I’ve made little secret about my love of the Yakuza games (and their spin-offs). It’s one of my favorite series, so I was ecstatic to have the chance to review Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the second of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s RPG offerings and a continuation of Ichiban Kasuga’s story. Joined by new friends and in a completely new setting, will this adventure charm me as much as Ichiban’s first?

Infinite Wealth Story

We pick up three years after the events of Like a Dragon and the Yokohama crew have settled back into society as productive, working adults. Kasuga Ichiban is at Hello Work trying to find jobs for the displaced yakuza following the Great Dissolution of the Tojo Clan and Omi Alliance. Masumi Arakawa’s dream for the yakuza was for them to reintegrate into proper society, and Ichiban has made it his dream to make sure Arakawa’s vision comes to fruition. Yu Nanba found a job working in a medical warehouse, and Koichi Adachi is starting up his own security business. Saeko Mukoda is running her own club. Everything is going well, but it’s about to go downhill fast. Ichiban finally builds up the courage to take Saeko out on a date, and it ends disastrously – so much so that we skip one year into the future and she’s left the poor man on read. Not only that, but a VTuber released a hit piece on Ichiban that went viral, leading to him being canned from Hello Work. Adachi and Nanba get the ax, as well.

Freshly unemployed once again, the gang learn all the ex-yakuza Ichiban spent years trying to help were also targeted by this VTuber. Hisoka Tatara has it out for the yakuza in general and Ichiban in particular, it seems, dedicating multiple live streams to our hero. With nowhere to go, the yakuza turn to the Seiryu Clan in Yokohama, which has been filling its ranks in recent months. Acting captain Masataka Ebina claims he’s recruiting the former yakuza to work at his legitimate waste disposal business as he plans to enact the Second Great Dissolution. To gain legitimacy among veteran yakuza and prove his commitment to Arakawa’s vision, Ebina pulls strings to get Jo Sawashiro out of jail early, drawing in more former Tojo and Omi in the process.

It’s here Sawashiro drops a bombshell: Ichiban’s mother, Akane, is still alive, and she lives in Hawaii. Would Ichiban like to go meet her? Ichiban of course takes Sawashiro up on his offer, though unfortunately his bad luck follows him across the Pacific. Ichiban arrives on American soil and is immediately held up at gunpoint, then drugged and left naked on the beach. He’s arrested for indecent exposure and used as a scapegoat for multiple cold cases, until he escapes and runs into Kazuma Kiryu, who is coincidentally in Hawaii on a job for the Daidoji. The two eventually make their way back to Akane’s house, encounter a local yakuza named Yutaka Yamai – who is also looking for Akane – and make a new friend in Eric Tomizawa, one of Yamai’s men and also the man who held Ichiban up the day before. Ichiban is nothing if not forgiving to a fault, after all. Once the trio are safe, Kiryu then drops the games’s second bombshell: He’s dying of cancer.

So begins Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. In true RGG fashion, the game takes tons of twists and turns, bringing together an eclectic cast of misfits in a story that tackles finding a new beginning in life, closure in the life you’ve lived, and atonement for the mistakes you’ve made. The game takes aim at a number of issues, not the least of which include police corruption, overly burdensome and retributive laws, online dogpiling and how easily someone’s life can be destroyed by rumors, religious faith versus zealotry, economic disparity, homelessness, balancing urbanization and environmentalism, and bodily autonomy with regards to illness.

Ryu Ga Gotoku narratives have always had go big or go home energy, and that’s no different here, for good and for ill. Staging the majority of the story in Hawaii was a big hit, using this new location to explore themes that have been ever-present in this series, but to also highlight unique issues to Hawaii itself, as well as adding an international bent.

Ichiban and the gang from Like a Dragon return, and this time they’ve made some friends. The newest additions to the cast are Eric Tomizawa, a Hawaiian cabby caught up with local gangster Yutaka Yamai; and Chitose Fujinomiya, the daughter of a powerful Japanese magnate who is attending school in Hawaii. Old friends Adachi, Nanba, Zhao and Han Joongi join newly playable Seonhee and the Dragon of Dojima himself to round out the playable cast for this sprawling, dual protagonist story.

Let’s break it down a little more, as unlike previous games in this series, both Ichiban and Kiryu take top billing here. Infinite Wealth is as much a story about the search for Ichiban’s mother as it is closure for Kiryu, and the way the game handles each is at least partially reflected in their supporting casts.

Ichiban’s story takes up the bulk of the game, with the front half devoted entirely to his time in Hawaii. One of the first people he meets is Tomizawa, a down-on-his-luck cabby who holds Ichiban up at gunpoint just hours after our hero touches down on American soil. The son of an Hawaiian native and a Japanese national, Tomizawa straddles two cultures and acts as Ichiban’s liaison and interpreter as one of the few bilingual characters in the game. (This is, unfortunately, an aspect of the game that gets dropped pretty quickly, but I’ll discuss that later.) Chitose is the daughter of a big time Japanese business magnate and has been attending school in Hawaii. Stifled by her upbringing, she’s an interesting civilian foil to the yakuza families of older games. She’s also the most tech savvy of the crew, and ends up helping Ichiban widen the search for his mother by utilizing her ‘Net know-how to gather information. Ichiban’s crew is eventually rounded out by Adachi and Han Joongi, who bring with them familiarity but also new perspectives on life in Hawaii. Having old friends and new mingle was a nice reflection of Ichiban’s relentless optimism and drive to expand his world.

Kiryu’s party is made up entirely of familiar faces from Like a Dragon (which I’ll also refer to as RGG7), which feels appropriate as his story focuses more on the past. What’s new is who is playable, though. Seonhee joins the fray this time around, stepping out from her web of shadows in the Geomujul to take to the streets alongside her hero. Despite her connections to the underworld, she does not have immediate access to information the way the Florist did in previous games, instead helping Kiryu unravel the mysteries surrounding the Seiryu Clan’s connections with Hawaii and how VTuber Hisoka Tatara plays into everything. Nanba comes along as Kiryu’s physical and mental support, with Saeko and Zhao rounding out the crew. Having Ichiban’s friends pal around with Kiryu gives the cast a chance to discuss Ichiban in ways they could not when he’s present, as well as contrast the differences between both former yakuza – in particular, addressing Kiryu’s insistence on doing everything himself. Ichiban has always been a proponent of the Power of Friendship, and that is on full display here, demonstrating how he’s impacted those around him and how they, in turn, are lending their strength to Kiryu when he needs it the most.

Gameplay

Like a Dragon‘s turn-based combat returns here with some welcome tweaks. The battle system still relies heavily on exploiting weapon type and elemental weaknesses in your enemies, but has now added a free-moving aspect that allows for back attacks and team combos. In RGG7, your characters would run across the field to attack whatever enemy you chose, but you had no free range of movement. In Infinite Wealth, you now have a small area in which you can reposition your characters to either hit enemies on the back for added damage, or line up attacks to shove enemies into your friends for a bonus follow-up attack. You can also position your character near an ally and trigger a combo attack, where both will attack the enemy at once. It’s a small change with a big impact since it introduces some strategy, especially when dealing with enemies who use shields or are otherwise heavily armored. The higher the bond with a character, the more damage these combo attacks will do, and the more often follow-up damage will trigger.

Ichiban and Kiryu can also do Tag Team attacks with their crew once they build up their Hype Meter. This is represented by an infinity symbol next to each character’s combat portrait, and the more damage a character takes, the faster the gauge fills. Once it’s fully charged, Ichiban and Kiryu can then “tag” that character to perform a special combo. For instance, Ichiban and Kiryu’s Tag Team is the two of them rushing an enemy and punching them in the face; Tomizawa and his partner hurl wheel wrenches through the air; and Chitose ballroom dances with her partner to hit multiple bad guys in a line attack. Each of them are pretty interesting in their own ways. Ichiban can also use an Ultimate Tag Team that depletes all party member’s gauges but does massive damage to every enemy.

Characters have access to various jobs, which must be bought by taking part in vacation packages at Alo-Happy Tours. Each job can learn skills up through level 30, after which point levels only increase stats. These skills can be “inherited” by other jobs, giving you the opportunity to mix and match and craft your favorite possible job. Do you want your Samurai to also spray bubbly in your enemy’s faces the same way a Host can? Well, now that’s possible. Even ultimate abilities can be inherited, though you only have five total inheritance slots, one of which is for an ultimate ability. You earn inheritance slots as you increase your bond with other characters, and these inheritances will carry over to every subsequent job until you manually change which skills you’re sharing. This ends up being an excellent way to equip characters to exploit the weakness system and ensure you’ve got versatility.

Infinite Wealth has a wide assortment of jobs available. Host, Breaker, Chef, Idol, and Night Queen return from RGG7, so I want to focus briefly on the newcomer jobs: Action Star, Aquanaut, Desperado, Pyrodancer, Samurai, Geodancer, Housekeeper, and Kunoichi. Action Star is a heavy damage focused job with mostly single-target skills. Aquanaut is a magic-focused job with a decent mix of ranged attacks and healing. Desperado is a ranged attack job that mixes elemental-based damage between single and group attacks. Pyrodancer is a magic job with an emphasis on support and debuffing. Samurai is a strong physical job with a mix of single target and AOE skills. Geodancer, like Pyrodancer, focuses on magic support and debuffs. Housekeeper has a mix of physical and debuff attacks. And Kunoichi is a strong physical job. Ichiban can also access the Sujimancer job, which lets him call forth Sujimon to perform an assortment of magic-based attacks. Much like in RGG7, your unique jobs tend to be the most well-rounded, though it doesn’t matter as much here since you can mix and match skills with inheritance, so it’s really just going with the aesthetic you like the most. I would say the only exception is Sujimancer, which felt underwhelming even with high-level Sujimon.

As the Dragon of Dojima, Kiryu’s combat comes with its own flourish. He fists are his weapons, and his ability list is a what’s what of classic Komaki-style attacks. He can also access three different fighting stances at will throughout a fight: Brawler, Rush, and Beast. Much like in his own titles, each of these styles comes with its own pros and cons. Brawler is Kiryu’s default stance, and the only one in which he can use Heat Actions. You can also counter enemy attacks if you perfect guard. In Rush mode, Kiryu’s attacks deal less damage, but he has a wider range of motion, and he gets two turns, which makes this ideal for cleaning up low HP enemies or capitalizing on back attacks. Beast mode is Kiryu’s defensive stance, offering an increase in attack power, but at a significant hit to speed and range. While in Beast mode, Kiryu can break enemy guard stances without using special abilities, which makes this style invaluable against large groups of heavy types and enemies with shields.

When the going gets tough, Kiryu can also dig deep and harness the dragon within, unleashing the full strength of the legendary yakuza by literally breaking free of the game’s turn-based combat to wail on enemies freestyle. Rather than performing a Tag Team attack, by holding R2 when his Hype Meter is full, Kiryu can access Dragon’s Resurgence, giving him free range to pummel any enemy regardless of distance. Once the Resurgence meter runs out, Kiryu will rejoin his teammates in turn-based combat. Deciding between Resurgence and Tag Team can be the difference between winning or losing a battle, and I liked the versatility this offered.

Like every other character in the cast, Kiryu can also use the generic jobs (I quite liked him as a samurai, myself). But the Dragon of Dojima is honestly the strongest job in the game – absurdly so at times – and is a nice gameplay reminder that, despite the events of the story that have Kiryu significantly weaker than during his own standalone titles, he earned his Legendary Yakuza title for a reason.

Poundmates return with some enhancements this time around. Like in RGG7, you can call in support from a variety of colorful characters, many of whom you unlock through subquests. They range from the hard-hitting Chitose Holmes (not to be confused with Chitose Fujinomiya), to mainstay Nancy and her new friend Olivia, the lead singer of a visual kei band, one half of a manzai group who serves coffee, and even the Bartender from Survive. New this time around is the fact that most Poundmates you obtain will fight alongside you for three turns, rather than one-and-done moves. Those are reserved for the highest level Poundmates, most of which you won’t see until nearing endgame. For instance, Chitose will follow up all of Ichiban’s attacks with her own flurry of furious blows, sticking around the battlefield for three turns until she finally bids farewell. Having this bonus damage or healing can make or break early fights, and was a nice addition to the Poundmates system. The more money you spend on Poundmates, the higher your rank with the service, and once you max out your contributions you can unlock With Benefits options, which double the cost of a Poundmate, but also exponentially increases their base attack power. This addition was indispensable during endgame.

Along with Poundmates, Sujimon return, this time bigger than ever. Rather than just being a glorified bestiary, Sujimon now have an entire mini-game devoted to their capture and subsequent battles. Infinite Wealth makes no real effort to hide the Pokémon influence here, and if you’re at all familiar with those games, capturing Sujimon will feel old hat. After battle, Ichiban has the chance to “recruit” one of his enemies. To do so, you need to offer a gift (think Pokéballs) and then prostrate yourself to demonstrate your resolve. The sincerity of your attempt to woo the enemy is represented by a scale at the bottom of the screen, and the further along you time your button press the better your chances (though I highly recommend checking out the low sincerity). If you’re successful, the Sujimon will join you and can be used by Ichiban’s Sujimancer unique job, or fight in Sujimon Battles. They can also take part in Dondoko Island. I’ll touch on both of these aspects a little later.

Read on for Dondoko Island, Sujimon Battles and more! ->

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Ninetail is back with some fandiscs in the VenusBlood series. This time we have three discs from VenusBlood HOLLOW featuring the dragon sisters, Liese and Julia. A couple of these are on the lighter side of things in the AfterDays stories, but just like last time there is one Chaos route story in the DarkChronicles tale. Let’s dig into these and see if they are something fans would want to spend their coin on, shall we?

Our first story begins as the war ends and Leonhardt keeps his promise with Julia, reuniting with her after the war as her subordinate. After some of the brainwashing he did to her during the war, she is completely obsessed with him and wants to jump his bones at every opportunity, as well as rid the world of all the Black Hellbeasts that still plague the world. To get her to calm down a bit, he enlists her sister Liese to use any means necessary to get her to back off the marriage, and things get out of hand from there.

