Tag Archives: PS4

Digimon World Next Order Review

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It’s time for the big, hyped return to the Digimon franchise! I’ve been waiting for Digimon to make its return to the big screen for quite a while at this point. Unfortunately, I can’t say that the Digimon World series is my favorite from what I’ve heard. The idea of growing and raising Digimon just doesn’t strike my fancy. That being said, World 4 was pretty hype so surely this would be hype as well right? Unfortunately, it is the worst Digimon game so far. It has its moments, but the overall gameplay mechanics are just bad.

Lets start from the top since there is definitely a lot to discuss at this point. The plot is about a kid who finds himself in the Digi world for some reason. The actual reason isn’t important and the game doesn’t really address it either. “Stuff happens” is the best explanation really and it’s all because the kid entered a Digi tournament and came in the top 5. The other contestants also made it to the Digi World, but it seems like the top ranked fighter is evil. The other top fighter might also be a traitor. Luckily, Terry (That’s what I called the main character anyway) still has two other friends to help him out. The problem is that one of them is always bragging about herself and the other guy has self confidence issues. Terry basically has to defend the world on his own. To do that, we need to find a lot of Digimon and force them to move to our town. After we’re confident enough, then we can head for the villain stronghold.

Here’s where the problems start off. The actual gameplay revolves around you walking through various habitats and recruiting Digimon. Some of them will join you instantly while others will have you find sticks and stones, or other materials. Others will have you fight them, but most will just tell you to back off and you have to wait until you’re progressed further in the game. The kicker is that you can’t progress further without getting more Digimon so you’ll spend a good amount of time just looking around. The exploration is big in this game like with Legend of Zelda. The problem is that you can’t actually take your time since you have Digimon partners.

The game really tries its best to make the Digimon like realistic kids, but they went too far. They can’t go 5 minutes without yelling at you to bring them food, take them to a toilet, or that they want to go to sleep. If you don’t have the items on hand, then they’ll refuse to fight in order to spite you or they’ll get sick. Once they get sick, you have to spend a bunch of money to make them better again and that’s only if the Hospital is open. You probably won’t get that for the first 20+ hours though so good luck until then. Another issue is that your Digimon are constantly dying all of the time which reverts all of their stats back and you have to train them from the beginning. The whole system is made to be as aggravating as possible.

Now, I think the intent of this game was to feel like Shantae or Breath of the Wild. Everything is difficult at first, but as you progress through the game it feels a lot better since you have upgrades which are effectively quality of life upgrades to the game. The problem is that the whole Digimon death system works against that to a solid extent. While you can get upgrades later on that extent their life a bit and help them regain some stats through each reincarnation, you’ll still have to waste hours in the gym powering them up. The gym is as tedious as you’d expect since it is just about mashing the X button. You also can’t train for very long before your Digimon get tired and take a break, get hungry, or get sleepy. You have to listen to them since you need their Digibond for EXE fusion.

Did I mention that this game does a terrible job of explaining everything? I learned about most of the techniques and tricks online. The game never even tells you about EXE fusion. I’m sure an NPC mentions it somewhere, but I never ran across it. Without EXE, beating the game would be really difficult. It is only possible when you have maxed out your bonds with both of your partners, have 1 Mega, and both have 150 Order Points. It basically makes you invincible. Granted, I only got to use it once, but it was awesome. For the final boss, I just spent a whole generation fishing until I had 3 million bucks and then I did the gym and bought food at the Restaurant for 10 days. By that time, the final boss went down without even putting up a struggle so I didn’t need to bother with EXE. It was a glaring change from how tough the rest of the game was.

Once you’re in combat, you have to watch as your Digimon try and attack. You can give them orders to attack or block which helps, but they don’t listen to you if they don’t feel like it. Also, they may obey your order once they’re out of range so the attack will miss or they’ll block, but let it go before the attack lands. I definitely prefer to control the Digimon myself or to at least have a proper turn based system instead. The gameplay is absolutely not my cup of tea. To be clear, it’s not bad though, it just could be a whole lot better. The game could have easily gotten a 7 in spite of it had the rest of the game been good.

The problem is that it isn’t. I can’t stress enough just how bad the Digimon death system is. It gets incredibly tedious during the early part of the game. You’ll also have to just let the Digimon die sometimes because you know that they won’t get strong enough in the end. At least one good thing is that your Tamer upgrades are permanent since he never dies. His EXP is based on how far you walk and for how long you stayed out. The best EXP trick is to then just walk in circles over and over again and you’ll be getting level ups in no time. It’s cheesy and feels cheesy as well, but you can’t deny the results.

Also, make sure that you pick the easy difficulty setting. It doesn’t actually affect the enemy strength or anything. The only real change is that training in the gym is a lot quicker so Normal mode is literally just in existence to make the game more of a grind. I don’t see any reason to ever even consider playing that mode. As it is you’ll be grinding a lot for materials, training, and just general walking around. This review’s been pretty negative since I want to make sure you understand what’s limiting the game. It’s hard to really do it justice even now as you have to play the game to really understand. Now let’s talk about the positives.

The graphics are decently good. They’re not quite PS4 level, but they don’t look bad either. I’m guessing they just couldn’t make the graphics look too good because of how many character models are in the game or something. Either way, they suffice. The levels all look pretty clear and the character designs are good. The soundtrack is okay. Cyber Sleuth certainly spoiled me on that, but it goes well enough with the scenes. I would have liked one hype lyrical song, but maybe for next time.

