Shenobi
2018
I'm sure there's a good game in here when you're not fighting the controls or the awkward hitboxes some weapons and enemies have...or the leveling system that feels largely pointless...or the gameplay design based on punishing you for not killing a boss and making it back to a save point to lock that state of existence into place. There's a lot I could say on all of that and more.
Instead, let's say something really positive about the game. In a Metroidvania with 1139 rooms, numerous music tracks, 50-some-odd enemies, six different endings, and some randomization aspects for a game that's got about a dozen hours of playtime just for a first run, it's impressive that the developer compressed the game to 40 megs. Someone needs to pay this dev to teach people how to compress their assets efficiently, because I can't help but feel that some of these larger games out there aren't utilizing compression efficiently at all.
And yeah, that's all I've got. One extra half-star for the compression, the game needs a lot of polish that it's been confirmed to be never getting. If you're desperate for a Metroidvania, it's only like 7 bucks normally, but it's still hard for me to recommend to anyone.
Instead, let's say something really positive about the game. In a Metroidvania with 1139 rooms, numerous music tracks, 50-some-odd enemies, six different endings, and some randomization aspects for a game that's got about a dozen hours of playtime just for a first run, it's impressive that the developer compressed the game to 40 megs. Someone needs to pay this dev to teach people how to compress their assets efficiently, because I can't help but feel that some of these larger games out there aren't utilizing compression efficiently at all.
And yeah, that's all I've got. One extra half-star for the compression, the game needs a lot of polish that it's been confirmed to be never getting. If you're desperate for a Metroidvania, it's only like 7 bucks normally, but it's still hard for me to recommend to anyone.
2022
This review contains spoilers
My short, short review is simply: If you're a fan of Pokemon, you'll probably enjoy the core experience here, regardless of technical issues. If you're on the fence, at least wait until there's some kind of patch to deal with some of the chugging, crashes, and other silly quirks.
I've been perusing the reviews and can see that I didn't get the same experience out of this game that other people did, for sure. I'm sure this is due, in large part, to certain expectations I had that either fell flat or were ruined in some cases. Let's talk shop.
I'm not going to say too much about the technical issues -- they're a huge mess and everyone's probably experienced their own fun/pain. My spouse is playing Scarlet and she's had seven crashes, while I've been playing Violet and have three. Both our copies are digital, she has a newer Switch -- though from the same generation as mine (2017-2018, I think?).
Crashes between our two games included the following happening at the time of crashing:
-- Walking
-- Trying to enter a building
-- Riding your All Terrain Dino
-- Talking to a trainer that wants to battle
-- Opening the world map
-- Trying to join a Union Party
Yeah, several of those happened multiple times, but what an experience. Both of us have only lost a minute or two in each instance, so no big deal. Beyond that, framerate that feels like a slog most of the time. Both of us are playing docked, so I can't speak on quality for playing handheld.
The glitches are vast and varied, but they're not really worth touching on -- they generally don't impact gameplay beyond a speedrun-worthy one near the end of the game where you can skip forced dialogue (that has its own issues) by jumping off the sides of some cilffs while leaning into a texture plane that's angled. If someone wants me to elaborate, I will, but much like being able to exploit reaching places you shouldn't via combat, that's more about favorable glitches than issues that need to be fixed.
Regarding actual gameplay, the thing is, the actual core experience of collecting your mons and building in a direction you want is just as fun as ever and also more accessible than ever. Maybe even too much so, as the bar for being capable of making a competitive mon is so low that breeding feels much less relevant to this entry. I'm a bit of a Brock when it comes to breeding, so I may have previously put some thousands of hours into breeding throughout other generations and it's both pleasant and a little saddening (for me, great for most other people) with the directions they've gone in for simplifying the alternatives. Regardless, if you like catching mons and making a competitive team, you're probably in for a solid experience all-around.
My issues take place with the non-linearity of the game -- I love the idea and I feel like the blueprint has been established with both SW/SH and Arceus Legends, but the actual implementation feels lacking unless you're playing it in a way that's largely the projected/predicted manner.
You're told early on that you have these three paths to take and that you're free to handle them as you see fit -- but that isn't entirely true. It makes sense that everything had to converge eventually, but it failed me in a rather brutal fashion.
I like running with one mon that champs all my fights while I focus on evolving party mons and collecting others, so I'm used to the rigamarole of running into trainers, dealing with them on the way, and using them as a stepping stool to prepare myself for whatever gyms I want. You tell me that I'm free to go where I want and do things how I want? Suddenly, gyms are the last thing I want to do and I'm leaning towards exploring as much of the world as I can, then coming back and probably dealing with the two non-gym paths first.
So, much to my surprise, Gatogetgoing (my starter) decided at Level 29 to stop obeying me and went as far as to go to sleep a few times. I look at my profile card and notice that mons only up to Level 20 will obey you, so I'm feeling both lucky and frustrated simultaneously. I had gone through Southern Province Four, worked my way back to Southern Province Two, then went west all the way out to the desert and did a jump off the side of the desert to land down on the docks at Porto Marinada before making that discovery.
I had managed to dodge every gym (although I did run through to Alfornada when I saw how strong the mons were in the area), only to find out that there was an obligation to hit up the gyms in order to deal with mons obeying you. A little annoying, but not a big deal -- generally speaking, badges were worth ten levels in past games (sometimes twenty levels for two), so easy enough fix.
I go hit up the Grass gym and have Gatogetgoing sleep through several turns of the battle but his level is so high that the fight is still cake, though abysmally slow because it's just unnecessary whiffing over and over. I get the badge and hit Level 30 during the fight, thinking I'll have to go deal with one more gym...and I get rewarded with a badge that lets mons up to Level 25 listen to me.
You're kidding me, right? Maybe it's just a fluke. I go smash the Bug gym. Mons up to 30 and my cat is at about 31. Electric gym, mons up to 35 and my cat is 32. And suddenly, I'm presented with an issue -- I'm not actually allowed to play the way I want to play, because leveling mons suddenly becomes prohibitive to enjoyment and there's a need to just progress as fast as possible between areas. I hit up Klawf Titan while I was in the area after the Electric gym and got my boost on, but I'm suddenly feeling like I'm more incentivized to stop exploring and just push through to every gym and complete them as fast as possible.
In a game that encourages you to go out there and find your own treasure, my treasure (exploration) was apparently going to have to be discarded in favor of beating a level cap that made no sense -- why would you change this facet of the game when it's worked fine for so long? But I dealt with it, pushed straight through all eight gyms, and got rewarded with no more restrictions placed on my mons.
On the gyms, I was a bit annoyed about the style of them -- I honestly like fighting gym trainers even if I don't care about most regular trainers, because they feel like a nice and logical test prep for what you're about to encounter and a good gauge for your levels. Instead, I'm using Miraidon to pop a giant olive over fences like I'm playing Bad Rocket League, riding Miraidon down a slope with worse controls while it slides, fast traveling to a location so I can have one fight while I deliver a wallet, or even just grabbing or fighting a few Sunfloras. The experiences don't feel natural and the idea of why some of them are there doesn't make them anymore authentic -- the olive rolling being explained as a cultural aspect would be fine if towns felt like they were more than just a few people standing around and the same few food stores every time.
That aside, Larry is the best damn gym leader ever and I will die on that hill. What a gem. I would accept him showing up in future games, even if it made no sense whatsoever.
Also, I did appreciate the Ghost gym double battles -- even if I normally play with one mon, I'm a fan of double battles (I force them on when playing older games on randomizers) so it was nice to see their reappearance, even if only briefly.
So, on the Titan path, it's a wholesome thing and it's worthwhile abilities, so not much else for me to add on that.
Starfall Street hurt my soul, though. When I first saw Team Star in Mesagoza, I was all-in on them because the star pose was stylish as all hell, so I was saving the Operation: Starfall missions for last because I liked the idea of having multiple bosses with personalities to fight against that might be like extra gyms catered toward a particular typing.
Instead, you're treated to a dumb mini-game, where you either have high enough level mons to just spam the R button over and over until it's over, or you potentially have to take a break at vending machines. Actual combat? Nope. You just waste time until you fulfill a quota of auto-battling, then you get one actual fight with the boss. The backstory feels like a joke when you learn about these characters, especially with Eri -- she's such a badass, I feel like she could just choke-slam anyone that wanted to bully her. All the fights being with Revarooms did nothing for me, as their fights overall just felt like a weaker Gym Leader battle in each instance.
When I resolved the Pokemon League (Larry's such a champ), Starfall Street, and Titans, I went into Area 0 and was greeted with forced, unscrollable text that didn't have boxes to even read it well while I'm trying to dodge mons that are gunning for me while I'm hoofing it to the bottom.
