The last Seiken Densetsu game I played was that gacha mobile port shit RISE of MANA, which definitely left a sour taste in my mouth. So naturally I went and bought the Vita port of the mobile remake of the first game in the series. After all, this game has the same janky mobile graphics like the last one I hated so gotta buy it, right? (Gamer logic 101)
Concept art looks great but a Gameboy doesn't have the specs to-, wait what? $700 iPhone? ...oh.
Now that I actually played through the game that I bought almost 3 years ago on $ale (no doubt for more than the current list price), I'm happy to report that it's actually still (almost) a real game unlike RISE of MANA. I say almost because this game is so easy, you can practically play with your eyes closed or I guess poke at your screen like some lab monkey as intended for the mobile folks. The graphics don't look so hot either. I may even go as far as to say you may as well stick with the OG Gamboy sprites. Yeah yeah, once again the Switch probably got the better deal with the whole collection of the original games, don't worry I'm already moving off of the Censorstation (but the trophies...).
25 years of technological advances and this is what we end up with?
As for the gamplay, the bosses are so easy this game is kind of like Sekiro except it's like you switched places with the bosses and they only get one try to kill you. I know cause I totally beat and can write a "review for Sekiro". (← Google, please rank this part) In fact, instead of the pro journalists that used a cheat to beat it, I'm so efficient, I beat it by watching somebody use the cheat. Actually I didn't even watch it, I count one of the views of somebody else watching on Youtube as me beating the game, I'm super pro like that. Uh where was I? Oh yeah the gameplay.
It's cool, it's just a game- wait... is this like... your job? Oh... wow.
I'm not sure about the difficulty but everything else seems to be a faithful port of the original so I did have to look up a guide when I got stuck in a few places as this is old school "You stuck? Well I guess you fucking stuck then" type of game. It's pretty ridiculous when one NPC says "Yeah, why don't ya get your ass out there and try flare on dem rocks 'till you find em hidden entrances like?" Other than getting stuck, it was a pretty simple game that I finished in a little under 12 hours. It was a bit annoying that you have to constantly switch out stuff from your menu. The 3 quick slots helped but I could have used like 6 slots, especially one for those goddamn fucking annoying keys.
Going back to the Jhipster agenda, let's discuss the localized title Adventures of Mana. Now you can play as Mana going on countless amazing adventures, wait, that's not a character? It's what? But the grammar... fine whatever.
This first game of what non-Jhipsters call the Mana series is also a Final Fantasy spinoff hence the localized title Final Fantasy Adventure for the original game. Now, you may be inclined to think that it's a spinoff in name for marketing purposes only like the Final Fantasy Legend series but no, it's a real spinoff with Moogles and Chocobos.
Aww so cute, sorry about your legs oh spoilers
In fact, in the GBA "new testament" remake, they removed all the FF stuff and made it a proper Seiken Desetsu game. However, this is definitely NOT that game so not sure why they changed the English name but once again, we are not new to localizers who don't know jack here at Jhipster land.
As for this original GB remake, I found the story had some good moments. Yeah, it's a Gameboy faithful remake so the dialogue isn't going to win the Pulitzer eg "Ugh, I'm dead. Croak." but it wasn't bad and had kind of an interesting ending (again "for a GB game" being the key caveat).
The script says "don't die!" but the face says "whatever"
I did find it funny for the best part of the story, they still decided to censor one item you need from Medusa blood to tears instead. This game obviously was loved by the JP kids back in the day because there's a whole page of details of how in the original game, you get experience for the end of the Medusa boss potentially putting up an awkward "You leveled up ze" message, ruining a touching moment. No worries, they fixed that "bug" in this remake.
Amanda, is she going to be a girl you hook up with? Play to find out!
Overall, I found Seiken Densetu - Final Fantasy Gaiden to be a standard old school portable title, something to kill time or to decompress while playing a "real" game. It's a really good Gameboy game, one that probably deserves a 3 or even 3.5 score in its day. However, on the Vita with these graphics and zero difficulty, it's a mediocre experience overall. The title screen music is great though at least.
The rest of the OST unfortunately was not as good as the title screen
Score: 2.5 buckets of blood out of 5 (12 hours to beat, 16 for plat)
Now if you'll excuse me, I have like 5 hours of grinding left killing scores of elephants to get the rest of the trophies since it's SOOO much fun and yes, I totally have a life (not really). OMG, killing elephants, what kind of message is that sending our kids? I demand this game be taken down immediately! Oh excuse me... what? We only care about censoring sex? But that's a natural part of our species... uh huh... uh ok I understand... Stay tuned for our extensive coverage of MK11, the hottest new game just released!
Don't forget to only pick Warrior and Mage to be able to unlock all 99 stats trophies!
Good thing the Auto save works as well as it does (shitty mobile port)
Oh, does this lead into the sequel? I haven't played that since before my Jhipster evolution.
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
In my never ending quest to make room to buy more useless shit for my overflowing Closet of Shame™, I recently rummaged through my gargantuan PSP collection to see if there was anything I wanted to get rid of when I came across Star Ocean: First Departure.
