Tales of Phantasia X（テイルズオブファンタジア クロスエディション）

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

Alpha（アルファー）

I thought I was being clever when I snarkily remarked that Square didn't do fan service in the good ol' days until their 3rd title in 1986 but I forgot about Cruise Chaser Blassty so I actually meant their 4th title (ignoring Thexder which was not developed by Square). So I guess the joke's on me, SJWs WIN AGAIN! Anyway, here we are finally, playing Square's first masterpiece, Final Fan- err, I mean Alpha. Oh, you play as a girl with no memories NOR any pants? GOTY!!!

Let's make Beta next! Naw fuck it, go straight to Final (Fantasy)

At first, I was so spoiled by the compass directions in Will Death Trap II that I was totally lost until I realized that the game was dumbed down even further by allowing you to use directional keypad to make your way around. (Geesh, kids nowadays...) Not the arrow keys, I'm talking turn Num Lock off directional keypad old-school.

Knowing how to move around, you can figure out most things by playing blind except it has this weird thing where you have to get caught by robots like 3 times to progress the game. HOWEVER, you'll lose all your items so you have to wait until a certain point to pick up anything.

They take the gun but apparently you were able to hide the gold key... somewhere. HEH HEH HEH

In typical old school adventure style, if you lose your items, you're pretty much screwed and beating the game is now impossible without starting from an earlier state.

I'm not doing anything shady, no siree!

This game feels like what Will Death Trap 2 should have been if it was 3x longer and actually had a plot. There's a bit of story with even somewhat of a minor twist. Plenty of that nice ascii por- err I mean traditional pixel artwork. There's lots of places to explore though the "maps" on either side of the screen are totally useless this time around. Good thing I have the trusty internet to guide me.

Yeah, there are some kinks, like how the Stadium which blows up at the very beginning of the game still have people running away even at the end. And sometimes you can shoot the robot police and sometimes you can't. Basically, if you can't shoot the robot, then you've missed something or you're going the wrong way.

The most incompetent robot police ever. Stupid devs probably didn't QA them.

Overall, I think Alpha is a huge step forward from Square's previous adventure games. There's a lot of great looking art, a couple cool animations, and plenty to like in terms of fan service. Though technically, the well positioned strand of hair means it's not really a 18+ game. The one song that plays in the intro and ending is pretty good too. If they keep this up, there may be some amazing visual novels coming from those guys in later years.

The rest of the game is filled with horrible sound effects but this OP is not half bad
Score: 2 I bet these Square guys must be making some great visual novels nowadays, right?! out of 5.

That's a pretty cool logo, wonder what happened to these guys?

Additional screenshot for the future gaming historians.

You might want to look into a chiropractor for that back problem...

Apparently radar is far more useful than we originally imagined

Zero-gravity and boobs... I think we're onto something here Square! $$$!!

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

WILL The Death Trap II（ウィル デス・トラップII）

I ended up playing through the first Death Trap not only because it was Square's first game but I was also intruiged by the title screen of the sequel: WILL™ - THE DEATH TRAP II -. (Did they really trademark that shit and if so for what??)

Title screen even has music that doesn't sound like shit!!

As it turns out, I don't even know why this is a sequel except the protaganist "Benson" has the same name from the first entry. But unlike a jungle with tarzen bikinis, there's laser guns, robots, and androids in this one. I don't really understand the setting at all as dates referenced in newspapers and stuff are in 1978. I dunno and don't really care either really.

Apparently there's some island in 1978 that has a gravity chamber...

The game started out promising enough. They fixed the the mess of a map in the previous entry by helpfully showing which direction you were facing. The map is a lot smaller too so now you can actually tell when you can't go a certain direction because of like a freaking wall.

I started Square's second game with the intention of trying not to use a guide. That didn't exactly pan out because I'm new school and totally impatient. However, unlike the first game, I think this game is very doable without cheating. The only really tricky part was going back to pick up the ring and maybe throwing a bottle of alcohol at the robot.

