Recent reviews by Crimson Angel of Judecca

Great for any fan of the main series. Unfortunately, you do have to get Steins;Gate Elite to get it, but if you can get past that, it's worth the money.

Midnight Carnival was a VN I beat in I think... ten minutes? It's plot is nonexistant, and I got it for $.10 due to a coupon that I got with a badge. It is by far the worst VN I have ever read, and a worse excuse for a VN period.

I told you guys I paid $.10 for this VN. I refunded it for $.10. That's how bad it was. And I don't regret a thing.

Let the reviews speak for the game.

27% positive reviews. Ouch.

Well, to begin with, I'm going to say that I'm one of the staff for Amaterasu Translations (the original team that translated this) but I bought it just cause I love CC so much. And plus it's 10 dollars, so like why not.


Story: 7/10

When I first started playing CC, I was bored stiff. It was boring. It was repetitive. Why did this game recieve such rave reviews? Like a 10/10? Really? I couldn't see it. However, I started playing it more. After I started to immerse myself in the world of Cross Channel, I began to enjoy it more. The plot is well thought out, and is actually kind of fun. However, this release has a lot of lines that are either untranslated or cut off midway which makes it seem awkward.

Art: 7/10.

It's not bad, but it's not great either.

Sound: 10/10
Music is great. I actually own the soundtrack and I listen to it on long drives. Does not distract from the game. Solid 10.

Characters: 7/10

Some I liked, some I didn't. I loved Miki and Kiri's character development, and Sakuraba was hilarious. I liked Taichi too. Misato and Touka annoyed me. Tomoki and Youko I didn't really care much for, but that's whatever.

Controls: 8/10

It's a VN. Kinda standard.

Menu Design: 8/10

Overall, it's okay. I don't like not being able to access the Title Screen from anywhere, but that's how this engine was built.


Enjoyment: 8/10

I played it before, so I enjoyed it then, and I enjoyed it probably the same now with the knowledge of the twists I had before somewhat lingering in my mind.

Overall: 7/10

It's okay. Definitely worth $10. Good story, nice music.

Final notes:

+ Great music

- Typos and untranslated lines are a thing.

This series, as most, if not everyone knows is based off of the Banjo-Kazooie series. While you might remember Mumbo's Mountain from the first game, this tends to get a lot of its tendancies from its sequel, Banjo Tooie.

Story: 8/10

Going into this story, I saw Yooka, a lizard whom was never clarified to be a chameleon until I felt stupid for looking it up on the wiki, and Laylee, the bat. Laylee really reminded me of Kazooie, and Yooka of Banjo, but their desires for adventure seemed to be reversed. Yooka seemed to be the energetic Kazooie, while Laylee seemed to be the type that would sleep through their sister's kidnapping. After progressing through the levels, I could see kind of a trend arising with how the characters acted. But more on that later. I felt for sure that Trowzers was going to be this uber-villain so I just couldn't help but doubt him. Hearing him talk about faulty washers and TVs really made me doubt the guy. And perhaps I should've. Going level to level and seeing all these characters really made me smile. However, the main problem this suffers is that none of the unique characters to the level are particularly memorable. There's Nimbo that I remember from the first level, and he's basically the main one because he controlled the weather. The snowmen from the second level kind of lacked that existence. The expansion of worlds was a really cool idea that I didn't figure out that I'd have to leave to do for a while. I was searching for buttons expecting for some sort of switch to trigger it. I found it best to expand the worlds before I even entered them as to avoid confusion later. The fact that I can't really remember what the names of the levels are doesn't exactly help, though. I would've liked an explanation as to what the beehives did when I used my tongue on them rather than having to figure it out myself, but I suppose figuring it out eventually was okay.

Art: 9/10.
This isn't even up for debate in my mind. This game has beautiful visuals, and just going into it made me feel in awe. Having to expand the first level after I entered it made me realize how much expanding the world actually does, which incredibly impressed me. The characters that actually mattered in this game were really cool, and the statue of Dr. Quack that remained behind was a nice touch. The library was pretty cool as well. I loved how each book had its own presence and the fact that you could climb every book reminded me mildly of The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. Totally fun and definitely good to look at.

Sound: 10/10
Music is gorgeous, I haven't found a single track I don't like. The last time I was able to say this was about Nier: Automata's music, and both are amazing. I especially liked the music from the ice world, as such was really nice. The overworld map's music was nice, but probably the least memorable out of all of them.

Characters: 7/10

This is kind of where I felt the game started falling a little flat. Besides the main characters, there wasn't really any characters I really felt particularly interested in. Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie had Clanker, Old King Coal, Boggy, Humba Wumba, and Mumbo, but I didn't really feel like I cared about Kartos (Who I couldn't stop thinking of as Kratos from Tales of Symphonia) or Nimbo from the first level. I can't even really remember the character's names. They just don't stick with me, and I really wish they could. Same goes for the bosses of the levels. They were annoyances to progression, not bosses I wanted to fight that were out of the way.

