Well it's been a while, so I was in the mood to dive back into the side-scrolling, horror adv genre. I know it's a very popular genre and even though I had hundreds (nay thousands!!) of games to choose from, I went back to good ol' Human Entertainment and loaded up Clock Tower: The First Fear on the even gooder ol' PSP.
I have to say, for a game that originally came out only 6 months before Twilight Syndrome, the first Clock Tower was pretty darn bare bones. If I wasn't super gamer expert (ie can use google+wikipedia), I would have thought this was a fairly early SFC game, not something that was released after the launch of the PS1 and ported almost 2 years later.
OMG!! Only took 2 years to add this next gen PS1 graphics!
If I had bought the PS1 version day one in my fantasy Japanese childhood, I would have been pretty darn disappointed after Twilight Syndrome. They didn't add any voice acting to the PS1 version, just the typical dated Human CG intro and the ability to save your game. Yes, in the enhanced version, you can actually save your progress.
I mean, if I didn't know any better, I might have thought this game was not bad but the lack of almost any story to speak of, no voice acting, and zero character development makes this game feel way older than it really is.
This is the blonde girl. That's all you need to know about her.
I still have no idea why the girls were brought to the mansion and the game doesn't explain anything about the Barrows family. I didn't look up any further information from fear of spoiling the sequels but taken by itself, this game doesn't explain a single thing.
The other big issue I had was the gameplay. Maybe I should have read the manual, but the game freaked me out because Jennifer's stat goes to red every time she runs. I spent painful hours just watching her meander slowly through the mansion like she was taking a nice stroll in the park.
Also, she never sat down to rest until I realized much later on that you have to press triangle after she starts moving. I had assumed when she walked into another room, she would just sit down after a while so I had no idea how to restore her health. But to make this whole gameplay element even worse, I finally figured out I can beat the entire game while completely in the red. You're supposed to spam the X button when your avatar is flashing and having more health is supposed to help you survive. But I was able to beat down that little scissor guy, the crazy puppet, and every other "tense" moment totally in the red.
As for the puzzles, I just got tired of going from room to room while stuck for hours. The parrot freaked me out early on so I never did find the perfume bottle. I did manage to unlock one ending completely blind. You find a car and the car key conveniently in a box next to the car. Jennifer was like, "But the other girls..." and I was like, fuck that. DRIVE. Needless to say, it did not end well.
Similar to my blind playthrough but way less getting lost and slow walking
Eventually, I followed a guide and unlocked all endings in a matter of a few hours. If you don't get stuck, the game is actually incredibly short and requires repeating the same things but with minor differences in terms of things you may miss or which events you encounter. There's not much difference in the endings either so I can say after unlocking them all, I don't think it was really worth the hassle. There's actually a random event that you have to avoid in order to get the best ending. I don't know how you could have known to reload if you happen to be unlucky without a guide. I thought that was kinda lame.
The music had a bit of that Human charm but there was very little variety and it was ok at best.
This was my favorite track and it was just ok
Score: 2 this is like a poor man's Twilight Syndrome out of 5 (like Lehman Brothers SUPER POOR)
As Jhipster, I think this game got way more attention because the later games were localized and the lack of almost any story made it WAY easier to fan translate than Twilight Syndrome. I'm hoping the later games in the series will step it up a notch... or 10.
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
So the first game I "completed" this year was part 1 of たんていぶ THE DETECTIVE CLUB (again with the caps!). A bit of a disclaimer but this post might evolve over time as I finish the other parts. The first part took maybe 3-4 hours to complete and I doubt I'd have much more to say to warrant 4 separate posts.
All 4 parts were released roughly one month apart so I guess you can call this episodic (ripoff). The first game has only 3 cases and the overall story doesn't do much more than introduce the 3 main characters. The mysteries and investigation gameplay are all pretty much a joke and comparing it to Ace Attorney would be like comparing Comiket and Sakura-Con cosplay.
Guess which Con is near me? GUESS GODDAMMIT!!!!
Really, it's just an incredibly short generic harem adv game that is totally unremarkable. There's not even much ero despite what the LE edition cover would suggest. In fact, I would have cursed myself on buying even just the first part much less all four parts (3+4 are not that cheap either). So why did I go all out on this game? I'm a seiyu fanboy.
Spoiler: Maya never gets arrested in this game
This game is fully voiced (except male protagonist ofc) and the cast includes both Hanazawa Kana AND Chihara Minori. You're talking two of my favorite characters of all time: Tachibana Kanade and Nagato Yuki IN THE SAME GAME.
Wait for me Nagato, VR IS COMING!!!!!
Although the main story contains almost no fan service, you can unlock omake episodes which seems to be strictly for fan service, and I'm not talking about boobies. I'm talking fan service for the seiyu nerds...... and boobies.
This ALWAYS happens when you spill coffee... in Japan... or so I hear
Unfortunately, unlocking all the extra episodes is actually quite a pain in the rear. It's not just a matter of selecting every option, 3 of the episodes require you to spend time with one of the three characters throughout the entire game, necessitating several playthroughs. Fortunately, this game has a skip feature that will automatically stop on new text. So following a guide, I was able to unlock all the extras in a few hours. I probably spent more time doing that than playing through the game, it's so short.
