7'scarlet (PS Vita) Review

Continuing Aksys' "Summer of Mystery", 7'scarlet has arrived for the PS Vita in the US!  This visual novel/interactive fiction takes place in the crescent-shaped country town of Okunezato.  Ichiko, the main character, arrives to locate her brother, who disappeared in Okunezato one year ago.  Tagging along with her is her childhood friend Hino.  While searching, she will meet several other characters that may be friend...or foe.

There are plenty of choices during the story, some of which are very important, and a few of which don't affect much.  One choice early on was obviously me choosing my route.  After finishing that route, I went back and was confused that the other options didn't change the two choices I had.  Eventually, I figured out that the first two routes can be done in either order, but the rest are unlocked sequentially.

It's an odd choice for sure, but the stories that take place build upon each other, even if they are mostly separate.  Happenings in one will become clearer when you play another.  Sometimes, there are little details that seem unimportant, but become small revelations when you are involved with another guy.  Every route was interesting to me, even if it takes all the playthroughs to actual see the main plot brought to completion.  There are a few twists that seem a bit random, but overall I think each route is engaging.

As for the length of the story, it felt a little shorter than average.  I'd say each route takes about 4 hours to get through.  The game makes up for it by having over five routes, most with two different endings.  Once I understood how to get each ending, it wasn't that hard to get them, but it did take time to replay each route.  There is a standard dialogue skip function to fast-forward through the game.  Since the only starting points are the beginning of the game, or the start of each unlocked route, you'll likely need that function to clean up any missed routes.  I was spoiled by the flow chart of the previous "Summer of Mystery" game, I know.

I really enjoyed the stories in 7'scarlet.  While it has some strange differences from other visual novels I have played, the story was very engaging, and I kept wanting to read more.  I'd easily recommend it to fans of the genre.


The Good:
Interesting and engaging story that adds more with each route.

The Bad:
New game starting points aren't the best when trying to clean up the endings and CG images.

The SaHD:
But why would the ca---hmmm...

(Review code for 7'scarlet was received from the publisher)

Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly (PS Vita) Review

Aksys kicked off their "Summer of Mystery" with Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly, the first of three visual novel games on the Vita coming out this summer.  Readers of my reviews know that I like visual novels, so of course I secured a review code to check it out.  And hey, this time the female protagonist has spoken dialogue!

The story takes place in a mysterious mansion that the heroine suddenly wakes up in.  With the help of some men she meets inside, they will try to survive and ultimately escape the nightmarish house.  While there are some familiar premises to the story, like an mysterious location and lost memories, the story is otherwise unique and interesting.  It moves along at a good pace, not moving too fast nor getting boring, and has some twists that I did not guess.  Toward the end, I was very much into the story, and wanted to see it through to its conclusion.

There are some choices to make while going through the game, but not as many as you might think.  In fact, the game isn't quite structured like most visual novels I have played.  For one, the story is mostly linear, which small branching paths that tend to meet back up where they should.  Character specific routes and endings are present, but they are smaller and shorter than expected, and don't occur in the most common places (ie, near the end).  While I did purposefully pick a bad ending at one point, I was surprised to see the ending I got at the end of the game marked as the "best" ending.  While it does seem the most realistic (as much as it could be), I thought for sure there would be a super happy "best" ending, where everything comes up rainbows.

All of the story scenes are contained on a big flow chart.  It shows when scenes branch off, and even has a mark that tells you when all conversations in that scene have been seen.  It's very easy to jump around and complete the parts you missed.  I very much like that aspect of it, and am enjoying completing as much of it as I can.

However, the game also has some extra scenes called short episodes.  While good in theory, there are several times in the game where you have to view some of these short episodes to progress further in the main story.  In other genres I can be okay with that, but in a story driven game, it feels jarring.  Being forced to stop and go read side stuff really breaks up the flow (and immersion).  I do like them as optional scenes to help unlock character specific routes.  At least, I think they help with that.  Most of the side episodes are locked, and have to either be purchased with points earned from the mini-game, by completing certain other scenes, or both.  It's not explained too well, and there are plenty of stages don't mention the requirements.  You just keep playing and viewing scenes, and eventually it opens them up.

At a few points in the story, there is a shooting mini-game to play.  It partially makes sense because you have to defeat the mansion's monsters to survive.  However, you are locking on and shooting butterflies, which aren't the monster.  Regardless, the mini-game is kind of fun.  You either move the cursor or drag your finger across the butterflies as they move around the screen, then press a button (or the on-screen "shoot" button) to fire.  It's fairly simple, but fun.  It's also not the most accurate, since many times I would drag across a butterfly and it wouldn't lock-on.  Also, it is really easy to miss some of the butterflies, since they only stick around for short, random intervals.  This is the method of getting points used to unlock some of the side episodes, and it was fun to play it enough to get all the points I needed for the side episodes.

