The Assembly Review

Whether or not you are a believer in the staying power of virtual reality, it is here now and we must embrace it. The early games that we're going to experience may not always be the most mind blowing experiences, but what we are seeing is paving the way to the future. The Assembly by nDreams is a game that introduces a deep narrative that follows two characters through the end of one journey and the beginning of another. 

When we are first introduced to the characters we find out that they are both scientists. Caleb Pearson and Madeline Stone are both at a critical time in their lives when they must make a serious decision that will not only affect them, but possibly change the world. Caleb is working on trying to escape The Assembly, while Madeline is attempting to become their newest scientist. 

Both Caleb and Madeline have very different styles of gameplay. As Caleb, you are attempting to smuggle out classified material. This takes a lot of thinking and discovering all while making sure that no one finds out. Luckily, there are no real stealth elements to the game and it's pretty much narrative driven. This keeps the player going forward in a story that you really want to find out more about. Madeline's story is a little darker and is more like a puzzle game. You must pass trials and make moral decisions that will greatly impact your character's future. 

The Assembly uses the Dualshock 4 and doesn't have an option for the PlayStation Move. I was a little disappointed at first because you really want to try out all of the cool new options of the PlayStation VR, but after awhile I didn't think that the Move would add anything beneficial to the experience. One awesome feature of The Assembly is that you can change your movement style. You can walk fast, slow or snap to locations. I originally put the game on walking fast (which is actually called normal) and found myself getting motion sickness. After playing with the control options for awhile, I found the perfect fit for me. I can't really knock the game for motion sickness because not everyone is going be as sensitive as me, however, I do recommend that you play with the options to find the optimal settings to prevent this from happening to you. 

As far as exploring goes, The Assembly has a fairly large world. You make your way through plenty of different areas in this massive laboratory that is partially underground. This prevents the player from getting bored of the same old locations and even though the labs may look the somewhat the same, there are plenty of layouts and different rooms to go into. The variety in the lab and the bouncing back and forth between characters really helps drive the player forward. 

There are a few minor annoyances with The Assembly that could have definitely been improved upon. I've played a few VR games and I have the PlayStation Gold Wireless Headphones which feature the ability to hear 3D audio. The audio in The Assembly doesn't utilize the spatial sound which would create a much more immersive experience. Another issue I had is that there isn't a lot to interact with in the world other than what's related to the story or things like drawers and cabinets that you can open that may or may not have something important in them. There are a decent amount of voicemails that you can listen to on phones, and computers you can log into to read people's emails, but it would benefit the world if the player was able to just pick up an object and toss it. This doesn't necessarily affect the gameplay, but it does help the immersive experience. 

I finished the 12 chapters of The Assembly in just over 4 hours. I, unfortunately, had to stop twice because of motion sickness, but if that didn't happen I could have easily finished the game in a single sitting and been fine with it. Right now with the limited number of VR games out for the PlayStation, I would say that the $29.99 price tag is completely fair and that it is an enjoyable experience. If you like narrative driven games then I could comfortably say that The Assembly is one of the better choices for PS VR right now. 

4 out of 5 stars

Thank you to nDreams for providing the code. 

Loading Human: Chapter 1 Review

In Loading Human you play as Prometheus, an aspiring scientist who has been summoned by your dying father to retrieve the Quintessence, which reverses the aging process, ultimately saving your father. No pressure, right?  

The gameplay of Loading Human is very similar to Heavy Rain, except in VR. You'll find yourself interacting with plenty of items, some useful and some not. You can pick up pretty much anything you could imagine a normal person can pick up. I found myself picking up glasses, plates, bottles of wine, dropping them just to see them break. None of this is probably mind blowing, but what are usually mundane tasks are so immersive that the player finds themselves completely engaged in what's happening. This could be the very nature of VR, but to succeed at this, the world has to be developed and that's exactly what Loading Human achieves. 

Loading Human was the first full PlayStation VR game that I've played, so when I first started I felt that the pacing was a little slow. Your character only walks and there is no option to run. I feel that most people who are making their first full dive into VR with Loading Human will feel this way, but after playing a few other games I feel that the pacing is actually perfect. The reason being that motion sickness is very real and in fact, Loading Human handles movement better than the other games that I've played so far. Some other games, such as Batman Arkham VR make you teleport around instead of walking. 