And yes, not only is there one other person on the planet that played this game, somebody actually took the time to figure out all the patterns and wrote a detailed walkthrough (internet, I love you).
The music was not bad. It was jazz and you can't go wrong with jazz.
Totally unrelated to this game. DON'T CARE
Score: 2 cute seiyus out of 5 points.
I really cannot recommend this game to anybody. But for a fan of the voice actresses like me, I enjoyed it. I really like the art style and CGs as well. If they added Taketasu Ayana, I would rate this best game of all time.
I know, this isn't even a game review at this point
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
Well, I just platinumed Criminal Girls INVITATION so I guess it's a good a time as any to review this awful piece of trash. As usual, the Japanese show a total immunity to seeing ALL CAPS as anything but some cool blob of English text. Thank god us Westerners are too enlightened to ever use a language without first properly understanding it.
What is this weaboo garbage?
So where do I even begin? First, do I need to remind the world that video games are an art form and this kind of lowbrow junk undermines the very fabric of our racially diverse, gender agnostic, politically correct society??? We should not tolerate this kind of thing if we are to ascend to a higher level of society that is cognizant and understanding of all people and their differing viewpoints.
The main problem with this game is that it doesn't try to play on a popular social topic of the times with an overblown sense of self-importance such as the indie masterpiece of mind numbing boredom and teenybopper first world problems game: Gone Home. All it succeeds at is being an extremely fun game with an addictive and original gameplay mechanic.
And no, I'm not talking about the "motivation" mini-games (PUNISH in Japanese). Since I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO interest in this kind of stuff, it was nothing more than just very simple mini-games to me. A bit of strategizing does come into play in terms of which skills to spend your OP points on, for example ice skills in the fire dungeon but there's not much more than that.
The pink fog was NISA censorship. The Japanese version showed EVERYTHING including the MRI Scan preorder DLC
No, the real fun comes when you unlock all the battle mechanics which is actually pretty far into the game. On the surface, it seems dead simple as there are no weapons or armor and you can only pick from 4 suggestions. But the real trick comes in trying to coax the right moves, especially in the boss battles by swapping in the right characters at the right time
The battle system starts out extremely simple so the "pro" contract reviewer paid to play 5 hours to knock out a review isn't gonna think it's so great
For example, one strategy I used was a chain (Yuko+Sako) continuous heal skill so you can unleash a powerful attack that only gets suggested at full health combined with an Attack X boost. Another example is a character that has two complementary skills: one keeps you alive when an attack >50% health would kill you and the other is an attack that gets stronger the lower your HP. There's nothing more satisfying than pulling off a huge move of 10K+ damage with a tiny sliver of health and coming back from the brink of death. You can really tell the balancing was well-tested because the true final boss has an attack that hits you a bunch of times with tiny hits to block this move.
Yeah, you can grind your way to the end but it's much more satisfying to go up against a boss under-leveled. Now, there are various endings to unlock by repeatedly beating the last boss so I just grinded afterwards to make it easier for myself but the first time was pretty epic. In addition, there's tons more to do after the first ending to get the true and true true ending so don't miss it.
The OST was nothing too special but this song was good
The story is microcosmic and very down-to-earth. If you insist on saving the world AGAIN, then it may not be the kind for you. Personally, I find themes such as getting picked on at school far more relateable that hits closer to home. (Disclaimer: As swim team captain with raiju girlfriend in High school and not the type to play weaboo shit, I'm just imagining what it must be like to be picked on at school.)
Score: 4 yet another obligatory disclaimer of how I'm totally not interested in these types of games out of 5 (47 hours to get final ending)
I had a lot of fun with Criminal Girls. Imageepoch has a knack for making deceptively simple and yet addictive and satisfying games (Fate/Extra review pending). If I was a "professional" reviewer, I could talk this and that and whatever diarrhea crap but at the end of the day, I had enough fun with it that it is in my book a great game. In fact, I may even try out the original PSP version for kicks one day.
The OG PSP version didn't have Live 2D and featured rhythm games
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 first time I ever played a Ys game was on the SNES. The game left such a bad taste in my mouth, traumatically wasting a precious video game rental, that I avoided the series for about a decade until Ys I & II on the PSP.
Despite my self-delusional fantasy of growing up in Japan, my <sarcasm>wonderful childhood</sarcasm> in New Jersey left me deprived of all the good games from Japan and things like the PC88/98, MSX, and FM TOWNS were totally unheard of. Nowadays, every Joe Schmo thinks they're some sort of expert because they can use Google but back in the dark ages, we only knew about whatever was on TV or at the local video rental (or Toys"R"Us for the rich kids). So yeah, good luck on finding out about the TurboGrafx-CD version in 1990.
This is SO nostalgic in my fake Japanese fantasy childhood.
