I really wanted to like Osawari Tantei, I really did. The game had me sold from the get-go just with the cute cover art alone. Combined with the fact that I'm already heavily invested in the nameko franchise, I'm probably the most biased customer Success would ever find. However, no matter how much I tried to like this game, it just wasn't very good.
You had me at hello.
First of all, this adventure game doesn't even have a single puzzle. This is more the old-school adventure game where the only puzzle is combining and using things in your inventory except... it doesn't even really do that!
I mean out of the 4 cases included in the game, the first case has some item puzzle solving and the 2nd case gets a bit tougher in terms of figuring out what you need to do as well.
Enjoy solving puzzles while it lasts (spoiler: it doesn't last very long)
But just when you expect case 3 and 4 to bring things up a notch, it's almost like the developers stopped caring because the last two cases consist almost entirely of visiting the same 6 locations OVER AND OVER, talking to various people in order to trigger an event to progress the game.
This game isn't exactly open-world to put it mildly
Another problem is that while the characters are cute in a weird emo way, they are totally one-dimensional. I enjoyed the first and second case but by the time I got to case 3 and 4, it was just kind of more of the same. Combined with what seemed like a total lack of effort in the latter half, the game was quickly wearing out its welcome, which is really bad for a short game that took less than 10 hours to finish. I have to admit though, the fleas in case 4 were pretty damn funny. Definitely the highlight of the game.
There are additional extra puzzles and whatnot you can do besides the tutorial and 4 main cases but at this point, I just don't feel like playing it beyond the game end credits.
In theory, this game should've been totally up my alley, but it really wasn't.
Score: 2 sometimes just being cute isn't enough out of 5 (9 hours to beat)
I really wanted to like this game and I did in the beginning but ultimately, I just ended up hoping that at least the two sequels are much better. If anything, the Nameko franchise that came about from this series seem far more successful for Success (yeah, I had to go there). Nameko has tons of merch, anime, children's books, games, you name it. This is great if you're like in elementary school or have kids. But yeah, as for me, I'll pop in the sequel 2 1/2 in the ol' DS sometime and hope for the best. Or maybe I'll even pick up the nameko 3ds rhythm game. (It's on my wishlist *wink wink*).
Get dat banana stand money!
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 literally have nothing interesting to say about Another Code: Two Memories so this is gonna be a short post. I'd say that also reflects upon the game itself as it's not very interesting and very short.
It's not that the game is bad per se, in fact, I would have a lot more to say about a bad game. It does at least make clever use of the DS hardware with some of the puzzles. I must admit I got stuck on a couple of those, like closing the DS and stuff like that.
The graphics are not bad either and once again I just don't have much to say except, meh, I guess this game was aight. If you like puzzles and adventure games, at least get this on the cheap. For the 500ish? yen I paid, you know, whatever, it's aight.
yeah, I lifted this from hardcoregaming.net, that's how lazy I am
The story premise had potential for some feels but it kinda falls short. Ashley is a likeable character but certainly nothing special and somehow I don't really feel like the developers know what it's like to have kids as the story was just lukewarm in general. As for the game's length, sometimes a game is good because it's short and sometimes it's just... short
I guess there's a bad and good ending? I really can't be bothered to play this game again though. Here's hoping the sequel is better cause I paid like almost 1,000 yen for it. Oh, and as an obligatory Jhipster comment, I have to say the localized title "Trace Memory" is like the most generic and boring game title I've ever seen. Good job as usual, localizers.
Score: 2 I honestly can't think of a single clever thing to say here out of 5 (6 hours to beat)
Liked the main character so hopeful for a good sequel
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 have never played an 18+ game before (no, FOR REAL, I'm NOT EVEN LYING), but I wanted play this game before Toushin Toshi for the 3DS. And what a horrible name for the 3DS game because it's actually a remake of Toushin Toshi TWO and it totally screwed up my google searches for the original title. Anyways, being the obsessive compulsive as usual, I decided it was better, nay A DUTY, to play the first entry before digging into a remake of the sequel. You know, in case I would miss something important like uh... plot points?
Yeah sorry, couldn't help myself.
I debated whether to even post any 18+ games but whatever, you guys can handle it right? I promise what I post here will not get any raunchier than Cero D levels.
Originally released in 1990, this multiplat game was available on all your favorite, popular platforms such as the PC-9801, X68000, MSX2 and FM TOWNS. Ummm, yeah, we all totally had one of those growing up right?
OMG, I totally saw this ad in an issue of EGM. NOT!
