Miguel Moran's Reviews
Watch Dogs 2 is the perfect sequel. It takes everything that made the first game unique and original, and expands on all of it. Everything is better, from the hacking, to the story, the setting and the variety of content. Watch Dogs 2 is far from being just more of the same. An apt comparison could be the jump from the first Assassins Creed game to Assassins Creed 2. While the first was a promising yet clunky new idea, the sequel delivered on that idea and turned it into one of the most iconic series of the last decade. With Watch Dogs 2, Ubisoft is well on its way to recreating that same magic.
Central Fiction set out to be the be all and end all BlazBlue package, and it pulls it off marvelously. With the largest cast of characters to date, and a number of extra modes, the amount of gameplay variety is staggering.
World of Final Fantasy is so much bigger than any other Final Fantasy spinoff I’ve experienced. Out of the gate, it’s an incredibly lengthy JRPG with full voice acting, cutscenes everywhere, hundreds of characters, and more. There’s a fair amount of fluff and filler spread throughout the lengthy RPG, but its tail end features some great nostalgia trips and fun character moments. It’s a great celebration of the legacy of Final Fantasy that’s a blast for fans old and new.
I play video games to have a good time. I’m sure you do, too. Even when we turn on something truly masochistic like Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy, we do so knowing that the uphill battle we struggle with will culminate in a satisfying, euphoric sense of accomplishment and joy. My laborious, 10-hour uphill battle with Root Letter ended in the hill giving way to a massive drop into a bottomless ravine, and as I fell through the ravine, I felt regret. I felt pain. I felt aggravation.
It’s hard to find a truly glaring flaw in Yomawari: Night Alone. My biggest complaint of a lack of story or creature explanations is honestly something that other players might have zero problems with. It’s even something that I admit myself adds to the mystique and charm of the game. I’m awful at playing horror games, and I’m always too scared to make any real progress. Yomawari creates a great atmosphere of tension and terror that rarely relies on cheap scares, and it was the perfect formula to keep me hooked until the end. If you’re looking for a good alternate horror game, look no further.
The overall level design is, unfortunately, a bit more hit and miss than the enemy work. Ashes of Ariendal thrives on putting you into tight corridors filled with enemies, and it’s rarely a good time. The overall structure of the world is branching and open-ended, which provides the player with plenty to explore, but with the environments all looking so samey with their rocks and snow, it’s hard to tell where you are sometimes.
If you’re a fan of games that mix visual novel narrative with light gameplay elements like Zero Escape or Ace Attorney, and you’re itching for something like that that falls into the horror genre, you absolutely need to try out Corpse Party.
Valkyrie Drive is an incredibly fun and addictive game. While it doesn’t have the same crazy narrative or visual flair as a Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, it certainly shares their vibrant and satisfying combat. Valkyrie Drive is also a game very focused on fan service, and overt sexual themes. For some people, that will be a deal breaker, but if that’s right up your alley and you’re looking for the next great touchscreen supporting Vita classic, then look no further than Valkyrie Drive.
You can see the passion and care put into Aragami from a mile away. Everything about the game shows a love for the stealth genre and the games that made the genre so great. Unfortunately, it isn’t until you get up close and start to play the game that you also see all the cracks. Aragami has a lot going for it, but it also has a lot going against it, and those issues keep a good game from being a great game.
Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity grabbed me and never let go. It’s a fun game with great characters and combat, and it all comes together in a package that kept me glued to my PS4. It’s a shame that mainline Touhou games haven’t seen English localisations, but the series’ unique charm has been wonderfully captured by this game. Newcomers to the series will have a great time dipping their toes into the universe with this title, and existing fans have absolutely nothing to lose with it either.
Whether you’ve been a fan of Psycho-Pass for years, or you hadn’t even heard of the series until you saw this review, Mandatory Happiness is well worth checking out. Though you can play it as a newcomer, it’s a far more rewarding experience if you’ve watched the anime.
It’s a real shame that the first Touhou game to officially come out overseas is Touhou Genso Rondo. It really doesn’t capture the appeal or the magic of the mainline Touhou series, and there are plenty of other fan-games in vastly different genres that are at least much more mechanically polished than this one. Touhou Genso Rondo is a mild disappointment for fans of the series, but despite the broad marketing efforts of NIS America, it should simply be absolutely avoided by newcomers.
Trails Of Cold Steel II feels less like a sequel, and more like the second half of an incredibly rich JRPG experience. There’s a lot to take in between both these titles, and it can feel like a slog at times, especially with the first game. Cold Steel II does a great job of making that slog worth it, and delivers with an action packed story and a consistently challenging gameplay experience.
Project Diva X is by far the best game in the series so far. It improves the visuals, customisation, music selection and even the performances. It’s hard to recommend previous games over this one, but it’s not perfect, and the weak story mode that’s been added is hard to ignore. If you do manage to overlook it, you’re in for an addictive and endlessly replayable rhythm game that hits a high note for the Project Diva series.
Hearth&Slash has a lot of great ideas. On paper, a Devil May Cry roguelike is probably one of the most amazing ideas ever. Unfortunately, the reality of that idea never lives up to that promise. The roguelike features were relatively basic compared to games like Rogue Legacy. The action gameplay was nowhere near as satisfying as Metal Gear Rising. In the end, Heart & Slash just made me wish I was playing one of those games instead of this one.
Truthfully, I went into Gal*Gun Double Peace with below zero expectations. I figured it would be a cheap, dated game that only had its obvious “fan service” going for it. It’s clearly aimed at that niche audience, but Gal Gun is fun, funny, and easy to pick up and play for countless quick sessions. The poor visuals and complicated story requirements are a shame, but they never truly soured my time with the title and as soon as I finish this review, I plan to play more.
Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force improves on the previous game, but that still doesn’t make it a perfect experience.
Duelyst had me hooked, as I put hours and hours into it almost every day. If I had written my review for it at that point, it would have done incredibly well in my books, with it's fascinating tactical RPG twist on the familiar card game play. But after playing with friends, I struggle to go back to playing against anonymous opponents in ranked play, and I just don't know how much more time I see myself putting into this game.
Melty Blood maintains all of the charm and polish that made it so popular in the fighting game community all those years ago. Long-time fans finally have an official way to enjoy this cult classic, and it’s an almost museum-like look into an iconic chapter of fighting games. Despite a lackluster package surrounding the awe-inspiring gameplay, it’s a game that has stood the test of time and people who are passionate about fighting games owe it to themselves to pay it a visit.
Grand Kingdom is one of the most interesting things I've ever had on my Vita, combining so many ideas together and somehow making them all work. Like a weird looking dish at a foreign restaurant your cousin recommended, you might doubt it can be anything other than a huge mess, but once you get a taste of it, you'll realize just how wrong you were.