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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It’s time once again to check out a port of Neptunia: Sisters Vs. Sisters. This time I’m taking a look at the Xbox release of the game. Yes I know, it’s very odd seeing a game from this franchise on the Xbox and with the swimsuits included in base game no less, but here we are. I’ve spent about 25 hours with this one and completed the game, so it’s time to share my thoughts on this port. Does this port perform as well as its PlayStation and PC counterparts? Let’s find out!

This review is going to focus more on the quality of the port rather than details of the game itself. If you want to know more about the inner workings of Neptunia: Sisters Vs. Sisters, check out my PlayStation 4 review, or if you want to know about the Switch version you can check out that review as well. That being said, I do want to do a short story recap for those not up to speed on what this one is all about.

The story begins as Neptune and the other Goddesses receive a distress call from the PC Continent. They depart to handle this emergency while the CPU Candidates are sent to a nearby abandoned lab to investigate its contents. There they discover a sleeping Goddess, the Ashen Goddess, and as she awakens she traps the sisters in capsules for two years! When they are awakened, they find the world is not how they left it. The latest smartphone, “rPhone” dominates all of Gamindustri markets, and Planeptune was lost due to Trendi attacks while both Neptune and Nepgear have been away. Nepgear finds herself in a state of depression having lost both her sister and her home; however, new friends Maho and Anri help Nepgear get back on her feet, and they begin to try to get things back in order. Nepgear’s struggle will be great in the face of this new enemy. Can she overcome it and take back her home and save Gamindustri?

Graphically, I would say the Xbox port is on par with its PlayStation counterpart. The framerate on the Xbox One is very steady and while there are some load times, none of them are out of the realm of reason. The character models are nicely detailed and the environments look great here as well. The game would very likely have better load times on either of the next gen Xbox consoles and a better resolution, but it runs just fine Xbox One.

The action based combat here runs smoothly with no frame dips. Everything is done in real time with no major frame dips, even when the action on screen is full of crazy effects. You can freely switch to any character during combat, and when the time is right you can chain combos together this way as well. Players can also have the girls do some Tactical Skills. These are well known special moves in the franchise, such as Ex Multi Blaster, Cross Combination and other fan favorites in the series. When the Tactical Gauge is full, these can be pulled off with the use of just one button, or using the same button and up or down on the D-Pad for access to up to three moves with each girl. It is good to keep in mind that the Tactical Gauge will also have to be full if you use an item, but sometimes using it for an item rather than a skill, may give you a better benefit.

In the end, you get around 30 hours of a great Neptunia adventure for Xbox One or Series X|S for a great price of $39.99. Neptunia: Sisters Vs. Sisters looks great, runs at a consistent framerate and has the swimsuit DLC that was previously exclusive to the Digital Deluxe Edition, included in the base game. While this may not be a reason to pick it up for current owners, it’s a great addition for those jumping in with the Xbox release. I hope this helps the series find some new fans being its first adventure on the platform.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher for review.

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Every once in a while I like to take on something different than the genres I usually cover, so when I saw EastAsiaSoft was releasing a new Walking Sim I decided to check it out. The game is called Cions of Vega and I thought this might be a good story with some occult like elements, but the question is, was I right? Let’s find out!

The story here begins as you search for your lost daughter Leila. The town has been a bit strange lately with a weird cult running and some of the adults have gone missing. Luckily, you have your brother Logan, who is very familiar with the lay of the land, to help you out. The two of you will have to explore each area of the town in search of clues where Leila might be, but this won’t be an easy task as the town has locked several gates due to the strange activity.

Overall I thought the story here was OK, but there certainly isn’t anything groundbreaking. The note you find and your chats with Logan do give you quite a bit of backstory and insights into the protagonist and what has been going on in town, but since the story is the focus of a game like this, I felt there really should’ve been a little more meat here. It’s not really bad overall, it just feels a bit light on substance.

In the graphics department, Cions of Vega is pretty basic, but it works well for this title. The forest areas have a good amount of detail, and while there isn’t a lot of variation, what is here is done very well. The lighting is the best part of the graphics in this one. The use of sun flares, torch lights and other lighting effects really bring some of the areas to life. I never really thought about how much light can effect your immersion, but after seeing this it really can. There are few character models in the game as well, these are nicely done, but there isn’t anything special about them either.

I have to say this one is mixed bag when it comes to the audio. The ambient sounds of the forest are nice and the sound effects are adequate. The voice acting here is decent, but it can feel a little stilted at times. I think the biggest issue I had here was the music, there should’ve been more of it. There is a little bit that plays mostly when you start each area, or when an important event is happening. The rest of the time you’re stuck with just the forest sounds and footsteps. While I don’t think the BGM should’ve been blaring the whole time, a nice soft tune while walking would’ve been welcomed.

Overall, Cions of Vega is an average Walking Sim. The game only lasts a couple hours and even though I feel like the story is lacking a bit, it did keep my interest. The music is very good the few times it plays and while this isn’t a great looking title, it’s not a terrible one either. At the $6.99 price tag, fans of the genre will probably like this one, or XBOX users looking for a quick 1000 points to their Gamerscore might wanna jump on this as well.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher.

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Author’s Note: This Yakuza: Like a Dragon review will contain minor spoilers.

I have been a fan of the Yakuza series for more than a decade, so I say this with no small amount of weight: Yakuza: Like a Dragon (Ryu Ga Gotoku 7) is my absolute favorite entry in the series, in no small part thanks to protagonist Ichiban Kasuga (who also managed to unseat Shun Akiyama as my favorite series character). Our hero takes the reigns from longtime protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, and I cannot think of a better successor. His story of found families, overcoming adversity, and standing up for those who cannot protect themselves is timeless and resonating, and he absolutely earns his place in the Yakuza pantheon.

Let’s back up a moment before I continue. Yakuza: Like a Dragon is the latest entry in the long-running series from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. Released in November, alongside the newest generation of consoles, the game takes a chance on not only a new protagonist, but also a new genre. Rather than playing the action-adventure brawler style of previous games, we’re now in full-fledged Japanese RPG territory, with turn-based battles, magic systems, jobs, and more. The game draws heavily from Dragon Quest and other classics, with a smattering of nods and homages to a ton of other properties throughout. The Yakuza games already had a ton of RPG elements to them, from an assortment of leveling systems, currencies, and special moves, so the shift from action-adventure to role-playing wasn’t nearly as cumbersome as one might think. Heat Actions made the logical transition to magic spells, and the game takes jobs as literally as possible. All of it is a treat.

Much like his predecessor, Ichiban is a yakuza with a heart of gold, and he is absolutely my favorite type of character. A man who is one million percent too pure for this world, Ichiban is idealistic, loyal to a fault, and constantly looking for the brighter side of things. Despite all his hardships, he never gives up hope, and it’s that hope that propels him through one of the best stories not only in the Yakuza series, but that I’ve played in recent memory. He is joined early on by Yu Nanba, a homeless nurse; Koichi Adachi, a disgraced cop; and Saeko Mukoda, a grieving barkeep. Because I will need to go into spoilers to talk about Ichiban and his gang in any more depth, I’m going to break this review up into two distinct sections: gameplay and narrative. But suffice it to say, Yakuza: Like a Dragon shines incredibly well in the story and character department, and you are doing yourself a disservice if you pass this title up.

Like Yakuza 6, Yakuza: Kiwami 2, and Judgment before it, Like a Dragon uses the Dragon Engine, and my God does it look nice. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has outdone itself on creating the city of Ijincho, where the majority of our story takes place, imbuing it with lively characters, astounding vistas and a sense of lived-in-ness that makes you feel like you’ve come home. Character models are overall stellar, with the main cast looking particularly impressive on both current and last gen systems. I played both the PlayStation 4 version (running on a PlayStation 5), and the Xbox One X version, and both looked phenomenal. (I attempted to play the upgraded Xbox Series X version, but thanks to an absolutely mystifying graphical glitch that no one could help me solve, I had to walk away from that system. That being said, performance-wise, the XBX played incredibly smoothly with minimal load times and fantastic detail, when it wasn’t assaulting my eyes with rave wands.)

One of the aspects I really enjoyed about this game was also a cheeky one. Ichiban literally perceives his battles as something out of an RPG (Dragon Quest is canonically his favorite game), so both enemies and Ichi’s party suit up to mirror his perspective. Previous Yakuza titles have always reused character models for townsfolk, and that’s no different here, but thanks to the genre trappings of RPG enemy design, the devs leaned into it for some quirky and fun mobs. Now all those samefaces you see walking around town are a specific enemy type (Yakuza, Businessman, Pervert, etc). By the end of my playthrough, I could spot a Chef or a Titillator from a mile away. They also received your typical palette swaps and armor upgrades for powered-up versions, really grounding the game in both its Yakuza series roots and paying homage to the RPGs the developers clearly loved.

The Dragon Engine was not quite as capable of handling the random battles as it did the brawls in previous games. The ragdoll physics of fallen enemies in games like Kiwami 2 were always hilarious, but rather than watch thugs bounce 10 feet up into the air, Ichiban and the gang constantly get caught on the scenery: running into cars, bumping into buildings, climbing over guardrails, etc. I had a particularly great moment where Adachi could not figure out how to step over a playground fence. And while the game does eventually force your character into a spot where they can execute their attacks, it usually comes at the expense of a critical hit. See, if you use a physical attack against enemies when they’re on the ground, you’ll do critical damage, but when the crew can’t navigate the environment, mobs will often be back on their feet before you hit them, losing out on extra damage. When fighting random battles on the street this isn’t such a big deal, but against boss fights it can make a difference, especially when you’re low on resources. (I promise I’m not speaking from experience or anything.)

Fights themselves were fun and punchy, which you’d expect from a Yakuza title. The turn-based nature of the combat meant they weren’t quite as in-and-out as previous games, but the variety of attacks, spells, and effects always made for a dynamic showdown. Battles broke down like so: You had your standard melee attack which could deal critical damage to downed enemies; your Heat Actions, which were flashy physical and elemental attacks; and your support skills, such as Peerless Resolve, which would save Ichiban from one instant-death attack. (I loved Peerless Resolve, since if Ichi died, it was game over.) Using the circle button (PS4/5) or the A button (Xbox) at precise moments when you’re attacked can trigger a Perfect Guard, which severely mitigates damage, and some Heat Actions require multiple button presses for damage multipliers, not unlike Super Mario RPG. Depending on your job type, the Heat Actions and support skills available to you change, with a handful becoming permanent character skills carrying over between jobs. Characters and jobs had separate leveling trees, meaning Ichi could be level 64 but running around as a level 7 Host. Jobs only learned abilities up through level 30, though, leaving you plenty of incentive to mix and match. Leveling jobs would also result in permanent character stat boosts. You can also summon powerful allies called Poundmates, who deal massive damage to all enemies or apply status and healing affects to the party. Just like in other RPGs and the Yakuza series itself, there were of course game-breaking skills and combinations, but I never found myself bored or frustrated with combat, with one exception. Around Chapter 12 or so, there is a massive difficulty spike that the game doesn’t adequately prepare you for. Thematically it makes sense, but going in, just know that you will need to grind out some levels in order to finish the game.

