_Ryu
2020
Boss fights are kinda shit, but the stages offer a fantastic blend of the open-ended design of Genesis era Sonic and the visual spectacle of the 3D titles and you can use the momentum-based movement and physics to find a lot of fun ways of going from point A to point B. Some people said they got lost in this game's stages, but I honestly didn't have that issue aside from halfway through Hill Top, but for the most part the game has a pretty decent sense of direction.
This review contains spoilers
Don't you just hate it when a game railroads you into doing a certain thing to progress on it and then proceeds to try to make you feel bad as if you ever had any say on the matter? It's basically what Totono does in its attempt at deconstructing romance VNs, and it didn't click with me at all. Maybe it's aimed at people who self-insert into the protagonists of the VNs they play or something, but as someone who sees himself as merely an observer through the protagonist's point of view, I didn't feel bad for "cheating" on Miyuki with Aoi after promising I'll be faithful to her, because as far as I was concerned, the one who promised to be faithful to her was that route's version of Shinichi, and the one who went with Aoi never made any promises to Miyuki.
Even if I were to examine my actions as the player, all I did was just follow the path the game was setting up for me and then experimenting with the choices in the second playthrough. Should I feel guilty about that? And most importantly, should I feel sympathetic towards fucking Miyuki? Sure, I may have "cheated" on her, but she literally murders Shinichi, Aoi and even the cat who had nothing to do with any of this without any sort of remorse. She also attemps to gaslight me throughout the rest of the game, she manipulates and negatively affects the lives of everyone else for her own benefit, she's plainly a selfish cunt. I assumed Miyuki was the villain of the game much like Monika was in DDLC, but unlike Monika, Miyuki never takes responsibility for her actions, all she does is blame other people for the shit she pulls off and feels like the writers actually agree with that reasoning, even the ending was unsatisfying as hell because Aoi who hasn't really done anything wrong suffers the biggest consequence by disappearing from the game and everyone's memories, while it's heavily implied that Miyuki and Shinichi will get a happy ending together eventually.
What made me curious to check Totono out was the fact that VN weebs kept talking about how it's the "good version" of DDLC, some even accusing DDLC of ripping this off and shit. Obviously that made me create high expectations, since I liked the concept of DDLC but felt it could have been more fleshed out, but I felt especially let down in this case because DDLC arguably does the whole meta twist thing better than Totono by being more immersive with the files, the random glitches and that kind of stuff, it also has a better antagonist character that the game actually treats as such. Totono was probably the most disappointing VN I've played in a while, and while I wouldn't say it's necessarily bad, it has a handful of interesting moments and ideas, but they're misused for the most part.
Even if I were to examine my actions as the player, all I did was just follow the path the game was setting up for me and then experimenting with the choices in the second playthrough. Should I feel guilty about that? And most importantly, should I feel sympathetic towards fucking Miyuki? Sure, I may have "cheated" on her, but she literally murders Shinichi, Aoi and even the cat who had nothing to do with any of this without any sort of remorse. She also attemps to gaslight me throughout the rest of the game, she manipulates and negatively affects the lives of everyone else for her own benefit, she's plainly a selfish cunt. I assumed Miyuki was the villain of the game much like Monika was in DDLC, but unlike Monika, Miyuki never takes responsibility for her actions, all she does is blame other people for the shit she pulls off and feels like the writers actually agree with that reasoning, even the ending was unsatisfying as hell because Aoi who hasn't really done anything wrong suffers the biggest consequence by disappearing from the game and everyone's memories, while it's heavily implied that Miyuki and Shinichi will get a happy ending together eventually.
What made me curious to check Totono out was the fact that VN weebs kept talking about how it's the "good version" of DDLC, some even accusing DDLC of ripping this off and shit. Obviously that made me create high expectations, since I liked the concept of DDLC but felt it could have been more fleshed out, but I felt especially let down in this case because DDLC arguably does the whole meta twist thing better than Totono by being more immersive with the files, the random glitches and that kind of stuff, it also has a better antagonist character that the game actually treats as such. Totono was probably the most disappointing VN I've played in a while, and while I wouldn't say it's necessarily bad, it has a handful of interesting moments and ideas, but they're misused for the most part.
This review contains spoilers
It was a thursday at the Square Enix offices, after releasing Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus, Tetsuya Nomura was discussing with his team what would be their next step towards tarnishing Final Fantasy VII for cash. They did not know what else they could do, but then Hajime Tabata stormed into the room, proclaiming only two words:
"ZACK FAIR!"