This is probably the most retro I've gone so far but I'm playing the Windows version, part of the Aliceの館456 compilation released in 1997. I have no idea if it's any different from the original but for a game that came out 18 years ago, it worked impressively with no issues on my Win7 PC without any silly compatibility settings to fudge around with.
Can you handle this much retro? Can you? PUNK?
I guess Alicesoft or MS or whomever deserves some kudos here. But I'm just gonna go ahead and give all the Kudos to Alicesoft (cause you know M$) because they were kind enough to release a bunch of their older games as freeware. So you can go ahead and download yourself a FREE copy absolutely guilt-free! You're gonna have to go through the age check and find it yourself and if you're not Jhipster enough to do so, well, there's probably easier ways to find porn. I hear there's this thing called the Internet that supposedly has a small sample.
For the rest of us, there's actually a pretty decent RPG underneath the 18+ label. The nice thing about this game is that battles are REALLY fast. Not like ATB or anything fancy like that but you can just spam attack and end a battle in like 5 seconds. Maybe it's because my PC is like 1000000x faster than the original platforms but this game almost feels like an action game. In fact, my only major gripe was that pressing the keys so fast made my hand cramp up (don't even think about making a joke about my other hand). A controller would have been really nice but I guess there was ONE compatibility issue as my PS3 DS3 did NOT work with this PC-9801/X68000/MSX2/FM TOWNS game from 1990. (Geesh, these developers are SOOOOOOO LAZY)
There's even a really nice feature (bug?) where once you've fought enough enemies on a single floor, the random encounters just stop altogether giving you free rein to explore the entire floor.
Apparently you have no issues with tearing this monster apart with your sword. Um, I'm talking about the attack options? Geesh, get your mind out of the gutter.
You play as a guy named Custom, which is ironic because you can't change his name. The premise is you (Custom) enter in a tournament to help a girl you meet traveling. Apparently, her dad won a previous tournament and then cut off all contact with her and her mom. Winners of the tournament get a special title and live in a fancy palace that only winners of the tournament can enter. That's where you come in as she'd very much like to meet her dad and ask why he abandoned her and her (now deceased) mom. Basically, you have a few days before each match to explore dungeons, level up, and complete various quests in order to defeat your next opponent.
There's actually quite a lot to do in this game. You have to talk to people in the bar, find items, learn how to use magic, etc., etc. I actually got stuck a couple times, which made the fact that the 3DS remake has the same name SO annoying when you're trying to look for information online.
There's even like a story and stuff. Off-topic but I also totally read Playboy for the articles.
Overall, the gameplay is fast and convenient for short play sessions. Buy a return item for 10 gold, go straight to the floor you want, do some exploring and whatnot, use the return item, and then go back to the inn to save. While you can heal by sleeping only a few times before it's time for your match, you can also restore your HP with items and by leveling up. The game is actually pretty easy for the most part and only near the end around the 7th floor does it get a bit challenging.
That is until you get to the final boss, when there's a huge difficulty spike. Basically the setup is that you lose all but a handful of items and I had to grind for a few hours just to finally beat the last boss.
Score: 2 are you getting tired of innuendo jokes yet? out of 5.
This was a pretty fun, fast, and dead simple game. Although the hours of grinding at the end was pretty annoying, at least I got a bit of satisfaction after finally beating the last boss with barely any health left. If you don't mind all the sex or the dated graphics, it's not a bad game by any means especially given the VERY nice price tag. Plus, now I don't have to be afraid of missing anything (probably absolutely nothing) when I play Toushin Toshi for the 3DS.
Some more bonus screenshots cause I had them laying around you know for uh, review purposes.
Features a very unique system for learning new magic spells: Girl in a box
Heisei 2 is 1990 in case you forgot this game was old. Alicesoft asks for any feedback but I doubt they care anymore?
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
Anyways, putting the short title aside, let's get right into the heart of things, shall we?
This game is scary alright, but not for the reasons you might think...
16 years since the doujin release of the original venerable Corpse Party on PC98 and this is where 5pb is gonna take the series eh? Those brutal deaths, the tense feeling of dread as you explore the decrepit halls of Tenjin Shougakkou, 16 years since the series inception all culminating into... cross-dressing BL...
......alrighty then.............