Unfortunately, load times were an issue. On both the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4, I sometimes spent upwards of 30 seconds waiting for the game to load, especially on boot up. Considering the size of Ijincho this wasn’t a huge surprise, but for the amount of loading screens in the game, that time adds up. The PlayStation 5 cut the load times down significantly, and the Xbox Series X even more so. They were never as bad as Judgment‘s, thank God, but after 85 hours of playtime, they definitely wore out their welcome.

Scattered around the world are tons of items, chests, and helpful NPCs, as well as high-level dungeons to help you grind your way to the top. The RGG team really managed to capture the essence of an old-school RPG while keeping the world modern and grounded. Just like previous titles, you can eat at your favorite ramen shop, buy energy drinks from the drug store, play a relaxing game of mahjong, and sing your heart out to karaoke. (Ichi’s song is a great addition to the series’ catalogue.) Subquests round out the world with interesting and hilarious stories (think Earthbound‘s level of quirky writing), fun minigames, and even some surprisingly emotional moments. You can even upgrade your weapons toward relic status if you’re willing to expend the time, yen, and materials. For old fans of the series, the game has one of the best payoffs I’ve ever seen for longtime players, but it’s also a fantastic starting point for those who haven’t played previous titles or who just want to experience a great RPG.

Read more about Ichiban and the game’s story on Page 2 ->

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Title	Double Kick Heroes
Developer	Headbang Club
Publisher	Headbang Club, Hound Picked Games, Kakehashi, WhisperGames, Plug In Digital
Release Date	Aug 13, 2020
Genre	Rhythm, Shooting, Zombie Apocalypse
Platform	Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, GOG, Humble Store, Itch.io
Age Rating	Mature
Official Website

Zombies are overrunning the streets, terrible monsters are wrecking havoc, and the world as we know it has crumbled into a hellscape. What is a group of metal heads with a Gundillac to do? Kill anything and everything that moves, obviously, and do it in the most metal fashion possible. That’s the simple but effective premise of Double Kick Heroes, a heavy metal rhythm title from Headbang Club.

The game follows the trappings of zombie horror pretty faithfully. We’ve got our ragtag group of unorthodox heroes – in this case, guitarists Randie and James, keytarist Snake, drummer Derek, and driver Lincoln. Individually, most of the group is pretty forgettable (Lincoln’s obsession for President Lincoln notwithstanding), but together they’re a crass and vulgar bunch. Their love of metal keeping them together when the world around them falls apart. It helps that their Gundillac, Sheila, is equipped with the latest and best weapons, all precision tied to Derek’s drum kit for the most death metal of all death metal sessions.

Gameplay is relatively straightforward. You control the various guns on the Gundillac using precise button presses to the music, which scrolls horizontally across the bottom of the screen. Alternate using the upper and lower guns (which default on the Xbox One controller to B and A, respectively), throw grenades by hitting the R bumper, and snipe using the L bumper. All of these controls can be remapped to your heart’s content, however, which was a welcome addition when I found myself needing to hold the Xbox controller sideways to keep up. Where the difficulty comes in is juggling between the various weapons to a plethora of high-tempo, high-note songs. The difficulty curve doesn’t really exist in Double Kick Heroes. You’re introduced to the main alternating guns, then learn about grenades. The tutorial song for grenades is pretty simple rhythmically, but after that the game ramps right back up with no real progression. It became far less challenging than outright frustrating. The game also suffered from overly-long loading screens, and twice crashed on me during scene transitions.

The game features five different difficulty levels, though those come with their own issues. The easiest difficulty removes grenades altogether, which makes for monotonous gameplay, while normal mode suffers from an uneven difficulty curve. I am not a rhythm game novice by any means, but this game’s difficulty seriously threw me for a loop. DKH does offer a robust selection of options to make the game more accessible, though, including outright removing monsters entirely or turning off scoring so you can just jam to your heart’s content. I found that feature particularly great, because the music in this game is phenomenal, and any chance to just sit back and enjoy some truly memorable metal tunes sits right by me.

I spent roughly three hours with Double Kick Heroes, which was enough time to finish the story mode and play around a little with the game’s features and arcade mode. The story itself is pretty standard post-apocalypse fare, with the added benefit of having a really pleasing art design reminiscent of MTV-era metal and hard rock album covers. The characters are colorful and fun to look at, and some of the bosses are straight up visually striking to the point it feels a shame you can’t really focus on them while playing. The demon train in particular comes to mind for me. I also love this hellscape of a world Headbang Club has designed, with flaming towers, broken cities, and really inventive monsters. (Also deadly rabbits in Europe, which any Monty Python fan should instantly recognize.) And while the story itself is somewhat forgettable, I really appreciated a lot of the pop culture and video game references the game offers, including my absolute favorite exchange, which you can see below.

Double Kick Heroes also boasts the ability to upload your own songs, which is a neat little feature. The 30 original songs in the game are, and I cannot stress this enough, fucking bangers, but the option to upload your own tunes and create an original level is pretty awesome. It’s also a feature I did not personally play around with.

I wanted to like my time with Double Kick Heroes more than I did. It’s got a great soundtrack, memorable aesthetic, and a fun concept in a rhythm shooter. Playing the game tended to be more frustrating and physically uncomfortable for me than fun, however, even taking advantage of the numerous options available. For metal fans, this game is a must-play, if only for the ear worms, and I would suggest rhythm fans check it out if they want a challenging, albeit frustrating, title. That being said, I think I’d rather just listen to the soundtrack.

Double Kick Heroes is available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, GOG, Humble Store, Itch.io for $21.99.

Review Score
Overall

The post REVIEW: Double Kick Heroes appeared first on oprainfall.

Editor’s Note: oprainfall’s Quentin H also had a chance to check out Afterparty back in 2019, and you can read his impressions here.

What is free will? How does family – found and biological – affect that freedom? And how does substance abuse play into all of it? Afterparty, by Night School Studio, tackles these questions and more using the colorful backdrop of Hell. I mean, where better to explore some of humanity’s biggest quandaries?

The game starts innocently enough at a college graduation party with our intrepid duo, Lola and Milo. Lola is a brusque but honest woman who does her best to be above the petty gossip of her peers, while Milo is more often than not the butt of jokes and picked on mercilessly. Thankfully, they’re both about to say goodbye to that life — figuratively and literally. It’s not actually a party, after all. It’s a farce staged by demons, and they’re in Hell. How did they die? Why are they damned? And why are they being processed together? That’s for you to find out.

The game itself is mostly comprised of walking left and right through the neon landscape of Hell itself, talking with NPCs to learn about why you’ve ended up on the wrong side of Heaven. Neither Milo nor Lola can remember what happened to them, and every dialogue choice you make helps them — and you — piece together their lives and what it means for them in death. As it turns out, Hell is actually a 9-5, and Lola and Milo have arrived right at closing time, so those answers will take a little longer to find out. But in the meantime, Satan is throwing one hell of a party, and he might just have their ticket back to the land of the living. If they can beat him at a night of boozing, maybe they can go home and that soul-searching about why they’re in Hell won’t actually matter. But to get into Lucifer’s shindig, our duo are going to need to get an invite from one of the locals, all while fending with their own personal demon, and she’s new and eager to prove herself on the job.

Most interactions offer one of two choices for you to choose, though once you unlock the drinking mechanic — Afterparty‘s main hook — a third choice opens to you. Depending on your choice of drink, this third option can run the gamut from combative to flirty to drunkenly courageous, with your choices ultimately affecting yourself and the denizens of Hell — as well as playing into the themes of free will and substance abuse.

The drinking mechanic walks a fine line between advocating for teetotalers and rampant alcoholism. Sometimes the options move the dialogue forward (I found this happened most often if you drank something that gave you Liquid Courage). Sometimes they just lead to fun flavor text. In a game about drinking Satan under the table, booze isn’t always the right answer. And whether you choose the third option or not, there are times that choice just doesn’t matter. Some parts of this story are predetermined, but it’s what you do with the choices given to you that matter. Seeing all of the dialogue options is in and of itself a fun pastime thanks to the game’s stellar writing, so seeing how each interaction can play out does offer quite a bit of replayability, since the game locks in your choices. (Which, again, plays into the free will aspect of the story.)

Speaking of dialogue, it’s definitely Afterparty‘s shining achievement. The writing is witty and clever, with plenty of references to Biblical mythology and classical religious writings. The voice acting is solid all around, with fantastic performances from Lola’s Janina Gavankar and Milk’s Khoi Dao, as well as Dave Fennoy as Satan and Ashley Burch as Sam Hill. Considering the entire game is voice acted, having these stellar performances gave the entire experience a strong polish. The game even features its own version of Twitter, called Bicker, where Hell’s populace will remark on the events of the story so far, your actions specifically, or just reference their untimely deaths in humorous ways. There’s even an achievement for wasting your time on it, and if that doesn’t scream eternally damned, I don’t know what will.

Hell itself is also pretty awesome. The vibrant neon color-scheme and character designs are all gorgeous, and the art style is actually what drew me to the game to begin with. In a game about one endless afterlife party, the game could not have gone with a better aesthetic. Even the music is catchy, thumping electronica that just gets you in the mood to dance — which, funny enough, is one of the mini-games available to you in the underworld. At certain points throughout the story, the main gameplay loop of talking to NPCs will change up to allow Lola or Milo a chance to prove their moves on the dance floor. These sequences are simple Simon Says button presses, but they were a nice break in the formula.

Afterparty also features a couple different drinking games. There’s beer pong, where you have to line up a shot (pun intended) using some rudimentary physics; and cup-stacking, where you stack each cup you drink in the same way the Stacker arcade game works. Neither of the drinking games are particularly difficult, but they’re fun and thematically relevant.

I played the game for about eight hours on GamePass, and my playthrough was marred by a few issues, almost all of which involved lag. Afterparty features several sequences where Milo and Lola will travel with Sam on her taxi across the River Styx. These are dialogue-heavy load sequences, basically, and would often stutter and skip, with the boat clipping badly through the water. At one point near the end of the game, the boat ride glitched out so badly Sam could no longer sit and would glide across the ground with one hand permanently frozen half-raised in front of her. Restarting fixed the issue, but it occurred during an important story beat, which really pulled me out of the experience.

I also had some severe lag during one of the dancing sequences to the point where I almost failed from missed or delayed button prompts. Other less egregious examples would be characters popping in and out of the screen or randomly twitching, and one or two hiccups in the dialogue. Overall it wasn’t detrimental to my playthrough, but it did happen enough for it to be noticeable.

I also wish the game did more with its environment. Night School did an amazing job creating an interesting version of Hell, but you never really get to interact with it. It’s just set-dressing for each interaction with the NPCs. It would have been cool to have something to encourage exploration. Finding Bicker NPCs was neat, but with the mythos and history the team set up for Satan and his family, as well as some of the more unique residents of Hell, a little bit of a collect-a-thon for more information and world-building would have been a nice touch.

