Best known as the publisher for Trails/Kiseki before being subsumed by Marvelous, XSEED Games have a wholesome publishing philosophy: they won't localize a game unless someone in the office really, really likes it. A quick look through their output proves quite eclectic - Corpse Party, Uppers, Unchained Blades, Zwei, Way of the Samurai 4, Ys, the Senran Kagura series. The one nibble of cohesion between all these games is this: they have personality.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is no exception. It's a charming game about an entitled goddess cast down to earth, forced to subsist as a humble rice farmer. Alongside her are a bunch of humans who walked a little too close to the heavens. They are her only companions on an island plagued by all creatures ungodly. Sakuna must not only clean up this unholy plague, but also take care of her newfound friends.

This is a lovely game. Sakuna does not gamify the task of rice farming; it appreciates it so that we, the players, do so too. You don't click your way through planting and harvesting while virtual numbers go up - you care for your crops. You till the field, add fertilizer, manage the water level, and harvest and hull your crop manually. All from a beautifully stylized third-person view. During your time in the paddy, you can also interact with your makeshift family, eating meals and conversing as the sun sets on your little home. Then dawn arrives, and it's time for work: clearing out demon infestations in side-scrolling combat exploration.

This latter portion makes for a servicable action platformer, marred by a few glitches and weak enemy AI. The farming, however, is the undisputed highlight. Sakuna's homey charm during your time in the rice paddy is unmatched. Yet I do not believe it would be this perfectly achieved if not for the combat sections, feeble as they are. Like garnish on a steak, they complete the package, and give Sakuna the comfortable vibe of the work-life balance we wish for in reality. Highly recommended.

Although saddled with what we’ve come to expect from free-to-play games (redundant currencies/resources, paying to progress, FOMO-inducing events, etc), I still enjoyed the core gameplay loop a decent amount.

I played on an IPhone 12 with a controller and thought that the performance was good enough for what the game demands. Your mileage may vary if you’re using a Switch or touch controls though. Your experience will also vary a good deal depending on how bad your random teammates are. I’d recommend friending any good players you come across and queuing up with them if you want to avoid that frustration.

My favorite aspect of the game was the creativity as far as character design goes. It feels like they could’ve easily taken the route of using established fan-favorites but instead we ended up with two Jawas in a trench coat and a robot Jedi, which is objectively cooler.

I'm not going to mince words here, this is by far one of the worst, most frustrating games I've ever played. There are plenty of NES games that have stood the test of time and remain playable and fun till this day, still regarded as classics of the medium.

This game isn't one of them.

This is cock and ball torture.

The biggest problem this game has is it's enemy design. Enemies hit hard, fast and randomly, seldomly giving you a chance to get a clean strike on them. You'll almost never escape an encounter unscathed.

I had a brief moment in the game were I was enjoying myself, having just finished the first Palace and gaining my first item, the candle. Now I could finally explore dark caves! Then I got to Death Mountain, probably the hardest section in the game and the frustration began anew. Even though you'll progress and "grow stronger", you never feel like you're well- equiped for the journey ahead.

Glad this one's over with.

Um Ótimo Jogo

Um ótimo jogo de exploração, mundo aberto, onde tudo é água e gelo. Uma personagem chamada "Robin" recebe uma carta, dizendo que a sua irmã, "Sam", acabou morrendo durante um serviço em uma empresa chamada alterra, tendo a justificativa da morte como negligência da própria, indignada, ela decide ir até o centro de pesquisa que a irmã trabalhava, para descobrir a verdade, por que ela não acredita que isso realmente tenha acontecido, não a irmã ter morrido, mas sim ser por conta da própria negligência, diante ao histórico que essa empresa possui. Alterra é a empresa que organiza todas as pesquisas na área gélida do 4546B, planeta onde se passa o jogo, ela é uma corporação que organiza várias viagens para vários planetas, com objetivo de fazer pesquisas e obter minérios dos tais até então. Robin não tem permissão para entrar no planeta, mesmo com a pesquisa já finalizada e com mais ninguém no mundo, há torres de conexão nas antigas bases, em que caso alguém entrasse no planeta, a alterra seria alertada, então diante esse problema, ela decide pegar uma nave e descer no planeta juntamente com uma chuva de meteoros, para passar fora do radar, acaba que ela consegue, mas fazendo isso ela inicia um caminho até então sem volta, já que sua nave quebra, e ela sabia que quebraria, mas isso não importa, oque realmente importa é descobrir oque aconteceu com a Sam.

Então o jogo é o jogador pegar os recursos do mundo, para fazer itens, equipamentos e afins, onde a área do 4546B jogável é composta por 85% água e 15% gelo (porcentagens tiradas da minha mente kkkk, mas deve ser alguma coisa assim), explorando muito o medo do player diante ao desconhecido, em situações que você vai em lugares que podem ter bichos grandes ou pequenos, hostis ou pacífico, barulhentos ou silenciosos e por aí vai. Em questão de desempenho, ele não é tão pesado ao oque ele apresenta, gráficos bem bonitos, onde até amigos meus com laptops merdas já conseguiram rodar o jogo. Não passei por nenhuma queda de fps, nenhum crash, nada parecido, apenas alguns bugs, que já estavam presentes no primeiro jogo da linha Subnautica, que no caso é o próprio Subnautica, onde decidi dropar alguns equipamentos no chão, aí eles só atravessaram o chão e fds, ai fiquei fodido e perdi um tempinho de progresso, mas nada que deixe o jogo injogável ou chato, e outro momento onde eu atravessei a parede, mas ao menos, no pause do jogo tem um botão chamado "liberar" que se você clica, você volta até o spawn. Durante o jogo, já que não há nenhuma pessoa, em bases no gelo, bases na água, ou até solto no oceano, é possível encontrar PDAs, que são tipo registros deixados pra trás de outras pessoas, e é por ele que você vai entender grande parte da história, então, porra, eu sei que é chato ter que ficar parando a gameplay só pra ler um monte de texto de um monte de gente desconhecida, ou acontecimentos que você talvez ainda não ligue, ou não entenda, mas eu recomendo demais ler, que diante eles, você consegue descobrir muito mais facilmente oque estava acontecendo durante o período de pesquisa da sua irmã, e também o jogo fica mais fácil, já que você vai fluindo diante a exploração e o entendimento da história.