I mentioned earlier that I used a glitch to skip dialogue, and the reason is because of that text. It wasn't that it was awful having to read the text, but it was because while the dialogue was going on, you could not target visible mons or even access your own menu to heal your mons if you needed to. In the cave section of Area Zero, this became obnoxious when I was trying to grab a Glimmora and one of the Paradox mons. When I realized my choices were to wait for people to finish talking before doing any walking or trying to get around it, I decided to I'd try dropping off a cliff for fun and see if I could make faster progress. Turns out that if you hit the right kind of slopes, your group follows you down (while talking) OR you get your position reset right in front of the next checkpoint and the dialogue gets cut completely -- which means I'm free to try and catch things again. YAY.
I know I said that I didn't want to talk much about technical issues, but it's worth noting that upon beating the game, I was treated to credits I physically COULD NOT WATCH. The juddering was so intense that it was hurting my eyes to even look at the screen. I had to just kinda check back every minute or so to see how progress was going and just watch my spouse play her Scarlet version instead. What breaks my brain is that somehow this got through QA with either 1) nobody experiencing this particular bug or 2) someone experiencing this and it somehow being considered unimportant enough that it slid through, potentially for future patching. Maybe this doesn't happen on docked Switches. Once my spouse beats her version, I intend to see if the issue is replicated on her system as well.
Other things worth noting:
-- Nemona is wonderful and if you want great fanfic inspiration, playing a female character with Nemona as your best "rival" ever is a treat. It's so nice to have a character that's supposed to challenge you that isn't a complete jerk or just Captain Blandsville.
-- Online components are largely solid. We had one frustrating moment when trying to do co-op Tera Raids, but generally online trading between friends was smooth as silk. Haven't gotten to battle yet, so I can't speak on that.
-- Surprise (Wonder) Trades are very unintuitive. Why would you notify the player that the trade was successful and not take them straight to the trade? Instead, you're forced to jump into Poke Portal just to look. It'd make sense if you had to wait a long time for trades, but my longest wait was about 15 seconds. It just feels like extra steps that don't make sense.
-- Larry's still the best, but Nemona is also still the best.
-- Most of the new mons are interesting and I'm looking forward to testing them out. I also approve of the new evolutions added to some familiar mons.
-- Tera Types feel like they might allow for real strategic depth, but you absolutely would not realize it if you based it on the logic of gym leader fights.
-- The postgame is even worse than SW/SH, as it's just one legendary mon and a less-skillful Battle Tower (the Ace Tourney).
-- It's an absolute crime that Game Freak somehow decided not to add visual or audio cues for shinies. What the hell were they thinking? I've caught two so far (Murkrow and Goomy) and probably missed at least another four. Some mons are so tiny that the only real ways to test are auto-battling (they won't attack a shiny) or to run into them because you can't even tell with squinting as to what their colors are (and lighting and textures messing with lighting can mess with how a mon appears).
-- Really dig some of the new items, though some do feel overpowered (Covert Cloak, I'm looking at you).
-- Picnics feel like a natural evolution of Pokemon Amie, but my spouse got a lot more value out of it than me, as she's reaping the usual rewards of free dodges and status effect removals. I've only bred out four eggs, and that was just so I could give Quaxly to some friends who might need them.
-- I love me some Fashion Souls and Fashion Pokemon, so it's disappointing that I'm stuck with one of four awful outfits and just adding accents to the rest of the fashion around said outfits. I've wasted way too much currency in previous games on having all kinds of fashion choices to swap through. This one was a joke to save money on, because it's so hard to get a genuine look going, so I just settled for one outfit, some tights, shoes, glasses, and gloves, and called it a day. All the purple love, though.
That's probably a good attempt at summarizing my experience with the game. It's insanely glitchy and buggy and Game Freak has no business running a short development cycle on something like this and releasing it in such an unpolished state, but it's still a worthwhile game at its core. It absolutely demands a patch (and maybe a GTS if they can keep it free of absurd trade requests), and I feel like whatever DLC that's coming to account for the top-right corner of the map is going to be a disappointment, but maybe I'll be wrong on that. At this point, I'm looking forward to getting the last eight mons I need for a Shiny Charm and building some teams to battle friends with. Even with all my griefs, I can't avoid playing because at the end of the day, it's still Pokemon. It may not be my Pokemon, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate that core experience.
I've been perusing the reviews and can see that I didn't get the same experience out of this game that other people did, for sure. I'm sure this is due, in large part, to certain expectations I had that either fell flat or were ruined in some cases. Let's talk shop.
I'm not going to say too much about the technical issues -- they're a huge mess and everyone's probably experienced their own fun/pain. My spouse is playing Scarlet and she's had seven crashes, while I've been playing Violet and have three. Both our copies are digital, she has a newer Switch -- though from the same generation as mine (2017-2018, I think?).
Crashes between our two games included the following happening at the time of crashing:
-- Walking
-- Trying to enter a building
-- Riding your All Terrain Dino
-- Talking to a trainer that wants to battle
-- Opening the world map
-- Trying to join a Union Party
Yeah, several of those happened multiple times, but what an experience. Both of us have only lost a minute or two in each instance, so no big deal. Beyond that, framerate that feels like a slog most of the time. Both of us are playing docked, so I can't speak on quality for playing handheld.
The glitches are vast and varied, but they're not really worth touching on -- they generally don't impact gameplay beyond a speedrun-worthy one near the end of the game where you can skip forced dialogue (that has its own issues) by jumping off the sides of some cilffs while leaning into a texture plane that's angled. If someone wants me to elaborate, I will, but much like being able to exploit reaching places you shouldn't via combat, that's more about favorable glitches than issues that need to be fixed.
Regarding actual gameplay, the thing is, the actual core experience of collecting your mons and building in a direction you want is just as fun as ever and also more accessible than ever. Maybe even too much so, as the bar for being capable of making a competitive mon is so low that breeding feels much less relevant to this entry. I'm a bit of a Brock when it comes to breeding, so I may have previously put some thousands of hours into breeding throughout other generations and it's both pleasant and a little saddening (for me, great for most other people) with the directions they've gone in for simplifying the alternatives. Regardless, if you like catching mons and making a competitive team, you're probably in for a solid experience all-around.
My issues take place with the non-linearity of the game -- I love the idea and I feel like the blueprint has been established with both SW/SH and Arceus Legends, but the actual implementation feels lacking unless you're playing it in a way that's largely the projected/predicted manner.
You're told early on that you have these three paths to take and that you're free to handle them as you see fit -- but that isn't entirely true. It makes sense that everything had to converge eventually, but it failed me in a rather brutal fashion.
I like running with one mon that champs all my fights while I focus on evolving party mons and collecting others, so I'm used to the rigamarole of running into trainers, dealing with them on the way, and using them as a stepping stool to prepare myself for whatever gyms I want. You tell me that I'm free to go where I want and do things how I want? Suddenly, gyms are the last thing I want to do and I'm leaning towards exploring as much of the world as I can, then coming back and probably dealing with the two non-gym paths first.
So, much to my surprise, Gatogetgoing (my starter) decided at Level 29 to stop obeying me and went as far as to go to sleep a few times. I look at my profile card and notice that mons only up to Level 20 will obey you, so I'm feeling both lucky and frustrated simultaneously. I had gone through Southern Province Four, worked my way back to Southern Province Two, then went west all the way out to the desert and did a jump off the side of the desert to land down on the docks at Porto Marinada before making that discovery.
I had managed to dodge every gym (although I did run through to Alfornada when I saw how strong the mons were in the area), only to find out that there was an obligation to hit up the gyms in order to deal with mons obeying you. A little annoying, but not a big deal -- generally speaking, badges were worth ten levels in past games (sometimes twenty levels for two), so easy enough fix.
I go hit up the Grass gym and have Gatogetgoing sleep through several turns of the battle but his level is so high that the fight is still cake, though abysmally slow because it's just unnecessary whiffing over and over. I get the badge and hit Level 30 during the fight, thinking I'll have to go deal with one more gym...and I get rewarded with a badge that lets mons up to Level 25 listen to me.
You're kidding me, right? Maybe it's just a fluke. I go smash the Bug gym. Mons up to 30 and my cat is at about 31. Electric gym, mons up to 35 and my cat is 32. And suddenly, I'm presented with an issue -- I'm not actually allowed to play the way I want to play, because leveling mons suddenly becomes prohibitive to enjoyment and there's a need to just progress as fast as possible between areas. I hit up Klawf Titan while I was in the area after the Electric gym and got my boost on, but I'm suddenly feeling like I'm more incentivized to stop exploring and just push through to every gym and complete them as fast as possible.
In a game that encourages you to go out there and find your own treasure, my treasure (exploration) was apparently going to have to be discarded in favor of beating a level cap that made no sense -- why would you change this facet of the game when it's worked fine for so long? But I dealt with it, pushed straight through all eight gyms, and got rewarded with no more restrictions placed on my mons.
