SlasherMcGirk
Mafia Definitive Edition lets you act out your 1930's gangsters fantasy but doesn't really offer much substance outside of that. It's almost more of a drivign simulator than anything else. Mafia GTA this is not. I don't think any of the gameplay mechanics or missions are done especially well either. I am kinda confused on the people saying the story is the highlight as I found it to be extremely lack luster outside of the voice acting. I kept feeling like it was building up to a strong conclusion but ended up getting really let down by the end. It was an alright weekend game but nothing i will ever think about again or have a desire to play again.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 takes everything about the past titles and improves upon it in all the ways that make these games great while not really addressing some of the flaws of the past games. This one definitly shines the best and is easily the best spider-man simulator out there bar none.
I don't think the games is without it's flaws like I said but how can you complain when the overall package is this good. Some of the minor gripes I have was that I find the combat actually improved since the last title, however I feel enemy encounters are much worse in this one. It always feels like an enemy is constantly sniping at me preventing me from really getting a good ground game and making some flashy combos. The ground combat mixed with aerial combat is much better in this one and the improvments made to the gadgets and special abilities work really well but I'm repeaditly dodging and disarming baddies nonstop that my cool cinematic improvised combo is always ruined by the annoying spammer. The side content which was really lacking in the first title is much better in this one thankfully but I still feel like scratching my head at some of them. They are wildly different in quality. Like compare the Flame questline to the Science Foundation questline. The side stories are great but there are so few of them in this one. There is a lot to collect in this game for sure but I wish the side content was fleshed out a bit better. It's still not where I think it sound be. The only thing I can really think of is the pacing in the first half is kinda bad. There is so much stretched out content in the Kraven arc that were I felt I put so many hours into the game and I don't even have the symbiote yet. Also I feel the costume selection is somehow not as good as SP1. Am i misrembering? But how the hell could they get rid of the animated classic spider-man from SP1. That was one of my favorites. We really got to have 10 different versions of classic variants expect for that?
Dispite that I was surprised how much I ended up liking this one. I was always kinda mid on the first title, as I thought it had a lot of potential, especially with the traversal. I liked Miles Morales even more after that where I felt the combat and story was much better. Plus with that being a smaller title I felt the pacing was really good in that game. I was starting to think could they pull it off with Spider-Man 2? There seemed to be so much stuff in the game thematically. 2 playable characters, more mary jane sections, kraven, lizard, symbiote and venom on top of several skill trees. Will each character have enough unique content? Relevance and character progression in the story? There felt like there was a lot of ideas here but I'm glad to say that I think they did a great job with all of it. I was also worried that Miles would be swept to the sidelines being a Peter symbiote heavy story but I never felt like he was and was always center stage just as much as peter, which I really appreciated.
I knew I was going to like the gameplay loop. I knew the traversal was going to be great. I knew the double map size with no loading or any pop in was going to feel next gen. What I didn't expect was how much I was surprised by the quality of the story and character developments. There is some real good spider-man shit in here. Once the symbiote starts taking control of peter, oh man I feel the story and pacing really pick up there and never lets go. The story takes many liberties by changing certain aspects and traditional spider norms but it does really work in favor of this game. I did not expect so many emotional beats as there was. There were a lot of surprises and set peices that I really did not expect and glad they were in there.
Venom was everything I wanted him to be. I always knew Tony Todd would do an excellent Venom the second he was cast. I just wanted more lines from him. I would have loved some more quips and insults with that voice but I get thats not what they were going for in this version.
Spider-Man 2 is an easy Game of the Year material and makes me much more excited for a Spider-Man trilogy ender if the escalation is anything to go by til then. I wouldn't mind if they take their time crafting that one as well. Hell, wolverine will be a perfect stop gap until then.
Platinum #191
I don't think the games is without it's flaws like I said but how can you complain when the overall package is this good. Some of the minor gripes I have was that I find the combat actually improved since the last title, however I feel enemy encounters are much worse in this one. It always feels like an enemy is constantly sniping at me preventing me from really getting a good ground game and making some flashy combos. The ground combat mixed with aerial combat is much better in this one and the improvments made to the gadgets and special abilities work really well but I'm repeaditly dodging and disarming baddies nonstop that my cool cinematic improvised combo is always ruined by the annoying spammer. The side content which was really lacking in the first title is much better in this one thankfully but I still feel like scratching my head at some of them. They are wildly different in quality. Like compare the Flame questline to the Science Foundation questline. The side stories are great but there are so few of them in this one. There is a lot to collect in this game for sure but I wish the side content was fleshed out a bit better. It's still not where I think it sound be. The only thing I can really think of is the pacing in the first half is kinda bad. There is so much stretched out content in the Kraven arc that were I felt I put so many hours into the game and I don't even have the symbiote yet. Also I feel the costume selection is somehow not as good as SP1. Am i misrembering? But how the hell could they get rid of the animated classic spider-man from SP1. That was one of my favorites. We really got to have 10 different versions of classic variants expect for that?
Dispite that I was surprised how much I ended up liking this one. I was always kinda mid on the first title, as I thought it had a lot of potential, especially with the traversal. I liked Miles Morales even more after that where I felt the combat and story was much better. Plus with that being a smaller title I felt the pacing was really good in that game. I was starting to think could they pull it off with Spider-Man 2? There seemed to be so much stuff in the game thematically. 2 playable characters, more mary jane sections, kraven, lizard, symbiote and venom on top of several skill trees. Will each character have enough unique content? Relevance and character progression in the story? There felt like there was a lot of ideas here but I'm glad to say that I think they did a great job with all of it. I was also worried that Miles would be swept to the sidelines being a Peter symbiote heavy story but I never felt like he was and was always center stage just as much as peter, which I really appreciated.
I knew I was going to like the gameplay loop. I knew the traversal was going to be great. I knew the double map size with no loading or any pop in was going to feel next gen. What I didn't expect was how much I was surprised by the quality of the story and character developments. There is some real good spider-man shit in here. Once the symbiote starts taking control of peter, oh man I feel the story and pacing really pick up there and never lets go. The story takes many liberties by changing certain aspects and traditional spider norms but it does really work in favor of this game. I did not expect so many emotional beats as there was. There were a lot of surprises and set peices that I really did not expect and glad they were in there.
Venom was everything I wanted him to be. I always knew Tony Todd would do an excellent Venom the second he was cast. I just wanted more lines from him. I would have loved some more quips and insults with that voice but I get thats not what they were going for in this version.
Spider-Man 2 is an easy Game of the Year material and makes me much more excited for a Spider-Man trilogy ender if the escalation is anything to go by til then. I wouldn't mind if they take their time crafting that one as well. Hell, wolverine will be a perfect stop gap until then.
