes the four goddesses and their respective sisters, plus two newcomers Dengekiko and Famitsu. Those of you who follow Japanese gaming news probably found out already : those two represent the two major Japanese game magazines. More than the console war, it’s the press war that is depicted in this spin-off. Dengekiko and Famitsu are arch-rivals in the game too and follow the goddesses in their job to cover their activies, so as to write the best possible article about them. A really great idea that should have been developed further, dialogs being scarce. Dengekiko is no less an excellent new character, the best that’s come to the series for a while as far as I’m concerned. Her voice actor Ryô Hirohashi does a fantastic job in the whole game. Compile Heart chose Tamsoft on purpose, because with this game the Neptunia series comes hunting into Senran Kagura’s territory by borrowing its famous costume break, quite fashionable those days. The characters’ outfits have a certain durability and if you take too much damage, you are rewa… eh, penalized by the tearing of those. The game jokes about this quite a few times as you progress and this self-satire is extremely fun to watch. But the main point of this game is that it’s GORGEOUS beyond my wildest expectations! As you can see, seldom on a portable device you had such a incredible rendering. Furthermore, Hyperdimension Neptunia U Action Unleashed is a Musô-like, that is to say you face dozens of enemies like in the recent Dragon Quest Heroes. But here again Tamsoft’s product is flawless : neither the colorful graphics, nor the perfect modeling or the meticulous animation come to hurt the seamless action. But here’s the best part : this game has a photo mode! Like in your replays of Dead or Alive 5, you can stop the game, zoom and frame anytime to snap your favorite characters. It’s ENDLESS, my Home and Start buttons have suffered since I have more than 200! On the other hand, gameplay appeared really poor. Half a dozen combos/skills for each character (including goddess form) is not enough to prevent a certain boredom. All the more true that it also lacks variety : while Dragon Quest Heroes or Samurai Warriors have large maps and different types of objectives, Hyperdimension Neptunia U Action Unleashed has you eradicating monsters in cramped areas from the beginning to the end. True, there are some “mystery” missions the victory conditions of which differ from the rest, but too few to be a game changer. The game is a lot too easy despite the changes brought by the 1.01 update : damage rose a bit but not the attack patterns of the monsters, which stay very simplistic (except for the final boss). The musical environment isn’t satisfying either, Tamsoft having picked tracks from the series a bit randomly and few fit to the action genre. After the main scenario, you unlock the Budokai mode. In this one, of which the DBZ inspiration is pretty clear, the girls will face each other like in Senran Kagura. But unlike the latter, here again gameplay lacks polish. The camera that has no problem following you in normal missions turns out too slow in those extremely fast fights. 1.01 brought weird balance, Whiteheart being a LOT stronger than the others… normal mode stays to easy, and impossible mode is clearly impossible, even at level 99! Not a lot to do after that, the story is rather short and trophy hunting didn’t feel very interesting. Hyperdimension Neptunia U Action Unleashed is a magnificent title but alas a bit contemplative. Its underwhelming gameplay won’t make it worthwile for action games fans at large, but Neptunia fans may well adore its new setting and its technical prowess.

Atelier Shallie is the 3rd (and last?) episode of the Dusk trilogy started with Atlier Ayesha and Atelier Escha&Logy. That's the first problem of this game, because it ends the trilogy in a rather awkward manner. None of the questions raised in the past two games finds a definitive answer : Linca's story is barely hinted at, the truth behind the drought that plagues the world is hardly explainded, we are still waiting for an clear illustration of Alchemy's past mistakes, and Ayesha and Logy are MIA. Story-telling its faulty too. This sequel looks more like a spin-off that borrows some characters from before. It's composed of two separate stories : Shalistella's and Shalotte's (both called Shallie). Shalistella is your average Atelier heroine whereas Shalotte, more dynamic and lively, introduces a more moe approach. Unfortunately, neither side has been well executed, and the slim differences between the two adventures doesn't make replay value very valuable. Generally speaking, the story never takes off and stays as a series of events half-serious, half-humoristic. The tone seems mainly light in the end, because any attempt of the game to get more serious sounds really off. Because of low stakes and an astonishing lack of intensity, but also surprisingly shallow characters. Of all the newcomers, Miruca is the only one that shows a bit of work : only her has a solid backstory and thus the only one you sympathize with. The others feel almost invisible given the low interest of the events they're in. In its gameplay, Atelier Shallie changes radically. First thing, it drops the limited time frame to go for a classic progression system in chapters in which you have all the time you want. To make it further accessible, Gust opted for the Xillia method and now difficulty settings can be changed any time. Wise decision, because even though most of the game felt easy, difficulty surges at the very end. This episode adds a morale gauge, but after 70h and 2 playthrough, I'm still wondering what it is for and how it works... You no longer get experience points in battles (or very few). XP should be gained by doing Lifetasks, objectives comparable to Atelier Ayesha's. Some of those challenges are immediate (make a specific object, do a specific action, get some alchemy trait, beat X monsters, explore maps, etc.), but others are to be achieved on the long term. Even without the time parameter, management is still there because you'll often have 10, 20, 30... tasks available at the same time, an varied enough. The ones you complete constantly trigger others, so it's a never-ending managerial frenzy, let alone the fact that you still have to manufacture your gear from scratch. That said, there's no denying that gameplay has grown poorer. Just one example that thunderstruck me : the characters decide to hold a cake contest at some point. So I do expect to spend some hours in my atelier making the ultimate sweet. Far from that, the event launches right away and a get the free trophy without doing any action... I realised that clearly the Atelier I knew was no more. The exploration of the world map is also made boring by the infinite time, the rigidity of the progression system and the bland level-design. Exploring doesn't have the thrill it used to. Atelier Shallie introduces a combat system called Burst : every time you hit an enemy, a burst jauge is getting filled. When this one reaches 100%, you can deal a lot more damage. It brings nothing but wasted time between Burst sequences. Worse still, the enemy can slower your Bust jauge if you are hit too often, which in some cases (fortunately rare) is horribly irritating. Despite that little blunder, let's stress that if you meet certain conditions, you can trigger the Field Burst, kind of magical circle that boost your stats for the time of the Burst : a nice idea to further vitalize combat. The rest of the fighting is directly inherited from Dusk, that is to say equally tactic and nervous to keep interest until the end. Be warned though, the game is fairly easy until the very end, even in hard. This being due to the multiplication of super-powerful healing spell that makes the manufacturing of healing items almost useless. The good news is that the game has been further polished visually, as it has been the case for 4 years. Although backgrounds are still mostly bland, the battles show artistic and technical mastery : modeling is refined to the extreme, the level of detail is more than satisfying and the animation wonderful! The various moves of the 8 characters are varied, and spectacular. On design, Hidari's illustrations are as good as ever and the OST quality stays high, especially on battle themes. Alchemy still has the skills divided into the 4 elements, save that they are even clearer and intuitive, which makes the system extremely precise and enjoyable without any loss in complexity.

Hyperdevotion Noire comes as a Strategy-RPG very much like Disgaea. You have a sky view, a grid and a dozen of units to lead to victory. In that way, it's a pretty good Tactical since it brings a sufficiently fresh and varied gameplay. Indeed, STING's latest work has you face a lot of unusual situations, like various types of vicious traps, crates to pile up or use as mortar (deadly), wacky transportation systems or a virus to eradicate! Hyperdevotion Noire also has difference of height as a parameter : it will make you lose one turn if you fall from too high, or give you advantage if you have the high ground (the «jump» highly varying depending on the character). In particular, the heroines can fly in goddess form and nullify the height requirement. Careful though, this is only once a mission. Furthermore, Hyperdevotion Noire borrows Fire Emblem Awakening's support system, complexifying it more. If you have one or more allies around you when you use a skill, you benefit from diverse effects like less MP/AP used or a formidable boost in attack power. This system is quite hooking strategically speaking and it is critical to master it to beat bosses, because this game has no mercy. Numerous times it felt absomutely tiring : some bosses can OHKO several characters at once, status ailments are rife, a couple of objectives were unbearable and I've been surrounded more than once without any chance of breaking through. That said, Hyperdevotion Noire borrows to Sen no Kiseki the system of retry with lowering the difficulty, which was more than welcomed since I could beat it in the end. The story is ridiculously far-fetched, but the game comes with the usual references to the gaming world at large. This time, the 18 new characters of this spin-off don't represent consoles or publishers, but entire genres or whole series! We immediately find out that Tsunemi embodies the Project Diva series and Bio Resident Evil. Some parallels are really fun, like the rivalry between Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy or the clever parody of Lightning Returns. However, those Easter eggs aren't all that sophisticated or very clear, which was already a issue in Neptunia Victory. If there's one department in which STING's product meets expecations, it's without a doubt in its fan-service, whose quantity and nature sets a new record, even beyond ReBirth2's kinky offering. Well, given that STING had delivered the (very) steamy Dungeon Travelers 2, I expected no less. Although events are not all sexually oriented, some have quite intense innuendo... Also in the fan-service category, STING has implemented a mini dating -sim which puts you more or less in relationship with Noire (only her). It's important to stress that the story is told from the point of view of the player, a bit like in the first GBA Fire Emblem. I say more or less because this feature completely misses the point : it's actually a series of questions/answers in which you help Noire managing Lastation's people's complaints. I found it not that interesting, especially given that it's not dubbed at all (kinda lame for a dating-sim). In general, the game is voiced only in the main parts, which diminishes the pleasure in side parts. My main concern with this game is its graphical presentation. For starters, I abhor super-deformed/chibi characters (but that's my opinion, some people do like it), but aside that, this second spin-off offers some terrible 3D while ReBirth2 and the upcoming Action Neptune U are absolute masterpieces of beauty. I do reckon that visual pleasure is essential to bishôjo games, and here we don't have it. Super Heroine Chronicle did manage to make the best of the same type of design, Hyperdevotion Noire didn't even try. To sum up, Hyperdevotion Noire is a rather good Tactical, an excellent ecchi game but its miserable budget drags it down where it could have made wonders.

The story begins as the dark forces of Magiquone, which defeated the heroines of the first game, have almost entirely the parodic world of Gamindustri. However hopeless the situation may seem, the little sisters of the goddesses take up arms to free the land and save their big sisters. Far from being simplistic and like Mk2 before him, Re2 is the most addictive and surprising in terms of narrative. It's in this one where the allegory of the console war is the cleverest, including the question of piracy presented in a very stunning way : the game illustrates the spread of R4/pirate copies and their consequences, especially in the hands of casual gamers. But Re2 doesn't just condemn that fact and opens the debate about the balance to find between cost, creation and accessibility in a memorable conversation between Uni and Brave. The story can change in several ways and the game has 9 different endings! One of them, the Conquest ending, is frightening, almost unbearable in cruelty, but add a great deal in terms of gravity and is another great symbol. In Re2, that particular can see a new development under very strict conditions, but is supposed to change the tragic course of events. Another good thing of Re2 compared to the vanilla version is that quests and their effects in terms of shares aren't limited and this allows you to see all the endings in one playthrough. Re2 is nevertheless a concentration of fun because it brings numerous funny events, including brand new ones, one of which that parodies the Neptunia popularity polls is absolutely hilarious. We still miss a few of (very good) Mk2 events as NISA and Gust are no more. The parody of the gaming world in itself is as good as ever, even in the smallest details like some characters' lines, the avatars whom you come across on the world map, the name of the skills... It's also the kinkiest in the series, because goes beyond most niche games as for fan-service : uncompromising artworks and permissive camera angles make an excellent ecchi offering. This newest Neptunia game has probably the richest content ever. It includes 22 characters all in-game, a new line-up of costumes/accessories and numerous post-game challenges adding to the various endings. Re2 also adds a new mini-game called Nariyuki Dungeon. Similar to Victory's scout system, you will send a mini-character called Stella (who is the personification of the developer Felistella) in dungeons so she can loot items. It's no a big addition as it remains fairly anecdotal. I rather lament the fact that costumes can't be unlocked before the end chapter for most part, they were a lot more accessible in Re1. Same problem for the Oracles who are playable in this remake, but the unlock conditions are even harder than for the sisters in Re1. Honestly, I expected that they would join much earlier, and in a way that is more connected to the story. I cleared the game in 30h straight, but I do reckon I would need more than twice that to go through all the possibilities. Mk2 had reformed the series by introducing the new battle system. Re2 isn't doing anything like that since it inherits the aforementioned Mk2 system. That's still turn-based with free movements on the field and an FFXIII-like break system. It's back with its traditional qualities and drawbacks, that is to say tactical enough but pretty even in its progression. Like in the first remake, you can change the difficulty settings anytime, which turns out to be quite handy again. Unlike Mk2 in which the challenge went decreasing, Re2 is remarkably progressive in that matter. It is a huge improvement over Mk2 : bosses in Mk2 required more much focus than in the original version. The difficult settings are also a good way to ensure a solid challenge even if you go grinding time to time. Last but not least, you have a team of 4x2 characters : 4 in battle and 4 in reserve that can relay anytime. Let's finish by technical aspects, which haven't changed much since Re1 : it's the same engine and thus equally one of the most beautiful portable RPGs there is. Let's stress that graphics have been polished from Mk2 and that returning characters add more flashy and colourful skills. All this is sometimes too much to bear for the game because the framerate tends to drop significantly when there's too much stuff on the screen. Another important note : Re2 abandons the (rather underwhelming) 3D models during the talk parts to come back to our beloved animated 2D models. Changes and improvements in this second remake not being as important as in the first one, Hyperdimension Neptunia ReBirth2 is interesting but optional for those who have Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2 on PS3, a must-have for those who don't as it excels in many aspects.

