First Impression: Ace Attorney 6: Spirit Of Justice (3DS-eShop) ~ Emotional Trip

Ace Attorney Wikia entry

Of course! I was going to talk about this game. I kind of spoiled that on my Twitter. Actually, I was going to write about this game last week. Yet, my schedule didn’t clear up enough to be able to write this article. In any case, if you have read my blog before; you should know that I’m a big fan of the Ace Attorney series. It’s one of my favorite visual novel/adventure games ever made. I was hyped for this game. I tried to avoid the news about this game so I could go in without any spoilers. I’m currently mid-way the game. If you worry about spoilers, don’t worry. I tried to make this review as spoiler-free as possible. Oh, and as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the article and/or the game in the comment section down below.

Go and visit (trouble)

In this game, Phoenix goes abroad and visits the kingdom of Khura’in. Phoenix is goal is to visit his old friend Maya after she finished her special training.

But you guessed it, it doesn’t take long before Phoenix finds himself in a courtroom. But in the country of Khura’in, there is a lot of hate towards lawyers.

The plot of the first and second case are amazing. While it’s a shame that the killer is spoiled in the first case in the intro, the build-up is very good. I loved the set-up of the second case. And the start of the third case made me tear up. If you played the whole Ace Attorney series over the years and then play the third case, you will understand what I mean. The character reveal and the music that starts playing is just lovely.

The writing in this game is very good. If you like how the other Ace Attorney games are written, you will love the writing of this game for sure.

Compared to the previous game, there is a lot less voice acting in this game. The voice acting is mostly reserved for some small scenes, the “hold it”/”objection” shouts and the anime cutscenes. The voice acting is superb in this game. Yet, there is one voice that I didn’t 100% like. It’s the prosecutors voice of the first case. He sounds too feminine to my liking. But hey, that’s nitpicking. So far, so good in the writing and voice acting department.

Familiar yet fresh

The soundtrack of this game is in my opinion good. It offers a lot of remixes of older tracks, but it also offers some new tracks. So far, there isn’t one track that I didn’t like.

I think I might try and hunt down the soundtrack of this game to add to my collection. It’s lovely to listen to while I’m writing or researching for articles.

The sound design of this game is top-notch. The music sounds great and all the sound effects sound great too. They both add a lot to the atmosphere.

If you play this game, I personally recommend headphones. Since it adds a lot to the atmosphere of this game and it makes the impact of some scenes even better in my opinion.

Something I have to praise this game for is the visual presentation. The characters and environment are just eye-candy. The animation in this game is very good as well. There are even little details in the animation that make it even better. I have played only a little bit with the 3D feature on, so I’m not going to comment about that.

The only thing I would have changed is that some text boxes display their text a little bit too slow. I was mashing the buttons of my 3DS to try and speed it up. Thankfully, there is a message log so I can read the text again if I skipped it too fast.

The controls of this game are almost perfect. I would only add an option to move the investigation cursor with the D-pad, but that’s a nitpick. The controls in the Ace Attorney game have been and are always great.

Is it this statement?

There are two sections to the gameplay. You have the investigation section and you have the trail section. This is like every other Ace Attorney game. The special abilities of every character return in this game.

I’m so glad that this game doesn’t force experienced players to read and sit through an explanation of the mechanic. You get the option to get a “refresher course” or not. I personally choose to have the refresher course each and every time. The way the writers wrote the tutorial in… well, it made some rather funny dialogue.

There is one new game mechanic. I honestly think it’s a great addition. It mostly helps to build tension in the story. I’m looking forward to play around with the mechanic in the rest of the game.

I have one nitpick with the investigations is that some spots are so tiny and easily overlooked, I got stuck once for almost an hour because I missed one spot. But hey, after I found it… I could slap me on the head for overlooking it.

The difficulty in this game is very balanced. Each case gets more complicated and each case gets more difficult. When you are stuck during the trail, you can get a hint. Your partner will tell you which statement contains a lie. It’s for you to figure out which piece of evidence proves that the witness is lying. And if you don’t want this feature, you can disable it in the option menu.

The last thing I want to talk about in this game is the UI. And it’s good. The only complaint I have is that I don’t find the option easily to apply the costume DLC.

To wrap up, I think that the things I would change in this game are rather minor. So far, this game has been a blast. But, this game is not for everyone. If you dislike reading long dialogues between characters; stay away from this game. Because it has lots of that.

So far, the game is amazing. I hope that the second part of this game doesn’t ruin it. But hey, if it does, I’ll complain about it in my review.

So, I think I said everything I wanted to say about this game. Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to welcome you at another article on my blog. But until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

First Impression: Zero Escape Dilemma (3DS) ~ Let’s play a game, shall we?

Zero Escape Wikia entry

If you didn’t expect this game to get an article this week, you might have missed all my clues on Twitter. I was extremely hyped for this game and it’s finally here! This game has got a rocky development and it was almost canceled. For the people who don’t know this series, let me quickly introduce this game. This game is the 3^rd installment in the excellent Zero Escape series on (3)DS and PSVita. It’s a horror visual novel game with escape the room puzzles. These games should be played in order to fully enjoy them. 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons and 9 Doors was the first one. The second one was Virtue’s Last Reward. Both excellent games. This game is on the 3DS eShop, PSVita and also released on the PC. In any case, enough rambling in this introduction. It’s time to talk about this game and what I think about it. Was it worth the hype & wait or does it stink? Let’s find out. Keep in mind, I’m playing the 3DS version and I don’t own the other versions. Oh, and don’t worry, I selected the screenshots and wrote this article to be as spoiler free as possible. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

Different game style

The story this time around isn’t about a nonary game like in the previous entries. While it isn’t 100% needed to play the previous games, but it’s highly recommend. Since a lot of references and explanations will be very confusing otherwise.

Something that I found really surprising is that this game isn’t linear, at all. You can play sequences out of order. You would think that this would make a confusing story, but thankfully… They thought about that. There is a story mechanic that helps playing this story driven game out of order.

I have played this game for a bit now and I’m nowhere near finished. The current plot points and twists I already saw were mind-blowing. The writing in this game is truly amazing. It pulls me into its world with ease. One time, I was so focused on the story, I almost missed my stop. I had to dash to get outside the train.

I’m really curious how the story will wrap up, since Virtue’s Last Reward ended with a huge cliffhanger. I’m looking forward to that.

The final thing I want to say about the story is that I’m really thankful that some terms and mechanics of the previous games are quickly explained. It helps me when I had forgotten something from the previous games.

