moogy
2015
Thoughts on the actual content of the game: https://twitter.com/moogy0/status/1532980939541909504
Based on playing the PC port in Japanese. You might be interested to know that Yoru no nai Kuni/Nights of Azure was written by the same person as Asellus's route of SaGa Frontier (Shouda Miwa, who also wrote the Jumi arc in Legend of Mana), and thus the two share some terminology in Japanese. For example, both Asellus and Arnice are 半妖, and the demons in this game and the mystics in SaGa Frontier are both known as 妖魔 in Japanese. From what I can tell, all of these connections were lost in the English localization, though the various similarities between the two games should still be apparent.
The PC port of this game is extremely busted and requires a lot of, shall we say, cajoling to play comfortably. Or play at all, really. It's probably better to just play it on console (or emulate the PS3 version in RPCS3), but I'll provide some information about the port for anyone like me who really wants to play it on PC... or just as a warning, I guess.
Here are the main things you should know about the port:
●You'll need to edit a registry entry to make it run at resolutions higher than 1080p.
●The game will run at the highest framerate your monitor supports, but if it runs at greater than 60 fps, you'll be unable to collect items during map exploration. You will need to manually cap the framerate to 60 if using a monitor with a refresh rate higher than 60hz.
●Borderless fullscreen is not an option provided by the game. Launch the game in windowed mode and use Borderless Gaming or another similar program.
●Controller support is implemented in a questionable manner, requiring the player to manually bind every input in a separate program before launching the game, with no indication what the buttons on your controller correspond to.
●While it does also support KBM controls, you cannot remap the keybindings in any way, nor are they listed anywhere.
●This isn't something exclusive to the PC port, but there is no autosave. For whatever reason Gust didn't add autosave to their games until quite recently.
●There is no option to close the game. You'll need to kill it manually on your end, which may be problematic for some setups.
For further information, such as how to set arbitrary resolutions via editing the registry, please see the game's page on the PC Gaming Wiki: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Nights_of_Azure
This thread on the Steam board has a list of controller bindings that should work if using a 360 controller (or emulating one via programs such as DS4Windows): https://steamcommunity.com/app/527280/discussions/0/135509314046543492/
If you are enough of a yuri fan to finagle the PC port into working, then I salute you.
Based on playing the PC port in Japanese. You might be interested to know that Yoru no nai Kuni/Nights of Azure was written by the same person as Asellus's route of SaGa Frontier (Shouda Miwa, who also wrote the Jumi arc in Legend of Mana), and thus the two share some terminology in Japanese. For example, both Asellus and Arnice are 半妖, and the demons in this game and the mystics in SaGa Frontier are both known as 妖魔 in Japanese. From what I can tell, all of these connections were lost in the English localization, though the various similarities between the two games should still be apparent.
The PC port of this game is extremely busted and requires a lot of, shall we say, cajoling to play comfortably. Or play at all, really. It's probably better to just play it on console (or emulate the PS3 version in RPCS3), but I'll provide some information about the port for anyone like me who really wants to play it on PC... or just as a warning, I guess.
Here are the main things you should know about the port:
●You'll need to edit a registry entry to make it run at resolutions higher than 1080p.
●The game will run at the highest framerate your monitor supports, but if it runs at greater than 60 fps, you'll be unable to collect items during map exploration. You will need to manually cap the framerate to 60 if using a monitor with a refresh rate higher than 60hz.
●Borderless fullscreen is not an option provided by the game. Launch the game in windowed mode and use Borderless Gaming or another similar program.
●Controller support is implemented in a questionable manner, requiring the player to manually bind every input in a separate program before launching the game, with no indication what the buttons on your controller correspond to.
●While it does also support KBM controls, you cannot remap the keybindings in any way, nor are they listed anywhere.
●This isn't something exclusive to the PC port, but there is no autosave. For whatever reason Gust didn't add autosave to their games until quite recently.
●There is no option to close the game. You'll need to kill it manually on your end, which may be problematic for some setups.
For further information, such as how to set arbitrary resolutions via editing the registry, please see the game's page on the PC Gaming Wiki: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Nights_of_Azure
This thread on the Steam board has a list of controller bindings that should work if using a 360 controller (or emulating one via programs such as DS4Windows): https://steamcommunity.com/app/527280/discussions/0/135509314046543492/
If you are enough of a yuri fan to finagle the PC port into working, then I salute you.
2018
The weapons and enemies aren't too exciting, but the later stages are genuinely inventive, even outright surprising. It's worth playing to see where it goes in terms of level design and aesthetics; the early parts of the game don't even begin to prepare you for where it ends up. I love feeling like games have taken me on a journey, and that's an experience that DUSK manages to provide despite being a story-light FPS with retro graphics.
Played this for the first time with the Ultra Deluxe edition.
The original content is more philosophically cohesive, imo, but the new content has some particularly striking imagery and I generally found its dialogue funnier than the original's, so I'd say overall I liked them about equally.
I appreciate that each distinct ending has something to say without trying to sway the player toward any particular viewpoint. I can't say it changed my perspective on the nature of gaming or anything, but it coherently articulated a lot of stuff running through the back of my head while I play games, so it was a worthwhile experience for me. The dialogue itself is nice too. Charmingly irreverent without being cloying.