In terms of content, Project Diva F 2nd (PDF2) inherits the principle of Project Diva Extend (PSP), that is to say half new songs, the other half being songs taken from previous episodes. In the case of PDF2, those ones come from the PSP games Project Diva 2nd and Project Diva Extend. Before complaining about rehashing, bear this in mind : while Project Diva Extend was merely transferring songs from Project Diva 2nd, PDF2 remakes them from scratch. Two-faced Lovers, Romio & Cinderella or Luka Luka Night Fever to mention a few, have been completely remades and not just remastered : choreographies have been changed in several aspects, especially by adding a finale like it was introduced in Diva F. No only this, but the incredible 3D engine of the «F» series transforms the hits of the previous generation and the astonishing graphics further enhanced from Diva F (PDF2 looks quite sharper) make it a whole new experience. As for the new songs, I found the list pretty uneven compared to Diva F which was a true concentration of musical masterpieces. Many have slow rythm or not enough intensity for my tastes. But whatever, that’s just me and I did find a few exhilarating compositions like Yubikiri, Ni Soku Hôko, Envy Cat Walk, Meteo 2nd Dimension Fever and Akatsuki Arrival, let alone the fantastic design and direction that mix elegance and cuteness in wonderful fashion. You’ll of course also get a new range of nice modules (=costumes) with the possibility to import the ones you already have in Diva F. In pure aesthetics, you have now an option to put a skin on your progression bar. While I think it takes too much room on the screen, some may please you. Note that if you want more, Sega has planned a looong DLC season to destroy your savings with seriously exciting stuff : the Japanese version already got Change Me, Kochi Muite Baby, Yellow and Sekiranun Graffiti, among others. Remember that if you have the extra character DLC for Diva F, you can get it free for PDF2 as it’s cross-buy. The most striking thing about gameplay is that the game became A LOT harder. If like me you’d come to master progressively the Hard mode without making wonders in Extreme, drop by the chemist’s to get some anxiolytics because you will suffer like hell. Narisumashi Ganga and 2nd Dimension Fever are inhumane, Envy Cat Walk drove me mad. It’s my concern with PDF2 : the Normal mode is still a bit too easy for returning fans, but Hard mode is discouraging sometimes. Generally speaking, the challenge has been beefed up in several ways. Remember the yellow stars for which you just had to scratch the screen continuously? That’s over, Jim! From now on, you’ll have to follow the pace. Technical zones have become a lot more technical, those bonus points are no longer offered like they used to be (Huh, God Tier Tune?). This episodeintroduces some innovations in gameplay, actually new types of stars. There’s the «big» star which is cleared by scratching the screen in two different locations, and the «linked» stars, which are normal stars with more bonus All the side content is still there and has improved. The Diva Room, the now famous dating sim is more lively than in the previous game : the number of events have doubled, they’re triggered more often, yo have new mini-games and characters show a lot more actions/reactions. Camera angles have been nerfed a lot though, especially in close-up, which is definitely unwelcomed. All the friend level parameters have been tweaked to allow a more precise progression. The much sharper graphics add greatly to the enjoyment of this Diva Room 2.0, which more than ever is a game in itself. The game comes with a dozen of new AR lives, save that now you no longer need the AR markers to organize your private performances! Despite the small hiccups in gameplay and balance, the immense delight is still the same. Project Diva F 2nd is pure and immediate joy until the end. That is, if you can see an end to a game you never really stop playing.

In terms of content, Project Diva F 2nd (PDF2) inherits the principle of Project Diva Extend (PSP), that is to say half new songs, the other half being songs taken from previous episodes. In the case of PDF2, those ones come from the PSP games Project Diva 2nd and Project Diva Extend. Before complaining about rehashing, bear this in mind : while Project Diva Extend was merely transferring songs from Project Diva 2nd, PDF2 remakes them from scratch. Two-faced Lovers, Romio & Cinderella or Luka Luka Night Fever to mention a few, have been completely remades and not just remastered : choreographies have been changed in several aspects, especially by adding a finale like it was introduced in Diva F. No only this, but the incredible 3D engine of the «F» series transforms the hits of the previous generation and the astonishing graphics further enhanced from Diva F (PDF2 looks quite sharper) make it a whole new experience. As for the new songs, I found the list pretty uneven compared to Diva F which was a true concentration of musical masterpieces. Many have slow rythm or not enough intensity for my tastes. But whatever, that’s just me and I did find a few exhilarating compositions like Yubikiri, Ni Soku Hôko, Envy Cat Walk, Meteo 2nd Dimension Fever and Akatsuki Arrival, let alone the fantastic design and direction that mix elegance and cuteness in wonderful fashion. You’ll of course also get a new range of nice modules (=costumes) with the possibility to import the ones you already have in Diva F. In pure aesthetics, you have now an option to put a skin on your progression bar. While I think it takes too much room on the screen, some may please you. Note that if you want more, Sega has planned a looong DLC season to destroy your savings with seriously exciting stuff : the Japanese version already got Change Me, Kochi Muite Baby, Yellow and Sekiranun Graffiti, among others. Remember that if you have the extra character DLC for Diva F, you can get it free for PDF2 as it’s cross-buy. The most striking thing about gameplay is that the game became A LOT harder. If like me you’d come to master progressively the Hard mode without making wonders in Extreme, drop by the chemist’s to get some anxiolytics because you will suffer like hell. Narisumashi Ganga and 2nd Dimension Fever are inhumane, Envy Cat Walk drove me mad. It’s my concern with PDF2 : the Normal mode is still a bit too easy for returning fans, but Hard mode is discouraging sometimes. Generally speaking, the challenge has been beefed up in several ways. Remember the yellow stars for which you just had to scratch the screen continuously? That’s over, Jim! From now on, you’ll have to follow the pace. Technical zones have become a lot more technical, those bonus points are no longer offered like they used to be (Huh, God Tier Tune?). This episodeintroduces some innovations in gameplay, actually new types of stars. There’s the «big» star which is cleared by scratching the screen in two different locations, and the «linked» stars, which are normal stars with more bonus All the side content is still there and has improved. The Diva Room, the now famous dating sim is more lively than in the previous game : the number of events have doubled, they’re triggered more often, yo have new mini-games and characters show a lot more actions/reactions. Camera angles have been nerfed a lot though, especially in close-up, which is definitely unwelcomed. All the friend level parameters have been tweaked to allow a more precise progression. The much sharper graphics add greatly to the enjoyment of this Diva Room 2.0, which more than ever is a game in itself. The game comes with a dozen of new AR lives, save that now you no longer need the AR markers to organize your private performances! Despite the small hiccups in gameplay and balance, the immense delight is still the same. Project Diva F 2nd is pure and immediate joy until the end. That is, if you can see an end to a game you never really stop playing.

Like other Mûso games like Dynasty Warriors or Orochi Warriors 3 Ultimate (WO3U), Samurai Warriors 4 (SW4) is an action game in which playable characters are famous warriors/general taken from History. In this case, they all are generals who fought during Sengoku era (period of civil wars in the XVth century). Don’t expect some austere game like Kessen, because all those legendary people have been given over-the-top superpowers : lightning, fire and laser beams are in order as you re-experience major events of Japan’s History like Mikatagahara or Mitsuhide Akechi’s betrayal. Unlike WO3U where you progress with a group of three, SW4 has you control a main character, helped by a second one controlled by the AI. The problem is that the AI is liable to do anything save what is actually useful. Despite the attack/defense orders you can give him, he keeps being stuck at some place. A second issue is that your partner is fairly weak and is quite a hindrance in hard modes. This is however the only drawback of SW4. Fighting heavily outnumbered has never been so good. As always in the series, you’ll have to raise the morale of your army by accomplishing certain tasks or taking positions. There also are danger zones (above in red on the map) in which the soldiers are extremely tough : you’ll need some courage to throw yourself into those, or a plan to lower the enemy’s morale. Combos are easy to master but at the same time quite rich. Everyone of them is a combination of square, triangle or L1 : start with square or L1 for normal attacks, triangle being used for rush combos by which you can thrust your way forward. Every character has a unique type of weapon and therefore combos of its own, at least 15. But whichever you choose, the combinations of buttons are the same! In the same idea, not only does the smith allow you the strengthen your weapons, but you can also transfer some capabilities to another type of weapon right away. This is wonderfully clever gameplay that makes SW4 enjoyable anytime without any kind of grinding. Your character gain experience points and new combos when they level up. There is, similarly to WO3U, a small action/RPG part to consider. Roughly, SW4 is easier than WO3U : hard mode is quite doable, but 地獄 (litt. “inferno”) mode require overboosted characters and a lot of agility. Very often, the game will prompt you secondary objectives within chapters, to be done in limited time. Those ones add to the challenge and will measure your level of mastery of the game. So-called professional journalists will tell you that it’s repetitive and that you’d better waste your money in a WiiU. This rhetoric doesn’t apply to SW4. First thing, there are 50 playable characters and therefore more than 700 unique combos + finish moves and 無双奥義 (very badass special attacks). In 42h playing, I might have seen like half of all that. Notice also that unlike Hyrule Warriors, the game can be played in coop via the network in story and skirmish modes, which makes it extremely lively. I did most of the story with @Ichikyo57 (the purple flash above, he’s too quick to even be seen with bare eyes) and the connection didn’t falter even once. Not satisfied yet? SW4 gives you the possibility to create your own character with a large number of choices, especially in weapons/combos, with even the option to insert a JPG icon of your own. I was able re-create anime/manga/games characters (above, Ikaruga from Senran Kagura), it being as addictive as the recent SoulCalibur games. This player avatar is used in the Vagrant mode, which is in fact in series of battles in all Japan (expect Hokkaido, if I were from Sapporo I would be quite upset). In parallel, you’ll chat with the characters of the story mode in funny mini-events. Because the biggest point of SW4 is its extraordinary story-telling. Sometimes amusing, sometimes dramatic, Omega Force’s game does it well in both cases. The historical context is rendered with such precision and intensity that it makes it as good as a museum or a great samurai movie. Geopolitical introductions are amazing and some cut-scenes completely unforgettable. Let’s finish by technical aspects. SW4 PS4 being an upgraded version of SW4 PS3 released in Japan last Spring, it is not as impressive as you could expect. Still, main characters have been re-modeled with great care, and all the effects (weather, lightning, etc.) have been refined. But most of all, this PS4 version has so many enemies on the field that you literally draw in them! Besides, the frame-rate had zero drop and loadings barely exist. You thus have a game that has been perfectly optimized and good to look at. The soundtrack is good, but WO3U had left me a better impression on that department. Needless to say, voice acting is still perfect. I really didn’t expect SW4 to surpass WO3U, but it did. Exhilarating action game, it is at the same time a wonderful present for those passionate about Japanese history.

The sudden shift to full 3D gameplay is not without problems : you have to re-learn everything. Bosses are now super agressive and won’t hesitate to chain long combos immediately followed by their 秘伝忍法 (special ninpo), to the extend that it is at times difficult to stand back up. It is therefore crucial to master guard and parry, but the latter is not as efficient as it is in Metal Gear Rising for example. Because of that, the best option is often to run away and engage the enemy from a distance. Ditto for the lock which has you touch the target on the touchscreen, because you can hardly free one hand to do so. Finally and much like MGR, the action is fast and camera has a hard time following. In short, a more nervous gameplay with diminished precision. It’s just too bad the difficulty settings should keep being so poor. The first Senran Kagura was quite easy to beat, while Senran Kagura Burst was an interesting challenge during chapter 5. Shinobi Versus is again fairly easy, and for a rather stupid reason : you gain XP too fast. The good news is that there is now a difficult mode, but it’s so fu** hard that it requires a long time grinding. The game lacks something in-between that would have allowed the player to experience the main story better. Let’s also point out that EVERY mission includes a boss fight. The devs went wild on the ecchi side of things in this epsiode. Adding to kinky touchscreen options in the changing room (which actually remains the most exquisite I’ve seen on the platform) , outfits now have up to six levels of tearing, which may lead to nudity (with blurry effect on sensitive parts). Shinobi Versus illustrates the difference in power between Vita and 3DS : it has far nicer graphics and superior animation. Cel-shading is a perfect and it’s a real pleasure for your eyes. 奥義 (special attacks) are splendid and classy, I definitely can’t have enough of it. On the other hand, shadows are very poor and the game slows time to time. That said, the 3DS versions that were pretty advanced for the system look like a rough sketch next to Shinobi Versus (while still being nice games overall). Musics are discreet, but some of them are inspired. In terms of pure content, this Vita iteration adds 2 ninja schools, 10 characters which makes 22 with returning ones, new game modes, trophies and countless outfits & accesories. Consider that Shinobi Versus is roughly 4 times as rich as the first Senran Kagura. The story keeps the balance between serious themes and (very) basic japanese humor. As it was the case before, the various stories are of unequal interest but some do entertain. The destiny of certains characters draws you in the story, and this newest game tells more about events that occured in the previous stories (you come to know what a «Kagura» is, for example). It won’t matters for most people though, because the level of Japanese required is atrociously high. You see words that hardly appear outside of Japanese libraries (edit : that is no more a problem now!). Senran Kagura Shinobi Versus truly is the ultimate version we hoped for. Boosted by the power of the PSVita, it is far richer and polished than the 3DS ones. You nevertheless have to hold some interest for kinky games to disregard the drawbacks in gameplay.

