Thomas Knight's Reviews
A potentially great game, mostly limited by technology. Still, there’s plenty of fun to be had here.
An interesting reboot of an old series. Shows its age in some ways, but it is a great way to revisit this franchise.
The pacing of the story wasn’t the best in the world and the characters weren’t as charming as some other titles, but it was a relaxing journey with well developed characters and an interesting world. Overall, the gameplay is one of the better systems I’ve experienced for a JRPG too and it comes paired with a beautiful world and character design.
Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen has an intriguing story, great characters, and a decent SRPG battle system. The story of seeing where Hakuowlo starts and where he goes from there is really the selling point here. I did have some complaints about the censorship going a bit too far and the battle system is not amazing, but overall I highly recommend it. It's certainly a candidate for my best visual novels of 2020 list.
Saints Row the Third has always been one of the most fun games I’ve played and Saints Row the Third: Remastered brings that to a new group of players. Perhaps it could have made more improvement as a Remaster considering the price charged, but the amount of sheer fun you can have makes it well worth playing. There are tons of things to do from structured missions to achievements based on driving on the wrong side of the road. This is not a game that you will be done with by just completing the story.
I would highly recommend YOU and ME and HER: A Love Story to visual novel fans who play visual novels for the story, more than romancing the heroines. I would also suggest that it is not suitable as a beginner’s visual novel but would be more appreciated by someone familiar with the genre. In several ways, this was not my style of a visual novel. Despite this, I rate it very highly. YOU and ME and HER: A Love Story is a story that I feel visual novel fans should experience and many will appreciate, even if it means stepping outside of their comfort zone.
While Sakura Wars does have some issues with the repetitiveness required to see all of the content and the battle system not being as fluid as it could be, the majority of my experience has been great. The interactions with the characters particularly stand out and the game’s focus is definitely on that. The patch which came out around release alleviated some of the issues I experienced playing prerelease, but did not completely erase them. I still recommend it, but it still falls below expectations in some ways.
I would personally recommend Making Lovers to visual novel fans who enjoy games with less focus on story, but more on characters and relationships. All of the characters are likeable, all of the routes are interesting and production values are high all around. It's a great entry to visual novels too. It's not a perfect title, but it gets a strong recommendation from me.
Overall, I really enjoyed Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate. There’s something satisfying about mindlessly mowing down thousands of soldiers and then using a variety of skills to bring down more difficult enemies. The story isn’t the most amazing thing in the world, but I feel like the gameplay more than makes up for it and the sheer amount of content in the game makes it worth the price, despite it admittedly being a bit high.
In the end, I find myself rather mixed on this title. It has some very good points – the character interactions, the voicing and the way it works as an introduction to the world of Azur Lane. There’s even a huge selection of characters to unlock even if it doesn’t cover the full range of Azur Lane characters. While there are positive points, there are certainly negative ones too. The constant button pressing and going back to the map to proceed. Battles being too short and too easy to need to do much. The user interface only really works well if you have a controller. In the end, I think this is going to be one mostly for fans of Azur Lane rather than fans of anime games in general.
Overall I certainly enjoyed this game. It was full of personality and it was a nice change to be making dance poses instead of attacking or defending like in some other popular VR rhythm games. I did feel like it was too short on content for the relatively high price and it might be better served on a VR system with better tracking, but it was fun and it’d be great to implement into someone’s VR exercise routine with the 100-stage mode.
I actually played Zombie Army 4: Dead War enough that my hand began to hurt at one point because I couldn't put it down. It's delightfully gory and the gameplay is incredibly fun.Playing solo was fun, but it improved even further in co-op with a good group. I recommend this game in general, but I recommend it even more if you can convince some friends to pick it up at the same time.
Overall, I certainly enjoyed Rune Factory 4 Special. It is an incredibly addictive game that has eaten up hours of my time and will continue to do so in the future as I play through again and again. The only complaints I have are fairly minor, such as a lack of explanations of a few points or the occasional case of a follower character getting in the way. It's a well-done remake.
I would recommend Senren Banka to visual novel fans who feel they would enjoy the adventure story or the light comedy style the story is told with. While I did feel the story was weaker in the character routes when compared to the common route, the characters themselves made up for it. The production values are high in the visual and audio areas. I enjoyed my time reading it and I believe many visual novel fans will.
Overall, this is an incredibly short experience but an interesting one. I’d usually hesitate to recommend a visual novel of this length, but between the cost being next to nothing and the sheer amount of choices you can explore, I feel like it does earn the recommendation.
Overall, I enjoyed playing Gensou Skydrift, but it did have some issues. It is quite short, without many modes. It has some technical issues and it’s not great graphically. With that said, I certainly enjoyed that it was more difficult than the average and it is very fun to play against friends, as well as in single player. The skill needed to successfully navigate the courses is what makes it stand out the most to me and certainly fits in with the rest of the Touhou Project series in that way.
Coffee Talk is a very laid back and well-written game. While I don’t really think it fits its own tagline of a ‘coffee brewing simulator’, it does hit the target on the conversations. It covers some sensitive modern topics in a different way and manages to feel very relatable, despite involving aliens, mermaids and more. While I would’ve liked to see further alternate endings or ways to affect the storyline, it’s a small but pleasant package for a budget price.
Overall, I really enjoyed Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk DX. In terms of the story and characters, I feel it to be the strongest of the Atelier titles I have experienced so far. While I may have some mixed feelings about the alchemy system and took issue with the difficulty spike, I enjoyed the world, all the side stories experienced along the journey and the relaxed feeling of the game. I highly recommend it.
Overall, I find the Atelier Dusk Trilogy DX to have been done well. The games themselves are all very enjoyable and this is the definitive version of them, with some great additional features which improve things even more than most remasters would.
I would personally recommend Bokuten - Why I Became an Angel, again with the caveat that the reader knows what they are getting themselves into. This is a very sad, emotional experience with some highly disturbing scenes and topics. It is also a very well written visual novel with a great story that I would highly recommend to someone who wants to experience something out of the ordinary.