In the end, Death Trap II started out as a worthy sequel with intro music, some cool sound effects that became super annoying right away, and a decent map. However, I dunno if they started running out of money or what but it's like maybe a quarter of the length of the first one. There's no branching paths like the first Death Trap and with a guide, you can probably beat it in under 15 minutes.

Hi, I'm Aisha. Hope you didn't pay money for this game. TEE HEE

While an interesting setting and concept directed once again by Sakaguchi, the short length of the game and the rather uninteresting story makes this one nothing more than a curious footnote in gaming history. (My literary writing community college classes are paying off!!) Yes, I got suckered in by the title screen just like the poor Japanese fools in the day similar to Zarth but at least I didn't pay an arm and a leg.

Score: 1 FINALLY I can play Alpha. Hope I have enough tissues!!! 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

The Death Trap（ザ・デストラップ）

SQUARE? Never heard of em.

The Death Trap is Square's first game so of course I wanted to check it out. However, despite extensive googling, for the life of me I could not find the PC98 version without paying for the Egg re-release and I unfortunately "missed" out on the physical compilation disc. My past self would have scoffed at the 8,386 yen price but it's RAREZ now at about 5x the original price so I guess I should've bought two copies.

ONLY 1000 COPIES BUY BUY BUY NOW NOW NOW!!!!

Anyways, I skipped on this game because unlike the PC98 MASTER RACE KANJI BAE, the PC88 version is all in Katakana. I figured it would be pretty much impossible for my eyes to handle the Katanaka diarrhea. However, as it turns out, frustration is a relative feeling. After struggling with kana input for Zarth, just having the option to input Romaji made this game feel practically next gen.

Yeah, it's THAT Sakaguchi.

Given that it's Square's first game, I wasn't expecting much after trying to play Enix's Zarth (back when they were like Naruto and Sasuke but less gay). However, while the text input parser is pretty much dead simple confined to "verb noun" and "north", "east", etc., there are actually several branching paths so it has some replayability at least.

You need the card and parachute for the plane right away so this is not actually a branching path... but whatever

While Square Enix today is all about that Moepocalypse diaper panty politically correct fan service nowadays, notice the complete lack of fan service in the good ol' days. Nothing but an agent trying to save a ugly male scientist in the jungle. You won't see that game experience ruining fan service smut at least until Square's third title a whole 2 years later so... TAKE THAT GAMERGATE!

I'd hate to be a stickler but I don't think you can just ride a zebra in a jungle...

While the map might trick you into thinking you can do all kinds of kewl exploring, most directions are closed off due to the thick jungle. So it ends up mostly being trying random directions until the game lets you go somewhere.

WHERE THE FUCK IS THE ANY KEY??????

I can kinda start to see why Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin..., err... whatever that game was called was considered such a big deal in the day. This game has barely any story whatsoever and you're mostly just randomly going around the jungle. Which personally given the kana barf is kinda relieving.

Score: 1.5 No Death Trap cameo in World of Final Fantasy??? LAME! out of 5

Some of the puzzles are pretty much impossible to figure out because of the large number of useless items you have in your inventory. Or maybe it's not impossible, I dunno cause I didn't care and just used a guide. Moving around the map was frustrating, the story is pretty much nonexistent and there's barely any fan service. I would say play with a guide for kicks to see how Square started off but otherwise, you're not missing much. Still, that romaji input is so good... stupid Zarth.

This is perfectly reasonable jungle attire, NOT fan service

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

Hokkaidou Rensa Satsujin Okhotsk ni Kiyu（北海道連鎖殺人 オホーツクに消ゆ）

In my quest to find the GOTY of 1984, I decided to check out everybody's favorite early murder adventure game: "Hokkaidou Rensa Satsujin Okhotsk ni Kiyu". It's always good marketing to make a product with a name that's impossible to remember. I'm relieved to know it's a long time tradition and not some trendy shit that happened due to the Moe apocalypse (which I cleverly call the "Moepocalypse").

"Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online IV 3rd Squad Jam Betrayers' Choice" eh?

Since I can't stand reading text with no Kanji and I'm a PC Master race graphics whore, I decided to skip the earlier version and went straight to the PC98 Master race remake.

LOL, watch out kids, this is FC not the NES

Sure, the FC version has a much better soundtrack simply due to the fact that there's way more songs than the total of maybe like two tracks in the PC98 version but who cares?? BOOB LIGHTING!!!

PC (98) MASTER RACE FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY KANJI BAE

The gameplay is nothing more than endlessly trying out various menu options until you find the one that progresses the game, a shitty blackjack minigame, a lame ass maze, and clicking on random shit. Basically, one of those games that is pretty much impossible without a guide.

The dialogue is very bare bones and provides almost no character development (well, except the fact that your assistant is kind of a pervert) and while the mystery is at least much better than the first Jinguji Saburo game, it's still definitely no Gyakuten Kenji 2.

Even has obligatory Hollywood geisha. TIME TO LOCALIZE??

UPDATE: A few days after I finished the game and this post, I couldn't stop thinking about the story and the human drama that reveals itself at the end. While the dialogue was sparse, there was a lot of events that stuck in my head afterwards. As I play more games from that era, I can't help but feel this game had one of the best stories from the early 80s. I can finally start to see how it inspired Hideo Kojima to get into making video games.

Scale: 3 way better than that Shinjuku park scam from the first Jinguji game out of 5

While the PC98 version looks great, its major flaw is the serious lack of songs. That one BGM will drive you mad after awhile. Unfortunately, the hot spring easter egg nude scene didn't appear to be in the PC98 version either. As for the FC version... well it's the FC. I have not tried the PC88 or MSX versions and have no plans to ever.

There is no SFC version of this game... IDIOT!

An interesting title overall especially since the scenario was written by the creator of Dragon Quest and dare I say... a hidden gem?? I'm not sure why this game was not published by Enix as Yuji Horii's previous ADV game was. Weird.

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

Super Paper Mario

This is going to be a short post because platformers are not really my kind of genre. However, Super Paper Mario has so much story and a leveling system, I guess I might as well blow some steam on how much this game sucks.

First of all, the story is incredibly boring, cliche, and just goes on and on. I feel like there's a Nintendo template file somewhere in their offices which is copy+pasted for pretty much every single one of their games. They just need a thin premise substantive enough to whip up a villain and end goal to justify the game. Which is fine for them I guess but combining that shallow template with line after line of dialogue was just disastrous.

The game tries so hard to be funny but it just ISN'T. I mean is this game supposed to be funny for kids? Not only is the humor too simple to be funny but the themes are weirdly adult. Even poop jokes would be preferable than this material that seems targeted at a mysterious group of fully grown adults with the maturity level of teenagers.

Trying to be clever with galge parody.... ha ha ha I guess for the kids???

The worst "joke" is when you have to sit there, jumping 100 times to press a button. HAHA Nintendo, thanks for wasting my precious time. That's hilarious!!

No really, USE the shortcut cause it's not fucking worth it (HINT: it's the disc eject button)

In addition, the puzzles are incredibly challenging for a game that's supposed to be Cero A. While I'm always game for some puzzles, somehow, puzzles on a platformer just didn't do a thing for me. Staring at a puzzle and working it out on pen and paper yes. Aimlessly walking around in a platformer of all things trying to find the hidden 3D path or some spot to point your wiimote at... um not so much.

In fact, the only time I was actually having fun was a brief segment where you fly around in space and shoot stuff. I should've taken the hint and played Ke-Tsu-no-ana instead. Ke-Tsu-no-ana is probably a way better experience and maybe even better smelling than this pile of poo.

The only brief part that I enjoyed.

Score: 1 yes, lighting your fart on fire IS funnier than this out of 5 (23 hours to beat)

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

FLOWERS

This was my first time and I wasn't sure how it would turn out at all but I was undeniably curious. It started all very gentle with graceful hand holding and innocent smooches at first and I couldn't wait until what happened next.