Last year, Compile Heart established a special label called Galapagos RPG for, as they say «true JRPG fans». Being a great fan of the genre, such hyperbolic declaration made me curious and I thus threw myself on this curious mixture of classic JRPG and fan-service JRPG. Fang, a lazy guy focused on sleeping and eating, suddenly sees himself turned into a Fencer after stumbling upon Alyn, a fairy. He reluctantly embraces his new job and goes in search for «furies», mystic cards that are the key to awaken the acient gods. All this under the threat of mega corporation Dolpha, sort a Shinra lead by some greedy man and 4 professional Fencers. Although the story setting is pretty classic, Fairy Fencer F (FFF) is in practice closer to Hyperdimension Neptunia than Final Fantasy. I mean that FFF will rely much more on humor and fan-service than on anything epic. While the devs tried to make it sound epic, FFF has hardly the means to be so : still screens and dialogs between 2D characters are not the way you do it, an the story isn’t anything special to begin with. The game felt also quite shorter than average (30-40h, maybe more for completionists). While FFF misses his self-proclaimed «true JRPG» title, it’s re-using Neptunia assets with some genius. It’s a constant flow of hilarious jokes, with a character design that goes real far into delirium. For this new label, Compile has let its imagination go beyond all the boundaries a bizarre : between Tiara the masochist Tsundere, Harler the mad scientist completely out of touch with the real world and Pinpin the unidentified greenish creature with some blade stuck in his head, you’re in for some good laughs. All this wouldn’t of course be complete without some kinky artworks : even though they’re not very inventive, FFF sure has them. What about Nobuo Uemastu and **** Amano then? Both Final Fantasy artists took part in FFF to give this aura of classic JRPG. Let’s get this straight : Tsunako (illustrator of Hyperdimension Neptune) and Amano, those styles don’t really get along. It’s like putting Neptunia characters in Final Fantasy IX : it’s wierd, kinda unnatural, but the juxtaposition of both styles has something fascinating in it. Amano doesn’t do much (essentially the Goddess and the Evil God designs) but it does make a nice change of atmosphere. Uemastu had a much bigger influence and makes FFF’s OST one of the best that has reached my ears this generation. Orchestration are fabulous and will make you instantly forget Compile’s awkward melodies. In short, FFF is a Neptunia in even stranger put into a FFIX frame. Personally, I enjoyed FFF just for Effole, who is a taciturn and kawaii assassin. FFF’s gameplay is actually dense. Battles are based on fully customizable combos with a heavy emphasis on aerials. Skills, magic and transformations inherited from Neptunia are also available. Everything including combos is learned and chosen by the player as the characters grow up, in a rather rich progression system. The game keeps the challenge system from Neptune V in which you gain stats bonuses by doing some actions (jump a certain number of times, getting a certain number of victory poses, etc.). Your characters will also equip the Furies that you collect in your adventure. Those ones possess passive skills and elemental affinities (the characters have some base affinities too). More than that, you can add passive skills each time you take off a seal in the divine world. It is quite hooking because you can build and optimize your game : you can prioritize physical/magical attack, experience gains, an element type or an attack type, etc. You have literally the cards in hand to make a strategy of your own. The problem is that FFF is too easy in its first half : you’ll have to wait some time before having to establish battle plans. Careful of the silly, useless and seriously tiresome platforming sequences (not that many thankfully). FFF’s graphics are really sub-par. It doesn’t match Neptune V which is 2 years older, or even Neptune Rebirth on PSVita! 3D models are kinda poor, but the worst lies in the terrible frame rate. It is so lame that it caused me headaches. I finished FFF last month and there was no patch to correct it. Fairy Fencer F lands far from the initial promise, it cannot go beyond its status of niche game. It won’t surpass Hyperdimension Neptune, but stays a good alternative.

Warrior Orochi 3 Ultimate (PSVita/PS3) is the enriched version of Warrior Orochi Hyper on WiiU, which itself had several additions compared to the PS3 version. A large part of the game is common to all those versions : WO3 is an immense cross-over uniting famous warriors taken from Chinese dynasties, Japanese Sengoku era, characters from Ninja Gaiden or unexpected guests such as Achille (!) or Jeanne of Arc (!!). The story begins with the tragic defeat of the last remaining heroes against Orochi, a gigantic Hydra. Luckily, the fleeing heroes will meet a priestess who has the ability of sending them back into the past. As convenient as this setting may seem, it brings fairly interesting situations. For example, after having powerlessly witnessed the fall one of your comrades as you were rushing to save him, you will later get the opportunity to change the past and redo the battle in different conditions, to finally avoid the tragedy. You control a group of 3 characters between which you can switch freely, or have them all on the field. The various missions are varied and you’ll have to attack, defend, escort, or fly to the rescue of your beleaguered pals. This is the crucial point of the gameplay : your party fight along other “generals” (as they are called) controlled by the IA to face the enemy generals and their army. You literally have to be everywhere at once in order to help them, as every rescue raises the morale of your side. This makes the missions crazily heated, because some generals will have to be protected at all costs, or else it’s game over. Consequently, you will often have to run across the map, desperate to break the enemy lines before the time runs out. The Orochi Warrior series is famous for throwing dozens of enemies at you, even though you wipe them out without much resistance. To do all that, you have quite a lot of possibilities of action. Each of the 145 characters has half a dozen of combos and a special move. You can also attack with your 3 characters at once with 2 types of combined attacks of colossal power, have they can also relay themselves to perform more effective combos. You will indeed need all that to take on the merciless bosses that await you at the end of the map. It’s actually the big problem with WO3U : the bosses are far more powerful than the average general, and it’s not uncommon to get beaten in seconds. Seeing the game over screen having 20 minutes of effort is not pleasant. Fortunately, WO3U allows you to choose your difficulty before every mission, so that beginners can familiarize themselves with the game mechanics. Let’s now focus on graphics and sound. Having dozens of characters on screen is nice, but it comes at a cost. WO3U suffers from an intense clipping and can’t display ennemies farer than 5 meters… Too bad but it remains managable thanks to the dynamic mini-map. On the other hand, the framerate holds surprisingly well : I don’t recall more than 2 drops in several dozens of hours! Backgrounds are poor and the rendering of the water primitive. The good thing is that great care has been taken in character modeling, who are as neat as on PS3. Animations and special effects are also pretty decent and classy. Omega Force (the developer) has made appreciable efforts to be as historically precise as possible : Date Masamune wears his legendary armor and Mitsunari has his famous emblem embroidered on his kimono. The guests characters are no less impressive, Sterk from the Atelier series is just perfect. Sophitia and Kasumi also come in, and I shall stress that the latter is NEVER coming to WiiU. The OST is also quite good, and the (surprising) rock an’ roll make the battles even more dynamic. The Japanese dubs are fantastic and immersive : the characters constantly express their joy, determination or distress. Even the background music during dialog parts make you dive into the story. Cherry on the cake, you can choose your favorite track when you redo missions. Adding to the (already extremely long) story mode, several game modes of unequal interest are offered. The duel mode was underwhelming, as control aren’t very precise and the card system complicated. Free mission and Shin Musô make it possible for the player to create their own missions (a bit like in Dissidia Duodecim). The Unlimited mode is a parallel story with larger and random maps. You can have up to five characters in your party, and you’ll know soon enough why : the battle are brutally difficulty and only a team of maxed characters will be able to go through the nightmarish fights. A good mode for completionists. All those can be played in multiplayer via local or internet. A quick word about the gallery mode with which you can make very fine Vita screens. I should have dived well before in this series. It’s action-packed, it includes a pokemonish number of characters, it’s incredibly long and its gameplay is addicting. A unique action game intense played with passion.

Let's immediately stress that Hyperdimension Neptune ReBirth1 (Re1) has cut all ties with the original title (almost). Even though it borrows a lot from previous episodes (battle system, enemies, musics, 2D models), Re1 definitely feels brand new. All the technical aspects have been adapted to fit to Vita's power, but above all, the game has been re-written and re-designed. While keeping the broad outline of the original, the story becomes more modern and richer : it has a better pace but maintains its terrific sense of humor, its hilarious parodies (the game starts with Luigi's double saying «at long last my time has come!»), and welcomes more characters more progressively. Those characters enrich Re1 which ends up more dense and fresher than any past episode. Remember the hassle to obtain Noire, Blanc and Vert at the end of the first game? That's no longer the case : Noire joins pretty quickly, Vert and Blanc 1 or 2 chapters after. The game also has the wonderful idea to make the transition with Mk2 by the «birth» of Nepgear, Uni, Ram & Rom. NPCs such as Financier and Cyan have now a character design of their own, which makes the narration a lot nicer, like a bunch of other design choices that it would be too long and useless to discuss here. But that's not all! Re1 includes every DLC character from Hyperdimension Neptune Victory, which makes a total of 16 playable characters in game (+ Histoire, Plutia and Peashy in DLC). Technically speaking, this remake transposes with some refinements the graphics of the latest PS3 Neptunia. True, Neptunia games have never represented technical prowess... but the referential has changed! We are now on the handheld market and Re1 is beyond doubt one of the most beautiful portable RPGs ever made! Far from the derelict 3D engines used on 3DS, here characters are incredibly detailed and the game goes as far as animating the mouth of the girls when they speak! Backgrounds are still rather simple but the 3D is neat. Movements suffer from drops time to time but remain on par with home console versions. Believe me it's quite a sight on the OLED screen. Gameplay-wise, it's still Mk2's system with tougher difficulty : you will bite the dust, at least in the first half. But the good people of Felistella have you covered. You will have the possibility to lower the enemies' level if you're stuck, or even reinforce them if you're yawning during battles. It's part of the «memory» system introduced in this remake. The Flag/Scouts system is gone : now, the game grants you a amount of «memory» that you are free to use for the following : discover new dungeons, modify enemies, modify drop items, item creation, gameplay tweaks (including difficulty). The fighting in itself knows little change. The tactical-like turn-based system with free moving around the field is still on the agenda. That said, the higher difficulty and the different styles of the various characters make combat more fun, strategic and varied than ever. You really have to weight your decision in managing heal, magic, relay or Ex-Drive. Note that you'll have again a your disposal the creation of CDs (accessories) to boost your characters in battle. The only drawback I can think of is that the fan-service level has been reduced to a bare minimum : artworks, inherited from the original for most part, aren't risqué in any way and too few new ones were made for the occasion. Except this, ReBirth1 is exactly the concentrate of humor, beauty and variety the fans have been dreaming to hold in their hand.

ToX2 follows the story of Ludger, a cook thrown into a terrorist attack. During this unexpected event, he will meet Dr. Jude and a little girl asking him to lead her to the land of Canaan so as to find her father. More than a mere sequel, the scenario of ToX2 takes a totally different path, ToX events being only hinted at during sidequests. Therefore, ToX2 looks as new as would be a brand new entry in the series, with rather bizarre additions on the top of it. Unlucky as always, our poor Ludger quickly ends up indebted. One of your objectives at the beginning of the game will be to lower your debt level. Let’s be honest here, that’s wasn’t interesting in any way : there is no time limit or anything that would put pressure on you and give some intensity to the whole thing. It would have been a plus if the player was perfectly free to reimburse when he wants, also with a little more impact on the story than unlocking new zones. Not only that, but it ends up being nearly as annoying as paying back credit in real life. The girl from the bank asks you money every 5 minutes, sometimes after every fight or every screen or when you find 2 gald on the ground. No big consequence on the general quality of the game, but that’s definitely something we could have done without. That won’t ruin the pleasure to dive in Xillia’s universe one more time, and especially what has proven to be the most dynamic, the most spectacular, the most intuitive battle system of the series. I could tell you more about it, but it’s all written here. So let’s speak of what changed. First of all, Ludger is played very differently from the other characters : he can equip 3 types of weapons (pistols, hammer and blades) and switch between them in the fight simply by pressing button. The logic is that beyond traditional elemental strengths/ weaknesses, the kind of weapon you’re attacking with has an influence on the efficiency of your assault. That said, I’m not very comfortable with this system because it makes joint attacks harder to trigger. Besides, Ludger has the immense advantage of being able to transform and become more several times more powerful and invincible for a few seconds. This capacity of his is controlled by a gauge that fills fairly quickly, so don’t hold back using it. I must stress that Gaius and Myuse come to be playable characters in this sequel. Not only were they likable «villains», but they are also incredibly fun to play. Gaius, who reminds me lot of Sephiroth with its long katana, uses a lot of counters and Myuse has to ability to teleport herself behind enemies. Special attacks have been reinforced a lot, so all this brings a breath of fresh air to combat. You can switch between your characters in a fight, but the game decides on your party in main chapters, which is lame. The difficulty can still be switched anytime too, for maximum comfort. The side parts have been re-tought and enriched. There’s now a clear separation between guild quests (hunting, items to fetch, Giganto monsters, NPC errands) and all your party members’ stories, which are divided in several episodes. Those long parallel scenarios that progress throughout the whole game, give more depth to Xillia’s characters and are different enough from the main story to provide some change of pace. Add to this mini games like searching for all the cats in the game (that you can later use to fetch items, see gameplay video above) and poker like in Tales of Vesperia. There’s even more to do than in Tales of Xillia, which lasted me 70h. A shame every quest is centralized and guided though, it’s more fun when you discover them on the go like in Xillia 1. Also, I was annoyed by the fact that trophy challenges have been made 3 times longer. ToX trophies already weren’t short to obtain, but now it’s become a real pain. It’s in story-telling that ToX2 completely trenscends its predecessor. While ToX coud feel flat (at least in the first half), ToX2 takes great care in spreading mysteries and keeping suspense at every possible level. The story brings constantly new surprises and number of scenes are as stunning as in Xenoblade for example. The music takes the best of ToX while adding very good melodies, is used in the best possible way. Ludger has no personality of his own (he doesn’t tell anything), which is a deliberate choice to have the player decide on story branches. Even if most of choices you make a little more importance than improving your friend level with your companions, at the end of the game they will decide on which epilogue you will get. The final scene is so emotionally packed that I threw a controller across the room for the first time in my life : I had chosen the «bad» end. Excluding the indebtment delirium that you’ll forget about very quickly, Tales of Xillia 2 as every quality **** JRPG. By adding what Xillia lacked when Xillia itself was already exceptional, it easily ranks among the best JRPGs of the PS3 generation.

