GameSoulz's Reviews
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rabi-Ribi is definetely not a bad Metroidvania, it´s actually a pretty damn fine one. Featuring silly ideas mixed with silly, adorable art, classic gameplay, spiced up by great unique features and a giant explorable world full of secrets. Because of these great things, it´s easy to forget about the below average story, weak characters, strange upgrade pacing and minimal technical issues. During my 15 hours long playhtrough, I absolutely loved Rabi-Ribi for its bunny girls (who doesn´t love chibis?) and great gameplay and it´s a great fit for the Vita.
Honestly, I could get Trails in the Sky 1+2 on Steam for that price and have a way better and longer time. For a game, that needs so long to develop into something hooking, yet never lives up to previously set standards, this price tag is just bad. In my opinion The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel is worth 29.99, if you completed the Trails in the Sky trilogy, making a recommendation of this let-down a pretty hard one.
All in all, even though it might certainly not be a perfect or good “game”, it´s still a damn great Danganronpa experience, fitting for every fan of the series and basically essential at this point. Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls might be a spin-off to the main series but in the end, it suffers from the same problems.
Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls is nothing else than a pretty big overhaul/extension of an already beloved series. Adding not only more interesting and diverse areas but also new ways of exploring them, allowing for a way better level design and visual diversity. In combination with the extended battle system and well-known silly, yet adorable plot, it may very well be the strongest entry in the series to date, no matter how grindful it still is.
If you can endure its story, which shouldn´t be a problem after Senran Kagura, or are able to laugh about some silly boob jokes, combined with girls having quite some giant ones, you´re in for one hell of a great action game. Honestly, I´m a man preferring gameplay over story, especially when it´s skippable, letting me really like Valkyrie Drive -Bhikkhuni-.
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.
It keeps all the things REV 1 did so well and improving them in every way, without ever making a mistake. The only thing I can criticise here would be the story or film mode, which is easily forgivable for such a great fighting game. Without a doubt, Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 is a truly flawless game.
If RiME can nail one thing, it´s his presentation, not only can it convince with a gorgeous artstyle and great textures but also with a beautiful soundtrack. Unfortunately, these are the only good aspects about it, since it failed at everything it tried, being more of a copy-cat than an unique game, clinging so heavily onto the path Team ICO or Journey paved.