In the previous entry, Virtue’s Last Reward there was a nasty saving bug. It was, as far as I know, only present in the 3DS version. It happened in one room and in certain situations. If you saved then, your save would get corrupted and you had to start all over.

Thankfully, Aksys learned its lesson and implemented three save slots in this game. But so far, I haven’t encountered any problems with saving. Also, three save slots make sense since you can play this game out of order.

The music in this game is very good. While it uses a couple of tracks from the previous game, the new tracks are pretty nice to listen too. The music feels similar but is unique too. It fits the scary and tense atmosphere the story is trying to set.

The sound design is pretty well done, I have no complaints there. So far, so good. The only complaint I have is that, on the default settings, the music overpowers the voice acting from time to time. But it’s easily fixed with putting the volume of the music a bit down.

Not so much reading anymore?

In the two previous entries, you could read everything. From time to time, it was more a novel then a game. But not in this game, almost everything is voice acted. The parts that aren’t voice acted are the dialogues inside the puzzle rooms.

I’m not 100% happy with that. Honestly, I’m 90% happy with it, but sometimes I miss the atmospheric writing that detailed how the main character felt or gave more details about the situation.

I have to praise this game for its voice acting. I’m playing this game with the English voice acts and they sound awesome! Sometimes, the emotions of the characters really shine through. I really felt that the voice actors really put a lot of effort into this game and gave it more than their best.

Something I think is the weakest point in this game is some visual issues. In some cutscenes, I felt that the characters were too static. I honestly think, that if Uchikoshi (writer / developer of the series) had more staff and money, it would look a whole lot better.

Also, some textures could have been polished up a bit more. For example, there is an emblem on one of the characters his shirt, and you can barely make it out what it is. Or in another scene, somebody looks at a carpet on the floor. When the camera looks down, I almost felt that they used the fill tool in a paint program. Or in some cutscenes, the hair or eyebrows of some characters are clipping with something. Which is a shame.

All in all, the finer details could have been polished a bit more. While the animations are pretty good, there is barely any animation where two people do something together.

Don’t get me wrong here, visually this game looks stunning on the 3DS. While some people found it a bummer that they dropped 3D support, I don’t mind. Apart from lacking some polish; the escape rooms, characters, cutscenes and environments look crisp and detailed. I also truly love the style they used in this game.

Life is simple unfair, don’t you think?

So, this game is still a puzzle game. The escape rooms are really challenging this time around. In the previous games, I almost never got stuck in a room or on a puzzle. But this time around, some of the rooms are real brain teasers in my opinion.

This game can be very difficult if you don’t see the solution to the puzzle. I do have to agree with the other reviewers, this game really lacks a hint system. Like the “Easy mode” in Virtue’s Last Reward, where some of your companion characters almost literally explained what you needed to do.

The controls of this game are very good. Apart from some minor issues I had in some rooms with the touch screen, I found that the controls were, like I said earlier, very good. A small piece of advice from me, I feel that the buttons work a bit better when you need to move the camera from point a to point b. When you need to press something finer, use the stylus. That’s the best way to play this game in my eyes.

From what I have seen, this game is a very long game. This is a very good thing, since this game has it’s hooks into to me.

If you have read my blog before, you know that I also like to talk about the UI/menu systems. Since I feel that they are important. The menu system in this game is almost perfect. Something that bugs me is that you can use the d-pad to navigate the general flow chart, but if you switch to the 2^nd flow chart (where they display pictures of the event), you suddenly can’t do that anymore.

There was also one time that I had to input a few passwords that were said earlier. I forgot to wrote them down and suddenly I was unable to open the logs. So, I had to restart that segment.

In first impression of this game is pretty good. The game we got is amazing. Yet, the fact that this game was made by a small group shows its signs. I honestly think this game would have looked a lot better when they had a bigger team and a bigger budget. Maybe this game gets some polish with a patch or two. But honestly, I don’t think the game NEEDS it. Since it has a certain charm that I think would get lost.

@Uchikoshi, if you or somebody on your staff reads this… I have a message for you guys and girls. Thank you for creating this game. I bought it on day one and I’m really pleased with it. While there are somethings that could have been improved, the end result is an amazing game. I wish you girls and guys the best. Here is to a 4^th game in the series or an equally awesome new project. I really love the series you made! If you don’t make a sequel, I’m hoping that you make a new game and/or series. I’m so looking forward to it.

I wish I could say more, but then I would go into spoiler territory. Also, I haven’t finished the game so my final opinion might change. I’m planning to write a full review when I have beaten this game. So yeah, I think I’ll wrap up this article here. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for reading and I hope to welcome you in another article. But until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!~

Review: Fantasy Life (3DS) ~ Joyful RPG at it’s near finest.

Fantasy_Life_box_art Link to the Wikia – First Impression article

And the award for the most generic title goes to… Fantasy Life… Wait, what? I’m copying my buddy’s latest article title and making my own joke out of it? Oh, sorry, I’m sure he won’t mind. I have been delaying this review again and again. But after nearly putting 75 hours into this game, I think it’s fair for me to review it. While I haven’t completed it 100%, I am already far beyond the point of beating the full game and the DLC story. So, without me reading the first impression article, this is the taste this game left in my month. As usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion of the content of this article and/or this game.

Story time

Fantasy_life_e3_2014_screenshot3

So, one of the weakest points of this game is the story, apart from the DLC story. But don’t read me wrong: the story is solid, and the characters are memorable. The huge issue is that thanks to the 12 different paths you can take, there are so many. Too much even for my young brain to remember. On the other hand, this makes each life unique with different characters and personalities.

The main story is a bit generic. It stands out in its writing, though. That’s extremely well done. People would easily skip over the story since it’s one you have experienced before: save the world. Yet, when you actually take the time to enjoy the story, you will be pleasantly surprised with its well done execution.

This is one of the first Level5 games I played where there is no voice acting. Well, apart from the few grunts from enemies, but I can’t comment on that.

So, let’s move on to the DLC. It truly expands on the main game nicely. It even adds more story and expands the game in nearly every area. The DLC is truly worth it, because the story alone has such a perfect ending, it actually touched me and made me laugh. Just the way how it’s written… Amazing.

All right, enough said about the story of this game. Let’s dive right into the other parts of this game. First, the sound design and music.

Just that

The music and sound design is good. Just that. Good. It isn’t bad, nor is it great. It helps to immerse yourself into the game, but I don’t see myself listening to the soundtrack on my mobile any time soon.

While I think Level5 generally makes great scores for their games, some tracks got annoying to me. “The theme of intrigue” is an example of a track I don’t like. While the “Theme of Courage” is such an amazing track and really hyped me up.