I do have to say that the plot ends in one of the worst ways possible. It always felt like the story was just something added so it could have one, but wasn’t the main focus. There’s not much to it, but there was always that feeling in the back of your mind that something hype was gonna happen. After all, most RPGs take a while to really get going. The problem here is that there’s no payoff. The final twists with the main villain don’t make any sense and actually just hurt the character. I didn’t want a sympathetic villain, I just wanted a tough one! It just eliminated the hype. The post story boss was pretty fun though. I wasn’t initially planning to do any of the post game stories, but my Digimon were so overpowered at the end that I couldn’t resist. I went and fought Diaboromon along with quite a few bonus quests to help out the stat sheet at the end.

That’s actually where the game comes full circle and I have to admit that it can be addicting. It’s strange since on the surface, it sounds like the game wasn’t all that good right? Maybe it’s just one of those “Time sink” issues but I did grow attached to it by the end. The beginning of the game was very brutal. Nothing’s worse than playing for an hour or two and not really accomplishing. On the other hand, once you do start to accomplish in the game, you don’t want to start. How I see it, the game really gets going once you are near the end of the game. That may seem to be a bit late, but from there on, the game works quite well. The quality of life improvements are just that massive. Your Digimon will finally get stronger at a rapid pace and you will be able to keep them alive for a very long time due to the new partners that you can recruit. The whole thing is time consuming and the game never stops being a grindfest but you can’t help but want to play the game again. I even briefly entertained the thought of getting the Platinum here. My Digimon are certainly strong enough now and I just need to keep extending their lives and they’ll live forever. Still, it’s not something that I’d be doing anytime soon, it would just take too long.

Overall, This is one of those games where you have to be prepared to invest a whole lot of time into it. You won’t be completing this game in under 40 hours or at least it’s not very likely. Of those 40+ hours, probably around 10 will be on the story and the rest will be side quests and grinding. You’ll want to keep completing the side quests though because every Digimon that you recruit has a unique ability and helps your city become a better place. Furthermore, you can’t beat the game without getting your town’s reputation to 100+. Each Digimon that you recruit gives you an extra 2-3 reputation. There’s enough replay value here to last you around 80+ hours as well so it’s certainly worth the money. Know what you’re getting yourself into and you’ll enjoy the game more. The final half and the post game segment isn’t enough for me to give the game a positive score, but it’s certainly a very deep game. I could play it for 20 more hours and still not quite understand all of the mechanics. You’ll have to tear yourself away at the end if you can survive the first 30 hours. I’d recommend just playing Cyber Sleuth if you want a game that’s dynamite from start to finish.

Overall 5/10

Assault Suit Leynos Review

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I ended up printing out a coupon for 5 dollars off a new game instead of 10 dollars off of a pre owned one at Gamestop by mistake the other day so I went looking for a new title that I could get for cheap. Leynos showed up and this game always looked pretty interesting. I’d only come across it once or twice in the past, but I like Arcade style games well enough. A modern port is always appreciated since it adds continue points and a saving feature. It’s a fun game and while it is fairly short, the trophies help to add in some replay value. Considering that it’s only 15 dollars new and probably even less used, I’d say that it deserves to be picked up.

The plot is that a bunch of people were sent into space back in the day. Then World War 4 showed up (Yes, not 3. That was off screen) and all of our technology went out the window. We finally rebuilt our civilization and united the world in peace, but we told the space explorers to fend for themselves. They didn’t like that and created their own robot army in order to claim revenge. Can we defeat our own people…and should we? It is life or death as they intend to destroy Earth so I think that ultimately ends up answering the question. We certainly will not go down easily!

The gameplay plays out like a 2D Gundam game. You can equip up to 6 parts on your robot. You can choose to load him up with various guns and rockets or you can equip some boosters and extra armor. I personally went with 3 armors, my Machine Gun, and two sets of rockets. I definitely recommend the Machine Gun and the Armors are great since they add a whole new life bar for each one that you equip. They’re a real life savor. You can also fly if you have the booster and you can aim the guns up and down with the control stick as you go through the levels. You can also punch, but aside from a trophy that you can get for it…why would you ever punch? It’s a joke move in there just for fun I believe.

There are two different modes in the game, Arcade Mode and Classic Mode. Ironically, Classic Mode is the actual one from the arcade game as you play through the whole game and take it down a few pegs. There are less cutscenes and bosses and it feels retro. Naturally, I played the Arcade Mode instead. This one’s a little more modernized with extra features and all the new gadgets. I’ll try the other one out soon for a trophy though so no worries on that. I’ve heard that it’s tougher, but that’s what the save feature is for right? There are 8 levels in each mode and each one can be defeated in a few minutes. The game isn’t very long as a result, but the difficulty level should ensure that you replay some of them a few times which adds to the overall length.

There also is some replay value here since you’ll want to nab the Platinum trophy. It doesn’t sound too difficult, but will certainly take some 2D skills to achieve. For example, one level will have you win without using any guns, that one definitely sounds like it’ll be a pain. I’ll need to equip my best armors for that. Without the trophies, this game probably would have gotten bumped down to a 6. After all, the gameplay may be entertaining, but there’s no multiplayer. That would mean that there are only 8 levels to play and nothing more to gain from replaying it so the game would have sunk due to the fact that it just didn’t have much content. It’s why I am such a big fan of Sony’s trophy system. It really helps all games and certainly adds replay value.

The graphics are fairly retro as they’re supposed to be. The game is clear and you can always tell what is happening though. I’d actually say that they look better than Frogger: The Great Quest despite how much older this one was when it first came out. Some of the level designs will even remind you of Mega Man X. Of course, it would be neat to get a full PS4 sequel for this game with the latest graphics. That would be a lot of fun so hopefully this one sold well enough. The music is also pretty sound. It may not be the most impressive soundtrack of all, but it works well and adds a little more intensity to the campaign.

