Welcome back, my fellow gamers! I know the video game industry is in colossal disarray, but we have to accept it. The entire industry is changing to have more profitable business models in the future. It will likely take two or three years to have a good idea of how modern gaming is changing. For now, I still found a lot of games to review. The selection of games doesn’t appear to be thinning in the first quarter of this year at all. Let’s check it out! Granblue Fantasy: Relink might appeal to fans of JRPGs and Final Fantasy. I know some people will think it’s a FF ripoff, but the gameplay is quite enjoyable. This game has a strong roster of characters who have different abilities to accommodate various gameplay styles. The enemy encounters are fun and fluid with hack and slash combat in real time. Granblue Fantasy has a big emphasis on team combat, which includes cooperative combos and special moves. The skill trees are a helpful way to level up your favorites characters in terms of new moves, extra health, stronger hits, and more. Overall, the game breezes along faster than the average JRPG, despite having a number of missions, side quests, and boss fights. Each character has their own backstories, combat style, and specific side missions. Merchants don’t have the most impressive shops, but you can use them to recruit more characters on your team without obnoxious micro transactions. Like many JRPGs, Granblue Fantasy is a medieval fantasy with dragons, trolls, witches, and typical enemies of the genre. The formula isn’t broken, so I’m not going to complain about it. Ultimately, this game won’t replace FF, but that’s not the point. Granblue Fantasy is a refreshing adventure in a genre that’s usually dominated by turn based games. It remains entertaining through the entire twenty hour campaign and includes plenty of post-game content. If you’re intimidated by the JRPG genre, this game is a good onboarding experience. Can Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League be that bad? It has some redeemable elements, but critics are mostly correct. This game is pretty awful. Sure, it has a live service component, but I primarily focused on the single player campaign. On a visual level, the game is very impressive. The character models, cutscenes, and world building is really strong. However, the gameplay and missions are a huge problem. The combat and controls are incredibly awkward. Gunfire is unresponsive, traversal feels uncoordinated, and it’s hard to find all of the enemies in a given arena. Everything looks and feels the same after a few missions, leaving the rest of the campaign with excessive repetition. Hardly any of the missions are fun with a huge emphasis on extractions, timed encounters, defending items, etc. The story is interesting, but it’s an unimpressive way to end the Arkham universe. This is a spoiler, but you need to hear it. Yes, the Suicide Squad actually kills prominent members of the Justice League and Brainiac turns the citizens of Metropolis into his minions. I doubt that premise makes you want to spend $70 on this game. You’ll spend a lot of time shooting purple dots, facing the same types of enemies, and repeating various missions. The RPG component is very weak and the weapon selection is inconsequential. Also, the humor feels juvenile, lame, and disrespectful to DC fans. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League isn’t the worst game of the year, but it’s disappointing and unremarkable. I’m sure some player are curious, but resist the urge to drop money on this game. You’ll thank me later. I was introduced recently to the Jujutsu Kaisen anime series. It’s pretty cool, so I wanted to try the game that’s based on the first season. Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash entertained me for a while, but repetitive gameplay, a mediocre fighting system, and annoying objectives drained my interest. It uses still images instead of cutscenes, which didn’t bother me. Granted, it shows that Bandai Namco is putting minimal budgets and care in their anime games. How does the combat and movement feel? It’s generally fine, but the combat feels a bit floaty and the lock on system only works half of the time. Cursed Clash doesn’t allow people to experience the game like the anime show. Instead, most of the fights have mandatory objectives, like blocking hits, dodging, using special moves, or avoiding damage for a certain number of seconds. I don’t mind the voice acting, although it’s not significant enough to redeem the game’s weaknesses. I’m still waiting for the Dragon Ball Z glory days. At this point, I would say you don’t need to spend money on this game. Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash is definitely better than last year’s Naruto game, but that’s a low bar. It might be worth your time some day on Game Pass or PS+. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden has some notable flaws, but it’s still a highly entertaining and creative experience. This game combines many elements and accomplishes it surprisingly well. It’s a single player adventure game that feels a bit like the recent God of War titles with a crunchy hack and slash combat style. Banishers also includes elements of horror, romance, and a large open world environment. Believe it or not, the end results work. It has a unique gameplay system with dual protagonists. You play as Red, a human banisher who fights ghosts. Antea is spirit who’s helping Red with one last mission before ascending to the afterlife. Both characters have their own moves, strengths, and weaknesses, and you’ll switch between them during combat. This unusual combat system is quite effective and works totally fine without noticeable issues. Banishers has a compelling story that develops slowly over time with a fascinating mystery. Your choices determine the fates of many characters and the ending. The game has a complex moral system where you have the option to kill human characters, which may bring Antea back to life. Otherwise, you can banish or ascend ghosts to help Antea transition to the next realm. The world is ripe for exploration with many supplies, side quests, secrets, optional boss fights, and more. In the end, this game is easy to recommend. I should mention a few annoyances, such as dips in frame rates, a lack of enemy variety, glitches, and hard crashes. Despite these imperfections, Banishers is a lot of fun, especially if you like spooky stories. Check it out when you have a chance. Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II is an under-looked horror game that landed on my list of favorites this year. It’s a point and click game that includes some side scrolling areas for exploration. At first glance, Death Mark II seems very simple, but it encourages thorough exploration, puzzle solving, and choosing your actions carefully. Characters will literally live or die based on your actions. It doesn’t have combat per se, although you have to use specific items, dialogue choices, and actions to fight angry ghosts. The story unfolds one piece at a time, revealing some pretty unusual and disturbing elements. It’s a very dark and gruesome tale that might not appeal to some players. However, it’s a great experience for horror fans. Death Mark II has a meaty runtime between twelve and fifteen hours, which is pretty substantial for a point and click adventure. This game actually makes you think carefully without being too frustrating. The story and enemy encounters proceed through still images rather than animated cutscenes. That part doesn’t bother me, considering it’s an indie game with a small budget. If you enjoy the horror genre, Death Mark II is a clear recommendation. Just keep in mind, it’s not going to have a AAA experience like Resident Evil or Dead Space. Get used to it because studios will slash their budgets for many future games. Flashback 2 is another game that received horrible reviews and I had to see it for myself. Yeah, the criticism was warranted. Honestly, Flashback 2 is the worst game on today’s post. It’s a side scrolling adventure game and a direct sequel to the original Flashback. I never played the original game, so the concept of legacy doesn’t mean anything to me. The setting is interesting with a variety of sci-fi environments, ranging from cyberpunk cities, underground mines, weird laboratories, alien jungles, etc. You’ll fight robots and alien creatures, but the gameplay and progression is a real issue. This game is virtually unplayable and broken. The protagonist’s movement, reaction time, and combat is very sluggish. Enemies can dance around the main character while he plods along. This game supports rapid gunfire, but it rarely worked for me. It’s important to save progress often because you’ll encounter many bugs that leave you stuck without moving forward. Flashback 2 is another cheap game with still images instead of cutscenes. Also, the voice acting is pretty bad. I believe in supporting physical media, but this game didn’t need a disc. What can I say? Flashback 2 is downright terrible. I don’t know what happened to the development of this game. Hardly anyone will have the patience to finish it. Don’t even play this game if it comes to Game Pass or PlayStation+. I’m sure you’ll find something better to play. The Church in the Darkness seems like an intriguing experiment that didn’t quite work. It’s not a fancy game by any means. I like indie games, so it was worth a try. The protagonist is on a mission to save his/her nephew from a dangerous cult. I can tell The Church in the Darkness takes very clear inspirations from the Jonestown cult and massacre. Each play through is different, almost like a roguelike structure. Some variations include your inventory, the temperaments of the cult leaders, your nephew’s willingness to leave, etc. At times, the cult is a band of violent terrorists and other times it’s a simple hippie commune. I appreciate the variety, but the game is a bit confusing and the gameplay is pretty rough. Sometimes it felt like I died because the controls were unresponsive or the guards had x-ray vision. Also, the premise feels somewhat shameless. The Church in the Darkness is interesting at first glance, but it’s an uncomfortable subject because so many people died at the hands of cults in real life. I’m not recommending this game either. The Church in the Darkness is weird and the gameplay isn’t enjoyable. However, it’s only 2 dollars on Steam at the moment. I can imagine some players might be curious about this one. Ordinarily, I don’t handle cooking simulators very well, but PlateUp! looked promising. Basically, it’s a frantic restaurant simulator that includes cooking meals, serving customers, upgrading equipment, learning new recipes, cleaning up messes, etc. It also has a roguelike structure. You can’t make any mistakes or receive complaints from customers, otherwise your restaurant will close permanently. Then you open a new restaurant and try again with some permanent upgrades. If you enjoyed the Overcooked games, PlateUp! should be on your radar. I must say, this game is a lousy experience in single player mode. It’s almost impossible to cook the food, serve the customers, clean up everything, and manage the restaurant perfectly without running into problems. You only gain a tiny bit of experience in single player mode, which means you’ll grind through many failures to reach a menial level 2. Granted, it might be an entertaining experience in co-op mode with friends. You can designate a team to cook, serve, clean, and whatnot. I can understand why this game might work for 3 to 4 players.
In general, I only recommend PlateUp! for people who want to play the multiplayer mode. The single player mode is just too frustrating and unmanageable without enough rewards. It’s also available on Game Pass, so that’s a bonus. That’s it! My latest round of reviews was a combination of strong titles and major disappointments. Be prepared to see smaller games with cheaper budgets. The industry needs to cut down on their AAA projects, which means we’re getting more live service games and smaller titles. It might not be fair, but companies need to make a profit in a very costly economy. We will see what happens in due time. Be patient, take care of yourselves, and game on!
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Good afternoon! One of my colleagues in the steampunk community is releasing an illustrated novelette, called The Casket Girls. The author, Bonsart Bokel, showcases his work on my blog periodically and The Casket Girls seems to blend steampunk, anime, and paranormal elements into a single storyline. I think this novelette is a nice throwback to Gundam, Pacific Rim, Voltron, and other popular IPs that feature mechs or giant robots. Bonsart was generous enough to provide a review copy for me and I found the overall story fun, short, and quirky. We don’t see a lot of mechs in recent steampunk literature, so I appreciate seeing something different. The story has plenty of well crafted illustrations and it features unusual portals that transport the characters to other universes. I’m not usually a fan of multiverse stories, but this one intrigues me. The Casket Girls will most likely appeal to dedicated steampunk fans. I’m sure it will also find an audience with the anime and Lovecraft groups. It might even suit the superhero crowds pretty well. I caught a little bit of a superhero vibe when I read the review copy. The release date is coming very soon on March 17. Bonsart is also selling miniature figurines as part of the novel’s launch. It’s a cool little addition if you enjoy collectibles. Expect to see more projects in the near future. The Casket Girls is the first volume of a larger universe, so I imagine we’ll see more stories and spinoffs down the road. I believe Bonsart and his team are also working on a tabletop RPG, so that’s another project to monitor in the future. I’m including a link to the trailer and Kickstarter page. The Casket Girls is another entertaining steampunk adventure and I hope you’ll check it out. Keep watching for more news and I’ll see you again next weekend.
Trailer for The Casket Girls https://youtu.be/L1FN4bpHl4Y Kickstarter Page for The Casket Girls https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bonsartbokel/the-casket-girls-1?ref=83zob9 |
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May 2019
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