Remember when I said Book of Shadows really cut down on scary and upped the fan service? HA! Turns out 5pb was just getting started. Yeah, yeah, we all know this is a spinoff title but really, Book of Shadows was also pretty much a spinoff title EXCEPT for the last hidden chapter. And JUST like Book of Shadows, there is an extra chapter in Hysteric Birthday that is actually part of the main story and even introduces a couple new characters. Characters whom I suspect will show up in Blood Drive (still need to play that one). Interestingly, the new characters just pop up out of nowhere from the beginning making me think I must have missed some comic or other spin-off media. Nope, it was just the weird way they ordered things.
Of course, unlike Book of Shadows, this game doesn't even try to be scary or even serious as it's basically a weird horror-themed comedy filled with the awkward fan service you've come to love from 5pb but powered up. Seriously, like Super Saiyan level 3 power levels. I'm not even exaggerating here.
At least the game lets you know what you're getting into in the very first chapter
Really, this game couldn't be farther than what you'd expect from a Corpse Party game. The developers must have realized how broken the exploration menu system was from Book of Shadows. So instead of fixing it or better yet, going back to the top-down 2D style, they removed it completely, making this a 100% vanilla adventure game (what non-Jhipsters call visual novels). At least it's easier to play than Book of Shadows as it still has all the usual features you'd expect from adventure games such as auto mode, etc without the crappy room navigation.
To be honest, I actually enjoyed playing this game for what it was. It was weird sure, but you can't help but laugh out loud at various parts of the game because it's just so RIDICULOUS. Let me just throw in a phrase to give you a rough idea: "Death by butt suffocation". I'll leave the rest to your imagination for any future Jhipsters that may want to play this game. Frankly, I'm shocked that this game DIDN'T get localized. I'm sure if it came out today, Xseed would have gone for it. After all, they only localize games for gameplay and not fan service, right? YA RIGHT.
I guess sex sells... SHOCKER
Anyways, I had fun with this game. The music isn't as good as even Book of Shadows but it still had some gems, especially this throwback track from the original PC98 version.
16 years later and still just as good
By the way, the part of the game where this music plays was hilarious and was definitely the highlight for me as a wannabe retro hipster. I would say if you have a weird sense of humor and willing to try something different, Hysteric Birthday 2U is definitely not the worst adventure game you can pick. I certainly enjoyed it more than Book of Shadows and of course they did the usual sneaky trick of including the only relevant (canon?) chapter as an "extra" that requires playing through the entire game to unlock.
Score: 3 butt wrestling matches out of 5 (26 hours to complete)
People who are looking for the original Corpse Party experience best just check out Corpse Party 2 Dead Patient for PC. Unfortunately, only Chapter 1 has been released forever ago and I'm still waiting on that one. In the mean time, I can only hope 5pb finally gets down to business in Blood Drive. As much as I enjoyed Hysteric Birthday, I think I'm more than ready for a REAL Corpse Party game next time.
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
Starting all these classic RPG series from the first entry, I was beginning to wonder if they seemed bleh merely because I'm not hip and old-school enough to appreciate it. Perhaps I would have really enjoyed them if I had played them as a kid? But playing Dragon Quest made me feel a bit better because I've actually been having a lot of fun with it. Sure, I'm playing the Super Famicon version with vastly improved graphics and sound but then again, I played FF1 on the PSP and Mother on the GBA and those versions came out many years later than this version of DQ. You can see the differences in the various versions at hardcoregaming.
SFC? Pfft! I don't even care about the graphics.
In fact, I'm so hip, I refuse to play anything unless it's ported to a TI-81
Anyway, I don't know if the SFC version was re-balanced or what but boy is it the good ol' classic RPG fun I was hoping for. On paper, this game should be just as mediocre as the others. It has a fairly high encounter rate and battles consist of repeatedly pressing Attack as usual.
The menu system is the usual DQ clunky mess, but like Mother on GBA, the SFC version has the 便利 (convenient) L button that pretty much does exactly what you want whether it's opening doors or talking to people. Of course, FF fans will then ask, why even have the menu at all and I totally agree. At least it's also nice for one-handed playing and yes, this is yet another multitask game.
It's also kind of crazy that the ONLY place you can save is at the very first castle but the maps and dungeons were manageable and small enough to make exploration fun even with the random encounters unlike some other games (*cough* Mother *cough*). You also learn a spell that will instantly teleport you back to the castle just when you get tired of trudging back there. Perfect! And unlike that sorry excuse of a teleport in Mother, it works instantly without having to find a mile of clear runway (which BTW was practically impossible to do so fuck that lame PSI ability).
