Nope. Nothing so fancy. The team at Catalyst Game Labs announced Shadowrun Six Editiona nd asked if I wanted to review the new beginner box ala the Dungeons & Dragons 5e Starter Set piece that I did in wow…2014. It’s been a while. Basically for that. With that I did an unboxing and then followed it up with reviews of the Rulebook and adventure. So that’s what I’ll do here. The Sixth World Beginner Box has more content than the Starter Set for 5E though, so we’ll do a bit more coverage of the content. For today however, let’s show you just how far your $24.99 (MSRP) will go when the Beginner Box comes out in June 2019.

First up – the box cover. It’s a nice little design. The Logo is colourful and the title descriptor almost gets lost in the art and colour since it’s just standard white lettering. The cover image is very striking too. Looks like an Eleven Street Samurai (maybe a physical adept considering thesituation?) fighting…ED-209? It’s a nice image. It’s no Larry Elmore 1e/2e cover but it’s definitely going to draw the eye. When I first saw it, I don’t know why, but I was thinking more Cyberpunk or even SLA Industries for a fleeting moment. The more I look at it, the more I think this is going to draw newer, younger gamers in with its dynamic visuals the same way the old, more static Elmore cover drew in those of us used to Sword & Sorcery hack and slash dungeon crawling, promising “This is something different.”

Here’s the back cover of the box. It’s very well done. Not a fan of the three armed elf art, but I am a fan of the copy text promotion the box and also the blurb telling you exactly what you’ll get inside. So you get the hype and you get honesty. I like that. The Fluff on the left handside of the box though, makes Shadowrun sound like Call of Cthulhu though. Megacorps instead of Great Old Ones. Essence instead of Sanity. In a way I can see that, but this also isn’t how I’d describe Shadowrun in three paragraphs. Then again, when has anyone ever seen me sum something up in just three paragraphs?

This is the “Read This First” page. It tells you what you get in thee box and how to use it. A nice little piece for complete newcomers.

On the reverse side of the sheet is an ad for the Shadowrun Sixth Edition core rulebook coming out in August. The ad shows the cover art and hypes up the release. It doesn’t have the release date or the price on there, but that’s what you have me for. It’s coming out in Auigust with a MSRP of $49.99 for the main book and then two fancier editions will be released as well. The Limited for $99.99 and the Executive Edition for $199.99 – a price tag that makes the Games Workshop limited battletome prices look sensible. I have to admit though, depending on what comes with the Limited and Executive versions, I may spring for one. Shadowrun is one of the few games that I haven’t ever picked up a special edition for. I didn’t really care for the 5e limited edition covers, but that may change depending on what bells and whistles are with these variants.

Next up is a look at the cards and dice that come in the set. I want to make the joke that twelve six sided dice are not enough to play Shadowrun, but that joke is far more applicable to older versions. Hey, it’s like playing Orks in 40K.

The dice are well made with the older Shadowrun logo as the 1 and the newer logo is on the 5 and the 6. The pink on purple is VERY garish and I’m still not sure if I like the color combo. They are easy to read though.

The Tools cards are also in this picture, albeit it unopened. We’ll talk more about these in their own review. I’m not a big fan of the new deck trends as they just seem to take up extra space in my opinion. I’m the extreme opposite of a pack rat though. The cartds include weapons, vbehicles, spells, programs and even some NPS stat blocks. It’s a nice bonus and with only Quick Start Rules in the box, I can definitely see these being very useful, even for a gamer like me. That said, I’d rather have a well organized and formatted book/adventure than cards. Again, we’ll take a more detailed look at these down the road.

Here’s the folded up map that comes with the game. Even without unfolding it, the list of downtown locations clearly marks this as a map of Seattle, which will always be the stomping grounds proper of Shadowrun.

Here’s the unfolded map. Very detailed and the map is on a glossy high quality paper. I’m very happy with it.

Here’s the reverse of the map. It’s someplace in Tacoma and just might be relevant to the adventure in the box.

Next up is “The Instant Guide to the Sixth World.” This is a four page document on high quality glossy, full colour paper. It talks a little bit about the potential internal struggles a character will have. it also gives a one page timeline on big events in Shadowrun history, from the Great Ghost Dance to the fall of NeoNET and rise of Spinrad. The last page is also a list of the ten current biggest corporations. It’s a nice little primer.

Here is the Quick Start Rules packet. We will take a more in-depth look at this down the road. It’s full colour and the paper quality is quite nice. CGL is really bringing its A game here with this release. About the only complaint I have about the QSR? I couldn’t find the page numbers at first. That’s my own fault for looking in the bottom corner. They’re near the top instead. Everything here in the QSR is quite nice and I think runners of all experience levels will be able to enjoy what is here without getting into Edition Wars. That’ll be saved for August, no doubt.

