shado474

I had low expectations for this title, knowing it is a budget title even from Falcom standards, but it turned out to be surprisingly fun! The combat is a bit chaotic and not as robust as in the Ys series, but it's tight enough for a PSP game remastered. The music is definitely a highlight, with arrangements of tracks across all Ys and Legend of Heroes games (not just Trails!). The story is short, but it is meant to be played multiple times with each characters, so I think it is totally by design. There is a lot of stuff to clear and upgrade, so someone who's going in with the grind can easily spend 30-40 hours completing everything. Overall, not by any means competing with the mainline Ys and Trails games, but successfully provides a quick arcade-style entertainment.

Good art style and diverse environments. The combat system is somewhat a good idea that is executed poorly. There is a jarring lack of transitions and overall polish in the game, which makes it feel unfinished. Some of the music tracks are good, but the jumps from one to another sound very awkward. Allies are terrible in combat - if there is a trap in the battlefield, they run into it without fail. Scenario has some twists to it, but is so oddly paced that we don't have time to care. I also found the cutscenes a little lame, with the characters always looking down for some reason... Overall, it can be a simple and fun slashing game at times, but anyone looking for more than that is likely to be very disappointed.

For fans of retro stuff like Faxanadu, there are some stuff in there to appreciate but it falls short of most of its influences. Most definitely a dated experience that is clunkier than several NES titles, but the game could have held decently well 35 years ago. The second half of the game feels better than the first. The PS trophies for that game are very strange and award you a platinum about halfway through the game by just doing what has to be done.

While the game overall feels like a high-quality game, there are clear shortcomings in world-building and story-telling. The story has its high points, but there is an overall lack of soul and atmosphere and very few characters are likeable. For a game that seems to push for realism, it has its fair share of unrealistic progression, dialogues and animation. The combat is satisfying although it feels more like a hit 'em up at times and the difficulty level is very low even on action mode. The absence of weaknesses or resistance against attack types also makes all the fights pretty much more of the same old thing. The OST is forgettable, but it has a few great tracks that stand out. The frame rate is all over the place while exploring, in what the game calls "Performance mode", which is quite disappointing for a PS5 release.

A battling system that's promising, but surrounded by many many flaws in optimization. Loading times are frequent and a bit too long for that kind of game, especially during repeated enemy encounters. The menu is slow and the animations are often choppy. Regular battles can take a while when one strong enemy is present, but the reward is very small in the end. Boss battles are that typical HP tank with occasional big spikes of damage input. This is where the "brave" system gets bad imo. It happens too often that bosses just take down the whole team with a series of 5-7 strong attacks at once. I generally like challenge, but that sort of 180 turn-around after an already 20-minute painful fight is very frustrating when it happens multiple times in a row. Overall not the worst game although I mostly listen the bad here, but definitely not something I would recommend. It is very tedious and the story isn't great.

8.5/10 This game does a lot of things awesomely. The story is powerful, the characters are well developed and the soundtrack is very good! Environments are also often very beautiful, although the graphics are dated mainly due to the fact that it is an upgraded version of a Wii title. Where the game did not shine for me is in the combat. I have to say I am not a big fan of the MMO-style combat to start with, but here in the mid-to-late part of the game, there is just too many enemies and combat becomes extremely tedious. The main character also essentially stops learning new arts pretty early on so it feels mostly like more of the same for a very large chunk of the game. The foresight moments are also too frequent and break the battle momentum. Luckily this version of the game has a Casual Mode that can be selected if things start feeling too tedious and it greatly helped for me. I would overall recommend!

Art-style is great. Music is great. Combat is great. Now, on the downside, the story is very lackluster and the characters do not interact at all between them (except for the optional heart to hearts that don't contribute to the story). This had to be expected due to the nature of the game where you choose and pick adventures from eight different paths, but it definitely negatively impacts the game. The narrative also sounded rather pretentious, more in a few paths than others, with generally little substance. Each character's chapter is essentially the game holding your hand very tightly to guide you from one cutscene to the next, to ultimately lead you to a minimal maze with random encounters and a boss at the end. Between this and the side quests that are often totally on the opposite side of the spectrum with their cryptic nature, I feel like the game failed at finding the right level of difficulty outside of battles. Overall, the game hits some individual good notes, but isn't build well enough to hold everything together. I have finished the story of four characters in a semi-casual manner and have 59 hours of playtime on my save file (Likely 70 hours totally including the unsaved content). The first 5-10 hours was the best part for me.

My first impression of this game was great. I was impressed by the visuals and the music, and the beginning of the stories or Cyrus and Ophelia were charming. However, as I went around and collected more characters, I felt like the same formula was repeating and it was breaking the logical progression of each story lines. I know the game reminds you of the state of each storyline at the beginning or each chapter, but it wasn't quite enough to put me back in the mindset. I also felt very disconnected with the kind of language that is used in the narration and between the characters in some of the stories. Each story also feels like a visual novel in a way since there is nothing to really do except to go to the green mark on the map after each cutscene to get to the next. I have played rather casually and I am at around 50 hours into the game. It currently feels a bit like a grind to push and finish the game, and I think I will stop once I finish 4 of the stories. That aside, I enjoy the combat system. At this point in the game it is probably the only thing I still enjoy. I also appreciate how the side quests let you figure out what you need to do, but many of them are incredibly hard to figure out. In that sense, I feel like there is such a large contrast between the side quests and the story quests that it is almost a bad thing. I would've personally preferred something more in the middle.

