SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters’ Clash is the newest release in SNK’s NeoGeo Pocket Color Selection library of titles. This title originally released as two separate games, one being the SNK version and the other the Capcom one. Players would have to trade cards back and forth in order to collect them all. Here, thankfully, they combined the two games into one, so players get to battle it out until they get all their favorites without trading. While that is great, the most important part of any games is if it is fun or not. Let’s find out if it is.

There is no real story to speak of here, you just travel around the map winning card tournaments at various locations. When you win, you collect badges that prove you are the best card battler. While walking around the maps you can also challenge random opponents, interact with some games to win prizes, and even have a dinosaur come to life! This is pretty basic, but, it gives players a few things to mess around with and sets up the card battles.

While SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters’ Clash is one of the most basic card battling games I’ve played, that doesn’t mean it’s not fun. Players draw some cards at the beginning of the game and you are able to play one character card each round. These cards allow you to attack and use some abilities during play, and you can have up to three of them in play at once. Each card will have a BP (attack points) and SP (soul points) value listed on them. BP is exactly what you probably figure, it is how much damage you will do to an opponent when this card attacks. If the card is not blocked, the damage will go straight to player. If it is blocked, damage is dealt at the same time to the attacker and defender. If you ever played Magic the Gathering, it works basically like that. You can spend SP to use ability cards out of your hand for various buffs and to deal some direct damage to pesky character cards. These points can also be used to perform unison attacks. You can attack with up to all three of your character cards at once, but your foe will only be able to block with one defender. Any damage that goes over the defender’s BP will be dealt directly to player.

Overall, I think card battling here is just OK. It is very simple to pick up and play, which I think is a good thing. Sometimes I just want a game I can fire up, play a few rounds to kill time, and then move on to my next project. SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters’ Clash scratches this itch for me, and it is fun to collect all the cards with my favorite characters from both companies. The only thing about card battling I didn’t care for was once you have three character cards on the field, they are basically stuck there until one of them falls in battle. This is because once there are three character cards in play, you can only use ability cards or use them for backup. Certain characters can backup other characters while they are in play, giving them a nice stat boost. Each character has a very limited list of who they can backup, so most of the time you never have who you need. This leads to you building way too many cards in your hand and the battles drag out longer than they really should.

Just like the other NeoGeo Pocket Color Selection titles, the emulation here is top tier. The game looks fantastic with all the same graphical options the other releases had. The soundtrack in this one wasn’t really my cup of tea, but it is what you would expect from a game in this genre. I always point this out, but I love the full color manual scans they translate and include with every release. This is just a nice touch, and something other companies should do when they port their older titles to new hardware.

SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters’ Clash is an average card battler. It is really easy to pick up and play with a little depth, but I feel like some of the mechanics here hold it back a bit. At the $7.99 price tag, I feel like it is a good deal for those looking for something to just pick up and play on the go. I played right around eight hours and there were still plenty of cards left for me to hunt down on this one. I feel like fans of card battlers will have some fun here, even with the flaws. Hardcore SNK and Capcom fans will likely want to snag this one up as well. If for nothing else than to see the pixel art of their favorite characters battle it out.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher.

The post REVIEW: SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters’ Clash appeared first on oprainfall.

Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire is a review I took because of my recent found enjoyment for Riichi Mahjong, which I’ve been playing pretty often lately and am continuing to learn more about. However, this isn’t Riichi Mahjong. Like the title states, this is the solo played solitaire version of Mahjong. This type of Mahjong involves stages with large designs made out of Mahjong tiles that you clear out by finding and selecting matches. Basically, it’s a puzzle matching game of sorts.

Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire has its own twist on the game, where there are various girls all with their own stages. Each girl has a handful outfits to unlock, some more than others. And each locked outfit requires you to progress through three stages (three rounds per stage), all which get gradually more complicated and difficult to ultimately “undress” her and reveal the new outfit. As you play through stages, the girl will make sounds and say various stuff in your ear. Well, in your ear if you’re playing with earbuds plugged in.

The game can be played either on the normal difficulty, where you’re on a time limit and have to start over completely should time run out, or you can play on easy. The easy difficulty will remove the timer and give you the option of using three hints per stage that highlight matches still available to be clicked on, as well as three reshuffles that rearrange the tiles when you’re stuck or in fear of soon hitting a dead end. While the game may seem simple because you’re merely clicking on matching tiles to erase them, it can get quite complicated. Anything connected to the middle of a row of a tiles cannot be erased, nor anything hidden beneath another tile. Getting stuck finding your next match will eventually cause you to run out of time. You’ll also have to start over if you don’t end up making your matches in the right order and run out of matches to be made. As I said earlier, obviously this isn’t Riichi Mahjong. Although, if you happen to play a lot of Riichi Mahjong and are familiar with the tiles, it is possible you may spot your matches much quicker than someone completely new to the world of Mahjong.

I didn’t have any issues playing through Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire, except for how in the settings menu you couldn’t click on the okay button, you could only back out. Nonetheless, I didn’t run into any glitches and the game played quite nicely undocked on my Switch. One thing I found to be quite enjoyable was the musical atmosphere. If you simply want to relax and get lost in the tile match making, feel free to switch the game to easy and enjoy it and its atmosphere. It’s a fantastic short and simple time passing title. There really isn’t much to this game, though I do have a couple last things to discuss real quick. Each outfit and girl you’ve unlocked, you can view in the dressing room gallery. Also, the game has a few different volume settings options. You can mess with the music, sound effects and the voice volume. And that’s all there is to it.

As I said above, this is a fantastic short little game to get lost in for however long you feel like making matches with Mahjong tiles. And for only $4.99 I’d say it’s definitely worth it. Whether you’re looking for a new game to “undress” some girls, or you simply want a new puzzle matching game to enjoy, this is a good option for the money. If you don’t want to hear the girls in your ear, you can always turn the voice volume setting all the way down. I didn’t spend more than a few hours on Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire, but I had fun and appreciated it for what it is.

Review Score
Overall

Review copy was provided by the publisher.

The post REVIEW: Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire appeared first on oprainfall.

The UnderMine has recently been plagued by powerful tremors. Naturally, it is up to you to delve into its depths to find out why. To make matters worse, the blacksmith has gone missing. As a result, the forge is unmanned, meaning you cannot get equipment upgrades until he is rescued. Furthermore, he is not the only one caught in the mines in need of your help. Can you rescue them all and uncover the mystery of the quakes?

Mysterious tremors are wreaking havoc in the mines!

As your adventure begins, the shops in the hub area are all unmanned. By some terribly inconvenient coincidence, all the shopkeepers are lost in the mines! You’ll need to rescue each one to unlock their shops. This doesn’t actually matter since you have no gold to go shopping with yet anyway.

Speaking of unlocking things, there are many locked doors in the mines, and some chests that require keys. They can be found randomly, or sometimes purchased at shops.

The general store on the left is selling only bombs this time for some reason, and the bomb upgrades shop is on the right.

The ladder going down into the floor in the room pictured above is the entrance to the mines. Entering it initiates a new run through the mines. The first five floors are the mines, followed by the Delvemore Dungeons, and more. As you might expect, the levels are procedurally generated.

An interesting story wrinkle is that you don’t just control one character. Each time you die, you’ll respawn in the hub as a different peasant. The idea is that each time one peasant dies, another takes on the quest. You can change which one you are by using the mirror in the first room of the hub area, though.

Rescuing Wayland the blacksmith, who was locked in a cage.

With the blacksmith back in business, you can get several types of permanent equipment upgrades. The upgrades in the hub area make up UnderMine‘s permanent progression system, and each upgrade applies to all peasants. For example, buying a tunic upgrade increases your max health. A pick upgrade increases your base melee damage, etc. There are also upgrades for potions and bombs. Most of these things can be upgraded many times, but the price gets increasingly steep.

As gold is super important for buying upgrades, you can also upgrade your gold bag. However, this doesn’t increase its capacity, but rather decreases the amount of gold lost on death. That death penalty removes a certain percentage of the gold you have at the moment your character dies.

Welcome to the blacksmith, where you can get permanent equipment upgrades.

Gold can be obtained several ways. If you see gold nuggets in a wall, you can attack it with your pick to mine the gold. It may also appear embedded in rocks in the middle of the room. Gold can also be found in larger quantities in certain chests, or by defeating a formidable boss monster. Additionally, it appears in larger amounts in deeper areas of the mines.

You’ll have to be careful, as collecting gold comes with a catch. Whenever gold lands on the ground, several Pilfers will rush into the room in an attempt to grab it before you can! If they succeed, you’ll need to attack them before they escape with a piece, especially if it’s a larger, more valuable piece. Fortunately, this is not as annoying as it may sound, though. As your adventure progresses, some new types of Pilfers will start appearing, as well.

This is the first major boss monster you’ll face, and it has a fairly high amount of health.

As with other roguelikes, UnderMine is loaded with items that give you various benefits. You can find items on pedestals as you explore the mines. Many of them give you permanent buffs for the current run, while others are limited to a few uses. Potions give you temporary buffs or debuffs, and come in a variety of shapes and colors.

You’ll also discover a ton of blessings and curses in the game. These bestow various perks, or curses, upon you. There are places in the mines where you can remove curses, but generally only one at a time. You’ll also occasionally bump into a shop while exploring the depths, or even secret rooms. The entrance to a secret room can even appear in another secret room.

As you explore, your journal subscreen records monsters and items you’ve discovered.

Occasionally, while wandering about in UnderMine, you’ll find a blueprint. Depending on the item it represents, it unlocks a new item for crafting at either the blacksmith or the potion shop. This gives you one instance of the item that you can take with you on your next run through the dungeons. You can only take in one item per run this way. Furthermore, this also enables that item to begin appearing randomly within the mines. Crafting requires a resource other than gold, though. Thorium is rather rare at first, but becomes a bit more common to find once you reach the Delvemore Dungeon after the first boss.

You may have noticed the yellow bird icon in the top right, and you can see it on the character in the image below. That is a pet, and there are others to unlock. The bird can fly around and pick up gold nuggets for you. That doesn’t mean you won’t still have to deal with those pesky Pilfers, though. Pets can also level up on their own periodically. You’ll also rescue a few dogs in the mines, who will then appear in the rooms of the hub area. You can pet them any time by interacting with them.

The Delvemore Dungeons are much more dangerous than the previous floors.

The gameplay in UnderMine is quite enjoyable. Most of the time the game is pretty fair, but sometimes you’ll get a really cheap room. In some cases I’ve had several consecutive bad rooms that cost me a significant amount of health. There are healing items, though they are usually fairly rare. There is also a special item that makes it so every shop you encounter has a free piece of food available. It won’t heal you massively or anything, though. Anyway, one other gameplay issue is that the game gets a bit grindy as upgrade prices ramp up.

The mini map in the screenshot below may look too large, but you can change its size by pressing up on the d-pad (when using a Pro Controller). Furthermore, in Settings you can choose to auto-hide it during combat, and change its opacity. This is important, as otherwise it may sometimes obscure gold-laden rocks, for example.

Treasure chests come in several different types in UnderMine.

This game has a beautiful art style that is made up of high-detail pixel art. It gives plenty of depth to the crevices in the walls, the lush vegetation, and your ugly foes.

The sound effects of UnderMine are high quality and well done. The developers have also created a great soundtrack that never gets old. It’s fun to listen to and makes the mines much more atmospheric.

This detailed room contains explosive barrels and bombable walls.

Overall, I quite enjoyed my time with UnderMine. It takes a fair amount of time to beat the game, at least 20-40 hours. That’s highly dependent on your skill level, of course. There is also a hidden mode to unlock, called OtherMine. To overcome it, you’ll have to push forward without the benefit of permanent progression upgrades like you’ve had in the main campaign. Naturally, this means you’ll have to make do with the random items you find along the way. UnderMine is available on the Nintendo Switch eShop for $19.99. You can also find it on Steam and Xbox. Do you have what it takes to conquer the mines, and the OtherMine?

Review Score
Overall

Review copy provided by publisher.

The post REVIEW: UnderMine appeared first on oprainfall.

Recently, Nintendo Switch owners received a surprise release of Mushihimesama on the Nintendo Switch! This kind of caught a few fans off guard, however, this is definitely a shoot ’em up that you won’t want to miss.

Muishihimesama takes place in a world where deserted land is inhabited by arthropods known as Koujuu. Upon death, these creatures leave behind all sorts of vegetation to grow, leading to these formerly deserted lands becoming lush environments brimming with life. However, their life force known as the miasma has been proven to be poisonous to humans and, as a result, many suffered. Some settlements, however, are able to be spared such a bleak fate by sacrificing a 15 year old girl every 200 years. The daughter of the royal family of one of the surviving settlements, Reco, is next in line to be sacrificed as she received a golden bracelet from a mysterious boy she met in Shinju Forest. When Reco turns 15, the miasma starts to reach her village and so, to save her people, she goes out on an adventure to find the Koujiin, or the God of the Koujuu, in order to save her people.

Each level features wave after wave of enemies firing all sorts of crazy bullets at you, and you have to do everything in your power to avoid their bullets while also dishing out some damage as well. One of the things that sets Mushihimesama apart from its peers is the setting. There’s a huge emphasis on showing the beauty of nature to the player, as many of the stages take place in these gorgeous forests, gardens, or lakes. Instead of a bunch of planes, most of the enemies you will encounter in Mushihimesama are giant bugs that fly in very quickly, but most are quickly defeated by Reco’s firepower and explode into a giant pile of bright and shiny gems for you to collect to add to your score. In addition to dropping gems, defeating some of the bigger enemies will also cause their bullets to disappear from the screen, which can be a huge help considering how crowded and overwhelming the levels can get with the amount of stuff on screen. That said, Mushihimesama is the kind of game that is easy to fall into somewhat of a trance-like state as you become more accustomed to the flow of the gameplay. Eventually, that scary bullet pattern becomes less scary and you can even impress yourself with how well you managed to dodge some of the bullets. This is all thanks to some excellent level design and pacing that’s complemented by a very upbeat and relaxing OST.

While you can see Mushihimesama‘s five stages in less than a half-hour, there is quite a bit of replay value and variety to keep you coming back. There is an additional Maniac Mode, which features a whole new scoring system with an emphasis on chaining enemies, and a really difficult Ultra Mode where the enemies are extra aggressive and have the potential to fill the screen with even more bullets than ever along with an additional ultra-hard final boss. It’s such a difficult mode that the game warns you about it should you select the mode. It should be noted, however, that Mushihimesama does not limit you in regards to credits or continues, so there is nothing stopping you from credit-feeding till the end of the game. Before starting any of the game modes, you will be asked to pick one of three shot types for Reco, which will significantly alter her firepower and bullet patterns for the entire play-through. It’s worth trying all three out and finding which one you like most before settling on one to use and master.

If that wasn’t enough, there are multiple versions of Mushihimesama for you to experience including Arrange, 1.5, and Novice Mode designed for newcomers featuring simplified bullet patterns and the ability to auto-bomb. Each “version” of the game offers some differences such as remixed soundtracks and different scoring systems. Any good shoot ’em up release would have a whole list of options for you to play with to further customize the experience, and Mushihimesama delivers on that front as well. You can change the aspect ratio, screen orientation and size, display the inputs and high scores, and have the ability to enable additional game windows for a “picture in picture” effect. For some weird reason, the online leaderboards seem to be disabled with a message saying, “Preparing for ranking! Please wait until it is held.” I’m going to go ahead and assume the leaderboards are not available yet, and hopefully this is something that will be addressed in the future. Some of you might think $20 is a bit too much for a shoot ’em up, but for those of you that like the genre, there isn’t much to complain about with this package aside from the issue with the leaderboards. I enjoyed playing Mushihimesama on Steam and on Switch. Personally speaking, I’m much more of a fan of its sequel Mushihimesama Futari, since that game felt a bit more balanced and approachable in terms of the difficulty, but this first entry will get the job done until the day comes when Futari, hopefully, makes its way to modern platforms. What is here is an excellent arcade shoot ’em up with plenty of options to keep fans of the genre happy.