Overall, I think Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly is a good visual novel.  There are some text errors, and the side episodes can take you out of the story, but that story is really good, especially near the end.  I'm having fun trying to fill out the whole flow chart.  I'd recommend it for visual novel fans, but it's not the longest complete package.


The Good:
Interesting story with some unexpected turns, fun shooting mini-game.

The Bad:
Side episodes break the flow of the story, and there were some text issues.

The SaHD:
I didn't think they would explain the title so fully.  It was nice that they did, but I admittedly then thought "roll credits".

(Review code for Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly was received from the publisher)

School Girl / Zombie Hunter (PS4) Review

Trapped in a school, surrounded by zombies, and no way to escape...what's a girl to do?  Bust out some guns and start blasting!  That's the basic premise of School Girl / Zombie Hunter, a game set in the Onechanbara universe with the title that explains it all.

The game features a single player campaign as well as multi-player missions.  The story is divided into 5 chapters, each then broken up further into 5 to 7 missions.  Side missions are unlocked after completing each chapter.  Missions have story scenes before and after them, which usually take longer than the missions themselves.  I would like a way to advance the spoken dialogue without skipping the scene entirely.  Character selection on most missions is fixed, but some allow you to choose.  Plus, when you complete a mission, you can replay it with any of the girls.  This is useful for getting collectibles (because of course there are collectibles), and grinding.

Each girl starts with a proficient weapon type, but you are free to equip them with up to five different weapons from any type.  I like to keep at least their default one, as most are pretty useful, but I also give each an assault rifle, as it seems the most useful and well-rounded, and a sniper rifle.  The rocket launcher sadly didn't seem as useful as I wanted, and not just because the explosion can easily damage you and your allies.  Since weapons don't really differentiate the girls, they each have a unique skill.  Some are more useful than others, notably Akiha's item-less resurrection, and Mayaya marking the location of items and collectibles.

Besides the different types of weapons, each weapons has many variants.  There are varied stats like attack power and reload speed to consider when equipping your characters.  Plus there are additional bonuses, like blast that knocks enemies down, and dismember, which can cripple the zombies.  You will also unlock outfits and shoes for the girls to wear.  These don't affect your stats, so choose whichever you want.  Lastly, you can change the girls' underwear.  It tracks the time worn for each girl, which at a certain point actually is used for something.  It's weird to be sure, but it is Onechanbara after all.

The default controls are okay, but not really a configuration I would use for a third-person shooter.  The jump I could deal with on the triggers, but having the zoom/look down sights button as a face button is just too weird to me.  Thankfully the controls can be changed, so I set them more like a traditional shooter.  This ended up working really well for me, although the aiming sensitivity and myself were always at odds.

Even on the normal setting, the game's difficulty seems inconsistent.  Some missions are really easy, and some can get quite hard.  It's mostly because of the different enemy types.  The normal, slow zombies pose little threat.  There are some special ones that glow green or orange, which explode in a poison or concussive blast respectively.  These are only a problem if they die near you, or your melee attack doesn't knock them away.  Still, not too bad.

Then there are the glowing red ones.  These will run at you as fast as they can.  As you might have guessed, they are really annoying.  Partially because they only respond to being shot when they die, partly because it can be hard to shoot them, and mostly because the game isn't designed to deal with them.  They are too aggressive, and you can't do much about it.  There is a dodge roll, which takes stamina, and can't be chained too closely together.  Plus, if you do it too early, they just run up to where you rolled to, and hit you there.  Your melee attack may work, but you can't interrupt your reload with it.  I could deal with one or two of these enemies, but they tend to come in groups.  If one hits you, the rest usually will too, which just adds damage you can't mitigate at that point.  Enemies can spawn pretty much anywhere, including right next to you or behind you, and the red ones can spawn while running at you, leaving you no time to react.  Honestly, I wouldn't have a problem if they weren't so constant and numerous on many missions.

The best way to deal with the difficulty is to grind for experience.  The only real way to get experience is by killing enemies, as the end reward is directly tied to the number of kills you get.  So, missions that don't require you to kill enemies, or only have bosses, won't help you much.  Difficulty also doesn't give any kind of bonus, so you are best off grinding a timed survival mission on the easiest setting, since you will kill more enemies that way.  Overall, this system makes gaining levels inconsistent, furthering the need to grind.