On the gyms, I was a bit annoyed about the style of them -- I honestly like fighting gym trainers even if I don't care about most regular trainers, because they feel like a nice and logical test prep for what you're about to encounter and a good gauge for your levels. Instead, I'm using Miraidon to pop a giant olive over fences like I'm playing Bad Rocket League, riding Miraidon down a slope with worse controls while it slides, fast traveling to a location so I can have one fight while I deliver a wallet, or even just grabbing or fighting a few Sunfloras. The experiences don't feel natural and the idea of why some of them are there doesn't make them anymore authentic -- the olive rolling being explained as a cultural aspect would be fine if towns felt like they were more than just a few people standing around and the same few food stores every time.
That aside, Larry is the best damn gym leader ever and I will die on that hill. What a gem. I would accept him showing up in future games, even if it made no sense whatsoever.
Also, I did appreciate the Ghost gym double battles -- even if I normally play with one mon, I'm a fan of double battles (I force them on when playing older games on randomizers) so it was nice to see their reappearance, even if only briefly.
So, on the Titan path, it's a wholesome thing and it's worthwhile abilities, so not much else for me to add on that.
Starfall Street hurt my soul, though. When I first saw Team Star in Mesagoza, I was all-in on them because the star pose was stylish as all hell, so I was saving the Operation: Starfall missions for last because I liked the idea of having multiple bosses with personalities to fight against that might be like extra gyms catered toward a particular typing.
Instead, you're treated to a dumb mini-game, where you either have high enough level mons to just spam the R button over and over until it's over, or you potentially have to take a break at vending machines. Actual combat? Nope. You just waste time until you fulfill a quota of auto-battling, then you get one actual fight with the boss. The backstory feels like a joke when you learn about these characters, especially with Eri -- she's such a badass, I feel like she could just choke-slam anyone that wanted to bully her. All the fights being with Revarooms did nothing for me, as their fights overall just felt like a weaker Gym Leader battle in each instance.
When I resolved the Pokemon League (Larry's such a champ), Starfall Street, and Titans, I went into Area 0 and was greeted with forced, unscrollable text that didn't have boxes to even read it well while I'm trying to dodge mons that are gunning for me while I'm hoofing it to the bottom.
I mentioned earlier that I used a glitch to skip dialogue, and the reason is because of that text. It wasn't that it was awful having to read the text, but it was because while the dialogue was going on, you could not target visible mons or even access your own menu to heal your mons if you needed to. In the cave section of Area Zero, this became obnoxious when I was trying to grab a Glimmora and one of the Paradox mons. When I realized my choices were to wait for people to finish talking before doing any walking or trying to get around it, I decided to I'd try dropping off a cliff for fun and see if I could make faster progress. Turns out that if you hit the right kind of slopes, your group follows you down (while talking) OR you get your position reset right in front of the next checkpoint and the dialogue gets cut completely -- which means I'm free to try and catch things again. YAY.
I know I said that I didn't want to talk much about technical issues, but it's worth noting that upon beating the game, I was treated to credits I physically COULD NOT WATCH. The juddering was so intense that it was hurting my eyes to even look at the screen. I had to just kinda check back every minute or so to see how progress was going and just watch my spouse play her Scarlet version instead. What breaks my brain is that somehow this got through QA with either 1) nobody experiencing this particular bug or 2) someone experiencing this and it somehow being considered unimportant enough that it slid through, potentially for future patching. Maybe this doesn't happen on docked Switches. Once my spouse beats her version, I intend to see if the issue is replicated on her system as well.
Other things worth noting:
-- Nemona is wonderful and if you want great fanfic inspiration, playing a female character with Nemona as your best "rival" ever is a treat. It's so nice to have a character that's supposed to challenge you that isn't a complete jerk or just Captain Blandsville.
-- Online components are largely solid. We had one frustrating moment when trying to do co-op Tera Raids, but generally online trading between friends was smooth as silk. Haven't gotten to battle yet, so I can't speak on that.
-- Surprise (Wonder) Trades are very unintuitive. Why would you notify the player that the trade was successful and not take them straight to the trade? Instead, you're forced to jump into Poke Portal just to look. It'd make sense if you had to wait a long time for trades, but my longest wait was about 15 seconds. It just feels like extra steps that don't make sense.
-- Larry's still the best, but Nemona is also still the best.
-- Most of the new mons are interesting and I'm looking forward to testing them out. I also approve of the new evolutions added to some familiar mons.
-- Tera Types feel like they might allow for real strategic depth, but you absolutely would not realize it if you based it on the logic of gym leader fights.
-- The postgame is even worse than SW/SH, as it's just one legendary mon and a less-skillful Battle Tower (the Ace Tourney).
-- It's an absolute crime that Game Freak somehow decided not to add visual or audio cues for shinies. What the hell were they thinking? I've caught two so far (Murkrow and Goomy) and probably missed at least another four. Some mons are so tiny that the only real ways to test are auto-battling (they won't attack a shiny) or to run into them because you can't even tell with squinting as to what their colors are (and lighting and textures messing with lighting can mess with how a mon appears).
-- Really dig some of the new items, though some do feel overpowered (Covert Cloak, I'm looking at you).
-- Picnics feel like a natural evolution of Pokemon Amie, but my spouse got a lot more value out of it than me, as she's reaping the usual rewards of free dodges and status effect removals. I've only bred out four eggs, and that was just so I could give Quaxly to some friends who might need them.
-- I love me some Fashion Souls and Fashion Pokemon, so it's disappointing that I'm stuck with one of four awful outfits and just adding accents to the rest of the fashion around said outfits. I've wasted way too much currency in previous games on having all kinds of fashion choices to swap through. This one was a joke to save money on, because it's so hard to get a genuine look going, so I just settled for one outfit, some tights, shoes, glasses, and gloves, and called it a day. All the purple love, though.
That's probably a good attempt at summarizing my experience with the game. It's insanely glitchy and buggy and Game Freak has no business running a short development cycle on something like this and releasing it in such an unpolished state, but it's still a worthwhile game at its core. It absolutely demands a patch (and maybe a GTS if they can keep it free of absurd trade requests), and I feel like whatever DLC that's coming to account for the top-right corner of the map is going to be a disappointment, but maybe I'll be wrong on that. At this point, I'm looking forward to getting the last eight mons I need for a Shiny Charm and building some teams to battle friends with. Even with all my griefs, I can't avoid playing because at the end of the day, it's still Pokemon. It may not be my Pokemon, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate that core experience.
2022
This review contains spoilers
Note: This review is actually an observation of the entirety of my wife's playthrough -- she did 100% of the game on HARD difficulty (100% including all vault keys, all side-cutscenes, all optional emblems used for the side-cutscenes, MAX for all stats, and all the logs from Robotnik in fishing along with 100% of fish types caught).
I'm just going to go all over the place about this game. To start with, it should be noted that -- at least for the Switch -- the game has absolutely horrible pop-in. When looking for required emblems to advance the story, so much platform terrain just kinda pops in when you come within about 20 feet of it and it's a bit silly when you're running around at the speed of sound.
It's also worth noting that this pop-in seems to happen with a certain particular platform type -- one that requires you to press the correct button in order to launch yourself in the correct direction or else the platform drops you. In this instance, there are times where the platforms will simply fail to display the required button press in order to successfully use the platform. Whoops!
I get what people say about the overworld feeling rather lifeless at times, as it really is just cutscene spots and platforming areas for emblems, along with the occasional regular enemies and mini-bosses. Moreover, the music feels largely like ambience in the overworld and not really indicative of the usual Sonic fare that's upbeat and energetic.
Enemies are simple, but interesting enough when it comes to utilizing the mechanics you've learned. Mini-bosses shine a bit more, as they do require some significant work to deal with and some of the design behind them can feel rather clever -- I'm particularly fond of the Strider and Sumo mini-bosses, myself.
Actual bosses are much less interesting, as they devolve into battles with Super Sonic, where he's either taking so little damage as to be negligible while trying to dish out combos or it's QTEs that can result in instant death.
My wife is pretty good at Sonic games in general and has played through nearly all Sonic games that have been released, and she's stated that the game feels significantly too easy, even on HARD difficulty. It should be noted that HARD difficulty is required in order to fight the "true" final boss, but you might be better off for skipping it -- I'll go into that later.
The combos and abilities that you get by earning skill points through completing map puzzles and defeating enemies or exploring the maps are fun and allow you to feel like a wrecking ball of super damage. You'll max out your skill points eons before finishing the game -- my wife finished the game with approximately 700 extra skill points available.
The actual levels you find to play in each area are the real treasures of the game, as most of them are designed well enough and have lots of optional pathing to them, even if the pathing is simple in nature and ultimately leads back the same way. The soundtrack for the actual levels is anywhere between pleasant and downright solid. There's no real matching thematics between the overworld areas you're in and the actual levels (other than the last area having all levels with a similar background).