There were a few hitches along the way with Loading Human. One issue that I found was with the hint system. There aren't any breadcrumbs or item tags that show you your next objective, which is totally fine, but the hint system that is in the game can be very vague or just flat out wrong. There was one time where I had to restart the game a few times to understand what I was missing. This can, of course, be very frustrating when you're trying to progress through a game which relies on its narrative to keep the user engaged. The other issue is that the base that you are in is fairly small and you'll find yourself exploring the same areas quite a bit. There are a few space simulations that are fun, but they are only "exercises" that you don't actually use. Then the final major problem without spoilers is that once you finally get to the point to where feel like the game is going to completely open up, it ends. If the developers would have just given the user 30 minutes to an hour of gameplay that used the space simulations again it would have broken up some of the mundane tasks. 

Even with all the issues that I felt, I have to say that I am definitely looking forward to Loading Human: Chapter 2. From what I've heard there are supposed to be four chapters total which is a hefty investment if they plan on making every game $40. What would be nice is that the first installment is $40 and the rest that follow can be downloaded for $20 each. 

If you like narrative driven games and are looking for something to play on your PlayStation VR, then I feel comfortable recommending Loading Human: Chapter 1, but if you are looking for something that has a lot more action then you may want to try something else. With that being said, I definitely think that as the story evolves that Loading Human should be a series you keep on your radar. 

3.5 stars out of 5. 

Thank you to Maximum Games for providing the code. 

Slain: Back From Hell! Review

Slain follows the adventure of a Bathoryn, a doomed hero, who wishes nothing more than to sleep. Unfortunately for Bathoryn, duty calls and he must wake up from what seemed to be like a very long nap to cleanse six different lands from demons, monsters, and the living dead.

Within the first few minutes of Slain, I died, and then I died again, and then I died again. If Slain’s objective was to die over and over, I would be the grand master of Slain. Luckily, the checkpoints are so frequent that you never get stuck anywhere for too long. There were plenty of times where I had killed all of the enemies, only to be killed by a trap, causing me to completely redo the part that I had just finished. I really only have myself to blame for constantly underestimating the world of Slain. There is never a moment that just lets you breathe. Whether it’s a group of enemies or a boss fight, you’re going to experience your fair share of deaths. 

Most of my early deaths could have been prevented if I would have taken a step back from trying to murder everything and embrace the complexities of the combat. One of the main features of Slain is the ability to reflect almost every projectile - and there are a ton of enemies who shoot different types of projectiles. There is also a parry system that allows you to time your blocks and then land critical hits. Parrying enemies is the best way to get through difficult encounters. 

Overall, there is a decent variety of enemies. There are a few reskins, but their difficulty has been increased. I never got to the point I felt that I saw the same enemy too much. Because Slain has such a wide variety of enemies I always felt that I had to stay on top of my combat game. The game even introduces new enemies right before the final the boss fight. 

The boss fights in Slain are all intense. They use every aspect of the game’s combat mechanics which makes it critical that you never let up. One constant throughout the game is that once the boss starts to lose health they start to speed up their attacks making you have to work even harder. There were plenty of times that I felt that I was about to execute the boss only to get them down to a quarter of their health and die. 

Slain's biggest issue is that there is a lack of any sort of upgrades. The health and mana you start with are the same that you end with. Eventually, you're able to switch your regular weapon to fire or ice, but it doesn't feel like much of an upgrade. I find myself torn if this is a major issue or if it's just something that I'm not used to. Traditionally, games will have an upgrade system, so when you run into one that doesn't have one it's kind of odd. In the end, this was okay for me, but other gamers may find this to be an issue. 

I had a great time playing through Slain: Back From Hell. It took me roughly about 7 hours to finish which is a great length. If you like difficult games, heavy metal, and tons of gore, then this game is right up your alley! 

4.25 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Wolf Brew Games for providing the code. 

Headlander Review

When I first played Headlander at the 2015 PlayStation Experience I got the impression that it was a puzzle game, but within the first 30 minutes, I realized that I was wrong. Headlander has rich environments, a lot of useful upgrades, and a good amount of reasons to want to explore.

The first thing you’ll notice is the 1970s sci-fi aesthetic – and of course, the fact that you are just a floating head. Your primary ability is being able to tear the heads off bodies and then taking over the body. As the game progresses, you’ll encounter different colored enemies. These different colored bodies grant you access to different areas of the map. For the most part, the correct enemies that you need to progress are pretty close or will spawn within a few seconds allowing you to continue on your adventure without much effort. In fact, I found that even though Headlander touts itself as a Metroidvania style game, most of the time I was going forward and completing objectives without really having to backtrack. This sort of contradicts what I typically think of Metroidvania games, which is slightly unfortunate because I wouldn’t mind spending a little more time in the world of Headlander.

