Developer(s): AstralShift
Publisher(s): SQUARE ENIX
Platform(s): TBA
Release Date: TBA

Official Website

If there is one game that my mind keeps going back to from my brief time at PAX West 2023, it has to be Little Goody Two Shoes. Set in the town of Kieferberg, you play as Elise – an incredibly expressive woman who dreams of riches who discovers a red pair of shoes that will change her destiny. The game itself is split into two parts. First, there is a daytime portion where you’re in the town, playing mini-games, exploring romantic interests, and trying to allay suspicions of your fellow townies. Second, there are the nighttime portions where Elise is solving puzzles and navigating dungeons with enemies in them. Both halves couldn’t feel more different, yet they are clearly meant to be integrated into one whole.

Described to me as an homage to JRPGs, Little Goody Two Shoes has beautiful graphics that remind me a lot of the anime sprites from the Sega Saturn classic Magic Knight RayEarth. The character designs are sharp and expressive while showing off a range of emotions. The city of Kieferberg itself is gorgeous too, and it is a city that would fit well in with any number of classic JRPGs from the 1990s. Even the horror-filled night sections are darkly cute, and they are extremely stylish in a foreboding way as the enemies try to kill me.

My Little Goody Two Shoes demo dropped me into the first nighttime dungeon of the game. Remarkably, the game doesn’t tell you what to do or how to proceed. This is, again, an homage to classic JRPGs. I instead had to try out everything to get an idea of how to proceed. I ended up checking the mirror, letting it crack, picking up a key from the floor, unlocking a treasure chest near the bed, and finding another key inside that let me unlock the door to escape that room. As I proceeded to a room where I had to find four keys to unlock the central door, I encountered candles that would trigger and try to harm me as I came within range whenever I went from corner-to-corner opening chests. While it wasn’t obvious on how to survive them, I ended being okay if I ran away from them before they could spin around and damage me. It is very weird not having a way to defend myself in a dungeon, though it definitely managed to amp up the scare factor because of it.

When the demo moved along to the daytime, it was then that I was told about the Hunger mechanic in the game. Elise, like people in real life, has to eat. And I ended up snacking down on some food in my inventory to help keep her well-fed. As I quickly progressed through various conversations in the daytime, I couldn’t help but be struck by how expressive Elise is. She is not a meek, mute protagonist. Instead, she is a fleshed-out woman who wants money, can be selfish, and is a real go-getter.

There is a different type of gameplay during the daytime in Little Goody Two Shoes, but it doesn’t make the game any less scary. (Images owned by AstralShift/SQUARE ENIX).

As I went around town, I ended up helping one of the townies to chop wood. What I was not expecting was a full-blown mini-game that required me to chop a bunch of wood under a time limit while also not chopping literally anything else that appeared. This mini-game was depicted like a yesteryear mini-game with limited buttons and pixelated graphics inside a faux arcade cabinet. And honestly? It was fun and simple, which I am guessing was the whole point.

“AstralShift has managed to pull off different types of fear and tension in a spectacular way that left me desperately wanting more than what this demo had to offer in this gorgeous world.”

The real show-stopping moment for me of the daytime portion was when Elise launched into a full-on musical song cutscene that, if it was on Broadway, would have been her “I want” song. The music and singing were fantastic, it told me so much about her character, and the graphics kept switching from anime-inspired, to a doll spinning in circles that the developers made in real life, to all these different styles of graphics. It was insane to watch, and it made me giddy with excitement for how unexpected it was. It was like I was transported back into the world of LUNAR: Silver Star Story Complete, Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, or even Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon on the Nintendo 64. I am a complete sucker for unexpected musical numbers, especially ones that help to further the underlying plot, and this one delivered on the concept.

As I was running short on time at PAX West, since we were closing in on the final minutes before the show shut down for the year, the developer assisting me told me to skip along to the final dialogue section of the Little Goody Two Shoes demo. At that point, Elise was trying to allay the townspeople’s suspicious about a woman that had come into town that the extremely superstitious townspeople were wondering about being a witch. I found myself having to select different dialogue options – all of which sounded good – to help explain how I knew this mysterious woman. As I kept selecting dialogue options, I honestly felt a lot of the same foreboding that I felt during the nighttime portion of the game as I was realizing that I wasn’t fooling anyone and that they were going to see through us both. Sure enough, by the end of the conversation, it was clear that the townspeople didn’t believe my wildly spun tales of her being family and I saw that the town’s suspicion of me had gone up.

And that is where the brilliance of Little Goody Two Shoes shows up. It is so easy to build a tense game by stripping away your character’s weapons and dumping them in a world that wants to kill them. After all, it is scariness that is happening to you. It is much, much harder to build that tension by taking that same character and inserting them into a situation where all the bad things can happen when it is completely in your control. I had to weigh the dialogue options and choose the lie that I thought sounded best. It was clear that things were spiraling out of control very early on during my conversation with the townspeople, and it scared me just as much as any candle attacking and draining my health could do. AstralShift has managed to pull off different types of fear and tension in a spectacular way that left me desperately wanting more than what this demo had to offer in this gorgeous world.

I cannot wait for Little Goody Two Shoes to come out, and neither should you. This game is being published as part of the SQUARE ENIX Collective, and I cannot wait for it to come out.

Are you excited for Little Goody Two Shoes?

What do you think of video game musical numbers?

Let us know in the comments below!

The post PAX West 2023 IMPRESSIONS: Little Goody Two Shoes appeared first on oprainfall.

Developer(s): Cygames
Publisher(s): XSEED
Platform(s): PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC
Release Date: February 1, 2024
Official Website

Before I started my hands-on demo of Granblue Fantasy: Relink, I had one question: “Do I need to have played either the mobile game Granblue Fantasy or Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, as I saw during EVO 2022, in order to understand this game?” The answer was simply “No.” Granblue Fantasy: Relink can be played as a standalone title.

With that out of the way, let’s dive right in.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink is an action RPG that can have up to four players playing at the same time as they hack and slash their way towards Estalucia, which is billed as “a fabled island beyond the end of the skies.” In my demo, there are multiple characters I could play as, and each had a different skillset. For example, Katalina, who is one of the easiest characters to play as, performs combos by using the Square and Triangle buttons, while Sigfried (one of the most difficult to use) requires you to carefully time your Square button presses to power up his attacks, and successfully timing all the attacks in a combo unleashes a powerful finisher. For my demo, I chose to try out Katalina.

The Granblue Fantasy: Relink demo itself was fairly simple: clear some trash enemies, take on a boss, and then – if I have time – take on an extra secret boss. This was clearly meant to be a demo to show off the gameplay combat, and it definitely did so.

Combat itself is fairly simple: attack with the Square and Triangle buttons, combo when I can, and hold down the R1 button when I want to use my cooldown skills. I was able to push my way through the trash enemies at the start until I got to the demo’s first boss battle. When it came to my first boss, Gerascene (a giant skeleton) monster, I quickly realized that button mashing would only carry me so far. I started to have to Dodge with R2 as I learned how to read the various attacks, and I would strike whenever I had the opportunity. By the time I was able to clear that boss, I had managed to fulfill all the optional criteria to go into battle against the Rock Golem extra boss that I was unable to beat before the demo’s time limit expired.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink is a four-player (real or CPU) co-op title that is designed as an action RPG. (Images courtesy of XSEED).

The combat itself, despite me never having played before, was easy for me to grasp and make me feel powerful. I hammered the various basic attacks that Katalina had while throwing in the various skills (naturally on a cooldown timer) that she also had available with the additional press of a shoulder button.  The combat itself was silky smooth, and I felt like I grasped it quickly as I was able to button mash quickly through the first few rounds of enemies. Dodging was extremely responsive, and I liked how I didn’t have to expertly time it like some other video games out there in order to be successful.

I mentioned at the top that you have three additional teammates while you play Granblue Fantasy: Relink. These CPU teammates fade, clearly purposefully, into the background somewhat. They are strong enough that I didn’t feel like I had to babysit them in any of the battles that I was in, yet they clearly were not going to be the deciding factor in whether I win or not. I couldn’t, for instance, hide away in a corner of the battlefield and let them simply take on my enemies for me. While the CPU teammates did contribute to the overall battle, I was expected to do the lion’s share of combat and to carry my team to victory.

What my teammates were extremely useful for, though, was for Link Attacks and Chain Bursts. When you and your teammates hit an enemy, their stun gauge goes up. When the stun gauge is full, and your party’s link gauge is full, all four of you can perform Link Attacks that slow down the enemy during ‘Link Time,’ give you bonus effects, and cause great damage to the enemy. Chain Bursts are when you use a Skybound Art in conjunction with your teammates in order to do great damage to your enemy. The Chain Bursts are big, flashy, and come with a miniature cutscene that you can get watch as each character pulls off their move in turn – assuming that, of course, you can hit the appropriate buttons in the fairly generous time window that flashes on screen for it.

It was a real surprise to me that both the Link Attacks and the Chain Bursts happened fairly frequently during combat and it felt more than coincidental that my teammates always seemed to have their Skybound Arts ready to go whenever mine was ready to go. This was a good thing, as it really made me feel super powerful and it felt like my foursome was unstoppable as I would be pulling off crazy fun Chain Bursts and Link Attacks often enough to add a lot of flavor to the combat without completely taking it over and making it just purely combat cutscenes.

There is one more thing that is really worth mentioning: this is a beautiful game with gorgeous character models. Cygames has really gone all out in making a game that is stunning to look at. I kept being impressed with how pretty it all was, especially during combat. The graphics are also sharp enough that I never felt like I was getting lost in combat or what was happening on screen. It also felt like a natural evolution of the 2-D graphical style of Granblue Fantasy: Versus fighting game as it was transitioned into a 3-D world.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with the demo of Granblue Fantasy: Relink at PAX West 2023. If the full game is anything like the demo, then there is going to be an action RPG game that a lot of people are going to enjoy. I certainly wouldn’t mind fighting my way through in a copy at launch.

Who do you want to play as in Granblue Fantasy: Relink?

Have you picked up any of the other titles in the franchise?

Let us know in the comments below!

The post PAX West 2023 IMPRESSIONS – Granblue Fantasy: Relink appeared first on oprainfall.

Developer(s): SQUARE ENIX
Platform(s): PlayStation 4/PlayStation 5
Release Date: TBA

Official Website, X, Instagram, Facebook

In the waning hours of PAX West, I was able to queue up to try out FOAMSTARS at the SQUARE ENIX booth, and I found quite the fun multiplayer shooter that is anything but a Splatoon clone.

First, the basics: FOAMSTARS is a multiplayer title where you pick a character, go into an arena in one of several game modes, and shoot at each other. The guns you use are filled with colored foam that reminded me a lot of soap suds. The mode we were able to try at PAX West was four-on-four and called ‘Smash the Star.’ In Smash the Star, your team tries to kill off seven of the opposing team. Once that happens, one of their members is marked as the ‘star’ and gets buffed up some. If your team can knock out their star before their team can knock out your star, then your team wins! There is also a gameplay element that the foam can stack up on each other. This means that if you are strategic, you can help barricade part of the course to be a lot less friendly to the opposing team with how you shoot your foam out.

In FOAMSTARS, you play as characters who shoot colored foam in a brightly colored, neon-dripping, world. (Images courtesy of SQUARE ENIX).

During the entire time I was demoing FOAMSTARS, the one thought that kept going through my mind was how amazing the soundtrack was. It had that cozy lofi/chillhop with a bit of pop feel to it that will have an easy future as part of a gaming music’s YouTube streaming channel. It is rare that I play a demo and think ‘Oh, I am buying this soundtrack,’ but FOAMSTARS did it for me. I really, really hope SQUARE ENIX will put it out for me to purchase at some point in the future, or at least on a streaming service.