There’s not much to say about the actual story. It’s pretty decent and hits all of the usual mecha notes. We have the emotional death, the emotionless main character, the emotional heroine, and even the “sympathetic” villain who just wants revenge and to destroy the whole world. It’s good enough for me to still believe that it was good to have the story in the game, but it just serves the bare minimum of what a story should be. It adds context to the battles and gives you something to look forward to after each level. The final level was handled really well with that as you got to fight 4-5 bosses back to back to back. It took me quite a few tries to take that one down, but all bosses fall eventually right?

Overall, Assault Suit Leynos is a good game. It’s fundamentally sound and arcade gamers from the olden days will probably be able to appreciate this even more. It’s not a game that I could see myself playing for too long as I’d get burned out at replaying the same level too much, but it’s good for a quick run through. I don’t have time to stick around and replay many of my games anymore regardless so as long as it’s fun for the first run through, then I’m set. If the game got a sequel, I’m confident that I would check it out. I’m still a little behind in Gundam games, but maybe this will spur me on to get one in the near future. I’m always up for any more robot games that aren’t called Armored Core. If you hadn’t heard of this game before this review, then hopefully I helped give you some extra knowledge so you could decide if you want to purchase it or not.

Overall 7/10

Shantae Half-Genie Hero Review

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It’s time to take a look at another one of the Christmas games. Shantae was definitely a lot of fun to play through and it’s an indie game done right. It’s not super long or anything since it’s a game that is made to be speed runned, but it’s still long enough for you to feel like you got your money’s worth. The level designs are all on point and the game just looks and sounds good in general. I can also finally say that I’ve played a game in the Shantae series!

Shantae was trying to enjoy her beauty sleep when the village has need of her services once again. As a half-genie hero, Shantae protects a village and in exchange they pay her or at least give her a place to live. Unfortunately, the mayor has a habit of firing her. The village is attacked by all sorts of villains, including Risky Boots. Shantae will have to take them all down and save the genie realm, but can she do it?

The game has a nice retro feel to it as the game uses sprites the whole time. The levels are all pretty bright and cheerful. Even the villain levels and burning remains are still bright enough for you to see where you’re going at all times and breeze through. The game has that simple fun factor that the Mario and Sonic titles of the past possessed. It’s something that some games tend to lack nowadays with their artificial length and unnecessary quests. This one had a few riddles that needed to be deciphered, but they weren’t anything too crazy. I found them all in a reasonable amount of time.

Ironically, I managed to find most of the bonus collectibles in the mean time. By the time I was able to get to the next story level, I was very overpowered. I had a large heart collection by then and a lot of power ups that made the rest of the game a breeze. Naturally, all of these collectibles help the replay value section. The main game should take around 5 hours or so, but in order to get the Platinum Trophy, you’ll need to play the game again and complete it in a mere 4 hours. Certainly doable, but it’ll take some practice and a nice plan in mind. This is a game where I actually do plan on getting all of the trophies sooner than later so stay tuned for that. I’ve already got 72% of the trophies and more are on the way.

The music selection in the game was certainly enjoyable. The song that played during the first level was definitely a lot of fun and so was the boss theme and the burning cafe. They helped make the game more exciting for sure. This game definitely really succeeded on a technical level as well as when it comes to the pure gameplay. The creators definitely put a lot of heart into it and I can see why the kick starter people would feel good about their contributions.

As for the gameplay, it starts out like a classic Mario game, but with her hair acting as a sword of sorts. As you play through the game, you’ll get gradually stronger to the point where the old levels will suddenly be a piece of cake. You’ll learn how to fly, swim underwater, grab onto ceilings, and also multiply your attack power and speed by 4x. It’s fun to see the contrast to the start as you really begin to breeze through all of the levels. It’s hard to believe just what a difference the power ups make, but they are well worth it.

As mentioned before, the level designs are really good, which help to further make the gameplay shine. The only part of one level that seemed a little overly difficult was the Flappy Bird homage in part 3 of the last level. Luckily, you can cheese it out by falling on the very left of the final spike platform and then turning into a Bat. I somehow think that this wasn’t intentional, but we certainly take those. Anything goes when it’s time to complete the game right?

Shantae makes for a good main character. She reminds me a lot of Lina Inverse from Slayers, but less obsessed with money and riches. Shantae’s just a noble hero who tries to do the right thing and save the day. She even takes time out of her day to chat with the villains when they’re not busy trying to rule the world or resurrect old pals from the previous games. There are a lot of references to the older games, but it’s certainly not necessary to purchase them to understand what’s going on. You’ll be able to get into the game rather easily. Shantae’s grandfather and two friends aren’t that charismatic so I don’t mind that they got a rather small role. This is one of those games that really leans on Shantae as she has the most personality by far.

Risky Boots does the same for the villains. She seems to be the only villain who is totally evil and doesn’t have time for niceties or cracking jokes like the others. Her plan was actually pretty intense and if you get the bad ending, she does succeed in destroying quite a few people. Naturally, I went for the bad ending since the good one needed me to grab more collectibles. I’ll probably see that one when I attempt the speed run at some point. If not, well..I can probably tell what will change anyway, but you’ll just need to find out for yourself.

The sheer fun factor of the game ends up putting it ahead of Shovel Knight and Mighty No 9. There is a lot of backtracking here and helping people out with side quests, but they were all fun to play through. The levels are also short enough where it isn’t a bother to go back and forth as you look for collectibles. It’s just a very well made game and if I were to have any complaints, it would be that you can’t skip the credits, but I suppose that’s cool for the people who pledged to this project.