(http://www.tokyorpgfactory.com/)
Starting up Ys I & II as a newcomer was quite a shock for me as a retro newb. I was frantically trying to figure out how to attack the enemies. Eventually, I got a sword and still it totally did nothing. Apparently, I wasn't retro enough to realize that your sword doesn't actually move and you just run into enemies. Now, if you have not played these games, just running into enemies sound completely boring and pointless but the trick is to not run at enemies head-on (this hurts you) but from at an angle or from behind.
You're better off going at it from behind (hardy harhar)
You may be tempted to think just running into stuff won't be a very fun game but you would be OH SO VERY WRONG. I beat both games on Hard and some of the boss battles are incredibly challenging. It will take all your reflexes, pattern learning, and coordination not to mention hours of practice to beat both games on hard. Be prepared for a very sore thumb and an intense feeling of satisfaction when you finally beat the game.
The first game especially was brutal at some parts. Yes, the bat boss in the first game was HARD AS HELL but at least you could grind for it. The last boss with the collapsing floor tiles was just ridiculous and there's no way to grind past the max level. I didn't really like how luck played a large part as sometimes you can get completely stuck if you're unlucky with a falling floor tile.
The second game is not as hard as they added magic and the ability to use your items during the boss battles. Having items during the battle made a huge difference in terms of difficulty but it's still no push over.
Shooting fireballs makes Ys 2 a bit easier even on the first boss
Overall, I shudder to think what the games are like on Nightmare mode.
The game has the original PC88, PC engine and a newly arranged soundtrack and it's all good even though I'm not normally a fan of rock guitar music. Koshiro Yuzo was one of the original composers so I don't think anything more needs to be said about that.
There are better tracks but you'll hear this one for so often, you'll never forget it
By now, everybody and their moms have talked the Ys series to death but I still have to add my two cents to say I&II is really a lot of fun. I would even go as far as to say I missed the bumping mechanic while playing Oath in Felghana. You have to do all this CRAP such as jumping and swinging your sword around that I'm just like UGH, I wish I could just run into shit.
Score: 3.5 OW MY THUMB!!!! out of 5.
I liked the PSP version so much that I even bought the PS2 version in case I'm ever in the mood for some good ol' bumping action on the big screen.
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
After several failed attempts at beating Sora no kiseki FC on two other platforms (yay Falcom), I finally marathoned this game on my trusty ol' Vita. See, what happened was Xseed (AKA the company that no longer does fan service games) FINALLY got around to localizing the sequel to this game. And in their usual classy manner, they decided to spoil this game in the first THREE WORDS of the steam description. I got so annoyed that I decided screw it, better finish this game and play SC (second chapter) as well before all the 'mericans spoil that too.
Guess which version is from the tasteful folks at Xseed?
Anyways, putting aside my disgust at Xseed's total lack of respect for spoilers, I'm glad to have finally finished the first game in a series that already has a total of 7 games so far. The trails series is the most recent and longest running series in the Legend of Heroes metaseries, which I first talked about in my last review of LOH3 or 2 or 2-1. In fact, this game was originally called Legend of Heroes VI as the sixth entry in the entire... oh, WHATEVER!
Of course, as a Jhipster, I am playing the Japanese exclusive Evolution remake for the Vita which features voice acting, sharp-ass graphics, and new artwork. I'm sure non-jhipsters can enjoy when it gets localized sometime around 2025, just in time for it to be completely obsolete with the PS5 super evolution 3d waifu Matrix VR remake... at least going by the current release schedule.
The first thing that really struck me about the Evolution version compared to the 2 disk UMD grindfest version or even the PS3 HD "port" (emphasis on the double quotes) was how damn sharp those pixels were on my fancy OLED screen. While the graphics remain mostly the same, the details on the shops, buildings, signs, and everything was just amazing. This is the only 2d RPG I know of so far where you can actually read the tiny signs without having to examine it.
Thanks for the ! but I can read the sign just fine already (click image for full size)
The other aspect that makes this game unique is just how much the NPCs have to say in the towns. Virtually every NPC has something different to say after every tiny, little story event. And if you have the patience to talk to every NPC over and over, tons of little stories will unfold. Some of them will react to the events of the story and others will talk about simple mundane things like the guy working at the bar babysitting his girlfriend's little sister while she goes to work. There's even a couple that are on a pilgrimage that you will see at every town as you travel from one place to another.
Enjoy as this poor guy's mom asks every girl in the village to marry her son
About half of the 75 hours it took me to beat this game was probably spent walking around town and talking to NPCs. Even if you aren't crazy like me, there is SO MUCH dialogue to the point where I'm tempted to put this game in the ADV category, which is why having the main story fully voiced is such a HUGE improvement. As an American, of course I'm offended when confronted with the notion of having to read so being able to listen to the dialogue with auto progress on is a huge bonus. The only annoying part is having to swipe every few minutes so the Vita doesn't go to sleep. I can't believe there is STILL no option to turn that off.
The voiced dialogue also features matching mouth movement in the character profiles and various expressions which is an attention to detail I really appreciate. Really, the level of detail and the hours and hours of voiced dialogue just boggles the mind when you consider Falcom is already releasing SC Evolution a mere 6 months after this one while Xseed took many years just to translate the text. (I've worked in Japan so I can imagine the poor salarymen slaving away at this.)