The graphics are quite gorgeous and uniquely stylish too. In my FOAMSTARS demo, the world, characters, and foam all popped with neon colors that really stood out against the darkened environment. FOAMSTARS is clearly one of those games that you will be able to tell what it is just by glimpsing a little bit of the gameplay. The stark contrast in colors also made it incredibly easy to tell your team’s foam color from your opponent’s foam colors. And honestly? I loved it.

The colors really stand out in FOAMSTARS, and it would be nearly impossible to mistake the graphics as from a different game. (Image courtesy of SQUARE ENIX).

Of course, FOAMSTARS rises and falls based upon the gameplay itself. During the two rounds I played, I purposefully picked out two characters that had wildly different gameplay styles. First, I tried out the Baristador, who carried a portable cannon-like device. This character worked better at a range, as I would be able to shoot at opponents further away from me and I found myself quickly adapting a more supportive role to my teammates who were shooting up close with other characters. In my second round, I played Soa. She is a close-range weapon user who fires her foam from pistol-like weapons. With her, I naturally found myself pressing hard against the other team in order to kill them as soon as possible. Each character also has to reload their weapon with foam occasionally, and that is accomplished by hitting a controller button.

FOAMSTARS has a lot of different characters to play as, and each plays differently in the game. (Image courtesy of SQUARE ENIX).

It would have been very, very easy to make these characters more or less clones of each other and make them fairly interchangeable. Instead, SQUARE ENIX smartly made the characters, at least these two, have wildly different strengths. I tried at one point to charge in with the Baristador, and I found myself getting slaughtered almost immediately. I also tried to hang back with Soa, and I found her to be completely useless at a range. This diversity in combat roles will only serve to enhance the overall gameplay and ensure that people cannot just spam one type of character and win it all over and over again. And in fact: in the second match, my team had a variety of roles on it, and we faced a full four-person Soa team. While it did get close at times, we ultimately did wipe out the Soa team because they simply didn’t have an answer for those of us who were hitting them from a distance.

The controls handled well, and I was mostly pleased with how the foam shooting went. I did die quite a bit, though I freely admit that I absolutely deserved it when I did. By the time the second match rolled around, I was even able to get a few kills myself. If there was anything I didn’t like, it just was that sometimes I felt like the foam ran out a little too fast, and I hated having to reload- even though that was quick as well. I also took my time to stack up the foam, and although it sometimes felt like I was just building into a foam mountain, it absolutely had a purpose in helping to hinder the opposing team on the field’s movement.

When you first see the gameplay, your mind will go to the other multiteam shooter game out there: Splatoon. Having spent way too many hours playing Splatoon, I can safely say that these two games play nothing alike. In Splatoon, Nintendo made the focus of the game to be covering the arena with as much paint as possible in various modes while shooting the opposing team is a secondary measure to help hinder their progress. In FOAMSTARS, just from my short demo, I could tell that the opposite was in effect: you were to spend your time hunting down and killing off your opponents, and the environmental effects were just a side effect of you shooting out foam. In broad strokes, these two games are different from each other in such a large way that it would be hard to confuse the two.

I am pretty excited to see what modes FOAMSTARS has when it releases, as the overall game is deceptively simple to learn yet clearly is not so simple to fully play. There will be inevitable comparisons to Splatoon, but the emphasis on combat and the potential for vertical foam-building makes this game anything but a copycat. Instead, FOAMSTARS manages to stand on its own as an independent title. Unfortunately, the game does not have a release date yet. If the end product is anything like the demo, then it will be hard to not recommend it to everyone.

What do you think of FOAMSTARS? What kind of modes do you hope to see in the game?

Let us know in the comments below!

The post PAX West 2023 IMPRESSIONS: FOAMSTARS appeared first on oprainfall.

Developer: BattleBrew Productions
Publisher(s): Marvelous Europe, XSEED Games
Platform(s): Windows
Release Date: November 9, 2023
Website / X

Cuisineer is a game that you play as Pom, a young adventurer who has to manage the family restaurant, which is mired in debt, after her parents leave a note that they are going on a trip around the world. Pom takes this responsibility cheerfully on, but restaurants take a lot of work. Pom has to purchase and place furniture in the restaurant, pick out decorations, and of course…go out into the rougelite world around her to find ingredients. After all, if Pom doesn’t have ingredients, then she cannot make dishes for customers, and if she cannot make dishes for customers, then she cannot wipe away the restaurant’s debt. In the short 15 minutes that I spent with Cuisineer at the beginning of the game, I found a title that oozes cuteness and charm. Pom is extremely adorable, and I loved how her bubbly personality seemed ready to take on any and all challenges that come her way as she tries to bring the soon-christened Potato Palace to life.

There are two halves to Cuisineer: the cooking and city side of things, and the world exploration and combat side of things. You have the freedom to pick how you want to spend your days in Cuisineer: you can run the restaurant all day, you can farm items in the outside world all day, or you can do a mixture of the two by cooking in the morning and then going out exploring the procedurally-generated world after you close the restaurant.

The game functions as more of a restaurant management system than any kind of deep cooking simulator. For example, a customer would walk into my shop. If I had the ingredients for what they wanted to eat, they would come sit down and I would make the dish by pressing a button at the nearby cooking pot. In a few seconds, the dish is ready and you bring it over to the customer. The customer eats, pays, and leaves while you collect the money. This is not a simulator game like Cooking Mama where you have to actually prepare the dish. Instead, you’re running a restaurant and trying to make sure that you have the ability to give the customer what they want in an efficient manner. While I only was able to serve a couple customers in my short demo, I felt like this could be a hectic but fun aspect of the game once I’ve really expanded the Potato Palace and I’m trying to serve up 10 or more customers at once and give them that great restaurant experience they deserve.

Cook dishes for customers in the Potato Palace and head out into the world at large to farm up the necessary ingredients. Cuisineer has a gameplay loop that genuinely works for it. (Images courtesy of XSEED Games).

However, you cannot just run a restaurant as you need to farm up cooking ingredients in order to make the recipes your potential customers want to buy, and this is where the roguelite aspect of Cuisineer comes out. I equipped my spatula weapon, which allows me to attack enemies, and I head into a world to slaughter whatever I can as everything gives me different ingredients I need. As I wandered around the map that has a 2.5D overhead perspective, I found myself quickly gathering a variety of ingredients while occasionally getting the random gear drop. In my run, I wound up with a nicer spatula that I obtained as part of the storyline and a pair of boots. The combat was very snappy and responsive, and I quickly learned the attack patterns of the cute enemies I came across. When I got damaged, I would down a bit of boba tea to recover my health. When I died in the field near the end of my demo, I did not lose all of my possessions but instead only lost some of them. All of this made me feel like the different mechanics, especially the death mechanic, makes Cuisineer is a fairly forgiving title that new players to the rougelite genre are meant to enjoy. I particularly liked that I didn’t feel pressured to run away from the slightest hint of danger, as I knew I wouldn’t lose all the progress and items I’ve gathered since the last save point if I did kick the proverbial bucket.

And honestly? All of this works.

The thing that surprised me the most about my demo of Cuisineer at PAX West 2023 was that I was more incentivized to go out hunting in the roguelite world around me not for gear drops to better fight with, but for ingredients to run my restaurant with. I can see myself easily opening the Potato Palace for a few hours, running low on ingredients, and then heading out into the world (I explored the Green Ruins in my demo) to fight and gather up what I need to re-open the next day. More sales means more money and that your restaurant’s reputation rises so that even more customers will come.

Pom can recover health out in the filed by consuming boba tea that she can buy in town. (Image courtesy of XSEED Games).

Roguelite games are all about finding that (slightly more forgiving) gameplay loop for players to explore as they work their way through the game, and Cuisineer definitely figured that part out. I absolutely adored the various inhabitants of Parell, the city your character is based in, and I wanted to push my exploring out as far as I could to the outer limits of the roguelike area. Cuisineer is definitely onto something potentially great here, and I am excited to see where Pom’s adventure sends her with this title releases in early November.

What kind of dishes do you want to serve to customers in the Potato Palace?

Let us know in the comments below!

The post PAX West 2023 IMPRESSIONS: Cuisineer appeared first on oprainfall.

Developer: Nintendo
Platform(s): Nintendo Switch
Release Date: October 20, 2023
Official Website

The single most exciting part of Super Mario Bros. Wonder is also the part of the game that I want to write the least about: the Wonder Flower.

In various levels, whenever Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, a Yoshi, or Nabbit touches a Wonder Flower, the entire world around them changes from the standard course to a crazy and magical experience, and it shows exactly why Nintendo has been the company leading the gaming industry since the Ultra Hand was created by Gunpei Yokoi in 1966. In the 15 minutes I played the demo, I saw multiple Wonder Flower effects that showed off the insane creativity of Nintendo, ranging from herds of blue buffalo charging across the bottom of the screen to shooting stars raining down from the sky that invoked the opening of Super Mario Galaxy. Everything I saw made me smile in some way and I wished that I could just drink in the full experience instead of continuing to plod along in the course.

Whenever you collect a Wonder Flower, everything in the Super Mario Bros. Wonder world changes to something unexpected and unique. (Photos courtesy of Nintendo).

It also puts the Wonder in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and I absolutely do not want to spoil it – or any of the other special stage effects – for anyone else who is reading this. I believe that the Wonder Flower is the ultimate selling point of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and it is why it will be a day one purchase for me and many others: because once you see it in action, you will become a believer in this game.

During my demo at Nintendo Live 2023: Seattle, I played with two other people who I competed with just as much as I cooperated with. I played Luigi, one played Princess Peach, and the third played a Yoshi. I picked Luigi purposefully to see if he got a higher jump like he previously did in Super Mario Bros. 2/Super Mario USA for the NES/Famicom or Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, and I was a little disappointed that he didn’t, as almost all of the characters instead seemed to play identically. The world’s graphics were gorgeous as always, and this definitely felt like a natural graphical follow-up to the 2019 release of Super Mario. Bros. U Deluxe, itself a re-release of the excellent 2012 Wii U game Super Mario Bros. U.

The most interesting character concepts were the various playable Yoshi and Nabbit. If you select one of those characters, you cannot take damage and you can do things like ride Yoshi (which I repeatedly did!) and they had their famed flutter jump. To compensate for this, however, Yoshi characters and Nabbit cannot transform when they receive a powerup item. The inclusion of Yoshi/Nabbit is clearly an attempt by Nintendo to ensure that players who aren’t great at platforming games and who want to simply see all that Super Mario Bros. Wonder has to offer are able to do so. And it is honestly a smart inclusion of Nintendo to do so, since it only widens the potential family gamer pool of who can play all together.

You can hop onto Yoshi’s back in Super Mario Bros. Wonder and the player controlling Yoshi can lead you around the map. (Image courtesy of Nintendo).

I mentioned earlier that Super Mario Bros. is all about competing as much as it is cooperative, and that is the absolute truth. When I was hit by an enemy and I turned into little Luigi, I was still often competing with the other players to get various powerups to get back into the action. I also competed with other players to get coins, the three large purple coins in each course, and even who could land the highest on the flagpole at the top of the course. It didn’t feel vicious at any point, but instead was more fun than anything. There was also a lot of cooperation at play too: At one point, we wanted to get to a purple coin, but it was trapped by a large set of smashable blocks. We ended up working together to get an elephant powerup (more about that in a moment), and then let that player smash those blocks so we could then get the coin. There were other moments of teamwork in luring one of the buffalo creatures over to smash other blocks, and hitting each other’s ghost (when you die, you turn into a ghost that you can control on the screen) to bring that player back to life. There is a real constant tug-and-pull between being cooperative and being competitive that just simply works.

“I believe that the Wonder Flower is the ultimate selling point of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and it is why it will be a day one purchase for me and many others: because once you see it in action, you will become a believer in this game.”