The next story focuses on Liese, Leonhardt marries her after the war and they live on the surface. It’s been one month and he has been welcomed to Archlond as commander. Despite this, he frequents pubs and brothels, always getting into fights with authority he didn’t like as well. This was overlooked since he was such an asset to the kingdom in military manners. The main problem here is Liese is not tending to Leonhardt’s needs as a man, and if you know him this is not going to stand. This leads him to some extreme measures to show her exactly what a “Man’s” needs are. This tale takes some twists and turns from here and ends up not where I expected.

Lastly we have the DarkChronicles story. Here the war rages on with the Dark Angels led by Nachtu. Having subjugated all of the dark lords in the land, Leonhardt prepares his army to fight off their invasion. His tactics have become very cruel at this point, and he doesn’t care who dies so long as it meets his ends. He is currently training both Julia and Liese with his usual tentacle method, but he goes to the point where he actually breaks their minds. As their kingdom collapses, this will show just how far Leonhardt will go when he delves into chaos!

Overall I enjoyed all three stories, and it was great to see the dragon sisters on my screen once again. Like last time, I enjoyed the AfterDays stories more than the DarkChronicles one. I’m more of a law route guy than chaos. These are pretty short at a couple hours each, but each disc has three or four fantastic H-scenes with some very high quality artwork. These are well worth the coin for VenusBlood HOLLOW fans and if the sisters were your favorite, this a must buy at the $4.99 price tag for each.

Review Score
Overall

Games were provided by the publisher for review.

The post (18+) REVIEW: VenusBlood HOLLOW Fan Discs appeared first on oprainfall.

Author’s Note: This review may contain minor spoilers pertaining to the story. The main character will be referred to as the Captain throughout this review.

I must admit, even though I love Action RPGs, I was very hesitant in reviewing Granblue Fantasy: Relink. For those who don’t know, Relink takes place in the same world as the RPG browser game, Granblue Fantasy. While I have played the browser game before, the most I’ve done is complete the prologue and roll for characters whenever I get the chance, I haven’t even finished chapter 1 of its story. So, my knowledge of the story and characters is minimal, at best. Granblue Fantasy has been around for almost a decade now, so I feared my lack of knowledge of the game’s lore and world would negatively affect not only my enjoyment, but my understanding of the events that occur in the game. So, after playing through the game’s story, was this Granblue newcomer able to enjoy Relink, or is it only for true veterans of the series?

Granblue Fantasy: Relink follows the Captain and the Grandcypher crew as they enter a brand new area, the Zegagrande Skydom. After a tumultuous entry, the Grandcyper crew finds themselves in the small town of Folca where they meet the local Mr. Fix It, Rolan. Rolan is trusted throughout the Skydom, so of course when a dangerous situation arises in the neighboring town of Tempeal, Rolan is asked to help the citizens. The Captain, the good-natured individual that they are, volunteers to assist Rolan in his efforts. However, what seems to be a straightforward mission quickly devolves into chaos as the Grandcypher runs into a group known as the Church of Avia. The Church of Avia runs off with the Captain’s friend, Lyria. Now, the Captain and crew must work to save Lyria from Avia’s clutches, and perhaps save the entire Sky Realm during the process.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink’s story is pretty straightforward; you could guess what direction the story is heading as you play it. That wasn’t a bad thing, though, as it was written well enough to keep me engaged and interested throughout my playthrough. The characters’ chemistry, especially that of the Grandcypher crew, helped keep me engaged as well. What I especially liked about Relink’s story is how welcoming it was to newcomers of the Granblue Fantasy franchise. They didn’t rely too heavily on past events, only referencing them sparsely throughout the game. And even if there were terms that I didn’t understand, I could read up on them in Lyria’s Journal. Lyria’s Journal is fantastic and can be easily accessed from the pause menu. It includes a glossary of terms used throughout the game (such as Astral and Primal Beast), information on the characters you meet throughout the game, and even gives a summary of the events that occurred before Relink. Not only that, you can rewatch past story cutscenes from Lyria’s journal whenever you want, provided you’re in town. This is great for those who want to rewatch a cutscene with a different gender Captain. And yes, you can change the Captain’s gender and name whenever you want from the pause menu, and this will automatically be reflected in Lyria’s Journal. So, you can rewatch the entire game’s story with a different gender Captain without having to replay the game, and I find that to be a fantastic addition. Cygames did not have to go out of their way to implement this feature, but I very much appreciate it.

But, you’re probably asking yourself if there’s a way to get to know the Grandcypher crew even more, outside of the Main Story and Lyria’s Journal. Well, I’m happy to say there is. Relink has a nice mechanic called Fate Episodes, and these can be accessed through the Quest Counter in town. Every recruitable character in Relink has a Fate Episode, and these tell players each of their backstories, what they did before the events of the game, and also what they get up to during Relink. Each chapter of the Fate Episode is unlocked based on Main Story progression, which Fate Episode chapters you’ve read, and what level the indicated character is. So, if there’s a character you’re really interested in, I’d suggest you focus on leveling them up first to fully read their Fate Episode. Not only do Fate Episodes develop your favorite characters, they even give you incentive to read them. Every time you read a Fate Episode chapter, it increases the character’s stats, and some chapters will increase the character’s Sigil slots. You’ll get to learn more about the character, plus they’ll get stronger too! The only negative thing I’d say about Fate Episodes is I wish there were in-game cutscenes instead of walls of text, this would’ve gotten me more invested. However, I appreciate that these were fully voiced by the character.

Most of the characters in the game did not develop much throughout the game’s Main Story, most of their development was locked behind the Fate Episodes. So again, if you really care about the Grandcypher crew, read the Fate Episodes. The one with the most development in the actual Main Story was the Church of Avia member, Id, and I did enjoy seeing his motivations and demeanor evolve throughout the story. I wish the other two big members of the Church of Avia had more screen time to develop, so I’m hoping they’ll revisit them sometime down the road. Another issue I had with the game’s story is that recruited characters don’t have much presence, if any, in the Main Story. Sure, they’ll have special dialog during certain Main Story areas, but they don’t show up in Main Story cutscenes nor are they really addressed at all throughout the Story Chapters. They’re just sorta there, and I wish they had more interaction with the main Grandcypher crew throughout the story.

The gameplay of Granblue Fantasy: Relink is very solid. I will admit, when I read PlatinumGames was no longer working on the game, I feared the gameplay would take a massive hit. Thankfully, Cygames proved me wrong. In combat, you take control of one character and have three additional party members. Normal attacks are performed using the X button, A button is jump, Y button is a special action that changes depending on the character you control, the B button allows you to initiate a Link Attack if the enemy’s stun gauge is maxed, and holding the RB button and pressing X, A, B, or Y allows you to perform Skills. I’ll use Narmaya as an example for the special action. If you press the Y button while using her, she changes stances between Dawnfly or Freeflutter. Dawnfly is great for taking on hordes of enemies while Freeflutter can be used to wail on single enemies. Other than these, you can hold the directional buttons to use items or click both the right stick and left stick at the same time to activate your Skybound Art (SBA). SBAs can only be used once the SBA gauge is at 100%, and these are super special attacks with nice animations. If you use the SBA while your party member’s SBA gauges are at 100%, they will also perform an SBA which causes a Chain Burst. The Chain Burst’s damage increases depending on how many members perform their SBA. You can change your party member’s SBA behavior in the Options menu to match your combat preferences. Once you get used to all of these options, you can string together beautiful chaos to decimate foes. I had a ton of fun fighting in Relink, especially against bosses, since each one has their own unique patterns that you have to learn if you want to be effective against them. Another great thing about the combat is, surprisingly, the party AI. CPU party members are actually very helpful in combat, using their skills at the right time and are great at staying alive. In fact, there were times when I died more than the CPU members and they had to keep saving me. It’s refreshing having CPU party members that don’t hold you back.

While I do love the combat, I did have some minor issues. First, they don’t tell you what each directional button item does. These aren’t even in the Inventory menu, so you can’t even read what they do, it’s a lot of guesswork. Next is the camera. While it is good most of the time, if you get too close to a wall or corner, the camera can get a bit crazy. Finally, I would’ve liked to have an option to change your playable character mid-combat. I do understand why that isn’t an option, since there is a multiplayer portion to this game and you shouldn’t be able to take over someone else’s character. But, it would’ve been a cool option to have if the game knows you’re playing Offline and with CPU party members.

You can strengthen characters by leveling up, using Mastery Points, equipping Sigils, and upgrading weapons. You level up through the usual methods: defeating enemies, completing Counter Quests, and completing Side Quests. Characters that aren’t in your party will still gain experience points during Main Story missions, but not during Counter Quests, so keep that in mind. Mastery Points are used to unlock nodes in a character’s Mastery Tree. These nodes can range from increasing stats to increasing a character’s resistances, and can even unlock more skills or Sigil slots for them. Mastery Points are gained through leveling up, completing Counter Quests and Side Quests, opening treasure chests, etc. The great thing about Mastery Points is that they aren’t limited to one character; they’re shared across all characters. So, if another character levels up and you don’t particularly like using them, you can use those Mastery Points to strengthen one you do like controlling. I do appreciate the development team doing this because it makes it easier to strengthen your favorite characters. Sigils are like accessories that give different benefits to your characters, such as increasing stats, increasing your critical hit rate, strengthening your combo attacks, etc. These can really give your character the extra edge they need to dominate foes. You can upgrade your weapon at the Blacksmith and even forge new ones there. Each weapon has its own special trait, such as increasing a character’s HP or increasing their effectiveness against an enemy’s weak point. So it’s beneficial to upgrade a certain weapon based on your playstyle. Additionally, you can change a weapon’s traits by imbuing it with Wrightstones. This can be done at the Blacksmith, but I didn’t find any need for Imbuing throughout the Main Story. Increasing your weapon’s max level requires materials, and most of these can be found by doing Counter Quests, and that is where most of the grinding is performed.

There are four types of areas you can explore in Relink: the towns, the Grandcypher, Main Story areas, and Counter Quest areas. Towns act as the hub area. Here, you can upgrade your equipment, purchase materials, sell any loot, accept Side Quests from citizens, recruit new characters, and even find treasure. Recruiting new characters requires a Crewmate Card, and you get more of these as you progress the Main Story or complete certain Counter Quests. There are 15-plus playable characters to choose from, and you start the game off with six of them available. An issue with the recruitment system is that you can’t try out the character before choosing them. You can only access the practice menu after recruiting them, which is rough if you end up choosing a character whose gameplay doesn’t gel with you. A way to get around this is saving before you recruit, turn off Autosave in the Options menu, recruit the character, practice with them, and then reload your save. This way, you can try out every recruitable character before permanently using your voucher. It’s a very roundabout way, which could’ve been circumvented if there was an option to try out the character before recruiting. The Grandcypher allows you to practice with your current character to tackle Time Attack and Score Attack modes. Time Attack involves destroying Sir Barrold as quickly as you can, while Score Attack calculates how much damage you can inflict on Sir Barrold before time runs out. Very simple minigames, but I appreciate them adding these options. Speaking of minigames, I do wish they had some available in the towns of Folca and Seedhollow. Give me a reason to stay in town a bit longer. There’s literally a fishing pond in Folca, let me go fishing! It just would’ve been a nice break from all of the fast paced action.

Main Story areas are the bulk of where the gameplay takes place. These are semi-open maps full of enemies, treasure chests, and other collectibles such as Archive entries and Wee Pincers. I call these semi-open since there is an obvious path to get to your goal, but you have the freedom to explore the map as much as you want before reaching the set goal. There are special monuments called Hallowed Ground scattered throughout the map, and these act as checkpoints and areas where you can save and heal. Siero, our resident adorable merchant, also magically appears at these monuments, giving you the options to purchase goods and access the Blacksmith. You can also return to town whenever you want during these stages, in case things get too rough for you. Once you return to the stage, Archive entries are pieces of information that give you some lore, and these are relatively easy to spot due to how they shine. These are saved in Lyria’s Journal after you find them. Wee Pincers are collectible little crabs you can find throughout the Main Story. Unlike Archive entries and materials, these do not shine or have a different color at all, so you really have to search the map thoroughly to find them – which comes to my one big issue with these Main Story areas: there’s no minimap. The most the game gives you is a compass at the top of the screen with a marker telling you where the story destination is. It doesn’t even mark where collectibles you’ve found are. So, if you find a treasure chest and forget to open it, you’re gonna have to search for it all over again. I do appreciate the lack of a minimap slightly, since it makes me actually look at the environment when exploring, and it does give a big sense of accomplishment once you find a collectible. However, if you’re trying to find 100% of collectibles in the game, having no minimap becomes more of a nuisance.

Counter Quests are quests you accept through the Quest Counter. These have specific goals you need to finish to complete missions, and they are also side goals which will increase your quest rating and rewards. Counter Quests can range from defeating bosses to defending Hallowed Ground to defeating all enemies. These are where you can play online multiplayer with your friends, but I didn’t try this function out since I tend to play solo. Counter Quests take place in specific areas of Main Story maps you’ve previously visited. There’s not much room for exploring in these quests, these are mostly a combat affair, which I do like, cause I do love the game’s combat. Most of the postgame content involves these Counter Quests, especially if you want to fight even tougher enemies and completely max out your characters and weapons.

Sail the skies and continue to page 2 ->

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Memories are beautiful, treasured and fragile things that give humans purpose and meaning. But are memories what make a person who they are, or do they simply add context to our choices? If someone can’t remember who they are or where they came from, can they truly understand themselves and the world around them? Sona-Nyl of the Violet Shadows ~What Beautiful Memories~, the newest steampunk alternate history title from Liar-soft, attempts to answer these questions and more in a beautifully realized tale that straddles two very different worlds.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Mega Engine City of New York ceased to exist. Every living thing vanished within minutes on Christmas morning of 1902, leaving behind only ruined buildings and empty streets. In the blink of an eye, three million people were wiped off the face of the earth. Five years later, Elysia Wentworth ventures forth into the broken remnants of New York to answer one burning question: Why?

As Elysia walks the barren streets above, deep “underground” a person is falling. Lily can’t remember anything from before tumbling into the mushroom-strewn landscape of the Underground other than his name, and that he does not want to be “her.” He finds himself on the outskirts of a bridge town named Verrazano, where he meets Milia Stoke, a “combat courtesan” with a metal arm who uses a pile bunker to protect the townsfolk from the Dark Gang – giant metal monsters who were once, presumably, human. Down here in the Underground, everyone eventually turns to metal, you see. Some just turn faster than others. That’s been the law of the Underground for as long as everyone can remember, and no one can remember more than five years ago.

