2022
Good idea, bad execution.
I'm not into fighting game, but as someone who spent at least 10k hours in og gacha GBF i'll by default try any attempt of Cygames to do anything outside of mobile gachas, and i was surprised by how much i enjoyed playing Rising even more so compared to VS og.
Give praise for he has no equal.
Give praise for he has no equal.
2023
Best indie games of 2023 for me.
I have no nostalgia for jet set radio, i tried the first one 2 different times and in both i lost interest in the very first level. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk however, has surpassed those games that inspired them.
The OST is fucking amazing, from the moment i booted the game i knew i'd love it after loosing at least 5 min messing with the menu just so i could listen to the music.
Not only that, i was surprised how the game hooked me with the story from the very beginning with the prologue and kept me invested until the very end with all the plot twists.
Gameplay wise, it just feels so good to go around the city trying out combos when you figure out how the system works. This type of score game usually ends up having a really lame way to break the game and go for the best score by repeating the same boring moves. Bomb rush howevers, they make it so you get higher and higher score multipliers by going through areas and tricks you hadn't done in your combo yet, so for higher scores you can expect to have to navigate through the entire area trying to stitch in your combo every grind cornor you can find.
Overall, i'm really impressed with how good this game was and how little i expected from it before buying it. There are some issues like how the cop system is really annoying and there is no way of turning it of completely as a option in the post game, and the game also becomes very easy after you learn how to infinitly combo. But with all that said, i think i'd put Bomb Rush Cyberfunk on my Top 3 indie games of all time, loosing only to Monster Sanctuary.
I have no nostalgia for jet set radio, i tried the first one 2 different times and in both i lost interest in the very first level. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk however, has surpassed those games that inspired them.
The OST is fucking amazing, from the moment i booted the game i knew i'd love it after loosing at least 5 min messing with the menu just so i could listen to the music.
Not only that, i was surprised how the game hooked me with the story from the very beginning with the prologue and kept me invested until the very end with all the plot twists.
Gameplay wise, it just feels so good to go around the city trying out combos when you figure out how the system works. This type of score game usually ends up having a really lame way to break the game and go for the best score by repeating the same boring moves. Bomb rush howevers, they make it so you get higher and higher score multipliers by going through areas and tricks you hadn't done in your combo yet, so for higher scores you can expect to have to navigate through the entire area trying to stitch in your combo every grind cornor you can find.
Overall, i'm really impressed with how good this game was and how little i expected from it before buying it. There are some issues like how the cop system is really annoying and there is no way of turning it of completely as a option in the post game, and the game also becomes very easy after you learn how to infinitly combo. But with all that said, i think i'd put Bomb Rush Cyberfunk on my Top 3 indie games of all time, loosing only to Monster Sanctuary.
2021
Final boss was hard but really felt really good to beat.
2020
Great game, now i know why there is so much porn of it.
2016
One of the few cases of a game dificulty making me hate it for how unfair it feels.
To go into more details, the gameplay of this game feels like it wants you to focus on combos, however, most enemys have super armor and won't flinch with yout attacks. But the same doesn't happen the other way around, a single hit can send you flying, enemys have attack animations with no startup and can spam it, there are rooms with 3 to 4 enemies like that, where as soon as one attack goes of, another follows it up, most times leading to a combo that will get you from 100% to 0%.
"Why don't you just get good?"
The thing is, that argument only really works if you are already invested in a game, there is no reason for me to waist my time and effort trying to get better at a game i didn't like. It doesn't help how obnoxious the narration is all the fucking time, or how repetitive the areas are. I get it is trying to pull a nier automata, but it didn't work for me.
To go into more details, the gameplay of this game feels like it wants you to focus on combos, however, most enemys have super armor and won't flinch with yout attacks. But the same doesn't happen the other way around, a single hit can send you flying, enemys have attack animations with no startup and can spam it, there are rooms with 3 to 4 enemies like that, where as soon as one attack goes of, another follows it up, most times leading to a combo that will get you from 100% to 0%.
"Why don't you just get good?"
The thing is, that argument only really works if you are already invested in a game, there is no reason for me to waist my time and effort trying to get better at a game i didn't like. It doesn't help how obnoxious the narration is all the fucking time, or how repetitive the areas are. I get it is trying to pull a nier automata, but it didn't work for me.
