After trying Grandia 1 HD, I was pretty cautious going into this one. And whilst Grandia 2 is unpolished and messy, I'm glad I tried it, because it's really one of the better JRPGs out there for my money.

And it is really flawed. Whilst the HD remaster is a way better job than with the first game (prbably due to the game being fully 3D), the game itself is pretty ugly, and aside from the excellent music, compared to something like Final Fantasy IX - which released in the same year for a much weaker console - its tiny world, towns with 2 buildings of value and ugly as hell menus give it a distinctly low budget vibe.

But the strengths definetly outweight the main problems. First off, the combat is fantastic, particularly on the Hard mode added in this port, which nerfs the busted strategies. A ATB system with realtime elements which involves timing attacks to cancel enemy moves, crowd control, managing status effects - and it works fantastically, particularly in the boss fights, some of which I would outright say are the best JRPG battles I've ever played. The only issue it really has is a few repetitive encounters, some incredibly busted tactics in normal mode, and too many moves having long, unskippable, glorious FMV cutscenes which I'm sure most people will think look like complete shit.

And the story is also generally pretty great. It's at its best in the mid-section of the game, which has an episodic structure of sort where our gang goes from place to place dealing some sort of turmoil that ties in thematically with the overall plot. There's some legitimately fantastic little vignettes here, centered around dubious morality and generally nuanced situations with strong resolutions - all of which tie into the game's climax well. There's a particularly strong section at about the game's midpoint which is absolutely brilliant and worth playing the game for alone.

Add on top a great cast of main characters with strong dialogue, progression and plenty of time to interact and bounce off one another, and the story elements really work. It might get a bit too edgy at times and theres bits which dont work, but on the whole its a good JRPG story.

And best of all, it's paced just about perfectly. The game's about 25-30 hours long - which is a good start considering the bloated messes of JRPGs of this era - and each little vignette and plot point is just given the right amount of time. It takes its time on scenes when needed, but generally gets straight to the point and doesn't waste your time.

So overall, one of the better JRPGs I've played. Really a great time all-round.

Of all the games I expected this to be like, Persona 5 wasn't it. That is to say, there's some neat stuff here - especially aesthetically - but I just can't get past it being such a profound waste of time.

For every hour you spend in Loop Hero, I feel like maybe 10 minutes of it are actually engaging on a gameplay level, placing your blocks, risking your health balance and trying to make synergies work. The other 50 minutes are you waiting around for something to happen. Seriously, that's it. The maximum speed for getting your hero to walk about is way too slow and the battle speed can't be sped up at all, DESPITE YOU LITERALLY HAVING NO CONTROL OVER IT AND IT HAVING LIKE 2 ANIMATIONS AAAA.

And it's really a shame, because the game is pretty neat. The aesthetic and weird horror elements are by far the best thing the game has going for it, lending the whole thing this unique atmosphere which is like a more interesting darkest dungeon, and integrating map building with a deckbuilding game is actually fun and has some great synergy stuff going on at times. I also really like the music.

But yeah it should literally be going 5 times as fast as it does, especially as it can be paused. About 70% of the average run is spent doing micromanagement of your equipment that makes next to no difference BECAUSE THERE'S LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE TO DO.

There's also the shite progression system. If you just unlocked cards and classes, I'd probably be fine with it, but the basebuilding of the camp seems to do nothing but just make it so your early hours have even less things to do than the "complete game", which is effectively hidden behind tens of hours of even worse tedium.

So yeah, there's nuggets of gold here. And if you're into these bullshit skinner boxes whilst listening to a podcast, this will certainly make the hours go. But it's such a fucking waste of time.

If they patch it to go legitimately 3 times as quick or more, I'd consider giving it a go. Until then, avoid.

""""Remaster""""

This is how not to convert a game jesus christ. Whilst there's been some rather extensive patching to fix the crashy buggy mess this is - nothing has goe to fixing the problem that it looks like shit. It has the unfortunate distinction in both the assets and upscale work being pretty horrible - most notably having some incredibly heavy smoothing applied to all the sprites - as well as being really inconsistent. These god-awful sprites now run across weirdly sharp 3D environments with muddily-textured buildings all over the place. Oh, and since the widescreen conversion is also borked, you'll be able to see outside the map at a hilarious frequency.

