ExAndOh
A perfect ending to a budding lawyer's personal saga
It's hard to nail the final game in a trilogy in a narrative and thematic sense but Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations manages to do just that. Brand new characters are well written and existing characters are done incredible service and given great conclusions. The weaving narrative is at its strongest here being able to take away from the previous two titles and makes this the best game of the trilogy.
As before, I won't mention the gameplay flow as the trilogy rarely changes in that department other than the addition of Psyche-Locks in the second game. Case quality is at its most consistent here including a case that actually doesn't involve a murder for a change. The cases themselves weave well around to a final case that is probably the best case in the whole trilogy for the characters thematically and manages to tie everything up without feeling forced or not completely thought out beforehand. The soundtrack is an improvement from the second game and I personally feel it's as good as the first game here. I was initially mixed on Godot during my playthrough but by the end, he was redeemed in my eyes bringing forth some memorable lines.
I think the only thing that sort of suspended my disbelief for some of the greater moments in this game was the premise of some twists being the same in almost every case. I won't explain what the premise is due to spoilers but you might notice it if you look for it which does include the final case sadly.
I'm going to miss the characters in this game as I've spent around 50-60 hours completing the trilogy and the ending really gave me some good closure and the ability to put some things to rest. I know there are more Ace Attorney games after the initial trilogy but it's gonna be hard to match the charm of the cast like seeing Maya at the office pushing you towards a case, Gumshoe at the scene trying not to say anything without spilling the beans anyway, the Judge in general. Trials and Tribulations is Phoenix's most personal period of his life yet and ends the original trilogy in a high note that will be hard to match going forward.
How many cups of darkness have I drank over the years? Even I don't know...
I'll tell you though...
Right now, this one here is the greatest cup I think I've ever had.
It's hard to nail the final game in a trilogy in a narrative and thematic sense but Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations manages to do just that. Brand new characters are well written and existing characters are done incredible service and given great conclusions. The weaving narrative is at its strongest here being able to take away from the previous two titles and makes this the best game of the trilogy.
As before, I won't mention the gameplay flow as the trilogy rarely changes in that department other than the addition of Psyche-Locks in the second game. Case quality is at its most consistent here including a case that actually doesn't involve a murder for a change. The cases themselves weave well around to a final case that is probably the best case in the whole trilogy for the characters thematically and manages to tie everything up without feeling forced or not completely thought out beforehand. The soundtrack is an improvement from the second game and I personally feel it's as good as the first game here. I was initially mixed on Godot during my playthrough but by the end, he was redeemed in my eyes bringing forth some memorable lines.
I think the only thing that sort of suspended my disbelief for some of the greater moments in this game was the premise of some twists being the same in almost every case. I won't explain what the premise is due to spoilers but you might notice it if you look for it which does include the final case sadly.
I'm going to miss the characters in this game as I've spent around 50-60 hours completing the trilogy and the ending really gave me some good closure and the ability to put some things to rest. I know there are more Ace Attorney games after the initial trilogy but it's gonna be hard to match the charm of the cast like seeing Maya at the office pushing you towards a case, Gumshoe at the scene trying not to say anything without spilling the beans anyway, the Judge in general. Trials and Tribulations is Phoenix's most personal period of his life yet and ends the original trilogy in a high note that will be hard to match going forward.
How many cups of darkness have I drank over the years? Even I don't know...
I'll tell you though...
Right now, this one here is the greatest cup I think I've ever had.
1988
An exercise of arduous yet gratifying challenge
What feels like over twelve hours of mental torture, Ninja Gaiden is a very fun and very punishing game that rewards patience, knowledge and gameplay prowess. This is not an easy game by any means but it is completely possible to beat it but if you are someone that isn't good at 2D platformers like I am, expect to spend a lot of time with this one. Fortunately for you, the gameplay is actually tight and even though the game throws some curve balls at you, you're expected to learn and even realize you're suppose to dodge most of the enemies.
The gameplay is the only reason anyone here would even play the game and overcome the massive hurdles this game will throw at you. Jumping and attack feels smooth along with Ryu's movement being tight for the most part, wall jumping can be a finicky but it works really well here and never impeded movement too much. Surprisingly enough, this game actually has a story and it's presented well with some amazing sprites too to accompany this. The premise is you play as Ryu Hayabusa who is looking for revenge after the death of his father and so you go to America after being left a letter by his father to visit someone there. The scenes in between do a pretty decent job of telling a story here which I didn't expect from an NES game of all things. This is all accompanied by a very good soundtrack with each track giving you a fervor to continue on.
I can't stress enough that if you aren't fond of 2D platformers, have the patience of a saint or just overall stubborn like I am that you might not enjoy this game as I did and even then there was moments of me wanting to give up. Some enemies have some bullshit patterns but that is nothing compared to an infamous glitch that is known for why this game has a reputation for being difficult. If you die to the final boss, you are sent back to the very beginning of the level ignoring the checkpoints you got along the way. A glitch in the game that was intentionally left by the developers made for an insanely emotionally destroying experience for the final act which I spent almost half of my playtime of this game in. It's the moment where the game expects you play well or be subject to doing it all over again and the only thing that kept me going was the gameplay and slowly unpeel the final act as you try again and again. I almost don't blame people for using save states during this part because the game was moderately difficult before this point and this is overdoing it. Despite that, if you manage to beat the game without any help, expect the biggest wave of relief going through your body as I did.
Ninja Gaiden is an enjoyable form of torture that also manages to have a great soundtrack, art and story in some sense. If you give this game the time it wants, it will make you feel untouchable and if you don't, you'll feel frustrated the entire time.
A Strategic Encounter and The Fight of Your Life.
What feels like over twelve hours of mental torture, Ninja Gaiden is a very fun and very punishing game that rewards patience, knowledge and gameplay prowess. This is not an easy game by any means but it is completely possible to beat it but if you are someone that isn't good at 2D platformers like I am, expect to spend a lot of time with this one. Fortunately for you, the gameplay is actually tight and even though the game throws some curve balls at you, you're expected to learn and even realize you're suppose to dodge most of the enemies.
The gameplay is the only reason anyone here would even play the game and overcome the massive hurdles this game will throw at you. Jumping and attack feels smooth along with Ryu's movement being tight for the most part, wall jumping can be a finicky but it works really well here and never impeded movement too much. Surprisingly enough, this game actually has a story and it's presented well with some amazing sprites too to accompany this. The premise is you play as Ryu Hayabusa who is looking for revenge after the death of his father and so you go to America after being left a letter by his father to visit someone there. The scenes in between do a pretty decent job of telling a story here which I didn't expect from an NES game of all things. This is all accompanied by a very good soundtrack with each track giving you a fervor to continue on.
I can't stress enough that if you aren't fond of 2D platformers, have the patience of a saint or just overall stubborn like I am that you might not enjoy this game as I did and even then there was moments of me wanting to give up. Some enemies have some bullshit patterns but that is nothing compared to an infamous glitch that is known for why this game has a reputation for being difficult. If you die to the final boss, you are sent back to the very beginning of the level ignoring the checkpoints you got along the way. A glitch in the game that was intentionally left by the developers made for an insanely emotionally destroying experience for the final act which I spent almost half of my playtime of this game in. It's the moment where the game expects you play well or be subject to doing it all over again and the only thing that kept me going was the gameplay and slowly unpeel the final act as you try again and again. I almost don't blame people for using save states during this part because the game was moderately difficult before this point and this is overdoing it. Despite that, if you manage to beat the game without any help, expect the biggest wave of relief going through your body as I did.
Ninja Gaiden is an enjoyable form of torture that also manages to have a great soundtrack, art and story in some sense. If you give this game the time it wants, it will make you feel untouchable and if you don't, you'll feel frustrated the entire time.
A Strategic Encounter and The Fight of Your Life.
2017
Humanity's best efforts
I've never tried so hard to like a game as much as this one. Despite the fact I completed this game nearly a year ago to this day, I wanted to give this game yet another chance because I felt like I missed something. The Nier Replicant remake was something that I surprisingly enjoyed despite sharing a few things in common with this game including the way the soundtrack is. After putting myself through yet another 18 hours to get the final ending again, my impression of the game only raised a little bit. Nier: Automata is just okay in almost every sense of the word other than the soundtrack.
I'll start with what I think is good in this game: The soundtrack. Despite hearing Emi Evans in almost every game associated with Yoko Taro at this point, her performance here is amazing. Some of the areas actually look good and that's specifically the Amusement Park level, there was decent segments as well including probably one of the only bosses I even cared about here. Despite not caring for most of the characters which I'll get on later, there are actually some I liked and specifically Pascal. Pascal is actually likable and his development is pretty depressing as the game goes on and one of the few times I think the themes and writing manages to hit here. Playing this after playing the remake, I've learned to appreciate the references this game made which sort of improved my experience with it a second time around.