While the game boasts multiplayer missions, they are noticeably more difficult than the story ones.  You can have up to five people play them, and it seems to be geared for that, no matter how many join.  I tried a few times to play missions, but was only able to get into a mission twice.  The first time, the other person and I barely won (probably because he was a much higher level), while I wasn't as successful the next time.  At first, I thought the online might be good for grinding, but it's way too difficult to be useful for much of anything.  If you are lucky enough to have a full group, it might be okay, but good luck finding one.

School Girl / Zombie Hunter is a pretty average game.  It has a few neat aspects, like the character skills and the weapon variants, but doesn't do many unique things.  The difficulty is wildly inconsistent most of the time, and the loading screens could use...anything to make them not just black screens for several seconds at a time.


The Good:
A good amount of missions to undertake, good variety of weapon abilities.

The Bad:
The red, rushing enemies are annoying, and the difficulty feels all over the place.

The SaHD:
Wait, why do the girls from this school normally carry pistols?!  And how does the jamming not affect the radio?  And since it doesn't, how come they still can't leave?

(Review code for School Girl / Zombie Hunter was provided by the publisher)

Bad Apple Wars (PS Vita) Review

Bad Apple Wars is a visual novel...or maybe a cooking game?  Okay, probably not the latter.  It's a otome visual novel set in a mysterious school.  There is a brewing conflict between the people that obey the rules, and those that break them (these would be delinquents, or "bad apples").  As the new girl in class, you will quickly choose which side you are on.

And I do mean quickly.  The first major route change is at the end of the prologue, with the next big one soon after.  This second choice is fairly innocuous, as it just changes the next scene, but the following choice pretty much locks you into a character's route.  Well, it's not technically their route, since the flow chart doesn't list it as such, but you will be pretty much stuck talking to that character for the rest of the game.  I'm on the fence about if I like that or not.  On one hand, having such a major choice appear so small is not good.  On the other, it does make the narrative more consistent.  In turn, that strengthens the already interesting story.

Choose Your Destiny...

Another jarring thing is that there are no dialog options, even though there are points that feels like one would pop up.  Your choices are which side you are on, then which guy you talk to to start their route.  This sounds worse than it actually is, though.  I didn't really notice I hadn't made a dialog choice for awhile, as I was still engaged with the story.  The plot moves along pretty quickly, especially once you get to what the game considers a character's route.  There are a good and bad ending plus a special epilogue.  For awhile, it was very unclear to me what you could do to affect this.  It's all laid out in a nice flow chart, so at least you can clearly see what you have done, if not what you need to do.

One unique feature in the game is the touch system.  Several CGs of characters during the story have places that you must tap.  Most times it just gives more dialog.  However, there are two near the end that are much more important.  Normally, touching the wrong place just doesn't do anything.  In these special scenes, you can only touch the wrong place so many times.  If you don't do it correctly, the scene still moves ahead, but is slightly different.  I eventually realized that this was what affected the ending in the absence of dialog choices.  I'm still not sure what effects the epilogue.

I don't see a game clock, like most visual novels, so I have to guesstimate my time.  It seems to be near the standard 6-8 hours for the first playthrough.  It's worth going through multiple times, because just about every other scene involves whichever guy's route you will end up in.  Plus, you don't really learn much about the others during a given route, and their backstories are pretty interesting so far.  Even if you skip the parts you have already seen, the other half of the game is still new.

Bad Apple Wars has a very unique setting, many differences to each route, and a very interesting story.  Admittedly, the story seems much more natural if you become a bad apple, but not in a way that messes up the narrative if you don't.  Getting the different ending routes is pretty unclear, but it's still a fun and worthwhile visual novel.


The Good:
Good use of color, interesting story.

The Bad:
Important route choice is early and innocuous, unclear how to get the different endings.

The SaHD:
I'm surprised some voiced characters didn't have a graphic.  It's not a huge deal, but it surely is a curiosity.

(Review code for Bad Apple Wars was provided by the publisher)

Collar X Malice (PS Vita) Review

If you have read some of my other reviews, you will probably know that I really enjoy visual novel games.  That definitely includes otome games.  The back drop of Collar X Malice is pretty interesting.  After a high profile kidnapping and murder, a terrorist group known as 'Adonis' seeks to punish criminals and make people lose faith in a police force that isn't as sterling as they claim.  The series of murders is a countdown to X Day.  And what X Day brings, no one yet knows.

I really enjoyed the story of the game.  You play as rookie cop Ichika Hoshino (you can of course change her first name, but I left it).  After a rude awakening into the events of the X Day countdown, you team up with a group of guys to help solve the murders, and maybe save the city.  As you go through the game, you make choices which will affect story flow and which route you go on.  I was very surprised to get a bad ending very early.  Also, you get onto each route very early.  Since there were very few choices beforehand, I'm not really sure what determined my first route (it wasn't the one I was going to try for first).  When I went through a second time, I had a slightly better idea, but still not sure what got to that point.

