Mervils: A VR Adventure Review

As time goes on, PlayStation VR games are starting to become longer and more in-depth. Mervils: A VR Adventure is an action-adventure platformer with RPG elements. You take control of an adventurer who is sent out to find the pages and bind the Great Mervil Book so you can defeat the dark sorcerer "Balazar the Evil." 

The first thing you do is create your character. You might expect to have this option in a game that has RPG elements, but in fact, this is the first PS VR game that I've played that included it. Once you're done with your creation the fun really begins.

Each world is wildly different from each other. There's a fantasy kingdom, the wild west, an arctic level, a pirate level that includes an underwater portion and a final boss level. Within each level, you'll find a bunch of quests to complete, hidden areas, treasure chests, a final boss fight and of course, pages of the Great Mervil Book. The interesting thing is that you don't actually have to find all of the pages of the book to continue to the next level, however, if you don't find all of them, it makes upgrading your equipment incredibly difficult. 

One of the most difficult things for VR games appears to be addressing the camera/movement. Mervils uses a technique that keeps the camera in place as you run around the world until you reach a certain distance and then it resets. You can also press L2 to reset the camera and bring it closer to you. The majority of the time Mervils' camera works fine, but there are times when the camera positioning can cause you to die, because you are unable to see what's hitting you. This setting can be changed to always make the camera follow you, but this has it's own issues. I'd recommend playing around with the different settings so you can find out which is the best for you. 

Normally I don't get too hung up on voice acting, but this is probably the biggest flaw in Mervils. There are a ton of different voice actors, which isn't bad, but the accents are all over the place. You'll talk to one person who has an english accent, only to talk to someone who has a southern accent who is standing nearby.  If the accents were consistent to each level it wouldn't be nearly as bad. 

One of the my favorite aspects of Mervils is that almost each world includes a level that switches from platforming to something else. For example, the wild west world has a level that is just riding on a mine cart and collecting coins while jumping over broken pieces of track and avoiding objects. The arctic level includes a sleigh ride and the pirate level includes a pretty awesome ship battle scenario. Mervils could easily have been a pure platformer, but the fact they included different types of gameplay shows that the developers really wanted to make a memorable experience. 

Mervils also features a good amount of puzzles that you have to complete if you want to find all of the pages. Some of these puzzles took some serious time and trial and error for me to complete. For the most it's easy to understand the objective of the puzzles, but just because you understand what you have to do doesn't make it easy. I have to give the developers credit for creating tough puzzles, because it seems that lately puzzles are typically not that hard. 

Overall I really had a good time with Mervils: A VR Adventure. Sure, the camera and voice acting could be better, but ultimately this is a solid action-adventure, platforming, RPG that is definitely worth playing through. Finally, I want to say that the virtual reality comfort level was great. I spent about 10-12 hours in one day completing the game 100% and I never had any motion sickness. 

4 out of 5 stars. 

Thank you to VitruviusVR for providing the code. 

Tales of Berseria Review

The Tales series is back with another installment, but things are a lot darker than they've ever been before. The story features a young woman named Velvet who is raising her little brother, Laphicet. One day when Velvet is away from her home the town is struck by a daemonblight that turns all of the citizens into "daemons" (prounced demons.) Amongst the chaos, Laphicet goes missing. Velvet tracks him down to only find that her brother-in-law Artorius is sacrificing Laphicet as a part of a ritual. Artorius attempts to sacrifice Velvet, but she is able to fight him off. Unfortunately for Velvet, she was somewhat affected by the daemonblight and is partially turned into a daemon. Velvet then sets out to avenge her brother and kill Artorius. 

One of the highlights of the Tales series has always been the combat system. While a lot of JRPGs use a variation of turn-based combat, Tales of Berseria uses a live-action system that is much more frantic than other RPGs. You also have four people total that are fighting with three of them working completely independently. You can adjust their behavior with a simple button command, but this never felt necessary. Additionally, Berseria doesn't use mana for special abilities, but rather a Soul Gauge that depletes as an ability is used and regenerates as you either stun an enemy, kill an enemy, or just over time. This unique system is great when you're kicking butt, but can be a pain when fighting a stronger enemy. I appreciate it when any developer attempts to freshen up old mechanics, but I wouldn't miss this system it if it didn't show up in the next game. Your companions also use this.

