Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls (Steam) Review

Idea Factory International continues to bring their titles to Steam, so I recently checked out the PC version of Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls.  I previously checked out the PS Vita version, which I enjoyed quite a bit, and I expect this version to be in line with all the others.

Instead of starring Neptune or one of the other (non-Vert) goddesses, this one focuses on IF and her new friend Segami, as they battle to repair time and keep the history of Gamindustri safe.  Along the way they will meet new characters modeled and named after various Sega consoles (remember when they made those?)  Dungeons are mostly what you would expect: 3D environments to run and jump around in, with enemies patrolling around.  Now you can also climb ladders, monkey bar swing across rope lines, and crawl through small openings.  There's also coins and baseballs to collect, and item boxes to open.

Touching an enemy in the field (or getting to a certain point in story scenes) will start a fight.  Combat also looks familiar, but with some new tweaks and twists to keep it fresh.  You still move around a small plain to aim your attacks, but now each action fills part of your action gauge.  The more you do, the higher it goes, and the longer your next turn will take to come around.  If you fill it into the red zone, your turn ends by itself.  Normal attacks fill it a small amount, but there's also a charge attack that fills it the rest of the way, but you get a strong attack for the sacrifice.

Special skills require SP to use, which builds up as you attack in battle.  This is great because you can always build it up, but bad if you want to switch around your characters.  I usually ended up just saving it for boss fights.  A new addition is the Fever Meter.  When it is filled, grab the star that appears and your characters can continuously take turns while it lasts.  This prevents the enemy from having their turns, and, like SP, is best used on bosses.  Combat as a whole was pretty fun, and the different systems gave it some strategy.

Progress through the story is made by undertaking missions.  There's a limit to how long each quest will hang around, and that number decreases whenever a quest is completed.  This means you are going to miss some quests, since there are more than you can do.  You have to be a little careful of what ones you choose, since some will be very difficult or impossible on your first run through the game.  There is a great new game+ that lets you keep just about everything.  This make it easier to run through the game subsequent times.  My first run on the Vita version was under 25 hours, and I ended up going through the game a second time.

I probably sound like a broken record with a lot of my PC reviews, but the game ran fine on my i7/16gb machine.  I didn't encounter any weird problems in the few hours I played.  The keyboard and mouse work ok, but I far prefer the controller for this style game, and the Xbox 360 pad worked great.  Fans of Neptunia games should definitely check the game out.  Superdimension Neptune is a solid JRPG.


The Good:
Fun RPG featuring everybody's favorite scout, IF!  Plus, several new characters.

The Bad:
Bosses can and will require grinding.

The SaHD:
I'm never getting a Vert-based game am I?

(Review code for Superdimension Neptune was provided by the publisher)

Dark Rose Valkyrie (PS4) Review [5/28/18: Updated for PC]

As a fan of most Idea Factory and Compile Heart games, I was eager to try out Dark Rose Valkyrie.  It sets you in a world where a virus is turning people into monsters called Chimera, and you head up a special group tasked with fighting them and keeping citizens safe.

The game started off pretty strange, by offering me the three difficulty levels of easy, hard, and very hard.  So...no normal?  The one difficulty level you should have is not present?  Well, against my better judgment I went with hard.  For the most part, it worked out pretty well except for some boss and mini-boss fights.  It just involves more grinding.  After about 30 hours I put it down to easy.  You get more experience after fights, but quest rewards are reduced.

Grinding does actually take time, since the game sports day/night and moon phase cycles.  As you spend time in the world map, it will slowly move from day to night, and back to day again.  After each day, the moon shifts forward one phase.  While you are in a dungeon, time will pass, but it will not be reflected as long as you are inside.  Once you leave, it will jump to where it is supposed to be.  This is helpful for the times when you need to fight a monster that is only around a certain time of the cycle.  However, enemies are stronger at night.  Unfortunately, the first time you do a dungeon, it will always be night.  Seems a bit steep to me.

Thankfully you won't waste time walking back to a dungeon, because there is a very helpful warp feature.  There are a few warp points scattered around each dungeon and the world map, and you can fairly easily warp among them from a warp point or a save point.  Sadly, you can't warp to a save point, which would have been nice.  Especially since they don't always have great placement for the warp and save points.  You can work with them, but they aren't in the most convenient locations.

Combat is some good old fashioned turn based goodness.  On the left side of the screen is a long bar with icons for everyone in the battle.  Your icon moves up (based on your speed stat) and you can take action at an appropriate time.  If you have played any of the Grandia games, you will quickly realize the basics.  When your turn comes up, you can attack, charge attack, use a skill, or even switch to your back up character.  The attacks have three different levels that you set the combo for, and each higher one is stronger, but takes more time before you do it.  For whatever reason, I stuck mostly with the level 2 combo for 90% of my attacks.  While hitting an enemy, their icon is stalled, which makes fighting one target easier than a group.

The charge attack will knock an enemy's icon back a bit.  I rarely used this, since the benefit is about equal to stalling them while you do a normal combo, but you get higher damage doing that.  Skills are things I mostly used on boss and mini-boss fights, at least in the early stages to knock down the extra targets.  There are plenty of elemental attacks in there to take advantage of enemy weaknesses, but no way to change your attack type (strike, slash, pierce).  There are healing skills, but they felt very weak versus the damage strong monsters could do.  Not good.  It was better to use them between fights and instead rely on expensive items for battle.

Since it is a Compile Heart game, enemies have guard gauges.  If you deplete it before their icon starts over at the bottom, you get some extra damage, plus your EX attack at the end of your normal combos.  You also build up TP while attacking, which you can use to defend from an enemy's special attack (SUPER useful) or unleash a powerful sync attack.  Using it for defense felt necessary for the boss fights (especially on hard), but using it for attack was more fun and flashy.  After you execute an EX move, the person behind you may rush in to get in a few more hits.  Afterwords, you can choose to spend 1 TP for a total (all enemies) or single (the target) sync attack.  The entire backrow will appear an unload their shots on the foes.  It's fun, and useful to rack up the hit count for extra damage and reward and the end of the fight.  Problem is, they don't always seem to activate when you actually need them, and instead are available many times when weak targets are already dead.