Overall I very much enjoyed my time with Afterparty. The world was gorgeous and filled with likeable, interesting characters. It tackled themes I found particularly compelling, and the dialogue options offer a lot of replayability. I would actually love to go back and see if I can’t get some different outcomes from the ones I got my first playthrough. It’s light on gameplay, but this is a game I would definitely recommend for those who enjoy narrative experiences.

Review Score
Overall

Afterparty is available on the Xbox One for $20, or free if you have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

The post REVIEW: Afterparty appeared first on oprainfall.

There’s been a bit of a renaissance when it comes to side scrolling platformers in the past decade. Starting with with the classic Braid in 2008 and Playdead’s Limbo way back in 2010, leading to its spiritual successor in 2016 with Inside. All of which reinvented themselves as more visual and emotional experiences rather than hardcore platformers. These have worked thus far, and worked really well. With this, I’m happy to say that Stela, the latest entry into this genre, is no different, and then some.

In terms of story, Stela continues in the footsteps of others with a more visual, cinematic approach to the way these games present themselves. Keeping it vague, it maintains a minimalistic approach to the pacing of the overall narrative. Providing only hints and suggestions as to what the fate of the world is and ultimately the fate of our titular heroine. It’s short, able to be beaten in about 2 to 3 hours (there’s even an achievement to complete the game in under 90 minutes), but I believe this is to stick to the game’s insistence on being more cinematic and that certainly helps to understand it. You feel like you’re playing an animated movie at times, and it wraps up just as soon.

As far as controls go, you pretty much already know how to control the titular character. Left, right, A to jump and X to interact. Straightforward and makes sense, however there were times where I felt like there was an ever so slight lag with the jumps, leading to some pretty bad fails on my end. Which admittedly was hilarious. However, there are very few times in the game where this was even an issue, so it very well might have just been me. Other than that, everything else is clean and responsive.

The department where Stela really stands out is the visuals. The artistry on show during this game is fantastic. Each world is crafted with such care and with such a flow that makes it look really fluid, and downright moody in some areas. The art team really outdid themselves in the variety of locations too, with one level being a burning wasteland of a incinerated castle under siege, to an ancient cavern of alien like stones, to an ethereal plain of existence and snowy mountains, each providing to be unique and incorporate into the puzzles of each level perfectly. Each portion of the game has its own feel and really shows you the scope of the world the developers put you in. Atmosphere was definitely the focus and is really the biggest selling point. Stela herself takes on the same minimalistic aesthetics as the environments to ensure that while you can’t tell exactly what she’s thinking, her movements and animations are expressive and do a fine job of conveying her feelings without the need for words.

Also an aspect that’s really on point is the sound. From the sound effects to the score that permeates throughout the game, it adds a very esoteric and atmospheric mood to each level, never going too bombastic when something quiet is happening and never too quiet when something big happens. My personal favorite is when you get to a war torn wasteland part of a level where you need to protect yourself from a wave of blazing arrows and the music crescendos into this huge orchestral piece that really helps the dire tone of the situation set in. Most of the score is understated, especially in the more desolate levels such as the abandoned winter village, or dodging snow monsters that’ll catch you and force you to restart back to the checkpoint.

Speaking of those monsters, there’s not too much in the way of physical confrontational enemies in the game. You’ll come across creatures such as “Shadows”, huge limbering dark figures that swipe at you if they see you, as well as the aforementioned snow beasts. Killer rats that’ll eat you as you’re busy solving a puzzle will have you thinking on your toes. There’s really not even that much fighting, as Stela herself doesn’t have any way to attack. It’s a case of you hiding from and dodging enemies, waiting for them to pass. Stealth sections, really. Enemy AI seems fine, though there were times when I felt like my sighting was a little bogus, but again, just like the perceived jump lag, it could just be me.

Though admittedly, even with the minimalistic approach to the story, I did find the ending a little anticlimactic. The game does such a fantastic job with its world and pacing beforehand and really drums itself up with a huge orchestral piece right beforehand, indicating that something is going to come along to wrap the game up and explain some answers to your inevitable questions, but it unfortunately doesn’t. I don’t want to get into spoilers, but I found it not as climactic as I would’ve liked it to be. But, with it following in the footsteps of its predecessors, it lends itself even more to my saying that it’s more open to interpretation than something that can just be played out as a linear story.

Ultimately, Stela is to remembered for its outstanding artistry and beautiful paint-like backgrounds and environments. Again, while being beatable within a 2 to 4 hour time frame, around 4 in my case, the shortness in no way hindered the experience and actually proved as a relief for not overstaying its welcome. I feel like $15 would be the sweet spot for this, but if you’re really into these particular cinematic side scrollers, this is an absolute pick up for $20. Stela, as it turns out, is pretty stellar.

Review Score
Overall

Review copy provided by publisher, Thank You!

The post REVIEW: Stela appeared first on oprainfall.

Those who have ever had the misfortune of becoming “stuck” in an office job know that the work often feels pointless, demoralizing, and exhausting. One of the most common analogies made for this type of work is that of a worker bee contributing to its hive. Where the Bees Make Honey is a recently released indie title which first originated as a project on Kickstarter. Created by Brian Wilson, the sole member of Wakefield Interactive, this title explores a variety of childhood moments from the perspective of an adult who now works as a telemarketer. As she narrates her stories, players take control of her younger self and explore the fantasy worlds of her childhood. Along the way, this game draws upon a number of different art styles, perspectives, and gameplay mechanics. It is currently available on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, but I chose to take a look at the Xbox version. I went into this one not really knowing what to expect, so I’ll be focusing on the final product rather than its descriptions on Kickstarter.

At the game’s onset, you take control of a depressed telemarketer named Sunny. She is the only person in the office that day and the building’s power has just gone out. As she descends the stairs and resets the breaker, her reality changes completely and she begins to reminisce on her childhood memories, those where she was much happier. It’s at this point that the meat of the gameplay picks up and also where my reservations with it began.

My experience with Where the Bees Make Honey was indeed a memorable one, but for reasons that I’m sure the developer never intended. Right away, the first thing that will stand out to players is the art style. There are four to five very different styles spread throughout and none of them seem to mesh with each other (not for me anyway). In the opening sequence, the graphics as a whole can best be described as what one might expect from an early Source engine game. I mean no disrespect in saying that, but I feel that this is an apt comparison. If you take a look at the screenshots below, I guarantee that you will notice this as well. In stark contrast with that, some levels utilize a gorgeous, FEZ-like pixel art style. Still others go for a more realistic style with fantastic lighting details. There was even one level towards the beginning which went for a minimalistic, retro looking style that made me think of an old Atari game.  Each of these styles seemed to be tied to a particular type of gameplay, of which there are several.

Before I speak too much about my experience with individual levels, I’d like to highlight several recurring types of gameplay that you’ll encounter in Where the Bees Make Honey. The first type has you controlling child Sunny as she traverses through a dreamlike world and interacts with different things within that world to advance towards the end of the level. There really isn’t much else to say about these segments as they tended to be pretty short and linear. The second type of gameplay has you controlling some other creature or device (i.e. a rabbit and an RC truck) and tasks you with platforming through a level to make it to the end. These too felt fairly linear, though they weren’t quite as short. The third, final recurring level type was one that I actually really appreciated. This type borrowed heavily from concepts pioneered in the game Fez. Everything from the pleasing pixel art style, to the rotating square level design, to the heavy emphasis placed on puzzles requiring different perspectives and rotations to solve them seemed similar. The credits at the end give a shout-out and thanks to Phil Fish, so the source of inspiration here is pretty clear.

As you may have realized from my comments above, the gameplay as a whole is just as mixed of a bag as the art direction. While this is not inherently a bad thing, I find myself asserting as much here. No two levels are the same and the gameplay in each tends to be radically different. The point of each level is to follow a different story from Sunny’s childhood and thus it makes sense that there would be differences. The issue with these differences is that none of them seem to correlate and the execution of each can vary from decent to near unplayable. It brings me no joy to speak ill of another person’s game, especially when that game comes from an independent developer. Having said that, there were several levels in particular that really soured my experience.

The first was a level in which you control an RC car and drive through a forested countryside. This was really neat and I enjoyed the different perspective. There were two jarring issues here though that tarnished the experience. The physics of the car were incredibly loose and painful to get used to. While I ended up learning to live with these, the other big issue was with the invisible boundaries. Every game has to set some boundaries for the player to keep them within the map, but I’ve never encountered a game where the boundaries are just straight up invisible. I would try to drive towards a barn that was a mere 300 ft away only to find myself smashing into an invisible wall. I began to realize throughout the level that there was only one narrow path to follow. At one point, I went off of a ramp, only to smash into one of these walls mid-air. This made the entire level for me seem more like a chore than a relaxing activity and I wish I could say otherwise.

The second level that stands out is one in which you control a rabbit. This is basically a “jump to the next platform to advance” type of stage. At first, I was very pleased with the wide variety of colors and great lighting effects, but this experience was muted by (once again) the poor physics. Rabbits are fast creatures and I imagine moving around as one would be a bit of a challenge. The difficulty in controlling your rabbit here though is much more aggravating. Everything feels slippery and I felt that there was some delay in my movements. Combined with the looping sounds of a busy grocery store in the background, I was more than a bit peeved by the end of this level.

The final level was perhaps what really delivered the final nail in the coffin for me. You control Sunny as she attempts to walk down the street during Halloween. As she walks, there are a number of zombies and sentient pumpkins that can attack her. This is the first and only time that you are given a life bar and have the ability to “die”. This would have been interesting if Sunny had controlled decently. Unfortunately, I found Sunny’s movements to be both slow and delayed. There was also a prevalent issue where Sunny would die after taking just two hits. The heart counter at the top of the screen indicates that you should be able to take three hits. While this was occasionally the case, more often than not Sunny would die before all of the hearts were depleted. This level still felt more playable than the RC truck level, but not by a whole lot.

On a more positive note, the music was fairly enjoyable. I say fairly because not all of the levels had background music. For example, that aforementioned rabbit level was packed with the ambient sounds of a busy grocery store and looping checkout scanner sound. When it is present though, the music is pleasant and each track fits in well with its associated level. I can’t say that any of the tracks really stood out to me as memorable, but there also weren’t any that left a bad impression.

By and large, Where the Bees Make Honey is more of a linear, semi-interactive series of stories than an actual game. I didn’t find any of them to be particularly engaging or meaningful, though I again take no pleasure in saying that. This is a rather short title clocking in at around 3-4 hours, but it tries to pack a lot into that short span of time. A few reviews back, I was rather preachy about the concept of games being an art form. While I don’t intend to get back up on my soapbox, I must say that I think this game was trying just a bit too hard to be artistic and different. The concept of playing through childhood memories in fantasy worlds based on them sounds great, but I feel that none of them correlated and they were way too linear. If your intention is to hearken back to the joys of being a child, then the ability to explore is very important. The gameplay was indeed varied and took on many different forms, but the execution of each (with the exception of those Fez-like levels) was very disappointing. Had the existence of constant bugs and glitches not been present, I could have justified a slightly higher score. I appreciate the great deal of effort that I’m sure went into making this title, but unless some serious revisions are made, I can’t recommend picking this one up, even at its current price point of $9.99.