Overall, Shantae Half-Genie Hero is definitely a good PS4 game and I’d recommend picking it up. It’s certainly not the longest game on the block, but it’s long enough and has a good amount of replay value. If we do end up getting some free DLC for it soon, that’ll be even cooler, but there’s enough base content to make it all worthwhile. Sprites also work perfectly for the game since otherwise the dancing and attires could be a bit much in this desert land, but sprites make everything 20% better. Hopefully this game did really well so we can get a sequel at some point. Of course, if Shantae is added into the Switch version of Smash, then she’ll have enough publicity to last a life time!

Overall 8/10

Mighty No. 9 Stats and Records

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Stats time!

PS4 Trophy% 9%

Stage Stats

Level 1 29975 B Rank
Level 2 11850 D Rank
Level 3 24900 C Rank
Level 4 37500 C Rank
Level 5 15900 C Rank
Level 6 33125 C Rank
Level 7 13275 C Rank
Level 8 32500 B Rank
Level 9 43150 A Rank
Level 10 5200 C Rank
Level 11 27400 C Rank
Level 12 39850 B Rank

Mighty No. 9 Review

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It’s time to take a look at the controversial Mega Man homage game. This is also game number 2 from the Christmas batch. It’s definitely a very solid game when we look at pure gameplay, but it could definitely use some work in other aspects. The main culprit here is the level design as some just don’t make a whole lot of sense and are pretty unfair. The game has a habit of not telling you anything either, but I’ll take some very slight blame on that since I guess I could have experimented with the controls a little more. Given that the price crashed so quickly though, it is definitely worth purchasing.

The game follows Beck, The Mighty number 9, one of the last robots who is currently not corrupted. His fellow Mighty numbers have also started running amok and are causing terror in the streets. Doctor Sanda and Doctor White instruct Beck to save the day by defeating the robots and clensing them of the violent bug. It’ll be tough, but Beck is the strongest robot ever created so he should have the edge here. Who is controlling these robots though? Doctor Blackwell is a suspect since he has had many iffy crime dealings in the past, but he is currently in prison. With only one other actual character in the game, that means that we have 2 suspects. Well, lets start taking back the city!

Beck’s a decent lead although it’s hard to say what his personality is. He seems kind of sassy during some brief points, but for most of the game he is basically Mega Man when it comes to personality. He doesn’t like fighting and he’s super heroic to the point where you have to wonder if he’s faking it. He’s a good guy, but there just wasn’t much to him and you would barely even guess that he doesn’t like fighting if Call didn’t mention it a few times. Call is basically the Roll of this game. She gets one level to herself, which is cool since you get to fight as her, but she is given a terrible moveset. Her blasters deal next to 0 damage and she can’t power slide so you have to crawl the old fashioned way. Her level was also one of the very bad ones when it comes to design. She was a good main heroine though and I am glad that she isn’t reluctant to fighting.

All 3 of the doctors are fairly bland. Blackwell is easily the best of the three. He was framed and arrested so maybe the guy isn’t all that bad, but Doctor White certainly doesn’t like him. The game seems to be setting White up to be the villain of a sequel, which would certainly be interesting. White is even hiding the fact that he is related to Blackwell by changing his last name. Blackwell doesn’t like robots, which seems to be how the game is leaning him towards the dark side, but he doesn’t seem like a bad guy yet. The sinister design is probably an indication that he will do something drastic at some point, but he’s certainly no Wily yet. Sanda is the comic relief guy who constantly panics and stutters throughout the whole game. He definitely won’t be turning evil, but I wouldn’t want to see too much more of him. He doesn’t really serve any purpose in the story and is just there to be there.

The Mighty Numbers are fairly decent. They all have different personalities and none of them appear to be all that bad. They’re like the classic robot masters, but the game did a good job of not making them too identical. There is an obvious Proto Man homage, but we definitely did need a rival in the game. All good franchises develop one at some point. He was easily the best one in the game of course. Trinity was also pretty cool though and she is easily one of the stronger bots. I’d expect her to play a major role in the sequel unless they nerf her for some reason. Now that would be a shame.

As I got the PS4 version, it came with the free Ray expansion pack. I’ll definitely play that at some point, but for now that’ll go on the backburner. The character definitely looks cool though and I expect that he’d be a really good antagonist or rival figure. When I play that mode, I’ll upload an update post so that I can discuss it properly. I need to do the same with Shovel Knight at some point although this game certainly feels a little quicker so it would be higher on the list.

Lets talk about the gameplay. The positives are that they worked with the classic Mega Man style and improved it in some ways. Being able to air dodge is a lot of fun. It can be a little sensitive, but nothing too crazy. You may only slip and die a handful of times. I also like how strong the normal Mega Buster is. You’ll rarely want to use anything else, although the missile is certainly a very handy backup weapon. One thing you should know is that pressing on the PS4 touchscreen will let you use a health pack that you may have obtained during the level. If you see a blue icon under your health bar, then that’s what it means. You’ll lose them when you lose a life so use them before you die. I didn’t know about this until I was at the final boss. If I had only known earlier, I could have beaten the game way sooner and the final boss wouldn’t have been so difficult. The game never really mentioned anything about it though and I wasn’t going to surf the tips section until I found something. Again, I won’t blame the game too much, but this was a fairly important detail. You can also do back jumps while shooting by hitting the R2 button and that’s also very useful for the final boss. It only has niche uses though so you won’t be using it all that much.