Lastly, your characters can use TP to activate a power-up for a few turns.  Called Ignition, it boosts your stats and protects from status ailments.  Honestly, I rarely ended up using it, which may explain why some boss battles are hard.  In my defense, I needed the TP to block (so I don't have to use the weak heals), and therefore didn't really have it to spend otherwise.  Also, the stat boost didn't seem that great, but I always appreciate abnormal status protection.

When not fighting or exploring, you will be spending your time at the ACID base.  Here you can make new items, sell items, rest, and accept quests.  They don't call it "sell items", so it took me a bit to realize that was what turning them in was.  The last section of items to turn in will give money and also components that you need for powering up your weapon and making pieces of equipment, so make sure to sell some of those when you get the chance.  You can also talk to party members for extra events, which will affect their relationship with you (and the ending).

The game follows a fairly simple path: event(s) in base, go to dungeon, return, event(s), do missions, return, rinse, repeat.  A lot more of the missions are required than I thought.  Even so, I was stubborn about doing all of them, even those not required, before moving on.  I didn't really run low on days to turn them in, either.  To mix things up, interrogations have also been included.  You see, not everyone is who they appear to be.  One of the group is a traitor, and you (Asahi) have to figure out who it is.  To do that, you will question characters about themselves and the others at a few points in the game.  These were...ok...but I found it odd you could only ask so many questions.  Yeah, it's probably to make it harder, but it feels a bit too limiting and hard to put it all together in a satisfactory way.

Even though I enjoyed Dark Rose Valkyrie and its high-hitting combo battles, there are a lot of little things that bug me.  Money is really hard to come by early on, story dungeons force it to be nighttime, and boss battles are aggravating on the hard setting (sometimes on easy, too).  It should take well over 40 hours to complete the game, especially if you try to do all the side quests like me.  Still, I'd say it's worth trying out for JRPG fans, even if you were put of by some of Idea Factory's non-Neptunia offerings.

5/28/18: PC Release Update
I recently got a code for the PC release on Steam.  While most PC releases of games I have already reviewed run well, Dark Rose Valkyrie broke the streak.  The story and dialog scenes ran perfectly fine.  Battles and moving around the map were choppy messes.  It looked like it was running at 10 fps.  I'm not a stickler for graphics, but it should not look like a failing flip-book animation.  Audio seemed to skip at times.  Battles aren't hampered by the choppiness, but they look bad.  On the map, the bad frame rate makes getting those first strikes all but impossible.

At first I thought maybe running on higher settings, or on a hot day, made it run so poorly.  I turned the settings down to low (which seems crazy for my i9, but I digress), and ran the game on other, cooler nights.  There was a slight improvement, but not one that actually helped.  I'm not sure what happened to this PC release, or if there is something amiss on my machine, but it ran poorly.  If you can, stick to the PS4 release.


The Good:
Fun combat in a completely stand alone game.

The Bad:
Lots of little nitpicks, like the high damage you take and the low amount of healing, among others.

The SaHD:
Another Asahi?!

(Review code for Dark Rose Valkyrie was provided by the publisher)

The Caligula Effect (PS Vita) Review

The Caligula Effect starts with an interesting premise: students are trapped in a virtual world, and go through high school on a continual loop.  The thing is: many of those people want to be there to escape reality, and don't even know they are in a virtual world.  I don't know why anyone would think of high school as a paradise, but I digress.  Your main character is one of a select few who awakens to this reality, and sets out with fellow students to set things back to normal.  To do so, you have to find and stop the virtual idol, Mu (it's written as the Greek symbol).

Like most RPGs, you run around a map, get into fights, and solve quests.  The locations in the game are appropriate to the setting: things like school and the mall.  Enemies and NPCs roam around, and fights take place when and where you engage the foes, which can be problematic.  It's usually possible to sneak around enemies as they roam.  Aria does say the Digiheads (aggressive students who fight you) have bad eyesight, and boy, is she right.  Well, if you out level them anyway.  You will probably fight a lot of them anyway, and they do respawn.  Sometimes a bit too quickly for my taste.  Even if you avoid a lot of them while running around the dungeons, it can take several hours to get through each one.

Fights in The Caligula Effect are the game's most unique aspect.  When you select a skill, it shows you the likely outcome of that attack.  Things like damage, countering, etc. can be planned in advance to make the most of your turn, and destroying a target quickly.  The game actually rewards you with double experience if you can win in one turn.  Some skills are counter skills, which can cancel certain types of attacks.  I shouldn't have to tell you how useful that is.  Some skills launch a target, or knock them down.  Some will do extra attacks if the target's "Risk" is high enough.  Some skills will benefit from hitting targets in the air or on the ground.  The bottom line is: plan out your attacks to get the most out of them.

To facilitate this, you can delay the timing on them.  This is pretty useful, and has great synergy with the predictive function of combat.  Unfortunately, you can't skip or delay your full turn if you wanted to wait until another character is ready.  You can string together up to three attacks, each one costing a reduced SP cost, which will really pile on the damage, and take advantage of launch or otherwise indisposed targets.  It seems a bit more complicated than it ends up being, even though it does look really chaotic when you have four party members all attacking some poor sap at the same time.  Once you kind of get how the attacks work, you can set them and have a pretty good idea what's going to happen.  As such, a majority of my fights ended in one turn.