Also, the enemies don’t have a distinct cry. Well, not all. And in my mind, this is a huge issue. Some enemies start to feel bland, generic and cut-outs. Some enemies have some nice sound effects, but not enough.

For the sound design or music, it isn’t worth it to get yourself a headset to enjoy it. As I said earlier, it’s good, but it won’t be memorable. Some tracks are catchy, and I remember some battles, but that mostly wasn’t because of the sound and music design. It helped, but it wasn’t the most important factor.

The design of this game is something that is actually really well done. Apart from one major issue, I will talk about later.

The game world looked bright and colorful or dark and gloomy when it needs to be. They give off the right atmosphere and the areas are pretty well crafted. The animation looks crisp and neatly done. Some could argue that due to the overload of dialogue, some voice acting would benefit the game, but the animation does such a nice job that the voice acting isn’t really needed.

So, about that major issue I had with the design. Well, it is something I feel really mixed about. Visually, it looks lazy… but game design wise, it is a great move. Some enemies, like the spirits, return in various area’s, but they have just a different color. Looks lazy right? But on the other hand, in some lives, you get the quest to kill a certain amount of some enemy. This makes finding that enemy in later area’s much easier.

Oh, and one minor design flaw is that it’s sometimes really tricky to read an enemy’s name. Because if you come too close, the target marker pops up above their head.

The other parts

So, in my first impression, I think I touch upon the controls. They are quite well done. Apart from the mercenaries’ life. They are quite flawed. It’s really unclear how you pull off certain moves in that life. Sadly enough, you need to do them in order to finish that life. “Press 4 times A”. Ehrm, I tried it, and I wasn’t always able to pull off that move.

I still find it very remarkable that they made such a neat looking and easy to understand interface to display while you have some much content to offer. A nitpick I have is that the bounty clerks are sometimes too far apart.

The main story and the DLC story will take you around 15–20 hours to complete. Nice length. But the game can be a lot longer than that! You won’t be able to complete each and every life in even double the time. I have played this game for over 60 hours and I only fully completed one life.

The difficulty of this game is decent. While some area’s present some challenge, I barely died in this game. The game is also very forgiving in that regard. When you die, you can either revive (if you have a Life Cure) or go back to the nearest check point, or go home. You lose nothing. Also, when you are trying to mine a major gem later in the miner’s life… When you run out of SP, you can stop mining and drink some potions. When you then continue to mine the gem, the gem didn’t heal enough to lose that much of your progress. You aren’t able to do that in the fishing life, and that’s one of my other nitpicks.

Before I wrap up this review, let’s talk about some of my other nitpicks. One is that some lives play similar to each other. While they are different and require a different play style, they can give off the same vibe. Mainly the crafting lives, they are all quick time event based. The animation is different, but the core mechanic isn’t.

Talking about crafting lives, the menu system is a bit flawed here. You aren’t able to see your quests when you start working.

The next nitpick is one that annoys the heck out of me. Certain lives have a dedicated shop. Like the carpenter and the woodcutter have a dedicated shop. But when you want to craft all the carpenter items, they won’t sell all those items in that shop. This means that you run around sometimes to get each and every item.

The next nitpick I have is that Flutter and your pets can only be accessed in one house: your starter house. Maybe I haven’t unlocked it through the bliss system, but I don’t think you will be able too.

So, the game is a nice experience but flawed. It’s really addictive and hard to put down for the people who enjoy these kinds of games. But it lacks some polish. That also shows in the map. You can’t control the map at all. You can have an overview of the map, but you can’t see where all the shops are located.

Well, I think I talked about everything I wanted to talk about in this review. Time to wrap this one up.

Conclusion

The bad:

– While the writing is excellent, the story is one we have seen in different games a million times over. (Apart from the DLC one)

– The music and sound could have been done better.

– The game is overall too easy.

– The lack of bounty clerks in some areas.

– Some small issues can hinder the experience and make it irritating.

The good:

+ Amazing visual world.

+ 12 different play styles to enjoy.

+ You can switch class when you want.

+ Very neat UI.

+ The character creation has a lot of features.

+ The animation is extremely well done.

+ Addictive.

+ …

Conclusion

So, is this game worth playing? If you enjoy games like Harvest Moon, Tomodachi Life or anything similar, odds are you feel right at home here.

The characters are memorable, but they suffer from a weak(ish) story. The writing is funny and won’t get boring, but they also suffer from the weak story.

This game lacks some polish. While the game has a lot of polish in certain area’s, not every part of this game has been polished enough. This is one game that could have benefited from a bit more development time.

Be warned when you play or start playing this game, it’s difficult to put down. I haven’t played many other games for over a month because I wasn’t able to stop playing this game. It truly took me be surprise how fun it can be.

I love this game, I think it’s near perfection. But the reviewer side of my character disagrees and sees the flaws in this game. It isn’t perfect, but it’s near its finest form.

So, that wraps up my review of this game. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. (and playing the game in order to write this review.) And I hope to meet you another time here on my blog, but until then: take care and game on~

Score: 85/100

Gamer’s Thoughts: The Visual Novel

Lately, I see various games appearing on Steam. Visual novels. That interests me quite a lot. But the let down is huge when I find out that it are kinetic novels. What is a visual novel actually and why is it such an underrated game genre? I want to talk about my favorite game genre in this article and hopefully make some of you guys interested in the visual novel genre. As usual, feel free to write a comment about the visual novel games and or the content of this article.

What makes a game a visual novel?

So, when is a game a visual novel? It’s quite logical that a visual novel is more of a novel then a game. When the novel isn’t interactive, you have a kinetic novel. A kinetic novel is a novel that a movie you can read.

A visual novel has interaction. Sometimes “repetitive actions” and sometimes not. Virtue’s Last Reward for example always has the same gameplay. Solve the puzzle to find the solution to open the safe. Corpse Party on the other hand isn’t repetitive. You have to try and find the other survivors.

A visual novel could be easily confused with a very heavy story driven RPG. Those two genres are two similar, yet different genres. Since visual novels play more on the imagination of the player instead of the skills. If you have ever played an Ace Attorney game, you might have noticed that there isn’t much animation outside the characters. It’s the writing that pulls people in.

Underrated

What do I like so much about visual novels? I can’t really explain. I think the reason is that I feel more as the main character of a story. I feel that my fate is already planned out and that I have to look for the right path.

Now visual novels nearly have always one solution. Even when a game has different endings, you will most likely come across the final true ending.

Games nowadays are getting “lazy”. The graphics try to paint the most beautiful picture and the sound and music tries to blow you off your chair. But visual novels, that isn’t the goal. You don’t get fancy graphics, you mostly get static images and text boxes.

