@NintendoByNature I believe the physical collection is out August 27th, if memory serves. Only a few more days!
I'm not worried about the two button system killing my enjoyment, particularly as that's how the game was meant to be played. I intend to play them in order and likely will provide some feedback when I get around to them.
I COULD play Secret of Mana on my SNES Classic if I really wanted to, but I may as well wait. XD
Currently playing: Pokemon Scarlet - The Indigo Disk, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (Switch)
As a kid there were certain books, tv shows & games I never finished and it always bugs me. I’ve recently decided to go back and finish them off. One of those was Mario 2, simply due to a lack of skill. I completed it last weekend but honestly, I still wouldn’t have finished it without the rewind feature.
Partially my issue with this game are the controls, specifically the throwing. I never feel confident where my thrown items/enemies will end up.
The other thing I struggled with are enemy placements. It often feels like cheap trolling from the developers to suddenly have enemies pop out of the ground or fly straight at you.
Perhaps I’m just not great at the game and that’s alright.
The reason this game stuck in my mind however is the world. Everything about it, the weird enemies (I’m a big fan of the masks that protect the keys), the unstructured levels feel unlike any other mario and the music is great. The vertical areas were always a favourite of mine since a lot of platformers around this time were horizontal.
It was great to finish it, even though it was in a very cheap way.
Blaster Master Zero (Switch) - Retro stylized sci-fi "Metroidvania" from Inti Creates.
Pros:
While it doesn't reinvent the wheel, the classic "Metroidvania" style gameplay loop is as satisfying as ever, and switching things up with the top down, on foot dungeons keeps things fresh.
While it does have elements that wouldn't have been possible on original hardware, it mostly captures the vibe of an NES game. I also want to point out one specific neat little graphical detail in the Ocean Area, where the background will get actively become darker, then completely black, when you're in deeper areas to simulate light becoming more scarce.
Neutral:
There are tons of boss encounters, and while many are cool & unique (if mostly on the easier side), there are also quite a bit (usually 1 or 2 per area) that just consist of waves of a specific regular enemy.
Negative:
There is one door in the final area that you can only access if you have some sort of radar turned on. Only problem is, you don't need it at any other point in the game (or rather, the game previously automatically turned it on during the few segments you needed it, then turns it off) so I had no idea it was something you could even toggle on or off manually, and ended up looking that part up.
Overall it was a fun time though, and worth the $10.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Level of Completion: Everything. Got the platinum trophy after three days of intensive play (7+ hours a day)
What is it?: The prequel to early PS4 title inFamous: Second Son. You play as a mutant(coughs excuse me... a "conduit") named Fetch who joins forces with a drug lord to help save her brother from the clutches of Russian mobsters.
What I Liked:
So, the most immediate thing that comes to mind when talking about this game: the method of locomotion you'll be employing the majority of the time. Running around at supersonic speed is extremely fun, and, as you upgrade your abilities, you'll be flying through the streets, bounding off of rooftops, and generally treating the city of Seattle like your own personal playground very fun. This sort of seems like it would be a good model for a Sonic the Hedgehog game to follow, considering you collect items in your environment, pass through energy rings of sorts dotted throughout the city to boost your speed, and the momentum based movement and combat flows really well.
Combat involving your powers is decent fun, too. How could someone not like blasting bad guys with hand lasers, shooting energy missles to blow up cars, or using gravity manipulation to hold your enemies in the air while you run up to punch them?
The facial animations during cutscenes are legitimately stunning in terms of how authentically they convey real human emotion. There are games with more photorealistic characters, but I don't think I've ever seen quite so realistic a depiction of human emotion (behaviorally, that is) as I have in this game. When the main character cries, for example, her face scrunches, her mouth trembles, and it all adds up to the effect of feeling like you're watching a real person struggle with grief. I'm often critical of realistic visual design in video games, but it's used extremely effectively here.