There was a free demo on JP PSN last time I checked
This visual novel even has an RPG aspect (lol), and the battle system is a very fun turn-based grid system. I played on hard and it felt like just the right amount of challenge. The level progression is VERY controlled. In other words, you level up right away in a new chapter and each level makes a huge difference but it rapidly slows down until the next chapter. The dip is sharp enough to the point where it's almost impossible to grind and become overpowered unless you enjoy watching your exp bar inch up a few pixels every battle (kinda reminds me of Fate/Extra in that regard). As a result, the boss battles were all fairly challenging for the most part.
If you've played the PSP Westerner newb edition, you may remember the option to retry a battle in easy mode and (apparently?) 100% success rate of escaping from battles. The easy retry option was never in the Japanese version and while I only played this game on hard, escape success rate generally starts around 60% (higher or lower depending on who has the initiative) and goes up after every failed attempt.
Sorry, no retry on easy or 100% escape rate here... NEWB
There is some strategizing you can do in terms of attack delays, and turn skipping to try to get the good field effects but not as much as a game like Grandia. Still, it's fun to fill up your CP gauge and take the enemies turn on a Zero craft field effect and get a special attack for free. However, it can get really annoying if, for example, a boss you've been pounding at forever gets a 50% heal field effect randomly.
That critical turn is gonna make this attack GOOOOD
As for the story overall, I obviously would have enjoyed it more if it wasn't spoiled at the outset. While it wasn't exactly jaw-dropping, most of the charm lies in the character interactions, which is ironic because that's exactly what was so sorely lacking in LOH White Witch. They both feature a male and female character traveling the land but unlike Julio and Chris, Joshua and Estelle actually have personality, back stories, and character development (OMG!!).
Now featuring back stories and personality
WHA??? Character development?
Score: 3.5 Jhipsters don't have to READ FOO (except 20+ hours of NPC gossip) out of 5 points (75 hours to beat)
For those who have played previous versions of the game, you have to check out chapter 2 fully voiced. As those who played can probably guess, there's a part that's way more hilarious voiced rather than just reading the (copious) amount of text. I have to say, Joshua sounds way better than I expected at that part. Ha ha.
Bonus Vita wallpaper for smug Jhipsters to use while playing on their Vita (and I'm not talking about PSP archives)
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
First, before I can talk about "Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch", let me first write a dissertation explaining the Legend of Heroes （英雄伝説） series. If you are already familiar with the series, feel free to skip this section.
Falcom (aka the company that makes at least 12 different versions of every game) for some reason put like every RPG they ever made under the single meta-series known as Legend of Heroes. It's like Final Fantasy, except, you would have something like FF XIII-4-2 the revenge of Lightning after she left, after that time she returned again Win 10 evolution remastered edition.
The LOH series graph. See? It's not so confusing once you create a FUCKING GRAPH for it.
Now that you have an an idea of how the series as a whole look (OR NOT), let's now talk about "The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch", otherwise known as Legend of Heroes III, otherwise known as the first entry in the Garghav trilogy, otherwise known as HOW FUCKING HARD CAN IT BE TO NUMBER SHIT?
You see, released in '94 for the PC98, this was the 3rd game in the Legend of Heroes series so it made sense to call it 3 in a series that only had 2 other games. However, this game has no relation to LOH 1&2 (I STILL haven't really figured out that Dragon Slayer shit yet). So really, it was the first part of the Garghav trilogy (3-1 if you will). As per Falcom's MO, it was then remade like a million times (ok ok, just 4 - Win, PS1, Saturn, and PSP) and by the time it came out for the PSP, there was so much shit in the LOH series, it was renamed to "Legend of Heroes Garghav Trilogy White Witch", dropping the III label. Ok, problem solved right? WRONG!
For some reason, the localizers decided to release the SECOND entry FIRST (maybe because it's a better game?). Then they released this game as a "sequel" with probably the worst possible name EVAR: "The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch". It's not the two of anything really except as maybe the second screw-up by the boneheads who published this game outside of Japan.
Now that we got THAT out of the way, let's talk about the game itself. It was.... ummm... OK? I guess it was a decent port from MiCROViSion whom I have never heard of before. The backgrounds sure look better than the Saturn version even though they removed the nice anime cut scenes and replaced it with lame and now totally outdated 3D stuff.
This is totally NOT in the PSP version
I dunno, I think my main issue with this game is that Julio and Chris were like the two most boring characters I've ever seen in a video game. They have zero backstory, no character development, and pretty much every other character in the game is way more interesting. Their whole pilgrimage was just SO BORING. You know what would make a great Hero's Journey? The story of the White Witch seemed to have potential for a great narrative. However, you only hear her story in bits and pieces while you're stuck with these two boring characters that have zero chemistry throughout the entire game.
The art looks fine but the two main characters have as much personality as a bag of bricks
The battle system is a weird real-time ATB kinda system where the characters just kinda walk around to attack and you can input commands at any time. There is no clear ATB bar or anything so you just kind of wait around for the characters to do their move. It was kind of challenging on the last boss because there are so many moves that are queued up, it's hard to get the characters to do what you want at the right time.