Next up is the adventure, “Battle Royal.” It wouldn’t be an intro adventure without a Stuffer Shack featuring somewhere in the pages, and CGL didn’t disappoint me in that regard. That said, this is more than just an introductory adventure. It’s almost Shadowrun Missions level quality with a lot of helpful GM hints packed into these twenty-four pages. You’ve got the adventure, a set of NPC stat blocks, a look at some important locations, a four page primer for Seattle in 2080n and then a two page list of important locations in the metro region. VERY nice.

Finally, we have the four starter character booklets. Each of these is eight pages long (including the cover) and gives us a very diverse cast of characters. I love the representation here. Mage, Face, Street Samurai and Decker. We’ve got the core classes here. I’d have loved to have seen a Rigger or Physical Adept, but it makes more sense to go with what they have given us. I also like the racial diversity, although notice there isn’t a single humie in the mix. Ork, Troll, Elf and Dwarf is a nice mix. I can see some people quibbling about not playing a human, but this is a beginner box. It’s not like human won’t be a racial choice in the core game. Fragging Humanis gits. I also like that two of the characters are male and two are female. Also that one is Asian and the other is African. It’s a good real world racial mix too, although I’m a little disappointed that one of the characters isn’t Native America considering how important they are to Shadowrun as a whole. Maybe a Shaman would have rounded everything out better than a Mage?

We’ll cover the books in more detail in their actual review, but suffice to say, all eight pages are jammed with content and art. These are perfect intros into playing a character for the first time, right down to a provided background for you. This is a great way to introduce people into playing a RPG.

So there you go. That was the entire contents of the Shadowrun Sixth World Beginner Box. I keep thinking about what a universal let-down the recent Stranger Things D&D set was and how this is pretty much its polar opposite. CGL didn’t just hit a home run, they hit it out of the park. High quality materials. Full color artwork. A solid set of beginner rules. A fun little adventure that really holds the hand of a first time GM. All this for $24.99 makes this an amazing deal and must buy for anyone who is a Shadowrun fan, even if your only exposure was through video games (be they the PC trilogy or the old 16 bit ones). This is a fantastic way to get into the tabletop version of the game and I can’t recommend this highly enough.

In the coming days we’ll actually review the content of this box instead of just doing an unboxing. If you want to see more in terms of what Catalyst Game Labs has planned for the Sixth World, click on through to their content preview. For myself, I’m most interesting in the Core Rulebook and miniatures in August (I was very happy with the Valiant Universe minis they put out a few years ago). After that are the Cutting Black and 30 Nights books in September and October respectively.

I’m very optimistic and excited for Shadowrun, Sixth Edition. This is a great start, especially compared to Fifth Edition, which I wasn’t the biggest fan of (content was super hit or miss for me). 6e looks like they learned a lot of lessons from 5e and I can’t wait to see what the core books end up looking like. I’ll see you back here shortly for the more comprehensive content reviews with the pieces in this box.

It’s been nine years since Yakuza 2 came out on the PlayStation 2, which I remember well because I reviewed that video game way back then! I remember the game fondly as one of my favorite games on the PS2, so it was almost with a mixture of feeling both anticipation and trepidation that I went into Kiwami 2. A decade is a long time for electronic media to age well in after all.

Happy to say that even though nine years have passed the remake of Yakuza Kiwami 2 holds up very well…though while it was remade on a new engine to look better than ever it also brings along some problems which were never in the original game to begin with.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 picks up a year after the events of Yakuza 1. If you aren’t familiar with those events the game provides a very lengthy and detailed overview of those events at the beginning of the game that’s also completely optional to sit through. In the beginning of this game Tojo Clan is in a precarious place, with the Clan weak from the devastation of all the in-fighting that happened, the loss of much of the Clan’s funds and their new and 5th Chairman being a former Omi Alliance officer named Terada. This is a big deal as the Omi Alliance are Yakuza from the Osaka area (Kansai) and the Tojo Clan are Yakuza from the Tokyo area (Kanto) of Japan so they have a sort of West Coast vs East Coast rivalry going on. Omi Alliance feels like Tojo Clan stole one of their officers while the Tojo Clan itself is trying to recover under a Chairman not all of them like, trust or agree with. War between the two seems inevitable and with the state of the Tojo Clan they’re unlikely to survive such a conflict.

The main protagonist Kazuma Kiryu stepped down as the 4th Chairman in the last game and is no longer a part of the Tojo Clan, however events take place in the game that cause him to be pulled back in and hopefully stop an all-out conflict between the two groups. About a dozen subplots also weave through this, including fallout from actions that the Tojo Clan made over 20 years prior which tie into the current conflict.

When I first played the game back on the PS2 I loved the story, and I still do. Now however I wouldn’t consider it among the best stories in video games out there while back then I felt, and still feel, that the layers of character motivations and how consequences to past actions have a huge play make it some of the better story telling in video games. On replaying what stands out for me now is how Yakuza 2, and Yakuza 3 in many ways, are paced like more of a soap opera. Which isn’t a bad thing though some stuff like body doubles (which isn’t the only time in the series they do that) or dramatic reveals about relationships make the otherwise serious tone of the plot come off as unintentionally corny. Later Yakuza games play along with the corny aspects of the plots a lot better.