Review Score
Overall

Review copy provided by the publisher.

The post REVIEW: Mushihimesama appeared first on oprainfall.

Even though I had never played any of the original Wonder Boy games, I’ve been looking forward to Asha in Monster World for a while. The reason is quite simple – I loved the visual aesthetic of the game. It instantly spoke to me, and reminded me fondly of another series I love, Shantae. Sure, Asha’s not a genie. But she dresses an awful lot like Shantae, and she even gets her own genie of the lamp to teleport her around. Plus, both of them feature a lot of levity and fun platforming. The only question then is this – did Asha in Monster World live up to my hype? Or was it too old school for its own good?

The game starts off nicely, with a call to adventure for young Asha. She wants to prove her mettle as a warrior, so off she goes. Though all she can really do is swing her sword, use her shield, and run and jump, she’s pretty capable. Luckily, once the game starts in earnest she gets some new maneuvers thanks to her monster buddy, Pepelogoo. He’s basically Asha’s own personal Pokémon. Grabbing hold of him lets her float slowly down, and jumping while floating gives Asha a double jump, of sorts. You can also throw Pepelogoo into danger, using it cleverly to solve puzzles. He’ll even evolve as the game progresses, allowing new techniques. The rotund little guy is also unkillable, so you don’t have to feel any concern about using him like a crash test dummy. The one you have to worry about is Asha herself. Even though you can only take one heart’s worth of damage from anything, she’s pretty frail, and it’s easy to get steamrolled by overeager foes.

I should mention, you will gradually get more and more health by picking up blue gems, which should make it harder for foes to chip it away. But in my experience, I never had enough health. I especially didn’t have enough to prevent taking damage from traps and other cheap tricks. Perhaps my biggest complaint in the combat department is how some foes cause Asha to fly backwards when she touches them. Granted, she doesn’t take damage from this, but it’s easy to get stunlocked by enemy attacks once you’re cornered. An especially egregious example of this happened late in the game, when Asha gets shrunk down and has to face a giant slime. It keeps spawning more and more slimes that rush you, and your sword slashes can’t harm it. I was so frustrated by the fight I had to look online for how to win, and found you basically just have to survive long enough till you can finally damage the boss.

This bastard nearly made me rage quit…

Which brings me to my real complaint with Asha in Monster World – the difficulty. In many ways, the game is fair. But it becomes apparent very quickly this remake is built on the bones of a sometimes unforgiving old game. You’ll get lost cause you can’t see a platform just out of reach, or work through a maze of interconnected rooms without a map. There’s even one pyramid you have to get through by using magic spells (essentially button prompts). The trick is, the game only tells you one spell, and has you guess the rest based off clues. Which I found pretty irritating. There’s also one water dungeon that required me to use Pepelogoo to help me navigate water currents. But I had missed a room that explained this mechanic, and so I kept falling into electrical traps and dying instead.

Also, while I generally enjoyed the combat, many of the mini bosses have a bad tendency of rushing you mercilessly. I even got knocked off the stage more than once by these foes, which of course resulted in the loss of a heart. I tend to prefer fights that have distinct patterns and visual or audio cues to let you know how to react. Though the boss fights are better, they can be a bit annoying as well, and they usually have a couple phases to get through. This game was much more frenetic and frustrating than I expected from the candy colored packaging.

There are a few things Asha has in her favor. One is that you can find magical elixirs that will revive her upon dying, so long as Pepelogoo is with you. These were literal life savers, and helped me get past the more difficult battles in the game. Asha also has a magical attack, activated by pressing two buttons simultaneously. I found the timing a bit tricky with this, and found the attack itself a bit underwhelming. That’s not to say it had no purpose, just that I expected a more bombastic technique.

As you play, you’ll get tons of cash you can use to upgrade your inventory, making Asha hit harder and sometimes evade damage. And worst-case scenario, you can always buy a ton of healing items from the vending machines found in dungeons. Another thing I found very helpful in Asha in Monster World is that you can save literally anywhere. They make it apparent this was not the case in the original, and it was really convenient. Especially given how each dungeon is progressively longer and more complex than those that came before it.

I really don’t want to be so harsh about the game, cause there’s a lot to love. Asha is freaking adorable, and full of giddy energy. She even wiggles her butt whenever she opens a chest, which is the cutest thing ever. Likewise, the artwork in the game is stunning and charming, with bright colors and expressive faces. The music is also catchy and enjoyable, though not life changing. If I were to review the game solely on the aesthetics, it would get a much higher score.

Oh how I hated this Sphinx…

Ultimately, Asha in Monster World is held back by too many awkward design choices. I mentioned earlier your Pepelogoo can revive you with elixirs. What’s odd is you can’t buy elixirs, and only find them in random chests. Worse, late in the game you and your pet get separated, which means you face some bosses without the use of your restorative elixirs. This includes the boss of the game, which just adds insult to injury.

Much as I wish I could rave about how amazing the game is, it’s unable to reach the heights I thought it capable of. But since the ending hints there’s gonna be a remake of the next game in the Wonder Boy series, I hope that can fully realize its vision while still being a balanced experience. A fun trip down memory lane, but hard to recommend for anyone other than expert platformers, especially for $34.99.

Review Score
Overall

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

The post REVIEW: Wonder Boy – Asha in Monster World appeared first on oprainfall.

Being a huge Neptunia fan I never pass up a chance to look at a new release. Idea Factory International recently released a port of Megadimension Neptunia VII for the Nintendo Switch. While this version uses an older engine than the more recent version of the game, Megadimension Neputunia VIIR, in this you can get the DLC characters that were cut from that version. The biggest question on everyone’s mind is how well does this title run on the Nintendo Switch? Let’s dig in and find out.

This review is going to focus on the performance of the game on the Nintendo Switch console rather than around gameplay discussion. This is my third run through the game, so I feel like it’s more important to discuss this aspect. Folks can refer to my previous review of the PlayStation 4 version if you would like more details on the game’s systems or combat details.

The game actually looks pretty good here. The resolution has been scaled down for this version but everything looks crisp and clear. You will notice more jaggies when playing docked than you do playing handheld, but it’s not bad enough to be distracting. The framerate is where things get a bit dicey. If you turn on the Shadow Render the FPS will tank badly. I guess it was fine to have the option but it’s pretty rough sailing if you turn it on. The Effects Render doesn’t impact the FPS that badly, but I turned this off because it removes the bloom effects. This was always one of my issues with the game’s engine. The bloom effects makes everything look like it’s covered in a fog, so turning this one off makes the game look a lot better!

I spent about 20 hours with this version and played up to Noire’s story in G Dimension. The only stage that really gave me major performance issues was the Sakura Forest. This stage chugged on the PlayStation 4 back in the day, so I didn’t expect better here to be honest. It’s perfectly playable, but where other stages hover around the 30 FPS mark with shadows off, this one is probably closer to 20. The only other hitch I noticed was when the CPUs transform you will see a slight stutter when the transformation starts. This doesn’t really hurt anything and the girls still look amazing, but it’s something folks will notice. There were no frame dips during combat I can remember, and special move animations were on point.

Megadimension Neptunia VII still has what I consider the best writing in the franchise. The girls wit and charm shine through in every scene, and this reminded me why I love this franchise so much. Newcomers to the series could start here, but I would probably recommend they check out the Re;Birth games before digging into this one. This port is playable, but I think Idea Factory should look to another port company in the future since both this and Fairy Fencer sorely needed more optimization. That being said, if you want Megadimension Neptunia VII on the go it’s well worth the $29.99 asking price.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher.

The post RE-REVIEW Megadimension Neptunia VII (Switch) appeared first on oprainfall.

I like to think of myself as a good person. I preface this review thus because after playing Carrion for a few hours, you start to feel like a sociopath. Gobbling up humans like popcorn chicken and cutting a red swath of destruction across sinister facilities. But just cause I’m generally decent doesn’t mean it’s not fun to be bad sometimes. And playing this reverse horror Metroidvania definitely puts you squarely in the shoes of the monster. Though really, if you think about it, you didn’t ASK to be placed in a vat. So I’m sure those devious humans brought this mayhem upon themselves. Regardless, Carrion is a wholly unique experience, and one of the most noteworthy games I’ve played in a long while.

As you might expect, there’s not much plot in Carrion. The writhing mass of red tentacles and mouths you control doesn’t do much talking, though you do encounter several potential flashbacks. This happens when your character, who I started referring to as Tentacly Joe, inserts himself into strange mechanical devices. The focus shifts to you moving around as an unknown human going about searching for specimens and unlocking facilities. It’s not clear to me whether these are actual flashbacks or some premonition of the future, but they provide the bulk of the narrative. The rest of the time, you rampage Joe through many facilities in your effort to escape.

The loop of the game goes like this. You search for hive crevices which unlock the portal to the next area. These are eerie openings in the walls of the facility that Joe burrows into. The crevices also double as save points, and heal you. As you progress through each area, you’ll encounter vats identical to the one you first escape from. By interacting with them, you’ll gain a new ability, such as spitting spider webs, turning invisible or using echolocation to identify key locations around you. Once you’ve gotten all you can from the area, you’ll be able to reach the newly opened portal and squeeze through into someplace new. But as you go from point A to point B, you’ll have to deal with a lot of pesky humans first.

While you might think Joe is totally overpowered in the game, that’s not entirely true. You’re a grotesque entity capable of gobbling up humans to increase your mass and alter your available abilities. The bigger you are, the more you can do, but at the expense of other powers. Small Joe can do things Large cannot, and Medium can do things neither is capable of. You can always dislodge excess mass in murky pink pools to adjust your skill set, often strategically. But none of that changes the fact these humans are more than capable of putting the hurt on you. Your size corresponds to your overall health as well, but they have tons of tricks and traps to cut you to pieces.

Humans will shoot you with pistols, burn you with flamethrowers and block you with sizzling electric shields. They also have littered the facility with powerful machines, including various drones, gun turrets, explosive devices and more. And as you might expect, the farther you get, the harder the challenges thrown at you become. A great example are the walking mechs piloted by humans and armed with gatling guns that can easily pulp you. Thankfully, as you progress you learn plenty of new tricks to deal with them, though my favorite is Parasitism. It lets Joe extend a tentacle, plunge it into a human host and turn them into a puppet. You can then use that host to activate switches, shoot other humans and even pilot machines. A favorite moment of mine involved using one meat puppet to pilot a mech and proceed to blast everything in the room to shreds, including another mech that was trying to stop me.

Your primary means of dealing with humans is stealth. They’re smart and react to sounds and sights, so you’ll have to sneak about. Once you get your tentacles on a human, you can smash them against walls to incapacitate them. Once you’ve got them, Joe will automatically drag them towards his hungry mouths and gobble them up, regaining some health. Often you can’t wait that long, since the humans will protect each other. So in the interest of avoiding damage you might have to get extra violent. Joe is very nimble and surprisingly fast, can squeeze into small openings and slither about effortlessly. He’ll automatically cling to walls, so you have a lot of flexibility how you explore. Thankfully that lends itself to the stealth sections. I admit that I really wasn’t expecting this element of the game, but overall I’m a fan. Carrion is a great blend of terror, caution and violence, with puzzle solving to space sections out. Though there’s no distinct bosses I encountered in the game, many rooms are set up as a gauntlet. You’ll always have the means necessary to get past them, but sometimes figuring that out is the biggest hurdle.

Now, I’m a big fan of Metroidvanias, and for the most part Carrion gives me what I expect. The challenge scales nicely and combat keeps expanding based off your skill set. The one surprise for me was the lack of maps. Granted, you can use Joe’s sonar to get a rough feel for your surroundings, but I always prefer a visual key to guide me. And though the lack of a map wasn’t a problem for most of the game, it became one late in the experience. I got to one section called the Armored Warfare Facility, the second to last area of the game. Things were going great, until I decided to meander. Instead of relentlessly proceeding forwards, I meandered to a switch I thought I needed to activate. Instead of helping me, it effectively locked me out of the path I was meant to take. I tried finding an alternate route, only to discover indestructible blast doors had blocked my egress. This after 10 hours or so of playtime. Unfortunately, this meant I wasn’t able to fully beat Carrion, which is really disappointing. I’m always paranoid about getting trapped in any game, and find it’s usually due to poor design. While the rest of the game was quite enjoyable, this definitely prevented it from getting a perfect score from me.

I’d say Carrion controls pretty well, with some provisos. As you control a constantly moving mass of murderous intent, it stands to reason the controls are a bit slippery. It’s not too hard to kill humans, but often it can be tricky to accurately interact with specific features. These include flipping switches, shooting webs and grabbing a nuclear core in one section. I would imagine the game controls more precisely with a mouse and keyboard, but all things considered it runs pretty great on the Nintendo Switch.

Visually, Carrion is a treat. It uses pixel art in astonishing ways, and is equal parts glorious and hideous. This is a gory game, and you’ll literally paint the walls red as you play. And though Tentacly Joe is no hero, he’s a very unique looking creature. Likewise, the many humans that you’ll mow down show off a lot of personality, reacting to your intrusion with alarm. The sound effects are no slouch either. You’ll hear lots of screams of distress, both from your prey and Joe when he’s injured. Though there’s not much in the way of actual music, there is a low key ambiance that builds the dread remarkably well.

Carrion is a game I’ve been looking forward to for a while. And though I am more than a bit disappointed I got stuck, I’m still eager to play through again sometime soon. It’s an absolute steal at $19.99. Warts and all, this is a fascinating and wholly unique game. I’m glad as always that Devolver Digital takes chances on titles like this, and can’t wait to see what’s next from Phobia Game Studio.

Cue the muzak! Joe is coming for dinner.

Review Score
Overall

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

The post REVIEW: Carrion on Nintendo Switch appeared first on oprainfall.

I’ve been a fan of Tribute Games for years, but this is the first time I’ve directly received a review copy from them. And though a fan, I feel many of their games in the past have been great, but not amazing. Most were held back by balance issues, such as Mercenary Kings Reloaded or even Flinthook. But turns out it was just a matter of time, cause after playing Panzer Paladin, I’ve come to a revelation. This is the best game Tribute has ever made. Not only that, but it’s my favorite new retro title since Shovel Knight. You’re probably curious why I feel that way, so I implore you to keep reading.

The first thing that’s great about Panzer Paladin is the plot. It’s very 80s, in the best way. The game starts with magical weapons falling to earth, opening portals for fell armies and turning humans into foul beasts. Several portals have opened up, summoning a horde of eldritch foes ready to lay waste. The only answer to this magical mayhem? Robots, of course! They can’t be corrupted by the magical energy, and thus can wield magical weapons safely. The robots in question comprise the titular Panzer and Paladin. These are Grit, a gigantic mech, and Flame, a human sized android made for rescue operations. That said, don’t count Flame out! Even though she’s nowhere near as tough as Grit, she can wield a mean laser whip, reach tunnels inaccessible to Grit, grapple across pits and even heal the giant mech remotely. Meanwhile, Grit will be what you use for the bulk of combat. He can attack upwards to reach vertical heights, bounce on foe’s heads like Uncle Scrooge, dash backwards, block enemy projectiles with a shield and can withstand a ton of hurt before he crumbles.

I really was drawn in by the pulpy fun of the premise, and it’s only made better by beautiful anime cutscenes. They look like they could have been drawn by greats of the genre, and they lend a ton of personality to the cast. Even though you’re only controlling Grit and Flame, you have a supporting team of goofballs, mostly lending moral support. You also have a sinister foe in Ravenous. He’s the one behind all the chaos happening on the planet, and he openly mocks your efforts to stop him. There’s also the mysterious Horseman, who seems to have goals all his own, despite obviously being a magical creature himself.

