Recent reviews by PinhaT

Not sure if this review can say more than the near year and a half can say on it's on, but this is a dead game and not worth any money going forward until it sees some progress. The devs have been radio silent on the game for a long time and it seems as though they intentionally ignored this game and work on it to put all their attention towards Metal March, another game they were working on that they released from early access faster, which also doesn't currently have much going for it and isn't fully realized.

Nightfall Comes had a decent concept and with some work to combat and some QoL changes, it could have been a mostly playable game. But it's unfinished and I, personally, doubt it will ever know the meaning of being a finished product, and that seems to be a pattern for BlueTale from what I can see. Even the discussions page for this game is a ghost town. That's the true sign of death for any game: no support/promotion from it's creators and no one playing or talking about it.

Pass and use that 10 bucks on a burger combo at a fast food spot. You're really not missing much here.

EDIT 9/11/2024: So the game just got released from early access a day ago (after being dead for years) with no fanfare or announcement of it's end in EA and what that means, or anything of note being added to it. Hooray... I decided to play it for a bit to see if anything other than than the small number of (questionable) balance changes in the patch notes were addressed or added (spoilers, there wasn't). All of my previous criticisms about the game still stand:

1. Dodging with almost every class is redundant as dodging in not damage immune (why is this even called dodge then?) and it stops on solid objects, which includes enemies. So if you dodge in the direction of an enemy, you will be stopped in front of them. Dodge while surrounded by enemies? well good luck on not eating any damage.

2. Skills still use both time and a resource (now in the form of a stamina points bar than mana) which is literally like changing the paint on a car that's rusted to the core; the paint job is not the problem, the car itself is. You still have timers for all the character's skills, but most of these skills require 1-3 stamina to perform. So even if the timer is up and the skill is "ready" you won't be able to use it if you're out of stamina, which dodging and other skills take. If players have to choose between trying not to get hit and actually being able to defend themselves, then you've failed at a fundamental level in defining action for your game.

Considering that most enemy mobs barely react to the player's attacks (if at all) and just power through them, fighting enemies just devolves into getting as many hit as you can, dodging a couple times to avoid being in the way of any attacks (because again, DODGING DOES NOT MAKE THE PLAYER INVULNERABLE), and then running around for 6-10 seconds waiting for any other option that isn't just running at the enemy with nothing up. This alone makes combat, the core aspect of this game, a chore. And the fact that it's still here implies that BlueTale either don't care or incompetent.

3. I forgot to mention the "Fear" mechanic of the game in my review last time but the mechanic is as follows: Getting hit adds to a "Fear" meter which ,when built up fully, gives the character a random debuff which can only be cured by healing a certain amount of hp. The debuffs can vary from lessening your overall damage output to negatively impacting your cooldown reduction, etc. This mechanic, in and of itself, is not a problem, but the implementation of it is. The debuffs are usually pretty hefty and the amount of hp you have to regain (by drinking hp potions, picking up hp regen drops, healing skills, etc.) wouldn't be a problem if hp regen wasn't so scarce. You get 1-2 hp potions at the start of a run and only really get more from the knight's shop if you find him in a run or by defeating the bosses found at the end of each area. But your most consistent form of regen doesn't heal for much (pickups that heal 1 point of hp per second for 6 seconds) and only 1 character has healing built into his potential skills (the vampire).

So getting hit can snowball into something absurd like getting the cooldown of all your active skills increased by 60%, making things that already take 6-10 seconds (+ stamina) to take 10-16 seconds (+stamina). And the amount of HP you need to regen for the debuff to be removed goes up each time you get the fear meter full, and what debuffs you could get (and when) are random. SO, getting "feared" just ONCE could get you the above mentioned effect or worse until you heal roughly 600 hp, which is already alot, but the next time it could be 800, 900, 11000HP+. Mind you, the characters all have a base hp of around 200-230; that means you'd have to heal almost 4-6 times your hp just to get a debuff removed. A debuff that can be easily gained by getting hit, which you most certainly will, especially with the untested hitboxes of some enemies who can swipe air from 6 feet away and still hit you like the purple phantom enemies.

4. Did I mention that the only only combat-significant changes the devs have made is nerfing all characters damage across the board? NO? Well, yeah; there's that too. In this game that has been dead for over a year and a half, one of the first thing they came back to do was make the player weaker, as if they weren't already gimped before. I beat a handful of runs simply by running around in circles and kiting enemies so I can hit them all with big AoE moves and then wait to do it again because the game is actively punishing the player for even trying to play it. The game effectively encourages you to spam 1-2 skills in quick succession (because that's all you have enough stamina for and the stamina "bar" does not increase) and then just run around until you can do it again. Rinse and repeat. It's boring and tedious. In fact, it's straight up anti-player.

Conclusion: I could go on about the unrewarding crafting system/upgrades, or how the (new?) dialogue line added to the game seem like text-to-speech put in at the last minute (some of the lines aren't even what the word bubbles say), or that BlueTale (again, for emphasis) HAVE ABRUPTLY "RELEASED" THEIR GAME FROM EARLY ACCESS AS A "FINISHED" PRODUCT WITH ALMOST NOTHING CHANGED AND NOTHING NEW ADDED TO IT SINCE I WROTE MY ORIGINAL REVIEW OVER A YEAR AGO (other than a stamina bar), but I'll just end this saying what I said the first time with a bit more potency:

There is absolutely nothing, NOTHING of note to see here. Follow in BlueTale's example and spend your money, your time, and your efforts elsewhere.

I really wanted to like this game. I REALLY did. But it slowly eroded my sanity the longer I played it and tried to comprehend the baffling conjunction of choices that made it what it currently is.

Make no mistake, InDemon Tales has a really good story and the characters are well-written and make the story enjoyable. But sadly there's a really tedious game in the way of those things. I'll explain but there's so much to go over that I'll have to continue the review int he comments to fit it all.