Let's go clean and organize that game closet!!
Yeah, I'm a hoarder collector so I didn't even know I had this game. (Just kidding, I've been meaning to play this for quite a while now.) So is this a game worth keeping in my awesome, amazing collection of pure gems so hidden I can't even find em? We'll find out! Let's pop that UMD in and play some of that!
Whew! All nice and clean. (*disclaimer: not my closet)
The first thing that struck me about Star Ocean 1 was how similar the menus were to Tales of Phantasia, in other words, a confusing mess of options. Even some of the item names are identical. After exhaustive research (4 minute Google search), it turns out the original SFC version was made by the same team behind Phantasia. It's not quite as bad as Phantasia; at least there's actual menus now instead of hidden behind Rune Bottles but still, there's a lot of shit to digest. Fortunately, most of the stuff can be safely ignored as you mash your way through this "action" RPG.
That's a useful skill cause I ate blackberries like it was crack (sighs only us old folks will get the crackberry reference)
When it comes to skills, the only thing that really matters is to max out determination before anything else that costs more than one point. Since determination skill cuts the cost of other skills, you can max most everything else by the end anyway. Honestly, I didn't bother with most of that specialty or super specialty shit. I didn't write any books, compose music, perform an orchestra, or draw any paintings. I'm a gamer, goddamit, not an artist! All I used were the battle skills, identify for unknown items, and training+kaigan for some extra exp and skill points. There's also a skill that allows you to increase/decrease encounter rate, which makes this the earliest game with adjustable encounter rate I've seen so far.
Do I look like a renaissance man? Oh shit, Caleb's slipping! The Janus coin!
Really, the only part of the game that you might want to plan for is which optional characters you want to take along since you only have space for about half of the recruitable characters. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to assemble my usual harem waifu team due to the fact that some characters require other characters to join so I went with Ashlay (old dude), Perisie (cat girl), Joshua, and Eris (#bae). I had to give up on Marvel and Fear to get Eris but it was worth it as she's my fav character (so far).
Now all I need is for Joshua to get in an "accident"
There's quite a bit of content to enjoy based on which characters you recruit, especially since most of the dialogues are fully voiced in this remake. Given that this is made by the team behind Tales of Phantasia, of course you would expect the characters to interact in the form of skits. In this game, they're called Private Actions and just like Phantasia, they are fun skits where the characters interact and talk about stupid shit like which is better, cats or dogs? I enjoy these skits especially when they're fully voiced as I feel more invested in the characters and hence the game itself.
Not sure why they changed the names, Fear is totally cooler than Phia or whatever
I was quite impressed at the variety of PAs. I imagine your experience would be quite different depending on your combination of characters. For instance, there were a couple funny PAs that involve the cat girl trying to eat the bird man that requires you to have Joshua and Perisie. While I'm not so gung ho as to try replaying the game with every possible combination, I do intend to do another play-through later since I missed out on Fear, Welch, and the dude that looks like Ranma with glasses. Unfortunately, there is no new game+ option and actually finding the PAs is kind of a big pain in the ass and a big time sink.
This PA was actually quite funny as she's MK5 about the present you gave Iria
Unlike the Tales series where you can press a button at any time, you have to go to each individual town and enter it via private action and your party goes into the town separately to do their own shit. Then, you have to FIND your party members scattered at random places in the town to see any skits. If you see a skit, more often than not, you have to exit the town and re-enter it to see the NEXT skit. I probably wasted several hours running through each town looking for all 7 of my party members. Perisie especially was a pain in the ass to find when she's a fucking cat.
Besides the mess of menus and annoyance of finding PAs, the rest of the game is pretty good. I mean, sure, with auto targeting on, the combat is just mashing L+R to train your special moves but whatever. There's also a lot of waiting for long spell animations which don't seem to be skippable. It's all pretty easy to breeze through except of course, they had to add a difficulty spike for the last boss. So that was the only time I even cared about what accessories to use (the ones that halve light and dark damage) and even grinded out a bunch of levels. Fortunately, the ally AI is very good so I just made sure to keep giving my spell casters crack blackberries and they did all the rest.
Whoa, 3D battles! (proceeds to spam all of two buttons)
The part I really appreciated in the remake was the fine attention to details for the environments the likes of which I have not seen since Sora no kiseki. While I did not play the original SFC version, it's clear Square Enix went all out on interior decorating in the remake. I didn't much care for the character design (Ratix especially looks like he has the IQ of a squirrel) but got dayum, with the accent rugs, finely detailed stone stairs, and beautiful shelving carved from the wall, it's like a HGTV porn show.
You'd be surprised how expensive nice rugs are
Most lazy RPGs either reuse textures or even recycle entire shops but oh no, not THIS remake. Every single location is unique and modeled with exquisite detail. Even empty rooms that serve absolutely no purpose has detailed patterns on blankets and posh room dividers with intricate grating.
Who else stared for 2 straight minutes at the amazing stonework on the stairs? Anybody?
