trashh
1995
Quite good. Really impressive game overall, I can't begin to imagine how they fit something of this quality into a Gameboy game. It honestly runs better than Kirby's Adventure on the NES despite being more complex. Only notable complaint is that the rainbow pieces were stupidly hard to find. The true final boss was really good though and made it worth it.
This game is incredible. I've wanted a 3D Kirby game for years, and not only does this game deliver that, but it gives so much more. It carries all the aspects that made me Kirby love into 3D, including level design, music, and combat; it keeps its feel and charm very well despite the new medium. If you're someone who fell off of Kirby years ago, or just never got into it, I highly suggest checking this out. It deserves to be right along side the great Switch games of 2017. If you're a returning Kirby fan, there's a lot to love here, especially if you've kept up with the story.
My only gripe would be that I think abilities are a little too basic, they can only do 2-3 things, and they're evolutions are basically just upgrades with minor changes. If they added like a single new attack button to all of them I would have no gripes.
My only gripe would be that I think abilities are a little too basic, they can only do 2-3 things, and they're evolutions are basically just upgrades with minor changes. If they added like a single new attack button to all of them I would have no gripes.
2000
Really great game. Fantastic story and characters, great environments, banger soundtrack etc.
I will say that the combat drags this game down. While I love turn based combat, the ATB system has always ruined my favorite part of it, that being the methodical step by step strategy. ATB just gets rid of that and you're left with a system that feels like it wants to be both action and turn based but can't decide which it should lean into more. I will say though that the combat itself has a LOT of depth and strategy to it when it comes it abilities, clothes, party members, etc.
Final note, the ending was fantastic. I thought it was a really happy ending until I took the time to string together what it was saying, and when I found out who was saying it, it hit like a ton of bricks.
I will say that the combat drags this game down. While I love turn based combat, the ATB system has always ruined my favorite part of it, that being the methodical step by step strategy. ATB just gets rid of that and you're left with a system that feels like it wants to be both action and turn based but can't decide which it should lean into more. I will say though that the combat itself has a LOT of depth and strategy to it when it comes it abilities, clothes, party members, etc.
Final note, the ending was fantastic. I thought it was a really happy ending until I took the time to string together what it was saying, and when I found out who was saying it, it hit like a ton of bricks.
2020
This review contains spoilers
Every time I beat a game, I'm usually able to write a review immediately afterwards on here, and am able to collect most of my thoughts and write them all out pretty easily. However, Omori is the first game that I've had to sit down and think about for a week on how I truly felt about this game. From the second the credits started to roll, I knew this game would be a 7/10. However, it was incredibly hard for me to get the words as to why. But I think I have those words after an entire week.
Omori really conflicts me; it has some of the most beautiful and well put together story telling I've seen in any game, and is also able to represent its themes in a coherent and great way to the point where even someone who hasn't gone through things like trauma and loss can still have an adoring love for the game. But at the same time, the gameplay just got agonizingly slow and boring as it progressed, and also horror elements that are just bad, uninteresting, and most of all not scary.
I want to start with the good since I think it overall outweighs the bad. And starting from the top, the story in this game is just so good. From the very beginning where it starts dropping hints about what's going on, making you question what's going on with Mari and whether you can trust her or not, meeting old friends and seeing how they've changed, and discovering what caused everything to happen. The build up to everything is so well done in fact that in some ways it brought down other parts of the game, making me get annoyed with the last two areas of Headspace. It's hard to describe why the actual story itself is so good, it's just something you get. Everything in the game works around it and it points you towards it the entire time, and when you finally put all the pieces together everything starts to make more sense.
There's also the characters, who, if you ignore Headspace, are all amazingly written. Each one, including yourself, has their own story and way they dealt with the situation. My favorite of which was bar none Aubery, who starts out seemingly completely different, being much more rude and bullyish, which is a complete 180 to how you're introduced to her in Headspace. The peak of not only her character, but also this game, happens inside of the church.
You and Kel have been searching around for her all day, fighting each of her new friends to find more information about her whereabouts, until you're finally notified she's at church. Despite Kel's wishes, you both go inside the church during a Sarum to confront Aubrey. When you talk to her, you learn two bomb shells of information: not only is it finally revealed that Mari died, but you also learn how alone Aubrey felt. After everyone split up due to Mari's death, Aubrey thought that everyone had moved on from it, and that she was the only one who actually cared. This caused her to put her all into remembering Mari, including visiting church very often and going to Mari's grave every single day, something no one else in the group could bare to do. This, along with a bad home life that's revealed later on, made her turn against the world and against her friends. Kel and Aubery's talking eventually turns into arguing, which causes you to fight her in the middle of the church. This entire fight sequece is the best and one of the most emotional moments in this game, and nearly everything about it is perfect, especially the song that plays during the fight, which is my favorite in the game. As you fight, you hear whispers of churchgoers around you, talking about the way Aubrey behaves and dresses. Whether you beat her or not, the fight comes to an end and Aubrey runs out of the church, completely embarrassed and distraught about what just happened. When you follow her out, you make it to her house and watch as she throws something into the trash, that being Basil's photo album. This is the first of a few times where Kel offers to high five you, however this was the only time where I didn't feel good about anything I just did. That's just a small example of Aubery's character, and there's so much more I could go over. While every character in the main cast is a great character, none get close to Aubrey and her arc.
I also love the art and music for this game. Disregarding the pixel art which I'm not a huge fan of (especially when it's animated) this game has such a beautiful art style. Omocat's style adds so much personality to fights, able to make characters either super cute or incredibly threatening. Every enemy also has a few frames of idle animation, which adds so much to battles. And there's the music, which is just amazing. I didn't completely notice until relistening to all the game's music that what makes Omocat's music stand out is its ability to convey emotion. Even without the context of the game, a long of these tracks are powerful enough to convey the emotion and overall feel it was going for scarily well. That also leads to some songs where it's able to create music for emotions that are almost indescribable, which I think is most apparent in Black Space's music. There's also the battle music which is almost always a banger. And while I mentioned this game not really being scary to me, the scary music and ambience is by far the scariest part about this game.
I'd also like to mention the general combat here. It's really simple and really fun, however I will say it started to get repetitive. The combat also becomes a joke once Aubrey learns Headbutt, which is an absolutely broken move that can break every fight, to the point where I didn't die a single time in the game.
Also, as a note to end off the good part, there's a LOT of other good things that I forgot to mention. This game is filled to the brim with little details, plenty of which I'm sure I don't even know about. However I don't want to spend all day researching for a review. Also I want to do a short list of great things about this game I couldn't find the words to compliment:
-The reveal of the meaning behind Something's design
-The scene where you put back all of the photos with the entire group, sans Basil and Mari, inside of Aubrey's house
-The visuals in Black Space and how they foreshadow everything without being too direct
-The title screen changing dynamically near the end of the game, once while in Black Space and again after the ending.
-The gut-wrenching use of My Time as the credits theme for the worst ending.
-The hand drawn animation, especially during the final fight
-The final fight itself and all of Omori's dialogue during it.
-An entire extra optional area to explore if you're into the Headspace gameplay.
-That one track that plays during awake moments with the backwards singing it in that scares the shit out of me.
-The entire Black Space sequence is really good and creates an amazing other worldly vibe. It actually felt like I was going through the repressed and distorted memories of a person who had been broken.
-The writing in the aforementioned scene is also really good too. (The one part with Basil and the spiders really got to me in particular for how Basil acts towards the spiders before realizing they're a genuine threat).
While there is quite a lot of good in this game, there's also a lot of bad that I usually see go unmentioned or brushed off. I could 100% understand seeing this game at the level that others do if you hyperfocused on things like the story, characters, combat, etc, however these weren't enough to completely save the bad parts. Do be warned though, this next part will basically be me just shitting on Headspace.
The biggest, off the bat flaw is how much the game starts to drag in the later third or so of the game, at least inside of Headspace. Everything from the start of Deep Well to when you first enter Black Space is so ungodly uninteresting that it hurts. I didn't care for Deep Well or any of the characters inside of it, and it didn't really seem like the game wanted me to either. I remember when I first got to the casino, I accidentally spun 100 clams while trying to figure out the controls and ended up getting 200x that, or 20,000 clams, which basically set me for the rest of the game monetarily wise and made the game much less tense, which I would say is a bad thing for a game that felt like my money was always limited. The parts inside Deeper Well were actually kinda interesting, however you then meet Humphrey. I genuinely hate everything about this next part. I've never felt so bored, uninterested, and had a strong feeling of wanting to move on and see the actual good parts of this game in any other piece of media. The visual design was boring, the music was boring, the characters were boring. The writing of the characters in Headspace up to this point had never been that great and had only really existed as a means of contrast, however it really started to rub off on me here just how bad it was. The only slightly interesting things about this part was the puzzles and the final fight against Humphrey, which that entire sequence was once of the most tense sequences in the game (especially coming from someone with a irrational fear of being digested). I could understand the existence and got the importance of Deep(er) Well, however the entire Humphrey part felt like pointless filler. I really think it should've been optional side content like the desert area, which I think would've massively improved the pacing and would've let me enjoy the final hours of this game even more.
That's not the only problem with Headspace. As I mentioned before, the characters and overall writing inside of Headspace is just not that interesting or good. I get the importance of it, but when 80% of the game takes place in this world, you can't expect me not to get sick of the writing really quickly. A lot of things just feel random and quirky for the sake of being random and quirky. One particularly bad moment that stuck out to me is that scene where a cheese wheel blocks your path. Not only is there a fart joke during this segment, but Hero for some reason calls a hamster from out of nowhere, who eats the cheese and leaves? This part wasn't really clever or funny, it felt incredibly forced, and there's other scenes like that too. There's also the original characters inside of Headspace, who I personally just didn't care for. Space Boyfriend, Sweetheart, Jawsome, and the Slime Girls (who yes are actual fetish characters) are just one note characters with barely any depth. These characters might get development in optional parts of the game, but I never saw those things... nor particularly care too. One final note about the writing that my friend pointed out to me is that all of the characters, especially the ones at the playground, all feel the exact same. And once again I get the point of it, but that doesn't make it any more fun to go through the slog that is Headspace.
The final major thing that I mentioned before is that I didn't really feel scared by this game. I've heard people mention before that this game's representation of phobias is terrifying to even those without these fears, but I disagree. None of these parts were scary, most notably the part with spiders throughout your house. The idea of spiders filling my house is a scary one, but this game doesn't represent it in the best way possible. Sunny just walks through his house without problem despite it being covered head to toe in spiders. Also the whole "scary thing appears for 2 frames before disappearing" is very overused and got old after the first few times. The only scare that really got me was at the beginning. There's that whole scene with Mari at the door, but that's not the scary part. The thing that really got me was checking the mirror afterwards only for that same sprite to appear right behind me. And it didn't just disappear instantly, it stayed there until I left the mirror. I just sat back for a good minute or two during this, surprised by how direct this scare was for the game up to this point while also getting pretty spooked by how it was technically endless. No point in the game scared me afterwards.
Just like with the good, I want to list a few miscellaneous bad parts of this game:
-The stiff sprite animations in this game, especially for the main cast, was really noticeable.
-The Recycultists in the real world were really stupid and broke immersion in otherwise very grounded portions of the game.
-Pluto's second fight was disappointing.
-This is more of a nitpick but I wish you could've fought more planets other than the two (Earth and Pluto) already in the game.
-The whole character switch system felt weird. Some of them made sense, but then you have Hero who I used literally like twice in the game and never again. Contrast that to Aubrey who's skill is so useful it sometimes feels better to just play as her.
-A few other things bothered me but I can't recall them.
Overall, Omori is just a game I can't quite place my finger on how I feel. When I think about the good parts of the game, I could easily give this game a 9/10. However when I think about the bad parts, it quickly sinks to a 5/10 or lower. I truly wish I could've loved this game as much as everyone else seems to, as there is a lot to love in this game, but it sometimes felt like this game was going out of it's way to keep me away from the best parts of the game. If the characters in Headspace were more developed and given more time to shine then I could find myself really enjoying this, even able to put aside a few other aspects I don't like. One day I'll replay the game, and maybe I'll find myself enjoying it more than now, but currently it sits at a very solid 7/10.