First, I want to re-emphasize that the writing here is great. Your character is silent so the other characters have to carry the show but the game does a really good job of giving everyone their own personality and quirks. Not once was I bored by the banter of characters or the intriguing parallel story of espionage in the enemy ranks. Every interaction made me feel something and kept me engaged with the story and had me laughing and rooting for the crew, even the enemy at time. I even got a little emotional by the final act. As frustrated as I was by the end, I truly felt like I grew connected to the characters and the adventure they embarked upon.

Unfortunately, this is a GAME. Unlike a book or even a cartoon, the player is not passive and the medium requires their participation; the gameplay, above all else, HAS to be worth it, and PLAYING InDemon Tales is a practice in tedium and redundancy. I honestly had to have an internal debate on where to begin with the gameplay issues, as they're not so linear that you could just go from addressing one to another without crossing into several other issues on the way, but I'll start with something basic as an outline: Progression.

Particularly, the progression of stats in this game are nigh worthless. Leveling up grants a character 2 SP and 1 TP. SP is used to upgrade HP or MP values, and the ratio is 1=1, so 1 SP to HP means +1 to your total HP. Pretty straightforward. TP, on the other hand, is used to unlock skills in 3 skill separate trees. Most skills are just stat dumps (something like +4 to movement) but a handful of skills are tangible things like being able to use lockpicks to open chests instead of using keys or gaining the ability to dash. The problem with TP is that that you only get 1 per level and since later skills in the tree require the previous skill to be unlocked, unlocking the ability to dash (which is a skill that requires you to unlock 2 skills before it) isn't as simple to obtain. You could unlock the first skill in the tree, +1 Spirit for 1 TP (1 TP = 1 Level), but the next skill costs 2 TP (2 more levels), before you get the dash which would require 3 TP (3 more levels) for a total of 6 levels for that one ability. Obviously, most people wouldn't really be too focused on this, especially since the game does nothing to highlight it. They would more than likely be dumping points into various skills, rather than following a single tree, but eventually, the player would realize that they would need to grind out levels just to get the ability to dodge attacks. Which takes up mana, which doesn't regen very well, so dodging overall becomes almost redundant because you'd run out of mana early on trying to dodge more than 4 times.

Those other stat boost skills that you got also don't matter much. They KINDA do, but the game isn't as upfront with them as it is with your HP & MP. For example, "Power" is not a direct stat. Damage is INFLUENCED by power, yes, but the game doesn't tell you this, nor does it tell you how much power contributes to your overall damage. The same goes for all the other stats like spirits for the damage of spells, or mining power for your pickaxe's "damage" to blocks. Even worse, the increment in which these things add to the real stat that you can't see is so minuscule that it barely affects you. You could grind several levels in order to gain enough TP to unlock a 4 TP skill that gives you +4 power, but that really only gives you a small fraction of actual damage on top of the damage you were already doing before. Weapons have their own base damage amount, but again, you have absolutely ZERO idea how much your power contributes to that. The choice between a sword that has 10 damage + 2 poison damage (x5) and a sword that has 25 damage becomes almost irrelevant.

This is exacerbated with mining power; higher mining power effects how many times you'll have to hit a block before it breaks. But because the increase is technically a percentage, increasing mining power does not automatically translate to less hits. It could take you the 4 hits to break an iron block with 7 mining power, but also takes 4 hits with 10 mining power, and that extra +3 does not come cheap. This means that it's practically worthless to get a new pickaxe unless the increase in power is so dramatic that the difference in performance is immediately noticeable, and ooohhh, I'll get to the progression of gear right after this, don't you worry.

Everything I've said about power carries over into spirit so there's really no need to re-iterate it. Overall, since minor additional stats don't present an easily identifiable change with each increase, it feels like you're wasting time by grinding leveling for skills. And you WILL be grinding in this game. And you can't respec skills until a bit further into the game where there's a merchant that sells respec tomes for 400 gold, which is a high asking prices considering the rate you gain gold in this game. But when you DO buy those respecs (trust me, you will), you're guaranteed to be only putting those points towards tangible changes like the dash ability or permanent lifesteal (of which there are only 2 skills for in the offensive skill tree but can be found on some gear).

I said the next thing I'd talk about was the gear progression and, ohoho boy, the gear progression. You unlock newer gear (armors, weapons, pickaxes, etc.) as you progress through dungeons. Newer dungeons usually have higher level enemy mobs and higher quality materials (like going from mining copper to mining iron). On the surface, this is pretty standard progression. There's just one problem: by the time you progress to the next dungeon int he story, the gear you're currently working towards becomes OBSOLETE. You may be thinking, "What do you mean, PinhaT?" I mean, you could be at a point where the highest tier of gear available to you requires platinum ore. Platinum is above iron, and all the dungeons you're able to currently access generally have copper (which is below iron) and SOME iron. The highest dungeon you can enter at that time HAS platinum, but it's only available on the lower floors, so it's extremely scarce. Well you have two options here:

1.) You can get to the lower floors of this dungeon, gather as much platinum as you can find, leave the dungeon before the boss and then repeat that until you've got enough materials for the good gear.

or

2.) You could try to your luck at the boss now and and work on farming for the ore afterwards, as the dungeons you'll unlock after will have platinum more frequently. That way you can obtain the materials for the gear a bit easier.

Well, both options are redundant, because once you beat that dungeon, newer sets of gear are available at the blacksmith that require even newer materials that are in the next dungeon that you just unlocked and their stats are vastly better than the gear you're currently working towards. On top of that, the enemies in that new dungeons deal more damage than your platinum gear can make up for, making it virtually worthless to continue farming for it. So you just wasted your time (and your gold if you went and finally bought it) trying to obtain this absurdly pricey gear, just for it to be made obsolete the second you obtained it. But it's fine, because you get to enjoy doing it all again right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[The rest of the review continues in the comments from here. Sorry, I really tried making it smaller.]