One area where the gameplay failed is switching between weapons. Why wouldn’t they leave it simple like in the Mega Man games by just hitting L1 and R1 to instantly switch? Instead, that allows you to cycle through and then you have to activate the switch with triangle. It’s too many steps and will likely cause you to get hit once or twice during a boss fight. I also have to take a shot at the level designs. Purple spikes KO you instantly, but some levels have a Mario Maker esque moment where you’ll fall down and just bump into them. There’s no way to know that they’re there so you’ll always lose a life the first time that you encounter this. As the game is pretty short, there aren’t too many of these moments, but the ones that are there will certainly get on your nerves. Some segments have various jumps around the purple spikes and one death can send you pretty far back. Some of the checkpoints simply weren’t placed well.

The graphics are definitely pretty sharp and this is how retro inspired games should look if you ask me. It has the retro side scroller feel to it, but you can still see the updated graphics through the character designs and level layouts. Everything looks pretty smooth and modern, especially the aerial boosts. The game definitely looks quite good and that also helps get you into the game. The actual plot may have been somewhat underwhelming and the graphics never looked good for the cutscenes for some reason, but the actual gameplay visuals were always on point. The soundtrack is also pretty solid. Some of the themes are rather generic, but they are generic futuristic themes, which is still a win for me. The themes go very well with the moderate to fast paced gameplay. There were no “bad” themes in the game, which is always good as well.

There is a good amount of replay value to be found here. Getting that Platinum Trophy will take a very long time since the trophies are very hard. Can you imagine beating the whole game in 30 minutes or completing it on hard without any continues? Those two in particular sound crazy and there are a slew of others that will be just as hard. It would take dozens upon dozens of hours to do this unless there is some kind of save stalling technique that I’m not aware of. It’s certainly possible I suppose, but it would still take quite a while. Getting all S ranks on the normal levels will also be tricky and then you’ve got challenges and online leaderboards to worry about. It’s quite a lot of content so that’s a good thing considering that over 70000 people backed the game and that it got way more money than it ever needed. The controversies surrounding the game were certainly interesting to follow along back in the day.

Overall, Mighty No. 9 is a solid game. The level designs and the plot help to keep it from getting an 8 though. The main story won’t last you all that long either so if you’re not a big fan of the bonus content, then this game wouldn’t really be worth the 30 dollars for you. It currently goes for 10-15 though so that’s a very reasonable price if you ask me. This will also help alleviate the wait til the next Mega Man or Mega Man X game since it seems like it’ll be a very long time before Capcom gives us another one. I don’t get how a company can drop the ball so hard on one of their franchises, but that’s Cashcom for you. So, I definitely recommend this game and it was about what I expected, if not a little better. This is controversial, but I think it’s even better than Shovel Knight so that would make it my top indie game. It’s a little murky as to whether or not it counts anymore I suppose, but given that it was from kickstarter, I think we can still call it that. We’ll see if Shantae can take the crown though. The gameplay is pretty sharp and the plot is much better, but Mighty No 9 does have some advantages like the soundtrack and the graphics. Only time will tell and that review shouldn’t be too far off either!

Overall 7/10

World of Final Fantasy Review

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I finally finished up the Postscript in World of Final Fantasy and completed all of the Interventions in the end as well. I didn’t get to complete all of the townsfolk quests although I did almost all of them and I’m fairly close to completing the Colosseum as well. All I can say about that is that it feels good. World of Final Fantasy was a game where you really felt like going out there and completing it all. It was an excellent game and continues to keep the reputation of the Final Fantasy franchise high. I only really have one complaint with the game and I’ll mention it below. Beyond that, the game was just about perfect.

Lann and Reynn are two siblings who run a coffee shop. Life was pretty quiet and normal for them until a mysterious god walks in and asks for a coffee with a lot of sugar. The strange thing is that she entered the shop while it was still closed and had apparently been there for quite a while. She tells Lann and Reynn that they have lost their memories. The two heroes quickly realize that they have never actually seen anyone in their town and don’t have any memories either. The lady tells them that to regain their memories and find their parents, they will have to explore the world of Grymoire and capture a lot of Mirages. (Monsters) The two heroes do just that as they explore this huge world which crams together all of the past Final Fantasy universes.

Naturally, it’s not all fun and games. There is an evil group of monsters who wish to destroy the universe. They stop the heroes at every corner and there final plan will be difficult to stop. Lanna and Reynn have to beef up their attack strength by grabbing more Mirages, but they will also need the help of their friends if they want to win this round. Teamwork is the name of the game and who can stop these two siblings in that department?

At first I actually thought that this was going to be a fairly short Final Fantasy game. There are 21 chapters and each chapter felt rather short. However, this was not the case as you need to factor time in to grind up the heroes and power up your monsters. Not to mention that after the 21 chapters is a Final Chapter which is quite difficult. There are also many Intervention quests which act as epilogues for all of the characters and there are even some Main Story quests in there as well. That results in a bunch of cutscenes and the game spared no expense as we even get full anime cutscenes at several points in the game. I ended up completing the game in 35 hours, which is a pretty good length. That’s slightly longer than Ocarina of Time and White Knight Chronicles, but not as long as Skyward Sword or the Kingdom Heart games.

There is also a lot of bonus content to do. I don’t think it will take you all the way up to 100 hours, but probably to at least 50 and maybe even more than that. If you want to get the Platinum in this game, you’re going to have to master all of the Mirage Boards and find all of the Treasure Chests in the game. That is bound to take a while. The leveling up part doesn’t sound all that bad to me, but finding chests when minions are constantly attacking you will be quite the trick. I got over half of the trophies so I’m pretty satisfied. I’d like to go and complete the final two town quests and the rest of the Colosseum battles at some point, but that’s probably where I will stop. At some point, it would be fun to have the bragging rights for getting the Platinum here though. I imagine that it will be very rare.

