Miguel Moran's Reviews
I'm trying my best to think of some kind of clever joke or metaphor about Touhou Kobuto V: Burst Battle, but I don't even think the game deserves that kind of effort on my part. Burst Battle is an awful video game. Without a tutorial, learning to play is no fun at all, and I had an equal sum of zero fun playing it when I actually knew how to play. If you're itching for a Touhou fighting game, run to your PC and download one of the official 2D fighting games from the main series. Never touch Burst Battle. Learn from my errors, and live a long, healthy, fulfilling life.
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.
Dragon Ball: The Breakers is broken. In their efforts to slap a Dragon Ball coat of paint onto the world of asymmetrical horror-multiplayer action, Bandai Namco has failed to put any care or consideration into the gameplay mechanics that make games like these so fun and enjoyable. Mixed with matchmaking issues and egregious paid gacha mechanics, this is a poor attempt at live-service multiplayer hidden behind the veil of 90s anime nostalgia.
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories has solid ideas, but very few that manifest themselves properly.
Super Neptunia RPG makes an earnest attempt at shaking up the formula of the Neptunia series. Unfortunately, major technical issues bog this game down at every turn, and even if they were fixed, the drawn out story and over-simplified combat would fail to equate to an enjoyable game. Super fans of the Neptunia series might find something worthwhile in this experience, but it's sure to be buried under ten tons of headache and frustration.
Gensokyo Defenders, like so many Touhou spinoff games before it, is a low budget affair that fails to capture the same level of satisfying gameplay and unique artistry present in the original games. While the gameplay is functional and sometimes entertaining, every other part of the package serves to bring that enjoyment to a screeching halt.
I love fighting games a lot, and I understand that many other people do. I think the dedication and effort it takes to craft a capable fighting game worth forming a community around is daunting. Unfortunately, Omen of Sorrow feels like it's taken a “quantity over quality” approach that results in a flaccid, broken experience. From the characters and art to the core act of fighting, nothing in Omen of Sorrow quite sticks the landing. There are a lot of incredible fighting games to check out this year, but Omen of Sorrow is not one of them.
Fallen Legion has a wealth of great ideas, but ultimately crumbles under its ambitions. A fun combat system helps form a strong core, but one that ultimately doesn't hold together for very long. The saving grace here is the beautiful artwork and smooth animations, which are complimented by some great music. Unfortunately, it's hard to recommend the game on those traits alone; Fallen Legion is interesting, and promising, but rarely enjoyable.
Akiba's Beat is a bad game, but it's an even worse sequel. So many aspects of the previous game, Akiba's Trip, are abandoned or watered down in this title, from the downgraded graphics, to the lack of customization, the poor characters, and more. Akiba's Beat abandons it's roots, instead trying so desperately to fill shoes far too big for it. Like the Chinese knockoff Transformers toys in my local deli, Akiba's Beat attempts to emulate many big franchise without the budget, skill, or style of any of them. You will buy it for a steep discount and know exactly what you're getting into, or you will laugh at it and walk away before buying the game it tries to be.
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.
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.
CRYMACHINA has a promising story and a fresh aesthetic, but the presentation leaves so much to be desired. Convoluted and rushed world-building makes it hard to get invested, and the basic and repetitive combat encounters make it hard not to feel like the loop between gameplay and story is more of a chore than it's worth.
Monochrome Mobius: Rights and Wrongs is full of interesting nuggets of narrative revelations for fans of the long-running Utawarerumono visual novel series, but its pacing problems and lacking quality make it much less suitable for newcomers than it should be.
Like the first two games, Fairy Fencer F: Refrain Chord is flawed, tonally inconsistent, and a massively repetitive grind. Re-treading this story for the third time and jump to an entirely different and less enjoyable gameplay system has made it even harder to recommend this game in spite of it's flaws. There is charm, and there are moments, and diehard Compile Heart fans might be able to push through and enjoy them, but I suspect that the people this game will truly speak to are few and far between.
Made in Abyss: Binary Star Falling into Darkness retains very little of the heart and soul that made the anime and manga it's based on so appealing and engaging. There's a promising survival RPG campaign in the Deep in Abyss mode, hampered by some annoying game design decisions, but the fact that you're forced to trudge through a barebones adaptation of the anime in order to unlock it just makes a bad experience even worse.
Dusk Diver 2 flies too close to the sun - and it isn't even aiming for the sun in it's own solar system. While the original game was a tight and exciting brawler, this sequel tries to pivot into a more methodical character-action style without the tools that make those games so rewarding. The result is a game with repetitive, sluggish combat dominating the entire experience. Fans might find crumbs of narrative intrigue to explore here, but newcomers have little reason to dive in.
Watch Dogs Legion: Bloodline tries to be a love letter to fans of the series by bringing back two iconic characters as the protagonists, but in doing so, it removes the one gameplay mechanic that made Watch Dogs: Legion so memorable. Without characters to study, befriend, and recruit, Bloodline is a more watered-down open-world experience than the base game it's tied to. Worse is the fact that it doesn't expand on the base game at all. With no new regions to explore, activities to engage in, or gear to unlock, it's a pretty barebones package overall.
Poison Control has some of my favourite art and character designs from any game this year, but that isn't anywhere near enough to carry the entire experience. The dual-character combat system is a fresh and stylish idea, but it isn't executed very well. Clunky movement and repetitive combat end up holding back this otherwise stylish and unique new game from Nippon Ichi Software.
Does The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV have a great story that's a worthy capstone to a ten-year JRPG saga? No, it doesn't. As a standalone experience, it's an impenetrable mess of fizzled out character arcs and bloated cutscenes. Despite all that, Trails of Cold Steel IV has addictive gameplay, dope music, and gorgeous character designs. If you want a fun and grind-heavy JRPG with a wild amount of options and battles, but don't mind turning your brain off to ignore the story and glaze over poorly-written cutscenes, then this is one's for you.
Gun Gun Pixies has a very specific audience, and many of those people are sure to have a good time with this game. Cute characters and a wealthy abundance of fanservice are here in spades. Unfortunately, I often found myself struggling with the repetitive gameplay and clunky controls too much to appreciate any of the good aspects of the game.