I just beat this game last night so here are my thoughts:

Very solid metroidvania, with a decent story. I've been introduced to the Record of Lodoss series before via OVA but never looked further into it (other games and media). I won't say that playing this has inspired me to do that, but it's a good experience for what it's worth and I can tell a lot of work went into making this.

First off, the combat is a bit of a mixed bag for me. The positives are that the movement abilities you get along with the variety of weapon types, and number of weapons themselves is pretty huge. There are a number of weapons that are Easter Eggs to the series as a whole and some which are references to Team Ladybug's other titles. Weapons are split into two categories, swords and bows (even though sword technically is any weapon that isn't a bow including a chakram or a spear, or even a chainsaw . The weapons (mostly) attack differently too, from overhead swings, to stabs, toe slashes, so changing weapon types can benefit you if the current weapon you use doesn't seem to get the job done. Bows on the other hand implore more subtle changes like firing more than one arrow, being able to fire faster, or elemental damage. These are all great as you can choose to play the game with whatever tactic works best for you. The not so great is that most weapons are effectively useless once you get one weapon or the other. That's to be expected as you progress yes, but there are certain points in the game where you can get weapons that are objectively better than anything you might find after them. That means that even though you're weak, your arsenal could mean a game that is far easier than it, to a degree already is.

While I'm on that, let's talk about difficulty. For someone like me, the quest becomes "How easy is it for me to grind a couple of levels above what's necessary for the next boss or even the next area?" I'm that kind of guy when it comes to these and other RPGs. I like walking into a boss room and walking out seconds later as if I had a stern talking with them instead. Sometimes this isn't possible, and that's fine; I don't always have to play that way. But for someone who isn't like me, this game is still relatively easy to manage. Aside from bosses, most enemies early only really don't attack you "in-time" before you kill them. This isn't to say thjat they're pushovers however, as plenty of enemies in the game can screw up your progress or even stunlock you into oblivion should you take them too lightly, but a lot of enemies, especially with a decent weapon in hand, become little more than a physical obstacle in the face of you just spamming attacks or arrows or magic (which is another thing that this game has).

I died a total of maybe 10 times, most of which were from a boss until I learned his pattern and proceeded to curb stomp him, and once from being stunlocked at the worst possible time in a room full of enemies. Other than those, I breezed through this game like a summer wind. Bosses can prove hard to manage if you're not careful but even they are mostly cheesed by the silliest things. It wasn't too difficult for me, but the bosses could still be a threat to the unweary. I know it seems like I'm ragging on the game but trust me, the cons are not as high as the pros. The weakness system is actually pretty straight forward too when you stop thinking about them as dice and just numbers. Overall, combat is enjoyable I just wish that, in regards to how many weapons there are in the game, there were more useful things to do with them (maybe puzzles that can only be solved with a specific weapon or weapon type; though there are technically bow puzzles, but I'll get to that). As a contrast, enemies do vary greatly in look and attacks, despite my earlier comment. Again, you really should be able to kill most of them before they have the chance to really show off their moves but if you actually SEE some of their moves, it's deadly stuff. It's like "Are you curious to know what this enemy does?", or "Do you want to make it to the next save room?"

As i said the, uh, "story", is passible. Deedlit, the protagonist, was one of the heroes of the Lodoss War long ago. She awakens in this strange place and finds her old friends as well as her lover, Parn, whom she chases after in the maze while trying to figure out why she's there or what the place is. There's a lot of name-dropping and cameos of characters from the series that I'm sure fans will know and enjoy, but for me, I honestly did not know what was going on. Not like, confused, just unengaged. Like if you didn't know anything about the series before, this wasn't going to be your introductory course into it. I'd say it could spark interest if you loved the game enough to check it out, but outside of that spark, there is no explanation of who the characters are, their importance to the story, the lore of the world itself; none of that. You get your necessary evils of what you can do and what to "look for" but this is no, "I'm from a fabled line of Vampire slayers and I've come to destroy Dracula and end his reign of terror on Humanity." Again, this isn't a knock on the game but what your motivations are as a character are not really there. You just kinda end up here and need to find a way out but also you're not sure where "here" is, so you look around.

There are other things this game offers. A gambling mini-game, as well as an Archery mini-game, some "challenges" to unlock a few weapons and a Boss rush mode for the absolute over-achiever. The mini-games can range in enjoyment. I beat the archery mini-game and I was staring like a crazied zebra at the screen all the while doing it. I touched the gambling mini game once and if you're good, you can win big money, but there's no achievement for stacking cash and by the later half of the game, buying up all the items at the shop is child's play with some enemies dropping really good money. I farmed a handful of enemies back to back in the same room for about 10-15 minutes and was already 20k richer. The weapons that require a certain thing to unlock really were not at all difficult, just time-consuming, but I'll, be honest, I'm not sure what challenges could have been made that wouldn't have frustrated someone. Like I said, they're there for you if you're looking to vary your experience but are not necessary. Along with the that, the bestiary can be completed as well as a list of all weapons, and magic in the game. Getting 100% for these is also not too hard but it's definitely not worth it if you're not someone who likes to grind.

Last thing I'd touch on is the soundtrack. It's pretty good. music for different areas seem to convey their environment pretty well, bosses all share the same song (except the final boss) but it's not a bad track to hear on repeat. Not the most groundbreaking sounds but the music, along with the sound design work well. That's pretty much it. a good game that isn't too fancy but it's pretty fun and I enjoyed the time I spent on it (except that archery mini-game; ♥♥♥♥ archery). A recommend for any metroidvania fan out there.