The others raised their eyebrows. "Tabata-san, you are a genius!", says Nomura, as he gets off his chair and proceeds to ask for more details on Tabata's idea.
Tabata: We can make a game about the events that happened before FFVII, back when Cloud was only a generic Shinra grunt. The protagonist won't be him, though, I'm thinking about bringing Zack into the spotlight!
Nomura: Oh right, Zack! That guy from Cloud's flashbacks, the game really didn't tell much about him aside from Cloud's POV, huh.
Tabata: Exactly, we can make this cool prequel story about Zack, showing how things were before FFVII, exploring different facets of Shinra, the original game's characters, Zack's relationship with Aerith, even Sephiroth! We can humanize Sephiroth a bit and it will make people appreciate him even more!
Nomura: Hell yeah, and that's when we'll put Gackt in it!
Tabata: ... What?
Nomura: Don't you know Gackt? He's a japanese rockstar and the perfect model for my original FFVII villain! Gackt loves poetry and his dialogue will mostly be quoting lines from that play called Loveless because that makes him a deep and interesting character!
Tabata: Nomura-san, don't you think that's a bit silly? I mean, people just want to see the events surrounding Zack being expanded, there's no need to-
Nomura: And then we'll reveal that actually the one behind all the events that happened in the original game was Gackt! He's the one who caused Sephiroth to go bonkers and murder everyone in Nibelheim!
Tabata: Are you serious, dude?
Nomura: Also Zack will have a mentor.
Tabata: Fair enough... What's he gonna be like?
Nomura: He's like Zack but older, and 90% of his dialogue will be about honor.
Tabata: Oh for fuck's sake. What about Zack, then? Are you planning to turn him into some generic shounen hero or something like that?
Nomura: Yes.
Tabata: Goddammit... Can we at least make the gameplay engaging since the story is very likely to be utter shit?
Nomura: Sure thing, the gameplay will consist of walking on hallways and button mashing as you get buffs, limit breaks and even level ups randomly generated by this thing called DMW I've been thinking of.
Tabata: Sighs Can we at least make the ending good? It's Zack's death scene, after all, it needs to be impactful, maybe it will even trick people into believing the game is actually good just because of the lasting impact.
Nomura: Yeah sure, whatever.
Tabata: Okay then...
"ZACK FAIR!"
The others raised their eyebrows. "Tabata-san, you are a genius!", says Nomura, as he gets off his chair and proceeds to ask for more details on Tabata's idea.
Tabata: We can make a game about the events that happened before FFVII, back when Cloud was only a generic Shinra grunt. The protagonist won't be him, though, I'm thinking about bringing Zack into the spotlight!
Nomura: Oh right, Zack! That guy from Cloud's flashbacks, the game really didn't tell much about him aside from Cloud's POV, huh.
Tabata: Exactly, we can make this cool prequel story about Zack, showing how things were before FFVII, exploring different facets of Shinra, the original game's characters, Zack's relationship with Aerith, even Sephiroth! We can humanize Sephiroth a bit and it will make people appreciate him even more!
Nomura: Hell yeah, and that's when we'll put Gackt in it!
Tabata: ... What?
Nomura: Don't you know Gackt? He's a japanese rockstar and the perfect model for my original FFVII villain! Gackt loves poetry and his dialogue will mostly be quoting lines from that play called Loveless because that makes him a deep and interesting character!
Tabata: Nomura-san, don't you think that's a bit silly? I mean, people just want to see the events surrounding Zack being expanded, there's no need to-
Nomura: And then we'll reveal that actually the one behind all the events that happened in the original game was Gackt! He's the one who caused Sephiroth to go bonkers and murder everyone in Nibelheim!
Tabata: Are you serious, dude?
Nomura: Also Zack will have a mentor.
Tabata: Fair enough... What's he gonna be like?
Nomura: He's like Zack but older, and 90% of his dialogue will be about honor.
Tabata: Oh for fuck's sake. What about Zack, then? Are you planning to turn him into some generic shounen hero or something like that?
Nomura: Yes.
Tabata: Goddammit... Can we at least make the gameplay engaging since the story is very likely to be utter shit?
Nomura: Sure thing, the gameplay will consist of walking on hallways and button mashing as you get buffs, limit breaks and even level ups randomly generated by this thing called DMW I've been thinking of.