With the stage set, I should talk about the game itself. It’s clear the folks at Tribute outdid themselves here, finding inspiration in a number of classic series. There’s a level select and final stage gauntlet similar to Mega Man; The Horseman’s musical theme reminds me of Proto Man; there’s a mech and pilot dynamic not unlike Blaster Master; Grit wields a shield that works similarly to Zelda II; and though there’s not Castlevania wall meat, you can often find hidden weapons by busting open walls. That said, this very much feels like a unique experience. These small touches are meant to flavor the larger experience, but it’s one wholly distinct from any of those games. One mechanic that brings that to bear is how weapons work.

Each of the weapons you’ll discover are one of three types – Cut (sword), Pierce (spear) or Impact (Hammer). There’s no weapon triangle to worry about, but you will need particular types of weapons to break open corresponding blocks. Also, since all these weapons are magical, they increase your burden. I admit I’m not entirely sure how this works, other than having a high burden seeming to guarantee encounters with recurring mini boss The Horseman. You’ll find weapons in levels, and defeating foes also results in weapon drops. Though the weapon type isn’t that important, other than their attack range, their spell type is vital. Every weapon has a spell inside it, and you can unleash it by breaking them. You do so by holding ZL and ZR until the meter fills, and there’s a ton of spells. Some will heal you, others temporarily increase your stats, some literally give you wings and others hurl lightning at foes. That’s far from all of them, but you can see there’s a good variety. There’s a definite risk and reward with the weapons. Do you keep wielding a weapon until its durability runs out, allowing it to shatter? Or do you break it early to cast a spell? Sometimes you’ll need to throw the weapon at a distant foe, losing it in the process but dealing a ton of damage. The nuance is fantastic, and it really lets the player tailor the experience to their preference. On that note, there’s also different difficulty settings, so the game is only as hard as you want it to be. That said, even on Normal difficulty Panzer Paladin is a hearty challenge.

The cool thing about how weapons work is they effectively let the game play like a Metroidvania without actually being one. Though you can explore and find hidden nooks and crannies, these just have hidden 1UPs. Your only permanent upgrades come from trading in excess weapons at the lab to increase Grit’s health bar. Other than that, you have to manage your arsenal wisely. Keep in mind, the best weapons come from the many colorful bosses in the game. These are found in distinct regions across the world, and all represent iconic mythological monsters. In Egypt there’s Anubis, the USA is seduced by Lilith, Japan is menaced by Gashadokuro, Greece strangled by Medusa and Russia bewitched by Baba Yaga. There’s plenty more, and they all serve as great challenges with amazing design. They have unique attack patterns along with tells, and they force you to react accordingly. Some fights even force you to play as Flame briefly, such as when Anubis casts you out of Grit. Flame has helped save my ass more than once after Grit perished, letting me win hard fights. None of the bosses is easy, but with one exception, they’re all fair. That exception is the first boss in the final gauntlet of the game, and it almost made me give up. Thankfully I found a combination of spells to deal with it, and the rest of the final bosses were more balanced, much to my relief.

I really liked the way the game played, and found the loop of going through levels, acquiring weapons, beating the bosses, upgrading, rinse and repeat to be fluid. You’re free to tackle the stages in any order you choose, though some are definitely harder than others, and some bosses will give you a steeper challenge. The platforming isn’t quite as great as the combat, though not cause it’s poorly implemented. It’s more that Tribute’s tendency for difficulty rears its head more often in these sections. Not really for the platforming while in Grit, but when I had to control Flame solo. Flame has a fraction of the health that Grit does, and spikes he can shrug off instantly kill her. Additionally, the grapple and swing mechanic takes a bit of getting used to. I thought I couldn’t get past a pit in Mexico, and died repeatedly before I got the timing down. Thankfully, the sections where you only control Flame are pretty brief, and generally come right before a checkpoint. The interesting thing about checkpoints is they continue the risk vs reward by forcing you to spend a weapon to activate a checkpoint. Grit grabs it and slams it downwards in what I refer to as a Reverse Excalibur. You’re free to pull the sword back out of the stone, so to speak, but if you do so and perish, you’ll start over from the beginning of the stage. Overall the gameplay is fantastic, and the combat is tremendous. It just can be a bit anxiety inducing during some platforming.

Panzer Paladin has a surprising amount of replay value. First you play through the game on Classic, and then you unlock Remixed mode, as well as Speedrun and Tournament. Remixed seems mostly the same, other than enemies being more durable, traps being more dangerous and the layout of stages tweaked slightly. The boss fights all felt the same, other than one new boss fight early on. To be fair, I haven’t beaten the game on Remixed yet, so it’s very possible there’s other late game differences. Speedrun lets you challenge stages with set weapons and beat them to try and reach par times. Tournament is fun, other than when I hit the roadblock of the boss I complained about earlier. I think you’re supposed to beat it by using the game’s Parry mechanic, where attacking after blocking an enemy attack temporarily stuns them. Unfortunately I never mastered that technique, so thus far I have been unable to beat Tournament. Also, I encountered a glitch where a boss literally disappeared as I battled through that mode, forcing me to restart. These bonus modes are still fun, but my favorite is a mode I haven’t mentioned yet – Blacksmith mode.

Blacksmith mode is outstanding. It’s super intuitive, and lets you design your own weapons. You are limited to a color palette of 4 colors, but there’s a lot you can accomplish with that. First I made a boring hatchet, but later went nuts and made a lollypop spear and banana blade. Once you design your weapon, you use points to allocate towards various attributes, such as durability, attack speed and more. Then, after you have saved your design, it will actually show up in the game! After you battle The Horseman, he always gives you a random weapon. If you’ve designed some, he’ll instead drop one you have created. I believe this feature will take online into consideration, so hopefully after this review goes live, I’ll start finding weapons designed by other folks playing the game. Either way, I really like Blacksmith mode, and only wish I was able to save more weapon designs.

Tribute never disappoints with design, and Panzer Paladin is no exception. This is a game that’s both faithful to NES classics of the past while still showing off a ton of style. There’s great touches during the cut scenes, and though there’s a limited color palette in the stages, nothing is ugly. I especially love the boss designs, which all are equal parts menacing and delightful. One favorite is an angry ice boss I call Frosty the No Man, but they’re all wonderful. All the enemies are fun too, such as snickering goblins, demonic fire spewing plants, lumbering giants, bird men, mummies and so much more. There’s no lack of vision here, and it all blends together into a vast tapestry. The music doesn’t disappoint either, with punchy sound effects. Best of all, every stage has a unique musical theme. It all comes together seamlessly, and just serves to make Panzer Paladin an even more memorable game.

Overall, Panzer Paladin was actually better than I thought it might be. It wasn’t quite perfect, but it came really damned close. If they had done things like make Remixed a bit more different than Classic, or ironed out the glitches I experienced in Tournament mode, I would have given this a perfect score. It’s a tremendous value for only $19.99, with multiple endings, tons of different modes and an adventure I won’t soon forget. I spent about 10 hours beating the game the first time, but since then have spent several more hours just enjoying the game. I always knew Tribute was capable of greatness, and I’m so glad they achieved it in Panzer Paladin. Now I just hope they have a sequel in the works, cause I want to see more from this amazing world.

Review Score
Overall

Review Copy Provided by Developer

The post REVIEW: Panzer Paladin appeared first on oprainfall.

Something you should know about me is that I’m not amazing at puzzle games. I like them on occasion, and find them fun in short bursts. But I also don’t consider myself an expert at the genre, let alone what I call ice puzzles. Those are the games where everything works like a block of ice, and you’ll slide until you hit something solid. Keen: One Girl Army replaces a block of ice with a spunky ninja girl on roller skates. There’s a lot to catch your attention in this game, and it’s much more than a simple puzzle game. The question is, does it live up to the ambitious scope of developer Cat Nigiri? Or does it slide headfirst into a brick wall?

One thing I want to get out of the way first regards the visual style of the game. It really looks like something made first for mobile, but that’s not the case. Keen is only for PC and Switch. I think the reason for that artistic choice, then, is due to Cat Nigiri’s background. Long story short, they started out with mobile game development, and though they’ve since made things for consoles, I’m sure they’re still inspired by their roots. With that out of the way, let’s talk a bit about the story of Keen.

The plot of the game is both more and less interesting than I expected. The main character, Kim, is the latest in a long line of ninja warrior women. Her mother is out of the picture, but she was renowned as one of the best back in her day. Kim is raised by her Gramma. In the tutorial stage, Gramma talks you through the basic controls and gives you some insight into the world of the game. It seems that outside forces are up to no good, threatening not only your home but everywhere else as well. The enemy is mostly comprised of zombies, robots and the occasional ghost. As you progress through the game, you’ll learn more details about what’s happening and who is behind it. I admit I was compelled by many aspects of the plot, but in the end there were too many loose ends for my tastes. Things that seem relevant got left behind and other revelations just left me more confused. While that was a bit disappointing, thankfully you’re not playing Keen just for the plot. This is a puzzle game, after all. So let’s spend some time talking about how it plays.

Kim is a spunky ninja on roller skates, and that effectively tells you how she controls. Once you pick a direction, she’ll keep charging until she hits a wall, object or hazard. Thankfully she’s equipped with a means of dealing damage, the family naginata. If she has a straight shot through a foe with adjacent extra spaces, she’ll race through them and deal 2 damage. If she lands adjacent to a foe, she’ll do 1 damage instead, and momentarily stun them. Every enemy only moves when you do, so you have some control over how skirmishes progress. That said, the enemy AI is pretty smart, so making the wrong move often results in Kim taking some damage. Most foes only move around and hit her when up close and personal, but others can hit from a distance. Some nasty ones even go invisible, and only show up when they move, which is a giant source of anxiety. Others are intangible, forcing you to hit them once they’re corporeal. The combat works pretty well, so long as I had enough room to maneuver and wasn’t surrounded by enemies. But the farther you get in the game, the more intense things get, with nastier foes introduced at a rapid clip.

It’s not all combat in Keen, thankfully. Most of the game is figuring out how to get from point A to point B. Rooms are all interconnected in complex ways, so what might look like a simple path is often convoluted. Making things trickier is that often you’ll find hidden rooms in dark corners. Many of them are optional, but in some areas you have to find the hidden room just to progress through the level. Speaking of optional, you’ll also find hidden Shrines on the world map. These provide new abilities to help Kim survive, but you can’t just enter Shrines for free. They cost Orbytes, which are found in a variety of ways. You can earn them by fulfilling certain requirements in stages, such as only moving so many times or avoiding taking any damage. You also will find Orbytes inside stages. You’ll need a specific amount to enter each of the several Shrines, and I can say it’s worth the price. I found about 3 in my playthrough, and each one rewarded me with life saving tools. My favorite was probably the shield which prevented taking damage, but I also got cool stuff like shuriken and lightning strikes. Each of these is gone once used, but you can recharge them by rolling into a checkpoint. Those are sprinkled throughout each stage, and they’re real lifesavers, since they also fully heal you.

As you progress through Keen, new and more dangerous traps and hazards are introduced. You’ll find blocks you can move, switches you have to activate, laser turrets, timed explosives and much more. Understanding how they all work is integral to your survival, though thankfully you have unlimited lives. If not, I’m not sure I would have been able to beat the final boss of the game. Yes, I was surprised Keen has boss fights too, at first happily so. There’s only a handful, but each one gets progressively more challenging. Each boss will summon foes to distract you, as well as littering the field of battle with traps that can end your life. They also have multiple phases, so you’ll need to memorize their attack patterns and react properly to have a chance. Though I spent about 6 or 7 hours to beat the game, 3 of those were spent on the final boss alone. So prepare for a steeper challenge than you might expect from a game in this genre.

Visually, there’s a lot I like about Keen. It has a cute chibi aesthetic that looks like a Bratz doll doused in neon. I also really like the use of color in this game, with bold and bright choices contrasting the gloomy dark corridors. Even the loading screen is attractive, with an action shot of Kim racing into battle. On the audio side, it’s also a nice experience. Lots of quasi-Eastern tunes interspersed with songs that reminded me of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It’s a weird mix, for sure, but it works pretty well. There’s even voice acting in a small capacity, mostly to give Kim more personality. Overall, the game looks and sounds great.

I’ve tried to mostly focus on the good until now, but there was plenty of bad in Keen. One is that many levels have very long stretches without enough checkpoints to break them up. This means that a single death will force you back to the checkpoint, which is irritating. It also means you really can’t rely on your Shrine abilities, since you never know when you’ll be able to charge them back up. Also, I was constantly anxious that I’d get stuck in a room by progressing the wrong way. I don’t think that’s actually possible, but it did make me wish I had a way to rewind my progress on floors. I also would have loved a hint system to guide me on the right path. Cause I got lost frequently, and oftentimes the path forward isn’t clear. And regarding the bosses, I really think the game should have automatically saved after each phase was beaten, and let me respawn from that point. Without that feature, each boss requires you to beat them in one attempt. Considering the final boss has 9 phases, 3 of which can instantly kill you, made this especially relevant. I also wish the UI was a bit more easy to parse. Mainly I didn’t love having to wander all about the world map, and wish I could fast travel to locations after I’ve beaten them. And though this is a nitpick, I really was irritated by how the game avoided proper names for things, such as referring to a big town as VILLAGE. Why not call it Neon City or something else? None of these ruined my time with the game, but they all brought it down a few steps from true greatness.

Ultimately, I don’t think I was the right person to review Keen: One Girl Army. It’s not horrible, and I like the ambitious scope of the adventure, but it’s also much more hardcore than I was expecting. That said, it’s attractive and has good replay value, apparently featuring a secret ending if you’re patient enough to 100% every level and unlock every Shrine. With all that in mind, Keen isn’t a bad deal for $15.99. Ultimately I think this is a good experiment from Cat Nigiri, and I hope they’re not discouraged by my thoughts. If you’re a fan of puzzles, not matter how difficult, then this is your game.

Review Score
Overall

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

The post REVIEW: Keen: One Girl Army appeared first on oprainfall.

One of the most blockbuster reveals recently was the announcement that Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon was getting a sequel. The first game was a very faithful retro platformer, set in a similar style to Castlevania III. But I never in my wildest dreams imagined we’d get a Curse of the Moon 2! Though in many ways CotM 2 follows in the footsteps of the original, it also sets itself apart in a few ways. For one, there’s a new team of demon hunters joining Zangetsu on his mission. For another, overall I found this to be a meatier experience. The real question then is, was Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 better than the first game? Or was it merely a glimmering echo?

First things first. If you played Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, you might have certain expectations after hearing that Dominique is playable. All I will say is put your expectations aside, because Curse of the Moon 2 constantly surprised me as I played. While Zangetsu was playable in the first game, here he’s playable the entire time. Other than Dominique, joining him are newcomers Robert and Hachi. Robert is an expert marksman who can snipe foes from half a screen away, crawl through narrow apertures and wall jump, but is otherwise incredibly frail. Hachi is literally a flying mecha operated by a corgi. No, I’m not sure how that happened either; all I know is Hachi is amazing. He can hover and utilize weapon points that other characters need for subweapons to make himself temporarily invincible. That sounds overpowered, but you’ll really learn to rely on it. He can also smash walls to open up new pathways. Also, since this was already revealed by Inti Creates, I can confirm the other demon hunters from the original game, Miriam, Gebel and Alfred, return at a certain point. I won’t reveal where, other than to say their portion was my favorite part of the entire experience.

One thing that Curse of the Moon 2 does exceptionally well is make every teammate count. Nobody is a clone of anyone else, and each has their strengths and weaknesses. Some are physically stronger, others are faster, some jump higher and others can play crowd control. The first time you play, the end of each boss fight will be punctuated by the arrival of a demon hunter, who slays the boss in epic fashion. After you’ve recruited the core group, the game starts to change things up, and really forces you to alternate wisely and strategically between them. Thankfully that’s done easily by pressing L or R to shift between the group, and it freezes time for a brief second while it happens. A good example of how this mechanic works is against the gigantic mummy boss. He forces you to avoid spears and lightning while trying to scale moving platforms so you can reach his weak point. To do so, I went invincible with Hachi, then got up close and personal with Dominique’s spear, and if the boss ran, I would snipe him with Robert. This system isn’t overwhelming either, and rewards you for being creative. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak. That said, this game is inspired by hardcore retro NES games, so do expect to get frustrated by several bosses. Thankfully there was nothing here I couldn’t figure out how to overcome.

