Please use this elevator. Hold up, push this slow ass cart to vacuum up all the mako before you can access it. Exit this cave. Hold up, move this slow ass cart that's blocking the exit. Reach this ledge. Hold up, the ladder is broken, so you'll have to push this slow ass cart all the way there to use as a platform. Hold up, the path is blocked, so have Barret shoot at this boulder for several seconds so that you can continue pushing your slow ass cart. Great job, now it's time run across an empty field to go activate your 6th Ubisoft tower.
2021
Seeing the rise of western AVNs thanks to platforms like Steam hosting them piqued my curiosity as someone who has been into the Japanese eroge scene since the early '00s. I decided to give them a shot to see if any are worthwhile and quickly realized that there are a million of these "work in progress" one-man project Ren'Py games. You're gonna have to dig through dozens of trite Being a Dik clones before you find any treasure. Luckily, Eternum is one such treasure.
What initially drew me to check it out was the fact that it used models created in Honey Select 2, a game that I have spent countless hours modding and toying with myself. I knew nothing else about it other than that going in. Starting out, I nearly dropped it because it seemed like the same familiar setup. Moving to a new town, rooming with girls, starting your first day of school, etc. The only thing that kept me playing was the models. Once you start learning about the titular Eternum; an MMO that the characters in the game play, however, things start picking up very quickly.
The premise is similar to something like .hack, with the characters hunting for powerful one-of-a-kind relic weapons, engaging with hostile high-level players, and unraveling the corporate conspiracy behind the game itself. Being in a setting like this, where the changing of a game server can send you to an entirely different world or time period allows for an endless amount of creative and entertaining scenarios to play out, and it's taken full advantage of. This is balanced with maintaining your relationships with the characters both in the real world as well as the game. The characters here all have very distinct, memorable personalities that set them apart from one another and make for a great cast. As for the H-scenes, the animation sequences are well done and stack up favorably to other games I've played. If I have one gripe, it's the constant use of asterisk actions in the writing. It's not a huge deal, but it happens enough that it's worth mentioning, and there are better ways to convey information that aren't as annoying.
As of writing this, the game is on release version 0.5. Hopefully, the developer can keep up the pace and stick the landing, because I think they've got something here.
TL;DR: Fun ride. Luna best girl and Annie is cuter than anyone in your favorite moege. Disagree? 1v1 me on Ion.
What initially drew me to check it out was the fact that it used models created in Honey Select 2, a game that I have spent countless hours modding and toying with myself. I knew nothing else about it other than that going in. Starting out, I nearly dropped it because it seemed like the same familiar setup. Moving to a new town, rooming with girls, starting your first day of school, etc. The only thing that kept me playing was the models. Once you start learning about the titular Eternum; an MMO that the characters in the game play, however, things start picking up very quickly.
The premise is similar to something like .hack, with the characters hunting for powerful one-of-a-kind relic weapons, engaging with hostile high-level players, and unraveling the corporate conspiracy behind the game itself. Being in a setting like this, where the changing of a game server can send you to an entirely different world or time period allows for an endless amount of creative and entertaining scenarios to play out, and it's taken full advantage of. This is balanced with maintaining your relationships with the characters both in the real world as well as the game. The characters here all have very distinct, memorable personalities that set them apart from one another and make for a great cast. As for the H-scenes, the animation sequences are well done and stack up favorably to other games I've played. If I have one gripe, it's the constant use of asterisk actions in the writing. It's not a huge deal, but it happens enough that it's worth mentioning, and there are better ways to convey information that aren't as annoying.
As of writing this, the game is on release version 0.5. Hopefully, the developer can keep up the pace and stick the landing, because I think they've got something here.
TL;DR: Fun ride. Luna best girl and Annie is cuter than anyone in your favorite moege. Disagree? 1v1 me on Ion.
Veers a bit too far into the modern AAA "cinematic experience" trend for my taste.
The gunplay here is poor and unsatisfying, which is unfortunate, as you'll be dumping plenty of magazines into all the slow-moving bullet sponges you encounter on your journey to the next "epic" setpiece moment. Likewise, the puzzles are also unsatisfying, as they are generally pretty basic and don't require much thought.
Storywise, it's unremarkable for the genre. It leans in on campiness to make up for the lackluster scenario, but this didn't work for me. I just found the protagonist's constant quips after big moments to be cringe-worthy more often than not. It ended up leaving me annoyed with the person I was playing as anytime he opened his mouth.
I've honestly never really been a fan of Resident Evil, and this didn't change that. But hey, at least I tried?
The gunplay here is poor and unsatisfying, which is unfortunate, as you'll be dumping plenty of magazines into all the slow-moving bullet sponges you encounter on your journey to the next "epic" setpiece moment. Likewise, the puzzles are also unsatisfying, as they are generally pretty basic and don't require much thought.