The most damning thing about this game is the optional final boss if you decide to play on HARD mode. There are points in the story where you'll be required to do mini-games to proceed and a couple instances, you get to play a bad version of Ikaruga. Your reward for reaching "THE END" (the final boss) is another Ikaruga sequence, but ridiculously long and with no way to exit the sequence at all -- if you die, you keep coming back and starting the fight anew. It's not a short fight, either -- it's probably about ten minutes long? And it doesn't care about whether you're Super Sonic, as it follows the same rules as the regular Ikaruga mini-games -- get hit three times and you lose and restart ad nauseum. No spin-dashing, no homing attacks (well, the ZR shot when you build enough charge is like a homing attack, I guess), nothing in the vein of what you'd expect from a Sonic boss fight. It's utterly absurd and I can't fathom why they thought it was a good idea for an end boss. But hey, there's a Super Sonic QTE set at the end, so it's fine, right?! ...RIGHT?!
Some positive things I want to touch on that were just a bit of everywhere for me, personally:
-- The training screen when loading in or out of levels is a great idea, especially since it lets you stay in them for as long as you want and lets you refresh yourself with random lessons.
-- The fishing mini-game is very relaxing and I could see the music being used as a YouTube Lo-Fi Beats track SO EASILY.
-- The platform bits for getting optional emblems were largely well-designed and a number of them evoked the speedy feeling you're looking for from a Sonic experience.
-- The ABSOLUTE BEST THING about this game might be the bugs. There is one annoying bug with a map puzzle that can be resolved by saving and reloading if it doesn't work properly.
In general though, the big bug with this game that makes for a stellar experience for anyone who wants to feel that Sonic speed in full is that certain texture planes in any of the second or later areas can be boosted into at certain angles and the game simply chooses not to limit your acceleration, so you can blast off into the sky so very far if you want. At one point, my wife was able to mostly climb to the highest points in the desert plateaus because she just kept using certain outcropping textures as points to launch herself into the sky. In one instance, she managed to fling herself halfway across the map in one boost, simply because as long as you don't boost again after you launch, the game just lifts you higher and higher (and you can do tricks for skill points while it's happening!). Although there's a hypothetical limit before deceleration kicks in, it's so absurd how much you can exploit it just to have a good time that it doesn't even matter that there's any limitations.
-- To add to that point, there are aspects of boosting in the actual levels that allows this kind of subversion of the design expectations for said levels. You can sometimes just boost under the right conditions and fling yourself drastic distances beyond what you'd normally expect. I encourage you to mess around with these things. Good times abound, I assure you.
All-in-all, I think it's a good enough time for your average Sonic fan and just blasting around in the overworld areas via boosting off textures is grand (to watch and do). My wife adores the game, outside of a couple pointless mini-games, so I'd say for anyone who really enjoys Sonic games and doesn't have too much judgment about them beyond just wanting to play more of them, you can probably feel fulfilled in picking this up. For anyone else, I'd say to wait for at least a half-off sale, and I'd advise everyone to avoid the Switch version just because of the awful pop-in issues the game has.
I'm just going to go all over the place about this game. To start with, it should be noted that -- at least for the Switch -- the game has absolutely horrible pop-in. When looking for required emblems to advance the story, so much platform terrain just kinda pops in when you come within about 20 feet of it and it's a bit silly when you're running around at the speed of sound.
It's also worth noting that this pop-in seems to happen with a certain particular platform type -- one that requires you to press the correct button in order to launch yourself in the correct direction or else the platform drops you. In this instance, there are times where the platforms will simply fail to display the required button press in order to successfully use the platform. Whoops!
I get what people say about the overworld feeling rather lifeless at times, as it really is just cutscene spots and platforming areas for emblems, along with the occasional regular enemies and mini-bosses. Moreover, the music feels largely like ambience in the overworld and not really indicative of the usual Sonic fare that's upbeat and energetic.
Enemies are simple, but interesting enough when it comes to utilizing the mechanics you've learned. Mini-bosses shine a bit more, as they do require some significant work to deal with and some of the design behind them can feel rather clever -- I'm particularly fond of the Strider and Sumo mini-bosses, myself.
Actual bosses are much less interesting, as they devolve into battles with Super Sonic, where he's either taking so little damage as to be negligible while trying to dish out combos or it's QTEs that can result in instant death.
My wife is pretty good at Sonic games in general and has played through nearly all Sonic games that have been released, and she's stated that the game feels significantly too easy, even on HARD difficulty. It should be noted that HARD difficulty is required in order to fight the "true" final boss, but you might be better off for skipping it -- I'll go into that later.
The combos and abilities that you get by earning skill points through completing map puzzles and defeating enemies or exploring the maps are fun and allow you to feel like a wrecking ball of super damage. You'll max out your skill points eons before finishing the game -- my wife finished the game with approximately 700 extra skill points available.
The actual levels you find to play in each area are the real treasures of the game, as most of them are designed well enough and have lots of optional pathing to them, even if the pathing is simple in nature and ultimately leads back the same way. The soundtrack for the actual levels is anywhere between pleasant and downright solid. There's no real matching thematics between the overworld areas you're in and the actual levels (other than the last area having all levels with a similar background).
The most damning thing about this game is the optional final boss if you decide to play on HARD mode. There are points in the story where you'll be required to do mini-games to proceed and a couple instances, you get to play a bad version of Ikaruga. Your reward for reaching "THE END" (the final boss) is another Ikaruga sequence, but ridiculously long and with no way to exit the sequence at all -- if you die, you keep coming back and starting the fight anew. It's not a short fight, either -- it's probably about ten minutes long? And it doesn't care about whether you're Super Sonic, as it follows the same rules as the regular Ikaruga mini-games -- get hit three times and you lose and restart ad nauseum. No spin-dashing, no homing attacks (well, the ZR shot when you build enough charge is like a homing attack, I guess), nothing in the vein of what you'd expect from a Sonic boss fight. It's utterly absurd and I can't fathom why they thought it was a good idea for an end boss. But hey, there's a Super Sonic QTE set at the end, so it's fine, right?! ...RIGHT?!
Some positive things I want to touch on that were just a bit of everywhere for me, personally:
-- The training screen when loading in or out of levels is a great idea, especially since it lets you stay in them for as long as you want and lets you refresh yourself with random lessons.
-- The fishing mini-game is very relaxing and I could see the music being used as a YouTube Lo-Fi Beats track SO EASILY.
-- The platform bits for getting optional emblems were largely well-designed and a number of them evoked the speedy feeling you're looking for from a Sonic experience.
-- The ABSOLUTE BEST THING about this game might be the bugs. There is one annoying bug with a map puzzle that can be resolved by saving and reloading if it doesn't work properly.
In general though, the big bug with this game that makes for a stellar experience for anyone who wants to feel that Sonic speed in full is that certain texture planes in any of the second or later areas can be boosted into at certain angles and the game simply chooses not to limit your acceleration, so you can blast off into the sky so very far if you want. At one point, my wife was able to mostly climb to the highest points in the desert plateaus because she just kept using certain outcropping textures as points to launch herself into the sky. In one instance, she managed to fling herself halfway across the map in one boost, simply because as long as you don't boost again after you launch, the game just lifts you higher and higher (and you can do tricks for skill points while it's happening!). Although there's a hypothetical limit before deceleration kicks in, it's so absurd how much you can exploit it just to have a good time that it doesn't even matter that there's any limitations.
-- To add to that point, there are aspects of boosting in the actual levels that allows this kind of subversion of the design expectations for said levels. You can sometimes just boost under the right conditions and fling yourself drastic distances beyond what you'd normally expect. I encourage you to mess around with these things. Good times abound, I assure you.
All-in-all, I think it's a good enough time for your average Sonic fan and just blasting around in the overworld areas via boosting off textures is grand (to watch and do). My wife adores the game, outside of a couple pointless mini-games, so I'd say for anyone who really enjoys Sonic games and doesn't have too much judgment about them beyond just wanting to play more of them, you can probably feel fulfilled in picking this up. For anyone else, I'd say to wait for at least a half-off sale, and I'd advise everyone to avoid the Switch version just because of the awful pop-in issues the game has.
1992
Just going back and reviewing this because I decided to do a "platinum" run on RetroAchievements and it's been a hot minute since I got to plow through this game.
It definitely shows its age in how important grinding can be for some characters, especially if you aren't familiar with the fact that promoting some characters immediately at Level 10 is a death knell for their growth after promotion (and a harder time because you start at Level 1 in the new class with reduced stats from what you had previously).
It's still appealing visually, as far as Genesis games go, but the soundtrack gets pretty old, given how few tracks there are for the thirty battles you're going to have to endure. The cutscene fights are always fun to look at, but like some older games that share this style (I'm looking at you, Brigandine), the music for fight scenes can get REALLY OLD, REALLY FAST.