And sadly the game itself is a bit too trite to make up for it. It's endearingly saccharine, but there's very little tension in the plot for a good chunk of time that makes the whole thing feel pointless. And the characters seem like they've been pulled straight off the peg from TV tropes with basically no nuance or awareness. It's like a children's TV show JRPG and there's just no hook here in the adventure or narrative.

If there's a hook, its the battle system, which is a genuinely interesting mix on an ATB system - but it's also slow as hell and can't carry what's otherwise a very dull experience on it's own.

Oh, and the food eating segments are comfy as hell I guess.

Fortunately, there was just enough here to make me try out Grandia 2 afterwards - which so far I'm finding is a massive improvement on this original game in every way - refining the good combat core and throwing in some actually pretty good storytelling.

As for this though, it's not worth the eye strain.

Regardless of everything else, at £30 for 30 games, CAS is the sort of deal where all it really needs to do is be in the same ballpark of quality as MAME to be worth it on the convinience factor alone. And it kind of is, and kind of isn't.

Frankly, it's just weird. A bizzare RE Engine frontend which lets you play blatantly modified ROMs with emulation quality that varies from legitimately great to almost unplayable. And an emphasis on a GAAS-style limited time model for challenge modes.

For instance, Pack 3, which is by far the best pack of games available in the selection, includes almost exclusively CPS2 hardware games. Super Turbo expectedly runs about perfectly and features a lot of nice stuff like move lists, etc. Progear, a game that has never been ported before, works fine and even has a small guide for it's unusual scoring system in the manual. Giga Wing? 10 frames of input lag, frameskipping, and if you choose the wrong scaline filter I hope you're ready for Glaucoma.

The game selection is also odd. Not only is it very rear-heavy with pack 3 having most of the best games, but there's some odd exclusions - The street fighter Alpha series is the most blatant, but the lack of darkstalkers, puzzle fighter, Alien Vs Predator and any CPS3 games in this set feels like a missed oppurtunity, or at least an indication that they're intended for a future pack.

Seriously, half the games in this set are Shmups/STGs. I'm very happy about that, and having an official port of Progear and 19XX at long last is really cool. But there only being 4 fighting games, 3 of which are Street Fighter 2, in the whole set, from a capcom arcade collection, feels like it's going to leave a lot of people dissapointed.

Overall, it's good. Pack 3 in particular is fantastic and contains some of Capcom's absolute best games, and I think it's very likely most of the issues will be patched considering the GAAS model they're going for. But at the same time, some oppurtunities have definetly been missed here.

There's a long list of faults I have with Umurangi. The staticness of the levels, a timer that's best left ignored, a generally very poor sense of polish and quality of life features, and an unlock system for parts that i'd say is outright awful.

But everything else, I pretty much adore. A dystopian sci-fi tale told entirely through it's environments, where the gameplay - which consists of simply exploring and taking pictures of objectives, compliments perfectly. It's a really simple conceit for the game and there's really not much depth to anything you need to do - but it gets you looking closely at the environments - and then those environments grab hold of you and don't let go.

The atmosphere here is absolutely nailed. The lo-fi beats and visual style contribute greatly to the story trying to be told here - and the story, which is basically just a slow descent into the truth of the game's world in what is a very blatant allegory for our own - and despite never saying more than a few words, it really does hit hard for me. Fortunately, the game also just works as a really neat sci-fi adventure even taking that into account.

Oh and fuck me does this game know how to do a Wham moment, with great use of music, gameplay and environments to shock the player - but never cheaply. It's honestly reminiscent of the sort of thing Hideo Kojima would do at times, and I mean that in the kindest way possible.

Finally, a word on the DLC - it's good. It's a lot more pointed and less subtle than the base game, and really gives the impression as something made with anger. It might not have worked if it weren't for its last level in particular being unbelievably strong.

The faults I mentioned at the start do frustrate to some extent. But I hope i've captured in the rest of these scatterbrain thoughts that this experience is so special they barely even matter in the grand scheme of things. Highly reccomended.

One cannot live on vibes alone. Getting 3-4 hours into a narrative focused adventure game and finding the narrative still doesnt have any hook or tension, whilst also being very deliberately slow as hell, basically leaves me 2 acts in with nothing in the narrative keeping me interested.

Yeah the aesthetic is great and the dialogue system is good. And I get the appeal of the game's setting and what it's going for.

I dont think it helps that I think the adventure/puzzle gameplay segments are outright bad. There's nothing compelling in them at all and they go at about half the pace they should do.

If you want an Americana story focused adventure game with cool dialogue play the Missing.