What Kiwami 2 really does is show players exactly how much of a crime it is that Kauro Sayama doesn’t make another appearance in the series ever. It’s arguable that she’s actually the main protagonist of the game as most of the plot is somehow related to her, her growth and discovering her past. She’s a badass and was great in her scenes with Kiryu. She’s one of the characters that makes the game worth experiencing.

Another is the antagonist, often considered by many Yakuza fans as the best antagonist of the series, Ryuji Goda. Which in hindsight while playing the game is odd as he isn’t in the game very much. At the time the original PS2 game came out though he was the only character that felt like a threat to Kiryu, which other antagonists never really manage aside from Nishiki. There’s also no deviousness about Ryuji Goda, he states his goals clearly and punches through obstacles like Kiryu does which is another reason he’s so memorable.

The strength of the characters has helped the plot age well despite being a remake of a PS2 game. Later games would add some more intentionally corny or amusing things to balance out the serious tone with the over the top action a bit better but this is the game that set the foundations for some of that more off the wall content with sub stories like Be My Baby. The Kiwami version of the game also introduces Cabaret Club Management and Club Creator mini-games. While I’ll detail those more in a moment it’s worth pointing out that they’re forcibly introduced during the main story and it’s kind of jarring. Both have lengthy introductory cutscenes that comes out of the blue and I thought it hurt the pacing of the game, especially in the slower opening chapters.

There’s also a new three chapter Majima Goro sub story that’s completely separate and the chapters are unlocked by playing through the main game. While this sub story is in general a nice to have as it gives a great conclusion to some plot threads from Yakuza 0 and helps explain what happened to the Tojo Clan in the year between the first and second games…it’s just sort of there. It’s short, the story told is super obvious from the first couple minutes, and there’s no nuance to Majima’s fights as he only has a couple of heat moves and no upgrade path. All of the random battles and street bosses are a breeze. While I appreciate them giving us closer to for one thing and more background details it also felt like it could’ve been condensed to a 15-20 minute cutscene.

Visually this is a huge upgrade to the second game. It’s running on the Dragon Engine which they used for Yakuza 6 and it holds up visually with other modern PS4 titles. The series has never looked better and going back and looking at PS2 Yakuza 2 is like seeing the same game with Vaseline in your eyes. It runs better than Yakuza 6 as well, which occasionally has some slight frame drops and reports of some screen tearing. This run smooth with very rare dips in framerate, though there’s a pause before entering battle. You can still move around and it doesn’t freeze it’s just a second while the game switches from exploring mode to battle. Considering the original title had loading screens before each battle I don’t personally mind the change for a smoother game overall.

Mechanically is where the Dragon Engine’s problems start to show however. Yakuza as a series is a brawling game with an exploration component. In Kiwami 2 you return to Kamurocho and also can walk the streets of Sotenobori as well. During the game there will be random thugs on the street that will initiate a fight and then the game goes into the fighting portion. During this Kazuma Kiryu has light strikes, heavy strikes, can grab enemies and use weapons. Mixing this up are dodges, blocking, context sensitive actions and Heat moves which are typically a devastatingly brutal move.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a bit weird here for veterans of the series. After years of either multiple characters with their own style to games where characters could switch between different fighting styles Yakuza 6 went back to one style that felt fairly limited compared to past titles. Yakuza Kiwami 2 is an improvement on the fighting style from Yakuza 6 but personally felt like a step back from the fighting in the original Yakuza 2 game. That one had more heat moves and just felt more brutal to me though it also had more QTE prompts as well.

One thing is that the physics engine still seems fairly wonky. Both enemies and Kiryu ragdoll around sometimes oddly and often in amusing ways. Furniture shatters as though it was made of Styrofoam and hope. This looks goofy but is also occasionally annoying, for example you can build up a meter to use Extreme Heat Mode and hulk out and use things like motorbikes as weapons. I hulked out and went to grab a motorcycle but my hip touched it first so it shattered and disappeared. In fact the most dangerous thing in any street fight is an enemy off screen kicking objects that fly like missiles into Kiryu.

That brings me to the difficulty of the game. While not as easy as 6 was, it’s also not a challenge. There are longer fighting sections and boss battles in the game but nothing that is too difficult. Really the most difficult fight I had is a boss battle right away near the beginning before I had gained much experience point and leveled attributes up. Even then I was able to just charge up a dropkick over and over and win. You earn enough money to never have to worry about if you’ll have enough to buy health items or food. They added weapons back to the game to buy, store and equip and it’s easy to fill your inventory with the ones just dropped by enemies. Boss battles are a breeze with the weapons though. My memories of the final battle of Yakuza 2 were that it was a hard fought battle and this time it wasn’t difficult at all.

