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If you enjoyed the original Making Lovers, you’ll enjoy Making Lovers After Stories. While it often focuses even more than the original on the comedy, there are still romantic moments here. In the end, it’s just a short collection of follow-up scenes and as long as you go in expecting that, you won’t be disappointed.
Ballads at Midnight is a short and sweet vampire romance OELVN served elegantly with enigmatic darkness, amusing banter, and romantic kisses. Its tale is performed with utmost careful attention to detail from start till end, stringing you along with vividly descriptive writing, dreamy visuals, enchanting music, and moving voice acting. Despite the absence of CGs and the lack of full voice acting, Ballads at Midnight is a delightful little morsel to sink your teeth and time into.
Megaman Battle & Fighters is a recommendation to Megafans who are curious how SNK handled the Megaman license, but I’d recommend waiting for a sale due to the lack of in-game English text.
Featuring a decent number of cities and nice combinations of challenges, Mini Motorways is great when you are craving short bursts of puzzles as dynamic as the road traffic. This strategy simulation game is addicting and a half-an-hour session can easily stretch to a few hours as you attempt to “beat the traffic” and inch closer to yet another high score with “just one more try”. Its soundscape, like the vrooms and ticking of the changing traffic lights, is surprisingly relaxing and adds much intriguing flavor to the sleek minimalistic menu screens. While I do not feel particularly compelled to return to the game regularly for its daily or weekly challenges, my trips to the 14 cities were certainly fun while they lasted.
Kirby’s Dream Buffet was a pleasant surprise. It's budget-priced, and a lot of fun. It’s certainly no epic adventure like Kirby and the Forgotten Land, but it’s a great party game that’s kept casual and competitive enough for all ages to play.
Thymesia is a great idea, but it feels like it couldn't decide if it wanted to be its own thing or march to the beat of the Souls Drum. This hampers the product, alongside the loose feeling, lack of feedback in combat, and non-appearance of voice acting. In a post-Elden Ring world, we need to be looking at innovative and unique additions to a genre that has seemingly reached its apex. Sadly Thymesia seems to be solely carried by dated and constructive design, alongside an interesting theme.
Amatsutsumi stands on the strength of its main route. Depending on how you feel about the other heroines and sexual content the journey can be circuitous, but the story of Makoto and the kotodama is worth seeing to the end.
Dark Deity is a flawed game. Its story left me wanting more, and certain game balancing issues decreased my enjoyment at times. However, despite its faults, Dark Deity scratches an itch with its quality base gameplay and unique features that any SRPG enjoyer would be remiss to overlook. In addition, its quality visual-novel style portraits and pixel art are undoubtedly boons for the title. I rate Dark Deity a 7, with the caveat that for folks who aren’t into or haven’t tried SRPGs to do more research before buying. But, if you find yourself in love with the art style, are intrigued by a preview video, or are itching for a Fire Emblem-like experience outside of Nintendo, it’s absolutely worth a try, and a commendable first offering from Sword & Axe.
I enjoyed Digimon Survive as a visual novel and would highly recommend it if that’s all it was. That said, there is some frustration in trying to access all routes, the SRPG combat gets old after a while, and there are a multitude of small issues that do bring the experience down.
At its best, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the peak of Monolith Soft’s sterling record of RPGs. They’ve taken many criticisms of past games in stride and created a game that felt like an evolution in many respects, rather than a compromise. That said, it does end up stumbling into some of the same trappings that have held back past games, while bringing in fresh problems of its own. Xenoblade Chronicles 3, for better and for worse, puts the magic and weirdness of the Xeno series on full display.
Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise has quite an ironic title considering it just made me appreciate what a flash in the pan the original title was. Everything in this sequel is a step or more back and despite that intoxicating SWERY quirk, this title just isn't enjoyable. I don't think I'd be able to recommend that anyone plays this game. Fans of the original and SWERY enthusiasts may get a few kicks from it, but in my humble opinion, this ranks as his worst work and feels as bad as the consensus about Deadly Premonition 1 is.
Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium is a fine compilation title without the celebratory features, and a rather mixed bag of games on hand. Fortunately, being able to buy them separately rather than strictly in bundles can help you navigate the wheat from the chaff. The lack of online multiplayer harms this package much like the previous one, and I'm still unsure why it required a completely separate 'launcher' when everything but the games are the same.
Live A Live is a fantastic experience that any JRPG fan should try for at least a few chapters before writing off. It's still a unique and fresh title after nearly 2 decades and provides as much emotion in its shorter run time as some 80-plus-hour titles. While I've held back on some of the surprises the game has on offer, rest assured the game has enough diversity and allure to keep anyone engaged. Live a Live is an essential title that has finally broken through the western release barrier.
With a tragic but hopeful story filled with heartfelt emotions and a large cast of complex and loveable characters, Reimei no Gakuen meets several aspects of the kind of plot-heavy otome visual novel I enjoy. And with such a good production quality, from the amazing art to the beautiful BGM, observed throughout this 80-hour long game, I won’t hesitate to say that Reimei no Gakuen is recommended.
If you enjoyed Kinkoi: Golden Loveriche, I’d certainly recommend Kinkoi: Golden Time. While it might not reach the same high points that Golden Loveriche does, it’s consistently great throughout and explores some new characters that we didn’t see enough of the first time.
Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 is a game that wants to evolve the series, but is founded on the flawed principle of trying to fix what wasn’t broken to begin with. For each improvement it makes, there is a new problem present that holds it back from ever reaching its fullest potential. This game was a long time coming, which is why it’s disappointing for me to say that the wait wasn’t entirely worth it.
It's always fun when Kunio leaves the streets to take on other roles. River City Saga: Three Kingdoms is certainly no exception. This is a much stronger outing for the River City franchise than the recent River City Girls Zero. Its overall quality and fun combat have skyrocketed the game firmly into one of my favorites from the franchise. While there isn't enough here to convert the naysayers, anyone who's enjoyed previous titles or even just the genre could find quite a lot to love about this title. Here's hoping that we see even more River City Saga titles in the future.
If you enjoyed Moss, then certainly get Moss: Book II – it’s a true sequel, sticking close but making improvements along the way. If you’ve not played Moss, go and play that, then come back and play Moss: Book II. Just try and play them on a platform with decent tracking.
It's hard to recommend Horgihugh and Friends when I had such high expectations dashed. It's not a bad game per se, but it's full of annoying cheap deaths and the visual department doesn't hit where it needs to. It certainly isn't my "go-to" cute 'em up, but there is certainly is worse on the market. Sorry, Horgi - you're not the best boy.
Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series is a brilliant little package for fans and newcomers alike. That said, the latter may have to wade through some of the more basic stuff before they hit on why Klonoa has such a cult following. The graphics and funky physics paint a deceptive picture that the game is "budget" or "cheap", but it's simply a faithful remastering of two titles that are still very much rooted in the late 90s to early 00s. The same titles that have so much heart it would make the Kingdom Hearts crew green with envy. The lack of extras outside of the DLC and the omission of the GBA titles does mean that the title slightly misses the mark, and it isn't the most original title around nowadays, but the cheap price point and overall charm win the day in the end.