I'm going to talk about what is probably the main appeal of this game: the story. The story and world is actually interesting at first and then takes a nosedive after the first ending. The protagonists despite their development just felt completely boring, the one protagonist I was genuinely interested in started to be comically irrational at a point where I just didn't care anymore. I tried to care about them but nothing really latched onto me which also leans into the themes of this game which is considered the highest point for some people. The game tries to ask questions about what it means to be human, emotion and AI but these questions are very basic and simple questions. I keep expecting this game to make me think and it's throwing me philosophy quotes from a school poster. Now we move on to the game itself, it's really boring. The combat was easy and hits have no impact or weight to them for 2B. 9S has a different mechanic that you can hack into enemies and do a shooting minigame which I thought was cool until the novelty wore off an hour or two into his route. A2 has a berserker mode that reduces your health gradually for way more damage, I used this a lot actually to speed up battles since I was tired of the game at this point. The visual level design also leaves something to be desired as well considering this game is like 60% abandoned city ruins, 20% Forest, 10% Desert and 10% final area which is literally just white. Now I wouldn't mind this as much if the world itself was fun to traverse but it isn't and there isn't anything worth getting other then save and quick points and side quests that are also bland. This game also performs one of the cardinal sins of what I hate in gaming: replaying long sequences in order to progress through the story. Nothing kills momentum in a game than having to replay the first half of a game again just to get to the second with only a few different cutscenes during that whole segment and having to run all around the world again to do the same things again to see most of the same cutscenes again since you don't know when you'll get a new cutscene that will hopefully flesh out the story and made the game way more tedious than it should be. I don't want to speak much on the ending due to spoilers but despite the concept of the ending being sorta cool, it didn't really justify the entire journey to get to that point.
I think my overall opinion on this game has improved very slightly but my main concerns are still the same. I can forgive a game with a bad story if it had the gameplay and other facets to pick up the pace but this game doesn't. I can forgive a game with bad gameplay if it had a good story and characters and it didn't. There are better ways to ask the questions Nier: Automata tries to ask you and better ways to really make you think of humanism. But even then, what's left is an average action game with an amazing soundtrack. I really tried to like this one, beat it twice at this point and I think I'm done with this one despite it just being okay.
I've never tried so hard to like a game as much as this one. Despite the fact I completed this game nearly a year ago to this day, I wanted to give this game yet another chance because I felt like I missed something. The Nier Replicant remake was something that I surprisingly enjoyed despite sharing a few things in common with this game including the way the soundtrack is. After putting myself through yet another 18 hours to get the final ending again, my impression of the game only raised a little bit. Nier: Automata is just okay in almost every sense of the word other than the soundtrack.
I'll start with what I think is good in this game: The soundtrack. Despite hearing Emi Evans in almost every game associated with Yoko Taro at this point, her performance here is amazing. Some of the areas actually look good and that's specifically the Amusement Park level, there was decent segments as well including probably one of the only bosses I even cared about here. Despite not caring for most of the characters which I'll get on later, there are actually some I liked and specifically Pascal. Pascal is actually likable and his development is pretty depressing as the game goes on and one of the few times I think the themes and writing manages to hit here. Playing this after playing the remake, I've learned to appreciate the references this game made which sort of improved my experience with it a second time around.
I'm going to talk about what is probably the main appeal of this game: the story. The story and world is actually interesting at first and then takes a nosedive after the first ending. The protagonists despite their development just felt completely boring, the one protagonist I was genuinely interested in started to be comically irrational at a point where I just didn't care anymore. I tried to care about them but nothing really latched onto me which also leans into the themes of this game which is considered the highest point for some people. The game tries to ask questions about what it means to be human, emotion and AI but these questions are very basic and simple questions. I keep expecting this game to make me think and it's throwing me philosophy quotes from a school poster. Now we move on to the game itself, it's really boring. The combat was easy and hits have no impact or weight to them for 2B. 9S has a different mechanic that you can hack into enemies and do a shooting minigame which I thought was cool until the novelty wore off an hour or two into his route. A2 has a berserker mode that reduces your health gradually for way more damage, I used this a lot actually to speed up battles since I was tired of the game at this point. The visual level design also leaves something to be desired as well considering this game is like 60% abandoned city ruins, 20% Forest, 10% Desert and 10% final area which is literally just white. Now I wouldn't mind this as much if the world itself was fun to traverse but it isn't and there isn't anything worth getting other then save and quick points and side quests that are also bland. This game also performs one of the cardinal sins of what I hate in gaming: replaying long sequences in order to progress through the story. Nothing kills momentum in a game than having to replay the first half of a game again just to get to the second with only a few different cutscenes during that whole segment and having to run all around the world again to do the same things again to see most of the same cutscenes again since you don't know when you'll get a new cutscene that will hopefully flesh out the story and made the game way more tedious than it should be. I don't want to speak much on the ending due to spoilers but despite the concept of the ending being sorta cool, it didn't really justify the entire journey to get to that point.
I think my overall opinion on this game has improved very slightly but my main concerns are still the same. I can forgive a game with a bad story if it had the gameplay and other facets to pick up the pace but this game doesn't. I can forgive a game with bad gameplay if it had a good story and characters and it didn't. There are better ways to ask the questions Nier: Automata tries to ask you and better ways to really make you think of humanism. But even then, what's left is an average action game with an amazing soundtrack. I really tried to like this one, beat it twice at this point and I think I'm done with this one despite it just being okay.
1997
Frenetic and mechanical experimentation
Einhänder might be one of the most challenging and frustrating games I have ever played but also one of the coolest ones as well. My first foray into the shoot-em-up genre or "shmup" and it was pretty taxing on me, I'll admit this took me a couple of days to beat and I'm not that good at this sort of game at all but there's a lot to like here.
The story revolves around a futuristic war with Earth versus the Moon and there's a lot to unpack on what your role in this game really is. The 90's sci-fi aesthetic works well here from the ship designs, locations and the enemies. The soundtrack is amazing with some high energy electronic music with a final boss theme that sounds like something you would see in a JRPG from the PS1 era. The gameplay is fun, there's a great variety of weapons and they feel satisfying to use. If any recommendation, I would suggest using a ship with multiple pods as opposed to the single pod one as it limits your arsenal potential throughout the game.
Despite my skill issue, there are some moments where I feel like it's hard to really react and results in some cheap deaths. I completely understand that I'm not great at this genre of games, if I die to a random bullet on a clear screen then that's on me but there's some mechanics that come out of nowhere that just result you in losing lives in a game that limits your continues. You only have so many continues until you return to the start once again. Of course I understand that this is par for the course for the genre and I've sorta accepted it at this point but I just wanted to point that out here. Fortunately though the game isn't long so it does promote that in a sense.
Squaresoft seems to be the masters of bringing out the most of the original Playstation here. The overall presentation and graphics are amazing for a Playstation game, the game is pretty fun, the soundtrack is killer. A sci-fi shoot-em-up with great overall production value that.
Einhänder might be one of the most challenging and frustrating games I have ever played but also one of the coolest ones as well. My first foray into the shoot-em-up genre or "shmup" and it was pretty taxing on me, I'll admit this took me a couple of days to beat and I'm not that good at this sort of game at all but there's a lot to like here.
The story revolves around a futuristic war with Earth versus the Moon and there's a lot to unpack on what your role in this game really is. The 90's sci-fi aesthetic works well here from the ship designs, locations and the enemies. The soundtrack is amazing with some high energy electronic music with a final boss theme that sounds like something you would see in a JRPG from the PS1 era. The gameplay is fun, there's a great variety of weapons and they feel satisfying to use. If any recommendation, I would suggest using a ship with multiple pods as opposed to the single pod one as it limits your arsenal potential throughout the game.
Despite my skill issue, there are some moments where I feel like it's hard to really react and results in some cheap deaths. I completely understand that I'm not great at this genre of games, if I die to a random bullet on a clear screen then that's on me but there's some mechanics that come out of nowhere that just result you in losing lives in a game that limits your continues. You only have so many continues until you return to the start once again. Of course I understand that this is par for the course for the genre and I've sorta accepted it at this point but I just wanted to point that out here. Fortunately though the game isn't long so it does promote that in a sense.
Squaresoft seems to be the masters of bringing out the most of the original Playstation here. The overall presentation and graphics are amazing for a Playstation game, the game is pretty fun, the soundtrack is killer. A sci-fi shoot-em-up with great overall production value that.
1999
I remember being nine years old when me and my mother took me to a laundromat/pollo a la brasa place to wash our clothes since our apartment building didn't have washing machines at the time. My mom would watch her telenovellas on the crts hanging up all over the places while I begged my mom for a dollar in quarters so I can play Area 51, Soul Edge and this game. I remember trying to ask the kids around waiting if they wanted to play with me and even spotted them if they didn't have anything. My first exposure into the Metal Slug series and all those years later, still as great as I remembered it as a kid.