New engine means not everything from the original stayed, however this title added a lot as well. What is gone from the original is bowling and pool, the Adam club and Host sub story, managing Club Marionette, YF6 (a bad first person arcade game), a very small additional location (though a memorable one from the original), and some music changes. What’s back are an indoor golf range, crane games/UFO catcher, baseball, mahjong, shogi, gambling card games, Purgatory and the arena, and there’s some fight training with Komaki. What’s new for Yakuza Kiwami 2 from the original is the Cabaret Management mode, Clan Creator, gravure photo shoots, the Majima Goro sub plot, Toylets, bodyguard missions, karaoke, and darts.

The more extensive additions to the game are the Cabaret Management and Clan Creator modes. Cabaret Management was in Yakuza 0 and is almost exactly the same here only with Kiryu running it instead of Majima. As a fan of this mode in Yakuza 0 I’m glad to see it return and there are a bunch of surprise returning characters and sub story missions from Hostesses that make this really enjoyable.

Clan Creator was in Yakuza 6 but is much different here. In this game its Majima Construction that needs Kiryu’s tactical strategy skills to help them defend against attacks from a property management group intent on taking Majima Construction down. Like in Yakuza 6 the antagonists of this mode are NJPW stars and the ones they chose for when the game was set is perfect and a nice surprise. The biggest difference is in 6 the game was sort of a RTS game, while this is much more a tower defense game. You get a roster of fighters and have to protect Majima Construction equipment from waves of enemies. Maybe it’s because I like that genre of game less but I found this less interesting than the mode in Yakuza 6. It is kind of cool in both this and the Cabaret modes that people you help in sub-stories join the ranks of characters to choose from.

Toylets is a toilet peeing mini-game. These actually exists in different parts of the world. In it you control Kiryu’s pee stream again the computer in one of two mini-games, Milky Nose, where you try and out stream the computer score, or another where the pressure from the stream dictates the amount of wind being blown as it attempts to blow a girl’s dress off.

The gravure photo shoots are disappointing. Essentially Kiryu takes photos and you try to string together a sentence in a conversation with the model. The internet chat rooms in Yakuza 6 were at least funny, this is mostly just comes off as kind of lame.

Between the return of things missing from 6 while adding new entertaining modes and the whole Goro Majima side story they’ve added more than they’ve cut and they kept the majority of sub stories from the original game intact. Including some of the more over the top ones that would later become a staple for all the games.

Oddly I think some of the things that the original Yakuza 2 game did really well initially that in turn became the foundations for the entire series almost hurt Yakuza 2. Some of the bombastic sub stories, the way the plot is structured, the amount of side content and so on are things that when I came into the game from Yakuza 1 on the PS2 made the game so amazing. Since many players came into the series at the 3rd, 4th, 5th game or Zero might seem repetitive or some of the side stories less interesting when those titles built on top of the accomplishments of Yakuza 2.

There’s also some older design decisions and odd mission structure which probably weren’t bad in 2009 but in 2018 are more noticeable. Of course it’s a remake so all of that’s expected, however when you add in the some of the new problems that the Dragon Engine added, like the wonky physics engine and new issues with the game difficulty balance, and you’ve got a remake that keeps the problems of the old game and adds in some new problems. Sure a lot of those issues are also very minor but they’re still there.

Short Attention Span Summary: In the end Yakuza 2 was one of my favorite games, and Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a faithful remake and thanks to the visual updates, less loading, and additional content is the best way to currently experience the game and I highly recommend it especially to newer fans who might’ve come into the series more recently with Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami.

I always open up my Yakuza reviews with the admission that I’m a fanboy of the series. I do so because feel that it’s important to acknowledge potential bias, however that blade cuts both ways as I also have expectations of the series with each new game. Especially when it comes to what is the final chapter of the main character, Kazuma Kiryu, and the denouement of aseries that I know and love.

For those who may have never played a Yakuza game you might wonder if Yakuza 6 is a game you can jump into. You can. Personally though I would not recommend this, as the game has a lot of callbacks to the previous Yakuza games and has characters that are developed throughout the series. Oddly many are actually non-factors in the game or are barely there, however their connection at all will be confusing to those who haven’t played through the games. It’s possible to have played Zero and Kiwami on the PS4 and get many of the references and at the very least I recommend playing those first. There are text recaps of all the games include 2, 3, 4 and 5 and while it hits the high points of those games in order to get a basic understanding for the plot of 6, it really doesn’t invest the player emotionally into the characters or cover some of the awesome parts of those games and some significant character deaths from the past are footnotes.

Yakuza 6 picks up right from the end of Yakuza 5. Spoilers for the end of that game follows here because it’s hard to discuss the beginning of a sequel without acknowledging the end of the previous title. Also play that game, you get to fight a bear and race taxi cabs.

Anyways at the end of Yakuza 5 Kazuma Kiryu’s adopted daughter Haruka Sawamura makes her name as an idol and is in the middle of her breakthrough performance. Doing so she realizes that in order to maintain her positive public appearance she’ll have to stay away from and never mention her connection to the man she considers like a father, who has saved her life and sacrificed much for her. During her performance she stops it to announce being raised by a man who had been involved in organized crime and quits abruptly as I guess that’s not considered appropriate. She runs from the concert to the side of a bleeding Kazuma Kiryu who actually helped stop a plot to assassinate her as a way to get back at him.