I'm talking about playing a Yuri game for the first time of course. DUH! As soon as I saw the cover of FLOWERS I knew I just had to try it just based on the art style alone and it definitely does not disappoint in that department.

Poor girl, can't choose? Bring both your friends and let's figure it out "together" HEH HEH HEH

Not only does the art look great, but the voice acting is superb as well. You can always tell you got a good cast when one person voices a set of twins and yet still manages to make each character distinctive and easily distinguishable.

Voiced by one girl (HAWT I'm sure)

The music is pretty good too. The in-game music is mostly tasteful classical and pleasant BGM that stays out of the way but the OP and ED were great as well.

OP with Shimotsuki Haruka? HELL YEAH
This is not one of those typical PC eroge that get all the smut and nasty ripped out for the Cero C consumer port. Both the PC and Vita version don't have any kind of sexual content whatsoever. Of course, that's how I prefer it since I'm such a CLASSY gamer that hates boobs and sex.

Playing through FLOWERS, I could feel my stress levels instantly go down as I relaxed with the shenanigans of shy and gentle otome trying to get along in an all-girl boarding school. Sure, if you just want to rip heads off and do other barbarian, brutish activities, this game may seem a bit boring to you. However, for us CLASSY gamers who hate sexual stuff but somehow totally into seeing two girls kiss, there's a lot to like in this game. Especially for those filthy, filthy trophy hunters.

Unlike the 90% of people who "beat" under 20 minutes, I actually played through this game.

While the ending was very unsatisfying given that this is a 4 part series (ugh, I'm gonna need to buy THREE MORE of these??), overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my first foray into the world of Yuri. I can definitely get into this genre.

Oh yeah and for non-jhipsters, there is an official English release on PC amazingly enough.

Score: 4 yeah, maybe I scored this one just a tad high but the first time is special after all 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

ZERO ESCAPE Koku no Jirenma（刻のジレンマ）

Usually, I like to write up these posts while I'm actually playing through the game in order to capture some of the different thoughts I have in the process. However, ZERO ESCAPE games (yes, they went all caps AGAIN) are the kind where you can't really gauge how good it is until you reach the very end and ZERO ESCAPE Koku no Jirenma, ur, I mean Zero Time Dilemma is no exception.

Best looking cover but 3DS barf. Played Vita version (duh)

My first impression was wow, god damn, the graphics are SO much better than Zennin Shi- ehem, excuse me, Virtue's last whatever. Especially Phi, wow, she looks good in those glasses. The graphics in this game look great overall, despite the weird graphics glitch of long hair twitching like it has SERIOUS seizures. I also just loved the chemistry and humor between Phi and Sigma. It was good to see those two again.

Phi is so hawt. Going back to VLR after this game is kinda painful.

However, a few hours into game, some cracks began to show. The variety of puzzles were much more limited and even less than a challenge than previous games. The only real challenging puzzle was how the heck to get unstuck when you run out of scenarios to play, which I guess counts as a puzzle?? Also, the length of the game was much shorter though I wouldn't necessarily say that it needs to be longer given the story.

Another beef I had with the game was the poor synch between the dialogue and mouth movements. For example, even for a one liner 「ええ」, which is totally one syllable, the mouth moved twice. I assume it was to match the shitty and awkward English track (as usual). The reason I'm guessing this is because this game was bankrolled by Aksys Games, not Spike Chunsoft.

We've reached a weird time in gaming history where Japanese games are simply not sustainable without the western market. Not only are there so much more people outside Japan (obviously), the rise of the shitty mobile games in Japan have made naruto onepiece weeb money indispensable ("naruto" pronounced as "now-roo-toe" of course).

You know who you are.

Now, if you want to buy Japanese games on steam, you have to hope the American publisher is willing to sell to the Japanese market. The Jhipster glory days of whole generations of games never seeing English localization is clearly over.