Platinum #191
I remember owning this on the Game Gear and liking it. Playing it again in 2023 I can actually see why. It's an above average game gear. It's a fighting game that's a lot better than a two button fighter has any right to be. Despite the control limitations there are a few uniqe special moves each character has. A lot of the rangers play kinda the same and only their special moves really set them apart but the feel different enough. Besides the rangers though there is about 12-14 different playable characters on the roster which is pretty great for a game gear game. The story mode is your typical arcade style mode and vs mode if you just wanna hash it out against the cpu or a friend. The moment ot moment gameplay is much better than what I expected and the CPU even on easy can learn and match to your tactics. This is a pretty decent game if you wanna kill an hour or two for sure and you could do much worse on the game gear.
A compilation of the first three Ace Attorney games in remastered HD and full screen support. No fancy bells or whistles but still an excellent way to experiance the games. I've played these three titles many times. This version of the game I played sporadically over a year or two playing case by case whenever I had free time inbetween new games whenever I felt like it. Finally replayed this collection to completion on this date. Still find all three titles excellent and one of the most satisfying trilogies in gaming. Full package at a great price. Can't go wrong.
Platinum #190
Platinum #190
There must have been a lot and i mean a lot of coke when coming up with this game. I feel like the designers just tried to one up themselves with every enemey design being crazier than the last. There are times when playing this I didn't even know what I was fighting anymore. Obviously the allure to this game is it's kooky and crazy design and seeing what wacky thing is next but like all arcade beat um ups it's still a quater muncher but I could see the idea of making some wacky game in hopes maybe people will put some quaters into it, so they could see what's next.
I was initially drawn in by the asethic and trailers and while i do appreciate that when I was playing it I did have some major problems with FIST. To be frank the level design sucks. There is a lot of samey looking areas and where at times it feels like you are treking great distances without enemies or anything to do. Warp points are so far and few in between it feels like you have to progress half the map to get to one. The game was really repititive in exploration and combat. I don't think they did enough with the world or story to keep me interested. Halfway through i lost interest.
2023
Gravity Circuit feels like a true love letter to the Mega Man X franchise. Some might say it's a clone but honestly as much as i like the Mega Man X games I think Gravity Circuit does it better. Gravit Circuit is also a great game for those looking to play that style of game while not get frustrated. Gravity Circuit has a lot of quality of life stuff that I think a lot of modern gamers will appreciate like stages having check points, infinite lives and spikes and pits are not instant deaths. At the same time though while this does make Gravity Circuit a much easier experiance in comparison to other games in the genre it certaintly isn't dumbed down either. The game is just a smooth experiance the first time through. A lot of the fun was getting 100% complete for me. Trying to beat stages in certain ways or avoinding stage hazards to beating the game with different limitations. It gave me a reason to keep coming back.
Gameplay is simple and easy to get into. At first it might feel limiting, especially with a such short reach meele attack but the more you play and aqiure moves and buffs you get you can get very powerful very fast. The special burst attacks are really cool and a welcome addition to this kinda game, although they are a little too powerful on bosses, i feel. It is great to be able to customize my character and have him play how i want. Once i found my loadout i liked I never changed it. I really liked the tool kit that you have at the start as well. Meele, dash and grappling hook all feel really great. Plus weakening enemies enough and you can pick them up and throw them. Throwing them into other enemies usually kill them both in a single hit and the explosion and effects make it satisfying every time. Being able to pick up and throw any enemey was a cool mechanic.
Game plays like your typical Mega Man X game with bosses stages and a intro and three final levels. Bosses don't have weakness's like in MM so you can play them in any order you like. Once you get a feel to the game and learn the stages you can breeze by them in no time. The default ninja run is so fast and useful and much better than a typical dash. It made my final speed run playthrough feel like I was a pro.
I had a lot of fun with this one. I could tell playing two levels of this I knew this was something special. I think the core fundementals of this game are really good. I think with some minor balance changes and maybe more to do inbetween missions would have helped. Hub world was kinda useless. I also didn't care for the story or how the characters interacted with each other as well but that is a minor gripe in a game like this. I think Gravity Circuit is an under rated gem and will definitly is one of the better games this year.
Platinum #189
Gameplay is simple and easy to get into. At first it might feel limiting, especially with a such short reach meele attack but the more you play and aqiure moves and buffs you get you can get very powerful very fast. The special burst attacks are really cool and a welcome addition to this kinda game, although they are a little too powerful on bosses, i feel. It is great to be able to customize my character and have him play how i want. Once i found my loadout i liked I never changed it. I really liked the tool kit that you have at the start as well. Meele, dash and grappling hook all feel really great. Plus weakening enemies enough and you can pick them up and throw them. Throwing them into other enemies usually kill them both in a single hit and the explosion and effects make it satisfying every time. Being able to pick up and throw any enemey was a cool mechanic.
Game plays like your typical Mega Man X game with bosses stages and a intro and three final levels. Bosses don't have weakness's like in MM so you can play them in any order you like. Once you get a feel to the game and learn the stages you can breeze by them in no time. The default ninja run is so fast and useful and much better than a typical dash. It made my final speed run playthrough feel like I was a pro.
I had a lot of fun with this one. I could tell playing two levels of this I knew this was something special. I think the core fundementals of this game are really good. I think with some minor balance changes and maybe more to do inbetween missions would have helped. Hub world was kinda useless. I also didn't care for the story or how the characters interacted with each other as well but that is a minor gripe in a game like this. I think Gravity Circuit is an under rated gem and will definitly is one of the better games this year.
Platinum #189
Almost the entire time of playing Star Wars Jedi Survivor I was constantly tryin to compare it to the first game and asking myself "Is this any better than the first game or is this actually worse?" Reflecting back to my time with Fallen Order I remember liking the game more than I thought i would and in my head i had labeled it the Uncharted of Star Wars games in the gameplay department. Survivor though, I do not get that sensation at all.
The core gameplay loop of exploring large open worlds and finding a bunch of collectibles along the game is pretty fun and using star wars abilities to take out classic star wars enemies does have a novelty to it but when looking at Survivor objectively i think it struggles to become better than average. The game has a huge amount of places to explore and is littered with a ton of collectibles in every nook and craney. Survivor does a decent job of making these items equal part exporation and skill balanced with having the right skill to get the job done. The vast majority of the play time is exploring and finding things, hunting down foes, exploring puzzle temples and checking various objectives off a list. If your a player that loves platforming with light puzzle solving with having DK64 levels of collecting then this game is for you. I really liked the cosmetics options they added to this one as I really liked switching up how Cal looks on the regular and how it was reflected in cutscenes and everything. Lots of different options and what makes up most of the collectibles. Speaking of that the vast majority of collectibles are light saber parts and different BD1 parts and unlockable color pallets for those things. Which im sure even the most die hard of star wars fans could care less about the small light saber details. And collecting 20 different shades of gray is bloated crap. But you gotta have something in those 100's of chests in the game.
