Geki Yaba Runner Review

Geki Yaba Runner is now available on PS Vita

Most runners are built on the premise that you run as far as you can until you die and then you start over. Geki Yaba Runner for the PlayStation Vita does away with the run until you die concept and incorporates a story that takes place over the course of 136 levels. 

As the player, you control a gnome who has the task of rescuing a princess. The majority of levels have a minimum amount of socks that you have to collect to progress because well, you're a gnome and that's what you do. This is, of course, easier said than done. Geki Yaba Runner actually touts itself as 'one of the hardest runners out there' and I can't disagree with that. The reason for this is because not only do you have to be extremely precise, you have to remember to use all of your gnomes abilities. 

The abilities consist of jumping, floating, falling fast, increased speed, and plowing through objects. If you touch a spike, you die. If you hit a wall, any wall, you die. If you run into a tree, you die. Pretty much everything will kill you, so you need to do everything perfectly and at times you're required to use two abilities or more to get through one tiny section of the game. This requires patience and muscle memory, but thank goodness respawns are instant.

I personally play a lot of runners and I can say that this one is definitely difficult, but thanks to the frequent checkpoints, it's not impossible. Regardless of the frequency, you will most likely die over 1,000 times. It wasn't unusual for me to die around 40 times on one level and in one case I died 133 times. Of course, this sounds like it would be frustrating, right? This actually drove me to play even more because I was determined to advance. There were so many times that I would say "one more level"  or "one more attempt" only to find myself playing three to four more levels. 

As I mentioned earlier, Geki Yaba Runner features a story, but it's pretty shallow. The story elements only feature a few still images that require you to piece together what's happening. I respect the decision to include a story in a runner, however, because it doesn't add much to the overall game, it wouldn't be missed if it wasn't there. Maybe if there's a Geki Yaba Runner 2, the story will be more developed. 

Geki Yaba Runner took me about 3 1/2 to 4 hours to complete. The difficulty progresses nicely and while at times you'll get stuck, the game is addicting enough that you'll want to complete the entire adventure.

4 out of 5 stars 

Thank you to QubicGames 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

Out September 13 in North America and September 16 for Europe on PlayStation®Vita and PlayStation®TV! GameStop: http://bit.ly/meiqGS Amazon: http://bit.ly/meiq_amz ESRB: T rating Join your robot Guardian and fight through four towers in this dungeon-crawling RPG to restore the world's light! With endless parts customization, elemental affinities, and unique partner-based battles, your experience is as deep as the labyrinths!

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

Website: http://ideafintl.com/trillion Release Date: Early 2016 PREORDER NOW! Amazon: http://amzn.to/1NUvvkm GameStop: http://bit.ly/1od9yYR More than a thousand years passed since the legendary battle against the Heavens. The demons of the Underworld lived an evil, yet fulfilling life in peace. And so it remained, until the appearance of Trillion, a demon god of destruction that sought to consume the world.

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. 

14 Games That I Am Happy I Got To Try At The Playstation Experience

1. Alienation

Developer, Housemarque, (Super Stardust HD, Resogun) is working on Alienation, the “spiritual successor” to their smash hit, Dead Nation. When you first jump into Alienation, you instantly want to rush into battle, but you’ll quickly learn that’s a huge mistake. My three teammates and I were tasked with setting bombs in three different tunnels and then moving to evacuation point. Being the gamer that I am, I decided to go rogue and try to take on all of the alien scum by myself and was swiftly met with the slimy hand of E.T justice. This is due to the way the game scales when you have more people in your party. If you’re a solo gamer, Alienation will be much more manageable and provide you with a great experience.

If you’re a fan of top-down shooters, you’ll definitely want to keep your eye on Housemarque’s Alienation in 2016.

2. Dead Star

Trailers and videos can give you a good representation of a game, but there are certain games that you really need to play to get a full understanding. Armature Studio’s, Dead Star, was an incredible surprise that I wish I could have kept playing. The twin-stick style shooter puts you into 10v10 multiplayer battle in an area of space called “The Wastes.” Every match has procedurally generated maps that have outposts, hazards, and other secrets that you and your team must find in order to fight another day.

My favorite part of Dead Star was teaming up with a few of my team members to take down one of the larger ships. Our tiny ships trying to do damage to the large enemy shop felt like a boss battle. Eventually we were destroyed and the other team won, but that’s okay. It made me want to redeem myself, but there was a long line of people waiting for their chance to achieve interstellar dominance. 