Even if the battle system is primitive, the level progression and the economy are so well balanced, I always felt like I wanted to play just a bit more as a bit more grinding would net me enough experience and gold to gain the appropriate levels and equipment to progress with the game. Playing DQ1 after Mother really made me appreciate the motivation factor of a good economy that wasn't broken (ie NOT instantly buy all the best equipment and accrue tens of thousands of useless dollars for the rest of the game).
It's a game I wanted to play because I wanted to beat it, not because I wanted to be done with it, if that makes sense. And just when I got tired of fighting slimes, it seemed like the game read my mind and the hero learns a spell to avoid random encounter from weak enemies at level 15. Perfect!!
While the story is also as primitive as they come, it has those nice Aikra Toriyama moments that I really enjoyed. Yeah, most of you kids know about Dragon Ball, but my first encounter with Toriyama was Dr. Slump and man, that comic is so pervy and full of toilet humor, no wonder all the prepubescent boys loved it. Anyways, personally, when I think Toriyama, this is what I see in my mind:
This fan translator sure has a sense of humor. That or he loves pu...
So it brings a smile to my face when you (literally) carry Princess Lola to the inn and the next morning, the innkeeper says, "you guys sure seemed to have fun last night".
Not sure what's so embarrassing about a fun night of scrabble and pillow fights.
Wait, what were YOU thinking?
Because that wasn't enough fan service, in the SFC version, a girl in the first town will follow you to the inn as well basically getting you laid within the first ten minutes of gameplay. These retro games don't have the resource to waste time teasing LOL. As a nice bonus, the game doesn't stop you from taking BOTH girls to the inn at the same time. Obviously, I'm not the first to discover this as a let's play on youtube went straight for the threesome. Haters don't hate, it's just the perks of being the hot, sexy, irresistible hero
Every boy in Japan probably did this in the 90s. I know I did right away.
Anyways, as a Jhipster, of course I have to point out that all of this was censored for Dragon Warrior because THINK OF THE POOR CHILDREN!! In fact, pafu pafu I guess was censored all the way up to DQ7? I am really curious to know if it was finally included in the Android and iOS releases of DQ1. Is the world finally ready to handle the sheer delights of the *censored* pafu pafu (only 20 gold!) action in 2014? Unfortunately, I have an extremely rare condition that makes me barf at the very thought of playing an RPG with no physical buttons so only time will tell, I suppose.
Was DQ finally released uncensored for the phone 28 years later?
Or did the social justice warriors win again?
Score: 2.5 yes I'm retro hip too! wannabe out of 5
In the end, DQ1 is a very, very simple and short RPG. It has barely any story, only one party member, no airship, and the tiny world map is centered around the first castle, also the only place you can save in the entire dang game.
However, the game's perfect balance just makes it FUN, which despite everything is the most important part of a game. Despite other games that seem to know just how to be the most frustrating (*cough* Mother *cough*), DQ1 introduces the right spell at the right time to make the whole experience a smooth and enjoyable ride. I can definitely see why those Japanese kids went so crazy over this when it came out. The music in the SFC version is also pretty good. A real orchestra would have been even better but still very relaxing. Maybe in the next remake?
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
Mother is probably the best game I've ever played. I was such a fool to think games like Final Fantasy were grindy because this game makes other game's grindyness feel like a walk in the park. Playing this amazing game makes all other games seem so much better. It really does wonders to get you into the mindset of how amazing those other games are... by comparison.
To be fair, going into this game, I had fairly high expectations. I was hoping to walk around, meet some charming characters, experience a nice but simple story, and gain a sense of satisfaction from grinding some levels and beating a boss.
Instead, what I discovered was an amazing, huge open world, maybe something like Grand Theft Auto (kids, I'm talking GTA 1 and 2). The only tiny difference would be to remove all the buildings and anything remotely interesting and turn it into a sprawling expanse of nothing but mountains, trees, and rivers. Then sprinkle in some remote locations that are impossible to find and complement it with the most useless map EVAR. My dog took a piss on the dirt once and it was a better map than this crap.
You can't find your way around? What are you, stupid??
The green arrow CLEARLY shows where you are.
Now finish off the masterpiece with an encounter rate that is apparently suffering from bipolar and refusing to take the meds. You trying to go somewhere? BAM, encounter. Ok, try to take a half step. BAM, encounter. You trying to grind? Ok, cool, you can wander around the sprawling wasteland for miles with absolutely no encounters.
This poor kid has no idea that he lives in the middle of nowhere
Now the version I played was the improved GBA version based on the English version that was only now just released for the Wii U as Earthbound Beginnings. It has some nice extras not in the original Famicon version such as the various censorship for the delicate US audience. Putting sarcasm aside, the L button was a life saver for one-handed playing, which is always a nice bonus for multiasking. And if there was any game that required multitasking, boy, is this it!