Another feature I, with the patience of my other players, explored during my Super Mario Bros. Wonder demo was the Badge system. Badges are a feature familiar to anyone who has played Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door on Nintendo GameCube or Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga on GameBoy Advance or Nintendo 3DS: you equip a badge, and you can get a special effect that can change your character’s gameplay. I went through several badges that ranged from a badge that let us jump higher after charging for a moment to getting coins whenever we kill an enemy. Intriguingly, I led my party to a course that had a simple goal: learn how to use the Wall Jump I Badge, clear the stage with it, and get the Wall Jump I Badge to potentially equip in the rest of the game. I loved having a real reward for clearing a stage instead of just moving onto the next level, and I hope Nintendo has these types of winnable badges scattered frequently throughout the game.

The Elephant Powerup proved to be useful during my Nintendo Live 2023: Seattle demo. (Image courtesy of Nintendo).

If you watched the Nintendo Treehouse video linked above, or checked out any of the other screenshots here, then you can tell that Super Mario Bros. Wonder looks like a beautiful game. I loved all the little details in the world, and the bright colors that really popped out of the screen. Even though the Nintendo Switch was released in March 2017, making this console seven years old, it still can produce jaw-droppingly beautiful graphics.

Finally, there are the powerups. During the demo, I was able to experience the Super Mushroom, the Fire Flower, and the new elephant powerup. The Super Mushroom lets you become regular-sized Mario/Luigi, etc., from their smaller form. The Fire Flower changes your character’s outfit and you can throw fireballs to kill enemies. Both of these have been series mainstays since Super Mario Bros. on the NES, and no one needs me to rehash them. The third powerup, the elephant powerup, was definitely a lot of fun to try out. As a stretched-out pachyderm, your character can swing at enemies sideways, shoot water, and more. It did not feel like a game-defining powerup like the Super Bell in Super Mario 3D World that turned your character into a cat, and I was a bit thankful for that. These 2D Mario games tend to always have various new powerups to try and explore, and I was happy that the one I was able to enjoy definitely did not feel like a retread of what had come before.

Overall, I loved what I found in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and it made me want to see what all it has in store. I really hope that Nintendo puts a demo out on the Nintendo Store for people to try, as I think you’ll find that you’ll want to grab every single Wonder Flower out there like I do and buy this game immediately at launch.

What do you think of the Wonder Flowers?

Are you as excited to see what all they can do as I am?

Let us know in the comments below!

The post IMPRESSIONS: Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Nintendo Live 2023) appeared first on oprainfall.

Let me start off by saying I am a big fan of the Fate franchise. When I was younger, I was very intrigued by the concept of having these mythical figures fight each other, and the unique ways each character was portrayed. I soon fell in love with the original characters and story introduced in Fate/stay night, and the rest is history. So, when I got a special chance to try out a preview build of Fate/Samurai Remnant, I was ecstatic. A brand new Fate story set in Edo period Japan? Sign me up! When the game was first announced, I was curious how the action gameplay would be handled. Would it be like previous action games in the franchise, or would it be something different? Let’s see if this first taste of Samurai Remnant left me wanting for more.

The story takes place in 1651 in Edo, Japan. A young man, Miyamoto Iori, finds himself attacked by unknown assailants. He soon comes into contact with a powerful enemy known as Rider and their master, Yui Shousetsu. Just when things seem to be dire, a swordswoman clad in white, Saber,  is summoned to Iori’s side. Iori is dragged into a conflict known as the Waxing Moon Ritual. Will he and Saber be able to overcome the other Masters and Servants and claim the Waxing Moon for themselves?

I like what I’ve seen of the characters and story so far. There’s a sense of mystery surrounding the Waxing Moon Ritual and its participants. What is the true nature of the Waxing Moon Ritual, and how is it related to the Holy Grail War, if at all? What is each Master’s motivation for joining the Ritual? What is the identity of each Servant, including Saber? I like how they don’t just give this information right away, I enjoy figuring these things out. A nice feature included in the game is the Logbook, which can be accessed from the menu. It includes information on events, characters, and terminology used throughout the story. The Logbook gets updated as you progress through the game, so don’t worry about getting spoiled on anything. This is very helpful as Fate stories tend to use a lot of different lingo, so it’s good to have something you can access if you don’t understand something.

I only got to see a couple of the characters in this build, but I’d like to focus on the protagonists, Iori and Saber. Iori is a good guy and actively tries to avoid killing people. He doesn’t rush into things, unlike Saber. Saber has no qualms with taking a life, and is eager to go out and take out the other Servants and Masters in the Waxing Moon Ritual. She also has a childlike curiosity, constantly asking Iori about the things she sees around Edo. And, she really likes to eat. It was pretty funny how Iori had to keep Saber in check whenever she wanted to take a frontal approach to situations. These two are adorable as a pair, and really work well off each other. This was only from the beginning parts of the game, so I’m interested in seeing how their partnership develops later in the story.

Fate/Samurai Remnant uses an action combat system. Iori can use standard light and heavy attacks by pressing the square and triangle buttons. Holding L1 allows him to change stances and use magic spells. Holding R1 allows you to use your Servant’s Affinity Techniques, and switch places with your Servant. Pressing the circle button when the Valor Gauge is full allows Iori to use his Valor Strike, which is essentially his special attack that causes a lot of damage. I was able to fight a couple different foes in this preview, ranging from normal thugs to monsters to powerful Servants. While you could slash your way through normal enemies with relative ease, fighting powerful enemies like Servants was a different story. You can’t just wail on them, you really had to time when you attacked. This is when switching places with your Servant comes into play. As you deal damage, the Substitution gauge increases. When the gauge is maxed out, you can control your Servant for a limited amount of time. Your Servant, in this case Saber, is much stronger and more durable than Iori, so you can really deal a lot of damage when controlling them. I think limiting the amount of time you can use your Servant was a good move, you can’t rely on them all the time. It made things more challenging. I got to control three different characters throughout the preview build: Iori, Saber, and Berserker. Of the three, I had the most fun with Berserker. She is a buzz saw, and I was able to completely shred through enemies when using her. Berserker was previously playable in Fate/Grand Order, and seeing her attacks translated perfectly into this system was awesome. From what I’ve played, combat is fun, and challenging enough without being frustrating.

Other than combat, you can travel around different parts of Edo, satisfy Saber’s curiosity by taking her around different areas, eat food, pet animals, spend skill points to upgrade Iori and Saber’s abilities, and even perform maintenance on your swords. I really appreciated how petting dogs and cats actually had benefits, as doing so slightly heals your HP and Affinity gauges. So, there’s no excuse, they deserve the pets!

I really enjoyed the short time I had to try Fate/Samurai Remnant. The story and characters have me hooked, and I’m really looking forward to solving some of the mysteries posed, such as the True Name of Saber. The combat is complex enough without being too confusing, and it was pretty fun using the different characters’ fighting styles, and that was only three of them! I’m looking forward to playing as the other characters the game has to offer. So far, I do think it is different from past action games in the franchise, I think it has the potential to be greater than them. I was already looking forward to it, but now I can’t wait to play the full game. 

Fate/Samurai Remnant launches September 29 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam.

Preview build provided by the publisher.

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I’ve always been interested in the Rune Factory series, but I’ve never actually played any of them. I always wondered if the farming would be too much of a hassle or if I would like the dungeon crawling, so when I got a chance to check out a preview of the upcoming Rune Factory 3 Special, I jumped on it. Let’s see how my first Rune Factory experience went.

The game begins as a young girl is dragging a collapsed monster into the village. Her grandfather is very upset the girl has brought a monster into their home, but she is very keen on helping the poor creature out. The next morning, the monster transformed into a young man. He has amnesia, and has no idea how he got there nor any idea he was a monster the night before. He rushes out of the house and runs into a red haired girl that is very quiet and named Raven. She is in front of a huge tree they refer to as the Sharance Tree. He attempts to talk to Raven but to no avail when suddenly, the girl from last night appears. Her name is Shara. They take him to the heart of the tree where he is told he will be living with Shara for the time being. When they arrive at the field below the house, they are attacked by monsters, and our protagonist fends them off. He is told when monsters are killed they don’t perish, they are simply returned to The Forest of Beginnings. After learning more about the people of the town, you accept a quest to fight off a Raccoon monster that has been stealing food. After completing this quest you find a memory orb, this helps him remember a bit about his past, allowing him to transform into a monster once more. You soon discover a settlement of other monsters outside of town, and the mystery of this young man only thickens from there.

I’m pretty interested to see where the story goes from here. It’s been a while since I got invested in a world so quickly, but I think all of the amazing characters helped this along. Almost of all them have very unique personalities and quirks that make you want to learn more about them. The lazy store clerk, Karina, is a very cute girl, but don’t expect her to do much in the way of physical activity. I think this girl works harder at getting out of work. The bathhouse girl, Pia, is very innocent, and takes whatever anyone tells her to heart. I was pretty shocked when it turned out she was a mermaid when I saw her out in the rain one day, and I really wanted to learn more about this girl going forward. I could go on and on about each girl and the other residents with what little I’ve learned in my time with the game so far, but I want to experience more of this before I go into great detail.

I got sucked into the gameplay of Rune Factory 3 Special very quickly. I can see why players of this series say it’s so addicting. You start each day with a number of Rune Points. You consume these points as you do farming activities and combat. At first, I thought this was very limiting, but the amount of points used will go down as you level up in each respective area. So, after a little while, I felt like I could get a lot more done in a single day. The combat here is your standard top down action game style. Fans of old school Zelda games will feel right at home here. There are a variety of different weapons, and each one has different skills you can learn to make you more effective at slaying your foes. You can even get different skills in your monster form that add even more depth to this fun combat.

I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of everything you can do and see in Rune Factory 3 Special. I’m very much looking forward to learning more about all of the game’s amazing characters, and finding out more about our protagonist and all the other great features here. The game will be releasing September 5th for PC via Steam and on Nintendo Switch.

Preview build provided by the publisher.

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I recently got my hands on a copy of the PS4 version of Little Witch Nobeta and was super excited to give it a shot. This 3D action shooter from Pupuya Games and Simon Creative boasts a super adorable aesthetic that’s right up my alley, but also looked like it could be a bit on the challenging side, and I wanted to test my skills. After spending about two hours with the game and beating the second boss, I can say I had a blast!

Nobeta is (surprise) a little witch, and she’s in search of herself after losing all her memories. She comes to a mysterious castle in the middle of nowhere looking for… something, and the moment she hears a cat she realizes she needs the black kitty to help guide her to the Throne, where she might get all her answers. What’s the Throne? I dunno, but I’m sure I’ll eventually find out. Anyway, into the castle she goes and Nobeta’s journey begins. Along the way she meets her black kitty, as well as “crafted souls” – dolls that have a vaguely human appearance, but artificial hearts. But what are they exactly? How did they come to be? Are they really empty shells or are they sentient? And does it matter one way or another if they are?

You begin the game with a basic melee attack and a single burst-style magic spell. Pressing your spell button will unleash a weak but quick version of her magic, while holding it down will gradually power it up for heavy damage. Powering it up leaves Nobeta vulnerable to attacks, though, so you need to keep moving, or find cover, lest the beasties in the castle beat you down mid-cast. You can replenish your magic using items or hitting things, as well as by executing precise counter attacks that I was never quite able to get the hang of. You also need to keep track of your stamina, because once you run out, Nobeta will trip and fall over, leaving her open to attack. By the time I finished the preview, I’d learned a second multi-hit ice spell that was incredibly fun to use among groups of enemies, but the basic playstyle didn’t really change much. It was simple but satisfying, and finding the right spell for the right occasion turned out to be a lot of fun.