Dead Star is slated to come out early 2016 on PS4 and PC and I can’t wait for my chance to return to the fight.

3. EarthNight

When I first saw Cleaversoft’s runner, EarthNight, at E3 I was instantly hyped. I love the challenge of trying to exceed my highest distance run, while picking up collectibles and completing objectives. This however is not exactly what you will be doing in EarthNight. During the game you’ll be running down the back of a dragon using Stanley, a freelance photographer, or Sydney, a 14 year-old girl with a very useful double jump ability. The goal is to get to the head of the dragon where you will have to stab them in the head repeatedly using timed attacks. These timed attacks add an extra challenge to the game, because you can’t just mash until success.

Another critical feature to EarthNight is that you can speed up or slow down your character by pressing forward or backward on the directional pad. This gives you a little more flexibility while trying to jump on platforms that are in the air or when trying to kill/avoid an enemy. The ability to speed up and slow down can also get you in trouble because you may try to avoid an enemy just to be damaged by another.

EarthNight may seem like a traditional runner, but the little tweaks to this genre change the game enough to give you an enjoyable, yet challenging experience. EarthNight will be cross-buy for Playstation 4 and Playstation Vita hopefully by late 2016, early 2017.

4. FutureGrind

Have you ever come across a game that appears so simple only to find that it’s incredibly challenging? Well, FutureGrind is exactly that. What should be an easy task of matching the specific color wheels to certain color tracks proves to be difficult for even the most seasoned gamer. There are times when you are speeding along, feeling pretty good about your last landed trick only to crash and burn on the next one. At every “death” you get a result screen that tells you just how far you made it. My average was about 60-65% before I inevitably died a fiery death. This simple, yet addicting and challenging game has the same difficulty of OlliOlli. Sure you could blast through the course barely getting any points, but it’s so much more fun to be a savage racking up some serious multipliers.

FutureGrind is being developed by Milkbag Games and is coming to Playstation 4 and Steam in 2016.

5. Ratchet & Clank

One line that was surprisingly short was Ratchet & Clank. I figured that gamers old and new would want a crack at the newest iteration of what was once a critical part of the Sony arsenal, even if it is a re-imagining of the first game in the series. As you may expect, you’ll find yourself blasting enemies with wildly creative guns while platforming your way through obstacle. Gamers that have played any of the R&C can rest easy knowing that this classic series has returned to it’s true form while gamers that have never played it can finally know what all the fuss is about. 

Insomniac Games is planning on releasing the re-imagining of Ratchet & Clank in the spring of 2016.

6. RocketsRocketsRockets

Radial Games’, RocketsRocketsRockets may be one of the smoothest games I’ve played on the Playstation 4. I played a multiplayer game with one of my friends and was sort of disoriented at first by the speed and fluid movement, but after a few matches you really start to develop the necessary abilities to take out your opponent. The rockets also have three different attacks, each with their own strength and weaknesses. This adds a bit of strategy to the game and really makes you think about what you should do next.

According to the Radial Games website, RocketsRocketsRockets has a multiplayer, singleplayer, and Zen Mode “where Rockets learn to love.” I don’t know how in depth the singleplayer mode is, but my multiplayer experience is enough to buy the game when it comes out on the Playstation 4 sometime this year or early 2016. One quick note, if you can’t wait to get your hands on RocketsRocketsRockets, you can pick it up on Steam.

7. Shadow of the Beast

Heavy Spectrum Entertainment Labs’ Shadow of the Beast was definitely the bloodiest game I played at the Playstation Experience. In this side-scrolling beat em up you find yourself controlling the savage beast, Aarbron, who will literally rip apart anyone or anything who stands in his way. Besides the graphics and the smooth gameplay, I’d have to say the quick time style rage chains were the highlight of my experience.

Once you fill up your blood meter you can activate a combat mode that allows you to chain together attacks. The more you chain together, the quicker the QTE’s have to be. I know a lot of people hate these sort of button prompts, but if you fail one it’s no big deal.

You can expect Shadow of the Beast to be released in Q1 of 2016.