The original content is more philosophically cohesive, imo, but the new content has some particularly striking imagery and I generally found its dialogue funnier than the original's, so I'd say overall I liked them about equally.
I appreciate that each distinct ending has something to say without trying to sway the player toward any particular viewpoint. I can't say it changed my perspective on the nature of gaming or anything, but it coherently articulated a lot of stuff running through the back of my head while I play games, so it was a worthwhile experience for me. The dialogue itself is nice too. Charmingly irreverent without being cloying.
2022
This review contains spoilers
Crystal Project is a game that could have been beautiful, but has been allowed to grow bloated, ugly, and inelegant.
Sending the player out to explore a vast world with little guidance and only a vague idea of what to look for is a tried and true concept that has persisted since the earliest days of computer RPGs for good reason -- it's fun to go on an adventure of your own devising. Crystal Project has clearly exerted stupendous effort in hopes of eliciting this classic sense of adventure, but while the game does have its moments of brilliance, so much of this effort simply feels misplaced. It is onerous to explore Crystal Project's world; the geography itself is purposelessly brobdingnagian, composed of towering landmasses that lack justification for their sheer scale, and a gaggle of frustrating design decisions produce friction every step of the way.
Lack of a robust fast travel feature is probably the game's most egregious issue, but the developer is taking steps to address this in recent patches, so I won't dwell on it. Suffice to say that the sparsity of fast travel in the game at release accomplished little but padding the play time. I frequently found that the most direct way of reaching any given location was to simply warp to a high point and glide down to it, which is really just fast travel with a commute.
The approach to mapping will seemingly remain an issue for the foreseeable future, however. Crystal Project is incredibly stingy with both the mapping feature and the maps you need to use it to begin with. By the time you've jumped through enough hoops to acquire a given map, you may not even need it anymore, and the actual process of mapping out terrain is incredibly tedious due to the fact that the mapping radius does not extend above the player. It's a lot of work to fill out your maps, and there simply aren't enough points of interest to make it worth your while. Recent Ys games automatically fill out the remainder of a map once you've explored a certain percentage; a system like that would help a great deal in developing an understanding of the terrain. (Personally, I would take Elden Ring's approach of simply feeding you map chunks that come filled out, as there is no actual reward or acknowledgement for filling out maps in this game.)
Ultimately, though, what I found the most abrasive was simply the act of traversing the game world on a basic mechanical level, in large part due to the mount system. Crystal Project gates large swaths of the world behind movement upgrades, which in and of itself isn't a bad idea -- it provides a loose progression to follow before exploration opens up completely. But in practice I can only describe the way this concept was implemented as asinine. Rather than simply upgrading the player character's own capabilities, Crystal Project forces you to swap between no less than four types of mount in order to effect various forms of mobility. Want to go fast? Switch to the Quintar. That jump is three blocks instead of two? Gotta go with the goat. And so forth. While it's cute at first, the mount system results in the player needing to constantly open a menu and swap mounts as the situation demands; forget assigning hotkeys, a quick menu (that you've likely populated with other items in addition to the instruments that summon the mounts) is all you get. As the mounts do not supersede one another, you are forced to perform this inane song and dance for the entire game. But you know what the funny part is? That isn't even my biggest complaint with this system. To be blunt, the goat feels extremely unpleasant to use. Every time you want to jump up three blocks, you need to swap to the goat and slowly charge up its full jump height, a process which completely breaks the flow of controlling the character. And believe me, you're going to need to jump up three blocks a whole lot. I am not exaggerating when I say that the goat is so utterly miserable to interact with that I would rate the game 2.5 stars instead of 2 if this single element were improved.
So it sucks to move around, sure. The world design itself could have still made up for it, but unfortunately Crystal Project's world is stagnant and barren. While the game certainly makes stabs at world building, in the broad sense, it is weirdly devoid of life, figurative or literal. The player is rarely rewarded for exploring, because there simply isn't very much of interest in the first place. You might come across some equipment that's soon to be vertically outclassed, or a pouch that lets you carry 56 potions instead of 55, but moments of genuine discovery are few and far between. There were times when I was excited to discover a connection between two parts of the map seemingly removed from one another, but for the most part it felt like I could get away with doing the bare minimum, since most of the meaningful rewards were located along the beaten path of the main story progression anyway. This problem is only compounded in the endgame, when any attempt at a story evaporates and there is nothing to do but wander a silent, unchanging world. I honestly found the experience quite eerie, stumbling across so many locales that lacked even the most oblique purpose from a narrative standpoint. Perhaps you could liken the experience to exploring a dying MMO; there is often a sense that there should be more, but there simply isn't.
I do respect the effort that went into crafting a world of this scale, but art that does not resonate with the audience can only be appreciated in the most prosaic sense.
And all of this is without even getting into the combat! The combat is, well, it's fine.