Review Score
Overall

A review copy was provided by the publisher.

The post REVIEW: Where the Bees Make Honey appeared first on oprainfall.

It’s a rainy Saturday afternoon in mid-December of 1986. I’m walking through downtown Dobuita, gathering information about a shifty character who I’d like to interrogate. Unfortunately for me, the tattoo parlor that he frequents doesn’t open for several more hours. Rather than waste my time waiting out in front of it, I head to a local convenience store. While I’m there, I peruse its selection of cassette tapes. There are two new tapes in stock that I don’t own yet. I buy both of them so that I can listen to them later. I also pick up a bag of chips and a package of AAA batteries (just in case my Walkman runs low on power). I then draw a raffle ticket, but don’t end up winning a prize. Afterwards, I head to the You Arcade and spend some of my remaining allowance to play Space Harrier while I wait for that tattoo parlor to open.

The events described above are an exact description of what occurred during one of my play sessions of Shenmue. They also perfectly sum up what makes Shenmue so special to me. It was perhaps the first, real open-world adventure game to grace consoles when it released back in 1999. You’re able to explore every nook and cranny of the game’s map (except strangers’ houses) and interact with almost any object. When you first gain control of Ryo, you can rummage through his drawers, pick up and examine anything in his room, and collect items that may be useful later on. When I first picked up a Dreamcast and played it back in early 2011, I was blown-away by how interactive the entire experience was. Keep in mind, I still felt this way even playing it 11-12 years after its initial release.

Shenmue is a tale of revenge, following in your father’s footsteps, and exploring the world. Ryo Hazuki’s father has just been murdered at the hands of a martial-arts expert from China. In the aftermath, this man steals a mirror that your father had kept buried in secret. Not knowing what events led up to this incident or who the man responsible is, Ryo still knows exactly what he wants- to avenge his father. He spends the remainder of the first game digging for information, following the murderer’s trail, and doing all that he can to catch up with him. This proves to be a difficult task, but Ryo is both resourceful and skilled as a fighter.

Originally intended to be a Virtua Fighter RPG on the Sega Saturn, Shenmue quickly evolved into something far greater and more unique. Yu Suzuki, than man behind both Shenmue and the Virtua Fighter series, wanted to try his hand at creating an RPG. The result was Shenmue, which is more of an action-adventure game with RPG elements. The gameplay in both Shenmue and Shenmue II can best be described at 75% free-roam exploration, 20% Virtua Fighter-style fighting, and 5% quick-time events. Interestingly, Shenmue is considered to be the first game to introduce the concept of quick-time events (QTEs). Despite their overuse in the context of modern gaming, the QTEs in Shenmue I & II are truly challenging and require quick reflexes. Instead of just button-mashing to perform simple actions, these QTEs occur during chases and fights, tasking players with making split-second reactions to respond to situations appropriately. Examples include dodging a blunt object that’s being swung at you by tapping left or jumping over some knocked over crates by pressing A.

It took me several years to determine the exact reason why I loved my time with Shenmue. Eventually, it dawned on me. This game (and to an even greater extent, Shenmue II) is essentially a perfect time-capsule of life in 1980s Japan (for Shenmue II, Hong Kong). There is a section of Hong Kong in the second game (Kowloon Walled City) which doesn’t even exist anymore in real life. That entire derelict section of Hong Kong was demolished by the local government in 1993, but it remains alive in accurate detail in Shenmue II. The weather cycles in the first game are based on real weather reports for that area from that time period. Even the smallest of details, like storefronts modeled after real stores in Dobuita, make the atmosphere all the more special. It makes Ryo’s journey both daunting and impressive as he is somehow able to follow the smallest trail of breadcrumbs and keep up with the man he is hunting for, all without the assistance of modern technology.

I feel that the games themselves should be examined before we look at the ports. The one thing that generally stands out to first-time players right off-the-bat is the voice acting. Regardless of whether or not you choose the Japanese or English voices, they are pretty sub-par. As far as the English voices are concerned, this is partially due to the direction given by Sega AM2 to the voice actors. Suzuki and his team wanted the English voices to be done using similar timing and pauses found in the Japanese version. The result leaves a lot to be desired, but the cheezy nature of the dub grows on you as you play. In terms of music, much of it is recognizably MIDI. That being said, I feel that the ambient tracks fit in really well and add to that feeling of exploration and adventure. Visually speaking, the artists tried to make the textures as realistic as possible. Despite character facial expressions being somewhat limited, the textures were (and still feel) very impressive. To see those type of textures in use on the Dreamcast is an absolute delight.

Perhaps the biggest improvement in the first game is the replacement of D-pad movement with left analog stick movement. While Shenmue II has always had the option of using analog movement, the original release of Shenmue restricted movement to just the D-pad. The analog stick on the Dreamcast was used for looking around when in 1st-person mode. While you still have the option of using the D-pad to move around in the new release, I found that using the analog stick felt much more fluid and natural. The D-pad was still my go-to during fighting sequences though, since precise combinations are needed to pull of special moves.

Speaking of fighting, let’s talk about the fighting mechanics in Shenmue I and II. As I mentioned earlier, the combat is meant to feel like Virtua Fighter. Throughout the game, you learn moves by training (done in real-time by practicing button combinations), reading scrolls, and through verbal instruction from other martial-artists. What I love about the interactions with these martial artists is that they don’t just tell you to “push right on the D-pad, then press X + A”. Instead, they realistically describe to you how to pull off the move and you figure out the button combinations through association. For example, if I’m told to lunge forward, shifting my weight into my legs and using the forward momentum to strike with both arms extended, then I know to press the D-pad in the direction that my character is facing while simultaneously pressing X and A (the arm and leg move buttons). This, combined with the need for daily training to improve the strength of Ryo’s moves, gave me a sense of accomplishment as I memorized how to perform specific moves and watched Ryo become more formidable in combat.

So let’s talk more about the HD ports themselves. While the games at their core remain intact and just as mesmerizing as their original releases, there are a number of issues that need to be mentioned. First and foremost, the audio. D3T did not have access to the original audio files to remaster for these releases. Instead, all audio (voices, sound-effects, music) is sourced directly from the Dreamcast copies of the games. The result is a highly-compressed, less-than-ideal audio experience. When using standard television speakers, this issue is annoying enough. If you feed the audio through nicer headphones though, the compression is very noticeable. Having said that, I realize that this issue is not easy for the developers to remedy. If they find a way to remaster the audio and release a patch, I will be a happy camper.

Another issue is with the aspect ratio for the scripted cutscenes. While the games now run natively in 16:9 (something the original releases weren’t programmed for), the major cutscenes are still presented in standard 4:3. This (I assume) is due to these scripted events being stored differently than the rest of the game files. If I interact with someone on the street, the aspect ratio is unaffected. If I trigger a major event like a fight, the aspect ratio is forced back to 4:3 until the cutscene is over.

These issues aside, there have also been some positive changes introduced in these ports. One such change is the inclusion of at-will saving in the first game. In the original Dreamcast version, players could only save while in Ryo’s bedroom. This made saving a once per in-game day activity (unless you chose to walk all the way home just to save). In the HD port, players are able to save at any point (outside of cutscenes and mini-games). This is both a blessing and a curse. I love being able to save right before big events (like the fight with Chai), but having limited saves in the original made each decision with how I spent my time and money all the more important. This feature also added to the overall realism of the game and now feels lost in the new release. All in all though, I feel that this change was highly warranted.

Also of note, players outside of Japan can now finally play the first game using Japanese audio and English subtitles. Prior to the new release, the only option outside of stumbling through the NTSC-J version was to play the Shenmue Undub. This was an unofficial, fan-made release and was far from ideal, having multiple bugs and incomplete subtitles. Having the ability to switch between English and Japanese voices on the fly for both games is definitely a plus and I found myself doing that quite often.

Given the amount of exploration and detective work that takes place in these games, playtime will vary a bit between players. Those playing either title for the first time will inevitably invest more time than veteran players. As for myself, I still tend to spend extra time exploring, collecting things, and playing mini-games. This time around, my total playtime for Shenmue was around 20 hours (give or take). This seems to be a pretty on par with many of the other playtimes that have been shared online. As for Shenmue II, this playthrough took between 25-30 hours. Since the Xbox copy does not track overall playtime, it’s hard to give an exact here. What is nice about playing on Xbox though is the addition of achievements. Even after you finish playing through both games, having special achievements tied to certain events and side-quests gives you more of an incentive to play them again. The same can be said for the achievements in the PC version and the trophies on PS4.

Shenmue and Shenmue II are both (in my mind) masterpieces in their own right. Having said that, they are also very different games. Shenmue places more of an emphasis on exploration and experiencing life in 80s Japan at your own pace. Shenmue II has a lot of the same game mechanics as the first, but the pace of Ryo’s journey is much more brisk. While I still loved exploring the backstreets of Hong Kong, Shenmue II is definitely more action filled than the first. Between the two games, it is by far my favorite. While Shenmue falls somewhere between a 4-4.5 for me, Shenmue II is a definite 5. The only game that has ever given me greater satisfaction than Shenmue II is my beloved Xenogears and I make a point of playing through it once every few years. The audio issues with these ports are definitely jarring, but the games themselves still hold up exceptionally well. Since patches to the PC versions seem to be given priority, I’d suggest playing those. There is also support for mods on PC. The console ports are all well and good, but in order to truly appreciate these games, I’d say go big or go home. If you’re looking for a unique experience and a world teeming with character, give Shenmue I and II a look.

Shenmue I & II are available as one packaged title on Steam, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. This package retails for $29.99. Physical editions include a reversible poster featuring the cover art from both games.

Review Score
Overall

Review Copy Owned by Author

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Title	Tempest 4000
Developer	Llamasoft Ltd.
Publisher	Atari Inc
Release Date	July 17th, 2018
Genre	Shoot-em-up
Platform	PC, PS4, XBox One
Age Rating	E for Everyone – Mild Fantasy Violence
Official Website

Tempest is a name that should be familiar to those of you who enjoy your retro arcade games. Tempest was an old Atari arcade game created by Jeff Minter that had a simple premise. You control a ship in a wireframe tunnel and you just have to blast everything that comes your way. It was a hit and eventually led to a popular remake titled Tempest 2000, which was released on the Atari Jaguar. Tempest 2000 was known for expanding on the simplistic gameplay while also featuring some really psychedelic visuals accompanied by a techno soundtrack. This game would also get ported to other consoles such as the Sega Saturn.