Omori really conflicts me; it has some of the most beautiful and well put together story telling I've seen in any game, and is also able to represent its themes in a coherent and great way to the point where even someone who hasn't gone through things like trauma and loss can still have an adoring love for the game. But at the same time, the gameplay just got agonizingly slow and boring as it progressed, and also horror elements that are just bad, uninteresting, and most of all not scary.
I want to start with the good since I think it overall outweighs the bad. And starting from the top, the story in this game is just so good. From the very beginning where it starts dropping hints about what's going on, making you question what's going on with Mari and whether you can trust her or not, meeting old friends and seeing how they've changed, and discovering what caused everything to happen. The build up to everything is so well done in fact that in some ways it brought down other parts of the game, making me get annoyed with the last two areas of Headspace. It's hard to describe why the actual story itself is so good, it's just something you get. Everything in the game works around it and it points you towards it the entire time, and when you finally put all the pieces together everything starts to make more sense.
There's also the characters, who, if you ignore Headspace, are all amazingly written. Each one, including yourself, has their own story and way they dealt with the situation. My favorite of which was bar none Aubery, who starts out seemingly completely different, being much more rude and bullyish, which is a complete 180 to how you're introduced to her in Headspace. The peak of not only her character, but also this game, happens inside of the church.
You and Kel have been searching around for her all day, fighting each of her new friends to find more information about her whereabouts, until you're finally notified she's at church. Despite Kel's wishes, you both go inside the church during a Sarum to confront Aubrey. When you talk to her, you learn two bomb shells of information: not only is it finally revealed that Mari died, but you also learn how alone Aubrey felt. After everyone split up due to Mari's death, Aubrey thought that everyone had moved on from it, and that she was the only one who actually cared. This caused her to put her all into remembering Mari, including visiting church very often and going to Mari's grave every single day, something no one else in the group could bare to do. This, along with a bad home life that's revealed later on, made her turn against the world and against her friends. Kel and Aubery's talking eventually turns into arguing, which causes you to fight her in the middle of the church. This entire fight sequece is the best and one of the most emotional moments in this game, and nearly everything about it is perfect, especially the song that plays during the fight, which is my favorite in the game. As you fight, you hear whispers of churchgoers around you, talking about the way Aubrey behaves and dresses. Whether you beat her or not, the fight comes to an end and Aubrey runs out of the church, completely embarrassed and distraught about what just happened. When you follow her out, you make it to her house and watch as she throws something into the trash, that being Basil's photo album. This is the first of a few times where Kel offers to high five you, however this was the only time where I didn't feel good about anything I just did. That's just a small example of Aubery's character, and there's so much more I could go over. While every character in the main cast is a great character, none get close to Aubrey and her arc.
I also love the art and music for this game. Disregarding the pixel art which I'm not a huge fan of (especially when it's animated) this game has such a beautiful art style. Omocat's style adds so much personality to fights, able to make characters either super cute or incredibly threatening. Every enemy also has a few frames of idle animation, which adds so much to battles. And there's the music, which is just amazing. I didn't completely notice until relistening to all the game's music that what makes Omocat's music stand out is its ability to convey emotion. Even without the context of the game, a long of these tracks are powerful enough to convey the emotion and overall feel it was going for scarily well. That also leads to some songs where it's able to create music for emotions that are almost indescribable, which I think is most apparent in Black Space's music. There's also the battle music which is almost always a banger. And while I mentioned this game not really being scary to me, the scary music and ambience is by far the scariest part about this game.
I'd also like to mention the general combat here. It's really simple and really fun, however I will say it started to get repetitive. The combat also becomes a joke once Aubrey learns Headbutt, which is an absolutely broken move that can break every fight, to the point where I didn't die a single time in the game.
Also, as a note to end off the good part, there's a LOT of other good things that I forgot to mention. This game is filled to the brim with little details, plenty of which I'm sure I don't even know about. However I don't want to spend all day researching for a review. Also I want to do a short list of great things about this game I couldn't find the words to compliment:
-The reveal of the meaning behind Something's design
-The scene where you put back all of the photos with the entire group, sans Basil and Mari, inside of Aubrey's house
-The visuals in Black Space and how they foreshadow everything without being too direct
-The title screen changing dynamically near the end of the game, once while in Black Space and again after the ending.
-The gut-wrenching use of My Time as the credits theme for the worst ending.
-The hand drawn animation, especially during the final fight
-The final fight itself and all of Omori's dialogue during it.
-An entire extra optional area to explore if you're into the Headspace gameplay.
-That one track that plays during awake moments with the backwards singing it in that scares the shit out of me.
-The entire Black Space sequence is really good and creates an amazing other worldly vibe. It actually felt like I was going through the repressed and distorted memories of a person who had been broken.
-The writing in the aforementioned scene is also really good too. (The one part with Basil and the spiders really got to me in particular for how Basil acts towards the spiders before realizing they're a genuine threat).
While there is quite a lot of good in this game, there's also a lot of bad that I usually see go unmentioned or brushed off. I could 100% understand seeing this game at the level that others do if you hyperfocused on things like the story, characters, combat, etc, however these weren't enough to completely save the bad parts. Do be warned though, this next part will basically be me just shitting on Headspace.
The biggest, off the bat flaw is how much the game starts to drag in the later third or so of the game, at least inside of Headspace. Everything from the start of Deep Well to when you first enter Black Space is so ungodly uninteresting that it hurts. I didn't care for Deep Well or any of the characters inside of it, and it didn't really seem like the game wanted me to either. I remember when I first got to the casino, I accidentally spun 100 clams while trying to figure out the controls and ended up getting 200x that, or 20,000 clams, which basically set me for the rest of the game monetarily wise and made the game much less tense, which I would say is a bad thing for a game that felt like my money was always limited. The parts inside Deeper Well were actually kinda interesting, however you then meet Humphrey. I genuinely hate everything about this next part. I've never felt so bored, uninterested, and had a strong feeling of wanting to move on and see the actual good parts of this game in any other piece of media. The visual design was boring, the music was boring, the characters were boring. The writing of the characters in Headspace up to this point had never been that great and had only really existed as a means of contrast, however it really started to rub off on me here just how bad it was. The only slightly interesting things about this part was the puzzles and the final fight against Humphrey, which that entire sequence was once of the most tense sequences in the game (especially coming from someone with a irrational fear of being digested). I could understand the existence and got the importance of Deep(er) Well, however the entire Humphrey part felt like pointless filler. I really think it should've been optional side content like the desert area, which I think would've massively improved the pacing and would've let me enjoy the final hours of this game even more.
That's not the only problem with Headspace. As I mentioned before, the characters and overall writing inside of Headspace is just not that interesting or good. I get the importance of it, but when 80% of the game takes place in this world, you can't expect me not to get sick of the writing really quickly. A lot of things just feel random and quirky for the sake of being random and quirky. One particularly bad moment that stuck out to me is that scene where a cheese wheel blocks your path. Not only is there a fart joke during this segment, but Hero for some reason calls a hamster from out of nowhere, who eats the cheese and leaves? This part wasn't really clever or funny, it felt incredibly forced, and there's other scenes like that too. There's also the original characters inside of Headspace, who I personally just didn't care for. Space Boyfriend, Sweetheart, Jawsome, and the Slime Girls (who yes are actual fetish characters) are just one note characters with barely any depth. These characters might get development in optional parts of the game, but I never saw those things... nor particularly care too. One final note about the writing that my friend pointed out to me is that all of the characters, especially the ones at the playground, all feel the exact same. And once again I get the point of it, but that doesn't make it any more fun to go through the slog that is Headspace.
The final major thing that I mentioned before is that I didn't really feel scared by this game. I've heard people mention before that this game's representation of phobias is terrifying to even those without these fears, but I disagree. None of these parts were scary, most notably the part with spiders throughout your house. The idea of spiders filling my house is a scary one, but this game doesn't represent it in the best way possible. Sunny just walks through his house without problem despite it being covered head to toe in spiders. Also the whole "scary thing appears for 2 frames before disappearing" is very overused and got old after the first few times. The only scare that really got me was at the beginning. There's that whole scene with Mari at the door, but that's not the scary part. The thing that really got me was checking the mirror afterwards only for that same sprite to appear right behind me. And it didn't just disappear instantly, it stayed there until I left the mirror. I just sat back for a good minute or two during this, surprised by how direct this scare was for the game up to this point while also getting pretty spooked by how it was technically endless. No point in the game scared me afterwards.
Just like with the good, I want to list a few miscellaneous bad parts of this game:
-The stiff sprite animations in this game, especially for the main cast, was really noticeable.
-The Recycultists in the real world were really stupid and broke immersion in otherwise very grounded portions of the game.
-Pluto's second fight was disappointing.
-This is more of a nitpick but I wish you could've fought more planets other than the two (Earth and Pluto) already in the game.
-The whole character switch system felt weird. Some of them made sense, but then you have Hero who I used literally like twice in the game and never again. Contrast that to Aubrey who's skill is so useful it sometimes feels better to just play as her.
-A few other things bothered me but I can't recall them.
Overall, Omori is just a game I can't quite place my finger on how I feel. When I think about the good parts of the game, I could easily give this game a 9/10. However when I think about the bad parts, it quickly sinks to a 5/10 or lower. I truly wish I could've loved this game as much as everyone else seems to, as there is a lot to love in this game, but it sometimes felt like this game was going out of it's way to keep me away from the best parts of the game. If the characters in Headspace were more developed and given more time to shine then I could find myself really enjoying this, even able to put aside a few other aspects I don't like. One day I'll replay the game, and maybe I'll find myself enjoying it more than now, but currently it sits at a very solid 7/10.
This review contains spoilers
Security Breach is one of the most disappointing games I've ever played, and I wasn't even expecting that much from the game. First thing out of the way, this game runs like garbage. I bought the PS4 version since I trusted that the console I played Help Wanted without issue on could run the game better than my 6 year old PC, however I was incredibly mistaken. Never have I played a console game so laggy, buggy, and overall broken. Here's a list of bugs I ran into when I wasn't even attempting to break the game:
-Clipping out of bounds multiple times due to incredibly slow load times between areas.
-Items inside of inventory could not be selected and examined.
-Cameras would sometimes not work and always caused lag spikes.
-STAFF Bots could notice me even when I was hiding.
-The green circle that appears when you open/collect/use things would sometimes stay there for some reason. On the same hand, the red circle would sometimes also stay there and would not go away.
-Freddy goes crazy and teleport all across the pizzaplex if you call him from any surface with at least some elevation.
-Saving would sometimes be disabled when it wasn't supposed to be.
-The lights that are supposed to turn on from the generator in the Daycare would not turn on.
-I nearly got hardlocked TWICE. Once was inside of the Prize Corner office where the game for some reason didn't update the mission after Freddy turned off the alarm, which for whatever reason disabled me from going inside of Freddy. I was able to use the recharge station to get back inside, but once I did I was locked inside and could not get out. I was only able to fix it since I went inside a recharge station during a scripted sequence, which allowed me to leave Freddy. For the entire rest of the game, the mission still was not completed.
-The other time it nearly happened was when I was trying to figure out how to kill Chica. I placed the Monty Mix on the trash compactor but couldn't find the incredibly small and hidden button you're supposed to press to activate, and so I left. When I came back, the mix was gone and I couldn't place it anymore. It was only fixed because I had not saved and reset my game. I can only imagine how it would've felt if I did save.
-3 crashes, one when trying to start Princess Quest, another when dying in Princess Quest, and the last happened for no reason while I was inside of the theater trying to finish the game.
-The moon guy could kill even while inside Freddy. Still cannot tell if this was a bug or a feature, but either way the jumpscare for it was bugged.
-The button prompt sometimes just wouldn't appear for things unless at a really specific angle.
-The video for the Free Vanny ending just didn't play for some reason, which completely ruined what I consider the best ending for the game and forcing me to go on Youtube to watch it.
-STAFF bots would sometimes not detect me when I was right infront of them and vice versa.
-If I closed instruction cards too quickly, the "music" for the card would play instead of any ambience until a song change happened or I died.
-The moon guy, Chica, Roxanne, and Montgomery would sometimes randomly get stuck on stuff and were unable to move. This broke Roxanne's fight as well, allowing me to just walk to the end.