If I can opine for a bit (well, what else is a review for?) -- I consider job systems inherently flawed. They want to have their cake and eat it too, trying to encourage the player to commit to builds while simultaneously presenting a huge range of options and synergies. If you want to get the most out of a job system, you simply have to sit there grinding out levels for each job. It's an unnecessary attempt to stake out a middle ground between fixed character skillsets and full customization, carrying with it the frustrations of each. When a game actually asks you to fully engage with a job/class system, what it's really doing is forcing you to grind so you can spec into a narrow range of optimal builds, thereby ultimately stifling player expression. As someone who likes to commit to builds/strategies in RPGs, it always rubs me the wrong way when games suddenly pull the rug out from under me and force me to play in a strictly optimal way, often by designing bosses that are so powerful and/or RNG heavy that suboptimal playstyles simply aren't viable. I recognize that people find joy in the problem solving elements at play here, but I greatly prefer when I am allowed some agency in my party composition, when a boss I struggled with isn't completely trivialized by some munchkin build that you need a PHD to put together.
Anyway, rant aside, I did find the combat in Crystal Project satisfying for the most part. As objectionable as I find job systems, there is a certain joy in watching your party come together over time, in growing more powerful by virtue of your options expanding. As implied by the paragraph above, however, I have a lot of problems with the actual numerical balance in Crystal Project. Very frequently I would reach the boss of a given area and find myself unable to beat it with my preferred strategy, as my numbers simply weren't high enough. Almost every single boss I encountered required coming back to it later, once I had a few more levels under my belt, and this really detracted from an aspect I consider core to RPGs: the sense that you're growing steadily more powerful over time. The final boss and superbosses are particularly egregious on hard mode, essentially forcing you to use certain jobs -- and at that point why even have a job system? From a strictly mechanical standpoint, the only real issue with the combat is that the RNG for misses and crits meshes poorly with the otherwise mostly deterministic flow of battle, but this is a pretty big issue. I ended up lowering the difficulty to normal for the final boss, because my strategy simply would not work due to the enemies being able to randomly one shot my characters with crits, and I was unwilling to scour the entire game world in order to acquire the summons and blue magic necessary to put together something that could bypass the RNG... and really, the fight itself. (As an aside, blue magic is little more than busywork, as are adjacent systems like capturing monsters. All they accomplish is forcing the player to constantly run a blue mage or micromanage enemy HP -- there's no meaningful decision making or exploration involved.)
Honestly, there is more I could complain about with Crystal Project, like the woefully anemic story that left me wondering what the final boss was even trying to accomplish (and indeed, what I accomplished by defeating her), but I think I've made my point. The game does have sparks of brilliance here and there, but really what kept me going was my love of JRPGs as genre and not anything Crystal Project itself did. If you're wondering why I didn't give it an even lower score after spending so many words raking it over the coals -- well, I love JRPG gameplay, and Crystal Project has a lot of that, at the very least.
Sending the player out to explore a vast world with little guidance and only a vague idea of what to look for is a tried and true concept that has persisted since the earliest days of computer RPGs for good reason -- it's fun to go on an adventure of your own devising. Crystal Project has clearly exerted stupendous effort in hopes of eliciting this classic sense of adventure, but while the game does have its moments of brilliance, so much of this effort simply feels misplaced. It is onerous to explore Crystal Project's world; the geography itself is purposelessly brobdingnagian, composed of towering landmasses that lack justification for their sheer scale, and a gaggle of frustrating design decisions produce friction every step of the way.
Lack of a robust fast travel feature is probably the game's most egregious issue, but the developer is taking steps to address this in recent patches, so I won't dwell on it. Suffice to say that the sparsity of fast travel in the game at release accomplished little but padding the play time. I frequently found that the most direct way of reaching any given location was to simply warp to a high point and glide down to it, which is really just fast travel with a commute.
The approach to mapping will seemingly remain an issue for the foreseeable future, however. Crystal Project is incredibly stingy with both the mapping feature and the maps you need to use it to begin with. By the time you've jumped through enough hoops to acquire a given map, you may not even need it anymore, and the actual process of mapping out terrain is incredibly tedious due to the fact that the mapping radius does not extend above the player. It's a lot of work to fill out your maps, and there simply aren't enough points of interest to make it worth your while. Recent Ys games automatically fill out the remainder of a map once you've explored a certain percentage; a system like that would help a great deal in developing an understanding of the terrain. (Personally, I would take Elden Ring's approach of simply feeding you map chunks that come filled out, as there is no actual reward or acknowledgement for filling out maps in this game.)
Ultimately, though, what I found the most abrasive was simply the act of traversing the game world on a basic mechanical level, in large part due to the mount system. Crystal Project gates large swaths of the world behind movement upgrades, which in and of itself isn't a bad idea -- it provides a loose progression to follow before exploration opens up completely. But in practice I can only describe the way this concept was implemented as asinine. Rather than simply upgrading the player character's own capabilities, Crystal Project forces you to swap between no less than four types of mount in order to effect various forms of mobility. Want to go fast? Switch to the Quintar. That jump is three blocks instead of two? Gotta go with the goat. And so forth. While it's cute at first, the mount system results in the player needing to constantly open a menu and swap mounts as the situation demands; forget assigning hotkeys, a quick menu (that you've likely populated with other items in addition to the instruments that summon the mounts) is all you get. As the mounts do not supersede one another, you are forced to perform this inane song and dance for the entire game. But you know what the funny part is? That isn't even my biggest complaint with this system. To be blunt, the goat feels extremely unpleasant to use. Every time you want to jump up three blocks, you need to swap to the goat and slowly charge up its full jump height, a process which completely breaks the flow of controlling the character. And believe me, you're going to need to jump up three blocks a whole lot. I am not exaggerating when I say that the goat is so utterly miserable to interact with that I would rate the game 2.5 stars instead of 2 if this single element were improved.