Somehow, visual novels have the power to make you come invested in a story more then other games have. I rarely felt touched by an amazing game when there wasn’t a deep story. When I’m playing a visual novel, it’s very hard for other games to distract me out of that trance. Visual novels are that good in my opinion.

Visual novels try to pull the gamers in with clever writing. They don’t try to make it a massive big show, they create an interesting plot line. Think about it this way, how many times did you start to loose interest in the side quests or the side goals and started to go for the main goals in a game?

Maybe it’s just my interest. My favorite game genre is adventures and my favorite subgenre is visual novel. Since I’m interested in interesting stories and such. I can’t honestly really answer why, but I think that visual novels deserve more credit then they get. It has it’s issues of course, like for some people there is too much text, but hey, name me one genre that doesn’t have issues.

Anyways, to close off this article, let’s take a short look at 2 great visual novels I played in my life.

Examples

The Walking Dead

The-Walking-Dead-Game-Dev-Wants-Suggestions-for-Potential-Second-Season-2

Even when I’m not a fan of the series, you got to give it to this game. TellTale Games makes excellent modern visual novels. While the typical text boxes aren’t there, the main focus is the story and how your choices influences the outcome.

It’s a great and modern example of an excellent visual novel. Too bad it doesn’t interest me as much as other visual novels do. If you want to know why I’m not such a fan, you might want to read my first impression. But my buddy Zach (aka Dark_Legend) is a big fan of it, so you might want to read his articles about it.

Ghost Trick

Ghost_Trick_EU

In this game you play as a death cop and you have to solve your own murder. The catch is that you can rewind time to save somebodies life. With this power you try to figure out who wanted you dead.

This game is tricky to place. It’s a visual novel alright but the gameplay… is it a puzzle game? Action game? Adventure game? I don’t really know.

I wish CapCom announced a sequel of this game since it’s a good game. Not only the story but the gameplay was rather interesting. I liked the idea very much and I wish the game was a bit longer.

Closing thoughts

Most visual novels are rather lengthy. I haven’t seen a visual novel you would be able to finish in a week. Actually, I have seen one as the exception on the rule. Time Hollow.

The most irritating thing is getting stuck in these games. Since you don’t have to grind or anything of that nature, getting stuck can get even the most veteran visual novel player to put down the game.

It’s quite clear that I’m not done talking about visual novels. I have some other things I want to mention but that will be for another article. I want to compare the visual novel genre with other genres. Or it might be an idea for a podcast.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this article. Thank you for reading and hopefully I can welcome you at another article. Take care.

Gamer’s Thoughts: Pokémon Rom Hacks

So, this month I’m not writing a special for the game music. So, I decided to write another special article. Since I did some research on the GBA rom hacks already, I decided that it’s maybe a great idea if I wrote an article about GBA Pokémon rom hacks. I promised it various times on Tumblr. But then some setbacks happened and I decided to delay the article. So, today it’s finally getting written. The first part of the possibly multiple parts where I take a look at Pokémon Rom Hacks.

Pokémon Light Platinum

So, when I was first preparing for this article I wanted to first write a full game review of a Pokémon rom hack. But since my save file of Pokémon Light Platinum kinda corrupted on me, my motivation for this article went out of the window.

Now, I do want to start over with this game. I remember that it was quite fun to play. This hack used the already existing Pokémon to it’s advantage by including new Pokémon. Well, not exactly new… I’m quite sure that the creators of the hack overwrote some Pokémon since the version I played had messed up Pokémon cries.

If you read about Pokémon rom hacks, this hack is one of the most popular ones. While I think some idea’s should make it to a real Pokémon game, honestly… I don’t think that would be a great idea. I’ll explain in my next paragraph why.

Can Nintendo learn from the hacks?

In a way, they can learn from the Pokémon rom hacks but they shouldn’t borrow ideas from them. It’s a strange thing to say, but hear me out out. A hack hasn’t always balanced gameplay, what mainstream Pokémon games generally have.

Honestly, I can’t really put my finger on it why, but my writer-gut-feeling is shouting NO while my gamer-gut-feeling is shouting YES. Things they could learn is that there are people working creative with the universe and maybe do some fan-service by putting in an easteregg in a main series game.

The sad thing is that most Pokémon rom hacks are never finished. They are always buggy. From strange graphical glitches to bad sounds. So, trying to get the actual ideas out of the games, polishing them up and putting them in a main series game would maybe cost too much time.

What I’m happy about is that Nintendo isn’t trying to stop this from happening. Think about it, it’s a good way to keep people hooked on the series. Honestly, I never played so much Pokémon games in my life since I started playing Pokémon rom hacks. But not all rom hacks are the same, in my opinion there are roughly 4 categories.

1. Crappy hacks

2. Visual hacks

3. Full hacks

4. Full hacks with visual hacks.

Maybe some of you guys figured out what the difference is between the 4 categories. Don’t worry if you haven’t done that already, I’ll explain in the next section of this article. You ready?

Categories of hacks

The first kind, the crappy hacks are hacks that aren’t challenging or fun to play. Hacks where they change the starter Pokémon to a legendary one so that you blast through the whole game, that takes the experience out of the game. Crappy hacks, those are the ones you need to avoid.

The 2nd kind are visual hacks. While I haven’t seen many for the gameboy advance, I found a lot for the old 1st and 2nd gen games. Hacks where all the human sprites are changed with Pokémon sprites. Those can be okay, but I get bored of them.

The 3rd kind are the best in my opinion. Ones where they made a new world to explore but didn’t change may Pokémon around. If they added existing Pokémon, the game still falls into this category.

The 4th kind is such a balancing act. Hacks with new worlds that add made-up Pokémon. I have played a Pokémon hack that added anime characters instead of Pokémon. It was fun, but then the references started and I was completely lost.

My thoughts on hacking a game

Let me be clear here. I’m not talking about hacking a game in order to cheat your way through. That’s something completely different and a subject for another article. Honestly, I think that hacking a game and making your own game is a great thing.

It helps to expand the lifetime of a game before it becomes boring in the fans their eyes. You get to play the adventures other people crafted in the universe.

But most of all, it boosts your skills when you make a hack yourself. You learn to program and fix bugs. You learn to manage a project, which isn’t always easy.

But there is also a negative side to this trend. It opens the world of emulation to people who weren’t aware that it existed. It can also be used to make fun of Pokémon and many other things.

What makes a good hack?

I have played many hacks before I started writing this article. I have come up with some rules that make a good Pokémon hack in my eyes. First of all, you need to have good basic English. If there are typo’s or grammar mistakes, that isn’t so bad… But I when you play hacks with broken English, the immersion and progress comes to a halt.