More recently a game known as TxK was released for the PlayStation Vita, made by Minter along with his team over at Liamsoft. This game was meant to be yet another modern update on the original game, however the folks over at Atari who still owned the rights to the name Tempest were not pleased and allegedly made various legal threats, sending cease and desist orders which blocked the game from releasing on the PlayStation 4, PC or mobile devices. Thankfully the story has a somewhat happy ending, as Minter managed to work things out with Atari and partner with them to release what is essentially an updated version of TxK now called Tempest 4000.

Tempest 4000, like previous iterations of the game, is very simple and old-school. You start the game up, select a mode and get blasting. You can select between Pure and Survival. Both let you start at level one and the only real difference between the two, from what I noticed, is that Pure starts you with three lives while Survival gives you nine. Classic mode is also available, which allows you to start from any level you have previously visited. It also saves the highest amount of lives you reached at that level, which is very helpful.

Each level has you navigating the perimeter of whatever tube or geometric shape makes up the level and shooting at various enemies as they approach the screen. When they make it all the way to the front of the screen things get a bit more tricky, as they start to move along the perimeter just like you and if they touch you, you lose a life. Of course you can defend against them if you manage to shoot them just before they collide with you, but this can be very tricky to pull off at times in the heat of the moment; there is definitely a learning curve to it. Each level consists of various waves of enemies, most of which can be taken out relatively quickly. However, the game quickly overwhelms you with enemy formations so a lot of multitasking is required. The game becomes quite fast paced as you progress. Occasionally you can gain power-ups such as extra lives, the ability to jump (which is incredibly useful), a laser that can destroy many enemies very quickly, an AI partner that can destroy other enemies, and of course a bomb that can save you should an enemy catch you off guard

Between each level you have the opportunity to earn extra points by flying through a series of warp holes. This is controlled by tilting the DualShock 4 controller. It’s a bit weird at first but with some practice you will get the hang of it. This game makes heavy use of neon colors and bright lights. It creates a game environment to that is really awesome to look at as you are blasting through the levels, but sometimes it might be a bit too much, especially when the game starts throwing obstacles at you that blur your vision or spin the stage around. That said, when you get used to it, it’s easy to find yourself in the zone and really addicted to the game.

The music is really catchy and features a lot of techno songs that change about every eight or nine levels. If you press triangle at the main menu you can actually toggle between three versions of the OST, some including music from Tempest 2000. Other than that, there really isn’t much else to say about Tempest 4000. There is a lot of fun to be had with the game, however your mileage will vary on how much you like playing this kind of game. If you are the type to play it through over and over again to achieve that high score or compete in online leaderboards, this game is more than worth it and you can add half a star to the score. For everyone else however, the $30 price tag may seem a bit steep considering the relatively low amount of content.

Review Score
Overall

Review copy provided by the publisher

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It’s not difficult to see the influence that Portal had on the games industry. It revealed a market for first-person puzzle games without combat, and spawned several similar games. One of these games was Q.U.B.E., where the player is able to place and interact with specially-colored cubes in the environment around them. It has a similar sterile test environment to Portal as well as its general visual style, and two years later a new version called Q.U.B.E: Director’s Cut was released, which added a new, more in-depth story mode. Now there’s Q.U.B.E. 2, a sequel which builds upon the story of the original game.

Core gameplay is quite straightforward: certain cubes in the environment can be assigned colors, which the player can then interact with for different effects that depend on the cube’s color. For example, orange cubes can be extended out of the surface, blue cubes serve as a springboard, and green cubes duplicate to create a loose cube that can be pushed or launched around. There will likely be others once the game is finished, but those were the ones available in the demo. There were also a few other elements in the demo, such as walls that could slide back and forth and doors that needed to be busted open with a launched cube.

Considering the general simplicity of the core gameplay, I was impressed by some of the puzzles I saw. They made good use of the various cubes and environmental elements at the player’s disposal, and I found them somewhat challenging despite the limited number of cubes and elements that were in play. There seems to be a good amount of ingenuity at play, but it remains to be seen how it holds up throughout the entire game, and what kind of extra elements and cube colors become available.

The story is somewhat more serious than I was expecting, but there wasn’t a whole lot of it to be found in the demo. It’s somewhat similar to Portal 2‘s story, with the ruined facility and trying to escape.

Ultimately the game’s similarity to Portal somewhat works against it. Portal is perfectly-contained, with simple gameplay, ingenious puzzle design and some of the best dark humor in any game ever made. The obvious similarities between Q.U.B.E. 2 and Portal makes it hard to see the former as an independent entity. However, it’s clear that Q.U.B.E. 2 is a solid puzzle game in its own right, and I’m interested in seeing how it is when it releases sometime next year on Steam, PS4 and Xbox One.

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Biomutant was revealed very close to PAX West. I kind of skimmed over the initial announcement out of Gamescom, so I went into the demo session knowing relatively little about the game other than that it had kung fu and starred some kind of red panda-like creature. And, coming out of having played the game myself, I still wouldn’t really say I know that much about it.

Biomutant is set in a post-apocalyptic world, and you play as a small, unnamed creature surviving in a plague-ridden, dying world. You have free rein to customize your character, choosing gender, size and stats, and fur colors and patterns. The game follows a moral choice system, with branching paths and different endings depending on the choices you make. Ultimately your goal is to reunite the world’s tribes and revive the poisoned Tree of Life, but how you approach that goal is up to you.

The place where Biomutant shines most is its combat. The third-person combat is fast-paced and moves fluidly, and the player has access to both melee and ranged weapons. It’s designed to give the player as much freedom of movement as possible, with a mix of melee attacks, ranged attacks, and use of special mutation powers acquired throughout the game. Combat has a great flow to it, while still requiring careful positioning, dodging and timing to avoid taking damage from enemies. Attacks and dodging are flashy, with the character sometimes flipping over smaller enemies or sliding between the legs of larger ones. The combat and movement is supposedly based on Wushu martial arts, and new techniques can be learned from masters as you advance through the game.

Weapons can be fully customized, using random parts you pick up in the world. The customization system in the demo was present in a limited form, where the only options available was randomizing parts to see what comes out. You can customize both melee and ranged weapons, and the sheer variety is amazing. Ultimately they fall into size categories to determine speed and damage, but just seeing what absurd results come out especially from randomizing parts was amusing. The mutation powers will also be able to be advanced as you progress, and according to the developer they’re aiming to have 15-20 different powers to choose from, with four equipped at any given time.

The entire affair has a very distinctive style and tone to it. Combat features comic-book-style onomatopoeia for attacks, going perfectly with the fast pace and flashy martial arts. Your journey is accompanied by a narrator who speaks your character’s thoughts for you, and hearing his reactions to your choices is fun.

Biomutant is shaping up to be a very unique and entertaining game. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one, and will likely be taking a closer look at it when it releases sometime next year on Steam, PS4 and Xbox One.

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I’m aware that comparisons of games to Dark Souls is somewhat of a trope at this point. The comparison is so over-used that it has lost almost all of its meaning. However, even with this in mind, the comparison is difficult not to draw between the series and Toadman Interactive’s Immortal: Unchained. Unfortunately this is another game I didn’t get to play myself, so my impressions are all based on a build played for me by the developer.

More specifically, Immortal: Unchained looks most like a hybrid of Dark Souls and Gears of War. It’s a hardcore action-RPG, which forces the player to approach situations carefully since it is very easy to get overwhelmed even when there are relatively few enemies around. The difficulty is meant to be unforgiving and punishing, and requires players to exploit enemy weaknesses wherever possible. The main thing that makes Immortal: Unchained different is an added focus on ranged combat, with the starting weapon being an assault rifle while melee weapons are less frequently used.

Immortal: Unchained also give the player the ability to target specific parts of enemies’ bodies. Taking out different limbs will cripple enemies in different ways, such as disabling their weapons or slowing them down. It also opens up the possibility for enemies to only have armor on certain parts of their bodies, meaning you’ll only be able to deal max damage by attacking other parts. Enemies can also have weak points, such as the demo boss and some tank enemies taking more damage when shot on their backs.

We also ran into a few bugs while playing, as a symptom of the game currently being in pre-alpha. The game completely crashed at one point, as well as getting stuck behind a poorly-placed box and needing to restart. However, these problems are apparently fairly rare at this point, which is a good state for a game to be when it’s in pre-alpha.

From how it looks, Immortal: Unchained is not a game for the faint of heart. It’s a game based on trial and error, and approaching situations carefully rather than trying to run and gun. Switching weapons and character advancement can only happen at save points, which limits versatility, and certain weapons need specific stats to be equippable. Unfortunately it’s hard to know exactly how the game feels to play only having watched it, but this may be one to keep an eye on for those interested in this type of game when it releases next year on PS4, Xbox One and Steam.

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I love science fiction. A game that truly allows you to do whatever you want in a large, fully open space-faring universe is something I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember. However, the genre has become somewhat flooded lately, leaving people like me to pick through and find the ones that are really what they claim to be from those that fall short of their promises. Rebel Galaxy is a game that is really trying to be something that I want, and even succeeds to a certain degree.

Rebel Galaxy comes from developer Double Damage Games, a small studio comprised of ex-Torchlight developers. It’s an open-world space action-RPG, although somewhat simplified to make it accessible. Movement is restricted to a 2D plane – although smaller ships like fighters and gunships have full 360° movement – and combat is generally naval-style where your most powerful weapons are the broadsides along each side of your ship. You also have two or more turrets placed around your ship, which can be fitted with a variety of different types of weapons, including mining lasers, scatter guns, flak cannons, swarm missiles and others. The ship also has secondary ports which can be fitted with missiles or mines. The turrets can be either controlled manually or allowed to automatically track and fire at targets, and you can change settings to make them only fire at capital ships, turrets, fighters, or any available targets.

Every ship has three levels of health: shields, which regenerate over time; hull, which does not and when damaged can disable or weaken weapons or thrusters, and core systems, which is how a ship gets destroyed, and systems damage can weaken important functions of the ship. On capital ships and larger fighters, shields and hull are divided into quadrants for each side of the ship, meaning you can spread out damage taken and preserve your shields or hull by turning around and protecting damaged sides. You also have a deflector, which can absorb up to a certain amount of damage when manually activated and protect your ship. When considered along how much damage some enemy ships can deal to yours, weaving through combat lets you fight intelligently to get a serious advantage over the opponent. I think it can add a nice level of strategy to the otherwise simplistic combat, although I wish it was required in more fights when most of them are much simpler.

Rebel Galaxy is easily at its most enjoyable in the huge fights, the ones pitting you by yourself or with allies against a whole enemy fleet. They are the fights that force the player to think and fight strategically, prioritizing weaker enemies before isolating and taking out larger targets. Unfortunately, most of the game is flying from point A to point B, occasionally getting interrupted by fights that are either smaller skirmishes with a couple enemy capital ships and some fighters, or huge groups of really powerful ships that leave you little choice but to bravely run away. Exciting fights only really happen during missions, be they side missions or the main campaign.