At first I didn't like that the route was chosen so early, but it gives the protagonist and the romantic option time to bond and develop them as characters.  Most otome games seem to have a mostly unified story, and then branch off near the end.  I really like that Collar X Malice doesn't.  It really lets the characters and relationships develop more naturally.  There are different incidents to dive into, and the ones that Ichika is involved in change depending on the route taken.  That's a really good incentive to multiple playthroughs.

Another thing that the game does that I didn't expect is shifting perspectives.  To better flesh out the story, or to give the player some other tidbits, there are times the narrative shifts to another character.  On one hand, I like stuff like this in stories, as it is for the benefit of the reader.  On the other, it can feel a bit out of place, since otome games usually just follow the protagonist around the whole time.  There's also a select few times you will poke around a crime scene picture to find info about an X Day incident.  It was nice, but there are very few of them.  Lastly, there are also a few shooting QTEs in the game.  It's a nice little addition, but again are used very rarely.  I don't think they needed more, though.

Admittedly, one route through the game felt longer than average for visual novels, but it was probably still around 8-10 hours.  There were many times I was going to play for a bit, but got caught up in the story and ended up spending 3 hours playing before forcing myself to stop.  As mentioned before, having different crimes for different routes makes me want to play through them all even more.  So I'd say replay value for the game is very good, as each route had a lot of differences.

I very much enjoyed Collar X Malice.  It's an easy recommendation for visual novel and otome fans, and a great addition to the Vita library.


The Good:
I liked the story, and there is really good replay value in the different routes.

The Bad:
I have little idea how I got onto the routes I did get.

The SaHD:
Wow, two of the romantic options are just mean to you.

(Review code for Collar X Malice was provided by the publisher)

Shiren The Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate (PS Vita) Review

Shiren The Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate is a mystery dungeon style game, and also a game with a very long title.  To change a sick woman's fate, Shiren must brave the three towers and retrieve the magical dice of Reeva, the god of fate.

For those not in the know, mystery dungeon games have many similarities to each other.  Their dungeons are multi-floored, and every floor is randomly generated each time you enter it.  Placement of items and enemies is also randomized, and what appears is random within a range.  If you die...sorry, when you die, you lose everything you have on you and are kicked back to the town.  Every time you enter a dungeon, your level is reset to 1.  You will automatically heal while moving around the dungeon, but only if you have some of your fullness meter.  It sounds a lot more complicated than is, but these are the basic tenets of the genre.

Shiren does up the ante by adding a lot of unique mechanics.  Well, at least I haven't seen them before in the mystery dungeon games I've played.  It adds so many little things that they have tutorials dedicated to all of them...seriously, all 9 or so pages of them.  In a nice twist, you will actually experience the tutorials, not just read about them, but they keep adding more.  Some of them would have been better as just a note, or text, instead of having to do a simple dungeon to illustrate them.  These tutorials open up well before you encounter them, so you have plenty of time to forget about them.

Most of the unique mechanics are pains in the butt for the player, with my least favorite being night.  Monsters get stronger, and you can barely see where you are going.  To compensate, you get skills that can only be used at night, but I'd rather it just not be in the game.  Sure, it is one of many on the list of mechanics that don't need to be here, so maybe it's just the metaphorical straw.

Thankfully, Shiren can have others follow him into dungeons on his journey.  Some are free, some are random, and some are actually useful.  They aren't the smartest bunch of NPCs, but they can be decent shields and extra attacks if positioned properly.  The only real downside to them (besides the ones that cost money, or leave randomly) is when an enemy actually manages to kill one.  This will almost certainly level the enemy enough to evolve into a stronger form, which will then almost certainly kill you.  Thanks, game.

Before Shiren can make his way through one of the towers to retrieve a Die of Fate, you have to do a 5 floor dungeon.  Every.  Time.  The towers have a recommended order, and each subsequent one adds a floor or two to the top.  After getting all three dice, you then go to another town, and have to continue through to another dungeon.  Guess what happens if you fall in there?  Yup, back to the first town, and through the 5 floor dungeon, the tower you last beat, and then to the dungeon again.  I don't know why they can't just let you warp to the town you made it to, or allow you to skip the first dungeon after completion, but they don't.

Maybe it's to keep your level high enough to survive the other dungeons?  That could work, but enemy damage jumps up every other floor regardless, lessening the impact you get from grinding.  Well, as much grinding as you can do.  They actually built a mechanic into the game that will make you auto fail a dungeon if you take too long on a floor.  So, you have to rush through, but take your time.  It just doesn't make sense.

