Recent reviews by Konata

Removing gallery art, removing/censoring story mode art, removing voicelines AND an entire announcer voice pack, redesigning characters to censor them? A whole decade later? After you kicked the original devs out?

No thanks.

Nusakana is an entirely non-linear and pretty much open world RPG with an insanely good bossa nova-ish soundtrack, made completely with custom assets and with tons of content & replay value, all in an extremely ambitious RPG Maker project that looks nothing like you'd expect out of a RPG Maker game. In this game, our silent protagonist finds himself in the exotic island of Nusakana for a year long vacation, where he connects with the peculiar culture of its inhabitants, encounters all kinds of bizarre creatures and beings and discovers the mysteries of the island with the help of a load of different cute fish girls.

Gameplay: Nusakana can be very unforgiving and slow paced at first, at least on the classic difficulty (aka the "way the game is meant to be experienced" difficulty). The game is built almost completely around time management, and its importance is made very obvious at the very beginning of the game where you must decide on whether you want to explore the island (which is overwhelming enough at first and then becomes even larger once new time-gated areas open up), take part in time-consuming events scattered around or build up money to keep yourself supplied with items and stronger equipment (the weapon system where you have unique skills for the different weapon categories is really cool in particular) through hunting, fishing and gathering quests. The enemies in the harder but more rewarding hunting quests can be brutal, and as such, require preparation (you'll definitely want to find some partners as soon as possible) and also some consideration as you'll end up losing time and/or resources as you search for the right creature only to end up being vastly underpowered. The turn-based combat system is very quick and fun to go through, especially once you get two or three partners with all sorts of unique abilities, passive or active, to make combat even more varied. The animated portraits of your character and your primary party member during battles is a really nice touch too and makes them a bit more lively and fun to look at (just look at the way Kat sits on your head or Mica stands on your shoulders!). The protagonist doesn't start with any skills until relatively later on, and as such, combat isn't very engaging at the start especially due to the aforementioned difficulty. There's also a fishing mini-game that is integral for certain quests and events, but you can ignore it elsewhere if you don't find it fun, like me.

Eventually the time management becomes less harsh once you find optional skills for your partners that lets them control weather (allowing you to take on weather-specific events freely and with ease, unlike a certain quest early on involving a thunderstorm) and you won't need to take on hunting quests after amassing enough money, letting you enjoy a bit more freedom. About the time limit of one year of in-game time, you don't have to worry about it at all, as you have tons of time to relax and enjoy the game as much as you want. For reference, I finished the game with three or so months of in-game time after 70 hours of gameplay, and it will surely take you way more than that in multiple playthroughs to see all content and/or get all achievements.

Story/writing: Being a completely non-linear game, the story also follows the same kind of logic and is mostly left for the player to piece together except for the final stretch/climax. While it all seems simple at first, the stakes are significantly raised later on as the mysteries surrounding the island are uncovered and everything goes into a much deeper direction than you'd expect. Character-wise, the writing for the 19 or so potential party members (or more appropriately, friends) is spectacular. No matter how generic and archetypal they might seem initially, it's impossible to not like any of them once you get to know them better through their events or quests. Some of their interactions with the protagonist feel very personal too and after enough time spent together you can even pick your favorite girl to marry, each one with their unique epilogue scenes. The different characters all have optional events you can find where they interact with each other in all manners of ways, giving some extra depth to them.

Music: Combining jazz and bossa nova, the soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal and of extremely high quality, solidifying the tropical and exotic feel the game wants to convey.

Technicalities: There are some technical negatives to be found, some of them existing only thanks to the RPG Maker engine itself as far as I know. Summing them up: The game's native resolution is too low, forcing huge letterboxes on all sides in fullscreen; Similarly, screenshots taken are of very low quality and resolution and the game might crash when taking a screenshot in fullscreen; There are more typos than you'd expect and some weirdly flowing dialog at times (some of it is endearing though) but I feel like most of them got fixed throughout the years as past reviews make it seem like they were much worse. All in all, I'd say none of those issues are serious or *too* annoying, and it's worth sitting through them even if it takes some patience. I also want to point out that an issue that caused tons of lag in certain areas like the sea fishing zones seemingly got fixed since the last time I played, which is really nice.

In conclusion, Nusakana is a stellar experience and a true hidden gem that deserves love from anyone who enjoys unique (J)RPGs, interesting settings or cute girls in spades or any possible combination of those. Definitely get it, even if not on sale, as this game is absolutely worth your time and money. If you can get past the initial slow and harsh pace, this game will become an experience that will stick with you.

Cladun X2 is a criminally underrated game with an unfortunate amount of negative reviews for some reason or other, most being from a few years ago.