Good news: Battle Traverse is a mechanically awesome STG with great bullet patterns, boss fights, stage design, and great pacing. An amazing tribute to Progear and Ketsui that in gameplay terms, almost exceed the games that inspire it whilst still feeling like it's own thing.

Thing is, it looks like shit.

Battle Traverse's art style is jarringly bad. Weird semi-chibi player characters fight against military aircraft and vehicles against boring backgrounds with a very weird sense of perspective. It's an art style that would have been far better if it was just generic (like say rolling gunner), but the weirdness and the way the sprites all clash is almost distracting. There's still charm to be had in the unusual tone, with some weirdly upbeat music and some good silliness thrown in. It would probably help if I could read the text, mind...

For the record, BT was primarily made by one person - including all the programming and art. Considering that, it's an astonishing achievement, an incredibly fun STG with depth and an awesome gameplay flow that matches some of CAVE's best.

Ultimately, the art style is distracting, and does stop it matching the absolute greatest in the genre for my money. But take that out of the equaton and my next biggest criticism is that you can't skip the arcade mode's 5 second long intro.

A hearty reccomendation from me, if you're into this sort of shit.

I do not envy Bluepoint and SCE Japan for trying to remake Demon's Souls. I don't think there is a perfect way to do so, honestly. DeS 09 is a very weird looking game. There's a weird sheen to the whole thing, the lighting is kinda bad, it literally flips assets from Enchanted arms and fucking Ninja Blade - the whole thing is honestly kind of a mess.

And honestly, I think Bluepoint/SCE Japan has mostly got it right here. DeS '20 definetly has some missteps in the remake, but I think they've mostly done a fine job of this remake.

And I will say there are definetly missteps here. Much attention has been given to changes in some character/enemy designs. Whilst I think some of these are pretty bad (Adjudicator and the Fat officials are the most obvious), I can at least see where most of them come from and honestly, the majority of characters remain fundementally intact.

And the strength of Demon's Souls aesthetic was never in it's character designs or assets. It was in it's atmosphere, sound and level design. And fortunately, the Remake retains that. The only area that I'd say feels worse than the original is probably boletarian palace, which is a bit too clean for my liking and doesn't really feel like a fallen castle town for the most part.

But Latria, Shrine of Storms, Valley of Defilement and even Stonefang come out of it feeling not really significantly different - and SoS and VoD both benefit from improved fidelity in particular. And running at 60fps is a godsend.

Also, the 3D audio is exceptional. I think it's honestly the biggest improvement in the entire game and I would implore anyone playing DeS '20 to wear headphones. Its an excellent extension of the sound design of the original game, particularly in Latria.

Of course, on the audio side, I have to say the soundtrack is a big step down. I know Kida gave it a pass and seems to have worked on it in some capacity, but there's a couple of moments where the new tracks just do not work, particularly Fool's Idol, one of my favourite original tracks. The arrangements are pretty alright on their own for the most part but a couple of tracks don't vibe with their original bosses very well. If the original soundtrack was an option this remake would definetly be closer to 5 stars than 4 for me, and I hope it happens - Bluepoint/Japan Studio have already listened to some feedback regarding the remake so I wouldn't count it completely out.

A few quick points before I finish

- The new animations are fantastic. I think the originals in this style would have looked a bit goofy.
- Whatever font they're using for the big screen messages has the worst U i have ever seen. actually the worst part of the remake.
- The quality of life additions are great, particularly those involving item burden.
- There's a weird dissonance with the game having a skin of a 2020 game but still playing like the budget 2009 jank. I have no idea how to feel about it.
- I could probably have a day-long conversation about them not doing anything with the broken archstone. I'm incredibly torn and I can see why they didn't add too much new stuff.

But yeah, I could go on about the minutae of this remake for ages. It's not perfect, theres definetly mistakes here - but what I think really matters I think Bluepoint and Japan Studio have gotten right. I think the results are far better than that of the Shadow of the Colossus remake, for instance - and I adore both original games.

I think if you put a gun to my head and said I had to pick between a 4k 60fps version of the original game and this, I'd probably say this (though yes, I would like both). I would not say the same for SOTC. So, yeah, as muddled as my feelings are on DeS 20 - I think its a fine job in the end.

I've got to commend P5R on the fact that it assumes all Persona 5 fans must already accept that the pacing is a lost cause and lean in even further into its absurd longevity.