Scattered throughout the castle are goddess statues where Nobeta can pray to save her progress and upgrade her stats. You can up your HP, MP, Stamina, ATK, etc. by collecting souls from defeated castle enemies. It encourages you to fight the local denizens, but also lets you tailor your playstyle or modify the difficulty level on the fly. Speaking of difficulty, I played on Normal (or Advanced, as it’s called), and it had a couple tricky enemy groups, but it wasn’t anything particularly hard. I’m not sure if a day one patch will add any other difficulty levels, but what I got felt a bit too easy. I also found the enemies a bit uninspired and boring. You mostly fight weird blob monsters and the occasional doll, and I was craving enemy variety by the end of my play session.

Nobeta, the black kitty and the second boss, Tania, are very very adorable, though. Nobeta’s animations are gorgeous, and there’s a weight to her movement that’s very satisfying. You can unlock new outfits for her through advancing the story or meeting certain gameplay criteria, and they’re all just the cutest. You’ve got free range with the camera, too, so you can look at her outfits from all angles. Nobeta herself is a quiet, reserved girl who is understandably confused by what’s going on, but determined to see things through to the end. You can pet the black kitty, and that’s more than enough, but it also gives out nuggets of wisdom and philosophy that give Nobeta something to ponder. Tania wants to escape the castle and is seeking a stronger body with which to do so. She has a bit of a loli vibe going on, and I just overall enjoyed her boss design. Her fight is somewhat underwhelming, though.

The game boasts a really gorgeous soundtrack and was one of the highlights of my playthrough, outside Nobeta herself. The music has a gothic flare to it and feels suitably epic, especially during boss fights. It’s atmospheric where it needs to be. Sound design is also nice, especially Nobeta’s spells. Letting off a fully-powered burst has a super satisfying whirr to it, and the plink of your ice magic makes sure every hit is punctuated. Even the melee hit has a nice thunk to it. The voice acting was pretty good, too.

I really enjoyed my time with Little Witch Nobeta. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be going in, but it did pose a challenge in a couple places. The combat was simple but satisfying, and a fantastic soundtrack made exploring and fighting a joy. Nobeta is adorable, with gorgeous animations and cute outfits, and I got to pet the kitty cat. I definitely recommend checking this out when it releases on March 7, 2023 for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4|5. The game is also available on Steam.

Game copy provided by the publisher.

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In the last few years, I’ve been more into these casual life sim type games and I definitely wanted the chance to try out Disney Dreamlight Valley after seeing it in a Nintendo Direct. Originally, this was supposed to be a full review; unfortunately, I don’t believe I can properly judge Disney Dreamlight Valley in its early access form. Sometime in 2023, this game will become free-to-play and no longer be in early access. I imagine more things will get monetized, but I simply don’t know what exactly will be monetized and what other changes beyond that will be made. So, for the sake of being fair and not putting a score on a technically unfinished game, I’ll be discussing my first impressions instead, in the over 15 hours I spent playing.

As you may have read elsewhere already, Disney Dreamlight Valley is very much an Animal Crossing-esque game. There are all kinds of life sims out there and I wouldn’t be comparing it to Animal Crossing if it weren’t truly similar. Now, it is not a farming sim. It doesn’t have anymore than the basic farming you have in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. There isn’t the depth you would find in a true farming sim. What DDV does have, is a valley/town full of characters for you to to get to know and befriend, plus a house for you to decorate and hang out in; as well as eventually gradually upgrade. You also have your own resident money bags looking to profit off of you, aka Scrooge McDuck. Scrooge runs the local shop where you can buy various decorations and outfits. He’s also who you pay to fix up and upgrade stuff around the valley, such as your house, Goofy’s shop stalls and certain houses for various other characters you unlock and bring to Dreamlight Valley.

The story of Disney Dreamlight Valley revolves around these Night Thorns that took over the valley, caused characters to lose their memories and displaced many of them. The main goal of the game is to clear these out, meet and bring characters back to the valley and find out how everything took a turn for the worse and became like this. It used to be a happy place where Disney characters lived and had fun with each other. There are many things you can do to continue the story and improve the Valley. First of all, you’ll sometimes get story quests from the characters still living in Dreamlight Valley to move things along. You’ll also want to regularly get rid of Night Thorns, as well as collect Dreamlight. Dreamlight can unlock new areas blocked off by Night Thorns, in addition to unlocking realms with more Disney characters for you to invite to live in the Valley. You can get Dreamlight by completing “Duties” regularly, which simply involves little goals and tasks. For example, removing so many Night Thorns, making so many food dishes of a certain quality, catching so many fish, etc.

While we’re on the topic of Dreamlight, let’s discuss the other currencies in this game. You have Dreamlight, Star Coins, Moonstones and Tokens. I just went over what Dreamlight does. Star Coins are the free in-game currency you earn from selling fish, food dishes, crops and whatever else you have to sell, at one of Goofy’s stalls. Moonstones are the cash currency you can use on Star Path events to unlock various decorations, clothes and other items. The Star Path theme and items will periodically change while the game is active and Gameloft continues to support it. Some items you can unlock with Moonstones and some items you can complete special event Duties to get Tokens to earn them. Now in early access when I played, you could only get about 10 Moonstones a day in a chest somewhere in the valley. Also, the grind to earn Dreamlight and Star Coins could be very slow at times. Because currently you can’t buy Moonstones, all of mine came from the base founder’s pack and a letter or two in my in-game mailbox. I don’t know which currencies Gameloft will still make you earn and which, if any, they’ll let you buy more of. This is why I didn’t want to make this a full review and throw a score on it. I specifically wanted to judge Disney Dreamlight Valley as a free-to-play game and how fun it is without spending any money. I wanted anyone reading to know what they were getting into with this future free-to-play.

The various clothing and decorations you can buy with Star Coins at Scrooge’s store can sometimes be very expensive. Fortunately, you can get a lot of random clothes and decorations from chests around the area. Random chests seem to spawn every day, which a lot of times contain either random clothing “grab bags” or furniture bags. Also, there are some bags that give you a random design/print you can put on custom clothing you create and decorate yourself. I got a lot of great clothes and furniture out of these bags, some of which, as far as I can tell, are sold in Scrooge’s shop and sometimes pretty expensive to get normally. I appreciated that at the very least I was able to get a lot of cool clothes through freely playing the game.

Disney Dreamlight Valley is actually a pretty fun and decent quality free-to-play title. After you get through the very beginning it can be relatively slow and grindy though. Nonetheless, as a game you either play for just a little bit every day or a few times a week, or however much you want to play, it isn’t half bad. You can customize your character, raise your friendship with various Disney characters to unlock new items and quests, raise your own level and unlock items, cook dishes, farm, craft, fish and have fun in a land full of Disney magic. Keep in mind, though, this is a future free-to-play title. The quality isn’t comparable to that of a paid game like Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The graphics aren’t perfect: long gown dresses and other similarly loose clothing, in particular, are extremely thin and flimsy looking. Not only that, but there were also various glitches I ran into, such as the music getting super choppy and bad in areas with too much going on.

Overall, as a whole, I had a good amount of fun with Disney Dreamlight Valley. I do think it’s one of the better free-to-play options out there. Well it’s still in the paid early access phase at the moment. Regardless, I had a lot of fun hanging out in the Valley and if you’re a Disney fanatic, this is a wonderful game so far to spend a little time on somewhat regularly. If you’re not into the free-to-play model, or you don’t like Disney, or perhaps life sims just aren’t your thing, then I wouldn’t pick this one up. I enjoyed myself for the most part and hope to see the game improve in the future. Hopefully Gameloft doesn’t go too crazy with the monetization and things stay fun.

An early access copy of the game was provided by the publisher.

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It’s been a while since I last really played a Star Ocean game. I tried to play Integrity and Faithlessness when it released in 2016, but it just could not keep my interest long enough to get much farther than the opening sequence. For whatever reason, it lacked the charm and allure of previous titles. When The Divine Force was announced, I was cautiously optimistic. It looked good in previews, and I wanted to enjoy a Star Ocean game again. Well now there’s a demo out, and I jumped at the chance to play it (I played on PS5). I’m really glad I did, because the sixth installment of this vibrant series grabbed me right from the get-go.

You play as Raymond Lawrence (the demo restricts your character choice), captain of the merchant vessel, Ydas. A day before they’re due to unload their cargo, the Ydas is attacked by the Federation ship, Astoria, for unknown reasons. Forced to abandon the heavily-damaged Ydas, Raymond is separated from his crew, unsure how many survived. He and fellow crewmate, Chloe, land in different regions of the “underdeveloped” planet, Aster IV. There, Ray meets up with Princess Laetitia Aurcerius and her servant, Albaird. The three of them travel to some nearby ruins after watching an Ydas escape pod land there, only to find the cargo Ray had been hauling shoved inside the vessel. This cargo is called D.U.M.A., an advanced AI robot that can help in the field and in battle. With D.U.M.A. in tow, the group head back out into the world to find a man Laeticia has been looking for. And that’s about where the demo ends.

First things first, I love the fact that the full game will have dual protagonists. Star Ocean: The Second Story is my favorite game in the franchise, and this will be the first time since that entry – way back on the PlayStation 1 – that you have a choice. The demo doesn’t let you play as Laeticia, but I am absolutely going to do just that once the full game releases. Speaking of Laeticia, she’s an earnest, kind, but capable princess who has clearly fallen on some hard times, considering her and Albaird are traipsing about the country in secret. I like her. Albaird is prickly and overprotective, but definitely has his heart in the right place. The two have been through a lot, it seems, and he’s determined to keep his princess safe. Both of them react as you might expect when Ray crash lands on their planet and starts talking to a glorified cell phone. It’s an honestly adorable scene. As for Ray, he’s a bit cocky, but has a good head on his shoulders, and he’s more than capable at both leading and fighting. From the brief time we see him interacting with his crew on the Ydas, he’s well-liked and runs a tight ship without being overbearing. The cast is all around likeable and charming, and I’m invested in where their stories go. Private Actions return as well, giving the player the chance to have heart-to-heart talks with party members one-on-one while in town. It’s a great way to get to know everyone and one of my favorite series staples.

As for Aster IV, the region Ray lands in is gorgeous. tri-Ace and the team really put their all into making expansive fields that are satisfying to explore. The maps are big and spacious, but not so much that they overstay their welcome, and each area has two or three distinct environments. There are forests and rocky outcrops, lush fields and hilly passes. Enemies populate the area in decent numbers, and combat is in real time. You can swap between all three of the main characters as you run around and fight, but they all use the same basic controls. You’ve got your standard light and heavy attacks typical to action RPGs, and you can build combos off them until you run out of AP. Each attack requires a set amount of AP, but it replenishes when you stop attacking, so you need to be a bit strategic in how you use it. I liked how each character felt distinct, despite the similar setup. Ray is a bit slower with his attacks, but they feel forceful; Laeticia is quick to strike and light on her feet; Albaird attacks from a distance. The music also changes depending on who you’re controlling, and that’s a nice touch. Once you find D.U.M.A., she can assist in battle using VA. I love this. Activating D.U.M.A. will momentarily make your character invincible while you position yourself for attack. Once you release the button, D.U.M.A. slingshots you across the field at your opponent. Changing course right before you hit can trigger a Blindside, which stuns any enemies in the vicinity and increases the damage you dole out. It is supremely satisfying to pull off and can make quick work of tougher fights. Finding a rhythm between combos and VA attacks allows for a high ceiling in combat skill, but it’s also intuitive and easy to pick up, which makes for a fantastic battle system. Combine this with a skill tree that can unlock new abilities, and I can see it being one of The Divine Force‘s strongest aspects.

You can also activate D.U.M.A. outside of battle to search for treasure chests or fly across short distances, and it opens the world up to a lot more avenues for exploration. Flying around feels good and makes short work of large areas, but your default movement speed is also quick to start with, and you have a permanent dash ability to make it even faster. I really appreciated this. The world never felt too big to get through, but I loathe slow traversal, and the speed your character moves isn’t detrimental to either the exploration or beauty of each area. Besides the large fields, there are also a couple towns to explore and a short dungeon, so there’s a lot of variety in just the couple hours the demo lasts.