I still appreciate the numerous optional characters that you can find, especially since they largely encourage you to really just look around a bit before and after each fight (although you can hilariously miss characters that aren't supposed to be optional, like in the case of Diane). Some of the optional characters are siege tanks against your opponents, like in the case of Musashi or Hanzou near the endgame -- and it's so very easy to miss them.
Healers are awful to level up and make grinding even more tedious until they learn Aura and you're suddenly incentivized to take damage and bunch up in poor formations so you can maximize the experience earned by an Aura.
There are two overwhelmingly large problems with the game that are worth noting.
The first is relative to the grind -- knowing when it's a good time to actually grind out some levels is important and it's easy to just be on a good clip and think you'll be fine, only to run into a true wall that punishes you perpetually because you didn't take advantage of a good grind point earlier. The first and second stages of the Ramladu fight are the perfect example of this, as they're prime real estate for grinding -- but if you have even a couple decent characters, the actual fights are so easy that you might just rush through them without getting the myriad free levels available to you by just knocking out all enemies except the last one for each area (probably a Dark Priest in the first area) and Egressing. The second fight in the Ramladu section screams, "PLEASE GRIND YOUR CHARACTERS HERE."
But also worth noting, if you come in late with low levels and you're suddenly only doing 1 point of damage with most characters, getting those levels -- even in an area made for it -- is going to be an even worse chore than you're normally accustomed to. As an example, trying to get Luke to 20 before promoting him to GLDR means he couldn't use upgraded weapons, so he's running around with a Middle Sword from near the beginning of the game and doing about 5 damage to enemies when his actual damage output is probably one of the highest in the game post-promotion. It's a balancing act, and one that players aren't warned about.
The second issue worth noting is just one of statistics -- for whatever reason, some enemies in this game have god-tier evasion (bosses included) and you will just lose characters or entire fights because RNG said NO today. The biggest culprit of this are the Chimera at the very end of the game. I was keeping count on multiple whiffs during grinding of the Ramladu fight (there's six chimera in the first area) and my AVERAGE miss count was around SEVEN times when attacking just Chimera. I peaked at SIXTEEN in one particular grind run. SIXTEEN MISSES IN A ROW. That's an entire party's turn and another one-third of the next turn if they all could strike said Chimera! Yeah, sometimes you roll the bad RNG, but there are definitely enemies in this game where it's obviously noticeable that the numbers aren't right.
All that negativity aside, I still really adore this game. Pop on a soundtrack for a better JRPG or SRPG, try out some different character combinations, and ignore the fairly generic story and the bare bones is actually a solid time for your average SRPG fan. No reason not to give this a go if you like turn-based strategy games, and SEGA is really good at discounting it for their Mega Collection stuffs if you're getting it on Steam, so you can always just wait on a sale.
It definitely shows its age in how important grinding can be for some characters, especially if you aren't familiar with the fact that promoting some characters immediately at Level 10 is a death knell for their growth after promotion (and a harder time because you start at Level 1 in the new class with reduced stats from what you had previously).
It's still appealing visually, as far as Genesis games go, but the soundtrack gets pretty old, given how few tracks there are for the thirty battles you're going to have to endure. The cutscene fights are always fun to look at, but like some older games that share this style (I'm looking at you, Brigandine), the music for fight scenes can get REALLY OLD, REALLY FAST.
I still appreciate the numerous optional characters that you can find, especially since they largely encourage you to really just look around a bit before and after each fight (although you can hilariously miss characters that aren't supposed to be optional, like in the case of Diane). Some of the optional characters are siege tanks against your opponents, like in the case of Musashi or Hanzou near the endgame -- and it's so very easy to miss them.
Healers are awful to level up and make grinding even more tedious until they learn Aura and you're suddenly incentivized to take damage and bunch up in poor formations so you can maximize the experience earned by an Aura.
There are two overwhelmingly large problems with the game that are worth noting.
The first is relative to the grind -- knowing when it's a good time to actually grind out some levels is important and it's easy to just be on a good clip and think you'll be fine, only to run into a true wall that punishes you perpetually because you didn't take advantage of a good grind point earlier. The first and second stages of the Ramladu fight are the perfect example of this, as they're prime real estate for grinding -- but if you have even a couple decent characters, the actual fights are so easy that you might just rush through them without getting the myriad free levels available to you by just knocking out all enemies except the last one for each area (probably a Dark Priest in the first area) and Egressing. The second fight in the Ramladu section screams, "PLEASE GRIND YOUR CHARACTERS HERE."
But also worth noting, if you come in late with low levels and you're suddenly only doing 1 point of damage with most characters, getting those levels -- even in an area made for it -- is going to be an even worse chore than you're normally accustomed to. As an example, trying to get Luke to 20 before promoting him to GLDR means he couldn't use upgraded weapons, so he's running around with a Middle Sword from near the beginning of the game and doing about 5 damage to enemies when his actual damage output is probably one of the highest in the game post-promotion. It's a balancing act, and one that players aren't warned about.
The second issue worth noting is just one of statistics -- for whatever reason, some enemies in this game have god-tier evasion (bosses included) and you will just lose characters or entire fights because RNG said NO today. The biggest culprit of this are the Chimera at the very end of the game. I was keeping count on multiple whiffs during grinding of the Ramladu fight (there's six chimera in the first area) and my AVERAGE miss count was around SEVEN times when attacking just Chimera. I peaked at SIXTEEN in one particular grind run. SIXTEEN MISSES IN A ROW. That's an entire party's turn and another one-third of the next turn if they all could strike said Chimera! Yeah, sometimes you roll the bad RNG, but there are definitely enemies in this game where it's obviously noticeable that the numbers aren't right.
All that negativity aside, I still really adore this game. Pop on a soundtrack for a better JRPG or SRPG, try out some different character combinations, and ignore the fairly generic story and the bare bones is actually a solid time for your average SRPG fan. No reason not to give this a go if you like turn-based strategy games, and SEGA is really good at discounting it for their Mega Collection stuffs if you're getting it on Steam, so you can always just wait on a sale.
2020
The story might be something really worthwhile if you follow through with it, but I wouldn't know...I kinda got burned out in the second act while committing to various tales that weren't related to the main quest.
I think the biggest issue I've run into is that once you've unlocked most of the abilities, gameplay just kinda feels like the same basic loops over and over with very little to distinguish them. The duels were fun, if nothing else. Chain assassinations are also fun, but that's not surprising for someone who likes to play stealth in games like I do.
There's definitely some issues of polish, as I had some very magical glitches happen. My personal favorite was when I rescued a hostage in a farming village, and while we were having the usual exchange of "you'll be free soon, get to safety" and all that, Jin started levitating upwards for a good ten seconds into the sky. He came back down just fine, but it was definitely an experience.
Also, my own note of both praise and hilarity -- I appreciate that the method of accounting for movement that might create a softlock was by checking for velocity while Jin wasn't moving in any horizontal (or vertical?) direction. At least, I think that's what it checks for before resetting position right before whatever caused the lock. But there's something to be said for trying to jump from a guardrail on a platform to another guardrail on another platform and having Jin rack his nuts against the guardrail while furiously making a running motion for a good five seconds before it resets the position. I may have recreated this scenario multiple times because it's just magical to watch. What can I say? Simple things amuse me.
I'll come back to this at some point to finish it, but I just need a break from all the sameness.
I think the biggest issue I've run into is that once you've unlocked most of the abilities, gameplay just kinda feels like the same basic loops over and over with very little to distinguish them. The duels were fun, if nothing else. Chain assassinations are also fun, but that's not surprising for someone who likes to play stealth in games like I do.
There's definitely some issues of polish, as I had some very magical glitches happen. My personal favorite was when I rescued a hostage in a farming village, and while we were having the usual exchange of "you'll be free soon, get to safety" and all that, Jin started levitating upwards for a good ten seconds into the sky. He came back down just fine, but it was definitely an experience.
Also, my own note of both praise and hilarity -- I appreciate that the method of accounting for movement that might create a softlock was by checking for velocity while Jin wasn't moving in any horizontal (or vertical?) direction. At least, I think that's what it checks for before resetting position right before whatever caused the lock. But there's something to be said for trying to jump from a guardrail on a platform to another guardrail on another platform and having Jin rack his nuts against the guardrail while furiously making a running motion for a good five seconds before it resets the position. I may have recreated this scenario multiple times because it's just magical to watch. What can I say? Simple things amuse me.
I'll come back to this at some point to finish it, but I just need a break from all the sameness.
2021
Why am I not surprised that this is from the guy who made Pony Island. Of course it's my jam and of course it's getting five stars for being the insanity that I love.
The game is worth talking about extensively, but I'd just prefer to say...go get it and play it. Worth it full price, no question.
The game is worth talking about extensively, but I'd just prefer to say...go get it and play it. Worth it full price, no question.