Tabata: Sighs Can we at least make the ending good? It's Zack's death scene, after all, it needs to be impactful, maybe it will even trick people into believing the game is actually good just because of the lasting impact.
Nomura: Yeah sure, whatever.
Tabata: Okay then...
2016
Jesus saved me before, so it's only fair that I save him now.
After giving Nuts & Bolts more chances than I should have and always losing interest on it halfway through, I'm thoroughly convinced that Rare's meeting that led to them making this game went something like this:
"ello mates, how about we make THE most boring video game ever and put Banjo and Kazooie in it just for shits and giggles?"
"Oi lmao that's a bloody fantastic idea mate, count us in!"
"ello mates, how about we make THE most boring video game ever and put Banjo and Kazooie in it just for shits and giggles?"
"Oi lmao that's a bloody fantastic idea mate, count us in!"
2004
Most based and redpilled game I played in a while.
1998
Deserves a 0.5 bump for being a game that got me with an unintentional jump-scare.
1993
US soundtrack is better and I'm tired of pretending it's not
It's like Resident Evil 4, but hornier
2014
Funny for the first 10 minutes or so.
To be fair, the original game was nearly flawless and the only things you could really do to improve on it would be giving me the dash as a default move from the very beginning and have something new that the leg armor parts could do in its place, and making the head part more useful, because aside from collecting another part, it's pretty much worthless. Does Maverick Hunter X do that? Nah, it's pretty much the original game with a little more story, which is appreciated, anime cutscenes, and a new coat of paint that looks pretty good for a PSP game. I don't get why they changed the armor capsule locations, though, it didn't really add anything substantial to the experience, but it was a harmless change, so whatever.
But that's just one part of this version, there is some really cool extra content like a prequel OVA that is unlocked after you beat it for the first time, and a new mode where you play as Vile in an obviously non-canon retelling of the story from his perspective. What sets him apart from X is the fact that Vile (unfortunately) can't dash, but he has many different upgrades you can play with and picking up which ones will be the most useful is the key to conquering the stages, which are harder then the ones from X's campaign.
There is one fatal flaw that makes Maverick Hunter X worse than the original, though, it's the fact that they fucked up the dash jump. I thought it was a problem with the emulator, but then I looked this up online and people who played it on an actual PSP also had the same issue, sometimes the dash jump just won't work and you'll do a regular jump instead. On the ground, it's easy to circumvent this by just pressing and holding the dash button for a split second before pressing the jump button. Dash-jumping from walls, though? Yeah, now you're at the mercy of X only dash-jumping when he feels like it, which ends up making some of the bosses harder than they should have been.
At the end of the day, a worse Megaman X is still Megaman X, and this is worth checking out for the extra content. It's just a shame that it doesn't do much to improve on the original game, and it's an even bigger shame that it wasn't successful enough to kickstart an entirely new series covering the first game all the way to X6. Imagine a timeline where X6's cool ideas and premise are actually put to good use instead of the shitbag of a game we ended up getting, we really do live in the worst timeline.
But that's just one part of this version, there is some really cool extra content like a prequel OVA that is unlocked after you beat it for the first time, and a new mode where you play as Vile in an obviously non-canon retelling of the story from his perspective. What sets him apart from X is the fact that Vile (unfortunately) can't dash, but he has many different upgrades you can play with and picking up which ones will be the most useful is the key to conquering the stages, which are harder then the ones from X's campaign.
There is one fatal flaw that makes Maverick Hunter X worse than the original, though, it's the fact that they fucked up the dash jump. I thought it was a problem with the emulator, but then I looked this up online and people who played it on an actual PSP also had the same issue, sometimes the dash jump just won't work and you'll do a regular jump instead. On the ground, it's easy to circumvent this by just pressing and holding the dash button for a split second before pressing the jump button. Dash-jumping from walls, though? Yeah, now you're at the mercy of X only dash-jumping when he feels like it, which ends up making some of the bosses harder than they should have been.
At the end of the day, a worse Megaman X is still Megaman X, and this is worth checking out for the extra content. It's just a shame that it doesn't do much to improve on the original game, and it's an even bigger shame that it wasn't successful enough to kickstart an entirely new series covering the first game all the way to X6. Imagine a timeline where X6's cool ideas and premise are actually put to good use instead of the shitbag of a game we ended up getting, we really do live in the worst timeline.
This review contains spoilers
WARNING: This review contains some spoilers and was written assuming the reader already watched the Angel Beats anime and knows what it's all about.