As for the story of Star Wars Jedi Survivor I feel is a bit muted. For the whole start it feels like it doesn't really have a lingering direction and when it does start to weave one I feel it's mostly kinda stale. The last third of the game does pick up and gets a little interesting but that's only a fraction of the game. I feel like the stakes weren't really there for the most of it and the game could have used some more fun set pieces. In short it just wasn't that memorable and when thinking back to the first game I kinda felt the same there. A story that can be summed up in a sentence or two.
Now the combat of Star Wars Jedi Survivor was the biggest disappointment to me. I struggle really hard to think was the last game like this? Am i misremembering my experiance with Fallen Order? I don't think it was anything to write home about but was it this bad? Or is Surivor just worse? Fighting most droids or storm troopers the combat feels fine. Steam rolling most enemies or depleting a block gauge once and finishing off an enemy can feel satisfying. Using a charged force push against a group of enemies to knock them off a cliff or edge never gets old or sucking an enemy toward you to suspend them in air and make them fire shots at their friends is a good time. It's whenever I have to engaging in the core mechanics of the game is when it becomes a frustrating mess. The mechanics of Survivor are not good. They feel sluggish and uncooperitive. I can't count the number of times I could be locked onto an enemey and every swipe of my light saber misses somehow. Outside of enemies that die in a hit or two regular enemies have a crazy amount of hits they can take. Anytime an enemy has a block meter they will block every damn attack no matter what until thier block meter is depleted. This is fine in princible, in fact I like this in many other games but in Survivor it is not balanced right. Most enemies if you strike them when they have block meter will auto block the attack and deplete a bit of thier block gauge. So most encounters go like this, you strike and enemey once or twice and do a little block damage, the enemy pushes you away, you strike the enemy once or twice and do a little block damage and then the enemy pushes you away. Once the block is depleted you are free to do real damage. So you strike one or two hits and their block meter completly refills and you rinse and repeat. What the heck. I can't even pull off my basic 3 hit combo sometimes it recovers so quick. It's really whack. It feels like a mash dance a lot of the time. Block block push block block push block block push hit hit and repeat. It doesn't feel good at all. And yes I know there is a parry system in place to delete block damage faster but I think that mechanic is problematic as well. Most times I can't sit and wait to parry an opponents attack because most encounters have many blaster weilding snipers that are constantly shooting you to play the wait and bait game. That on top of the enemies of this game love to throw out so many unparryable attacks in the game you could be waiting quite awhile to be able to parry someone. It's ridiculous. I swear most enemies will throw out like three unblockable moves in a row because they know you are waiting for it, so it's better to just stun lock the bastards. Also why do enemies take so so long to kill. They are either one shot or can take like two dozen strikes, no medium here. The dodge is also hilariously bad. It doesn't seem to dodge anything. Insert simpsons gif of the dodge! It does notthing! If your not pixel perfect you taking huge damage. You barely move at all when dodging it's more like a shuffle. When a lot of attacks are constantly unable to be blocked having a good dodge would help. Hell all these unlockable perks and none of them improve the basic dodge at all when it is soarily needed.
Also special shout out to one of the most frustrating bosses I have played against in quite some time. The dual frog bosses can go straight to hell. The put all this games combat problems on a pedestal and show it off as it's a major accomplishment. I rarely call bosses cheap but the frog boss from the first game revisited is one of the cheapest peices of garbage I've played against in forever. Nothing about this boss is designed well. It only has like four or so attacks and you would think with that simple patteren that you could learn and overcome easily but no. This guy has a bite attack combo that can go on forever and break your block easily and parrying it does almost nothing as he has no block meter and can spam that shit all he wants. There is no window of oppurtinity to attack. Think he's done. Sike. Waited and baited your attack your health drops down in seconds. He can also jump and belly flop which causes a shock wave all around that can't be blocked or evaded that well and you have to pretty much be out of range to avoid it so trying to weave to the frogs back to gets some hits in you can be very suseptible to this attack. He has a puke attack which makes the area in front of him sticky and you take damage on. Lastly in the biggest bullshit attack is a charge attack that spits his tongue out at you and if you are hit by it you are instantly killed. The tracking and range on this attack is so crazy it's practiclly a 360 hit range. It will grab you at his sides, in the air, in mid dodge or anywhere. If you don't time a hit perfectly and i mean perfectly you are dead. I have died so many times to this attack in bullshit ways that I wanted to through the controller at the TV. That and in combination of the endless barrage of bites I never felt safe anywhere or felt like I had a good game plan. It was just abusing certain moves and hoping the boss would wig out or do something stupid and just hope he didn't use bullshit moves and hope to see if I could inflict damage. Cause there were so many times where there was never an oppurtinity to attack or get away at all and it just felt cheap. In the first game there was a trophy for force pulling out their tongue and making that unusable except they most of forgotten that in Survivor because you can't do that here, doing it will get you insta killed. Then they have the gull to do a duo frog boss challange in a small circle room. Fuck off with that. This bosses personafies everything I hate about the combat in this game.
Uh tangent and ranting aside though. Star Wars Jedi Survivor isn't a great game but I found it to still be enjoyable enough. I do like a lot of the characters and am interested to see where the next one goes but I don't feel like this is the "Empire" of the Jedi game series. If you concentrated on just the story stuff and only did a few quests here and there this is easily a ten hour game but for completionists it's easily a 40 hour game. Collecting everything really makes me wish there was a better map system in this game. Waypoints and in game tracking would have helped so much in the post game. Made collecting more frustrating than it needed to be. If your looking for a decent 3rd person star wars game than Survivor will definitly scratch that itch. In the end my memory is telling me that I liked Fallen Order more but if I went and replayed it would I really feel that way?
Platinum #188
The core gameplay loop of exploring large open worlds and finding a bunch of collectibles along the game is pretty fun and using star wars abilities to take out classic star wars enemies does have a novelty to it but when looking at Survivor objectively i think it struggles to become better than average. The game has a huge amount of places to explore and is littered with a ton of collectibles in every nook and craney. Survivor does a decent job of making these items equal part exporation and skill balanced with having the right skill to get the job done. The vast majority of the play time is exploring and finding things, hunting down foes, exploring puzzle temples and checking various objectives off a list. If your a player that loves platforming with light puzzle solving with having DK64 levels of collecting then this game is for you. I really liked the cosmetics options they added to this one as I really liked switching up how Cal looks on the regular and how it was reflected in cutscenes and everything. Lots of different options and what makes up most of the collectibles. Speaking of that the vast majority of collectibles are light saber parts and different BD1 parts and unlockable color pallets for those things. Which im sure even the most die hard of star wars fans could care less about the small light saber details. And collecting 20 different shades of gray is bloated crap. But you gotta have something in those 100's of chests in the game.