I don't know what I can really say about this game. Another game in my catelog that I've had for years but never got around to completion (which is strange considering how quickly I finished up when I picked it back up in one night; it hasn't even been 2 hours since). The game is dark souls inspired if that wasn't clear but I'd say the game plays a bit different. Stamina regens slower, attacks have weight but i'm often left feeling like i'm too open after an attack, pyromancy seems to be greater in effectiveness here (it's also the only type of magic in the game), and there's no merchants of shops to buy items; most are obtained from enemies or loot.

I'd say the game has a bit of its own identity, but being familiar with dark souls will definitely help with how you play and go about some encounters. Bosses, though hard-hitting, can be cheesed if you're able to pick up on their attack "strategy" especially the next to last and last boss, but I'll get to that . Enemies can be frustrating in groups and some encounters may seem outright unfair given what you may have and what you'll be up against, but I can assure you, most encounters can also be cheesed with relative security, if not without too much damage.

Since I'd been out of the loop for this game in years, I decided to try to watch a walkthrough to remember where I was as one of the game's main concerns for me is that your "quest", which is at the top right of the screen, is very vague. If you're playing continuously or in connected sessions, then you probably won't forget too much about where you are and where you're going, but I legitimately had no idea where I was, how I got there, and which way to go from there as it was at an intersection of possible paths to take. After realizing that the number of walkthroughs for the game that actually seem to beat it were not plentiful, I decided to throw caution to the wind and eventually I kind of stumbled upon where I was supposed to go.

Speaking of those walkthroughs, I noticed something in a number of them, even ones that had managed to get quite far, and it helps go into my next point. People just seem to get frustrated and decide, "I'll just run through this area and all it's enemies." And I don't think that's a bad play, but many of the areas in this game where (at least to me) that becomes your tactic, the enemies are placed in such a way as to negate that and in some cases, you are punished for it. Now far be it from me to tell someone not to ignore some fights; sometimes, you just have to in a game. But in the times I saw these mad dashes, the person is just taking unnecessary damage all to find the next campfire only to realize that they can't rest there because being actively engaged with enemies (who will some times follow you to the ends of the earth). That also means you have to disengage them completely, fight them all at once, or fight some enemies that wouldn't have been together in one setting to begin with.

This is not a smart plan. I get wanting to be done with something, but if you know that you face 3 separate rooms of enemies with 3 different types of fights to plan around, why would you actually want to group them all up so you fight them together? It seems like the enemy placement is setup in a way that you don't do this or you'll be punished. This is on top of the fact that there are NPC "invaders" called hunters who pop up at certain points in the game when you're exploring (you'll get a pop-up warning letting you know). You could potentially flag a bunch of heat on top of a hunter trailing after you, who, by the way, shares you're exact stats and sometimes build and then get swarmed to death with no possible way of succeeding other than extreme luck. My advice? Fight some battles, avoid one's you think you can't handle. if you think you can't go one way because you're not sure how to take the fight ahead, do go until you've leveled up some more or gained some level of fortitude. Not bashing anyone, just saying I tried not to run through most fights because I'd be low on hp by the time I got to some safety and who knows what's behind the next corner?

A bit of a ramble there, but otherwise not much I found wrong with the combat aside for stamina regen being a bit too slow to me. As I said, most fights can be cheesed hard if you're smart about them; I had a good number of pyromancy spells and fireball was upgraded to hell (thanks a lot, past me) so whenever it seemed like I was up against a wall, the flames came out and would end the fight pretty quick. Another cheese is that most enemies, especially the more difficult to handle ones, seem to fold when you stick to them. This means an enemy with a fast lunging attack quickly becomes a joke when you're next to them wailing on them, because the lunge takes a lot of stamina and to dodge you would mean burning more so you stunlock them to death. This also works on you so running too much with eventually bite you in the back. Dodge when needed but be aggressive when you have no reason not to. Some bosses suffer from this "flaw" as well. The corrupted victor fight becomes a joke if you have timed block and a good one-handed sword. circle-strafing next to him while tapping timed block as he attacks means you barely if ever lose stamina and can attack him in his openings without worrying about his charging swipes. The last boss is even worst because you can kill his "help" before he calls them to his side. all three are on the sides of the arena, so run to one (which won't attack because they're not "summoned" yet) and just start hammering them to death before they have a chance to retaliate. When you finish all 3, the necromancer's call does absolutely nothing, so you can just circle-strafe and poke him until he's dead.

Anyway, getting back into the game didn't take me too long, and I guess I must have stopped really far in the last time I play the game because I got the last boss fairly quick and beat him. Though I did die a couple of times here and there, most of the deaths we're me being a bit too brazen while being unaware of other enemies in the room. That's not to say there aren't any cheap deaths in the game, but they're not as often as they are made out to be. Overall, I think I enjoyed the game. If you're someone who plays a lot of Dark Souls or Dark Souls-esque games, I'm sure you'll enjoy this one. Anyone else may find their patience tested but I don't think it's that serious.

It's a sad thing, really. I bought this game like 4 years ago and only played it for 11 minutes then. Not that I didn't like it, but I was jumping from game to game a lot and I didn't give it the time it needed for me to truly see it for what it was and appreciate it: this game is fun.

Not just fun, it's too fun. It has no right to be as in depth and entertaining as it was but I would find it hard to say I didn't enjoy every minute of it. You're a young warrior who goes to olympus to first seek items to help your people in the present calamity of the gods abandoning humanity. It starts off a bit slow but even in that slowness the game has so much to offer. Merchants to buy equipment, upgrades to your damage and attack speed, some god's are not even mentioned as part of your main quest but can be visited and taken on to gain an artifact to help your main mission (and some of them like hermes' staff that works both as a ranged weapon and hook-shot Zelda style, which also can pull items to you, are just ridiculous.