But maybe when I feel a game doesnt respect my time when I play it through a fucking pandemic and am stuck in my house playing vidya more than ever before, it can actually fuck off.

There's good changes in Royal, from the minor to the more substantial, and there are things I like a lot about P5 in general. Its art style is fantastic, the soundtrack is a banger, it's very cozy. Royal makes appreciated changes to combat, bosses and dungeons, and theres a bunch of little things improved throughout the whole game.

The extra story content in this game should absolutely have been like the Answer in FES where you can just launch with it. Yes, the Answer is garbage, and there's a bunch of little changes in the main story but 90% of the game being a retread of a story that doesn't really stand up to the scruitiny of me getting increasingly frustrated at it.

And the thing is, if P5R was an edit, maybe with an extra story added at the end seperately like the answer, it could have been really great. Persona 5 is a game that could have more interesting story content added whilst also being shorter. Dungeons and characters could be consolidated, the introduction could be shortened, the calendar could be made basically half as long - but Royal does none of this.

It's a shame, really. If this game was 50 hours instead of 100+ I could probably see past more of it's issues. Until then, fuck it.

I've been wanting to start a series on writing about all of CAVE's shooting games (Shmups, STGs). I enjoy a lot of them, they're interesting, and I think there's a mildly interesting narrative I can weave about the evolution of a company's design over a decade and a half of being the most influential developer in a niche genre.

The problem with starting that series is that it has to begin with Donpachi, which is kinda boring. It's the sort of shmup that you'd see in the background of a sitcom taking place in an arcade. A extremely generic aesthetic combined with gameplay that's really not that compelling, decent but basic scoring, and a difficulty curve that often feels more unfair than challenging. The music is also very bland, especially considering the strength of the music in pretty much every other CAVE title.

The only things that really sticks about donpachi is it's very good sprite art and very good sense of control, which is something CAVE would continue to excel at. There's also the delightful announcer, who brings a certain energy to the game that only a foreign man pulled off the street for a mid-90s japanese videogame truly can.

It's really only in the minutae, and in the context of the past and future, that Donpachi becomes interesting - CAVE was formed from ex-Toaplan staff after that company went defunct, and Donpachi feels way closer to the style of Toaplan than CAVE's later work - fast bullets rather than lots of them, relatively large player hitbox, very little in the way of intricate bullet patterns. But just under the surface, the start of the style CAVE would effectively codify as "bullet hell" is just peeking out from under the surface. It's particularly evident in the second loop, where enemies stream large swathes of revenge bullets at the player on death, there's more of a reliance on hardware slowdown as a gameplay mechanic, the bullet count is generally higher, and the true last boss, Taisabachi, almost plays and feels like later CAVE bosses, albeit with far more of an emphasis on bullet speed than interweaving patterns. It's a shame that more of the game doesn't play like the second loop, considering it takes about half an hour of a pretty meh shmup to get to a more interesting, and absurdly brutal one.

In the end, I don't think Donpachi quite works. It's fundementally fine, but even comparing it to the work of late Toaplan - Notably Batsugun, Dogyuun and Grind Stormer- its pretty forgettable, and certaintly lacks thier flair. And to some extent, I think if it werent for who made it, and the game's successors, DonPachi would be mostly forgotten as one of many average shmups from the mid-90s. Fortunately for CAVE, their second STG - the sequel to DonPachi - was anything but forgettable.

This stupid little shmup has no right to be as good as it actually is. It's crudely made, childish, and very, very irreverent, but Deathmofumofu really lean into how silly the base concept of a flying cat shmup is, and the end result is just great fun.

At it's core, Neko is a Horizontal shmup basically wholly focused on bullet cancelling with bombs - essentially building up meter and clearing the screen of many bullets as possible, with each bullet turning into score items. It's simple by the standards of modern shmup scoring systems, but it has a surprising amount of nuance, particularly when it comes to managing and routing bombs, taking deliberate deaths for more bombs (and when you're near the 5-life limit), and managing enemy health so they die at the right time. It's a really satisfying system, implemented well, and with the levels built well around it. It couldn't quite carry a traditional shmup alone, but that's where the charm comes in.

And Neko Navy sure is charming. A very silly sense of humour, the general cutesy artstyle with just an edge of bizzare pseudo-horror, lighthearted music, and a general sense of self-awareness that makes it very easy to just lose yourself to the silly little ride that this game is. I find it hard not to smile at the silly jokes, the references, the bizzare sense of space and time - and the stage 3 boss always makes me laugh.