While I, overall, enjoyed my time with the demo, there were some nitpicks. The character models are lovely and detailed, but they’re also really jittery in that way a lot of 3D anime style games tend to be. It was a bit distracting, especially with Laeticia, who moves every time she talks. I admit this is a “me” problem, but it was super noticeable. The text is less a “me” problem and more an actual issue, because it is incredibly hard to read at times, especially in the tutorials that pop up as you play. Not only do the tutorials break the flow of the game, the tiny text made them extra frustrating. The text problem extends to the subtitles, which lack a proper background and can blend into each scene. I really wish there was an option to adjust them. I also encountered a few framerate dips during exploration. I played in Performance Mode, so I didn’t expect them. Oddly enough, I don’t recall any issues when in battle. Thankfully, the dips weren’t enough to cause any issues, but they were noticeable.

The Star Ocean: The Divine Force demo was a ton of fun, and just what I wanted from a game in this franchise. It had strong sci-fi elements blended seamlessly with fantasy, endearing characters, great voice acting, and some top-notch music from the always-wonderful Motoi Sakuraba. Environments are beautiful, with striking vistas and skyboxes, and exploration was snappy and fun. Combat felt simple and intuitive while leaving a lot of room for skillful players. And, of course, there’s Elena, Raymond’s first officer, whom I love and would die for. The demo definitely put its best foot forward, and I can only hope the full game lives up to its potential.

The demo is available now for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and Series X|S.

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I’m somewhat of a newcomer, or casual player if you will, of Splatoon. I got into it about a year after Splatoon 2 came out. I was hesitant to buy it originally, simply because shooters are not my forte. I did play a ton of Perfect Dark with my older brothers growing up, but that’s about the only enjoyment I’ve really gotten from shooters and I have no skill for them. Nonetheless, I’ve always liked the look of Splatoon, it has such an appealing aesthetic. Back in 2018, I finally decided to splurge on a digital copy of Splatoon 2. I figured at the very least I could enjoy the Turf Wars mode, where the ultimate goal is to ink the most territory, not getting the most kills/splats. Despite not being a very skilled player, I had a ton of fun with all of the Splatfests and put around just a bit over 100 hours into the game. Jump ahead to last weekend and there was a Splatoon 3 World Premiere Splatfest event. Being a lover of Splatfests, I obviously took part in this timed Splatfest demo. I also have already pre-ordered a physical copy of Splatoon 3. Keep reading to find out whether I now regret this pre-order, or if I’ll be keeping it and enjoying the full game.

The Splatoon 3 World Premiere was a pretty limited demo, but it was enough to get a small taste of the newest entry and see what’s different and how it feels to play. First you get to create your character. I really like the gradient additions to the eye color selection. Then you get to meet the new group of characters who update you on all the happenings in Splatsville. Deep Cut, this latest entry’s group, consists of Shiver, Frye and Big Man. Shiver is my favorite so far, but Big Man is great too. One thing I didn’t like was that Deep Cut doesn’t seem to have much of a catchphrase. Their saying when they’re done with the news is, “Catch ya later.” It’s not really anything unique or special, it’s honestly a boring catchphrase. Also, once the Splatfest started it wasn’t as easy to see them perform as Off the Hook was in Splatoon 2. In the first half of the Splatfest they’re riding around town on these floats and are really high up. You can barely zoom in and see the heads of Shiver and Frye. In the second half of the Splatfest, all three are performing on a stage together. You can see them a little better here, but they’re still really high up there, you have to go up some stairs and then zoom in to get a good look at the actual characters rather than the electronic screens they’re displayed on as well.

Splatfests this time around contain three teams to pick from and are divided into two parts. In the first half of the Splatfest, it’s the traditional one team vs another, where you’ll be randomly matched against opponents from one of the other two teams and try to ink the most territory. The second half of the Splatfest has all three teams in one mode, where four people from the team in the lead try to defend their territory from the other two teams who get two people each. The goal is still to ink the most territory but if the team opposite you, who isn’t in the lead, takes the win, you also technically win the match. I was under the impression that once the Tricolor Turf War half of the Splatfest begins, you can’t play the standard Splatfest mode anymore, but fortunately, that wasn’t the case. I was actually able to still pick the normal mode with only two teams battling it out, or I could go with Tricolor. At least that was how it was supposed to work. However, there was one point where I went somewhere between five to seven matches picking Tricolor, only to get consistently forced into the old standard Turf War. I’ve also heard that Team Scissors had the opposite problem as the lead team, where they would be forced into Tricolor. I mean, that’s just unacceptable. You should be able to pick your mode and the mode you pick should be a 100% chance of being the mode you play. That’s like if someone was trying to join ranked and play something like Tower Zone for example, but keeps getting thrown into Turf War. By the way, I sided with Team Rock and it turns out we won the Splatfest. It was hard to decide between Rock, Paper and Scissors, but my favorite primary color is blue and Shiver seems cool, so that’s what I went with.

Mechanically, Splatoon 3 plays a lot like Splatoon 2, but there are quite a few changes. One huge change is the fact that you get a whole lobby to test your weapon in, while you wait to be matched with other players. This is a much welcome change. The room making feature to join friends, though, seems a bit harder to find, but it is there. I just hope the full game allows players to create a room, outside of Splatfests, for only one or two friends to join before opening it to the public for randoms to join. I’m not sure whether or not that’s been discussed somewhere already by Nintendo, I feel like it was maybe vaguely mentioned in the Direct earlier this summer. In Splatoon 2 you could only create a room for less than three friends prior to opening it for random players, during Splatfests and in Salmon Run. Regular every day Turf War matches, required you to stalk your friend to whichever room they were in and when the online was lively, you’d usually have to then wait for them to finish their match before you were let into the room. And even after all this, you weren’t guaranteed to play on the same team as your friend. Well unless you had three friends total, free to play with you at the same time. Weapons are another important mechanics change. Some of them have changed slightly and there’s the introduction of new weapon types and specials. I noticed the Dualies don’t feel as smooth as before. I don’t think the dodge roll is quite as mobile as it used to be. Keep in mind, I am an amateur Splatoon player and this is just how certain things seemed or felt to me during my own World Premiere playtime, I might not be completely accurate on every little change I think I noticed. On another slightly related note, I don’t feel like moving through ink is quite as fast as before either. That could be an intentional balancing feature due to the addition of new gameplay techniques, such as the squid roll. The same could be said for my Dualies observation, they might not be as smooth so that they’re more balanced against the other weapons, or it could be that each weapon even among the same type, is a little bit different from each other.

As I’ve said before, I’m a casual enjoyer of Splatoon, not an expert, these are just some of the mechanics changes I noticed. I’m going to try to keep this short and won’t be going over absolutely everything. The last big thing I want to discuss, is the overall atmosphere and style of Splatoon 3. I’m not sure yet if I like the music more than Splatoon 2’s soundtrack. I don’t think it stands out as much so far, but I did enjoy what I heard for the most part. One last thing I noticed, is that the ink style doesn’t seem as aesthetically pleasing as I found it in Splatoon 2. It still looks really stylish in the promotional footage Nintendo has put out, but when I was actually playing the Splatfest for myself, the ink seemed to layer more thinly on the ground and just overall, didn’t look as gloppy and shiny as the previous title. Part of why I wanted to get into Splatoon years ago was because of the aesthetics, thus this is a slight negative for me.

At the end of the day, I had a ton of fun checking out this Splatoon 3 World Premiere. Considering this is an impressions article mainly about what I experienced during the game’s demo, that’s what I focused on. But I would like to say real quick, I am quite looking forward to all the other little added things in the full game, like new clothing items, the locker you get to customize and Tableturf Battles. Overall, I see no reason to cancel my pre-order. I get a little burnt out after so many matches in a row, usually when I’m losing often, but it’s a quality multiplayer series and I had fun with the small snippet I got to experience in the demo. Plus, I don’t want to miss out on any future Splatfests. Not to mention, I imagine with feedback such as this, Nintendo will make some fixes to improve the game and eliminate major flaws, like they’ve always tried to do with Splatoon in the past.

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I have previously taken a look at both the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch releases of Neptunia X SENRAN KAGURA: Ninja Wars, and now the release of the Steam version is upon us. Of course this meant I would have to check this version out as well, but this time I felt doing a full review would just be redundant, so I’m just going to do some impressions on the PC release’s performance. If you would like a more in-depth look at this game, I suggest checking out my PlayStation 4 review.

Just to give a brief overview of the story here, the allied nations of Heartland are locked in a ninja war with the great nation of Marveland. Though they fight constantly for control of all the shares in Gamninjustri, this is mostly friendly rivalry. They will soon have to put aside their differences and join forces to face a threat greater than either has ever known. The Steeme Legion with their leader, Yoh Gamer, has invaded Gamninjustri. They conquered all of the smaller schools with ease and have now declared a “Super NINJA War” to see which school is the strongest of all time!

I can safely say this is the best looking version of Neptunia X SENRAN KAGURA: Ninja Wars I have looked at so far. The graphics have better detail, higher resolution and a couple of different anti-aliasing options to choose from. The frame rate can be locked at either 30 or 60 FPS, but if your rig can handle it, this can be completely uncapped as well. My aging Ryzen 2600 and 2060 had no issues pushing out 144 FPS with everything maxed out, so it doesn’t take amazing hardware to get a smooth experience out of this one.

As you would expect, this features full controller support and best I can tell, the keyboard controls seem to work fine as well. You can remap the controls any way you desire, and even incorporate the mouse into the mix if that suits your fancy. I tried out the Peaches and Cream minigame since in both of the previous versions, I found it much easier to play with the motion controls rather than the buttons. The button controls here do OK, but I still feel like the motion controls give you more precise movement here. I never thought in my lifetime I would say that about motion controls in anything, but here we are.

I feel like, overall, this is the best version of Neptunia x SENRAN KAGURA: Ninja Wars. The graphics look better than the other two releases, the higher frame rate makes the gameplay super smooth and there is plenty of controller customization to fit anyone’s play style. If you have either of the previous releases, there is nothing new here, but if you have held off to see how the PC version would fair then you’re in luck. Idea Factory International saved the best for last here for sure.

Game copy provided by the publisher.

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Ever since I saw Trek to Yomi back at E3 last year I have been very interested in it. I love classic samurai movies, and this seemed like it would be right up my alley. The black and white graphics with that grainy film style were very appealing to me, and I thought the combat looked nice as well. I’ve had a chance to play the first two chapters of the game, so it’s time to share some of my thoughts on them.

The game begins the same as every classic samurai movie does. A young man named Hiroki is training with his master to become a great samurai when their village is attacked by bandits. The master goes out to defend the village, and his young apprentice soon follows. He puts up a good fight with the bandit boss but is outdone. His master saves him and defeats the man, but at a great cost. The fight has taken all his strength. He asks Hiroki to vow to protect this village and all he loves from any threats. The boy takes this to heart and becomes a powerful samurai as the years pass, but a new threat to his village has just arrived. Time will tell what fate has in store for him and the ones he loves.

This was the story of the first two chapters I got to preview, and I have to say I’m completely hooked. The graphical styling here really make this story telling pop, and the writing is very good as well so far. I really enjoyed just listening to all of the random conversations the NPCs and enemies are having as you approach them. It really Immerses you in this world, and makes you want to explore every inch of the amazing environment here.

At first glace you may think this is just simple 2D side scroller, but that is far from the truth. While you cannot roam around in full 3D, there are many paths you can take to explore each area. The camera angle will change as you enter different areas like it did in classic Resident Evil titles, but it never gives you a bad angle for combat or exploration. It is very important to check each area thoroughly. You can find important health and stamina power ups, collectibles and maybe even discover a way to take some enemies out with stealth. I found this log in one area I could cut down and killed a whole group of enemies in one swoop. This not only makes your life easier, it’s pretty satisfying as well.