Each main god (and side gods most of them) have their own areas to explore and complete mini-objectives that will help you towards facing them. These aren't super long campaigns and most of them can be completed rather quickly if you're in a hurry to get to the god-slaughtering, but that's not because the areas are rushed; they all are well made and most of the areas have their own gimme to separate them from the others so taking on one god versus the other isn't just who you want to clash swords with first. It really changes the experience when in one world your roaming about metroidvania style like usual, another you're sailing the high seas and doing mounted combat, and another you're solving puzzles. I genuinely felt like I was playing a different game at times despite the core mechanics still being there. That goes for the bosses themselves as well.

The amount of weapons melee to ranged to special or summons and traps in the game is pretty big all things considered. I ended the game with quite a good number of weapons in my arsenal with only about a handful not found (I think I missed a few but I didn't care to search for the chests I missed) and it actually got pretty hard to choose which ones I would use since I was already overpowering the enemies and killing them was pretty easy after awhile. There is a decay system in this game similar to more recent games like breath of the wild, where weapons degrade with active use (swinging them is fine but hitting enemies, breakable objects, or the ground lowers the weapons durability until it breaks) but you can always buy more of that weapon from merchants or find them throughout the game in crates and chests, or as a drop from slain foes who will be using them just as you are. With the number of weapons and upgrades you get, you can play the game almost any way you want to be it sneaky assassin or beserker madness running at enemies with abandon. The enemies do put up a decent fight and won't just stand around waiting for you to off them but they get easy to read or get the jump on after a good minute playing.

What really gets me also is the sound design. From ambient noise in the background of the levels to the music to the enemy grunts and wailing; everything sounds pretty good. It's no Mozart and isn't trying to be but when I smash I guys head in with a battle-hammer, I can hear it and it sound exactly like what I'm seeing. Stab a guy and he dies? You can actually hear him choking on his own blood and gasping for air. It's a bit too detailed if I'm being honest, lol. The recordings for lines are nice and even too. Doesn't sound like someone recording in a closet. I don't even think this game needed voice acting for me to have enjoyed it but it's a plus for me.

Now I have to mention what I didn't like about it. Here goes:

BUGS.

SO. MANY. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. BUGS.

Ok, I'm exaggerating. There aren't that many bugs; in fact there's like a handful. But they're common and sometimes very prominent. Like sometimes the map won't show anymore if you tab out of the game. Or character models with disappear entirely until you reload a save. Or maybe you'll die because of weird collision (My first and only death was from an enemy throwing me and somehow I wen't past the wall he threw me at and then died 2 seconds late because I guess the game couldn't understand how I got there. And worst of all, the game just straight up crashing and sending you to the main menu which can be so bad that the game just crashes altogether and you have to restart. luckily, this is usually AFTER it makes an autosave, so you should be good where ever you left off, but it's so annoying to be in the middle of a boss fight and the game just decides it didn't get enough sleep at night. Aside from that a handful of glitches and bugs, like the discus weapon somehow copying itself in the market every time I entered, it wasn't too bad though.

I definitely recommend this one. It's pretty damn fun and I enjoyed it a lot. Hell, I might even look into playing the multiplayer if it's still active and isn't janky (yes, it has MP). If you're thinking about it at full price, I'm not so sure; maybe on a sale. But it'certainly entertaining (Especially the ending. God is was so cathartic). A good fun, game. Works for me!

I've had this game for years and I finally got around to playing it to completion game a couple weeks ago. It's a pretty fun game, nothing too extensive in terms of overall story but I'm not too familiar with the Ys series as a whole so maybe I'm wrong.

The game's story centers around three playable characters ascending a demonic tower to put an end to the demons that invaded Ys, one of which characters unlocks after beating the game with either of the first two options. Each story plays out in various small differences from one another but are all ultimately the same, save for the unlocked character who's story is apparently the canon route (though it mentions some of the instances from the other two routes so maybe they're partially true as well).

Each character plays a bit different: Yunica is a melee hard-hitting blaze through kind of character, Hugo is ranged magic and the final character his his own unique playstyle and gameplay changes. With that being said, the levels do not alter at all, so once you've played one person's story through, you've pretty much seen what you're up against for the other two, save a couple of bosses that may or may not be in someone else's route. This can make the game feel a bit repetitive at times and somewhat predictable as you can kind of get a bearing for bosses on one playthough and cheese the other two (especially if you just decide to play the other playthroughs on easy). Enemies variety is pretty decent with there being a fair amount of enemy types and dangers that come with them to watch out for, but again, once you've seen it once, you've hopefully got it locked to memory on how to wipe them out quickly.

The real enjoyment I got from the game was just kind of spamming abilities and blazing through enemies. That can be said for every character but there are clearly characters with severe disadvantages versus the others. No story spoilers but technically this is spoiling the game's mechanics in a sense. Hugo is busted. He gets stupid range on his normal attacks, his skills make enemies touching you almost impossible if you play him effectively (which is not hard, trust me), and his ultimate buffs all his skills and normal attacks in terms of range and what they do. Compare this to Yunica who has built-it push back on all of her skills, has to get in super close and risk being damaged or stunlocked by enemies, has one ranged skill and it'll be almost all you use towards the later half of the game, and bosses are much harder to stick to because of all the above mentioned reasons. Even the third playable character, who is melee as well, has tools to keep him stuck to any enemy that doesn't go down in 3 hits and high mobility. So if you start the game with Yunica as your first pick, it'll seem like the game is more tedious than it really is. However, contrary to what I just stated, my advice is to start with Yunica, and beat the game on the hardest difficulty you can handle then play everyone else on easy or very easy. That way you do all the hard achievements with Yunica and you can use the other two character playthroughs to vent.