I love it when developers put tons of work and polish into little things that ordinary philistine gamers probably don't give two shits about. But hey, if the Japanese dude that worked on the background miraculously happens to read this, I hope he knows that I fully appreciated the effort.
Pfft, that shit is SO last season. I have standards.
Score: 3 hmm time to look into a new credenza out of 5 (30 hours to beat)
Overall, I think Star Ocean 1 is an average good time, at least the remake. Sure, it has some warts, and I didn't even talk about the plot because, well, I just didn't have much to say about it. I did find it ironic that the intro anime reminded me of Xenogears and the last part of the game felt super rushed just like Xenogears. However, to compare the plot would be an injustice as there's just not that much going on in this one. I'm not even sure if the game's intro has anything to do with the plot. I thought the problem was on the Mua continent, I don't remember an entire planet blowing up? Ah well, whatever.
I totally have never seen this before
Anyway, all I'm trying to say is I had fun with the game and that's good enough for me to keep the UMD especially since Nintendo fucking sunk the emuparadise UMD backup battleship. Reserving space in my limited closet space is probably the best endorsement you can get from me. It helped that the music near the end of the game was top notch. I especially liked the Star Wars homage with the John Williams theme that plays right around when you get the force sword. You know, cause Star Wars was still good back then. #troll
The Star Wars influence is strong in this one
The original voiced intro on the SFC version was also a very strong nod to Star Trek and technically I have to give props for adding voiced audio to a SFC game.
Typical misogynistic woman serving coffee. Score: -12 out of 10 (IGN)
Finally, for the obligatory Jhipster commentary, it was really annoying that they decided to change the cast member's names to lame shit like Phia or Mavelle instead of super hero type names such as Fear and Marvel. I bet they wouldn't do that shit today now that Marvel and DC are mainstream Hollywood franchises and not just for the nerds to be ridiculed back in the day (yeah, totally not bitter). ANYWAYS, as usual, the JP voice acting in this remake is way better than the typical anime dub English job so I wholeheartedly suggest playing the OG version. So yeah, Dick Smallberries Jr can just go suck it. Blackberries that is, they're delicious.
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
AKIBA'S TRIP PLUS is the enhanced version of the first game on the PSP, not to be mistaken for the sequel, which was localized without the 2 (ala FF2 vs FF4). This game, unfortunately for the non-Jhipsters, has never been officially localized and probably never will be.
As avid readers of this blog would know, I've seen some dumb ass English titles so it's refreshing to see a title that actually makes sense and is even a clever play on words (albeit in ALL CAPS AGAIN). The way the title is formatted: AKIBA'STRIP, makes it pretty obvious that it was intentional. (No, it's not "Aki bast rip", dumbass.) I was pretty stoked for this game for the #gamergate clickbait revenue... err I mean for the clever concept but unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to the hype.
This image is featured in my doctorate thesis that your tax dollars paid for. #journalism
First of all, even though the game is really short (I was able to beat it in a little over 10 hours), it took me YEARS to finally finish it. My biggest mistake was starting the game as I do all games on hardcore gamer difficulty. However, this is one of those games with multiple endings and a new game+ mode so starting the game on the harder difficulty was a very bad idea. If you had asked me how the gameplay was after the first 10 hours, I would've said it sucked donkey balls. Of course, no professional reviewer would state such strong opinions without playing through the entire game, right? (*cough shitaku cough*)
Honestly, with these textures, I'm not surprised it's only Cero C
Now that I've completed the entire game including all the endings, I can say that the combat becomes a lot more fun after you buy all the upgrades scattered throughout the various stores in town. My weapon of choice is the boxing gloves. If you hold R to always block, you look like a boxer. Once you unlock all the moves, you can skip around while blocking (aka "footwork") to dodge or you can block and go in for a 1-2 counter combo.
Definitely give this one time to unlock all the mechanics before you judge the combat as it starts out as a shitty "button mash and hope for the best" type of game in the beginning. And whatever you do, DON'T try to finish all the 5-star side quests on gamer difficulty without figuring out how to upgrade your equipment. This is done by selling weapons and clothes you stripped with +1 or more stats. This makes upgrades available in the junk store which you can use to add stats to your current equipment.
The OG version must have sucked pretty bad
As for the plot, there's a fair chunk of dialogue and all of the main story lines are voiced in this enhanced plus version. The story was nothing special but it was entertaining enough. I really like the artwork and illustrations even though the in-game models didn't really live up to the character design.
This game has a total of 5 different endings and I ended up playing through the game 3 times to see all the endings as they each have quite a bit of story. The first time was because I was playing blind and didn't know what I was doing. The second time, I figured out how to upgrade my equipment and decided to carry it over onto the third playthrough in order to save enough money to give to your imouto to unlock her ending. If you look up where the branching paths are, you can reach all the endings in two playthrough by keeping additional saves at the correct points.
Oh yeah, imouto time is BACK
One really neat aspect of new game+ is the ability to choose to play as any avatar from the game. There are some minor differences in dialogue if you play as a girl vs the default male avatar. It also unlocks a new "otaku" difficulty level which I didn't bother to try without any trophies to show for it.
