Mankoto
The game as a whole is still great. If you’re like me and have played the original release but missed out on the PC release and need a refresher for what’s to come this fall by all means, transfer your PS3/Vita save right over for some extra bonuses. If you’re new to the franchise, this is a great place to start.
Overall, I had a really good time coming back to the series after the last entry left such a bad taste in my mouth. One might even say, my faith has been Re:Newed. Outside of some technical issues that can easily be patched out, it felt good going back to the start of the franchise with a couple gameplay tweaks. If this is meant to be a preview for how 7Even goes, I can’t wait.
The game is fantastic through and through. It is honestly my favorite Corpse Party entry in the franchise and just as easily my favorite in the horror genre as a whole.
Senran Kagura without its iconic action just doesn’t work. Peach Beach Splash mechanics weren’t fun and in Reflexions, there’s just no content and the fun wears off after the first half-hour. Maybe PeachBall will be good since you can’t make a bad Pinball game, but otherwise, wait for Re:Burst.
Ultimately speaking, my feelings for Coven can’t really be summed up by a simple like or love. It’s something more akin to respect. Despite everything being needlessly complex, it’s done in a way to make the game much more enjoyable rather than bogging it down.While I don’t necessarily like all of the decisions made in the game, if NIS decides to make another I’ll be one of the first to pick it up.
When all is said and done, this visual novel is absolutely incredible through and through. Again, having no VA on a console VN is a shame, but the game is just fine without it. The camera work is superb while admittingly the amount of motion blur in some shots are definitely a bit much in some situations. But other than that, I can’t give any praise higher to a work like this. The use of Live Action truly elevated what would be considered just another good visual novel. Everything here is just spectacular.
Considering SEGA meant for this entry to be a reboot for the franchise, this overall is a pretty mixed bag. The lore and overall storytelling they have in place is good. It’s just that they need more interesting characters.How the soundtrack is implemented into the gameplay is a really nice though. Hopefully by the time we get the next entry, some if not all of the kinks will be ironed out.
Overall, if the game wasn’t so talkative when going from dungeon to dungeon and if the character designs were a bit better, I’d honestly have a better time. More so if the game didn’t make me feel like I was only going from story beat to story beat to story beat every time I beat a dungeon it would have made it a bit more enjoyable. This isn’t to say that the game is even remotely bad however as the dungeon crawling itself is a ton of fun here. While I do wish I could see the turn order in battles, it’s really no big deal. The fact that what moves my teammates will learn and when they’ll learn them is a pretty big plus in my eyes.
In the end, as much I enjoy this game it feels too safe to a point where it almost feels manufactured and everything could almost be expected. It certainly plays to all of the original’s strengths which is cool, but at the same time it doesn’t do anything different outside of adding sub-areas and more interesting bosses.
As much as I find Senran Kagura to be my favorite guilty pleasure series, this one I found myself actively disliking it from the get-go. The gameplay design is certainly fun when you get the hang of it, but everything around it is just badly designed and just makes it not fun to play. As someone that’s for developers wanting to branch out and do other things, this is one of the few times where sticking to the status qua might have been a good idea.
At its core this is Danganronpa no doubt about it. Like DR2, the highs are incredibly high, and the lows are incredibly low. In this scenario though, the developers took everything about the series and just cranked it up to the next level.
This game has certainly left it's mark, as while it's not the best DRPG out there, it's certainly a very solid and pretty original feeling effort.
When you hear a one-off story getting a sequel over 10 years after release, it almost feels worrying as to what they may bring to the table especially because the original was so beloved. For this series to come back with a sequel that's just as good as the original is absolutely fantastic. As far as trilogies go, this might have become one of my favorites. Ever.
If you’re a long term Ys fan, sure the story content may not be to your liking, but as it’s own thing, once the game lets you go out and explore, it’s one of the best in terms of gameplay.
Tokyo Xanadu is a game I really wanted to enjoy. Not to say that I don’t like it, because I do, but I was expecting a bit more. For what it eventually excels at in dungeon design, it lacks in combat. For what it excels at in world building, it fails in originality and almost feels by the book. I’m not sure what Falcom was trying to accomplish by trying to make Tokyo Xanadu a derivative of their Trails franchise. I’m not happy or even upset that they do, but what they do leave me as, is very confused.
If those rough edges were fixed, then the game would be held in a higher regard. But for what is there, coming from the fundamentally flawed Natural Doctrine comes the fundamentally solid God Wars. Due to the fact that the game has been delayed several times to fix bugs and even include user feedback, it shows that Kadokawa was truly dedicated to making the battles the best they could possibly be and it sure does show. If there is ever a sequel for God Wars, I’ll be right there waiting.
In the end, this game is pretty out there in terms of it doing what it’s doing, as while the SRPG elements are good, there are so few far in between the amount of good yet bloated story content there is it feels like there’s no real point these SRPG parts. That said though, the SRPG elements while not terribly difficult, are certainly fun to play.
At the end of the day, despite being the definition of insanity, Disgaea is an absolute blast to play. Story and characters aside, the game itself is just fun. One of the best parts about Disgaea 5 is that you can ignore 90% of what the game allows you to mess with, but it’s still a fully featured SRPG at it’s core. Everything else is the icing on the cake with nothing that spoils it, but only adds on to it if you choose to go deep into it.
This game tries to say a lot by only telling you bits and pieces which is perfectly fine. Everything about it feels very well constructed as I’ve never had any issues of any kind. In the end though, while I wouldn’t call this game boring, after I finish a session of playing it, it feels pretty forgotten which is kind of sad because I was ready to love this game like I did Yomawari.
Nier: Automata is nothing short of marvelous game. The game's characters and developments that some go through are breathtaking. This is a game where the more you put into it the more you will get out of it as some side-stories will give more context to some parts of the main one. On top of that, you’ll hear some of the best music this generation. The final boss music is some of the best created to date. Combine with a completely customizable control scheme to boot. The good is phenomenal with the bad being negligible to almost pretty distracting at time. It's an absolute miracle that this game came to be, and what was delivered is Platinum's return to form and another chance for the world to experience a game helmed by Yoko Taro.