Adolion
This was my first Ace Combat Experience, and I must say I'm impressed. Great story, magnificent OST, great squad interactions, a well written war story and fun combat that alongside the OST makes up for a great immersion.
DA: Origins Elitist be like: "OMG ANY GAME THAT CAME AFTER ORIGINS IS GARBAGE"
Me an intellectual: Open world done right, good quests and side quests, conquer conquer and MORE CONQUER.
Me an intellectual: Open world done right, good quests and side quests, conquer conquer and MORE CONQUER.
It's beautiful.
Ps: Be sure to rollback to version 2.0 and use patch for the best experience ;)
Ps: Be sure to rollback to version 2.0 and use patch for the best experience ;)
2016
This has to be one of the best romance works I've ever had the pleasure to play through, it being a GL VN makes it way better.
I fell in love with the setting, with the character dynamics and chemistry, with the development, with the build up. For being tamer than, say, A Kiss for the Petals, this was fairly more genuine than anything I've ever experienced...
This novel actually wanted to make me try, specially through those moments in life when you don't know what to do after harsh experiences, and for that, it holds a special place in my heart.
I fell in love with the setting, with the character dynamics and chemistry, with the development, with the build up. For being tamer than, say, A Kiss for the Petals, this was fairly more genuine than anything I've ever experienced...
This novel actually wanted to make me try, specially through those moments in life when you don't know what to do after harsh experiences, and for that, it holds a special place in my heart.
Everything that made the OG game great, comes again and makes it way, WAY better. I think this is the first time I've experienced any media with characters that goes beyond being tridimentional. Featuring the thoughts of many characters rather than just Amber adds a lot of Layers to the characters, and boy, the drama of this short but amazing DLC just makes it better. Even tho some conflicts might be clichéd, the way the story wraps it up makes me think of the characters as actual human beings due to the amount of layers they have. When you think a character is angry due to a reason, it's actually a different reason, and all of them escalate to something heavier and then hits you like a brick to your face to pour the sour reality flat to the ground. Most of the conflicts hits home way more than I wanted to, like Tess being unable to feel emotions, and Amber being unable to read the room. Alongside with the perfect OST, this is a VN that broadened my horizones, it made me angry, sad, happy, it even made me believe in second chances, it made me believe in a change for the better, it made me feel melancholic. Every time I hear to "Eleven", thousands of emotions are going to flood my heart and make me remember, not only the melancholic parts, but the great ones too. That's how good the musical direction is, and how great the character writing is.
2020
>> Be me
>> Tried Highway Blossoms out of curiosity and love for Yuri Content
>> Not only just loved it, but raised among my favorite VNs and stories ever
>> Grew curious about the studio behind it
>> Saw that First Snow is free
>> Tries it
>> Immediatelly falls in love with the setting, artstyle, music and characters
>> ???
>> Worth
It's actually criminal this VN is free, the art is amazing, akin to an art book, solid voice acting, sweet and awkward characters that behave like humans, character layers, and while rushed, the chemistry and character dynamics were very nice. Hits home a couple of times, but it's a great experience still.
>> Tried Highway Blossoms out of curiosity and love for Yuri Content
>> Not only just loved it, but raised among my favorite VNs and stories ever
>> Grew curious about the studio behind it
>> Saw that First Snow is free
>> Tries it
>> Immediatelly falls in love with the setting, artstyle, music and characters
>> ???
>> Worth
It's actually criminal this VN is free, the art is amazing, akin to an art book, solid voice acting, sweet and awkward characters that behave like humans, character layers, and while rushed, the chemistry and character dynamics were very nice. Hits home a couple of times, but it's a great experience still.
2019
I'm not crying, you are ;_;
2022
Anyone calling this game bad does not comprehend how FORTUNATE we are to receive a full game from a big studio. No Microtransactions, a full vast world with tons of content, tons of details, game mechanics from earlier FS games are perfected here, such as powerstancing, hit boxes and great immersive boss battles, including one of the hardest bosses: Malenia, which, did not disappoint at all.