Yakuza 6 starts with him being rushed to the hospital and recovering. He gets arrested for causing a lot of property damage, which yeah, that happened. He decides to do the honorable thing and just serve his time instead of fighting it so he can return to Haruka and the orphanage he runs as a man who has served his time. While even other characters question the logic of this, it does make sense for the character. Several intro cutscenes later and Kiryu is released for time served and goes back to the orphanage. The orphans are surprised, they thought Haruka would be with him, and he thought she’d be there.

Turns out that like Kiryu’s past connections with the Yakuza, Haruka’s recent Idol fame and scandalous end of her career lead to negative attention being cast on the entire orphanage. Similar to how Kiryu left in 5 to allow the kids to live without the shadow of his past, Haruka left months after Kiryu went to jail. While trying to figure out what happened to her he gets a phone call. Haruka is in Kamurocho, Tokyo, and she’s been hit by a car and is in serious condition.

Even more to the point, she was hit while trying to protect her baby.

What follows is a story of Kiryu trying to figure out if the accident was actually accidental or if it was somehow involved with his past criminal connections and who the father of Haruka’s child is. The questions lead him into a deeper conflict involving the Tojo Clan, of which he was the 4th Chairman of at one point, Chinese Triads, a Korean Mafia group, a different Yakuza group known as the Yomei Alliance, and mysteries both personal and political. Thematically it explores the themes of fathers and sons, and the ties of family both blood related and not.

These games are all heavy on storytelling, and while sure the stories con be soap opera level of convoluted I still think that the Yakuza games manage to be some of the best games out there when it comes to telling a story. Yakuza 6 is no different. Some of the games, such as Yakuza 3, kind of meander during the first half in order to build new characters and try to invest the player emotionally into the situation, or like Yakuza 5 which is so bloated with content that the main plot feels padded out to just extend the length of the game, Yakuza 6 at least feels like it’s constantly moving forward to try to solve the mysteries it presents.

The plot itself could’ve just been a fan service of references to past games and character cameos and that probably would’ve been fine for long time fans. However the game itself is mostly a self contained plot that exists on its own but relies on past events to drive the characters. It is totally possible to play the game alone. I absolutely think a player benefits from the background knowledge of playing the past games still. New characters are introduced and relationships built, and they’re great additions to the series. I give it up to the voice actors, localization team and writers in that some characters I thought were annoying at first became some of my favorite characters by the end.

In general I’d like to throw out some appreciation to the localization team. This is no straight translation as it shouldn’t be, some terms that have multiple meanings depending on context are translated to include that context so that they come off naturally. The characters outside of Tokyo are given an accent in the translation that adds to their characterization. There are mini-games that have a lot of text that’s not just translated but manage to keep the timing of the jokes perfectly, and I can’t imagine it’s an easy job to try and translate something that might be amusing for one culture into not just a different language but a different culture and heritage and still make it work well. The localization team did an amazing job.

That said the plot isn’t without problems. Major characters are absent and while their absences are explained it remains disappointing that they had no role in the final chapter of Kazuma Kiryu’s story, even though it gave a chance for other characters to be developed and shine. After being able to play as Haruka in 5 I thought it kind of sucked that she has almost a non-presence through the game as mostly a victim and a liability. I ended up being very disappointed in how her character was treated given her history in the games. Akiyama continues to be criminally underused. Considering the motivating factor of the plot, a reunion later in the game is mostly anti-climactic when it should’ve been powerful. At one point the game takes an absurdly long time to try and make sense out of the convoluted corner it has painted itself into, like imagine the villain in a James Bond movie taking 30 minutes to explain his masterplan. That happens.

But complaints aside I enjoyed the story a lot, it was a fitting final chapter in Kazuma Kiryu’s saga with the games and managed to include a lot of smart foreshadowing and surprises. I cry like a baby at sad books, movies, and so on but despite playing a lot of video games I think I’ve only had that happen once(that Brothers game man). Yakuza 6 managed to hit me with an emotional punch at the end, part in due to the game deliberately manipulating my emotions well and partly because it’s the end of an era of games that I’ve been playing for more than a decade and love the world and characters within it.

Aside from the main plot there have been some obvious changes made to the game. For one it looks better. Built completely from bottom up on their new Dragon Engine the sixth game in the series is a pretty big jump graphically from previous games. Previously there were scenes that you could advance through with text boxes that were using the in game graphics and better looking cutscenes, not in Yakuza 6. Everything looks great and the cutscenes look as good as anything else in the game, to where you can’t tell if it’s a scene you can advance the text through by hitting a button or a cutscene unless you look for the X button prompt on the screen. Lighting and effects are better. You can tell the different textures of fabric on the characters clothes even. Animations are better too, one thing I noticed with the fights is that enemies will check leg kicks when blocking or push off an attack where as in previous games they’d just have their arms up and you’d see the blocked move effect. For a game that has always been cinematic the upgrades in visuals and animations certainly make it have a more cinematic presentation.