For those who are familiar with the chronology of SAO, Hollow Fragment starts when Aincrad ends. It’s at the same time an extension and an alternative ending to the first part of the anime. Let’s check the battle system. You always play as Kirito, while having in your party a girl (or a man, for that matters) controlled by the AI. The game mechanism is close to Xenoblade’s in the way there’s an auto-attack and cooling down when you use some skills. During battles, you have five palettes that you can switch between with L and R. Two are for giving instructions to your partner (retreat, defense, offensive, congrats, etc.), one regroups your attack skills and the last two your healing/support magic. Your partner will regularly ask you to perform certain actions (attack skill, switch, paralyze the enemy) by which both characters will launch a powerful joint attack or relay. You also have to watch a «risk» gauge : the higher, the less effective your normal attacks will be. You therefore have to ask your partner to «switch», which sends her/him on the front without cover, but recovers the risk. While it seems attractive on the paper, the execution is not always good. The IA of the girls tend to ignore the situation time to time, stopping for no reason or ignoring your switchs. But the biggest concern about them is that they are fairly weak at the beginning of the game. For example, Kirito starts at level 100, Silica only at lvl 70. They naturally reach Kirito’s level as you progress in the game, but it causes lots of irritating game over in the first hours. Furthermore, most of the fights can be done with only pushing the circle button and waiting for some sign from your partner. You’ll have to wait to have at your side partners at respectable level and in front of you some really though enemy if you want to experience the thrill of battle like it was thought by the devs. Technically speaking, the game is not even average : the 3D are neither that good nor that bad, animations are kinda stiff, and the game has quite a few annoying frame rate drops and graphics bugs. Let’s examine Aincrad now. Climbing your way to the 100th floor feels a bit humdrum : at every floor you’ll have to complete unappealing sub-tasks while in search for the boss’s room, and then beat the boss itself. The level design is nothing special, the floors look like each other too much. True, it’s pretty large in total, but most of time you’ll be going from point A to point B. There is no proper «exploration» and puzzles are scarce. You can still spend a bit of time with your harem for a change, sitting at the café with whoever you want to have a little chat. That said, the dates are nothing exciting because there are precious few topics and the answers are completely random. There is no logic to infer like you would you do in a real dating sim. Fortunately, the game includes a lot of events really close to the anime in terms of humor and atmosphere. And when I say a lot, it’s nearly a dozen per floor, with sometimes sub-quests that will make you go back looking for special things in previous floors. Events are a LOT more focused on fan-service than the anime’s average, which you can easily figure out from the numerous beautiful and juicy illustrations. The Hollow Area is organized very differently from Aincrad : it’s a very large surface divided into smaller areas you to clear one after another. The comparison with Xenoblade is clear, «exploration» becomes the keyword. Navigating is pretty tricky as the rough map you have at your disposal is about as precise as a pirate’s treasure map, and just going trough a couple of zones takes hours. The game helps out a bit but not too much, which leaves you really searching your way forward and think like you should always do in a correct JRPG. Note that the environments are a lot more refined, and level design improves a lot. Battles had become increasingly intense in the last stages of Aincrad, but here in the Hollow Area, they’re pure enjoyment. This is thanks to several things, the first being the thunderous boss battle theme that makes confrontations tremendously dynamic. The second thing is the perfectly balanced difficulty, which makes battles really rewarding. You have to be constantly swapping between palettes and item list, and at the same time having an eye your your partner’s situation. And believe me, the boss monsters’ design is something… Third thing is the scenario. While the story in Aincrad only begins in the upper floors (and actually merely copies what happens in Fairy Dance), the story that takes place in the Hollow Area is full of original and clever ideas, with some moments easily matching the best parts of the anime. The cutscenes are of really good quality (as good as in Fire Emblem Awakening for instance) and really help building a fascinating atmosphere. The sad thing is that it’s quite shorter than Aincrad : I rushed it within 20 hours, while Aincrad lasted 50h.

I discovered the Atelier series with Atelier Rorona. The game didn’t look very great in 2010, but I knew I had just unearthed something amazing, that would become my favorite series this generation. Four years later, Gust uses a youth potion on its very first HD title. Atelier Rorona is a lot more light-hearted than the following Atelier games : no world to be saved, no hideous monster to repel, no member of the family is missing, just a tiny shop to keep afloat by making and delivering alchemy objects for the kingdom and the people. The interest therefore lies down to the vicissitudes of Rororina Fryxell, young apprentice left to do all the job by her lazy master. Although the unscrupulous minister Meriodus will constantly try to get in your way, but it’s always in a humorous point of view. More than ever, it is your own affinity with the series that should dictate your choice. One of the points of this remake is the change in graphics to make the game more modern. Not quite like the spectacular jump made in Atelier Escha&Logy, Rorona + borrows the 3D engine from Meruru + with more or less success. Dungeons are still unimpressive, but water is well rendered. Most characters are really well made ( Rorona, Cuderia, Lionela, Esty, Totori et Meruru), but Sterk and Astrid are pretty much failed imo. Animations have improved tenfold and do have very nice effects. In short, the title is quite correct for Vita, but maybe a bit weak on PS3. As for the game system, and it’s actually surprising, Atelier Rorona + is not totally up to date. Understand by this that you still have to use MP for alchemy, which is a hassle, costs a great deal of time and makes your sortie with Rorona having low MP! In parallel, you also will be paying your companions. Okay, it matches with some joke thrown in Atelier Totori, but frankly I would have tolerated incoherence because paying friends is plain stupid. While annoying, those details don’t weight that much given the qualities of the remake. More importantly, alchemy and battle make a time travel to Atelier Meruru +. Changes made for Dusk series (Ayesha, Escha&Logy) are not taken into account : alchemy is back in hardcore mode in which ou have to synthesize each object one by one, although with the possibility to register some in shops in order to resupply faster. Alchemy consumes a lot of time and deadlines are the same as before (up to 1 month in the game). It is hard to achieve balance between alchemy, delivery, battle and gear-making. Furthermore, popularity and cash appear incompatible, which is a real problem by the end of the game. Despite that, the main story is not difficult to clear since there’s a great deal of tolerance on objectives. Fights lose the possibility to flank enemies, but are still dynamic enough thanks to the return of assists in full. It is strategically still way above average compared to other RPG s since you have to make your own stuff from scratch. That said, events looked difficult to trigger : in Dusk, it’s pretty natural to reach each characters’ ending, but here event flag conditions seem atrociously complex and far-fetched. It’s almost like you have to progress with an eye constantly on walkthroughs. Last but not least, Rorona + adds a long chapter after the main story : in the wake of another of Astrid’s failed experiments, Meruru and Totori and sent in the past. It’s quite a nice idea and a real pleasure to have the three heroines in the same team, but the highly punitive difficulty level is likely to make a lot of people kill time in the atelier.After 7 hours drawing blueprints of weapons, armor, accessories, potions, clocks, and at least as many utter defeats, I had to throw the towel. There’s still a lot to be done of the main story, and the race to ultimate strengh and flawless strategy is still hypnotic. To conclude on something more positive, let’s stress that Rorona + has in-game quite some well-crafted outfits, and a additional character for the main story (Esty like she appears in Atelier Meruru). Atelier Rorona + is a very good remake : a lot richer than the original, it is also quite satisfying visually speaking. In fact, maybe it’s the game itself that looks a bit old-fashioned after Dusk or the Arland sequels. Consequently, it is destined for Atelier veterans.

To be honest, this game, I had serious doubts about it from the very start. The PVs weren’t that convincing and I somewhat expected your average fan-service game. Why did I buy? Because a fan I am. And as a hardcore Hyperdimension Neptune fan, there’s no way I can miss anything related to it. In-between dating sim and Idol game, Idol Neptune PP has actually a lot of exciting but poorly executed ideas. A mysterious group of idols called MOB48 suddenly became so popular that they’re drawing the “shares” that are necessary to Neptune and the other goddesses to rule their respective country. But being popular is no crime and the 4 goddesses decide to strike back by becoming idols themselves. Up to you to manage their carrier during the 180 days of the story, with the ultimate goal to reach the top position in shares and in the top 50. It’s not difficult at all : in my second run with Vert, I cleared the game in approximately 90 days. You have a variety of commands shared between “management”, “learning”, “rest”, “move” and “live”. Management is mainly used to increase the number of fans and thus gain shares. Learning will make your heroine progress in singing, dancing, expression, self-confidence, etc. which impact directly the success of your performances. Resting reduces stress and allows you get closer to your girl through dating. Moving will transport you to another country if you aim to perform lives there. The trouble is that very quickly you learn to foresee the outcome of every type of event, there are very few surprises and some of them periodically reappear in identical form. You don’t have many negative events and nothing ever stops you in your way to the top. It ends up being boring because you feel no risk of game over. Once you team with another goddess to form a duo, shares are automatically recalculated to your advantage and you you have even less effort to do at this stage (same applies to trio). The actual show part exceeded my expectations. Graphically it’s strikingly nicer than the PS3 games, choreography felt good and the little something of fan service makes it a real pleasure for hardcore fans of the series. You can toggle various camera angles, effects, choose between an array of costumes and accessories, which ultimately determine your final score. Despite the limited number of music tracks (only 5!), I never get bored during lives. On the minus side, it’s very difficult to understand the actual levers for success during lives, making them a bit random. Also, the fact that you can only change to goddess from when alone on the stage is quite a letdown. You will only be able to do it in the first stages of a walkthrough. Speaking of fan service, Neptunia PP has a viewer mode similar to Senran Kagura’s dressing room, though far less elaborated or fun. On the dating side, Idol Neptune PP is a trainwreck. It’s all the more disappointing that the idea of seducing Noire and the others was seducing in itself. Though dating is normally done by resting, you can trigger events in pretty much every situation. Those ones are far too short and hardly fun at all! I was astonished by how flat the humor felt given that it’s been a great strength in the series so far. Worst of all, there are virtually no original illustration. Even the MOB48 who are at the center of the story aren’t shown, you never come to know what they look like! This is unthinkable in Hyperdimension Neptune. What was Tsunako fu** doing when this game was in development? All this is totally underwhelming and it’s quote surprising coming from Tamsoft who had done an excellent job in the field with Love Application. To conclude, Neptune PP seems like a lamentable accident in the trajectory of the series. Management is could be richer, good ideas are misused, it’s visually entertaining but feels incomplete. In fact, I’m under the impression that Neptune PP wanted to be too many things at the same time, without succeeding in any. And like they say “Jack-of-all-trades, Idolmaster of none”.

I’ve read that Child of Light was inspired by JRPG. Maybe, I could feel it. But it’s not really important since Ubisoft Montreal’s new title goes far beyond traditional RPGs or gaming in general. At first sight, Child of Light looks no different from a fairy tale : Princess Aurora, who has been transported in a strange world, seeks to go back to her father. But the comparison stops here because you realize pretty soon that the thing is unique. Because Child of Light is, for starters, artistically unprecedented. Like Journey or The Unfinished Swan, Ubi’s game is immediately charming by its design coming from nowhere. As always, it’s up to each person’s perception, but you the strokes that forms the backgrounds, characters and monsters definitely seem alive. Lighting and shadows are beautiful and cleverly serve gameplay. Nearly every screen is magnificent. Every time I came to a new environment my jaw dropped. It’s very simple : you could open a museum with only Child of Light inside. But the museum would hardly be enough. You really have to see all that MOVE! Not short of ideas, Ubisoft Montreal have created fluent and unique animations. Movements remind classic puppet theater a bit like Pupetteer which suits perfectly to the general picture. How to say it… it’s just 2D, but it feels a lot more immersive than most of «realistic» titles. Kudos to the animation in which Aurora loses her crown, picks it up and puts it back. It is really the must of kawaii. Adding to that, the direction is quite above average. Child of Light borrows as much from literature as from fine arts : the Shakespearean lines with faultless rhymes are filled with elegance and intelligence. The devs have included and smartly transformed a few references : the wicked sister Cordelia, Achilles’s Odyssey… The dialogs as well as the story are both funny and moving, which is indeed a major quality in the greatest JRPGs, and efficiently addresses classics themes like courage, honor, kinship, etc. What about gameplay, then? I’ll ask me. Well let’s talk about it, because again it’s not borrowed from elsewhere but created from scratch. True, the progression remains fairly linear, but it’s a pleasure to rummage the stages to find hidden objects and secrets. Moreover, a dozen of sidequests will make you search in places you’ve previously visited and you’ll have sometimes to search intensely. The battle system is fairly original too. You share with your enemies a timeline divided between “wait” and “cast”. If you hit a opponent that is in the “cast” area, that skips its turns. But careful, this applies to you as well! Thinking ahead the movements in the timeline is key to victory, but you have a trump card : your little fairy Igniculus (controlled with the right stick) can slower foes and allow you to overtake them. Each of the seven characters has a specialty and you can equip Oculi (gems) to boost their parameters (elemental attack/defense, ATK+, XP+, etc.). The fights in themselves are really interesting in the way that they emphasize buffs and debuffs which your opponents won’t refrain from using against you. Up to you to withstand with a defensive strategy or break their assault with a daring offensive. In particular, the bosses have varied behaviors and strengths/weaknesses, forcing you to switch constantly between your characters. Let’s stress that the boss fights have an epic dimension that totally lives up to the best JRPGs. The “bad guys” are horrible and scheming, the monsters are gigantic and the boss battle theme has some grandeur. Oh yeah, THE MUSIC! The orchestration is glorious, the melancholy affects the player deep inside. Ok let’s voice some concerns for the sake of it : I would have liked a larger trophy list, and the game crashed twice. That’s about it… Child of Light is exactly what gaming needs : something beautiful, like no other, that pleases the senses and the mind while being profoundly emotional. It is an oasis in the middle of sadly generic titles, a masterpiece that stand out in the coldness of the mass market. Child of Light is one of the best titles of this gen and next-gen, and it costs only 15€…