Elden Ring, is, effectively a love letter to Dark Souls Fans, and if this is the direction FS is taking for their future games, I see a good future for us fellow Dark Souls Enjoyers.
Elden Ring, is, effectively a love letter to Dark Souls Fans, and if this is the direction FS is taking for their future games, I see a good future for us fellow Dark Souls Enjoyers.
2021
Finished Yuito's story as of writting this review, will edit or set the game as mastered once I finish Kasane's route.
I'll start with the art and graphic direction, the world looks nice, it does get you to admire it while you're just vibing to it (for example on main town). There's another thing with the art direction and it's how the cutscenes are handled, most of the times they'll be "manga"~like, which imo, gives it a different identity to other 3d JRPGs.
Second, the sound and music, while at first the Dubstep is a bit of a letdown to me, I'm surprised with the amount of bangers there are, specially later on in the game where there are more orchestral tracks rather than dubstep. I still like the Main town theme despite it's dubstep.
Gameplay, IT'S VERY FUN TO PLAY, there is only one downside tho, playing on Very Hard is a damn punishment lmao, you can get killed by any mistake, I'd say is harder than Modern Ys, but easier than Ys Origin Hard (to make an example). There is only one thing I don't like much about playing on very hard, and that's because some enemies tend to feel like hp sponges, although you can pretty much annihilate them if you rip out their "crush gauge" or take advantage of their weakness as quickly as you can. There's also other features to the gameplay that maintains it fresh without the need of you becoming over powered through new mechanics, so it's very balanced.
Characters: Possibly the highlight for me, character interactions and dynamics are very charming, specially through bonding and team bonding, The confrontation in the story is also a highlight I really liked. Character development is also pretty nice and well done that in a way it can be said that the story is very character driven, which makes it great. There's no petty fanservice, no outrageous tropes, no MC dick sucking.
Story: It's not the greatest story ever, but it does hold up and it's done well, I like the futuristic post apocalyptic setting it has, the lore is cool and I did enjoy the plot twists and all the conflicts that came out of it. Also, the amount of consequences in this game is very high, not just that, the stakes feel real (thanks to the game difficulty btw) because you can really feel the weight of an encounter by how hard it is, and that makes a lot of emphasis towards the story and what the characters feel, so that's a plus for me.
I did rage here and there, because some enemies specially on very hard are somewhat annoying in certain groups, and the quality of design during the last chapters were a bit underwhelming as it felt as they shoved random enemies along your way, fortunately, the final battle did pay off for that, so I forgave it.
Edit: I finally played Kasane's route, but first I maxed out everything I could in Yuito's post game, and it made me reconsider most of the things I disliked, like the endgame and some hp sponges enemies, turns out I did restrict myself a lot by not using certain skills that would have made the experience way better (like the multiple active SAS), it made me appreciate more the endgame and the combat as a whole, as I could get rid of sponge enemies faster.
I also really liked to connect the dots between Yuito and Kasane' story. I disagree HEAVILY with those people that encourage only to play Kasane, play both, because there are still pretty strong emotional moments in Yuito's story (alongside great bonding and character development on his side)
needless to say that Kasane's story was great too, I really liked the confrontation of the team on this one, that, and the rest of the backstories of the characters through bonding. Definitely a game I would recommend to those that want an unique setting, great characters, great story, power system, gameplay and overall anime jrpg enthusiasts.
I'll pick up some dlcs later on, like the Brain Eater DLC as it seems to be a continuation (or to add more to the story)
Overall, It's a solid 8/10 (7.5 for Yuito and 8.5 for Kasane)
I'll start with the art and graphic direction, the world looks nice, it does get you to admire it while you're just vibing to it (for example on main town). There's another thing with the art direction and it's how the cutscenes are handled, most of the times they'll be "manga"~like, which imo, gives it a different identity to other 3d JRPGs.