You can upgrade both your body and your head abilities by finding orbs, secret rooms, and completing side missions. By upgrading, you can increase your ability to suck enemy heads off, speed up your regeneration, increase your thrust and health and plenty more. Even if you just tried to blast through Headlander you would still find a decent amount of upgrades, which is great because some of the abilities that you earn are absolutely essential to making sure that you succeed on your adventure.

The combat in Headlander gets progressively more intense. The early bodies that you get have a pretty simple shooting mechanic that will slightly bounce off of the walls, but as you continue your laser shots will start to bounce a lot more. The bad news is that the enemies also get these upgrades. So what starts off as a cool little mechanic eventually makes you feel like you are playing a hell-shooter. Luckily, dying doesn’t punish you too much.

Headlander features a couple awesome bosses, but unfortunately, there were only two. They both require you to use both the head and body mechanics to destroy them, which I really enjoyed. The game could have easily just made you use your shooting abilities and completely ignored the power of your head. Although Headlander is not a very long game there should have definitely been at least one more boss – especially since the ones that are in the game are a lot of fun.

Now being a Double Fine game, Headlander features a quirky story and a ton of humor as you might expect. This specific game was created from Double Fine’s Art Director, Lee Petty, who was the project lead of the hilarious and brilliant, Stacking. I bring this up because if you played Stacking and enjoyed it, then Headlander is definitely a must play and if you haven’t played Stacking, I couldn’t recommend it enough.

The overall experience took me a little over five hours to complete. Because I was constantly making progress, I felt that I didn’t get to enjoy the world as much as I’d like. Also, Headlander could definitely benefit from adding one or two more boss fights.

4 out 5 stars

Thank you very much to Double Fine 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

Kick and Fennick Review

Kick and Fennick originally made its debut February 3rd, 2015 on the PlayStation Vita. It launched as a free PlayStation Plus game, but was overshadowed by the critically acclaimed Transistor and Rogue Legacy, which were also free that month. The fact that it was developed by a small studio without a long history, published by a company not a lot of people know, and put it on a console that doesn’t get much attention, you find a recipe for a game that is bound to go unnoticed. Now with Kick and Fennick coming to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U it’s getting another chance to find a place in the hearts of gamers.

After waking up in a mysterious place, Kick meets the flying robot, Fennick. After Fennick saves Kick from a large robot that is set on destroying everything that it comes into contact with, the pair realizes that Fennick’s battery is broken and they must find a replacement. You basically get an introduction to a story and then it’s never developed into something bigger. It’s easy to overlook this while playing on the Vita, but console gamers may not be so forgiving.

The game spans over 5 worlds and 45 levels. Your main tool is a gun that both propels you through obstacles and shoots enemies. Precision is the key to Kick and Fennick. There are times when you’ll need to launch yourself through lighting rods, bounce on moving platforms, and slide along rails that move you at a high rate of speed. Whenever you miss your target and fall to your death you are respawned at the nearest platform, but if you die too many times you have to restart the level.

At the end of each world, you are confronted by the mech that is set on annihilation.  Luckily, Kick and Fennick can get creative and use their wits to outsmart the silly, psychotic robot. For the most part, the boss fights use the skills that you develop over the course of your adventure, but the final boss fight throws something completely brand new in and it’s really confusing. I’m not going to spoil anything, but this didn’t set well with me. By the time I reached the final boss I was roughly 5 hours into my journey. I had played Kick and Fennick before on the PlayStation Vita, so I knew what to do this time around, but without any indicators that something new is required will leave some gamers confused as what to do. Also, the jump mechanic gets really extreme at the end of the game and it’s hard to get your bearings for a little bit.

Overall, Kick and Fennick is a fun adventure that will take you around 5-7 hours. The lack of an engaging story is biggest shortcoming of Kick and Fennick, but even without that I do think that this is a game a lot of people would enjoy.

3.75 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Abstraction Games for providing the code. 

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. 

Strange of Sword City Review

When was the last time you finished a game and walked away feeling like it was a complete experience? A game that seriously made you have to take a deep breath when it was over and reflect on the time you spent with it? There are plenty of great video games, but there are few classics. For anyone who’s looking for a true RPG experience, Stranger of Sword City may be your new favorite game.