This is all well and good, but what about bosses and strong enemies?  Sadly, that's where the battle system is weakest.  Planning the small details of a turn and timing everything properly is great and all, but if the enemy survives it (or if they aren't launched)?  You are left just hitting them with stuff and hoping they eventually die.  If an enemy is a higher level than you, the damage you deal is cut down drastically.  You will probably run out of SP in a turn or two, depending on character, and then have to sit there and use the charge skill for it to come back.  It quickly becomes a chore to finish those fights.  I do really like the battle system overall, so it's a shame that it can crumble so quickly.

Equipment is also pretty unique.  Instead of more traditional stuff like armor, you gets "stigmas", which are more like personality traits.  They affect your stats and can even give different skills.  There is also a rarity scale to them, so you can get stronger versions of each one.  The skills you can use in battle have the normal range of attacks, defense, and support abilities.  Honestly, I rarely used anything that wasn't an attack, the SP recharge, or the occasional emergency barrier.  I never really had the need to.  The points you use to buy skills are earned by gaining a level, winning some fights, and finding discoveries.  They are also stored in a communal pool, so all the characters share the same stockpile.  This can make it harder to save for the ultimate skills, since you may want to flesh out each character's other skills first, but you can gain more by leveling up the NPC students if you are a bit low.

Even though you are mostly a silent protagonist, there are many times you can make a dialogue choice.  I'm not sure how much each choice actually affects things, though.  Well, except for getting through the library.  Anyway, you will also end up chasing fellow students around and talk to them to raise their friendship.  A lot of chasing, and a lot of talking (it raises slowly).  I did like seeing new people, but it is a bit daunting to have so many possible people to talk to, and multiply that by the number of times you have to talk to them.  Sheesh.  There are also little quests where they may want to meet certain people, or go to a certain place.  It doesn't sound that hard, but with 500 students, it's going to be a long process.  I'm not sure it's worth it just to be able to use them in battle.

The Caligula Effect isn't really a hard game, even on normal, provided you understand (or can at least use) the combat system.  I only really had trouble on a few enemies that were just above my level (because of the low damage), and for that reason I tended to avoid them.  You get most of your HP and SP back after a fight, so going through the dungeons wasn't too bad except for all the running back and forth you do.  The bosses are more difficult than normal fights, but not by much.  The story will run you over 30 hours, but there is a new game plus and some post-game stuff.

A lot of what The Caligula Effect has to offer is its unique battle system.  The story is pretty good, and I liked the dialogue, but the fights are what really set it apart.  They seem a lot more complicated than they ended up being, and I can easily see it turning off some people.  I'd recommend sticking with it if you can, as the game is pretty fun.  A solid RPG offering on the Vita.  One final note:  I've heard chatter of a bug that erases your save file near the end of the game.  I have yet to encounter it, and hopefully never will.  Make sure to back up to the cloud and be careful!


The Good:
A fun and exacting battle system...

The Bad:
That falls apart if a battle takes too long.

The SaHD:
"Archive of Regrets" is a great name for a location.

(Review code for The Caligula Effect was provided by the publisher)

Akiba's Beat (PS4) Review

I had a lot of fun playing Akiba's Trip on the Vita and the PS4.  It was a unique action RPG where you defeated synthetic vampires by ripping off their clothes, exposing them to sunlight.  It was goofy and fun.  This made me eager to get my hands on the sequel, Akiba's Beat.

After starting the game, I quickly realized this has very little to do with the previous game, so I guess it's more of a side story rather than sequel?  The story is set in the same place, but involves no one from the first, and the battle system is completely different.  Gone is vampire stripping and in its place, battles straight out of the "Tales of"series.  You fight on a 3D plane, and pressing left or right toward your target will move you toward them, and the opposite direction moves you away.  Holding L1 allows you to free run, which I found very useful for 90% of the game.  Dodging wasn't as reliable as just running away or around targets to avoid attacks.  Plus, the dodge button was either not responsive, or too much so.

You have an AP number, which dictates how many times you can attack before you have to stop for a few seconds and let it fill again.  Even if you have more than your standard attack string, you will pause after it, unfortunately.  Attacking while holding up or down will do high and low attacks respectively, which mixes up what you can do.  Pressing the special attack button with different directions on the left stick can also give you different special moves, which you set in the menu.  Thankfully, you can set another set on the right stick.  I like this since you get so many useful moves, that one set isn't enough when at the end of the game.  You can also set the buttons in the options, which I did since early on I mixed them up often enough.  Like the dodge button, the attacks weren't always responsive either, and not just because I ran out of AP.  It's a fairly big deal in such an action heavy battle system, and was pretty annoying.

Fights with normal enemies tend to be over very quickly, as quick as a few seconds early on.  This is nice, since it means you can usually make your way through the dungeons without sacrificing an afternoon.  Then come the boss fights.  The first two are longer than normal fights, but not by a lot.  After that, the bosses become standard JRPG massive HP slogfests.  Toward the end, I was dreading the thought of duking it out with dungeon bosses, simply because it would take several minutes of mashing attacks.  This gets compounded when they start having two boss fights back to back, which sadly happens more than once.

However!  As you do damage, you build up the Imaging Gauge.  When you do, you have infinite AP for a few seconds, and your damage is increased.  If you use it when the gauge is fully filled, your damage increases as you land attacks, and it lasts for the duration of the song you equip.  Near the end of it, the percent jumps up, and you will output a lot more damage than normal.  The Imagine Gauge is way too strong for normal fights, and does make boss fights a little shorter.  Still, I would have liked it to be more effective on the dreary boss encounters, or even do something great like making casting instant, or even making special moves free/cheap.  Bottom line: it works okay, but could be more interesting.

The story places you in the role of Asahi, a career NEET that does little but stay up late, watch anime, and play games.  I'm pretty sure I went to college with someone who lived like this and also woke up at the crack of 2pm, but I digress.  Progress is broken up into two parts, one where you run around the map, talking to people, and another where you traverse the dungeon, fighting monsters and then the boss, dissolving the delusion.  There are times where you go into the dungeon in the middle of the talking parts, but it's still a back and forth between these two scenarios.  It's not the best balance, since sometimes the running around and talking is a bit long, or the dungeon is, but the fast travel can help with some of that.