The iconic run and gun gameplay is simple yet extremely satisfying. The levels are pretty great and the whole game is just full of tiny touches you wouldn't expect here. If you get hit with a certain attack, you'll turn into a mummy and can only use your pistol and if you eat too much food, your character will literally gain weight almost to the point you can explode. The weapon pickups are common and dopamine hits when you get them and there's rarely a bad one here either.
Some bosses can take way too long and there's a difficulty spike near the end but that's really it for me.
I've only played a few Metal Slug games but I always come back to this one for a variety of reasons. Always a fun time with someone to just blow and shoot everything up in general.
The iconic run and gun gameplay is simple yet extremely satisfying. The levels are pretty great and the whole game is just full of tiny touches you wouldn't expect here. If you get hit with a certain attack, you'll turn into a mummy and can only use your pistol and if you eat too much food, your character will literally gain weight almost to the point you can explode. The weapon pickups are common and dopamine hits when you get them and there's rarely a bad one here either.
Some bosses can take way too long and there's a difficulty spike near the end but that's really it for me.
I've only played a few Metal Slug games but I always come back to this one for a variety of reasons. Always a fun time with someone to just blow and shoot everything up in general.
Starting off 2022 with a parody of Super Street Fighter Turbo II, a unique puzzle versus game that rewards setting up blocks for massive combos. I spent a few hours on this game and did some normal runs and this game is pretty challenging. I'm actually not much of a Capcom guy or a Street Fighter guy myself but the novelty and gameplay is good here albeit it's a bit clunky and some awful balancing.
If you love Street Fighter, the charm is here in spades. The character interactions are pretty great here and the iconic characters act how they would act. Also pretty crazy to play a Capcom game other than Marvel vs Capcom that they actually acknowledge Darkstalkers here with what I'm guessing is half the cast here. The music is alright here as well, fit the whole charm of the game.
The gameplay for this game is a bit odd though, so what's different is that the main blocks can't break each other but only specific blocks can break them and it just sorta felt clunky to me especially building up combos is fun enough but not when you need that specific block for what feels like forever. I won't say I'm that good at puzzle games maybe except Tetris at a decent level and even this game kicked my ass with spending like 2 hours before I turned down the difficulty to finally beat the game a few times via arcade mode.
I can see someone really enjoying this if they enjoy the properties and the gameplay that rewards combos and stacking albeit with more steps. Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo is a game with a lot of charm but brings on some annoyances and at times even unrewarding gameplay.
Thanks to goznog for the recommendation.
If you love Street Fighter, the charm is here in spades. The character interactions are pretty great here and the iconic characters act how they would act. Also pretty crazy to play a Capcom game other than Marvel vs Capcom that they actually acknowledge Darkstalkers here with what I'm guessing is half the cast here. The music is alright here as well, fit the whole charm of the game.
The gameplay for this game is a bit odd though, so what's different is that the main blocks can't break each other but only specific blocks can break them and it just sorta felt clunky to me especially building up combos is fun enough but not when you need that specific block for what feels like forever. I won't say I'm that good at puzzle games maybe except Tetris at a decent level and even this game kicked my ass with spending like 2 hours before I turned down the difficulty to finally beat the game a few times via arcade mode.
I can see someone really enjoying this if they enjoy the properties and the gameplay that rewards combos and stacking albeit with more steps. Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo is a game with a lot of charm but brings on some annoyances and at times even unrewarding gameplay.
Thanks to goznog for the recommendation.
Revolutionary then for the Xbox brand, hard to stomach now
Halo is probably the only reason Xbox took off at all in 2001. A revolutionary first person shooter from bungie at the time. As someone that grew up mostly in Sony, I never really experienced this series along with the Xbox 360 games as well. Eventually as time went on, I did slowly become interested in the series until this point in time where the Master Chief Collection is fully available on PC and I finally managed to get myself a decent computer. The first halo feels pretty flawed from a gameplay design standpoint with extremely long stages that felt like they went on forever.
The shooting and the guns feel good enough here. I've used every weapon and they mostly felt good to use. Sniper shots are fun to hit, shotgun is actually great here too. The vehicles are decent enough here and manages to make it different from other first person shooters at the time.
That said, The philosophy behind the levels are pretty bad here with the most notorious example being The Library. Stages that seem to go on way too long with no payoff or reprieve makes the combat start to feel tedious. Driving all around a map for some of the stages also just feel boring as well too except for one instance in the end that can be pretty unforgiving but still one of the few great moments in the campaign.
It's the first game in the series and for the time, it does play really well. Didn't even touch on the multiplayer here either which is a big part of this game too but I'm not too interested in the suite of multiplayer features right now considering I just wanted to experience the campaigns myself. A revolutionary first person shooter that still plays well but can be tedious to get through.
Halo is probably the only reason Xbox took off at all in 2001. A revolutionary first person shooter from bungie at the time. As someone that grew up mostly in Sony, I never really experienced this series along with the Xbox 360 games as well. Eventually as time went on, I did slowly become interested in the series until this point in time where the Master Chief Collection is fully available on PC and I finally managed to get myself a decent computer. The first halo feels pretty flawed from a gameplay design standpoint with extremely long stages that felt like they went on forever.
The shooting and the guns feel good enough here. I've used every weapon and they mostly felt good to use. Sniper shots are fun to hit, shotgun is actually great here too. The vehicles are decent enough here and manages to make it different from other first person shooters at the time.
That said, The philosophy behind the levels are pretty bad here with the most notorious example being The Library. Stages that seem to go on way too long with no payoff or reprieve makes the combat start to feel tedious. Driving all around a map for some of the stages also just feel boring as well too except for one instance in the end that can be pretty unforgiving but still one of the few great moments in the campaign.
It's the first game in the series and for the time, it does play really well. Didn't even touch on the multiplayer here either which is a big part of this game too but I'm not too interested in the suite of multiplayer features right now considering I just wanted to experience the campaigns myself. A revolutionary first person shooter that still plays well but can be tedious to get through.
Desires and Regret
When people think of Japanese role playing games, they think of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Pokemon to an extent and the Megaten series for what I believe are the most popular ones. People in this genre of fanbase uncommonly go outside these main four but there are many series that are popular within the Japanese role playing game community as well like Tales, Xeno series in general and anything Yoko Taro makes. This year I really wanted to try some stuff outside my comfort zone of what I know I would like and wanted to try Caligula Effect 2 out. I'm nowhere near the audience for really niche JRPGs like this that barely make it overseas but I saw some gameplay trailers and thought it looked cool. Playing this game made me realized what it meant for a game to be "anime" in a sense. Not saying it's a bad thing obviously but there's rarely much "anime" stuff here other than the Japanese only voices in a sense and the premise of it being "Japanese high schoolers beat bad guys while still participating in high school". This game is surprisingly relatable to myself and even a lot of people I personally know that go through these specific issues mentioned in the game which was actually surprised considering you rarely go into depth about problems like these in games. Caligula Effect 2 is a great game and from what I know, people that worked on the old megaten games worked on this game. With that said, I'm not gonna mention names of any other games or series past this point because comparing this game to anything else isn't fair and I personally dislike it at this point. Not to mention that I feel a game should stand on its own two legs. With that out of the way, I'll be going into this game with the experience of not playing the original Caligula Effect or Overdose and my opinions will be centered around that.
The World of Redo (Story and Characters)
The best aspect of this game are the characters in my honest opinion, the crown jewel of the whole experience. The main cast have layers to their personality revolving around being in Redo and why they're there in the first place. The aesthetic is also something initially appealed to me and have met my experience of just having a cool cast not to mention the small touches with their designs too. The Japanese voice acting is great with me with distinct voices for each character and just sounding like actual people. I liked the characters so much that I took the time to max out each character's affinity and watched all the character episodes about each of them too. Character episodes are like mini segments that show gradual development through the story which is great. I like that they don't automatically love the protagonist upon them joining the team and they each have their own motives and aspirations for joining you. I won't elaborate more due to spoilers but I'll just say these characters are well written, relatable and full of emotion thanks to the voice acting here as well. The story itself is good and has a simple premise, you and your club members are in a virtual world called Redo and you have to do whatever it takes to escape it. The pacing is a bit slow at the start but it picks up fast enough. The ending is pretty good but I wish it was fleshed out a bit more. I am legit surprised about the quality of both here considering it gives you the premise of "japanese high schoolers" and adds a unique touch to them. Also something I noticed in the dialogue too is that something in the story will happen, I would think "I wonder if they're gonna bring it up" and they actually do soon after which actually helps immerse you in the story. I will also be saving Causality Link for the gameplay section coming up.