As for the story of Star Wars Jedi Survivor I feel is a bit muted. For the whole start it feels like it doesn't really have a lingering direction and when it does start to weave one I feel it's mostly kinda stale. The last third of the game does pick up and gets a little interesting but that's only a fraction of the game. I feel like the stakes weren't really there for the most of it and the game could have used some more fun set pieces. In short it just wasn't that memorable and when thinking back to the first game I kinda felt the same there. A story that can be summed up in a sentence or two.
Now the combat of Star Wars Jedi Survivor was the biggest disappointment to me. I struggle really hard to think was the last game like this? Am i misremembering my experiance with Fallen Order? I don't think it was anything to write home about but was it this bad? Or is Surivor just worse? Fighting most droids or storm troopers the combat feels fine. Steam rolling most enemies or depleting a block gauge once and finishing off an enemy can feel satisfying. Using a charged force push against a group of enemies to knock them off a cliff or edge never gets old or sucking an enemy toward you to suspend them in air and make them fire shots at their friends is a good time. It's whenever I have to engaging in the core mechanics of the game is when it becomes a frustrating mess. The mechanics of Survivor are not good. They feel sluggish and uncooperitive. I can't count the number of times I could be locked onto an enemey and every swipe of my light saber misses somehow. Outside of enemies that die in a hit or two regular enemies have a crazy amount of hits they can take. Anytime an enemy has a block meter they will block every damn attack no matter what until thier block meter is depleted. This is fine in princible, in fact I like this in many other games but in Survivor it is not balanced right. Most enemies if you strike them when they have block meter will auto block the attack and deplete a bit of thier block gauge. So most encounters go like this, you strike and enemey once or twice and do a little block damage, the enemy pushes you away, you strike the enemy once or twice and do a little block damage and then the enemy pushes you away. Once the block is depleted you are free to do real damage. So you strike one or two hits and their block meter completly refills and you rinse and repeat. What the heck. I can't even pull off my basic 3 hit combo sometimes it recovers so quick. It's really whack. It feels like a mash dance a lot of the time. Block block push block block push block block push hit hit and repeat. It doesn't feel good at all. And yes I know there is a parry system in place to delete block damage faster but I think that mechanic is problematic as well. Most times I can't sit and wait to parry an opponents attack because most encounters have many blaster weilding snipers that are constantly shooting you to play the wait and bait game. That on top of the enemies of this game love to throw out so many unparryable attacks in the game you could be waiting quite awhile to be able to parry someone. It's ridiculous. I swear most enemies will throw out like three unblockable moves in a row because they know you are waiting for it, so it's better to just stun lock the bastards. Also why do enemies take so so long to kill. They are either one shot or can take like two dozen strikes, no medium here. The dodge is also hilariously bad. It doesn't seem to dodge anything. Insert simpsons gif of the dodge! It does notthing! If your not pixel perfect you taking huge damage. You barely move at all when dodging it's more like a shuffle. When a lot of attacks are constantly unable to be blocked having a good dodge would help. Hell all these unlockable perks and none of them improve the basic dodge at all when it is soarily needed.
Also special shout out to one of the most frustrating bosses I have played against in quite some time. The dual frog bosses can go straight to hell. The put all this games combat problems on a pedestal and show it off as it's a major accomplishment. I rarely call bosses cheap but the frog boss from the first game revisited is one of the cheapest peices of garbage I've played against in forever. Nothing about this boss is designed well. It only has like four or so attacks and you would think with that simple patteren that you could learn and overcome easily but no. This guy has a bite attack combo that can go on forever and break your block easily and parrying it does almost nothing as he has no block meter and can spam that shit all he wants. There is no window of oppurtinity to attack. Think he's done. Sike. Waited and baited your attack your health drops down in seconds. He can also jump and belly flop which causes a shock wave all around that can't be blocked or evaded that well and you have to pretty much be out of range to avoid it so trying to weave to the frogs back to gets some hits in you can be very suseptible to this attack. He has a puke attack which makes the area in front of him sticky and you take damage on. Lastly in the biggest bullshit attack is a charge attack that spits his tongue out at you and if you are hit by it you are instantly killed. The tracking and range on this attack is so crazy it's practiclly a 360 hit range. It will grab you at his sides, in the air, in mid dodge or anywhere. If you don't time a hit perfectly and i mean perfectly you are dead. I have died so many times to this attack in bullshit ways that I wanted to through the controller at the TV. That and in combination of the endless barrage of bites I never felt safe anywhere or felt like I had a good game plan. It was just abusing certain moves and hoping the boss would wig out or do something stupid and just hope he didn't use bullshit moves and hope to see if I could inflict damage. Cause there were so many times where there was never an oppurtinity to attack or get away at all and it just felt cheap. In the first game there was a trophy for force pulling out their tongue and making that unusable except they most of forgotten that in Survivor because you can't do that here, doing it will get you insta killed. Then they have the gull to do a duo frog boss challange in a small circle room. Fuck off with that. This bosses personafies everything I hate about the combat in this game.
Uh tangent and ranting aside though. Star Wars Jedi Survivor isn't a great game but I found it to still be enjoyable enough. I do like a lot of the characters and am interested to see where the next one goes but I don't feel like this is the "Empire" of the Jedi game series. If you concentrated on just the story stuff and only did a few quests here and there this is easily a ten hour game but for completionists it's easily a 40 hour game. Collecting everything really makes me wish there was a better map system in this game. Waypoints and in game tracking would have helped so much in the post game. Made collecting more frustrating than it needed to be. If your looking for a decent 3rd person star wars game than Survivor will definitly scratch that itch. In the end my memory is telling me that I liked Fallen Order more but if I went and replayed it would I really feel that way?
Platinum #188
2020
I'd rate this more as an application and implementation rather than as a game itself. Don't care to create anything but I think's it's really fascinating and there is plenty of stuff to try that others have created.
I have no idea who the duo is but a blind buy on PSN for a buck in half I thought I'd give it a try for the nice graphics alone. Doesn't have much depth and way too much dialog for a brawler that doesn't really have a lot to say. Wish I could say it was fun but it wasn't. It is weird seeing such quality assests for a joke game though.
2023
This review contains spoilers
I was very hyped for Sea of Stars when it was first announced. I was a very big fan of the teams first game The Messenger and consider it one of my favorite indies. When it looked like they were going to be doing a SNES style RPG with gorgeous sprite work I was instantly sold. Screens gave me some serious Chrono Trigger vibes and with the writing style that I liked with the Messenger it was hard not to look forward to it. In the end I feel like Sea of Stars only delivered about half of my expectaitons.