I didn't even know about the dash button until well into the second half of the game. (I really need to get into the habit of reading the manual.) But still, I'd rather stick to the left hand and forego the dash to multitask another game.
Kids nowadays be like, "What's a manual?"
To be honest, this game wasn't really all that bad once you give up on trying to play it blind, getting hopelessly lost in the massive map, and random encountering up the wazoo. Load up a faq, find a REAL map, and just follow the instructions.
Actually, GTA is probably too small to be a good comparison. You're gonna have to zoom in to see the red dot.
But the grindiness near the end is just ridiculous. Just when you get totally fed up with constantly running out of space in your tiny inventory, you finally get double, then triple the inventory space as you add members to your party. Unfortunately, it also means your experience now gets halved and then cut into 1/3. Not to mention, the enemies actually start to get REALLY hard and to add insult to injury, hardly give out more experience than the weaker enemies.
Finally, when you get the Katana for Teddy, who actually has some cojones instead of the other party members that seem to love getting killed, you're ready to KICK SOME ASS!!!!!!
10 minutes later...
Teddy leaves your party for the rest of the game. WTF.
The last area seemed pretty much a grind nightmare without Teddy but fortunately, you get some help temporarily. I was able to stock up on heal items and just grinded that short section of the game for hours. Thank god for emulation save states. However, even at level 39, once your help leaves, I could barely handle 4 starmen. As a tip, make sure to get both Franklin badges cause then your cheap death ratio goes down from 100% to just 33%. (Did I already say thank god for save states?)
Fortunately, right around the point when you're totally fed up with this game, it ends. It's even kind enough to dump you right at the end without having to go through the last area with no help.
Look, maybe I'm not hardcore or retro enough to be able to appreciate this frustrating mess. Fine, I'll go load up Minecraft, Dota 2, or whatever the kids are playing nowadays. But man, I seriously doubt I would have had the grit to finish this game without the blessed miracles of save states. On the positive side, the GBA emulator on the PSP is fucking amazing.
Score: 1 rose-tinted nostalgia glasses out of 5 (plus a half-bottle of whiskey needed).
Oh yeah, and I guess there was some kind of story. I wouldn't expect too much in that department though. At this point, I'm really hoping Mother 2 lives up to the hype because buying Mother 1&2 CIB was NOT cheap.
Optional +.5 bonus for making Mother 2's graphics look practically next gen in comparison after you get used to Mother.
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
It seems every time I log into PSN, there's some crazy event going on for Kakusansei Million Arthur that just begs me to start it up again. I can't explain the stupid, STUPID part of our brains that makes you feel obsessed at the notion of missing out on some stupid digital cards because of some anime characters in skimpy clothes.
Don't fall for this SHIT!
This strategy is working so well for Square Enix that they now even have a 18+ version (smartphone only of course). The fact that the app is region-locked has absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that I refuse to play it...... just saying.
I can't play this cause of region-loc... umm... I mean cause nudity is offensive
Anyhoos, there's some sort of story in this game but really WHO CARES? It's another "free" (emphasis on the quotes) game that requires you to play 5 minutes every 3 hours like one of those poor guys that has to go outside to smoke in the dead of winter. If you've never played a gacha game (gotcha SUCKER!), then I advise you to DON'T start. It's so sinister that one form of gacha called コンプガチャ was so addictive and ruining people's lives that it was eventually banned.
Sigh... I guess this is what gaming is about nowadays. Basically, just some crazy psychological experiment to see how companies can exploit some addictive part of our brains. Then dangle some "RARE" stuff that you MAY get if you spin the wheel enough times after you cough up as much money as possible. It's like some evil digital form of crack or I guess just plain gambling without all those pesky regulations and taxes. As proof, the 10,000 yen ticket for this game was ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR DIGITAL ITEMS ON PSN.
Yeah, I can boast that I didn't spend a single penny on this piece of crap but the disruption on my time and schedule is far more valuable then what a measly single $60 full priced game would have cost.
Even if you don't spend a single penny on this "game", Square Enix has a really nice gig going on because they also do TONS of cross promotions for other games and I'm sure that kind of marketing doesn't come free (more moola for Square Enix). If you're wondering where Square Enix is making all their money nowadays, here's your answer.
Please give me all your money for poor ol' squeenix-chan?