Angel Beats is a series I love, it means a lot to me, but at the same time it also makes me incredibly frustrated, because it absolutely could have been peak fiction if the project was handled well. The anime suffered from pacing issues due to having too much shit to cram in just 13 episodes, but since it was commercially successful, Key decided to capitalize on it by releasing a visual novel. It was announced that it would be an episodic game, with 1st Beat being the basis for subsequent volumes adding more content until it becomes a complete game by the time volume 6 drops. Fuck yeah, I'm finally gonna see the thematically rich concept of Angel Beats having its full potential explored, I can't wait for this to be fully released!
But then, God said "No" and things went south after the release of 1st Beat.
Turns out the Angel Beats VN is one of the main examples I use to elaborate on why I hate the idea of episodic releases, and much prefer games being complete from the get-go. There's no guarantee that an episodic game will reach its end, it may never get past episode 1, or even a later episode if something wrong ends up happening, be it sales not being as strong as expected, or in Angel Beats' case, the creator having to be hospitalized because of health issues. By the time Jun Maeda's heart condition got better, a handful of years have already passed and we had no news of Angel Beats since then, but at this point we all accepted that it was silently canceled and Key, the company that created the series, just moved on to other projects.
Despite that, a full translation for 1st Beat ended up seeing the light of the day last year, and as the biggest Angel Beats fan on the internet, it was my duty to play the shit out of 1st Beat and see how it improves on the anime's obviously flawed narrative. Basically, the game covers episodes 1 to 10 of the anime, which means it will go only as far as that episode focused on Yui, who happens to be one of the three possible character routes you can take in this game, the other two being Iwasawa and, surprisingly, Matsushita Godan. I chose Yui as my first route because it seemed like a closer experience to the anime, and she was a character I didn't care much for in the anime, she was annoying, louder than necessary and her "romance" with Hinata felt half-baked. As good as the last scene with Yui was in the anime, it didn't feel earned because she was little more than a background character who provided some comic relief.
So, how does 1st Beat improve Yui as a character? Well, she's still annoying and yells a lot, but that's to be expected. Her story is greatly expanded upon, however, even from the beginning where she is shown to be a Girl DeMo fangirl and was inspired by them to play guitar, only for Iwasawa to disappear during a story event, much like in the anime. Following Yui's route, we see more of how she felt about this, the sadness of losing her idol and how Iwasawa herself also admired Yui for how much effort she puts on her little street performances around the school, reminding her of her previous life. It's when Otonashi talks about what Iwasawa said that Yui ends up finding the motivation to step in and become the new singer for Girl DeMo. Otonashi's relationship with Yui is more linked with how his relationship with his sister was back when he was alive, and depending on your choices, this might even be the reason why Otonashi recovers memories of that part of his life, as opposed to being hypnotized by Naoi like it was in the anime.
Yui and Hinata also get more screen time and their relationship is more fleshed out, though I wasn't a big fan of how they mostly left this to the end where the POV shifts and now you see past events from Hinata's point of view, but it's still interesting, the fact that Yui was interested in baseball is what drew them close in the first place, he started teaching her to play baseball way before Otonashi did near the end of her route, and despite Yui being bad at baseball, they ended up getting closer, but never admitting they had romantic feelings for one-another. That is, until we get to see a bit of Hinata's past life outside of what the baseball episode showed, and after reflecting on that, he decides to confess his feelings to Yui, leading to a much more satisfying version of that same scene from the anime.
This is basically how 1st Beat rolls, it follows the story of the anime closely, but expands on a lot of elements from it, even the tiniest detail about the afterlife school is explained and there are a lot more character interactions and moments in between the main events of the anime, and there are so many choices and ways to explore the game that it can get a bit overwhelming for a first time player. Right in the first chapter of the game, which covers episode 1 of the anime, you can straight up refuse to join the SSS and get one of the bad endings, but if you choose to join, Otonashi will mention that he forgot his name, and each of the members suggest a nickname for him, and you can pick any you like or just focus more on remembering your name, and depending on which one you picked, the game will actually remember that choice and parts of it will change because of that. Not only that, but the choice system allows you to determine how Otonashi's relationship with a lot of other characters throughout the story will be like, just by how frequently you chose to interact with a specific character who's at a specific location on the map, as well as the dialogue options you chose. Hinata can be either an absolute bro in Otonashi's eyes, a weird guy who's a bit too interested in getting close and might just be gay, or you can make Otonashi literally have a gay crush on Hinata instead!