I will say, I really grew to appreciate Dominique during my first playthrough. Her healing spells and powerful attack magic, along with her multifaceted lance, made her a true MVP. This turns out to have been a deliberate choice, since later on you won’t have her at your disposal. I really don’t want to ruin any of the story beats here. All I will say is that you won’t see the true ending for Curse of the Moon 2 for a while. To unlock it, you’ll first have to unlock various episodes and beat them. While you can beat any of the episodes in about 4 hours, my total playtime was around 14 hours. And I should mention, each episode has different quirks that make things a bit more interesting and challenging, such as harder attack patterns for bosses. Hell, one episode even practically turns the game into a Metroidvania, which I enthusiastically approve of. The main thing that changes in each episode is the final boss fight. Outside of that, you’ll have about eight stages to get through each run, complete with branching paths and hidden goodies, including items which permanently power up your team’s stats.

Though Curse of the Moon 2 is made with a certain audience in mind, it’s also approachable to less confident or patient gamers. Though I played on Veteran, which keeps features like enemy knockback, you can play on easier modes that are much more forgiving. Regardless of mode, you can earn extra lives by scoring enough points from collecting items or defeating foes. Either way, the controls in the game are well implemented, and each attack has a distinct audio cue and range. You’ll grow to appreciate the various subweapons at each character’s disposal, such as Robert’s dual lances, Zangetsu’s burning scrolls or Dominique’s wall-crawling lightning. With the exception of Hachi and Gebel, each character has a variety of subweapons they can use. The controls all work marvelously, so you can only blame yourself when you fall into a pit or get skewered by a foe. One nice modern convention is you’ll come across candles that serve as checkpoints. They keep you from having to play entire levels over from the beginning once you die (and you will die). But like in the first game, each character essentially serves as an extra life, so you won’t have to use a continue until your entire team perishes, which will restart the stage.

Speaking of bosses, all the bosses in Curse of the Moon 2 are epic. I’ve always appreciated Inti Creates’ artistic flair, and whether using pixels or sprites, they do incredible work. Each monster is complex and full of detail, and there’s some nightmarish beasts here. Take the first boss, which is a green wyvern. At first it looks somewhat standard, until the red skeleton parasite lodged in its throat breathes fire, or its eel-like tail spits electricity at you. Besides looking epic, all the bosses pose a significant threat, and will force you to learn their patterns and act quickly. Thankfully, I feel the bosses here are more well balanced than in the first game. Some of the original game’s bosses were near impossible without the right demon hunter, and many were hard even with your full team. I didn’t have nearly as much trouble with these bosses, with the exception of the numerous final bosses you’ll face. Those will stress you to the maximum, many with multiple phases, and will require every bit of skill and strategy to defeat. That said, these battles were definitely a highlight of the experience.

The exploration in the game is also a step up from the first game. Many stages are built with dual paths in mind, and some won’t be accessible til you get the entire team of demon hunters together. These paths show off how expansive the stages are, and there’s plenty of hidden rooms full of rewards as well. Every stage is bristling with monsters, and they will do their level best to kill you, especially on Veteran. I got knocked into bottomless pits more than once by flying foes, and raced frantically across disappearing platforms. I will say, Hachi really helps you safely explore, since not only can he hover over pits, he can literally crush deadly spikes underfoot. While his large size makes him an easy target for foes, he’s still pretty invaluable. It’s a lot of fun switching between characters to help you explore stages and combat threats.

Visually, I never have any complaints with Inti Creates, and that doesn’t change with Curse of the Moon 2. Not only is the artwork reminiscent of classics I love, but it is full of its own personality. Take the way each character poses after beating a boss, such as Zangetsu rapidly sheathing his sword or Hachi bouncing out of his mech to bark triumphantly. Even when you’re on the map screen, you’ll see the team interacting on the bottom. One of my favorite moments was traveling to an ice stage, with Hachi shivering until Robert put a blanket on him. These little touches just go to show the attention to detail present, and I love it. I already said how amazing the bosses look, but that goes for every other element of the game too. While it might not be completely faithful to NES restrictions, I could care less. I love how the game builds drama with background animation, such as sinister shadows watching you and then flying off to cause mayhem, or lightning strikes revealing hideous sea monsters. Thankfully, the sound design is also tremendous. There’s lots of distinct sounds that help differentiate the stages, and the grunts of your team lend them lots of personality. Each foe has audio cues as well, and the bosses roar demonically and make lots of noise to show how powerful they are. Honestly, the visual and audio design here is some of the best work I’ve yet seen from Inti Creates, and it’s a large reason why I keep coming back to their titles.

I honestly have no real complaints about Curse of the Moon 2. It doesn’t trip over itself or make any obvious mistakes. The closest I could come to one is saying that it may be too challenging for some gamers, but that’s really not a problem. No game is for everyone, after all. Besides that, the only minor quibble I have is that I feel the true final boss of this game was somewhat less impressive than the first game. But in every other aspect, Curse of the Moon 2 outdoes its predecessor.

Curse of the Moon 2 is great however you slice it. It’s not quite perfect, but it’s so damn close that it barely matters. For $14.99, it’s a bit pricier than the original, but still a great bargain. I enjoyed all the time I spent with the game, especially since there’s more to unlock. I have two mystery modes I’m working to open up, but even then there’s a lot of replay value here. You have multiple endings, as well as plenty of ways to progress through the game, and if a friend is close by, you can also enjoy the co-op mode, which looks really fun. You’ll even unlock cool features like the ability to play as Ultimate Zangetsu, who is even more of a badass than usual. While I would have appreciated a feature like an art gallery or bestiary showing all the enemy names, there’s very little to complain about here. If you like classic platformers and love Castlevania flavor, you absolutely need to own this game. Now I’m just hoping to get an announcement of a Curse of the Moon 3, cause frankly I enjoy these side stories more than Ritual of the Night.

Review Score
Overall

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I’m going to start this review of Brigandine The Legend of Runersia with an embarrassing admission – I thought this was merely a tactical RPG. I didn’t fully comprehend the differences between that genre of game and a grand strategy RPG. But now I get it. Whereas tactical RPGs generally take place on more limited fields where you muster your troops, grand strategy is more like a giant game of Risk. You’ll need constant awareness of your surroundings, and have to work tactically, invading enemy strongholds and increasing your strength. After playing the demo of Brigandine, I knew I liked the premise, but there’s a difference between a demo and a full review. Does this live up to my lofty expectations? Or do I still prefer tactical RPGs?

Brigandine takes place in a world of magic and monsters. The source of all magic are pools of Mana, gifts from the Rune God. The most highly concentrated forms of Mana are special gems called Brigandine, worn in the past by heroic Rune Knights. These artifacts provide massive power to the holder, as well as allowing them to summon magical creatures. Though you don’t need a Brigandine to summon monsters and fight others, those that utilize them are so empowered that they’re revered as rulers of their respective nation. Each of the 6 nations (Norzaleo, Guimoule, Shinobi, Mana Saleesia, Mirelva and Gustava) have their own Brigandine, with the exception of one, and they all are trying to unify the land of Runersia for different reasons. Some want to spread justice, others demand freedom and some just want to exert authoritarian control. Regardless, when you start the game you pick one of the 6 nations, and then guide them as they work to defeat all that stands in their way. For the majority of the game, you’ll just be fighting the other nations in skirmishes and taking new land, but towards the end you’ll encounter some relatively big twists. Though I’m hesitant to reveal the nature of those events, I can say that the latter part of the game is focused intensely on the source of Mana and and the reasons each nation is waging war.

The basic loop of the game is spread across several years of in-game time. You basically need to unify the continent in a set amount of years, otherwise you lose. Each year is split into 24 seasons, which are each further split into two phases – Organization and Attack. During the former, you summon monsters, arrange them into troops with Rune Knight commanders, send troops on quests to gain experience and equipment and move troops to different occupied bases. During the Attack Phase, you send troops to invade adjacent enemy bases, and hopefully secure new territory. While there is a meaty tutorial present to explain the basics, I found it doesn’t explain nearly everything it should. For example, I was not aware that each base only lets you summon specific monster types, that Revival Stones are used to resurrect slain monsters nor that wounded commanders need to rest for a season before you can use them again. To be fair, all this information is available, but only if you know where to look. Some of it is in the Guide, which covers Tutorial steps, but some are also found in Tips. While I’m glad the information isn’t hidden per se, some of is definitely should have been upgraded to the main Tutorial. It’s no exaggeration I was playing for several hours before I figured out some of this important information. And even then, I’m unclear on some things, such as which quests provide Revival Stones. In my 33 hour playthrough, I didn’t come across one Revival Stone, and thus had to just summon and charm new monsters to fill my depleted roster.

Any game with tactical DNA lives or dies by the gameplay, and I’m happy to say I mostly loved the combat in Brigandine. Despite the high level of complexity in the game, gameplay is pretty streamlined. Whenever you attack an enemy base, you can use a maximum of three troops, and the enemy is limited to the same number of defenders. While that may initially sound disappointing, keep in mind each troop can have up to 6 monsters and 1 commander, so you can have up to 21 total units. To summon monsters, you’ll use Mana in the Organization Phase, but each base under your control grants you additional Mana each turn. You just need to make sure you have enough to summon them, and also make sure your commander has enough Mana to hold them. If not, you will have to rearrange your troops until your Mana cost is out of the red. Once battle starts, you pick 3 troops and place them on the field of battle. You’ll have 12 turns to defeat the opponent. However, you don’t always have to beat them outright. If you manage to weaken the foe by taking out a couple of their commanders, or even a majority of their monsters, they’ll often lose heart and retreat from battle, netting you a win. It’s far more satisfying to wipe them out entirely though, especially since if you defeat the commanders while they’re distant from their troop, you may capture their monsters for yourself. You can also use magic to charm monsters, for the same effect.

Combat itself is pretty simple. You move each unit, select a target, and attack. In deference to the hexagonal grid, you can do some maneuvers to block enemy progress or encircle them to increase your odds of dealing damage. The one way Brigandine shows it is still an old school game at heart is how magic works. While spells and some skills require Mana, you cannot cast magic and move in the same turn. So positioning is incredibly important. You’ll need to draw the foe close enough to be in range for your magical attacks. As I said earlier, some powerful attack skills have the same restrictions, often ones that are guaranteed to hit or which do massive damage. At first I was frustrated by this system, but I grew to appreciate it. It just forces you to be more strategic in how you move your troops about, and I’m fine with that. It’s also just fun to attack with hordes of monsters. There’s a ton of different creatures you can bring into battle, from golems to mermaids to dragons and much more besides. Each type of monster has set abilities it can use, passive and active, and will learn more when you upgrade their class. Doing so just requires the monster being at a certain level or specific stat level. The same rules apply to your commanders, who also represent a wide variety of classes and skills, including archers, magicians and brawlers. The key difference is your commanders aren’t locked into specific classes, and can branch out and learn new abilities. Best of all, they can carry some over with a sufficient proficiency level, which is reached by just attacking with them a lot. That said, I didn’t really experiment much with dual classes and the like, since this is already a huge game. A single playthrough can take anywhere from 20 to 40 hours, and that’s just for one nation. When you factor in there’s 6 of them, as well as multiple endings, you’ll start to see how expansive of a game this is. As such, I decided to try and get through fast one time instead of dillydallying.

While I do like the variety of monsters in the game, there’s also more than a few that disappointed me. Take the mermaids, for example. They have some really powerful skills that are totally unusable unless they’re on a water tile. All units have a terrain preference, allowing them to move farther and hit harder while situated on it, and be less effective when on a different terrain. But it’s another thing entirely to lock out the best attacks unless they’re sitting on ideal terrain. Especially when you consider each map in the game is nearly identical, with a couple narrow bodies of water and tons more mountain, plain and forest tiles, making mermaids kinda useless. I also wasn’t a fan of the gremlins, which could only do basic buff spells until they change classes, and would easily get wiped out by a couple solid hits. Frankly, all the physical attacker monsters are pretty interchangeable, and the magical ones are only really worthwhile if they can heal. I grew to appreciate monsters that could attack and move afterwards, or which could damage large groups of foes. Otherwise I would either bench them or just release them into the wild to replenish my Mana. Oh and lest I forget, you can only have 100 total monsters summoned at a time. This isn’t an issue for the first few hours, but when you start conquering nations and their commanders join your forces, you’ll have a harder time spreading all your monsters around evenly. Especially since you inexplicably cannot move monsters in reserve between your bases, and instead have to ferry them around in troops.

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I’ve been not so patiently waiting to review the Switch version of Indivisible for more than a year. I’ve been a fan of the game since I demoed it twice at PAX West, and was drawn in by the stunningly lush artwork, haunting music and dynamic gameplay. Though I already knew about developer Lab Zero Games, I hadn’t yet played their other game. And that’s despite me owning Skullgirls. Nevertheless, I was bound and determined to cover Indivisible for the oprainfall site, and now that time has finally come. After putting in significantly more hours to beat the game than I was told it would require, how did I feel? Was Indivisible on Switch worth the wait? Or did Ajna’s heroic journey disappoint?

Indivisible begins with a climactic battle against some god-like entity. You join the action and control a mighty group of four heroes as they battle the creature, suffer damage, and seemingly manage to defeat it. Two of them are romantically drawn to each other, a man and woman, and after limping away victorious, the story cuts forward to 16 years later. The city of Ashawat is a small yet scenic one, unspoiled by modernity and populated by hardy citizens. One young girl is getting ready to train with her father, and that girl is our hero. Her name is Ajna, and simple deduction tells us she might be the child of those two heroes. After all, she’s a teenager and her father is a grizzled older man that is obviously that same male hero. Here we learn the basics of defense, which Ajna’s father insists is integral. Ajna doesn’t take well to direction, and they get into an argument. She questions his authority and past, and her father stomps back to the village. After fuming for a bit, Ajna realizes she should apologize, and follows after him.

What should be a calm scene suddenly erupts in fire and bloodshed. Ashawat is burning, and her father has been fatally wounded by a stern young soldier named Dhar. As he draws his last breath, Ajna erupts into violence, and battles the young soldier. They reach a standstill, until something unexpected happens. Somehow Dhar is drawn into Ajna’s mind, where he is trapped. Uncertain what is happening, Ajna is nevertheless eager to find the man behind this murderous calamity. See, Dhar is a soldier in Ravannavar’s army, and they are marching about laying claim to land and killing any who don’t subscribe to their beliefs. Confused and not sure about what’s happening, our hero nevertheless is bound and determined to find Ravannavar, slay him and avenge her father. If only things were as black and white as she suspects. Cause unbeknownst to Ajna, there’s a lot more at stake than she could possibly imagine.

The journey that follows is one that contends with the mystery of Ajna’s powers, as every main character she encounters is likewise drawn into her mind. She finds she can summon them at will to fight with her, and grows stronger the larger her crew becomes. Though I promise there’s some explanation for such an uncanny power, I won’t spoil anything about the main arc of the plot. I can say that the primary themes it addresses are the following – power without purpose, chaos, nature vs nurture and what defines a hero. The first half of the story involves Ajna cutting a violent swathe through all that opposes her, becoming more and more powerful. By contrast, the second half is all about learning from your mistakes and helping right the wrongs that plague this world. I will say, the first part of the story is probably my favorite. I found Ravannavar a sinister and compelling villain, and his scheme to awaken a god and get resurrected following the destruction and rebirth of the world really interesting. I fully expected him to go full Wesker, plaguing Ajna and company with ever more powerful forms as the game progressed. Imagine my disappointment when I realized he was a one and done foe, and the big bad was far less compelling. That’s not to say the final boss isn’t interesting, it is, but I feel there was a missed storytelling opportunity here. Thankfully, what Indivisible missed with the story it more than made up with its cast of characters.