I really think there might be something to the whole “Great Graphics can make a Great Game” argument. Naturally it’s not that simple and I wouldn’t be talking about just the graphics. However, couple that with a great soundtrack and solid writing and then you’ve got a masterpiece. See, an old PS1 game could have a plot that is just as good and a dynamite soundtrack as well, but without the graphics, it could get hurt a little. (Final Fantasy VII comes to mind, but that game had a whole array of issues with it so graphics was the least of its worries) On the other hand, a game can have a fairly boring plot, a nonexistent soundtrack, and unimpressive writing like Knack, but you can still be decently engaged thanks to the good graphics. So, I do think that graphics play a bit of a role and I do find that newer games draw my attention a lot more than old ones. There’s just something very high tech and awesome about new games. That doesn’t take anything away from World of Final Fantasy though. I’m just happy to add it to my collection of other modern games that are awesome. Cyber Sleuth, Pokken, Super Smash Bros for Wii U, Dengeki, etc. They feel crisp and solid through and through.

I mentioned that there was one area where the game could have been a little better. Are you ready for this? Well, I think that Cloud and the others should have turned into their Jiant (Yes, it’s spelled that way) forms at least once. Sure, it isn’t really them and they’re just using the bodies of this parallel dimension where they are all clones, but it would have been awesome. The game could have saved up one of its anime cutscenes for the final battle and we could have seen Cloud fight the leader of the Bahamut army. Obviously this isn’t a negative that will impact the score in any way, but you have to admit that this would have been awesome and was a bit of an oversight. We needed to see big Cloud wreck everybody!

Beyond that, navigating through the Mirages could have been a little easier. It’d be nice to mess with their Mirage Boards without having to add them to the party. That’s minor though and since the loading times are very quick, it’s not much of an issue. The game is also clear on what to do next aside from the Postscript. To save you some time, I’ll just say that you need to capture the 3 elemental spirits from the Colosseum before it’ll let you complete the game. The map will never tell you this and the game never really explains how to catch Mirages all that well. It tells you about how you have to wait for a circle to appear of course, but I assumed that it was like Pokemon. I figured that weakening them would do the trick, but apparently not. Each Mirage has a different catch requirement and I believe you can use a skill to find out each time or you can just go to Reddit and they’ll help you out. Those guys are always willing to lend a hand and they have a large spreadsheet for just that purpose. I think World of Final Fantasy should have gone the Pokemon route when catching Mirages as it’d be a little simpler.

The most convenient ability at the end of the game is certainly the power to travel wherever you want whenever you want to do so. You won’t have to walk around too much aside from when you’re clearing dungeons or catching Mirages. It saves you do much time and it’s a great feature. You can really customize your party roster and everyone’s abilities quite nicely which is another good addition to the series. The whole concept of stacking monsters on top of each other is a new one and I like it. It adds a lot of strategy to the gameplay so you have to really think about who you want to use in battle. I recommend training the small Behemoth dog right from the start of the game. He’ll end up becoming your best monster once you get his XL form. Seriously, I wouldn’t have beaten the final boss without him. He can take down half of the final boss’ health in one shot thanks to his Revenge attack which gets stronger as he gets weaker. Just use the Last Hit technique so he goes to 1 HP and then prepare to one shot any boss that stands in your way. It’s awesome. The final boss used a cheesy technique that reflected the attack in the end, but the damage was done and I got my narrow win. I shudder to think about how tough that boss would have been otherwise. It’s worth mentioning that the game probably has one of the best troll endings. If you don’t decide to play the Postscript, then you’ll be in for quite the experience.

Both of the main leads are pretty good characters. Reynn does spend a lot of time insulting Lann throughout, but he takes it pretty well and it’s all in good fun. It’s just the dynamic that they have. She’s the calm and reasonable character for the most part, but she doesn’t like to be messed with and will enter full combat mode at that point. She actually taught Lann how to fight and defend himself so that shows how she was always a fighter. Lann isn’t very smart and all of the characters mock him as a result, but his heart’s always in the right place. He’s a lot more enthusiastic about saving the day and helping everyone out even if it means going out of his way. He’s also willing to make the ultimate sacrifice when necessary even if he jumps to that conclusion a little too quickly. I’d say that he was the best character from the new ones introduced in this game.

Tama is the animal mascot of the game and she is a fairly strange being who works for Enna Kros. She has the power to stop time and get the heroes to safety and can exploit a lot of game mechanics through her reality warping. She even has the power to create new timelines and mess with the past. The power never goes to her head though and she has a fun gimmick where she will use the word “the” in between words for no reason. It’s a gimmick that could have gotten old if it was misused, but I thought that the game did an admirable job. I actually liked Tama quite a bit and the execution was sound.

Enna Kros is a good high above being, but like most cosmic entities, she never really does much. Her reasoning is that Lann and Reynn are the heroes of the story so they have to do everything on their own, but she should really step in when the going gets tough. That is…unless she doesn’t have the large amounts of power that she wants us to thinks she possesses. It raises a lot of interesting questions. She was fun though and adding extra sugar to the coffee gives her some extra personality.

As for the villains, Brendires is the main one. He is a dark overlord who wants to take over the world. We don’t see a whole lot of him beyond that, but he works well as a villain and has a great design. He’s certainly very powerful since he took down Cloud and Lightning, but I’m calling plot hax on that. Even with a weakened vessel that houses his soul, Cloud should have been able to take him down. Brendires never gave up and had a lot of determination for a villain. He’s easily one of the cooler Final Fantasy end bosses. His two main minions were a little more on the bland side. The winged fighter got some hype for a while, but never did much about it. I do like the fact that she was the only one to get up after being knocked out the first time though. That’s considering that her vessel was supposedly putting up a large fight. The other villain reminded me of Fang from Street Fighter V. His constant rhyming was a gimmick that didn’t work and I couldn’t take him very seriously.