Most of my gripes come down to the fact that the game is mean.  You are punished for not grinding and punished for grinding.  You are punished for the random number generator not going in your favor.  Oh, did you have items kept in that pot?  Too bad, this enemy just threw dirt into it and destroyed them.  Is that a good sword?  Too bad, you stepped on a trap that made it weaker.  Did you lose your strong sword but it was tagged?  Then go through 15 floors to find it again!  Since the game saves a lot without telling you when, it is a pain to save scum by using the cloud.  Making it through Shiren takes more luck than skill, which is something I don't like.

I should mention that there is a way to keep your stuff if you fail...but you have to be rescued.  You can only do it so many times, and you will have to wait for another person (nearby or over the internet) to actually come and rescue you.  It would be great if it didn't result in just sitting around for an hour or so waiting for someone to show up.  Maybe if they sold a million copies it would be feasible, but it's not a feature I got to experience.  There's also some versus multiplayer and co-op, but again, I don't know anyone with the game to be able to try them out, and I did sit around hoping for some random people to no avail.  At least the game has the option, even if less than 10% of players (my estimate) will actually be able to use it...

While it can take anywhere from a few hours to a lifetime to make it through all the normal dungeons, Shiren does throw some nice extra ones at you as well.  First is the two puzzle-like dungeons, Statue Cave and Explosive Rocks.  Statue Cave is moving around statues to their proper location, like a block-sliding puzzle.  There are many different stages of it, and each gives you a reward when you complete it.  Explosive Rocks is the mystery dungeon equivalent of Minesweeper.  So, if you actually like that game, you will probably like it here.  At least it is a decent way to get some items if/when you run out trying to get through the story.  Besides those, there are a host of other challenge dungeons that each have one or more unique quirks about them.  I'll definitely give the game props for having a variety of dungeons to delve through.

Overall, Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate is a tried and true mystery dungeon game.  For better or worse, it clings to the established formula, and doesn't offer any real modern amenities to help the player through the game.  While it does offer some other content, the game is just too unforgiving and mean for me.  Other games in the same genre are much more fun, while still being hard and unforgiving, leaving Shiren feeling too old-school and random.  Having some reliable method of actually getting stronger for harder dungeons, or not having to make your way through past dungeons to get back to where you fell would be leaps in the right direction.  As it stands, it is hard to recommend over previous mystery dungeon offerings on the Vita.  However, if you like this style of game, and are itching for a challenge against the RNG, then by all means dive in.


The Good:
The sprite artwork is really cool, and the extra puzzle and challenge dungeons are a nice touch.

The Bad:
As a normally unlucky person, I do not like leaving my progress to a RNG instead of player ability, learning and knowledge.

The SaHD:
Probably the only reason I got as far as I did is because I met a shape-shifting companion that would join me for free early on.  She's the best!

(Review code for Shiren the Wanderer was provided by the publisher)

Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault (PS4/ PS3/ PS Vita) Review

Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault is a very unique tower defense-style game.  Well, I'm not well versed in the genre (I'm not sure why...I should love them), so there very well could be another game like it, but I digress.  Instead of setting up contraptions on the routes the monsters take and kill them that way, you put your contraptions around your city.  To combat threats from any angle, you move that section of city so your weapons can attack it.

Honestly, it's a pretty cool idea that fits very well to the world they created.  The monsters move toward the center of your city, which is a big tower, and you put your defenses around it.  When enemies come from a different side, you can rotate one of the three main rings around your city to have your weapons fire on them.  You get a few types of weapons, like cannons, missiles and rapid-fire guns, and each has its own best usage.  Plus, early on you learn to combine two or three of the same type when lined up to be even stronger.  You also get more experience for killing enemies with it, so besides being legit anime, it serves a useful purpose.

You have limited spaces on the rings, since they are only so big.  Planning what to put where is important, because units can only combine when lined up.  Since it is a city, you also need power plants to make enough electricity to power your stuff, and places for people to live.  The more people in your city, the more money you get after each fight.  The happier the people are (when you win and have low damage and low to no casualties), the more refugees come to try and live there.  Structures can be upgraded and leveled up to raise their stats, and you can even modify them, which have various effects, including adding living spaces for your offensive units.  Because when I move to a fortress city, I'd want to live under the missile silo.  Oh, wait...

It takes valuable resources to build and upgrade the facilities, and many must first be researched.  While you can grind out some extra fights to recoup some if you made a bad decision, it is much more effective to plan out what you are going to to.  You can only build so much of any given unit, because the city can only hold so much.  There are also a few condemned areas that must be cleaned up first.  All constructed units can be moved around, which is really helpful.  It's also a lot cheaper than tearing it down and putting it elsewhere.  The first three rings hold all your units, but there is also a special fourth ring.  This is mostly used for disposable units, like shields.  One of the shields can even absorb enemy attacks to power your ultra secret weapon!