So, this game can run at either an unlocked framerate or at a locked 30fps, depending on what you toggle in-game. I love that this is an option for those of us who don't appreciate varying framerates. The small moments when the game gets closer to 60fps are nice, but it's annoying that the framerate drops so obviously when anything happens and starts taxing the system. I say "locked 30fps," but it's not REALLY locked. When you're in one of those arenas and you're on higher wave levels (30+ especially get pretty crazy), you'll have dozens of enemies spawning and gunning for you at any one time. So, understandably, when 50 enemies are out in force at once, jumping around and shooting lasers and bullets at you constantly... this all starts to tax the PS4 a bit, and it starts dropping to the low 20s or even lower pretty frequently. Performance, overall, stays pretty glued to the target when you cap the framerate, though.
Environments are pretty awesome, too. I had to have spent a few minutes or so just watching the realistic way in which the rain hit the pavement around my character. Very cool.
The game does a good job of balancing the meat of the story, which are had in flashbacks the main character is having, with modern-day segments in a government training facility that act as tutorials of sorts for your various combat abilities.
Like Gravity Rush or Super Mario Odyssey, there are collectibles EVERYWHERE, are they're good to hunt down. Given that you use them to help upgrade your abilities, there's also good incentive to grab them early on.
At one point in the game's story mode, you have to hack into police drone feeds and figure out where they are by looking at the environments so you can destroy them. I really enjoyed this sort of light puzzle-solving gameplay.
What really elevates this game for me is the depth and challenging nature of its arena challenges, which see you facing off against increasingly huge waves of difficult foes in giant artificial environments. These allow you to fully explore the nuances of the game's cool traversal mechanics and combat system, which, unfortunately, just isn't possible in the fairly basic campaign mode.
Arena battles also have better enemy diversity. You're stuck with fairly basic human enemies in the story, whereas you get to fight drones and, for some reason, projections of various types of demons (when you're bouncing around shooting demons in the face and doing melee takedowns left and right, it starts to feel a bit like a weirdly bloodless third-person take on DOOM)
What I Didn't Like/Was Disappointed By:
While the presentation is great in some ways, it misses the mark in others. For example, Fetch frequently calls people on her phone, but the character model never actually takes out a phone and holds it up to her ear. It's weirdly lazy.
As pretty as the world is, and as fun as it is dashing around it like The Flash... it's a very empty world as well. There's little interactivity with the environment to be had. Nothing to find outside of little red orbs everywhere and races where you chase something called lumens (they're like sentient balls of gas) around the city in an effort to catch them. Beyond those, and some random encounter types that are needed for achievements, it really doesn't feel like a living world. It's lacking even a rudimentary system where mass destruction attracts the attention of authorities, for example, despite the game telling you that the government is tracking down Conduits so ruthlessly that the main character didn't even use her powers for years on end. You can run around Seattle blowing up cars and killing people willy-nilly, but the only thing that attracts attention is when you actually start messing with soldiers. There's no escalation to conflicts even in scenarios like this: you kill a vehicle full of soldiers and... that's it until you happen across the next one.
The story missions in the main story mode are pretty shallow and forgettable. There's a very low level of difficulty, and they mainly encompass escort missions of sorts that you can find in many other open world titles.
The writing frequently falls flat for me. The villain is a boring stereotype, and there's not really a compelling emotional arc regarding the main character. Nobody really shines in this game.