-I got softlocked multiple times because the jump feature allows you to just walk over and around things that aren't meant to do that.
-In Roxy Raceway, Roxanne got stuck in a loop of walking up the stairs and standing still, only to teleport back down if I walked up to her.
-Sometimes animatronics would just freeze right next to hiding places for no reason, forcing me to get out and instantly die.
-Leaving Freddy's stomach can very easily push you inside of objects, causing you to get stuck and having to reset. This happened to me multiple times.
-Lights in reflections disappear if you look down.
-You can hop over the gate on the catwalk in Fazer Blaster and go down, which triggers Vanny's door to open, allowing you to finish the game early on.
-If you reload your save after getting an ending, it permanently glitches the front doors so that they're always closed, even though you can still go through them (every single Youtube video I watched had this problem as well).
-Many more that I'm forgetting.
The performance is not the only problem with this game, I also found the story to be a mess. The game stays fine and unintrusive with the story for most of the game, which is fine. However there's a secret elevator you can get to if you fully upgrade Freddy that reveals that the Pizzaplex was built ontop of the FFPS location, AND that Afton, Molten Freddy, and all the other good friends somehow survived. This ending completely invalidates the entirety of FFPS with Henry's entire plan AND UCN which was LITERALLY A GAME WHERE YOU PLAYED AS AFTON IN HELL BEING FORCED TO BE HUNTED BY HIS CREATIONS AND THE PEOPLE HE HURT FOR THE REST OF EXISTENCE. I really don't understand why they did this. In Help Wanted, they already established TWO new villains, one being a robotic virus Afton of sorts and one being the player, who's spirit was locked inside the game by Afton, and who's body was taken over by Afton. It was silly but it was a way to continue FNaF while still actually caring about what happened before. Security Breach decided that the best thing to do with that was to make Vanny and Glitchtrap nonexistent, end their story there by freeing Vanny, and bringing back Afton. At this point I'm not even sure if I'm going to follow the story anymore.
There's also the gameplay. If you can somehow get past the way the game runs, you'll be treated to very hit or miss gameplay. This game is most fun when you're going through small events, usually being hunted by a unique animatronic. I actually really enjoyed myself during these parts, especially the music man sequence which is way too good for this game. Outside of that, the other 70% of this game is sneaking around the Pizzaplex being hunted by the same 3 barebones animatronics. It's ok. Sometimes it's a little fun, sometimes it's aggrivating.
The final and best thing I wanna touch on is the overall artistic direction. This game has really, REALLY well done animations, art, music, and modelling. You can tell Steel Wool's creative vision for the game was really strong and there's creativity pouring out of every spore on this game. Sadly though none of these aspects are really that scary, but at this point FNaF isn't even horror.
Overall, I'm just sad. This game had a lot of potential to be good. Hell if they actually bothered to make the game run well it could be a solid 7/10, but it would take an entire year of bug fixing and playtesting to actually fix this game. Even if all that happened though, there's still core fundamental problems with this game as I mentioned above. While I'm not as much as a fan as I was many years ago, I still care about the series and enjoyed the new installments. So seeing the series come down to this just makes me feel empty. I hope Steel Wool learns from this train wreck and actually takes their time with the next game, but for now I'm not looking forward to whatever's next.
-Clipping out of bounds multiple times due to incredibly slow load times between areas.
-Items inside of inventory could not be selected and examined.
-Cameras would sometimes not work and always caused lag spikes.
-STAFF Bots could notice me even when I was hiding.
-The green circle that appears when you open/collect/use things would sometimes stay there for some reason. On the same hand, the red circle would sometimes also stay there and would not go away.
-Freddy goes crazy and teleport all across the pizzaplex if you call him from any surface with at least some elevation.
-Saving would sometimes be disabled when it wasn't supposed to be.
-The lights that are supposed to turn on from the generator in the Daycare would not turn on.
-I nearly got hardlocked TWICE. Once was inside of the Prize Corner office where the game for some reason didn't update the mission after Freddy turned off the alarm, which for whatever reason disabled me from going inside of Freddy. I was able to use the recharge station to get back inside, but once I did I was locked inside and could not get out. I was only able to fix it since I went inside a recharge station during a scripted sequence, which allowed me to leave Freddy. For the entire rest of the game, the mission still was not completed.
-The other time it nearly happened was when I was trying to figure out how to kill Chica. I placed the Monty Mix on the trash compactor but couldn't find the incredibly small and hidden button you're supposed to press to activate, and so I left. When I came back, the mix was gone and I couldn't place it anymore. It was only fixed because I had not saved and reset my game. I can only imagine how it would've felt if I did save.
-3 crashes, one when trying to start Princess Quest, another when dying in Princess Quest, and the last happened for no reason while I was inside of the theater trying to finish the game.
-The moon guy could kill even while inside Freddy. Still cannot tell if this was a bug or a feature, but either way the jumpscare for it was bugged.
-The button prompt sometimes just wouldn't appear for things unless at a really specific angle.
-The video for the Free Vanny ending just didn't play for some reason, which completely ruined what I consider the best ending for the game and forcing me to go on Youtube to watch it.
-STAFF bots would sometimes not detect me when I was right infront of them and vice versa.
-If I closed instruction cards too quickly, the "music" for the card would play instead of any ambience until a song change happened or I died.
-The moon guy, Chica, Roxanne, and Montgomery would sometimes randomly get stuck on stuff and were unable to move. This broke Roxanne's fight as well, allowing me to just walk to the end.
-I got softlocked multiple times because the jump feature allows you to just walk over and around things that aren't meant to do that.
-In Roxy Raceway, Roxanne got stuck in a loop of walking up the stairs and standing still, only to teleport back down if I walked up to her.
-Sometimes animatronics would just freeze right next to hiding places for no reason, forcing me to get out and instantly die.
-Leaving Freddy's stomach can very easily push you inside of objects, causing you to get stuck and having to reset. This happened to me multiple times.
-Lights in reflections disappear if you look down.
-You can hop over the gate on the catwalk in Fazer Blaster and go down, which triggers Vanny's door to open, allowing you to finish the game early on.
-If you reload your save after getting an ending, it permanently glitches the front doors so that they're always closed, even though you can still go through them (every single Youtube video I watched had this problem as well).
-Many more that I'm forgetting.
The performance is not the only problem with this game, I also found the story to be a mess. The game stays fine and unintrusive with the story for most of the game, which is fine. However there's a secret elevator you can get to if you fully upgrade Freddy that reveals that the Pizzaplex was built ontop of the FFPS location, AND that Afton, Molten Freddy, and all the other good friends somehow survived. This ending completely invalidates the entirety of FFPS with Henry's entire plan AND UCN which was LITERALLY A GAME WHERE YOU PLAYED AS AFTON IN HELL BEING FORCED TO BE HUNTED BY HIS CREATIONS AND THE PEOPLE HE HURT FOR THE REST OF EXISTENCE. I really don't understand why they did this. In Help Wanted, they already established TWO new villains, one being a robotic virus Afton of sorts and one being the player, who's spirit was locked inside the game by Afton, and who's body was taken over by Afton. It was silly but it was a way to continue FNaF while still actually caring about what happened before. Security Breach decided that the best thing to do with that was to make Vanny and Glitchtrap nonexistent, end their story there by freeing Vanny, and bringing back Afton. At this point I'm not even sure if I'm going to follow the story anymore.
There's also the gameplay. If you can somehow get past the way the game runs, you'll be treated to very hit or miss gameplay. This game is most fun when you're going through small events, usually being hunted by a unique animatronic. I actually really enjoyed myself during these parts, especially the music man sequence which is way too good for this game. Outside of that, the other 70% of this game is sneaking around the Pizzaplex being hunted by the same 3 barebones animatronics. It's ok. Sometimes it's a little fun, sometimes it's aggrivating.
The final and best thing I wanna touch on is the overall artistic direction. This game has really, REALLY well done animations, art, music, and modelling. You can tell Steel Wool's creative vision for the game was really strong and there's creativity pouring out of every spore on this game. Sadly though none of these aspects are really that scary, but at this point FNaF isn't even horror.
Overall, I'm just sad. This game had a lot of potential to be good. Hell if they actually bothered to make the game run well it could be a solid 7/10, but it would take an entire year of bug fixing and playtesting to actually fix this game. Even if all that happened though, there's still core fundamental problems with this game as I mentioned above. While I'm not as much as a fan as I was many years ago, I still care about the series and enjoyed the new installments. So seeing the series come down to this just makes me feel empty. I hope Steel Wool learns from this train wreck and actually takes their time with the next game, but for now I'm not looking forward to whatever's next.
2021
Just a solid fun turn based RPG. It's nothing crazy or amazing but you'll enjoy your time with it. There's also a lot of content, much more than I was initially expecting. I have a few complaints, one is that I wish there was some control for other party members. Even if not direct control, something like Persona 3's Tactic system would've made it more enjoyable. Instead you just have to pray to God the AI is smart (it usually isn't). Also, for a game with so many classes and potential party members, it's a shock that there's zero EXP share of any kind. I can kind of understand a level reset from changing classes, but party members not in use not getting any EXP makes them basically useless, and makes things like party splits and sick teammates very annoying.
Overall, maybe wait for a price drop for like $40 and I'd say it's pretty worth it.
Overall, maybe wait for a price drop for like $40 and I'd say it's pretty worth it.
This review contains spoilers
Outer Wilds is my favorite game ever made, and I would consider it a flawless masterpiece. Every now and then I think about Outer Wilds and my love grows for it evermore. So of course, when DLC is announced for the game, it has quite a lot to live up to. Echoes of the Eye is able to deliver on the fantastic story and world building of the original game, while providing a vastly different but still fun experience... for the most part.
I want to get the bad out of the way first; The virtual world parts really needed to go through a second revision. I do enjoy the horror of it, and I'm fine with a slower paced style of gameplay to contrast the original speeds. However, the stealth portions are just badly made. You have Strangers that walk around in complete darkness that, if seen in the light, will chase after you and send you back to the start.
So you have to bumble around areas completely blind, praying to God you're going the right way and are not about to fall into water, with turning on the light for even a second potentially causing death. And what I can only think was added just to add further misery, the light has an incredibly limited range, and even when you focus it to see further ahead, they had the audacity to make it so you slow to an agonizing crawl. For a game as masterfully crafted as Outer Wilds, seeing these glaring mistakes is a shock.
And the worst part is, the fixes are so easy. First, get rid of the focus crawl. There is zero reason for that. And while you're at it, maybe increase the size a bit so I can actually see somewhat. Secondly, have the Strangers have their lights on much more often. I remember the first stealth segment I had to go through, in the woods next to the house with the fireplace. Strangers are walking through it with lamps, making it less of a chore to walk through and explore without being killed. Make more of them have their lamps on, ESPECIALLY the ones inside that big mansion. That entire mansion is an absolute nightmare to crawl through. From what I can tell, there's really no point in actually going through it, but tell that to me when I spent 30 minutes walking around aimlessly. Adding light would make this so much less agonizing while also now being fun and stealthy.
There were only two I liked the complete darkness of, the first being the Stranger down below the bell alarm in the virtual tower world. What makes it good is that at the end of the hallway, there are actually lights, giving you a point of reference while exploring, which the other areas completely lack. This made stealth fun as I had a visible end goal while also having to try and keep track of the Stranger. It falls apart when you leave the light area and discover that the other end is not lit up, leaving you in total darkness yet again. The second one, while not nearly as good, is alright. It's in the aforementioned mansion, next to the tree mural you have to turn the lights off to get to in the first place. There's a single Stranger down there, and to get past you have to hide behind these two shutters and wait for him to pass. I thought this was clever, but it was still way too dark.
And that's it for the bad. It may seems long and really bad, but honestly I can excuse it for the rest of this incredible DLC.
The game really ignites that feeling of Outer Wilds again. Exploring an unknown land, piecing the story together piece by piece, until eventually you figure out what to do and can never experience it again. And the writing is done just as well. EOTE goes for a different approach than the rest of the game, telling its story completely visually without any text. While this does sadly remove the unique characters like those that made up the Nomai, I'm actually fine with this as it makes sense. The Strangers are, well, strange. They're meant to feel more foreign and unsettling compared to the Nomai, so for their civilization to have barely any text outside of an odd sign here or there makes perfect sense. The story itself is fantastic too, telling a really sad story just as, if not more tragic than that of the Nomai, but I won't go over it as it really speaks for itself.