Ys I: 6/10 Ys II: 8/10 This collection definitely hit me with nostalgia as I played the original games on Turbo Duo in the last 90's. Some of the bosses fights are quite bad in Ys I but Ys II definitely improved on that part, notably because of the addition of ranged attacks. The music, although slightly inferior to the PC Engine version of the original releases, still slaps and definitely adds a strong flavour and atmosphere to each area. Although Ys I is the weakest game in the franchise imo, it is also by far the shortest so I would recommend it if only to experience the story that connects to Ys II and Ys Origin.

The story is great and charming and the art style and music are beautiful. The main thing this game suffers from is its combat, which is what nearly ruined the game for me. I had to switch it to easy difficulty to make battles as short as possible toward the end because I had no fun at all fighting bosses.

Aside of having a better story than the original, using a better rating system and minor aesthetics improvements here and there, Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 is a surprising downgrade from its predecessor in terms of gameplay and fluidity. While some people complain about it not being newbie-friendly, there are plenty of tutorial modules in the Practice Mode... even for cheesy strats that are widely known to be bad manners in online versus play. The other problem here is that they also made the game worse for competitive play, as they slowed down the movement of the pieces compared to the previous game. This might have been an attempt to balance Puyo Puyo versus Tetris games, but it consequently boosts the power of slow and cheesy combo strategies. While it is still early after release and the game could be readjusted, the Tetris Company has shown very little interest in what the fans want so I have little hope for a rebalance or significant quality of life fixes. This game clearly focuses on the Puyo Puyo community and leaves the Tetris community far behind.

Not worth a 0 or a 1 like several user reviews say, but definitely inferior to the releases on other platforms. I personally think that the resolution and general blurriness is not an issue. I think the PS4 version for example is too clean for the low level of detail in the background and textures and actually makes it look cheap and glassy to me. The load times and input delays are definitely what bother me the most about the Switch version of the game. Fighting bosses is quite the pain when the character moves 0.2 sec after you try to dodge something, and some of those rooms take several seconds to load leaving you with just a black screen in the meantime. Game has potential but definitely needs a patch. From what I've seen on their social media, they are shifting their efforts to improve this port, which is encouraging. I will potentially increase my rating to a 7 or 8 if the game ends up running smoothly. I would recommend waiting a month or two before buying that version of the game.

I normally like that kind of RPG but the battle style is an awkward hybrid between turn-based and action, which ends up being worse than each separately. There is a lot of grinding necessary to beat the bosses in the game and progress, which adds lengthy stretches into the game. Luckily the fast-forward option accelerates exploration and backtracking a bit. Oh, and the debuffs... I don't mind some of them but this game is literally a debuff party whenever you get into a fight at some point in the game, it is really irritating, especially when regular enemies just send your entire party to sleep! Despite everything, I really tried to like the game. The story is complex and the music is generally good. It is just the gameplay that ruined it for me.

Liked the rhythm in the beginning, especially once I got better with it, but got a little tired of it by the end of the game. It is a good game overall, including a lot of Zelda elements and assumingly Crypt of the Necrodancer stuff, which I haven't played. The game looks very good and captures well the 16-bit era feeling, with well designed sprites. I found the map quite small for the large amount of "hidden" stuff it contained and the dungeons far too easy and short. Finding new permanent items became so normal that it was less and less exciting. Nothing I would have complained about for a $10-15 game, but for $25 I was expecting a little more on that side.

This game has an interesting environment and I like the odd pairing with the Rabbids. I went through the first world so far and I'm not so sure I like the gameplay too much. There seems to be very little to do outside of the strategic battles, which are rather boring to me. Maybe it is still too early in the game and it will get interesting later, but I can rarely play more than 30-40 minutes in a row before I get bored and want to do something else. I will update my score if my impression changes later in the game, but if it remains the same, it will likely go down to a 6/10. I would only recommend this game to Mario fans, when the game is on sale.

An interesting concept in a beautiful environment that unfolds as you progress in the game. This title's mysterious atmosphere and narration hold a surprisingly deep story that feels fresh from the start and ends wonderfully.

This title truly became enjoyable for me only in post-game. Most of the pre-Bowser content is so easy that there is no sense of accomplishment at all - and there is even an easier mode with more guidance! I never expect Mario games to be very hard due because they're targeting a broad audience, but compared to previous main entries this one was just too easy during the first 10 hours. Now, later in the game, for those aiming to get all the moons, it gets much more challenging and fun - and sometimes frustrating, too. The good side of that game is that it offers a lot of post-game content and replay value, even for experienced platforming gamers. After 30 hours of playtime, I collected about 2/3 of all the moons and I'm still having a lot of fun with the game. I'm recommending this one for everyone, but most gamers will likely have to spend several hours before getting into the fun stuff.