Short thoughts:
-- Story's great, once it really gets going.
-- Most of the dungeons feel distinct from one-another (especially the Womb of Grief, which was apparently an add-on to Redux).
-- As others have said, being able to allocate your stat points would be nice.
I think there could be some improvement in how fusion is handled in this game, but coming off of Soul Hackers 2, I feel like any fusion system is going to feel better to me, personally.
Overall, I'd highly recommend it for fans of dungeon crawlers. Never finished the original, so I can't really give a fair comparison between the two.
-- Story's great, once it really gets going.
-- Most of the dungeons feel distinct from one-another (especially the Womb of Grief, which was apparently an add-on to Redux).
-- As others have said, being able to allocate your stat points would be nice.
I think there could be some improvement in how fusion is handled in this game, but coming off of Soul Hackers 2, I feel like any fusion system is going to feel better to me, personally.
Overall, I'd highly recommend it for fans of dungeon crawlers. Never finished the original, so I can't really give a fair comparison between the two.
A lot's already been said about this game regarding its writing and I'll tenth, twelfth, hundredth, thousandth it because the writing is amazing and I have not laughed as hard as I did at my potential for chaos based on choices in a long time.
The short of it is, the game is fascinating in many ways and well-written, but the soundtrack is completely flat for me and I ran into some very strange bugs that caused varying degrees of grief for me.
Some were just minor issues like the wrong audio playing for whatever narrative aspect is talking at a given time, or when Kim went to say something and it was about triple the volume of what the rest of the dialogue was and almost blew out my speakers.
One was a bit annoying, in the case of a bug that caused me to be unable to traverse a room I'd already been into before because my character would not walk more than a few feet in and just ceased being willing to interact with anything I could see, giving me no choice but to leave, go all the way around to the other side of the building, and head back into said room from the other side to reach what I was trying to get to. Annoying, but not the worst thing ever.
The real crime is that for how slow the game is, the fast travel system is either a mess or broken, depending on who you talk to. I was able to fast travel one time with the map -- when I first unlocked a new fast travel point. After that, every time I tried to fast travel, it didn't give me an option. I read on the discussion board on Steam that some people suggested it was a requirement for you to be in one of the fast travel areas to travel to another area, but no dice for me. Then I happened upon people mentioning that it just stopped working for them after a certain day in the game.
It's nice that time doesn't move while you're not engaged in a particular activity, but for the amount of distance you get to cover with your Jamrock Shuffle, it's ridiculous that you have to just resign yourself (or at least I did) to walking all the way back and forth between multiple points in what I can only describe as a slog that deprives the enjoyment of digging deeper into the story.
Absolutely recommend the game, just with the caveat that you better bring patience because depending on the bugs you get (apparently others were worse off than I was), you may be getting more mileage than you're bargaining for -- especially when it comes to walking.
Absolutely get it, just get it on a sale. It's worth a playthrough, regardless of the slog.
The short of it is, the game is fascinating in many ways and well-written, but the soundtrack is completely flat for me and I ran into some very strange bugs that caused varying degrees of grief for me.
Some were just minor issues like the wrong audio playing for whatever narrative aspect is talking at a given time, or when Kim went to say something and it was about triple the volume of what the rest of the dialogue was and almost blew out my speakers.
One was a bit annoying, in the case of a bug that caused me to be unable to traverse a room I'd already been into before because my character would not walk more than a few feet in and just ceased being willing to interact with anything I could see, giving me no choice but to leave, go all the way around to the other side of the building, and head back into said room from the other side to reach what I was trying to get to. Annoying, but not the worst thing ever.
The real crime is that for how slow the game is, the fast travel system is either a mess or broken, depending on who you talk to. I was able to fast travel one time with the map -- when I first unlocked a new fast travel point. After that, every time I tried to fast travel, it didn't give me an option. I read on the discussion board on Steam that some people suggested it was a requirement for you to be in one of the fast travel areas to travel to another area, but no dice for me. Then I happened upon people mentioning that it just stopped working for them after a certain day in the game.
It's nice that time doesn't move while you're not engaged in a particular activity, but for the amount of distance you get to cover with your Jamrock Shuffle, it's ridiculous that you have to just resign yourself (or at least I did) to walking all the way back and forth between multiple points in what I can only describe as a slog that deprives the enjoyment of digging deeper into the story.
Absolutely recommend the game, just with the caveat that you better bring patience because depending on the bugs you get (apparently others were worse off than I was), you may be getting more mileage than you're bargaining for -- especially when it comes to walking.
Absolutely get it, just get it on a sale. It's worth a playthrough, regardless of the slog.
2022
Take some of the fun aesthetics of the later Persona games and mix them with a bunch of questionable design decisions and a story that's very blah with a deus ex junkina of a reveal toward the end based on so very little reasoning.
Demon fusion feels half-assed, with four skills (upgradable to six EVENTUALLY) making every demon feel rather lackluster in their abilities. Sure, the restriction of choices should teach you to value your demons more, but there's so much overlap between various demons that it hardly feels like the endgame choices matter as much. And if you got yourself a demon you like before you unlocked your sixth skill slot? Well, hope you like teaching stuff to your Mitamas and fusing them with your demons, because that's about the only way you're going to be able to flesh out your skill set further.
I do like the inclusion of flavored Frosts, and I don't really care that much about the fusion system being completely basic (no moon phases to sweat or account for, no accidents, just vanilla fusing). I do take issue with the fact that it's ridiculously expensive to use the compendium and that performing sidequests to lower the cost only drops demon summoning costs by what...15 or 20%? Makes endgame mixing and matching fruitless because you don't want to spend all your money on just trying to hone a demon into something you'd specifically like.
Why? Because of COMP ingredient farming. Seemed like a great idea at first, as it makes all encounters seem fruitful when you're potentially getting ingredients needed for certain upgrades to your COMP system to make you more powerful. Except not every enemy drops an ingredient and ignoring any enemies in an area means you're likely missing out on ingredients necessary for some upgrades. So, why wouldn't you just fight every monster?
Because monster encounter rates are ridiculous to the point of exhaustion. Ringo moves slowly in her "run" and only Treasure Monsters actually try and flee from you, so you will spend most of the game slashing at monsters to knock them down and then fight them or go around them. And when I say most, I mean that in my 50 hours or so of playing, probably around 40-42 was spent slashing at monsters and engaging in combat. It's a genuine slog of the worst caliber. But if the level design is nice, doesn't that mitigate the issues, at least?
Except the level designs are poor. Early on, you're introduced to the Soul Matrix and you learn that you're going to be spending some time there if you want to be remotely equipped for the main areas of the game. There's a soul matrix area for each character with a number of floors that you can reach over time, though I won't get into how you unlock those floors. The floors for the soul matrix all look relatively the same, with some slight variations in how to progress in them that give a mild puzzle-feel to the area, but not in a clever or interesting way.
The actual areas of the game where the story progresses feel even more vanilla, with the exception of the final area of the game, which is a great time if you enjoy load screens and continuously backtracking to make progress.
I'd like to say that the boss fights make all the grinding and slogging worthwhile, but they don't stand out any bit more than previous SMT games do. Without the Press Turn system, there's no pressure on the player to sweat mistakes as hard, and especially no pressure to sweat demon choices, as being weak to something might cause you to take more damage, but does not give enemies more actions, so stress in the big fights is minimal. The Sabboth system seems like something that can be interesting, but it ultimately just culminates into getting all your Press Turn bonuses thrown into a stack that yields extra damage at the end of the turn. The Commander skills you eventually learn are alright, but outside of two particular ones, you can largely skip on most of them without bothering to scour for resources to unlock them.
I'd like to touch on the Soul Level system, but I'm trying to keep this relatively spoiler-free, so I'll just say that in regards to it, you can't really make any wrong choices (including during Hangouts), so go wild and unlock things in the direction that you want (unless you're going for platinum, in which case, go check a guide).
Sidequests are nothingburgers, the music is okay, everyone who isn't Milady is okay (Milady is great once you get past the "I'm a cold badass" bit) -- most of the game is just okay.
A friend I talked to that was also playing the game purchased the DLC (I don't know if she picked up the additional story level) and mentioned to me that regarding the costume DLC -- apparently, it only lets displays your equipped costumes in battle. Not during your constant running around or cutscenes, just battles. That sounds awful and if I recall correctly, it's like 13 USD for that, so even if you're interested in playing this, maybe consider passing on that particular DLC.
For reference, I played this on Normal all the way through. You can change your difficulty at any given point so if I'm being frank about getting the most enjoyment out of this by mitigating some of the frustration, I'd say to just play on Easy until you get to boss fights and then run it on Normal so you can at least get a feel for what the actual experience should be like without having to spend quite as much time grinding the regular demon battles.