So it sucks to move around, sure. The world design itself could have still made up for it, but unfortunately Crystal Project's world is stagnant and barren. While the game certainly makes stabs at world building, in the broad sense, it is weirdly devoid of life, figurative or literal. The player is rarely rewarded for exploring, because there simply isn't very much of interest in the first place. You might come across some equipment that's soon to be vertically outclassed, or a pouch that lets you carry 56 potions instead of 55, but moments of genuine discovery are few and far between. There were times when I was excited to discover a connection between two parts of the map seemingly removed from one another, but for the most part it felt like I could get away with doing the bare minimum, since most of the meaningful rewards were located along the beaten path of the main story progression anyway. This problem is only compounded in the endgame, when any attempt at a story evaporates and there is nothing to do but wander a silent, unchanging world. I honestly found the experience quite eerie, stumbling across so many locales that lacked even the most oblique purpose from a narrative standpoint. Perhaps you could liken the experience to exploring a dying MMO; there is often a sense that there should be more, but there simply isn't.
I do respect the effort that went into crafting a world of this scale, but art that does not resonate with the audience can only be appreciated in the most prosaic sense.
And all of this is without even getting into the combat! The combat is, well, it's fine.
If I can opine for a bit (well, what else is a review for?) -- I consider job systems inherently flawed. They want to have their cake and eat it too, trying to encourage the player to commit to builds while simultaneously presenting a huge range of options and synergies. If you want to get the most out of a job system, you simply have to sit there grinding out levels for each job. It's an unnecessary attempt to stake out a middle ground between fixed character skillsets and full customization, carrying with it the frustrations of each. When a game actually asks you to fully engage with a job/class system, what it's really doing is forcing you to grind so you can spec into a narrow range of optimal builds, thereby ultimately stifling player expression. As someone who likes to commit to builds/strategies in RPGs, it always rubs me the wrong way when games suddenly pull the rug out from under me and force me to play in a strictly optimal way, often by designing bosses that are so powerful and/or RNG heavy that suboptimal playstyles simply aren't viable. I recognize that people find joy in the problem solving elements at play here, but I greatly prefer when I am allowed some agency in my party composition, when a boss I struggled with isn't completely trivialized by some munchkin build that you need a PHD to put together.
Anyway, rant aside, I did find the combat in Crystal Project satisfying for the most part. As objectionable as I find job systems, there is a certain joy in watching your party come together over time, in growing more powerful by virtue of your options expanding. As implied by the paragraph above, however, I have a lot of problems with the actual numerical balance in Crystal Project. Very frequently I would reach the boss of a given area and find myself unable to beat it with my preferred strategy, as my numbers simply weren't high enough. Almost every single boss I encountered required coming back to it later, once I had a few more levels under my belt, and this really detracted from an aspect I consider core to RPGs: the sense that you're growing steadily more powerful over time. The final boss and superbosses are particularly egregious on hard mode, essentially forcing you to use certain jobs -- and at that point why even have a job system? From a strictly mechanical standpoint, the only real issue with the combat is that the RNG for misses and crits meshes poorly with the otherwise mostly deterministic flow of battle, but this is a pretty big issue. I ended up lowering the difficulty to normal for the final boss, because my strategy simply would not work due to the enemies being able to randomly one shot my characters with crits, and I was unwilling to scour the entire game world in order to acquire the summons and blue magic necessary to put together something that could bypass the RNG... and really, the fight itself. (As an aside, blue magic is little more than busywork, as are adjacent systems like capturing monsters. All they accomplish is forcing the player to constantly run a blue mage or micromanage enemy HP -- there's no meaningful decision making or exploration involved.)
Honestly, there is more I could complain about with Crystal Project, like the woefully anemic story that left me wondering what the final boss was even trying to accomplish (and indeed, what I accomplished by defeating her), but I think I've made my point. The game does have sparks of brilliance here and there, but really what kept me going was my love of JRPGs as genre and not anything Crystal Project itself did. If you're wondering why I didn't give it an even lower score after spending so many words raking it over the coals -- well, I love JRPG gameplay, and Crystal Project has a lot of that, at the very least.
2020
As a rhythm game, I honestly think D4DJ is on par with the best offerings from the Bemani franchise. Its core mechanics are refined, intuitive, and kinetic, and its chart design is rock solid almost across the board.
At the same time, it leans so hard into being a serious rhythm game that it has neglected elements which could expose it to a wider audience. There are no 3D models or MVs of any sort, and while the original songs are fantastic, the soundtrack as a whole lacks any sort of cohesion or theming due to the sheer number of songs they've crammed into the game. And while this is obviously more subjective, I just don't find the scenario that exciting; I'm loath to directly compare the two games, but I've felt compelled to read every map conversation in Project Sekai, while I've ignored this element of D4DJ almost entirely. I think that's a telling enough anecdote. That said, the anime for D4DJ is legitimately pretty great and I would definitely recommend watching it before the game for context on the characters if nothing else.