The first thing you’ll do when starting Stranger of Sword City is character creation. You pick the look of your character from over 60 pre-designed pictures of humans, elves, dwarfs and other various looks. Once you’re done picking your look, you must choose your character’s age. This is actually really important, because whatever age you select affects how many Life Points and bonus experience points you receive. Life Points equal how many times a character can die during your play through. Younger characters can have three, middle aged characters two, and elderly characters one. Once your character loses all of their Life Points they can no longer be recovered. Life Points can be recovered by resting your characters for long periods of time or by paying insane amounts of money; however if you have a character with one Life Point, there is no way to revive them. So why would you want to create an old character if they can only die once? The trade is that the older the character the more bonus experience points they receive.

After you select the age of your character, you get the option of “rolling” for bonus experience points, which just means press a button to randomize some numbers. If you have a young character, there’s a good chance that you’ll start off with three bonus xp, but you have the chance to get anything from three to nine. You can press the “roll” button as many times as you’d like, but you’ll soon realize that it will almost always be three or four so when you see a six pop up, you have to really think if you want to risk losing that because it could be a long time to get it again. I usually spent a few minutes rolling to see if I could get something higher and the majority of the time I settled for something in the middle of the minimum and maximum.  

Once you’ve created your character, the story begins. You find yourself in a strange place and don’t know where you are. There are people who excited that you’ve appeared and would like you to help them. It’s not a mind blowing story by any means, but it does have some pretty awesome elements. As time goes on, you are introduced to three different kingdoms. Each one asks for you to give them Blood Crystals that you find after defeating “Lineage” enemies. When you give them these Blood Crystals, you’re able to select a power and it advances the game’s story.   

Each battle in Stranger of Sword City feels like life or death. This isn’t the type of game that you can just queue up attacks while you’re watching Netflix. You have to strategically plan out your magic attacks, heals, and what type of attacks you’re going to do in each and every fight. Because death is permanent and there is no revive spell, you may find yourself in a lot of stressful situations. The best recommendation I can give is to always know where the nearest exit is, because once you head back to town, your health and mana are refilled. The downside to leaving an area is that the enemies on the level will reset and you’ll have to battle a few mandatory fights again. This is really a small price to pay to ensure that your most experienced warriors don’t die. If they do die though, it is not the end of the world, but it will make you have to spend some time grinding to get your newly registered companion up to snuff. I’ll talk about companions in depth a little later, but first I have to talk about Morale Points. 

Morale Points are a unique system that give your character the ability to call certain spells without using any mana. Examples of these spells are health regeneration, stronger attacks, higher defense, and group attacks. Certain skills can even be stacked so they can have a more beneficial effect. As you progress through the story you’ll start to get more Morale Points and you can use more skills in battle. To gain Morale Points all you have to do is attack enemies. It’s not a complicated system, but it is very valuable and should be used generously. You also use Morale Points to ambush enemies to receive better loot, but that will be covered later.

To get new companions all you have to do is register them at the Strangers Guild. The nice thing is that you can register a ton of companions so you can try to out different classes. A nice feature in Stranger of Sword City is that whenever you register a new companion their experience will be based off of the amount off of your main character, however they still start at level one. This makes it a smoother transition than to just have a level 1 character that needs to spend hours leveling up to 10+. You simply take them into battle and as long as they don’t die you’ll see them level from 1 to about 6 after one fight. 

The Stranger’s Guild also allows you to switch party members whenever you like. Whichever party members are not active are being “trained” which means that they are gaining experience. This experience though won’t actually level them, so if you have a level 12 fighter they won’t go from 12 to 13, but rather gain experience that will only require them to fight one or two times to get from level 12 to 13. Every time you check on your resting companions you will receive money that they found on their adventures. I’d recommend that if you have a lot of people sitting out that you check on them whenever you head back to the Strangers Guild so you can collect money and check on their progress. 

 Stranger of Sword City has a unique way of getting better gear for your group. There are locations around the world where you can “ambush” enemies. During the ambush you have a certain amount of turns to kill the leader of the group before they escape. If they escape you just receive experience and some money, but if you successfully kill them you get some type of gear. These ambushes cost Morale Points and the costs increase over time. This prevents you from repeatedly ambushing and getting all the phat loots in one sitting.  One nice feature is that you will know what type of gear you’ll be getting beforehand and you can choose to pass if it’s something you don’t want. This is essential to your party’s success, so I recommend you start getting used to ambushing early in the game. 

As you progress in the game, you’ll find that the maps are fairly large and most of them have an area that is blocked until you progress in the game. Within each level there are stones that you can discover to teleport yourself to and from town. This makes getting in and out of levels so much easier than having to use the main entrance and exit every time. Without these, Stranger of Sword City would be a much longer and much more difficult game. 