Controls: 7/10

The camera seemed to be a little wonky, but I feel like that's a recurring thing with games nowadays. The vehicle in the second level I couldn't control for my life, but I don't know if that's me or the game itself. Maybe a little bit of both, particularly leaning in the former's territory? Not quite sure. I sucked at Nuts and Bolts because of this exact reason, so there's that. I didn't really like how the butterflies were both for your power bar and your health. I can't count how many times I jumped into the butterflies expecting them to restore my health only for the controls to remind me AFTER I collected them that I needed to press a button to restore my health. Gosh!

Menu Design: 6/10

What keeps on confusing me is why my health bar isn't consistently displayed - as well as the bosses displayed at all while I'm fighting them - and why it gives you a total of the quills and pagies you have, rather than toward the world amount. Having to check the totals menu every time I was wondering that was REALLY annoying.


Level Design: 8/10

While everything is incredibly beautiful, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by how massive the levels were. In Banjo Kazooie and Tooie, every level had its particular landmark. The tent in Witchyworld, the house in Mad Monster Mansion, Clanker in Clanker's cavern, and so on. Needing to collect all the collectibles but not knowing where I've been before really kind of overwhelmed me. I didn't really like how there were so many "pits." I really got frustrated when I spent a decent amount of time progressing through a cave only to slip and fall into a pit and have to start from where I was at the entrance five minutes ago with the enemies respawned.


Enjoyment: 8/10

I enjoyed/am enjoying the game a fair bit, and I can't really say more than that. I've played the game and not even pondered the thought of requesting a refund. I really like the game, I've created the badge already (don't know if I'm going to do the level 5 badge, though.) I'm still playing it trying to go for the entire 100% toward the game, though I don't know how soon it will be until I get that done. I really liked the retro arcade games, for sure.

Overall: 8/10

The game is definitely worth playing in my opinion, especially if you've played the Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie games. Don't worry if you haven't played Nuts 'n Bolts, because I don't think that really matters. In fact, I tend to pretend that game never existed even though it's still sitting on my shelf with a completion rate of "not even beat the second boss yet." I intend on getting the full 100% of the game, but don't really know exactly when that will be. It is a game I don't regret buying, and I definitely disagree with reviews in the past.

Would I recommend this game to you? Most definitely, unless you're a person who doesn't like platformers and never really liked Banjo Kazooie and Tooie. The main characters are fun, and who knows. Maybe you'll have more luck with the controls of vehicles than I do.

Final notes:

+ Beautiful level design
+ Fun characterization
+ Great music
+ The sequel I've been waiting for to Tooie so I can pretend Nuts 'n Bolts never existed.
+ Primary villains you can't help but hate


- Why were butterflies used for both power bar and health?
- Why does power bar exist, for that matter?
- Levels are too large.
- How do I kill those bee enemies?
- Please make the health bar visible at all times, and the quill/pagie count the amount of the world that I'm in, not the overall amount.
- Side characters are bland at best.

Ah, Hyaku Paasento Orenji Juusu...

Played this game for 5 minutes, the battle system confused me completely, stopped playing it.

However, a few days ago, I'm like "Why not." So I played it for about half an hour. Got to understand the battle system. Now I go to bed, wake up, play this game. Go to work, come back, play this game. I'm addicted. I just can't stop playing it.

There's events in this game for Valentine's Day, Poppo Season (August-ish?), Halloween, and Christmas, where you get special items just for the season. This is something rare to any game, and for it to be a board game is shocking. Props to the devs for this.

Secondly, the character lineup is very likable. The chicken is by far my favorite character, as it just lets you joke around and have fun. There are unlocks for every character, and very numerous ones at that. The replayability for unlocks is really frequent, so this game will last you a while if you're a completionist.

Thirdly, the campaign. This is kind of what people say makes the game fall flat, but I tend to disagree. Its story is very fluffy, and it teaches you how to play the game. Plus, if you beat all campaigns on normal, you get a red crown accessory, and a purple crown for beating theme all on extreme difficulty. (Which requires amazing luck and strategy.) You can use any accessories, outfits or characters you unlock in place of the main scenario character if you think that gives you an edge. (Which it probably could.)

Finally, the multiplayer. This is where the game truly shines. The community is incredibly outgoing, and the game doesn't really lag regardless of where in the world the players may reside. It's a lot of fun. You use all of the accessories, outfits, and characters you unlock via the in-game store that you buy with stars that you earn in multiplayer and campaign and can show them off to your friends and random people in multiplayer. You will get oranges to unlock other stuff by playing multiplayer (though only in matches that aren't CPU-only.) You also have a chance to unlock stuff randomly by finishing multiplayer games.

Anyway, it sounds complicated, but it really isn't. It's a lot of fun, and for a game under $7, I think it's a great worthwhile purchase with a ton of replayability. Go for all the unlocks, and remember to play as much as you can in event times.

Anyway, great game, and you should get it. Rated 9/10 overall, and 11/10 for a game that's under $25.

Great game, originally played it on 360. The mods make it extra fun on PC.

I would definitely get the Special Edition now, though.