8. Headlander

Double Fine has a lot going on these days with developing Psychonauts: In The Rhombus of Ruin, Psychonauts 2, remastering Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle as well as publishing GNOG and Gang Beasts, it’s surprising that they have time to develop Headlander, but lucky for us gamers, they are. Headlander at first seems like it is going to be a slightly serious game, but within the first few minutes the Double Fine charm sets in. To solve puzzles you must launch your head off of your body and float around the level to find solutions. Your head also gains powerups such as a vacuum that can suck the heads off of the bodies of enemies. You can then land on those bodies and use them to help you progress. If you love Double Fine games, then Headlander is right up your alley!

Headlander is being published by Adult Swim Games and will be out in second half of 2016

9. Super Impossible Road

Super Impossible Road was another delightful surprise for me. What seems like a simple racing game has an incredible amount of strategy that adds intensity to every race. You start off racing against five other balls and to win you must fall off of the edge to the track below, but there’s a catch. You only have 5 seconds of free failing time to reach another portion of the track or else you are sent to the last checkpoint. One of the nicest features of Super Impossible Road is if you fall off of the track and don’t think you will make it to the next part within 5 seconds you can press a button to respawn and try again. This makes it so you aren’t committed to every move you make and allows you give it another go. I was racing against another player and was basically in last place the whole time, but once I got the hang of the game I finished in 3rd place, which was well ahead of my opponent. This just goes to show that no lead in Super Impossible Road is safe until you cross the finish line. 

Super Impossible Road is being developed by Kevin Ng and is coming to the Playstation 4 hopefully sooner than later.  

10. Trillion: God of Destruction

As an RPG fan, I feel that there have been a ton of strategy RPGs lately. This is especially true when it come to the Playstation Vita, so when I hear of another strategy RPG I tend to groan.  Luckily the line for Trillion: God of Destruction was reasonable and I needed a rest. Trillion’s premise is that the final boss has 1,000,000,000,000 HP and you are chipping away at him as you progress through the game. The strategy of the game comes from it’s unique movement system. You get a certain amount of points that allow you to move/use special abilities. If you go into a battle with low points because you moved too much, you’ll struggle through the battle. This prevents users from just wandering around and makes you really think about your next move. This twist on strategy games was enough to keep me intrigued, because it’s not the same old style game I’ve been playing since Ogre Battle.

Trillion: God of Destruction will be out in the Spring of 2016.

11. Fallen Legion

One of the games that you heard a lot of people talking about around the show floor was Fallen Legion. The game was so popular that it was one of the few games that actually had one station set up on each floor at the Moscone Center.  This action RPG has a shakes up the genre by adding a unique combo system. You queue up attacks for four characters using triangle, square, x, and circle. The twist is that you just can’t mash the buttons. You have to make quick decisions to ensure maximum damage. While all of this is going on you have to block your opponent’s devastating attacks. It may take gamers a few encounters to get comfortable, but for anyone who enjoys side scrolling beat em ups or have experience playing Dragon’s Crown will really enjoy Fallen Legion.

Fallen Legion is set to release the summer of 2016.

12. London Heist: The Getaway

The one word that comes to mind when talking about London Heist: The Getaway is “wow.” I knew VR was going to be pretty cool, but I never expected it to impress me as much as it did. In the London Heist demo you are sitting in the passenger seat of a van cruising down the highway. The small details like being able to change the radio dials, open and close the air vents, pick up soda cans, open the glove box, and even open the car door and lean out allowing you to look behind you gives the user an experience like no other. All of this is serious amazing, but I haven’t even got to the shooting yet.

Eventually enemies ambush you and your driver. The driver tosses you an Uzi and then it’s time to take care of business. One of the greatest features of the game which was made the entire experience feel much more realistic was the manual reload. As your gun empties the clip falls out and you have to pick up another one and place it in the bottom of the gun.

There is no release date on the Playstation VR which is fine because I just want the first version of the device to be as close to flawless as possible.

13. Tumblestone

If you’re into puzzle games, look no further than Tumblestone. The goal is simple, match 3 like color squares and move on, but as time goes on this of course becomes more difficult. There are a lot of times where you find yourself stuck and you have to refresh the level. I say refresh instead of reload because you don’t have to start from scratch, you just have to reset the game board. I played a four player match with two other people and an AI and at first we all sat there thinking about our moves more than actually removing blocks. By the end of the session we found ourselves neck and neck in intense color matching battles. If you love games like Puyo Puyo Fever, Tetris, and Dr. Mario then Tumblestone is definitely something you want to check out.

The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild’s Tumblestone will be released on Steam, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Wii U, iOS, Android, Windows phones, Facebook, and Ouya in the summer of 2016. 