Is it worth getting? If you're a diehard SMT fan, you're going to get it anyway. If you're looking at it as a curiosity, it feels closer in nature (to me, at least) to Digital Devil Saga. I'd say to absolutely wait on a sale for it, because the story and the content in general just simply are not worth it. There are so many better SMT games out there. Go play the first Soul Hackers, or any of the Persona games (maybe not the first). Go play NOCTURNE.
You can do better than this, because ATLUS could have done better than this.
Demon fusion feels half-assed, with four skills (upgradable to six EVENTUALLY) making every demon feel rather lackluster in their abilities. Sure, the restriction of choices should teach you to value your demons more, but there's so much overlap between various demons that it hardly feels like the endgame choices matter as much. And if you got yourself a demon you like before you unlocked your sixth skill slot? Well, hope you like teaching stuff to your Mitamas and fusing them with your demons, because that's about the only way you're going to be able to flesh out your skill set further.
I do like the inclusion of flavored Frosts, and I don't really care that much about the fusion system being completely basic (no moon phases to sweat or account for, no accidents, just vanilla fusing). I do take issue with the fact that it's ridiculously expensive to use the compendium and that performing sidequests to lower the cost only drops demon summoning costs by what...15 or 20%? Makes endgame mixing and matching fruitless because you don't want to spend all your money on just trying to hone a demon into something you'd specifically like.
Why? Because of COMP ingredient farming. Seemed like a great idea at first, as it makes all encounters seem fruitful when you're potentially getting ingredients needed for certain upgrades to your COMP system to make you more powerful. Except not every enemy drops an ingredient and ignoring any enemies in an area means you're likely missing out on ingredients necessary for some upgrades. So, why wouldn't you just fight every monster?
Because monster encounter rates are ridiculous to the point of exhaustion. Ringo moves slowly in her "run" and only Treasure Monsters actually try and flee from you, so you will spend most of the game slashing at monsters to knock them down and then fight them or go around them. And when I say most, I mean that in my 50 hours or so of playing, probably around 40-42 was spent slashing at monsters and engaging in combat. It's a genuine slog of the worst caliber. But if the level design is nice, doesn't that mitigate the issues, at least?
Except the level designs are poor. Early on, you're introduced to the Soul Matrix and you learn that you're going to be spending some time there if you want to be remotely equipped for the main areas of the game. There's a soul matrix area for each character with a number of floors that you can reach over time, though I won't get into how you unlock those floors. The floors for the soul matrix all look relatively the same, with some slight variations in how to progress in them that give a mild puzzle-feel to the area, but not in a clever or interesting way.
The actual areas of the game where the story progresses feel even more vanilla, with the exception of the final area of the game, which is a great time if you enjoy load screens and continuously backtracking to make progress.
I'd like to say that the boss fights make all the grinding and slogging worthwhile, but they don't stand out any bit more than previous SMT games do. Without the Press Turn system, there's no pressure on the player to sweat mistakes as hard, and especially no pressure to sweat demon choices, as being weak to something might cause you to take more damage, but does not give enemies more actions, so stress in the big fights is minimal. The Sabboth system seems like something that can be interesting, but it ultimately just culminates into getting all your Press Turn bonuses thrown into a stack that yields extra damage at the end of the turn. The Commander skills you eventually learn are alright, but outside of two particular ones, you can largely skip on most of them without bothering to scour for resources to unlock them.
I'd like to touch on the Soul Level system, but I'm trying to keep this relatively spoiler-free, so I'll just say that in regards to it, you can't really make any wrong choices (including during Hangouts), so go wild and unlock things in the direction that you want (unless you're going for platinum, in which case, go check a guide).
Sidequests are nothingburgers, the music is okay, everyone who isn't Milady is okay (Milady is great once you get past the "I'm a cold badass" bit) -- most of the game is just okay.
A friend I talked to that was also playing the game purchased the DLC (I don't know if she picked up the additional story level) and mentioned to me that regarding the costume DLC -- apparently, it only lets displays your equipped costumes in battle. Not during your constant running around or cutscenes, just battles. That sounds awful and if I recall correctly, it's like 13 USD for that, so even if you're interested in playing this, maybe consider passing on that particular DLC.
For reference, I played this on Normal all the way through. You can change your difficulty at any given point so if I'm being frank about getting the most enjoyment out of this by mitigating some of the frustration, I'd say to just play on Easy until you get to boss fights and then run it on Normal so you can at least get a feel for what the actual experience should be like without having to spend quite as much time grinding the regular demon battles.
Is it worth getting? If you're a diehard SMT fan, you're going to get it anyway. If you're looking at it as a curiosity, it feels closer in nature (to me, at least) to Digital Devil Saga. I'd say to absolutely wait on a sale for it, because the story and the content in general just simply are not worth it. There are so many better SMT games out there. Go play the first Soul Hackers, or any of the Persona games (maybe not the first). Go play NOCTURNE.
You can do better than this, because ATLUS could have done better than this.
2022
Been really excited about getting around to play this. Not going to rate it because it's hard to appreciate a game centered around movie-like gameplay with QTEs when the game is chugging and the audio's decided to just leave the video behind.
I'm using a GTX 1070 and the Minimum Requirements calls for a GTX 780, but damn...especially when first moving to a new scene, anything above lowest settings was giving me Frames Per Minute instead of Frames Per Second in many cases. On lowest settings, there was still substantial chugging to the point that I just wasn't comfortable with trying to play it any further.
Will come back to this if I ever get a new video card or if I PS+ ends up offering up the game at some point like they did with Man of Medan (unlikely, but I can always hope). Mostly just dropping this here so people can make a note that they probably want a better video card than what I've got unless they're willing to settle for some awful chugging at times and poor visual quality.
I'm using a GTX 1070 and the Minimum Requirements calls for a GTX 780, but damn...especially when first moving to a new scene, anything above lowest settings was giving me Frames Per Minute instead of Frames Per Second in many cases. On lowest settings, there was still substantial chugging to the point that I just wasn't comfortable with trying to play it any further.
Will come back to this if I ever get a new video card or if I PS+ ends up offering up the game at some point like they did with Man of Medan (unlikely, but I can always hope). Mostly just dropping this here so people can make a note that they probably want a better video card than what I've got unless they're willing to settle for some awful chugging at times and poor visual quality.
2017
One of the most mediocre Metroidvanias out there. Enemies have very basic behaviors (and come in only two flavors of each type of enemy). As you free your fellow companions, you begin getting abilities out of them (and eventually get more abilities for each character from future bosses).
On bosses -- they're dullsville. Pretty straightforward in nearly every case. Worse still, if you take the time to grab upgrades for your characters (their weapon fire can be upgraded in two fashions) and you spend the time to fight enemies and pick up currency along the way for more and more food, you can tank LITERALLY ANY BOSS in the game.
If you don't bother to save some money for beacons, your desire for exploration will get you treated to being able to walk all the way back from the furthest progress points you can make. There is no fast travel, so you either spent money on a beacon to get back quickly or you invest in the time for a long walk. Which is strange, as there are basically two to three save rooms in each area of the game, so there's no real reason why they couldn't allow fast travel between activated save rooms. The biggest speculation I can make is that this fairly short game would be over VERY quickly otherwise.
I completed the game with 98.5% of stuff done in under six hours. If I had realized the importance of beacons early in the game, I probably could have done it in under four to get that same 98.5%. If I didn't want to explore at all, it's easily a three hour game.
And for 13 bucks? No. The game is very okay, but you should get it on a deep sale if you're on Steam. Fun fact: the game goes as low as 90% off, so just wait for that, because $1.29 for three hours is actually a pretty swell deal. Make no mistake, though -- this game is the utter definition of "whelming" -- not impressive, not horrible...just...a game.
On bosses -- they're dullsville. Pretty straightforward in nearly every case. Worse still, if you take the time to grab upgrades for your characters (their weapon fire can be upgraded in two fashions) and you spend the time to fight enemies and pick up currency along the way for more and more food, you can tank LITERALLY ANY BOSS in the game.
If you don't bother to save some money for beacons, your desire for exploration will get you treated to being able to walk all the way back from the furthest progress points you can make. There is no fast travel, so you either spent money on a beacon to get back quickly or you invest in the time for a long walk. Which is strange, as there are basically two to three save rooms in each area of the game, so there's no real reason why they couldn't allow fast travel between activated save rooms. The biggest speculation I can make is that this fairly short game would be over VERY quickly otherwise.
I completed the game with 98.5% of stuff done in under six hours. If I had realized the importance of beacons early in the game, I probably could have done it in under four to get that same 98.5%. If I didn't want to explore at all, it's easily a three hour game.
And for 13 bucks? No. The game is very okay, but you should get it on a deep sale if you're on Steam. Fun fact: the game goes as low as 90% off, so just wait for that, because $1.29 for three hours is actually a pretty swell deal. Make no mistake, though -- this game is the utter definition of "whelming" -- not impressive, not horrible...just...a game.