But beside the obligatory difficulty spike on the last dungeon and boss, this game was so easy that I was really glad it wasn't traditional turn-based. At some point in the game, I discovered that you can just cancel out of the first menu and the characters would just start walking around and attacking automatically. Most battles literally took one button press and some healing afterwards, a nice bonus for what is totally a multitask game.
There are some summon spells that Julio learns that have cool effects but there was absolutely no need to ever use them except to check out the neato graphics once in a while.
Score: 1.5 dunno why but it's just so damn mediocre points out of 5
I mean, the game tried to be interesting. There's some scenes that try to be funny, you meet a large cast of characters, and the land has some history and backstory. But at the end of the day, personally, Chris and Julio just wasn't cutting it for me. As a game that originally came out in 1994, I guess I can't be too harsh on it. But at least MiCROViSion (who??) could've made the gameplay a bit more interesting in the PSP remake. Maybe the Saturn or PC98 version is better but when it comes to the gameplay, story, and music, this game is as mediocre as they come.
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
My first thought when I started Dragon Quest 2 immediately after DQ1 was that I didn't like it. I don't want to sound like an old fogey that hates change but man, I really don't like the changes they made from DQ1.
Yes, this is totally going to be recurring theme here.
I don't want to say something as cliched and hackneyed as "with great power comes great responsibility" but dammit, you can't just tack more shit onto a finely tuned game and expect it to come out decent.
Sure, if you start a series with only one party member, the next natural progression is to add some more party members. I didn't even notice but DQ1 only had exactly one enemy each battle. Oh boy have I noticed it now!! Consider the average length of a one-on-one battle in DQ1. Yes, the whole thing is kinda slow but given that the only turn is either you or the enemy, everything ends pretty quickly. Now take that same slow battle and triple the size of the party (hence button presses) and increase the enemy count up to 7 enemies.
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You still here? Cause I think I just went into a temporary coma. Maybe the slowness wouldn't even be that bad because of course I'm multitasking this game if not for that AWFUL battle music. OH MY GOD. I thought something was up with the emulator on my PSP but NO, it's totally craptastically accurate.
Seriously, not only did I multitask this game hardcore, I did it with the sound OFF. Even though there's actually some halfway decent songs in the game, I don't even care because this is the song you will hear for like 80% of the time. I dunno, maybe it's just me? SquareEnix must have thought this diarrhea is hot shit (LOL get it??) because they included it in Theatrhythm Dragon Quest out of the total TWO DQ2 songs in the game.
Yet another example of more isn't always better is the world map, which must be about 4X+ times larger than DQ1. You can even travel to the original town from DQ1 and though most of places in DQ1 are gone and it's scaled down, you can still get a sense of how small the original map was as it's just a small part of the world in DQ2.
Everything is all hunky-dory until you get the boat, then it becomes an open world of getting lost and trying to find shit on random floor tiles based on cryptic clues from random strangers. This game is worse than even Mother in terms of aimlessly wandering around with no clue of where to go or what to do. Now, you can find a very basic world map that barely does the job but I didn't know that until after navigating vast expanses of ocean to find tiny islands in the middle of nowhere.
Even the awesomeness of the PSP wasn't enough to make this game palatable
For kids bored out of their minds with the ONE game their parents got, I get how wandering endlessly around a vast expanse of nothing but ocean would be a good way to waste time (FUN!!). But as an old fogey with 8 more DQ games on deck, the last thing I want to do is wander for hours looking for a TINY TINY island town in the middle of nowhere to find the goddamn gold key. (Yeah yeah, I talked to the random guy that said the gold key was to the south and his vague "directions" were TOTALLY over-simplified.) So once again, time to load up gamefaq and a world map on the good ol' internets.
Once you load up a walkthrough, you'll need to find item after item scattered around on the world map and also completely invisible. At least DQ1 told you how many steps an invisible item was but DQ2 has you scouring around the floor like some kind of crazy lunatic assuming you even found the clue (aka gamefaq).
Despite the dead simple story, the first game had a kind of charm as it made fun of the standard RPG tropes complete with the ohime-sama dakko. However, it feels like DQ2 actually takes itself seriously and thinks it's all that because it's selling like hotcakes. The endless fetch quest after fetch quest obviously designed to be as obscure as possible combined with the endless stream of painfully slow, random encounters flavored with the wonderful burps of the battle "music"(?) really made me glad to finally put this game down for good. I feel sorry for the poor kids in that last cave with the pitfalls, endless loops, and resetting paths back in the day without a gamefaq and the miracle of saves states.
Yeah, ok, they made some cheap and easy improvements sure. Like how you don't have to keep buying keys as using it once won't break it (that totally made no sense btw). And sure, you can save and whatnot in other towns besides the very first castle but it really doesn't make up for all the crap they added that makes the game slow as molasses. And no, throwing in a halfhearted, token pafu-pafu ain't gonna cut it either.
Score: 1 random stranger told me to crawl around the floor aimlessly searching for some "dew yarn" and now I'm in an insane asylum points out of 5.