There's also the general gameplay. I think the gameplay is a slight downgrade but nothing bad at all. Outer Wilds' gameplay was near perfect, flying from planet to planet and getting into shenanigans along the way. EOTE takes place in a much smaller environment with no spaceship, which is a little disappointing. However, it does give rafts, which are really fun to control, but aren't nearly as silly or fun as the spaceship. I can understand this choice though, as at this point a spaceship just wouldn't work and would ruin the feel, and having stuff happen to the raft would feel more annoying than what can happen to your spaceship. One more thing, I never felt lost during my playthrough, which is actually a step up from the main game. EOTE is very clear on where to go, and it never oversteps in giving too much information. There's only two times I felt like it gave me something I didn't need to be told, that being the underwater cave to the tower and the third reel burn spot, however these are also kinda easy to miss so I can understand pointing towards them.
There's also the second half of the gameplay, inside the virtual world. I went over all my gripes already, so I wanna go over the positives. The horror is done fantastically, for a long time the suspense never pays off, leaving you in a constant feeling of discomfort and dread which I love. Outer Wilds was a scary game at times, especially Dark Bramble, however this takes it to another level and I love the way its done. The overall puzzle for it was also really fun too discover, going glitch by glitch until you finally unlock the strange locked box.
The music, as always, is just fantastic. Some of the best in the entire soundtrack. Getting on the raft for the first time and being thrusted into this strange ring planet vessel while an exciting melody plays with the travelers theme snuck in was just an amazing moment.
And speaking of moments, EOTE is just full of them. One of my favorite parts of Outer Wilds was the moments. Some of them were things expected of you, like finding the Nomai grave or getting the last piece of the puzzle for the eye, while some were completely unique to my experience, like accidentally going into the Ash Twin project or being hit by the Interloper out of no where and instantly dying. EOTE is filled to the brim with these, and there might be even more of them than in the main game (but my memory could be a little foggy).
Finally, I want to talk about, well, the finale. After you finish everything in The Stranger, you can finish the game yet again and have the Prisoner in the ending. He is finally able to speak in the Eye, and says that he apologizes for his species actions and asks for forgiveness. You can actually deny him forgiveness, which I'm curious on the outcome, but of course I welcomed him in as a friend. Along with this he brings a new small event to grab his instrument, which perfectly fits with all of the DLC. The instrument itself is really fascinating, and when he begins to play it creates a foreign but beautiful sound that fits perfectly into the travelers theme. I'm not going to lie, during the credits I nearly cried. When I first beat Outer Wilds, I didn't really feel anything. I was sad the game was over and that I would never experience it again, but nothing else. After experiencing EOTE, which is arguable a sequel in disguise, my love for Outer Wilds as a whole rushed out. It was only after viewing it for a second time that I realized I never wanted to expereince it again. Not because it was bad or anything, but because of how precious my journey was. As I said before, many things happened both during my original playthrough and EOTE that are unique to my experience, and to forget those and play it blindly again would just feel hollow. I will always treasure my experience with this game, and just as I accepted the doom of one universe for the rebirth of another, I accept the loss of experiencing this masterpiece ever again for the birth of a new experience that I will be looking forward to, whether it be from Mobius Digital or somewhere else.
Overall, Echoes of the Eye is a flawed, but still fantastic addition to the original Outer Wilds. It had a lot to live up to, and while it didn't hit the nail everywhere, where it did hit the nail it hit it hard under the guidance of what came before it. Finishing EOTE caused me to fall in love with the game for a second time, something that I once thought impossible after beating the game for the first time. This game and the DLC are truly masterpieces, and I suggest without hesitation that you play Outer Wilds.
I want to get the bad out of the way first; The virtual world parts really needed to go through a second revision. I do enjoy the horror of it, and I'm fine with a slower paced style of gameplay to contrast the original speeds. However, the stealth portions are just badly made. You have Strangers that walk around in complete darkness that, if seen in the light, will chase after you and send you back to the start.
So you have to bumble around areas completely blind, praying to God you're going the right way and are not about to fall into water, with turning on the light for even a second potentially causing death. And what I can only think was added just to add further misery, the light has an incredibly limited range, and even when you focus it to see further ahead, they had the audacity to make it so you slow to an agonizing crawl. For a game as masterfully crafted as Outer Wilds, seeing these glaring mistakes is a shock.
And the worst part is, the fixes are so easy. First, get rid of the focus crawl. There is zero reason for that. And while you're at it, maybe increase the size a bit so I can actually see somewhat. Secondly, have the Strangers have their lights on much more often. I remember the first stealth segment I had to go through, in the woods next to the house with the fireplace. Strangers are walking through it with lamps, making it less of a chore to walk through and explore without being killed. Make more of them have their lamps on, ESPECIALLY the ones inside that big mansion. That entire mansion is an absolute nightmare to crawl through. From what I can tell, there's really no point in actually going through it, but tell that to me when I spent 30 minutes walking around aimlessly. Adding light would make this so much less agonizing while also now being fun and stealthy.
There were only two I liked the complete darkness of, the first being the Stranger down below the bell alarm in the virtual tower world. What makes it good is that at the end of the hallway, there are actually lights, giving you a point of reference while exploring, which the other areas completely lack. This made stealth fun as I had a visible end goal while also having to try and keep track of the Stranger. It falls apart when you leave the light area and discover that the other end is not lit up, leaving you in total darkness yet again. The second one, while not nearly as good, is alright. It's in the aforementioned mansion, next to the tree mural you have to turn the lights off to get to in the first place. There's a single Stranger down there, and to get past you have to hide behind these two shutters and wait for him to pass. I thought this was clever, but it was still way too dark.
And that's it for the bad. It may seems long and really bad, but honestly I can excuse it for the rest of this incredible DLC.
The game really ignites that feeling of Outer Wilds again. Exploring an unknown land, piecing the story together piece by piece, until eventually you figure out what to do and can never experience it again. And the writing is done just as well. EOTE goes for a different approach than the rest of the game, telling its story completely visually without any text. While this does sadly remove the unique characters like those that made up the Nomai, I'm actually fine with this as it makes sense. The Strangers are, well, strange. They're meant to feel more foreign and unsettling compared to the Nomai, so for their civilization to have barely any text outside of an odd sign here or there makes perfect sense. The story itself is fantastic too, telling a really sad story just as, if not more tragic than that of the Nomai, but I won't go over it as it really speaks for itself.
There's also the general gameplay. I think the gameplay is a slight downgrade but nothing bad at all. Outer Wilds' gameplay was near perfect, flying from planet to planet and getting into shenanigans along the way. EOTE takes place in a much smaller environment with no spaceship, which is a little disappointing. However, it does give rafts, which are really fun to control, but aren't nearly as silly or fun as the spaceship. I can understand this choice though, as at this point a spaceship just wouldn't work and would ruin the feel, and having stuff happen to the raft would feel more annoying than what can happen to your spaceship. One more thing, I never felt lost during my playthrough, which is actually a step up from the main game. EOTE is very clear on where to go, and it never oversteps in giving too much information. There's only two times I felt like it gave me something I didn't need to be told, that being the underwater cave to the tower and the third reel burn spot, however these are also kinda easy to miss so I can understand pointing towards them.
There's also the second half of the gameplay, inside the virtual world. I went over all my gripes already, so I wanna go over the positives. The horror is done fantastically, for a long time the suspense never pays off, leaving you in a constant feeling of discomfort and dread which I love. Outer Wilds was a scary game at times, especially Dark Bramble, however this takes it to another level and I love the way its done. The overall puzzle for it was also really fun too discover, going glitch by glitch until you finally unlock the strange locked box.
The music, as always, is just fantastic. Some of the best in the entire soundtrack. Getting on the raft for the first time and being thrusted into this strange ring planet vessel while an exciting melody plays with the travelers theme snuck in was just an amazing moment.
And speaking of moments, EOTE is just full of them. One of my favorite parts of Outer Wilds was the moments. Some of them were things expected of you, like finding the Nomai grave or getting the last piece of the puzzle for the eye, while some were completely unique to my experience, like accidentally going into the Ash Twin project or being hit by the Interloper out of no where and instantly dying. EOTE is filled to the brim with these, and there might be even more of them than in the main game (but my memory could be a little foggy).
Finally, I want to talk about, well, the finale. After you finish everything in The Stranger, you can finish the game yet again and have the Prisoner in the ending. He is finally able to speak in the Eye, and says that he apologizes for his species actions and asks for forgiveness. You can actually deny him forgiveness, which I'm curious on the outcome, but of course I welcomed him in as a friend. Along with this he brings a new small event to grab his instrument, which perfectly fits with all of the DLC. The instrument itself is really fascinating, and when he begins to play it creates a foreign but beautiful sound that fits perfectly into the travelers theme. I'm not going to lie, during the credits I nearly cried. When I first beat Outer Wilds, I didn't really feel anything. I was sad the game was over and that I would never experience it again, but nothing else. After experiencing EOTE, which is arguable a sequel in disguise, my love for Outer Wilds as a whole rushed out. It was only after viewing it for a second time that I realized I never wanted to expereince it again. Not because it was bad or anything, but because of how precious my journey was. As I said before, many things happened both during my original playthrough and EOTE that are unique to my experience, and to forget those and play it blindly again would just feel hollow. I will always treasure my experience with this game, and just as I accepted the doom of one universe for the rebirth of another, I accept the loss of experiencing this masterpiece ever again for the birth of a new experience that I will be looking forward to, whether it be from Mobius Digital or somewhere else.
Overall, Echoes of the Eye is a flawed, but still fantastic addition to the original Outer Wilds. It had a lot to live up to, and while it didn't hit the nail everywhere, where it did hit the nail it hit it hard under the guidance of what came before it. Finishing EOTE caused me to fall in love with the game for a second time, something that I once thought impossible after beating the game for the first time. This game and the DLC are truly masterpieces, and I suggest without hesitation that you play Outer Wilds.
This review contains spoilers
Despite my mostly positive reviews across the board, it has been a while since I've played a game I truly loved. Where the first thing I thought after watching the credits roll is the wish to experience it all over again. NEO: The World Ends with You reminded me what loving a game is like and caused me to reevaluate my feelings on games over the past year. However, that's getting off topic.
There are many things to praise NEO: The World Ends with You for, however the biggest for me is the soundtrack. That might sound like a bad thing, to praise a soundtrack of a game above all else, however NTWEWY genuinely has one of my favorite soundtracks of all time. There are so many amazing sounds it's genuinely insane. With such a large variety of music too it never gets stale, and the rotation of music changes every few days with new music to freshen things up. One thing I have sworn to never do is to look up ANYTHING about a game before completing it to avoid spoilers, including music, which has been painful in such cases. However I simply couldn't resist for this game and added basically half the game's OST to my playlist before even beating it, which I think goes to show my love for this OST. Shout out to Breaking Free and Revelations in particular, love those songs.
The next slice of praise for NTWEWY I have is the gameplay, which is the most important piece to any for a lot of people. I'll start with the combat since it's the best part. NTWEWY excels in its combat and is insanely fun, beating out the original's. It's deceptively similar but insanely different when used. I love how convoluted the game gets by the end once you have 6 party members, causing you to have to use up to 8 different buttons at the same time to fight and I love it. The pins are an improvement for me too, with more varying types and being overall easier to understand what they actually do (also because it now uses buttons you don't have to deal with annoying contradicting pins anymore).
There's also the rest of the gameplay, which is mostly exploring Shibuya, which they also made fun. My favorite thing about it is definitely this game's equivalent of a dash, but instead of just holding down a button you have to time your presses to the beat of the BGM. It's simple but it adds a lot and puts even greater emphasis on the amazing soundtrack which is great.
Next is graphics. This game doesn't go for anything realistic, but rather it has its own style, which it pulls of flawlessly. Everything is cell shaded, and so the buildings and characters have very harsh black shadows. The entire landscape is distorted, which buildings leaning over you while walking next to them, and the distant skyscrapers bending in various directions. It's all insane and trippy, and they absolutely nailed the style they were going for. NTWEWY is definitely one of the most graphically appealing game I've played in a while.