Anyway, that's all immaterial to why the game has me hooked, which is its fantastic rhythm action gameplay. The base mechanics are designed for a touchscreen device in a way that facilitates fun, not anguish. Slides and scratches are responsive in a way that flicks in some other games simply aren't, and an immutable five lanes for tap notes ensures that charts remain easy to parse and reasonable to play with two fingers. Above all else, the chart design is simply top notch. The charters really know how to use the gimmicks available to them to draw out the rhythm of a song without just spamming as many notes as possible. It really feels like you're actually playing along with the music, something that a great many rhythm games have a surprising amount of difficulty realizing. Of particular note (heh) are the charts by Subatos; if you see him credited for a chart, you know you're getting an absolute banger, something that will really draw out the appeal of the song regardless of the difficulty level.
There are also a number of great QoL features that make it easier to focus on what matters, playing the game. You can customize basically every aspect of the playing field, not just note speed. Want the lanes to be wider? Sure. Want to alter the length of the playing field itself? Sure. You can even mess with more obscure facets of the play experience, like the exact opacity of upcoming notes during backspin segments. And while the fact that you have to pay a monthly subscription to access it is pretty questionable, I appreciate that there's a higher tier of judgment (Just Perfects, they have a 30ms window) available for players who really want to master the game and improve their timing. It comes with a fast/slow display during gameplay and on the results screen for good measure.
There might be better games on the market if you're primarily interested in the "anime girls" part (and I say that with love), but I can't recommend D4DJ enough if you want a polished, robust rhythm game experience that utilizes touchscreen input in engaging ways.
Disclaimer: I am F2P as far as gacha goes, though I do pay 500 yen a month for the monthly pass that allows access to the advanced judgment system and unlocks all of the songs. I have extremely good gacha luck in this game, though... I think I have a full set of 4 stars for every group at this point, in addition to one of the busted anniversary cards (apparently these are internally referred to as 7 stars, which is pretty hilarious), and I'm not really interested in extreme score grinding, so I don't have much to say about the RPG/gacha elements, sorry.
Also, for the curious, the game silently runs at 120hz on Android devices that support it, much like prsk.
At the same time, it leans so hard into being a serious rhythm game that it has neglected elements which could expose it to a wider audience. There are no 3D models or MVs of any sort, and while the original songs are fantastic, the soundtrack as a whole lacks any sort of cohesion or theming due to the sheer number of songs they've crammed into the game. And while this is obviously more subjective, I just don't find the scenario that exciting; I'm loath to directly compare the two games, but I've felt compelled to read every map conversation in Project Sekai, while I've ignored this element of D4DJ almost entirely. I think that's a telling enough anecdote. That said, the anime for D4DJ is legitimately pretty great and I would definitely recommend watching it before the game for context on the characters if nothing else.
Anyway, that's all immaterial to why the game has me hooked, which is its fantastic rhythm action gameplay. The base mechanics are designed for a touchscreen device in a way that facilitates fun, not anguish. Slides and scratches are responsive in a way that flicks in some other games simply aren't, and an immutable five lanes for tap notes ensures that charts remain easy to parse and reasonable to play with two fingers. Above all else, the chart design is simply top notch. The charters really know how to use the gimmicks available to them to draw out the rhythm of a song without just spamming as many notes as possible. It really feels like you're actually playing along with the music, something that a great many rhythm games have a surprising amount of difficulty realizing. Of particular note (heh) are the charts by Subatos; if you see him credited for a chart, you know you're getting an absolute banger, something that will really draw out the appeal of the song regardless of the difficulty level.
There are also a number of great QoL features that make it easier to focus on what matters, playing the game. You can customize basically every aspect of the playing field, not just note speed. Want the lanes to be wider? Sure. Want to alter the length of the playing field itself? Sure. You can even mess with more obscure facets of the play experience, like the exact opacity of upcoming notes during backspin segments. And while the fact that you have to pay a monthly subscription to access it is pretty questionable, I appreciate that there's a higher tier of judgment (Just Perfects, they have a 30ms window) available for players who really want to master the game and improve their timing. It comes with a fast/slow display during gameplay and on the results screen for good measure.
There might be better games on the market if you're primarily interested in the "anime girls" part (and I say that with love), but I can't recommend D4DJ enough if you want a polished, robust rhythm game experience that utilizes touchscreen input in engaging ways.
Disclaimer: I am F2P as far as gacha goes, though I do pay 500 yen a month for the monthly pass that allows access to the advanced judgment system and unlocks all of the songs. I have extremely good gacha luck in this game, though... I think I have a full set of 4 stars for every group at this point, in addition to one of the busted anniversary cards (apparently these are internally referred to as 7 stars, which is pretty hilarious), and I'm not really interested in extreme score grinding, so I don't have much to say about the RPG/gacha elements, sorry.
Also, for the curious, the game silently runs at 120hz on Android devices that support it, much like prsk.
Not a mindblowing game, but certainly a delightful one.
Combines the snappy pacing and tight balance of the Fushigi series with the more standard/linear storytelling style of Ryza, and the end result is a well-rounded JRPG experience. While I personally would have liked more character/town events, the game is already quite long by Atelier standards -- it took me 55 hours to complete, playing mostly on Very Hard -- and it likely would have been difficult to realize the sheer volume of events seen in Lydie & Suelle. Ultimately the story is surprisingly effective at what it wants to do, even if there are some elements that could be fleshed out a bit more. And they brought back character commentary on every entry in the encyclopedia, so I can't complain too much!