Secondly, try to pay attention your game design. What I mean here is that you make a game that’s playable and fun. Not one where you need to search for a walkthrough online each and every town. Balance your game and have some variation in your game. Some people play Pokémon hacks to play something different, yet similar to the Pokémon games. Don’t go overboard with the legendary Pokémon either.

Something that adds value is that when you add your own HM’s or TM’s, that they can be used in more then just one cave. Otherwise I feel that they are a missed oppertunity.

Anyways, I think I have talked enough about this subject for now. While I know that this an abrupt ending, but I want to do even more research before I come back to this subject. I hope you enjoyed reading this article. Feel free to talk about my thoughts in the comments, I will reply to every one. Also, don’t ask me how to get any Pokémon hacks, that is something you will have to Google. Since there is one part in playing Pokémon hacks that’s illegal, which is downloading a rom. Yeah.

Anyways, thanks for reading and hopefully until another article.

Review: 999: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors (DS) ~ Zero Escape

999 Wikipedia entry

How can I forget to write a review about this game? I have reviewed the sequel, Virtue’s Last Reward quite some time ago. I might have talked about this game here and there, and I might even have selected a track or two for my favorite music tracks every in games. But, I never wrote a full review on it. Let me fix that. The reason why the title says “Zero Escape” is because this game is the first game in the Zero Escape series. I’m truly crossing my fingers that there will be a third entry into it. I remember that they are actually working on it. So, to support this series and to celebrate this month’s theme: (3)DS games, let’s take a look at the game that started this series. And feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on this article and or your opinion on this game. Warning, this game is a visual novel puzzle-adventure game. Because of the game being very plot-driven, I have posted screenshots and wrote this article with avoiding spoilers as much as I could.

Numbers

gfs_174053_2_60 The story in this game is simply the best part in this game. I already said in the introduction, that this game is very story driven. So, I will only give you a brief introduction. You play as Junpei, who is kidnapped and trapped in a room. As soon as you wake up, you have to solve a puzzle to escape your room. When you run into the main hall, you discover that you are trapped with 8 other people. You are able to be part of the Nonary game. And if you break the rules of this game, you will die or rather, explode. Oh, and don’t forget, the actual mastermind behind all of this is one of the group.

If you read the intro, you might have a lot of questions. But do yourself a favor and don’t look up more of the story than what I just told you. The story is really tense, memorable and a blast to read through. The best part is that this game is replayable. Since you will need to make crucial decisions that will change the ending of the game.

When you have a certain ending, it’s quite possible that you get some sort of cryptic bonus video. But, here is a small tip. That video is more than just a bonus video. Analyze it well, and you will understand what I mean.

What can I say about the story without spoiling it? I already said that it was very thrilling and a blast to read through. The characters are really memorable and there will be some you will start to love and others you will start to hate. The most fun thing in this game is trying to discover who Zero is. Since you have to play through this game multiple times, you will have more information than Junpei, but I have to admit, that I was off when the actual conclusion came around.

The game in a game.

So, the gameplay. This is how escape games on Android should be. In each room, you will be presented with a puzzle. In this puzzle, you will be challenged to escape the room. Even when you played through this game several times, it’s quite possible that you can get stuck on a puzzle you solved earlier. Because there might always be that one item you look over each and every time.

I had a lot of fun playing through this game when it was released and I had a lot of fun playing through this game when I was replaying it for you guys. The puzzles keep being challenging. They are one of the best puzzles I have seen in a visual novel game in quite a while.

The major issue, that was thankfully fixed in the sequel, is that when you want to try and go for another ending. Then you have to replay the whole game. The story tree of the sequel is an amazing help. Since it’s a bit confusing because some routes end up at the same ending.

I do recommend playing through this game to unlock all endings. Even when you have seen the true ending. I have heard people reaching the true ending on their 2nd or 3rd try. I have my doubts that’s possible, but I think I’m wrong on that. Thankfully, there is a handy way to keep track of which endings you have already seen in the game on your save file. That’s a handy feature.

Perfect?

Yes, this game comes so close to be a perfect game on DS. I already talked about how the game has some issues when playing through for each playthrough beyond the 2nd.

The final puzzle of the true ending is very anti-climatic. I won’t spoil what it is, but the build up of this puzzle is just lame. If you see it, you will totally get what I mean. I actually facepalmed when I saw it.

What shows that this game is nearly perfect is the music. I totally love the soundtrack of this game. It’s really tense, and it builds the right atmosphere. When I hear it today, I get the chills. The memories of what happened in the game. Man, it’s nice. If the music of a game can be that strong.

The game can be a chore for people who don’t like to read long dialogue parts. If you are somebody who skips cutscenes or goes to the bathroom while a dialogue happens, this game might not be for you.

Also, when math isn’t your strong point, you might want to use the calculator that’s build into the game often. Since various puzzles require solving a math problem.

Anyway, I have said everything I wanted about this game. Let’s get on with the conclusion.

Conclusion

The bad:

– Replaying through the whole game just to get the other endings. Thankfully, the newer ports have a tree like in the sequels.

– The final puzzle is very anti-climatic.

– The voice acting in the sequel just builds the atmosphere that much more. This is only a negative in the DS version, since all newer ports of this game have voice acting.

The good:

+ Memorable soundtrack.

+ Epic story.

+ Fun gameplay.

+ They made a visual novel replayable!

+ Memorable characters.

+ ….

Final thoughts:

Since I listen typically to the soundtrack of this game and I look forward to more news on the Zero Escape series, I think it’s well deserved that this game gets the highest score. Since all the flaws are crushed by the positives elements of this game! You owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of this game and give it a try. Any good game shop now-a-days has warranty on their products so if you don’t like it, you can give it back.

The story, the music, the setting, the puzzles and the design. These things just all fit together to make an excellent visual novel experience worth every penny.

I can understand that people find the game repetitive in some areas or that the game is too full of talking, but I honestly think that the game is one of the best games ever made on the Nintendo DS.

And with that said, I want to thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 100/100

Review: Time Hollow (DS) ~ DAT Themesong.