Aside from gameplay, music in the game is great; a lot of hymns, heavy rock, and orchestral tracks are spread out through. The art in cutscenes are great to look at but nothing special imo; the focus really is on gameplay for this game. The story itself is decent. I wouldn't call it deep by any stretch of the imagination, but I found it a bit quirky and touching in some scenes even with there being zero voice acting. There are a lot of extra, from a time attack mode to a boss rush and some neat unlockables like Adol, the Ys series' Primary protagonist, as a fourth unlockable character, though he's only playable in the extra modes. . It's a standard action JRPG, take what you will from that.

Overall, I had fun. I wouldn't find myself re-installing it to play it again after beating it, since it can get repetitive after awhile, certainly if you play all three character's routes, or are trying to unlock certain achievements, but it was enjoyable for what it was.

I hadn't played this game in FOREVER. I bought it years ago on release played up to Dreadnought 4th's stage/final boss fight, and stopped playing it for whatever reason. I'm a bit older now, and I don't want to leave a game hanging on the cusp of completion, so I decided I would finish it at the very least.

I load into Dreadnought Phase 4, start making my way through the stage aaaaand I die; to a laser cannon enemy that multi-hit me to death. Ok. That's fine. I haven't touched this game in years, so I can hardly blame it for a handful of deaths. If anything, that's par for the course if I want to get back into the swing of things. So I make my way through the level and I die a number of times of along the way. I start getting frustrated, but again, it's mostly on me for being out of the loop and being too stubborn to start fresh from the beginning. So I take my punishment all the way to the end of the level.

I finally get to the boss after a brief cutscene, and before I even have time to realize that the cutscene is over and fight is happening, I get rammed by the final boss's first phase (his spaceship) which puts me in a soft stunlock as the ship then proceeds to fire off a barrage of missiles and plasma machine-guns that fire over a dozen projectiles.

After dying to that a number of times before prevailing, the boss goes into his second phase, a Mech Suit. He starts flying around constantly and his shots at you are almost pinpoint accurate. Sometimes he's right on top of you, so there's no way to dodge him. You either eat the shot or you "parry" it and get away. But even if you parry, you have to be prepared for any attack that may follow, such as his little pinball attack, or him dashing on the ground which leaves a flame trail that can damage you after the fact, or him charging up to unleash an explosive barrage of bullets in all directions which can instakill you if you're too close to him. It may be tedious, but it's beatable.

Then the boss goes into his final phase: Just him but with a lunging knife attack that somehow removes a huge portion of your health. Now, considering everything that he does in the previous two phases, it doesn't sound that bad. But because I'm not sure when a new phase begins and the last one ends (because cutscenes in-between them don't have clear cuts), I eat that first knife attack and lose a huge chuck of my health. Even worse is that he has a grab attack that looks exactly like his lunging knife attack except that the grab is homing and can actually catch you in the air. So you could attempt to read this 50/50 as the knife attack and end up getting tossed to the other side of the stage in a flash like a ragdoll. Now, the damage of the grab is negligible, but because movement is so slippery, any flowing attack or projectile coming your way afterwards can become a hassle to dodge because you're fighting the controls and the boss at the same time.

You CAN dodge it. It's DOABLE; I've DONE it. Parried it, whatever. It CAN work. The GAME can work. But SOMETIMES, it doesn't. Sometimes, you just have to eat a combo and lose a chunk of HP. Sometimes, off-screen attacks don't make the sound that they should, so you don't know when they're coming (aside from a warning sign, if it has them). Sometimes, you can breeze through an open stage, and then die 15 times to the boss because the game expects you to have the same freedom and range of movement in a confined box.

After my 15th death (overall; not just the final boss), I started to realize why I haven't played this game in so long:

I hate it.

Ok, maybe i'm being a bit dramatic, but it's the honest truth. This game isn't hard. It's far worst than that: it's TEDIOUS. Navigating stages, fighting the bosses fights; none of that is actually difficult. Bosses have patterns (mostly) and you can figure them out with a little bit of trail and error. But then you have to ask yourself "why?"; WHY would I want to try to replay the same level again after dying several times from the corridor-wide, instakill death beam that I can't seem to move fast enough to dodge? WHY would I want to continue playing after getting stunlocked by a multi-hit attack, or running through waves of worthless enemies that only serve to whittle down my HP with a few cheap shots so the final boss can gloat about how powerful he is when I start his fight at a disadvantage? WHY is one of the starting characters actually the hard difficulty of the game versus the other who plays way smoother, is faster, and can dodge and move better? WHY have the option to select a character at all without any sort of warning that you should play character X first instead of character Y because they flow better with the level design? WHY does the final boss (along with a few other bosses in the game) have speed and agility along with their hard-hitting, bullet-hell projectile-storm attacks that sometimes have nigh keen accuracy and almost zero reprieve while my character (the unstated hard difficulty character) lacks most of the movement and speed that would allow her to dodge those attacks? WHY do some boss attacks have lingering/secondary hitboxes when the base attack already hits hard and soft stunlocks you?

In the final boss's first phase, the spaceship's landing attack already damages you a good bit; why does it create shockwaves to damage you further? To punish you for trying to escape the initial hit? The second phase dash and the final phase pistol shot leave behind a mini flame pillar that also damages you. You could dodge the shot and still end up getting hit by the little pillar of flame from below it. It's absolute nonsense some of the things that this game has the gall to throw at you. Especially in the later half, where it decides that you've just had it way too good up until that point and starts chucking hordes of enemies, multi-hit/instakill death traps, time-limited resources (running out of air and needing to collect air bubbles). Whatever it can get it's crummy hand on in the attic of tedious troupes.