Like clockwork, the town is beset by a White One, a monstrous being that devours memories and turns the people into metal. It’s been attacking Verrazano every week for five years, and Lily sees first-hand the chaos it brings when it steals away Milia’s memories of their meeting.

While in Verrazano, Lily meets an assortment of colorful characters, including a catgirl named Mao, a man with a giant metal arm named Luciano, and eventually the “airhead” A – the conductor of a one-car railway train who tells Lily he can be whatever he wants, so long as he chooses for himself. At first, Lily is against this, unwilling to become “her.” When Milia and the town are again beset by the White One, Lily decides to become “her,” embracing the inner voice she’s heard since arriving in the Underground, and harnesses A’s power for herself to defeat the monster. Now in the form of a young girl in a blue dress, Lily and A venture forth along the subway tunnels of the Underground in search of the violet horizon and answers to not only what’s happened to the Underground, but who Lily herself is. Meanwhile, above in the ruined New York, Elysia makes her way to the source of the disaster from five years ago, literally picking up the pieces of lives cut short along the way – including her own.

There’s quite a lot here that I really enjoyed. Memory makes us who we are – our childhoods, our growing pains, our loves and our losses. Without knowing where we came from, it’s hard to know who we are and why we do the things we do. So what happens when everyone is robbed of their memories yet trapped in a cycle of being they can’t contextualize? How do you deal with knowing you had a life before but can’t remember any of it due to someone else’s actions? The exploration of memory and the way it shapes a person – and how ugly and cruel the world can be when your sense of self is robbed from you – was so compelling. Lily being a blank slate gave the narrative room to breathe, to explore the ideas of loneliness, joy, sorrow, fear, grief, and love, and how those emotions can have positive and negative impacts on a person. The dual stories of Lily and Elysia also meant each idea could be explored from multiple angles. Watching as the pieces of the narrative fell into place was really rewarding. A and Lily’s relationship was especially engaging, and I loved every scene with them in it.

I found the sex scenes all well-done and tasteful, with some lovely CGs and impressive voice acting. The intimacy that comes with sexual relationships dovetailed poetically with the often exposed and raw emotions of the participants, so while the game does have an All-Ages version that removes and rewrites these scenes, this is one of those instances where I think the 18+ version better conveys the story’s themes. That being said, there are a couple instances of characters with ambiguous ages and some questionable consent, so while it wasn’t personally an issue for me, if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing, the All-Ages version might be better for you.

Visually, Sona-Nyl is gorgeous. The characters have a vibrant, sketchy quality to them, with evocative pops of color and texture. The backgrounds are detailed and varied, and I found the CGs particularly impressive. The music has a fantastic jazzy quality to it that fits the mood and time period beautifully, and I found myself humming a few tunes even when I wasn’t reading. Overall, the game has some very strong sound design, especially during the encounters with the White Ones. And of course, the voice acting here is top notch – not just in the sex scenes. I’d be remiss not to mention the fantastic localization. This has to be one of the most eloquent VNs I’ve ever read, with fantastic use of cadence and repetition. The descriptions are detailed and expressive, and the dialogue is punchy. Everything is dripping with character and it was such a delight to read.

There’s very little gameplay to be found here, with only a handful of choices bookending and within each chapter. Before each interlude, you’ll have the chance to determine how a news article covers the destruction of New York City, and your choices here determine which options are available to you during each chapter. If you choose wrong with the newspaper, you’re met with one of two bad endings and are required to make the correct choice if you want to proceed. This means there’s no real replayability to see branching paths. The game takes roughly 12 hours to complete, making it a bit on the shorter side, but it’s relatively dense, so this actually worked out well for me. It hit that sweet spot in terms of complexity of narrative and length of time to read it.

That being said, not everything here worked for me. The villain fell flat, with confusing motivation and an unfulfilling conclusion. Seeing as this is the fifth entry in a series, I suspect that has something to do with it, but I’m a firm believer that a story should have a satisfying beginning, middle and end, regardless of where it fits into a broader narrative, and the ending of Sona-Nyl did not quite live up to what came before. A handful of characters also felt underutilized – again, possibly for the same reason. These weren’t enough to ruin the experience, but they did leave me feeling like I missed out on something.

Sona-Nyl of the Violet Shadows ~What Beautiful Memories~ was my first Liar-soft VN, but I doubt it’ll be my last. The intricate story, well-realized characters, and fascinating world building all impressed me greatly, despite some shortcomings. I loved the way this story wove in a multitude of faerie tales and children’s literature, especially its heavy use of Alice in Wonderland motifs. The MangaGamer version includes the unedited 18+ version and the All-Ages Refrain, which rewrites and removes the sex scenes. The Steam version is Refrain, but you can download an 18+ patch. Whichever you choose to go with, at $35, this one is worth your time.

Review Score
Overall

Review copy provided by the publisher.

The post REVIEW: Sona-Nyl of the Violet Shadows appeared first on oprainfall.

I was pretty excited when I first saw that the remake of Persona 3 was actually real. It had been rumored in leaks for a long time, and I was very curious to see how the newly announced Persona 3 Reload would be handled. Would it be a faithful remake, or something more in line with what Square Enix is doing with Final Fantasy VII. Turns out this would be very close to the original release, but they added some new quality of life elements as well as some nifty things found in the latter Persona 3 Portable release. I’ve spent quite a while with this one and it’s time to share my thoughts on it. Did I love this release as much as I did Persona 3 FES when I played it years ago? Let’s find out!

The story takes place as our protagonist arrives at Tatsumi Port Island. He is on his way to the dorm when some rather strange things begin to happen. The moon changes color, streets fill with blood and there are strange coffins everywhere. When he arrives at the dorm he is greeted by a strange young boy and asked to sign a contract. Not really knowing what is going on, he does so and the power cuts back on to reveal his dorm mates standing around in shock. They asked him if anything strange happened on his way over, and basically try to ease any concerns he may have. Soon he realizes there is much more going on here than meets the eye when shadows attack the dorm during the mysterious Dark Hour, which was the phenomenon going on when he arrived. During a desperate time he awakens his own ability to fight these shadows, his Persona. After the attack is over his classmates ask him to join their team and fight to save the world; he agrees and is made their leader. Now they will struggle to defeat these shadows and end the Dark Hour for good.

This is still my favorite story in the Persona franchise. I love all of the characters and seeing all their stories being told in this new engine, with a better English voice cast was really great. I fell in love with them all over again – well I love Yukari the most, but that’s another matter altogether. If you haven’t played any other version of this game, this is a great way to experience the story. I know some will say Persona 3 Portable is better because of the Female Protagonist, but this is the canon story and the way it was meant to be told. I would go into why I think this has more impact, but it’s spoilers so you’ll just have to see for yourself.

Graphically this game looks fantastic. They took all the style from Persona 5 and infused it with Persona 3’s. This worked out much better than I could’ve ever imagined. The character models, environments and enemies have lots of details and you will notice new things about them each time you play. The Personas themselves are especially well done. Thanatos, Alice and many of your other favorites have never looked better. Your party members have several different outfits to choose from as well. These will unlock as you find them scattered about Tatarus or from doing requests from Elizabeth, and yes the famous Battle Panties made the cut for all three of the girls in the game, they look great! The game ran at a solid 120fps on my main rig and 60 on my laptop with no issues. These systems run on a 3060 and 3050 mobile respectively, but I didn’t have any technical issues on either machine. This is a very good port from Atlus.

Persona 3 Reload really delivers in the audio department. The new soundtrack is fantastic, the newly remastered tracks sound just as good as the old ones in some cases and better in others. I do wish Atlus had offered more features here since they sell battle themes from the other Persona titles. It would’ve been nice to have an Atelier series style menu where you could pick tracks for each occasion and maybe even have the classic OST if you wanted. That being said there is nothing to be disappointed about here, and the new vocal tracks, “It’s Going Down” and the opening “Full Moon Full Live” are simply amazing tracks you will be singing long after your playtime has ended.

Persona is one of the very few series I play with the English dub, and I have to say the new cast here did an excellent job of capturing the same emotion and feeling with these characters as the old one did. Every voice here is on point, fits the character well and in most cases I couldn’t even tell that much difference from the old cast member. Fuuka got a massive upgrade in this department, her new voice actor really gave her a lot more personality, and I was really pleased with her performance. The Japanese audio is here for those who want it, and I love we get a choice in these games now, even if I do usually stick with the English cast.

Gameplay in Persona 3 Reload is divided up into two sections: Your daily school life, and doing some dungeon crawling in the home of the shadows, Tartarus, in the evening. As you make new friends you will gain social links. The more time you spend with each friend, the stronger the link will grow, allowing the creation of stronger Personas to take on many challenges you will face going forward. There are some social links that can be done in the evening, but most of the time you will either be crawling the dungeon or spending time with your dorm mates to unlock new abilities for them. This is something new for Persona 3 Reload and these buffs really turn the tide of battle in your favor, so I strongly suggest you take the time to do them.

Tartarus itself has changed a lot since Persona 3 Portable. Not only does it have a new look that’s simply amazing, but there are also new floor types and items to find here as well. You will find most of these in locked chests which you will have to gain Twilight Crystals to open. You can find these lying around Tatsumi Port Island, by completing quests for Elizabeth, or even in Tartarus itself. I feel like these chests added a bit of spice to the formula here, since lots of folks think this the most boring part of the game. I personally always loved the combat, so I had a blast climbing all the floors again.

Combat here is still turn based, but there are some new additions to it as well. When you hit an enemy weakness, not only will you get another turn but you can do what they call a Shift. This will allow you to pass that turn to any other player that hasn’t had one this turn. Persona 5 players will know this as the Baton Pass. This added a new level of strategy to the fight, and in some cases made them a bit easy. They also gave each party member some super moves called Theurgy Skills. These are powerful moves that can turn the tide of battle in your favor instantly. Your party members will end up with two each that unlock as the story progresses. The protagonist gains more, but you will have to fuse certain pairs of Personas to unlock his.

Overall I have to say Persona 3 Reload is the type of remake I look for. It’s pretty faithful to the original, but adds enough new features to make it feel fresh. I enjoyed my run here just as much as I did when I played this for the first time on the PlayStation 2, years ago. The $69.99 price tag may seem a little steep, but I got 100 hours of great gameplay here, so I feel like it’s worth your coin. If you’ve never played Persona 3 you should pick this up ASAP, don’t put off playing this classic any longer. For veteran players, this one is still well worth your time and you will have a great time here.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher for review.

The post REVIEW: Persona 3 Reload appeared first on oprainfall.

I started playing JAST’s latest release, Goblins on the March: Breed all Humans, a few days ago and found it to be an interesting title. It’s pretty much what I expected given it’s a very simple title about a horde of goblins and taking over the world, but it had more mechanics than I expected and a few other surprises as well.

The story here is pretty much your run-of-the-mill isekai anime plot line. A guy is in a horrible accident and wakes up in a strange new world as a goblin. He is being led to a girl they have captured and is told to have sex with her. She instantly gets pregnant and gives birth, so the other goblins proclaim him their king. From here he explores the forest until he finds a witch named Emmy. She has a bit of a goblin fetish and is very happy to get some time in with their newly-found king. After their fun time he decides the only way home is to conquer this world and take on some magical power from the two warring factions. The Kingdom of Water is led by an elegant leader named Verina and her loyal knight Alyssa. The Fire Factor is lead by a crazy sadist named Rin and her loyal servant Yuka. These two have a big grudge with the water people because of battles that happened in the past. In order to defeat these lovely ladies, our hero will first have to gain some powers from the spirits of this land. This will help him counter their powerful magic, and there is only one way to gain their power, giving them your kingly rod!

While the story here is pretty much what you expect from a Nukige, there is some gameplay here to discuss. The game’s story unfolds in turns and on each of these you can choose an action. You can invade lands of the ladies, scout to see if you can find out more information about your enemies, breed with girls you’ve captured to bolster your army’s numbers, or explore the land in search of the spirits to gain their powers. The choice is yours, but you have to keep in mind you have a limited number of turns to break the ladies into submission in order to get the true ending.

The music and sound effects here are really nothing special but they get the job done. I think the voice acting is the standout in the sound department. These actors gave it their all when sexy times were happening and if you don’t want to share this glory with the world I would suggest a good pair of headphones.

The best part of this game in my opinion is the artwork. There are quite a few H-Scenes for each of the five heroines and one each for the five spirits, and everyone has great CG work. They are all nicely detailed and have some of the best quality I’ve seen in a more budget oriented title in a long time. As you may guess from the title, there are some extreme things in the H-Scenes and there is a lot of instant birth, but thankfully none of this is too graphic.

Goblins on the March: Breed all Humans is a pretty basic Nukige title with some gameplay elements thrown in here to spice things up. The artwork here is the real standout, but the localization deserves praise as well. They really gave these goblins and ladies a lot of character, so reading this was a lot of fun. If you’re looking for a simple but quality eroge title for $16.99, this one should fit the bill nicely. So long as some of the fetishes here aren’t something not in your wheelhouse.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher for review.

The post (18+) REVIEW: Goblins on the March: Breed all Humans appeared first on oprainfall.

When I first saw Custom Mech Wars, I thought it looked like a lot of fun. It reminded me of Earth Defense Force with huge robots that you should be able to customize in any way you can imagine. I finally got a chance to sit down and play through the 40 mission campaign, and now I want to share my thoughts. Was this the fun and crazy mech game I’d been waiting for, or did it just fizzle out from the start? Let’s find out!

The story takes place in a time when an enormous comet is approaching Earth. While the comet will not collide with our planet, it will cause major changes to our environment through changes to our sun and gravity. There will be large seismic, volcanic, and electromagnetic events that will be catastrophic to our way of life. Many areas are evacuated, and AI-controlled robots are left to patrol these areas. You are part of the Four-Seven Security Service. This group provides some services in the abandoned areas, such as crime prevention, repair, and putting out the volcanic fires. You soon learn many of the G-Mechs working the area are controlled by an AI that has gone haywire, and it is your task to suppress these rogue units.