PS. Buying the DQ collection on the Wii was NOT cheap and while DQ1 was good, I'm hoping DQ3 at least makes up for the scalper price.
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
スーパーダンガンロンパ2 さよなら絶望学園 (Super Danganronpa 2 Goodbye Despair Academy) known to non-Jhipsters as just "Goodbye despair" or "Happy Trigger Havoc 2" if you're a fake gamer on youtube who spends all your time trying to squeeze money from suckers online *COUGH* MJR *COUGH*, is umm ok so this is turning into a huge run-on sentence so let me try again. AHEM
Before I begin, there's not going to be any spoiler in terms of story here but I should point out that if you haven't played Danganronpa 1, you really should before playing the sequel. While not unplayable, you're pretty much gonna ruin the first game but really do I even need to say this? Like who skips straight to the end? Oh right, kids these days with their let's plays and instant gratification...
To cut straight to the chase, this game is paced far worse than it's predecessor. It really reminded me of that TV show Lost because I watched like maybe half of the first season, a quarter of season 2, then the last episode and I felt like I totally saved myself hours upon hours of puffed up suspense and fake cliffhangers. Ok ok, relax, this game is not even close to being as bad as Lost but the whole middle half of the game was a total drag.
In addition, I wasn't a big fan of the new trial mini-games. Rebuttal showdown was ESPECIALLY annoying. I'm not even sure how that worked on the PSP, as the analog controls were horrible on the VitaTV and I really needed to swipe on the touchscreen. Logical dive was also meh, I mean it was a tolerable, crappy snowboarding game. At least they simplified what used to be the tedious part of piecing together the crime in comic form.
Not a fan of this genre... I guess this is how non-fans of rhythm games felt
I feel like they tried too hard on adding more unnecessary gameplay elements in the trials, which ultimately didn't add much to the game. At the same time, they kept the flow of each chapter exactly the same as the predecessor: free time (presents ugh) → murder → investigation → trial. I mean it was ok in the first game but after a combined 70 hours of this across both games, you can't help but wish they changed up the formula a bit.
Besides the meh gameplay changes, the graphics are pretty much the same style except the environments are much more interesting and varied compared to the claustrophobic being trapped in a school setting.
Amazingly, Titty Typhoon apparently wasn't censo- ahem, edited for content.
You gain experience by walking of all things and of course, there's a trophy that would require TONS of grinding (ie walking) which sorry, I'm gonna pass on. Your Level doesn't seem to affect anything except maybe serve as a parody of other games. Speaking of parody, the plot in this game takes the already far-fetched, crazy setting of the first game and brings it up a notch. There are a lot of references to other games and playful 4th wall breaking. I mean for crying out loud, there's a rabbit mascot in a murder game though surprisingly, this game came out only 5 months after Virtue's Last Reward so... coincidence?
I played this bonus game like twice and I was like, meh, I have better things to do.
Overall, I had as much fun as the first game. It was easy to play and even though there was a huge drag in the middle, things finally did get interesting at the end. There were a couple plot points that were kinda disappointing but unlike Lost, it did explain everything though it was probably easier given the crazy nature of the game setting.
I liked the music a bit more this time around with a couple of tracks I actually liked. For example, the song for the end credits was pretty good.
More electric guitar is always a good thing
Score: 3.5 (+.5 mandatory bonus for Hanazawa Kana) oh god, they added an annoying rabbit on top of the annoying bear out of 5 (41 hours to beat)
There's more extras in this game as well, including the Miracle Monomi mini game (pictured above), which... whatever. However, a nice bonus is an alternate IF story of Danganronpa 1 in text form. I do intend on reading that at some point.
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
ダンガンロンパ 希望の学園と絶望の高校生 (Danganronpa Acadamy of hope and high school student of despair) or known to non-Jhipsters as "Happy Trigger Havoc" was on my radar for a while. When it got re-released bundled with the sequel for the Vita as "Danganronpa 1・2 Reload", I decided it was finally time to pull the trigger (oh god, sorry about the pun but it just slipped out).
Of course this game didn't have a chance in hell of making it out of Japan when it was originally released on the PSP in 2010. Maybe if it was on the DS and rebranded as "Phoenix Wright Origins: The Lost Chapters of Despair!" I mean after all, both games are about murders and trials and Ace Attorney even has red blood instead of the pepto-bismol censored stuff in Danganronpa.
If you think about it, Ace Attorney is just as violent yet somehow it's all just laughs and giggles
But times are a changin ie Vita isn't getting pirated like a cruise ship lost in Somalia. I think the fact that the entire series getting localized and still going strong for a 3rd entry really speaks to the success of the long tail niche markets with social media internet marketing. (OH LOOK AT ME! I'M SO SMART!)
I don't own the original PSP version of the game but I'm pretty sure the Vita version is pretty much the same save for the god awful load grinding like a awkward teenager at an 18+ club and wet tissue paper durability of the UMD disc of course. Well, at least the PSP version comes with a manual with tactile functionality made from some amazing Egyptian invention with papyrus plants.