I know I praised the arena mode, but we have to have a talk about some of the challenges you have to complete to 100% the game. Now, some of them are great and make perfect sense, such as scoring a certain number of points in each arena, or surviving a certain number of enemy waves. Others are... grindier than I like, but once you know what to look out for, they're mostly OK, and accumulate over time anyway, like the challenges that ask you to kill a certain number of enemies. But there are some trophies here that just... don't work right. Or the requirements for them are weirdly specific in ways that the game doesn't tell you. For example, the one where you have to kill a certain number of airborn enemies whilst in the air as well. Well, I probably sniped hundreds of flying demons over the course of my time with the game, but that counter kept failing to tick up. Apparently it ticks up if you use your power to make a landlocked enemy float in the air, jump, and then shoot him while airborne, though. But it doesn't count if you hit their weak spot and you've already grabbed the perk that brainwashes them for a time when you hit their weak spot, because they're not technically dead yet. So I kept having to stasis them, jump up, use my focus to slow time, and then desperately unload tons of lasers into the rest of their body in a big to kill them before the stasis I gave up or I landed from my jump. And then you have the one that wants you to blow enemies off of platforms... except this doesn't work with melee attacks, and stasis just makes them float in the air, so my only real hope was missiles. But... well... missiles generally latch onto and kill my targets, so that wasn't going to work. I had to exploit a glitch in the store mode where baddies in drive-by encounters would be slightly tossed away from their car when I stasised their vehicles, which would make the counter tick up each time. The cars seem to show up randomly, though, so I spent a good hour or so randomly wandering the map looking for more drive-by encounters so I could clear this achievement. There were a number of other annoying, somewhat glitchy, poorly-designed achievements, but these were the most annoying.
I eventually adjusted to letting the game auto-adjust the camera as I dashed, but I never liked it. I want control of the camera, and having it mapped to O makes it impossible to control the camera and dash at the same time unless you pull off some extremely uncomfortable contortions with your hand (I did, initially). Not a huge problem when you're just running forward, but I HATE rounding corners without being able to adjust the camera to see where I'm going. Again, the camera adjusts for you, but I don't like it.
Actually, a lack of any sort of button remapping is a sore spot in this release in general.
Conclusion: While the game undermines itself somewhat with a lack of polish in mission structure, writing, and many of the challenges in the arena mode, the core experience is quite fun, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for an addicting little third-person open-world action game.
This is a game that caused a lot of nastiness when the review dropped on this site and I don't necessarily want to re-engage those arguments. Suffice to say though, I stand by my points I made there.
On topic, the game proved itself to be, much like the previous SAO: Hollow Realization, to be a good bit of fun! Also like its predecessor, if you already dislike SAO, it's not gonna change your mind. And if you know nothing about the series, why would you even be considering jumping in to the third game right off the bat? Yes, you really should have played the previous games first. Though it will briefly summarize events in the beginning, so you wouldn't be totally lost.
It's very much "the next game" in the series and very much meant for people who at least mildly enjoy Sword Art Online and played the previous game. But I can comfortably say if you are one of those people, you'll enjoy this game.
-The character creator is even more in-depth than the last game and actually allows you to create your own Avatar character this time(as opposed to modifying Kirito), and you get to fully customize your partner character/android too.
-The game play is run and gun 3rd person shooter fare. It's fun but doesn't do anything new but does what it does well. Dodge enemy fire and move around while trying to focus on enemy weak points to deal the most damage. Level up your character to be able to wield better weapons and generally buff your stats.
-The story continues building the world of SAO and progressing those usual SAO themes of virtual reality and fully sentient A.I. But it's clearly one major chapter of a larger story too. It resolves the game's own plotlines, but this isn't the end of SAO's wider story, either in the game version of the story or the anime. And it's nice that the games roughly follow the anime, but do a lot of things different too. Thus you aren't just playing through a copy of the anime.
The game runs almost flawlessly on Switch. With only some minor slowdown when running across a some of the huge areas at max speed as sometimes a bunch of enemies load in at once. And this only seemed to happen in portable mode. It was never enough to cause problems with the game though, as in the second or two it took for you to start fighting, the slowdown would be resolved.
The game however is much uglier than its predecessor. Just because of the setting. This VR world is post apocalypse or some such, post disaster thing. Everything is ruins, desert or generic grays and silvers of abandoned military bases. It just doesn't have the variety the previous game had as a result. Although the entirely optional final region is a welcome change. I think that region was DLC in the PS4 release.