Overall it’s really hard to explain enough about the incredible details of Stranger of Sword City that will really do them justice. For anyone who is looking for a real adventure that will test you time and time again, this is definitely a game you want to pick up. I’ve had my PlayStation Vita since launch and I can say honestly that in the last four years that Stranger of Sword City is the game I’ve been looking for. 

Final Score: 4.5/5

Thank you to NIS America for providing the code. 

Epistory - The Typing Chronicles Review

When you are first dropped into Epistory – The Typing Chronicles you can’t help but be impressed with the paper-look of the game. A path of pages opens up around you as you walk along it, opening up a rich environment of trees, grass, rocks, and flowers while holding on to the look and feel of paper. Before you know it, the soothing soundtrack mixed with crashing waves and the beautiful narration has fully immersed you into the story.

While discovering everything the land has to offer, you are of course met with obstacles. To get through these obstacles or defeat enemies you must press the spacebar and type the corresponding words. Whenever you revive the earth, destroy an enemy, or get through an obstacle you receive Inspiration Points. Inspiration points are used to buy upgrades and to unlock certain parts of the game. Gating certain parts of the game may sound annoying to some users, but Epistory does a great job keeping you moving, never making you feel like you have to grind out extra words just to advance. There is also a combo meter that allows you to receive more Inspiration Points the longer you string words together.

The upgrades for the game make a huge difference. You can upgrade your movement speed, combo time, knockback, but more importantly you can upgrade your unlockable skills. For example, your fire attack has a great feature that will add a unique twist on damage over time on an enemy letting you destroy them faster. You can upgrade the speed of this damage over time and get yourself out of some serious jams.

As I mentioned before, you have to press the spacebar to hunker down and then type your words. In fact everything in Epistory can be controlled with the keyboard. You move with W, A, S, D and you can just type in whatever commands you want in the menu. Not being a primary PC gamer, this took me a little bit to get used to, but any seasoned PC gamer should have no trouble at all.

One downside that I frequently ran into was when I unlocked the Fire and Ice skills. The further you get into Epistory you must switch your skills to kill enemies who are only vulnerable to that element. The problem arises when you’re using the Ice skill and you need to kill something that has an “F” as it’s first letter. Once you type that “F” Epistory will prioritize your skill selection and expect you to complete word “fire” rather than prioritize the enemy which is coming to kill you. Luckily, Epistory does two things to alleviate some of this pain. First off, when you die, it’s not the end of the world. You can easily pick up where you left off in a matter of minutes. Secondly, if you reach a point that you just can’t pass, Epistory will adjust and give you a little bit of an easier time. At times, I felt like this was necessary.

I type pretty fast and Epistory did a great job pumping up the difficulty with long difficult words (some I had never even heard of before) and increasing the speed and frequency of enemies. As great as this is, I still ran into the problem that my character and her fox weren’t able to shoot at enemies fast enough. There are times when these little flying enemies come out and they only require one letter to kill them. Well, when you queue say five at one time, the attacks don’t come fast enough, resulting in your death. Do this enough times, the game will make it easier for you and bada bing bada boom you’ve advanced.

Epistory also has a lot of puzzle elements. To receive your skills you must retrieve them from a dungeon. The most frequent puzzle is where you must light up blue tiles by stepping on them without stepping on the same one twice in a row or stepping on a red tile. It’s really not a terrible thing when you step on the same tile twice, but stepping on a red tile will result in the puzzle being completely reset. This makes it much more stressful when you have to do these tasks on ice.  With the nature of the game being a story, the puzzles don’t feel like they are to frustrate you. With a little trial and error and some critical thinking, you can get the puzzles fairly quick.

One element that I definitely feel needs improvement is the map. It sort of looks like a zoomed out Minecraft map. While the map does have some handy icons on it that will help you find treasures and gates, a little more interactivity would go a long way.

I don’t want to end on a sour note. Epistory – The Typing Chronicles is a solid game that is absolutely worth trying if you’re looking for something new to try. Combine this with a great story, beautiful music, phenomenal world building and an outstanding narration, you have yourself an adventure you won’t regret taking.

Final Score: 4.5/5

Thank you to Fishing Cactus for providing the code. 

Catlateral Damage Review

Have you ever wondered why your cat knocks everything off your shelves? You could try it out by setting something on your counter and give it a good hard swipe, but in the end you’re going to be cleaning it up. So what can you do? Thankfully, Fire Hose Games has developed the cel-shaded adventure, Catlateral Damage!