As the title might suggest, Indivisible is all about the group of misfits Ajna literally draws to her throughout the course of the game. It’s a very eclectic crew, from a pyromaniac tiger mage to a cute little botanist to a woman-loving pirate to a devout archer and many, many more. There’s more characters than you’ll know what to do with, since you can only have a team of 4 at a time, with the others sitting patiently in reserve within Ajna’s inner realm. I really liked many of the characters, as they are bursting with personality and quirks. Though my favorite is probably Razmi, the smack talking, deranged tiger mage, but there’s others too. Take Thorani, a beautiful and sultry Deva who sprays healing waters from her hair. Or Qadira, a steadfast warrior searching for her kidnapped brother. My main complaint with regard to the characters is so few of them get any real development. Surprisingly, the one that gets the truest arc is Dhar, the same soldier that murdered Ajna’s father. While the others all have interesting personalities, none of them have anywhere close to as significant of a story. Which is a shame, since there’s more than a dozen playable characters, including some you have to hunt for in optional side quests. Luckily, the one area that every character can shine is during battle.

Combat is both incredibly complex and well streamlined in Indivisible. There are no items whatsoever in the game, other than weapons, so all your healing is done via character abilities. Gameplay kind of reminds me of a mixture of Guardian Heroes and Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier. Meaning the art is beautiful and you have a lot of control over how you juggle and interact with foes, though your team does have specialties. Dhar can charge up and then unleash earthen attacks, while Ginseng & Honey can mash foes and then heal allies with a mortar and pestle. Attacks are mapped to whatever button the character is set to, either A, B, X or Y. You can deal basic attacks with a single press, or use up or down for different attacks. By holding R and then pressing your character’s button when your Iddhi meter is charged enough, you’ll unleash powerful super attacks, such as Dhar wielding a giant column of stone or Razmi healing the entire team. You also use character buttons to block enemy attacks, which can replenish your super meter with Iddhi if you time it right. And if a foe is blocking, a successive input of an up and then down attack will break their shield. Most important of all, if you have downed teammates, pressing L and R simultaneously with a full Iddhi meter resurrects them all, even Ajna. Or if you’re in dire straits, pressing L has your entire team block at once, but at the cost of Iddhi. It’s all pretty intuitive, and despite the complexity becomes mostly second nature. Though you can use any team you want, I quickly learned to go with the crowd control type characters. The reason for this is that by weaving together successive attacks, your combo meter gets higher. The higher it gets, the more damage you’ll inflict to foes. As such, I settled on a team of Ajna, Ginseng, Tungar (AKA Sikh E. Honda) and Zebei, since they could deal tons of rapid fire attacks, as well as knocking down aerial foes with arrows. Once I got a foe grounded, I could juggle them mercilessly for 200 hit combos, dealing tons and tons of damage.

Though the combat is fantastic in principle, there were some issues with it. One is that the game never really told me I could do different levels of super attacks with more bars of Iddhi. I was using my Level 1 supers the entire game, which probably made progress more challenging than it needed to be, especially when I was in the Iron Kingdom, full of shielded knights and poisonous slime monsters. It can also be hard to see the button prompts on screen when they’re covered by foes. And on the topic of my unused reserve characters, I really wish that I could tag in characters who weren’t in my active party (similar to games like Marvel vs. Capcom). That would make it so I wasn’t only using the characters I was most comfortable with. Or even some sort of ability grid for each character to help individualize them further. Cause as I got into the groove of fighting battle after battle, I just wanted a bit more nuance to liven things up. The most you get is using red gems called Ringsels to upgrade your team’s attack or defense, but that was a bit underwhelming. Which isn’t to say the combat isn’t fun, it’s quite enjoyable. It’s just not perfect.

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I’ve been waiting to play Shantae and the Seven Sirens since WayForward first revealed the game. I’m a big fan of the series, and have been since I first played Risky’s Revenge. It has grown and changed dramatically over the years, sometimes being more of a pure platformer, and other times closer to a Metroidvania. I personally felt the series reached near perfection with Pirate’s Curse, both due to the structure and plot of the game. It really gave more development to several characters, as well as expanding the game universe in fascinating ways. Then we got Half-Genie Hero which, though a definite step up visually, also felt like a step backwards in other ways. So when I heard Seven Sirens would be another Metroidvania-styled outing, I got really excited. If it could successfully mix the gameplay elements of Pirate’s Curse with the visuals of Half-Genie Hero, it had a outstanding chance to cement itself as best in the series. Keep reading to see if I feel it succeeded.

The story begins when Shantae and company head to a tropical island to participate in a genie exhibition. It takes place in Arena Town, where the mayor is pulling out all the stops to have an outstanding ceremony. Shantae is excited to relax for a change, as well as meet a few of her fellow half-genies. After you introduce yourself to each of them, a fancy and thrilling dance show starts, only for the lights to suddenly go out. When they pop back on, all the genies except Shantae are suddenly missing. Overwhelmed with guilt as the sole survivor, Shantae nevertheless musters the courage to hunt down her new missing friends, and get to the mystery of the island in the process.

Though I want to say more about the story, it’s probably best to experience it yourself, especially to enjoy the curve balls the game throws at you later in the experience. That said, I do wish we got a bit more character development. I realize that’s trickier since there’s several new characters introduced. It would be difficult to balance revealing and sufficiently developing many new characters, but I can’t help but remember how in Pirate’s Curse, many of the included characters got some great development, especially Rottytops and Risky Boots. Nevertheless, I’m not disappointed by the plot here. I just wish there were a bit more to it, especially since I was hoping for a deeper dive into Risky’s character, as well as her possible connection to Shantae.

Thankfully, you don’t necessarily play a Shantae game for the plot so much as the humor and gameplay. I am happy to agree that Seven Sirens is great in both regards. If you love games that poke fun at the industry silliness, Shantae is your girl. Tons of characters make fun of her lack of clothing as well as her bouncy nature, but in a way that isn’t offensive or cruel. There’s also an utterly hilarious sequence of events featuring Shantae, Sky and a couple other characters I won’t reveal. It reminded me a lot of a classic Simpsons Halloween episode involving Comic Book Man, but that’s all I’ll say. Just get ready to laugh frequently as you play through Shantae and the Seven Sirens.

Like I said above, the gameplay in Seven Sirens is also pretty great. It’s definitely more reminiscent of Pirate’s Curse, in that there’s lots of interconnected maps to explore with new abilities, and hidden treats to unearth. It’s also less of a hardcore platformer than I felt Half-Genie Hero was, so you won’t be swearing as you keep falling into deadly pits or run from dangerous creatures. That’s not to say there’s no challenge, just that it comes more from the enemies than the environments. And I’m fine with that. Pretty early in the game I invested heavily in Shampoo and Cream so my genie was a merciless hair-whipping machine, so much so that I worried I was too overpowered for most of the game, though the last few bosses were still a hefty challenge. Thankfully there’s a New Game Plus mode after you beat it once, and I fully intend to play through again but restrict myself from overpowering my genie, just so things are a bit more challenging.

One thing I loved about Seven Sirens is how WayForward streamlined the transformation process. You no longer have to dance, select a form and then transform. Instead, all your animal transformations are relegated to various buttons, so you can instantaneously turn into the right form. As examples, you can press ZR to turn into a newt that dashes at and climbs walls, or press ZL to turn into a turtle and smash through rocks. There’s some really wonderful forms you can transform into, and in typical Shantae fashion, they’re all adorable. But it wouldn’t be a proper game in this series without dancing, and I’m happy to say they improved this aspect as well. As you recover your missing half-genie brethren, they will eventually reward you with a portion of their magic. These are called Fusion Magic, and they let Shantae do some spectacular dances. Some provide support, others are attacks, but they all serve a purpose. Take the Seer dance. It reveals hidden items and secrets that help you progress. Or the Nourish dance, which not only heals Shantae, but also causes flowers to bloom and give you treats, or even turns murky poison water into clean springs. Best of all, when you finish each dance, it reveals a cool hybrid form of Shantae based off the genie you got it from. I wish I could show some here, but trust me, they’re all fantastic-looking.

What I really appreciated in Seven Sirens is how each transformation really opens up your exploration skills, much like in Pirate’s Curse. Each one lets you explore more and more of the island. My only minor complaint is that it all felt really linear, especially since you can always get a nudge in the right direction by talking to any villager with an exclamation mark over their head. Granted, you are allowed to wander, and there’s some big areas, but there’s just not that much to do outside of the main story. I really wish there were some huge bonus area you could only access after the credits roll, but alas, it all takes place on or near the main resort island. I also have to admit, I did get lost a few times early on, but mostly because I wasn’t thinking clearly and trying to rush. Once you have two or three transformations, there’s not much you can’t do. By the time you get the last one, things are totally opened up, if you have the inclination to hunt down every last scrap. And while most of what you’ll find hidden away are either Heart Squids or Nuggets, there’s one new element in Seven Sirens that makes the game more interesting: the Monster Cards.

I feel like WayForward really took inspiration from the Castlevania Sorrow games with this mechanic. Basically as you defeat foes, they’ll occasionally drop Monster Cards. Once you have enough of them, you can equip up to three cards at a time, providing passive bonuses to Shantae. Some examples are making food more nutritious or increasing the range of subweapons or even making dances cost less magic. There’s a lot of these cards, and I haven’t even found all of them. The most powerful are of the titular Sirens themselves, and it seems these can only be acquired by trading Nuggets to specific villagers. While you certainly don’t need to actively use the Monster Cards to beat the game, they offer a nice little distraction to broaden the experience.

Shantae games typically have really fun bosses, and that’s also true here. Each of the Sirens is well animated and fights you very differently. Take the Water Lily Siren, a beautiful flower that tries to smash you with vines, who needs to be coaxed into a pool of sunlight to reveal her weak spot. Or the Tubeworm Siren, a deadly Gorgon that attacks you with snake-like appendages. They’re all equal parts creepy, cute and dangerous. That said, I wish we got some personality from them other than how they attack you. Give me a line or two of dialogue. Anything. You’ll only really get to know one Siren, and the rest are just there to block your progress. Also, I can tell that WayForward toned down the bosses from when I last demoed Seven Sirens at PAX West. Then I was barely holding my own against the first boss, but now they all seemed to have less life and be more relaxed. Honestly I felt that Risky Boots was more difficult when you face her in various mini boss fights here. I guess I just wanted a bit more of an obstacle from the bosses overall.

Visually, there’s a lot to enjoy. Shantae games are always pretty, with bright colors and vivid designs. Each of the new characters has a distinct style and the new foes are also pretty creative, such as serpentine mummies. I loved the animated introduction by Studio TRIGGER, as well as several spectacular cinematics, many of which that take place right before major boss fights. I didn’t realize how much I needed these animations til I saw them, and they’re all wonderful, so much so that I almost want an animated TV show for my favorite genie now. That said, while this is a very visually attractive game, there’s one area it’s inexplicably a step backwards: some stage designs. I double-checked my review of Half-Genie Hero to confirm, and it’s true that there’s less visual complexity on display. Some areas look downright barren, much to my surprise. HD graphics are best when they’re trying to flex their muscles, and I just feel like several layouts here needed a shot in the arm. They’re not all bad, but some were very underwhelming. Just giving us more action happening in the background would have helped a ton. I still remember sights like the conveyor belts carrying would-be mermaids or rioting Tinkerbats attacking Scuttle Town in Half-Genie, and wanted more of that here. Musically, Seven Sirens is pretty great, with lots of jaunty, upbeat tunes. They do a good job of matching the theme of an island resort, without too many ominous or threatening tracks. And as I’ve grown accustomed to, the voice work is also really spot on. Each character has a distinct voice and personality, especially during the aforementioned cinematics. Overall, the aesthetics were pretty enjoyable.

Honestly, it’s hard to stay mad at my favorite genie. There’s just a lot to smile about in any of these games, and Shantae and the Seven Sirens is no different. Sure, I would have liked more to do, and a bit more challenge, but it was still a fun ride. It successfully cut out the irritating elements from past games while adopting elements I enjoyed from others. And for $29.99, it’s still a pretty good deal. I spent nearly eight hours to beat the game, and had about 70 percent item completion. Once you’re done, you can still tackle New Game Plus, as well as trying to unlock game clear screens. This might not have been the entry that took the crown from Pirate’s Curse for me, but it came damn close. I just hope that WayForward continues to improve on and iterate their formula for these games, and hopefully the next one will be the very best. If nothing else, the ending of Seven Sirens provides a good starting point for whatever comes next.

Review Score
Overall

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I was actually introduced to Behold Studios by the Knights of Pen and Paper games. I picked up both of them for a steal on a Steam sale years ago, and was pleasantly surprised by the clever banter and colorful aesthetic of both games. While I’ve been watching Behold bring those games to consoles in recent months, I was waiting to see if Galaxy of Pen and Paper would make the Switch. When I saw it happen back in April, I knew I had to ask for a review copy, and luckily my request was granted. The only question is how well this series devoted to tabletop RPGs translated to the Nintendo Switch.

Part of the reason I enjoyed the earlier Pen and Paper games was because they played like streamlined Dungeons & Dragons. There’s a large part of me that’s always been interested in playing tabletop RPGs, but for various reasons haven’t been able to devote sufficient time to that hobby. So when I get a game that simplifies the complex bits, such as dice rolling and intensive character creation, and just let’s me experience it solo, I’m a happy boy. Galaxy of Pen and Paper +1 Edition takes that formula from the Knights games, and brings it to the science fiction realm. No more gargoyles and goblins, now we have alien species, robots and other assorted menaces. Thankfully, the general combat, humor and aesthetic come along with that genre transition.

The story in Galaxy of Pen and Paper +1 Edition is split between two perspectives. One is occurring in-game, where your party plays their specific roles and the GM directs you. But there’s another narrative, focused on the turn of the new year (the game takes place in 1999) and all the potential problems that entails. I won’t go into specifics, but there’s a certain event that everybody was worried about back in those days, and it ties into both narratives in interesting ways. That said, because you’re basically directing the entire story, there’s not much in the way of character development. There’s none, really. Though I do feel your selection of class and race might affect statements given in the heat of the moment. For example, I had one party member that was a Simian, and he immediately became the dumb brute on my team. Not by my choice, mind you, though perhaps my decisions for his typing did play a role. Oh and because I’m a fan of many things, I named my entire party and ship after Mega Man characters. Cause I’m that guy.

At the start of the game, you’re allowed to create two party members. You choose everything about them, including their class. That last part is very important, though their race can define passive abilities, such as my Green party member occasionally getting a free ability use, while my Simian would sometimes inflict spread damage on groups of enemies. What’s crucial is that you only have two characters to control for the first Episode of the game, and you’ll have limited class choices. Later on, you’ll be able to recruit two more characters and also take on quests to unlock more classes. Once that happens, the game really opens up in a wonderful way. Unfortunately, getting to that point was more than a bit of a chore. A large reason for that is early on, you can only have one ability equipped per character. What’s crazy is they come to you with a ton of ability choices, and picking just one is tough. As you level up, you’ll gradually unlock more ability slots, which is great. What’s less great is that you need to choose whether to devote those slots to active or passive abilities. Suffice to say, this made combat early on really difficult and grindy. Especially when you factor in your team and most enemies have a regenerating shield, and if you can’t do enough damage each turn to whittle it down, you’re gonna have a rough time actually inflicting damage. It’s no exaggeration that in the game’s first Episode, I constantly lost to battles with just one or two foes. And keep in mind, you’re almost always the one that’s allowed to choose the size of enemy forces arrayed against you. Thankfully, once I got through that first Episode and started to unlock more options, my adventure got easier and much more fun.

