It’s tough to say a lot more about Freedom Wars, despite the fact I had a lot of fun playing it! It really is the quintessential Vita game. It tries a lot of things, hits really hard on a few, and everything else doesn’t quite come together. It’s from before even Capcom struck gold with Monster Hunter World, still figuring things out and building momentum itself. The gameplay alone can sustain hours of squadded up, monster wrangling, gear upgrading fun. But the storytelling really whiffs despite a strong start, disappointing more as a result. And in terms of interesting stuff going on besides the main loop, Freedom Wars fails to find the sauce as well. This one is here for a good time, but not a long time. I should probably go to jail myself for that one, yikes.
Diving into Ys history is a fun exercise for a few reasons, especially as Falcom continues to grow and capture more and more mindshare in the RPG community. Because the series has gone on so long through so many platforms, there’s so much variety between each game and each version thereof, from what each one plays like to what each one looks like. There are identifiable eras you can group them in, and Oath in Felghana is a key representative of its group. This game was available before on Steam, but Ys Memoire is the most refined version, even without the couple extra flourishes sprinkled on top.
As it stands, fans of Mashima’s fantasy epic will still probably have a good time seeing this version of the story through (and checking out the new epilogue!), but Fairy Tail 2 doesn’t get any closer to must-play status than the previous game, and oddly enough for different reasons.
With a few little tweaks and perhaps some additional content over time, Rita’s Rewind could really be a badge of honor. And even as it is now, it’s miles ahead of that Space Jam game.
But it does offer a fresh perspective, a strange and captivating world to explore, bucketloads of silliness, and hours of breezy fun. If you can put up with the free-to-play trappings and some hopefully temporary technical instability at launch time, and if you can have a good time without needing to kill stuff, you can have a blast without needing to know a single thing about fashion.
Taking the time to farm elemental resistant accessories, equipment upgrades, and stronger skills, setting up your party loadout just so at a save point, then watching your team get ragdolled anyway all while you’re several levels above what the game says you need completely overshadows the effort put into the careful, puzzle-like design of each boss. Which is a shame, because if those fights weren’t so egregiously overtuned in such an unproductive way, the stuff actually holding up Fantasian’s systems would’ve really shined. The criticism from before clearly had an impact, but even with the adjustments there’s still moments where this game isn’t fun at all to engage with on its given terms. Even everything else, from Uematsu’s thematically apt soundtrack to the super neat diorama visuals, is hard to enjoy when your brain is bogged down by constant dread. Fantasian Neo Dimension has a distinct vibe and a lot of cool ideas, but over-commits to its idea of challenge such that it buries its own nuances under a pile of big numbers.
So, where do we end up with this game? Rage of the Dragons NEO is a niche within a niche, an odd game with an odd history that appeals to an extremely specific kind of audience. That’s tough for any game, but especially a fighting game that has to compete with the likes of Street Fighter and Guilty Gear. Not having cross-platform play is an additional barrier that seems to already be making online an actual ghost town. That’s unfortunate. But if you’re interested in gaming history, fighting games, and the weird intersections thereof, Rage of the Dragons NEO is really cool. I can see it coming out in-between sets of the bigger titles, a fun side game at local tournaments, or just a cool thing for enthusiasts to satisfy their own curiosity with. The Bleem! IP is also involved somehow, making perhaps even this new version a novel relic of its own.
Thankfully, Sorry We’re Closed only ran around six hours before I saw one of the endings. Those moments of anguish were not massive parts of the game, although they were gnarly roadblocks. Everything else, from the vibes to the storytelling, and even the combat when it was reasonable, were compelling to the end. I’m still curious about the other endings, but the trauma from that generator setpiece has me wanting to wait for possible adjustments or new settings in the future. Horror enthusiasts, especially those who revel in the weird, who are also secret gaming gunslingers and are cool with sudden spikes in difficulty will find a lot to like here.
I admit, as fun as it looked with its shiny, new coat of paint and new features to play with, I approached Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake with some cynicism. How couldn’t I with a title like that? Seriously, it sounds more like I bought a used car than played a video game. But the charm and timelessness of Dragon Quest 3 will shine through anything, and having it on a big screen and operating like a modern game was admittedly exciting. For all the bells, whistles, and flourishes, this is still the classic adventure that inspired millions of players over thirty years ago. A polish job like this just makes it shine brighter.
If you’ve read the biographical comic book from Box Brown, watched YouTube documentaries or the recent movie and think you’ve seen the best parts of the Tetris story, turns out there was plenty of compelling ground left to cover. Tetris Forever tells a complete story, from the origins to the current Tetris Company, 40 years later. The new interview footage, filmic editing, curated game placement, and supplemental materials are arranged with tremendous skill and care. I can’t gush enough about how Tetris Forever takes the concept and structure of Gold Master and nails it, showing that weaving the “museum” content and gameplay together to tell a singular story leads to something that’s fun and intellectually gratifying at the same time.