The mission select screen shows three missions that are just fights against 1-3 types of enemies.  The only last a few minutes tops.  If you need to, you can grind on these missions as they are three different ones each time, and you get experience, crystals and money after each one, plus some new people to live in your city.  There are special missions in the orders/requests tab that give better rewards and are worth doing if you can.  There are a few different types of enemies, each with a preferred way of dealing with them.  Unfortunately, you will see all the different types within the first hour or two.  It can still be a challenge to deal with different amounts and configurations, though.

When in a mission, enemies will appear and move toward the central tower of your city.  Your defenses must attack and kill them before they can damage it too much.  If they manage to destroy it, it's game over.  Some enemies will target your defenses, too.  Any damage to a unit in zone (ring) 1-3 will be repaired after the battle.  However, if a residential unit is damaged or destroyed, some of your citizens will die, and the overall happiness of the city will dive as well.  Stopping most enemies isn't a problem, except for the space/time anomalies that summon monsters close to the city.  Those are annoying, since they are random and can really make you scramble.

Then, there are the boss fights.  When the Alt. Density levels (shown at the lower left) are over a certain amount, a boss monster can appear in a mission.  While this feels a lot more organic, it's also kind of annoying.  Bosses are very powerful, and having them appear at the end of a wave is not a welcome surprise.  The random nature also makes it impossible to plan for.  The bosses are definitely harder than normal enemies.  Each is different in what gimmick it uses while attacking you.  The best way to take them down is to learn when to hit it with your USW.  Also, killing them with the giant laser cannon is very satisfying.

You get a handful of characters over the course of the game, and each has a specialty.  While they all look unique, I really appreciate that they wear similar uniforms and have similar colors.  It really makes it look like they all belong together in the same unit, a design choice often overlooked.  There are six different jobs for them, and each character has special abilities.  The abilities are useful for certain things, like battle effects or getting extra money after battle, so it pays to use them all.  Well, you kind of have to.  The characters have a focus percent that helps dictate how often the abilities trigger.  As you use the characters, their focus rises.  They also have energy, which diminishes while characters are being used.  If you decide to put them on the sidelines and replace them with another character, their energy rises, but focus falls.  When you finish a mission, you can select one person to praise.  This not only gives them extra experience, but also an energy boost.  While it might seem like an extra thing, it is very important to use this boost wisely early on in the game.  If a character does not have a replacement at their station, you will need to use this boost to keep them going.

Aegis of Earth isn't too hard for the most part, but some of the missions and bosses can be tricky until you get some more upgrades.  It's also really easy for me to get flustered in the more hectic missions, which then makes me fumble a lot more with the controls.  Once you get far enough in the game, you have much more freedom to place your units, which makes the game a lot easier.  However, it also removes a lot of the strategy since you can just cookie-cutter built all the cities.  It is nice since some of the default city layouts are a pain to work with.

The game is longer than I initially thought, being divided into chapters and sub-chapters.  Each sub-chapter has a scene that plays out with the characters interacting, and a few requirements to move on.  It's pretty clear what you have to do to move on.  However, sometimes the offered missions don't mesh with your objectives, so you have to complete one to get others to show up.

I'm not great at tower defense games, but I did enjoy Aegis of Earth.  My son watched me play for awhile and he really wanted to play it too.  He isn't as far as me, but also enjoys the game.  Turning sections of your city to respond to the waves of enemies is really unique and interesting.  Combining your weapons and having the powerful laser in your command tower feels like a Saturday morning anime show.  Except for the bosses, the game shows just about all it has to offer in the first few hours.  It's a game I would recommend to anyone that thinks it sounds interesting, or tower defense fans.


The Good:
New and innovative twist on the tower defense genre.

The Bad:
Until you can clear up the condemned sectors, some city layouts are terrible.

The SaHD:
The weapons merging and the giant laser cannon weapon are so cool.  Yes, I'm apparently 8 years old.

(Review codes for Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault provided by the publisher)

Moco Moco Friends (3DS) Review

At first Moco Moco Friends looked like a cutesy version of Pokemon, and in a way, it kind of is.  Instead of normal monsters, the ones in Moco's world are Plushkins, which are like living stuffed animals.  It's a pretty neat idea and setting for the game.

While the story started off fine, it quickly irked me.  There just seemed to be so much idle chatter.  I'm fine with characters conversing, but the people in Moco sometimes just add a lot of extra dialogue that I got tired of very quickly.  Plus, you can't exactly mash through it, since there are gaps in the dialogue boxes appearing for moving and other things.  The actual story is fine and easy to follow.  Each chapter tends to be similar: opening dialogue, talk to someone else, go to dungeon(s), defeat boss, dialogue, move on.  It works for what it needs to do, even if it is formulaic.