The story goes straight to the point : Zero, one of the singing maidens supposed to bring peace and prosperity, wants to kill. No one knows why, but she's firmly decided to decimate all her sisters in the most brutal possible manner. She will be helped by her faithful Dragon Mikael in her wicked plan. I don't know why, before starting Drakengard 3 I was convinced that it would be an open-world RPG. I quickly realized it was the contrary : most of the stages go straight without junctions, although with treasure chests here and there to make the player search a little. Most of the job is to slay the armies of monsters and bosses that get in your way by chaining combos and dodging in style, all of this in real time. Yes, I just described a BTA. Because Drakengard 3 is much closer to a BTA than a JRPG or even an A-RPG like Kingdom Hearts given that no menu ever show up in battle. That said, it keeps a few elements of that lineage, mainly weapon customization and experience points. Those are still very important, because the difficulty increases gradually during the main story but very quickly in the postgame chapters. You will then have to grind in previous chapters so as to keep up with the adversity. In parallel, it will be crucial to improve your weapons because top gear is required too. So if you take it as a BTA, Drakengard 3 ends up fairly good : the gameplay which relies on weapon-switching is pretty hooking, enemies are tough but the difficulty is very progressive as I already said. It's actually up to you to establish your own attack strategy by choosing the weapon you see fit depending on the situation. You have the choice between 4 types of weapons : spears, swords, gauntlets and chakrams. Like in all good BTAs, you'll have to carefully analyze the enemies' moves if you want to survive, and it's quite fast-paced too. Many sequences will have you ride the dragon. Those ones are far from gimmicky as there's a whole gameplay behind it. I can fly and keep onto the ground, in both cases the dragon's attacks vary. Surprisingly, when flying you have to manage your altitude with X. Every boss fight is done on the dragon's back and each one involve a new strategy. You also have a bunch of sidequests that are actually mini-challenges that put you against the clock. Others consist in some series of colosseum fights in which you'll need serious knowledge of the bestiary. The general atmosphere of the game is terrific : chapter 0 begins very intensely and the game in general gives adrenaline rushes. Zero and Mikael are constantly making fun of each other, despite the massacre they do. It's purely funny, there is nothing serious in the story. It looks like some long-running manzai in which Zero keeps complaining about everything and everyone while the others make fun of her. Drakengard 3 is equally efficient as an action game than as a comedy. It's still extremely violent, as limbs fly and Zero is drenched in blood. It's precisely after a sea of blood that she can unleash her fury. Drakengard 3 has unfortunately two sad drawbacks, that are its technical and sound performance. Level-design is ultra poor the characters' 3D models reminds you of 10 years ago. I almost wondered whether the Access Games re-used the 3D engine of Drakengard 2. I could understand if it was one of the first PS3 games, but it's kinda one of the last... and the framerate sinks horribly on quite some occasions. The OST is good, no doubt. But you actually enjoy it more or less only outside battle because there is zero emphasis during the game in itself. A quick word on DLC : those invite you to play as Zero's sisters during one chapter focused on their own story/personality (there's also one on Zero for some reason). There are not very important in regard of the story in general, and the gameplay is the same as Zero's most of the time (only Three has the exclusivity of her scissors and associated skills). However, Two's chapter felt a little more interesting and emotional than the others. Whether you buy these or not depends on your liking of the various characters or if you just can't get enough of the game's bizarre direction. Let's stress that there are quite a few trophies to be earned here. Although it's nothing like a Ninja Gaiden or a Bayonetta, Drakengard 3 is a very good third way to enjoy an action game. The irresistible personality that springs from it makes it a fine choice for Japanese games fans.

Difficult to judge a game like Short Peace... because it isn't one! Composed with 4 anime and a little game made by no one else than Suda 51. After finishing the PS3 Blu-ray, I'm kinda crestfallen. Rather than a game wih animated sequences, I see Ranko Tsukigime Longest Day (it's the name of the game) more like an anime with gameplay parts. The biggest point of the game is its bizarre atmosphere, its weird design and its continuous gags. Suda let his imagination run wild and gave birth to a psychedelic experience that rivals late Satoshi Kon's movies. The story as about Ranko, a not-so-ordinary high school girl leaving at night equipped with a violin in the purpose of killing her own father. Here, I just described you th part of the story that can actually be expressed with words, because the rest is absolutely absurd in the mix of unexpected and unthinkable things that happen. Artistically speaking, it remains very interesting. Cut-scenes vary between different styles (classical anime, watercolor, comic, manga) in incredible and spicy events. The game itself is kinda stylish with its paint effects, old-school shooting and a ludicrous final battle in 8-bit. The gameplay is pretty much limited though : it's merely about racing through the few stages as fast as possible while striking monsters with the right timing, so as to shake off the dark forces behind you. The whole thing lasts about 3 hours and trophies aren't exactly exciting. I expected better of the various anime. They're certainly worthwhile from a stylistic point of view, but the stories lack substance. The first three are tales related to the Japanese folklore with Youkais and Onis, while the fourth is an SF anime that takes place in an alternative future after world's end. All are definitely too short and the SF one, by far the most interesting, should have really been developed a lot more to present its background and expand its universe. The action and the atmosphere are really cool and it has the potential to be a major SF reference a bit like Pale Cocoon (which was short too but also more meaningful) Whatever you may think about those (I'm not here to decide which kind of anime is good or not), one thing is sure : a 2-hour long anime being around 20€ and Ranko Tsukigime looking like a 8-10€ downloadable game, the 50€ that BandaiNamco asks you for this disc are way too much.

A true gaming UFO, Conception II had seduced me by its attractive character design. 40 hours and a western release later, it's time for a frank verdict In Conception II, a deep-rooted evil force sends to the world armies of monsters via seven «labyrinths of sin», threatening mankind's future. Only a few chosen ones called 聖徒 (roughly «sacred children», kinda rings a bell) have to power to seal them. And that's actually one dude (you) and seven girls. This ultra-generic and highly cliché setting being an excuse to throw you in the progression system of this game that consists in dating and make children (!). Therefore, you have to choose a girlfriend. Well actually you don't have to, because you can have several at the same time. The first phase consists in dating your classmates to raise your friend level. Those mini-events are rather well done : the girls look pretty cute and funny, character modeling and animation are very nice. Even if only a limited part of the dialogs is dubbed, the little conversations you have with your mates are really enjoyable as the Japanese voice actresses delivered their best. In particular, Rorona's voice actress Mai Kadowaki does a wonderful job as Toori who is adorable. Unfortunately for you guys, you won't be able to experience that since Atlus USA scrapped the Japanese voices. Sadly, there are not that many of those events, or least not enough to last 40h without regularly repeating the same ones. While talking you'll often be prompted to choose between several answers, but as far as I noticed the impact on the gameplay is nil. After that you go directly to the church, not for the marriage, but to give birth to your children directly (!). No need to panic though, everything's done by a simple hand contact between the main protagonist and his partner (!). Your kid get immediately off his egg (!!!) and you now just have to assign him some job (Lancer, Gunner, Healer, etc.) before going down the mazes with him. Because in clear violation of International Labour laws, you'll have your kids do most of the fighting against the demonic creatures standing on your way. That's where everything begins to collapse : the battle system allows you to attack the enemy from 4 sides, a bit like Atelier Ayesha but in far less complex or interesting. Unlike Atelier where you have to master a variety of alchemy items and skills, in Conception II you just have to spam your most powerful attack to progress. Buffs and debuffs exist but in 40h I haven't seen a single moment where they could be important. In the same way, the specialty of the children hardly matter in general. There's Also a «chain» system to push back the enemy in the timeline, but it's far from efficient (at least it gives you extra exp. points). Adding to an already tiresome battle system, the game has some stupid difficulty spikes, especially at the end when the sixth boss of the last dungeon flattened my team while I had met little resistance so far. Seriously, being robbed of the ending trophies after hours of boring fights is unacceptable. Only one half of Conception II is decent : the dating is cool, the dating artworks are cool, the dating music is cool, but combat is really terrible in every aspect. I have a feeling that the fundamental problem about this game is that it's too long. Shorter, the poor battle system would have been less annoying and you wouldn't have had to repeat the same dating events which would have allowed the player the enjoy the character design more serenely (despite some awful kitsch here and there)

New generation, new graphics : the technical leap is astonishing. Sure, it’s not perfect, as I noticed some rough textures and a few bugs in Diva Room. But honestly, there’s never been something that neat on a handheld. The devs really gave their best in making the PVs. They were excellent on PSP, they’re close to perfect on PSVita. Sadistic Music Factory, Flowery Battle of the Kagamines for example have such a strong identity that I never have enough of it. Similarly, the track list is wonderful. Nearly every single music is a surefire hit. Unhappy Refrain, Secret Police, World’s End Dancehall or Remocon to cite a few, provide a immense pleasure. I just wonder how this NyaNya thing landed here, because I looks like noise an not music (the PV is really impressive though). It’s so good that I would have wanted more than the 32 available (there were 40 on PSP). As for the gameplay, it’s still a musical game in which you have to press the buttons following the tempo, but there are a few new things in this iteration. An additional button appears, which is in fact the touchscreen. The Technical Zone is a limited number of buttons within a music that can reward precious percentage points if you make a perfect. Last but not least, you will trigger a special and more spectacular ending if you succeed during the Chance Time. Even if it was already on PSP, the Diva Room returns in an enhanced form, thanks to the refined graphics and the touchscreen. More than reality TV, it becomes a sort of dating sim, and a pretty nice one for that matters. Every character has a friend level that goes up and down depending on your actions (presents, etc.). Miku and the others have somewhat limited base actions and you will have to spend your DP in some items to get more variety. I personnally preferred the random event system that we had in Extend. The AR mode allows you to insert Miku in your daily life. The AR camera is already cool, but the AR live is even more exciting : fans rush across a country to see a Hatsune Miku concert, but now you can have your own private session at home! There’s one last key-element : difficulty. I had the occasion to try the game during my stay in Japan, but the normal mode didn’t last long. I’m really happy with the final product, because the hard mode has been almost perfectly set. In between 2nd and Extend, most songs put pressure without being discouraging. Unhappy Refrain, Remocon or Sadistic Factory are hard as hell, just like Rolling Girl and Uraomote Lovers were. It depends on the player though, some probably have cleared the extreme mode already… More beautiful than ever, more addicting and richer, Project Diva f is concentrated fun like you seldom have. It fully benefits from Vita’s capabilities and sublimates the concept born on PSP.

It's been 3 years with the Atelier series, every time with the same passion. And every time, it's one of the best experiences of the year (if not the best). Like Final Fantasy, Gust keeps delivering episodes very regularly, but with consistent changes. Can the party continue with Atelier Escha&Logy (AEL)? AEL is an indirect sequel to Atelier Ayesha, and reminds me of the Arland series in that. It shows a new face of Ayesha's world, being the Development Bureau where Marion works. I was truly happy with that because I'd always wondered what was that work she was complaining about all time. Your goal will thus be, like in Atelier Meruru, to pioneer new lands and make them inhabitable. The game is as fun as ever in its relationships between characters, and the new environment is perfect for that thanks to its kafkaesque organization. The new cast of characters is, in my honest opinion, the best so far. The characters are pretty extreme in their personalities, which makes the whole thing quite fun : Reyfer talks like a cool guy but is in fact a real miser, Threia is bent on her research and doesn't care about the rest, Escha is a slacker despite looking like a good girl... Linca, Marion and Wilbell are still the same, that is to say fantastic... Let's stress that this episode is the first one (in recent memory) to give the player the choice between two main characters. Escha is your classic young girl alchemist and Logy gives an additional shonen touch. The progression of the plot is therefore less schizophrenic than in Atelier Ayesha. That said, the main story is rather bland despite the serious tone, and doesn't leave the feeling of accomplishment like in Atelier Totori. Let's talk about the big chunk that is alchemy. Like always, you will have to mix materials to create potions, food, intermediary goods, weapons, armor, bombs, etc. AEL inherits partially Ayesha's feature of «make 1, get 3». But this is now true only for intermediary goods, and materials are scarce. This episode introduces a system by which your equipment is automatically refilled when getting back to town. So, did Atelier become overliberal? Not at all : deadlines don't give you free time to spend several days making healing items or bombs, mainly because you will be making weapons and accessories. Believe me, you'll need very well-crafted weapons towards the end of the game. To make an industrial metaphor, I'd say Atelier is making its industrial revolution from mass production to research and development. This allows a much smoother progression in your adventure and you to put more concentration on the various challenges. The alchemy is back to Arland's roots, which is an excellent thing. You can implement traits from materials again and meticulous search is needed. On the top of that, you will have to manage alchemy skills to make the best use of the materials at hand : by sharing out the natural elements attached to items (Fire, Earth, Water, Wind), you can make more, in better quality, or with certain traits that will be asked by your clients. Clearer, more precise and yet complex, it is the best system ever in the series. In terms of gameplay, AEL keeps the system of objectives that has marked the progression for several episodes now. Here it takes the form of a bingo of 25 squares shared between main and secondary tasks. Each line you complete gives you bonus (stats, money, objects...). In combat (see the above video), you control a total of 6 characters in two lines of 3. You can change positions whenever you like, and modify your team between fights (non-party characters aren't stuck in town anymore). The line behind is used all the time to attack and defend, and can be healed. It's FFX system, but more advanced. It is also still possible to position yourself behind the enemy on on his sides for more strategy, although it makes switching a mess. The other excellent surprise of AEL is the new 3D engine. Graphics make a giant leap, nearing Tales of Xillia. Characters are now ultra-detailed (just look at the clothing) and special effects get far more impressive. The bad thing about battle in this new installment is that difficulty in a whole is ill-managed. While 3/4 of the main story is rather easy, the boss just before the final boss is near invicible,,and the final boss is fine. I now I'm harsh, but difficulty spikes is something I hate, like abusive DLC (Wilbell was a paid character in the Japanese version). Atelier Escha&Logy is still a remarkable episode, with unfortunately one or two black marks on his record. Nothing that may prevent you to appreciate the refinement added to an excellent and lovable formula.

