If Kadokawa Games was hoping to kindle interest in future Metal Max titles in western audiences, Metal Max Xeno is not the game to get that particular job done.
Cosmic Star Heroine is far more than a simple send-up of some of the genre’s most beloved classics.
With a great cast of characters expertly brought to life, a gorgeous visual style, and a seemingly never-ending supply of varied story beats to experience, it is easily worth any JRPGamer’s time, and sets the new watermark for the series moving forward.
Sure, it’s not the first game to eschew fantasy and science fiction trappings or feature a historically-accurate setting, but not many have yet done so to such a satisfying end result, not to mention going the open-world route and still succeeding, for the most part, brilliantly.
Instead of cashing in on its unique premise, the game’s one-note execution, paper-thin story, and frustrating difficulty drive its fun quotient into the red.
Smoke and Sacrifice is certainly different from any other game I’ve ever played, but whether this worked out in its favor is questionable.
The repetitive gameplay cycle, taken to its extreme by asking the player to clear the game a total of five times before the true ending is even unlocked, won’t win everybody over.
For all the things it does right, The Alliance Alive generally feels like a game that wasn’t quite ready to get pulled out of the oven, but was released anyway.
Backed up by modern technology, Lost Sphear offers a thoroughly engaging take on the classic RPG formula.