Given the choice, ofc I would pick a girl. Not really into men's undies.
Score: 2.5 can't wait to try out AT2 er... I mean AT1, oh not this FF number shit again! out of 5. (28 hours to beat all endings)
Yeah, the game definitely has some flaws and the concept behind this game was perhaps too much for the PSP to handle if they were hoping to go for something like an Akiba version of Ryu ga gotoku, err... excuse me, Yakuza (as non-Jhipsters call it). The map locations are extremely limited in size and while the graphics look pretty darn good for PSP standards, it didn't quite stand the test of time. Maybe Acquire didn't have the resources to make this game for the PS3.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed this fun little title after I gave it a fair shake and persevered through the first 10 extremely frustrating hours. Plus, it was successful enough to kickstart the series and the sequel looks WAY better and closer to what they originally wanted to make (though I prefer the art style in this game). I'm looking forward to checking out the rest of the series.
You goddamn riaju you.
This game is also available digitally on PSN which is the best version because you can remap the shitty mon-han camera controls to the right analogue stick on the Vita. Because I'm a sucker, I ended up getting that on top of the UMD. Of course, it's not an issue if you're a flithy emu DS3 controller pirate.
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
I started Ys: Felghana no Chikai (that's "oath" for the non-jhipsters) pretty much right after I beat Ys 2 since it's a remake of Ys 3. In the good ol' days, people used to use numbers so customers would know what order shit came in. But now, we have games like Ghostbusters 2016 aka "AHAHA you bought this garbage??", Tomb Raider 2013 aka "we spent that whole year working on Lara's hair", and Prince of Persia 2008 aka "maybe it'll sell better if you can't fucking die joke edition" so yeah whatever, we're all fucked. Where was I? Oh yeah.
So Falcom is probably THE pioneer of series you can never figure out without consulting Wikipedia (fuck you Dragon Slayer 2 Legend of Heroes -4 Xanadu not Next). So after looking up what games are in what order, I decided to skip Ys Wanderers From Ys, and went straight to the remake.
For fuck's sake, jut put the goddamn 3 on the cover
I mentioned previously that I was traumatized on the series from the start with a rental of the SNES side-scrolling version of this game. Fortunately, Falcom went back and fixed it all up and made a completely different game which is probably why they changed the subtitle.
They scrapped the side scrolling thing and went with the 2.5 style of the later Ys games. The classic bumping mechanic is gone and you now have to jump and climb platforms and shit. When I first started this game after finishing Ys 2, it was weird having to swing your sword like some kind of barbarian. I imagine Adol was previously using some impressive Iai invisible sword attacks during the bumps previously so this brute swinging style seems like a few steps backwards for the swordsman in terms of technique.
This is Adol in Ys I+II... IMO.
Personally, I preferred the old style without all this fancy double jumping and attack button. Even though the platforming segments were pretty tame and not super annoying, I'm not a big fan of jumping on shit, falling, and having to start again. (Did I mention I'm not big into platformers?) What was REALLY annoying were those TINY flying monsters which were such a pain to attack especially before you get the green ring.
...well at least it's better than Mario...
In fact, this game is pretty annoying until you unlock at least the dash ability (aka oh thank god, I can move at a normal speed FINALLY). The options give you the ability to have dash on at all times or by double tapping a direction but seriously why?? Turn it on always. DUH!
Take my advice and turn dash on always. Screw that arrow key x2 BS.
Another tip is to not worry about having enough Ravel ore. I never upgraded my equipment until the end because I was a Ravel hoarder. Only to find out near the end that enemies in the last dungeon drop Ravel so there's no need to hoard. Another great tip for boss battles is the healing cloak. While it will never restore HP by itself during boss battles because you can't stand still long enough, it WILL restore HP when you boost after the curly bar totally fills up. I unfortunately didn't realize this until the last two bosses but it definitely came in handy for the tough final boss. My final tip is to check the castle entrance frequently as there's a missable escort event there.
You can press L to quickly switch to the cloak
The exploration gets easier as you unlock other abilities such as teleportation to save points and pretty much becomes a cakewalk when you get the healing cloak except for the bosses. Oh boy, the bosses. I played on Hard difficulty (cause hardcore gamer) and each boss battle was an exercise in trial and error by death. Nearly every boss battle was tense, frustrating, and while winning had that great feeling of satisfaction, it was mentally exhausting as well. Especially near the end, it seems like there's yet another boss around every corner.
I've been playing this game on and off for over a year now because I always felt a need for a break from yet another extremely tense boss battle. Since I'm hardcore but not masochist, I didn't play on Nightmare mode in the previous games and this game unlocks an even HARDER Inferno difficulty upon completion. You can get New Game+ bonuses but yeah... maybe next time.