LR's progression system is as unique as unforgiving : the end of the world happens in 6 days, and Lightning has to free as many souls as she can before the apocalypse to send those in the world that will be created after. Yep, that's 6 and not 13. When starting the game, you have only 6 days. But after you accomplish a certain number of quests (main or secondary), a day will be added after the current one. The system is really disturbing at first, because you naturally want concrete results, which is impossible because the main objectives (and numerous secondary objectives) are achieved in the long term ( 2 or 3 days for a main quest for example). In Lightning, you have to think completely out of the box : it is no longer level 1 → boss 1 → level 2 etc. Trains take you whenever you want as soon as you arrive on town. You can start Luxerio's main quest from 10 pm to midnight, taking on Yanusaan's for the rest of the night, and resume Luxerio's the following morning while completing sidequests when under way. You are totally free, not to say left on your own. Quests are extremely demanding in terms of search. You have very little help from the game, you are no longer guided like in the previous episodes. Lighting Returns thus avoids this questionable tendancy modern games have to put you on rails. And believe me, that feels extremely good, because nothing is more satisfying than achieving something with your own efforts. You'll also need a rock-solid organisation, because every single quest depends on the time of the day. You will infiltrate a palace at 6 pm, chase Noel from 0 to 6 am, be at the chemist's by 5 pm, etc. Lightning Returns's largest aspect is therefore time management. Like in an Atelier game but in REAL TIME : you have to think fast. The four environments are dense and quite large : cities are full of little secrets and wild areas are so huge that it's easy to get lost. Quests are extremely varied : many will involve hunting monsters, but in numerous occasions you will be asked to to accomplish weird tasks like a race into town, checking clocks, healing a chocobo, trying medicine... In short, the game feels as rich as Xenoblade, maybe even more. From a technical point of view, the 3D engine is clrealy getting a little old 4 years after FFXIII. Textures are not as good as in FFXIII-2, aliasing is rife, but the level of details turned out to be satisfying. The general design is original and fascinating. The architecture is crazy and impressive, the night atmosphere is downright scary and towns are busier than ever in Final Fantasy. Like always, character modeling is superb, even for secondary characters. The problem with all that is that you come across some framerate drops time to time (not that bad). The OST is good but quite less than the one of FFXIII-2. Background music is especially effecient, and I was truly happy to welcome back the traditional victory fanfare. The Break system is gone. Instead, you'll perform «KOs» that leaves the opponent unbalanced for a second. Spamming magic is one of the way to trigger the KO, but not only. Attacking and guarding at a given time will also do it. Up to you to observe the behaviour of the enemy and find out. But there's a snag : KO doesn't necessarily mean you deal more damage, which makes some battles ridiculously looooooong and tiring. Not not mention that the ATB bar is veeeeery slow. It's so bad that you often only have one action after each role switch when the battle gets long. The guard is even worse because it consumes a great deal of the bar, so you're sitting ducks when at the end of a series of actions. I'll let you imagine how irritating this can get when affected by slow (I don't want to remember). In normal mode, each defeat costs one (precious) hour, which would be OK if super-powerful monsters couldn't suddenly pop from nowhere and OHKO you. Fighting is pretty tough in Lightning Returns : Lightning's HP no longer recover after battle, and healing is very limited. You're only allowed to carry 6 (later 9) healing objects! Apart from that, you can replenish your HP in hotels and restaurants, or use your GP. But the latter can be used to alter time, so you definitely don't want to use them for cure. Bosses in main quests are pretty intense fights, great gaming moments. I'm pretty sure it would have been far less interesting in easy mode. Lightning Returns is representative of th XIII series : a very good JRPG whose (great) qualities aren't enough to forget its (annoying) drawbacks. Its progression system is unique and exciting, its environments are rich and fascinating. I do believe it is really worth a shot despite the ailing battle system and the apathetic story. Final Fantasy will have definitely missed something this generation, let's hope it finds it in the next.

A gaming UFO like Senran Kagura needs to be identified : it’s in fact a BTA with RPG elements (levels, stats, XP). Senran Kagura Burst is a second one that had been released in Japan, but as it contains the first game entirely , you're not missing anything. The various missions are quite repetitive and only the boss battle bring a little variety. Similarly, the gameplay is not as deep as you can expect since you have only 2 or 3 combos per character (but you do have 5 characters from the start). Adding to this, Senran Kagura is rather easy. Even the bosses don’t put up much of a fight, let alone regular missions. It can’t help thinking it would much more interesting if the use of special attacks was a bit more limited. The character design is attractive and reinforced by beautiful anime-style graphics. The anime-like style has no match on the system, outside Ace Attorney 5.(and maybe ever). On the musical side, Senran Kagura is also excellent : the mix between classic Japanese music and modern genres fits perfectly to the game. The one you can hear during the battle vs Mirai is even one of my favorite game music ever. But beyond that, Senran Kagura is also excellent at what it does : fan-service. You do have a lot of eh… how to say this… hum…. well type Senran Kagura on Youtube and you’ll understand soon enough! Paradoxically, the story and the dialogs feel really serious despite being naïve at times. It’s sometimes even brilliant and moving, because it refuses Manicheism and features the idea that bad guy aren’t necessarily bad guy, but merely opposing people with their own reason to fight. Not really a sequel, Senran Kagura Burst makes you revisit the story of the first Senran Kagura (SK) from the «bad girls» side. You therefore play as the busty female ninja of Ebijo school, opposed to the (equally busty) heroines of the first game. I’m not sure Marvelous had expected to do a sequel, because the characters of this one don’t really fit in the main role. It impacts the story because it fails to achieve the same coherence we had in SK. It feels more like a sum of individual stories of variable interest. Higake as well as the duo Yomi/Ikaruga were great parts, I really like both the story and the gameplay. Homura was fun to play (especially in Crimson mode) but her story was skipped (probably because we already know it from SK). Haruka and Mirai felt really flat imo. I have to stress that, like in the first one, there a LOT of written dialogs. It’s not uncommon to read for half an hour and actually play a 3-minute level. SKB therefore is a light novel as much as a video game. The gameplay of Burst is more varied than in first one and combos are smoother than before. A good thing that takes all its flavour in the reshuffled difficulty settings. SK was a somewhat easy game. SKB is really easy too (excluding the side mission which are pretty tough)… until chapter 4 in which difficulty suddenly increases tenfold! The AI that had been queing to get its ass kicked so far now deals considerable damage, and your rivals act as real bosses. Hence you begin to play Senran Kagura for real : making clever use of burst and dash and using your ougi at the right moment is critical to encure victory. Those difficulty spikes might be unsettling, but I liked that extra pressure. With 2 decent games in 1, Senran Kagura Burst is definitely worth a try for Japanese games fans. People hungry for fan-service must get it regardless, even if it fades in comparison to the more recent Vita episode.

Five years. Five long years that Phoenix Wright hadn’t be in court for the hilarious trials of the Ace Attorney series. True, his best friend and rival Miles Edgeworth did come to our DS, but only once out of two, the second game sadly having never been localized. In this particular context, Ace Attorney 5 coming at us is rather crucial and we shouldn’t leave this gesture by Capcom unanswered. First of all, this game is BEAUTIFUL. It looks as good as no game on 3DS ever and puts Nintendo’s games for its own system to shame. The characters are so well detailed and animated that it reminded me of Fire Emblem cut-scenes. All this including the legendary talent of the devs to offer us eccentric characters with extreme personalities, weird but extremely fun behavior. In short, AA5 is the best-looking I’ve seen on 3DS by leagues. Adding to its fantastic humor, the game is no less relevant in judiciary themes, as it has always been in the series. All scenarios (i.e. the cases at hand) revolves around something called «the dark age of Justice». A period plagued with fabricated evidence, false accusations and a growing defiance towards the judiciary system. Even though the chapters are different from each other, for most part they keep being linked to this topic, highlighted by a mysterious bombing inside the court. This particular narrative gives a great significance to the game in a whole. Like in a good TV thriller, the player feels deeply involved in the story. Storytelling has been thought with great care. The second case might seem a bit weak in this department, you will be stuck at on your 3DS for everything else. A example of the effort made by Capcom on this the beginning of the game is very different from the demo to ensure maximum pleasure of discovery. The scenario has some awesome twists, music is as classy as ever and the very end is near perfect. The gameplay doesn’t vary much from the past episodes, you still have to show the right evidence at the right time to win trials, and discuss with witnesses in investigation parts. The big thing in AA5 is Athena’s capacity to analyze the emotions of people those sequences are fairly numerous and offer diverse approach. It’s really a great add to series, much more interesting than the «Logic» in Ace Attorney Investigations. In theory, it’s about finding emotions that contradicts the current statement, but in practice it’s far richer. Past features like psy-locks and Apollo’s ring of truth are present too, but don’t occur very often. Investigation has lost any interest as you can investigate only 2 locations per case, and the game indicates everything. As for characters, AA5 makes a balance between the three main protagonists, each of them having his own trial to win. I really appreciate this willingness to get rid of the «sidekick» role and allowing less important characters take the spotlight, even if it means less Phoenix (and believe me, you never have enough Phoenix). Your opponent, Simon Blackquill, is a truly great character that will instantly wipe out Klavier, who I thought didn’t really fit to the job. Talking about this, Klavier and many other make a comeback, but it’s always very short and they doesn’t make much sense in the story. But yeah, it’s always nice to see them. The only thing I’m disappointed of is the level of difficulty. Like I said, investigation has been reduced to a check-list, so you no longer have to search for this little thingy in the flower pot but it does save time). The green life bar doesn’t have any more importance, because when you lose you get back exactly where you were with a full one. It really damages the thrill of the game during trials. Not only this, but as in Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney, the hints given here and there are far too direct and it skips the reasoning. Worse, when you do lose, the game has like a special help window for you to get closer to the solution (but you’re free to use it or not). I understand that nowadays publishers want to avoid that players feel frustrated, but it does hurt the challenge. Of course there still are many parts that will melt your brain, but it’s just not as great as before. Despite this, Ace Attorney 5 is a super great game, long (more than 30 hours) and hooking. You English-speaker won’t have any problem with language (us French sometimes do), but some may need to get over their fear of digital games. Indeed, AA5 will be available only on the 3DS e-shop. It is more than worth it, and will surely determine the future of Ace Attorney in the West.

Already gorgeous on PSVita, Project Diva F is no less on PS3. Sure, it's a bit harder to forgive some rough textures and the few bugs in Diva Room, but the gigantic leap compared to the PSP games makes it worthwile. The devs really gave their best in making the PVs. They were excellent on PSP, they're close to perfect on PSVita. Sadistic Music Factory, Flowery Battle of the Kagamines for example have such a strong identity that I never have enough of it. Similarly, the track list is wonderful. Nearly every single music is a surefire hit. Unhappy Refrain, Secret Police, World's End Dancehall or Remocon to cite a few, provide a immense pleasure. I just wonder how this NyaNya thing landed here, because I looks like noise an not music (the PV is really impressive though). As for the gameplay, it's still a musical game in which you have to press the buttons in tempo, but there are a few new things in this iteration. An additional button appears to make the game even more challenging and tricky it was the touchscreen on Vita but it's replace by the analog stick here. The Technical Zone is a limited number of buttons within a music that can reward precious percentage points if you make a perfect. Last but not least, you will trigger a special and more spectacular ending if you succeed during the Chance Time. Even if it was already on PSP, the Diva Room returns in an enhanced form, thanks to the refined graphics and the touchscreen. More than reality TV, it becomes a sort of dating sim, and a pretty nice one for that matters. Every character has a friend level that goes up and down depending on your actions (presents, etc.). Miku and the others have somewhat limited base actions and you will have to spend your DP in some items to get more variety. I personally preferred the random event system that we had in Extend. There's one last key-element difficulty. I had the occasion to try the game during my stay in Japan, but the normal mode didn't last long. I'm really happy with the final product, because the challenge in hard mode has been almost perfectly set. In between 2nd and Extend, most songs put pressure without being discouraging. Unhappy Refrain, Remocon or Sadistic Factory are hard as hell, just like Rolling Girl and Uraomote Lovers were. It depends on the player though, newcomers will find a desirable challenge in normal mode, experts will welcome back the hellish extreme mode, of which I've cleared only 4 songs. In any case, bear in mind that you need be familiar with the songs to succeed, so it's a prerequisite to actually LIKE this style of J-pop. But when you do, it's one of the most delightful and addicting games ever. The big thing with this PS3 version is that you have 6 additional songs (+13 outfits and random stuff) compared to the handheld version that already exceeded my wildest expectations (those later came in DLC for Vita). Those ones a really excellent and are a enormous added value, making the total number of songs close to 40. That is to say as much as in the PSP games, but the picks are greatly better imo. More beautiful than ever, more addicting and richer, Project Diva f is concentrated fun like you seldom have.. The PSVita version was almost perfect as it was. Therefore, this PS3 version coming with greater value still is perfect.