Second, the sound and music, while at first the Dubstep is a bit of a letdown to me, I'm surprised with the amount of bangers there are, specially later on in the game where there are more orchestral tracks rather than dubstep. I still like the Main town theme despite it's dubstep.
Gameplay, IT'S VERY FUN TO PLAY, there is only one downside tho, playing on Very Hard is a damn punishment lmao, you can get killed by any mistake, I'd say is harder than Modern Ys, but easier than Ys Origin Hard (to make an example). There is only one thing I don't like much about playing on very hard, and that's because some enemies tend to feel like hp sponges, although you can pretty much annihilate them if you rip out their "crush gauge" or take advantage of their weakness as quickly as you can. There's also other features to the gameplay that maintains it fresh without the need of you becoming over powered through new mechanics, so it's very balanced.
Characters: Possibly the highlight for me, character interactions and dynamics are very charming, specially through bonding and team bonding, The confrontation in the story is also a highlight I really liked. Character development is also pretty nice and well done that in a way it can be said that the story is very character driven, which makes it great. There's no petty fanservice, no outrageous tropes, no MC dick sucking.
Story: It's not the greatest story ever, but it does hold up and it's done well, I like the futuristic post apocalyptic setting it has, the lore is cool and I did enjoy the plot twists and all the conflicts that came out of it. Also, the amount of consequences in this game is very high, not just that, the stakes feel real (thanks to the game difficulty btw) because you can really feel the weight of an encounter by how hard it is, and that makes a lot of emphasis towards the story and what the characters feel, so that's a plus for me.
I did rage here and there, because some enemies specially on very hard are somewhat annoying in certain groups, and the quality of design during the last chapters were a bit underwhelming as it felt as they shoved random enemies along your way, fortunately, the final battle did pay off for that, so I forgave it.
Edit: I finally played Kasane's route, but first I maxed out everything I could in Yuito's post game, and it made me reconsider most of the things I disliked, like the endgame and some hp sponges enemies, turns out I did restrict myself a lot by not using certain skills that would have made the experience way better (like the multiple active SAS), it made me appreciate more the endgame and the combat as a whole, as I could get rid of sponge enemies faster.
I also really liked to connect the dots between Yuito and Kasane' story. I disagree HEAVILY with those people that encourage only to play Kasane, play both, because there are still pretty strong emotional moments in Yuito's story (alongside great bonding and character development on his side)
needless to say that Kasane's story was great too, I really liked the confrontation of the team on this one, that, and the rest of the backstories of the characters through bonding. Definitely a game I would recommend to those that want an unique setting, great characters, great story, power system, gameplay and overall anime jrpg enthusiasts.
I'll pick up some dlcs later on, like the Brain Eater DLC as it seems to be a continuation (or to add more to the story)
Overall, It's a solid 8/10 (7.5 for Yuito and 8.5 for Kasane)
For a VN, I dare to say this aged a bit poorly when it comes to design and some QoL features modern VN has, but it's still competent.
The only thing it irked me was the music repetitiveness, it can get a bit old pretty quickly after a while listening to the same tune over and over again (that, and some jarring sound effects were a bit annoying too)
Overall as expected of Key, an emotional short story worth the price for.
The only thing it irked me was the music repetitiveness, it can get a bit old pretty quickly after a while listening to the same tune over and over again (that, and some jarring sound effects were a bit annoying too)
Overall as expected of Key, an emotional short story worth the price for.
I'll probably watch a story summary of this one, holy shit the Graphic UI is god damn awful, was it really that hard to make it just like Human Revolution?
2009
The one that started it all. A solid game that shows it's age but that ultimately delivers. Great ost, good level design, great atmosphere.
This review contains spoilers
I'm sad. Ni no Kuni has what it takes to make a world, setting and exciting fantasy game that I would love, but on top of that greatness lies a trifecta of awful dated mechanics that made me rage more than I wanted to love.