This review contains spoilers
I'd to start by saying that cold steel 1 is probably one of the best PS Vita games out there.
That being said, it is by far the worst trails game in the series. The great characters we had in previous games are now gone in favor of a bloated cast, harem mechanics and one dimensional genéric anime tropes. The game started on a bad note as the way they choose to introduce the main girl is by having her fall on the MC and then slap him for it which i'd be fine with any other JRPG, but it doesn't feel like it belongs to trails at all.
There is no reason for the cast being as big as it is other then trying to copy Persona's success. Bonding system was already a thing in trails to Zero and Azure but it did'nt feel like it was sacrificing the characters for it. Each chapter you are allocated with 3 to 4 different set of classmates besides Rean, the main character. This makes it so the game doesn't have enough time to develop most of them, and those they do most times end up feeling shallow.
It doesn't help at all as well that 90% of said classmates never interact with each other unless Rean, the MC, is present. Later games try to imply how the Class 7 is one big family, but you will never see a girl interacting with any other boy or vice-versa, after all, they can't do that otherwise it would ruin Reans harem. And it goes even beyond that as you won't even see girl to girl or boy to boy interactions in the game most of the time. By the end of CS2 i felt like Class 7 had more chimestry with side character students from theire clubs than with eachother with rare exceptions such as Jusis and Milion.
Unfortunatly, the game also doesn't have much of a story until the epilogue, leading to the civil war in CS2. In some ways it feels like both CS1 and CS2 are trying to redo what Sky FC did in some parts.
Bracers were an excellent ideia of giving a reason as to why the characters would do minial side quests for the population. The SSS in crossbell, was also a good ideia of doing the samething for another reason that felt believable. Class 7 and Rean in other hand, feels like they do it just because the higher ups tell them too. There isn't any goal as the story goes on, it feels way to passive, like your only goal in the game is to find missing cats or deliver some goods to town people.
Yes, they stumble in some issues along those chores that will lead to events showing deeper problems in the Empire, but unlike the Bracer couple looking for the missing father and trying to be promoted and the SSS crew trying to end corruption in Crossbell, they don't have an actual motivation to do those things. That ends up making the pace feel even slower then the first Sky game.
Another complaint i have with this structure, which fortunatly is solved in CS2, is how unlike Sky and Crossbell, the empire doesn't feel like an actual country in gameplay. Crossbell and Sky makes the character travel on foot to learn about the countries before they give you any sort of fast travel (if any in case of sky), which helps with world building by making those interconected cities and villages feel like they form an actual real country. CS1 in the other hand, has Trista as a hub town, that then fast travels the player to other regions every chapter. They use a map to show where exactly you are going, but it doesn't even compare to the feeling of being able to go from point A to B by yourself.
One positive thing i have to note is that CS1 lays the foundation for the great combat system of CS2. I'd say this far, all trails games had great combat systems, each improving from the last, but CS2 takes the best aspects of each, such as team attacks from zero and burst/overdrive from azure and gives you a lot of tools to experiment. Although, it is worth to note that CS1 also sacrifices the strategy behind orbement building, which i'm not the biggest fan of such a change, but i came to accept as i played future games.
Prior to cold steel, you had to use certain amounts of a element quartz before it would unlock a Arts to be used, after CS1, those Arts have their own quartz, so it's more about squizing as much power as you can in a character instead of choosing wisely what stats you want and what arts are available with them.
With all that said, i think cold steel is a decent RPG if you are willing to overcome it's horrible pacing, has a great epilogue leading to CS2 and still has one of the best combat systems in any turn-based RPG. But it fall flat as a trails game from what we came to expect from both Sky and Crossbell arcs.
Some say this is the best place to start the series as as it is the most modern entrie game in the series, but i wholeheartly disagree with that. Starting with CS1 means you will spoil the best trails has to offer so far with Sky and Crossbell, although doing so will probably make you be a more fond of this game than i was for sure, as most of my issues with it come from knowing how great of a series trails has been before CS1.
That being said, it is by far the worst trails game in the series. The great characters we had in previous games are now gone in favor of a bloated cast, harem mechanics and one dimensional genéric anime tropes. The game started on a bad note as the way they choose to introduce the main girl is by having her fall on the MC and then slap him for it which i'd be fine with any other JRPG, but it doesn't feel like it belongs to trails at all.