Being the first Tales of lead-developped for the PS3, Tales of Xillia looks like it comes from a different dimension from Graces or even Vesperia. However, while most of the towns and effects (water and attacks in particular) are among the finest in the genre, field maps have all the same minimalist aspect. Anime-style cutscenes are really getting old horrible in ToGF, those ones improve a little in Xillia but they make no sense given that the formidable game engine makes wonders in real time cutscenes. The battle system is what I liked the most in Tales of Xillia. If I had to quantify it, it would easily make 50% of the (immense) pleasure I had playing the game. Battles in ToV were immersive, awesome in Graces, and ToX actually manages to trenscend both. You choose two characters within the four on the battlefield, one lead (the one you control) and one «partner» who directly assists your lead. The interesting thing is that each character has a special ability as a lead and another as a partner. For exemple, Jude can heal his lead while he will dodge and counterattack as a lead. Furthermore, you can switch between characters in every possible way, leaving room for quite dynamic strategies, which ultimately is very important since all ennemies don't behave the same. But the most striking aspect of Xillia's battles is the link attacks as your overlimits jauge gradually fills, lead and partner will be able to launch powerful joint attacks. Always very impressive, sometimes hilarious or totally over-the-top, they make battles more offensive-oriented and far more spectacular and fiercer than ever. Of course, you can always complain that sidestepping is gone, or that TPs are a pain (not that much actually), but believe me, you forget all that once you start linking link attacks. Of course, the excellent voice acting and sound effects help a lot. Another very good thing is that the auto-item system has been refined to perfection you can now decide the quantity, the priority order and what your allies are allowed to use. To be completely exhaustive with the battles, I must stress that the game is sligthly less difficult than Graces in difficulty «Second» except for an horrible difficulty spike in Millia's story. Luckily, you can switch to another difficulty setting anytime, which allows you to overcome the aforementionned spike (otherwise trust me that the disc would have flown by the **** Second, Xillia remains a decent challenge with really unforgettable boss fights, but appears a little more humane than ToGF, which was discouraging at some points. The story seemed to be the weak point of this iteration. The problem is that it takes something like 40h to get some steam. In the first half of the game, the various events don't really make sense as a whole. In the late stages of the game though, the narration grows really strong and fully coherent, with one of the most revelant message about ecology ever. The personal destiny of each character is efficiently developped as well, which kinda makes up for the slow start. I found the character design of the playable characters pretty good, better than Graces but not as much as Vesperia which had set the bar very high. But where Tales of Xillia is amazing is on the antagonist side Gaius and his buddies are so cool that I though it was a shame to have them as the bad guys. Millia's story took me 70h to complete (including numerous sidequests), I have barely tackled the post-game dungeon and there's still Jude's story Xillia is really generous in the content it offers. Musically speaking, ToX is quite fine, but could have done with more variety. Best graphics, best battle system, great characters, great scenario you have here the best Tales of to date.

ImageEpoch intends to bring a bit of fresh to the JRPG scene by making Toki Towa in full anime style, and they did it right imho. The characters' animations may be somewhat repetitive, the art style is charming and looks like nothing you've ever seen. It's clear that Toki and Towa are the main attraction of this, so it's more than ever a matter of opinion. The humor is particular also, very ludicrous similarly to what you can see in actual anime (the clear source of inspiration again), while heavily leaning towards ecchi (including the illustrations that come together). But in the result, it's super effective and I had awesome laughs quite a couple of times. Be careful though because I don't know how well it can be transcribed in English! The first thing that falls into pieces pretty quickly is the gameplay. For starters, enemies of the same type do always the same actions in the same order. Consequently, you always attack them the same way, that is to say in the few openings they leave. Let's be absolutely clear about this, battles in Toki Towa are not repetitive, they're IDENTICAL. Skills are extremely unbalanced, since magic can OHKO most enemies and even 2HKO bosses up until the first half of the game. Physical attacks as well counter are then left unused because underpowered and imprecise. Time Magic is not really better the only useful one is the one that freezes your opponent. The others I still don't know what they are here for, except for the time-acceleration magic which is clearly here to kill you since you take damage anyway! If you add a not so engaging quest system and a insane surge in difficulty in the 3rd chapter, you realize that you need a great deal of patience to finish Toki Towa. On the graphics side and independently from design which I've already talked about Toki Towa is again fairly modest and it's clear that the company has privileged an economical development. Dongeons aren't that varied and backgrounds are as empty as Moon landscape, whilst suffering from framerate drops and clipping on the top of things! NPCs aren't fully animated or even displayed on the field... In short, Toki Towa is kind of halfway between JRPG and visual novel. It is therefore hard to recommend Toki Towa to regular JRPGs players. It is mostly destined to Japanese anime/games fans you are deep into ecchi design/visual novels. So if you've fallen in love with the art direction, Toki or Towa, you might try this out, but the risk of disillusionment remains high.

General management and planning doesn't change much from older Sim City games. Old timers will be immediately familiar with the various economic and social settings to monitor. Is your population fully employed? Are businesses making enough profit? Can your inhabitants move efficiently within the city? Are they educated? Can the police cope with crime? Le list is pretty long and hours go by quickly when taking on the stack of files. The AI is pretty solid despite recurring conflicts between the surface of residential zone (even with the of the map covered in green the game still says it's not enough), unemployment and consumer spending. This new Sim City introduces a micro-management system in which each administrative building can be customized with additional elements to boost its efficiency the police station can have more patrol cars, the bus terminal will have to receive more garages, the university can be extended with a business school or an engineer school, etc. This system provides you further leverage to reach prosperity, and keeps you even busier than before. But Maxis has more and offer you to choose a specialization to personalize your city. Gambling, Hi-Tech, Tourism, Oil, a nice array of possibilities that add further value. Let's stress that you can choose several of those in the same city feel free to erect the Tokyo Tower next to an exhibition center, while you pump oil not far from there! Those ones are no gimmick the warehouse exports, derricks provide barrels for your oil plant, the stadium welcomes tourists... The fourth layer of awesome is that your management actually has an impact on other Sim City players. The game is organized in regions of 4 to 16 cities which are communicating permanently. Goods will come from neighbours if your industry isn't doing enough, students form other cities will come if you have the best university, stations allow tourists to visit. Economic parameters are very detailed there are 3 levels of wealth, 3 levels of quality for merchandises and 3 levels of qualification for workers. If the middle class can't find goods of their liking at home, they'll be shopping elsewhere. If you're few to produce high-quality goods, the rich from everywhere will rush to buy. Positioning yourself within your region is a game in the game. Beyond this competitive side, cities can cooperate by sending ambulances, patrol cars or garbage trucks. Player can also sign contracts to provide electricity or water. That's where the whole systems finds its limits. Let's face it, you need every possible asset you have for your city, because there's never enough. Your neighbour isn't always monitoring his power supply, so you can being cut by mistake. To play cooperatively, players need to know each other beforehand. I lament that the laderboards and the world market are still to be implemented. The dev. team is still working to stabilize servers. A quick word on that apart from the launch day, I've never had any problem to play. The standard size of the city is about one fourth of a small city in Sim City 3000. When I constructed my 2nd city (having drawn a map before), it took me... 3 hours. In Sim City, you must constantly invest to improve the standards of living. But you very quickly reach the point at which you can't have further residential surfaces, which means you cannot your population and your fiscal revenues. And if, like in my first city, you choose the seaside, you're fairly limited... the other issue lies in the expansions you can make to buildings it can necessitate far more surface than you expected at first. If you haven't made room in advance, you have to flatten entire blocks, lose inhabitants and revenues, which makes your budget worsen dramatically. The University fully developed is about the size of 6 residential blocks of high density! You need to make several cities to exhaust the game. I wish I had a big metropolis with everything in it, but sadly it's not an option. Sim City is an amazing game, so rich and complex that it seems infinite in theory. But in actual gameplay, it ends up being limited by a clear lack of polish. The dreams of ambitious managers may be crushed by the ridiculous size of the cities.

Back only 3 months after the WiiU version that came itself 9 months later to correct the PS3/360 Ninja Gaiden 3, this PS3/360 Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge now comes to correct the fact that the aforementioned corrective version wasn't running on the right system. I haven't played the original Ninja Gaiden 3 so I'll compare only to Ninja Gaiden Σ2 (NGΣ2). In terms of graphics, the game is still above average, particularly in character modeling. The visual effects in Razor's Edge are far more spectacular than in NGΣ2, first because there are many more of them, and secondly, thanks to return of the dismemberments and the rivers of blood that made the legend of the series. It's also faster, more fluent and ever better animated than before. I can't help being impressed despite some aliasing here and there, and my eyes enjoy every second of it. Razor's Edge is based on the already excellent gameplay of NGΣ2. Rapid blocking/countering are once more the key to victory, as well as the Ultimate/Obliteration technique and the Izuna Drop. Numerous surprises were added to make it richer The Falcon Dive, the Blood Rage (basically a faster Ultimate technique) and the Steel on Bone (a mix between Ultimate and Oblteration technique). The gameplay never fails to entertain, all the more that several weapons plus Ayane, Momiji and Kasumi add different play styles. In any case, heated combat provides exhilarating sensations like games seldom do. There's really little to complain about in that department, but the camera does take weird angles time to time, so that you lose your character in the brawl. The difficulty is the snag in Razor's Edge. I do understand that the whole point was to make it harder than Ninja Gaiden 3, but THAT is extremely brutal for anyone not who isn't familiar with the series. I miss the Acolyte mode of NGΣ2, which had a perfect balance between challenge and accessibility for newcomers. Instead of that Team Ninja has implemented a Hero mode. It doesn't correspond to an easy mode it's actually the normal mode with assisted gameplay, by which the game helps you block and dodge. As I am weak and wanted to unlock Kasumi ASAP, I threw my pride away and switched to that mode after losing 15 times against the T-Rex. By counting the number of assists, it turned out I would have died approximately 37 times during that fight my chances to beat that boss in normal mode were essentially zero. Let's point out that after more experimentation, the Hero made makes you evade 99,99% of attacks when your life is low... let me get this straight. NO! Replacing the player by an A.I is NOT a solution to poor difficulty settings. True, I later succeeded in beating the dinosaur with Momiji, and such a merciless fight did feel great. Overcoming the difficulty is part of the pleasure provided by Razor's Edge so I don't want to reject it entirely, but some bosses are hopeless. It's really too bad because the story has been handled with care. The plot, while not outstanding, has some sense of grandeur and is definitely more interesting than NGΣ2's. The direction is convincing, characters arouse sympathy and the action is non-stop and varied at the same time. A story mode quite short (5-6h) but intense. Had its normal mode been really normal, Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge just would have become the perfect BTA. Its dream-like gameplay is endless delight, it's richer that any game in the field, and its stunning presentation as well as its charming heroines, directly make it one of the best in history.

The Hyperdimension Neptune series is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the best surprises of this gen. Despite harsh criticism from «professionals», it keeps going on and I'm tremendously happy to enjoy this 3rd entry. The first contact is disappointing though. Graphically speaking, the game is roughly the same as Mk2 3D modeling is sometimes poor and the game still has the bad habit of going below 30 images/sec. on some occasions. Worse, the dungeons look more or less the same! On the other hand, fans will surely be delighted to see the return of 2D animated dialogs, which are waaaaay cuter than the ones in Mk2. Neptune Victory still looks good generally speaking, but Compile Heart has clearly been saving some money on the technical side. The story is pretty bad. It looks like it was written on a tablecloth between main dish and dessert. The references to the world of gaming are not always clear (7 sages? Edin?) despite good interpretation of the market from the 80's to date. This is hardly a problem, because the scenario is just a convenient way for delivering to most delicious Japanese humor there is. Let me get this straight, Hyperdimension Neptune Victory has been a huge laugh from A to Z! Pururuto, a new central character, is especially funny she's naive, lazy in her human form and talks slooooooooowly. While in goddess form though, she... well I'll let you find you by yourself. Let's stress that this newest episode has a LOT of (very long) dialogs. It therefore mainly addresses than fans of the genre, because the level of moe can be lethal for others. It's on about gameplay that I was the most curious about, because Mk2 was too easy when grinding a bit. Victory fixes this with higher difficulty. Common foes can wipe your party out in a flash if you don't pay attention. Bosses all have auto-heal and can OHKO your characters every turn, so that you actually HAVE to grind. The bad thing is that the boss fights are pretty much one-patterned, that is to say fill your EX jauge, break the enemy's guard and unleash your ougi. To achieve that sequence though, you'll have to fully understand how guard breaks works, because now you have to be VERY precise in the timing. Like in Mk2, you have to be careful where you place your characters. This is even more crucial in the True End path, because the fights become even harder, breaking the repetitiveness because you have to carefully think your way to victory. This is especially for the final boss which demands a long preparation and a solid strategy. The ougi are as impressive as ever, and there are more than ever. Hyperdimension Neptune Victory has more. I've been working on some trophies after the True End, and the internal clock shows 94h. It is far longer, richer than Mk2. There are a lot more side quests, trophies hunting will take half of your life (I'm only around 50%!), and it has 3 different endings. Victory introduces a «scout» system in which you send the inhabitants of the various towns to search the dungeons. They will discover new dungeons, special bosses, rare items, XP bonuses and such. This is a central feature, very addicting and essential to fully enjoy the game. Item creation also get more interesting and important, whereas I wasn't of much use in Mk2. Sadly, there are fewer character than before 6 during most of the story, 10 if you get to the 10th chapter on the True End path IF and Compa who are optional as a paid DLC). Despite some disappointing aspects, Hyperdimension Neptune Victory felt as great as the previous episodes. It goes further than Mk2 in many ways, and is therefore a good pick for the fans of the series and JPRG gamers as a whole.