It's gameplay mechanics aged liked milk, the basic combat is fun, but it can get boring after a while, and you can't really avoid battles because your character moves like a flipping snail, so you're guaranteed to get into annoying fights you want to get into because you can't really avoid them, and escaping the fights is based on RNG and won't always work. Then, you have your familiars pathing, which is absolutely awful and they'll get stuck trying to follow a straight line towards an enemy that surrounded, so you have to manually stop the attack and circunvent the arena just to deal with that enemy (or deal with the other enemies in front of you first, but it's still annoying nonetheless).
Another annoying thing about the gameplay, is that some attacks have to be cinematic, usually, there's nothing wrong with that, but holy shit, it's very annoying when your own partners AI cancel your attacks by doing these cinematic attacks, it doesn't even have to be cinematic, some buffs completely stop your damn character while it's on attack phase, arguably losing your turn because of this thing applying the buff, it consumes time, wastes your turn and breaks the combat pace, it's very annoying. This slowly started to hinder my enjoyment, and the cherry on the cake was the final boss, which could have been great if it only had 2 stages, but the 3rd stage angered me a lot I just lost all the positivity I had for the game.
The story is fine at best, clichéd, formulaic, and often cheesy, but it had it's charm, unfortunately, some of that charm was lost in a strange endgame where they threw random reveals and some annoying things that dragged the plot (like that random mouse stealing your flipping holy wood just to add closure to a character that was forgotten for the entire game)
In the end, Ni no Kuni had some great ideas that ultimately flopped mainly because of dated mechanics and some weird endgame that dragged more than it should have. And it's sad, because what had a great start, turned to have an awful end, I really wanted to like this game, but after a while, I was just so damn done I just wanted to finish it for good, ignorning most of the side content that got boring pretty fast.
It's gameplay mechanics aged liked milk, the basic combat is fun, but it can get boring after a while, and you can't really avoid battles because your character moves like a flipping snail, so you're guaranteed to get into annoying fights you want to get into because you can't really avoid them, and escaping the fights is based on RNG and won't always work. Then, you have your familiars pathing, which is absolutely awful and they'll get stuck trying to follow a straight line towards an enemy that surrounded, so you have to manually stop the attack and circunvent the arena just to deal with that enemy (or deal with the other enemies in front of you first, but it's still annoying nonetheless).
Another annoying thing about the gameplay, is that some attacks have to be cinematic, usually, there's nothing wrong with that, but holy shit, it's very annoying when your own partners AI cancel your attacks by doing these cinematic attacks, it doesn't even have to be cinematic, some buffs completely stop your damn character while it's on attack phase, arguably losing your turn because of this thing applying the buff, it consumes time, wastes your turn and breaks the combat pace, it's very annoying. This slowly started to hinder my enjoyment, and the cherry on the cake was the final boss, which could have been great if it only had 2 stages, but the 3rd stage angered me a lot I just lost all the positivity I had for the game.
The story is fine at best, clichéd, formulaic, and often cheesy, but it had it's charm, unfortunately, some of that charm was lost in a strange endgame where they threw random reveals and some annoying things that dragged the plot (like that random mouse stealing your flipping holy wood just to add closure to a character that was forgotten for the entire game)
In the end, Ni no Kuni had some great ideas that ultimately flopped mainly because of dated mechanics and some weird endgame that dragged more than it should have. And it's sad, because what had a great start, turned to have an awful end, I really wanted to like this game, but after a while, I was just so damn done I just wanted to finish it for good, ignorning most of the side content that got boring pretty fast.
Gameplay: A+
Story: A
Characters: A
Soundtrack: A
Misc: C+
Overall Fun game with great mechanics that never felt clunky (despite Ragdolls being goofy as fuck lmao) big improvement over VC1. The story was pretty good it portrayed a war greatly with the outcomes and unexpected things happening, like winter coming early and many other impactful moments that made it exciting (and dreadful at times, but in a good way ofc). Characters were endearing and I really enjoyed the cast developing, especially Claude and Riley. Props to Raz for best bro. I really enjoyed the Soundtrack, it gets right the atmosphere and while sometimes It might be overused it's still great.