One of the big drawbacks that I felt with Berseria is that the fights, for the most part, are incredibly easy on the normal difficulty. Unlike other JRPGs you can see the enemies in the field and can choose to either fight them or ignore them. It's logical to think that you should fight every enemy so you can level up, but the fact is that you can do a minimal amount of encounters and be fine. There were times where I was working my way through a dungeon and discovered that I was absolutely dominating every enemy. After a while, I became bored with encounters and just wanted to advance the story. I'd recommend that after about 10 hours if you find Berseria to be too easy, that you should either increase the difficulty or switch to any character other than Velvet. You can always switch back later.

Speaking of the other characters, you eventually have six people to choose from. One thing I really enjoyed about this is that the majority of your characters are in your party within about 12 hours of starting the game. This doesn't cause any inconvenience later on down the road of someone joining your party at say 30 hours, meaning that you have to buy all new gear for them or start leveling up their skills. Each character has a set of "Artes" and the more they use specific Artes, the better they become. This is also true for equipment. There's actually a lot to level up in Berseria, but most of it just happens naturally without needing to pay attention to what you're doing so you don't need to focus on it. 

As I mentioned before, the dungeons are pretty massive. There are tons of corridors, breakable walls, and puzzles that you have to run through. Now, when I say "dungeons" you get the image of some dark, dank scary place, but in Berseria most of the dungeons are actually outside. Aesthetically this is a nice change of pace because it's more fun to run around a beautiful forest than a dingy cave, right? One issue is that one of the puzzles is repeated a few times and it's kind of a pain. There are color coded floating objects that you have to touch to deactivate colored doors. The issue is that when you change one color you activate another, so this may mean that you need to run back to another part of the dungeon to deactivate another color. This wouldn't be bad if it was just one dungeon that did this, but there are at least three where this happens. No one likes doing the same puzzle mechanics over and over and I am not an exception.

The story itself will take you around 50 hours to complete, but there are plenty of things to do outside of the story. There are mini-games, side quests and an awesome real-time ship simulator where you can find ingredients to cook with. Cooking is actually a pretty awesome feature that allows you to get extra perks, as well as automatically heal yourself during combat, as long as you reach certain perimeters. I definitely recommend partaking in the extras because the benefits are absolutely worth it. The story also features an amazing amount of hand drawn anime cutscenes that are always fun to watch.

Overall, Tales of Berseria is a good game for people who are both experienced and inexperienced with JRPGs. The fact that the storyline is much darker than any of the previous installments will excite people who are looking for something that breaks away from the usual "good guy" story. 

3.5 out of 5 stars.

Thank you to Bandi-Namco for providing the code. 

Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors Review

When you think of Hell you probably think of fires raging, demons ripping people to shreds, and an incredible amount of suffering, right? That’s not the case with Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors. In this journey, you play as a Program Instructor, who is tasked with helping seven beautiful girls get a second chance at life through “reformation.” This is, of course, met with many different challenges from an antagonizing pest that is constantly slowing down your progress by making you go through trials and tribulations in attempt to keep you in Hell forever.

From the beginning of the game you have access to five of the seven characters, but can only use four during battle. The battles start off pretty simplistic due to the lack of skills, but eventually get much more involved with combo attacks, skill attacks, group heals, and support skills. You earn these skills by “motivating” the girls using bondage style mini-games such as “Scrubby Scrub", "Spanking X" and "Pinch the Balls” which I will get to later.

Once you have a few skills under your belt and you start fighting stronger enemies, the game really begins. During fights each girl has an attack, heal, or support option. These options are mostly situational, so if you have a lot of magic power or MP, you’ll most likely be forced to attack using a skill. Also, if your characters are low on health, your healer or healers will get a healing prompt. The game definitely knows what situation you are in, which makes the battle system a lot of fun. There are a few ways that you can re-randomize the skills as well, just in case you don’t like the hand you were dealt. It’s always nice when a game attempts to change up the turn-based fighting, but it’s even better when the game nails a unique design. 

