GameSoulz's Reviews
Fairy Fencer F definetly has its flaws, like the bland story and clichee characters that Neptunia did way better and smarter, it just can´t make the characters or humour appeal to me since it offers nothing new or innovative. Mixed with a very repetitive Gameplay and grinding mechanics it definetly is not for everyone but the excellent combat system and way of customization that furies offer you, really let it stand out from other Compile Heart games.
Senran Kagura Estival Versus truly surprised me, it offers an enjoyable story,a really good action based combat, which sadly gets too repetitive in my eyes, and a lot of Boobs and fan-service, which comes in the ultimate package with the PC-version! If you´re a Senran Kagura fan you probably already picked it up but if you want to try it out like me I would really like recommend it, due to it´s fun gameplay but since it provides so few background information and requires you to play the predecessor or dive into the wiki I don´t know if I blindly can. It´s definitely more than boobs but has many problems, especially story-wise, leading to a fun but way not perfect game.
With features like the Demon Hand it finally creates an own personality and shows how good a faster hunting RPG can be, while also giving away a lot of potential story-wise and fails to use its interesting and huge open world properly. It addresses a lot of Kiwami´s problems but fails at improving it biggest weak point, the repetition.
BERSERK is certainly not a perfect game, it suffers from confusing and struggling story-telling, repetitive gameplay and not working design concepts. Omega Force tried to squeeze the Berserk franchise in the Dynasty Warriors concept, removing a lot things that make it work and adding some new, not nearly as good things to it. However BERSERK nails one thing: Being Berserk. During the first ~6-7 hours BERSERK´s gameplay works well, due to unlockable combos, leading to a very enjoyable experience, combined with the brutal and fitting presentation. Honestly, I wouldn´t recommend BERSERK to someone who´s new to the franchise, it just can´t tell the story properly in order to understand what makes it so great and is just to “niche” to be enjoyable over its playtime. However, for Berserk fans like me this game fills a hole, the wish to finally play these amazing battles himself, to slaughter thousand of enemies himself and to experience this story himself.
Tarsier Studios created a truly unique game with Little Nightmares, showing how good horror could be. It creates an atmosphere, unchallenged by most games from the genre, with great artistic-design and creativity. Yet, the gameplay is too flawed to crown it as one of the best, too many bad design decisions and copied mechanics hold it back. Especially due to the short 3-5 hours long story with little to no replay value for a stiff 20 euro price tag make it hard to recommend it for everyone in an instant.
Troll and I is a horrible game, it doesn´t offer a good story or characters, doesn´t understand how to copy its gameplay-elements successfully and suffers from a consistent flow of bad design choices. Spiral House clearly didn´t know what Coop games need and how to design them, had no consitent vision for their game and failed at nearly everything they tried. Combined with the amount of bugs and gamebreaking moments, I could never enjoy the game or understand how this got through playtesting. However, the worst part for me is, that it even fails at delivering an enjoyable Coop experience.
A Rose in the Twilight has its little problems and annoying moments, due to bad design, like every game it´s not perfect. However they couldn´t change the fact that I enjoyed it, I loved it to be honest. Its story, characters, setting and the way it uses its beautiful visuals, to play with your expectations and emotions, made me fall in love with this game. Combined with a refreshing amount of creativity in its puzzle mechanics, which could always surprise and amaze me, make A Rose in the Twilight not only an amazing game but also one of the best Puzzlers I´ve played since a very long time.
Paradigm is a game full of creativity, love and humour, which never fails at drawing a smile on your face. It may suffer from a mediocre adventure gameplay with either too easy or too vaguely explained puzzles and an enjoyable yet disappointing second half. However there was never a point I was bored of Paradigm and when the credits rolled over my screen my thirst to see more of this world was gigantic. All in all Paradigm offers an okay-ish adventure gameplay but a journey no one with a sense for dark humour should miss, a must-buy.
The Signal from Tölva offers a beautiful world and artstyle with colourful landscapes, unique places, a compelling story and a wonderful implementation of its sci-fi theme. Yet it can´t fill its world with enough to keep it interesting for many hours, can´t offer a really fun Shooter experience for me and has not much that let it stand out Gameplay-wise. I´m sure there are people that can enjoy this game, especially if you´re a fan of its Gunplay but overall, I´m disappointed.
To conclude, PSYCHO-PASS Mandatory Happiness offers a really great story and amazing representation of the PSYCHO-PASS universe, letting us dive once again into this crazy world. It shows new aspects of this world, asks new questions and expands the universe, story-wise it´s pretty much what I expected. On the other hand, it suffers from a weak 2nd protagonist, a lackluster and boring presentation and some little problems within the story. It just never feels like the presentation PSYCHO-PASS needed to convey its world and their problems, resulting in a worse experience than necessary.