There are issues, of course - The game is a tad easy, with only DEATH COURSE being any significant challenge. Production values are obviously rock bottom, and there's something to be said for the art definetly not being for everyone. I also think if you're not into the irreverant spiral of irreverance that Neko Navy is, you're probably not going to get too much out of it. The Character balance of the game is also a bit off, though the very fact im bringing that up should be telling that i'm taking this game way too seriously in the first place.

But seriously, this game's lovely. Very few games will put a smile on my face in the same way Neko Navy does, every dang time.

ZeroRanger is, more than anything else, a passion project. Two guys and a few other collaborators ground out ZeroRanger over TEN YEARS and they're still working on it. The thread for Final Boss, the original version of ZR, was started on the shmup forums in 2009. And you can really tell. An absurd amount of details, easter eggs and references, ooze from every frame of gameplay, to the point im fairly sure any random screenshot of this game probably has a few hidden details in it. The presentation is fantasitc, with excellent sprite work and great art direction, and the music is some of the best work i've heard in a genre which possesses probably the greatest concentration of god-tier game OSTs.

For a decent bit of time though, I was kinda dissapointed by ZR, because as a Shmup, it's comparatively middling in gameplay terms - Don't get me wrong, it's still fine, and somehow the 2nd best Shmup not made in Japan because no one else has a frickin clue, but it's nothing particulary special - the game is kinda indecisive about being a classic style shmup, a puzzle-focused shmup (like Ikaruga), or a modern Bullet Hell, and the Weapon system I generally find a tad unbalanced and a bit too straighfoward for engaging gameplay - the choice between which weapon to use in which situation is nearly always blatant.

Stage design is also a bit meh. Stage 2 in particular is pretty bad, and a combination of it being very long and being a quite sizeable difficulty jump, particularly with the midboss Artypo, makes it a slog in both loops.

And oh yeah, this game loops. And due to SPOILER, the game fairly explicitly doesnt treat completion of the first loop alone as a true clear - which leads to a traditional arcade run of this game taking almost an hour - 2 to 3 times as long as a typical arcade shmup, which, depsite the game's relatively low difficulty, makes it frustrating to practice and actually put a run out there, especially as the loops have significant differences. The scoring is also very forgettable.

But fuck that. This game still slaps. Not neccessarily as a shmup - but as a tribute to shmups, and as narrative shmup, like something in the vein of Darius Gaiden or Metal Black turned up a few notches in the story balance - interweaving a narrative that's legitimately fantastic and rewards the player for diving into it, with the structure of a shmup, and it's absolutely inspired at times. When everything comes together, particularly in stage 2-4, very little else matches it.

In this "Narrative/Presentational Shmup" guise, I only really have one problem with it, and that's it's usage of References. They're absolutely everywhere, and whilst a lot of the time they're somewhere between cool and very cute, particularly in the Credits and the Dream Sequence, and frankly for most of the game, they are overused a little, and to extent I do think it compromises a bit of the narrative of the game itself, and prevents it really standing on it's own at times. This only truly rears its head in sequences where there's a heavy narrative focus, especially since the game leans on imagery a decent chunk - trying to unpick the truckload of references from the game itself can undercut it a bit.

Mind, this will definetly be something where milage will vary, and I do still love the reverance this game has for the classics. I just feel at times it almost lacks a bit of confidence in itself when what it's doing is fantastic and doesnt need to make nods to those before it.

Still, as I said, it's an absolute blast, and there's nothing i've played that's really quite like it. Definetly flawed, but at it's peak, very little feels as passionate and well executed as ZR.

I have played 2 hours of this game, and I already know I could spend way, way longer talking about it than I ever could playing it. Somewhere beneat this absolute trainwreck there's the bones of a fun stealth action sandbox game, with cool mechs and interesting story elements. But on both a technical and gameplay level, everything is blatantly, absurdly bad, more reminiscent of fumbling around in an early access survival game from 2011 than a AAA release from Square Enix in 2019.

Just some of the questions this game has me pondering

- Why does the game drop you in an open area with dozens of guards and giant mechs with no stealth tools or real means to acquire them?

- Why is the player health so high, and why does it take 4 pistol headshots to kill a guard?

- What are these really cool, realised mechs doing in a field of such jank?

- Why is the morality system actually vaguely interesting?

- What the fuck happened here?

I must play on. Half of me wants to snap the disc in half and the other half must delve deeper, to try and work out this enigma of a game.