The first thing you notice is that the game looks beautiful. They did a really impressive job with the sprite work and backgrounds. Each scenery really feels like it has life put into it. Couple that with an equally nice soundtrack and the game is a sight to behold and makes you want to adventure through every nook and crany. There are so many varied places to visit, all with different moods and feels that by the time you reach the end it's kinda amazing how much was actually in there in it's 30 hour journey. Especially more in the later half. Lots of places and locales that I really didn't expect to see and some audio and visual surprises that kept a grin on my face the majority of the time. Unfortately for me the rest of the package just didn't live up to these standards. For every other great thing I feel Sea of Stars takes two steps back or fumbles and drops the ball with no ground gain.
The combat is as simple as a modern game can get. Almost too simple to it's detriment. Almost is the key word. Just your basic attack, skills, combination skills and items. The battling feels almost ripped from Super Mario RPG. Where you can get a boost to your attack or mitagate damage if you time your button press right before you hit an enemy or block an attack. It's a simple thing that in the grand scale doesn't equate to a lot or determine a victory but damn it does feel good and satisfying that it's kind of a thing I tend to do in turn based RPG's anyway out some sort of reflex. I like how the game basicaly says "try to learn the timing for each attack but if you can't it's okay it's only a little extra for fun."
I am firm believer that turn based RPG's don't need to overcomplicate themselves to be rewarding and fun. I just wish Sea of Stars had just a little more variety to it's combat. The moment to moment idea of what you should be doing in battle works and flows really good but the problem is that there is just not enough variation of attacks, so you will be seeing the same pattern of strategy over and over again. Every party member has a total of 4 different special moves and a few combination attacks with other party members. For a game that is 30 hours long this is just not enough to keep the game interesting for a lot of players. You have 3 different special attacks that have different magic elements assosiated to it and one ultimate limit break style of hail mary attack. So in regular battles you 3 main attacks you are going to use over and over again. Hell I felt like the first ten hours of the game I only had a two specials for each characters. Each move is pretty useful though. Some cover a wide area, one might be a heal or a multihitting attack that you have to carefully time your attacks back and forth or charge and hold a button and release at the right time. Mechaniclly all great ideas but after using moonmerang and sun blast for the 600th time it's a wonder why their aren't more moves to be delt out and build more variety. This isn't a game held back by limitations. I'm not asking for a 50 move set tier list where only five are actually useful but goddamn are the they crazy only limiting ourselves to 3 moves per member. This is the kind of stuff that makes characters stand out and special. It's just baffling to me. I understand quality over quantity but when starting the battle i feel like I have my first four or so actions planned out to always be the same because this exact strat is the best use of my mana it becomes boring.
Other things about the gameplay aren't nearly as dire but not perfect either. There is this artifact system in the game as well. Where unlockable in menu toggles become available that changes the way the game or battles function. LIke for example two you start out with is one that adds 100% more health to the party or one that auto heals you after every battle which are both designed to help people who are not great at RPG's and just want to explore the story. I get it, and options are nice but it does kind irk me a bit there is no negative to using them. This does feel like a game where they don't want the combat to be the deal breaker for the player. The artifacts I thought was a really interesting idea that I felt was greatly underutilized. LIke finding a secret contian a permenant 20% increase in experiance or a item locater or a choice of making attack timings easier but the pay off is less or increase the speed of travel on the world map. A unlockable toggle for these kind of things is kind of different and i rather liked the idea of customizing the way the game functioned based on my exploration or deeds. The sucky thing is though is that there are so few of them in the game it feels like a wasted oppurtunity and more of a combat handicap. I would have loved a teleport out of dungeon one or a magic costs doubled for 2x the power. Something where you could customize the experiance but not bogg down the actual combat. Wasted oppurtunity. On the plus side though, I feel the base difficulty is pretty balanced as is and there is a lot of enemy variety and bosses throughout the game. Overall enjoyed the combat but found it fun enough but can't help be taken back by the lack of effort with strong foundations.
When it comes to the story and adventure of Sea of Stars I have to say it's extremely uneven. One of the biggest problems I have with Sea of Stars characters is one I feared right away. Just looking at the characters I know they should behave. We have here two leads that at their very core are a set of protaginists that are cleary defined as the good guys persona and magic adept and those two things are thier entire character. It's so boring and dull and quite frankly lazy. The characters are so one note it's a detriment to the entire experiance. They are simply "We were raised to fight evil using moon and sun magick and it's our destiny to do good" that's there whole persona. I'm not against silent protaginists in RPG's that are supposed to represent the player but Sea of Stars is not that kinda game. These characters can and do talk but they have nothing meaningful to say. Way more of a reactionary duo. Something happens, insert dialog of characters responding. The writing in the game is actually very poor and as someone who doesn't and isn't always bothered by this, it really stood out to me how much it really did in this one. Characters don't actually say "This makes me so happy!" Which is just strange as I really liked the writing and jokes of teams last game. Why couldn't our leads have personality like that game.
Like I have been saying there are foundations to where you could have built from. Like looking at the graphic image above with the two leads. Just looking at them you should be able to just grasp thier personality from that image alone. The boy, Zale for example, looks like a hot head who might think more in the moment and who would say things without thinking them through that might have a bigger temper because he has the bombastic fire sun magic. Or on the flip side Valerie who has moon magic is the complete opposite of her brother who is more thoughtful and calculated but tends to overthink things and it causes rifts in her circle, and she is more humble and likes to meditate and people please. Then through the course of the story they would come to learn from each other and learn that they work better togather than apart and grow as characters by impactful scenes. Simple bread and butter and some flavor text and some character growth scesnes, subvert an expecation or two and done. There I just thought of that simple by the concept art of the two leads and a tad of gameplay info. Would have been great and it's what I was expecting. Sea of Stars greatly let me down on this aspect. There is no character growth or personality at all. Things happen to a character and they react to it in the one dimension the game has given them.
Let me side track this bit one step further. I know people who have completed the game might be like what about characters like Serai or MVP of the story Garl the have depth. Do they though? I do appreciate what they attempted to do with a character like Garl but the problem is that he too is one note and doesn't actually grow at all. He is the same character from start to finish. The thing with Garl is that he is the friend of the duo leads and his character is that he loves his friends and just wants to follow them on their adventure and do the right thing and cooking is his hobby. There is his whole arc, that to the T. "This three person party is like having the entire team of avengers all being captain america, it doesn't work" Any way his main ordeal is that he isn't as strong as them but still wants to help and our lovable heroes can't say no cause Garl is our best friend. So he always doing and speaking for the party pretty much with our leads essentially saying "I agree or great idea Garl!" and using the sheer force of positivity to sway the situation in the pary's favor. Well that only works for so long. Good characters have hills and valleys and maybe if something happened to due to his one track mind that would cause him to stumble that would be interesting. I'm not saying it has to be drastic or turn him into a emo sad sack of shit but this isn't it. I'm trying to keep this spoiler free but I'll just say his arc and popularity so to speak is unearned.