All in all, I'd give it a solid 7/10. It delivers a fun anime inspired experience for fans of the show with a likable cast, mildly interesting story and solid, if uninspired, gameplay. Just give it a pass if you have no interest in SAO.
Nintendo Switch FC: 4867-2891-2493
Switch username: Em
Discord: Heavyarms55#1475
Pokemon Go FC: 3838 2595 7596
PSN: Heavyarms55zx
This was definitely a fun little tactical turn-based gem. I still stand by my opinion in that I like SteamWorld Dig more (haven't played the second game yet), but this one is a worthy contender.
Positives
Once I adapted, the shooting mechanics were pretty solid. Timing a shot just...right...to crit and destroy an opponent is very satisfying.
Many of the weapons and other items were useful and fun to experiment with. It was neat to tailor the uses of certain items to different characters with abilities that would help them out.
The recruitable characters, on the whole, were somewhat fleshed out and had interesting conversations. My favorites were definitely Piper, Fen, Wonky, SeaBrass/Gabriel, Ivanski, and Sally.
I liked how new segments of the game were introduced in muted cutscenes that brought early 20th century video reels to mind.
A lot of the levels were fun to play through, though I think the procedural generation did a few odd things at times. I admittedly haven't played many games that use it.
A lot of the tunes in this game were catchy and entertaining.
I definitely appreciated some RL references! Such as the rare The Killing Joke weapon; that thing was useful.
Neutral
Call me a barbarian if you want, but I didn't really see the point of collecting any of the hats other than "just because". I would have liked to see them confer any benefits to their wearers. (It's very possible that some do and I just didn't obtain them.)
This could very well be the difficulty setting I was playing on, but the enemy AI outside of boss fights wasn't always the best.
While the boss fights themselves were enjoyable for the most part, I actually found Vectron easier to defeat than the Queen. I do admit that this could partially be due to having better/more higher-leveled characters for that fight.
Nitpicks
This game felt a bit short. There's a New Game+ that's unlocked after completing the main game, but it doesn't add much (from what I've read).
The story wasn't bad, but I found it kind of predictable. Some of the backstory in the crew's conversations was pretty interesting however.
I definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes turn-based strategy games and wants to try something a bit different. I'd definitely try a sequel (which is hinted at) when/if it rolls around.
Currently playing: Pokemon Scarlet - The Indigo Disk, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (Switch)
Forgotton Anne (Switch)
Took 11-12 hours to beat. It has a cool story. Looks sort of like a disney/anime cartoon, with hand drawn animation style. Don't know if I loved the ending, but I liked the game overall. It has a demo, and progress does transfer to the full game. I was sold on the demo after 20min of play. I highly recommend the demo.
@Snaplocket If you thought they were trial and error, it's no wonder you don't enjoy those features. Demons have different personality types, and you craft your responses according to that. It's a brilliant mechanic and, honestly, is one of the biggest reasons I prefer Persona 5 over Persona 4. It makes the demons feel like living creatures as opposed to dinky cards you win in a mini-game or something. They're central to the SMT experience, and their absence hurts in this spinoff as well.
There's a little bit of trial and error in fusion when it comes to RNG stuff like fusion errors that happen occasionally, but it's still primarily strategy in terms of determining what skills you carry over, maintaining elemental balance within your team, keeping on top of new skills that become available when the pool of demons grow, etc. It's another complex, involving mechanic that DDS abandons wholesale in favor of just buying skills.
Currently Playing: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (NS2); Corpse Factory (PC)
So, after years of starting and stopping this game on various systems, I FINALLY beat it. And I didn't just beat it, I completed Star World and the unlockable Special world as well (the one with hilariously dated level names like "Gnarly," "Tubular," and "Mondo"). I think there might be a secret level or two that I didn't complete, but I'm not really bothered about that, especially since I never consulted an online FAQ for this game even one time (which was a huge temptation in the irritating Forest of Illusion).