Gameplay: Perfect. Story dungeons are extremely fun, well designed and difficult without going overboard (I only had to grind once near the end*). The in-depth magic circle system allows for all kinds of play styles and builds, and the combat itself is simple, but very satisfying. As for the sprite editor, it's amazingly detailed, anyone without any knowledge of sprite art can draw cool stuff thanks to the base 8bit-ish character and weapon design. With some creativity you can even draw things well beyond the templates, too. *Personally, I recommend not playing the random dungeons if you want to experience the story levels as intended, because you can easily overlevel in a random dungeon, messing up the difficulty balance completely and potentially ruining some of the fun.

Story: Didn't really do anything for me, I couldn't care about the characters at all. Not a single one. But there's a story and it's serviceable enough.

Graphics: Perfect for this game. Except maybe for the armless hands and legless feet. Male characters have really strange feet placement compared to female ones, which look more... natural.

Music: A bit repetitive since there aren't many tunes, but they're all pretty good.

Technicalities: One of the biggest issues in the game (flickering in fullscreen) can be easily fixed by downloading and running a small software. The keyboard controls are hell to customize properly, but with some patience it can be done. The partial mouse support in menus is a godsend, especially in the sprite editor, which proves this isn't the hellspawn of PC ports many claim it to be.

This game is absolutely worth it at its current full price, and for 75% off, the current average sale price, its an absolute steal for any lite JRPG or hack and slash fan.

Mixing cute and funny little girls with surprisingly punishing combat, Fortune Summoners is definitely worthy of being considered a classic among PC action platformers.

The story begins with Arche, an absolute dork, leaving the town of Tonkiness her family just moved in to go on an action packed trip to the magical school of Minasa-Ratis a couple screens away. Soon enough, Arche (eventually joined by her friends as well) sets out on a journey to find herself an Elemental Stone, capable of bestowing magic upon her so she may finally be able to participate in class with her spell-casting friends.

The combat system bares its fangs the moment you leave town for the very first time, even if it's against mere slimes and snakes. Arche can perform various evasive and offensive moves with her sword, all done with differents combinations of directional inputs followed by the one main attack button, kinda like in fighting games. Enemies are smart and they will evade your attacks if you let them. Button mashing is not an option. Just like that, Arche is the hardest character to use but possibly the most rewarding, capable of juggling enemies and leaving them pinned with her ever increasing arsenal of moves.

The timid Sana joins shortly after, presenting the ally system and an entirely different playstyle. Sana is a water type spellcaster who focuses mostly in healing magic, but also gets several buffs and attacks as the game progresses, in addition to her non-MP consuming water bolts. However, MP replenishing items are very hard to come by until about halfway through the game, turning careful usage of spells into a necessity. From this point onwards the player may alternate between the two at will, leaving the very competent AI (except when it comes to fighting enemies on top of specific platforms in dungeons) controlling the other character. MP usage of the AI as Sana can be regulated, allowing you to let her cast spells rarely, moderately, whenever she's able to or never at all. Things get spicy when you let the AI handle Arche, who becomes a killing machine capable of handling enemies extremely well, as long as you're fine with healing duty. A bit later on in the game comes the boisterous Stella, a fire type spellcaster who specializes in devastating offensive magic. Much of the above applies to her too, and just as the party becomes even more lively with her, the difficulty stays just as relentless.

The biggest factor that makes going through dungeons harsh is the fact that you can only carry a limited number of items in your inventory, and about 1/4th of that is taken up by your equipment, making healing scarce. It gets even worse once poisonous enemies appear, driving anyone unprepared enough into a corner. Luckily, all dungeons offer not only a healing fountain which also saves your game but also Marks of Courage hidden somewhere in them, which also heal you completely. Grinding is not only futile but impossible as your max level cap is always limited and can only be raised by finding said Marks of Courage, encouraging exploration. Unfortunately, dungeons aren't very varied when it comes to visuals (the main ones being various tints of stone brick dungeon-y dungeons and caves, with a cool tower breaking the pattern later), but level design-wise they're very solid, with their many puzzles never being too complex. Not even the purposely labyrinthine last dungeon felt very confusing at all to fully explore.

The sprite art is fantastic, with the personality of each girl conveyed perfectly in how they move (like Sana sliding as if she just tripped and Stella constantly being aware of her dress while jumping and falling) and the towns feeling way bigger than they actually are, including fully decorated houses. The story is very good as well and provides tons of funny and equally adorable moments. Arche's reactions alone are hilarious and once Stella joins in and they start bouncing off each other constantly they become a full blown manzai duo. The ending does leave a very big something to be desired... but that's something for you to find out.

Get the FPS fix for W10 users in the guides section and prepare yourself for many game overs as you experience the joy of adventuring with little girls. Are you a bad enough dude to main Arche?