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The Longest 5 Minutes
The Longest 5 Minutes should have just been a visual novel, full stop. I guess I can expand on that thought. Let me start by what I feel the game sets out to do and build from there. The Longest 5 Minutes is a traditional JRPG told in such a way that you, the player, are experiencing memories of the main character who has lost his memory during the final fight with the game’s final boss, the Demon King. These memories take the form of micro dungeons and specific encounters. In each of these, the characters have a set starting level, gear, and money. Each of these memories have anywhere…
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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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Odin Sphere Leifthrasir
Originally released on the PS2 half a year after the PS3 came out, Odin Sphere launched with much fanfare. It’s music, art direction, and gameplay was just what everyone needed at the time. 2D beat-em-ups had all but gone the way of the dodo, but Vanillaware showed us that we needed them in our lives. With all of it’s beautiful environments and colorful characters, the game was a success with the niche market, and even got some positive mainstream press. Much of that praise came from lead designer George Kamitani’s animation decisions. I’ve always enjoyed his art style as well as his animation techniques. Using multi-sprite bosses where each body…
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Senran Kagura: Estival Versus
Gigantic breasted ninja running around trying to tear one another’s clothes off? Must be time for another installment of Senran Kagura. This time, they’re in their bathing suits most of the time. So how does one attack someone until they’re down to just their bra and panties? Oddly enough, probably a series first, when you transform into your ninja gear, you actually have MORE clothes on than before. Try not to focus on that too much; it may induce nose bleeds. Where do I begin with this one? Obviously, this is going to be sensitive material to some people out there. This game is not for them. It’s for a…
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Risk of Rain
A while back, I picked up Risk of Rain on Steam. I knew it was coming out for Vita and PS4, so I didn’t play too much of it on my PC as I really felt it would fit the Vita quite well. Turns out that, while it does work one the Vita, it’s much better on PC or the PS4. This is mostly because the game has a lot of buttons to assign considering how relatively simple it is. I managed to find a layout that suits my style and is interchangeable on the Vita and PS4. I like being able to use both the d-pad and analog stick…
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Trillion: God of Destruction
A while back I came to the realization that I really don’t like rogue-likes or dungeon crawlers. Then a few days ago, Idea Factory sent me a review copy of Trillion. Trillion is a game where you must kill a boss with a trillion hit points. There is a lot of Disgaea-like story within, but that last statement pretty much sums up the game’s premise. You are the Great Overlord of some netherworld who rules over the other overlords. Some giant creature comes through a gate and kills everyone by the thousands, devouring everything in sight. Your brother asks if he can go destroy this threat once and for all,…
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Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax
People call BlazBlue and Guilty Gear “anime fighters”, but games that get labeled as such are rarely based on anime prior to their release. Perhaps a better term is “air-dash fighters” as it seems to be a common mechanic in games like them. Dengeki Bunko, on the other hand, is a manga publisher in Japan similar to Shonen Jump. Dengeki Bunko has numerous manga lisences under its belt, so with with French Bread (Melty Blood and Under Night In-Birth) developing the game, and SEGA publishing the game, it kind of acts as a huge cross-over game with a solid fighting system. The stages and the music that goes along with…
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Persona 4 Dancing All Night
Well, damn! I was not expecting to enjoy this game as much as I did. If you’re a fan of the Persona 4 characters and their story, just go out and buy it and jump feet first into the story mode. Rise Kujikawa has a new voice actress, and it has spurred a lot of stupid discussions in online forums. Basically, Laura Bailey (who played an awesome Rise and does great voicework for many projects) had a scheduling conflict and needed to be replaced. Is it a permanent switch? Who knows at this point? She’s an Atlus staple VA, and will be back for other roles for sure. My feeling…
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BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma Extend
BlazBlue is one of my favorite 2D fighting game series. I never really clicked with Guilty Gear, but BlazBlue and the characters in it just seem to sync with me. I have always liked the convoluted time-warping story and most of the English voice actors. I know, I know! I’m horrible for liking English voices, but if you’re not a fan, you’re in luck as all the Japanese voices are here as well. Oddly convenient, BBCPEx is split into two files. The main fighting game is a 3.35gb file while the story and library mode comes in a 2gb file for a total of 5.3gb. For a digital user, this…
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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…
Handheld Gaming Reviews