As for the story itself, it starts off pretty strong.  Then toward the middle of the story, it starts to go down.  A chunk of that is from my own pet peeves.  I won't spoil things, but one character that behaves a certain way does something that doesn't make sense in context.  Sure, they try to explain it later, but I still think it just doesn't work.  There are other instances, like when the main character has their stereotypical "doubting themselves" arc.  Again, it just doesn't work with how it is presented.  It could, and I get what they are going for, but it's just not pulled off well.  Also at the end they shoehorn in some nonsense, and stuff in some more to pad the length a little too much.  It's a shame the story went so bad for me, since the localization and the dubbing are top notch...probably the best I can remember in an XSEED game.

The dungeons in the game are pretty basic, just rooms connected by hallways, all very block-like.  Some have switches to open doors, and there are treasure chests to find.  Later dungeons get pretty long, but thankfully, several floors are shorter on repeat visits.  Any shortcut is welcome because they get a LOT of mileage out of these dungeons (so get used to seeing them).  There are also enemy encounters littered throughout the dungeon floors.  Getting the spacing and timing for the first strike is a bit of a chore, but it helps.  Assuming it works, as I've had times I was back attacked while facing the enemy.  While I'm usually okay with palette swaps of enemies, Akiba's Beat goes all in.  There aren't many types of enemies, and you will see most of them in all of the dungeons.  I remember remarking to my son when I finally saw a new enemy type after 30+ hours.  The boss designs are pretty good, though.

The story and side quests took me over 60 hours to complete.  If you cut out the side/character missions and the monster killing quests, you could shave some time off of that.  Even so, the main story itself went on for about 10 hours too long.  It felt like the third Lord of the Rings movie, where there were several places it could have ended, but didn't.  It really could have cut out the last chapter or so, and be a much more concise (and better) story.  Admittedly, you will get your money's worth completing the game because of this.  I'd say it's worth trying for "Tales of" fans, but fans of Akiba's Trip should know it isn't really anything like that game.


The Good:
If you like "Tales of" combat, the fights will make you feel right at home.  Good references, localization, and voice acting.

The Bad:
Story goes down as the game goes on...and it lasts longer than it logically should.

The SaHD:
My favorite reference had to be the sequence from the children's trading card game.

(Review code for Akiba's Beat was provided by the publisher)

Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey (PS4) Review

By Aly Hand

Atelier Firis: Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey is the newest game to join the prestigious Atelier series. The eighteenth iteration of the series, Atelier Firis is not the one I would choose for people just starting out with the series. The game begins with Firis, a young girl who is living in an isolated town, hoping to venture outside and see the world. The first stranger she encounters is Sophie, the titular character from the previous game, and Sophie agrees to teach her alchemy. Firis then uses what she's learned to convince her parents to allow her to leave town. She begins her journey with a time limit: if she doesn't become a fully licensed alchemist within a year, she will have to return home. She begins her journey, venturing out of her hometown accompanied by her older sister, Liane. In a move quite different from other RPGs, there is no "final boss" at the end of that time limit, but instead an exam designed to torture people with poor memories for trivia, or people who rush through the game without taking the time to learn recipes and practice what they've learned.

From a personal standpoint, I have to say this is not the best example of what an Atelier game can do. The game can be divided into two sections: pre- and post-exam. Unfortunately, the directions for how to proceed pre-exam are not always clear. In terms of game time, over half of the time limit was spent trying to figure out how to get out of Flussheim. Everything pre-exam is tense, with the time limit hanging over your head, pressuring you to do things faster. And while it is very possible to get through the pre-exam time without issue, it's much harder on an initial play-through unless you have a strategy guide or FAQ handy. Not all the quests are clearly explained, nor are the solutions to them intuitive, so numerous times I found myself suffering through trial and error in order to progress.

Learning recipes has changed once more. No longer do you learn them almost exclusively from recipe books and by tinkering with other recipes. Now you learn new items by what you do: through battles with specific monsters, gathering specific materials, or synthesizing specific items a certain number of times. While there are recipe books, they are rare and often prohibitively expensive. And with money being a comparatively rare thing, it takes a significant amount of time to build up the necessary funds to afford them.

The battle system is relatively simple to understand, with turn-based combat and a chain gauge that allows you to combine party member attacks into massive combos for additional effect. While the addition of the chain gauge is nice, nine times out of ten the monsters (even bosses) die before you can get it set up properly. In fact, setting up a chain combo without help is so difficult I never managed to pull it off. Without carefully reviewing the help menu and lots of trial and error, you may complete the timed portion of the game without ever managing it.

Bosses in the game are also different; rather than a staple of a finished dungeon, now they wander around specific sections of the map and are completely avoidable. In fact, it is very easy to complete the timed portion of the game without ever fighting one. Maps are large, with many quick-travel points scattered around, though the quick-travel is also somewhat limited in that you can only quick-travel on the map you're on. Though there is a world map, you can't travel between maps from it, nor can you see quick-travel points on any map other than the one you are currently on. These limitations are frustrating, particularly while the time limit of the game hangs overhead like the Sword of Damocles.

The one thing that would make it easier to progress in the game—the addition of new party members—takes an almost prohibitively long time to occur. I pushed through to the first major town, called Flussheim, and it still took over half of my time limit before I could find another party member and recruit them. And he cost money! With how little money you get from battles, hiring him would have taken me several more hours to afford. Thankfully, by wandering around several of the other maps, I managed to stumble across two more party members, before finally finding a third and fourth. Unfortunately, once you complete the exam, you will have to go fetch them again, which makes it very frustrating to try and get through maps you've already completed.