As for why Misc was C+, it's some nitpicks I wish could have been handled better, like, Buying things is a chore because every bought item Miles have to talk lol, it's kinda slow and kind of ruins my pace, nothing big, but I wish he didn't have to talk for every single item xD (this also applies to leveling up too, although is not that bad as buying)
Story: A
Characters: A
Soundtrack: A
Misc: C+
Overall Fun game with great mechanics that never felt clunky (despite Ragdolls being goofy as fuck lmao) big improvement over VC1. The story was pretty good it portrayed a war greatly with the outcomes and unexpected things happening, like winter coming early and many other impactful moments that made it exciting (and dreadful at times, but in a good way ofc). Characters were endearing and I really enjoyed the cast developing, especially Claude and Riley. Props to Raz for best bro. I really enjoyed the Soundtrack, it gets right the atmosphere and while sometimes It might be overused it's still great.
As for why Misc was C+, it's some nitpicks I wish could have been handled better, like, Buying things is a chore because every bought item Miles have to talk lol, it's kinda slow and kind of ruins my pace, nothing big, but I wish he didn't have to talk for every single item xD (this also applies to leveling up too, although is not that bad as buying)
2020
This is an unpopular opinion, but Doom Eternal it's not as good as I hoped it would be. It started pretty good and I was having a good time in the first few hours, but the moment the game started to introduce way too many mechanics it started to fell off. There was too many mechanics and gimmicks like, I want to play an FPS, not an annoying gimmicky platformer.
I'm not against enemies having gimmicks, that can be fun in certain games, but not in a FPS, especially one that requires you to have really quick reflexes even tho I wasn't playing on the harder difficulties. I want to mow down enemies just like I did in all the previous Doom entries, but with Eternal, weapons felt really weak outside of their gimmick, I spent most of the time hooking with the super shotgun and refueling with the chainsaw because no other weapon was really that effective at dealing with enemies and that lead to the game becoming way too monotone, annoying and eventually not fun. I would have liked it better if dealing with gimmicks were optional, because dealing with bullet sponges when you're unable to deal with their gimmicks due to lack of Ammo is honestly, really frustrating.
The platforming in Doom Eternal is honestly annoying and at times it required of almost perfect precision, I can't count the times I've lost too many health and armor due to falling, it's honestly frustrating and at a time I stopped bothering trying to reach secrets because of how awful the mechanic felt. The game also seems to have very annoying layouts, like your ship that is unnecessarily way too complex to navigate. I kind of wish Doom Eternal had kept it simple like 2016, not necessarily the same, but sometimes simpler is better.
I liked Doom 2016 stage, gameplay, music and progression better.
I'm not against enemies having gimmicks, that can be fun in certain games, but not in a FPS, especially one that requires you to have really quick reflexes even tho I wasn't playing on the harder difficulties. I want to mow down enemies just like I did in all the previous Doom entries, but with Eternal, weapons felt really weak outside of their gimmick, I spent most of the time hooking with the super shotgun and refueling with the chainsaw because no other weapon was really that effective at dealing with enemies and that lead to the game becoming way too monotone, annoying and eventually not fun. I would have liked it better if dealing with gimmicks were optional, because dealing with bullet sponges when you're unable to deal with their gimmicks due to lack of Ammo is honestly, really frustrating.
The platforming in Doom Eternal is honestly annoying and at times it required of almost perfect precision, I can't count the times I've lost too many health and armor due to falling, it's honestly frustrating and at a time I stopped bothering trying to reach secrets because of how awful the mechanic felt. The game also seems to have very annoying layouts, like your ship that is unnecessarily way too complex to navigate. I kind of wish Doom Eternal had kept it simple like 2016, not necessarily the same, but sometimes simpler is better.
I liked Doom 2016 stage, gameplay, music and progression better.