As for the meat of the story the game is an exploration heavy world quest to defeat the evil Fleshmancer and his world eating monsters. Which is a fine premise for a game like this. It doesn't have to keep you guessing with the plot or have a dozen twists and turns. If the story had the flavor of this games backgrounds and music I would be singing it's praises but it's pretty basic. My biggest issue with it is the pacing of the game. It really does feel like it drags on for so long at times. The second half is clearly much more interesting than the first half. First half kind of seems like meandering around waiting for something to happen. Travel here to here go through this cave to get to this hill top so you can get into this town where you need to find this guy and repeat for about a dozen hours. Outside the varied locations the story itself doesn't take any risks but there are some cool moments and sets. Especially the nods and callbacks to the Messenger. My beef with the story isn't so much with what it is but what they do with it. I already said my issues with the writing but there are also so many threads or tiny quirks that really lead nowhere and I was eagerly awainting a small scene to explain them. The entire beef with the other solstice warriors feels unresolved and flat with no pay off for the amount of times it was brought up and some of the motivations of the characters namely late game characters feels odd. Some characters are introduced and quickly forgoten or killed with little context. The game also have one of those F You endings play again to fight the true final boss and get a slightly alternate endings, which always feels cheap. And with this one I feel there is a big character assasination moment that the party does that really put a sour taste in my mouth.
In the end I can't help be dissapointed in Sea of Stars because I honestly expected better. When first starting it and seeing the visuals really gave me a wow feeling that faded harder and harder the more I kept going and for a moment or two I thought my expectations might be subverted and the game was gonna take a huge turn for the better but it really didn't. Sea of Stars while great to look at and pleasant to listen to I was ready for adventure and have fun only to get bogged down with the realization that it was mostly one note and every wish for this to be the turning point just simply never came. I know not everybody feels this way and the game feels to be pretty split but gotta be honest it was a siren that cast it's lure out to me only to break my heart when I got there.
The first thing you notice is that the game looks beautiful. They did a really impressive job with the sprite work and backgrounds. Each scenery really feels like it has life put into it. Couple that with an equally nice soundtrack and the game is a sight to behold and makes you want to adventure through every nook and crany. There are so many varied places to visit, all with different moods and feels that by the time you reach the end it's kinda amazing how much was actually in there in it's 30 hour journey. Especially more in the later half. Lots of places and locales that I really didn't expect to see and some audio and visual surprises that kept a grin on my face the majority of the time. Unfortately for me the rest of the package just didn't live up to these standards. For every other great thing I feel Sea of Stars takes two steps back or fumbles and drops the ball with no ground gain.
The combat is as simple as a modern game can get. Almost too simple to it's detriment. Almost is the key word. Just your basic attack, skills, combination skills and items. The battling feels almost ripped from Super Mario RPG. Where you can get a boost to your attack or mitagate damage if you time your button press right before you hit an enemy or block an attack. It's a simple thing that in the grand scale doesn't equate to a lot or determine a victory but damn it does feel good and satisfying that it's kind of a thing I tend to do in turn based RPG's anyway out some sort of reflex. I like how the game basicaly says "try to learn the timing for each attack but if you can't it's okay it's only a little extra for fun."
I am firm believer that turn based RPG's don't need to overcomplicate themselves to be rewarding and fun. I just wish Sea of Stars had just a little more variety to it's combat. The moment to moment idea of what you should be doing in battle works and flows really good but the problem is that there is just not enough variation of attacks, so you will be seeing the same pattern of strategy over and over again. Every party member has a total of 4 different special moves and a few combination attacks with other party members. For a game that is 30 hours long this is just not enough to keep the game interesting for a lot of players. You have 3 different special attacks that have different magic elements assosiated to it and one ultimate limit break style of hail mary attack. So in regular battles you 3 main attacks you are going to use over and over again. Hell I felt like the first ten hours of the game I only had a two specials for each characters. Each move is pretty useful though. Some cover a wide area, one might be a heal or a multihitting attack that you have to carefully time your attacks back and forth or charge and hold a button and release at the right time. Mechaniclly all great ideas but after using moonmerang and sun blast for the 600th time it's a wonder why their aren't more moves to be delt out and build more variety. This isn't a game held back by limitations. I'm not asking for a 50 move set tier list where only five are actually useful but goddamn are the they crazy only limiting ourselves to 3 moves per member. This is the kind of stuff that makes characters stand out and special. It's just baffling to me. I understand quality over quantity but when starting the battle i feel like I have my first four or so actions planned out to always be the same because this exact strat is the best use of my mana it becomes boring.
Other things about the gameplay aren't nearly as dire but not perfect either. There is this artifact system in the game as well. Where unlockable in menu toggles become available that changes the way the game or battles function. LIke for example two you start out with is one that adds 100% more health to the party or one that auto heals you after every battle which are both designed to help people who are not great at RPG's and just want to explore the story. I get it, and options are nice but it does kind irk me a bit there is no negative to using them. This does feel like a game where they don't want the combat to be the deal breaker for the player. The artifacts I thought was a really interesting idea that I felt was greatly underutilized. LIke finding a secret contian a permenant 20% increase in experiance or a item locater or a choice of making attack timings easier but the pay off is less or increase the speed of travel on the world map. A unlockable toggle for these kind of things is kind of different and i rather liked the idea of customizing the way the game functioned based on my exploration or deeds. The sucky thing is though is that there are so few of them in the game it feels like a wasted oppurtunity and more of a combat handicap. I would have loved a teleport out of dungeon one or a magic costs doubled for 2x the power. Something where you could customize the experiance but not bogg down the actual combat. Wasted oppurtunity. On the plus side though, I feel the base difficulty is pretty balanced as is and there is a lot of enemy variety and bosses throughout the game. Overall enjoyed the combat but found it fun enough but can't help be taken back by the lack of effort with strong foundations.
When it comes to the story and adventure of Sea of Stars I have to say it's extremely uneven. One of the biggest problems I have with Sea of Stars characters is one I feared right away. Just looking at the characters I know they should behave. We have here two leads that at their very core are a set of protaginists that are cleary defined as the good guys persona and magic adept and those two things are thier entire character. It's so boring and dull and quite frankly lazy. The characters are so one note it's a detriment to the entire experiance. They are simply "We were raised to fight evil using moon and sun magick and it's our destiny to do good" that's there whole persona. I'm not against silent protaginists in RPG's that are supposed to represent the player but Sea of Stars is not that kinda game. These characters can and do talk but they have nothing meaningful to say. Way more of a reactionary duo. Something happens, insert dialog of characters responding. The writing in the game is actually very poor and as someone who doesn't and isn't always bothered by this, it really stood out to me how much it really did in this one. Characters don't actually say "This makes me so happy!" Which is just strange as I really liked the writing and jokes of teams last game. Why couldn't our leads have personality like that game.