The Catharsis Effect and Causality Link (Gameplay)
For my opinions of the gameplay segment, I will mention that the difficulty I played this game in was the first two dungeons on Normal and the rest on hard as recommended from someone that is fairly knowledgeable about the game but he's also a big fan. The gameplay consists of a maximum of four party members with a mix of turn-based and real time battle. Fighting enemies consists of picking moves from specific categories, each with different principles and effects and you can plan when you exactly enact these moves as well. The whole system feels like a Rube Goldberg machine of a system where you can plan specific moves to perfectly compliment each other and it's really satisfying when you pull this off. An example is having a character counter an upcoming attack which would launch them in the air, following by planning another team member to do aerial strikes which allow them to trigger yet another damaging move smashing them to the ground and they finally following up with an attack that does better damage to someone on the ground. The whole reenactment before committing to the moves proves this. Battles can be initially pretty long from my experience as you're getting used to the battle system but you get decent experience gains so you really never had to grind in this game. Boss battles themselves are a decent challenge and when I see the gameplay system shine the most as you can set up some absurd damaging combos with the exact perfect setup. Another mechanic that helps with this and just as important is the "Floor Jack" mechanic. A bar that fills up upon meeting specific conditions and collecting rifts throughout the world will allow you to interrupt the flow of time and summon χ to provide buffs, removes your cool down and allows your four party members to act immediately upon activation. I believe this is an amazing mechanic that makes battle more dynamic and rewards perfect timing and can even save you if you're in a tight spot. I also liked that characters learn new moves at a decent pace and you always feel like you get a good flow of new tools. This also applies to getting party members with brand new and unique move sets as well. I enjoyed the battle system but I feel like there's some quality of life stuff it could use like passing your turn to another members when starting a battle or an enemy bar to know what move an enemy is gonna do instead of just waiting for them to enact it in the planner. I did sort of get tired of regular battles after a while but the auto battle system helps in this regard but found it weird you can't auto all of them but I'm sure there's a reason for that. Dungeons are mostly a simple affair, no real maze like approach here other than a few segments if anything. They are essentially rooms and hallways but they do look nice, I don't really mind this approach but I feel like they are a bit longer than they should be. The final dungeon is great though, still long but appropriate considering it is the final dungeon in a JRPG. Not to mention it had the perfect amount of challenging enemies that were actually above my level in the end considering I was overleveled without grinding before the penultimate dungeon. The highly challenging set of enemies in each dungeon was a great challenge and helped keep my attention through each dungeon. I do sort of wish there was decent tools for avoiding enemies, the escape command when you get into a fight is too slow considering I can press auto battle and defeat said enemies before escape finally activates. Trying to navigate around enemies also just feels finicky and getting into a fight just means I have to beat it considering the former sentence. Sad to say I think the side quests are probably the Achilles' heel of the whole game but I have done a decent chunk of them just for the protagonist's stat boosts. I will say the Causality Link system is a really cool concept with how you can figure out mini stories and the huge variety of NPCs out there in Redo. A great chunk of the game is being out there in Redo and talking to the various NPCs and doing the side quests but the whole process felt pretty tedious. Traveling around the map is slow since you move at a default run speed and moving to different zones takes you to fairly lengthy loading screens a lot of the time at least on Switch. The fast travel works around having to be in a save point which are commonly placed but the problem is the process. Allow me to provide an example: You accept a side quest which has you talking to someone else in a different area, sounds simple enough right? Well first let's go to a save point and teleport back to the hideout, we have a loading screen here and now we're back at the hideout, now we talk to χ and ask her to take us to said area for the side quests, we are now at another loading screen, we have now arrived at the area and if you're unlucky and we probably are which means we have to find another save point to teleport to the specific room within that area, yet another loading screen, we finally talk to the person with a specific stigma and we now have to reverse the process to complete the quest since we have to talk to the original person. Honestly a nitpick but just having to go into a menu to equip something temporarily for a quick interaction just to unequip it is pretty annoying the amount of times I had to do it for these quests. Granted though most of the side quests are pretty simple in nature as well and how I've managed to complete most of them is just talking to someone for the first time and starting their quest and fortunately already having the item or prerequisite to complete it immediately. Causality Link also accompanies the side quests here with how the rewards unlock profiles that tell you more about specific NPCs which can actually be pretty interesting. There's honestly a lot of NPCs in this game so I can only imagine how many side quests are in this game and have writing for each of the profiles and quests themselves. Another cool quirk is that you can even text these people predetermined questions and get some unique responses out of them. I can't say I know if every person is unique and I rather not personally test this theory.
The Obbligato Musicians (Music)
The soundtrack is pretty unique for a JRPG and makes sense thematically as it's mostly idol, j-pop and vocaloid influenced from what I can gather. The vocal tracks are good here, they're pretty catchy and have decent production behind them. The boss tracks themselves are really good and amp you up during these segments. xxxx_xx_xx and Miss Conductor are great tracks overall but the standout track throughout the whole game has to be Singi and specifically the χ version. I failed to mention in the gameplay section but I mostly this version of Singi for the "Floor Jack" mechanic for most of the game considering it was the only one that boosted attack at the time and just a banger overall that I never got tired of hearing. I swear I'm not an idol or vocaloid fan in disguise but my brain reacted to the songs well so I don't know what to tell you. Only real complaint about the music is the dungeon tracks feeling a bit repetitive throughout the game. So let me explain how music works in the flow of gameplay in a dungeon, you have the instrumental playing while traversing but when you get into a battle, the vocals come on which is honestly a great touch. My main problem is with the instrumentals and me feeling like they used the same piano in almost every instrumental. The other tracks where regular stuff happens are alright honestly, nothing really to write home about here but they get the job done and better than no music. Nonetheless, a great soundtrack overall and I can see why people like it a lot, it's full of energy.
Reality (Conclusion)
People probably see this game think it's "oh I'm not too big into anime" and ignored it and maybe people don't really think that way at all but I admit I did. I remember just having a tiny interest in the game until I saw it one day and I just went for it, bought it at full price at a Target. I think the funny thing is even after beating this game and expressing how much I overall enjoyed this game that I still don't hold too much of an interest playing the first game and specifically Overdose. Caligula Effect 2 is a gem in the rough of JRPGs this year and there was some pretty great games this year. The gameplay is great, the characters are extremely relatable to the point that I saw myself in one of them. If you value character driven JRPGs or want to go outside of the box, give this game a shot even if you aren't into the aesthetic. It just might surprise you.
I have no regrets playing this game.
When people think of Japanese role playing games, they think of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Pokemon to an extent and the Megaten series for what I believe are the most popular ones. People in this genre of fanbase uncommonly go outside these main four but there are many series that are popular within the Japanese role playing game community as well like Tales, Xeno series in general and anything Yoko Taro makes. This year I really wanted to try some stuff outside my comfort zone of what I know I would like and wanted to try Caligula Effect 2 out. I'm nowhere near the audience for really niche JRPGs like this that barely make it overseas but I saw some gameplay trailers and thought it looked cool. Playing this game made me realized what it meant for a game to be "anime" in a sense. Not saying it's a bad thing obviously but there's rarely much "anime" stuff here other than the Japanese only voices in a sense and the premise of it being "Japanese high schoolers beat bad guys while still participating in high school". This game is surprisingly relatable to myself and even a lot of people I personally know that go through these specific issues mentioned in the game which was actually surprised considering you rarely go into depth about problems like these in games. Caligula Effect 2 is a great game and from what I know, people that worked on the old megaten games worked on this game. With that said, I'm not gonna mention names of any other games or series past this point because comparing this game to anything else isn't fair and I personally dislike it at this point. Not to mention that I feel a game should stand on its own two legs. With that out of the way, I'll be going into this game with the experience of not playing the original Caligula Effect or Overdose and my opinions will be centered around that.
The World of Redo (Story and Characters)
The best aspect of this game are the characters in my honest opinion, the crown jewel of the whole experience. The main cast have layers to their personality revolving around being in Redo and why they're there in the first place. The aesthetic is also something initially appealed to me and have met my experience of just having a cool cast not to mention the small touches with their designs too. The Japanese voice acting is great with me with distinct voices for each character and just sounding like actual people. I liked the characters so much that I took the time to max out each character's affinity and watched all the character episodes about each of them too. Character episodes are like mini segments that show gradual development through the story which is great. I like that they don't automatically love the protagonist upon them joining the team and they each have their own motives and aspirations for joining you. I won't elaborate more due to spoilers but I'll just say these characters are well written, relatable and full of emotion thanks to the voice acting here as well. The story itself is good and has a simple premise, you and your club members are in a virtual world called Redo and you have to do whatever it takes to escape it. The pacing is a bit slow at the start but it picks up fast enough. The ending is pretty good but I wish it was fleshed out a bit more. I am legit surprised about the quality of both here considering it gives you the premise of "japanese high schoolers" and adds a unique touch to them. Also something I noticed in the dialogue too is that something in the story will happen, I would think "I wonder if they're gonna bring it up" and they actually do soon after which actually helps immerse you in the story. I will also be saving Causality Link for the gameplay section coming up.
