Gamer Escape
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Moonlighter was a joy of feverish repetition that somehow kept itself feeling fresh the whole 15 hours I spent with it.
I yearn to give this game an 8. It fulfills many of its promises and I enjoyed my time with it. However—speaking for my Playstation 4 review copy (v1.02)—when you take the above alongside grammatical errors, UI errors, crashes, continually pausing to load, combat clunk, and perhaps its narrow interpretation of replay value, what could have been minor and forgivable grievances deal some objective damage.
My major complaint is that the game locks much of its content behind a perfect play. I can understand making seeing the end of the story difficult, but the requirement of practically mastering the game just to unlock the other characters is a source of frustration all on its own.
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux takes a classic game model, polishes it up to a mirror shine, and stuffs it full of things to collect and complete for those of us who love to tick off boxes. An extensive RPG with in-depth mechanics and a wonderfully dark storyline. The only downsides I can really find are that it can be a little grindy at times, and some of the mechanics can be a little obtuse at times, especially demon fusion.
The question is, though, if it’s worth picking up VIIR if you’ve already played or own VII? That one, I’m not so sure. What you’re getting here seems more like an expansion to VII than any kind of remake or remaster, which can make its full $60 asking price (at the time of writing) hard to swallow. While I do like some of the changes to the battle system, the selling point of this release, the PSVR integration, is a cute time-waster at best and an annoying distraction at worst.
Overall, Dragon’s Crown is a highly enjoyable, gorgeous, old-school beat ’em up. The new things it introduces all add complexity and depth to the standard beat ’em up formula while still keeping a simple arcade feel to it, and it’s managed to be some of the best couch co-op I’ve played in ages.
Between the fresh story and a cast of characters that felt well-fleshed out with their sometimes whimsical sometimes serious dialogue, I was able to get lost in The Alliance Alive in a way I haven’t in ages. A good mix of past and present is found here, redrawing pieces of stories we’ve seen before and twisting them enough to make something that felt brand new.
Overall, Gal*Gun 2 just feels like a step back from its predecessor. Double Peace took the perverted premise of these games and utterly ran with it, creating a hilariously awkward game with some relatively strong shooting mechanics that didn’t overstay their welcome. Gal*Gun 2 feels like it removed the game’s heart in order to replace it with more shooting stages.
Having said that, however, the game’s 60 levels will likely take you many hours to complete, and is a thoroughly fun experience well worth the $14.99 price tag. As a certain song and this section title goes, it’s hard to overstate my satisfaction. This game is sure to please almost everyone in its target audience and I highly recommend it.
Not only does it stay true to what people love about these titles, but it’s a goodbye to one of the most compelling protagonists I’ve ever played in a video game. If this is your first trip to Kamurocho, you’re going to enjoy yourself without question.
At a budget-friendly $20 at the time of writing, Fatal Twelve is easily recommendable as a quick and entertaining read between more intensive games or stories. It’s not the greatest take on a death game story I’ve seen, but it’s a great “popcorn flick”-style story with some interesting characters and themes.
It’s clear that not enough love was given to Fear Effect Sedna. The lack of polish shows all over the place, and little flaws that could have been ironed out with more testing cripple the experience. The things it does well are rendered disappointing by the frustrating mess one needs to slog through to reach them.
I truly have no idea why Idea Factory decided to split this remake into two releases, and I would have greatly preferred having this full story contained in a single release. Regardless, if you enjoyed the story of Kyoto Winds, Edo Blossoms is pretty much essential playing.
It doesn’t win out over Trails in the Sky SC, it comes really damn close. The unfortunate fact that you have to slog through the low points of the first game to get to the expansive high here is a bit of a blemish…but I’d say it’s worth a little bit of pain.
Aside from a handful of “eh” songs and the seemingly frivolous Arcade mode, I’d almost go so far as to call this the perfect rhythm game for home console.
If plans to add more songs to the game pan out, and they’re released for free, Hatsune Miku VR might be worth a look in the future, if only for hardcore Vocaloid fans. As it stands right now, for both rhythm gamers and Miku aficionados, this game really isn’t worth your time or money.
Together with the lack of voice acting and other minor flaws, it’s hard to justify the game’s rather high price tag, as its production values just don’t seem to be in line with titles at this price point. There is some fun to be had here if you are fond of classic JRPGs – and I would recommend it for such people – but I would wait for a good sale before considering this one.
I hope to see this game tightened up a bit because it was truly disappointing how the core gameplay mechanics and pacing kept prodding me awake when all I wanted to do was dream. I wanted see more and know more, but it would require more patience than it earned from me to see it fully uncovered.
Those attempting to play for the first time are going to be dealing with the archaic systems on top of a presentation that feels more like a mobile port than a full-fledged console release. On the other hand, returning players will probably find themselves disappointed with the remixed soundtrack and lack of any work done to polish the rough edges. Nostalgic gamers should just stick to the SNES original, newcomers really don’t even need to bother.
A psychological thriller with stealth seemed right up my alley, which made it all the more disappointing that it wound up primarily a mediocre cover-based shooter. But hey, my achievement progress for the game is at 69%, and it’s going to stay that way. Nice.