Dungeons are small and randomly generated.  Each floor has about 3-6 rooms connected by hallways and look like dungeons found in mystery dungeon style games.  All the ones I've encountered had only two floors and then the boss room, so they are very bite-sized.  It's not really as bad as it may sound.  While they are a little short, at least they aren't over 20 floors, since that gets boring too.  Each dungeon has a particular theme for the simple scenery.  There are also random treasure chests and harvest points to get items from.

The harvest points each have a little mini-game with them, where you hold the A Button and let go at a certain point in the animation.  If done correctly, you will get two items instead of one.  If you let it go too long, you fail to harvest any items, but the harvest point remains.  You lose a few seconds, but keep your chance at getting two items, so it's always better to let it go longer than shorter.

Battles are turn based and feature up to 3-v-3.  You select the move you want to do for each of your party members, and then all combatants do their moves in...some order.  It doesn't feel like it is solely based on speed, but it's also not entirely random.  Up to four Plushkins can be taken with you, but the fourth is a reserve that you can use to replace one.  Usually, I have that as the one I'm trying to level up and rarely switch them in to combat.  It would be nice to carry more for that purpose.  Switching or using an item does not take any of your Plushkins' turns, either.

Each move that a Plushkin does takes some of Moco's magic, represented by the dots around the gear in the top right of the screen.  Each turn Moco restores half of the total number of dots.  Usually the stronger the attack, the more dots it takes, which is shown on the attack.  The circle in the middle of the gear builds up and when full, allows unlimited magic for 1 turn.  Unfortunately, it is automatically applied.  It would be awesome to save it for a boss fight, but you can't.  It's still a nice feature that gets more useful as you get more magic-hungry abilities.

The Plushkins can learn up to four moves, but one of them is always a generic attack.  Once they learn another move, you can choose to replace one of the three with the new one.  My favorite part of the combat is selecting the move/item and target.  It's done with the different directions on the d-pad, which is pretty intuitive.  I've probably seen it before, but that doesn't diminish how fluid it is.  My only gripe with the combat is the accuracy.  The base is 90%, meaning you miss more than I would like.  It only goes down from there.  The big attacks that hit the whole enemy group are costly and tend to miss at least one opponent.  Bleh.

 Plushkins can also evolve to a new, higher form once they reach a certain level and you have some specific items.  Their level is reset down to one, but their stats are higher than the previous form.  It will take them more experience to level up in the new form, but they are capable of taking on some higher level enemies.  They also have a max level, but you can basically sacrifice one of the same type to increase it.  Each one will also have up to two innate skills and up to two species skills.  To unlock the skills, you will need some more, different items and raise their level some.  So, there is a good use for some extra Plushkins, and I like how involved the leveling is with them.  Now if only it were easier to get the items necessary.

The town that Moco resides in has some useful functions.  First there is the Plushkin house that lets you do things that pertain to the monsters themselves, like change your party, evolve them or awaken their innate abilities.  Second is the sewing house that lets you convert your harvested materials into different types of items, like healing ones and equipment.  This is really useful, but you can only dictate the type of item made, and the result is random.  Obviously, this can make it time consuming to get the ones you actually need.  Third is the farm that allows you to grow seeds to get particular materials and has a few harvest points like the dungeons.  You can also set plushkins at special pots that they will harvest.  This function is really nice, but suffers from the same problem the story does.  There is way too much dialogue and animations for just assigning a plushkin to a pot to harvest.  Again, not game-breaking, but annoying.  It might only be an extra 10-15 seconds, but multiply that by how often you are using the garden and you get an idea of how much time is wasted.

The game is not really difficult at all, and I don't think it is supposed to be.  I didn't have a single of my plushkins get KO'd until late in the game, and really only happened because I had a newly evolved one that hadn't caught its levels back up.  Even then, I won the fight with no other issues.  I'm fine with the game being on the easy side, since it's likely intended for younger audiences and it's pretty relaxing to play through it.  It will probably take around 15-25 or so hours to make it through the game, depending on how focused you are on doing the story versus other stuff.  Getting some of the rarer plushkins to join you will take some luck and time, since you need particular dungeons to show up, and then have to get lucky again for them to join you after battle.

Moco Moco Friends feels like a mix of Pokemon with some mystery dungeon elements (and no, not like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon).  It's a very cutesy game, and my 5 year old daughter thought many of the monsters looked cute.  It's not very hard, and probably just right for kids.  While I have a few small problems, mostly related to the extra dialogue in the game, it is pretty relaxing to play.  The monster designs are pretty nice, but the dungeons are kind of bland.  Still, Moco Moco Friends is a decent RPG on the 3DS.