One thing I'd like to praise specifically is the field/dungeon map design. While the maps aren't DRPG levels of complexity or anything, they do require some effort to navigate and use gimmicks in ways that don't feel like pure busywork. I also enjoyed the sort of... Metroidvania-esque progression the game has going on with the weather system; as you unlock new forms of weather manipulation, more of the game world opens up, and exploring the new areas available to you is always worth it. The landmark feature works to provide an extra push to encourage players to comb through the world as well.
One thing I was worried about before release was the soundtrack -- I consider the original Atelier Sophie to have one of the greatest soundtracks in all of gaming, so the sequel had some big shoes to fill, especially since Asano wasn't returning and Yano only contributed a single piece of BGM. I ended up being pleasantly surprised, though, mostly thanks to Yanagawa's efforts. Achiwa's tracks are the standard Achiwa stuff, for better or worse, but Yanagawa really evoked the joy and wonderment I associate with Atelier, something lacking even in his own tracks for Ryza 1/2. Of particular note are the themes where he made use of Shimotsuki's chanting for backing vocals; they elicit a je ne sais quoi you just can't find outside of Gust games. Overall, I'm satisfied with the soundtrack; thank you, Yanagawa.
On the audio front, the voice cast in Sophie 2 is also worth mentioning. Iguchi Yuka, Yuuki Aoi, Takahashi Rie, Ueda Reina, Numakura Manami... it's stacked with big names, and they all deliver performances to live up to their reputations. I'm particularly fond of Takahashi Rie's performance as Ramizel; she really brings the character to life and infuses every line with personality. The return of seiyuu commentary (it's even fully transcribed this time) and full voice acting are also to be celebrated. I don't think Gust has actually made a fully voiced game since Lydie & Suelle, and I didn't quite realize how much I missed this element of the Fushigi series until experiencing it again in Sophie 2.
Overall a very solid entry in the Atelier series. Personally, I enjoyed it more than either Ryza game, but I think it incorporated some of their DNA in an intelligent way. Gust is on a roll recently and I'm excited to see where they go from here.
Combines the snappy pacing and tight balance of the Fushigi series with the more standard/linear storytelling style of Ryza, and the end result is a well-rounded JRPG experience. While I personally would have liked more character/town events, the game is already quite long by Atelier standards -- it took me 55 hours to complete, playing mostly on Very Hard -- and it likely would have been difficult to realize the sheer volume of events seen in Lydie & Suelle. Ultimately the story is surprisingly effective at what it wants to do, even if there are some elements that could be fleshed out a bit more. And they brought back character commentary on every entry in the encyclopedia, so I can't complain too much!
One thing I'd like to praise specifically is the field/dungeon map design. While the maps aren't DRPG levels of complexity or anything, they do require some effort to navigate and use gimmicks in ways that don't feel like pure busywork. I also enjoyed the sort of... Metroidvania-esque progression the game has going on with the weather system; as you unlock new forms of weather manipulation, more of the game world opens up, and exploring the new areas available to you is always worth it. The landmark feature works to provide an extra push to encourage players to comb through the world as well.
One thing I was worried about before release was the soundtrack -- I consider the original Atelier Sophie to have one of the greatest soundtracks in all of gaming, so the sequel had some big shoes to fill, especially since Asano wasn't returning and Yano only contributed a single piece of BGM. I ended up being pleasantly surprised, though, mostly thanks to Yanagawa's efforts. Achiwa's tracks are the standard Achiwa stuff, for better or worse, but Yanagawa really evoked the joy and wonderment I associate with Atelier, something lacking even in his own tracks for Ryza 1/2. Of particular note are the themes where he made use of Shimotsuki's chanting for backing vocals; they elicit a je ne sais quoi you just can't find outside of Gust games. Overall, I'm satisfied with the soundtrack; thank you, Yanagawa.
On the audio front, the voice cast in Sophie 2 is also worth mentioning. Iguchi Yuka, Yuuki Aoi, Takahashi Rie, Ueda Reina, Numakura Manami... it's stacked with big names, and they all deliver performances to live up to their reputations. I'm particularly fond of Takahashi Rie's performance as Ramizel; she really brings the character to life and infuses every line with personality. The return of seiyuu commentary (it's even fully transcribed this time) and full voice acting are also to be celebrated. I don't think Gust has actually made a fully voiced game since Lydie & Suelle, and I didn't quite realize how much I missed this element of the Fushigi series until experiencing it again in Sophie 2.
Overall a very solid entry in the Atelier series. Personally, I enjoyed it more than either Ryza game, but I think it incorporated some of their DNA in an intelligent way. Gust is on a roll recently and I'm excited to see where they go from here.
2022
What is it like to live a fairy tale?
I posit that the Souls series has been attempting to answer this question since its inception, and with Elden Ring, From has finally succeeding in realizing a world that was able to do so.