Now, that doesn't mean there isn't anything good about this game. The soundtrack is great and the pixel art is just as good. Some of the levels themselves (excluding the boss fights) are pretty cool-looking and fun to explore. There's plenty of unlockable content in the game and not of it is behind a paywall, in a Lootbox, or part of a season's pass that asks you to shell out more money. Free extra content is all good to me. And the achievements aren't too difficult to get either if you're looking to 100% the game. But when playing the game inspires me to stay away from it, I start to wonder if the extra content is really worth trying to obtain.

I realize now that I put this game down years ago because I wasn't having fun with it. Is it a cheesy game? For sure. The story on it's own is a 4-cheese pizza with stuffed crust. And bad voice-overs is a plus for me because it's corny and lightens mood if I'm getting frustrated (there's something oddly funny about just how corny this game's voice-overs are). But the game is SOOO tedious that I likely wouldn't dare try to play it again. Not the worst game by a city mile, but personally, this game is a 1-and-done deal for me.

This is a continuation of the comment I left on Moose_711's review of the game, as they've summed up the game's experience a bit more than I could have done (Check it out in the review section for the game). But here's the full version of my response to that review:

This is an excellent review. I couldn't quite force myself to sit quietly through the game's story because Anja was just the worst character to experience throughout the whole thing. What made it worse was that, as Moose stated, everyone forgives her almost immediately, even when half of them have just met her like hours ago (Can't remember the name of the chick with the water in her hair but she was bordering on being a groupie for Anja right off the bat).

The real kick in the head is there's only one person, Zeke, who seems to speak sense in all of this nonsense, but everyone basically tells him to shut up and stop being mean to Anja. She unleashes an ancient evil in a forbidden area (of which Zeke has a duty to guard). She is warned numerous times not to enter said forbidden area; does it anyway. And then, when she ends up causing the ancient evil to be unleashed from said forbidden area (WHICH SHE WAS TOLD WOULD HAPPEN IF SHE KEPT MESSING AROUND IN THERE), somehow, Zeke, the guardian of this area, is being mean to her by saying that he's leaving and doesn't trust her???

It's like some bizarre circle-jerk where all the women that you meet in this game are flirting with each other, as if women are all just constantly patting each other on the back for the slightest thing. An entire civilization is destroyed by an evil entity that Anja WILLINGLY frees, and I, the p[layer, I'm supposed to be rooting for her? The antogonist of the game up until that point even tells her upfront that he wants her to show up so he can use her to propel and complete his evil plan to unleash this entity, and like the freshly-grown idiot that Anja is written as, she goes and does just that even when everyone around her tells her that she shouldn't.

I was getting serious Luke for Tales of the Abyss vibes from her the whole game and that is not a thought anyone should have about a character. At least in Luke's defense, he had to actually work to gain back the trust of everyone around him after he realized he was being misled and even then some of them still had their reservations about him and only agreed to work with him until the bigger threat was gone (which is how any normal person would be after another person betrays their trust and faith in them). But no, Anja is just forgiven of all her sins. No catch, no time to heal the damages she caused, no relationships too late to fix. Nothing. Almost immediately, everyone is like, "Oh don't worry about it too much." and that's that.

I really liked the combat, but it gets really stale after awhile. Not because you can't grind, but because you'll definitely only play a small handful of characters because new characters are never on par with the ones you probably already have. And there's almost no utility in most of them so there's almost no need to switch to any other characters for any fight, which would have been a great way to make players want to switch out characters (like Xenoblade Chronicles 2). And the checkpoints system is so absurd that you can be sent back about half an hour of getting to the boss through smaller fights and platforming and even fighting the boss itself, just because you made ONE mistake and died for it.

I was part of the Indiegogo backers so I was excited for the game when it came out. But it's clear that corners were cut and that the game ultimately suffered from a lack of clear direction in both story and gameplay. A good concept with poor execution. It's not the worst game in the world by any stretch of the word but it's certainly average at best and a headache after the first 20 minutes at worst.

Spiriter Pro is a great tool for any aspiring animator out there. There's a free version if you're not looking for all the extra features or if you want to try it out first to see if it's right for you. The Pro version comes with an extra sets of tools, designs, item & character templates, and effects to mess around with. It's also not a license, so when you buy the Pro version, it's yours for life (and death too unless someone else has access to your steam account; then it's theirs for life). There are also plenty of tutorials for learning how to use Spiriter (if you're new to using Spiriter or just animation in general, I strongly suggest that you take a look at the tutorials over on their forums[brashmonkey.com]) with a full community supporting it. It's definitely one of the better animation softwares publically available and it's easy to get accustomed to it. More experienced animators can also use Spiriter for their projects with better understanding of its advanced features. All-in-all, It pretty much works for everybody.

Spiriter Pro receives a 9/10. If you're looking to use a good animation with plenty of feature to test out then this is it. The price may be a bit steep but, if you're lucky, you can catch this for cheap on a Humble Bundle or maybe even a sale. There is a non-steam version, which may be a bit better if you don't want to have to open steam to use it. Otherwise, try it out for yourself before you're fully sure you want to buy it.

Valkyria Chronicles is a name I haven't heard since the PSP era. An tactical RPG where you position units, plan your moves to capture the enemy camps, and neutralize their forces. The game is great but like many JRPGs, it's not without its flaws. It's gaping bullet-wound flaws.

The story of Valkyria Chronicles is a pretty simply one. Gallia is a small sovereign nation between two bordering larger nations: The Empire, and the federation. Both sides are at war with each other over a precious resouce known as Ragnite with Gallia caught in the middle. Our protagonist, Welkin Gunther is the son of an accomplished soldier from a border village in Gallia named Bruhl. When he returns home from school (that out-of-town tuition though), he's greeted by his adoptive Darscen sister, Isara but then the Fire Nation Empire invades Bruhl. Welkin takes up arms to defend his home from the war, hoping to end the conflict and save Gallia. There's also a sort of side plot to the game's lore. Darcsens (people born with dark hair regardless of skin complexion; doesn't explain why that particular factor makes them an entire ethincity or anything. They just are...) are seen as the cause of a great calamity that wiped out the Valkyrur -an ancient advanced race- long along. The war furthers this stigma against them.