I usually have a hard time with combat in games like this, but Trek to Yomi has a great balance. On the normal level, the game is challenging enough that you want invest your time to get good at it without it being just frustrating. You have two attack buttons, a light and heavy attack; you will use these together at times for combos or with other inputs for different moves. Of course attacking and blocking will consume some stamina, but on the normal difficulty this was very easy to manage. Since you are fighting on a 2D plane you will have to flip around to face enemies on either side of you. I thought this might be a sticking point in this combat, but no it is very easy to flip to either side and you even have some attacks that can be done while turning. By far the thing I enjoyed the most was when you stun a foe, you can execute them. This not only looks totally bad ass, you gain a bit of health back as well. I can’t wait to see what other cool moves are in store for this when the final release rolls around.

As you can probably tell I really enjoyed my time with Trek to Yomi. The graphics and storytelling so far are amazing and the combat is a lot of fun. I can’t wait to see how the rest of this story turns out, and other gameplay features are thrown into the mix here. The game will be releasing sometime this year, and until then I will wait very impatiently to play the rest of this.

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I don’t have much of a history with Kirby. As far as this series is concerned, I grew up only playing Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, which I thought was a pretty fantastic game. Since then, I’ve gotten the chance to play a little bit of other Kirby games, but I’ve always compared them to The Crystal Shards and held that up, in my mind, as the ideal Kirby game. It had amazing music, a fun little item collection screen after finishing a stage, awesome mixed abilities, multiplayer minigames, and overall was just a wonderful game. However, this new upcoming title, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, seems to finally be doing something different and isn’t quite the same old Kirby. After seeing trailers for it I was pretty interested, so obviously I had to try it out once Nintendo released this demo.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land has seemingly been advertised as a new, full 3D world game. By that I mean it’s not the typical title where you travel as Kirby in purely a sidescrolling fashion. The demo seems to support the comparison people have been making between it and Mario Odyssey. It’s not one fully connected world – you have your separate stages (at least that’s what the demo has shown) – but they do look more substantial than prior series entries, and you’re able to explore more fully and even move the camera around a bit.

I had a good time with this short, yet charming demo. You get to play through three different stages and try out some of the new features. First is the ability to suck up big objects and control them, such as a car or a vending machine. Speeding through enemies, as well as shooting soda cans at them, is quite enjoyable. You’ll also be introduced to the basis of this entry’s story, which involves saving all the captured Waddle Dees. Not only that, but the stages have a variety of goals you can complete, beyond just getting to the end. One of my most favorite new things, though, definitely has to be the gacha collectables. You’ll run into little gacha capsules in some stages, which at the end of the stage you get to open and see what you got. Each gacha figure contains various info about it too. Also, the demo provides you the option of checking out the two player co-op, though I wasn’t able to test that for myself.

I don’t have any major complaints about Kirby and the Forgotten Land. I do have one worry, though, and one minor complaint. My worry is that despite how fun and charming this game is so far, it may be as disappointingly short as Kirby Star Allies was. And my one complaint is that I didn’t see a volume sliders option. The sound effects were just a smidge too quiet for me; I hope the full release contains at least a BGM and SE slider to balance those out. Nonetheless, the settings menu seemed to be substantial other than that one missing part. Nintendo added both the option to choose between a few different control schemes and normal and easy difficulties to pick from – although the “Wild Mode” difficulty wasn’t hard at all, which honestly I think is normal with the series nowadays. But bosses do feel like they’ll take some effort at least, even if the overall stages are easy.

In the end, Kirby and the Forgotten Land still appears to be as fun and charming as it looked in the trailers. I hope the overall game is more substantial than the last title, but either way, it looks like it’ll be a carefree and fun game to sit down with. If you’re a fan of Nintendo games and haven’t checked out the free demo yet, you definitely should.

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It’s been quite a while since I played a true horror game, so when I got a chance to check out the somewhat controversial Martha is Dead I decided to jump on it. I didn’t really know what to expect when I fired this up, but with all of the warnings I expected there would be some extreme content. The big question is does the game deliver a great story with all this madness, and is it any fun to play? Let’s find out!

Our story begins in Italy during World War II. You play as Giulia, who has a twin sister named Martha. Their father is a commander in the German army during this time and they live in a small village in a forest by the lake. One night Giulia makes a horrible discovery: her sister Martha is dead and floating in the lake. The odd thing about this is Martha is dressed in Giulia’s clothing, and since their mother was always kinder to Martha, Giulia just assumes her sister’s identity. They couldn’t tell the girls apart and she figured it would be easier on them to lose the daughter they loved less. This begins to eat away at her very quickly, and she begins to look into what really happened to her sister. Was it the White Lady that haunts the lake that killed her? Was she killed by random soldiers, or maybe even something more sinister? This quest will lead Giulia down a very dark path of discovery that will not only uncover a past she had forgotten about, but maybe even what actually happened to her sister.

I want to be very careful here to keep this review as spoiler free as possible, since uncovering the mystery in Martha is Dead is the crux of the whole experience. The game will give you several warnings about the content contained here, and they aren’t kidding. There are some pretty gruesome and disturbing scenes throughout the game depicting self harm among other things. Some of them are probably over the top, but they do fit the narrative of the story well and the developers did a fantastic job of creating a very unnerving environment throughout the entire game. I think some of the latter story bits were a bit of filler, but for the most part this is a tightly knitted tale of horror and mystery.

Graphically speaking, Martha is Dead looks great. All the areas are richly detailed with many environmental effects to immerse you in the story. Examples of this are the way the team used fog to create a feeling of being lost; using a simple lighter to see within the darkness while feeling helpless; and more. The character models are nicely detailed and the terror-filled scenes you will experience are the same, maybe even a bit too much so in some cases. The way they did the ending sequence of this one was something very unique, but I won’t say anymore cause that is very much spoiler territory, but when you see it you’ll know what I was talking about. I did run into a few technical issues with this one, such as some wonky frame rates due to environments loading in and getting stuck a few times, but I feel like these are things that will be fixed with a patch down the line.

The sound design here is really impressive. The effects team did a good job with the nature sounds to really make the woods in the game come to life. They also took the time to throw in some haunting sounds that really keep the players on edge. Music isn’t always present but when the classical music kicks in it escalates the emotions of the gameplay instantly. The voice acting here is pretty good. I went with the English cast and felt they did an excellent job bringing this terrifying tale to life. If you wanted a more authentic experience you might want to give the Italian audio a go.

The gameplay is for the most part what you would expect from a game of this nature. You will wander around the area in first person picking up items to solve simple quests. This isn’t a bad thing, since the story being told is an interesting one and they do throw a lot of interactive prompts in the mix while you are performing these actions – a big portion being the several pictures you need to take during the game in order to progress the story. Taking pictures isn’t as simple as pointing and clicking – there are many additional camera parts you will find as the game progresses and you will have to adjust things accordingly to get the best picture. Players will have to develop this film as well, but the game makes both of these very straight-forward and it’s a lot of fun to take random photos of the environment with all the different filters. Other interactive elements take place during some the darker scenes in the story and add to the disturbing nature of them quite a bit. The little side details like the daily Tarot Card reading are a nice distraction as well, and I loved the artwork on these cards. There are however some things here I felt needed a bit more work. The entire section where you are sending telegraphs is a mess. The chart they provide you on how to decode the messages, makes little sense and if there is an in-game guide that explained it better I didn’t see it. The other major thing I noticed was riding the bike is very difficult due to it controlling poorly. Both of these things are easy fixes that I hope the developers will address going forward.

Overall, while I felt Martha is Dead was a decent experience, I don’t think it’s for everyone. There are a lot of disturbing themes and images in this one that would certainly turn off some players. While the team did a great job crafting this world and the sound design is top notch, some of the gameplay elements need a bit more polish. That being said, this is still a unique experience that fans of these types of games would likely really enjoy. You can complete the game in around seven hours, and the game will set you back $29.99. I don’t think I will be taking another run at this one anytime soon to find some of the collectibles I missed, but folks out there are looking for something very unsettling with a point to all the madness, this might be it.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher.

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Are you looking for some challenging platform action? Wishing for some robot blasting action? Interested in a game that makes you feel like you just booted up your console after a visit to a local game store in 1985? Well are you ever in luck, let me introduce you to Trophy, a new platform shooter from aptly named 8 Bit Legit.

Trophy hits that nostalgic NES era platforming feel just right. Conjuring memories of games like Mega Man and Bionic Commando, veteran platformers should feel right at home. Trophy takes all that old school platforming goodness you know and love without trying to break the mold, and gives it right back to you. This game gets a lot more right than wrong, and most important to me, the controls. They felt right on point, precise and tight. After a few test jumps to get a feel for the range and height, I never thought about them again, and could shift focus to getting through the game’s various stages and dealing with the unique enemies featured on them.

Each level offers a different feel and theme that at the same time feels new and familiar. It’s totally up to you whether you start your adventure blasting away in a jungle, or running through the box cars of a speeding train, as all eight levels are available at the beginning. I found some stages easier than previous levels I had tried and failed to complete, and I failed a lot. I’m looking at you Tundra stage, with your ice blocks. Missing a jump and plunging to the bottom of a ravine doesn’t have to be a bad experience every time, though. One such misstep led me to a hidden screen with a health power up that I was very excited to see.

Upon seeing the game over screen, which i became very familiar with due to my average platforming skills, you get a nifty code that retains all your progress. So you don’t have to stress if you managed to complete a particularly hard level and failed the next, all previous levels remain completed on code entry. The code only changes if you accomplish something new. This took some of the pressure off, and let me feel more freedom to explore each new level looking for those upgrades.

My only real complaint with Trophy, aside from the Tundra stage and a little bit of slowdown when a lot of bullets were flying, was the immediate respawning of enemies. During most of the stages’ gameplay this isn’t that big an issue, and can be a blessing as enemies sometimes drop health trophies or extra lives when you really need one. If the screen passes over the respawn point of any enemy after they have been destroyed, they respawn right then. There are a few spots, especially one with ice blocks on a certain stage, where as you dodge back to avoid incoming fire, a previously defeated enemy will spawn behind you as the screen scrolls back. That enemy will start attacking as soon as it comes on screen, which if you are already in the air dodging, can spell doom. Thankfully, these situations aren’t very plentiful.

Trophy absolutely scratches that platform itch, if you have it. Even though the stages can be at times very challenging, the deaths never feel cheap. The level of challenge never feels overwhelming or insurmountable. You always have the feeling you can get further on one more run. It’s hard to beat the feeling of accomplishment you get when defeating a stage at last, especially Tundra.

Game copy provided by the publisher. You can purchase your own copy at the Microsoft Store for $9.99.

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I’m not a exactly a green thumb (I can barely keep a houseplant alive), but I am very fond of trees. Growing up, I was surrounded by them, either from the woods that stretched out behind my house, or during my frequent visits up to the Adirondacks to visit family, where we’d spend hours blazing trails through the forests. They’re a meaningful part of my life, so when I was offered the chance to review Winds & Leaves, a PlayStation VR title all about planting trees and restoring nature, I jumped at the chance.

Set in an unspecified post-apocalypse, the game opens with you waking up as a caretaker on a secluded island. Around you are scattered the tricks of your trade: a special vitality lantern that, when filled with tree energy, protects you from encroaching death when not beneath the beneficial boughs of trees; a pouch in which to hold myriad seeds; a planting stick to sew said seeds and regrow the forest; and a strange artifact that, when held aloft, accelerates time. Cryptic rock paintings explain the basics of how each item is used, along with helpful hints scattered around the area, and you’re off. There are also large, dilapidated windmills dotting the landscape that you need to “resurrect” by growing enough trees. That’s it. Restore the forest, player!