Time_Hollow Wikipedia entry

Alright, in order to celebrate some milestones, it’s time to review a game that’s very special to me. I begged Konami to make a sequel of this game. But why? Is this game really so good that it deserves a sequel or am I just being hopeful because I love this game? Before writing this review I replayed the whole game. Just to be sure I wasn’t going to forget anything when I would review this game. I have beaten this game 3 times. I might have beaten it more than 3 times, I honestly don’t remember. This game is extremely memorable to me because I can relate with the main character. Not only that, the soundtrack just helps me write. And the main theme, yes, the main theme. I selected that once in an article about my favorite music tracks in games. So, I don’t have to explain myself there. So, before we continue, this game is a visual novel and adventure game. Like Ace Attorney or Professor Layton. So, because of that, this game falls into my favorite game genre ever. Because this game’s strongest point is the story, I decided to not have any spoilers here! YAY! Anyways, let’s get to reviewing this game. As always, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on this article and or your opinion on the game.

I open my eyes, to another day.

In this game, you play as Ethan. His birthday is the next day. After you meet his family and the basic characters are set, the story flips the tables on you and takes you on quite a ride. Yes, his parents go missing. They aren’t kidnapped. Since Ethan had a nightmare. In that nightmare, he saw his parents fleeing a burning building through a portal.

That’s all I’ll tell you about the story. Apart from my views about it, of course. So, the story is amazingly written. The build up to the final part is thrilling. The story has several chapters. As the title suggests, you will have to mess with the time and past events. I’m just blown away by how the problems you have to solve can build up to the actual villain of the game.

But here we hit one of the biggest weak points of the game. The game is short. Not as short as Lili’s: Child Of Geos, but I was able to beat this game in a week. Maybe my experience with adventure games helped me, but still, comparing it to other adventure games on the Nintendo DS, this one is too short.

At the other hand, this isn’t such a bad point. The story doesn’t get messy with too many events which makes the story really memorable. The writers truly focused on the personality of the characters. You see them grow and change with each change you make. In the end, you will start to hate certain characters and get attached to others. Mostly due to the brilliant writing. The story never feels; how to say this? Made longer on purpose, so you have a longer game to play. It truly benefits the game since you get to know the location better!

Taking back what was mine.

Also, CAPCOM, take notes please. In this game they nailed the voice acting perfectly. They didn’t use voice acting outside the cutscenes. While using it outside the cutscenes was rather interesting, you can create awkward breaks in it. While there aren’t many cutscenes in this game, they did place them nicely. After solving a big problem, being rewarded with a cutscene is such a sweet feeling.

Sound design wise, they did an amazing job. The sound effects make the game feel truly alive. While I would have used a bit more sound effects if I made the game, I have nothing bad to say about them. Even the voice acting is way better compared to another Konami title I really love as well, Suikoden Tierkreis.

So, the gameplay of this game. Well, it’s pretty fascinating. You are presented with an issue. It’s up to you to solve it using Ethan’s special powers. It has something to do with time. Yet, you still want to find out what happened to your parents. The game requires you going to certain places and talking to people.

It doesn’t sound like much, yet it’s strangely addicting. Mostly because the story is really well-made, I wanted to continue to play!

In the end

3196a

The difficulty in this game lies into if you are familiar with the style of gameplay or not. Like I said earlier, this game is rather at the short side for veteran adventure gamers. At the other hand, I do expect new players to the genre getting stuck at certain parts. To avoid that you get frustrated, there is a character that’s “training her psychic abilities”. She is basically giving you a clue what to do next or where to go next.

Visually, this game really shines. On this front, I honestly do disagree with the other reviewers. I have seen review where they give this game only a 5 or 6 on the visual aspect. And I don’t think that’s enough. Because most of this game is told through its presentation. This game is more like an interactive book. There isn’t a lot of animation to talk about, apart from the flashbacks and cutscenes. I honestly loved revisiting certain places just because of the visual polish this game got.

So, before we go to my conclusion, I do think I have to speak my mind about the replay value. This game has a small bit of replay value. Because there are two different endings. You can only unlock the 2nd ending once you finished the game. Also, the 2nd ending is more for… Whoops, I nearly spoiled a part of the game.

Yeah, because of the genre of this game, there isn’t any replay value besides the second ending. The only time you might replay it, is when you want to review it or just feel like replaying this game.

So, time to move on to the conclusion!

Conclusion

The bad:

– Way too short.

– Failed to bring innovation to the genre, where there was potential.

The good:

+ Amazing story.

+ Unique gameplay.

+ Amazing soundtrack

+ …

Final thoughts:

The biggest setback of this game is that it is short. Way to short. Because of that, I see how a lot of people won’t really get into this game. Honestly, playing through the game for a couple of times, I wasn’t able to find any other negative besides just the length of the game.

I honestly get the feeling that this game is polished to perfection instead of made longer. I might just be blinded a bit because of my love for this game. Who knows? I invite you to play this game and tell me what you think. If you liked games like Ace Attorney or Trace Memory on the DS, it would be a shame if you missed out on this one!

Score: 75/100

First Impression: Ace Attorney Miles Edgeworth Investigations 2 (DS) * Fan Translation * ~ Finally Finished!

Wikipedia entry

Before I begin, I could link you to the translation patch. But that would involve piracy. While this is the ONLY way to play this game in English, I still don’t want to get my blog into trouble by providing you with links to the patch. For that reason, you will have to look up the patch yourself. You can find it quite easily and the instructions are pretty solid so if you never patched a game before with a translation patch, you won’t be lost! Anyways, I have waited for a long time with writing this article. That’s because the translation has only recently been finished. So, let’s take a look at the game. (All the screenshots are of the translation and the first case.) Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and or my article.

Why no English release?

ss (2014-07-28 at 08.21.49)

The reason why this game didn’t saw an English release is because the first game didn’t bring enough profit. The first game was pirated too much. Now, we can debate this move. But in the long run, the pirates win here. In order to play the game you either have to learn to read Japanese OR play a rom translated to English.

Now, the patch that’s floating around on the internet is amazingly crafted. It’s more then just a patch to change the text. They went to the length of changing the art and even the sound into English. Now that’s dedication.

I have tested some beta versions of this patch and I have seen the patch progress and evolve. It’s very clear that they handled this with the uttermost care. It’s very clear that they wanted to release a patch without any bugs or mistakes. Seriously guys, my hat goes off to you. My Indy hat!

The story of this game is really interesting. We get a better look at who Miles actually is. That’s something I really missed in the first game. In the first game you only saw Miles in all his glory. Now you can see him from different angles. How he reacts to people from his past.

Because this is an Ace Attorney game, you can bet your law court that this is an amazing game in terms of story. It’s a visual novel adventure after all. The translation brought this game really to life. That’s what I love about the handheld communities, when they team up to help the devs to get their game out.

Now, if this is really helping out the devs in a positive way, that’s a subject for a whole other debate. So, let’s look at the game now. How much fun is this game to play? Was it worth translating? Let’s take a look!