The music is also nothing special, much of it is recycled from the previous game. Overall, the quality of this game just kinda reeks of indie, the kind that over promises and under delivers. Maybe Aksys Games didn't put up that much money after all, I dunno.

I swear I've heard this song somewhere else...
I enjoyed the last entry of the ZERO ESCAPE series and yet couldn't help feel disappointed. Yes, the story had some good moments but also introduced things that I feel kinda broke the rules. I'm not one of those anal assholes that try to find every plot hole. I don't really care as long as I'm enjoying myself and things are believable enough. However, at the end of the day, while I enjoyed Koku no Jirenma, there was nothing exceptional about it (well except for Phi's hawt visual upgrade).

Score: 3 Meh, I guess it's better than nothing™ (by Inafune) out of 5 (25 hours to beat)
+.5 optional bonus for Phi's design.

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

Kyokugen Dasshutsu Adv: Zennin Shibou Desu（極限脱出ADV 善人シボウデス）

Zennin Shibou Desu is part 2 of the Kyokugen Dasshutsu series- oh wait, you've never heard of it? Sorry, let me check English wikipedia....

A few minutes later...

Oh, ok, here it is. Many of you have probably already heard of Virtue's Last Reward, which is the second part of umm, Zero escape. Oh, that's a pretty clever play of words on zero, ahahaha.

My favorite track, enjoy while reading my awesome blog!

Anways, I decided to replay this game for the second time because I totally forgot the story going in Zero Time Dillema, the last entry in the series. Also, I needed to re-earn the trophies since I played on my US account before my full conversion to Jhipster mode on PSN. Err, I mean who cares about stupid trophies? NOT ME!

I have not replayed 999, the first entry because the story is not as closely tied as the second and third entries appear to be. It's totally NOT because silly Nintendo doesn't have trophies. Regardless, you'll definitely want to play all 3 games in order. Otherwise, it'll be like watching Star Wars Empire strikes back first and when Darth Vader says "I'm your father" you'll be like ummm... ok? Oops, spoiler alert?

OMG, I loved this anime! I think it was called Imocho?

Anyways, I'm sure I'll be writing about 999 when I'm suckered into buying the voiced Vita re-release or whatever. But for now, let's talk about Zennin Shibou... err, I mean VLR. The first thing I would say is that this is the kind of game that really requires a marathon. Usually, I chip away at a game for months and sometimes even years before I reach a point where I'm invested enough to just finish the damn thing. However, in this case, even in my first playthrough, I finished the game in a little over 1 month, which was kind of a record given my busy riaju lifestyle.

My defunct US PSN before my ascension into pure Jhipsterdom

Fortunately, the game is gripping enough and manages to keep the suspense going so that it's not too hard mentally to plow through it from start to finish. That's definitely a strong point toward it's plot and pacing. However, the real unfortunate reason you don't want to set this game down is because the major events in the various branching paths are pretty much the same but with slight differences in details.

Pretty soon, you start to get the details mixed up in each branch and the similar events start to kinda blend together. I could never remember who went through what door and who did what in each branch. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that you constantly have to switch branches due to it being locked for some reason or another. Unlike the first entry, you cannot play through all the way to the end unless it's one of those bad endings that go nowhere.

In terms of graphics, everything looks pretty good albeit just a tad bit dated. The 3rd entry looks way better in terms of graphics but VLR is still a pretty good looking game. The voice acting is fine, and the music is more than adequate. In terms of presentation, there's nothing that stand out good or bad.

HOT DAYUM! Which artbook do I need to buy for this?

The gameplay is much improved from the first game just in the fact that you only have to solve a puzzle once. I hated playing the first puzzles OVER and OVER again in 999 and so being able to jump around the branching paths was a great convenience. Although the puzzles seems way too easy now that I've played the mind fuck that was Misshitsu no Sacrifice, it seems just right for the mainstream audience. It even has an EASY mode for the extra mainstream newbs out there.