In Catlateral Damage’s Objective mode you play as a disgruntled cat who is upset with their human. Your goal is to knock over a certain amount of objects before your owner gets home. This means climbing on dressers, opening the refrigerator and swiping out all the contents, jumping on bookshelves and sending those classics to floor. There are multiple ways to accomplish your goal. You can pick items up with your mouth, ram things with your head, hold one of your legs straight out and runinto things, or swipe left and right with your paws. The absurd nature of the game, along with the cel-shaded graphics may remind some gamers of the Katamari series and that is never a bad thing! 

When you first start a level your cat is slow and weak, but as time goes on you pick up a ton of upgrades that increase your speed, jump, and swipe ability. If you focus on finding upgrades you’ll be in great shape to dominate your owner's home. Some of the ways you find these upgrades is by interacting with objects such as the litter box, unraveling a roll of toilet paper, and interacting with cat toys that are around the procedurally generated levels. By the final levels your cat will be able to jump halfway across almost any room. 

There are a guarantee of five levels per play through, but if you find a hidden object you can actually increase this amount. I personally was only able to find two extra levels during my play through, although I think there are more.  To finish all of the levels will probably take you around 45 minutes to an hour. If you’re a trophy collector, you can pretty much guarantee that you’ll need about 5-6 hours to get all of them. Besides levels, you can also unlock different cats to play as by knocking over pictures of cats or by completing specific objectives that are related to trophies

Catlateral Damage also has a Litterbox mode where you can choose around 10 levels to play in without a time limit. This gives you the opportunity to play without the stress of a constant countdown. There are a few trophies tied to Litterbox mode, but other than that there’s not much to do. 

The questions with all reviews is if the game is fun and worth a purchase. The simple answer is yes, however this does depend on what you’re looking for. If you’ve ever dreamed of playing as a cat whose main goal is to cause the destruction of a home then this is the game for you. It’s also a great game for anyone who is new to gaming or someone who likes games, but isn’t too hardcore. I honestly believe that a grandparent who has had limited exposure to video games could pick up Catlateral Damage and have an absolute blast. If you’re a casual gamer or have someone in your life who is, then 100%, no question Catlateral Damage is for you, but if you consider yourself somewhat above casual you may be a little disappointed. 

Final Score: 3.75/5

Thank you to Fire Hose Games for providing the review code!

Return to PopoloCrois: A Story of Seasons Fairytale Review

When you think of turn based RPGS, you usually imagine 3 or 4 characters taking turns attacking groups of enemies. In Return to PopoloCrois this is true, but with one added element. Before the characters can attack, they have to get in range of their enemy by moving a limited amount of spaces in the battle area. This tweaked approach to standard turn based combat adds enough flavor to make the experience feel new without creating a large learning curve. This allows people who may not be JRPG experts the ability to pick the game up and get the hang of it quickly. If this wasn’t enough to make users feel comfortable, there are encounter rate and difficulty sliders that can be adjusted at any point.

The story revolves around Pietro who is the prince of PopoloCrois. The kingdom is getting ready for a celebration for Pietro’s 13th birthday. The party is short lived, because mysterious creatures start showing up and start corrupting the soil of PopoloCrois.  Once Pietro finds out that a faraway place, Galariland, may be where the monsters are coming from, he convinces the king to let him help. This transportation doesn’t go as smooth as everyone in PopoloCrois would have liked and Pietro is sent away with no way of getting back to his homeland, thus setting up our adventure.

Instead of Pietro dwelling on the fact that he is away from his family without having any way of contacting them, he puts himself to work. After a short amount of time, you receive your first farm where you able to grow vegetables and raise livestock. The farming system is fairly simple and doesn’t require too much of the player’s attention. One of the benefits from keeping your farm active is that you can ship off your vegetables for some extra cash. I never ran into much need for extra cash, but that’s because I will generally grind areas for long periods of time and focus mostly on side quests. For someone who may just want to progress through the story without doing much side work, the farming system would be a good source of income. Another great way to make money on the farm is by capturing butterflies with a net. There is a guy who lives at your farm who will pay top dollar and you also receive gifts for hitting milestones on a stamp card.

Besides Pietro there are 6 playable characters and the story determines which three other characters you will have in your party of four. This means that you don’t keep extra characters with you at all times. Some character combos even have major team attacks. These attacks cost a lot of mana, but it only takes the mana from the person summoning the attack.

As you make your way through the adventure, you’ll start to notice that there is a great amount of voice acting in the game. There are even two Japanese settings, as well as one English setting. One issue that I had with the Return to PopoloCrois is that it’s not fully voice acted. I understand that it takes money and increases the download size, but there were times when I was fully engaged in the audible conversation only to have it go to strictly text. The dialogue in the game can be weird, but it’s absolutely hilarious, so it’s a shame that the player doesn’t receive a full experience.  