Missions fall into three general categories: go to a place and kill the enemies there, haul a thing from one place to another, or go to a place and protect the allies you find there. Sometimes these categories are mixed – needing to kill enemies to get the thing to haul, for example – but the fact remains that you’re pretty much doing the same thing over and over for missions to get money. Missions are the easiest and quickest way to get money, but there are others, such as responding to distress signals, trading goods, hunting down random bounties, and mining ores to sell. No matter which way you opt for, it doesn’t take long to get tedious due to either the lack of depth to most fights or the pitiful amount of money you tend to get from selling things. Getting boring and repetitive quickly is Rebel Galaxy’s biggest fault, even if it is somewhat difficult to avoid in a game of its nature. Also, escort and protection missions are the worst, since there’s no way to prevent enemies from attacking the ship you’re protecting and your deadweight doesn’t have the same self-preservation tactics that you have at your disposal.

The game’s world is a standard space western, most reminiscent of the design of the Terran technology from the StarCraft series. It portrays space as a futuristic wild west, fraught with criminal syndicates where everyone is free to make their own life for themselves as long as you don’t cross the militia. The designs for the ships and stations are very industrialist and emphasizing function over form, with some exceptions. It means that there is very little flavor to most of the ship designs and the world in general, with most of them being generic and uninteresting. The default music also fits the space western style, consisting of blues and country rock. However, at least on the PC versions, it is possible to change the music paths to lead to your own music, so I spent most of my time with the game listening to my personal soundtrack. It worked well; the vocal tracks from Guilty Gear Xrd work great as combat themes, while certain music from Persona 4 and Crush 40 make excellent background music for shipping from place to place. One particularly enjoyable example of random music coming up was “2’s my Favorite 1” by Coheed and Cambria coming on right after finishing the huge multi-fleet final battle, making a great ending theme of sorts for the game.

The core campaign of Rebel Galaxy took me around 20 hours to complete, with side missions taken to get the money I needed to upgrade my ship enough to tackle the main story missions. One could easily take longer trying to do everything; the game keeps going after finishing the campaign, and it would take much longer to max out all your ship’s components and buy the most expensive ship available, a massive dreadnought. However, with the way that missions quickly get repetitive and tedious, doing that in any reasonable time frame takes an amount of resistance to boredom that I couldn’t muster while playing Rebel Galaxy. It’s enjoyable enough for shorter sessions, but between the tedium and the lack of flavor in the world it’s not a game I ever found myself getting lost in. I can’t recommend it at its regular price of $20 USD, but if you can nab it during a Steam or PSN sale and want a fun, simplified space sim, Rebel Galaxy isn’t a bad choice.

Review Score
Overall

Review copy provided by publisher.

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As a member of the elite force T.I.M.E. Or Temporal Inevitability Manipulation Experts, you travel though different time periods correcting history’s horrible mistakes. This is the basic premise of Super TIME Force. This is one crazy action-packed side scroller for sure, but is it any good? Let’s find out.

Though the story may seem a bit simple, it is really a blast to play. It makes fun of itself quite often, and has some really great humor throughout. Honestly, it feels like an old-school Saturday morning cartoon, and this is a good thing. It never takes itself seriously, and you can just have fun with it.

First off, the graphics look great for what they were going for, which is very retro. It’s like an HD version of your favorite NES shooter as a kid. Each stage is well represented, from the ruined city streets to the sci-fi-themed interiors. The enemy and character art is nicely done, as well. The bosses are crazy over-the-top, and all look great.

The music is pretty much what you would expect. This is some great chip tune goodness right here. Each tune is catchy, and you will find yourself humming along as you are mercilessly slaughtered TIME and TIME again. It reminded me of my NES days. The sound effects, while all pretty standard, get the job done nicely. It’s still nice to hear retro-style laser blast and explosions everywhere.

Now, the meat of Super TIME Force is the gameplay. At first glance, you will think “Hey, this looks like Contra,” but there is a lot more to it than that. First of all, you are given 30 lives to complete each stage. I know what you’re thinking  — well that’s a lot, this should be no issue. Yeah, but you’d be wrong. On top of that, you are given only 60 seconds to complete the stage. Now, I hear you saying, “How is that even possible?!” When you can manipulate TIME, all things are possible.

First off, you can rewind and fast forward TIME. This is done with a simple button press. When you die, you can rewind TIME and try for a better result. Here is where another interesting mechanic comes into play. You can switch characters or use the same character as you rewind TIME, but the actions taken by your previous embodiment will still be carried out. So, you can use several different strategies since each character has different weapons and skills. For example, after you rewind you choose the character with a shield and block off some of fire, or pile the past embodiments of yourself on top of each other for extra damage. There are many possibilities here. This mechanic is really fun once you get the hang of it, but it does have a slight learning curve. There are some tutorials to get you started here, as well.

Each stage has a few hidden TIME Shards to give you some extra time, and there are some secret goodies, as well. There will be TIMES when you survive the stage only to find out you don’t have enough TIME left to beat the boss. This can be very frustrating, and I have to say  the boss battles are well thought out and require a bit of strategy to complete.  Another thing to note is that you will start off with three characters from which to choose, and you will have to save the others from death while progressing throughout the levels in order to use the rest. There are sixteen characters and six levels in total.

Personally this was not my type of game. I’m not a huge fan of these retro style run-and-gun games. I died plenty enough playing Contra as kid. That being said, the TIME mechanics and humorous story still make this an enjoyable experience for most players. Though you can complete this game in around four to five hours, you will want to replay each stage for a better score on the leader boards and unlock all the achievements. So, if you if you looking for a nice bullethell game, don’t mind a challenge and love a goofy story for the 15-buck price tag, this one is definitely worth your TIME.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher for review purposes. 

The post REVIEW: Super T.I.M.E. Force appeared first on oprainfall.

Title	The Walking Dead Season 2: Episode 1 – All That Remains
Developer	Telltale Games
Publisher	Telltale Games
Release Date	December 17, 2013
Genre	Adventure
Platform	PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Vita, iOS, Ouya
Age Rating	ESRB – Mature – Intense Violence, Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Stronger Feels
	Official Website

I’m pretty much a newcomer to the Walking Dead universe. I’ve never read the comics, nor have I seen the TV show. I’m actually not a big fan of zombie stories in general, but I am a big fan of Telltale Games. However, my chief experiences with the developer up to this point had been comedic and adventurous titles like Sam and Max, Back to the Future and the Poker Night games – lighthearted games that offer laughs and fun while you’re playing, and don’t call for very deep retrospection once they’re over. Needless to say, I was… unprepared for the violence, heartache and sheer brutality of the first season of The Walking Dead. As horrible as the subject matter was, however, I also found that I could not stay away. The story was incredibly engaging, and I grew to care about everyone in my motley crew of survivors, even if some of them could be pretty insufferable. Of course, there was one bright light who reminded you that there was still some good in humanity, one ray of hope for whom you’d do anything. The person I’m talking about, obviously, is Kenny and his boat. Ha!

… OK, yes, it’s Clementine.

Clementine easily joins the short list of child characters whose well-being, in my eyes, becomes just as important as the overarching plot; kids like Nanako from Persona 4 and Sunny from Metal Gear Solid 4. It didn’t take long for me to realize that every time I was given control of Lee during Season 1, the first thing I needed to do was find out where Clementine was, and make sure she was OK. As things progressively spiraled out of control during the course of the season, I resolved, if nothing else, to do all I could to at least keep Clementine safe, while messing her up as little as possible. I guess I even failed in that respect, as what better way is there to horribly scar a child than to have her shoot her surrogate father before he becomes a zombie, forcing her to strike out on her own? Telltale Games had a genius idea for the second season, though. How better to make sure that Clem is safe than to take direct control of her?

Season 2 opens with Clementine traveling with her two remaining companions, Christa and Omid. It’s obvious that a significant amount of time has gone by, as Christa has progressed pretty far in her pregnancy. Omid is his usual upbeat self, and it’s nice to talk with them a bit, but, as we all know, Rule #1 of The Walking Dead is to not get too attached to anyone. After the game’s tense and emotional intro scene, another time skip occurs. Now 11 years old, Clementine may not be quite as cute as she used to be, but I found myself no less concerned about her circumstances. Clem soon finds herself on her own, and is quickly forced to look for food and shelter before she succumbs to the elements. After a heartbreaking encounter with a dog, Clementine is taken in by a group of survivors who are just as wary of strangers as you might expect, even if they are pre-teen girl.

Pete, the leader of the group, might initially seem like a scary guy, but he turns out to be pretty friendly. Luke is apprehensive about taking Clem in at first, though with good reason. Pete’s nephew, Nick, is immediately distrustful of Clem, which will likely cause friction later on. Alvin seems nice, but his pregnant wife, Rebecca, is extremely hostile to Clementine. She’s also harboring a secret that could threaten to tear the group apart if it were to get out. One character who I feel will probably be quite significant over the course of the season is Sarah. Though she is a few years older than Clementine, Sarah seems to have been largely sheltered from the true nature of the group’s situation by her father, Carlos – if such a thing is even possible some two years after Z-Day. I feel like this could end up being a theme during the season – choosing to continue to shield Sarah from the harshness of the post-apocalyptic world, or waking her up to its realities. Overall, it seems like a good group, but I don’t expect it to stay good for long. Again, I refer you to Rule #1.

The Walking Dead’s core mechanics have changed little between seasons. Gameplay is still separated into three main categories: exploration, conversation and quick-time events. Exploration is the most familiar mechanic of the adventure genre – investigating different areas to find objects and other clues to move the story along. It’s pretty standard fare – most of what you find can be viewed, picked up and/or interacted with in some way to find out bit more about the current situation. You might get tripped up a little bit from time to time, but there’s nothing exceptionally difficult about the game’s puzzles. You should easily be able to advance just by examining everything a given area. Classic adventure game fans may be turned off by how easy it is, but the puzzle mechanics definitely take a backseat to the story.

The conversation mechanic that started in Season 1 makes its return, and will likely have the biggest impact on the story this time around, as well. When speaking with characters, you are given two to four options throughout each conversation on how to respond. Depending on what you say, characters may react positively or negatively, and the things you say could come back to bite you later on in ways that are not immediately apparent. Clementine may have been a sweet little kid in the Season 1, but, if it strikes your fancy, you are able to make characters see her as more threatening. Though, honestly, this is not something I was able to bring myself to do. Like the first season, your dialogue choices are sure have a lasting impact on different facets of the story and ending, so I’m not sure how much I want the new characters hating the girl that we spent a whole season falling in love with.