Like I have been saying there are foundations to where you could have built from. Like looking at the graphic image above with the two leads. Just looking at them you should be able to just grasp thier personality from that image alone. The boy, Zale for example, looks like a hot head who might think more in the moment and who would say things without thinking them through that might have a bigger temper because he has the bombastic fire sun magic. Or on the flip side Valerie who has moon magic is the complete opposite of her brother who is more thoughtful and calculated but tends to overthink things and it causes rifts in her circle, and she is more humble and likes to meditate and people please. Then through the course of the story they would come to learn from each other and learn that they work better togather than apart and grow as characters by impactful scenes. Simple bread and butter and some flavor text and some character growth scesnes, subvert an expecation or two and done. There I just thought of that simple by the concept art of the two leads and a tad of gameplay info. Would have been great and it's what I was expecting. Sea of Stars greatly let me down on this aspect. There is no character growth or personality at all. Things happen to a character and they react to it in the one dimension the game has given them.
Let me side track this bit one step further. I know people who have completed the game might be like what about characters like Serai or MVP of the story Garl the have depth. Do they though? I do appreciate what they attempted to do with a character like Garl but the problem is that he too is one note and doesn't actually grow at all. He is the same character from start to finish. The thing with Garl is that he is the friend of the duo leads and his character is that he loves his friends and just wants to follow them on their adventure and do the right thing and cooking is his hobby. There is his whole arc, that to the T. "This three person party is like having the entire team of avengers all being captain america, it doesn't work" Any way his main ordeal is that he isn't as strong as them but still wants to help and our lovable heroes can't say no cause Garl is our best friend. So he always doing and speaking for the party pretty much with our leads essentially saying "I agree or great idea Garl!" and using the sheer force of positivity to sway the situation in the pary's favor. Well that only works for so long. Good characters have hills and valleys and maybe if something happened to due to his one track mind that would cause him to stumble that would be interesting. I'm not saying it has to be drastic or turn him into a emo sad sack of shit but this isn't it. I'm trying to keep this spoiler free but I'll just say his arc and popularity so to speak is unearned.
As for the meat of the story the game is an exploration heavy world quest to defeat the evil Fleshmancer and his world eating monsters. Which is a fine premise for a game like this. It doesn't have to keep you guessing with the plot or have a dozen twists and turns. If the story had the flavor of this games backgrounds and music I would be singing it's praises but it's pretty basic. My biggest issue with it is the pacing of the game. It really does feel like it drags on for so long at times. The second half is clearly much more interesting than the first half. First half kind of seems like meandering around waiting for something to happen. Travel here to here go through this cave to get to this hill top so you can get into this town where you need to find this guy and repeat for about a dozen hours. Outside the varied locations the story itself doesn't take any risks but there are some cool moments and sets. Especially the nods and callbacks to the Messenger. My beef with the story isn't so much with what it is but what they do with it. I already said my issues with the writing but there are also so many threads or tiny quirks that really lead nowhere and I was eagerly awainting a small scene to explain them. The entire beef with the other solstice warriors feels unresolved and flat with no pay off for the amount of times it was brought up and some of the motivations of the characters namely late game characters feels odd. Some characters are introduced and quickly forgoten or killed with little context. The game also have one of those F You endings play again to fight the true final boss and get a slightly alternate endings, which always feels cheap. And with this one I feel there is a big character assasination moment that the party does that really put a sour taste in my mouth.
In the end I can't help be dissapointed in Sea of Stars because I honestly expected better. When first starting it and seeing the visuals really gave me a wow feeling that faded harder and harder the more I kept going and for a moment or two I thought my expectations might be subverted and the game was gonna take a huge turn for the better but it really didn't. Sea of Stars while great to look at and pleasant to listen to I was ready for adventure and have fun only to get bogged down with the realization that it was mostly one note and every wish for this to be the turning point just simply never came. I know not everybody feels this way and the game feels to be pretty split but gotta be honest it was a siren that cast it's lure out to me only to break my heart when I got there.
2016
I played a few rounds over at my brothers house. It's mild fun type party game. You simply run through a course and the screen gets shorter and shorter and if you fall behind it you lose, last one standing kinda game. It takes a lot to get used to the physics but its a fun short burst game. Doesn't look like it has a lot of depth in the long run though.
2021
A pick up and play party style game. Where you play as knights that kill and die in a single hit. Has a rotating gameplay rules list and different objective types. It's an top down isometric game. I think the game is alright fun. I didn't play a lot of it but a few games got me the feel of it. The big issue I have with it, is that it is really hard to track and follow your character and in large groups it just becomes a clusterfuck of stuff happening. Hard to tell if someone is blocking or attacking.
2023
I really really wanted to like Forspoken. I liked the idea of a mage centric open world fish out of water fantasy game. I really like Frey's desgin and character. The flavorfull speach that a lot of people complain about I actually thought made sense and generally think it enhances the game. That's how people talk. Very great start to the game. Loved the transition from New York to the fantasty world. My problem with Forspoken is just how uneven and shallow everything is. Everything seems half baked and unfinished. Characters get very little screen time and have no character outside good or evil. The side characters and quests are meaningless as nothing is developed or even change by the end.
As for the gameplay it's a real mixed bag. All the powers and moves look and feel cool and you get a real good feeling like you are a high powered mage. Once you have all the moves and powers unlocked you really do feel quite powerful. The issue is the pace at which you unlock things is really slow. My first third of my playthrough I was still stuck on the same basic power that you start with. I eventually made the descion to stop messing around the world and doing side stuff and just progress the story so I could open up the combat. The world of Athia is really big and feels huge and there are collectibles littered everywhere, hundreds of them actually. The sucky part is that it's too bloated with stuff and none of it feels meaningful. So many hidden chests and treasures that give pitiful resources that are a dime a dozen. Even the character quips "Oh it's just one of these, at least it's a freebie" that doesn't relieve the tedium of work for no pay off. Lots of areas of clear this enemy wave or beat this monster here. I mean this game would make banjo and kazooie blush with it's collectible stuff. You can spend hours collecting stuff and it wouldn't give you remotely more of an edge than if you just sprinted to the finish line. One thing the game does do really well though is it's traversal. Using magic to get around the land feels fast and cool. Your speed runs feel like your moving fast, you even have a super mario style tripple jump and climbing is quick and easy. They really nailed this aspect. I would put it up there with Sony's Spider-Man in a good traversal gameplay.