Besides the combat, you also generate your own missions, as well as continuing the main campaign. You can only have two mission types active at the same time. What this meant was I would often take on smaller quests, such as searching for resources or hunting dangerous space criminals, to get experience and cash in between the main story beats. You generally only get a minor amount of cash, so it’s good to try the same mission again and again. Just the process of wandering around planets nets you a little experience, and you’ll occasionally come across random encounters that also offer rewards. Often these will be an item or a chance to improve your team’s reputation. I’m not entirely sure what reputation affects, but I never let it dip into the negative either. The bulk of the game is combat though, and it’s both fun and slightly lackluster. It’s standard turn-based RPG fare, with an ATB, attack selection and the like. The tricky thing is that if you’re beaten in battle, you go back to your ship’s med bay to heal up. Sometimes this will cost you, either cash or even experience points. This happened a lot early on in my adventure. I only learned later that you can return to your ship at any time to heal for free, but that wasn’t really spelled out clearly. Boss battles are a bit more interesting than the standard fare, since you don’t have any input on the size or difficulty of those encounters. There’s some really zany foes, including a pop duo, cultist praying mantis and elder deity pasta. No, you didn’t hear that last one wrong, and it’s easily my favorite boss in the entire game.

Once Galaxy of Pen and Paper +1 Edition gets rolling, it’s tremendous fun. This is a great game to just sit and unwind with a few minutes at a time. Though my entire playthrough took some 16 hours, I was also taking my time to just enjoy the experience. It was only held back by a series of unfortunate glitches. Now to be fair, Behold Studios has already addressed one of the worst ones in a recent patch. Namely, the game didn’t showcase how much total money I had acquired. Another patch has made it so that instead of moving from one planet or node to the next, you move a cursor around like a computer mouse to both select and see your environment. Though I’m not sure that last one helped much, the currency problem was a very necessary fix. Unfortunately, there’s a host of others I’ve encountered. They’re more minor, such as planets not displaying properly in mission creation or the cursor on the ATB bar being out of sequence, but they do bring the game down a bit. I haven’t checked if these bugs are present in other versions of the game, but I do hold out hope that Behold will address them as soon as possible. Besides glitches, I also had some issues with the UI at times. Mostly just it being vague about gameplay elements. It’s nothing a tutorial or two wouldn’t fix though. And lastly, there’s some grammatical problems in bits of the dialogue, though overall it’s well written, funny and whip smart.

Aesthetically, Galaxy of Pen and Paper +1 Edition is attractive and reminiscent of many classic games. There’s lots of use of bright colors and a variety of models for friend and foe alike. It looks like a better SNES game, and I had no complaints. Lots of creepy insectoids, arrogant aliens and eldritch monsters. Musically it’s a bit more withdrawn, but not in a bad way. There’s sufficient tunes for space exploration and battle, just nothing really memorable.

In the end, I did have a good time with Galaxy of Pen and Paper +1 Edition. Sure it started slow and grindy, and it does still have its share of glitches, but despite that it put a smile on my face. And for only $12.49, you really can’t go wrong. I had a lot of fun playing it, and hope this isn’t the end of the Pen and Paper series. I think Behold Studios is a talented team, and expect they have a lot more stories to tell us.

Review Score
Overall

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

The post REVIEW: Galaxy of Pen and Paper +1 Edition appeared first on oprainfall.

Thanks to the Binding of Isaac, I’ve developed a taste for two things – rogue games and twin-stick shooters. Which isn’t to say I love them all, but I’m much more receptive to well crafted, challenging entries in the genre now than I was before. Games like, for example, Enter the Gungeon. I really enjoyed it years ago when I demoed it, but was worried I had missed my chance to review it. After all, it came out for Switch back in 2017. And though I had purchased it digitally on a sale, I hadn’t gotten around to playing it years later. But thankfully, Devolver Digital and Dodge Roll had a silver bullet up their sleeves. When they recently announced that crazed sequel, Exit the Gungeon, was coming to Switch, I saw an opportunity. I could finally dust off my copy (figuratively speaking) of Enter the Gungeon and then play through Exit the Gungeon. And while I don’t typically review two games in one shot, there’s a first time for everything. The big question is, was my trip into the depths of the Gungeon worth the wait?

First things first. Both Gungeon games aren’t big on plot. That’s not the same as saying there isn’t any, cause there is a motivating force behind both. In Enter, your goal is to find a mythical gun that can literally kill your past, rewriting your miserable history. The only thing between you and your goal is an ever shifting labyrinth of Gundead, deadly if comical looking foes. In Exit the Gungeon, your group of heroes has damaged the time stream by overusing that mystical gun. As a result, time and space are reacting in unpredictable ways, and the Gungeon itself is falling apart. Your goal is to escape before that happens. So there is definitely a narrative in both games, just enough to keep you invested. Both games also have tons of hilariously punny bosses, some examples being the Gatling Gull and Cannonbalrog, as well as fourth wall breaking humor. You can find a certain blue bomber’s Megahand in Enter the Gungeon, for example. Or you can murder cute little bubble spewing dragons. There’s tons and tons of little references like this to several classic series, and they all lend themselves to the overall zany tone of both Gungeon games. There’s also a ton of lore for each item, weapon and foe in the game’s Ammonomicon. Once I discovered that on the pause menu, I perused several entries and always came away entertained. But the real reason you’re gonna play either of the Gungeon games isn’t the plot – it’s the gameplay. And I can say that both definitely deliver.

Let’s start with Enter the Gungeon. This was definitely the more challenging of the two games. It took me somewhere in the neighborhood of 31 hours to beat the game once. Granted, rogue games have a tendency to be challenging, especially if you get a bad roll of the dice, but that’s still pretty rough. Thankfully, I kept playing because I was enjoying myself. The basic formula is explore and fight your way through several interconnected rooms, find and beat the boss, travel to the next floor, rinse and repeat until you’ve beaten the final boss. Much like Binding of Isaac, truly beating the game requires more than those simple steps, and suffice to say I didn’t have time for that. Thankfully I was able to beat the High Dragun, so technically speaking I did beat the game for the purposes of this review.

One thing I really liked about Enter was how much control you have over ever minute detail. You can manually reload each of your guns with Y, there’s a handy drop down menu that slows down time as you select your next weapon, and you can move and aim simultaneously with the joysticks. Guns are fired with the R trigger, and the L trigger does a handy dodge roll with temporary invincibility. Basic stuff, but it’s implemented really well here. When you lose, it’s generally cause you did something stupid like grab a cursed item or your reflexes just weren’t up to snuff. You’ll do well to hoard all the keys you can find, since each floor typically has multiple chests you can open up. These will either provide you a new gun or a new item, with passive or activated effects. Or if you’re unlucky, they’ll be a mimic in disguise, waiting to murder you.

As you travel you’ll also come across a not so friendly shopkeep that sells wares, but don’t make the mistake of firing your guns in his store too often. While there’s only one shop at first, you’ll gradually find and free various prisoners that will populate the Gungeon in subsequent runs. Some will also show up in the HUB area, so it’s good to not always Quick Start a new game, taking you immediately into a new run without visiting the HUB. All of them will offer some service, if you have the cash and the need. Perhaps my favorite feature, though, are the maps. As you run about, the current floor is accurately displayed, and most rooms have teleporters. At any time outside of combat, you are free to bring up the map, select a teleport node and just instantly travel there. It really made the experience flow remarkably well.

There’s a handful of characters you can pick from, and each has slight quirks that might make them more or less appealing to certain playstyles. These are the main possible characters in both games – Marine, Pilot, Hunter and Convict. They each have a primary weapon with unlimited ammo, and they all fire somewhat differently. Also, they have passive boosts, such as the Marine’s Military Training, which makes his shots fire more accurately and reduces charge time. And though it took me a while before I noticed, each character has a handy item they can choose to activate, generally with limited uses. The Pilot has his “Trusty Lockpick,” which sometimes lets him open chests without a key; meanwhile the Convict has access to Molotov Cocktails she can use to burn foes to a crisp. They all play somewhat differently, and those passive boosts can go a long way. There’s technically a fifth main character, the Cultist. The catch is she can only be used in co-op, which I was unable to try for this review. And if you’ve spent more time with the game than I have, you can also unlock some other playable characters. My favorite was definitely the Marine, since he starts with a layer of armor and his Military Training meant his Pistol was more useful than the other starting weapons. But none of them are horrible, they just force you to try different things to succeed.

When you’re not picking up weapons and blasting holes in things, there’s a lot of other elements that spice up gameplay. You’ll find obstacles that can be used to your advantage, such as explosive barrels and chandeliers you can drop on enemy heads. There’s also less helpful features like buzz saws, jets of flame, freezing ice cubes and more. And lest I forget, holes. That last part normally wouldn’t merit mention, but after I died repeatedly from rolling into holes I didn’t realize were there, it started to become problematic. Which isn’t to say the gameplay is bad, far from it. But for whatever reason, the game likes to generate holes in already dark rooms, where they tend to blend in with the background. Maybe it’s a matter of shading, but it caused me more frustration than I expected. Thankfully, the rest of the Enter gameplay works wonders. It’s fun to dodge and weave, flip up tables to block bullets, roll through bullets and the like. Both Gungeon games definitely reward you for playing skillfully, especially Exit the Gungeon. And you’ll need to play well, since these games have some intense boss battles.

Enter the Gungeon has a whole ton of bosses, and besides referencing things like Dungeons & Dragons, they all tend to be focused on gun and bullet puns. Which I was totally okay with, even if it was a bit silly. I mean in a game where even keys have bullets, you tend to either appreciate the goofiness or get turned off by it. The bosses are where the game shows off the bullet hell features, as even the most basic will flood the screen with interlocking patterns of nasty projectiles. Many of them also love to move around the arena, forcing you to evade and think on your feet. Even the easiest boss is more than capable of killing you if you’re not careful. Going into battle armed with a great gun or two definitely helps, but it’s not required. That said, I did appreciate how much breathing room you generally had to avoid projectiles in Enter the Gungeon. That’s definitely not the case in Exit, where the screen is much smaller and forced into a 2D perspective. Thankfully, overall the bosses in the sequel are a bit more forgiving, at least once you’ve learned to successfully dodge their attacks. I also loved how practically all the bosses in Exit the Gungeon are insane mashups of two or more bosses from the first game. As an example, there’s one called Medusilier Bomb Shell, which is the Gorgun from the first game in the hollowed out Fusilier mini boss’ shell, using weapons brandished by the final boss of that game. It’s really silly and rewarding if you’re familiar with the original adventure.

Overall I really enjoyed my time with the first game, even if it could frustrate me on occasion. There’s a plethora of items to unlock that can increase your odds of success, such as one that makes it so flipping a table stuns all foes, or one that makes dodge rolls reload your guns. The hardest part of this game was the platforming, especially when you get a run that’s focused on murdering you. And for minor irritants, how about the fact that weapon combinations aren’t listed anywhere? You might get two weapons or items that work better together, providing enhanced effects, such as having the Bubble Blaster and Siren guns equipped, providing homing bubbles and massive bubble blasts. I was also annoyed that I couldn’t find anywhere that the game tracks which characters have beaten the game in Enter. And lastly, Enter the Gungeon can really cramp your hands, at least playing the Switch portably. Not that any of these complaints stopped me playing for very long. Plus, considering the game only costs $14.99, all my issues are pretty easy to overlook.

We’re not done yet! Turn to Page 2 to Exit the Gungeon! ->

The post REVIEW: Oprainfall Conquers the Gungeon appeared first on oprainfall.

It’s kind of remarkable I didn’t play Ara Fell a lot sooner. After all, a friend gifted me the original game at least a couple years ago, where it quickly got lost in my massive Steam backlog. But then something wonderful happened – Stegosoft Games went and remastered the original game as Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition. That same friend suggested I review it for the oprainfall site, and I’m incredibly happy I finally listened. And while you could make the argument I would have enjoyed this whimsical adventure sooner, I’m glad I waited. Because Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition is just a much smoother, easier to access game with the same meaningful story intact.

For all intents and purposes, Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition is the same game that was reviewed on the oprainfall site 4 years ago. However, there are some key differences. The battle system has been revamped, the user interface for menus is really easy to parse, and they even added new character classes and skills, apparently. They also upgraded the systems present in the game, such as crafting and enchanting, added difficulty modes, a handy autosave and more. While I wasn’t able to compare and contrast these changes much, not having played the original, I did find a few videos online, and I can say the UI has been wonderfully streamlined. Battle menus aren’t clunky, and it’s clear and obvious what your options are, and even in what order attacks will happen. And while I’m not usually a fan of crafting, here it’s very well implemented. All you need is to buy the recipe for an item, have enough of the requisite ingredients, then hold A to craft. You can craft single use items, as well as upgrade your equipment to provide better stats for your team. Enchanting is also very easy to do, and works pretty much identically. The key difference is you can attach up to 4 passive enchantments of your choice to character equipment, such as increased health, critical hit rate, the capacity to poison with regular attacks and much more. By contrast, crafted items have set properties.

Steve was dead on when he said the game is one of the best RPG Maker games ever. I honestly didn’t even realize this was a RPG Maker title at first, since it has such polish and poise. Sure it looks like an old game, the same way Chrono Trigger looks like an old game. Meaning this looks totally authentic to a certain time period, and that’s not a complaint. Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition could easily have been a touchstone RPG from the 90s, chock full of heart, great gameplay and a really interesting story. Take it from a wannabe fantasy author, that last part is hard to do, especially in a genre full of cliches and overused tropes. And while the story isn’t the most complex, it also does a great job of introducing key elements organically and tying them together in a satisfying arc. The tale revolves around a floating continent, a mysterious relic, elves, vampires and one fierce young woman. I don’t want to ruin it by saying too much, but trust me that it’s a joy to experience, and the lore of the world of Ara Fell is really intriguing.

A large reason I enjoyed the story of Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition so much is because of the characters that populate it. Lita LeCotta is the spunkiest, most deadpan little tomboy you could ever want. She’s delightfully snarky and full of personality, with hilarious one liners aplenty. What I especially love about Lita is that she fights against the mantle of hero, and just sees herself as someone that stumbled upon her destiny. But her strength of character, determination and desire to protect her loved ones makes her truly heroic. Or take Adrian, Lita’s childhood friend who has grown up in harsh circumstances, yet found the drive to become a knight. Sure he gets taken by the occasional schemer, but he’s always there to protect his friends, and he may even have some feelings for Lita. Then there’s Seri Kesu, a strong and beautiful sorceress with some serious hard edges. She’s a master of her craft, and her only weakness is one bad relationship that’s soured her to this day. Finally there’s Doren, a mysterious turban wearing bard that’s immensely passive aggressive, and who seems to have a surprising reservoir of knowledge of ancient times. It’s a great cast, and their interactions make the whole story a delight to experience. Even the villains set against them are complex and unexpected. All in all, the entire cast of Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition makes for a very compelling tale.

None of that would matter if the game wasn’t fun to play, but I can say that Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition is a glorious retro RPG. I played on the normal difficulty, and found the combat easy to understand, yet challenging. It’s turn based, with an ATB showing the turn order. One unique aspect is the Injury system, where your character is weakened if they perish and are revived, and only fully recovers by healing at an Inn or other safe location. As the game progresses and your team fills out, the challenge scales accordingly, but I never found anything unbalanced. It’s really fun and hard to put down. You select attacks and engage the foe, and as you battle your Ultimate bar fills up. This allows characters to use super powerful attacks against the foe, but you can’t rely on these. Each character’s Ultimate takes a different amount of time to charge, and your entire team uses the same Ultimate bar. So once I use any Ultimate attack, the bar resets. Thankfully, you have a lot of control over how your team grows, and even can tweak how they fight. Every time you level up, you are allocated points to distribute to various stats, and the game clearly tells you what each corresponds to. I decided to focus on making Lita a speedy assassin, while I supercharged Seri’s spellcasting at the cost of her speed and defense. As you wander the world, you’ll find magical stones that an be used to augment your character’s abilities. At first all you can do is make them more powerful, but once you have fulfilled their class quests, your options blossom. You can pick from one of two advanced classes for each character, with pros and cons. Once that’s done, you can choose branching options for your abilities, such as Adrian’s Whirlwind attack healing your team, or Doren’s Holy Light affecting all foes. You can even tweak their Ultimate attacks, allowing for a lot of customization options. By the end of the game, I had a really powerful team that was capable of taking on any foe without worry.