Graphically, Custom Mech Wars looks pretty good. The mechs have a lot of details, and there are tons of parts you can use to build these units any way you like. There are several heads, arms, legs, torsos and dozens of different weapons you can use to load out these beasts for combat. The enemy units do not differ from the ones you can build yourself, but the AI seems to have access to many parts you cannot use yourself at that time. The environments are nicely detailed as well, there are empty fields, abandoned cities, airfields, and more. The PC port doesn’t have 1440p resolution for some odd reason, but the game ran at 140 FPS on my 3060 at 1080p, so I’m guessing you could do 4K at around a solid 60 with the same card.

In the sound department, I’d have to call this one pretty basic. There are a few music tracks that play while you’re blasting your foes to pieces. These are not terrible, but nothing really stands out about them either. There are opening and ending theme songs that are nicely done, but the rest of this OST is pretty bland. The sound effects are decent and get the job done. Many different sounds, from the guns firing and G-Mechs being blasted to pieces, fit the game well and add to the overall experience. The game has voice acting that tells the story through communications during the missions. These actors do a decent job here, but this story is so basic, there isn’t much they could do to add any flavor to it.

Gameplay here is pretty much what you would expect from D3 Publisher making a game like EDF with mechs. You will take on dozens of mechs during each of the campaign missions, unlocking new parts to build better weapons and machines along the way. This all seems good in theory, since just like with other titles, you will gain better parts for completing the missions on higher difficulties. But here, it just seems like they never give you enough parts to build anything cool. I did all the story missions on normal, and there are many different mechs in various sizes, that I didn’t have nearly enough parts to complete. While I get you don’t want players to be overpowered, in a game where the selling point was, “look at all the cool mechs you can make,” having the parts available to the player to create things should’ve been priority one. They have improved things a bit through the patches that have been released since launch, but I still feel like this could be a lot better.

When you finally get some parts unlocked, building the mechs is a ton of fun. You can attach various parts to several points along each torso, arm, leg, and various other parts. These include more arms or legs, crazy accessories, or some good old fashioned firepower to blast your foes away. These include several auto guns, melee weapons, rocket launchers, lasers, shotguns, machine guns, and many more instruments of destruction. I had a lot of fun just seeing what sorta crazy creations I could come up with and painting them various colors. You can even edit their deployment animations for an extra touch.

Custom Mech Wars isn’t really a bad game, but it gets wrong the one thing that makes it really shine by not letting players have access to the parts fast enough. It’s really fun to create some crazy mech and just go out there and blast all your foes to bits during the missions, but when you have to use the same ones for most of the game because you don’t have enough parts to make what you really want, it gets a little frustrating. I’d have a hard time recommending this one at the full $49.99 price tag, but if you catch it on sale, there is some fun to be had here. It took me around 13 hours to beat all of the missions on normal mode, and you could put a ton more in if you wanted to grind out all the parts to make the really cool mechs. Hopefully, they continue to patch the game a bit more and allow players access to more fun stuff to build their crazy creations with sooner.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher for review.

The post REVIEW: Custom Mech Wars appeared first on oprainfall.

I got a chance to check out JAST’s release of Ninetail’s Gears of Dragoon: Fragments of a New Era. This is actually the second game in this series, but you need no knowledge of the first to enjoy this one. I had a blast with their two VenusBlood releases, so I was pretty stoked to get my hands on this one. It plays a bit differently, being more of standard RPG with dungeon crawling, but I figured the story would be fantastic like the other releases. Let’s see if this one met my high expectations for it.

The story begins in a city called Carnas, a city of magical wonder that hides a secret underneath its busy streets. There lies the Dragonshaft, many tunnels filled with mechanical relics of the past. Machinery is considered taboo in the very magical society of Carnas, so the city’s ruling class are not impressed when powerful machines of the past are unearthed. The two factions live in a general state of peace, but there is always tension under the surface.

A young man named Rustar is an exceptional prowler, people that explore the depths of the Dragonshaft. He is different than most others in the fact he can use both magic and machinery, most can only use one or the other. His late father passed down to him a special key that is said to lead to the Sage’s Treasure, and would grant him a single wish. Having little luck, he soon encounters another young adventurer named Percy. She has a key just like his, and the two decide to team up to seek the treasure together. As the two dig deeper into the Dragonshaft, they will discover more about their world than ever before, and find some great friends along the way as well.

I have to say, I really enjoyed the story of Gears of Dragoon: Fragments of a New Era. It is pretty basic and goes how you would expect, but the characters really give this one a lot of personality. I played the Machine Route for this review which gives most of the focus to one group of girls, while the Magic Route will do so for the other. Ashley was by far my favorite girl here. A songstress tsundere dragon girl, I was like a moth to a flame. She is the main heroine in the Machine Route, but you will also spend time with the cute catgirl, Kay, the amazing scientist, Chris, an adorable machine girl, Sheirrah, and the leader of the Machine Faction, Echidna. Each of these girls were interesting, and no matter which one you choose to spend your time with, you will be entertained. Though I do wish Sheirrah would’ve gotten a bit more time. A mecha obsessed machine girl that is chunni as hell, that’s just a win!

Before we delve into the gameplay, let’s talk a bit about the graphics. The dungeons look pretty plain, but each area is well represented. From dark caverns to hellish lava filled craters, each area looks great. The artwork for the various enemies looks great as well. I do wish there were more varieties of enemies, but there are enough here to get by with. The boss monsters all look great. These beasts look every bit as fierce as they are, and are nicely detailed. All of the CG work is great here as well. There are plenty of good H-Scenes for each girl, and most of these are pretty vanilla outside of some that occur when you lose certain boss battles. I was good with this since I got plenty of crazy scenes while playing VenusBlood, so this was a nice change of pace.

Now let’s dig into the gameplay here. You will begin by taking on various quests that will have you explore the dungeon and battle various monsters in turn based combat. This is all very basic RPG stuff, but honestly I found it a lot of fun. You will have to equip each of your party members with some great gear in order to survive the monstrous bosses the game throws at you. Equipment will not only boost your stats, but it will also give better elemental attack, better defense against certain creature types, or status aliment immunities. That last one is very important because the RNG here can really screw you over at times.

Equipment can also be upgraded at your base, provided you have materials and some upgrade points. As you probably guessed this will raise the stats of the item, but I rarely used the upgrade points for this. The upgrade points can also be used to add magic stone sockets to your gear. These stones are very helpful since they add buffs and status protections to any weapon or piece of armor they are attached to. You will obtain these from the dungeon at mining points, or sometimes as random drops.

When you complete story quests you will be given some gold, guild points and a heart stone. Gold is always helpful in an RPG, and makes the world go round here. You will need that for gear and consumables, as well as upgrades. The guild points will give you various effects depending on which one you choose to spend your precious points on. The Fighters Guild will give you a damage boost with every rank and the shop will get better items. The Thieves Guild give you a full map of the dungeon without you having to find it, if your rank is higher than the dungeon’s. The Priest Guild will reduce incoming damage and let you regen a bit more health and MP while walking. Lastly, the Mages Guild nets you some better magic stones for your gear and the ability to craft new ones as well. I personally pumped a lot into the Mages Guild to start with, since the status immunities the stones can grant you are a lifesaver in battle, but the choice is yours.

Lastly, let’s talk a bit about the heart stones. These are required to view the heroine events in the story. There will be some for each girl in the common route as well as the two branching ones. The Machine Route requires less of these than the Magic one, so you should probably do that one first if you want to see everything both have to offer. You can always use the casual mode option to skip all the dungeons the second time around if you just want to focus on story, or either of the no encounters options if you want to speed along the second route a bit. Add these with the different difficulty options that allow you to casually skip battles or play a hardcore grindy RPG, and you have a very customizable game. I feel like this is an excellent way to do a game like this, since you can tailor it to your play style.

Gears of Dragoon: Fragments of a New Era is another fantastic release from Ninetail and JAST. The story is great with a ton of interesting characters, the dungeon exploration is a lot of fun for us old school RPG fans, and the game can be adjusted to fit the play style of almost anyone. Throw in some of the best CG work I’ve seen in a long time, plus a great soundtrack, and you have one of my favorite releases of this year. I wish the RNG had been a bit kinder at times and the game would tell you when there was CG scene for losing a battle, but these are very minor things. This game is worth every bit of the $34.99 price tag, and I hope JAST brings over the previous game in this franchise since I enjoyed this one so much.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher for review.

The post REVIEW: Gears of Dragoon: Fragments of a New Era appeared first on oprainfall.

I was a huge fan of FURYU’s Crystar when it released back in 2019. I said many times that I felt it was the most underrated game of the last generation. When a spiritual successor was announced, CRYMACHINA, I was very excited to get my hands on it. I’ve spent around 16 hours with the game and completed the main story, so it’s time to share my thoughts. Did the game meet my very high expectations? Let’s find out!

CRYMACHINA follows the story of a young girl named Leben. She is on her death bed, dying from a mysterious disease that is slowly wiping out all of humanity. As her life fades to black, she hears a voice saying she has been chosen. She awakens to find herself in a strange world greeted by a young robotic girl named Enoa. This world is named Eden, and it is run totally by machines that seek to restore humanity by creating “Real Humans.” Laben encounters two other girls like her, Ami and Mikoto. Together they all set out on a quest to become these “Real Humans.”

The story here is really amazing. There are quite a few twists and turns, which I expected from this team, but I think this one may pack more of an emotional punch than Crystar. Watching all of the girls get closer as they struggle, and just their general interactions, will make you care for them almost instantly while wanting to learn more about this world. As you collect the personality data that is obtained from the fallen bosses, you will learn about their backstories as well, and some of these will really give you a gut punch. This is some top level storytelling, and I’m glad to see this team delivered once again.

Graphically, CRYMACHINA looks amazing. The game takes place in a cyberworld and it very much looks the part. Each stage has that very “Inside of Computer” feel to it, and the enemy models are all fantastic as well. They look like Decepticons that have gotten a big ass buff. The boss enemies are even more impressive in their scope and scale. I think the lighting in this game is what really makes it pop though. The girls in their cyber bodies glow in distinct places giving them this really awesome mechanical vibe, and the environments glowing in blue and red hues, gives them even more of that techno feel. The PC version I reviewed ran very well, never dipping below 60 FPS on my 3050 laptop or 144 FPS on my full rig with a 3060. There are some options you can tweak if you’re running on lower end systems that will probably get this one to run very well on any decent machine.

I love the soundtrack in CRYMACHINA. These techno style tunes with amazing vocals really immerse you in this post apocalyptic world, and give a lot of the characters’ scenes a lot more emotion as well. It’s very rare for me to love every song in a game soundtrack, but I have to say, every track here is pure gold, and I would rank them among some of the best I’ve ever heard. The game only features Japanese voice acting, but these actors really give all of these characters a lot of life. Their performances will make you care for all of these girls right off the bat as you follow them down this crazy adventure.

The core gameplay of CRYMACHINA is that of a third-person action title. You will move along a set number of stages, defeating the boss monsters to advance. Along the way you will find secrets, such as more powerful enemies, documents with coordinates to face even greater foes, and treasures. These treasures include things such as, new equipment, auxiliary weapons and chips. You will also gain EXP to level up the girls and some EGO to spend on other upgrades as well.

Most of the stages in CRYMACHINA are pretty short, but I feel like this works to the game’s advantage since you will want to defeat each boss more than once to obtain all of the memories. I do wish the game would give you at least some EXP and EGO for defeating a previous conquered boss, but alas, that’s not how this works. At least there are plenty of challenging bosses to seek out as you find more documents and explore this virtual world further.

The girls each have four pieces of equipment. These include a weapon, head, body, and waist armor pieces. You will have to go through all of the ones you’ve obtained from personality chips and through treasures, to figure out which ones work the best for each girl. The ones you don’t need can be exchanged for EGO which you can use to upgrade the girl’s individual stats, or the combat support program Enoa can use. Upgrading this is very important as you progress, since it grants more uses of healing, more EXP, better results from your auxiliary weapons, and upgrades your ultra powered Awakening Mode. When you activate this, you will not take damage for a short time and your damage output will increase. Upgrading it will grant more uses on each stage, bigger buffs and a longer activation time.

Lastly, let’s talk a bit about the auxiliary weapons and chips. Each girl will have one of these weapons equipped on her right and left side. They come in a variety of forms and rarities. As you might guess, the rarer ones are usually much better than their lower tiered counterparts. Each one of these will be able to equip a number of auxiliary chips. These will grant these powerful weapons their skills. Some of these chips will be powerful attacks, while others may give stat boosts or protective buffs. These are activated by simply tapping the L and R triggers in battle, and you can get even greater effects from the skill in the EX slot when the conditions for it are met. Some of these will be things like do a perfect dodge, or stun enemies, and others are as simple as just having a foe at a certain range. There is a lot of customization here, and you will have to play around to see what works best with your play style.

I had a lot of expectations going into CRYMACHINA, and I am please to say it exceeded every one of them. This is one of the best games I’ve played this year, and I loved every minute of the 20 hours I spent with it. There is a bit more post-game stuff I can take on in the form of some really tough bosses that I will very likely be working on after this review goes live. This game has an amazing story and solid action. This is something you don’t find everyday in gaming these days, so I feel fans of RPGs and action games will find a lot to love here. I feel it is well worth the $59.99 price tag. If you haven’t played this or Crystar, do yourself a favor and check them both out as soon as possible. You might just find two new favorites, just like I have.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher for review.

The post REVIEW: CRYMACHINA appeared first on oprainfall.

I’ve finally finished my playthrough of Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless and it’s time to share my thoughts on it. I had mixed feelings about the last entry due to way too many features being automated, the lacking difficulty, and the damage numbers being pumped up for no reason, which was very annoying. I was really hoping this latest entry would fix some of these issues, so let’s dig in and see if this was the case.

The story here follows a young rich otaku girl named Pirilika. She is obsessed with the Bushido life style, so she travels to a group of Netherworlds called Hinomoto in order to experience this culture first hand. To her dismay when she arrives, the Bushido culture has been long suppressed due to the rise of the evil shogun, Demmodore Opener, and his magistrates. She soon encounters a young samurai named Fuji who agrees to help her, if she pays him a large sum of cash. His daughter, Ao, has caused much destruction in this Netherworld, and he has to foot the bill. He agrees to help her recover the legendary Seven Founding Weapons and overthrow Opener in order to restore Bushido to these lands.