The biggest downside to Return to PopoloCrois is that the main story objectives can be repetitive. The player will arrive at a town that has corrupted soil issues that need to be solved. Pietro will of course oblige and help defeat the monsters that are corrupting the land. The objective in itself isn’t bad in any way, but the player does it so often that it just doesn’t give enough variety. The upside is that there are a lot of side quests in the game that you can do when you need a break from the main objective.

In total, there are seven chapters and an epilogue that will take around 25 hours to complete. Once you finish the main story, you unlock new quests and you are still able to use your farms.

Overall Return to PopoloCrois is a fun game that is very accessible to all level of gamers. If you’re looking for a JRPG to play, you definitely should check out Return to PopoloCrois.

3.75 out of 5 Stars

Thank you to Xseed for providing the review code.  

Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed Review

Since Hyperdimension Neptunia’s debuted in North America there have been 10 total games in the series, but Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed is the first action-RPG set in the world of Gamindustry.  The player will use 10 different characters to hack and slash their way through over 40 missions and 3 game modes.

Each character comes equipped with a different weapon that changes the way character plays. Some of the character weapons you should expect are swords, staves, hammers, guns, and even a lobster-like blunt object. These weapons dramatically change the way one character plays from another. The sword wielding characters will fill more natural to anyone who has played an action-rpg, but there are a few weapons that feel a little stiffer and out of place. Out of all the character weapons, Uni’s gun was the only that I didn’t really enjoy playing. At times it felt too stiff and it lacked a proper way to aim. This being said, I am impressed overall that out of 10 characters there was only one that I thought could use improvement.

As you start playing through the quests in Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed you’ll start to notice that a lot of the objectives are pretty similar. Most of the objectives revolve around killing bosses or killing X amount of enemies. I figured that after 8-10 hours this would start to become tiresome, but it never did. There is enough character interaction and story moments to keep the player engaged with the game. Let’s be honest, killing waves and waves of enemies can get boring, but Action Unleashed does a masterful job creating an experience that players will want to continue to enjoy.

One of my favorite aspects of Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed was medal collecting. Whenever you kill an enemy they have the chance to drop medals. Once you collect enough medals you can then use them to purchase accessories, better weapons, and global stat upgrades for all of your characters.  Collecting medals is probably the most grindy thing you’ll run into during your experience, but it doesn’t take too long to collect them all.

The Hyperdimension series is no stranger to fan service. In Action Unleashed you’ll find yourself battling groups of enemies when all of sudden your clothes get ripped off! One feature that may please gamers is that you eventually can get clothes that rip easier or clothes that don’t rip at all. So regardless of how you feel about fan service, Action Unleashed gives the option to enjoy the game as you’d like.

Overall Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed is a game that I feel that anyone who enjoys the Hyperdimension and/or Dynasty Warriors series would have fun playing. It’s also a great game for people who want an introduction to the Gamindustri, but aren’t the biggest JRPG fan.

4.75 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Idea Factory for supplying the review code.

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Review

Back before first-person shooters ruled the gaming world, point and click adventure games were king. They were full of humor, difficult challenges, and incredible stories. The Book of Unwritten Tales 2, developed by King Art Games, attempts to bring back all of those qualities to long time gamers, as well as new gamers.

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is the second installment in the critically acclaimed Book of Unwritten Tales series. When you first start up the game, you are controlling a Nate, who is falling through the sky. This brief introduction to the game not only introduces you to the controls, but also the light-hearted and hilarious tone of the game. As I mentioned before, the Book of Unwritten Tales is about 20 hours, so having a bit of comedy throughout it can really help the player get through any parts where they may be frustrated. I’d also like to mention frustration doesn’t happen often, but the nature of a point and click adventure game is that it may take a lot of trial and error to complete tasks.

One of the biggest concerns about console point and click adventure games is that they don’t translate well from PC. This is however not an issue. There wasn’t one time when I thought that I would rather have a keyboard and mouse to play the game. By making solid controls, King Art Games really opened up the accessibility to console gamers.  

Players who have played the first game will recognize the four main characters: Nate, Ivo, Wilbur, and Critter. The characters have been updated and do look a bit better than their previous models. This doesn’t make or break the game, but it is nice that the characters have had some work done. Besides the characters being updated, King Art Games did a great job with the scenery. You may notice that all of the scenes are pretty much static, but that each part has a tremendous amount of detail. You will also travel to so many different locations that it’s really hard to ever feel bored with your surroundings, which is important because even though there are a lot of different locations, you do frequently visit them.