Another bonus of engine is that there are no loading screens between transitioning onto an on street fight or for going into or out of a store or building. As someone who played the PS2 games when there was a loading screen for every street fight it’s a great feeling to play the game as a seamless experience and makes the world feel natural. Audio wise the game is great as well. The voice actors are phenomenal at their parts and the music is perfect. There’s a song unlocked in post-game karaoke that will kick you right in the emotions.

That doesn’t mean sacrifices weren’t made. The game has some aliasing issues though it’s not terribly noticeable, the frame rate isn’t the steady 60fps of Yakuza 0, parts of Kamurocho aren’t available (explained in game as damaged by fire) and most notably fans of past games will notice areas of the game that are not as developed as past titles or are missing completely. This is completely understandable as other games used the same engine and just built on top of an existing framework while this one everything had to be made using the new engine.

Still those players coming from Yakuza 5, or Yakuza Kiwami and Zero, might feel off that the 6th game in the series the combat feels less nuanced and varied than any of those titles. While you played as multiple characters in 5 with their own movesets and styles, and in Zero you played as two different characters who each had multiple fighting styles, and Kiwami where it was just Kiryu with multiple fighting styles, in 6 it’s just Kiryu, and just one basic fighting style. That style doesn’t have the wide range of unlockable Heat moves, context sensitive moves that are brutal. There are still some but not nearly as many, and there’s not a lot of them to unlock, and most you’ll unlock early. There are Dragon orbs now for building up the Heat meter, and now pressing R2 will launch Kiryu into Ultimate Heat Mode where he doesn’t suffer from damage recoil, can use larger weapons and specific moves for that mode. Basically he becomes Saejima when it’s active.

Mostly I found myself not really using Heat moves and occasionally using the Ultimate Heat Mode. Of which there’s some moves in that, like one where you knee a guy in the head, that do a lot of damage and can be spammed making boss battles fairly easy on Normal difficulty. The lack of move variety and unlockable moves meant that by the end of the game the exact same techniques I used at the beginning of the game worked just as well. The fights are still satisfying only there’s not that rewarding feeling of obtaining new techniques to smear enemies with. One nice improvement is with the enemy AI though, they’ll attack together, pick up weapons and use them, etc.

Speaking of weapons, apparently the blacksmith that crafted all the weapons in Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild crafted all the weapons and background objects in Yakuza 6 because they break if you so much as stare at them too hard. The entire weapon crafting and ability to carry and equip them is gone, and all of them have about 3 uses max before they shatter like fiberglass pinatas. That said when my wife played she found a strategy of just picking up a bicycle and swinging it as it would have a range which would hit multiple enemies and do massive damage on them so even three hits would end most battles. After trying out swords, guns, knives, cement blocks, traffic cones, and more I came to the conclusion that she was correct, the bike is by far the most powerful weapon in the game. The sledgehammer is great as well but slower. Running into background objects a few times typically shatters them as well. Oh and this is the first game that the enemies after a battle just up and disappear instead of kneeling before you groaning and begging for forgiveness which I missed.

And just to get it out of the way here’s also what’s gone: bowling, pachinko, gambling games like poker/blackjack/baccarat, UFO catcher in arcades, Purgatory and the Arena, fishing, fighting trainers, pool and more. I mean all of these are still in the past games which I can play and a new engine means some sacrifices however I will say that for over the last decade it’s been a tradition in my house for my wife to fill my inventory up with stuffed animals from the UFO catcher when I’m not around and it was kind of a letdown for something we associate with the series to not be in it. Especially when there are crane games in the baseball cages that you can smash enemies into but can’t play. It also feels like a stark contrast to Yakuza 5 which felt over burdened with side content.

That doesn’t mean there’s not alternative content or sub stories. The Sub Stories are a staple of the Yakuka series. They’re back, though not as plentiful as some of the other titles, and there are no items that will reveal them on the map which means you’ll have to hope to trigger them. There aren’t very many for several chapters even, but eventually they started popping up and they’re as wonderful as ever. There’s no other game where you can be involved in a very serious personal altercation which requires you to run across the map, only to have to stop and fight pirate ghosts all of a sudden. There are some memorable Sub Stories and while there isn’t a large amount of them this game finds a good balance between offering Sub Stories while not having so many that you they overwhelm or continuously delay advancing the main plot. Many in the second city of Onomichi do require the player to advance in some of the secondary mini-games to trigger though so if you don’t see some opening up try to do more in those.

What are those mini-games? While some familiar mini-games are gone, new ones have appeared. There’s the Clan Creator, a mini game that works sort of an RTS game. You get to lead your own clan, and can recruit members into it. They act as officers or other positions within the Clan. You battle other Clans. Depending on who you’ve assigned as officers you’ll have different units available, those units are Brawlers, Strong Bros, Stabby Guys, Gun Men, and WTF Grenade Dudes. Not official designations. You buy units from a bar at the bottom of the screen that’s based on charisma stats and refills over time. Officers cost more and have more health and special abilities that you can activate. You send out waves of these guys against the defensive lines of enemy units like a reverse Tower Defense game.