Magus (PS3) Review

Magus is a recent addition to the PS3 library and is the story of Magus, a prisoner who meets a mysterious woman and is then awakened as a god.  Using his new powers, he escapes the dungeon and seeks to dethrone the man who put him there.  The story, while not the best, is well done.  It isn't confusing, too weird or hard to follow, though it is a bit predictable.  The voice acting is good too, with several of the characters being portrayed by voices I recognize.

However, the first thing you will notice about the game is the graphics.  They just aren't very good.  Character and armor textures don't seem up to the level of most PS3 offerings.  It is nice that armor and helmet changes will show up on your character, but there aren't that many different models.  The stage locales are done pretty well though.  The scenery looks nice, if some of the detail is a bit sparse.  I also like the spell effects in the game.  The fire in particular I think looks good.

The game is a third-person action RPG shooter.  It's a strange hybrid, but works pretty well.  As a mage, you have a weak magic attack (R1) that you can shoot for no mana cost.  There is also a stronger blast (L1), which stilll takes no mana, but has a cast time and cooldown period.  Up to three spells can be set at a time to the Triangle, Square and Circle buttons.  These take mana and have a cooldown.  There are three different skill trees to invest points gained from level ups.  There are power-up skills, targeted spells, area of effects and even summons.  Each color also has a different weak and strong magic attack- green is rapid, blue is burst and red is spread- which gives more variety that it would first appear.  There's several spells to play around with, and combat was at least enjoyable.  I liked the combo spells, where you would use the strong magic, and shoot its effect with the weak to get a third effect.  They were hard to use, but fun.

Enemies have a good array of appearances, from skeletons to unicorns (not how you would think) to giants and more.  While the variety of enemy skins is good, there aren't really many attacks they do.  Enemies are mostly melee based or shoot arrows at you, regardless of the way they look.  There is only one enemy in the game that can use offensive magic.  Most encounters pose little challenge, even boss fights.  You can easily shoot enemies while they are away from you, then run when they close in.  Since this works on every fight, boss fights don't really stick out as special other than the enemy looks unique or you talk beforehand.

There are several ways to make your character stronger.  Upon leveling up, you gain a few points that you can distribute to stats like health and mp, which is pretty standard fare.  You also gain a point to put into one of the many spells available.  You also have a few different pieces or armor, including on the head, chest, arms and a belt.  Many pieces of armor have slots that you can put gems into to increase the stat bonuses.  There are also several runes you can equip, but only after you meet a character that can identify them for you.  The best way, however, is the character that can turn your excess equipment into scrolls that permanently increase your stats.  It takes half the value of the pieces, but you can put as many as you want to together to get the maximum benefit.  There is no limit to how many times you can do this.  Soon you will have a massively powerful god that can smash through the rest of the game with ease.  The UI for equipping items isn't the easiest to read (especially the values for Blue mana), and it can be hard to tell if something is stronger.  Also, there are a few times where what was displayed on the screen stretched beyond the viewable area, and there are no options to change that.

There are seven stages total in the game.  After the first two, you can do the next four in any order, which is nice.  The last one opens up when those four are completed.  The overall game length is about 8 or so hours, and a few more if you want the rest of the trophies.  The game isn't very hard, either, as the only time I died was when I didn't quite levitate far enough over a pit of spikes.  Plus, the enemies level with you, so you are always getting relevant experience and the order of stages doesn't matter much.

The platinum trophy in Magus is easy.  You will get most trophies just by making your way through the game normally.  There are ones for stage completion and several for killing 100 of each enemy type.  A few of those require replaying a stage, which can be done any point after the first two stages.  Even though you cannot go back to those two, everything you need is in the rest of the game, and no trophies are missable (thankfully).  Since enemies level with you, it's not hard to get the trophies for maxing each spell tree.  The longest one is picking up 500 items, and that's what will add a few hours onto the game time if you seek it.

While not that pretty to look at, Magus does offer some fun.  In particular, it was fun to make your character stronger, since there were several ways and it was easy to do.  The game is not difficult at all, but does give you the sense that you are playing with the strength of a god while blasting down groups of enemies.  The game is short, since it can be completed in about 8 hours.  The story wasn't bad, either.  Hopefully, the turning spare equipment into stat upgrades mechanic can go to more games.  It's very useful!  All in all, it was a unique experience and I had some fun playing it.

Bonus tip:  I suggest doing the mines first when given a choice.  Completing it will give you access to turning your spare equipment into permanent stat upgrades for your character.