I've stated for years that I just don't like this game. Has that opinion changed after fully experiencing what it has to offer? ...not really. I don't understand the acclaim this receives. Most of the worlds feel very samey and don't do enough to distinguish themselves from one-another (which wasn't an issue in SMB3, which featured very creative and distinct worlds).
The available power-ups are incredibly disappointing (the only really new one you'll use with any regularity is the cape, which is, frankly, a nuisance, and a massive downgrade from the Tanooki suit in SMB3; stuff like the balloon powerup, which strikes me as someone's bizarre inflation fetish that was somehow worked into the game, and the wings that attach to Yoshi and turn him into a blue Yoshi are so incredibly rare that they're little more than occasional level gimmicks).
The music is weird and very limited. You'll hear the same couple of tracks over and over.
Yoshi and a number of new enemies are introduced, but Yoshi feels very nerfed without the wonderful flutter jump that was later added into Yoshi's Island. Swallowing enemies is useful, but otherwise he just feels like an extra layer of armor to protect Mario from hits or, occasionally, a pawn to sacrifice when large jumps are needed and you're not wearing a cape.
The difficulty is all over the place in this game. I understand some people will find some things more challenging than others, but why do some of the random levels from the main game feel so much more brutal at times than the Secret levels, or the Star World levels? There's no rhyme or reason to it. Boss fights follow this trend as well, with several of the Koopalings being far more challenging than the actual final boss encounter against Bowser, which was pretty disappointing.
A lot is made about the number of secret exits in this game, and the interconnected world map. But, honestly, the focus on hidden content feels like it comes at the expense of the regular level design, and the connected world map really does nothing for me. SMB3 had actual minigames and item houses on its map, so, if anything, that game felt like it benefitted more from the somewhat open map design, despite the worlds not all being interconnected like they are here.
Probably the worst addition to the series via this game are the ghost houses, which slow down the momentum of the platforming to a crawl and force you to engage in irritating trial-and-error puzzle design until you happen to chance upon the correct path that'll take you to the end of the level. The design of these levels are improved in several subsequent Mario games, but they're almost intolerable here, and I groaned in frustration everytime I came across one, because I knew any semblance of fun I was having was about to end.
Any positives? Well, the game has a bright, cheerful aesthetic, which is nice. Yoshi coins, which you collect five of in a level to get a 1-Up, I believe, are interesting. While I prefer the flagpoles of previous and subsequent games, the system here where you have to tear the tape on the goal post to collect stars so that you can play a minigame is nice, although I personally prefer the flower system that accomplishes the same thing in Yoshi's Island. I also kind of like how different Yoshis can have different abilities (the rare Blue Yoshi, for example, can fly when he's holding a koopa troopa in his mouth). Control-wise, I dig the spin jump, and wish Nintendo had elaborated on it in later games.
It's not a bad platformer, and is still far preferable to the dreadful Mario 64, but I don't think I'll ever really 'get' why this game is so beloved to so many Nintendo fans (apart from the obvious nostalgia factor, which might be the missing ingredient; I didn't first play this until it released on the Wii VC, and obviously didn't complete it until 2019).
@Heavyarms55 Unpopular opinion, I know. I could rant about Mario 64 all day. I didn't play the game until 2013 or so, and time has NOT been kind to it.
Currently Playing: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (NS2); Corpse Factory (PC)
I just beat Travis Strikes Again. It is one of the worst games that I'm entirely glad I played through.
...yeah. I dunno. This was a weird one. It did so much right yet so, so much wrong. Mostly it really exposed how necessary the parts between the action were in the first 2 games.