I was often annoyed, during my time with Full Throttle, but was amazed by its Soundtrack and great moments nearly as often. Despite my criticism I´m surprised how well this game still works nowadays and how much I enjoyed it. In my opinion, it may not be a perfect adventure game but the Remastered version is definetly the way to go, if you want to replay or experience this truly amazing classic, without worrying about technical issues, compatiblity or pixel-graphics.
If you will enjoy The Silver Case is a very subjective question. If you love Suda51 and Visual Novels, like me, I´m sure you will enjoy it in some way or another, it still has a very Suda51-ish vibe in certain story moments and offers really interesting insights in his early steps, just don´t expect something like Killer7. However, its certainly not for everyone and defintely not a very good game nowadays, there are just too many flaws, too many uninspired characters and too many ideas squished into one little game.
All in all Guardians of the Galaxy seems to be one of the most promising Telltale series so far. It tries to improve a lot of aspects that drag these games down since years, while maintaining the Telltale typical strengths. Especially the story shows that they want to try something new with this series, offering a very compelling alternative plot to the movies, enhanced with strong characters and dialogues that can successfully carry it. Yet, it´s often gets dragged down by the fact that the story often revolves around the future of their friendship, which doesn´t really work, if you know that its just the first episode. Hopefully they don´t loose this trail and continue pursueing it in the next episodes, due to the new main villain.
Deformers has some great ideas, letting it stand out from the rest. Nothing it tries was never seen in a game but no game combined so many things together and still kept such an easy gameplay. I really like Deformers, if I only look at its gameplay or modes and how much fun it can be to jump in for some rounds and relax. Sure, it has flaws, like the Power-Ups or too similar maps but overall Deformers is a good Multiplayer game. Unfortunately, the price and sheer lack of content are unforgiveable, nothing Deformers offers can justify it. Additionally the micro transaction only pour salt into the wound, making the price even more ridiculous. All in all, a good game may sleep behind all these horrible decisions but I doubt it will ever be honoured, Deformers is already a dead game without a playerbase, which requires you to wait for 10-20min, until your lobby has even 6 players.
If you thought Otome´s can´t be good visual novels, Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds will proof you wrong. It´s not only an amazing visual novel, that understood how to present the Edo era, both visually and story-wise, but also features the possiblity to fall in love with the main cast. My initial fear, that the addition of romance would make the whole setting appear harmless or cute, was quickly debunked, when I saw how brutal Hakuoki can be.
Overall, Period: Cube ~Shackles of Amadeus~ is an amazing written Visual Novel with great characters to romance and offers one of the most beautiful Otome/ Visual Novel experiences. It´s lacking story and telling, are easily overshadowed by the great characters and realistic romances created by them. Instead of a huge cast it focuses on only a handful characters, spread across different routes, to create a huge amount of different and memorable playthroughs and experiences.
Prey is truly an unique game, featuring one of the best designed space stations I´ve ever seen, along with the characteristic artistic vision of Arkane Studios. Yet, it also copies so many flaws from their previous Dishonored series, like the lackluster story-telling and most importantly, the mediocre combat. The point, where Prey simply fails is to keep the thin balance of fairness and difficulty. When the combat works, it both looks and feels great but these moments are just too rare, switched out by too many frustrating moments, overshadowing all the great things Prey implemented. Overall, I still really enjoyed my trip to the Talos I, be it, due to the amazing sandboxes or level design, the sheer amount of possibilities to experiment or the lore behind it. I was often frustrated with it, no doubt, I was often annoyed but also enchanted and stunned by it.
All in all, The Surge is still a good game with great level and enemy designs. Sure, it tends to be repetitive and unspectacular for its setting but it doesn´t change, how well it´s executed. I´m still amazed by the different areas I encountered during my playtime and how amazing they were designed. The Surge might have problems when it comes to combat and gameplay, especially if you like to play your Souls-likes fast and aggressive but I enjoyed other features, like the limb cutting, way too much to hate The Surge for that.
Without a doubt, Endless Space 2 is a great game, probably the best of the series. However, I expected nothing less from Amplitude and the Endless series. Instead of trying to appeal to a broader audience they decided to build on their foundation with some neat little addons and improvements, providing a more than solid base for the sure to come DLCs.
All in all Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada surprised me, I expected a game between expansion and spin-off and got a truly great Warriors game. It has its flaws and problems, like every Omega Force or Warriors game and isn´t for anyone. Yet, if you´re a fan of the series, you certainly won´t regret the excessive trip to Sanada castle. It´s great, trust me.