As a fun bonus the enemy forces you are clashing with are made up of NJPW pro wrestlers which go by their NJPW names; Okada, Naito, TenCozy, Taru Yano, and Tanahashi. This might not mean much to non-wrestling fans but personally seeing Okada literally just making money rain out of the air as just an accepted thing in the world made me cheer.

It’s an interesting and fun diversion that spikes in difficulty later, however if you are ever suffering for money a few rounds of this and you’ll be set. There’s some online options for this I was unable to test out. There’s a completely separate progression system and story for this that is enjoyable especially if you understand NJPW at all.

In addition to running a Clan there’s also a baseball simulator to play through. It’s interesting; you have to recruit players from around the city with their own pre-conditions and some which need you to play through Sub Stories to unlock. With these players you build up your team and assign them different positions and level them up to make them better through playing. Most of the game is simulated though the game gives the player a chance to step into the batter’s shoes sometimes which can swing the game into the player’s favor especially if the bases are loaded. It’s a weird mix of building up a team strategically to simulate a game and yet also direct involvement at important moments. This also features its own plot progression separate from everything else.

There’s a weird bar simulator. As in you play as Kiryu who goes to specific bars and works to build up his reputation as a customer by sharing in conversation with other clients at the bar, playing darts with them, doing karaoke, and more. This leads to simulated conversations with dialogue options which in turn leads to some Sub Stories to earn customer and bartender trust. It’s oddly charming, like the Cheers video game I didn’t know I wanted or needed.

Some of these feed into each other, like some Sub Stories give you officers for the Clan or teammates for baseball, or the bar will give you Sub Stories which do the same, or the baseball or Clan Creator progression will unlock the ability to trigger certain Sub Stories which in turn lead to more team and Clan members. It works really well.

Aside from those additions, instead of fishing we now have spearfishing. This works like a first person light gun game, you have a speargun and you move a cursor over fish and shoot them. Different spearguns have different levels of ammunition before needing to reload and damage they do. Its fun though limited to three different areas.

There’s a cat café! Previews mentioned you get to manage a cat café however that’s not strictly the case. The entirety of this mini-game is feeding stray cats that you might come across until they trust you, and then they get taken to this cat café to hang out in. The cats like some food better than others, so it’s good to walk around with a lot of different cat food. However there’s not much in the way of interacting with the cats aside from choosing the food to give it. There’s not much of a reward for doing it. As a cat guy though I got every single cat in the game because, cats.

There’s online chat in the game. You pay money for credit, then spend it for Kiryu to talk to a cam-girl who if you hit the inputs correctly will be pleased and strip. This is actually super entertaining, mostly because Kiryu is really bad at using computers and they made his hunt-and-peck typing the center of the mini-game and the weird responses of other chat users is hilarious. The women, which aren’t video game animated but it uses real video clips, strip down to bikinis and there’s no nudity. It will however be one of those things that might be difficult to explain to a significant other if they walk in, and it doesn’t really feed back into any type of in game reward or anything else, however I’m still glad they included it for just the sheer greatness of the awkward chat lines within it.

There’s a fitness mini-game that’s, well, there. You work out and then have to figure out what your trainer wants you to eat from different restaurants and is mostly worth it just for the sad Before music/animation, to the After upbeat music/buff animation.

Hostess clubs are back and this time there’s a card system for dialogue options instead of the systems used in previous games which can help make the conversation seem a little more natural.

Karaoke has received a huge improvement and now follows a track for button input that’s easier to follow than previous games. While I’m disappointed there’s no Rouge of Love and would legit pay for an expansion pack of songs, this is a fun diversion.

Darts has changed and is better than the previous joystick throw input of past games.

Mahjong is still in the game and I still don’t understand mahjong.

The batting cage is still in, though it appears more about memorizing patterns than some of the better batting cage mini-games of the past.

Arcade games are still in, including complete arcade versions of Puyo Puyo and Virtua Fighter 5. The latter of which is really impressive to see in action as it loads quickly and then you’re playing an arcade complete version of a game that was released to consoles not that long ago. It’s also a great reminder of how good Virtua Fighter 5 is. All of the classic arcade games from Yakuza Zero are back, Space Harrier, Super Hang-On, OutRun and Fantasy Zone.

Which as you can see means there’s a lot of additional content outside of the story still and all of it contains the charm the series is known for.

On top of all that there’s the usual Premium Adventure mode for finishing up things after the story is done, secret boss fight, and new game plus modes.

Of the Yakuza games I feel it’s on par with Yakuza 5 though for completely different reasons. While part 5 felt bloated with content at the expense of the over-arching plot, 6 feels so plot focused while the fighting system and side content is more limited. Which is fine for the final chapter to be so story focused, however having recently come from Yakuza Zero which had such a great balance between the plot, fighting, and enjoyable side content, it’s hard for Yakuza 6 to feel like a step forward even despite all of the graphical and quality of life improvements.