Granted, not every character has their relationship with Otonashi as well-developed, especially since this isn't a complete game, but you can definitely see how it would develop with certain choices. For example, you can choose to try and save Fujimaki during the water trap in the Guild, and if you did so, he remembers that and treats Otonashi to lunch to thank him. But of course, certain choices lead to certain paths and alternate endings, so you may keep that in mind if you want to follow a specific route, 1st Beat is definitely a game you'll want to look up a guide if you don't want to experiment with the choices and would rather just get to the routes already. Still, it is really impressive how even the choices that seem inconsequential still have some impact, like when you pick Lolicon as Otonashi's provisory nickname and this leads to Yui initially being afraid of him since she's technically a loli, and you can play around further with this by making certain choices that can make Otonashi seem like a lolicon, they wouldn't be there if you haven't made the previous lolicon-related choices.
The routes for Iwasawa and Matsushita are the ones with more content original to 1st Beat, as Iwasawa disappears early in the anime and Matsushita doesn't have that much screen time. I'm not going to spoil much of them here, but Iwasawa's route was my favorite in the game because it expands on what's an already good character in the anime and it's nice to see how things go if she's saved from disappearing when she was supposed to, had some really cool deviations form the anime's story. However, Matsushita's route had a rather confusing end, despite his backstory being interesting, I'm not sure I understood how he ended up moving on and disappearing in the end. There are some choices that tease future content as well, like when you make choices that have Otonashi getting closer to Angel/Kanade as opposed to other characters, a bit of her background in the afterlife is revealed, or a potential gay romance between Otonashi and Hinata in his future route. Seriously, I wonder how huge the finished Angel Beats VN would be like, because despite being incomplete, 1st Beat is so packed with content that it has enough time to rival the lengths of some longer VNs out there, it took me roughly 40 hours to see everything this game has to offer and get every achievement. Also, if you get specific achievements, you unlock Next Beat, which is basically the start of the anime's episode 11 with the Shadows and all, but after Otonashi gets everyone to trust Kanade, it ends with a cliffhanger where they start to fight the Shadows, with a "TO BE CONTINUED" screen.
To be continued? Heh, yeah sure... Fuck you, Key!
Anyway, if you like Angel Beats and want more content out of it, then you definitely should play 1st Beat. Despite it only being the first part of a bigger VN that never was, it still functions as a complement to the anime and has what's possibly the best choice system I've ever seen in a VN, it's so great that I beat 100% of it just because of how fun it was to experiment with the choices and how Otonashi develops as a character through them, or how even the main routes can change depending of some alternate choices you made. Jesus, writing this just made me sadder that we'll never see a fully realized Angel Beats visual novel.
Fuck you again, Key!
Angel Beats is a series I love, it means a lot to me, but at the same time it also makes me incredibly frustrated, because it absolutely could have been peak fiction if the project was handled well. The anime suffered from pacing issues due to having too much shit to cram in just 13 episodes, but since it was commercially successful, Key decided to capitalize on it by releasing a visual novel. It was announced that it would be an episodic game, with 1st Beat being the basis for subsequent volumes adding more content until it becomes a complete game by the time volume 6 drops. Fuck yeah, I'm finally gonna see the thematically rich concept of Angel Beats having its full potential explored, I can't wait for this to be fully released!
But then, God said "No" and things went south after the release of 1st Beat.
Turns out the Angel Beats VN is one of the main examples I use to elaborate on why I hate the idea of episodic releases, and much prefer games being complete from the get-go. There's no guarantee that an episodic game will reach its end, it may never get past episode 1, or even a later episode if something wrong ends up happening, be it sales not being as strong as expected, or in Angel Beats' case, the creator having to be hospitalized because of health issues. By the time Jun Maeda's heart condition got better, a handful of years have already passed and we had no news of Angel Beats since then, but at this point we all accepted that it was silently canceled and Key, the company that created the series, just moved on to other projects.
Despite that, a full translation for 1st Beat ended up seeing the light of the day last year, and as the biggest Angel Beats fan on the internet, it was my duty to play the shit out of 1st Beat and see how it improves on the anime's obviously flawed narrative. Basically, the game covers episodes 1 to 10 of the anime, which means it will go only as far as that episode focused on Yui, who happens to be one of the three possible character routes you can take in this game, the other two being Iwasawa and, surprisingly, Matsushita Godan. I chose Yui as my first route because it seemed like a closer experience to the anime, and she was a character I didn't care much for in the anime, she was annoying, louder than necessary and her "romance" with Hinata felt half-baked. As good as the last scene with Yui was in the anime, it didn't feel earned because she was little more than a background character who provided some comic relief.