Naturally, all of the old Final Fantasy game characters showed up as well. They were all in character so there’s no need to say much about them. Lightning and Cloud are still the coolest two members. We got a tease about Sephiroth showing up and that could be a DLC quest at some point. It would definitely be neat to see him show up and thanks to owning the Day 1 Edition, we do have his Champion Medal. It’s a fun tribute to his ultimate attack from the original game.

Overall, World of Final Fantasy is a great game. I’d probably put it under both of the Final Fantasy XIII games, but it destroys VII and defeats X-2. It goes without saying that it beats the original as well and I haven’t completed any other main titles at the moment. The characters are good and the plot is engaging. You’ll be breezing through the game because it’s hard to take yourself away from it. It also has a great opening cutscene that is similar to a Kingdom Hearts intro. Even the little dance by everyone at the end is fairly intriguing since you’ll rarely get to see Cloud outshine everyone on the dance floor. If you haven’t picked up the game yet because you’re worried about the Chibi style or just dread playing long games, I’d recommend getting it anyway. It’s fine if you don’t play the post script since the normal ending is actually quite great since it’s so unexpected.

Overall 9/10

Touhou Genso Rondo: Bullet Ballet Review

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This is my first Touhou shooter game so I’ve finally been able to start a new franchise! The gameplay is certainly a lot of fun and it is a solid game. The plot is the main thing that holds this title back, but not enough to really take any points away this time. There’s a good amount of replay value after all and that tends to help quite a bit.

So, there is a story mode, but most of the stories don’t really have anything to do with each other. You play as one of the magical girls as they go around picking fights. The fights are called Danmaku battles and in cannon it seems to be similar to the actual gameplay, but naturally it is not lethal. One girl’s story has her beat everyone up because her mistress told her that dinner would taste better after these tough battles. In the end, it all turned out to be a lie though. Another story had a girl host a tournament and then she went around beating everyone up. The others didn’t want to enter the tourney, but they had no real choice in the matter. Another girl needed inspiration for her puppet shows so she went around challenging everyone. Rinse and repeat.

The story suffered from the same problems as AquaPazza. There just were not any real interesting characters and none of the stories were particularly interesting either. There simply were not any stakes to be had here as they were all just having fun. That can work out fairly well of course, but the game didn’t do much with the concept. It doesn’t help that there are no actual cutscenes here either. There is a still image for the beginning and the end as well as quick text conversations between the characters prior to each fight. It’s just not much though. Ah well, you’re really here for the gameplay anyway.

Each character has a standard attack where you can shoot a barrage of bullets at the opponent. You really want to land as many blows as possible since the opponent can absorb the energy from the stray hits. That means that the closer they get to the bullets without getting hit, the closer they will be to a final smash attack. Aside from the standard bullets, you also have power bullets and alternate bullets. I call them all bullets, but they won’t all necessarily look standard. One character’s alternate bullet has her summon a doll which shoots lasers and one power attack has a lot of energy stars appear and blow up, which sends energy everywhere. Each character can also move in slow mode, which decreases your speed, but also allows you to absorb more energy. There is also dash mode where you can quickly move with a burst of energy and you also have access to 3 new bullets. Speed Bullet, Speed Power Bullet, etc.

Once you have gained enough energy, you may use your final smash. This takes you to a new field where you will try to land hits on the opponent. While in this mode, the opponent cannot escape and can only leave by waiting out the timer or eliminating all of your health. Not to worry though, the health that you lose during the final smash has no effect on your actual health bar. That will only change if you activate your final smash when you have exactly 1 HP left. When you reach 1 HP, all bullets vanish for a second to give you a chance to launch a counter attack. The Ultra Smashes never work on computers, but I’m sure that they would be decent against a second player. If you don’t want to engage in bullet battles for long, you can also quickly turn things into a hand to hand battle if you charge into the opponent’s circle. There, you can use 2 attacks, standard and power. Standard attacks can be blocked and countered while power attacks beat the counter, but lose to standard.

As you can see from all of this, the controls are really quite complex. There is a lot happening in the game at all times and this is certainly not a cash in. It’ll take a little while to get used to all of the controls, but you’ll get the hang of it soon enough. It’s the kind of game that is definitely a lot more fun against actual players than against CPUs though. CPUs are simply too good at perfectly dodging the bullets and predicting your every move. Not to mention the fact that they are able to defeat your final smashes in an instant. I always thought that was pretty suspect.

On a technical level, the graphics are quite good. With all of the bullets hitting the screen at once, the area always looks very colorful. The game never starts lagging up either so they did a good job with the coding. The soundtrack is very limited though so that isn’t quite as impressive. None of the themes are particularly good either so that’s something that I would like to see improve in a sequel. At this point, a sequel is certainly not in doubt so if it is licensed as well, that would be the top priority for improvement. I’d also like a better story mode if that’s possible.

Aside from Story Mode, there is a good amount of other content to play around with. There is boss battle mode, where you only fight against Ultra Smash opponents. If you can beat 8 opponents with any character, you will get a trophy. I was only able to beat 3 opponents myself when I gave it a whirl so that sounds incredibly tough. You need to get really good at the game if you want to pull something like that off. There’s also Arcade Mode, which basically seems to be Story Mode without the story. I haven’t actually tried that mode yet though so maybe there are some wrinkles to be found there.

The main incentive for playing around in these modes is definitely the fact that this game has a lot of trophies to grab. Almost all of them were listed as Ultra Rare when I last checked so they are certainly no joke. I don’t see myself getting the Platinum anytime soon as I would need to get a lot better, but it’s a fun goal to strive for. You also can’t underestimate how good simply having Multiplayer is for the replay value. This is the kind of game that you can play and have fun with at any time.