Still, there are a great number of quests to do in the game, and while they all follow the standard model (kill x of y enemy; gather x number of y material; make x number of y recipe and/or deliver to so-and-so) there's enough spread out amongst the maps that it's possible to do them all with relative ease. Unfortunately, again, reviewing active quests can be a time-consuming and often frustrating process, simply because of how they are designed. For example, if you open your quest book and page between active quests, you will have to back all the way up to the initial quest detail you opened before you can exit that portion of the menu. Kind of like having to hit the back button to get back to your home page in a web browser with no way to close it unless you do. As frustrating as that would make surfing the web, that is the frustration felt when navigating the details in the menus.

Overall the game was entertaining and a decent addition to the Atelier series. Unfortunately, between the severe lack of direction and the extreme frustration of the final exam, the initial portion of the game makes it difficult to appreciate the secondary portion. It was fun, but the previous game was much better in both design and execution.


(Review code for Atelier Firis was provided by the publisher)

World of Final Fantasy (PS Vita) Review

When World of Final Fantasy was first shown at E3 a year or so ago, I was intrigued.  Who where the twins?  Why is there a more "normal" style and a chibi style?  What are battles like?  When the game was released, I got a taste of it by using the shareplay function on the PS4, but I have recently finished up the Vita version and decided to review it.

World of Final Fantasy's battle system looks and sounds more complicated than it is.  Each character has their own skills and can fight on their own, although their HP is low and can be killed quickly.  To combat this, you can stack up to three party members, one of each size (S, M, and L) to add their stats together.  This makes them much stronger and harder to kill, but each stack only gets one turn, as opposed to each member getting their own turn.  Still, I went through the whole game stacked, and it usually went fine.  Some attacks will weaken the stack, and eventually knock it over.  This stuns everyone in the stack, making them vulnerable to a focused assault.  If the stack loses all of its HP, all three members will be dead.  Enemies can also be stacked, so knowing how they function not only protects you, but gives you knowledge to fight enemies.

Each member of the stack has their own abilities.  Depending on how they combine, you may get stronger abilities too.  This is the way to get stronger spells.  If two people have the water spell, then your stack also has access to watera, the next strongest tier of water spells.  It's actually a well thought out system that isn't too hard to figure out, and is rewarding when you use it.

In battles, there are two ways to give commands, the new style and the classic style.  New has each character's skill list as a separate button, or direction or something...and I hated it.  Classic puts it all in one list, so it is easy to see what you have available.  My only gripe with it is that you can't customize the order or sort it.  Also the game features the Active Time Battle that was a staple of Final Fantasy games for years, but you can also make it turn based by turning off the ATB.  While I did love that system back in the day, I have it set to turn based, so I have time to think about my moves, find the right skill, plan out my actions, or just knowing I won't get blown up if I have to deal with some child's emergency during battle.

To capture monsters, you need their prismarium (or elder box for the robots) and to fulfill specific conditions to make them capture-able.  These are listed in their info if you scan them, and range from doing damage, using a certain element/ailment, or even things like hitting them with a counter attack.  Some requirements can be met up to three times to increase the capture percent.  Thankfully, you only use up the prismarium or elder box if you actually capture the creature, so you can try multiple times until it is successful.  They also supply you with a prismarium (but not elder box) for each creature the first time you fight it.  In terms of monster catching, this is a great way to do it, and probably the best I've used.

Monsters that you take with you gain experience and level up.  When gaining a level, their stats improve and they gain a CP, which can be used on their mirage board to gain stats, abilities, and skills.  They very much remind me of the sphere grids from Final Fantasy X.  Many monsters can transfigure into other monsters that have connected boards, which share stats and some skills.  Some can turn into other monsters that have their own connected boards, which do not share stats or skills, but have the appropriate CP for their level.  Buying skills on monster's boards will up their sync percent, which gives bonus stats at certain intervals, and awards a skill at max.  This take in to account all boards, so those small stat boosts are shared, but the mastery skill isn't, so you can pick different ones.  However, the twins do not have mirage boards and instead gain skills depending on what mirajewels you equip them with.  There are numerous to find and earn, and you can freely switch them out of battle.

As you make your way through the story, you will come to many dungeons, each with a boss at the end.  There are also secret areas to find.  The dungeons can get pretty long, but the encounter rate feels appropriate so it isn't a slog.  However, a few of the dungeons have bad designs that are pretty much run forward in a (near) straight line.  I did enjoy the story, too, but some scenes had a bit too much unnecessary dialogue, which I've come to get tired of quickly in my older age.  It would be fine if you could advance it quicker, but the dialogue is voiced and I couldn't find that as an option.  But good news!  You can pause the cut scenes!  Thank you...this should really be a standard for games.

Though at one point in the story, it feels like it comes to a screeching halt.  To help the champions against a new threat you must...take part in some minigames.  These come out of nowhere, and are pretty terrible (at best).  You can't really skip them either, but some let you advance after losing.  I really hate this part of the game, simply because they lock off the actual game until you complete some stupid and terrible minigames.  It's annoying when games do that, and doubly so when it's a game I'm really enjoying.  Several of the games are pure luck based, so you can't even get good at them, just lucky.  You also unlock the ability to play them whenever you want, as if that is some sort of reward.  Instead of the minigames, they should have just made them all non-gimmicky fights.

On to better news, the game takes around 50 hours to get the first ending.  It took me more, but I was doing some grinding and other extra stuff that drove up my playtime.  The only time I felt I had to grind was before the final boss of each ending, but only because it's a fast little jerkwad.  To get the second, true ending, it takes maybe about 10 more, depending on how strong you and your monsters are.  When I finally finished everything but the post-game dungeons, I had put over 70 hours into the game.

World of Final Fantasy is definitely a love letter to fans of Final Fantasy, and an easy recommendation to JRPG fans.  It's still accessible to new fans, but you will get more out of it the more of the franchise you have played.  Even the secret boss...well, I don't want to ruin it, but I was super excited to see it.  I played the entire game on the Vita, and the only problem was the longer load times.  It's not terrible, but it is noticeable.  The game has a lot of playtime, monsters to catch and ways to customize your battle party.  It is easily worth the price for either the PS4 or the Vita.