14. Horizon Chase

As soon as I saw Horizon Chase I was reminded of being a kid playing Rad Racer. This throwback to old school racing games may not push any consoles to the limit, but the awesome update to the classics runs smooth looks great. None of the tracks that I played were too difficult, but the speed in which your car is moving can sometimes throw you off of your game. I don’t mean to say this as a knock on the game by any means and in fact it the intensity was a welcome change from the modern racing games that have been coming out lately.

The Horizon Chase that is currently out on iOS and Android has 72 tracks and I expect all of those tracks to make it over to the Playstation version when it comes out (hopefully) in 2016.
 

The 2016 Playstation Experience was an absolute hit. Gamers may have been disappointed with some of the announcements or lack of announcements at the keynote, but video games aren’t just about the multi-million dollar blockbusters. Most of my favorite games were the smaller titles with independent teams that were trying to make a name for themselves in an industry that is stacked with heavy hitters. It would be unreasonable to ask anyone to buy all of these games, but any of these games in this article are worth your time and money.

Thanks for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below in the comments section. 

Persona 4: Dancing All Night Review

Persona 4: Dancing All Night has two distinct modes: Story mode and Free mode. Being a Persona game, the story mode is very interesting, a tad bit weird, and heavy on the dialogue. From the beginning of the game there is a very eerie tone. This isn’t what you may expect from a rhythm game, because dancing games generally have an overall positive feeling, but that's okay. The dark tone of Persona 4: Dancing All Night is balanced by the uplifting soundtrack that is really enjoyable.

The game’s major events are all surrounding the upcoming “Love Meets Bond” music festival. The two main acts of the festival are Rise Kujikawa, a former idol making her return after she has taken a brief hiatus and the Kanamin Kitchen Girls, a very popular group of idols. Rise asks the familiar faces of Persona 4, Yu, Kanji, Teddy, Naoto, and a few more to be her back up dancers. Shortly after Rise introduces the supporting act of the Kanamin Kitchen Girls to the rest of the gang, the Kanamin Kitchen girls get sucked into a mysterious world known as the Midnight Stage. The Persona 4 team decides that they should enter the Midnight Stage world and rescue the Kanamin Kitchen Girls and thus the adventure begins.

Now that we’ve gone through the introduction, we know the premise, and exactly what are our goal is. This means that we get to dance, but why dancing? Inside the Midnight Stage, you are unable to get hurt or inflict pain. There are shadow-like monsters that reside in the Midnight Stage that can only be dispersed by showing off your best dance moves. As long as you can keep the shadow monsters happy by getting high combos with a low amount of misses, the monsters will be forced to leave and you will live to dance another day. 

At first the dancing mechanic feels a little confusing, because the game uses controls rather than the touch screen. This feels like a missed opportunity, but it quickly becomes a welcome feature. Persona 4: Dancing All Night doing away with the touch screen means that you use the up, left, and down arrows as well as the triangle, circle and cross buttons to connect with beats. You also frequently use the left and right stick to add optional bonuses to your combo score and Fever meter, which gives you a score boost. Don’t worry if you miss these score boosts though, because there is no negative impact on your overall combo or score if you do miss. For me, using the controls for Persona 4: Dancing All Night rather than the touchscreen was better because it never felt like I was blocking what I was doing on screen.This is an issue that I've run into with touch screen games in the past. There were even times where it was hard to see my character was dancing, but I was successfully completing the objective. Luckily, there is a handy replay mode that allows you to watch your performance after you finish the dance. 

While the gameplay is fun and there are a lot of songs to play, Persona 4: Dancing All Night does have a downside. The actual dancing is great and you can’t wait for the next song, but you're going to have to get used to waiting around for a long time. The game is so dialogue heavy that the time between dances can feel like an eternity. After the first few hours of the game the dances become more frequent, but then comes another problem. There are four Kanamin Kitchen Girls that you have to rescue individually. This wouldn't be a big deal, but with a limited amount of variety between scenes it causes a lot of repetition. This repetition can quite honestly feel like a chore a times, because you are conflicted. You don't want to skip the story, but you really want to get to the next song. I think it’s commendable for any rhythm game to have a story mode, but maybe there is a reason why the majority don’t.

I found myself very tempted to use the quick skip option to get through the text, but I never used it. Persona 4: Dancing All Night is considered canon, so it is important to the story arch of the Persona series. As a true fan of Persona, you definitely want to keep track of what’s happening, but even at times the most hardcore Persona fans may find themselves eyeing that skip text button.  The good thing is, once you get toward the last few hours of the game it really starts to pick up. You find yourself dancing more and the story becomes much more engaging.