The Catharsis Effect and Causality Link (Gameplay)
For my opinions of the gameplay segment, I will mention that the difficulty I played this game in was the first two dungeons on Normal and the rest on hard as recommended from someone that is fairly knowledgeable about the game but he's also a big fan. The gameplay consists of a maximum of four party members with a mix of turn-based and real time battle. Fighting enemies consists of picking moves from specific categories, each with different principles and effects and you can plan when you exactly enact these moves as well. The whole system feels like a Rube Goldberg machine of a system where you can plan specific moves to perfectly compliment each other and it's really satisfying when you pull this off. An example is having a character counter an upcoming attack which would launch them in the air, following by planning another team member to do aerial strikes which allow them to trigger yet another damaging move smashing them to the ground and they finally following up with an attack that does better damage to someone on the ground. The whole reenactment before committing to the moves proves this. Battles can be initially pretty long from my experience as you're getting used to the battle system but you get decent experience gains so you really never had to grind in this game. Boss battles themselves are a decent challenge and when I see the gameplay system shine the most as you can set up some absurd damaging combos with the exact perfect setup. Another mechanic that helps with this and just as important is the "Floor Jack" mechanic. A bar that fills up upon meeting specific conditions and collecting rifts throughout the world will allow you to interrupt the flow of time and summon χ to provide buffs, removes your cool down and allows your four party members to act immediately upon activation. I believe this is an amazing mechanic that makes battle more dynamic and rewards perfect timing and can even save you if you're in a tight spot. I also liked that characters learn new moves at a decent pace and you always feel like you get a good flow of new tools. This also applies to getting party members with brand new and unique move sets as well. I enjoyed the battle system but I feel like there's some quality of life stuff it could use like passing your turn to another members when starting a battle or an enemy bar to know what move an enemy is gonna do instead of just waiting for them to enact it in the planner. I did sort of get tired of regular battles after a while but the auto battle system helps in this regard but found it weird you can't auto all of them but I'm sure there's a reason for that. Dungeons are mostly a simple affair, no real maze like approach here other than a few segments if anything. They are essentially rooms and hallways but they do look nice, I don't really mind this approach but I feel like they are a bit longer than they should be. The final dungeon is great though, still long but appropriate considering it is the final dungeon in a JRPG. Not to mention it had the perfect amount of challenging enemies that were actually above my level in the end considering I was overleveled without grinding before the penultimate dungeon. The highly challenging set of enemies in each dungeon was a great challenge and helped keep my attention through each dungeon. I do sort of wish there was decent tools for avoiding enemies, the escape command when you get into a fight is too slow considering I can press auto battle and defeat said enemies before escape finally activates. Trying to navigate around enemies also just feels finicky and getting into a fight just means I have to beat it considering the former sentence. Sad to say I think the side quests are probably the Achilles' heel of the whole game but I have done a decent chunk of them just for the protagonist's stat boosts. I will say the Causality Link system is a really cool concept with how you can figure out mini stories and the huge variety of NPCs out there in Redo. A great chunk of the game is being out there in Redo and talking to the various NPCs and doing the side quests but the whole process felt pretty tedious. Traveling around the map is slow since you move at a default run speed and moving to different zones takes you to fairly lengthy loading screens a lot of the time at least on Switch. The fast travel works around having to be in a save point which are commonly placed but the problem is the process. Allow me to provide an example: You accept a side quest which has you talking to someone else in a different area, sounds simple enough right? Well first let's go to a save point and teleport back to the hideout, we have a loading screen here and now we're back at the hideout, now we talk to χ and ask her to take us to said area for the side quests, we are now at another loading screen, we have now arrived at the area and if you're unlucky and we probably are which means we have to find another save point to teleport to the specific room within that area, yet another loading screen, we finally talk to the person with a specific stigma and we now have to reverse the process to complete the quest since we have to talk to the original person. Honestly a nitpick but just having to go into a menu to equip something temporarily for a quick interaction just to unequip it is pretty annoying the amount of times I had to do it for these quests. Granted though most of the side quests are pretty simple in nature as well and how I've managed to complete most of them is just talking to someone for the first time and starting their quest and fortunately already having the item or prerequisite to complete it immediately. Causality Link also accompanies the side quests here with how the rewards unlock profiles that tell you more about specific NPCs which can actually be pretty interesting. There's honestly a lot of NPCs in this game so I can only imagine how many side quests are in this game and have writing for each of the profiles and quests themselves. Another cool quirk is that you can even text these people predetermined questions and get some unique responses out of them. I can't say I know if every person is unique and I rather not personally test this theory.
The Obbligato Musicians (Music)
The soundtrack is pretty unique for a JRPG and makes sense thematically as it's mostly idol, j-pop and vocaloid influenced from what I can gather. The vocal tracks are good here, they're pretty catchy and have decent production behind them. The boss tracks themselves are really good and amp you up during these segments. xxxx_xx_xx and Miss Conductor are great tracks overall but the standout track throughout the whole game has to be Singi and specifically the χ version. I failed to mention in the gameplay section but I mostly this version of Singi for the "Floor Jack" mechanic for most of the game considering it was the only one that boosted attack at the time and just a banger overall that I never got tired of hearing. I swear I'm not an idol or vocaloid fan in disguise but my brain reacted to the songs well so I don't know what to tell you. Only real complaint about the music is the dungeon tracks feeling a bit repetitive throughout the game. So let me explain how music works in the flow of gameplay in a dungeon, you have the instrumental playing while traversing but when you get into a battle, the vocals come on which is honestly a great touch. My main problem is with the instrumentals and me feeling like they used the same piano in almost every instrumental. The other tracks where regular stuff happens are alright honestly, nothing really to write home about here but they get the job done and better than no music. Nonetheless, a great soundtrack overall and I can see why people like it a lot, it's full of energy.
Reality (Conclusion)
People probably see this game think it's "oh I'm not too big into anime" and ignored it and maybe people don't really think that way at all but I admit I did. I remember just having a tiny interest in the game until I saw it one day and I just went for it, bought it at full price at a Target. I think the funny thing is even after beating this game and expressing how much I overall enjoyed this game that I still don't hold too much of an interest playing the first game and specifically Overdose. Caligula Effect 2 is a gem in the rough of JRPGs this year and there was some pretty great games this year. The gameplay is great, the characters are extremely relatable to the point that I saw myself in one of them. If you value character driven JRPGs or want to go outside of the box, give this game a shot even if you aren't into the aesthetic. It just might surprise you.
I have no regrets playing this game.
A solid entry into the up and coming lawyer's saga
Justice for All manages to be a decent sequel for the original Ace Attorney with some weird quirks and more slow pacing than usual here. Cases here are of varying quality with some unique premises for cases combined with some awful characters in a certain case. I will not go too much into the mechanics and gameplay flow of the game as it's mostly the same from the first game albeit with a new mechanic I'll go into depth later.
There's more Phoenix Wright here and for the most part, it's pretty good. Franziska is a pretty great main prosecutor for this game and manages to not be a complete imitation of any previous characters, loved her here. There are some case premises that I can appreciate them doing here as it gives the case a different sort of layout and format sometimes. The final case is an overall amazing case that really brought the suspense that I've grown to love in the series without feeling too forced.
Justice for All introduces a new mechanic into the game called Psyche-Locks which I'm honestly completely mixed on. I like the concept of presenting evidence during the investigation phase to spice up these segments and make you think of how to formulate a theory that will let you get more evidence. What I don't like is that it's pretty punishing and tedious when it stops you in your tracks completely and makes you backtrack more for the right amount of evidence to one shot a lock since you get penalized and have to completely restart it if you screw up too many times. Another weird quirk of this system is that the "health" system also seems to be linked to courtroom penalties which doesn't honestly make sense considering these are different things completely. I also didn't like the music here as much as the first game but I still think it's a solid soundtrack. My main problem is just the cases can feel pretty slow sometimes including the final case felt like it was being dragged out to the point of annoyance but despite that I still think the final case is pretty great as Phoenix Wright gets some great character development.
Despite liking the first game more, I still enjoy Justice for All a fair bit. For the reputation of it being the weakest in the series, it's honestly still a solid Ace Attorney experience that I didn't mind the complaints that much.
Do you finally know what it means to be a "lawyer"?