The worst part about the Book of Unwritten Tales 2 isn’t anything related to gameplay, graphics, voice acting, or anything else related to the actual game. In fact, the game is a solid experience. The worst thing is the odds weighing against it. In 2015, if you don’t have a point and click adventure game with the name Telltale on it, it’s going to be a tough sell. Pair this with the fact that it’s digital only and you may have two strikes against you in the eyes of gamers, but I’m here to tell you to give this game a chance. Not only will you be supporting a developer who seems to have a bright a future, but you will also get a true fantasy experience that you will not forget.

There are plenty of games out there that are worth your time and Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is one of them. I’m so lucky that I got to review this game, because I don’t know when I would have ever gotten around to playing it otherwise and that’s a shame. Do yourself a favor and put the Book of Unwritten Tales series and King Art Games on your radar, because I believe they are here to stay.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Nordic Games for supplying the review code.

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. 

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Review

After I finished The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, I had to take a step back and really think about everything that had happened.

You play as Paul Prospero, a detective that is working his last case. Right before you start your journey, you are prompted with the message, “This game is a narrative experience and does not hold your hand.” I think giving the gamer this message prevents a lot of frustration, as at times you will find yourself wandering around with no idea of what to do next.

As you start to make your way around the starting area, it’s almost impossible not to be instantly amazed with the scenery. This made me want to explore and really see every trail and every little hidden path. Pair this with the  sounds of running water, wind, and the subtle, yet creepy music and you have a wonderfully engaging experience.

Just a little bit of the stunning scenery in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. 

Paul Prospero, being the outstanding detective that he is, shows off his abilities as you solve puzzles. When he sees something (or someone) on the ground, a bunch of floating text questions will appear that act like running thoughts to give you insight to what is happening. Once you put together all the clues in the area, you will see memory fragments that fly to different locations. Then, you have to put these memory fragments in chronological order to wrap up the puzzle to see what had occurred. Early in the game this can be difficult, but once you get to the end you have a pretty good idea of what is required to complete the game’s task.

Making your way through the world, you will start to slowly see that things are strange. There are many supernatural references that are introduced gradually, but eventually they come together to shape a very bizarre world. As weird as the world is, you never feel like it’s too much or that you are overwhelmed.

Now for the bad part. Once the game was done, I can say that I had a lot of fun, but there were some technical issues that made the game slightly frustrating.

With a game that is so heavy on exploring, I decided to trek around and just see what the world was like. I started to notice that some of the textures on the floor were very dark and that there was a large field that lacked rocks, trees, and any other plant life. At one point, I saw that a huge boulder had missing textures and I could see straight through it. This didn’t bother me at first, because I figured that I just needed to restart the game. Unfortunately, this didn’t fix the issues. I started to ignore this, because they weren’t really hurting my progress, but unfortunately that changed.

At one point in the game, you have to cross a very long bridge...this would have been nice, but the bridge was invisible. Luckily, the game had been out for awhile on PC so I was able to look up a walkthrough of what to do. Once I found the entrance to the unintentionally invisible bridge I was able to walk across. It was both funny and unsettling to have my character floating about 100 feet above a waterfall. I got across to the other side no problem, but the graphic issues didn’t stop there.
 

This is where the bridge should be. 

There was a house I was supposed to enter that had the next puzzle. The house is supposed to be abandoned with a fully textured outside, but the house that was in front of me looked like it had been burned down and had pieces floating in the air. Once again I restarted the game, but this didn’t solve the problem. Unfortunately, I had to use a walkthrough a few times because of this and it was frustrating that I was brought out of a game that I was really enjoying.

                                           What I saw                                                                              What I was supposed to see

After I passed the puzzle, the game performed flawlessly for the rest of the story. One of the nice things is once you complete the game, you are able to fast travel to any of the puzzles that you may have missed. This is completely possible considering the game is so open and doesn’t require you to complete everything to get to the end. 

I should also mention that I have watched videos of people playing on The Vanishing of Ethan Carter on the Playstation 4 and there doesn’t seem to be any issues. I hope what I encountered were isolated incidents or at least extremely rare occurrences, because I think the developers did a wonderful job developing a truly remarkable story. 

Despite the issues I had with the game, I do think it is worth your time. This is even more true if you have enjoyed games that are heavy on story, such as Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and Murdered: Soul Suspect.

3.5 out of 5

Thanks to The Astronauts for supplying a code for review. 

A side note that has no bearing on my overall feeling on the game is that it is really easy to get 100% of the trophies.