The main cast consists of Welkin, Isara, Alicia (an orphan girl from Bruhl who also joins Squad 7), Rosie (the bigot of the group), Largo ( not as much a bigot as Rosie), Faldio (Welkin's best friend), and Lt. Valot (Squad 7's supervisor). The rest of Squad 7 is a cast of assorted characters. Some like Vyse and Aika from another SEGA title Skies of Arcadia make an cameo as recruitable members. Others are unique to this game and BOY are there some "interesting" characters (*cough* Jann *cough* Homer *ahem*).

The overall plot itself is a mixup of good and extreme. It's an anime through and through (It even has it's own anime). Some events play out almost exactly as you would think they would. At one point in the story, an enemy Valkyria who serves the Empire shows up and she just starts mowing down your squad with some advanced vakyrian weaponry. The whole game before that was quite normal. Soon, you're fighting tanks the size of buildings that shoot beams of light that decimate entire cities. Another case, Alicia gets shot and everyone descovers she's a valkyrie. When the incident is investigated, it's found out tha Faldio did it purposely to awken Alicia's powers to save the Gallian army from being wiped out by the enemy valkyrie. Enraged, Welkin confronts Faldio who admits to the deed, noting that Alicia's powers saved Gallia's army. Welkn disagrees, believing that greater power only furthers conflict. The typical "we may be small/weak but we've got big hearts" speech you see in a lot of animes. By the end, Faldio shows up, stops the Empire's ruler, Maximillian, but decides that his actions are Irredeemable and falls backwards down a shaft taking Maximillian with him. Why? He was only suspended for 10 days (Not even dismssed from duty). Even then, no one saw him as a criminal. Even Welkin sort of sounded like he expected Faldio to show up and help, which is clealy a sign he still thinks of him as a friend. He could have easily choked Maximillian out, or even just thrown him down the shaft without taking his own life. Overall, the story can be entertaining but take it with a grain of salt here and there. It's a fiction first and reasonable second.

The design of the game tries to mimic a storybook style with effects that add to its illustrative quality. It's like the viewer is reading a memoir of a soldier or the history of a nation. The cell shading gives everything a great range of saturated color, which as an illustrator myself, is always welcome. There's also a fair amount of detail in the unit and tank models. That being said, there is a very anime-styled choice when it comes to the people of this game. Everyone on your squad is cute by which I mean all the women are wearing uniforms with their breast bulging like they're wearing tights. The men are all either moderately handsome or Largo(Gruff n' buff Old); or Cody (Actually Old). No one wears helmets to hide their incredibly stylized hair that makes them questionably more noticble in a game with snipers and tanks, if you as me. The enemy are all john does w/ full helmets. Their only variety comes form Lancers (different helmets) and anyone important to the plot.Not as much an Eastern standard as it is a universal one though. Aside from a few particular battles, most of the game is generic forest, desert, and suburban battle-torn city. An overall colorful and stylized game but it does leave a bit to be desired from its deisgn.

This game is a lot of fun. You have 5 classes aside from your 2 Tanks:

-Shocktrooper (High DPS)

-Scouts (High Mobility)

-Lancers (Anti-Tank)

-Engineer (Repairs Tanks/Resupplies Troops)

-Sniper (Long-Range)

You can train each class with exp from battles and skirmishes and they can unlock new abilities. Each unit has pros & cons. Welkin can learn new orders that bolster your units during battles and you can also upgrade your equipment. You position units before a mission with how many determined by the mission. General objectives are to capture the main enemy base while maintaining your own, keep Welkin alive, and do so in 20 turns. The freedom of movement sets it apart from most tactical RPGs which often take an isometric route. Units move within a set distance, so planning and positioning is key... is what I want to say. Honestly, you can just cheese it. And by "can" I mean will.

Scouts break this game. A unit can move more than once at the cost of their overall distance reducing each time. With Scouts however, most maps can be completed in 1-2 turns provided you avoid the enemy and capture their base unmanned. And considering how the ranking system works (less turns used=higher rank & 2-3 Turns is the minimum for most A-Ranks) the game promotes this. It's sad because it denies creativity. You could try a random team and might win, but it'll take FOREVER. Even with a basic team you're looking at 15-20 minutes of your life wasted when you could 've beaten the whole mission with one unit Sonic'ing their way through. You don't even have to level your scouts to do so!

The AI also seems to have lady luck on their side. It's RNG so they can miss, but chances are that they'll have more luck on shots you believe to be implausible with their "suppsedly" ♥♥♥♥♥♥ weapons. Your sniper might easily miss a target 30ft away, but the AI will hit your units from halfway across the map with buildings and terrain in-between. On top of that, accuracy is worthless so weapons with higher damage are encouraged (which trades off good aim and range for power). Some battles are heavily reliant on certain tactics (like using smoke shots to hide your units), forcing the player to either do what the game wants but doesn't tell or fight a war of attrition. NG+ offers harder missions but even they fall to cheese baker Alicia. Skirmishes hold no value or challenge outside of being able to cheese them for quick exp & money. At the end of the day, the combat is fun, don't get me wrong. But it truly allows you to have that fun when you're not playing the story, which is game.

Valkyria Chronicles receives an 8/10. It's a great classic from the PSP era and I really do reccomend it. But be forewarned: the temptation to bake cheesy bread grows more and more after dealing with its shenanigans long enough. At its current price, its totally worth checking out, and at the very least, you can enjoy its story and cast. We might even see VC2 & VC3 ported in the future.