As I mentioned before, you use mini-games unlock new skills. Each mini-game has four levels and after each completed level you get to choose one of two skills. These mini-games use the in-game currency, CM, so you can’t just play them whenever you want, but as long as you’re doing well you can get a new skill every 2-3 attempts. Now I’ve played a few games with fan service and I feel that there is no reason to make a big deal about them, but the one mini-game that I felt was a little odd was "Shocking Bondage." The other mini-games aren’t really meant to inflict pain, although I really have no idea what is actually happening in “Pinch the Balls", but this one does and I don’t know why. You may have heard about the western version’s censorship, but after watching a few videos and doing some research, I would say that the censorship is being blown way out of proportion. There are only a few things that changed and the most noticeable one is the sounds that the girls make while actively playing one of the mini-games. There is also supposed to be a reduction in restraints, but when you think “censorship” you imagine something that is much more explicit and that’s not really the case here. So if you’re in the mood to protest the game because we aren’t getting the “real” version or something along those lines, I’d have to say that the fight you’re putting up is a lot of effort for something that really doesn’t change your experience. With all of that being said, I do have an issue with how the mini-games and the story are somewhat disconnected.

Criminal Girls 2 is all about facing your demons and getting a second chance at life. The girls start off timid, nervous, and reluctant, but as the story progresses they become powerful and confident. So my issue lies in the fact that you have the development of strong girls only to shock, pinch, and scrub them. There is even one scene when one of the girls appears to have a tear on her cheek. I’m not even saying that the motivational games are a problem, but there is definitely a better way to work them into the story. Maybe next time the motivational tactics can unleash some sort of direct ability from them that makes a bit more sense. I’m not a game designer by any means, and I trust NIS, but there has to be a way to incorporate these activities in a more seamless way. Are you ready to get back to the gameplay? Me too!

As you traverse through Hell you find quite a lot of landscapes. There’s Bloody Hell, which features big stuffed animals (or real animals) with severed heads and blood everywhere, Sunken Memories which is dark and has school / home feel to it, Maze Hell which has butterflies and flowers everywhere and a few more. The changes in scenery make it a lot easier to traverse through, compared to a game which is just fire and demons over and over. I really enjoyed the different levels and always looked forward to see what the next one held. 

There are also plenty of enemies in the game and the only time you really feel like you’re seeing the same enemy over and over is when you’re grinding. This is a nice touch, because there are a lot of games with fan service that rely on the sexuality of characters to propel them through the story. There are also many interactions between the characters that show fantastic character development. You really feel like you’re learning a lot about the girls and you begin rooting for them. 

Overall Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors is a JRPG that with many upsides. I do wish that the mini-games were more connected to the story and who knows, maybe we will see that in Criminal Girls 3. If you’re looking for a new JRPG to play then Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors should definitely be on your radar. I mean, there’s no doubt that this is the sexiest journey through Hell you’ll ever take!

4 out of 5 stars 

Thank you to NIS for providing the code!

MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death Review

Have you been itching to save the world? How would you like to do it with a massive robot who uses one of five elements? Well, you’ve come to the right place! The planet’s rotation has stopped and to get the world back to normal you’re going to have to take Estra, her faithful Guardian, and a few friend’s through a 25-30+ hour journey to resume order!

When you first dive into MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death you’ll feel that it’s a traditional turn-based JRPG that you may have played in the past, but a few twists develop this game into a much more strategic affair. One of the major mechanics is the use of elements. Using fire, wood, ice, earth, and you’ll be able to expose enemies weaknesses, but enemies can also be resistant to these elements, so you’ll need to adjust your strategy as you go. There are a few ways to change your strategy. As you progress in the game, you’ll unlock new Guardians, body parts, and gems that all have different elements or bonuses. Finding the right combination can get a bit tricky, but MeiQ doesn’t really penalize you for dying, so anything you do is low risk. 

Once you figure out your elements and you’re ready to kick some butt, the fun begins. Eventually you’ll have a six party team; 3 Guardians and 3 heroes. You’ll primarily use your Guardians in battle, but the heroes have some awesome abilities to help you get through the fight. Each hero has a different set of skills such as group attacks and party buffs that increase attack, defense, etc, and heals. These abilities are limited, so you really have to think about when you want to use them, especially when you first start playing. As you level up, the limits will increase and you can use them more freely. You can replenish these abilities by visiting a spring, setting up a portable camp, or returning to the inn to rest. This isn’t a very complicated system and anyone who’s experienced in RPGs should pick it up fairly easily. 