Apparently this is what passes for manuals nowadays (0 pages)
Anyways, ah hem, the Vita version comes with the original demo as well that is pretty much a trimmed down version of the first murder. The cool thing about the demo is *SPOILER ALERT* it sets up the stage making you think the main love interest is the cute idol girl. *SPOILER ALERT* Suffice it to say, the main game is not quite the same as the demo.
I approve of the character design. God, I'm such a sucker aren't I?
As for the game itself, I thought it was easy to play and fun overall. I liked the character designs and the mysteries were interesting. My only real complaint is the lack of voice acting between trials. Yes, the trials were fully voiced but as an American, reading all those lines of dialogue in between the trials was a bit annoying.
The music was memorable but personally it wasn't my kind of thing. I guess it did a good job as a game soundtrack but I'm not gonna listen to it by itself.
OST was ok I guess, just not my kind of thing
The game definitely starts out pretty slow as they are just so many characters to talk to especially when they're all in one room. There were times when I just got tired of trying to find the right presents from the gacha machine and talking to random people during the free times. It's not like you're going to unlocked rich backstories for most of the characters. I spent a lot of time with the swimmer and I think I learned that she liked doughnuts. (I dunno, it's been a while.)
Hey, I know how to swim too, wanna go out?
The game definitely picks up as you have less and less people to talk to. I just liked doing the investigation and the trials, really. The trials were definitely more dynamic compared to Ace Attorney as you have to shoot moving words. It also has parts where you select evidence like AA and even a mini-rhythm game. Sure the logic got a little, shall we say, vague near the end but the game was friendly enough to replay whatever you failed. The ending was very satisfying and you can't get those awesome death sequences on the DS.
LONG LIVE THE PSP!!!
Score: 3 god that bear is annoying though out of 5 (30 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
You know when you have a really cool idea for a story, character, or setting but not enough to develop it into anything fleshed out? Well, Black Rocker Shooter is kinda like that but the original illustrator just rolled with it cause INTERNET. The rest, as they say is internet viral/social/whatever history.
Looks cool so let's just roll out a whole media franchise on it
I was first exposed to Black Rock Shooter as these viral things go pretty randomly. It was probably an AMV or MAD from a related youtube vid which led me to the OVA, which brings us here to the game.
The famous(?) supercell song
Given the grassroots nature of the whole BRS thing, there really is no canonical anything as it's media developed out of nothing more than a concept and the game is totally unrelated to any other BRS media works. It definitely took an interesting approach as the story begins with the human race almost entirely wiped out.
You thought other post-apocalyptic games were hardcore? This game starts out with literally only 12 humans left alive after 2 die right at the start of the game. My first thought at the beginning of the game was, you're the only girl (weapon thingy?) in the ENTIRE WORLD surrounded by 12 men? UH OH. Turns out my fears were unfounded as the story is not about any sort of fan service and is actually quite serious (the unlockable costumes on the other hand...).
The main story is fairly short and can be completed in about 12 hours or so and it's exactly the type of story that every mainstream gamer would hate. Without going into spoilers, let's just say it's not exactly Hollywood happy endings and was very artsy, indie film-ish. I personally loved it as it definitely breaks the mold.
Try dem graphics on the DS in 2011
The graphics are great as Imageepoch (RIP) is the master of the PSP platform and I was already biased towards the BRS character designs. The gameplay was fun as well, especially the boss battles. In classic Imageepoch fashion, it tries lots of new things and battles are a mix of balancing dodging, blocking, shooting (of course), and special moves along with stamina and recovery time. My only complaint is that the standard enemies are often recycled and VERY generic.
While the main story is fairly short, there's tons of things to unlock in the EX missions including the most powerful, best looking special attacks and some sexy costumes (this is a Japanese game after all). I tried to swipe my credit card on the PSP to buy the costume DLC but it wasn't working for some reason. Amazingly, it appears to be unlock by playing the game??? WEIRD!
The OST definitely has a few gems
Overall, I really enjoyed this game. The music was really good, I loved the character designs (WRS OMG), and the boss battles were a blast. It was also fun unlocking all the cool stuff post end-game. Yes, the regular battles could get a bit repetitive and some of the bike missions were a pain in the ass but I definitely think this is one of those underrated titles that mainstreamers are totally gonna write off.
Score: 3 when costumes could be unlocked without a credit card out of 5 (27 hours played)
+.5 optional bonus point for the EXTREMELY short skirt costume.
The PSN version is only available in English as Imageepoch published games were pulled from the Japanese PSN store. :-(
I LOVE YOU IMAGEEPOCH! PLZ COME BACK!!!!!
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 naturally started Final Fantasy II right after beating the first one and of course, stopped playing it not long after.There's only so much final fantasying I can do before I need to take a break. Anyway, I came back to it after I got tired of how SLOW DQ2 was with the awful changes they made from DQ1 (review pending). I guess there's only so much dragon questing I can do before I need to take a break from that too.