The good really stops there though. The first third of the game felt like sludge with the terrible pacing then when it starts to get more interesting and good the game put it's story telling into hyper drive and force feeds you the rest through scripted walking sectiosn and just drops you into the final boss. I was flabbergasted when I saw the prompt for the final battle. I feel like there should have been ten hours or so of stuff left but nope. Completly rushed in every since. Really soured my whole experiance with the game. How can it start so slow then dash straight to the end. Clearly feels like more cut content than MGS5 with even more cutscenes and story left on the cutting room floor. I honestly felt like there was another five or eight hours of story and game left but nope. The ending was so awful and it's rushed nature shows and all the side characters where completely worthless and pointless. Frey's growth felt forced because the game needed it to be done at this piont. It's a shame cause I really liked the base idea of the game but it was so poorly thought out I can't see how they expected to be a franchise. It has the worst alternate ending I've ever seen lasting a whole 19 seconds, roll credits back to your last save. What was the point of even giving the player the option. Then the post credits scene was so dumb and our of character I stood in disbelief.
Forspoken is a really hard recomendation and a complete disapointment because there are aspects of it I do like but it's unfinished nature and quite frankly awful story telling leaves a lot to be desired. I kinda wish that they would just keep the main character and fish out of water story in a magical story and throw away every other story aspect and reboot it. Maybe this is just an alpha concept and in another world they got a full fleshed out story and game.
As for the gameplay it's a real mixed bag. All the powers and moves look and feel cool and you get a real good feeling like you are a high powered mage. Once you have all the moves and powers unlocked you really do feel quite powerful. The issue is the pace at which you unlock things is really slow. My first third of my playthrough I was still stuck on the same basic power that you start with. I eventually made the descion to stop messing around the world and doing side stuff and just progress the story so I could open up the combat. The world of Athia is really big and feels huge and there are collectibles littered everywhere, hundreds of them actually. The sucky part is that it's too bloated with stuff and none of it feels meaningful. So many hidden chests and treasures that give pitiful resources that are a dime a dozen. Even the character quips "Oh it's just one of these, at least it's a freebie" that doesn't relieve the tedium of work for no pay off. Lots of areas of clear this enemy wave or beat this monster here. I mean this game would make banjo and kazooie blush with it's collectible stuff. You can spend hours collecting stuff and it wouldn't give you remotely more of an edge than if you just sprinted to the finish line. One thing the game does do really well though is it's traversal. Using magic to get around the land feels fast and cool. Your speed runs feel like your moving fast, you even have a super mario style tripple jump and climbing is quick and easy. They really nailed this aspect. I would put it up there with Sony's Spider-Man in a good traversal gameplay.
The good really stops there though. The first third of the game felt like sludge with the terrible pacing then when it starts to get more interesting and good the game put it's story telling into hyper drive and force feeds you the rest through scripted walking sectiosn and just drops you into the final boss. I was flabbergasted when I saw the prompt for the final battle. I feel like there should have been ten hours or so of stuff left but nope. Completly rushed in every since. Really soured my whole experiance with the game. How can it start so slow then dash straight to the end. Clearly feels like more cut content than MGS5 with even more cutscenes and story left on the cutting room floor. I honestly felt like there was another five or eight hours of story and game left but nope. The ending was so awful and it's rushed nature shows and all the side characters where completely worthless and pointless. Frey's growth felt forced because the game needed it to be done at this piont. It's a shame cause I really liked the base idea of the game but it was so poorly thought out I can't see how they expected to be a franchise. It has the worst alternate ending I've ever seen lasting a whole 19 seconds, roll credits back to your last save. What was the point of even giving the player the option. Then the post credits scene was so dumb and our of character I stood in disbelief.
Forspoken is a really hard recomendation and a complete disapointment because there are aspects of it I do like but it's unfinished nature and quite frankly awful story telling leaves a lot to be desired. I kinda wish that they would just keep the main character and fish out of water story in a magical story and throw away every other story aspect and reboot it. Maybe this is just an alpha concept and in another world they got a full fleshed out story and game.
Double Dragon Gaiden is a fun beat um up that with a few minor fixes could turn it from a good beat um up to a great one. The game is focused on using special attacks to KO multiple enemies so they can drop health power ups and increase your score. While that may seem limiting it's really not in practice. I think they did a great job in balancing the mechanic vs just straight up survivability with basic tactics. You get to pick two different characters, so you can kind of mix and match playstyles and swap between the two at anytime and that really keeps the combat from getting stale. There are four main stages and a optional fifth stage. Each stage starts easy but gets progressivly longer and harder as you clear more stages and you can tackle them in any order. After each sub stage you can choose to upgrade any move or stat to improve from there on out. This and the large amount of unlockable characters does give the game some replayability. The art of the game isn't to everyone's liking but I found it alright. The music in the game is really great and the biggest highlight for sure.
The things that I don't like and could use some fixing are the character speed is really slow. It's not game breaking or anything but characters walk speed and jump feel heavy and sluggish. Too many breakable objects in the stage that take too many hits and often have nothing in them is pretty annoying as well. It would have been nice to have a little wake up invincibility or some start up frame's on specials so you can't get gangbanged by enemies and especially bosses where they can just drain your life by hitting you back and forth. It always feels the the most cheapest and frustrating thing in existence. To do so well and then have your whole health bar drained in seconds. Plus two bosses have pits in thier stage with long range attacks that sometimes feel like it's impossible to avoid. Then we have stage 5 that takes all that bullshit to the extreme and is a frustrating mess that I often opt out of even playing it and takign the bad end and cash out.
Overall Double Dragon Gaiden is a rather fun beat um up and is worth the time. It's just a shame cause because if they just back to the drawing board on some things that this could have been really special but instead kinda just feels like a missed oppurtunity. I don't wanna sound too negative though i did really enjoy my time with it.
Platinum #187
The things that I don't like and could use some fixing are the character speed is really slow. It's not game breaking or anything but characters walk speed and jump feel heavy and sluggish. Too many breakable objects in the stage that take too many hits and often have nothing in them is pretty annoying as well. It would have been nice to have a little wake up invincibility or some start up frame's on specials so you can't get gangbanged by enemies and especially bosses where they can just drain your life by hitting you back and forth. It always feels the the most cheapest and frustrating thing in existence. To do so well and then have your whole health bar drained in seconds. Plus two bosses have pits in thier stage with long range attacks that sometimes feel like it's impossible to avoid. Then we have stage 5 that takes all that bullshit to the extreme and is a frustrating mess that I often opt out of even playing it and takign the bad end and cash out.
Overall Double Dragon Gaiden is a rather fun beat um up and is worth the time. It's just a shame cause because if they just back to the drawing board on some things that this could have been really special but instead kinda just feels like a missed oppurtunity. I don't wanna sound too negative though i did really enjoy my time with it.
Platinum #187