The other aspect of the game is Free Mode. This is exactly what it sounds like, a mode where you are free to dance as much as you’d like! This is where Persona 4: Dancing All Night really shines. You start off with a select amount of songs and as you progress you unlock more songs. On completion of songs, you also receive a certain amount of money based off the difficulty you select: easy, normal, hard and eventually the unlockable difficulty All Night. The higher the difficulty and the better you do, the more money you earn. The money you earn is used to buy costumes, accessories, and items. While costumes and accessories are purely aesthetic, items can make dancing easier or harder. If you decide to select something that makes your dance routine easier, you will receive a negative bonus on your score and  it will lower the amount of money you earn. If you choose to make your difficulty harder, you get a positive bonus that increases your points and the money you earn. Despite having a rough time making it through the story mode, I still find myself making playing the free mode, even after I completed everything 100%.

The verdict on Persona 4: Dancing All Night is that the Story Mode can drag on for what feels like too long at times, but whenever you need a break from the story you can always get your dance on in free mode. When I first played through the game, I focused solely on the Story Mode. I don’t know if this was the right way to go, because I really wanted to get to the next dance. I recommend mixing it up whenever you feel like you just want to engage in some gameplay and then head back to the story to discover all the hidden secrets of the Midnight Stage.

3.75 out of 5.

Thanks to Atlus for supplying a code for review. 

Dungeon Travelers 2: The Royal Library & the Monster Seal Review

For the last few weeks I have been playing Dungeon Traveler’s 2: The Royal Library & the Monster Seal. My time with the First Person dungeon crawler was spent sweating through tough battles, leveling and re-leveling my characters, dying, and then quickly regretting the fact that I wasn’t saving often enough. When I first started the game, I figured I would be able to move through story, rapidly press X during the the battles and experience some fan service, however this was not the case. Dungeon Travelers 2 isn’t a game that you can just grind while you watch Netflix. Each encounter can quickly turn deadly forcing you back to your last save.

During the story you play as Fried, a member of the Royal Library, who is putting together a “suppression team.” Fried is very serious about his mission and even though his team is filled with beautiful women, he doesn’t let this distract him. Fried’s team is dedicated to clearing the monsters out of the different dungeons in hopes in restoring peace to the Kingdom of Romulea.

At the beginning of your adventure you’ll start with a small team, but it will eventually grow to five playable members. You and your crew will head to many different dungeons with individual themes such as a forest, cave, catacombs, village, and more. As you progress, the dungeons will begin to introduce different elements that will increase the difficulty of your task. You may find yourself walking into anti-magic zones, where as you may have guessed, make it to where you can’t use magic, dark zones which don’t let you look at your map, warps that take you to another part of the dungeon, and traps that can poison, freeze, and inflict your party with all sorts of debuffs. There are also fake walls that you can only walk through if you have a flashlight or an active light spell. Pair these with epic battles and you will find yourself constantly face to face with death. The best advice I can give to make sure you stay alive is to always have an emergency exit which will teleport you back to the beginning of the dungeon. Also, make your map your best friend. It’s better to head back to town to be refreshed than to die and reload a save.

One of the aspects that I really enjoyed in Dungeon Travelers 2 was the random occurrences that happen in the dungeons. Sometimes you’ll come across shops, food vendors, and blacksmiths that can enchant your items. This can help give you that extra boost to keep going, which will prevent you from having to return to town. It’s advisable to always buy one thing from the food vendors to help restore your party's HP, TP (the Dungeon Travelers equivalent to mana) and motivation, which will increase the frequency of group attacks. These group attacks can really help the speed of your battles and allow you to progress a lot quicker.

One negative aspect that you are sure to run into while saving the world is that your bag only has 30 storage spots which can fill up quickly. You can throw some items away to free up space, but discarding items is always tough because you never know what you’ll need later. Luckily, back at your guild you can store up to 999 different items. It is highly recommended that you use this storage for items that you can’t use in the field because any drop from an enemy when you have full bags is gone forever.