Overall the boss battles are definitely the highlight making this game so fun but frustrating. That ice dragon thingy took at least 10 if not 20+ tries to beat. One personal highlight was Zirduros, The Clockwork Cannon. On about my fourth try, I've pretty much given up on winning after a dumb start and only one hit away from death. Then I got into some kind of crazy groove where I was able to dodge or ram through every one of his attacks with the yellow ring. HELL YEAH!!
The story was adequate to move the action along and voiced, which was nice. The music was, you know, the usual Ys stuff.
You're going to be hearing this a lot on Hard mode
Score: 3 oh you better believe some oaths will be said while you play and they will have nothing to do with Felghana out of 5 (19 hours on record to beat but probably more with resets)
I didn't enjoy this game quite as much as the first two. All that complicated jumping and swinging sword seemed to detract from the pure precision and skill required of the first two games (well except for that bullshit falling tile hope you're lucky final boss in the first game). However, while the exploration and grinding before boss battles were ho-hum, the boss battles were definitely sweaty hands good action, though a bit tiring.
Being a Ys game, it's localized in English and easily accessible on Steam (I played the #BAE PSP version of course). I don't know if the drama CD is localized however. It's pretty much a rehash of the same story anyways. Non-jhipsters aren't missing much. Those hoping for a hot spring scene with Elena will be sorely disappointed (um... not me!).
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
Senran Kagura Burst is an expansion of the first Senran Kagura game that includes both games. I didn't know this at the time so I ended up buying both copies. But you know what? The first game came out in the glory days when publishers included REAL manuals instead of the single page foldout contained in the "enhanced" upgrade. So I'm going to keep it in my closed, sealed off collection of boxes cause it's "collectible".
3DS manual, they sure don't make'em like they used to (or at all really T_T)
The first game has the characters from the "good" Hanzo Gakuen ninja school, while Burst added the option of playing as the characters from the "evil" ninja school: Hebi Joshi Gakuen. You can either view this as a very nice package that essentially doubles the content or a necessary upgrade to a game originally woefully lacking in content. (Hey, at least it comes with a full manual, remember?)
I expected the expanded scenario to take place after the events of the first game. Instead, it covers the same timeline of the first game except from the viewpoint of the other side. What was interesting was the fact that it doesn't try to stay consistent to the events of the first game. It kinda reminded me of a game version of Rashomon. Oh right, gamer philistines. Um, Rashomon is a classic Japanese film where multiple people witnessed the same event yet all have completely different stories of what transpired. I don't know if this ninja story has some sort of deeper theme like the movie (um, probably NOT) but I did think it was a bit odd.
FORTY THREE PAGES, sigh those were the good ol' days
Anyways, who cares about the story, it's all about the boobs, right?!! Well, let's talk about boobs, shall we? While I wouldn't call myself a boobie sommelier, I'm far past the immature, juvenile stage of "the bigger the better" mentality. I have a far richer variety of tastes in terms of sizes and more importantly, boob shapes. Unfortunately, almost all the boobs in this game are the same, round, American porn silicone shape except for Mirai. While I've never seen a girl's boobs in real life, at this point, I have very high standards for digital melons and while it's commendable to put boobs on Nintendo's sacred platform, it hasn't held up to the test of time.
Mirai: just wait till you see her hiden ninpou
As for the gameplay, I definitely thought it was stupid, repetitive garbage when I first played it. But that was BEFORE I beat Drag-on Dragoon aka "they weren't fucking kidding about the dragging on part" and revisiting this game after that, well, it's still repetitive but also, very fast and satisfactory. It's like eating KFC. You know it's bad yet somehow you can't stop yourself even though you still remember the last KFC diarrhea-fest. I would say if you like side-scrolling beat-em-ups, you're probably still not gonna like this. However, with a bit of patience, if you level up your characters and unlock all the moves, it gets almost kinda... fun. Crazy.
3 years ago, I probably had a life and better things to do
Score: 3 meh, what the hey, more boobies on Nintendo the better out of 5
Overall, I thought the story was so-so, the gameplay simplistic yet strangely addictive, and the boobies... one dimensional. However, the occasional panchira was not bad especially with the various costumes you can unlock. I have a few more images to unlock but it's a massive grind. I collected all the costumes and accessories and that's good enough for me.
26 hours and 10,708 enemies later... This game SUCKS guys. Fan service is SO LAME
I have to give credit though for an early 3DS game, it brought a lot of things to the table. I mean, what else was there to play on the 3DS in 2012, fucking nintendogs? There's nothing fundamentally flawed about the game except for the occasional floating enemy glitch so I would have to give this one a solid average score of 3.
Yeah yeah, breast physics and clothing destruction is so... 2012
Senran Kagura has obviously become a very successful franchise over the years. However, I find it interesting how well executed the cross-media marketing strategy was from the get-go. From the manga Senran Kagura Spark that started the franchise to the radio show, drama CD, and then the anime, the franchise had a lot of marketing muscle over the years. While this game and the rest of the franchise is localized, us Jhipsters can also enjoy the various side products such as the radio shows and drama CD.
揉んでいいのかな？LOL (Sorry non-jhipsters)
So yeah, sorry non-jhipsters, it's too bad but hey, at least you got all the games localized, right?