I have to give the game major props because while it has a stupid rabbit mascot, it wasn't annoying as fuck like some other games... *cough* Danganronpa *cough*. I really liked listening to the rabbit talk and I'm not even being sarcastic here. Of course, I'm talking about the Japanese version. Sorry for the non-jhipsters that have to listen to the annoying English voices. I have a nice fork you can stab into your ears or I heard the PAL version didn't replace the good shit with shitty fake ass English voice acting.

Finally, a rabbit that's not annoying as fuck.
One really cool part of the game is that some of the dialogue changes depending on the order in which you play them. Once you've saved playing through one path, even if you navigate back and replay that part, you're locked in that order so as a tip, you may want to keep a separate save before going down one path.

Score: 3.5 yeah it's a great game, if a giant, gaping plot hole doesn't bother you out of 5. (45 hours to beat the first time)

It seems unfair to judge a game that rewards the player with plot twists and reveals after a second play-through. I remember really enjoying all the suspense and mysteries the first time I played this game. But there's a GIANT plot hole I just can't get over that bothers me. As much as I try, I just can't explain this away and it kinda puts a huge damper for me on the game as a whole. I suppose I will see how everything wraps up in the 3rd entry.

Still, I definitely enjoyed this game and it's come a long way from Never 7. If it wasn't for the gaping plot hole, I would definitely give this a solid 4 as a great game. Maybe I will give it a score of 4 after all just for having an animal mascot that doesn't make me want to throw my Vita against the wall.

OMG, what's underneath the scratch part of the poster? THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING 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

Net High（ネットハイ）

Net High is a game where I have so much to talk about I honestly don't know where to even begin. This game is truly a product of our time, an artifact that would have made absolutely no sense only a few years ago and is a perfect encapsulation of our society at THIS VERY MOMENT.

This game has it all including shameless self-plugs!

I'm sure kids of the future will look back on the kids today watching other people play games on twitch, their snapchat shenanigans, and whatever else they're doing nowadays and look bemused and confused with their typical smug "I can't believe this is what old people used to do!" asshole attitudes. Finally, today's kids can get a taste of their own medicine similar to how us old fogeys feel now with these stupid kids react videos to rotary telephones, Reaganomics, the holocaust or whatever the fuck they're doing on the youtubes nowadays. I'm sure the future kids can have a good laugh at these old kids watching videos on a OMG physical screen instead of some sexy AI avatar projection gently serving up their entertainment straight to their brain cells. Umm, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah! Net High is an extremely unique and funny game.

In the sequel, it'll record you playing a character watching a livestream of the game which your friends can then watch.

Net High is basically Ace Attorney but instead of a courtroom, you have Tweeeter, a social network not unlike Twitter and the netizens as the jury (Well AA is strictly bench rulings but whatever). You as the main character must steal Tweeeter followers from the riaju elite (if you don't know what a riaju is well, ggrks). Each battle is live-streamed from Niyo-niyo douga with the winner decided by the number of thumbs up from the viewer. Of course, you can thumbs up yourself. OF COURSE. AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT! SPAM AWAY!!

This is how public discourse has evolved over the centuries? Sorry Socrates...

As I said, if you're not all up on Japanese internet culture in 2015, you may get a bit lost with the numerous parodies of popular websites, apps, games, etc.. I wouldn't even call it references at this point. The game's setting is basically a dystopian result of the constant stream of meaningless information and distraction we are bombarded with via our smartphones nowadays. It's a reflection of today's modern smartphone culture and what a sad, sad world it is (don't even get me started on that pokem** Go shit).

Kankore parody but with tanks called Pankore? GENIUS! And this was BEFORE Girls und panzer exploded in popularity.

Not only did I love the premise of the game, the voice acting and cast was superb as well. Every voice actor was excellent except for one painful exception which was I think unavoidable given the situation which I can't talk about cause spoilers. In particular, I just loved listening to the voices of Shiru and MC.

I totally love this game for the voice acting. NO REALLY!!