I have to say, I enjoyed the story in Disgaea 7 quite a bit. It had a lot of that Disgaea humor and charm I’ve come to expect after many years of playing these titles. The new cast of characters were interesting, and their interactions with each other were a pure joy to watch. I felt this crew just had a much better vibe than the one from the previous title. This felt like a return to form for the franchise, and that’s a great thing.

Graphically, Disgaea 7 retains the 3D art style found in the last game. While I know this is divisive for some long time fans, I’ve liked it quite a bit since the last game. I think the models here look a bit cleaner with a few more details, so they look better than ever. The environmental details look great like they always do, and the character portraits and CG work is top tier as well. I didn’t run into any issues while reviewing the PC version for well over 40 hours. I got 120 FPS pretty consistently across both my machines with some dips here and there that really had no effect on gameplay. This is a quality PC port from NIS America.

Not much really changes in the sound department in these games. The characters do have some new quirky voice lines as they go into battle. The Signboards are still my favorite with their monotone “Oh.. I died.” The music here is mostly that whimsical Disgaea music we have all grown to love over the many years of the franchise, but there are few more somber tracks thrown in for those emotional moments. Overall, everything here still works great, and there really was no need for them to mess with a working formula. My only real complaint is they never voice the the lines for the DLC stories. I feel like at around 60 bucks for all the character pack stories, NIS should foot the bill to bring back some of the old actors for these. It would add a bit more value to them for the money.

The gameplay in Disgaea 7 is very much a back to basics approach. This is exactly what the game’s director, Shunsuke Minowa, said was one of the main goals, and they certainly achieved this. I feel like this was the right call as this felt much more like a Disgaea title than the last game did. Lots of the features from Disgaea 6 do return here such as the Juice Bar, Auto Battles and more, but they all feel much more refined this time around. The random item worlds return, and there are a tons of ways to customize the over 40 classes at your disposal with weapons, accessories, armor and passive Evilities skills.

This doesn’t mean new stuff hasn’t been added here, as well. Two new classes have been added: the Maiko and the Zombie Maiden. The Maiko will put all of the male enemies at a great disadvantage with her variety of skills, while the Zombie Maiden will power up all your other units on the field when dying. The other big new addition is Jumbify. This will become available once the meter is filled, and one of your party members will grow huge for three turns, allowing them to do massive damage to enemy units. Each of the unique characters and classes give different bonuses to the rest of the field when they are Jumbifed as well. These can range from stat boosts, to being able to avoid attacks from higher ground. The enemy units can use this skill as well, so you have to keep a balance. Do I deploy my big unit now and try to wipe them out, or save in it in case they decide to use one of theirs against me? This adds a new layer of strategy to the game and I felt it was a great addition. Unique characters in the game will also have a Hell Mode. This is a unique skill linked to their weapon that will give them access to overpowered attacks and other buffs. The DLC characters get some really crazy ones. These won’t be needed for the main game, but they are very helpful when taking on some of the much more challenging post game content.

Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless is very much a return to form for the franchise. It improves on the last game in almost every way possible. The story is great, the characters are some of the best the series has seen in a long time, the combat is fun with some new classes and features that add a lot to the experience, and the overall feel here is just better. It took me around 40 hours to finish the main story and some of the extras. If you want to explore everything this title has to offer, it will easily take 80 hours by the time you min-max your stats and get everything ready to take on the post game challenges. The DLC pack for the characters and their extra stories is a bit pricey, but honestly unless you are a huge fan of the franchise, they don’t add much to the overall package here. You get plenty of bang for your buck at the base price of $60. If you’re an old fan of the series questioning whether or not to purchase after the dicey release of Disgaea 6, don’t hold back here as this is a much better series entry. This one is also very welcoming to newcomers, so if you ever wanted to try out a Disgaea title, this is the perfect place to jump in.

Review Score
Overall

 

Game was provided by the publisher for review, but the extra character and story DLC was purchased by the reviewer.

The post REVIEW: Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless appeared first on oprainfall.

Last month, I had the opportunity to try a preview build of the latest game in the Fate franchise, Fate/Samurai Remnant. After my short time with the game, I was impressed with the taste I had of the game’s story, characters, and combat. Now, I’ve had the opportunity to play through the full version of the game. Was Fate/Samurai Remnant able to meet the expectations I set for it, or did the full game dispel any positive feelings I had from the preview build?

Fate/Samurai Remnant takes place in 1651 Edo, Japan and follows Miyamoto Iori, a student of the famed swordmaster, Miyamoto Musashi. After a run-in with a powerful Servant, Rider, and their Master, Yui Shousetsu, Iori finds himself dragged into a conflict known as the Waxing Moon Ritual. He, alongside his Servant, Saber, must now navigate this contest, battling powerful foes and making allies along the way. Will Iori and Saber be able to protect the peace in Edo while contending for the Waxing Moon, or will this ritual consume the city in the flames of conflict?

I enjoyed my time playing through Fate/Samurai Remnant’s story. The game did a good job explaining how the Waxing Moon Ritual came to be and developing some of the characters involved in the conflict in my first playthrough. The story gave me genuine moments of shock and awe, but there were also some moments that may have been a bit predictable, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless. Rider’s True Name reveal and Iori’s showdowns with certain characters probably stuck with me the most. Iori and Saber, being the stars of the show, had the most development throughout the game. Iori became not only a competent Master, but he grew to be a powerful swordsman, capable of holding his own against monsters and Servants alike. Saber grew to care about Iori and the city he lives in, and soon saw Iori not as a weakling that needed protection, but a capable partner. You also come to learn the motivations of the other masters, such as Zheng Chenggong and Takao Dayu, and I really sympathized with them. Unfortunately, there are some characters that didn’t receive as much development as others, like Chiemon and Dorothea. For these characters, I was given some background info, but I never really learned what their motivations were. What did they want to wish for?

Earlier, I specifically mentioned my first playthrough Fate/Samurai Remnant and its story. This is because at certain points in the main story, there are decisions that you can make that will change the direction of the plot. For example, there are two locations you can go to, but you only have time to go to one of them. So, while I am disappointed some characters didn’t get as much development as I would’ve liked, their development may actually be in the routes I didn’t choose. Having a branching story gives the game much more replay value, and while I didn’t have time to do a second playthrough before writing this review, I am looking forward to seeing what occurs in the paths I didn’t choose, and learning about characters I didn’t learn much about in my first playthrough, such as Rogue Saber. I’m also interested in seeing if the game’s ending will be affected if I choose different options. A helpful option that unlocks after you complete the game for the first time is the Completed Story section in the main menu. This gives you percentages on how much you’ve completed of each chapter and optional Digressions. So, if you want to make sure you’ve seen everything there is to see, you can always go back and check this section.

Speaking of Digressions, these are optional side stories focusing on characters involved in the Waxing Moon Ritual. While I call these optional, I highly recommend doing them so you can get the most out of the story. These Digressions can take place in the past or present, and can help develop not only the main cast, but also characters who don’t get much screen time in the main story, such as the Rogue Servants. So if you want to get closer to characters such as Rogue Rider, make sure to do their Digressions. They also show you events leading up to characters meeting Iori and Saber in the main story, which may only be mentioned in passing but not elaborated upon if you just play the main story. For example, Iori runs into Berserker at a crucial part of the main story, and Iori questions why she’s there. Well, you can find out exactly how Berserker got there if you play the Digressions. You want to find out how Berserker met Takao Dayu? You have to play the Digressions. Not only will Digressions help flesh out the story more, you can also get some nice rewards too, such as currency and items. This is also the only way to unlock a Rogue Servant’s True Name and Noble Phantasm, so if you want to get the most out of them in battle, you have to play the Digressions. There’s a time limit for how long you have to complete certain Digressions, but the game gives you a helpful notification if a Digression will go away if you continue the story. The name of the Digression will also be colored in red to show you which one will disappear, so you can focus on those. Of all the Digressions, I enjoyed Rogue Ruler’s (Boss) the most as it gave me a good chuckle every time because of how ridiculous he is. 

A helpful section I touched upon in my preview of Fate/Samurai Remnant is the Logbook. This will document all the information you’ve compiled on the characters in the game as well as some terminology used. Again, this is fantastic, as there are a lot of words used that may confuse people new to the Fate universe, so it’s helpful to read through it. The Logbook also contains some information not spoken about outright in the main story, such as background information on Masters, and information on Servants after their True Name is revealed. I will say you should be careful reading the entries for one of the characters. You’ll know which character as they are related to Saber. I found one of the entries for this character spoils Saber’s True Name, before it is explicitly revealed to the player in the main story. So, I would just be careful reading about any entry or character relating to Saber, everything else should be fair game.

Fate/Samurai Remnant has four major gameplay portions: preparing at home, exploring Edo, combat, and Spirit Font Conflicts. When at home, you can help Iori prepare for the perils of the Waxing Moon Ritual. You can rest in bed to restore HP, maintain your swords, carve statues, choose which Rogue Servant will accompany you, and renovate your mage workshop. Maintaining your swords starts a simple minigame, and you can get an EXP bonus depending on how well you do and what materials you use. So, if you do it perfectly and with the best materials, your EXP bonus can be increased by 20% and for eight battles, which is very helpful. Carving statues is a way to not only gain some EXP, but it’s a way to make some good money as well. You can take the statues you create and sell them to the Boss at Babyloni-ya for a good chunk of change. After a certain point in the story, your home will be where you can choose which Rogue Servant will accompany you. So, make sure you have your favorite one accompanying you before you go out to battle. Renovating your workshop can give you permanent buffs (increase your Valor Gauge fill rate, increase Affinity Gauge fill rate, etc.), give you more options at your workshop (ability to upgrade your sword mountings, option to craft gems, etc.), give you benefits when exploring Edo (decrease price of goods at shops), and even give you the ability to switch out your Rogue Servant outside the house. Unlocking these benefits will cost a good amount of materials and currency, so make sure to save up!

Once you’re out in the town, you can purchase materials and recovery items, stop minor squabbles between townsfolk, fight monsters and ruffians, pet your favorite cats and dogs, and complete Local Trials and Commissions. You’re not limited to staying in Asakusa, you can open the Edo map most of the time and go to a different district if you want, unless the story limits you at the point you’re at. Stopping squabbles and petting animals both help fill your Affinity gauge, but only petting animals will restore some of your health, so you know which one to do. Local Trials are objectives you can complete in each Edo district that can be completed for currency and materials. These are relatively simple to do, such as defeat a certain amount of enemies or pet a dog or cat a certain amount of times. Once you complete all of them, you get a Town Completion bonus, which is even more currency and materials. Commissions are like Local Trials, but they’re not limited to specific districts in Edo. So you can make progress on these no matter where you are in Edo, and they usually give much bigger rewards than the Local Trials. I do wish there were one or two more minigames to break up all the action, some that need a little more input from the player, because stopping squabbles is way too easy. I think they could’ve added a fishing minigame in here, since you’re allowed to visit ports in the game. It’s not a big deal, just a minor nitpick.

Combat in Fate/Samurai Remnant is an action affair. You can use regular attacks with the square button, heavy attacks with the triangle button, jump with the cross button, utilize Valor Strikes with the circle button, and dodge with the R2 button. The L1 button allows you to expend Gems to use spells or switch Iori’s current Sword Style. The R1 button accesses the Servant menu and allows you to use Affinity techniques and switch out with Saber, or your chosen Rogue Servant, if the Substitution gauge is full. Saber’s gauge and the Rogue Servant’s Substitution gauge are separated, so you don’t have to worry about choosing one over the other. Valor Strikes are similar to Musou attacks, in that you expend the Valor gauge to perform a special attack which wrecks all the foes around you. When controlling a Servant, the Valor gauge turns into the Noble Phantasm gauge, which in turn changes the Valor Strike into a Noble Phantasm. You can only utilize a Noble Phantasm once you find out the Servant’s True Name, so make sure you do Digressions for those Rogue Servants! I thought it was interesting how Iori could change up his Sword Style to fit the combat situation. My favorite Sword Styles were the Water Style, which emphasizes speed, and the Fire Style, which gets stronger as your health goes down. I found combat to be fair, with a mix of easy fights and those that will challenge you. Most of the challenging fights will involve enemies that have a Shell gauge. These gauges prevent you from dealing a lot of damage to a foe unless it’s broken. This can make these enemies a bit tanky, but it isn’t too bad if you’re patient.

In order to make fights easier, you can obviously level up, but you can also spend Skill Points you accumulate to unlock buffs and abilities for Iori and your Servants. These buffs can include increasing your damage against Servants and monsters, increasing your Shell gauge depletion rate, and even unlock an ability which revives Iori after getting KO’d once in battle. If you don’t have enough Skill Points to unlock an ability, you can spend items, such as Skill Jewels, to gain points needed to get the ability. Other than unlocking nodes in the Skill Tree, you can also change Iori’s Sword Mountings. You can change four different aspects of your swords, and each will give you different benefits depending on the mounting used. Benefits can include things such as healing your HP after defeating an enemy, increasing your damage against Servants, etc. You can upgrade your favorite mountings at your workshop, so you can keep using your favorites as the story goes on. Also, your mountings actually change the appearance of Iori’s swords, which is a very nice touch.

You know you’re about to enter a pretty important battle if a Spirit Font Conflict starts. In Spirit Font Conflicts, you have to make your way usually from Asakusa all the way to your destination in a certain amount of turns, all while taking, and defending, Spirit Nodes from your opposition. Taking specific Spirit Nodes will give you buffs, such as increasing your attack. You can also work alongside Rogue Servants you’ve bonded with throughout the story to make the Conflict easier. You can also split off Saber from Iori, effectively giving you two or more units to take Spirit Nodes with. If you run into an enemy in the same node, this starts a battle. You have an optional time limit to take out the enemies within, and if you defeat them within the time limit, you get extra rewards. If a Conflict is ever giving you difficulty, you can utilize a Support Mystic Code, which can give you different benefits, such as transporting to a node under your control or giving you additional actions within a turn. You can also click the right stick (R3) and ask Gramps for advice if you’re really stuck. What I liked about Spirit Font Conflicts is if you run into an enemy with Saber or a Rogue Servant without Iori, you can control them with no limitations. This is a good opportunity to really let loose and smash your foes. I don’t have a problem with the time limitation when controlling Servants normally, as it adds an extra challenge to battles, but sometimes I just want to wreck foes with reckless abandon. Honestly, Spirit Font Conflicts were a bit too easy for my liking on Sword Fighter (Normal) difficulty. It would’ve been nice if you needed to put a little more thought into moving your units, but the game tended to hold your hand throughout the process.