Overall, Bullet Ballet is a fun title to have. I have not played a whole lot of games like this and the one that I have played didn’t have a multiplayer option so that was completely new for me. It’s a novel concept and if you have seen the game, but weren’t sure if you should take the plunge, I recommend jumping in. You will have definitely not played anything quite like it.

Overall 8/10

King of Fighters XIV Review

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The hype behind this latest installment in the King of Fighters series was definitely impressive. After Cashcom decided to release a very barebones rendition of Street Fighters, this was KoF’s chance to quickly show the fighting game community how it’s done. It does not dissappoint as there is a lot of content here to keep you satisfied without having to wait months for extra features. While SF V still wins with its final package and simply having the more interesting characters/smoother gameplay, King of Fighters holds its own and the series has come a very long way since the old PS2 title that I played.

The story mode is like the classic fighting game titles. Each team has an ending, but there is a story sprinkled in as well. Every character shares the same opening and then the big event where a cosmic being by the name of Verse shows up. You learn a little bit about Verse from some of the character endings, but either way, he means business! Taking him down is definitely going to be difficult, but the King of Fighter heroes are up to the task!

Some of the story endings are lacking a little. Since every team has an ending, it makes sense that not all of them would be hits. I mostly enjoyed the ones that delved into why Verse shows up and the ones that foreshadow events in King of Fighters XV. The ones that are more about day to day life like having a buffet at a bar or talking about animal names are a little less interesting. It’s partially due to the fact that I don’t know the cast too well yet though. I’m sure that they’ll get cooler as I pick up more of the games and get used to them. The story segments that the characters share is always pretty epic though. I do hope that these endings go somewhere though. There are a lot of hintings at plot twists and such which involve Verse, but if this never pops up in KoF XV, then it’ll be a bit of a waste.

King of Fighters did a great job with the soundtrack. The theme when Verse shows up is really good and I also like the main theme of the game. I can’t really tell what the singer is saying to be honest, but the beat is good and the liveliness of it all fits the game rather well. The stages also have good themes which is a must for a fighting game since you will be hearing them quite often. Likewise, the graphics are also very sharp. The cinematics that are present look very good and the character models are all on point. It’s all very clear and the actual gameplay will keep reminding you that this game is current gen. The interface and menus are also very good and I would have liked something like that for Super Smash. I’m still not crazy about the way that the menus work in that title. KoF XIV is similar to the PS3 in that sense as everything feels very new and modern.

Now, let’s talk about the actual gameplay. It’s a classic 2D fighter where you have standard attacks and power moves. You’ll want to throw, roll, and block as well. There is a lot of depth to be found in this title. If you aspire to be a world class player, you should expect to spend a lot of time in the training room. I’d say that the game has even more options than the various Street Fighter games. There are a lot of different ways to attack and dozens of variations so it will likely be overwhelming as you try to memorize the moveset from all of the characters. It’s easy to pick up as a beginner and hard to master, which is a good balance. I definitely like the gameplay, although I would put it under Street Fighter and Tekken. I think what holds it back a little is just that the character models are a little slower. Tekken makes up for this with how much damage you deal per hit. The fights in King of Fighters will always take a little longer. The 3 on 3 default mode is always a lot of fun though and if you’re going to have a long fight, then it may as well be in style.

I haven’t gotten a chance to test my skill against any actual players yet, but I’m sure that a free PS+ weekend will be occurring soon so then I’ll be sure to go online. I’m confident that my button mashing skills and experience with fighting games should serve me fairly well. After you’ve played story mode, you can also head to the Trials and Tutorials. Survival Mode is also at the ready. The tutorial mode goes very in depth and teaches you all of the concepts in the game. It can be difficult towards the end, but you’ll be glad that you played it. For a game this complex, you will need to actually think about what you are going to do. Button Mashing is heavily discouraged based on how it is set up, although you can make do if you know how.

The trophies seem tricky, but a little more achievable than some other fighting games like SF IV or SF V. I got a decent amount of them, although it’s a fairly low amount if you look at the game on the surface. A lot of the trophies are online based so I can’t really go for those quite yet. It helps add to the replay value that is found here. As this is a fighting game, that means that the replay value is automatically infinite. Whether you play locally or with friends online (If you have PS+) the gameplay should never get old. This is the kind of game that you can have fun playing for hours and hours on end as you try to improve your skills and rank. Grabbing all of the illustrations, movies, and sounds should also take some time.

Verse made for a good original villain here. I hope to see him return although I definitely want God Rugal as well. That guy was awesome in the old games. Terry was about as cool as I’d expect him to be and Kyo seems like a good main character as well. I’m still not sold on Iori, but maybe he’ll get cooler as he goes along. It’s pretty neat how there is a Freddy Krueger parody here as well and even a guy who looks rather similar to Ryu. The ice character is also cool since having someone with super powers is always pretty neat. As it stands, I do think that the cast is more interesting than Virtua Fighter. If we get more stories as the games go on, maybe it’ll continue to pass other video game series as far as the cast is concerned.

Overall, This game is certainly worth the full price. It has a very large cast so many of your favorites should be here and finding a character who fits your play style should come naturally. The graphics and soundtrack are solid as well. The only weakness in the game would be the story to an extent, but I still did like the animated cutscenes and ultimately, you’re playing the game for the gameplay more than anything else. If the new Super Smash could be a big success without a story, there’s no reason why King of Fighters can’t do the same. I definitely recommend checking this game out and then we’ll see if you ultimately agree that Terry Bogard is the most intense character in the game.

Overall 8/10