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I must say I loved Hearts R. The game is made with the Vita in mind, and is a great Tales experience. If you’re a fan of the Tales games, I would heavily recommend Hearts R—it’s a fantastic game. If you aren’t so much of a Tales fan, the game is still possibly one of the best (if not the best) JRPGs on Vita we have out here so far … but I may be a bit biased as the Tales series is my favorite JRPG.
This year has seen a lot of great modern CRPGs impersonating old school titles, and Grimrock 2 is yet another in that long list of spiritual successors to long dead franchises that have been begging to be resurrected. If you want to lose a couple of weeks to a good dungeon crawler with a thriving community and some very un-indie-like bells and whistles, Grimrock 2 is a sure way to scratch that itch.
As much as I love Samurai Warriors, I would suggest either of those games before this one. However, if you have both of those and still want more Musou, Samurai Warriors 4 is still a good entry in the series.
The battle system is a well-thought-out tactical setup that brings all necessary attributes to a minimal core but, for me, the choppy flow, the time required, and the harshness of the ridiculously skewed battles yielded too little reward to continue progressing enthusiastically.
All told, I wouldn't recommend Battle Grounds as a full-on game, but it is a fun time waster. The battles get boring and repetitive too quickly to entertain you for long, and that in turn ends up meaning your time is better spent elsewhere. While the game looks and runs great, the gameplay just lacks too much.
As much negativity as Kickstarter has been saddled with over the past year, I feel reassured that good things can come of it thanks to this game here. Though Divinity and Shadowrun were also big successes that were funded through Kickstarter, it almost felt for a while there that Wasteland would get lost in their shadow. That thankfully isn't the case, since in this gamer's opinion, Wasteland 2 is a much bigger and more varied CRPG than either of those two titles. Fargo & Co should be proud of what they have here, and I sincerely hope that the market allows them to make a Wasteland 3.
I think they got a great slew of character's that mesh well (maybe not Pippin), on-point music, fun combat, customizable upgrades and with a decent story that doesn't go incredibly outlandish which some of their titles do. The main gripes I have are mostly the zoomed in camera feel from dungeon navigating, frame-rate issues when moving the camera around alongside actions, and lack of world exploring, and lastly – the game can also get easy when going midway on in the game.
If you're not a fan of Warriors games, but are curious, give it a go. The game is crazy fun and the amount of content will make your head spin. But if you don't like Warriors games at all, this one is still a DW game – if you don't like the series, you won't like this.
I can honestly say there wasn't one moment that I ever thought about skipping the games dialogue scenes. They're just so entertaining, and I can't help but smile when one of the characters makes an awesome reference to a game I haven't played in a while, or maybe have forgotten altogether. I'll go as far as to call this game a must buy, because I know I'll be playing this game for a long time to come.
Risen 3 is a triumphant return to Piranha Bytes' golden age and a fantastic CRPG in its own right. An open world epic that is guaranteed to get better with each passing hour you put into it and won't let you go until the end. With its long 60+ hour quest, well over 300 side-quests and a very easy to grasp combat system, it's by far and away the most approachable of Piranha Bytes' games – and perhaps its most enjoyable one as well.
I went into playing Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment with caution as to how the game could possibly recapture the essence of the source material, but it does that admirably – even with something as small as the inability to actually "quit the game", which is something that'll stick with me for a long time, just like the series itself.
Suffice to say, this game produces with guns blazing. It's a refreshing take on roguelike games that adds multitude of learning paths and difficulty curves. Crypt of the NecroDancer has rewarding gameplay and amazing, intelligent music-oriented gameplay which makes this game stand out amongst most rogue-likes. The game has a ton of potential to grow, even more of which I am excited to see what Brace Yourself will produce more with this title.
Luckily enough, I find that with Akiba's Trip being a slightly watered down Way of the Samurai, it's a lot easier for anyone to get into it. With a direct story and no time limit, the game allows the player to take in the experience of a delightfully weird, quirky, otaku-crazed story coupled with fun, engaging gameplay, in the immersive world of Akihabara.
So, is Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited a game worth picking up? Absolutely. If you’re a Disgaea fan, you probably already own it on the PS3. I will say that even if you do, you might want to pick it up on the Vita, since it’s quite honestly the definitive way to play the game. Disgaea lends itself incredibly well to a handheld console, and with the additional content and polishing, I can’t recommend it enough.
Through it all though, Trails is a great example of why the PC needs JRPGs and why the genre doesn't deserve the negative connotation it often gets stuck with. Buy it, support the genre, and hope this convinces other Japanese companies to release their games on digital services like Steam and GOG as well.
If you are looking for a puzzle platformer to play around with I would be hard pressed not to recommend this one. It doesn't have the most complicated puzzles, it isn't the longest, and it won't give you as many "A HA" moments as some other offerings in the genre.
This game, to me, is about proving to yourself that even the small victories count, and no matter how many times you fail, you shouldn't snap your game system in half. It's just not worth the trouble. Plus, it was expensive, and you know it.
Overall, there's a good game here, but few things set it apart from other 2D side-scrolling dungeon crawlers and, in many cases, it doesn't win out in comparison.
So, do I think Space Run is worth your time and money? If you want a fun, engaging tower defense game with a good story, and above average voice acting, then yes, I think it's worth the paltry 15 USD pricetag. It has some problems, but they don't keep it from being a solid title.
If I was Swen Vincke, I'd make sure to work on this engine and release a few more games using the same exact gameplay scheme. What he has here is the basis for a very lucrative new (old?) breed of CRPG and it would be criminal to not take advantage of it. Original Sin is his masterpiece, and with it he has filled a void that a lot of old school RPGers came to Kickstarter looking for. Congratulations Larian, you did the impossible. Now make more.