Continue Iori’s quest for the Waxing Moon on page 2 ->

The post REVIEW: Fate/Samurai Remnant appeared first on oprainfall.

When XSEED Games first announced Silent Hope, I wasn’t really impressed with it. I thought the game looked like a pretty bog standard dungeon crawler with some crafting and farming shoehorned into it. Looks can be very deceiving when it comes to games, so when I got an opportunity to check it out, I jumped on it. Let’s see if this game is as plain as I first thought it was, or if it was more than what I was expecting.

The story here follows a peaceful kingdom that was hit with a great calamity. The people became disheartened and started to lose faith in the king. They felt he was only out to protect his daughter, the princess, and the others close to him. The people became violent and things fell into chaos. The king used a powerful spell to seal everyone’s voices away. Then he hurled himself into the abyss without saying a word to his daughter. The princess, broken with grief, cried until her river of tears encased her in a giant crystal teardrop. Years passed by, and the chaos of that day was long forgotten, when suddenly, seven bright lights emerged from the abyss. These seven lights are the heroes that had answered the princess’ cries for help. Her hope now rests with these seven heroes as they explore the abyss to find out what happened to the king, and why he had sealed their voices away.

Silent Hope‘s plot is pretty basic, but I found it enjoyable. It was interesting to see the story unfold as you progressed through each layer of the abyss. It was like watching a good mystery unfold as you found out exactly what happened in this kingdom and the king’s motivations. There is a bit of a post-game story as well, and I haven’t finished all of that as of the writing of this review. But, I’m curious to see how all of it plays out.

Graphically, Silent Hope looks good. The heroes all have lots of details on their character models. The different classes you can unlock have distinct looks, and I love that all weapons have a different look. Each one of these are unique, and it’s a real joy when you find a legendary drop that not only looks amazing, but is totally badass. Each layer of the abyss is from a different event in the kingdom’s history, and they are designed to look the part. You may be at a festival on one layer and a harsh winter in the next. Monster designs look good, but they probably could’ve done better with more variation and less recolors. However, I thought the boss designs were great, with lots of details. The PC version I reviewed ran great in resolutions up to 4K, and I had mine running at 120 FPS with no issues.

In the sound department, Silent Hope is pretty solid as well. I loved the dungeon themes quite a bit. I found myself humming along as I slayed every monster in my path with extreme prejudice. The game features both an English and Japanese dub, and I found both of these to be pretty good. You will hear the princess’ voice mostly, since, well, she is the only one with a voice in the game. Though you may discover more as the story unfolds.

The gameplay in Silent Hope is what you would expect to find in your average top down dungeon crawler. You go through each level, laying waste to your enemies while picking up memories to make weapons, and materials to craft them with. You will also find seeds to plant crops to make food dishes with. These dishes will provide you with important buffs as you traverse the many floors of the abyss. Defeating monsters will not only drop materials, but Magistones as well. These stones will not only give your equipment some buffs, but will change the element of your attacks and defense too. This is very important, as it will give you the advantage over enemies of the opposite type during your time in the abyss.

The materials you gather in the dungeon will have to be refined in order to use them to craft weapons. You have two shops in your hub that will do this for you, but it will take some time to get things ready. Players can start the process before entering the abyss, and the work will continue while you explore. This is the cheapest method of doing this, and it will save your precious runes for upgrading weapons, growing crops, and other needs. If you’re in a real hurry, though, you can spend runes to get these materials instantly, or the precious Sands of Time you find in the dungeon. These are pretty rare, so you should save them for hard times. You can do this with crops and food items as well, if you’re in a real hurry to have yummy food in the dungeon.

Lastly, let’s talk a bit about the seven heroes. Each one of these heroes is a different class of fighter. They are pretty much your standard RPG affair with a Fighter, Mage, Archer and so on. I did think it was neat that they gave you a heavy fighter and a more nimble one with a shield. The farmer was very unique as well, having a pitchfork as a weapon and some lighting quick attacks. You would think this wouldn’t work, but it really works out well. Each of the heroes has two other classes that you can unlock as the game progresses, and each one will grant you three more skills to slay your foes with. These skills are, of course, your standard attacks, but some are helpful buffs as well. These skills will upgrade with points you gain as you level up the characters. I really loved the archer class more than I thought I would. There is something oddly satisfying about raining bombs down on your enemies and watching them pop. The only real flaw I found here is sometimes, you will get mobbed by the monsters and end up with a few unfair deaths due to being stun locked. This is pretty rare, and since you only lose a few items, it’s not that big of a deal.

Overall, I had a great time with Silent Hope. The combat is fun, the story is interesting, and I felt like the dungeon crawling was fair with a good amount of checkpoints on your way down the abyss. The music is very good, and the way they work the voice into the actual story is very unique and something I’ve not seen in my many years of covering games. I feel like fans of dungeon looters will have a great time with this one at the $39.99 price tag. There is a lot to love here with the solid gameplay and loads of different weapon options to keep players busy for hours. I’ve spent over 30 hours here and still have the post-game to go. Casual players shouldn’t be afraid of this one either, as the normal difficulty is pretty fair and easy to get into. Now, if you dare challenge the harder modes of the post-game, that is a different story, but that just adds more value to this great title.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher for review, and no in-game purchases were used.

The post REVIEW: Silent Hope appeared first on oprainfall.

Back in 2012, Japan saw the release of Nayuta no Kiseki, an action RPG spin-off in the Trails franchise. Unlike other entries in the franchise, the game was not set in the continent of Zemuria, meaning past games released had no bearing on this title’s story. As a fan of the franchise, I was at least familiar with Nayuta no Kiseki’s existence, and was interested in playing it at least once. But I realized the difficulty in this due to the game being a Japan PSP exclusive and having no overseas release. However, something happened that finally gave me a chance to give this game  a try. Nihon Falcom decided to remaster Nayuta no Kiseki for modern platforms, and NIS America surprisingly announced that they would be bringing this remaster to overseas fans for the first time as The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails. How would an action RPG spin-off in this famed franchise fare? Would the story be as strong or complex as others with the Trails moniker? I enter this brand new land with these questions in mind.

The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails starts as two young men, Nayuta and Cygna, return to their home island of Remnant Isle for summer vacation. As they start to re-acclimate to their hometown, a strange tower ruin falls from the sky and lands on the coast nearby. Being the adventurous lads they are, the two of them explore the tower. At the top they run into an unconscious fairy and two strange men: one clothed in black, the other armored with a greatsword. The two strangers take an item from the fairy and leave, and Nayuta takes the fairy home to recuperate. The fairy is named Noi, and she hurries back to her homeland to chase after the man in black. Nayuta and Cygna follow her and find the mystical land of Terra, the land Nayuta knows as Lost Heaven. The two young men must now help Noi retrieve the four stolen Master Gears and help restore peace to Terra. 

Nayuta’s story is pretty straightforward. You gather items and try to save the world, all while trying to understand the motivations of Zechst (the man in black) and his right hand man. As you play the game, you can probably make a good guess on how the story will unfold, and some of the twists you can see coming from a mile away. There were some revelations that intrigued me, but none that really blew me away. I will say there is nothing wrong with the story being simple and straightforward. Sometimes, I like to pick up a game and not think too hard about how a story will unfold, I just play. And not being related to other Trails games actually helps The Legend of Nayuta, as you won’t have to play multiple games to understand the plot or characters involved, making the story easily accessible to newcomers and veterans alike.

I did like the main cast in the game. Nayuta is curious, loves to learn, and is a good-natured young man who grows considerably throughout his journey; Cygna is Nayuta’s best friend and an older brother figure with tremendous sword skills; Noi is Nayuta’s guide throughout his adventure and comes to accept humans through her experiences with Nayuta and his friends; Eartha is Nayuta’s doting sister and a great cook; Lyra is a childhood friend of Nayuta and has a hard time relaying her feelings to him; Creha is a kind and mysterious girl Nayuta meets in Terra who opens up more as she spends time on Remnant Isle. I personally liked Nayuta and Noi the most in this story. Nayuta goes from a boy just curious about an unexplored land to a young man with the conviction to do anything to save his friends and loved ones. Noi goes from despising humans to enjoying their company and loving the world they come from. The two of them also make one heck of a team, much of their success being attributed to their trust in each other. I also found a soft spot for the NPCs on Remnant Isle. They’re like one close knit family and care a lot for each other, and seeing them band together in times of crisis was a sight to behold.

Gameplay is mostly split between two sections: preparing on Remnant Isle and exploring Terra. On Remnant Isle you can purchase new equipment, items, and cook delicious food to bring with you on your adventure. In addition, you can take on handyman requests from the Remnant Isle residents. These quests reward you with mira (currency) and other items that are helpful for your journey. In addition, you can also learn new sword skills and gain special equipment from Master Orbus, but this requires accomplishing certain things in Terra. But best of all, you can get a dog for Nayuta’s house. Not only is it just comforting to have a dog, Nora will bring you collectibles occasionally after you return from Terra. Who doesn’t want a good doggo in their lives?

In Terra you explore four different continents, all featuring different monsters and environments. This is where the bulk of the gameplay takes place. Each continent is split into multiple stages, and each stage has three goals for you to accomplish: clear the stage, collect three big crystals and all treasures, and another optional objective which differs in each stage. This last objective can range from not getting hit a certain amount of times to defeating a certain number of enemies. You can gain a maximum amount of three stars per stage, and these stars are added to your Swordsman Training Book. If you gain enough stars, you can learn a new sword skill from Master Orbus to help you on your journey. So, while you can progress the story by just clearing the stage without doing the optional objectives, it’s recommended to try to get more than one star per stage so you can unlock new skills, which in turn will make your journey much easier.

Combat takes place in the land of Terra most of the time, and unlike other games under the Trails banner, The Legend of Nayuta features an action-based combat system. You perform attacks with the circle button, dodge with the triangle button, and jump with the cross button. The square button is used for Noi’s Seasonal Arts (magic). If you played a game in the Ys series, like Ark of Napishtim or Seven, then you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you’re getting into. In addition, you can unlock Gear Crafts for Noi, which are special abilities that can help you in combat and exploration. For example, the Gear Shield can nullify enemy attacks and let you run normally over difficult surfaces such as lava. Utilizing Gear Crafts drains the Craft gauge, and if it runs out, Noi will become incapacitated for a short amount of time, preventing you from using Seasonal Arts and Gear Crafts. The combat system wasn’t too complicated, and I found you could get through fights pretty easily on Normal difficulty. I enjoyed hacking through foes and blasting enemies with Noi’s Arts, it was pretty satisfying. However, it may have been too easy at times, even boss fights. I found I could win most of the time without thinking too much. Another complaint I have is that new skills were locked behind completing stage objectives and not leveling up. It’s kind of ridiculous you have to unlock the ability to guard, that seems like something that should be available from the beginning of the game. I understand it’s a way to motivate players to do these objectives, but I found it kind of annoying at times. Another thing that happened to me is that enemies would be able to hit me even though I was on a higher, or lower, platform than them. If you saw the height differences, you would think there’s no way an attack would hit, but it does anyway. This wasn’t just a negative, though, as I could also take advantage of this to damage foes. You could call it a double edged sword.

Exploring stages in Terra also involves a plethora of platforming. You have to do a lot of jumping and running to get through these stages, and sometimes you will have to backtrack and redo a stage to finish all the objectives. This is unavoidable, as there are times when you’re too early in the story, and do not have the needed Gear Craft to get to a treasure chest or big crystal. This was a minor annoyance, but still frustrating all the same. Most of the platforming wasn’t too difficult, just needing some good timing to get through.

Nihon Falcom always delivers when it comes to a game’s soundtrack, and The Legend of Nayuta is no different. I appreciated how the stage music progresses as you get further in the story, it gets more epic as you continue your journey. The boss music is stellar too, matching the monstrous foes you have to face at the end of each continent. It would’ve been nice if each of the continent bosses had their own unique music, but that’s not a huge issue. The event music ranged from somber in the sadder scenes to ominous in the more serious scenes. I have no complaints there. The opening and ending themes were also quite good, Kanako Kotera did a great job singing both.

Continue Nayuta’s journey on page 2 ->

The post REVIEW: The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails appeared first on oprainfall.

As I stated in my preview a while back, I’d never played a Rune Factory title until I decided to take this one for review. I had no idea what to expect going into this, I didn’t know if the farming would be too complicated, if I would enjoy the combat or if the story would be something I could get into. I’ve spent over 30 hours with Rune Factory 3 Special, and I have my answer to all of these questions. So let’s see how my first experience with this franchise went!

The game begins as a young girl named Shara is dragging a collapsed monster into the village. Her grandfather is very upset she has brought a monster into their home, since monsters and humans haven’t gotten along in a very long time in this world. She is very keen on helping the poor creature out, but the next morning the monster has disappeared! He transformed into a young man, and of course with any good RPG our protagonist has amnesia. The young man has no idea how he got to this town or that he can transform into a monster. As he leaves the house he encounters a red haired girl who is very quiet and named Raven. She is in front of a huge tree they refer to as the Sharance Tree. He attempts to talk to Raven but to no avail when suddenly, he sees Shara. She takes him to the heart of the tree, and explains he will be staying there for the time being. The tree hasn’t bloomed in a very long time. He will soon discover the mystery of why this tree hasn’t bloomed as he quests to recover his memories and more.

I have to say the mainline story here feels a bit thrown together. It’s interesting to learn about this world and why humans haven’t gotten along with monsters in a very long time, but everything plays out exactly like you would expect. It seems like an afterthought to the stories of all the game’s amazing Bachelorettes and other residents of the world. From Collette’s obsession with food to Pia and Sakuya or Sophia’s backward talk, everyone here is very interesting and I loved learning about them. The newly added Newlywed Stories will unlock once you complete the game, and features a cute after story for your new wife. These are pretty short, but include some new animations, and I thought Raven’s was especially cute since she was my girl of choice here.