Graphically, Atelier Ayesha seems right in the continuity of the Arland series, which means atrocious backgrounds but further refined character modeling/animation. The result achieved thunderstruck me it's almost Tales of Xillia quality level. Gust has made the choice to remove all artworks during dialogs, which is somewhat sad because it means less gazing at the top-notch character design. Nevertheless, the main characters looked fine enough and I stopped worrying about it pretty quickly. Unlike the previous episodes, the framerate do suffer horribly when there are too much NPCs on the screen. In terms of gameplay, AA brings a lot of changes to the series. The battles, already a fantastic experience before, are being made even more tactical by allowing you to walk around enemies and attack from behind. The chain skills you can use also vary depending on your position (for example a character can't cover your teammate if (s)he's on the opposite side, but can tell her to concentrate or to recover). As usual, meticulous panning is needed every time you sortie, as the unforgiving hostiles will certainly get out if you don't bring enough healing/offensive items. Alchemy has been simplified a lot. Quantities have been equally normed most of the time, you use 1 to make 3, which seems far too simple. I personally fancy the Kafkaesque recipes of the previous Atelier games, which demanded a nearly lunatic mind organization. Furthermore, traits are now automatically chosen. I can no longer add to your creation some super-skill on a rare material you've found in a dark and dangerous cave. Let's say the item you're about to make can have HP+10%, STR+5, SPD+5 or Stats+2, it will actually have one, several or all these traits depending on the quality you achieve. But if own a material with let's say All Stats+5, you can never implement this trait anywhere. Probably disappointing for purists, this new system saves you some efforts and allows you to focus on other parts of the game. There are MANY more ingredients than before. I've come across dozens something like hundreds of them! In this department, let's stress that objects now are sorted by groups of quantities, that is to say that objects of same nature quality take only one square in your basket. This is a dramatic improvement over previous baskets, because you can carry more and longer. You can no longer choose at gathering points, but a can choose to gather more or less at each point, which enables you to save time. Your allies also pick additional ingredients time to time as a bonus. This new gathering system alleviates the constraints you had in past games and allows maximum efficiency. Again, this allows a smoother progression in the game. As always in Atelier games, the story is limited in time. Each day must be used wisely to achieve as much as possible in the years that compose the game. You'll quickly have to choose between several objectives, generally very far from each other, in order to advance in the story, complete side quests, hunt fiends, gather or deliver, not to menion the mini-events that take place during set period of time. You consequently have to define priorities and make mid/long term plans to win the race against time. Talking of the story, so far I find it less compelling than the others. Ayesha is looking for her missing sister, a bit like Totori was in search for her mother, but it's far less emotionally-packed. It's kind of a mild trade-off between the Totori's moving story and Meruru's eccentricity. In fact, it only makes sense at the very end, when Keithgrif comes to your party. At this moment, the problematic around the essence of alchemy and its legitimacy is very interesting and add some gravity to the final fights. The exceptional so Japanese sense of humor is still there character events are wonderful as always. Music is at it finest, with many beautiful tracks and no less than a dozen of battle themes. Difficulty setting is rather weird unfortunately most of the story bosses are no problem for Atelier fans, but post-game bosses crush my maxed characters within 3 turns. On the other hand, I did appreciate the possibility to choose my ending once time is up. You can therefore see every ending you've flagged during the game by reloading your save, which is only normal after all. I does hurt the replay value, but you'll still have to play it twice to see everything. With a sixty-hour long game, it makes tremendous value. Even if this newest Atelier probably won't surpass its glorious predecessors, it remains a thoughtfully well-fought game, innovating smartly at the same time. By simplifying alchemy and rationalizing item management, it also makes it easier for newcomers to throw themselves in the series.

The Unfinished Swan (TUS), what is it? The game starts off with a blank screen. I thought the game had frozen and tried all the buttons. I fired an ink ball. Black on white, but what more? It's after hitting a corner that I understood. From this first-person view, the goal is simply to advance. I hereby introduces you the first Mirror's Edge like in history! Unlike its model, TUS is more about thinking than running. The title is full of crazy and innovative puzzles (creating platforms, use of light to progress...). It also benefits from an amazing art direction with unique and beautiful sceneries like the one above. The story is entertaining as well, almost moving, and reinforces the mysterious and fascinating aura that springs from TUS. True, it's quite short and the controls are a pain sometimes. But it does have a few challenges that add to the overall value for completionists. And think about it : you enter a paint shop and see a masterpiece at 7

There are some games like this : you only have to play for 30 seconds to know it's gonna be good. Liberation Maiden is one of those. Backed by a story and a character design kinda mixing Evangelion and Infinite Stratos, the game has you play has Shôko, a high school girl who is at the same time... President of Japan!!! Yes. In Liberation Maiden, politicians aren't fat cats making broken laws. True, the situation calls for immediate action as an unknown life form has invaded and corrupted the whole country. Shôko is entrusted with the fateful mission of wiping the aliens out and making the land green again. Learning how to play Liberation Maiden takes approximately... 4 seconds! Quite a performance since it feels so complicated when you have to explain it. You fire lasers by tapping the touchscreen, but the enemies are on the upper screen and the touchscreen is black (save for the simple map). The attack you fire lands on the upper screen a the equivalent location to where you've tapped on touchscreen. You are therefore empirically thinking your next move depending of where the precedent one hit (because of course you NEVER have to time to glance at the touchscreen). At 10 bursts/second, it's absolutely natural. This epic gameplay is further reinforced by the hazardous environment. Lasers, missiles, infrared radars come from everywhere and let you no time to breathe. The boss battles are even heated and unforgiving. Graphically speaking, it's rather ugly, probably due to the low budget. But on the other hand you do have an outstanding sound environment. The sound of lasers, explosions, the rumbling of the dying aliens, the characters' lines, the little messages you receive from inhabitants upon completing an objective : all that makes Liberation Maiden the closest game to Evangelion I've ever seen. But of course, you will needed the original Japanese version for that, English dubs would only hurt your ears. True, the game is short (3 to 4 hours), it's repetitive, it has some punitive difficulty spikes, but for 8

Undoubtly the most anticipated title of Sonyâ

The direct sequel of my GoTY 2011 is finally here! I eagerly spent 50h on it during 12 days and here it is : Atelier Meruru totally lives up to the already fantastic Atelier Totori and even surpasses it because everything, from alchemy to battles, has been refined to perfection. The only critic I could voice is that the background modeling is still really poor, and the various environments actually looked better in Totori. On the other hand, the characters' 3D models have furhter improved, looking especially fine during battles. The alchemy system is back with little improvements here and there likes shortcuts, warnings and, thank God, a container up to 1'999 items. Synthesis is therefore quicker and more pleasant than ever, but also because the progression system, a mix of the previous episodes, features assignments like in Rorona as well as challenges inspired by Totori. The return of the delivery assignment system makes Meruru more alchemy-centric than Totori, which was much more about exploration. As Princess Meruru, you'll have to develop the kingdom of Arls by making its population increase. To do that, you will use alchemy of course, but also build new facilities and pioneer new lands. This Sim City-like approach is really interesting and gives a 3rd and new approach to the series. In addition to your population and popularity index, you have to take into account additional parameters : time, money, quantity, quality and your companions' friend level. Atelier Meruru is in fact an amazing management/reflexion game as much as an JRPG, which will melt your brain as soon as you have to deliver items made from items themselves made from others items etc. Requests are back but have been scaled back and dramatically simplified by removing the deadlines, and I kind of miss them because it was part of the fun of the game imho. But the domain in which Meruru shows spectacular improvement is battle. Still quite difficult, those ones mustn't be taken lightly and you'll have to carefully plan your strategy and prepare your equipments/items every time you sortie. Boss fights are extremely brutal, and it's not uncommon to spend hours synthesizing adequate equipment before facing the most powerful opponents. Victory begins at your workshop before you can secure it on the battlefield. As your progress in the story, you'll find increasingly rare materials with increasingly effective skills : keeping up with the adversity is a constant process of tries and failures in making the perfect gear. The array of possibilities is so enormous that it makes the battle system highly strategic and complex. Atelier Meruru nevertheless feels more accessible than Totori or Rorona, in which it was difficult to progress in the story and in the characters' development in the same (limited) timeframe. Battles have also been made considerably more dynamic and impressive, thanks to refined graphics and awesome music. With all those improvements and the huge challenge involved, the most prominent fights made me shiver of pleasure. The story feels a bit mundane after an emotionally-packed Totori, but that's more than compensated by the more-awesome-than-ever character design. The new looks for Gino, Totori, Gio, Esty are terrific and Mimi is just... (faints). That said, I still think Sterk was better in Totori, and the level/map design is not as good as before also. Those little regrets here and there are nothing compared to the enjoyment I had playing this latest entry in the series. True pinnacle of the Arland trilogy, Not only is Atelier Meruru my favorite game this year, it's also one of the best games ever created.

Technically speaking, ToGf is a straight port from the Wii version, which makes it significantly below Tales of Vesperia (which unfortunately never made it to the West on PS3). Even though characters clearly donâ

The first thing I did when I came back from Japan was to stuff the Blu-Ray of Hyperdimension Neptune Mk2 into the PS3. Given how much I loved the first Hyperdimension Neptune, I could hardly contain my excitement when I got my hands on its sequel. It so happens that the game is STILL in my PS3, because this sequel is just really brilliant. The story throws you again in the world of Gameindustri, which is on verge of collapse after an all-out attack by the evil forces of Magiquone. Though less subtle than in the first one, the scenario still gives a entertaining and interesting look on the (real) game industry, the most striking part being the debate about piracy (Magiquone being a metaphor of piracy) between Brave the Hard and Yuni. No article or study could possibly get this better. The rest of the game keeps this very Japanese sense of humor that made the first iteration so awesome, making it once again a pure pleasure to watch. When Hyperdimension Neptune Mk2 take the best of Hyperdimension Neptune, it does also fix and improve nearly everything else. The graphics for example see a dramatic improvement, especially regarding character modelling, but backgrounds look somewhat prettier too. The only thing that bugged me is that they changed the 2D animated characters in conversations by 3D ones. While some of them look definitely good (Histoire, Nepgear, Yuni, 5pbâ

I loved Atelier Rorona. It was fun and extremely innovative, but weak graphically speaking. Thus I was looking forward for Atelier Totori with much excitment. When I saw the dreadful marks it received from French websites, I was furious (I crossed the line and got banned by the way). But at the beginning of the game, I slightly wondered whether I was the one wrong. The 3D animated characters do look better than in Rorona, but it really depends on the characters : Sterk, Melvia and Totori are near perfect but Rorona and Mimi look weird. Of course, the general design is still one of the best in JRPGs. Backgrounds also are still a bit awkward, but more impressive then in the previous game. At a first glance, the battle system seems unchanged : your characters still disappear when another attacks and your alchemist can be protected by her companions just like before. But when you have to fight harder battles, youâ

Final Fantasy XIII-2 brings new things to the series. First, the Cinematic Action : there are actually not that many of them, and then they donâ

The press unfortunately destroyed an innovative and unique JRPG. Character design will please anime fans without the shadow of a doubt. The others will pass but it's a niche game : no need to consider all the players when reviewing it. A sense humor never seen in the West, repetitive but addicting gameplay, good difficulty balance and surprisingly deep scenario makes it a must-have for any JRPG/anime lover.

Now that was hell ****! Action is immersive, varied and quite tactical as well, so you can hardly stop playing even if beaten up by the insane creatures and bosses. The 3rd Birthday is a tad difficult as well, which is not a bad thing those days. The scenario is extremely rich and I found myself spending a lot of time reading the reports. Character and weapon design is near perfect and the RPG part isn't just for show. Best TPS of 2011.

Although graphically poor, Atelier Rorona is quite innovative since no Atelier game made it to Europe before. The crafting system is really hooking and makes your brain overheat at times. Character design is fabulous (NISA really rocks for that). The sense of humor is brilliant, I had a lot of laugh quite of few times, which doesn't happen that much in today's JRPGs. Time and progession system are also pretty good, since it makes the difficulty very well balanced.