The Good:
Battles, game length, customization, references...

The Bad:
When the story grinds to a halt because of mandatory minigames.

The SaHD:
Aw, man, that secret boss hits me right in the nostalgia.

(World of Final Fantasy was purchased by the reviewer)

Trillion: God of Destruction (PC) Review

Trillion: God of Destruction is part sim and part strategy RPG, combined together in a game I rather enjoyed on the PS Vita.  You take control of the Supreme Overlord, and must train your chosen vassal to make them strong enough to defeat the underworld eater with one trillion hit points.  It's a very daunting task that has you managing stat growth, rest and attacking the beast in short bursts to whittle down its massive HP bar.

The game is divided into two main parts: training and battle.  Training is basically selecting things from menus to increase your experience in one of 6 areas.  This experience is used to purchase stat upgrades, active skills, and passive skills.  Each training increases fatigue, which in turn increases the chance for getting a bad result from training (either lower experience gain or even injury).  So, you have to balance getting stats and resting, while also juggling the time limit before Trillion eats its way through the Netherworld.  What, you thought it would wait for you?

Battles are all grid-based and resemble strategy RPGs, or more accurately, mystery dungeon style games.  All turns are taken at the same time, depending on speed.  So, if you are fast enough, you can move twice in the span others move once.  You can move or attack in the eight adjacent squares.  Each character also has special attacks that consume MP when used.  Besides the fights against Trillion itself, there are smaller fights in the Valley of Swords and the mock battles against Mokujin.  The latter is very useful in figuring out how best to battle Trillion...except for the final form.

Time ticks down for every choice, from training to resting.  There is a constant counter on the menu that shows how long you have left before Trillion moves.  However, you can flee the battle with the mighty beast and buy yourself more time.  There is a limit to this, so you can't do it indefinitely.  When Trillion does inevitably destroy one of the overlords, another steps up to take her place, and even inherits some of the experience to make it easier the next time.  Easier does not mean easy, as it is very much possible and probable that you will lose your first run through the game, even with its numerous extensions.  Still, future runs are easier with new game+, so you can eventually win.

I played a few hours of the PC version on my i7 with 16GB RAM.  The game looks its best on the PC, and the frame rate was really smooth in battle.  However, there were two separate times the game soft locked on me.  Both times it was trying to load up a tutorial message, and got stuck on a black loading screen.  I'm not sure why that is, since many other similar messages happened without incident.  Since the game is not very action heavy, the keyboard and mouse works fine for the game, but I still prefer to use a controller.

Trillion: God of Destruction is a game I very much enjoyed on the Vita, and this version looks slightly better.  I had a few hiccups when playing the game, but it is still a game that I would recommend to JRPG fans, as it is a very unique offering and worth trying out.


The Good:
Best looking version of a game I enjoyed playing.  Very unique blend of training sim and mystery dungeon RPG.

The Bad:
Very easy to fail your first run, too many random events.

The SaHD:
The third form of Trillion is really a pain in the butt.

(Review code for Trillion was provided by the publisher)

Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force (PS4) Review

Fairy Fencer F came to US shores on the PS3 two years ago, but has received a face lift and new added content for its Advent Dark Force release on the PS4.  Besides looking better, the game has added some content to the original story line, plus two new routes for players to enjoy.  The party battle limit has also increased from 3 to 6 - a welcome addition in my book.

One of the newer story changes is in the first 10 minutes of the game, where a new dungeon has been added.  It also seems that the game has relaxed a bit on the missable quests.  You can still mess up an entire playthrough if you aren't careful, but it isn't as easy to do so as it was before.  My only gripes with the new additions is some of the dungeons are very dark, which strains my poor eyes, and how easy it is to miss the new routes.

To make your way through the game, you basically view an event scene (usually in the town), and then proceed to the next dungeon to beat the boss and further the story.  Dungeons are zones that allow you to run around, do some light platforming, find treasures (hidden and not) and battle enemies.  Enemies wander around the map, and if you make contact with them, a fight will start.  If you manage to hit them with your weapon, then you get a preemptive strike, allowing you to move first.  If they catch you from behind, or early on in your attack, then they get the advantage in the ensuing scuffle.  Each dungeon can have anywhere from 1-5 areas to go through, and most of them have a save point near where the boss battle occurs.

Battles have a lot in common with the game's Neptunia cousin.  When you character's turn comes up, they have movement and attack radii.  It can be tricky to move around some of the other enemies and characters to get to the fringes of your movement when you need to.  Normal attacks can only hit one target, but the radius is one of the stats you can increase, ending up with a very large zone to target an opponent.  Eventually, your characters will have access to a combo that allows you to set your attack strings, and you get three separate ones to boot.

To fill these out, you will purchase attack moves from different weapon types as you progress through the game.  You can mix and match as you wish, but each attack has a certain wait value, that will push off your next turn, so it might be in your best interest to not put on all the strongest stuff.  Plus, enemies are weak to some kinds of weapon attacks, so it is also not best to fill all three strings with your character's default weapon.  There are also launch attacks to allow you to air combo enemies, which are fun and also practical (since any breakable parts will take damage in the air, regardless of weapon type).

Next to your character's portrait there is a tension meter, which will allow you to Fairize.  This temporarily merges your character with their fairy partner, giving them awesome and impractical anime armor.  It also boosts their stats and gives them access to their super move.  It's a very good thing to get you out of some of the harder fights, and it seems to last longer than the original version.