Storywise, it's unremarkable for the genre. It leans in on campiness to make up for the lackluster scenario, but this didn't work for me. I just found the protagonist's constant quips after big moments to be cringe-worthy more often than not. It ended up leaving me annoyed with the person I was playing as anytime he opened his mouth.
I've honestly never really been a fan of Resident Evil, and this didn't change that. But hey, at least I tried?
2021
I've completed this multiple times now and wrung it dry of all its content, so I suppose I might as well catalog my thoughts here.
Going into this I was worried that it was going to be a typical character-focused JRPG (zZz) after knowing the direction SMT IV:A went, and seeing the trailers with your silly anime-looking high school friends. Luckily for me, and apparently to the disappointment of others, that is not this case. It's actually more in line with Nocturne's minimalist approach than you would expect. Most of the time it's just you and the demons. Excellent.
The shift towards more open area exploration is fairly well done. Running around and figuring out how to reach certain places to get items can be fun. Though after many hours of running around collecting largely useless shit in similar-looking environments, I found myself missing the traditional dungeon setup and the different unique designs and puzzles that come with that. There are only two of them here, and they aren't particularly compelling by the series own standard.
As for combat gameplay, the core base of the press-turn system is great of course, though they made some changes. Buffs are somewhat nerfed in the early game, which is good in theory, but later game skills like luster candy and debilitate are still extremely effective. Especially when combined with passive traits that extend the length they are active.
On the other hand, items are now borderline broken with how effective they are. The dampener items that sell for next to nothing at the shop can let you null the enemies telegraphed magatsuhi skills, wasting their turns entirely. If that wasn't enough, with an early game upgrade all your demons will have the ability to use items as well. You can have every party member use elemental gems to target the enemy's weak point (which you can see easily with another item) and gain 4 free extra turns even if you don't have the proper skills.
Speaking of magatsuhi skills, that's another thing that can be borderline broken when used by the player. The critical one basically gives you 8 turns to just wreck the enemy. If you time it right and activate it the turn after buffing your entire party, rarely does anything in the game stand a chance. I have to say I'm not really a fan of the addition of this mechanic in general, but it's better than smirk at least.
Like I said earlier, I love that the characters and story are not the focal point. One thing I don't like though is how your moral choices made throughout the game have absolutely zero effect on your ending. You get to outright choose your ending regardless of any choice made prior, which is incredibly lame. The ONLY choice that matters in the entire game before this is one related to a side quest that can lock you out of the optional secret true neutral ending. Has to be said that this is also the most interesting ending in the game by far, with the best bosses in the game being necessary to attain it.
Overall, it's a very enjoyable game. There's plenty to nitpick about as a long-time fan, but despite all that, I think I would still say that this is the best game Atlus has put out since Strange Journey over a decade ago.
Going into this I was worried that it was going to be a typical character-focused JRPG (zZz) after knowing the direction SMT IV:A went, and seeing the trailers with your silly anime-looking high school friends. Luckily for me, and apparently to the disappointment of others, that is not this case. It's actually more in line with Nocturne's minimalist approach than you would expect. Most of the time it's just you and the demons. Excellent.
The shift towards more open area exploration is fairly well done. Running around and figuring out how to reach certain places to get items can be fun. Though after many hours of running around collecting largely useless shit in similar-looking environments, I found myself missing the traditional dungeon setup and the different unique designs and puzzles that come with that. There are only two of them here, and they aren't particularly compelling by the series own standard.
As for combat gameplay, the core base of the press-turn system is great of course, though they made some changes. Buffs are somewhat nerfed in the early game, which is good in theory, but later game skills like luster candy and debilitate are still extremely effective. Especially when combined with passive traits that extend the length they are active.
On the other hand, items are now borderline broken with how effective they are. The dampener items that sell for next to nothing at the shop can let you null the enemies telegraphed magatsuhi skills, wasting their turns entirely. If that wasn't enough, with an early game upgrade all your demons will have the ability to use items as well. You can have every party member use elemental gems to target the enemy's weak point (which you can see easily with another item) and gain 4 free extra turns even if you don't have the proper skills.
Speaking of magatsuhi skills, that's another thing that can be borderline broken when used by the player. The critical one basically gives you 8 turns to just wreck the enemy. If you time it right and activate it the turn after buffing your entire party, rarely does anything in the game stand a chance. I have to say I'm not really a fan of the addition of this mechanic in general, but it's better than smirk at least.
Like I said earlier, I love that the characters and story are not the focal point. One thing I don't like though is how your moral choices made throughout the game have absolutely zero effect on your ending. You get to outright choose your ending regardless of any choice made prior, which is incredibly lame. The ONLY choice that matters in the entire game before this is one related to a side quest that can lock you out of the optional secret true neutral ending. Has to be said that this is also the most interesting ending in the game by far, with the best bosses in the game being necessary to attain it.