I’m a big fan of minimal narratives, so I jived with this immediately. The rock paintings were reminiscent of Journey, one of my favorite games ever, and the on-screen prompts directing you to plant specific seeds in specific soil were simple but effective. Each seed has its own unique hieroglyph, and when digging in the soil, the game will prompt you on which hieroglyph is appropriate. It is beautifully efficient. As you progress through the game, you’ll find more rock outcroppings with directions on everything, from how to cross-breed seeds to hints at the calamity that left the world a barren, tree-less expanse in the first place. I loved it. That being said, beyond these simple paintings, the game gives no real direction or hints at where you’re supposed to go or what to do if you get really stuck, and the cross-breeding isn’t as clear as you’d think. The very first instance of cross-breeding has to take place in a special incubator that will sprout a tree that gives you a required seed, but the painting for the cross-breeding only includes an image for the seed, not how to get it. I spent way longer than I wanted navigating the world, trying to find what I was missing before I finally just tossed the two seeds I had on me into the incubator in the hopes it would work.

Speaking of seeds, the only way to obtain them is to climb the trees you’ve already planted and pluck them from their branches. I actually really like this mechanic – it’s fun to perform and it leans into the whole cultivation narrative the game is going for. Unfortunately, you can only carry so many seeds with you at a time, and only certain seeds grow in certain soil. In order to venture out into the wastelands, you have to plant seeds and grow them into trees to grant you cover, or you’ll die. I often found myself running out of seeds and having to trek back across multiple islands to gather more, which hindered the overall exploratory aspect the game has going for it. Thankfully, exploring is actually somewhat fun thanks to the environmental storytelling and movement system, but it was still tedious.

I really love the movement in this game. Most VR titles employ the “teleport” method of movement, where you point a cursor toward a location and teleport to it, but in Wind & Leaves, you manually move everywhere yourself. By pressing both center buttons at once on the PlayStation Move controller, you use your stilts to walk around the environment. Pressing one at a time lets you climb trees to gather fruit. Tilting the Move controller pivots you in that direction, and pressing X and O will spin you right and left, respectively. It’s a really intuitive system and feels incredibly smooth when in motion. The act of moving about an orchard or embarking out into the wastes always feels purposeful, and the desperate struggle to get back to safety if you’ve strayed too far, left an impact on me the first time it happened. It’s this kind of intimacy that VR is particularly good at capturing, and I wish more titles used intuitive movement like this rather than teleporting.

Unfortunately, this movement style also lead to an abundance of clipping through the scenery, causing me – very literal – headaches. Positioning in front of objects is always something of a hassle in VR titles, and that was no different here. In order to refill your vitality lantern, you have to place it inside a tree. Reach is limited, so you have to stand directly in front of the hollow where the item sits, but I often found myself halfway inside the tree rather than in front of it, or just slightly too far from it and unable to reach. This also often led the game to think I was out of bounds, which brought up the OOB grid. But nowhere was the clipping issue worse than when climbing a tree. The act of climbing was fluid and graceful, but maneuvering toward fruit could often be a pain, particularly when the leaves and branches of the tree obscured my view. Most of my climbing sessions involved me staring through the center of a leaf, or needing to crane my neck so that I could see the fruit in order to interact with it. The clipping got so bad that it caused me actual headaches and I had to turn the game off, which is frustrating because visually and mechanically, I really love this aspect of Winds & Leaves.

I play a pretty decent amount of VR titles and this is the only one that’s ever given me VR sickness. And it’s not an issue with my headset being on wrong, because the game also made my husband nauseous when he tried it. He also experienced severe clipping, got stuck in the ground, and the death animation didn’t stop, soft-locking his session. Halfway through my roughly six hours of playtime, my character clipped into the ground and I had to restart several times and “climb” out of the earth in order to continue playing. Coupled with the VR sickness, these technical issues ended up being too much and I had to set the game aside, which was truly sad because there’s a lot I really liked about Winds & Leaves. Trebuchet developed one of the most fluid, intuitive mobility systems I’ve used in a VR title; the world is vibrant and beautiful with a soft, watercolor aesthetic; it’s got really haunting, moving music; and I’m a sucker for the minimalist narrative and environmental storytelling. But when playing the game made me nauseous and gave me severe, long-lasting headaches, those pros weren’t enough.

Winds & Leaves is available on PSVR for $29.99 USD. If you’re looking for a laid back, exploratory experience, it’s worth a gander, just beware of technical issues. Hopefully if you try it out, it won’t cause you VR sickness the way it did for me.

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I just spent a couple hours with the Scarlet Nexus demo version on the Xbox Series X|S and I gotta say, I really enjoyed my time with this slick, stylish action RPG, so let’s talk about it.

The demo opens with a simple choice: Would you like to see sword-wielding, close combat Yuito Sumeragi’s story, or knife-wielding, long-range combat Kasane Randall’s story? Their personalities can be summed up as Cheerful, Naive Dude, and Cold, Calculating Lady. We are not treading new ground with these tropes, but as this is only a demo version and not the full game, I’m hoping both protagonists will see a bit of growth. Admittedly, I don’t have as big an issue with the Cheerful, Naive Dude trope as I do the Cold, Calculating Lady one, and I recently had the same reservations about the lead of Altdeus. I was pleasantly surprised by her character growth and would love to see something similar here with Kasane specifically. Regardless, no matter which protagonist you go with, the story plays out almost exactly the same with a different cast of characters and one or two bits of world building differing between them. You’re a member of an elite group of warriors tasked with taking out Others, mutant plant-like creatures that have apparently destroyed most of civilization in their hunger for human brains. Humanity itself has evolved to have psychokinetic abilities, granting them extra-sensory powers. Big events, like the training scenario, learning about OSF, being found by reporters, and needing to defeat a surprise big bad at the end of an otherwise low-level area are all word-for-word. What you’re here for by choosing a different protag is the change in scenery, the different crew, and having a taste for the SAS system’s capabilities.

Regardless of whether you pick Kasane or Yuito, the Scarlet Nexus demo plays out the same way just in different locations with different supporting casts.

First off, the game is visually stunning. Character animations are fluid, and I love the way cutscenes are a combination of still images and talking headshots. Each character has really great expressions, and I overall love the designs, especially for Arashi Spring, whose profile gives her the distinct appearance of a rabbit. She’s adorable. She also has the ability to basically slow down time, and through the SAS system, Kasane can use Arashi’s skills to take down quick enemies that would otherwise dodge her attacks. I’ll go more in depth with the SAS system later. The environments in Scarlet Nexus are also lovely. Kasane admittedly gets the more mundane location – a defunct construction site – with lots of reds and browns and greys. I played as her first, so expected both scenarios to take place here, but was pleasantly surprised when Yuito’s scenario took place in an abandoned city. These two locations could not be further apart aesthetically, and while I definitely preferred the look of the city, having two different locations made the world feel a lot bigger, and provided some world building fodder for character chatter. It also gave me more to play with when using telekinesis attacks.

Each protag can use telekinesis. During combat, if there is an object that can be moved, Yuito or Kasane can move it with their mind by pressing the RT button. Doing so grabs the object and lobs it at an enemy with the most satisfying weight. By pressing X immediately after using telekinesis, you perform a gap closer, and can then use your regular melee attack by continuing to press X. Combining X and A gives you an aerial attack, and using Y launches you away from enemies and restores your psychokinesis bar, which allows you to do telekinesis attacks. You can also weave in RT attacks immediately after using either X or Y attacks to increase your combo and deal massive damage to enemies. Some items in an area can also be moved with telekinesis, but these objects have special properties. Using LT, you can, for instance, grab a light pole and take out multiple enemies at once before bending the pole around an unlucky mob to kill it. These attacks also help whittle down an enemy’s Break bar, which when depleted allows you to perform a super flashy finishing move using LT. Combining all these moves together makes for frenetic, almost chaotic combat that is incredibly fun and satisfying.

The SAS system allows either Yuito or Kasane to use their teammates’ abilities. As mentioned above, Arashi can slow down time, Shiden uses electric attacks, Kyoka can duplicate items, Kagero has invisibility, Hanabi uses fire, Tsugumi has clairvoyance, Luka can teleport, and Gemma has a shield. Using your teammates’ abilities is paramount to defeating certain enemies that have specific weaknesses, as well as navigating the map. For instance, you cannot advance through Yuito’s scenario without using Luka’s teleport to move through mesh fencing. It’s a cool system that encourages experimentation and actually gives your party members a sense of importance. After the dismal use of your AI partners in Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin, having teammates who actually contributed to combat was a nice change of pace.

You can also unlock Drive mode by using your abilities. While in Drive, you move faster and deal more damage, and it just looks stylish as shit. Most of the time, I ended up triggering Drive mode while fighting weak mobs or right before ending a battle, which felt a bit anticlimactic. If would be nice if I had more control over how to activate it, but thankfully the Drive gauge depletes slower when out of battle, so I usually had it available at the beginning of the next fight.

There’s a lot of other little things to the Scarlet Nexus demo, too. You can customize your character’s look by picking up items on the map for glamour, and there’s of course the requisite skill tree to learn new abilities or level up your stats. You can review conversations you’ve had with your teammates, which is nice since they like to chatter during battle, and if you’re like me and play with Japanese voice overs, it can be hard to follow along when things get frenetic. Overall, this game has a lot of polish and panache and was a hell of a lot of fun to play even for just the couple hours the demo provides. If you like action RPGs, I’d definitely recommend checking this one out.

Scarlet Nexus is available on the Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.

The post IMPRESSIONS: Scarlet Nexus appeared first on oprainfall.

STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN is an upcoming 2022 action/RPG that is being developed by Team NINJA from KOEI TECMO GAMES and published by SQUARE ENIX. This E3 2021 surprise announcement has a number of SQUARE ENIX veterans, including Tetsuya Nomura (KINGDOM HEARTS franchise director, PARASITE EVE main character designer) as Creative Director and Kazushige Nojima (FINAL FANTASY VII scenario writer, Glory of Heracles scenario writer) for Story and Scenario, returning for this latest FINAL FANTASY franchise offshoot title.

During E3 2021, a demo was released for PlayStation 5 consoles for a limited time only. I went hands-on with the demo (and spent hours playing it over and over again as the protagonist Jack) to get a feel for how the gameplay works, where it falls short, and if there is more to STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN than just shouting “CHAOS!” over and over again.

One of the things that I want to make clear is that this impressions piece will not address the STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN demo’s graphics. This demo was clearly meant to be an early build of what gamers can expect the final game to be, and I simply do not expect a 4k resolution title at this point. It is not uncommon that when a game is showed behind closed doors to the gaming media, the graphics aren’t at the level you would expect for a published game. As a result, I will just say that they were good enough to service the gameplay so it didn’t look like a modern-day take on the Virtual Boy’s Red Alarm with its incredibly all-red wire graphics.

“Unlike either the Sphere Grid in FINAL FANTASY X or FINAL FANTASY XII’s License Board, […] I personally loved this skill tree system as it made me feel like I would be able to quickly build the best possible character.”

Any FINAL FANTASY game (other than FINAL FANTASY XV) has a central focus on the jobs system, and so that is where I will start too. At the beginning of the demo, you start out with the Swordsman job. As you hack and slash your way across the demo, you will soon unlock both the Mage and Lancer jobs as “New Jobs”. As you kill enemies on these various jobs, you will earn EXP that soon translates into levels and Job Points. These Job Points can then be redeemed on a skill tree. The more points you earn and spend, the more cool things and buffs to your stats that you get. However, at the end of each of these “New Job” trees is an Advanced Job. Swordsman unlocks Warrior, Mage unleashes Black Mage, and Lancer activates Dragoon.

The skill tree system in STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN is easy to grasp and fairly intuitive to gameplay. Here, I’ve shown off the skill trees for the basic New Jobs and what Advanced Jobs you can unlock for Mage and Lancer. (Images taken by me).