If you understand Japanese, this is actually a deep social commentary monologue
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
I remember first trying Drag-On Dragoon (what non-Jhipsters call Drakengard) many years ago. Alas, I must have been too immature as a gamer because I thought it sucked hard donkey balls and promptly turned it off, back to collecting dust on my gaming shelf. That is, if I was allowed to have a gaming shelf instead of putting all my "unsightly" shit in my closet, safe from the eyes of would-be disgusted visitors by all the anime "porn". (Cero D, I assure you, but try telling that to the house guests!)
My game "room" except I'm not a cute imouto, just a regular ugly nerd with beard and fedora.
Ahem, anyways, as I was saying, I was one of those typical young gamers who cared about stupid shit like graphics, responsive controls, and a camera you could control to see what the hell you were doing. Obviously, today as a distinguished gamer connoisseur, with experience going back all the way to PC88, I have a much bigger tolerance for such trivial things. After all, such annoyances are nothing compared to playing an adventure game ALL IN KATAKANA.
So when I booted up Drag-On Dragoon again, the shitty graphics, a useless camera that snaps back, and repetitive gameplay did not bother me one bit. In fact, the repetition was almost kind of therapeutic in a way. Just press square until you see the yellow flash then press triangle. Repeat this exactly 56,195 times and you're good to go! If you're wondering where I came up with that number, the game helpfully tracks the number of times you attack just so you can see exactly how many times you've repeated this action like the brain-dead, zombie gamer that you are. Thanks for making me reflect on my useless life and destroying what little self-esteem I had, game!
Bad guys have the courtesy to stand around and wait just like your favorite kungfu movie
The game also felt extra tedious in the beginning because you're so weak. It takes forever to kill anything. But if you know to ignore the random people when you first start, you'll find it much easier to get started. Your weapons level up by the number of people you kill so you can replay the earlier missions and wipe up much faster when you're stronger later on.
And speaking of the weapons, I can kinda start to understand why people like pokemon so much because even though the gameplay is SUPER repetitive, I just HAD to collect all dem damn weapons. Of course, once you collect a weapon, then you have to kill several hundred people with it to level it up. You also unlock the weapon's story in pieces as you level it up to level 4. So yeah, it's like dynasty warrior pokemon except for the part where you're basically massacring thousands of people. Otherwise, it's totally the same.
The flying missions are a nice break, because they are pretty simple except for a few damn tough bosses. You can hold square to auto-target and the rest is just moving around and using L1/R1 to dodge projectiles. As for those boss fights, yeah, you need to learn their patterns and get good. There's nothing like that feeling of beating a tough boss with barely any health left after about 6 or 9 tries.
It's like Lair (PS3) except Lair has fucking amazing graphics compared to this and is also $2 at Gamestop.
Honestly, the two screenshots above cover pretty much everything you'll see in the game but in different environments. The story is pretty short, told in a mixture of short dialogues and even shorter movies. It's definitely not a long-winded visual novel style affair. The mature themes are very subtle so you won't be seeing anything too explicit but you will definitely see some umm... interesting ideas to say the least. It won't rub anything in your face though so you'll have to pay attention, especially no pafu-pafu that's for sure.
You won't be seeing any panchira or oppai in this one... well... at least not the kind you would want
As for the music, well you know how there was supposedly a riot at the performance of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in Paris? Ok gamers, you know umm... music and culture and stuff? Yeaaaaah, anyway google it if you're a philistine. But basically, the entire soundtrack is pretty much Rite of Spring, a constant assault on your ears. Not bad by any means but definitely veeeery uncomfortable.
There's more than 30 tracks to torture yourself for your inner masochist!
As a Jhipster, I'm not too familiar with whatever censorship that may have been put on this game for the English version since I always play the OG dope shit. Googling around, I was confused about the whole "Watchers" thing until I realized that was something they made up to remove any references to God. Oh you silly American Christians, lighten up will ya??
You may want to skip to the end if you want to avoid even the slightest hint of spoilers, but this is the first game I've played where every ending gets worse than the previous one. To give you an idea of how fucked things get, I was pulling my hair out because I could not for the life of me find a spear, even though the game said the chest containing said spear appeared. Turns out the game was lying to me and I had to kill ALL the giant babies to the north to make it appear. However, I had to go to work before I could try that so basically, I spent all day thinking about killing babies. Does that kind of give you an idea of the fuckedupedness? By the way, the English version calls them something else and not babies even though that's plainly what they are.
33,100 people killed, totally like Pokemon
Score: 3 still have no clue how this relates to Nier but don't fucking tell me goddamn internet spoiler nation out of 5 (34 hours to beat)
Overall, despite the crappy gameplay, or maybe even because of it, I really enjoyed my time with Drag-On Dragoon. The story, while not too detailed, was interesting and I couldn't wait to unlock the next ending. However, collecting all the weapons is pretty much impossible without a guide and the last stage was an absolute pain in the ass to beat (don't be ashamed of the pause button).