So, how does 1st Beat improve Yui as a character? Well, she's still annoying and yells a lot, but that's to be expected. Her story is greatly expanded upon, however, even from the beginning where she is shown to be a Girl DeMo fangirl and was inspired by them to play guitar, only for Iwasawa to disappear during a story event, much like in the anime. Following Yui's route, we see more of how she felt about this, the sadness of losing her idol and how Iwasawa herself also admired Yui for how much effort she puts on her little street performances around the school, reminding her of her previous life. It's when Otonashi talks about what Iwasawa said that Yui ends up finding the motivation to step in and become the new singer for Girl DeMo. Otonashi's relationship with Yui is more linked with how his relationship with his sister was back when he was alive, and depending on your choices, this might even be the reason why Otonashi recovers memories of that part of his life, as opposed to being hypnotized by Naoi like it was in the anime.
Yui and Hinata also get more screen time and their relationship is more fleshed out, though I wasn't a big fan of how they mostly left this to the end where the POV shifts and now you see past events from Hinata's point of view, but it's still interesting, the fact that Yui was interested in baseball is what drew them close in the first place, he started teaching her to play baseball way before Otonashi did near the end of her route, and despite Yui being bad at baseball, they ended up getting closer, but never admitting they had romantic feelings for one-another. That is, until we get to see a bit of Hinata's past life outside of what the baseball episode showed, and after reflecting on that, he decides to confess his feelings to Yui, leading to a much more satisfying version of that same scene from the anime.
This is basically how 1st Beat rolls, it follows the story of the anime closely, but expands on a lot of elements from it, even the tiniest detail about the afterlife school is explained and there are a lot more character interactions and moments in between the main events of the anime, and there are so many choices and ways to explore the game that it can get a bit overwhelming for a first time player. Right in the first chapter of the game, which covers episode 1 of the anime, you can straight up refuse to join the SSS and get one of the bad endings, but if you choose to join, Otonashi will mention that he forgot his name, and each of the members suggest a nickname for him, and you can pick any you like or just focus more on remembering your name, and depending on which one you picked, the game will actually remember that choice and parts of it will change because of that. Not only that, but the choice system allows you to determine how Otonashi's relationship with a lot of other characters throughout the story will be like, just by how frequently you chose to interact with a specific character who's at a specific location on the map, as well as the dialogue options you chose. Hinata can be either an absolute bro in Otonashi's eyes, a weird guy who's a bit too interested in getting close and might just be gay, or you can make Otonashi literally have a gay crush on Hinata instead!
Granted, not every character has their relationship with Otonashi as well-developed, especially since this isn't a complete game, but you can definitely see how it would develop with certain choices. For example, you can choose to try and save Fujimaki during the water trap in the Guild, and if you did so, he remembers that and treats Otonashi to lunch to thank him. But of course, certain choices lead to certain paths and alternate endings, so you may keep that in mind if you want to follow a specific route, 1st Beat is definitely a game you'll want to look up a guide if you don't want to experiment with the choices and would rather just get to the routes already. Still, it is really impressive how even the choices that seem inconsequential still have some impact, like when you pick Lolicon as Otonashi's provisory nickname and this leads to Yui initially being afraid of him since she's technically a loli, and you can play around further with this by making certain choices that can make Otonashi seem like a lolicon, they wouldn't be there if you haven't made the previous lolicon-related choices.
The routes for Iwasawa and Matsushita are the ones with more content original to 1st Beat, as Iwasawa disappears early in the anime and Matsushita doesn't have that much screen time. I'm not going to spoil much of them here, but Iwasawa's route was my favorite in the game because it expands on what's an already good character in the anime and it's nice to see how things go if she's saved from disappearing when she was supposed to, had some really cool deviations form the anime's story. However, Matsushita's route had a rather confusing end, despite his backstory being interesting, I'm not sure I understood how he ended up moving on and disappearing in the end. There are some choices that tease future content as well, like when you make choices that have Otonashi getting closer to Angel/Kanade as opposed to other characters, a bit of her background in the afterlife is revealed, or a potential gay romance between Otonashi and Hinata in his future route. Seriously, I wonder how huge the finished Angel Beats VN would be like, because despite being incomplete, 1st Beat is so packed with content that it has enough time to rival the lengths of some longer VNs out there, it took me roughly 40 hours to see everything this game has to offer and get every achievement. Also, if you get specific achievements, you unlock Next Beat, which is basically the start of the anime's episode 11 with the Shadows and all, but after Otonashi gets everyone to trust Kanade, it ends with a cliffhanger where they start to fight the Shadows, with a "TO BE CONTINUED" screen.