Unlike either the Sphere Grid in FINAL FANTASY X or FINAL FANTASY XII’s License Board, this system of enhancing characters, leveling jobs, and unlocking more powerful jobs is intuitive and easy to grasp. I did not feel like I was risking unlocking something that was terrible in lieu of something better for example, that would only hinder me. Part of this was due to the simplicity of the various trees, granted, but also due to the fact that the game simply funneled you down to the Advanced Job as you gained more Job Points. I personally loved this skill tree system as it made me feel like I would be able to quickly build the best possible character.

All of the jobs play differently too. Warrior is hack-and-slash, Mage beats things down with a club and magic spells, and Dragoon will use distance attacks with the lance. The various enemies are also weak to different weapons and different magic spells. This encourages you to pick up more than one job and level it as you’re playing, and soon I was effortlessly switching between Black Mage to kill off skeleton enemies before going back to Dragoon to take down bats. Unfortunately, the demo for STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN only lets you equip and freely switch between two jobs at a time while playing. As a result, I was constantly going back into the menu to pick a new job to utilize when the situation calls for it, which I did not care for. I honestly think a third job (switchable using the Triangle button in default settings) would have made this system even better.

“To be blunt: tying combo attacks to a fluctuating MP bar in an action/RPG is a terrible idea.”

Combat itself is interesting but flawed.

STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN places a huge emphasis on blocking attacks and then ‘punishing’ the attacker in a counterattack. While you can get away with just hacking and slashing enemies as they try to swarm you in large groups in the early parts of the demo, you cannot pull that off towards the end against the final demo boss. The final demo boss, Chaos?, forces you to block and retaliate with a combo attack consistently. While I also had the dodge ‘roll’ move as well, the game clearly expected me to block and ‘punish’ instead in the fight if I didn’t want to lose a lot of health. It is an interesting choice that reminds me of Sekiro’s focus on parrying attacks, and it was utilized to (somewhat) great effect here. There were times when there were too many enemies on screen for me to effectively block them, and so I would get swarmed until I managed to get away. This is something that I sincerely hope Team NINJA will fine-tune before the game’s release.

While you can also dodge roll away from danger in STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN, I found that it was far more effective to just block and retaliate against foes in this demo. (Images taken by me).

Tying into this is the difficulty modes. I played through on both Easy and Medium (I also tried Hard but didn’t finish it), and there could not possibly be a larger gap in gameplay between these modes. Easy is very, very forgiving, while Medium (the Normal Mode), clearly expects me to have flawless timing in the Chaos? fight for blocking and ‘punishing’ if I don’t want to have the floor wiped with me. Hard? Forget about it. This is a game that really needs more of a sliding scale option for players to figure out what they are comfortable with than a hamfisted ‘one size fits all in three’ gameplay mode.

Back to combat: combo attacks (fired off by pressing various controller buttons in sequence- you can assign various combos to various button sequences in the menu once you’ve unlocked them in the skill trees) are quite powerful. That said, you can only use them when you have MP. Each combo attack drains a certain amount of MP, so the game discourages you from utilizing your combos too much because you will otherwise be stuck with just basic attacks. The only way to restore MP (other than at a ‘cube’ aka save crystal, which I will talk about at the end) is to perform a finishing move that will both restore some MP and potentially grant you a temporary MP bar extension. That MP bar extension will, however, partially go away if you die and you’re sent back to the prior cube.

Different enemies are weak to different job weapons and attacks. (Images taken by me).

To be blunt: tying combo attacks to a fluctuating MP bar in an action/RPG is a terrible idea. I found myself, even with performing finishing moves, frequently running out of MP and having to resort to basic attacks until I could find another cube. Furthermore, as I played on Normal Mode and would continually lose to Chaos? at the end, I would frequently find my MP bar whittled down to the bare minimum as I got ready to take on the fight again. So instead of tackling Chaos? as I learned a little bit more of how to handle the fight immediately after losing, I would have to go backwards in the demo and farm up enemies to rebuild my MP bar. That is ridiculous and is a very un-fun gameplay design. Tie MP into spellcasting, sure. But basic attack combos? Come on. A lot of the fun in Bayonetta (a game that relies upon attack combos) was unleashing attacks in sequence to pull off special combo moves. It is a shame that STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN did not follow suit.

And if that wasn’t enough, the game also introduces Command Abilities. There are special abilities that are brought up by holding down the L2 trigger and pressing one of the face buttons (Circle, Square, Triangle, Cross). These skills, requiring at least one full Magic Bar, can have one of a variety of effects on gameplay. For example, Mighty Strikes (unlocked through the Warrior skill tree) boosts your own attack type and hinders enemy resistance. The intriguing part of these Command Skills is that you aren’t just limited to using them on the job you unlock them with. I ended up using Mighty Strikes with Black Mage, for example, to lower the enemies’ resistances to spells before obliterating them with spell casting for more damage than I would have otherwise caused. These Command Abilities really push your STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN demo character to experiment and see what they can come up with to crush your enemies as quickly as possible. That said, because combos also use up MP, I could only use these Command Abilities sparingly as a result, since my MP was better spent using combo skills.

In all of this combat, you’re also fighting around the environment obstacles that can get in your (or your enemies’!) way. The fact that I could not jump over even the tiniest obstacle was very surprising, since it is something you would expect in action/RPGs in 2021. I was permanently glued to the ground and I simply didn’t care for it.

There is a lot of different status equipment, with many different perk abilities, that dropped in the demo. I found that they capped out at level 12 in Normal Mode. (Image taken by me).

The equipment loot system is fairly standard: kill enemies, get drops, hope that that drop is better than what you’re currently wearing. There are certain enemies, such as the Cactuar, that can drop better loot for you to equip. The gear is also tied to the various jobs that you can play as, and I found myself mildly grinding to get better gear drops so I could more easily take on enemies at the demo’s end. One of the cool things about this gear, however, is that a lot of the gear pieces let you get EXP on other unequipped jobs. So if I am killing bats as a Dragoon, I can also get a side of Warrior EXP. This solves one of the biggest issues of leveling, which is how to try to keep everything fairly close together in levels. The gear also comes with different bonuses to each one, such as Elemental Damage % given/received, MP Recovery Rate, and more. While I would frequently just take the higher level item, no matter what the bonuses were, it was nice to see that there were some small perks available to incentivize farming multiple of the same weapon or armor over and over again.

“The cube’s enemy reset system is, simply put, a great way for Team NINJA to put in a risk/reward system that is fairly unique to this genre of games.”

There are three more things to talk about, and the first is the Break system. If you do enough consistent damage to an enemy, or they do enough consistent damage to you, then that entity will enter into Break status. This really did not play a role with enemies in the STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN demo, as I simply killed everything too fast (even at lower levels). However, it absolutely mattered when fighting Chaos?, as I would be put into Break status if I got pummeled too often. However, I would also put Chaos? into Break status as myself and my AI partners wailed on him during the fight with attacks and (for me) counterattacks. It’s an interesting concept, and I can’t wait to see how it is implemented into the final game.

Second, there are portions of the STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN demo where there would be environmental obstacles that you would need to solve before you could progress. The one that stuck out in my mind (and doubtlessly will for anyone else who played it) was that you had to activate Mage/Black Mage and cast Water/Watera/Waterga (all of which have the same MP cost but take slightly longer to cast) to put it out. This was a really, really cool effect that I enjoyed utilizing. I hope that there are certain obstacles that take advantage of all the things that the different jobs have to offer in order to progress in the game.

Lastly, there is the cube. No, not the 1997 Canadian independent science-fiction horror film that spawned a franchise, but the game’s system of save crystals. Touch a cube, and your HP/MP bars are refilled and you go back to the last cube you touched when you die. However, there is a caveat: all of the enemies you’ve killed have now respawned. In the STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN demo, I would touch them anyway and I never had to backtrack (except for one minor part when you can optionally activate a ladder to access a save point), so that really didn’t matter to me. However, in a full game, this can force the choice of whether or not it is worth it to activate a cube if you have go back through the gauntlet you just cleared of enemies. The cube’s enemy reset system is, simply put, a great way for Team NINJA to put in a risk/reward system that is fairly unique to this genre of games.

The cube, which functions as an HP/MP restore point, homepoint marker if you die, and enemy respawner. (Image taken by me).

The only concerning part I have about this cube is that, in the STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN demo at least, if you exit the demo, you automatically go back to the beginning of the dungeon. It doesn’t matter if the last cube you touched was outside of Chaos?, if you exit the game, you’re coming back to the dungeon start. I’ve trudged through the demo dungeon close to twenty times now to level and loot gear, and I find it a terrible design choice to have the game dump you back inevitably at the beginning of the dungeon, no matter where in the run (even if you don’t clear it) you’re at. I am very hopeful that this is a design choice that is only for the demo and that it will not be carried over for the final game, because it is a terrible, terrible game design concept that fits right in with charging people’s health points to dash in Lunar: Dragon Song for the Nintendo DS.

From the demo alone, it is clear that the FINAL FANTASY franchise’s hallmark of cutscenes return in STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN. (Images taken by me).

Of course, it all comes down to: am I excited to play STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN when it is released in 2022?

The answer is a qualified yes. I love the leveling system more than anything since Dresspheres in FINAL FANTASY X-2, and I cannot wait to see what jobs they give us in the final game. Personally, I am pulling for the Mime class from FINAL FANTASY V to make a triumphant comeback. I want to see how STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN fits into the overall FINAL FANTASY mythos and how overpowered I can make my character by the end of the game. I think that if the issues I’ve listed above are addressed, then STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN has a solid shot at being a successful offshoot of the series in a way that FINAL FANTASY FABLES: CHOCOBO TALES (Nintendo DS, 2006/2007) and CHOCOBO RACING (PlayStation, 1999/2000) were not.

And if nothing else, hopefully I can continue to exclaim “CHAOS!” in Ul’dah /shout chat in FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn until this game is finally released.

STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN is set to release for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC in 2022.

What do you think of STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN’s demo? What jobs do you hope make it into the final release?

Let us know in the comments below, and if you need help playing the demo before it disappears, be sure to check out SQUARE ENIX’s gameplay tips!

The post Impressions: STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN Demo appeared first on oprainfall.

About the time E3 began, Devolver Digital sent me a neat title about ecosystem reconstruction. The game is called Terra Nil and it’s a reverse city builder, of sorts, where you use resources in order to restore the planet’s barren wasteland into a lush green world, once again. I spent about an hour with the demo, and wanted to share my thoughts on it with you folks.

When you begin, the game will give you a randomly generated map. The first thing you want to look for are some rocks to place your Turbine. These will provide power to your Toxic Scrubbers. Once they have done their jobs, you can place Irrigators to turn the land green. There was also a Water Pump to fill riverbeds, a Calcifier that crystallizes greenery so you can place new Turbines, and lastly an Excavator that allows you to make new riverbeds.

You will need to use all of these tools to their fullest to cover the map with life again, but there’s a catch. Every structure you build on the map will cost you some green as you place them. The Irrigators will actually gain you some green if you place them in the right spots, so you will want to be very careful where you place basically everything to get the most amount of coverage and resources.

Once you have met the coverage quota for the map you will begin to restore the Biomes of the map. There were three categories of this that included forests, wetlands, and flower fields. Just like before, you will use a variety of tools to shape each area’s nature into a perfect balance. I did notice the resource management here wasn’t as tight as the first section, but you will still need to keep watch on how much green you spend.

I think gamers that like these kinds of builders will find a lot to love in Terra Nil. It’s a simple, but thought provoking, builder that has one of the most relaxing soundtracks ever. The graphics look pretty nice so far, and I haven’t played a unique game like this in quite a while. If Terra Nil is your cup of tea, you can head over to Steam now and check out the demo for yourself, or throw it on your wishlist.

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