Clementine may still be a kid, but she’s no slouch in a fight. While she may lack the brute strength that Lee had in Season 1, she makes up for it in being pretty resourceful, and this is reflected in the game’s quick-time events. Generally unable to kill Walkers outright, Clem’s actions are more about avoiding them, with most of her QTEs involving weaving between Walkers before they can grab her. When forced into a fight, however, Clem will use any means available to survive, relying on her environment to help her out. With less emphasis on actually killing zombies, the QTEs certainly do bring a different dynamic than what Season 1 had. From Clem’s perspective, even on an individual basis, Walkers are viewed as much more of a danger than Lee would have seen. Don’t worry about the prompts too much, though – if you do happen to die, you’ll be dropped off near where you left off. When Clementine finally does get a Walker into a position to finish it off, it usually takes several hits before it’s completely down. I thought these scenes were particularly tragic – it felt as though, with every strike of the hammer, a little more of Clementine’s innocence was lost. Such is the world of The Walking Dead, I suppose.

Season 2 continues the cel-shaded comic book art style seen in both Season 1 and the recently released The Wolf Among Us. This really helps characters and objects stand out against the environment. Human characters are colorful and lively, while Walkers are a suitably sickly shade of gray. The voice acting, once again, is top notch. Clementine, played once again by Melissa Hutchison, really shines in this respect, which is great, considering you’re going to be hearing a lot of her. There was a particularly ghastly scene near the end of the episode where, as horrified as I was, I could not get over how amazing a job Hutchison did. I’ll leave it here for your viewing pleasure(?), if you don’t mind being spoiled. I’ve never really felt the music in these games was that important. Sometimes the absence of music is just as effective as a soft track for a quiet moment. During combat QTEs, the music is suitably punchy and exciting, but it’s pretty standard fare for the subject matter.

With a new season comes a slew of new faces, new dangers and, I’m sure, new tough decisions. Of course, the pitfall of the episodic format is that we’re forced to wait for subsequent entries, which is made all the worse when these can be completed in a couple of hours, and then they end on cliffhangers. Now is a great time to get into the second season, though, as you can get all five episodes – the first one now, and those following as they’re released – for $25. This was a strong start to the season, though I assume things are only going to get worse (for the characters, not the quality) as the story continues. I sorely hope Clem finds a safe place to call home in the end, but something tells me things are going to get worse before they get better.

Review Score
Overall

Note: Throughout the season, each episode will receive its own score. After the final episode, we will average the scores to find the final grade for the season as a whole.

Game was purchased by the reviewer.

Both seasons of The Walking Dead are also available on Amazon:

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Title: Scourge: Outbreak Publisher: UFO Interactive Games Developer: Tragnarion Studios Release Date: July 3, 2013 Genre: Third Person Shooter Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, Mac Age Rating: ESRB: M

Among my ever-changing taste in gaming genres, the shooter has always been one of my favorites. From the arena shooter like Quake III to the action-adventure-filled shoes of Nathan Drake in Uncharted, it’s hard for me to find one I don’t like. When Scourge: Outbreak was thrust upon the shooting community, promising co-op, online multiplayer and a story-filled campaign, many, including myself, were highly intrigued. Despite the promises and my excitement, I had a bit of doubt. Instead of pondering on that doubt, I decided to jump in with my fingers crossed in hope of surprises.

Scourge: Outbreak follows Echo Squad, a group of four stereotypical mercenaries, on their mission to take down the dastardly Nogari Corporation. Echo Squad will go about doing that by rescuing a double-agent, Dr. Reisbeck, and stealing a meteorite fragment that lead to the development of “ambrosia.” Ambrosia is a new “powerful synthetic energy source” which has lead the Nogari Corporation to power, and is responsible for powering Echo Squad’s suits. There’s also the rogue Alpha Squad that gets in the way of your mission that must be dealt with. And that’s about all of the information you get regarding your mission in Scourge: Outbreak. Reisbeck, who communicates with you via com chat, attempts to explain further on the origins of Nogari, ambrosia, and Alpha Squad, but the dialogue of these bits of conversation are so uninteresting and boring that it’s hard to muster up the will to even attempt to grasp the point that’s trying to be given. Even when Reisbeck is informing Echo Squad of their current objective, I failed to hold interest because I was never given a reason to remotely care about the one-dimensional mercenaries and the impact their mission actually held.

The playable Echo Squad consists of the mercenaries Shade, Stonewall, Mass and Amp. Just judging by the names, one can assume what stereotype the character is going to hold. Shade is the stealthy assassin-esque character; Mass is the big bouldering brute from Europe; Stonewall is the stone-faced American marine, and Amp is the strong female with a sense of amnesia, leaving her past a complete mystery. Despite Scourge: Outbreak falling prey to these stereotypes, something I found intriguing was the unique stats, leveling up and suit abilities each character sported, even if they did seem to be ripped from the Mass Effect series. Each character is suited for certain types of weapons, while their shielding and shockwave suit abilities reflect their range preference. For instance, Shade is better at range, and he’s proficient at shielding only himself while his shockwave is used to get rid of enemies that are closing their distance towards him. Mass’s shield can withstand an abundance of bullets, and his shockwave is most efficient at point-blank. However, each character feels and plays exactly the same. The unique qualities and range preference that were stated on the character select menu feel as if they were never put into action. Even when my character leveled up, I couldn’t tell a difference. It’s as if the developers just wanted to get your hopes up . I had a similar feeling when I was a child, eagerly awaiting the brand new iteration of a toy on Christmas morning, but only to find that it was a hand-me-down underneath the fancy packaging. The characters may look different on the outside, but on the inside they’re the exact same in almost every way.

Similar to the rest of the game, the controls and gameplay offered are mundane, commonplace and archaic. Aim with the left trigger, shoot with the right trigger, reload with the X button – it’s an everlasting familiar cycle. Unlike its Unreal Engine counterparts (*ahem*, Gears of War, Shadows of the Damned), Scourge: Outbreak doesn’t offer anything new for the genre. It’s a typical lineup of linear missions that have you doing the same objectives over and over. In fact, it actually steals many elements from other popular shooters, and pulls them off so terribly that it’s offensive. Your characters feel light-weight and twitchy, the controls can be unresponsive, the guns don’t have any real weight behind them, and the ho-hum objectives you’re forced to complete will test the patience of even the most tranquil gamer. If that doesn’t sound bad enough for you, then believe me, it gets worse.

The enemy and friendly AI are absolutely preposterous in Scourge: Outbreak. If you take too much damage, then you become downed, and are forced to wait for your allies to come pick you. This is something that has been done time and time again with much success, but not with Scourge. In most instances, your allies will come to your aid when you are downed, but only after they take an elongated path equivalent of a toddler drawing squiggles on a piece of paper.  They will literally take the most complicated path possible to come revive you. Heck, sometimes the friendly AI will even refuse to acknowledge your existence, leaving you on the ground to die. This led me to many unfair restarts that had me questioning if the developers had experienced Scourge: Outbreak themselves. The enemy AI isn’t much better, either. They’ll come at you, heading straight to your line of fire or they will retreat; that’s it. Neither flanking nor any other tactics will ever come to them, and every enemy acts the exact same. This makes the already abysmal Point A-to-Point B gameplay even more unpleasant.

Scourge: Outbreak definitely isn’t a looker either. This is a shocker, especially since Unreal Engine 3 has been responsible for some truly breathtaking visuals. Instead of taking advantage of the graphical capabilities the engine offers, Scourge is filled with inconsistent textures and level design that looks like it could have been a rejected Mass Effect title. The sound in the game isn’t much better either. The music is indistinguishable from other action games, as well as the cheap gun sounds, and the voice acting will make you cringe.

One thing that I wasn’t able to experience was the online modes. After searching for countless matches in the death match, team death match, capture the flag and co-op campaign, I was unsuccessful in finding a single match (Xbox 360). Since there’s not an online community for this game anymore, that practically leaves the entire multiplayer portion unplayable, and deteriorates the replay value that could be had by running through the six-hour campaign with your friends. One could still run through the campaign using all four playable characters-each character offers different story cut scenes throughout their individual playthroughs- but I personally feel that co-op would help break the linearity of this non-engrossing experience.

Very rarely do I run across a game that puts me in a foul mood just at the thought of it: Scourge: Outbreak was that game for me.  If I had to be positive about it, at least the title only costs $9.99 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Steam, and it has co-op if you can find anybody willing to play. Even for that price, I cannot recommend this game. It plays like an underdeveloped Gears of War, and is presented like a rejected Mass Effect title. Do yourself a favor, and play one of the many games that inspired Scourge: Outbreak instead.

Review Score
Overall

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Final Exam is a side-scrolling beat-’em-up following four adults that are heading back to their old high school for one of the greatest parties ever. When they arrive, they find that the town has been taken over by terrible creatures, and they must do whatever they can to survive. This game will make you feel like you’re watching every cheesy horror movie you have ever seen, all at the same time.  As far as the story goes, well, I just summed it up in the introduction. Though this is not the deepest story ever found in a video game, it does a good job of setting the mood in this brawl fest.

Graphically, everything looks really good; all of the character and monster models are nicely done. Each is pretty detailed, and fits nicely into the mood and tone that the story sets. The characters themselves are very troped – you have the jock, the brainy nerd, and so forth. The monsters have that look of every ooze-ridden mutant creature you have ever seen. The 2.5D gameplay flows well as you move from the foreground to the background. I really loved some of the effects they did with the lighting in several areas. There are no frame rate issues that I encountered, even when the screen was filled with monsters, and I was playing with two other players online. Sound-wise, everything holds up pretty well. The music is very repetitive, but it is fitting in that campy horror movie way. The comic book-style cutscenes are narrated, and the voice acting is pretty well done. The sound effects are pretty plain; you hear gun sounds, monster sounds, the sounds of blood spattering and other such noises. Nothing offensive here, but like I said, they are very plain.

As with many brawlers, a lot of what makes it good or bad is found in the gameplay, and Final Exam is no exception to this. There are four different characters from which to choose. They all play basically the same, but each has different stats and special moves to spice things up a bit. As you progress through the story, you earn SP and CP points. SP points will allow you to use the various skills and abilities found on each character’s skills tree. While some of these skills are passive, some will be new combat moves for your characters. CP points will upgrade basic stats such as health, strength and so on. For the controls, you will be using pretty much every button on the controller. There is nothing overly complex here, but you do use each button. For instance, you can have one firearm and one melee weapon equipped at a time. You can fire your firearm by pressing R1, and you can aim this weapon up and down with the right analog stick. If you wish to reload, you will need to press down the right analog stick or R3. Square makes your character attack with their melee weapon; pressing this three times in a row will do a combo. If you hold down the Left analog stick while pressing this, a smash attack will be performed. These will sometimes knock your enemies down, while holding up will pop the monsters into the air for aerial combos. Having all these controls gives you a ton of variety, but it is a lot to remember. Though, unless you are playing on the harder difficulty levels, you can basically get by with just spamming you combo attack over and over.