Pwetty plea$$$e, OK? Tee Hee!
Score: 0 FUCK OFF, I'M NOT DOWNLOADING THIS SHIT AGAIN points out of 5.
You may be asking, if I gave it a score of ZERO, then why did I 100% it??
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Shaddup
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 "missed" out on the NES because I was blessed with a Sega Master System as a kid. All those hours playing awesome games like Zillion and Astro Warrior could have instead been spent on blowing cartridges and pressing reset like a million times. I still remember going to some kid's house and watching him trying to play his NES and I was like WTF? Also Kung Fu on the NES is so shitty that it makes Kung Fu Kid look like the best game of all time.
Anyways, what I'm TRYING to say is that's my excuse for missing out on Final Fantasy until I played the PSP version recently. I started this thing where I decided to play stuff in order. That way, by the time I catch up to the latest entry, it'll already be like 8 years old and cheap. (In other words, I'll never catch up but shhhh, I'm in denial about my backlog).
10 year lag in my case aka BDS (Backlog Denial Syndrome)
However, I'm not as crazy as to play every version of the same game so no indepth look at how this game has evolved over time or platform differences. Having said that, does the 2007 PSP release of this 25+ year-old game hold up to the test of time?
To be blunt. No.
At least they added a nice cool new intro in the PSP version. Of course, the game looks nothing like the intro and from what I understand, is pretty much the same game as the earlier versions with better sprites (correct me if I'm wrong).
SPOILER: Game looks nothing like the OP
This is another one of those "classic" turn-based RPGs where the gameplay mostly consists of walking a few steps, then holding down one button for a while for each random encounter. As usual, the only thing that requires even looking at the screen is to heal your party every once in a while. A perfect example of a multitask title for the gym, commute, or in my case, another (better) game.
I can imagine that if you're a kid with endless hours to kill, FF1 is a great game as it's filled with a wonderfully high encounter rate and is extremely coy about where you're supposed to go next (yeah yeah, retro, I know, but it still sucks). There's a dancer in the first town that tells you what to do next so even though it was a pain to go back there (no Chocobos yet), at least you could progress. But eventually, even she stops giving hints and just wants to dance (no thanks, sprites are not my thing). So unless you want to waste countless hours wandering around with that god awful encounter rate, gamefaqs here we come. You can even miss the class change without a guide, which is probably the coolest part of the game.
The craziest part of the game was when I spent probably HOURS trying to figure out how to navigate the lava in the volcano. Turns out, you're supposed to just WALK on the lava, take the HP hit, and just SUCK IT UP. Talk about some hardcore adventurers.
Too hot? YOU WIMP!! Lava is like only 1,000 C degrees!
The story was actually interesting in its simplistic and rudimentary way. It has everything you can imagine. Of course Elves and Dwarfs but then it busts out vampires, witches, a sunken palace, the works. I guess it's pretty good for its time. The last boss was certainly creative and unexpected. In today's standards though, its pretty bare. Not much more story than even a Ys game especially given that your generic 4 heroes have absolutely zero character development.
The music was good of course especially if you're an addict of that FF nostalgia juice but that sound before each random encounter was just irritating as hell as if to rub in your face: "Here's ANOTHER random encounter, SUCKA!"
I guess the only real saving grace of this game is that it's fairly short. The PSP version has a bunch of extra dungeons and whatnot you can do but unless there's some story involved (which I doubt given the light story of the main game), the tedious gameplay is simply not rewarding enough to merit torturing yourself any longer than necessary.
Score: 1.5 meh at least I got to workout at the gym while playing out of 5.
Optional +.5 bonus for its legacy and maybe it was great for its time? factor.
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
Moonlight Syndrome to summarize is a wonderful message from the late 90s to kids about the hazards of recreational drugs. I can only deduce that was the intended purpose as this game makes absolutely no sense and can only be the product of copious amounts of LSD or some other hallucinogen (perhaps Peyote?).
The opening clearly explains how the game was made
At the very least, I have to compliment the mind of Suda Goichi for even coming up with such crazy nonsense with or without the help of recreational narcotics. There's a lot of PS1 3D graphics compared to the original two games which used mostly still images. And we all know those early PS1 polygons look pretty terrible even for its time. Whether it was by design or not, at least the horrendously dated and creepy graphics match the psychedelic tone of the game. Nevertheless, any charm and affinity you might have felt for Mika, Yukari, and Chisato is completely destroyed in this game. In other words, they are butt-fugly.