To be continued? Heh, yeah sure... Fuck you, Key!
Anyway, if you like Angel Beats and want more content out of it, then you definitely should play 1st Beat. Despite it only being the first part of a bigger VN that never was, it still functions as a complement to the anime and has what's possibly the best choice system I've ever seen in a VN, it's so great that I beat 100% of it just because of how fun it was to experiment with the choices and how Otonashi develops as a character through them, or how even the main routes can change depending of some alternate choices you made. Jesus, writing this just made me sadder that we'll never see a fully realized Angel Beats visual novel.
Fuck you again, Key!
2005
I seriously have no idea why people like Sonic Rush, no matter how much I think about it or try playing it, I always get to the same conclusion: It's terrible in almost every relevant aspect of a Sonic game.
The level design here is downright repetitive, mediocre at best and frustrating at worst. When a stage isn't on autopilot it just throws you into a bottomless pit out of nowhere, or throw in precision platforming sections that don't complement the loose controls, positioned over bottomless pits, of course, or maybe you'll get thrown into those dull "combat" sections where you have to kill all enemies in the room to proceed, none of which present any real challenge. People always complain when the 3D games do that shit, so why is it okay when this one does the exact same thing?
And Jesus fucking Christ the bosses are unironically the worst fights in the entire series. I know Sonic games were never known for having great bosses, but for the most part they didn't stand out in a negative way either. Not in Sonic Rush, though, because every boss fight in this shit drags on for what seems to be an eternity, even the first boss takes roughly 2 minutes to beat, they always repeat the same long attack patterns and you're forced to just dodge and wait until they finally reveal their weak point so you can finally hit it, now repeat that for seven more times. They're not challenging, I didn't have a hard time beating them, they were just boring and repetitive, much like the regular stages.
Sonic Rush epitomizes everything that's wrong with 2D Sonic games made by Dimps, it might not be the worst of the bunch, after all we still have Sonic 4 Episode I, but it's like they took the worst aspects of Sonic Advance 2 and 3, then proceeded to take the worst aspects of Heroes and made an entire game out of that. I hardly see what's the difference between this and something like Sonic Forces, which is rightfully criticized for having shallow style-over-substance level design and platforming sections that don't complement the character's movements. Did I play the same game I always see other people raving about? Because it definitely doesn't feel like I did.
The level design here is downright repetitive, mediocre at best and frustrating at worst. When a stage isn't on autopilot it just throws you into a bottomless pit out of nowhere, or throw in precision platforming sections that don't complement the loose controls, positioned over bottomless pits, of course, or maybe you'll get thrown into those dull "combat" sections where you have to kill all enemies in the room to proceed, none of which present any real challenge. People always complain when the 3D games do that shit, so why is it okay when this one does the exact same thing?
And Jesus fucking Christ the bosses are unironically the worst fights in the entire series. I know Sonic games were never known for having great bosses, but for the most part they didn't stand out in a negative way either. Not in Sonic Rush, though, because every boss fight in this shit drags on for what seems to be an eternity, even the first boss takes roughly 2 minutes to beat, they always repeat the same long attack patterns and you're forced to just dodge and wait until they finally reveal their weak point so you can finally hit it, now repeat that for seven more times. They're not challenging, I didn't have a hard time beating them, they were just boring and repetitive, much like the regular stages.
Sonic Rush epitomizes everything that's wrong with 2D Sonic games made by Dimps, it might not be the worst of the bunch, after all we still have Sonic 4 Episode I, but it's like they took the worst aspects of Sonic Advance 2 and 3, then proceeded to take the worst aspects of Heroes and made an entire game out of that. I hardly see what's the difference between this and something like Sonic Forces, which is rightfully criticized for having shallow style-over-substance level design and platforming sections that don't complement the character's movements. Did I play the same game I always see other people raving about? Because it definitely doesn't feel like I did.
2001
Busco emprego
2016
Well at least it's not as bad as X6 and X7