Next is the characters, which I am going to be talking about in the last third of this review just like the game itself did with the characters and story. This game has really great characters and I really loved them, however they're not perfect. A few feel pretty underbaked, some understandably so and some confusingly. As joked about earlier, the characters don't really shine until the final week of the game. I didn't mind this too much, but it makes the first two weeks feel kinda bland in comparison, and it's genuinely shocking to me how much the characters improved during the last week, since I was getting worried this game was gonna have subpar characters, which it definitely doesn't. Some being delayed makes more sense, like Fret. His character arc revolves around being genuine and not hiding behind the persona he usually does, which is mentioned a little bit in week 2 but fully comes to fruition in the final week after Fret is forced to erase Kanon after she gets infected. However some make no sense, like Nagi. Nagi is by no means a bad character, and she did have a little development, however I still don't feel she necessarily fits with the rest of the crew. Her whole shtick is this game she plays and obsesses over, and while it never got on my nerves, it got old quick. She's funny in terms of interaction, especially with Fret, but that's it. They try to force in a little bit of development during the final week, where she expresses her ability to pick apart other psychologically, but that's it. Really that could've happened at any point in the game and it would've worked just fine. The returning characters from TWEWY were a very nice treat and obviously didn't really have any development during the game since they were already developed, but obviously there was some off screen development that you can tell they had. There's a lot more I can say about the characters, especially if I move over to the reapers, however I don't wanna go on for too long.
And finally, the story. The story is really great, and just in general TWEWY has a fascinating lore if you dig deep enough into the game. While I haven't gotten the secret reports yet, I can say that the main storyline is great. There were a few hiccups, in particular I'm unsure how to feel about Motoi and the stuff around him, however outside of that it's really good. My favorite part was definitely Week 3 Day 3, where you start at the end of the day with no recollection of what happened and have to slowly time travel through it to figure out what happened. It's genius and this is 100% the moment I fell in love with the game.
Overall, NEO: The World Ends with You is fantastic. It's by no means perfect and falters in areas, however I feel as though it surpasses the original and I hope this game gets the appreciation it deserves.
There are many things to praise NEO: The World Ends with You for, however the biggest for me is the soundtrack. That might sound like a bad thing, to praise a soundtrack of a game above all else, however NTWEWY genuinely has one of my favorite soundtracks of all time. There are so many amazing sounds it's genuinely insane. With such a large variety of music too it never gets stale, and the rotation of music changes every few days with new music to freshen things up. One thing I have sworn to never do is to look up ANYTHING about a game before completing it to avoid spoilers, including music, which has been painful in such cases. However I simply couldn't resist for this game and added basically half the game's OST to my playlist before even beating it, which I think goes to show my love for this OST. Shout out to Breaking Free and Revelations in particular, love those songs.
The next slice of praise for NTWEWY I have is the gameplay, which is the most important piece to any for a lot of people. I'll start with the combat since it's the best part. NTWEWY excels in its combat and is insanely fun, beating out the original's. It's deceptively similar but insanely different when used. I love how convoluted the game gets by the end once you have 6 party members, causing you to have to use up to 8 different buttons at the same time to fight and I love it. The pins are an improvement for me too, with more varying types and being overall easier to understand what they actually do (also because it now uses buttons you don't have to deal with annoying contradicting pins anymore).
There's also the rest of the gameplay, which is mostly exploring Shibuya, which they also made fun. My favorite thing about it is definitely this game's equivalent of a dash, but instead of just holding down a button you have to time your presses to the beat of the BGM. It's simple but it adds a lot and puts even greater emphasis on the amazing soundtrack which is great.
Next is graphics. This game doesn't go for anything realistic, but rather it has its own style, which it pulls of flawlessly. Everything is cell shaded, and so the buildings and characters have very harsh black shadows. The entire landscape is distorted, which buildings leaning over you while walking next to them, and the distant skyscrapers bending in various directions. It's all insane and trippy, and they absolutely nailed the style they were going for. NTWEWY is definitely one of the most graphically appealing game I've played in a while.
Next is the characters, which I am going to be talking about in the last third of this review just like the game itself did with the characters and story. This game has really great characters and I really loved them, however they're not perfect. A few feel pretty underbaked, some understandably so and some confusingly. As joked about earlier, the characters don't really shine until the final week of the game. I didn't mind this too much, but it makes the first two weeks feel kinda bland in comparison, and it's genuinely shocking to me how much the characters improved during the last week, since I was getting worried this game was gonna have subpar characters, which it definitely doesn't. Some being delayed makes more sense, like Fret. His character arc revolves around being genuine and not hiding behind the persona he usually does, which is mentioned a little bit in week 2 but fully comes to fruition in the final week after Fret is forced to erase Kanon after she gets infected. However some make no sense, like Nagi. Nagi is by no means a bad character, and she did have a little development, however I still don't feel she necessarily fits with the rest of the crew. Her whole shtick is this game she plays and obsesses over, and while it never got on my nerves, it got old quick. She's funny in terms of interaction, especially with Fret, but that's it. They try to force in a little bit of development during the final week, where she expresses her ability to pick apart other psychologically, but that's it. Really that could've happened at any point in the game and it would've worked just fine. The returning characters from TWEWY were a very nice treat and obviously didn't really have any development during the game since they were already developed, but obviously there was some off screen development that you can tell they had. There's a lot more I can say about the characters, especially if I move over to the reapers, however I don't wanna go on for too long.
And finally, the story. The story is really great, and just in general TWEWY has a fascinating lore if you dig deep enough into the game. While I haven't gotten the secret reports yet, I can say that the main storyline is great. There were a few hiccups, in particular I'm unsure how to feel about Motoi and the stuff around him, however outside of that it's really good. My favorite part was definitely Week 3 Day 3, where you start at the end of the day with no recollection of what happened and have to slowly time travel through it to figure out what happened. It's genius and this is 100% the moment I fell in love with the game.
Overall, NEO: The World Ends with You is fantastic. It's by no means perfect and falters in areas, however I feel as though it surpasses the original and I hope this game gets the appreciation it deserves.
This review contains spoilers
Out of the 10 or so games in the Megaten franchise I have played, none have given me the frustration from the dungeon design, the crushing difficulty of its combat, nor the weirdest fusion system I've experienced thus far. These reasons are exactly why this is one of my favorite games in the entire series, and maybe one of my favorite games of all time.
I'll start with the combat. This game has a more unique approach to combat, with nothing like Press Turn or One More from SMT and Persona respectively, but rather striking a weakness (and ONLY a weakness, criticals don't do anything but slight extra damage) will cause all demons of matching alignment to attack the enemy, ignoring resistances and defense to make your attack deal double (or more) what it usually would. Because of this, team composition matters MUCH more in this game, you can't just slap a rag tag team of any demon like you would in other mainlines.
For example, in my playthrough I decided to go with Chaos (because I like the color red). The demons in Chaos lean much more on the physical side, while also boasting a lot of special fusion demons. This makes some bosses, like Maya, a boss weak to Gun, an absolute cake walk with the right team, while making something like Asura, a physical resisting boss that randomly gives your party members an incurable ailment that causes them to attack the boss OR you randomly for 3 turns, the bane of my existence.
However, that is not a complaint. The opposite actually, I think it shows how amazing the boss design in this game is. Each boss requires a different set up to get through it, you can't just drag the same group of demons into every fight and wipe the floor, it doesn't work that way. You basically have to make a unique team for each fight (beyond the first few easy sectors), causing you to experiment with new demons and team layouts. It also forces you to mess with Demon Sources, this game's main fusion gimmick.
Demon Sources are little stones you get after fully "analyzing" a demon, which means either fighting them in random enchounters or using them in battle until they're fully analyzed. Each demon has a unique source, however the sources usually don't match up with the demon's moves, usually replacing one or two of them. This can be both detrimental and a blessing, as demons can both give you shit moves or give you surprisingly great moves for the time you get them at. It also selects one random move from the demon and puts it on the source, which is almost always a good thing. I do have a few issues with D-sources and fusion, and that comes down to the RNG in both of them. Like the original Nocturne, moves are selected at random during skill inheritence. I can forgive it more here since the sources can mostly circumvent this issue, however sometimes you'll just get unlucky and a skill will be lost. In fusion, demons can only inherit some move types, but if you have to many it won't always bring over the skills, even of the same type, that you want. The D-sources also have an aspect of RNG, with demons giving them to you. You're always garunteed to get the source after they're anaylzed, however if you want the same source twice you'll have to use the source you already got and level up the demon until you get lucky. I didn't have a problem with it during my playthrough, however I can 100% see it getting really annoying as at some point it becomes an absolute crawl to level up. Because of these problems, I ended up using some demons for like 60% of the game, which really goes against the whole point of constantly fusing. However since this game is more about making specific teams for specific bosses, the 60% team was used mostly for random encounters, since they were basically useless in boss fights.
The biggest and probably most contentious thing about this game is the dungeon design. A first person, grid based layout of monstrous size, full of classic SMT bullshit like pitfalls, damage floors, dark rooms, teleport mazes, invisible doors and literally having to clip out of bounds. And guess what? It's super fucking fun. This game has some of the most immersive dungeons I've gone through. Each trap I fell for made me want to push on even further, and being sent back to the beginning of a long maze made me want to explore even more. This game is able to masterfully blend the modern design of JRPGs with old classic design in a way that makes it feel fun. Side tangent, but very often I see people bring up that games can have "outdated mechanics", which I disagree with. Any mechanic can work in the modern age, it just matters how you use it, and this game is proof of it. Anyways, back to the main point, each fight along the way felt very satisfying as I got exp, analyze levels, materials, items, and especially macca, and the combat in this game just feels very satisfying. Each dungeon also has a unique look and feel to it, even Grus. The only problem I had with it is that sometimes it would send you back a little too far. I remember right at the end of the garden part of Eridanus, there's a bunch of pitfalls. Most of them were fine as they only set you back a little, however a sizable amount sent you ALL the way back to the beginning, and it took a good 3 minutes for each one, which was painful as someone who was trying to mostly fill up each map. Overall this was probably my favorite aspect of the game and I can't wait to replay one day and go through the Womb of Grief.
There's also the story. The story is good. Like most SMT games it doesn't have a huge standout on story, it's mostly all about the gameplay which I respect. Even then, the story was able to keep me engaged the entire time. This is the only mainline game to take place outside of Tokyo, featuring a cast from multiple different countries (the 3 main characters has an American, Hispanic, and Russian) all going to an anomaly in Antarctica called the Schwarzwelt. Immediately this game caught my attention because of it's incredibly unique environment. The characters are also good, but still not done as well as SMT 4. In 4, you can watch as Jonathan and Walter's beliefs slowly take hold of them and split the group further and further until the eventual split and fusions they undergo. It felt closer to Nocturne, where you barely see the characters and they randomly become crazy and transformed offscreen. This game is more of an inbetween of the two. You still watch Jiminez and Zelenin slowly corrupt overtime, but their jumps into the extremes feel out of no where, especially Zelenin. I also didn't do Alex's stuff so I have no clue what she's like. Overall the characters are good just not the best in the series.
One final note will be about the changes in Redux. I'd say overall the changes are good and make the game more enjoyable while still mostly maintaining the difficulty of the original. One objective downside I can say is the artstyle change. I don't hate it as much as other people do, but it certainly was a bad choice and removes some of the charm the game had. There's also the Womb of Grief. I went through three spheres of it and it was pretty fun, however I can't comment on the rest since I didn't realize it would lock me out after killing Alex. The new demon designs by Doi, however, are great. And no I will not comment on Demeter. There's also a bunch of smaller quality of life improvements that, just make the game more fun and less annoying while still staying challenging.
Overall, this game is amazing. While I certainly wouldn't recommend it to newcomers, once you have some SMT experience under your belt I would 100% recommend checking this game out. It's a little slow in the beginning but after the first sector or two it begins to pick up in enjoyment. If you're looking for a fun JRPG with a lot of replay value and you're able to get past some difficulty, I implore that you give this game a shot.