The furies you get through out the game can be infused with extra powers with the Godly Revival system.  Each fairy has a rank, which determines what power set you can give it.  These will affect the character that equips it, but also can be used on the world map.  A fury can be stabbed into the ground, and provides its battle effects to whatever dungeons its area touches.  They have a variety of effects, from raising and lowering stats, giving extra money, or even changing what enemies appear.  The latter is very useful in getting certain drops or completing several quests.  It's a unique and cool system, but every positive or useful effect unfortunately also comes with a negative one.

Even knowing several things to do because of the PS3 release, it still took me over 50 hours to complete my first run through the game.  Granted, I was grinding for several hours to finish some of the quests so I could get better stuff next run, but it is still a beefy runtime.  While this encompassed a few changes, I still had not run into the new story paths.  At first, I figured I would need to beat the game once to make them available.

I was wrong.  You do have to repeat the first half of the game normally (about 10-20 hours into the game) before you can do the completely new story routes.  There is also zero indication how to get to these new additions.  I had to look up info on the Japanese release to see what to do.  I don't think it is too much to ask to have some indication to the player what you need to do in order to see this new stuff, since I'm sure many of the players of this were also fans of the original release.  We already have to do the whole game over again because we can't import our saves, so why try to have us spend even more time we don't have to?  Part of me thinks I should have seen this coming, given how the game likes to make things missable.

The new game plus the game has is very, very good, though.  It shows you what carries over, and even allows you to disable certain things if you so choose (I keep it all).  This makes subsequent runs much, much faster (I got through the first half of the game in 4 hours).  Plus, you can keep using party characters that you don't have access to.  This is important, since different routes have different usable characters.

Overall, I am very happy with Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force.  I liked the original release, and this is even better.  I like all the changes and new content (except for how dark some of the dungeons are).  I would say the game is worth it for JRPG players and fans of the Neptunia series, and any others that wanted to play it but waited for this release.  If you played the PS3 release, it is worth it to come back, unless you are unwilling to play the game over again.  At least you theoretically only have to do half the game over again to get to the new content.

The Good:
Advent Dark Force improves every part of the original Fairy Fencer F release, and even gives return players a good chunk of new content...

The Bad:
That you still have to put in about 15 hours to even get to, assuming you accidentally trigger the new routes, or look it up.  It would be nice if the game told you!

The SaHD:
Seriously, I would have liked to know...I ended up going through the game twice (65+ hours!) to get to the new routes.  At least I have the trophy for beating it on hard now.  Also, did Tiara get a new voice actress or am I crazy?


(Review code for Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force was provided by the publisher)

Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book (PS4) Review

by Aly Hand

Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book is the latest game to join the prestigious Atelier series.  The seventeenth iteration of the series, Atelier Sophie works extremely well as a stand-alone title.  If you have never played any of the Atelier games before, this one is a really good one to start with.  The game begins with Sophie, a young girl who is looking to fill her deceased grandmother's role as an alchemist.  She takes advantage of her grandmother's legacy and in the process discovers a magical talking book named Plachta who remembers nothing of her past.  From there the story progresses as Sophie works to restore Plachta's memories and improve her alchemy skills.  Throughout this process she makes friends and helps the townspeople.  Unlike most story-driven RPGs, there is no immediate opponent, no "bad guy" to defeat.  Though there is a "final boss", there is no in-game pressure to defeat it.  Unlike many of the previous Atelier games, there is no hard time limit.

Perhaps one of the more interesting things about the game is how Sophie learns new recipes.  Previously in Atelier games, recipes were organized by type, in a giant list, and the alchemist learned new ones by either discovering them or by substituting different ingredients in existing recipes.  This time around, recipes are organized in trees, and Sophie learns new ones based off of different methods of inspiration.  In other words, what she does effects what she learns.  While this can be an easier way of discovering recipes, there are some instances where the "clues" the player is given are difficult to interpret, making it hard to complete a recipe tree without turning to sources outside the game for assistance.

The battle system is another area where things have been tweaked from previous games.  Though there are many similarities, the addition of a synch meter and the ability to switch between defensive and offensive modes gives a player more options for keeping characters alive.  As the synch meter percentage rises, the in-battle characters perform automatic actions: in offensive mode, they will perform assist attacks, and the higher the percentage the more characters will assist, culminating in a unique attack for the fourth character to assist once the gauge is at 300%; in defensive mode it is much the same, with characters defending each other with a unique defensive move per character when the gauge is maxed out.  Mastering the gauge becomes essential as the player progresses through the game, as battles become more and more difficult.

There is one aspect of the game that is moderately confusing, and it harkens back to Atelier Shallie.  Once a character hits level 20, they cease to gain levels and instead gain "adventure points".  These points can then be spent on stat bonuses, skill upgrades, and special abilities.  On the down side, however, the characters no longer gain these things naturally.  In both games it was an oddity, to switch between natural level progression and player-controlled level progression after a certain point in gameplay.  The question at hand is why, if this is such an integral part of the game, this feature isn't available the entire time.  It is as if the developer is saying "we'll trust you to control your character's level ups, but only after you've proven you can play the game".  While it isn't something game-breaking or even particularly unique, it definitely takes the player time to adjust.  Like someone learning to drive in America and then suddenly having to drive in the UK, a player has to constantly remind him- or herself to pay attention and distribute points, lest characters fall behind and become a liability.

Overall, however, the game was a well-crafted addition to the Atelier brand, with pleasant characters and a clear and understandable story.  It was fun to play, and definitely one I would recommend for anyone new to RPGs, or to the Atelier games.

(Review code for Atelier Sophie was provided by the publisher)

Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC (PSP) Review

Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC is the second part of an RPG trilogy for the PSP.  While it may seem odd to release a PSP game now, players can carry over some progress from the first chapter, and PSP games are fully playable on the Vita, so it does make sense.

It also looks fairly good on the small screen.  Graphics-wise, the game seems reminds me of one of those great 90s JRPGs.  The backgrounds are 3D and the camera can be rotated in many areas, allowing you to look around.  The characters look more like rendered 3D models than the straight-up polygons of the scenery.  This makes them stand out in a good way.  Being a fan of older games, and considering the limitations of the base system (PSP), the graphics look nice.  There is also a PC version on Steam, if you want it to look as good as it can.