Your only goal in Elden Ring is to effect an upheaval, to dismantle the current system that you may bring about a new beginning -- or simply an ending. You forge your own myth as you venture through the dying, stagnant world of the Lands Between, bringing hope and despair to its denizens. Around every turn are wonders and horrors; the world is a sick one, but it is a beautiful sickness. Regardless of the ending you choose, there is a true sense that you have accomplished something epic by the end of it all, epic in the most classical sense of the word.
While you can argue that this approach is no different from the Souls games which provide the foundation for Elden Ring, it really "clicked" for me here in a way it didn't in previous games. I attribute this largely to the sheer scale of Elden Ring's world. Miyazaki describes ER as a game based on a mythology by GRRM, and if you ask me, the world lives up to the mythology that shaped it.
Truly a monumental experience; this is what games are capable of. I don't regret completely destroying my sleep schedule to play it for 10+ hours a day at release lol.
I posit that the Souls series has been attempting to answer this question since its inception, and with Elden Ring, From has finally succeeding in realizing a world that was able to do so.
Your only goal in Elden Ring is to effect an upheaval, to dismantle the current system that you may bring about a new beginning -- or simply an ending. You forge your own myth as you venture through the dying, stagnant world of the Lands Between, bringing hope and despair to its denizens. Around every turn are wonders and horrors; the world is a sick one, but it is a beautiful sickness. Regardless of the ending you choose, there is a true sense that you have accomplished something epic by the end of it all, epic in the most classical sense of the word.
While you can argue that this approach is no different from the Souls games which provide the foundation for Elden Ring, it really "clicked" for me here in a way it didn't in previous games. I attribute this largely to the sheer scale of Elden Ring's world. Miyazaki describes ER as a game based on a mythology by GRRM, and if you ask me, the world lives up to the mythology that shaped it.
Truly a monumental experience; this is what games are capable of. I don't regret completely destroying my sleep schedule to play it for 10+ hours a day at release lol.
2020
Derivative to a fault, but well-executed. The story doesn't bring anything new to the table, and cribs a little too much from Kemono Friends for its own good, but the atmosphere and artwork are evocative, and the character writing is surprisingly charming. It shares the most DNA with RPG Maker horror/adventure titles, so give it a shot if you want one of those with some serious production values.
I appreciate the yuri vibes between Haru and Sensei.
I appreciate the yuri vibes between Haru and Sensei.
2021
One of the greatest action platformers of all time, though it might not be what Metroidvania fans in particular are looking for. While the game does follow Metroidvania progression, with an expansive and lovingly detailed world, exploration elements take a backseat to combat and especially platforming.
If you are confident in your gaming skills and seek a real platforming challenge, few games are more satisfying than Aeterna Noctis. As a platformer, it is endlessly creative and rewarding, challenging the player to master its mechanics and design language. The teleport arrow mechanic which serves as the core of its platforming design is almost comically overwhelming at first, and yet by the end of the game it will have become second nature; if you ask me, the appeal of difficult games is pushing past your limits, overcoming yourself, and this is something Aeterna Noctis facilitates brilliantly.
But again, this is not a game for people who desire an exploration-oriented experience or RPG-esque progression -- Hollow Knight and SotN this is not. Aeterna Noctis's framing as a Metroidvania perhaps does it a disservice, because there is a fairly significant portion of the Metroidvania fanbase that is never going to appreciate its approach; at the same time, "Metroidvania" is a very convenient descriptor, and the basic progression of the game largely adheres to genre conventions, so I'm not sure there's actually a better way to market it.
So I'll just say this: play Aeterna Noctis if you want a Metroidvania with gorgeous graphics and platforming harder than anything in Celeste.
If you are confident in your gaming skills and seek a real platforming challenge, few games are more satisfying than Aeterna Noctis. As a platformer, it is endlessly creative and rewarding, challenging the player to master its mechanics and design language. The teleport arrow mechanic which serves as the core of its platforming design is almost comically overwhelming at first, and yet by the end of the game it will have become second nature; if you ask me, the appeal of difficult games is pushing past your limits, overcoming yourself, and this is something Aeterna Noctis facilitates brilliantly.
But again, this is not a game for people who desire an exploration-oriented experience or RPG-esque progression -- Hollow Knight and SotN this is not. Aeterna Noctis's framing as a Metroidvania perhaps does it a disservice, because there is a fairly significant portion of the Metroidvania fanbase that is never going to appreciate its approach; at the same time, "Metroidvania" is a very convenient descriptor, and the basic progression of the game largely adheres to genre conventions, so I'm not sure there's actually a better way to market it.
So I'll just say this: play Aeterna Noctis if you want a Metroidvania with gorgeous graphics and platforming harder than anything in Celeste.
Galleria is a wildly ambitious game, with a story and setting far greater in scale than I could have ever imagined. It recalls titles like YU-NO and Xenogears; it is not afraid to be big, and it is not afraid to be surprising. If you're tired of games with predictable plots, games that advertise every last character and setpiece ahead of time, then look no further -- Galleria has the confidence not to show its cards, and more than enough twists and turns to keep you guessing where things will end up.