I'll start with the combat. This game has a more unique approach to combat, with nothing like Press Turn or One More from SMT and Persona respectively, but rather striking a weakness (and ONLY a weakness, criticals don't do anything but slight extra damage) will cause all demons of matching alignment to attack the enemy, ignoring resistances and defense to make your attack deal double (or more) what it usually would. Because of this, team composition matters MUCH more in this game, you can't just slap a rag tag team of any demon like you would in other mainlines.
For example, in my playthrough I decided to go with Chaos (because I like the color red). The demons in Chaos lean much more on the physical side, while also boasting a lot of special fusion demons. This makes some bosses, like Maya, a boss weak to Gun, an absolute cake walk with the right team, while making something like Asura, a physical resisting boss that randomly gives your party members an incurable ailment that causes them to attack the boss OR you randomly for 3 turns, the bane of my existence.
However, that is not a complaint. The opposite actually, I think it shows how amazing the boss design in this game is. Each boss requires a different set up to get through it, you can't just drag the same group of demons into every fight and wipe the floor, it doesn't work that way. You basically have to make a unique team for each fight (beyond the first few easy sectors), causing you to experiment with new demons and team layouts. It also forces you to mess with Demon Sources, this game's main fusion gimmick.
Demon Sources are little stones you get after fully "analyzing" a demon, which means either fighting them in random enchounters or using them in battle until they're fully analyzed. Each demon has a unique source, however the sources usually don't match up with the demon's moves, usually replacing one or two of them. This can be both detrimental and a blessing, as demons can both give you shit moves or give you surprisingly great moves for the time you get them at. It also selects one random move from the demon and puts it on the source, which is almost always a good thing. I do have a few issues with D-sources and fusion, and that comes down to the RNG in both of them. Like the original Nocturne, moves are selected at random during skill inheritence. I can forgive it more here since the sources can mostly circumvent this issue, however sometimes you'll just get unlucky and a skill will be lost. In fusion, demons can only inherit some move types, but if you have to many it won't always bring over the skills, even of the same type, that you want. The D-sources also have an aspect of RNG, with demons giving them to you. You're always garunteed to get the source after they're anaylzed, however if you want the same source twice you'll have to use the source you already got and level up the demon until you get lucky. I didn't have a problem with it during my playthrough, however I can 100% see it getting really annoying as at some point it becomes an absolute crawl to level up. Because of these problems, I ended up using some demons for like 60% of the game, which really goes against the whole point of constantly fusing. However since this game is more about making specific teams for specific bosses, the 60% team was used mostly for random encounters, since they were basically useless in boss fights.
The biggest and probably most contentious thing about this game is the dungeon design. A first person, grid based layout of monstrous size, full of classic SMT bullshit like pitfalls, damage floors, dark rooms, teleport mazes, invisible doors and literally having to clip out of bounds. And guess what? It's super fucking fun. This game has some of the most immersive dungeons I've gone through. Each trap I fell for made me want to push on even further, and being sent back to the beginning of a long maze made me want to explore even more. This game is able to masterfully blend the modern design of JRPGs with old classic design in a way that makes it feel fun. Side tangent, but very often I see people bring up that games can have "outdated mechanics", which I disagree with. Any mechanic can work in the modern age, it just matters how you use it, and this game is proof of it. Anyways, back to the main point, each fight along the way felt very satisfying as I got exp, analyze levels, materials, items, and especially macca, and the combat in this game just feels very satisfying. Each dungeon also has a unique look and feel to it, even Grus. The only problem I had with it is that sometimes it would send you back a little too far. I remember right at the end of the garden part of Eridanus, there's a bunch of pitfalls. Most of them were fine as they only set you back a little, however a sizable amount sent you ALL the way back to the beginning, and it took a good 3 minutes for each one, which was painful as someone who was trying to mostly fill up each map. Overall this was probably my favorite aspect of the game and I can't wait to replay one day and go through the Womb of Grief.
There's also the story. The story is good. Like most SMT games it doesn't have a huge standout on story, it's mostly all about the gameplay which I respect. Even then, the story was able to keep me engaged the entire time. This is the only mainline game to take place outside of Tokyo, featuring a cast from multiple different countries (the 3 main characters has an American, Hispanic, and Russian) all going to an anomaly in Antarctica called the Schwarzwelt. Immediately this game caught my attention because of it's incredibly unique environment. The characters are also good, but still not done as well as SMT 4. In 4, you can watch as Jonathan and Walter's beliefs slowly take hold of them and split the group further and further until the eventual split and fusions they undergo. It felt closer to Nocturne, where you barely see the characters and they randomly become crazy and transformed offscreen. This game is more of an inbetween of the two. You still watch Jiminez and Zelenin slowly corrupt overtime, but their jumps into the extremes feel out of no where, especially Zelenin. I also didn't do Alex's stuff so I have no clue what she's like. Overall the characters are good just not the best in the series.
One final note will be about the changes in Redux. I'd say overall the changes are good and make the game more enjoyable while still mostly maintaining the difficulty of the original. One objective downside I can say is the artstyle change. I don't hate it as much as other people do, but it certainly was a bad choice and removes some of the charm the game had. There's also the Womb of Grief. I went through three spheres of it and it was pretty fun, however I can't comment on the rest since I didn't realize it would lock me out after killing Alex. The new demon designs by Doi, however, are great. And no I will not comment on Demeter. There's also a bunch of smaller quality of life improvements that, just make the game more fun and less annoying while still staying challenging.
Overall, this game is amazing. While I certainly wouldn't recommend it to newcomers, once you have some SMT experience under your belt I would 100% recommend checking this game out. It's a little slow in the beginning but after the first sector or two it begins to pick up in enjoyment. If you're looking for a fun JRPG with a lot of replay value and you're able to get past some difficulty, I implore that you give this game a shot.
Note: This review will be focusing on the game of Nocturne itself, not the quality of the remaster... outside of one thing.
Nocturne is a game with many, many ups and downs. At its lows, it can be very frustrating and annoying to just walk around, but never agonizing. At its peaks, it can be one of the greatest JRPGs of all time.
The first 10 hours of this game can be slow. You don't have access to powerful skills quite yet, so you're stuck with a ragtag team of shitty demons, but it'll get you through. The main thing that pushes you through the earlier parts of the game are the incredibly thick atmosphere, great world building, and a great combat system.
Just walking around the world is fun. Every location in this game is unique, and it feels like each building is its own labyrinth to explore. It's lonely, depressing, and I loved every second of it.
The gameplay, while not as refined as a game like SMT4A, is very fun, and has many of its own gimmicks. The big thing is the Press Turn system, which is a mainline staple at this point. Rather than each character getting a turn, turns are a physical thing that you can see in the top right. Play correctly and you can get up to eight turns, but fuck up and all your turns can get sucked away in one attack. When the bosses start getting harder, you have to start squeezing as many important moves as possible, which ramps up the intensity greatly.
Another thing I love about the combat is how the enemies are all on equal terms with you, and you all follow the same rules. You can miss and lose 2-4 turns, but so can the enemy. You can get lucky and hit every enemy in a row with crits, but so can the enemy. You can drain the HP and MP of enemies, but so can the enemy. Hell, if you refight all the bosses in a boss rush mode, you can get an extra turn for yourself, but so can the enemies. Everything is fair, the only advantage SOME enemies get is that they can use moves that increase the amount of turns they get, which obviously would completely break the game if you had it. You can also fuse and use most bosses in your party, outside of reason bosses and the final boss(es).
The fusion system is also great. I've spent hours in the Cathedral of Shadows, fusing demon after demon and getting the most powerful team possible. In the original Nocturne, fusion was much more excruciating and time consuming, as for some reason they decided to make skill inheritance random, so you would have to repeatedly exit and reenter the fusion menu until you got the skills you wanted. This got especially bad late game where your demons have a BUNCH of skills and you have to rely on the game to pick 5-6 exact skills from a group of 24. The HD Remaster adds in the ability to select skills, which is a godsend. This little feature alone makes the remaster worth it alone.
One thing I'm unsure about still is the Reasons. The story is simple but I'm 100% fine with that, it can take a backseat for the gameplay and worldbuilding. The characters are fine, but honestly nothing special. The Reasons however are ehhhh. Each character has their own Reason of what they want the world to be reshaped as, however unlike the alighnment system from previous games, which pulls you into a side gradually until you're fighting for something you're unsure if you agree with, the Reasons range from batshit insane shit that no one on Earth would agree with, to Reasons so fundamentally flawed that there's no reason to go with it. One in particular just feels like it was created to have an antagonist, rather than a friend you slowly stop trusting overtime.
Overall, a really great and classic game that I can respect quite a lot. While flawed in a lot of areas, the good parts make up for it. If you like JRPGs that'll give you a good challenge and focuses on gameplay and atmosphere over story and characters, then this game is for you. If you can get past the slow parts, you'll experience an absolute classic that helped reshape its own genre, despite being the underdog.
Nocturne is a game with many, many ups and downs. At its lows, it can be very frustrating and annoying to just walk around, but never agonizing. At its peaks, it can be one of the greatest JRPGs of all time.
The first 10 hours of this game can be slow. You don't have access to powerful skills quite yet, so you're stuck with a ragtag team of shitty demons, but it'll get you through. The main thing that pushes you through the earlier parts of the game are the incredibly thick atmosphere, great world building, and a great combat system.
Just walking around the world is fun. Every location in this game is unique, and it feels like each building is its own labyrinth to explore. It's lonely, depressing, and I loved every second of it.
The gameplay, while not as refined as a game like SMT4A, is very fun, and has many of its own gimmicks. The big thing is the Press Turn system, which is a mainline staple at this point. Rather than each character getting a turn, turns are a physical thing that you can see in the top right. Play correctly and you can get up to eight turns, but fuck up and all your turns can get sucked away in one attack. When the bosses start getting harder, you have to start squeezing as many important moves as possible, which ramps up the intensity greatly.
Another thing I love about the combat is how the enemies are all on equal terms with you, and you all follow the same rules. You can miss and lose 2-4 turns, but so can the enemy. You can get lucky and hit every enemy in a row with crits, but so can the enemy. You can drain the HP and MP of enemies, but so can the enemy. Hell, if you refight all the bosses in a boss rush mode, you can get an extra turn for yourself, but so can the enemies. Everything is fair, the only advantage SOME enemies get is that they can use moves that increase the amount of turns they get, which obviously would completely break the game if you had it. You can also fuse and use most bosses in your party, outside of reason bosses and the final boss(es).
The fusion system is also great. I've spent hours in the Cathedral of Shadows, fusing demon after demon and getting the most powerful team possible. In the original Nocturne, fusion was much more excruciating and time consuming, as for some reason they decided to make skill inheritance random, so you would have to repeatedly exit and reenter the fusion menu until you got the skills you wanted. This got especially bad late game where your demons have a BUNCH of skills and you have to rely on the game to pick 5-6 exact skills from a group of 24. The HD Remaster adds in the ability to select skills, which is a godsend. This little feature alone makes the remaster worth it alone.
One thing I'm unsure about still is the Reasons. The story is simple but I'm 100% fine with that, it can take a backseat for the gameplay and worldbuilding. The characters are fine, but honestly nothing special. The Reasons however are ehhhh. Each character has their own Reason of what they want the world to be reshaped as, however unlike the alighnment system from previous games, which pulls you into a side gradually until you're fighting for something you're unsure if you agree with, the Reasons range from batshit insane shit that no one on Earth would agree with, to Reasons so fundamentally flawed that there's no reason to go with it. One in particular just feels like it was created to have an antagonist, rather than a friend you slowly stop trusting overtime.
Overall, a really great and classic game that I can respect quite a lot. While flawed in a lot of areas, the good parts make up for it. If you like JRPGs that'll give you a good challenge and focuses on gameplay and atmosphere over story and characters, then this game is for you. If you can get past the slow parts, you'll experience an absolute classic that helped reshape its own genre, despite being the underdog.
2020
This review contains spoilers
When I first started this game, I was worried that it was just going to be DOOM but faster paced and with parkour (especially with it seeming initially to be an FPS in hell where you fight demons), however this game blew my expectations out of the water, and it not only does it's own thing in every way, but also surpassed DOOM itself.