Playing chess

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I was blown away by the new chess mechanic in this game. At first I was afraid that this would ruin the game. But it turns out very good. I only finished the first case and I’m halfway through the 2nd one. (I assume) and the mechanic really makes you feel like Egdeworth.

The mechanic is used when you want information out of somebody. And comparing it with chess is an amazing translation in the game. The clues and arguments you find in what the person says can indeed be used to corner him (or her) and get the information you need out of that person.

What I truly like about this mechanic is that it’s timed. This way the questioning doesn’t loose it’s feel of being just that. Don’t worry about running out of time since you get some time back if you break one barrier.

The rest of the gameplay is exactly the same as in the original. You can walk around one area to find clues or progress the story. The logic mechanic makes a great return as well. The game isn’t a boring game to play. I dare to call this game an example to other visual novels. The game has an amazing balance between gameplay and story.

One issue is still present. It’s a problem I have with the whole series. At some moments, you can possibly show more then one piece of evidence. But the game is programmed that only one piece of evidence is the correct piece. While this doesn’t happen very often, I don’t think this is a major issue.

Perfect game?

As a big Nintendo DS fan, I dare to say that this game is one of the best visual novel games that the system has to offer. But it’s not perfect. I have said earlier that this game sets a great example for other visual novel games.

But the game has some minor issues with the controls. The start button won’t always give you the ability to save. Now, that’s an irritant issue. It might possibly get fixed by the translation team but I doubt it myself.

After I have played two Ace Attorney games on the 3DS, I agree with the claims that the 2D games like a bit plain. But, it would be cheap to call this game ugly based on that. Actually this game isn’t ugly at all.

Graphically, this game is pretty well done. I have to admit that some of my favorite character designs of the series are in this very title. In addition with that, the animation is truly top notch! As we are used from Capcom.

And of course, I have to talk about the music. The music of this series is one of my favorite game music of all time. And in this game we find old and new tracks. They are a real joy to listen to and give that extra to the game which makes it even more fun.

Anyways, I think I’ll leave it here for this first impression. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as I enjoyed writing it. I will write a review of this game as soon as I beat beat, you guys may be sure of that. But for now, I hope to see you guys in another article!

Gamers Thoughts: The sense and nonsense of game genres

In theory I would have this topic for a podcast. Yet, when I suggested this to Dark_Legend and Q, they told me to first write an article about it. So, this is the article that were serve as the base for the podcast. Also, this will be the last gamer’s thoughts for a short while. Since I want to avoid that one category of articles gets too many new posts in a short while. It’s just to have a bit more variaty in what I write. So, I started to write an article about this and that one got deleted. Because I thought it would be better for a podcast. Now, there will be big differences with my original thoughts and this article. Since in the time between the original writing and the podcast idea, I did a bit more research on this subject. So, hopefully I won’t be “shot down” for mistakes. As usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on this subject and or this article. It might possibly be a part of the podcast. Who knows?

RPG games are the thriller movies.

So, in the past I wrote an article about RPG’s. It was an answer to Ryu’s article about what makes a good RPG. Now, how does that article relate to the question of today? Well, what if you ask yourself, what makes a game a RPG game?

The most obvious answer is a game where you play a role of a character. You level up and you see the character develop in a story. So, at this point, can’t you already guess where I’m going with the title of the article?

Before I started this blog, I wrote a Dutch blog about myself and the games I played. On there, I wrote one article where I tried to prove that the Legend Of Zelda series is a RPG. Now, I have enough reasons why I think that it’s very possible.

While you think about it, I think you can put the pieces together yourself why the series can be a RPG. Now, is it a RPG? Quite clearly, no. The series has big influences of the RPG genre, but that doesn’t make it a RPG.

While I was talking to Q to make this a podcast subject, he said something very true. “The rules are just too vague.” That’s what he said. I wrote it down with my notes. RPG games are the thriller movies. Almost every game has RPG elements. Could RPG just be a too wide term?

Action Adventure games or Point-and-Click?

Now, question time. Name me one adventure game that isn’t an action game as well. Simple! Freddi Fish, Myst, Broken Sword 1 & 2… Okay, that was easy wasn’t it? Now, name me one adventure game that isn’t an action game OR a point-and-click game.

Now, I do believe there are those rare games out there that fit my description, but it got just a whole lot tougher to answer the question.

Some genres are almost combined every time. I can’t think of any single genre that has only one genre. Before anyone makes a comment about casual games, let me prove you that it would be wrong. Take Tetris for example. That’s a popular casual game. But it’s also a puzzle game. Or Minecraft, it’s a casual game as well… Nope, it’s a sandbox game too.

Clones with a twist!

Clonetroopers_all_colors Now, let’s take Bejeweled as an example. This game is a casual, match3 puzzle game. At it’s core, Candy Crush is the same game. The only big difference is that there are more styles of gameplay. Did you even know that one of the first Match3 games was called SameGame? Here is the WikiPedia entry.

In a way, each genre has it’s “example” game. If I ask to name a shooter, it would be safe to say that most of you reply with something among the lines of Call Of Duty. Honestly, I think it isn’t safe to say. Since in the shooter genre, you have a flood of amazing titles that have a big fanbase. To name just a few: Doom, Wolvenstein, Killzone, Medal Of Honor, Gears Of War…

In every genre you have an “example game”. From that game, developers make some unique changes to the formula and try to make a game. It might be a bold statement, but I think there is some truth in it. Some games, mostly the mediocre ones, are called something among the lines of “just another shooter” or “clone of game X”.

Once in a while, you have these games where you can’t really put a genre on. I think of “Gone Home” and “the Stanley Parable”. These games are more experiences then games? Or am I wrong here?

We need more genres?

If somebody tries to make a list of very game genre that exists, I think you would still be able to prove that person wrong. Since we could find a new genre every day. Even in the list that WikiPedia gives you, I can name a few genres that aren’t included. Take a look for yourself. Props to the original writer to add the visual novels. Since that’s a highly underrated genre.

Let’s take a look together. Now, I miss games like genres like: Tower Defense, Turn Based Strategy… To just name the ones that directly pop into my head.

And here I found a more complete list. You would think that it’s complete. Allow me please to prove you wrong once more. They didn’t include: visual novel, sandbox, dungeon crawlers and MMORPG’s. But it’s an interesting site to take a look at.

That site lists a decent description of the genres and a list of games that are part of that genre. Now, take a moment and look at the amount of genres we have. Also, take into a count that the list is incomplete. Isn’t this silly? We don’t have many “main” genres, but if you look to the sub-genres; it’s an overflow!