GRAB THIS GAME. The only reason I don't five-star this game is because there are some bugs that occasionally surface and at least one was responsible for making me have to die at least once in order to get back to normal progression.
That aside, level design and gameplay are STELLAR. The tower is a behemoth that sprawls upward and about and as you think you have a grasp on the size of the tower, you find that you're only seeing about half of what's actually there.
Secrets abound and you're actively encouraged to poke around. In fact, that's one of the quintessential cornerstones of why this game works -- it implores you to explore to your heart's content. Dying isn't an issue because any currency you build up is spendable on death and none of it is ever lost, even if you choose not to spend it. Worried you're not going to make it to whatever goal location you've got? Just try your best, spend some currency on upgrades after you die, and then come back to it again.
The character swap system is largely fun, though Arias wasn't really worth it to me and I spent most of my time switching between Kyuli (who I mained for her range) and Algus (after he got an ability that I found to be very useful).
Area progression is hypothetically linear, but sometimes getting lost can lead you to some secret areas that let you pick up some more goodies and come back with massive stomping powers as a result.
You could argue that if anything, the game actually gets too easy once you start branching out in different directions after the first boss because it's not difficult to start amassing orbs from a slew of enemies if you're not just actively avoiding them and some of the ability power-ups you find while exploring give you major leverage on both regular monsters and bosses.
Regarding bosses, all of them were fun to me, though as I mentioned before -- there wasn't much challenge after the first one. That's probably on me, but I won't delve into why because it's spoiler territory. Boss patterns are simple to understand and the difficulty in the fights lies largely in how to get the most damage out there without being greedy -- if you don't temper your desire to get a few extra hits in, you will pay the price.
Visually, it's an 8-bit spectacle and the bosses and minibosses are far more entertaining to look at (and fight) than most of the regular monsters.
Music is good, not great -- it's solid adventuring vibes throughout the entire tower, but none of them are specifically sticking with me right now after 100%ing the game.
Content is wonderful. There is a true ending for players who want incentive to strive for 100% bestiary, items, and map collection (the bestiary isn't mandatory, but you may as well if you're on your way!). There are multiple modes of play that are unlocked after beating the game or finding certain secrets/fulfilling certain conditions. Boss Rush and NG+ (which shuffles items and other such things) are some enjoyable staples, but there are others I won't mention here. Beyond the modes of play, there are other secrets that are optional to the main game that also alter the gameplay a bit.
I achieved 100% bestiary, items, and map completion along with the true ending at roughly 16 hours of time. I'd say at least an hour of that was wandering around, maybe two. There's a lot to get lost in, and that's a great thing in this game.
There are two features I'd like to add, but for sake of spoilers, I'll refrain from mentioning one of them. The other feature, however -- it would be nice if you could place markers on your map to indicate your own areas of interest. The game does try to give you a number of useful markers via some upgrades you purchase, but they're not really helpful when trying to figure out if you need a certain character for a certain ability in a room or if you just walked into a room, walked out, and never completed the room. In that respect, this map system could use the Batbarian treatment. Other than that, a little polish and at least for me, this is a 10/10 game. Buy it at full price, it's absolutely worth it at 20 bucks. Over a dozen of hours of fun before even unlocking multiple modes that change the dynamics of the game? ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, I'M THERE FOR IT.
That aside, level design and gameplay are STELLAR. The tower is a behemoth that sprawls upward and about and as you think you have a grasp on the size of the tower, you find that you're only seeing about half of what's actually there.
Secrets abound and you're actively encouraged to poke around. In fact, that's one of the quintessential cornerstones of why this game works -- it implores you to explore to your heart's content. Dying isn't an issue because any currency you build up is spendable on death and none of it is ever lost, even if you choose not to spend it. Worried you're not going to make it to whatever goal location you've got? Just try your best, spend some currency on upgrades after you die, and then come back to it again.
The character swap system is largely fun, though Arias wasn't really worth it to me and I spent most of my time switching between Kyuli (who I mained for her range) and Algus (after he got an ability that I found to be very useful).
Area progression is hypothetically linear, but sometimes getting lost can lead you to some secret areas that let you pick up some more goodies and come back with massive stomping powers as a result.
You could argue that if anything, the game actually gets too easy once you start branching out in different directions after the first boss because it's not difficult to start amassing orbs from a slew of enemies if you're not just actively avoiding them and some of the ability power-ups you find while exploring give you major leverage on both regular monsters and bosses.
Regarding bosses, all of them were fun to me, though as I mentioned before -- there wasn't much challenge after the first one. That's probably on me, but I won't delve into why because it's spoiler territory. Boss patterns are simple to understand and the difficulty in the fights lies largely in how to get the most damage out there without being greedy -- if you don't temper your desire to get a few extra hits in, you will pay the price.
Visually, it's an 8-bit spectacle and the bosses and minibosses are far more entertaining to look at (and fight) than most of the regular monsters.
Music is good, not great -- it's solid adventuring vibes throughout the entire tower, but none of them are specifically sticking with me right now after 100%ing the game.
Content is wonderful. There is a true ending for players who want incentive to strive for 100% bestiary, items, and map collection (the bestiary isn't mandatory, but you may as well if you're on your way!). There are multiple modes of play that are unlocked after beating the game or finding certain secrets/fulfilling certain conditions. Boss Rush and NG+ (which shuffles items and other such things) are some enjoyable staples, but there are others I won't mention here. Beyond the modes of play, there are other secrets that are optional to the main game that also alter the gameplay a bit.
I achieved 100% bestiary, items, and map completion along with the true ending at roughly 16 hours of time. I'd say at least an hour of that was wandering around, maybe two. There's a lot to get lost in, and that's a great thing in this game.
There are two features I'd like to add, but for sake of spoilers, I'll refrain from mentioning one of them. The other feature, however -- it would be nice if you could place markers on your map to indicate your own areas of interest. The game does try to give you a number of useful markers via some upgrades you purchase, but they're not really helpful when trying to figure out if you need a certain character for a certain ability in a room or if you just walked into a room, walked out, and never completed the room. In that respect, this map system could use the Batbarian treatment. Other than that, a little polish and at least for me, this is a 10/10 game. Buy it at full price, it's absolutely worth it at 20 bucks. Over a dozen of hours of fun before even unlocking multiple modes that change the dynamics of the game? ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, I'M THERE FOR IT.
2014
Cut this game in half and I'm here for it until the end of time. The alien AI is largely excellent, but I'm just not invested in droids or randos -- it's just different enemies and the same need for stealth while tackling them.
When the alien is on-screen, tension is extreme and it's easy to get panicky and on-edge. But I'd take periods of tension alleviated by periods of moving between semi-safe areas over Fetch Quest #37 because every single person on Sevastopol is incompetent or lazy. Haven't tried the DLCs, but I'll probably give them a go at some point.
The game is 100% worth a look just for some solid AI design in the alien, if nothing else.
When the alien is on-screen, tension is extreme and it's easy to get panicky and on-edge. But I'd take periods of tension alleviated by periods of moving between semi-safe areas over Fetch Quest #37 because every single person on Sevastopol is incompetent or lazy. Haven't tried the DLCs, but I'll probably give them a go at some point.
The game is 100% worth a look just for some solid AI design in the alien, if nothing else.
As a...sort of city-builder/tower defense game, it's kinda fun. It never gets particularly exciting, but getting to design your layout for your city in order to rotate it around and deal with waves of enemies is interesting.
If there's one issue that weighs heavily, it's that the game doesn't let you access useful info (as far as I could tell) like the help topics once you're in the planning and combat stages, which means that if you put the game off for a while and came back to it like I did after already building into your second city, you get to experience the fun of trying to remember how things work if you didn't read all the necessary help topics again from the command console.
If you told me this game was built for mobile originally, I'd believe it. The hook is there, but it's not deep enough to keep me invested when I'm multiple cities deep.
If there's one issue that weighs heavily, it's that the game doesn't let you access useful info (as far as I could tell) like the help topics once you're in the planning and combat stages, which means that if you put the game off for a while and came back to it like I did after already building into your second city, you get to experience the fun of trying to remember how things work if you didn't read all the necessary help topics again from the command console.
If you told me this game was built for mobile originally, I'd believe it. The hook is there, but it's not deep enough to keep me invested when I'm multiple cities deep.
Picked this back up on the PS5 after shelving it on PS4. Maybe there's something to the story, but I feel like I'm in a walking simulator that just sometimes forgets it's a walking simulator long enough for me to throw some rocks at things or run (sometimes you can run!).
I got through Chapter 5 and just couldn't keep going because I wasn't interested in the gameplay. Maybe there's some grand story there, but I'm not invested enough to play it and find out.
I got through Chapter 5 and just couldn't keep going because I wasn't interested in the gameplay. Maybe there's some grand story there, but I'm not invested enough to play it and find out.