A very unique and interesting title but one I would still give an average score of 3. Definitely worth checking out but not what I would call a great game. I have NO IDEA why they would decide to change the name to Drakengard outside Japan. Drag-on is such a fucking accurate description AND when put together, it spells "Dragon". GENIUS!
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
As per the usual Jhipster post, let's first start with the name. While Yakuza 3 is probably the most boring and mundane name one could ever imagine, I guess it's better than a literal translation of the Japanese title: Ryu ga Gotoku. Calling a game "Like a Dragon" would make one expect some kind of cheesy 90s Kung Fu flick, catching flies with chopsticks, ninjas, and the works. (Though on second thought, that would kinda be a kick ass game.)
NOT read as "Doragon" unlike those English weebs at Square
I beat the first 2 Ryu ga Gotoku games ages ago on the PS2 and man, the leap to HD here is phenomenal and yes, while the character models may look a bit dated by today's standards, you have to give Sega credit for pulling off such a big graphical leap with no bugs or glitches of any kind and on the PS3 Cell shit to boot.
Pfft, Sega sucks guys, they can't even make a decent Sonic game.
(This is what Neogaf posters actually look like)
Yes, after playing Persona 5 in 2016, being able to walk around in Tokyo may not seem AS cool today but it was mind blowing at the time. I still remember thinking it was so awesome to be able to walk into a Don Quixote or a Matsuya just like in real life. Since I was living in Tokyo at the time, you may be wondering, why not just fucking walk outside? Well I can ask you riaju fuckers the same thing about Wii Sports and yet you guys still bought it like it was cocaine sprinkled on a box of Crispy Creme. Ok, where was I again?
Come to the real store to enter to win because vidya games can't make real food (YET)
While I'm obviously a big fan of the series, unfortunately, I found the gameplay a bit wanting in this entry. I don't remember combat being such a fucking pain in the ass in the previous games. The main problem with the battle system is that it's very, very tedious. Maybe it was because I played on hard difficulty, but it seemed like just about everybody can block your attacks with perfect precision, even the local punks on the street corner. Going face on, you will never and I repeat NEVER land a full combination on ANYBODY. One option is to wait until they attack, sway around and land a bunch of hits from behind but that's tedious as well unless it's an aggressive boss. I just did □→□→△→△ like a million times because while it does very little damage, at least it can break a guard.
This tutorial is BS, that kick never works
I equipped a stinky rag just because it said that it made people avoid you but it didn't seem to do shit to prevent all those annoying punks from running up and starting a fight with you. Another annoying part was always running out of heat and you need heat to do all the cool moves. Overall, either I'm suffering from rosy nostalgia glasses syndrome or the combat in 3 got a lot more annoying. Well, at least in this game, you get your own blog.
I used to think blogs were annoying.
Oh if I only knew how much dumberest the internet would get in 2016.
As for the story, while being able to walk around Okinawa was a nice change of pace, I got quickly tired of taking care of the damn kids and the bazillion side missions. And after the grand plot was revealed literally by explaining it while sitting around the table, I was debating whether to give this game a 2 or maybe squeeze out a 2.5 based purely on my love of Tokyo and the improved graphics. That was until a few chapters near the end.
Some side missions were cool like this one (censored ofc from English ver) but most were just filler
Without going into any spoilers, I will just say that you have to play until chapter 11 to fully appreciate the story. While the overall plot is a bit far-fetched and whatever, that's not the important part. This is a MAN'S story. Stop being whipped by your woman and play this game. Bros before Hos and all that shit (just don't tell my GF I said that, please for the love of god!!!)
Score: 3 Aniki... you're so goddamn cool out of 5 (25 hours to beat)
Tip to game developers: pole dancing is automatic 0.5+ bonus points.
For those of us who are not blessed as Jhipsters, thankfully, they stopped dubbing these games and stuck with sensible subtitles. However, some parts of the game such as the Cabaret side mission were cut due to "cultural" differences. But pole dancing must be cool because that part was left in and I guess that kinda makes sense culturally? (I'm from New Jersey after all.) However, if you want the full experience with no censored content, you'll want to play the Japanese version. And surprisingly, coordinating your Hostess's clothing and makeup, buying accessories, and training her was actually kinda fun!
I hate to admit it but it's undeniable. Kiryu must be gay. He doesn't take his eyes off sexy Rikiya the entire show
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
I've started just about every Tales game in the series but never got much further than the first few hours. I generally couldn't get into them because of the constant mashing of buttons that is required. I also made the mistake of playing on hard difficulty because as a gamer elite, I always play my games on hard. I eventually discovered that playing a tales game on hard just means more grind and even MORE button mashing. It's not like Metal Gear Solid where you can just get good at the boss fights and use something called um I dunno... skills?? It's a standard RPG where you need to equip the right equipment and be at an adequate level just with more mash. HULK MASH! ME MASH GOOD!
NO MASH? WHEN I MASH?????