I've googled around some Japanese websites to see if this story had any inkling of sense and to loosely paraphrase a random J-blogger on the topic, "without going through the brain juice of the creator, it's impossible" to figure out this mess. The only positive thing I can say about the story is that there are zero branching paths so absolutely no reason to touch this game again after the first play-through. To me, the game's opening cut scene pretty much sums it up perfectly.
THE ORAL SEX OF A COURT OF JUSTICE
Yup, that just about sums this game up right there.
You think I'm being harsh? Pop in a few pills and see for yourself. This game is cheap at least, probably for a very good reason.
Am I just not smart enough to understand this game?
See for yourself (Jhipsters only).
At least the music was not bad, for what it's worth.
Score: 1.5 acid trips out of 5
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
Having heard that it was far inferior to the original Corpse Party game, I went into Book of Shadows with low expectations. It certainly didn't have the pedigree and history of the original game, polished and enhanced over the years with every new remake/port. However, the intro was very well done and I had my hopes up for at least a good game. Unfortunately, in the end, it turned out to be just as disappointing as everybody said even WITH the lowered expectations.
The intro was really good at least...
I knew going in that they had for some reason completely scrapped the overhead RPG Tsukūru style exploration (Jhipster name for RPG Maker) and turned it into a straight adventure game. But ah well, there are plenty of wonderful adventure games so it shouldn't be a problem if the story was good and therein lied the NEXT major problem.
Book of Shadows is really barely a sequel. It's more like a spinoff combined with a PREVIEW of a sequel that is unlocked only after you see every ending in the entire game. Fortunately, if you import a save file from the original Corpse Party, you only have to see the true ending of all chapters, and really, you have no reason whatsoever to play this game without having played the original.
Besides the last hidden chapter, the entirety of this game are various side stories that add some more detail about certain events and a bit of history on certain characters. For example, you can learn about characters from other schools that you only met briefly in the first game, which is nice. But then you have total fan service chapters like the one about going to "visit" the sick teacher at her home. Basically this whole game feels like some poor victim of Japanese cross-media franchise marketing tactics from 5pb, very far from its original doujin roots. But then you realize that they were just getting started because the next game dials up the fan service EVEN MORE.
I thought this was supposed to be a horror game...?
Now, I'm a fan of fan service but I still want a good, scary experience if I'm playing a horror game. In the first game, you had to run your ass off, trying to avoid ghosts while ghastly traps were popping up everywhere. In this game, it's like, "QUICK! Pick the right spot in this image!" Not exactly suspenseful and worse, not scary AT ALL. It really is a shame because the menu system of moving from room to room is tedious and slow. And there's this weird pointless penalty for investigating things as your screen slowly becomes more and more obscured until presumably you die (this was never really an issue for me).
The one major improvement is FINALLY the ability to skip through the text but that's not gonna matter much if you don't feel like replaying the game in the first place. Books of Shadows is not a TERRIBLE game. It still has those nice, shocking Corpse Party moments but it just pales in comparison to the first. At least the OST is still good and it was pretty easy to get through since it has full audio (even the narration!) and auto mode. (No reading for Jhipsters required)
Score: 2.5 uncomfortable horror fan service out of 5 (24 hours to complete)
I would say 2 if not for BEST GIRL Seiko. Lesbians are always automatic .5 bonus in my scoring.
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 don't want to sound like a hipster (not Jhipster, but the annoying real hipsters that think a shitty indie game is awesome cause it's "innovative") but I'm glad I was able to first experience the Persona series completely blind from the 3rd entry around 2007, which is kinda impossible to do now given all the praise, hype, and media attention the franchise has gotten in recent years.
I picked up Persona 3 at a store completely on a whim because well, the screenshots and the anime art style looked cool. This was back when I was a typical Final Fantasy mainstreamer and was just starting to branch out into the vast world of a Jhipster gamer. I had no idea what to expect but it was definitely different and interesting. Vicariously living the life of a Japanese high school kid through an RPG? Heck YES! I never did finish Persona 3 and in fact didn't play much of anything while working 10 hour days as a Japanese salaryman. But I did finally finish Persona 4 Golden recently very much late to the party so let's talk about that instead and not revisit those alcohol-hazed, overworked days, OK?
Why did I go to school in New Jersey instead of this? WHY GOD? WHY?!!!!!!
To sum up Persona 4 (and Persona 3), it is a real-life simulator combined with an RPG. If you've ever fantasized about being a Japanese high school student surrounded by 2D JK (and who hasn't???) but still want to enjoy a fun RPG in the process, this is the game for you. The game tries to make you balance your regular ol' high school life such as making friends, studying, part-time job etc. with the secret life of busting up monsters in various dungeons. Every day, you have to decide whether to hang out with a certain character to increase his/her community score or a plethora of other activities that are available based on the calendar.