Graphically, Rune Factory 3 Special looks great. The characters have a lot of detail and the little emotes that appear over them as they converse with each other add a lot of personality. There is some Live 2D work when the characters are talking as well that I feel really gives them more life. The monsters have unique designs as well and a good amount of variety. The dungeons found here each represent a different season, and the graphics very much reflect this. Vale River is the winter dungeon and is full of ice, while Sol Terrano Desert is blazing hot like the summer we’ve had in my neck of the woods. Shields and Weapons all have different looks as well, and I really loved some of their designs.

I think this game has one of the most soothing soundtracks I’ve heard in a long time. The comfy home theme is great and you will catch yourself humming it hours after you stop playing. The themes for each of the four seasons are great as well, and they really fit the vibe of each one. The summer theme is really upbeat and warm, which is a stark contrast to the winter theme that is much more laid back with a much cooler sound. The game is voiced in both Japanese and English and I think both casts do an excellent job of giving these characters life.

I had never played a Rune Factory game before, so I didn’t know what to expect in terms of game-play. What I found here was one of the most laid back and comfy games I’ve ever played, but with a surprising amount of depth. It’s pretty much left to the player how they want to spend each of their days. Players start out each day with a certain amount of RP (Rune Points) and every activity you do will consume some of these. You may want to do some farming, you may decide to crawl the dungeon, or spend the day crafting. The more you do each activity your level will increase, and this will decrease the amount of RP consumed by doing each one. You will also gain RP and HP as your overall level increases.

I didn’t do very much farming during my play-through, as I made most of my money crafting items since it was pretty easy to gather any materials you need in the dungeons, and that helped me build up my craft and smithing skills quickly. I was able to make better equipment for myself and do more upgrades to the weapons and accessories I had as well. Though if you want to go the farming route, recruiting some monster friends will help you greatly. You do this by giving them gifts in the dungeon and if you give them something they like, they will join your team. You can have them do chores on the farm, or have them help you in a tough dungeon. Just be sure to take care of them by brushing them and feeding them plenty of yummy fodder.

The combat here is done in a top down fashion much like the the classic 2D Legend of Zelda games. You have a few different types of weapons to choose from. These include a one handed sword and shield, axes, spears, two handed swords, rods and duel blades. Each one has a very different fighting style and special moves you can obtain by leveling up your skills. In addition to all the weapon types, players have a variety of spells at their disposal as well. These include attack spells, buffs, healing spells and some that will let you escape battle altogether. I mostly stuck with the healing spells and double blades, but there is no wrong way to go here, and I love how much variety this gives in making your character fight exactly how you want them to. In addition to all that, you can transform into your monster form and do combat as well. As a Wooly you only have some punching attacks, but you’re very fast and do a lot of damage. Some of the lovely Bachelorettes can accompany you in dungeons as well, but be aware they start at level one, so you will need to help build them up.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Rune Factory 3 Special. I can see why people love this series; its laid back game-play is welcoming but it has enough depth to keep you coming back for more. I had a blast figuring out the best items to give all the Bachelorettes, seeing their reactions to them, and watching their stories unfold. The combat here is a ton of fun, and I can certainly see myself wanting to take on the extra dungeons and challenges at some point down the line. The game is well worth the $39.99 asking price, and I think any fan of the series should jump on this day one. If you’ve never played one of these games you should give them a chance. I didn’t think this would be up my alley, but I was mistaken. I look forward to checking out Rune Factory 4 Special sometime in the near future.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher for review.

The post REVIEW: Rune Factory 3 Special appeared first on oprainfall.

I am always up for a visual novel filled with cute romance and plenty of sweetness, so when I saw that Sugar Sweet Temptation was being localized I knew I wanted to check it out. I loved the character designs right off the bat and after looking at very deary games not too long ago, I was ready for something much more lighthearted. Let’s see if these adorable girls can bring the sugary sweetness I am looking for.

The story revolves around a pastry shop called Folkroll. This shop is known for making the best cakes around, but the owner has fallen ill and the shop’s future is very much in question. On the magical night of fairies, the chef’s granddaughter, Meru, and her best friend Kōri make a wish to save their shop. Soon after a stranger with amnesia appears, and the girls decide to take him in. They grow close to him quickly, and as it turns out he is a patissier, so he decides to help the girls save the shop from being shutdown by the mayor. They do just that, and now we will see how his daily life progresses with each of our three heroines.

I really loved the overall story here. It had a good amount of comedy mixed in with some more serious notes and some very heartwarming moments between the protagonist and the girls. The side characters are very important to the story as well, since they show just how close knit the town of Fueya actually is. Everyone there is like family in this snow covered town, and this makes it feel very warm and welcoming. I also loved there was lots of lore surrounding this town from the Night of Fairies to the wish granting diamond, which you will learn about as the story unfolds during our heroines’ routes.

The common route here is pretty short and most of the story unfolds during our heroines’ routes. Each girl is very unique: Meru is very childish and almost like a puppy dog. She is the granddaughter of the Folkroll’s chef, and she loves sweets. Kōri is always scolding her to keep her in line like and old sister despite being around the same ago. Their interactions are priceless and provide much of the comedy found within the game, but also some very heartwarming moments as well. Overall I felt Meru was just a super sweet girl that you couldn’t help but fall in love with. This route is the most comfy of the three by far.

Chocolat is the daughter of the president of a large company who has come to take over Folkroll; however, after eating one of the protagonist’s cakes she decides to help the shop out. She wants to become a patissier herself, and is quite knowledgeable about baking in general. Her and the protagonist help each other out often during her route. She also loves history, and she wants to learn all she can about Fueya and its mysterious history, including a wish granting diamond. I thought her route was pretty good, even if it ended suddenly. While most of the girls’ H-scene are pretty vanilla, one of Chocolat’s gets pretty spicy due to an accident with a collar.

Kōri lives and works at the Folkroll. She decided to live there since it was very close to a school she wanted to attended. She is a very shy girl who wants nothing more than to help our protagonist regain his memory, since she thinks he should return to his family. Her route does dig into some darker topics than the others, and it reveals more of the lore surrounding the town. I would suggest playing her route last so the story flows better, even though I consider her route the canon route. She is the best girl as well, but that’s my bias talking!

There are no choices in Sugar Sweet Temptation that affect the overall story, other than which girl’s route you choose. The only impact from these choices will be different variations of H-scene CG you unlock. Each girl has at least three H-scenes and the CG work here is amazing, just like all of the artwork in Sugar Sweet Temptation. The backgrounds look amazing, the character sprites are detailed and give off a range of emotions. I liked the artwork here so much I want to check out the two Amairo Chocolata titles as well since the artist worked on those as well.

The music in Sugar Sweet Temptation isn’t anything special, but it does set the mood for the game nicely. The game mostly has a comfy laid back vibe and these tunes help you feel that. There are some more somber tracks for the game’s more emotional moments and I felt those worked great as well. The real credit in the sound department should go the voice actors for our heroines. They all did an amazing job bringing these girls to life and making you instantly fall in love with them. Some of the best character work I’ve heard in a long time.

Sugar Sweet Temptation isn’t a deep visual novel that will have you pondering many of life’s crazy questions for hours, but it is very much comfort food for those looking for a laid back sweet experience. That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of substance here: the routes here cover topics like following one’s dreams and figuring out exactly what makes you happy in life. I feel like we all should take more time to search for these answers rather than delving into darker areas of life. The game will set you back $24.99 and will take you about 12 to 15 hours to cover all of the content offered here. Players opting for the Steam version will need to download a patch to access the H-scenes, and you could fully play this one without them, but I feel like you wouldn’t get as much out of it, especially in Kōri’s route. I have no issues recommending this one to fans of laid back visual novels or those looking to spend some quality time with some cute girls. You will find this sugary sweet purchase well worth your coin.

Review Score
Overall

Review copy was provided by the publisher.

The post REVIEW: Sugar Sweet Temptation appeared first on oprainfall.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Final Fantasy Tactics. It’s still one of my favorite games, and anytime a game comes out that looks like it could be similar to it, I jump on the chance to check it out. Arcadian Atlas certainly fit that bill with its pixel art style and stage designs, so I was stoked to dig into this one. The question is, could it live up to the heights of one of my favorite games of all time? Let’s find out!

The story begins as the kingdom of Dantalion is about to lose their beloved king, Tirgan. The queen, Venezia, is about to ascend the throne and have absolute rule over the kingdom. This is despite the king deeming his two daughters from his previous marriage as his heirs to the throne. The older daughter, Lucretia, decides to start a rebellion to take the throne away from her evil step mother. Her younger sister, Annalise, is thrown into exile. This civil war will divide many people, including our two heroes, Vashti and Desmond. These two lovers end up on opposite sides of the war, and will be faced with many choices just to survive.

The story here is pretty well written and they flesh out the characters enough that you do care what happens to them. This is great since choices you make throughout the story will effect how some scenes play out and how characters react to each other. A lot of the lore and surrounding events are told through text stories found in the taverns. I thought this was a really good way to build this world, and it did help me get more invested in the story, though I think doing some of those as cutscenes would’ve been more effective.

I think the stand out feature in Arcadian Atlas is the graphics. These classic pixel art character designs just look amazing. Yes, they certainly do scratch my nostalgia itch, but lots of games in this style do that and very few are this quality. The animations are smooth, and the characters even have some facial expressions to drive home the emotion of the story. The environments are nicely done as well with plenty of details across the many battlefields you will encounter on this journey.

I feel like the soundtrack here could be a divisive thing for some folks. It’s done in a jazzy style and I would’ve never thought this would fit in a medieval fantasy game like this, but I would be wrong. In fact this may be one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard in a game like this in a long time. I honestly just wish there was more of it. While the battle and boss themes are nice, throwing a couple more of these great tracks in the mix would’ve greatly enhanced the experience.

­The gameplay in Arcadian Atlas is pretty much what you expect from a strategy game made in that Final Fantasy Tactics style. Combat is grid based with smaller battles rather than the more large scale ones you see in Fire Emblem, for example. Most of the time you will deploy five characters, but on a few maps they will give you an extra fighter to help slay your foes. You will not gain Exp from combat; instead, each character that participated in the battle will be given one skill point. You can of course use these on the skill tree to gain abilities and buffs to make your party stronger. After you gain so many points, you can promote your characters to a higher class. These are pretty limited since each base class only has two to choose from, but given that this is a 15 hour game, it proves enough variety to keep the combat fresh.

At towns you can buy new equipment at the item shop, and of course having the best gear will make your life much easier. You will need to check these every few battles to see if new items have arrived. At the tavern you can listen to the latest world building chatter or take on some special contracts. This is the only way to level up your characters outside of the main story battles. You will gain some extra gold and rewards as well. Lastly, you can visit the recruiter if you’re looking to take on new party members. They will start at the level of your highest level character, so if you’re looking to try out a new class this is the best way to do so. This is also helpful when you get a six member battle, since you mostly use only five and the last would be very under leveled.

Overall I have to say, Arcadian Atlas is a pretty good game. The story is interesting, the graphics look great, the OST is one of the best I’ve heard in a long time and the combat is fun. I feel like the lore of the world could’ve been fleshed out a bit better, but this is only a minor gripe. There are a few balancing issues present here as well, but the developer is working on hotfixes that really will address most of what I encountered. Even though this is a quality release, I feel like it’s a bit pricey at $29.99, but when it’s on sale, fans of Strategy titles should pick this one up. While it’s not perfect, there is plenty here to love.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher for review.

The post REVIEW: Arcadian Atlas appeared first on oprainfall.

Back in 2016, XSEED Games released one of the first Touhou games I’d ever really sat down and played through. The name of the game was Touhou: The Scarlet Curiosity, and it was touted as being a hybrid of a Bullet-Hell game and an Action RPG, which I thought was a bit crazy at the time. I ended up loving that game, and it’s probably what got me into checking out the official and fan games in the franchise. So, when I got to check out Touhou: New World, which comes to us from the same developer as Scarlet Curiosity, I jumped on it. Let’s see if I love this release as much as the previous one.

The story here beings as Reimu and Marisa discover the barrier between the outside world and mystical world of Gensokyo has been breached. Our protagonists end up in a world outside of their own, and soon encounter a girl named Sumireko. She is obsessed with Gensokyo, and ends up traveling back with our two wayward protagonists. This of course is not without incident, as both worlds are now thrown into chaos. Reimu and Marisa will have to solve the mystery here, and put this incident to rest.

I thought the story here was pretty good, and the localization team did a pretty good job giving these characters we know and love a lot of personality. There is nothing here that is gonna blow you away, but the story keeps the game moving along and is interesting enough that you will want to see how it all plays out. I was pretty interested to see which characters would be included here, as well, as I progressed.

Graphically, Touhou: New World looks pretty good. The world is nicely detailed with many of the different environments around Gensokyo being represented. These include the human village, ice caverns, Hell and many others. While the character models and enemies aren’t very detailed, they have a ton of style. This was the case in the previous game, Scarlet Curiosity, and I think it looks great here as well. Scenes with dialogue have some well done character portraits too. I didn’t see any real performance issues running this on my PC. There are some graphic options if you need to adjust things for your rig.

In the audio department, you will find some remixes of your favorite Touhou tunes here. Each stage has a wonderful theme, and the boss music is top notch, as you would expect. The sound effects here are nothing to write home about, but they get the job done. There is no voice acting here, which may be a bummer for some folks, but I don’t really mind the lack of it, personally.

The gameplay here hasn’t changed much since the last game. You run through stages, beating up enemies with normal attacks and special moves until you reach a boss. These special moves will level up the more you use them, and the enemies will drop a variety of equipment. As you would expect, this equipment will have a great impact on your stats, depending on which ones you equip. Some will give you more life, while others may get you better drops or increase your critical hit rate. How you build either protagonist is completely up to you. Completing both normal missions and side missions will earn you Power Stones that you use to upgrade your base stats or give yourself some more heals in battle, so be sure to use these wisely.

I felt like the boss fights in this game were a bit easier this time around, or I’ve just gotten better at dodging the Bullet-Hell. Either way, each boss is a very unique fight with different attack patterns and specials for you to navigate. You can also guard against striking attacks, and doing so perfectly will slow down time, allowing you to blast foes with your overpowered spell card, or use the time to heal up if things are going south.

All in all, I enjoyed my time with Touhou: New World. It had the same fun gameplay as the last game, the soundtrack is top notch and the story, while nothing amazing, is good enough to keep you interested. I would have no issue suggesting fans of Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity to pick this one up, you will find more of what you love here at the cost of $24.99. If you haven’t played the previous game and are a fan of Action RPGs that do something a little different, I think you should check this one out as well. You may just find it’s your first step into the bottomless pit of Touhou.