As you progress through the game you start to pick up more party members with specialized classes. They will start off as one of the main classes, Fighter, Magic User, Maid, Spieler, and Scout. Once you reach level 15, you can choose to branch into 2-3 subclasses, and then again at level 30 where you can choose between 3-4 advanced subclasses. This customization of characters is incredibly deep and gives users the chance to really tailor their style of play. I personally like to play with a much more physical damage approach, but other people may enjoy more magic based gaming.  A quick tip would be as soon as you hit level 15, get ready to switch your class, and head out to the field to see how your character’s new skills are in action. Once you experience their skills, head back to the Royal Library and reset your character to another class just to see which one feels better. This will prevent you from leveling a character that isn’t as effective as you may like. Dungeon Travelers 2 gives you the opportunity to respec your character’s skills, but you can only reset your level to 1, 15, and 30. Leveling to 20+ with a character you end up not liking and having to reset to level 15 will set you back some precious progression time. I ran into this when I hit level 30. I was absolutely demolished by a boss. I decided to reset my characters and focus on leveling specific skills instead of spreading out my skill points into multiple categories. Having the option to customize your characters and resetting their skill points is a welcome feature because you never feel stuck. There is always the option to make adjustments that will improve your squad.

Some of the classes may seem fairly straightforward, but there are a couple unique ones that really set Dungeon Travelers 2 apart from other JRPGs. If you’re a seasoned veteran in the genre then you’re probably used to having a fighter for your main source of physical damage, a Magic User for healing and magic spells, and another source of support damage. This is the case, but when you add two new classes, the game gets really interesting.

The Spieler and the corresponding intermediate and advanced classes rely on random chances that will affect the battle. When you cast one of the random spells you may damage your enemies, heal yourself, or buff your partners. The Spieler’s normal weapon attacks are on par with the other secondary damage classes, but having the random spells make the class both different and a lot of fun. I’d recommend playing around with the Spieler to see what feels best for you. I tried out the Doll Master class, which gives you dolls that attack enemies or heal allies randomly. I like the idea, but I felt like I wasn’t benefiting as much as I’d like. I switched to the Trickster and felt much more in control of what was happening, even if it was random.

The Maid and her subsequent classes are easily my favorite in the entire game. Her abilities to recover HP and TP, as well as boost Experience make her essential to any team. While the HP, TP, and EXP spells  were the ones I felt were most important for my party, she also has defense, speed, critical rate and other support spells that will help you along get through what can be a pretty difficult game. The best part about her skills is that they don’t require TP. The fact that you can restore someone’s TP without using TP, gives this character a huge edge. Once you get into the more advanced classes you can start singing songs that will restore HP and TP every time it’s someone’s turn. This huge boost will sometimes make it feel like you are in complete control of the battle and in Dungeon Travelers 2, that is a feeling you want.

There are a lot of aspects that go into the battles. Each character’s speed, weapon speed, chant speed, and enmity ( which is how often a character is likely to be attacked) are all variables that you want to consider before heading to a dungeon and it can really turn into a numbers game.

You definitely don’t want your healer to have a high enmity, or higher enmity than your fighter classes. You also want everyone to have the highest speed possible so they can attack often, but you want your chant speed down so spells don’t take too long to cast. This may be confusing without actually playing the game, but the tutorials will give you long explanations that you should really pay attention to.

As you naturally progress you’ll find better items. Every point counts, but then you’ll start to get pieces that have resistances and bonuses on them. These are great, but eventually you’ll be faced with replacing one of those bonuses with a piece of armor that has no bonus, but higher defense and you’ll really sit there and wonder what to do. You could always keep both in your bag to try out, but that goes against your bag storage and it turns into a much bigger concern. Maximizing your attributes by making slight sacrifices will happen and you’ll only hope that you made the right decision.

Once you get the hang of the battles, things will get easier. This is not to be taken for granted. There is always a chance that your healer or fighter will be obliterated with an instakill attack and you’ll have to tough it out without them. Even with four remaining members, if my healer or fighter went down it was a struggle to get through the fight. Dungeon Travelers 2 really makes a point to make every member feel just as important as the other. The moral of the story is take care of your party members and they’ll take care of you.

Overall, Dungeon Travelers 2 will give you between 60-80 hours of gameplay. You will find yourself shocked by the deep customization in both the characters and equipment options. There is plenty to do, but patience is required. There will be times where you are sitting in a dungeon wondering where to go next, but once you figure it out you’ll feel an incredible rewarding sensation. I highly recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a challenge and isn’t afraid to stare death in the face.

4.5 out 5

Thanks to Atlus for supplying a code for review.