Closing words

So, I think I’ll close this article off here. I think that a podcast would really be quite nice to talk about this subject. While I honestly do think that genres make sense, I have proven that there is a lost of nonsense with it as well.

Feel free to follow me on my social networks. That way you will be kept up-to-date with my latest articles and such. Also, you will be notified when we publish the podcast.

Anyways, thanks for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I did writing it. I’m really looking forward to the actual podcast! Also, I hope to see you at one of my next articles!

Review: Corpse Party – Book Of Shadows (PSP) ~ This Isn’t Right…

Corpse-Party-BOS-Box-art

Official website – First impressions

Am I safe here? This darn school man. It’s haunting me. I’m trying to relax on my hiatus and getting my real life work done, but this school is stopping me from progressing in my goal. I simply don’t understand. Furthermore, I have to fight this. The creepy ghost children aren’t helping. Wait, wait, wait… Haven’t I seen this before? Like some first impression I have written a some time ago. About Corpse Party – Book Of Shadows: First Impression. Nah, that can’t be. This must be an unlucky coincidence. Otherwise, I could simply say that people could leave a comment with their opinion on the game and or this article. Hah! That would make life a lot easier. But no, I have to be trapped down here in this school. Again. Maybe my fate is different. Since I haven’t found the secrets. (Read, I haven’t played the secret episode. But I have finished the rest of the game.) So, I’m going to try to make a fair attempt here. Deep breaths. Avoiding spoilers and here we go!

Story

Now I’m quite sure I have … seen this before. This has an amazing story. Plot twists around every corner. This game actually got me off guard a few times and made me actually feel somewhat scared. And scared, as in it crawled under my skin.

It’s for sure better than the original. I feel that it has more depth and more interesting use of character. As if it were a sort of expansion pack for the original. You explore this hell forsaken school once more with different characters and their backstory gets more fleshed out. But where I truly applaud the creators here, is how one chapter actually took place outside this Heavenly Host Elementary.

One remark has to be made though, some story parts are way too long. It asked nearly one full hour from me before I could start playing. While I adore long stories, this game could have dosed it a ton better. But with a healthy dose of humor, horror, heartwarming and thrilling parts… It’s forgiven.

The fact that you see unanswered questions get answered and how the characters are used to their full potential is just mind-blowing to see. I said it before, and I’ll say it again. This here, it nailed the story perfectly. I have barely any remarks to the story. And even if you have experienced the previous installment… This will have some quite unexpected turns.

Wait, what was that?

Son of a gun! I’m quite sure I heard something. Maybe it was one of the amazing music tracks from the amazing soundtrack. Too bad that some of them are quite short.

Or might it be one of the voices? Like the stunning voice acting some have. Which brings incredible atmosphere to the table. What am I talking about? Reviewing voices? Am I going insane?

But those sounds, they are crisp and clear. Yes, they make me feel extremely scared. I’m afraid to move. It’s almost like the sounds got me extremely drawn into the game…

Damn, I saw a ghost.

Potentially I’m seeing things. Possibly I’m not trapped in this school! Perhaps I’m too drawn into this game. That might be it. It was such an unbelievable entry into the series.

And the visuals in this game blew me truly off my socks. Creepy hallways and “nicely” decorated classrooms. Every place was nicely designed.

None of the places felt unfinished. Every location had such attention to detail and some had some neat additional dialogue.

The cutscenes, are underused. The game has only a nice cutscene at the start where there are a lot of images used. Here is the hard part, I barely can’t say anything about the animation of this game. Unless you take one new element into a count. The “corruption” level shall we say to avoid spoilers.

The more wrong moves you do, the longer you do to escape (a dangerous situation), the more red your screen becomes. It’s almost like you see a wave of blood passing in front of your face. And that is an amazing touch.

Gameplay

I think I’m safe. Thankfully. I knew that writing this article would have helped me. Now I’m sure that I’m a big fan of the Corpse Party series. And I waited on purpose with this article to give this game a special number.

And the gameplay of this entry didn’t disappoint one bit. Where you have a big limitation how you can move, you can explore every single bit of the school. Thanks to the new investigation system. It was truly such a nice thing to see.

There were also many tweaks to the game. Like the ability to replay voice acting! Yes, when you’re inside the menu, you can let the characters say their lines again in the “history” menu.

In addition to that, the amount of save slots. My lords, are there a lot of save slots. Maybe a bit too much, but I’m not complaining that much since you will need it. With the addition I mentioned earlier, you will need to save on certain locations since a screw-up can be easily made.

The game can be a bit hard, but exploring each and every room to make sure you haven’t missed anything is a great way to progress. Another helpful tip I give is, explore the previous game also extremely well. If you do that, there will be additional content waiting for you in this game.

The length of this game is just mind-blowing. I’m not going to lie that I was able to play this game for nearly a month. Admitted, I played various other stuff in that month in order to write some interesting articles for my blog. But to have it completed just recently, is just a great sign.

Where I have to applaud the developers here is the fascinating addition of the bonus content. There are no extra chapters this time around, apart from one, when you have seen ALL the endings; including the wrong ones. You can listen to all in game music, with a sort of clunky player, and you can hear some behind the scenes’ commentary from the voice actors.

And with that, I’m going to leave it here for this article. While I realize that I have been vague on certain parts, I encourage you guys to play this game to find out how big of a masterpiece this game truly is!

Conclusion

The bad:

– Sometimes story parts are a bit too long.

– Some music tracks should have been a bit longer.

The good:

+ Amazing story.

+ Epic audio work in both the music and sound parts that will really draw you in.

+ An amazing game with stellar visuals.

+ Great voice acting.

+ Nice bonus content.

+ Challenging.

+ ….

Final words:

This game truly held me in its grip. I can’t wait to replay the original Corpse Party in order to unlock everything in this gem. While I tried something different to present this 20th review of mine, I had a tough time reviewing this one. This game was perfect in my eyes and I could only nitpick.

I truly cross my fingers that XSeed games ships more of these developers overseas since they are truly worth the time and money. Since these two games were spot on classics for me. It even got me into watching anime and reading manga again. Something I stopped doing because of games.

This game series is one of my favorites. It deserves a spot on “my most influencing games of my lifetime” list. And pretty high on this list!

Anyway, it’s how I said before my conclusion, play it for yourself, and you will understand that this game is made with the gamers in mind. This adventure is one that will grab you and don’t let you loose until the end!

Score: 99/100

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	NekoJonez on Creative burnout and chan…
	NekoJonez on Creative burnout and chan…
	Atag on Creative burnout and chan…
	TWOTALL4UFOOL on Creative burnout and chan…
	WCRobinson on Creative burnout and chan…

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