Justice for All manages to be a decent sequel for the original Ace Attorney with some weird quirks and more slow pacing than usual here. Cases here are of varying quality with some unique premises for cases combined with some awful characters in a certain case. I will not go too much into the mechanics and gameplay flow of the game as it's mostly the same from the first game albeit with a new mechanic I'll go into depth later.
There's more Phoenix Wright here and for the most part, it's pretty good. Franziska is a pretty great main prosecutor for this game and manages to not be a complete imitation of any previous characters, loved her here. There are some case premises that I can appreciate them doing here as it gives the case a different sort of layout and format sometimes. The final case is an overall amazing case that really brought the suspense that I've grown to love in the series without feeling too forced.
Justice for All introduces a new mechanic into the game called Psyche-Locks which I'm honestly completely mixed on. I like the concept of presenting evidence during the investigation phase to spice up these segments and make you think of how to formulate a theory that will let you get more evidence. What I don't like is that it's pretty punishing and tedious when it stops you in your tracks completely and makes you backtrack more for the right amount of evidence to one shot a lock since you get penalized and have to completely restart it if you screw up too many times. Another weird quirk of this system is that the "health" system also seems to be linked to courtroom penalties which doesn't honestly make sense considering these are different things completely. I also didn't like the music here as much as the first game but I still think it's a solid soundtrack. My main problem is just the cases can feel pretty slow sometimes including the final case felt like it was being dragged out to the point of annoyance but despite that I still think the final case is pretty great as Phoenix Wright gets some great character development.
Despite liking the first game more, I still enjoy Justice for All a fair bit. For the reputation of it being the weakest in the series, it's honestly still a solid Ace Attorney experience that I didn't mind the complaints that much.
Do you finally know what it means to be a "lawyer"?
2020
Understandably a heavy game but felt surprisingly light
Omori had some cool ideas but sadly felt like it really relied on the shock value of the content here to really have some emotional impact that sadly didn't land with me not to mention just being way too long for its own good.
The game does have a unique art direction/style that does look pretty nice and the music is actually alright but it couldn't save much of the experience for me.
I really feel like this game is way longer than it really should be and feels like a lot of it felt like filler compared to the actual decent moments of the story. The combat having a unique twist still felt really basic and the horror moments just felt completely flat here including specific story elements I don't want to spoil as well.
Omori certainly has the style but doesn't lack any substance that ticks the box for what would be considered a good RPG for me but I get why people like this game considering the content in it.
Omori had some cool ideas but sadly felt like it really relied on the shock value of the content here to really have some emotional impact that sadly didn't land with me not to mention just being way too long for its own good.
The game does have a unique art direction/style that does look pretty nice and the music is actually alright but it couldn't save much of the experience for me.
I really feel like this game is way longer than it really should be and feels like a lot of it felt like filler compared to the actual decent moments of the story. The combat having a unique twist still felt really basic and the horror moments just felt completely flat here including specific story elements I don't want to spoil as well.
Omori certainly has the style but doesn't lack any substance that ticks the box for what would be considered a good RPG for me but I get why people like this game considering the content in it.
This review was written before the game released
A long journey's end giving way for a new beginning
I usually like to review expansions after all of the patch content comes out but Endwalker is an extremely special case. It essentially ends an 11 year story and I personally went through the main story scenario and I'll probably keep this short due to really wanting to be spoiler free for the mass majority of the fans that are still enjoying it.
I won't go too much into story other than it was great, a lot of great moments here albeit with a slow start. The new areas are amazing and manage to keep a different variety in visual and gameplay level design, the soundtrack uses a bit more of the older expansions soundtrack that I would but it does make sense in a thematic sense for me at least and also with that said, the new music is top notch. The main cast gets an extreme amount of love here and there are amazing character moments.
Only thing that I wish is that it didn't invent tailing missions into the game when it never had it in the first place and the slow start for the expansion albeit a lot happens that it never too bad compared to the other expansions.
An emotionally charged finale for Final Fantasy XIV's first major arc and reminds me of why I enjoyed this game for the past 4 years. A surprising nihilistic story with twinges of hope.
Launch Addendum: As of December 5th 2021, it's extremely hard to log into the game as there are ridiculously long queues with the only bright side being that once you're in, you're good to go until you stop for 30 minutes plus from my experience of my long gaming sessions the past couple of days.
That, I can't deny.
I usually like to review expansions after all of the patch content comes out but Endwalker is an extremely special case. It essentially ends an 11 year story and I personally went through the main story scenario and I'll probably keep this short due to really wanting to be spoiler free for the mass majority of the fans that are still enjoying it.
I won't go too much into story other than it was great, a lot of great moments here albeit with a slow start. The new areas are amazing and manage to keep a different variety in visual and gameplay level design, the soundtrack uses a bit more of the older expansions soundtrack that I would but it does make sense in a thematic sense for me at least and also with that said, the new music is top notch. The main cast gets an extreme amount of love here and there are amazing character moments.
Only thing that I wish is that it didn't invent tailing missions into the game when it never had it in the first place and the slow start for the expansion albeit a lot happens that it never too bad compared to the other expansions.
An emotionally charged finale for Final Fantasy XIV's first major arc and reminds me of why I enjoyed this game for the past 4 years. A surprising nihilistic story with twinges of hope.
Launch Addendum: As of December 5th 2021, it's extremely hard to log into the game as there are ridiculously long queues with the only bright side being that once you're in, you're good to go until you stop for 30 minutes plus from my experience of my long gaming sessions the past couple of days.
That, I can't deny.
Medal of Honor's finest hour
I remember back in 2002 when I lived in some small apartment sharing a bedroom with my entire family, one night that my stepdad was playing this game while we were suppose to be asleep. He was playing the Arnhem Knights level and the music sort of entranced me to the point that I had this game in the back of my mind until now. Medal of Honor used to be a big name in World World II first-person shooters back in the 5th and 6th generation of consoles with the initial idea coming from Steven Spielberg wanting to create a World War II game that could be shed some information about the war along with being an entertaining experience like Saving Private Ryan was at the time. Medal of Honor: Frontline was the first game without his involvement but I feel like it's the game that encapsulates the whole series the best for me.
Within 5 seconds of starting a new game, you're thrown into a boat on the way to Normandy with no intro or cutscene other than the poor souls on the boat with you. No orchestral movie score for this mission, the gunfire and death is enough noise for this short segment. You see a dude doing the holy spirit a few seconds before his eventual death. At the time, this entire segment was unheard of and it looked so real and seeing it almost 20 years later and it still holds up although I'm sure there are other forms of media that portrays this event well. There isn't much of a story here: you play as a OSS agent from the first game in the series as he goes around the European Front while the final half is focused on one singular important mission. Other than this replay being a nostalgic trip, there is something I came to fully appreciate now that I've learned a lot growing up which is the amazing score by Michael Giacchino. It gives the game a whole other emotional and production value in a sense that it feels like I'm playing a really good World War II movie. You get some angelic choirs in the main menu that feels like a victory theme, some songs that actually sound like something from Star Wars and then you get some slow and solemn songs like Arnhem that drench you in the reality of the situation you're in. You're gonna be mostly alone throughout your adventure doing the impossible but that's how it was during these PS2/Xbox/Gamecube World War II shooters. The gameplay is serviceable to some extent, I didn't have much problems getting used to the controls and they're fully customizable but with that said I still think you should get used to standing still while aiming for better precision because there is no way to change the analog stick's sensitivity. The sound design is something also not to be understated as well shooting guns sound really nice and hitting enemies feels and sounds satisfying during an era where there wasn't any hit markers. A nice touch is the ability to turn off the already minimal HUD that only shows your health and ammo count and have them on when something changes. All of these bring together the movie quality World War II shooter experience that I felt it was during my 8 hours of playtime throughout the campaign.
The only thing I can really say is a bit annoying about these games is the level design and enemy placement. Levels and missions felt like they progressively got harder which I did not mind but you will mostly get sniped from weird spots and it can be hard to get your bearing at times. It also feels sometimes that enemies just become gods at shooting you at Normal difficulty but it never felt too outrageous. You also have to keep in mind this was during a time where an abundance of checkpoints so you had to restart the whole level if you died and these missions can take up to 15-20 minutes if you're careful. It's all mostly some old first person shooter design here that you can eventually overcome but I figured I'd put this here in case someone expected something else.
I love first person shooters but I sorta felt disillusioned with them in recent years, you rarely get any unique experiences anymore and most of them are just multiplayer driven to the bone. It's a shame what happened with the Medal of Honor series throughout the decades but maybe it'll come back someday. With that said, Frontline was a fun excursion back to my childhood with how well made this game is. The gameplay is decent, the music score is amazing, a lot of details in the levels and enemies and a production value that almost feels unheard of at its time is something I have learned to appreciate.
