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Dragon Quest Builders 2
I really don’t care for games like Minecraft, but let me tell you about this little gem, Dragon Quest Builders 2. Hyperbole aside, I’d like to preface this review with a simple statement. I didn’t play the first Dragon Quest Builders game. I did play through the demo of the first game, but I never picked up the full game, and I’m glad I waited. After speaking with some people who have played both, this game is a much superior title. There’s a chance I may have been pushed away from this one had I played that first. I didn’t quite know what I was getting myself into when I…
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Super Neptunia RPG
Super Neptunia RPG for those unfamiliar with the series is a turn based 2D side scrolling RPG and a spin off of the Hyperdimension Neptuna franchise. Coming in blind to the series myself I was greeted with a pleasing Anime art style and some nice music coupled with a very cheesy storyline “An evil organization (Bombyx Mori) is forcing citizens to churn out 2d video games getting rid of 3d completely and if the games don’t meet expectations they are cruelly banished to soul crushing trial grounds”. Our protagonist is a girl called Neptune who awakens with amnesia and sets off on a quest to find out what happened to…
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Yakuza Kiwami
Yakuza Kiwami! is Sega’s grand remake of the original PS2 Yakuza released in 2005. Utilizing the previously established fighting and graphics of engine of Yakuza 0, Sega succeeds in breathing new life into a 10-year-old classic. Story and Gameplay: Yakuza Kiwami! is a story-driven, open world, action RPG, set in Kamurocho, the fictional representation of Japan’s red-light district Kabukicho. In Yakuza Kiwami! you play as Kazuma Kiryu an Ex-Yakuza on a mission to find his long-lost love interest Yumi. On his quest Kazuma encounters a lost girl named Haruka. Haruka tells Kazuma that she is looking for her mother who is revealed to have a connection to Yumi. In search…
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Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
I wanted to talk about this game the minute I started playing it, but I knew a lot of people had just gotten into the first game to play them in order. Since it’s nearly impossible to talk about this game without discussing the ending of the first, I decided to wait a long time before I gave my final verdict. I originally wanted to do this in two parts. The first part was going to be how I felt about the game during the beginning chapters where Rean is searching for his classmates. The second was going to be how I felt about the game after pushing through to…
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Atelier Shallie Plus
Atelier Shallie Plus is a handheld version of Atlelier Shallie with all of the DLC packed in, much like all the previous “Plus” versions of the Atelier games have done. I have not played the console version of Shallie or any other Atelier games, so my review is based entirely on the Vita version. Let me start with some less flavorful notes. The frame rate is appalling most of the time. While not entirely gamebreaking, there are a few moments when the game seems to really chug along. The characters are all highly detailed and look great. Even the backgrounds are pretty nice considering other games on the Vita in…
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Final Fantasy XV
Final Fantasy XV (FFXV) is the latest entry in the seminal RPG series that is a mainstay of Square-Enix (SE). In it you play the role of Noctis; a prince on his way to his royal wedding accompanied by his retainers. This is the first game in the main series to truly cross into being an action RPG, and SE bills it as “A Final Fantasy for Fans and First Timers”. This distinction may be great for first timers, but is a bit of a mixed bag for fans. There’s a bit of something for everyone, and a lot of small details they get right, but the gameplay itself is…
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Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel
On the surface, LOH:TOCS may seem like a traditional JRPG, but it’s really a sweet love story of an unworthy noble and his love affair with a delusional, undignified, working class poor boy. On a serious note, the game is easily summed up as one part Persona 3/4, one part Suikoden, and three parts Trails in the Sky. You play as Rean Schwarzer in his first year at Thors Military Academy. He and his 8 classmates belong to a special trial program called Class VII. In Thors, The other five classes (that’s right, there’s no class VI) are split into nobles and peasants. As you’d expect, the nobles are real…
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The Legend of Legacy
I just want to preface this review by saying that I haven’t officially finished the game. After 60+ hours, I’ve got a good chunk of time invested in The Legend of Legacy, so I can give you a pretty good idea of what to expect. The Legend of Legacy is a spiritual sequel to the Romancing SaGa series, developed by FuRyu, and published by Atlus. For those of you who may not be familiar, SaGa games don’t play out like traditional JRPGs, and are quite the niche titles. Characters randomly learn skills during battles, stat growth is random, depending on your actions in battle, and said battles can go very…
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Now Playing 7/29/2015
For the first time in forever, I managed to have a review done and ready on release day! I’m feeling quite accomplished in that fact. It helps that I had plenty of time with the game before it’s release, but even more that the game was good. I’m talking about you, Lost Dimension. Well, for every good, there is a bad. Considering I spent so much time with Lost Dimension, I was unable to get my BlazBlue review up on time. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though. The game, oddly enough, is devoid of the story mode. I thought it was quite odd and was going to mark it…
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Now Playing 6/28/2015
Last week was the final week of school before summer vacation. It feels great to be free. Last week, I also got a review copy of Lost Dimension. My first impressions were…mixed. I can’t stand the character design for any of the characters. They have a seriously “budget” vibe going on, but once I got past that initial reaction, I was introduced to a very good strategy RPG. It’s as though they combined Danganronpa’s “catch the killer” vibe with Natural Doctrine’s combat system and a sterile white dystopian future aesthetic similar to Freedom Wars. When I say that it’s like Natural Doctrine, I mean that in the best possible way.…
Handheld Gaming Reviews