But it's easy to squander a plot, because a plot is nothing without its characters. Frankly, I was not on board with the previous games in the Majo series (Hyakkihei and Refrain), largely because the protagonists were, in a word, unlikable. I wasn't invested in the characters, and so I was not invested in the world they inhabited. Thankfully, this shortcoming has been more than just addressed in Galleria; its two protagonists are wonderfully endearing characters, and the strength of their characterization is the narrative's greatest asset. No matter how elaborate the setting gets, no matter how many characters are introduced, it all revolves around Eureka and Natyl in the end. Their relationship provides an emotional core that the previous games in the series lacked. Without them, it wouldn't be half the game it is.
It's fortunate that Galleria has this driving force in the form of Eureka and Natyl, because it is (perhaps unsurprisingly) an absolutely massive game, requiring a great deal of patience and perseverance from the player if they wish to see it through to the end. I can't really imagine anyone finishing it in less than 90 hours. Mechanically, and in terms of dungeon design, I found it to be a huge step up from Refrain. At the same time. there are many parts of the game I can see people finding tedious, if not outright repellent, namely the randomly generated dungeons in the latter half and the item farming and level grinding required for the final boss. And of course, no discussion of Galleria is complete without mentioning its final challenge: a 3651 (not a typo) floor dungeon, entirely randomly generated and designed to test just how far the player is willing to go to see the true ending of the game. I found it to be a fascinating challenge -- it basically creates a roguelike by bending the game's existing mechanics -- and deeply rewarding to complete, not the least of which because of just how brilliant the ending sequence is, but the fact remains that it's a very tall ask.
I don't think Galleria is perfect, either as a narrative or as a game. There are topics I wish the writing had explored more deeply, characters I wish had gotten more screentime (or more comeuppance). I found myself genuinely frustrated by the stupidly difficult final boss, especially after what I had to do to even be able to fight it properly. The postgame dungeon really made me feel like giving up at times, especially when I managed to lose several hundred (!) floors' worth of progress. But in the end, it was all worth it. I can't remember the last time I felt so satisfied completing a game. My complaints all melted away as I watched the hour-long ending sequence go by. In the end, I just loved Eureka and Natyl that much, I guess. I couldn't help but love their game too.
Galleria is one of the greatest JRPGs of all time, and Nippon Ichi's greatest achievement as a company. And that's coming from someone who didn't even like the previous games in the series very much.
But it's easy to squander a plot, because a plot is nothing without its characters. Frankly, I was not on board with the previous games in the Majo series (Hyakkihei and Refrain), largely because the protagonists were, in a word, unlikable. I wasn't invested in the characters, and so I was not invested in the world they inhabited. Thankfully, this shortcoming has been more than just addressed in Galleria; its two protagonists are wonderfully endearing characters, and the strength of their characterization is the narrative's greatest asset. No matter how elaborate the setting gets, no matter how many characters are introduced, it all revolves around Eureka and Natyl in the end. Their relationship provides an emotional core that the previous games in the series lacked. Without them, it wouldn't be half the game it is.
It's fortunate that Galleria has this driving force in the form of Eureka and Natyl, because it is (perhaps unsurprisingly) an absolutely massive game, requiring a great deal of patience and perseverance from the player if they wish to see it through to the end. I can't really imagine anyone finishing it in less than 90 hours. Mechanically, and in terms of dungeon design, I found it to be a huge step up from Refrain. At the same time. there are many parts of the game I can see people finding tedious, if not outright repellent, namely the randomly generated dungeons in the latter half and the item farming and level grinding required for the final boss. And of course, no discussion of Galleria is complete without mentioning its final challenge: a 3651 (not a typo) floor dungeon, entirely randomly generated and designed to test just how far the player is willing to go to see the true ending of the game. I found it to be a fascinating challenge -- it basically creates a roguelike by bending the game's existing mechanics -- and deeply rewarding to complete, not the least of which because of just how brilliant the ending sequence is, but the fact remains that it's a very tall ask.
I don't think Galleria is perfect, either as a narrative or as a game. There are topics I wish the writing had explored more deeply, characters I wish had gotten more screentime (or more comeuppance). I found myself genuinely frustrated by the stupidly difficult final boss, especially after what I had to do to even be able to fight it properly. The postgame dungeon really made me feel like giving up at times, especially when I managed to lose several hundred (!) floors' worth of progress. But in the end, it was all worth it. I can't remember the last time I felt so satisfied completing a game. My complaints all melted away as I watched the hour-long ending sequence go by. In the end, I just loved Eureka and Natyl that much, I guess. I couldn't help but love their game too.
Galleria is one of the greatest JRPGs of all time, and Nippon Ichi's greatest achievement as a company. And that's coming from someone who didn't even like the previous games in the series very much.
From might have forgotten what level design was in this one, but at least they got the combat right.
2019
Surprisingly decent level design and solid core mechanics. A very enjoyable Souls clone if you can look past/ignore how bad the story is, which admittedly might be a bit of a tall ask.
The female character designs are kinda cringe and I say this as a VN fan.
The female character designs are kinda cringe and I say this as a VN fan.
Short ReiMari... walking sim? Explicitly yuri.
The ending kinda goes from 0 to 100 real fast but the rest is cute. English translation is unfortunately not great.
The ending kinda goes from 0 to 100 real fast but the rest is cute. English translation is unfortunately not great.
2009
cat planet cat planet cat planet cat planet cat planet cat planet
2018
Absolutely stifling meta progression elements. You might as well play a soshage instead.