The combat is a lot of fun, but so is just exploring the world of Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition. Normally I don’t like getting lost in games, but this one was built to accommodate exploration and reward you for it. You’ll constantly come across natural resources you can harvest for use with crafting and enchanting. Lita will grab fish from the water, pluck leaves from various plants and mine ore from cavern walls. I just wandered and wandered, and probably spent a good extra 4-5 hours enjoying myself. It’s fun to jump across ravines, crawl through narrow tunnels and swim all around. The world of Ara Fell is a big one, and it’s truly beautiful. Since the entirety of the game takes place on a floating continent, you’ll see eerie sights like waterfalls descending hundreds of miles, or haunting ruins suspended in mid air. Yet, as much as I explored, I only got lost a handful of times in my 20+ hour playthrough. Once was late in the game when a group of damn faeries got me mixed up, and later I couldn’t find the class quest for Doren. Thankfully most activities are well signposted, and you can always check the pause screen for a reminder where you’re supposed to go for continuing the main quest. The only optional quests that were really flummoxing to locate were the various Bounties, of which I only managed to find half.

Visually, this is a really attractive game. The portrait art for the characters does a great job of expressing their personality. Meanwhile, the overworld and sprite work is both faithful to the retro focus and eye catching. Pretty much all the enemies are distinct, with no color swapped nonsense. The game runs at a smooth clip most of time, and I only had very few moments of slowdown, and only while exploring. The music does its job. I wouldn’t say it was the best soundtrack ever, since it’s mostly low key, melodic and occasionally haunting. If you’re coming here for snazzy rock and roll tracks, don’t bother. But all the music and sound effects do their jobs well, if perhaps without much distinction.

Honestly the biggest negative for me is that Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition ends at all. I really got lost in this wonderful RPG world, and was sad to see it end. I know I love a game when I even enjoy the puzzles in it. Thankfully there’s an epilogue after the credits roll, which does a decent job of tying up plot threads while still leaving room for a potential sequel. Suffice to say, I really hope Stegosoft Games has a sequel in the works, cause I desperately want to return to this fascinating world. If you love classic RPGs and want something you can get lost in for only $14.99, look no further. It’s easily one of my favorite RPGs of 2020 thus far.

Review Score
Overall

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

The post REVIEW: Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition appeared first on oprainfall.

I’m gonna start this review with a simple truth – I’ve never played the original Panzer Dragoon that Remake is based on. So when I agreed to review it, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. That said, I had always been intrigued by the series, and mostly hadn’t gotten around to it since the game started out on the Sega Saturn. As a lifelong Nintendo boy, that wasn’t a game I thought I’d ever get the opportunity to playing. So I was excited to tackle the remade game, developed by Megapixel Studio, despite not being familiar with their body of work. The question then is this. Was this lifelong Nintendo fanboy made a true believer of a Sega Saturn classic thanks to Panzer Dragoon: Remake?

One thing I’m happy to report is that Remake is extremely faithful to the original. It’s pretty much a perfect recreation, which I can say after watching a playthrough online. What they essentially did is give the original game a beautiful new coat of paint, so fans should be right at home here. Special note goes to the breathtaking environments, which are all full of detail and packed with menacing monsters. And though I initially wasn’t that impressed by the cutscenes, which reminded me of a PS2 game at first, I have to admit they’re much prettier than the original ones. Perhaps the most impressive improvement in this regard is how seamless the levels are. Sure, there’s annoying load times before and after stages, but during them the action moves at a brisk clip and I experienced zero slowdown.

As far as gameplay goes, it’s also remarkably faithful. You can weave back and forth, lock onto foes to blast with homing shots and fire standard shots. It’s fun to fly around wreaking havoc, especially since it’s pretty easy to move the camera around to hit foes on your flank and sides. All you need to do is press the shoulder buttons, and the camera will turn in that direction. That said, I’d be lying if I said the game was easy. Even on Normal, I got killed plenty of times, and foes like to hit you from blind angles. Even with radar showing enemy locations as blips, the action moves very quickly, so it’s easy to get surprised by bullets. Thankfully, once you start to learn the enemy patterns, levels begin to go smoother. Which is good, since inexplicably Panzer Dragoon: Remake features no tutorial. I literally had to figure out the combat on the fly (pun intended). Stranger yet, you can only access the control guide from the start screen. That may not sound like a problem, but keep in mind that if you are a few levels into the game and want to go back and check, you’ll have to forfeit your current run. I really think it would have been a better idea to make the guide able to be viewed from the pause screen as well. It’s not the end of the world, mind you, but it made the experience run less smoothly.

The highlight of the game are definitely the boss battles. They are all massive (mostly) flying threats, and many of them have multiple phases. The big bad is the Prototype Dragon, a bulky little bastard responsible for murdering your blue dragon’s original pilot. He’s a recurring threat, and even shows up to hound you in stages that he’s not the actual boss. Perhaps my favorite boss is a segmented machine that splits into two different bosses. It starts as a dangerous windmill and transforms into a rampaging, missile spewing monstrosity. But all the bosses are fun, and they really make you earn your victory. I will say though, I do wish that losing to a boss didn’t mean replaying their entire level over again from the start. I gather the original Panzer Dragoon worked that way, but having a modern convenience like starting from where you died would have saved me a lot of time. Especially since I died right before the final stage my first run, and had to play through the entire game all over again to actually beat it. Then again, considering you can beat Remake in an hour or less, it’s not a big problem. Just a minor annoyance.

Honestly my biggest issue with Panzer Dragoon: Remake was how it eschewed modern conventions. Sure, I get it’s a 1 to 1 port, but it also wouldn’t have hurt my experience any to smooth over some rough patches. For example, it can be difficult to avoid obstacles and projectiles. A big reason is that despite different buttons being mapped to move and aim, they essentially do the same thing. Your dragon aims with his entire body, so it’s very easy to get winged by giant cannonballs and the like. Especially in levels with narrow corridors. Suffice to say, your foes will get in several cheap shots, even hitting you as soon as gates open. As I played, I grew to wish that there was some sort of temporary dash move to provide invincibility, even for a few seconds. Cause you won’t find any med kits or the like to increase your health, meaning you have to beat each stage in one try. Oh and did I mention you only earn continues by beating stages? When you add the fact that sometimes I would start a new stage without my life bar full for some reason, you can start to see my dilemma. I’m still not sure if that last part was intentional design or a glitch. All I know is that problems like that made me yearn for a few more modern niceties.

Though I already touched on the visuals, I’ll go into more detail. The artwork in Panzer Dragoon: Remake is why I’ve always been drawn to the series. Everything has great personality, especially the monstrous creatures of this world. That all goes a long way to make me not care that the plot of Remake is absent at best. Sure there’s some small details, but not a coherent narrative. But when you’re flying through the air, dodging giant fly traps, blasting ships out of the sky and chasing your nemesis, it’s easy to forgive the story’s faults. Musically the game is really enjoyable. While not every track is full of energy, they all do a good job of building on the momentum of each stage and driving the action forward.

All in all, I had a good time with Panzer Dragoon: Remake. Sure, I would have preferred some quality of life tweaks to the original game, but it’s still a worthy adventure. And even though I only spent 2 hours with it, I feel that $24.99 is a fair price for this level of quality. That said, I hope you’ve expanded your system memory before you pick this up, since it’s a whopping 7 GB download. I don’t usually mention the size of games I review, but holy hell is that huge, and I realize not every Switch owner has supplemented their base memory yet. And while the original game’s cheat codes don’t work yet, I understand they’ll be added in a later update. Otherwise this is a perfect remake of a classic game. If you’re looking to relive your past or just experience a nostalgic jaunt to the days of the Sega Saturn, Panzer Dragoon: Remake is an excellent choice.

Review Score
Overall

Review Copy Provided by Developer

The post REVIEW: Panzer Dragoon: Remake appeared first on oprainfall.

In a weird way, I’m kind of glad I only recently found the time to play through Vitamin Connection. Because what better time to play a game all about fighting infectious diseases than during a worldwide pandemic? Dark humor aside, Vitamin Connection is a very hard to explain game. It’s incredibly unique and experimental. I recognized plot elements that reminded me of Powerpuff Girls or Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, mini games that would have fit right into WarioWare, and controls that reminded me somehow of Yoshi’s Island. That’s a diverse mix right off the bat, and I applaud WayForward for their ambition. The question then was did this heady mixture of disparate elements come together in a cohesive elixir? Or did it erupt in an alchemical misfire?

The entire plot of Vitamin Connection revolves around the Sable family. They’re an idyllic bunch – scientist father, bad-ass housewife mother, energetic young boy, psychotic baby and lovable dog. Something has caused bacteria to infest the entire family, and one by one, they come down with mysterious symptoms. Before you discount this as happenstance, I can tell you there’s actually something sinister afoot. I didn’t realize that until late in the game, but suffice to say the experience is as much about healing the family as it is discovering the source of their infection. You do so as the heroes of the game – Vita-Boy and Mina-Girl. They pilot the minuscule Capsule Ship, which enters bodies, finds bacteria and blasts them to smithereens. Each of the game’s levels has you wandering through veins and sailing towards major organs. Once you find a source of infection, your job is to beat them in a mini game. These can involve dancing, grabbing items, obstacle courses and much more. Oh and did I mention all of the viruses can talk (which is voice acted) and they love to trash talk you? Yea, this is a strange experience, but not without its charms.

When I compared Vitamin Connection to Yoshi’s Island, it was mostly due to the very unique controls found in both games. You can play this game either single player or with a friend. I have a feeling the latter is the way it was meant to be played, but in the spirit of self isolation, I played this solo. In single player, you control all the aspects of the gameplay, whereas you split duties when playing with a friend. Or so I understand, I didn’t actually try multiplayer. In any case, there’s a lot of really cool features to the gameplay. As you wander through bodies, you can rotate your Capsule Ship with the right and left triggers, clockwise or counter clockwise. This is important, since touching any structure harms your ship, and if you take too much damage, you’ll die and have to restart from your last save. You use the joystick to control your beam, which can be shot in any direction you aim, making it very versatile. To make up for that, you have a limited charge to use it with. If you use the beam too long, the power of it is vastly diminished until it has a chance to reboot. You also later get a claw module that can grab and move things. It’s nifty in theory, but in execution it was very different. Mostly cause it was mapped to the same joystick used for firing your beam. So it’s very easy to accidentally arm the claw when you’re trying to blast, or vice versa. And since the claw’s controls are very, very finicky, I grew to dislike its inclusion in short order. You can also speed up how fast the level speeds past you by holding any two buttons on the right Joy-Con, which is handy. Especially since you otherwise can only maneuver your ship around with the left Joy-Con.

In case it’s not already evident, the controls in Vitamin Connection take some getting used to. And even then, they can be a handful. As you navigate about, you’ll come across colored blue and red cords that block your path. You have to rotate your ship around so the proper colored edge is facing the cord, and then by ramming them at the proper angle, you’ll cut your way through. This was fun at first, but the game starts to go crazy with how many cords you come across. It’s also exacerbated by the tunnels you drift through often being very narrow, meaning that if you’re facing the wrong direction, you’ll sometimes have to rotate through the stage, harming yourself, just to be properly oriented. It wouldn’t be an issue if the game previewed that a cord was coming up, but it doesn’t. It’s also nerve wracking since if you get too far behind the stage as it scrolls, you’ll constantly take damage every few seconds. This didn’t happen often, mind you, but when it did I got very frustrated. And keep in mind that you’re not just wandering through harmless areas. There’s lots of bacterial enemies, and they love to get in your way, blast you from a distance or otherwise harass you.

I mentioned mini games earlier, and there’s plenty of them in Vitamin Connection. One of the most iconic ones has you bust a move in dance battles against bacteria. That’s really cool in theory, but actually doing it can be very tough. Reason being, when playing in single player, you have to watch prompts for dance moves as they scroll on the periphery of both sides of the screen simultaneously. I started to feel like a chameleon playing this game, with my eyes trying to focus on two things at once. I did sort of get the hang of it, but it’s just an example of how mechanics in the game aren’t always well-implemented. The worst example was actually a mini game that involves extending a mitt to grab a certain amount of items. The first few times you encounter this, you’ll have to navigate around moving bacteria, since touching them hurts you. The last iteration of the game has bacteria that don’t move. I was totally flummoxed, until I figured out that you’re supposed to extend your mitt upward inch by inch, with minute flickers of your joystick, while simultaneously maneuvering your ship around, and then do the same thing in reverse to bring the items towards you safely. Suffice to say, this mini game was so irritating I nearly gave up on reviewing Vitamin Connection. Thankfully, I found some deep reserve of patience and pushed through. Maybe it’s not so bad with a friend, but if not, then something needs to be done to streamline it for solo gamers.

I don’t mean to make it sound like everything in Vitamin Connection was a slog, cause it wasn’t. Oftentimes this is a very charming and funny game. Even though your heroes Vita-Boy and Mina-Girl are totally unvoiced, the other characters are bursting at the seams with personality. The game almost plays out like an old Saturday morning cartoon, full of humor and silliness. I especially liked the design of the various bacteria, such as giant cyclops bats, happy amoebas, candy colored rhinos and more. This is only boosted by the tremendous voice acting, which even minor characters like bacteria get. Visually, it’s a really attractive experience as well. Though it mostly plays off bright, crayola colored areas, the use of bold colors and cartoon style really makes it stand out. Musically the game is even better, and features tracks that would fit in perfectly in JPOP or KPOP, full of funky beats and mellifluous singing. Honestly, if I were just scoring the game on aesthetic or even creativity, it would probably have gotten a perfect score.

Although I estimate I got through the main game in about 6 hours, there’s actually pretty decent replay value here. Each mini game you play is unlocked for free play later on. Additionally, by collecting all 5 hidden Ion Stars in a stage, you’ll unlock an accompanying bonus stage. These are fun and short affairs that play more like a SHMUP than the rest of the experience. Also, you unlock New Game Plus after you beat the final stage, which apparently lets you play as a different character. I say apparently since I haven’t tried it myself yet. Either way, I always appreciate reasons to come back to a game, and find it laudable Vitamin Connection is trying to put its best foot forward. Having said that, I probably would have preferred a longer main adventure with more story and hijinks to enjoy, since there’s only 6 main levels.

Before I close things out, I need to touch upon some areas that really hurt the overall experience. Earlier I mentioned cutting cords in stages, and how it can get tricky when you’re navigating tight tunnels. This was problematic in one long stretch that leads to a stage’s last Ion Star, and I simply couldn’t manage it. I wish the game offered the ability to switch the color orientation of your ship, instead of just rotating it around and around. Another area of contention is with the save system. It autosaves whenever you are at a junction or after beating a mini game. My issue is that one time I was playing a mini game, about to win, when Vitamin Connection had an error that forced me back to the Home Screen. When I booted it up again, I wasn’t placed right at the start of the mini game, but instead at the tunnel branch which led to it. I also can’t express enough how much I wish the claw controls were separate from the laser controls. I had so many times where not only did I have trouble using the right tool at the right time, but even had tons of times where the claw was ready, I tried to grab something, and instead the claw retracted back into my ship. There’s actually a final boss in the game, in a fight that plays a lot like a battle in Mischief Makers. Problem was, it forces you to use the claw to fight back, which made things far more difficult. Oh and the Love Test game that plays after you beat stages really should have clarified that you don’t actually play it, but instead that it rates you on your overall performance. And lastly, while this is a minor quibble, it seemed odd to me that in a game so full of personality, the main characters are totally unvoiced, and don’t even get dialogue.