Death Note Killer Within is truly fascinating, even to look at from a distance. It’s a smart adaptation of a Shonen Jump manga that is famous for challenging what “Shonen Jump manga” could be at its moment in time. Seeing the characters pop up in games like Jump Ultimate Stars or Jump Force was always awkward, and the other games based on the series remain obscure. So it’s cool to see the folks who made this identify a trend and realize the IP is a good fit, then execute it in a way that both adapts Death Note and have fun with it at the same time. I think it has a pretty limited audience though, as you have to cross several barriers of entry to get what feels like the only way to have a good time. If the gameplay gave more time for its nuances to breathe and shine, was more adaptable to the inherent instability of online play, and was more approachable, there’d be something really special here.
Ambition that slightly misses its mark is my main takeaway with Ys X: Nordics. There’s still a rock-solid foundation here, as any fan of action-RPGs can attest to. Ys is a series that’s stood on business for decades and with good reason. The problems here are all in the efforts made to try something different, which isn’t the worst thing to happen with a long-running series. Instead of resting on its laurels, Falcom has tried some new things with Ys X and there’s credit due for those efforts. The story and characters are on point, and the way the core mechanics try to act as a mirror for the themes is fascinating! But there’s some connective tissue missing that could’ve made things really sing. Meanwhile, the ship customization and combat is cool and rewarding in the long run, but the agonizingly slow pace of progression there really hurts the drive to care and engage long enough to see the payoff. Will these systems see iteration and come into their own, or will Falcom try something else next time? I’m curious to see if Adol can become a talented sailor one day.
Kinetic Games' co-op horror mysteries are as fumbly as they are intricate.
As one of games media’s self-described SaGa Sickos, I had one question on my mind coming into Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven. Could a SaGa be rebuilt, explicitly for approachability, and still feel like SaGa? Or would sanding it down and making it friendlier turn it into a less daring and bold RPG that’s harder to distinguish from Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest? While some parts did have me feeling a little curmudgeonly, at the end of the day the answer is yes. Romancing SaGa 2’s remake is a fulfilling journey, giving fans of the original plenty to sink their teeth into, while simultaneously offering something that’s a lot more palatable for curious parties to finally set their fears aside and try something new. If it clicks, though, I implore you to dive into the deep end afterwards. Don't sleep on SaGa!
While it’s relatively short, Shadow Generations feels like someone took Sonic Frontiers and retroactively applied its secret sauce to an older 3D Sonic platformer, elevating it to heights previously unseen. Sonic Generations is a respectable remaster of a decent game, but pales in comparison.
UFO 50 is like stumbling across a time capsule and discovering a wealth of lost knowledge inside. And yet, it’s entirely a singular work of fiction. That by itself is deeply fascinating and makes this thing worth playing. Even if you pass over most of the games and only find a few that stick with you from a fun perspective, the depth on a conceptual level is absurd and gratifying to simply think about. We’re living at a time in which older games are vanishing from both physical reality and our sort of collective cultural well at an increasing rate, when remakes are seen as replacements for original work and curiosity to seek out history is dwindling unless there’s a purchasable remaster. UFO 50 is fun to play and take at face value, but it also highlights how age really isn’t a detriment to having a great time and engaging with games.
If you like Mickey Mouse and want to play a fun video game about him, you can do a lot worse than Epic Mickey: Rebrushed! You can also do a lot better, but that would require booting up some old emulators or expensive retro hardware, which is a different kind of thing from having something new(ish) on today’s platforms.
When it comes to preserving history, this is about as good as it can get from an official source. Between backwards compatibility and being on a platform like Steam, there are fewer ways that even a licensing deal expiration can get in the way of playing this collection in the coming years.
Over the past five years or so, Konami has become a standard-bearer in preserving and presenting video game history. There have been bumps along the road of course, but Castlevania Dominus Collection is not just a set of ROMs grouped together that benefits from comprising all-time greats.
I know volleyball and dodgeball are totally different activities, but the inspiration is pretty obvious here. And if you want to play a sports game like this that’s wacky, over the top, and still has a competitive element, Mario Tennis or the Kunip-kun Dodgeball games are much more fulfilling in every way. And if you’re just a Fairy Tail fan looking for something fun to play with these characters, Fairy Tail: Dungeons or the GUST-developed RPG from a few years ago (with a sequel coming soon) are much more successful in nailing their own concepts. It’s a shame, but aside from some fun visuals and occasional on-screen wackiness, Fairy Tail: Beach Volleyball Havoc doesn’t deliver in either the volleyball or the havoc.