Not that there's anything wrong with FF2. In fact, it's far better than FF1 as sequels should be (but sadly often isn't *cough* DQ2 *cough*). I didn't like it much at first because it was just so different from most RPGs I've played (I don't want to brag but I've played a few). But thankfully, I was able to keep an open mind and the game eventually grew on me. It probably helps that the PSP version I think has a re-balanced leveling system (ie easy mode for retro hipster wannabes like me).
My first impression of FF2 was WTF? I was wandering around the world map at the start of the game and then just DIED. You see, this game is linear OLD SCHOOL. At least DQ1 warned you that crossing a bridge would result in stronger enemies. Here, the only hint that you're not supposed to go somewhere is not mountains or a fancy 3d tunnel (*cough* FFX *cough*), but rather monsters that just DESTROY YOU. Game over. No retry option. Go back to title screen. Thanks for playing!
Looking for INSTANT DEATH? Just cross the eastern bridge and go north.
Not only does FF2 feature the linear world map of death, you also can't fight for shit in the beginning. Basically, the leveling system has been micromanaged to hell and you need to level every single possible thing separately. That means because your weapon levels start at zero, you are constantly missing until you level up at least one type of weapon for each character. So yeah, FF2 can make quite a negative impression in the beginning. It's like some kind of weird hybrid between more complicated PC RPGs and the stripped down console RPGs of the time.
However, once I got used to this weird hybrid, I actually enjoyed the mechanics quite a bit. For example, in one part of the game, Gai, despite having like double the HP of everybody else, was constantly getting wailed on. So I put a shield on him and even though his DEF stayed the same, after he leveled up his shield skills, he didn't get hit quite so hard anymore. The girl of course, per RPG sexist rules, went in the back row. LOL
Before my ascension to Jhipster, I was big into PC RPGs. In fact, my first RPG was Curse of the Azure Bonds on the C64 (with code wheel copy protection and the works). So having a console RPG with a tint of PCness was actually kind of refreshing.
My first RPG. That's magic armor in case any SJWs were wondering. You would know this if you read the book. DUH!
The dialogue mechanic is another example of this approach. While there are no complicated branching dialogue options, you can memorize words that are highlighted in red. You can then ask characters questions based on the list of words you memorized. Still very simple but just a tad more PC-like than any other FF game. Of course, people must've hated this approach because all of FF2's game mechanics were scrapped, never to be introduced again in any other FF title EVAR.
It's no Fallout but hey at least they tried.
The story in FF2 feel like the beginnings of what makes FF stand out as a series instead of the standard RPG clones FF1 felt like. While the story is still basic and the villain one-dimensional, there are hints of the character development and touching moments we'll see much better fleshed out in later games. So not a great story but it's a decent start to an evolving series.
Is it just me or is it getting HOT in here?
I have to give FF2 credit for trying some new things that actually worked pretty well (at least in the PSP version) despite some flaws. It also introduced Chocobos and Cid, two things that would continue on for well over a decade. The PSP remake also has a great CG opening intro that actually relates to the game (unlike the PSP remake of FF1) and several really neat non-CG cut scenes. It also has a great OST especially as you near the end of the game.
Game has way better songs but this is still pretty darn good for listening to like 1000+ times
FF2 has a lot going for it and I liked it quite a bit. However, at the end of the day, it's still very much a multitask game. I actually played this game for a bit with my full attention and it was a tedious cycle of random encounters and holding down circle. Yes, I had to use magic on certain monsters (red, black, and yellow blobs in classic FF fashion) so it was maybe 10% less of holding down circle compared to FF1 but there were tons of buff/debuff spells and whatnot that I never felt the need to even try. Fight, cure, fire, ice, and thunder is really all you need for the entire game.
Ok ok, that's a slight exaggeration. The last dungeon had a large difficulty spike so I had to use flare and holy but it was such a pain to level up the spells, that I just grinded a few hours to completion. I never even grinded a spell past level 9. I can't even imagine how long it must take to grind to 16 levels. And by the end, the economy was so broken, I could just elixir my way to the end of the game with totally weak spells. Of course, this meant that I may have missed out on some cool spell animations but ah well, I simply didn't have the patience. Especially since Ultima requires leveling OTHER spells to be effective. Speaking of Ultima, there's some interesting FF lore about why it was so weak in the original version with some harsh life lessons for the poor unwary kids back in the day.
In conclusion, while not a bad game, FF2 wasn't quite innovative enough to warrant my full attention.
Score: 2.5 wish this game had a level for auto-battle/encounter rates, it has a level for freakin' everything else out of 5 (25 hours to beat)
As a bonus, after playing FF1, I felt like a retro-gamer expert when I jumped into LAVA with no hesitation. YOU WON'T SCARE ME THIS TIME WITH 1,000 DEGREES LIQUID OF DEATH!!
"Your entire body is covered in lava!!!" "Hmph! It's just a flesh wound"
The PSP version also has some weird random caves scattered throughout the land and a new game plus "Soul of Rebirth" bonus quest that I have not delved into. Soul of Rebirth seems cool cause it makes it worth grinding the constantly switching weak ass 4th party member. Of course, I had no clue about that while playing the game so I'm probably screwed but we'll see. Maybe I will revisit after I finish FF4's bonus quest.
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
