Pierre-Yves Lanthier's Reviews
As of the 6th of September, the Necropolis has become more Brutal. Having gone back and re-designed a variety of elements from its original debut release, Hairbrained Schemes has released a variety of updates taking into account community and reviewer feedback alike to create version 1.1 titled Brutal Edition. Not only making improvements, the Brutal Edition introduces the Brute which is very fun to play as He or She is Big, Bad, and packs one heck of an epic punch.
Oceanhorn - Monster of Uncharted Seas is a title that has come a very long way. Originally releasing as an App on Apple's iOS, it has since seen releases on the PC, the Mac OS, and most recently both Sony's PS4 and Microsoft's XB1. Using both a game play and visual style that pays homage to a few of Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda games, you are tasked with searching the seas for a way to defeat the mechanical sea monster known as Oceanhorn.
God Eater 2: Rage Burst is a great mission based action experience. It’s the added narrative and characterisation that makes it more than just another Monster Hunter-like grindfest for better equipment to take on bigger monsters with. They even provide sunglasses, so you get to look cool while doing it all.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2 is an excellent follow up to Trails of Cold Steel. With many improvements to the core system both subtle and brand new elements to grace the field of battle with, this “sequel” is the perfect continuation to this already epic series of JRPGs from Nihon Falcom and XSEED Games.
Zenith is more than worth sitting down to for multiple laughs and great older schooled gameplay. The developers and the writers have really hit gold with the balance of the two and the sheer hilarity of the dialog. Breanna can attest that I had to put the controller down more than once because I was crying from laughing so hard.
Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors is an excellent Dungeon Crawling RPG with depth of character and a lot of accompanying Fan Service. While there is a lot of that, the rest of the systems and the interactions with and between the characters adds much more that makes Criminal Girls a worthwhile experience that makes it so much more than its outward appearance.
Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky is a great RPG for the Vita. While the menus can seem to get in the way at times either because of loading or because of what you need is a few tabs over, the rest of the experience from the exploration, to the combat, over to the character interactions and dialog is solid and worth the many hours that it provides.
Each Dead Rising is an interesting experience on its own. While these three titles do in certain cases show their age, and don't really work as a collection as they are too similar to one another, individually they are all worth diving into as they are a lot of tense fun to play around with.
With Halloween being just a few days away from the official release date, NIS America could not have picked a better moment to release this horror title. Yomawari: Night Alone has nothing to do with Halloween itself, but as the days of October get shorter and the darkness sets in quicker, there’s a coolness in the air and a creepiness to the game that comes together perfectly to chill you to the bone.
Dragon Quest Builders is an awesome experience and I truly hope that Square Enix makes more of these. They have many more Dragon Quest titles that can use or even just a sequel since this is a parallel world. If they could add one thing other than better inventory management however? It would be coop as this would definitely be better with a partner as Breanna and I have played this side by side for hours at a time and it would have been fun to help one another out instead of simply showing them where other things were or pulling out plans for them to emulate to level up their town faster.
While playing it safe in the beginning and while the loading times can be a bit long, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is an improvement upon the original. With more to do and an open area hub that is easily moved around in, getting to the action to save the timeline or just go punch things is a much smoother and welcomed experience. The bonus? You still get to create your own custom Dragon Ball character to do battle!
Earth’s Dawn is a good Side Scrolling Brawler. With the freedom to evolve your character as you see fit for the missions ahead, the mission based structure can be useful even if it is repetitive allowing you to quickly go in and out of missions in order to obtain materials for new gear or to simply waste time for the next large scaled mission.
Seraph on a whole is brilliant and refreshing in its design. Having the player be able to concentrate on movement while the AI handles the aiming is an inspired idea and I honestly hope to see more of in the future, while the organic approach to difficulty and movement makes for a game that is mesmerising and deeply engaging from start to finish.
On a whole I loved playing Xanadu Next. It does have controller interface issues if you are using a real controller and the key system that was put into place could be annoying but that’s all it was. A minor annoyance compared to the rest. The skill system is a lot of fun to use especially when passive abilities are discovered such as adding fire to your weapon or being able to do more damage from behind. All of these little features add up to a fun Action Adventure RPG that takes place in an interesting interconnected environment.
The style of gameplay of the Killing Floor 2 will not be for everyone. It’s a team based First Person Shooter that prioritizes teamwork and competition instead of PVP. For those that enjoy these style of situations it’s worth checking out especially if you are a group of friends looking for a friendly bit of competition as to whom is better than whom.
Overall Senran Kagura Bon Appetit! is fun, as the rhythm portions and the soundtracks that they use mesh well together. But let's not pull punches about this; this is a game that is going to be exclusively of interest to existing fans of Senran Kagura, and who are also fans of rhythm games. It's not going to convert anyone to the franchise, and unlike the likes of Persona 4 Dancing All Night, it's also not meaty enough as a rhythm game to appeal to people who aren't already deeply involved in the genre. It's pure fanservice.
The Keeper of the 4 Elements isn’t a bad title by any means but it doesn’t bring anything new to the field. Stages are over too quickly with the above described tactic changing what looked like it could have been a challenging experience by having to strategically use all four elements into essentially stoning the enemies to death with very large boulders.
The Little Acre is a work of art. The character and environment designs, the dialog, and the game-play all come together for a masterpiece of warmth and fuzzy feelings as the credits roll over this beautiful hand drawn adventure.
#KILLALLZOMBIES is quick and easy fun. Because of the random nature of the environment, each playthrough is both similar yet offers a different challenge every time you play. Is the stage going to play nice? Are you going to get decent level up perks? Or are they going to give you the choice of the worst ones possible because otherwise where would be fun be if everything was awesome? That part is up to the system while how far you get is entirely up to you with an included leader board for bragging rights!
Dead Rising 4 takes a few steps forward in terms of the gameplay mechanics, but also takes a giant zombie-infected shamble backwards in regards to the narrative elements. Taking away the ticking clock, making the maniacs nothing more than a mere annoyance instead of the stuff of nightmares, and having civilians easily rescued really pulled away from what I liked in the previous games. Dead Rising 4 is fun, but it’s also a little hollow and it’s lost a significant chunk of the series’ soul.