There are four main towers that you must conquer with a few additional ones that appear later in the game. You’ll find yourself trekking back and forth between them to complete main and side quests. Most of the side quests I completed just by playing the main story and grinding so you don’t have to pay too much attention to the requirements. I don’t feel like this is a bad thing, but it doesn’t really add much to the experience ether. In most dungeon crawlers when you walk along a path, the tile you step on is uncovered - MeiQ does some slightly different and a whole lot better. As you progress, you’ll see a few of the surrounding tiles lit up as well, which is nice because to uncover the entire map you don’t need to step on every single tile. The only issue with this is that at times you’ll think you’ve been somewhere, but you actually haven’t. I have to say that even though there were times I had to backtrack because I had missed something, I still prefer the way MeiQ uncovers their tiles than say Etrian Odyssey. 

As you make your way through the four towers you’ll start to notice that the difficulty level, as well as experience can be all over the place - this is one major issue that I had with MeiQ. In one battle you may be able to kill a group of enemies that yield you less than 100 xp (which is significantly low) only to encounter another group of enemies that will give you thousands after defeat. The biggest discrepancy that I found was an area that had enemies that gave you 600 xp only to be followed by enemies that have 4xp. I’m not sure why there is such an imbalance between battles, but this made finding a good place to level extremely difficult. 

Overall MeiQ: Labirynth of Death is a JRPG players RPG. For those who are experienced with turn-based battles, but I wouldn’t consider it an easily accessible game for new comers. One question that I know people have is if there is a new game and I’m happy to say that there is. The bottom line is if you’re looking for a solid JRPG for the PlayStation Vita then this is definitely worth the time and money, just be ready for some head-scratching balance issues. 

Thank you so much to Idea Factory for providing the code.

3.75 out of 5 Stars

Trillion: God of Destruction Review

Lately, RPGs have been taking chances and coming up with some really creative ideas. We’ve seen Persona go into full-on dance mode, we have the side-scrolling multiplayer strategy RPG Grand Kingdom coming out soon, and we have Trillion: God of Destruction, a JRPG unlike anything that I’ve seen before. 

When the game starts off you learn that the the six layers of hell are under attack by a monstrous god who devours everything it it’s path. As the hero, it’s your job to prevent the destruction of your world, but that is definitely easier said than done. Trillion: God of Destruction doesn’t operate like a standard RPG. 

The first thing you have to be aware of is that the game works on a day / week cycle. Each event, (which I will get to later) takes one game day and adds a certain level of fatigue. If you reach maximum fatigue, it’s game over.  At the end of the first few weeks, you train against a giant wooden dummy who mimics Trillion’s attacks. This way you are fully prepared for what’s in store for when you have to fight Trillion. 

While preparing to fight Trillion, you only control one character. Your character levels up by completing training missions (which is a simple quicktime event), participating in the "Valley of Spears" (which is a dungeon that you can fight in once you collect 5 tokens from each training mission you attempt), and by building relationships with other people in the kingdom. Everything you participate in gives you some sort of experience points that you can allocate to six different stats. 

Once you reach Trillion the fun really begins. The floor is covered with a grid. Each move or attack that you do causes Trillion to either call enemies, prepare an attack, or attack. You’ll know when Trillion is about to do something because the ground will be highlighted in white. You have a limited amount of moves / attacks before the grids turn red and Trillion unleashes a devastating attack on you. Because Trillion has 1,000,000,000,000 health, you won’t be able to kill him in your first attempt. This means that you have to do as much damage as possible without dying, because if you die it’s permadeath for your character. This means that you have to know when to escape the battle. How much damage you do to Trillion depends on how much destruction he’ll cause on your world. After each fight, he’ll start to devour parts of towns. The better you do, the less he’ll destroy. This is a good way to prevent the player from exiting a fight prematurely. One quick side note, when your character dies, some of their stats will be transferred to the new character. 

Trillion: God of Destruction is really involved, but with only one dungeon that you can participate in and everything else controlled from a hub, it does tend to get repetitive. Now that doesn’t mean that you can just press X through the entire game and not pay attention to anything, but really Trillion is a game centered around a single boss fight. Luckily, a play through doesn’t take all that long and it can be completed in about 12 hours if you don’t skip the text. 

3.5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Idea Factory for providing the code.