The art, animation, and music were great as well. If the artstyle reminds you of Gurren Lagann and Kill la kill, you're not the only one. The illustrator is a freelance who has some really nice fan art on his tumblr page.

This guy's got some mad skills

My only real gripe was that the battles were painfully easy. While it makes a good effort of well, shamelessly ripping off AA, complete with frequent remarks about the protagonist's spiky hair, which gossip to use to attack your opponent was always painfully obvious. The investigation sections were anything but, requiring not much more than picking dialogue options. But at least Net High has petting mini-games!

In addition, there's a real pain-in-the-ass trophy that requires you to play for 3 hours a day for a week consecutively. I don't like to be rushed so having to keep the game on until I could play 3 hours for the day was a big bummer especially given that the game is not much longer than the 21 hours it takes for the trophy. Not to mention that one time it crashed after 2 hours... ARGH!!

I thought the artstyle, animation, and music were all good and-WHOA BOOBS!
Overall, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the game and loved it to bits really. I was simultaneously amused but also slightly frightened by how much of the real world is reflected in the game. What with all the gamerg*** crap, flaming, and all the ugly stuff going on nowadays with getting people fired from their jobs, doxing, death threats, and swatting. While the "game" aspect of Net High was certainly its weakest point, I still had fun with it and was thoroughly entertained during every minute of the story (despite some large plot holes). And at the end of the day, having fun is all that matters to me.

I highly recommend this game for all Jhipsters and while there is no localization yet, the fact the trophies are translated to English means non-Jhipsters may eventually be able to check out this neat title, hopefully before all the references get outdated and are no longer relevant. Here's hoping they come through with the sequel they teased at the end!

Score: 4 whereupon I spent hours pondering the effects of the internet on our society and cultur- OH MORE BOOBS! out of 5. (32 hours for platinum)

BYE BYE!!

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

Ghost Trick（ゴーストトリック）

I'd like to brag that I bought Ghost Trick totally blind just based on my curiosity with the cover art but that makes me sound like some kind of hipster (NOT Jhipster) now that this game is like the most talked about "hidden gem" on the DS.

Jhipsters don't need no fancy cover of a ghost, just a guy sticking up his butt

Amazingly, despite being an old DS title (at least to these new kids), it's still dirt cheap... at least in America. Oh, you want a Jhipster Japanese copy? Be prepared to pay like $40 for a USED copy. JHIPSTER RANTS!!!

Just do yourself a favor and don't touch the iOS  "Oh it no workie no more? Enjoy the months waiting for a patch" version. In fact, just don't touch iOS at all, IMO. But whatever, that's neither here nor there. On to the game itself.

The first thing you'll notice right out of the gate is the amazing animation and graphics given the DS hardware. I won't pretend I've played every DS game out there (PSP fanboi and proud of it) but this must be one of the best looking games I've seen on the system.

Best part: you don't need overpriced, cheap, flashy marketing Apple hardware for this
The story is as good as you can expect from Takumi Shu. Funny, bright, and yet lots of crazy stuff going on all over the place. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters and the overall plot. Even though the game is definitely on the short side, it was just the right length given the plot and game mechanics.

The puzzle solving while innovative, does get a bit repetitive at times. It mostly consists of you trying to find shit you can tinker with even though almost everything seems tantalizingly out of reach. Of course, varieties to the core gameplay are introduced throughout the game. Though there's a lot of trial and error, the gameplay was still fun at the end of the day.


If you're too lazy to play yourself, you can watch Japanese girl play instead. Isn't that how the kids nowadays "play" games?
Score: 3.5 Shu stop with the fucking bajillion AA games already and make something original like um... Ghost Trick 2? out of 5. (14 hours to beat)

While the highlight of the game is the great story, given the great graphics and fun gameplay, it's a great package overall. You really can't go wrong with this "hidden" gem. Definitely a solid game and a must own for the DS. BUY BUY BUY NOW NOW NOW!!!!!!!!

Bonus 0.5 points for Missle, two of the best dogs in gaming

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