Now, if this was real life, I would probably have spent every day playing video games at home and wishing I had the courage to talk to all the cool kids but this is not "Moon: Remix RPG Adventure" (review pending) so sadly there is no option to play video games in the game. Now, you can decide to sit around and do nothing but those communities are vital to leveling up personas and unlocking various abilities for your friends when it comes time to fight some monsters. You really need to make the most of your precious time but there is one major flaw to time management: you can stay in the dungeon for as long as you want.
Apparently, I totally went about my high school life the wrong way...
(screenshot not from the game)
In Persona 3, people eventually get tired in the dungeon and if you're playing in hard mode, it pretty much means instant death in most cases as well as losing the next day or even more due to fatigue or sickness. However, in this game, the only real incentive to leave the dungeon is if your SP runs out. But you can easily overcome that early on by buying SP items from the vending machine and later on by maxing out the fox community and paying him some cold hard yen.
If you're like me and you really want to fully experience all the various side stories, you end up with a lopsided pattern of hours of high school life followed by a LONG stretch in a dungeon. I'm not necessarily a fan of the fatigue system as it is quite annoying as well but I just wish that it was better balanced somehow, perhaps not having such a tight schedule to max out your communities. Would it kill the developers to leave some days you can just totally waste? I mean, in real life, we waste time all the time, right?
Now you can make the argument to just chill and miss out on some communities but it's pretty much impossible for the completionist to not max out all communities (yay trophy whore!) and experience every bit of story the game offers. And personally, the side stories are THE highlight of the game. You would be REALLY missing out if you just rushed through the main plot.
Dem FEEEEEEELSSSSSS!
In fact, I would say that the true allure of this game is in the totally believable characters with their real-world problems in a slightly exotic but still familiar (albeit very Japanese) setting. This game covers every conceivable human themes from death, loss, fame, divorce, social pressures, kids, etc. that you're bound to find something to tug at your heart strings. People die all the time in games sure, but how many games have you spending time with a family member day after day after the character's death? For me, the climax of the game was actually in the first BAD ending which is probably one of the best "bad" endings I've ever seen especially if you've maxed out the relevant communities.
Dem FEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLSSSS!!!!!!!
Unfortunately, the game continues to drag on for a good 20+ hours and it gets a bit preachy and repetitive about the whole persona and being true to yourself theme near the end. I GET IT. The GAME is called PERSONA! However, I'm not gonna be one of those "professional" reviewers that say stupid, asinine shit like "are games too long nowadays?" The game continues to be fun and there are TONS of nice content, even more in the Golden version which added the whole month of February and a nice new dungeon that has some cool twists (how about a boss that repels EVERYTHING??). I feel like it's great value for my hard earned dollars. Oh, and there's some sort of murder mystery thrown in there somewhere? HAHA.
Counting hours lost by dying, probably 120ish hours.
Hard mode OF COURSE. Yeah, this game is a TAD bit long.
This game fulfills my fantasy of living as a Japanese high school kid as well as any game could do without VR (OMG Morpheus Summer Lesson HYPE). Yeah, it's not exactly realistic to have like 10 girlfriends in a small town but hey, it IS a Japanese game. Overall, the OST is great, TONS of high quality story content, fun dungeon crawling, anime cut scenes, and everything is incredibly polished. Besides a few gripes in terms of time management and the fact that everybody acts like you're the most eloquent guy ever despite being completely mute, this game does deserve most of the praise that it has received. Is it the best game of ALL TIME? Not really, I mean it does feels a tad overrated but if you ignore the masses that gush over this game like it was krispy kreme with powdered cocaine, it is still undeniably a great game.
As a Jhipster, I also have to make the obligatory comment about the English localization. The English dub while acceptable doesn't really seem to convey the same aura of camaraderie and just overall "funness" of your fake riajuu high school life. In particular, the TOTALLY HOT AND BEST GIRL Rise loses 75% of her charm without her loli-ero-kawaii voice (yes, that is a thing). Keep in mind my score is always for the Japanese original Jhipster version. Based on what I've seen of the English dub, I would score that one 3/5. Hmph!
Score: 4 when in god's name is this game going to END? out of 5 (～120 hours played)
(optional +.5 for loli-ero-kawaii Risechi)
Nuff said
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