Victory! "Let's bring 'em home"
I remember back in 2002 when I lived in some small apartment sharing a bedroom with my entire family, one night that my stepdad was playing this game while we were suppose to be asleep. He was playing the Arnhem Knights level and the music sort of entranced me to the point that I had this game in the back of my mind until now. Medal of Honor used to be a big name in World World II first-person shooters back in the 5th and 6th generation of consoles with the initial idea coming from Steven Spielberg wanting to create a World War II game that could be shed some information about the war along with being an entertaining experience like Saving Private Ryan was at the time. Medal of Honor: Frontline was the first game without his involvement but I feel like it's the game that encapsulates the whole series the best for me.
Within 5 seconds of starting a new game, you're thrown into a boat on the way to Normandy with no intro or cutscene other than the poor souls on the boat with you. No orchestral movie score for this mission, the gunfire and death is enough noise for this short segment. You see a dude doing the holy spirit a few seconds before his eventual death. At the time, this entire segment was unheard of and it looked so real and seeing it almost 20 years later and it still holds up although I'm sure there are other forms of media that portrays this event well. There isn't much of a story here: you play as a OSS agent from the first game in the series as he goes around the European Front while the final half is focused on one singular important mission. Other than this replay being a nostalgic trip, there is something I came to fully appreciate now that I've learned a lot growing up which is the amazing score by Michael Giacchino. It gives the game a whole other emotional and production value in a sense that it feels like I'm playing a really good World War II movie. You get some angelic choirs in the main menu that feels like a victory theme, some songs that actually sound like something from Star Wars and then you get some slow and solemn songs like Arnhem that drench you in the reality of the situation you're in. You're gonna be mostly alone throughout your adventure doing the impossible but that's how it was during these PS2/Xbox/Gamecube World War II shooters. The gameplay is serviceable to some extent, I didn't have much problems getting used to the controls and they're fully customizable but with that said I still think you should get used to standing still while aiming for better precision because there is no way to change the analog stick's sensitivity. The sound design is something also not to be understated as well shooting guns sound really nice and hitting enemies feels and sounds satisfying during an era where there wasn't any hit markers. A nice touch is the ability to turn off the already minimal HUD that only shows your health and ammo count and have them on when something changes. All of these bring together the movie quality World War II shooter experience that I felt it was during my 8 hours of playtime throughout the campaign.
The only thing I can really say is a bit annoying about these games is the level design and enemy placement. Levels and missions felt like they progressively got harder which I did not mind but you will mostly get sniped from weird spots and it can be hard to get your bearing at times. It also feels sometimes that enemies just become gods at shooting you at Normal difficulty but it never felt too outrageous. You also have to keep in mind this was during a time where an abundance of checkpoints so you had to restart the whole level if you died and these missions can take up to 15-20 minutes if you're careful. It's all mostly some old first person shooter design here that you can eventually overcome but I figured I'd put this here in case someone expected something else.
I love first person shooters but I sorta felt disillusioned with them in recent years, you rarely get any unique experiences anymore and most of them are just multiplayer driven to the bone. It's a shame what happened with the Medal of Honor series throughout the decades but maybe it'll come back someday. With that said, Frontline was a fun excursion back to my childhood with how well made this game is. The gameplay is decent, the music score is amazing, a lot of details in the levels and enemies and a production value that almost feels unheard of at its time is something I have learned to appreciate.
Victory! "Let's bring 'em home"
Objection!
It's hard to go around the gaming space without hearing the iconic "Objection!" line or seen a picture of the phrase stylized in game at least once in your life. Gyakuten Saiban or how the western world knows it, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney actually originated as a GBA title exclusive to Japan until 2005 with a re-release for the Nintendo DS was released for the west at the time. Managing to completely take over the "lawyer video game" genre despite in really being a visual novel with investigative elements, the first entry sets up characters with cases that are never what they are at face value.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a game you can't find anywhere. The premise is that you're an up and coming defense attorney ready to make a name for yourself as you tackle cases that most normal defense attorneys wouldn't go through the trouble of doing. The stories vary from case to case but most of them are great here including the first case being a good way to settle in the player to the mechanics and the thought process of playing this game like how Phoenix Wright is also settling in with you as it's his first case as well. The characters are unique as well having their own quirks and charm whenever you see them in a new case with relationships with you developing across the cases. The biggest strength this game has is the ability to balance the intense seriousness of murder trials and the goofiness of how the characters are despite the circumstances. Despite the game only using sprites or animated pictures as the representation of the characters, the game does an excellent job of giving each character their own unique way of expressing themselves that manages to come off as humorous. This is also illustrated in the sound effects and soundtrack as well. Sound effects and the music whenever someone is surprised or shocked really immerse you in the story and drama that's unfolding in the courtroom, pondering sound effects come when the game gives you a question that makes you want to find the answer of immediately. The game consists of 2 gameplay phases: Investigations and Trials. In Investigations, you'll be out and about the world trying to find out what exactly happened and gather evidence in hopes of finding the truth of what really happened in the case and to your defendant. Trials is where it all comes to together as you use all the information and evidence you found to prove your defendant innocent and find out the truth of what really happened.
All cases are not created equally sadly. Some are more intense and personal and some of the cases while great in their own right don't have as many personal stakes as some of the other trials will have compared to it. I also wish to talk about Case 5 as well. While Case 5 is a great case, it's way longer than any other case and doesn't really belong in the first game from a gameplay perspective. I felt like Case 4 tied everything really well and while I enjoyed Case 5 after I completed it, it was sort of a jarring experience. Brand new gameplay elements are introduced into Case 5 and while I think the mechanics are cool, it just stands out even more from the rest of the cases as the length of the case itself probably takes half of the game runtime compared to the 4 original cases combined. Not to mention an abundance of evidence compared to the original 4 makes this one a more trial and error experience instead of finding the absolute one that contradicts and prove your claims. Despite my complaints, I wish to reiterate that Case 5 is a great case but with how it's structured completely different compared to the original game, it could've been a standalone experience instead of meshed into the original experience.
I usually have trouble paying attention to games that require a lot of reading and my initial curiosity for the series stems from seeing the setting for Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and finding myself fascinated on how the game will pan out but I wanted to play the original trilogy before diving into that game. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a charming yet serious game that isn't afraid to make outrageous jokes to break the tension at times. Nothing is more iconic when a revelation comes out and a certain character gets their salary cut again.
Want to switch?
It's hard to go around the gaming space without hearing the iconic "Objection!" line or seen a picture of the phrase stylized in game at least once in your life. Gyakuten Saiban or how the western world knows it, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney actually originated as a GBA title exclusive to Japan until 2005 with a re-release for the Nintendo DS was released for the west at the time. Managing to completely take over the "lawyer video game" genre despite in really being a visual novel with investigative elements, the first entry sets up characters with cases that are never what they are at face value.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a game you can't find anywhere. The premise is that you're an up and coming defense attorney ready to make a name for yourself as you tackle cases that most normal defense attorneys wouldn't go through the trouble of doing. The stories vary from case to case but most of them are great here including the first case being a good way to settle in the player to the mechanics and the thought process of playing this game like how Phoenix Wright is also settling in with you as it's his first case as well. The characters are unique as well having their own quirks and charm whenever you see them in a new case with relationships with you developing across the cases. The biggest strength this game has is the ability to balance the intense seriousness of murder trials and the goofiness of how the characters are despite the circumstances. Despite the game only using sprites or animated pictures as the representation of the characters, the game does an excellent job of giving each character their own unique way of expressing themselves that manages to come off as humorous. This is also illustrated in the sound effects and soundtrack as well. Sound effects and the music whenever someone is surprised or shocked really immerse you in the story and drama that's unfolding in the courtroom, pondering sound effects come when the game gives you a question that makes you want to find the answer of immediately. The game consists of 2 gameplay phases: Investigations and Trials. In Investigations, you'll be out and about the world trying to find out what exactly happened and gather evidence in hopes of finding the truth of what really happened in the case and to your defendant. Trials is where it all comes to together as you use all the information and evidence you found to prove your defendant innocent and find out the truth of what really happened.
All cases are not created equally sadly. Some are more intense and personal and some of the cases while great in their own right don't have as many personal stakes as some of the other trials will have compared to it. I also wish to talk about Case 5 as well. While Case 5 is a great case, it's way longer than any other case and doesn't really belong in the first game from a gameplay perspective. I felt like Case 4 tied everything really well and while I enjoyed Case 5 after I completed it, it was sort of a jarring experience. Brand new gameplay elements are introduced into Case 5 and while I think the mechanics are cool, it just stands out even more from the rest of the cases as the length of the case itself probably takes half of the game runtime compared to the 4 original cases combined. Not to mention an abundance of evidence compared to the original 4 makes this one a more trial and error experience instead of finding the absolute one that contradicts and prove your claims. Despite my complaints, I wish to reiterate that Case 5 is a great case but with how it's structured completely different compared to the original game, it could've been a standalone experience instead of meshed into the original experience.