Let's start with the story first. All humans are dead, and you're a robot who is fueled by blood. Hell is full, so you head down to Hell to find a gun and get some fuel. Pretty simple. However, deep under the game lies a surprisingly deep lore, with more involvement from God than the devil. The lore isn't important, however it does give context as to why you're fighting a red version of yourself, or a literal angel.
The gameplay itself is genuinely the most fun I've ever had with an FPS, even more than DOOM Eternal. All the controls, the jumping, dashing, sliding, and wall jumping just feel so nice and never inconvenienced me. The enemies you fight are also extremely varied, and every boss has unique properties that make you switch up your weapons.
And speaking of that, the weapon system in this game is really good too. You have access to a decent number of weapons, and each one has at least 2 variants, but it's likely they'll all have 4. These variants completely shake up the weapons, with them feeling like completely different weapons. Each gun also has its use, there isn't a single dud weapon in this game (so far).
The level design is great too. Each fight feels different because of the arenas you're placed into and the enemies that are placed into them. You're going to be switching weapons on the fly to take down each enemy in the best way possible.
The art in this game is great too. It has graphics that are meant to replicate PSX graphics, which you can tune to your liking. Each circle is also very distinct, with each having its own style. For example, the second layer, Lust, which uses a city at night time as it's setting, with tall buildings to climb over and many places to fall. No layer feels the same, and it feels like you're transported to a different realm with each one.
The music also bangs. It goes for a Drum and Bass style (I think, I'm no music expert), which fits perfectly with the incredibly high speeds and intensity this game has. There's also different songs for each level, and each layer has a different style of songs. For example, Limbo has more heavenly harmonic tracks, while Lust has jazzy chill tracks. Obviously these tracks, despite being in usually nice locations, are very fast paced. There's also the nice little detail where the most intense instruments only start up when a fight is starting, letting it not be constant tension 24/7.
Finally there's the options. This game has a LOT of options, which are incredibly useful and could help a lot of players. You're given the option to tune the difficulty to your liking, even beyond the normal 6 difficulty options, allowing you to play as you want. You can also give the enemies outlines and customize the colors of the outlines to help identify enemies quicker. That'[s just the surface though, there's so many options that I can't name them all.
Overall, this game is really fucking good. I could give this game an even higher rating, however I want to wait until the game is complete for me to do that, as it could get even better... or even worse. However, the developer seems very competent, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're the type of dev that takes very well to criticism and listens to their fans.
Please get this game, whether it's now or when it fully releases. It's incredible.
Let's start with the story first. All humans are dead, and you're a robot who is fueled by blood. Hell is full, so you head down to Hell to find a gun and get some fuel. Pretty simple. However, deep under the game lies a surprisingly deep lore, with more involvement from God than the devil. The lore isn't important, however it does give context as to why you're fighting a red version of yourself, or a literal angel.
The gameplay itself is genuinely the most fun I've ever had with an FPS, even more than DOOM Eternal. All the controls, the jumping, dashing, sliding, and wall jumping just feel so nice and never inconvenienced me. The enemies you fight are also extremely varied, and every boss has unique properties that make you switch up your weapons.
And speaking of that, the weapon system in this game is really good too. You have access to a decent number of weapons, and each one has at least 2 variants, but it's likely they'll all have 4. These variants completely shake up the weapons, with them feeling like completely different weapons. Each gun also has its use, there isn't a single dud weapon in this game (so far).
The level design is great too. Each fight feels different because of the arenas you're placed into and the enemies that are placed into them. You're going to be switching weapons on the fly to take down each enemy in the best way possible.
The art in this game is great too. It has graphics that are meant to replicate PSX graphics, which you can tune to your liking. Each circle is also very distinct, with each having its own style. For example, the second layer, Lust, which uses a city at night time as it's setting, with tall buildings to climb over and many places to fall. No layer feels the same, and it feels like you're transported to a different realm with each one.
The music also bangs. It goes for a Drum and Bass style (I think, I'm no music expert), which fits perfectly with the incredibly high speeds and intensity this game has. There's also different songs for each level, and each layer has a different style of songs. For example, Limbo has more heavenly harmonic tracks, while Lust has jazzy chill tracks. Obviously these tracks, despite being in usually nice locations, are very fast paced. There's also the nice little detail where the most intense instruments only start up when a fight is starting, letting it not be constant tension 24/7.
Finally there's the options. This game has a LOT of options, which are incredibly useful and could help a lot of players. You're given the option to tune the difficulty to your liking, even beyond the normal 6 difficulty options, allowing you to play as you want. You can also give the enemies outlines and customize the colors of the outlines to help identify enemies quicker. That'[s just the surface though, there's so many options that I can't name them all.
Overall, this game is really fucking good. I could give this game an even higher rating, however I want to wait until the game is complete for me to do that, as it could get even better... or even worse. However, the developer seems very competent, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're the type of dev that takes very well to criticism and listens to their fans.
Please get this game, whether it's now or when it fully releases. It's incredible.
Note: Game was played as a homebrewed CIA on 3DS.
2021
This review contains spoilers
"this game fucking sucks play monkey ball instead"
SMT V is easily the Megaten game with the most potential. All the pieces are there for a fantastic game; amazing gameplay, great boss design, good story elements, banging soundtrack, and open areas to explore. However, the game falls flat on delivering some of these elements, leading to a game that lived up to expectations but had the potential to be so much more.
To start off, the best thing about this game is easily the visuals. This game is not only fantastic looking for a Switch game but for any game in general. It has a specific style that it just nails. The character and demon models in particular are incredible, they're super expressive and well detailed. I especially love how well each artist's styles were maintained in the demons. The Kaneko demons are clearly Kaneko while Doi's are clearly his, they let each exist as one. And speaking of that, the demons in this game literally look like the drawings hopped off the paper they were drawn on. They're all scarily accurate, and some of them I genuinely wasn't able to tell if it was a 2D image or a 3D model inside of the Party menu. The modelers did a fantastic job and I can't wait to see more in this style.
Another thing I loved was the gameplay. While not my favorite in Megaten (IV/A still hold that), it's a very good gameplay system nonetheless. Press Turn is always a plus, and I'm glad it's been established as SMT's combat system. It's easily the best JRPG combat system I've ever used, adding a perfect amount of strategy and intensity to JRPG content without incorporating action. There were a few changes made to Press Turn, the most notable being how passes work. Rather than passes either halving the next turn icon, it will always half any available full icon before halving halves. This change is great and adds a new area of strategy to fights, without making them easy. Speaking of strategy, this game now lets you choose your exact turn order in the Party menu, rather then relying on agility. I love this change a lot, as it removes the feeling of getting fucked over for having a bad turn order. And trust me, in some of these fights, you NEED to have a good turn order, at least on hard mode.
Outside of Press Turn, the combat system is pretty much the same; weaknesses, buffs and debuffs, status effects, passive skills, demons, etc. The only notable difference is with buffs and debuffs. Not only did they split them into both single target and multitarget versions, but they also made them only last 3 turns. However, you can stack them twice. I'm not 100% sure how to feel about this. On one hand, it easily makes buffs and debuffs more balanced, and adds more of a "fight" to keep them up. On the other hand though, it makes SMT lose a bit of its identity, as it's obvious it took inspiration from Persona. Not that that's inherently a bad thing, but I feel like having the combat systems feel different is important. SMT V does alleviate some of this though by keeping the stacking (though only up to 2 now) while also letting you use passive skills like Boon Boost to increase the amount of turns they last. I'll have to replay a game with the traditional SMT buff/debuff system to truly get a good feel on it, but for now I'm just in the middle about it.
The battles themselves are great too. I can't say for certain this experience was universal, as I played on hard mode, but I liked the way the bosses were designed. I feel like they took a note from Strange Journey's boss design, where it feels like every boss needs a new team layout to get through. I feel like this game doesn't execute it as well as SJ though, as the bosses in this game feel very spongey at times. It got to the point where I was exhausted from fighting bosses and having to reshape my team for every encounter, though once again that might be a fault of me choosing hard on my first playthrough.
Now is where my opinion on the game starts to falter slightly. The exploration is a good start for this. Going into this game, I wasn't expecting Strange Journey levels of dungeon design, which has the best designed dungeons in any game I've ever played. I was realistically hoping for a middle ground between IV and Nocturne, with some more competent dungeons but still a lot of overworld. Instead, I feel like it didn't even reach IV. There are a total of two dungeons in this game. One is actually pretty good with a fun gimmick, while the other has a really cool idea for a gimmick but does literally nothing with it. Outside of the dungeons, there's 4 main overworlds to explore. The first one was actually quite fun to explore, there's a lot to explore and fun stuff like demon caves and habitats. However after the first area, the design starts to fall off. The overworld stays the same, but it feels like there's less little things to find. You're still just walking around big spaces full of sand and abandoned buildings. Hell, even the fairy village, which I hoped would look slightly different, was still literally just abandoned buildings and sand but with a white filter. This is easily the most disappointing factor, and I wasn't expecting that much. I will admit, I am partly biased, as after SJ I've had an itch for a game with similar dungeon design but I've never found any.
And now, the moment we've all been waiting for; the story. And yeah, the story in this game isn't that good. However thankfully for me, after Apocalypse, I didn't go in with much expectations for a good story, so I wasn't that disappointed. What sucks though is, as I alluded to earlier, I think this game had the most potential for a good story. All the pieces are there for one of the best stories in Megaten; Lucifer kills God, and now the throne is open for anyone to take, as long as they are a Nahobino, which is the completed form of a God and their Knowledge, aka humans. All the humans are kept in a fake Tokyo, which was created by God, however after God's death, the Tokyo is starting to disappear and collide with the Da'at, the real state of Tokyo. Because of this, Gods are now finding their Knowledge, and they begin to fight for the throne. In this war of Gods, you have to ascend. This is a great structure for a story, however the game just doesn't do much with it. The characters in particular just never do anything. One of my favorite parts of SMT is watching people get placed into insane apocalyptic scenarios filled with demons, and seeing them get influenced by the world around them, eventually turning into ideologic extremists who would stop at nothing to change the world into their vision. SMT V tries that... kind of? None of the characters really go to the extreme besides Dazai. Dazai is easily the best of the main cast, as you do somewhat watch him become extreme. However, the change is extremely sudden with the most comically stupid cutscene of him throwing away a hat that says "Sucker" on it before gaining confidence. Think back to Strange Journey's characters. You have Jimenez, who is a relatively normal guy, if a bit crass, and Zelenin, who is also pretty normal, if a bit strict. You watch them both fall into the pits of their alignments; Jimenez finding Bugaboo and gaining an attachment to Demons and chaos, and Zelenin talking with Mastema and getting an affection for God and law. While I don't believe SJ has an amazing story, it does its job and supplements the game itself well. SMT V feels like it wants to do that, while also having the deeper lore of Nocturne, however it just doesn't. I could go on about the story forever, however so has everyone else, so I'll end it there.
The endings in this game are actually really good. Everything from the end of the Temple of Infinity and onward is actually quite good, and easily the part of the game I enjoyed most. However, the Neutral and True Neutral endings have problems. Neutral sucks in this game, as you're basically cucked out of a final boss. Tsukuyomi is a good fight, but not as a final boss. The ending is also quite unsatisfying, and you don't even get to see what happens afterwards. True Neutral is much better, however there is a major problem with it. To achieve True Neutral, you have to do some side quests. This is fine, as these side quests are actually quite good and provide some of the more interesting stories in this game. However, the side quests they make you do don't make sense with the route they're placed in. The goal of True Neutral is to basically kill all demons and Gods forever, and to create a world only for humans. This is fine, and probably overall the best ending, however the game forces you to do side quests where you befriend demons like Khonsu, Demeter, and Fionn Mac Cumhaill, characterizing all of them. I genuinely don't understand how they didn't see this huge contradiction. The only quest that makes sense being here is Shiva's, as he literally plans to destroy the entire universe. Outside of that problem, the ending itself is still quite good. The fight with Lucifer II in particular is incredible, though I don't think it was balanced well. To do this fight, you HAVE to beat Shiva, who is MUCH more challenging then Lucifer. The only thing that got me in Lucifer's fight was the final Morning Star, but that's only because I obliterated him so quickly due to my build to see it before, and I survived either way.