Even though I'm obviously not a huge fan of the mashing battle system, I found it didn't detract too much from the game. You can set special moves for each direction + x button and your TP recovers slightly after every battle. This, combined with the Holy Symbol, was a nice touch that saved you from having to heal yourself every few battles unlike pretty much every standard (FF/DQ) RPG up until you know... Squeenix went all crazy n shit. As you gain more abilities, I found myself queing them up in boss fights for the other characters cause the AI kinda sucks. For example: nurse, nurse, INDIGNATION, nurse, Maxwell, INDIGNATION, nurse, EXASPERATION, FRUSTRATION, nurse, DEPRESSION QUEST. The later Playstation versions updated the battle system so spells don't pause the game and it can get kind of frantic, waiting for that nurse to kick in while you and Mint are getting your asses kicked.
INDIGESTION! (sorry had beans for lunch)
I played on the PSP, the best system of all time, OBVIOUSLY. Not only does this version have voice acting for the main story, an improved battle system, and a whole new party member, but it also comes completely FREE with the sequel: Narikiri Dungeon X. HOLY SHIT BATMAN! You just have to get the day one edition and hope the DLC code hasn't expired... LOL just kidding, this came out back in the good ol' days instead of the diarrhea shit we deal with today.
INDIVIDUALIZATION!!
OMG, there's so many versions of this game. This is PSP version I played #BAE
The skits, which are now a standard Tales feature, was a great idea. They add tons of additonal details into the characters in nice fully voiced short sequences that are nonintrusive. I just wish there was an icon or indicator that showed when a new skit was available so I didn't have to constantly press select to see if a new one popped up. And by the way, speaking of those skits, Chester is SUCH an asshole. Also, Arche #1 WAIFU no contest.
There are also tons of missable side quests that also trigger their own skits including a cute one where Mint teaches a girl piano. I referenced a guide from time to time in order to avoid missing the good ones.
Speaking of guides, while most of the dungeons are not that bad, there are few nasty puzzles especially in the Moria mines (ugh). For example, how the hell you supposed to know to leave Arche on a switch because she can fly up through a hole? JESUS! Besides some lame puzzles, and not one but THREE dungeons that require you to heal yourself every few seconds with environmental bullshit (not bathing in lava at least), the dungeons were pretty manageable and not too obnoxious.
Another interesting note to make about the gamplay is how terrible the items are managed. Rune Bottles are like your bread and butter. You can use them to save 50% on shop purchases, they identify unknown items, and you can turn shitty Apple and Orange Gumi into the good shit (AWWW YEAH). Yet, they are just another item in a huge list of shit. Yeah, you can sort but is having a category asking too much? Not to mention weird items that add options in your game settings or enable combo gameplay. Finally, you get titles for doing various whatever and as far as I can tell, they don't do JACK except for ONE title that lets you do a super move in a pinch by pressing □＋△＋○. Maybe they explain it all in the manual but my DLC code for it expired already.
You may want to skip to the end of the post if you are super spoiler sensitive.
As for the story, man, it starts off REAL heavy. GAWD DAMN! I first got interested in the plot a few hours into the game ironically when meeting the extra bonus character in the remake: Rondoline E. Effenberg. EFFENBERG LOOOOOOL
I guess she's in mobile gacha shit nowadays. EFFENBERG DAT SHIT!
Anyways, you meet her and she's like, oh, you don't know me yet? Hmm... the plot thickens. Unfortunately, as you later find out, the overall plot just makes no freaking sense and you can clearly tell Rondoline was kinda shoved in after the fact.
On the one hand, I'm kinda glad it wasn't a hollywood, "oh somehow we saved everybody kind of story" but still. Whoever wrote this story apparently never watched Back to the Future. That's all I'm saying on that matter.
I didn't think too much of the soundtrack but was later pleasantly surprised at the variety and some straight up gems in the OST.
Score: 3 well that story made no sense- OOH Arche #1 WAIFU!!! out of 5 (35 hours and apparently 1,146 encounters to beat)
While I'm biased against ARPGs in general, I still thought the mechanics of the game was fun to play. While the story was a mess, I just couldn't help but like the characters and their little skits. Sure, there's barely any character development but I'm a sucker for that nostalgic classic 90's anime voice acting. This was clearly apparent when I booted up the sequel (on the same UMD remember, DEAL!!) and it had the standard moepocalypse VA. It's fine but it definitely lacks that 90's charm. If I wasn't playing the PSP #BAE full voice edition, I would give this game a meh 2.5. However, Arche and Suzu bring this game up to a solid average score of 3 even IF Suzu is pretty much useless in battle. She's 11 years old and yet not super annoying like moe child characters nowadays. And that's good enough for me.
If you're not a Jhipster, your best option is to probably go for the PSX fan translation since they shit canned the microtrans buttonless iOS crapfest. Or if you wanna go all official English retail, then pony up the moola for the inferior GBA version. Yeah, you're missing out on the best version but you should be used to that by now.
What? Just sayin'
Oh, and how can I forget to mention this cute little mini-game? That's like almost three games in one ISO- err, I mean UMD. DEAL!!!
3 for 1 deal just in time for black friday too!!
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