The game quickly gets going when Josh, the main character's childhood friend/"brother"/secret crush takes off... and it is revealed he was actually working for a secret, evil group of people.  Yeah, so I really should have played the first game, as this probably spoiled some big events in it.  Our main hero, Estelle, is off to find and save Josh.  You can import a save from the previous game or just make a new one.  It obviously won't transfer everything, but you get some items and Estelle's level is the same if it was between 35-40 (otherwise it will be bumped up or down accordingly).  Since I haven't played enough of the first for it to matter, I didn't transfer anything.  Just be aware that this review is written with that in mind.

The game's story is really good.  Estelle's personal goal of finding her friend intertwines well with her professional goal of stopping an evil organization.  The characters are well fleshed out and believable, and you can easily get attached to some of them.  The dialogue and localization is top-notch, which gives extra marks to any RPG.  My only real issue is the lack of refresher of the previous story.  Given the time between the games, and the fact that you can play this without the first, some kind of optional recap would have been really nice.  As it stands, there is a chunk of stuff in the beginning that was tricky to figure out.  Like the battle difficulty (discussed later), this drops off as the game progresses, but considering much shorter and closely released games beat you over the head with a recap, it is disappointing to not have one in a game with such a great story.

Second Chapter is an RPG, so you will be fighting many battles.  Battles take place on a grid, but it's not a strategy RPG.  You can choose to move on the grid if you want, but if you select an enemy to attack and it's within your range, you will just run up and hit it.  If it's not in range, you will move as close as you can to it.  Since normal attacks send most monsters back a bit, it can be a problem hitting them out of range of the rest of your characters.  You can also cast magic, called "arts", but they will not cast instantly.  The turn order in the top left of the screen shows when the spell will take effect, so plan accordingly.  There are a good number of monsters that are much more affected by magic, so you can't just gomp stomp your way through every fight.  At least since enemies show up on the map, you can often times avoid the fight if you need to.

Each character also has unique abilities called Crafts.  These take a resource known as Craft Points (CP for short) to use, and tend to be pretty powerful or useful.  CP is unlike AP (Art Points) in that it is gained from taking or receiving damage.  If the CP meter is filled to at least 100, then a character can cash it all in to use an S-Craft, which is effectively a super move.  These can also be cast when not your turn to jump into the turn order.  Since some turns have effects like healing some HP or a guaranteed critical, it can be very useful to cut in line and take that for an enemy.  I really like the Craft system, since CP are a fairly renewable resource to use when you need it.  Using it with a beneficial turn effect has really helped on some of the harder fights in the game.

Your characters will get a special piece of equipment called an orbment that allows them to equip quartzes.  These crystals affect your stats, but also grant magic spells based off the element(s) it grants.  Each orbment has the same number of slots, but arranged in different lines.  Elements in the same line are added together to grant bigger and costlier spells.  I really like this system, as it allows you some refinements in your character.  Granted, I'm not a fan of the crystals that both increase and decrease stats (attack goes up 6% but defense goes down 3% for example), but most are good.  It's really easy to switch them around to make sure elemental spells are covered, too.  This is also a way to get a chance to apply status ailments on your attacks, which can turn the tide of battle quickly in your favor.

The difficulty in battle feels a bit unbalanced at times.  Fighting enemies on equal footing will likely result in you taking a lot of unnecessary damage.  If I got a preemptive strike, on the other hand, the battles were almost too easy.  There are also plenty of enemies with status ailments on their normal attacks.  These can be ridiculously deadly, so any advantage you can get is a plus.  Normal fights did get slightly easier with time, so the initial hurdle may have been because I didn't transfer a save into the game, as the starting difference would peter out over time.  Special fights against quest monsters and chest enemies can be tricky though, since you cannot get a preemptive strike.  Enemies are pretty powerful, so smart use of items and abilities will get you through them.  Strangely, boss fights were not as hard as I would have though.  Maybe they were easier since I did a lot of fighting while doing all of the side quests, or maybe they are more balanced than others.

While the world Estelle and company run around in is nice, I do have a slight problem with it.  I'm not the best with directions, and I'm thankful that towns have a mini-map so I don't get (as) lost.  Dungeons do not usually have maps for them, making it much harder to navigate.  I can eventually make my way through them, but I like to make sure that I've hit all the side paths and gathered all the treasure lying around.  The lack of a mini-map makes that much harder.  Since you can rotate the screen, I would have to remember cardinal directions rather than "I took the right path first".  Again, this might not be a problem for other people, but I would have really liked mini-maps for the dungeons.  You can save anywhere in dungeons (and towns), though, and you have plenty of save slots, which is always great in my book.

The game is also really long.  Remember RPGs about a decade ago when they ran 80 hours instead of 20-30?  Trails in the Sky SC is closer to the former.  There are 8 numbered chapters, a prologue and a finale.  The prologue itself took me 4 hours, which is crazy long for what in most games is a cut scene or two and a tutorial battle.  Other chapters ran me about 8 hours on average.  I am a completionist, so I pretty much did every side quest I could.  Unfortunately, it is easy to miss some by progressing the main story too far.  You could cut down on playtime if you ignore most of the side quests, but you might need to do some grinding to compensate.  Either way, just going through the game will take a long time.

Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC reminds me a lot of the PS1 era RPGs.  It has a good story with good characters, but could do more to introduce them to new players or those that don't remember the entire first game.  Otherwise, it is a fun RPG with unique battles.  I like the craft/art system, and the super moves are useful and fun to watch.  The game is really long, too, so you easily get your money's worth.  Fans of JRPGs, especially ones from the turn-based golden age, should definitely check it out.  If possible, I'd recommend playing the previous game first, then jump straight into the Second Chapter.