I usually have trouble paying attention to games that require a lot of reading and my initial curiosity for the series stems from seeing the setting for Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and finding myself fascinated on how the game will pan out but I wanted to play the original trilogy before diving into that game. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a charming yet serious game that isn't afraid to make outrageous jokes to break the tension at times. Nothing is more iconic when a revelation comes out and a certain character gets their salary cut again.
Want to switch?
2021
Cruelty Squad is what feels like one of the weirdest first person shooters if not the weirdest first person shooter. The artstyle and vibe comes off of feeling like a bad trip and succumbing to the realities of capitalism. This game is fucking disgusting but that's the point from the couple of hours it took me to get an ending.
The shooting and the overall gameplay is actually pretty good. Shooting feels pretty nice and there's a decent variety of systems to customize yourself with tools, weapons and augments. The way you get these upgrades is essentially being someone that is in the sigma money grindset, making money. You can get money in an obscenely different ways from selling organs of the people you kill to fishing and selling fish on the stock market. The level design is pretty open which gives you a lot of paths to accomplish your goal. The highlight of the experience is the art design and the music and it's actually pretty good even though my eyes were legit hurting during one of the levels and the music sounds like I was on half a CVS pharmarcy while listening to Ex-Military by Death Grips along with some dirty electronic noise but it honestly fits and don't really think I'd want anything different. The dialogue is pretty and also really fucking depressing as it does feel like an all too real and satirical look into how modern day society is now.
Despite feeling the gameplay feeling pretty good, I couldn't help but feel a bit tired of the overall package after a while but I did beat the game in one sitting so that is also a factor and trying to take it all in might be too much for some people. Despite my praise for the art design as it feels like how someone that realizes how absurd society and that we're living in a Grand Theft Auto game views, it can be really grating to the point my eyes got pretty strained and had to turn down the brightness after not having this problem most of the game. I think a game like this works well if it was a bit shorter but I can't imagine playing this game for more than 5 hours.
I really don't have much to say in the end here, the game is decent and the pinch of nihilism in me enjoys the concept and themes of this game a lot but I also never want to play this game again. If you love weird shit and want something really fucking different, I think this is one of the better games for that.
SET GOALS. HAVE A TEN YEAR PLAN. INVEST. WAKE UP EARLY. CEO MINDSET. GOOD LUCK.
The shooting and the overall gameplay is actually pretty good. Shooting feels pretty nice and there's a decent variety of systems to customize yourself with tools, weapons and augments. The way you get these upgrades is essentially being someone that is in the sigma money grindset, making money. You can get money in an obscenely different ways from selling organs of the people you kill to fishing and selling fish on the stock market. The level design is pretty open which gives you a lot of paths to accomplish your goal. The highlight of the experience is the art design and the music and it's actually pretty good even though my eyes were legit hurting during one of the levels and the music sounds like I was on half a CVS pharmarcy while listening to Ex-Military by Death Grips along with some dirty electronic noise but it honestly fits and don't really think I'd want anything different. The dialogue is pretty and also really fucking depressing as it does feel like an all too real and satirical look into how modern day society is now.
Despite feeling the gameplay feeling pretty good, I couldn't help but feel a bit tired of the overall package after a while but I did beat the game in one sitting so that is also a factor and trying to take it all in might be too much for some people. Despite my praise for the art design as it feels like how someone that realizes how absurd society and that we're living in a Grand Theft Auto game views, it can be really grating to the point my eyes got pretty strained and had to turn down the brightness after not having this problem most of the game. I think a game like this works well if it was a bit shorter but I can't imagine playing this game for more than 5 hours.
I really don't have much to say in the end here, the game is decent and the pinch of nihilism in me enjoys the concept and themes of this game a lot but I also never want to play this game again. If you love weird shit and want something really fucking different, I think this is one of the better games for that.
SET GOALS. HAVE A TEN YEAR PLAN. INVEST. WAKE UP EARLY. CEO MINDSET. GOOD LUCK.
Katamari Damacy is a very hard game to describe on paper. A very original third person "puzzle" game with an eccentric charm that hasn't really been replicated since its 2004 release on the Playstation 2 and now receiving a remaster in 2018 onwards for most modern consoles. A cult classic that can almost represent the japanese indie spirit as the game was barely made from little financial aid Keita Takahashi managed to get for this project and it paid off in something very unique.
The overall premise is pretty simple: The gameplay loop consists of The Prince rolling around a Katamari and gathering various items in the world with said Katamari to replace the stars in the sky after your father, The King of All Cosmos destroys them in sheer recklessness. There is also a subplot involving a family on their way to see their father and one of the kids attempts to warn their mother to no avail. The controls are also pretty simple: you use both sticks to roll around and various commands with the stick to move faster or quick turn. For the most part, controls feel pretty good but slowly gets clunky after you reach a certain size but I think this is intentional as you grow into bigger sizes, it should be harder to wield the Katamari in a sense. The game is enveloped in a charm that is hard to describe, the setting and premise of the world seems to be based on a satirical version of Japan with outrageous things happening in the levels that give some life into the world you're rolling up. It could be a wrestling match in the middle of the road, a graduation ceremony full of delinquents, a bunch of construction workers mining a bunch of rocks upside down as though they are able to stick to walls like Spiderman. I can't forget about the soundtrack here, the music is almost iconic as the game itself with some electronic music, shibuya-kei, and some japanese vocal tracks that really enhances the easy going nature of the game. The only thing in terms of a challenge is that each stage has a timer to complete the stage but from my experience, it's a pretty generous timer so you can always finish with a few minutes left. All of these form a short and uplifting experience that doesn't overstay its welcome and has fun with its world and gameplay elements.
Fortunately the optional levels aren't as fun to me but they aren't required for you to beat the game which consists of the standard objective of gathering diameter. The optional missions have you trying to gather a specific type of item/creature and less so the other mission type where you are required to gather only one of these items. Now the challenge itself for the latter is trying to build diameter and trying to get the biggest one you can without accidentally picking up one, I can appreciate the variety but I didn't find it that fun sadly.
Katamari Damacy manages to be something extremely unique, easy to play, quirky and memorable here. The gameplay loop is satisfying and the game ends and ramps up the difficulty at the perfect time to make a third person puzzle game where the scale just keeps getting bigger with the final stage playing Katamari on the Rocks on the soundtrack as you start from rolling fruit up to rolling islands and kaiju monsters.
Blasting The Moon and The Prince even if we scare the hoes away.
The overall premise is pretty simple: The gameplay loop consists of The Prince rolling around a Katamari and gathering various items in the world with said Katamari to replace the stars in the sky after your father, The King of All Cosmos destroys them in sheer recklessness. There is also a subplot involving a family on their way to see their father and one of the kids attempts to warn their mother to no avail. The controls are also pretty simple: you use both sticks to roll around and various commands with the stick to move faster or quick turn. For the most part, controls feel pretty good but slowly gets clunky after you reach a certain size but I think this is intentional as you grow into bigger sizes, it should be harder to wield the Katamari in a sense. The game is enveloped in a charm that is hard to describe, the setting and premise of the world seems to be based on a satirical version of Japan with outrageous things happening in the levels that give some life into the world you're rolling up. It could be a wrestling match in the middle of the road, a graduation ceremony full of delinquents, a bunch of construction workers mining a bunch of rocks upside down as though they are able to stick to walls like Spiderman. I can't forget about the soundtrack here, the music is almost iconic as the game itself with some electronic music, shibuya-kei, and some japanese vocal tracks that really enhances the easy going nature of the game. The only thing in terms of a challenge is that each stage has a timer to complete the stage but from my experience, it's a pretty generous timer so you can always finish with a few minutes left. All of these form a short and uplifting experience that doesn't overstay its welcome and has fun with its world and gameplay elements.
Fortunately the optional levels aren't as fun to me but they aren't required for you to beat the game which consists of the standard objective of gathering diameter. The optional missions have you trying to gather a specific type of item/creature and less so the other mission type where you are required to gather only one of these items. Now the challenge itself for the latter is trying to build diameter and trying to get the biggest one you can without accidentally picking up one, I can appreciate the variety but I didn't find it that fun sadly.
Katamari Damacy manages to be something extremely unique, easy to play, quirky and memorable here. The gameplay loop is satisfying and the game ends and ramps up the difficulty at the perfect time to make a third person puzzle game where the scale just keeps getting bigger with the final stage playing Katamari on the Rocks on the soundtrack as you start from rolling fruit up to rolling islands and kaiju monsters.
Blasting The Moon and The Prince even if we scare the hoes away.