My commentary this time around will be shorter than normal. No time to write a novel, I'm afraid. XD
Kirby's Adventure (NES, played on Wii U VC)
As a newer fan of Kirby after playing Kirby Super Star on the SNES Classic, I decided to try another "must play" Kirby game. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. The graphics for a late NES game blew me away as I wasn't expecting the rotation effects (like the giant fans and the rotating tower for one world) to look so cool. The graphics in general have aged pretty well, the gameplay was tight and excellent, and the copy abilities were fun to steal and experiment with. Heck, the simple, addictive mini-games were even fun. The plot wasn't much to write home about, but the slight twist at the end was interesting. King Dedede isn't such a bad egg after all.
I think my only true complaint about this one was that it was over too soon. Some later stages were more frustrating than fun due to enemy placement, but I suppose that's part of the challenge. XD
Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen (DS)
I'm still messing around with some post-game stuff but did reach the end credits a few days ago. This is only my second Dragon Quest game. I quite enjoyed it but think that I prefer V in the story department. The chapter for each character (or set of characters) is fun, unique, and does a great job exploring their motivations, something that only a handful of JRPGs really bother going in-depth about. The story becomes more cookie cutter in the final chapter, but it's still an enjoyable romp with some interesting turns on the way. I think this could have been alleviated somewhat by having party chat, but unfortunately that isn't included in the DS version for some reason. :/
The combat is standard turn-based JRPG fare, but it's fully functional and gets the job done. No complaints there. It's nice that you can automate some things by assigning tactics, but the trade-off is that the AI for your characters isn't always the best.
This cannot be understated, but the music tracks in this game, particularly some of the themes for the playable characters, are amazing.
I've had to grind more in this game than I'm comfortable with, but I suppose I shouldn't fault it for that too much since the original game was on the Famicom. A lot of the grind has been for the post-game content, but there were a few times during the main story where I also had to stop and beef up my characters' levels a bit.
All in all, DQ IV is a decent Dragon Quest game that I would recommend to any JRPG fan. Just be aware that it contains a little more grinding than in many more modern JRPGs. Plus, the DS version has party chat excluded, which I feel would have added more to the experience.
Currently playing: Pokemon Scarlet - The Indigo Disk, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (Switch)
WHAT IS IT?
A horror game by developer Experience Inc. where you play as a cursed amnesiac (the curse manifests itself as a mark on the host's body that steals their memories before killing them) who, under the guidance of a mysterious talking doll named Mary, investigates paranormal mysteries and helps people confront the angry spirits and monsters that have also given them similar 'death marks.'
PLATFORM
Playstation Vita
LEVEL OF COMPLETION
Everything. Platinumed it.
GAMEPLAY
Similar to the horror game Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, it's a classic adventure game (exploration happens across static screens where you pixel hunt for items to collect, objects to manipulate, and puzzles to solve) with heavy visual novel elements (lots of dialogue and automated, dialogue-driven sequences). Additionally, you'll frequently be confronted with "live or die" scenarios, where a health meter of sorts called "Soul Power" will run down as you're confronted with something dangerous (usually a run in with a lesser spirit), and you have to choose between three or four ways to react. If you react properly (you often get hints on how to react to these sequences based on information you learned earlier in the chapter), you'll not lose health from your meter; wrong answers or actions will see dramatic reductions to your available health meter, and, if it reaches zero, you'll die, and to start over either from your last save (you can save almost anywhere, thankfully) or from the beginning of the live or die scenarios. You'll find talismans hidden in your environment that will boost your available health in each chapter, thankfully.
In an interesting twist, almost every chapter in the game features a boss battle against the primary spirit you're investigating (a different one each chapter), where you have to engage in certain combinations of actions or combine certain items at the right time to either destroy or save the spirit (saving the spirit involves engaging it with items from its past life as a human, almost always found while investigating haunted locations throughout the chapter, that force it to confront the emotions of anger and grief that inform its campaign of terror in the first place; as is usually the case in Japanese ghost stories, the intense karmic impact of human brutality and cruelty continues to manifest itself even after everyone involved is long dead).