Although the story is charming and the soundtrack brings out a rich atmosphere, the gameplay in Opus: The Day We Found Earth is lacking. The challenge that was basically inexistant in the beginning picked up at some point as the tension rose, but it basically remain from beginning to end a star selection followed by a yes-or-no answer. Finished the game (story) in a little less than 2 hours without rushing with a reported completion rate of about 65%, which means that technically I could replay and aim higher but I don't see the point. I wish the planet research was a little more elaborate, but then again for a $6 game I can't be too harsh, which is why I'm giving it a 7/10 mostly for its charm and soundtrack.

A Musou game that includes interesting improvements from its predecessor, Hyrule Warriors, but also new flaws. I like how 4 characters can be alternatively controlled in game and how they can be told what to do to improve the sense of strategy. The game wonderfully implements Fire Emblem features like the affinity system and the class changes, which makes it feel like a true Fire Emblem spin-off. On the other hand, the storyline is quite disappointing in terms of difficulty, so especially those who played other Warriors games should play on hard mode right from the start and enjoy the extra gold and XP, while feeling some (still quite little) sense of accomplishment. Hopefully the FE-emblematic "lunatic" difficulty unlocks at some point after completion. I also find the absence of larger and trickier bosses to be lacking in this game and makes the whole experience more dull than Hyrule Warriors. The voice acting is fine during the battles and story cut scenes, but becomes quickly quite annoying in the menus, especially while unlocking a bunch of crests. Similarly to Hyrule Warriors, playing in multiplayer mode (2 players on the same Switch) considerably reduces the soldier spawn rate but most annoyingly regularly reduces frame rate. Overall, the content seems a little thin, especially compared to the last entry in the series, but hopefully the upcoming DLC will fix that by also bringing some more challenge into the game.

Alwa's Awakening is a fun game with some interesting elements. The challenge is there and uses typical retro-gaming ways of doing it with precise jumps and very predictable enemies. I found the soundtrack not very creative and somewhat irritating after some time and had to turn the music volume down quite a bit. Overall a fairly decent game for the price.

At first I wasn't a fan of the addition of a story, but I got used to it and enjoyed the more gradual difficulty curve. The stages felt easier than those from the previous game, especially in the expert mode, but in some cases were more creative. This game also has more to do in multiplayer mode than its predecessor, which can make it a good party game. Overall on par with Super Monkey Ball in my opinion, but new players may want to start with this one due to its lower difficulty level. Definitely not a game to play with an uncalibrated or defective joystick!

This game isn't strong on the multiplayer side, but it succeeds in bringing originality and difficulty that makes completing the harder levels very rewarding. I have replayed the Expert Mode so many times and never got tired of the higher worlds are their immersive atmosphere. Crazy hard extra stages, and great soundtrack, too!

The game isn't worse that other games in the Super Mario Bros. series but having all these other interesting games to play as well, I usually don't spend much more than 1 hour of continuous gameplay on that one without feeling like switching to one of the more deeply interesting games. It's a fun hour, but it gets boring after that... I like it that it is more challenging than the 3DS game though.

I remember being all excited about a new Tetris game on the GameCube but then when I finally played it, it didn't feel so much like Tetris... I wish there was a way to play the good old classic game at least cause the modes in Tetris Worlds aren't so exciting. I still played kind of a lot, to try to make it grow on me... and it worked a little, but then I got tired of it. A Tetris game without a scoring system isn't a good Tetris game!

It's a perfect game for bus rides or job/study breaks. The graphics are not typically 8-bit style, so it looks more like an app than a vintage game (ie. Shovel Knight). There is no storyline much so you don't have to get so into it to appreciate it. It gets very hard at some point it can be frustrating to restart the whole level but it's not nearly as bad as the old 8-bit games... The levels are relatively short so it's never such a long way to get back to where you were, plus, there is a checkpoint at mid-way. I finished all the 60 water sprites with about 14 hours of gameplay, and I still have to complete 19 granny levels that seem pretty crazy... so it's worth the 5-7$ on the e-shop!

Another GREAT Zelda game with a lot of new innovative stuff. The ending was amazing with a touch of emotion and humanism that I hadn't seen in previous titles! It is too bad the game was kinda too easy, otherwise I would've given it a 10. There is the harder version after you beat it one which gives it a decent replay value, but it's just a more-damage-taken kind of harder.

Despite some of the graphics that are pretty nice and some impressive 3D effects, the game itself is so boring and guided that it's more like watching a show than playing an actual game. I hate that bosses are weakened the second time we try to beat them, and those cinematic shots that just ask you to press X or B or something like that in order to deal the final blow. I'm glad I got this game for only 12$ so it's not such a big waste of money, but it's still a huge disappointment after playing the previous handheld Castlevania titles!