Review Score
Overall

Game copy provided by the publisher.

The post REVIEW: Touhou: New World appeared first on oprainfall.

As most of you know, I’m a huge fan of Onigokko! I loved the amazing characters and upbeat romcom story of the game when it released a while back. I was very happy when I learned that JAST was bringing the follow up fan disc to the West. I’ve had a chance to sit down with it, and now it’s time to share my thoughts. Let’s see how things turned out for Keisuke depending on which of the amazing girls he chose.

The fan disc is divided up into five routes, one for each of our heroines and an all new Aoi route for the imouto lovers. I thought the Aoi route would just be very silly with a lot of fluff going into it, and while there was some of that, it had more depth than I expected. Seeing Akari act all cute with Keisuke was a lot of fun, since this a very different side of her character than you saw during most of the main game. Kana is reunited with Suzuka, who now has her very own body. This leads to very cute story of how the three get very close going forward. Otome’s story is the shortest one, but it’s filled with a lot of heart as she talks about making her very own picture book. The two discover what makes them happy in the end. Last but not least is my favorite, Kureha. She has spent some time away from the island recovering from the effects of the previous story. She is told she must not love Keisuke, cause if her feelings get out of hand, there will be grave consequences. The two struggle not to love each other, but this didn’t last long, and it lead to some very interesting interactions.

There is plenty of amazing artwork in the Onigokko! FanDisc. Most of the character sprites are the same as the main game, but they have added a few new chibi cut-ins that are very cute. There is some new CG artwork of all the girls here, and plenty of new, fully uncensored H-scenes here as well with the same quality as last time. These are all well written and make up the bulk of some routes here, which I don’t think is a bad thing since this is an addition to the main game.

The soundtrack here is mostly the same as last time, and I feel like all the tracks fit the mood and story very well. The voice actors did an amazing job reprising their roles as these characters. They really brought these characters to life once again, and helped me feel the emotional impact of some of the game’s more touching scenes.

It was pretty much a given I was going to enjoy my time with the Onigokko! FanDisc, but this actually came out better than I expected. I felt very satisfied with how all of the routes ended, and the Aoi route was far better than I ever thought it would be. The game lasts about 10 hours and is well worth the $19.99 price tag. This is a must own for folks that played Onigokko! You will love spending time with this amazing group of characters again, and if you haven’t played the amazing original release, you should do so before picking this up, since it has major story spoilers.

Review Score
Overall

Game was purchased by the reviewer.

The post (18+) REVIEW: Onigokko! FanDisc appeared first on oprainfall.

Author’s Note: This review may contain minor spoilers pertaining to past Trails games and Trails into Reverie.

The Trails series is known for its overarching story across multiple games. In 2010, Trails from Zero started the Crossbell arc which follows Lloyd Bannings and the Special Support Section in Crossbell State. In 2013, the Erebonia arc began with Trails of Cold Steel, and followed the journey of Rean Schwarzer and Thors Academy Class VII in the Erebonian Empire. These two storylines and groups of characters, seemingly unrelated at first due to the differing regions they take place in, found themselves connected to each other as their respective plots continued. Every beginning has an end, and these two stories are no different. The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie brings these characters together once more in order to bring their current journeys to a close. This was one of my most anticipated games of this year, but did it live up to my expectations? Was Trails into Reverie able to bring these stories to a satisfying conclusion?

Trails into Reverie takes place after the events of Trails of Cold Steel IV. The Great Twilight was put to rest thanks to the efforts of Rean, Class VII, and many other individuals involved. Life seems to be returning to normal, and Crossbell State looks like it will finally be able to achieve independence. Unfortunately, things do not pan out this way as Crossbell is once again occupied by its former Governor General, Rufus Albarea. Lloyd Bannings and the Special Support Section must once again rise up to take back their home from their oppressors, so that they may finally be free and truly independent. But, that is not the only story unfolding in this game. There are two more characters which this game follows: Rean Schwarzer and the mysterious “C.” Rean’s story deals with the aftermath of the war and his investigation into Prince Olivert’s disappearance. “C’s” goals and motivations are a mystery. They appear to be on the side of Crossbell State but at odds with Rean’s group. Who is underneath the mask? Are they friend or foe? Three different trails to follow, but where will they lead?

Even though there were three different storylines to follow, I found Reverie did a good job of handling them. I liked how each route had a different goal and cast of characters, so things always felt fresh whenever you would change stories. The different routes work off each other too, as some plot points that may be a mystery in, say, Rean’s route, can be explained if you switch to C’s route and play through his respective path. It was interesting seeing the game through these different perspectives and really helped flesh out the plot more. The way they connected major events to past games was intriguing as well, especially those from Trails to Azure and Trails of Cold Steel IV, though I won’t go into detail on those.  It also did a good job of developing its main cast, specifically Rean, the SSS members, and “C’s” crew. Out of the new characters, I liked Lapis the most. It was quite adorable seeing her curiosity of humanity and how she changes as she hangs out with “C,” Swin, and Nadia. There are a ridiculous amount of recruitable characters in this game, more than 40! It was great seeing not only the Erebonia and Crossbell characters gather, but also some of the Liberl crew as well. But, even though there are a lot of characters, I never felt overwhelmed. Reverie managed to handle the sheer amount of characters better than Cold Steel IV, in my opinion. Trails into Reverie’s plot managed to keep me hooked throughout the duration of the main story. It was interesting, the characters were varied, and some of the revelations were at points mind blowing. I personally enjoyed Rean and “C’s” routes more than Lloyd’s, but all of them were interesting.

The game also has story summaries for the past two Crossbell games and the past four Erebonia games, so veteran players who may need a refresher can look through those via the main menu. It also includes a novel, which shows the background of two of the new characters: Swin and Nadia. Unfortunately, if I had to choose something to complain about, it’s that at times the story could be predictable. For example, you could probably guess the identity of “C” before that reveal comes about. Other times, a reveal could have me scratching my head thinking, “that’s kind of weird.” Also, seeing as how this game is an ending to two long storylines, it is not kind to newcomers. Yes, maybe you could get away with just reading the game summaries and then playing, but I feel the story loses its impact if you do that. I really can’t recommend this to new players. If you want to play the minimum amount of games, I would say you could play the Cold Steel games and then read the in-game summaries of Zero and Azure. But, nothing beats playing all the games. Despite those criticisms, the story was still a joy to experience and memorable, and I love seeing characters redeem themselves after past transgressions. 

Speaking of changing stories, this is facilitated through the new Trails to Walk feature. By pressing right on the directional pad, you can choose which route you want to play. So, if you ever got tired of one route, you could change over to a different one and continue from there. It also locks you when you get to a certain point in the respective path, so you don’t have to worry about spoiling the other routes by going too far. From the Trails to Walk menu, you can also access one of the other big features in Reverie, the Reverie Corridor.

The Reverie Corridor is an otherworldly dimension in Trails into Reverie where the characters from all three routes can meet and mingle. Those who played Trails in the Sky the 3rd will notice the similarities between this space and Phantasma, though there are more activities to do in the Reverie Corridor. Here, you can train your characters in the dungeon stratums, play minigames, experience events separate from the main story known as Daydreams, and even go fishing! So, if you ever feel overwhelmed in a boss fight in the main story, you can go enter the Reverie Corridor and level up some more. The Corridor also locks how high you can go based on story progression, so you don’t have to worry about getting too overpowered. Enemies and treasure chests can be respawned by resetting the Corridor, and this also changes up the maps as well, making for a fresh experience each time you go through. I didn’t need to reset the Corridor as one foray to each stratum’s depths was enough for me, but I can see it being very useful in Hard or Nightmare difficulties. You can unlock minigames (other than Vantage Masters and Pom! Pom! Party!) through Red Sealing Stones (which can be obtained through the dungeon stratums). Minigames can range from shooters like Magical✩Alisa LS to really chill ones involving hanging with the cast at the beach. These are a nice breather from the dramatic tension of the main story. I was really impressed with Magical✩Alisa LS though, it was actually pretty fun, and it was like watching a magical girl anime. Daydreams can be unlocked via the use of Blue Sealing Stones, which can be found in the same way as Red Sealing Stones. You may notice characters speaking about events you have no idea about during the main story. Well, these events can be seen through Daydreams. I did not play all of the Daydreams as I have not unlocked all of them, but the ones I did see were good, and some relevant to the main story. For example, one of the Daydreams explains how Rixia meets the duo of Swin and Nadia, something you would not know about if you just played through the main story. In addition to these, you can also unlock power ups for your party through the use of Phantasmal Shards. Phantasmal Shards can be obtained by completing objectives in the dungeon stratums, while some can be completed outside of the Reverie Corridor. Power ups include increasing your Assault Gauge and BP gauge, making your journey through Zemuria easier. The best part about the Reverie Corridor is you can access it almost everywhere in the game, so if you need a breather or want to train, it is there waiting for you. I have no criticisms for the Reverie Corridor, it’s just a really helpful and fun addition to the game.

Gameplay in Trails into Reverie is very similar to what was established in Trails of Cold Steel III and Cold Steel IV. Combat is turn-based with options to Attack, use Orbal Arts, Crafts, Items, and Brave Orders. But, there is one major addition to the system, and that is the United Front. If you have five or more members in your party, this feature can be utilized. There are three types of United Fronts (UFs) at your disposal: Attack, Arts, and Heal. These UFs can not only deal damage to your opponent, but also provide buffs to your party and restore your BP gauge. These can help turn the tide during a tough battle, and I certainly used it when a boss seemed to be getting the upper hand. Using a UF takes up a segment of the Assault Gauge, but the gauge can be restored naturally in battle after depletion, so there’s no need to worry about not having access to the feature after emptying the Assault Gauge. Battles gave a sufficient challenge on Normal difficulty, especially against bosses. However, regular fights can get mindless and easy once you figure out your party layout and get used to the system. But, that doesn’t stop the combat from being good. The combat was already solid in Cold Steel III and IV, but the extra polish just makes the turn-based gameplay even better.

Graphically, Trails into Reverie looks good. I enjoyed seeing some locales from the Crossbell games finally fleshed out in 3D. Especially Armorica Village, as the old village looks very beautiful with the new paint job. Many of the character models are reused, but I enjoyed their designs from past games, so this wasn’t an issue for me. Some of the new models, like for Garcia Rossi, were well done and captured the essence of their drawn art well. There were times when some aspects of a model would flicker, but it was very slight, not a huge issue, but I thought I should point it out. The enemy designs look good, ranging from adorable Poms to horrifying devils from Gehenna. My favorite enemy designs belonged to the final bosses though, they looked so cool! I also have to bring up something else I noticed. The 3D models in Trails games look nice, but their movement always looked clunky to me, especially during cutscenes. However, there were a select few cutscenes where the movement was unbelievably smooth and fluid, making me wonder if this really was from the same game. And then I remembered an interview I read featuring Falcom’s President, Toshihiro Kondo. He mentioned Reverie would be the last game using the PhyreEngine, and they would be using a new in-house engine going forward, and that some scenes from Reverie would utilize this engine. Considering how smooth those scenes were compared to other parts of the game, those scenes must be utilizing the new engine. If this is what new Trails games will look like going forward, the future is looking very bright for the series, because those specific cutscenes were very nice.

Walk the trails and continue on page 2 ->

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It’s been a while since I took a look at Guilty’s first entry in the Nightmare franchise, Nightmare x Sisters – Sacrifice of Lust-Hell, but the time has come to look at the follow up title. This one is called Nightmare x Onmyoji – Paradox of Forbiddance, and you will see a new face in a cute schoolgirl named Kuon, but our favorite sisters are back as well. Let’s see if this is another quality nukige like last time.

The story here follow a young onmyoji named Kuon. She has been raised by her father since her mother passed away at a young age. He has taught her the ways of expelling demons and other evil beings from this world. She is a very shy girl, and though she is on the library committee, she doesn’t interact with her fellow students, but that changes when a new girl enters the school. A girl named Setsuna, who is an exorcist, has just moved into town, and the two of them hit it off instantly. Setsuna and her sister, Yuka, who you may know from the previous game, are seeking the help of Kuon and her father to deal with some evil spirits. Her father is reluctant at first, but after seeing them all work together, agrees to the task. He leaves town to seek advice from a contact, and of course both Setsuna and Yuka are captured by a different sect of the same group as last time, once again. Kuon soon ends up in their clutches soon after, and now the girls must endure much abuse and have great willpower if they wish to escape.

Much like last time, this is pretty much what you would expect from a quality nukige. The story does keep you engaged enough to see what happens to these girls in the end. Just like in the previous games, if you don’t like forced sex or group activities, this one is not for you. At least they didn’t use alphabet letters for each different guy and instead went with numbers. Yeah, there are that many in some scenes. At any rate, the writing is quality here, and there are plenty of details in the numerous H-scenes, and the characters’ personalities shine through as well. I think Kuon is my favorite now for sure, even if some really bad things happened to her.

The artwork here is pretty outstanding. All three of the girls are drawn with lots of details, and if you wanna see the story with the girls completely in their undies or in the buff, you can even strip these away at any time you choose with a click of the mouse. The fantastic Live2D H-scenes make a return and are just as good, or better, quality than last time. There is even a nice playlist feature where you can play each scene in any order you like after viewing them during the game. This is a nice touch, and something I’ve not seen very much of in games like this.

The voice actors in Nightmare x Onmyoji – Paradox of Forbiddance do an amazing job this time around as well. They do a great job giving the girls personality, and make the H-scenes have a lot more impact. I would certainly suggest a pair of headphones for those not wanting to share the girls’ sexual misadventures with their friends and neighbors. The sound effects are nothing special, but they get the job done and add some more spice to the over-the-top nature of the these scenes.

All in all, Nightmare x Onmyoji – Paradox of Forbiddance is a good release for those who like this kind of content. The art designs and animations are all very well done, and It will give you around six hours of hardcore nukige action at a $29.99 price tag. This may seem a bit steep, but I feel like the game is quality enough to deserve this much coin. However, if you’re not into forced content or like more fluffy sex stories, this likely isn’t going to be a good fit for you.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher.

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