You meet new "mark bearers" each chapter, and the game allows you to take one other person with you on your investigation. While this seems like a fluff feature at first, you quickly learn that certain partners have certain skill sets that are required for beating certain challenges in the game (for example, in one boss fight, you'll want to bring along someone who knows how to play the piano).
PRO:
I love that, if you die in a "Live or Die" scenario or in a boss battle, you can restart from the beginning of the encounter right away. Great feature!
It's pretty standard for a VN, but I continue to appreciate when a fast-forward button is included that allows me to rapidly skip previously seen dialogue when I replay sections of the game for trophies.
CON:
Weirdly, in the menu screen, the game seems to assign a set of stats to each character, but these stats never seen to feature in the actual gameplay. It's just a strange bit of misleading design fluff.
While I appreciate how little of the "rub every combination of items together with every object in your environment to find out how to progress" nonsense this game has, I do find the amount of environmental interactivity here to be extremely limited.
Text changes color depending on whether the main character or someone else is speaking, but, without names on the textboxes or even character illustrations at many points, it can occasionally become confusing to ferret out who is saying what when three or more characters in a scene are talking together. Especially since this game has little to no voice acting. Not a huge issue, but little niggles like this eventually add up.
There are a noticeably large number of typos in this game. The localization script job seems a bit sloppy in a number of ways, actually. Count the number of times characters use the phrase "up and [x]" during the game, for example ("up and left;" "up and lied;" etc.)
STORY/CHARACTERS
The game feels rushed to me. Each investigation flies by so quickly that the story never feels like it has time to really organically develop, and each chapter instead goes through the motions of shuffling you through a repetitive formula of sequences. It's a very rote form of storytelling.
The game shifts to an almost entirely new set of supporting characters with each new investigation, which makes it where we never get much time to spend with most of these people. Especially considering the investigations all take between 1.5 - 2 hours. Some of these characters are fun, but the constant turnover means we never really get attached to them.
This is remedied, weirdly, in the DLC chapter, which reunites most of the side characters introduced throughout the game to excellent effect. Actually, the DLC chapter is more developed story-wise and marginally more well-written, too.
ART/CHARACTER DESIGNS/MUSIC
One of the highlights of the game is the art design. Environments are suitably atmospheric and beautifully gothic. Character designs find some middle ground between traditional anime and Junji Ito, and it works well with the horror setting. The CGs that crop up throughout the game, while often creepy and disturbing, are often weirdly detailed, and just gorgeous to look at. Despite the clearly low budget presentation, it still manages to be a reasonably attractive game to look at.
The monsters and spirits in this game are often spectacularly grotesque, but the game does a good job of mostly keeping them off-screen until the climax of an investigation for maximum effect. It's handling of the material is effective
One thing to note is the light but noticeable eroguro vibe this game has. While the game doesn't really feature heavy amounts of what might be called "fanservice," and the designs of the female characters are fairly normal and modest, there is quite a bit of implied, referenced, and after-the-fact sexualized violence against women in this game. You'll see a lot of voluptuous corpses in this game in various states of undress. Sexual assault, while never seen or played for cheap drama, does become a plot point as well. Doesn't bother me, but some people might want to know about this before buying the game.
The music, while not terribly memorable, does its job of communicating the horror atmosphere effectively. Sound design is decent throughout: while it probably wasn't the intended effect, the spooky chime noise and text that slowly crawls across the screen when the game is trying to scare you with something really gave me the giggles. There's a certain cheesiness to the whole affair, but not everything can be Silent Hill. In general, fans of ghost stories will dig what this game has to offer.
CONCLUSION
While the game is saddled with pacing, translation, and QoL issues here and there, it was still, overall, a pleasant experience. One that was, unfortunately, over just a bit too quickly. The genre and art both resonate with me, so I had a good time. There's definite room for improvement, though, and I'm not sure I'd recommend someone pay full price for this.
VERDICT
6.5/10
Currently Playing: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (NS2); Corpse Factory (PC)
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