Overall, it's a very enjoyable game. There's plenty to nitpick about as a long-time fan, but despite all that, I think I would still say that this is the best game Atlus has put out since Strange Journey over a decade ago.
A fractured story told through audio logs, diary entries, and the occasional short video clip. It tackles similar themes to the anime of identity, memory, and mental illness, but in a much more directly psychological fashion, with less of the tangents into the outright weird and conspiratorial. It's a more personal story, diving into the minds of its two main characters as they, and their relationship, evolve over time.
I consider this an essential experience not just for Lain fans, but fans of psychological media in general.
I consider this an essential experience not just for Lain fans, but fans of psychological media in general.
Nocturne has been one of my favorite games of all time for about 15 years now. Half of my lifetime at this point, so it's a very important game to me. It must not be as important to modern Atlus though, as they offloaded it to some 3rd party developer who made a lazily slapped together and inferior version they could use for a quick cash grab.
For $50 you get:
THE GOOD
+ The ability to manually choose inherited skills.
THE BAD
- Constant stutter before and after attack animations with particle effects that wasn't present in the PS2 original. (Bonus of more additional frame drops all over the place if you're on the switch version, too!)
- A new lighting system that is overblown and severely compromises the artistic vision of the game.
- A low effort dub that feels like it was recorded as a joke at points, which negatively impacts the atmosphere of the game. (thankfully this can be turned off, but the fact that it's on by default and is how most new players will experience the game is saddening)
- A questionable retranslated script. (Nekomata's Club Inferno dialogue has been sterilized, Incubus using an internet meme phrase that will seem dated in 5 years, ect)
- Music that is STILL compressed to high hell
- 4:3 non upscaled cutscenes that cause a jarring effect when it switches to one from the 16:9 gameplay.
- 30fps cap.
- The opportunity to buy additional day one paid DLC for a PS2 game.
For $50 you get:
THE GOOD
+ The ability to manually choose inherited skills.
THE BAD
- Constant stutter before and after attack animations with particle effects that wasn't present in the PS2 original. (Bonus of more additional frame drops all over the place if you're on the switch version, too!)
- A new lighting system that is overblown and severely compromises the artistic vision of the game.
- A low effort dub that feels like it was recorded as a joke at points, which negatively impacts the atmosphere of the game. (thankfully this can be turned off, but the fact that it's on by default and is how most new players will experience the game is saddening)
- A questionable retranslated script. (Nekomata's Club Inferno dialogue has been sterilized, Incubus using an internet meme phrase that will seem dated in 5 years, ect)
- Music that is STILL compressed to high hell
- 4:3 non upscaled cutscenes that cause a jarring effect when it switches to one from the 16:9 gameplay.
- 30fps cap.
- The opportunity to buy additional day one paid DLC for a PS2 game.
Essentially a playable Liveleak video with no interest in catering to the comfort of the player. The goal during development, per art director Rasmus Poulsen, was to be non-pleasing. In this effort, it incorporates an interesting combination of things that immediately make it stand out. The nauseating shaky cam, weapons that are frequently inaccurate, a screen prone to visual artifacting, sound that gets blown-out from explosions/gunfire, and some of the most disorienting and oppressive soundscapes you'll find, which were appropriately done by figures from the 1980's German industrial music scene. It all comes together to create an experience unlike anything else in the medium, for better or worse.
How this got past publishers without the vision being severely compromised in favor of a safer and more player-friendly approach, I don't know. What I do know though? To me, this shit rules, and I'm glad it exists.
How this got past publishers without the vision being severely compromised in favor of a safer and more player-friendly approach, I don't know. What I do know though? To me, this shit rules, and I'm glad it exists.
In some ways, this improves on the original, but in others not so much.
I find the combo system and the lack of pre-rendered backgrounds everywhere are a welcome change, but I really disliked the shift from gothic horror towards a more comedic approach, which just came off as lame and unfunny 100% of the time. It ends up causing a huge tonal clash when it expects you to suddenly take it seriously in dramatic moments. The result for me was just not caring at all about what was going on in the story, or about the characters themselves, which I found to be almost universally annoying.
There's some really terrible dungeon design at parts here as well. Some of them felt like a chore at times in a way the original never did for me. The SP system also seems much more lenient than the original, I basically never paid any attention to it and never really suffered any consequences because of it. I guess that could be considered a good thing since it was kind of irritating to manage before, but It makes me wonder why they even included it in the first place.
One thing that didn't change is how tiresome the judgment ring system starts to become over time. It's especially noticeable here since the game is a good bit longer.
I find the combo system and the lack of pre-rendered backgrounds everywhere are a welcome change, but I really disliked the shift from gothic horror towards a more comedic approach, which just came off as lame and unfunny 100% of the time. It ends up causing a huge tonal clash when it expects you to suddenly take it seriously in dramatic moments. The result for me was just not caring at all about what was going on in the story, or about the characters themselves, which I found to be almost universally annoying.