There is no reason for the cast being as big as it is other then trying to copy Persona's success. Bonding system was already a thing in trails to Zero and Azure but it did'nt feel like it was sacrificing the characters for it. Each chapter you are allocated with 3 to 4 different set of classmates besides Rean, the main character. This makes it so the game doesn't have enough time to develop most of them, and those they do most times end up feeling shallow.
It doesn't help at all as well that 90% of said classmates never interact with each other unless Rean, the MC, is present. Later games try to imply how the Class 7 is one big family, but you will never see a girl interacting with any other boy or vice-versa, after all, they can't do that otherwise it would ruin Reans harem. And it goes even beyond that as you won't even see girl to girl or boy to boy interactions in the game most of the time. By the end of CS2 i felt like Class 7 had more chimestry with side character students from theire clubs than with eachother with rare exceptions such as Jusis and Milion.
Unfortunatly, the game also doesn't have much of a story until the epilogue, leading to the civil war in CS2. In some ways it feels like both CS1 and CS2 are trying to redo what Sky FC did in some parts.
Bracers were an excellent ideia of giving a reason as to why the characters would do minial side quests for the population. The SSS in crossbell, was also a good ideia of doing the samething for another reason that felt believable. Class 7 and Rean in other hand, feels like they do it just because the higher ups tell them too. There isn't any goal as the story goes on, it feels way to passive, like your only goal in the game is to find missing cats or deliver some goods to town people.
Yes, they stumble in some issues along those chores that will lead to events showing deeper problems in the Empire, but unlike the Bracer couple looking for the missing father and trying to be promoted and the SSS crew trying to end corruption in Crossbell, they don't have an actual motivation to do those things. That ends up making the pace feel even slower then the first Sky game.
Another complaint i have with this structure, which fortunatly is solved in CS2, is how unlike Sky and Crossbell, the empire doesn't feel like an actual country in gameplay. Crossbell and Sky makes the character travel on foot to learn about the countries before they give you any sort of fast travel (if any in case of sky), which helps with world building by making those interconected cities and villages feel like they form an actual real country. CS1 in the other hand, has Trista as a hub town, that then fast travels the player to other regions every chapter. They use a map to show where exactly you are going, but it doesn't even compare to the feeling of being able to go from point A to B by yourself.
One positive thing i have to note is that CS1 lays the foundation for the great combat system of CS2. I'd say this far, all trails games had great combat systems, each improving from the last, but CS2 takes the best aspects of each, such as team attacks from zero and burst/overdrive from azure and gives you a lot of tools to experiment. Although, it is worth to note that CS1 also sacrifices the strategy behind orbement building, which i'm not the biggest fan of such a change, but i came to accept as i played future games.
Prior to cold steel, you had to use certain amounts of a element quartz before it would unlock a Arts to be used, after CS1, those Arts have their own quartz, so it's more about squizing as much power as you can in a character instead of choosing wisely what stats you want and what arts are available with them.
With all that said, i think cold steel is a decent RPG if you are willing to overcome it's horrible pacing, has a great epilogue leading to CS2 and still has one of the best combat systems in any turn-based RPG. But it fall flat as a trails game from what we came to expect from both Sky and Crossbell arcs.
Some say this is the best place to start the series as as it is the most modern entrie game in the series, but i wholeheartly disagree with that. Starting with CS1 means you will spoil the best trails has to offer so far with Sky and Crossbell, although doing so will probably make you be a more fond of this game than i was for sure, as most of my issues with it come from knowing how great of a series trails has been before CS1.
Not as great as it's sequel, but being able to play it on a actual controler instead of the PSVita, where you had to use gyro controls to aim, made the experience way better.
Masterpiece, peak fiction, ruinner of RPGs.
I don't think i'll be able to appreciate many more mediocre JRPGs as i did before after experiencing this incredible game
I don't think i'll be able to appreciate many more mediocre JRPGs as i did before after experiencing this incredible game
2022
Short but great, it would be nice to have these mechanics in a bigger game
Paid less than 30 cents for this game, it was decent for that price. Might go back someday to 100% as i finished it in a single session of less than an hour