As coisas ruins que achei do jogo, não houveram muitas não, é um jogo até bem sólido, porém do que achei foi, que pro jogo ter que ter um botão pra te levar pro spawn é por que é bem provável de você passar por algum bug ou algo parecido, e dica, muito provavelmente, caso você for jogar, tu vai passar por algo parecido. Não gostei muito da parte da exploração no gelo, acho que ela podia ter sido mais explorada, é muito monótono, pouca coisa realmente interessante para se encontrar lá e é muito merda de se localizar. Por fim, oque não gostei foi que há um item de muito fácil acesso, um equipamento, para ser um pouquinho mais específico, até próximo do começo do jogo, que te deixa praticamente inatacável contra criaturas mais perigosas e as criaturas mais comuns, fazendo perder a graça de realmente passar por alguma área de risco, perder alguns itens, tomar uns sustos, deixando o jogo um pouco mais chato, mas vale lembrar, que se pode simplesmente não usar também, mas ai vai da sua conta.

No final, se somar todos os pontos, o jogo ainda continua muito bom mesmo, só que tais pontos são inevitáveis de se passarem durante a gameplay, por conta disso a nota 4 de 5. Recomendo bastante pra quem jogou o Subnautica primeiro, mas pra quem não jogou ou não quer jogar, dá pra jogar igual, porém é muito mais legal jogar os dois na ordem correta, mas se faz oque se quiser no final, mas então é isso só mesmo, valeu ai quem leu.

If you telling me years ago that there will be a remaster of Mahoutsukai no Yoru with new voice-over and an official English translation that release worldwide, my weeb ass wouldn't believe that shit but here we are the magic happened. For the first time, a Type-Moon visual novel received an official English translation. And finally on December 2023 exactly a year after the worldwide release, it release on PC.

Taking place in the rapidly modernizing Japanese suburb of Misaki in the late 1980s, Mahoutsukai no Yoru also known as Mahoyo centers around Aoko Aozaki, a high school girl in training to be a mage. She lives in the mysterious mansion on the hill with Alice Kuonji, her magic teacher and roomates but sometimes Aoko treated her as her rival. In Type-Moon universe, magic cannot reach the knowledge of ordinary humans so its power does not weaken and remains a mystery. So when an odd young man from the countryside named Soujuurou Shizuki accidentally discovers their occult activities and after trying to kill him, they then force him to live with them until they can wipe his memory. It is primarily a slice of life, coming of age story that explores the three main leads, living their lives, going to school, and arguing, a lot, all while occasionally diving into the world of magecraft. I will say the first four chapters of the VN (around 5-6 hours of playtime) might be a little on the slow slide as it takes a lot of time to set up the plot but once you get to further through, it really starts to pick up.

Mahoyo isn’t just important from a lore perspective, the story features the first introduction of two prominent mages who later appear in important roles in Kara no Kyoukai and Tsukihime. It also introduces and explains much of the lore that Nasu would use to inform his later works, including the much better known Tsukihime and Fate. Nasu’s world-building is intricate, obtuse, and not always easy to understand, so Mahoyo functions as an excellent entry point. Kinoko Nasu wrote the novel which is unpublished even before Kara no Kyoukai novel.

The main characters which is the trio is not only among my favorite Type-Moon's characters but also one of my favorite trio in general. They are the heart of the visual novel and Nasu is able to draw a lot of character out of each of them as individuals and as a team. And out of the trio the one that is the most interesting is Soujuuro. I think the reason why is because Soujuuro really the least interesting and bland looking guy, and that is kind of the point. Being born in the mountains without electricity or running water, his lack of modern knowledge makes him naive yet very earnest. His role in the story is to be the perpetual goody two shoes and to be continually taken advantage or used of by the two main female characters. Despite all of that, he is not an idiot. As he’s further exposed to the modern world he quickly picks up on new concepts and even if he doesn’t completely understand, he learns better how to maneuver around them. With how morally grey Aoko and Alice can be, Soujuurou’s straightforward and down to earth earnestness, makes him a very sweet character and someone you want to see get a happy ending.

Just like other Nasu's work, Mahoyo has some heavy action sequences that is so pleasing to witness. So many stunning CG that get supported by cool and realistic animation, which make it look really like an anime. Like Tsukihime Remake, the character sprites are not placed precisely and fixed in the center but are made large and blend with the background. Its highly expressive with each character giving a good range of emotions and reactions that range from funny, to cute, to heartfelt. Mahoyo also doesn't use dialogue boxes like visual novels in general and the layout is made like we are reading a book by using paragraphs and punctuation. The graphics and sound effects are even more impressive. Mahoyo implements various effects, animations, panning shots, and dynamic camera movement to add a real sense of motion to the story. The pristine flair of the art and animation enhances the experience and makes it feel even more immersive.

Mahoyo is not only a great visual novel but serves as a great introduction to the Type-Moon universe. Not only does it connect to the various themes and factions of the world but gives an overall great impression of Nasu’s writing and characters. I would recommend this to someone who wants to get into Type-Moon universe since it stands alone as a self-contained story and isn’t bogged down by assuming familiarity with previous titles.