There's some really terrible dungeon design at parts here as well. Some of them felt like a chore at times in a way the original never did for me. The SP system also seems much more lenient than the original, I basically never paid any attention to it and never really suffered any consequences because of it. I guess that could be considered a good thing since it was kind of irritating to manage before, but It makes me wonder why they even included it in the first place.
One thing that didn't change is how tiresome the judgment ring system starts to become over time. It's especially noticeable here since the game is a good bit longer.
2007
The movement in this game is so stiff, limited, and slow compared to the previous 3D Mario games. It feels like a giant step backwards in that regard. The more gimmicky levels like the surfing or ball rolling ones that force the use of the Wii motion/Switch gyro controls are frankly not fun at all and should probably just be avoided if possible.
The worst part though? The terrible camera. I get that being designed for the Wii makes it more restricted in what it could do with the controls, but the result we get is this awkward camera you can only move in notched increments (when it decides to even let you at all) instead of a free form analog one, and holy fuck is it annoying when you can't get what you need to see in the frame while underwater, or when it just decides to spaz the hell out on some of the spherical levels.
Any amount of fun I derived from some of this game's creative ideas seemed to be met with frustration in equal measure, and it's a damn shame.
The worst part though? The terrible camera. I get that being designed for the Wii makes it more restricted in what it could do with the controls, but the result we get is this awkward camera you can only move in notched increments (when it decides to even let you at all) instead of a free form analog one, and holy fuck is it annoying when you can't get what you need to see in the frame while underwater, or when it just decides to spaz the hell out on some of the spherical levels.
Any amount of fun I derived from some of this game's creative ideas seemed to be met with frustration in equal measure, and it's a damn shame.
In between being railroaded from predetermined point A to predetermined point B to experience the most excruciatingly emotionally manipulative drama scenes this side of a Key visual novel, you'll spend your time engaging in the kind of mediocre cover-based shooting that plagued this era of gaming, abusing the hilariously broken attempt at "stealth" mechanics, or setting up a conveniently placed ladder for the 800th time. All of this within the terminally boring and overdone setting of a post-apocalyptic zombie world. Truly incredible.
The fact that garbage like this that has no respect for player freedom or creativity gets lauded says a lot about the current state of the industry and the people who engage with it as a whole.
The fact that garbage like this that has no respect for player freedom or creativity gets lauded says a lot about the current state of the industry and the people who engage with it as a whole.
2001
I was enjoying this quite a bit at first. I loved seeing an early 1900's setting with gothic and horror elements in a JRPG. It definitely stands out in the sea of fantasy and sci-fi games the genre is known for.
Although, as I kept playing, more and more things about it started to bother me.
In the beginning, I thought the ring of judgment system was a cool way to keep things engaging, but after about 10 hours of it, I found it just became an annoyance to have to deal with more than anything. The same can be said of the sanity point mechanic, which felt kind of pointless in practice, essentially being just another meter that you have to keep an eye on and waste money on items to maintain. Also, as much as I praise the setting, I have to say the low-quality PS1 era pre-rendered backgrounds didn't do much justice in bringing it to life, and immersion suffered as a result.
There really is a potentially great game to be made from the ideas here. They just weren't quite able to pull it off.
Although, as I kept playing, more and more things about it started to bother me.
In the beginning, I thought the ring of judgment system was a cool way to keep things engaging, but after about 10 hours of it, I found it just became an annoyance to have to deal with more than anything. The same can be said of the sanity point mechanic, which felt kind of pointless in practice, essentially being just another meter that you have to keep an eye on and waste money on items to maintain. Also, as much as I praise the setting, I have to say the low-quality PS1 era pre-rendered backgrounds didn't do much justice in bringing it to life, and immersion suffered as a result.
There really is a potentially great game to be made from the ideas here. They just weren't quite able to pull it off.
2005
A unique and immensely fascinating game that oozes style, for sure. However, I found the combat would get somewhat tiresome after a few hours of continuous play. It's not particularly challenging or exciting, since you're largely just shooting at the telegraphed weak points of upwards of 100+ braindead enemies per level. Luckily the bosses are usually quite interesting to make up for it.
If you combined Ace Attorney and Zero Escape and then stripped away any of the redeeming qualities of either so you are just left with unbearably generic tropey characters and atrocious writing, you get Danganronpa.
No overpowered hero that could kill his way out of anything if needed. No radars that allow you to see exactly where people are. No magic vision cones so you know exactly what distance you're safe. You must rely entirely on sound and shadows as you navigate some of the most intricately crafted levels of all time in any of the untold number of approaches available to you. This is the peak of stealth game design, and nothing has ever come close since.