To end it on a positive note, the soundtrack was as good as ever. It took a while to grow on me, especially tracks like that weird Indian club song that plays on the Ishtar fight, however after hearing the Fionn/Shohei fight theme, I fell in love with the soundtrack instantly. There's a crazy number of battle themes in this game and all of them are scarily good. The overworld themes are also so good, with most of them just adding this great atmosphere. Highlight of the OST goes to the Shiva boss theme though. It's a very moody track that makes Shiva's fight incredibly atmospheric and hopeless, but also tense.
Overall, despite my issues with the game, it's still a solid
megaten game. The issues in this game aren't as big compared to its fantastic combat, visuals, and music. This game also does have it's moments, and those moments are honestly really good. If this game had better story and exploration, it could easily be one of the best Megaten games, but for now it kinda feels like an awkward transition back into home console Megaten.
Edit: Just learned about the level scaling in this game. And Jesus, it's bad. If you don't know, this game added a level scaling system, so that if you are just a handful of levels below or above a boss, your stats will be heavily decreased or increased respectively. If you can't see why this is bad, let me explain.
In past SMT games (at least the ones I played), all that mattered in battle was the stats of your characters. You did have a level, however the levels in these games were basically just a number to provide a barrier to your next stat increase. If you wanted to, you could stack all your points into one stat, meaning you could have lets say a Strength stat that's as high as late game during the middle of the game. This allowed for a lot of flexibility in fights, and made it so that you could clear the game at relatively low levels if you wanted too. In SMT V, however, you cannot. You HAVE to be very close to the level of the demon you're fighting. And even then, if the stat punishment wasn't that bad, I wouldn't mind. But no, you do barely any damage if you're even 5 levels below the boss. This is genuinely terrible design.
The only reason I was able to avoid this is because I played on hard mode. Whenever I found myself having trouble with an encounter, my first thought wasn't "Oh, my level is too low", but rather "Oh, my strategy is bad. I'm going to change Demons. Oh, look at that, there's a demon that's perfect for this fight that's only 2 levels away. I'm going to grind for a bit so I can fuse it". This mentality made me completely avoid the problem of level scaling accidentally.
While the combat system is still well made outside of it, and I had PLENTY of fun with it, this just forces grinding and takes away a huge chunk of replayability and openness previous SMT games had, for no reason.
SMT V is easily the Megaten game with the most potential. All the pieces are there for a fantastic game; amazing gameplay, great boss design, good story elements, banging soundtrack, and open areas to explore. However, the game falls flat on delivering some of these elements, leading to a game that lived up to expectations but had the potential to be so much more.
To start off, the best thing about this game is easily the visuals. This game is not only fantastic looking for a Switch game but for any game in general. It has a specific style that it just nails. The character and demon models in particular are incredible, they're super expressive and well detailed. I especially love how well each artist's styles were maintained in the demons. The Kaneko demons are clearly Kaneko while Doi's are clearly his, they let each exist as one. And speaking of that, the demons in this game literally look like the drawings hopped off the paper they were drawn on. They're all scarily accurate, and some of them I genuinely wasn't able to tell if it was a 2D image or a 3D model inside of the Party menu. The modelers did a fantastic job and I can't wait to see more in this style.
Another thing I loved was the gameplay. While not my favorite in Megaten (IV/A still hold that), it's a very good gameplay system nonetheless. Press Turn is always a plus, and I'm glad it's been established as SMT's combat system. It's easily the best JRPG combat system I've ever used, adding a perfect amount of strategy and intensity to JRPG content without incorporating action. There were a few changes made to Press Turn, the most notable being how passes work. Rather than passes either halving the next turn icon, it will always half any available full icon before halving halves. This change is great and adds a new area of strategy to fights, without making them easy. Speaking of strategy, this game now lets you choose your exact turn order in the Party menu, rather then relying on agility. I love this change a lot, as it removes the feeling of getting fucked over for having a bad turn order. And trust me, in some of these fights, you NEED to have a good turn order, at least on hard mode.
Outside of Press Turn, the combat system is pretty much the same; weaknesses, buffs and debuffs, status effects, passive skills, demons, etc. The only notable difference is with buffs and debuffs. Not only did they split them into both single target and multitarget versions, but they also made them only last 3 turns. However, you can stack them twice. I'm not 100% sure how to feel about this. On one hand, it easily makes buffs and debuffs more balanced, and adds more of a "fight" to keep them up. On the other hand though, it makes SMT lose a bit of its identity, as it's obvious it took inspiration from Persona. Not that that's inherently a bad thing, but I feel like having the combat systems feel different is important. SMT V does alleviate some of this though by keeping the stacking (though only up to 2 now) while also letting you use passive skills like Boon Boost to increase the amount of turns they last. I'll have to replay a game with the traditional SMT buff/debuff system to truly get a good feel on it, but for now I'm just in the middle about it.
The battles themselves are great too. I can't say for certain this experience was universal, as I played on hard mode, but I liked the way the bosses were designed. I feel like they took a note from Strange Journey's boss design, where it feels like every boss needs a new team layout to get through. I feel like this game doesn't execute it as well as SJ though, as the bosses in this game feel very spongey at times. It got to the point where I was exhausted from fighting bosses and having to reshape my team for every encounter, though once again that might be a fault of me choosing hard on my first playthrough.
Now is where my opinion on the game starts to falter slightly. The exploration is a good start for this. Going into this game, I wasn't expecting Strange Journey levels of dungeon design, which has the best designed dungeons in any game I've ever played. I was realistically hoping for a middle ground between IV and Nocturne, with some more competent dungeons but still a lot of overworld. Instead, I feel like it didn't even reach IV. There are a total of two dungeons in this game. One is actually pretty good with a fun gimmick, while the other has a really cool idea for a gimmick but does literally nothing with it. Outside of the dungeons, there's 4 main overworlds to explore. The first one was actually quite fun to explore, there's a lot to explore and fun stuff like demon caves and habitats. However after the first area, the design starts to fall off. The overworld stays the same, but it feels like there's less little things to find. You're still just walking around big spaces full of sand and abandoned buildings. Hell, even the fairy village, which I hoped would look slightly different, was still literally just abandoned buildings and sand but with a white filter. This is easily the most disappointing factor, and I wasn't expecting that much. I will admit, I am partly biased, as after SJ I've had an itch for a game with similar dungeon design but I've never found any.
And now, the moment we've all been waiting for; the story. And yeah, the story in this game isn't that good. However thankfully for me, after Apocalypse, I didn't go in with much expectations for a good story, so I wasn't that disappointed. What sucks though is, as I alluded to earlier, I think this game had the most potential for a good story. All the pieces are there for one of the best stories in Megaten; Lucifer kills God, and now the throne is open for anyone to take, as long as they are a Nahobino, which is the completed form of a God and their Knowledge, aka humans. All the humans are kept in a fake Tokyo, which was created by God, however after God's death, the Tokyo is starting to disappear and collide with the Da'at, the real state of Tokyo. Because of this, Gods are now finding their Knowledge, and they begin to fight for the throne. In this war of Gods, you have to ascend. This is a great structure for a story, however the game just doesn't do much with it. The characters in particular just never do anything. One of my favorite parts of SMT is watching people get placed into insane apocalyptic scenarios filled with demons, and seeing them get influenced by the world around them, eventually turning into ideologic extremists who would stop at nothing to change the world into their vision. SMT V tries that... kind of? None of the characters really go to the extreme besides Dazai. Dazai is easily the best of the main cast, as you do somewhat watch him become extreme. However, the change is extremely sudden with the most comically stupid cutscene of him throwing away a hat that says "Sucker" on it before gaining confidence. Think back to Strange Journey's characters. You have Jimenez, who is a relatively normal guy, if a bit crass, and Zelenin, who is also pretty normal, if a bit strict. You watch them both fall into the pits of their alignments; Jimenez finding Bugaboo and gaining an attachment to Demons and chaos, and Zelenin talking with Mastema and getting an affection for God and law. While I don't believe SJ has an amazing story, it does its job and supplements the game itself well. SMT V feels like it wants to do that, while also having the deeper lore of Nocturne, however it just doesn't. I could go on about the story forever, however so has everyone else, so I'll end it there.
The endings in this game are actually really good. Everything from the end of the Temple of Infinity and onward is actually quite good, and easily the part of the game I enjoyed most. However, the Neutral and True Neutral endings have problems. Neutral sucks in this game, as you're basically cucked out of a final boss. Tsukuyomi is a good fight, but not as a final boss. The ending is also quite unsatisfying, and you don't even get to see what happens afterwards. True Neutral is much better, however there is a major problem with it. To achieve True Neutral, you have to do some side quests. This is fine, as these side quests are actually quite good and provide some of the more interesting stories in this game. However, the side quests they make you do don't make sense with the route they're placed in. The goal of True Neutral is to basically kill all demons and Gods forever, and to create a world only for humans. This is fine, and probably overall the best ending, however the game forces you to do side quests where you befriend demons like Khonsu, Demeter, and Fionn Mac Cumhaill, characterizing all of them. I genuinely don't understand how they didn't see this huge contradiction. The only quest that makes sense being here is Shiva's, as he literally plans to destroy the entire universe. Outside of that problem, the ending itself is still quite good. The fight with Lucifer II in particular is incredible, though I don't think it was balanced well. To do this fight, you HAVE to beat Shiva, who is MUCH more challenging then Lucifer. The only thing that got me in Lucifer's fight was the final Morning Star, but that's only because I obliterated him so quickly due to my build to see it before, and I survived either way.
To end it on a positive note, the soundtrack was as good as ever. It took a while to grow on me, especially tracks like that weird Indian club song that plays on the Ishtar fight, however after hearing the Fionn/Shohei fight theme, I fell in love with the soundtrack instantly. There's a crazy number of battle themes in this game and all of them are scarily good. The overworld themes are also so good, with most of them just adding this great atmosphere. Highlight of the OST goes to the Shiva boss theme though. It's a very moody track that makes Shiva's fight incredibly atmospheric and hopeless, but also tense.
Overall, despite my issues with the game, it's still a solid
megaten game. The issues in this game aren't as big compared to its fantastic combat, visuals, and music. This game also does have it's moments, and those moments are honestly really good. If this game had better story and exploration, it could easily be one of the best Megaten games, but for now it kinda feels like an awkward transition back into home console Megaten.
Edit: Just learned about the level scaling in this game. And Jesus, it's bad. If you don't know, this game added a level scaling system, so that if you are just a handful of levels below or above a boss, your stats will be heavily decreased or increased respectively. If you can't see why this is bad, let me explain.
In past SMT games (at least the ones I played), all that mattered in battle was the stats of your characters. You did have a level, however the levels in these games were basically just a number to provide a barrier to your next stat increase. If you wanted to, you could stack all your points into one stat, meaning you could have lets say a Strength stat that's as high as late game during the middle of the game. This allowed for a lot of flexibility in fights, and made it so that you could clear the game at relatively low levels if you wanted too. In SMT V, however, you cannot. You HAVE to be very close to the level of the demon you're fighting. And even then, if the stat punishment wasn't that bad, I wouldn't mind. But no, you do barely any damage if you're even 5 levels below the boss. This is genuinely terrible design.
The only reason I was able to avoid this is because I played on hard mode. Whenever I found myself having trouble with an encounter, my first thought wasn't "Oh, my level is too low", but rather "Oh, my strategy is bad. I'm going to change Demons. Oh, look at that, there's a demon that's perfect for this fight that's only 2 levels away. I'm going to grind for a bit so I can fuse it". This mentality made me completely avoid the problem of level scaling accidentally.
While the combat system is still well made outside of it, and I had PLENTY of fun with it, this just forces grinding and takes away a huge chunk of replayability and openness previous SMT games had, for no reason.
2018
A really fun game to play with friends, especially if you all take it mostly seriously, but if you don't have any to play with do not touch this game with a 10ft poll
Good game, but I played it totally wrong which made it excruciatingly difficult for the final boss. I was able to beat the boss before it just barely, however I couldn't beat the final boss no matter what. I couldn't go back and grind either, so I just gave up and watched the ending on Youtube. I'm not proud of myself for doing this, but I had to.