The game is divided into eight missions. Each mission will span multiple objectives that will have to be met to move on to the next one. These are mostly just “Go here and get this,” “Go hit the switch,” or “Go kill these monsters.” The one thing in these objectives I found the most irritating is they would have you move exploding objects from one area to another. If you get hit one time, they explode, and you have to go get another one and try again. The stages all basically play the same way. I can get over this to an extent, but, when you take into account the fact that they reused areas from previous missions in the next mission, sometimes it’s like running the same stage again with different monsters and items. They didn’t do this a whole lot, but, when you take into account there are only eight missions to begin with, I feel they should have made each one unique in some way. The one bright spot to all of this is the epic boss battles. These battles provide a variety of different challenges from throwing exploding barrels back at them or the more typical you can only hurt them at a certain time.

The multiplayer aspect gives this some replay value. Playing local or online with up to four players makes this game much more enjoyable. Things will get crazy and hectic, and you can add to combos with your friends. There are even sections designed for four players to enjoy at once. The downside to this is that it means playing the game on your own is difficult, even on the easy difficulty setting, especially during the machine section where there are four stations to man. You can switch between them easily enough with face buttons, but the game never takes into account that there is just one player, and sends a crazy amount of monsters, forcing you to take unavoidable hits. This is not unmanageable in single player, but you shouldn’t have to take that many unavoidable hits either. The bottom line on this is that you really need friends if you want to fully enjoy this game.

Overall, this is a mixed bag. It is very fun to dispatch the monsters in all of the gruesome ways the game provides you. The multiplayer is wonderful, and runs very well on or offline, and, as I’ve said, this is truly the best way to play this game. On the downside, there are lots of repetitive things in this one, from recycled stages to the music. Single player suffers a few issues, but is still playable. You can complete all of the story missions in about six hours playing single player on the normal difficulty setting. For its $9.99 price tag, fans of this genre will find a lot to love here, but for the rest of us, the overall package is lacking.

Review Score
Overall

Game reviewed on PS3 with a code provided by the publisher for review purposes.

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I haven’t played a console Dead or Alive game since DOA 4 came out for the Xbox 360 around launch. I had been wanting to check out DOA 5 for quite sometime. Now that DOA 5 Ultimate is out, I finally got my chance to check out this entry into the series. I mean, who doesn’t love the DOA girls! Let’s see if it holds up to the high standards the series has set over the years.

First off, the graphics are amazing, and the character models and combat areas all look great. Everything is very detailed, from the character models themselves to the items littering the combat areas. You can even see the expressions on the character’s faces during combat. The models are so detailed that you can see sweat and dirt on the fighters as well, but you can turn this off in the options if you wish. While some may find the girl character models to be just way too over sexualized and too extreme, this is pretty much what I expect out of this series. Speaking of the girls, yes, they are still very well endowed and the jiggle physics are still very much present. There are even a few different options of how much jiggle you want. I think this is fine, I mean this is the style DOA has always been known for. The guys are just as extreme as the ladies, unless you happen to personally know any guys rocking a 30 pack like Jann Lee.

DOA is the first fighting game I remember using multi-tiered combat areas. They are back and are still fantastic. Nothing feels better than to knock your opponent through a wall, through the floor, or just knock them off a high ledge to see where you will end up next. You can prevent yourself from falling off certain places by preforming cliffhangers. A short QTE will appear, and if you do it correctly you can save yourself from falling. I thought at first these would break the flow of the game, but they really just add to it. Overall this really makes every fight feel fresh and new.

The core of any DOA game has always been the fighting mechanics. I am very happy to say this entry into the series plays just as well as always. The controls are simple – you have a punch, kick, block and throw button. Pressing button combinations along with directions on the D-Pad will allow you to pull of combination attacks. These will start off very simple, but can become much more advanced as you add in air juggles and other nifty tricks. Pressing back and the block button will counter a punch and pressing forward and block will counter a kick. These button presses must be timed correctly in order for the counter to work.

The fighting engine has always been one of my favorite things about the DOA series. It is simple enough for anyone to pick up and play, but it has a ton of depth for advanced players to experiment with. There are many different styles of fighters to choose from. You might go with the quickness of Ayane or the brute strength of Bass. There is a total of 29 combatants to choose from. All of the fighters are well balanced and have strengths and weaknesses, with even the extra fighters from Virtua Fighter and Ninja Gaiden fitting in seamlessly.

The Training Mode in this game is fantastic. The free training allows you to train any way you would like. Command Training teaches you all the of moves for each character while Tutorial Mode shows you all the basics. Combo Challenge is where you learn each character’s combos. You learn all these things as you please, so if you wanna know the basics or just enough to get by you can. The game is very flexible with numerous difficulty settings, so you can play to the level of skill you desire.

There is a story mode which continues the story of DOA. This is setup basically the same way as DOA: Dimensions was on the 3DS. You will fight about 3 battles with a character and move on to the next chapter. The story itself isn’t really that bad, but let’s be honest – this is DOA, are you really playing this for the story? If you in fact are doing so, you can complete it in about 10 hours and the mode is here for you to enjoy.

There are tons of fighting modes to choose from. You have VS, Arcade, Time Attack, Survival and Team Fight. Each of these modes except Team Fight can be customized to fit the type of fight you’re looking for. You can have solo matches or tag matches where you can adjust the CPU difficulty. There are eight difficulty settings as well as health and other settings that you can customize. The AI difficulty is pretty balanced though it will feel a bit cheap on the highest settings. Arcade mode is a series of fights just like any other arcade mode. Time Attack can be summed up as how fast can you complete an Arcade mode route? Survival is a bit different than you might think. Yes, you are trying to survive a series of matches, but it throws out random fruits for health that you can pickup during the matches. This makes this pretty interesting on the higher difficulties. Team Fight is where you form teams of seven and duke it out. The last team with a character standing wins. There is a ton of replay value in this because you will use some of these modes to unlock all the costumes. With all the different arenas and options, no two fights ever really feel the same.

Online Mode is pretty much what you would expect. You can make a lobby with the rules you want or join a lobby to fight in. There are also ranked matches for those that get into that sorta thing. I didn’t really have any issues with this mode. It runs pretty smooth; there is a bit of lag here and there, nothing that breaks the game or anything though. I also had no problems finding a match to get into, as there are plenty of people playing this one online.

Some other features include a Spectator Mode, where you can make the CPU fight itself and take pictures for your photo album. The in-game movies are also accessible for viewing. You can even customize the soundtrack you fight to via the music menu. I thought these modes were a nice to touch to an already great package.

In the end DOA 5 U is a very solid, well made fighting game. The graphics are sharp, and these girls and guys have never looked better. Some may be turned off by the over the top nature of the breast physics and the fact that on the PS3 version of the game you can even jiggle the breasts by moving the Dual Shock controller around during the end poses. But honestly this DOA is exactly what I expect out of one these titles. Though there are a lot of sexual overtones in here, there is a really solid fighter under all of that, and that is what has always made DOA so great to begin with. I highly recommend this title to any fan of solid fighting games or DOA fans in general, for the $40 price tag and the amount of content this one has is hard to pass up.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher for review purposes. 

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Blue Dragon is one of those games that I thought I would either love or hate, that there would be no middle ground. It turns out I could not have been more wrong! It seemed nothing would be simple about my experience with Blue Dragon. Even as I sit here writing this, I am torn about a few things. Let’s break it down and see where things land.

Blue Dragon takes place in a world where evil is lurking. Shu, Kluke and Jiro have seen this evil in their own little town. A Land Shark, which is exactly what it sounds like- a shark found on land- devastates their town. After each relentless attack from the Land Shark, they make the town habitable, and then it shows up again to devastate the town and the people. They get tired of dealing with the Land Shark, and set out to destroy this evil menace that is tearing their town apart. The group finds a lot more than they bargained for in doing so, including new friends who join the group. I joined the gang as they took on their adventure, and we discovered the secrets of the world. Together, we righted wrongs and changed the lives of the people living in this world.

While we were out righting these wrongs, and figuring out what the hell was going on, we had to do a lot of fighting. The battle system is something that can either make or break a game in my opinion. Make fighting a chore, and I will almost always skip the game entirely! Luckily, with Blue Dragon, the battle system was easy to use, yet provided enough management and fun that kept me interested. Each character in the game will receive a “Shadow” very early on which allows them to use magic. These Shadows appear as blue shadows behind each party member in battles. Each one is different, with its own look that compliments the character to whom it is attached. The Shadows will get a Corporeal much later in the game. This is like an overdrive that causes a lot of damage, and looks really cool. During this, your Shadow becomes “real,” and takes on a very specific look of its own with color and depth. Since they were introduced so late in the game, I actually forgot about having them once or twice when I could have used them and saved myself from a horrible death, maybe.

Your Shadow stays the same, but your class, which allows you to use different types of magic and skills, can be changed. Each new class that you unlock will have a different set of skills that you learn by leveling the class up. As you level each class up, you also increase the stats of your character. If you change your class to a White Mage, for example, you will unlock the ability to use healing type spells. Spells can be found throughout the game or bought at a Spell Shop. You can change your class throughout the game as long as the class you want to use is unlocked, which happens through leveling your character up. You need to do this in order to give each party member the best skills to help you get through the game. For example, the last skill learned as a White Mage is Resurrection. I made most of my party a White Mage long enough to learn that. As a Generalist, you learn a skill that allows you to equip more skills slots. This is important, since the more skills you have equipped, the better prepared you can be for battle. I had most of my party learn things like that so that I could handle some of the extra boss battles. Another thing you should always check is your combat formation. Your party members with the highest hit points and defense should be in the front row, while those with fewer hit points and defense should be in the back.

Every class will give you one skill that you can automatically access without having to equip it. A White Mage will be able to use White Magic without having to use a skill slot to equip it. While you are leveling up other classes, or if you want your party to be able to multitask, you can equip other skills from different classes. Say you would like your party member to be able to use the White Mage skills while they are the Monk class, you would equip the skill for White Magic, and have access to both sets of abilities from each class.

Enemies are visible on the world map, and you can walk up to them or sneak up on them for a back attack. If you see more than one enemy grouped together you can encompass them into one battle by hitting the right trigger on the controller. You fight one group of enemies at a time, and, after the first battle, a bonus roulette shows up that gives you different helpful things. These vary from improved stealth to HP healing. Another cool thing that happens in battle is when two enemies who don’t like each other appear in the same battle, you trigger a Monster Battle. When that happens, the monsters will attack each other instead of you.

Battles are turn-based, and allow you plenty of time to plan your strategy. Your party can be arranged in any fashion that you like. I had a White and Black Mage and a couple of “tanks” in my party. At the top of your screen, you will see the turn order. Some attacks and all of the magic spells use what is called a “charge.” The charged attacks and spells really help to lay out a strategy for boss battles, or when fighting a particularly stout enemy. Once you select the attack that you want to use, a bar will appear right under the pictures of the attack order. Hold down A to charge the attack. You can then choose to charge the attack to the red area shown on the bar, which gives you the best result, or you can charge it as little or as much as you want. Doing this allows you to control when the attack or healing spell will come out in the turn order. This comes in handy when you need to be healed quickly, because you can lightly charge the attack and get a healing spell out before the enemy’s next turn.

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