Ultimately, I feel there were tons of cool ideas on display here and tons of charm, but that it wasn’t fully realized. Vitamin Connection is still a fun experience, and I appreciate the creativity. I just feel that perhaps some features required more time in the oven, so to speak. Honestly though, for only $19.99, it’s hard to take too much fault with the experience. I’d say if you want to support a cool indie company, you should give it a go. Just be ready for a steeper challenge than you might expect.

Review Score
Overall

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

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I wasn’t originally planning on reviewing Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo. Not cause it looked bad mind you, far from it, but because I’m not an expert at the SHMUP genre. I enjoy it, but it also regularly kicks my ass. While Steve did a great job of tackling Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha, he’s also closer to a veteran of these games than I am. But since I’ve always been intrigued by the Psikyo games, I figured I’d give Bravo a shot. This collection brings together all three Sengoku Aces games (even though they’ve tweaked their original titles), as well as two Gunbird entries and a very strange puzzle game. Was Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo my introduction to the hardcore SHMUP genre? Or did I go down in flames?

For simplicity, I’ll cover the games in the order I beat them in. I started with the Sengoku (Samurai) Aces games – Samurai Aces, Samurai Aces II: TENGAI and Samurai Aces III: Sengoku Cannon, then tackled Gunbird followed by Gunbird 2, and closed things out with Gunbarich. Pretty much every game in the Bravo collection has large elements of fantasy, as well as nods to Japanese culture aplenty. There are giant Daruma dolls, mecha samurai, assorted demons and all sorts of crazy elements. They all play almost identically, with a few exceptions. Some are inherently vertical SHMUPs, while others are horizontal. Some only arm you with bombs and regular gun attacks, while a couple of the entries here have charged sub attacks. And even though the games are technically pretty simple, in execution they are all quite challenging. While only some of the games here would classify as bullet hell, none of them are easy. At least not on the Normal difficulty I played them all on.

Visually, the entire package of Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo is quite attractive. Even my least favorite entry visuals-wise, Sengoku Cannon, still has some diverse enemies and complex artwork. I loved the hand drawn portraits in all the games, and even found the tiny models to be impressive. There’s tons of things generally happening in the games, humans running, machines gearing up, bullets flying and more. Tons of credit goes to the massive and evolving boss designs, and flashy and bombastic visual effects. Musically, each of the games does what’s necessary, and adds a bit of flourish. I like the audio retorts found in some of the games, such as shrieks of victory or screams of defeat. Though all the games are great musically, my favorite is TENGAI, especially how the soundtrack shifts when bosses are near, adding drama. Overall, the Bravo collection has fantastic art and sound design.

There were a couple minor quirks I encountered while playing Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo. One happened when I first booted up Gunbird. I picked Marion and started playing, only to find there was no music whatsoever. There were sound effects, but no tunes. That only happened once, but it was a bit strange. Worse by far was the first time I played Gunbird 2. Though I know for a fact I picked Normal difficulty, the entire game was dialed up way harder. I barely got through the first stage, and was sweating bullets the entire time. Subsequent playthroughs were fine, but this was still an odd blip in an otherwise smooth experience. Also, while this isn’t a glitch, I really found it unfortunate that the Bravo collection had no compendiums, galleries or music boxes. I would have died for some behind the scenes insights into the development of the games, some artwork and the ability to listen to tunes. I also would have appreciated a gallery showing the endings I’d collected so far. The lack of these doesn’t make this collection horrible by any stretch, but it does prevent it from getting a perfect score from me.

Apparently all the Samurai Aces games take place in Feudal Japan, and revolve around stopping a cult before they can resurrect their demonic god. I say “apparently” since it’s hard to get much plot from any of the games in the Bravo collection. The first Aces game is enjoyable. It features great and complex artwork, lots of moving parts and big foes. So long as I could hoard my precious bombs and powerups, I did pretty well. Having said that, I do feel the game can be a bit unbalanced in some stages. More tricky is that in all the games in this collection, the stage order is randomized. You’ll only play so many stages each playthrough, meaning sometimes you’ll be able to avoid the harder ones and others you won’t. All in all though, the original Samurai Aces was a fun romp with some really quirky characters, including a bald monk, tomboyish shrine maiden and even a dog. Don’t ask how that last one works, it just does.

While the first Samurai Aces game was a vertical SHMUP, the second one, called TENGAI, switches things up. Not only does this entry move the Aces games to horizontally focused mayhem, but it also introduces sub weapons. Once you’re powered up to a certain level, you’ll be able to charge and unleash more powerful shots from your spectral familiars. My personal favorite is a fire breathing lemur companion. I actually loved this game the most of all in this series, and felt it was both the most well balanced and also had some amazing bosses. Not that the first game had horrible bosses, it didn’t, but I appreciated how modular the ones in TENGAI were, shedding parts and evolving into strange and dangerous new forms as you fought. This game also introduces the concept of recurring mini-boss foes that hound you, and even engage in some banter before battles. Oh and fun side note, the tomboyish Miko, who is also known as Koyori, gets a hell of a makeover in this game. Let’s just say with her newfound curves you can’t call her a lean tomboy anymore. But she’s just as arrogant and spunky as before.

The third Aces title, Sengoku Cannon, is also the strangest. You could tell they were trying to make use of newfangled polygonal graphics in this game, and it actually hurts it quite a bit visually. Most stages are empty space filled with angry foes and quickly moving background landscapes. Worse was that the bosses are just floating humanoids that assault you with all manner of projectiles. Oh and did I mention, this is the first true bullet hell in the Bravo collection? That said, once I got past my dislike of the graphics in this particular entry, I really grew to enjoy the unique mechanics. This one played similar to the other games, but introduced a secondary Cannon attack which seems key to the score received at the end of stages. It also sometimes turns all enemy projectiles into coins when you kill enemies, which I’m a bit perplexed by. Though the bullet hell takes getting used to, it’s also mostly pretty fair. I grew to anticipate and avoid streams of bullets the more I played, and started to even get a little cocky. That is until the latter portion of the game, where the developers show us what they’re really capable of, and flood the screen with all manner of annoyance. It’s rough, but thankfully all the games in the Bravo collection allow you to tweak the parameters, giving yourself more lives and continues. Suffice to say, I dialed my lives up to 9 and continues to 3, and was thus able to beat all of the games in Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo. The only exception is the last game, but I’ll save that for later.

It was a special treat to play through the Gunbird games, since I had actually bought one of them individually months before. I hadn’t thought I was capable of beating it then, but I found the first Gunbird to be pretty well balanced the more I played it, at least on Normal. When this and the other games in the collection loop after you beat them, it seems as though the difficulty also ramps up significantly, making things much more hectic. So while that did prevent me from getting an uber score in the games, I still enjoyed them. Gunbird specifically had some really strange characters, including a Witch, a mechanical man, a cloud riding beauty, and even a very odd carpenter. Though this one does play quite a bit like the first Samurai Aces game, it has a bit more cartoonish spunk and humor. There’s some 20+ endings in this game alone, and they all depend on how you choose to spend a wish granted by a feline genie. I didn’t realize how important that decision was until I beat the game, decided to beat the genie mercilessly, then was trapped as a replacement genie for my sins. Yes, this is a bonkers game, and I really loved that about it.

Gunbird 2 was the most visually impressive game in the entire Bravo collection, and it was also the most relentless. While it doesn’t quite go the route of consistent bullet hell that Sengoku Cannon does, it is really, really challenging. It also features chargeable sub attacks and modular boss battles with multiple waves, and a really odd final boss. If you like recurring side characters, those are here too. They’re a team of naughty pirates that reminds me a lot of Team Rocket, just a lot more competent and armed with dangerous mecha. Also, the endings in Gunbird 2 are even more insane than those in the first Gunbird. While the first game revolved around finding mirror pieces to open a path to a genie’s wish, here you find elemental vials to develop a potion that will grant your greatest desire. My first ending was as Alucard (yes, that Alucard) who turns out to be utterly bald. His wish grants him an amazing afro that he completely hates. Another one has a rotund man on a flying carpet get a makeover. Honestly the insanity in both Gunbird games were what I loved the most about them, and that’s why it’s worth your time to beat the game again and again to find all those endings. Just be ready to suffer through Gunbird 2, cause it’s pretty brutal. Though not as tough as I found the last game I played, Gunbarich.

I can hear you saying that I shouldn’t have had trouble with the one puzzle game in this collection. And sure, Gunbarich doesn’t appear to be that rough. It’s a brick breaking game in the vein of Breakout, and you can control recurring character Marion the Witch, amongst others. The tricky thing is, each stage requires you to break every block and do so in a limited time frame. If you fail, you’ll lose a precious life. Or if the ball gets past you, you’ll also lose a life. Which starts to add up as enemies spit balls back at you, or try and paralyze you with other attacks. And though you’ll find powerups here like in the other games, they don’t explain what these do at all. There’s even boss fights, and though they’re not as rough as those found in the rest of the Bravo collection, they are far from easy. And this particular adventure seems to be the longest too, so you’ll have to really work for that ending. I ended up turning my continues to unlimited just to beat Gunbarich, and it was still a rough ride. Don’t let the candy coated aesthetic fool you, this one is hard as nails.

All in all, I really enjoyed playing through Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo. For $39.99, you get 6 distinct, entertaining and challenging games. Though I didn’t play it in TATE mode or multiplayer, I had a fun time. Thankfully, you can tweak things to make the experience more palatable to your tastes. While I miss features like galleries and sound tests, I still would highly recommend this collection. I spent probably 5 hours playing through all the games, though there’s plenty of replay value to get all those endings. The name Psikyo is legendary for good reason, and this serves as a wonderful tribute to their legacy.

Review Score
Overall

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

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I’ve been excited about Langrisser I & II since I first heard that NIS America was publishing it. Not due to any past familiarity with the Langrisser series, since I’m pretty much a lifelong Nintendo fan, but cause I love strategy RPGs. You don’t have to look back very far to see I tackle those games pretty much every chance I get. But when I heard I would get to cover a pair of classic SRPGs that was only originally available on Sega consoles, I was intrigued. The question then, is were these Langrisser adventures worth the wait? Or should they have stayed in gaming’s past?

The stories of both Langrisser I and Langrisser II feature roughly the same premise. Evil forces are at work, and it’s up to your heroes to put a stop to things. There’s a bit more complexity, such as warring kingdoms, dark magic and evil-sealing artifacts, but it pretty much boils down to a seen before story. Which makes sense, since the original games came out in the 90s, when the industry was still in its adolescence, and was relying on basic tropes instead of trying to shatter expectations. Also, since it was out in that era, we get some sublimely silly anime features, such as over the top drama and very, very silly names for some characters (looking at you, Chris the priestess and Narm the sky knight). While a part of me was somewhat disappointed Langrisser I & II doesn’t have a more nuanced premise, mostly cause I’ve been spoiled by series like Fire Emblem, I can cut it some slack. Ultimately, what’s most important in the SRPG genre is how it plays, and for the most part I felt these adventures played very well.

Both Langrisser games feature the exact same mechanics, though there are slight differences between the two. An example is how in Langrisser I any units can literally walk on water and cross mountains, only at the expense of limited movement range. Or how in Langrisser II, the various classes are a bit more streamlined and less overpowered initially, meaning you’ll learn less spells and skills when you change classes and that your class choices are more important. But when it comes to how you fight, both games play the same. Each game is split into various chapters, and each one has you fulfill a specific objective before you can claim victory. These can vary, such as protecting an NPC, reaching a goal, defeating a particular boss or decimating every foe. There’s a good amount of variety, and they constantly mix things up with enemy ambushes that come out of nowhere. There are even some maps where the objective will change mid-battle, so expect both Langrisser games to keep you on your toes.

As for how these battles play out, it’ll be mostly second nature to any fan of the genre. You select units, move them around, attack and cast magical spells. When you select any unit, it will display their movement range, and you can move and then attack foes. One quirk is that you can’t move and then cast a spell. So if you want to do that, you’ll have to do it from your starting position that turn, which took me a bit to wrap my head around. It means the positioning of your magical focused units is utterly vital, at least until you learn spells that have a wider AOE. Any spell costs MP, though thankfully you’ll max out your health and MP meter whenever you level up. Which was something I learned in one harrowing map that I thought I was doomed to lose until I realized one spellcaster had miraculously filled their MP. And that brings me to my primary complaint in the game. Though most of the mechanics were easy to figure out on the fly, there were other aspects of the strategy that were unclear. And the reason for that lack of clarity was that the game never told me there was any guide. There’s no tutorial at the beginning of the game, and the only way to access the guide is by pressing + first and then selecting “How To Play”. Which was totally unapparent, especially since pressing A on the map brings up another menu. It’s no exaggeration that I was 70% done with the second game when I finally discovered the guide, and that was only because I asked my rep at NIS America specifically.

While this lack of clarity didn’t ruin my experience, it did make it more frustrating. For example, I didn’t know that keeping your Commander units next to their Mercenaries heals them every turn. Or that there’s a weapon triangle of sorts between Infantry, Spearmen and Cavalry. It seemed like some types of units had more efficacy against others, but I never confirmed it til late. More significant was the Command option. Each Commander can select it, even after they’ve ended their turn actions, and it gives the following options – Attack, Defend or Charge. Yet when I selected any of these, there was no immediate response. Little did I realize that selecting a Command prompts your Mercenaries to follow those orders once you end the player phase. Lastly, I had no idea that each Commander’s influence, visualized by a glowing white area, improves the stats of their Mercenaries while they’re in range. Though I did figure that out without the guide. My point being, all I wanted from Langrisser I & II was some in-game clarity that there’s a guide that governs how things work, especially since it isn’t forced down your throat. It would have made everything flow more smoothly, especially since without it I was individually moving all my Mercenaries every turn like a sucker.

On the topic of Commanders and Mercenaries, there’s a bit more to cover. Each Commander will learn passive skills they can equip before battles, which mostly boost various stats. At the beginning of each battle, all of your Commanders can recruit some Mercenaries. Depending on your current class, you’ll be able to recruit more or less of them. Additionally, each class you learn unlocks more types of Mercenaries for that character. For example, the aerial classes will be able to recruit Sky Knights and Harpies, whereas naval classes can recruit various Merfolk. The nice thing is, you’ll never be forced to stay a certain class just to have access to particular units. Once you unlock them, they’re yours to use as you see fit. Just keep in mind, the stronger the Mercenary, the more expensive they are. Yes, recruiting Mercenaries costs money (cause of course it does), so part of the strategy is finding the best bang for your buck. Usually I would spend anywhere from 10 – 15K in a single battle on my Mercenaries, though thankfully you do get rewarded with more gold at the end of each battle. Overall I rather liked the unique aspect of Mercenary units, and even though they’re weaker than your Commanders, they’re vital to deflect attacks and surround foes. And while Mercenaries don’t level up themselves, they have a sort of symbiotic relationship to their leader. When they defeat a foe, their Commander gets more experience. Plus, so long as a Mercenary has a bit of health left, you can heal them by keeping them near their Commander, or just healing them with a spell. Just be wary, since if the Commander dies, so does all their Mercenary units.

I will say, I also really enjoyed the various classes in the game. There’s a wide variety, and the only thing that determines what class you can and can’t learn is the specific character. You could have two mages that have access to different classes, for example. But it couldn’t be easier to use them. As you defeat foes and win maps, your characters get points that are used to change classes. So long as you have enough points and are on the proper branching path, you will be able to learn a new class. Once learned, you immediately get new skills and spells, have access to new Mercenaries, and get stat boosts. While there’s no penalty for staying the class you want, sometimes others will help your character achieve better overall stats. The cavalry-focused classes also have much better movement range, which is why most of my party were riding horses, rocs or leviathans. My only minor issue with the class system is that many of them are pretty interchangeable, or are just upgraded versions of other classes.

More classic gaming on Page 2 ->

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