Aaaaaand wow, I have so many feeling about this game that I’ve lost probably anyone reading this far along into it. Wrapping this up I also want to just say that I encourage people to get Kiwami 2 when it comes out(IT’S COMING OUT!), and play through all of the games even if they need to get a PS3 to do so. I’ve never had a game series that I’ve felt so connected to outside of Super Mario and I want other people to share the feeling of being on an emotional ride with the greatest badass video game character of all time in Kazuma Kiryu. Considering sales of the early games I felt privileged to be able to play any of the games and happy to see it get any kind of recognition.

I also just want to give my thanks to SEGA, the Ryo Ga Gotoku Studios, and everyone involved in the process of developing and writing it, along with those who kept convincing management to somehow keep releasing them overseas, and the localization teams. Regardless of any criticisms as a reviewer I may mention I value the work involved and feel that the series shows how amazing games can be as an artistic narrative medium (and also fun!). It’s been one of my favorite experiences across any form of media and I’m both saddened by the closure of this chapter while also appreciating that I got to experience it at all.

Thank you.

Short Attention Span Summary:
The new engine means some sacrifices and limitations, while also offering new content and seamless cities to play in. The limitations mean it may not stand as the greatest Yakuza title, however it is a fantastic conclusion to the story of Kazuma Kiryu that they started over a decade ago.

Evansville Esports has released their April 2018 calendar of events.

The daily door fee is $5, plus $2 per bracket if entering into weekly tournaments. Up to three brackets may be entered for Friday Night Fights. Sleepless Saturday is $15 and players must be 17 years or older and preregistered to stay past 12am. Pricing varies for special Saturday events like monthlies and tournaments. See their event page for more details on specific events.

It took me over a month to do, but I finally rolled the credits on Xenoblade Chronicles 2. This is a game that quickly because my most anticipated for the latter half of 2017, even ahead of the stellar Super Mario Odyssey and well polished Fire Emblem Warriors. The first game was easily my favorite Wii title and perhaps one of my favorite JRPG’s of all time, so to see it get a proper story driven sequel rather than an aimless open-world spinoff that was the Wii U game, I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, the resulting hours that I invested into it weren’t as blissful as the ones I had over five years ago, much of which had more to do with some baffling design decisions more so than the creative vision.

When the first trailer hit during a Nintendo Direct that showcased Nintendo’s lineup for 2017, I suspect many XC fans had the same thought I did; something seems off. And further reveals drove this point even further. The art style had taken a turn for the anime. Of course, I’m no stranger to this sort of aesthetic, I’ve played my fair share of Tales releases after all. But it was a far cry from the design of the original. But more than that, the appearance of the protagonist screamed more Kingdom Hearts than it did Xenoblade Chronicles, and the rest of the cast was rounded out by a young catgirl, a mascot character (the Nopon), and a top heavy female representation of the sword referenced in the game’s title. I was seriously beginning to worry that this was design-by-focus group; a game homogenized to mimic every trope found in JRPG’s that came before it. The end result was not that, but damn if it didn’t come very close.

While I’m on the topic of the visual aesthetic, I’ve come to accept and further enjoy the style for what it is rather than what it isn’t. Sure, Rex still looks like a doofus, and I was disappointed that your outfit does not change based on equipped gear, but the character designs come to grow on you. More than that though, the locales never fail to impress, with expansive lands that take place on the backs of giant creatures known as Titans, and tons of nooks and crannies to explore. I was impressed with what they were able to do with the Switch horsepower, even in its undocked state. It does take a hit in performance while on the go, but damn if it doesn’t blow anything else out of the water, Switch, Vita, or otherwise.

And the music. The original Xenoblade Chronicles is host to one of my favorite video game soundtracks of all time and XC2 rivals even that. Everything from the combat audio to the field music has me humming along with it instantly (and I’m immediately recalling all of it as I type this). Seriously, get these guys to score every video game ever. The voice acting requires a little more of an adjustment to get comfortable with. I was expecting something along the lines of the original game or something like Dragon Quest VIII, but I was a little taken aback by accents that I’m not used to hearing in a JRPG (sounded Scottish to me I want to say?) The performance itself was good, just not at all what I imagined I would hear from each character. The battle quotes got to be a bit too much for me though and I ended up turning them off very early on. A Japanese language track is available free to download though if you find that more to your taste.

As alluded to earlier, the world of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is nothing but a sea of clouds with large landmasses in the form of Titans that wander them. As you might imagine, as these Titans die off, the body of land that normal folks live on goes with them. This creates a lot of conflict amongst nations as you might imagine, since the space that can be occupied by any one people shrinks as time goes on. But there is a legend about land called Elysium that exists above a giant world tree that is said to be a limitless expanse. It had always been just that: a legend. That is, until a salvager named Rex is sent on a seemingly routine mission with a group of random strangers and crosses paths with a being known as the Aegis who pleads with him to take her to Elysium. What follows is a rat race of sorts to be the first one to climb the tree and discover what it is that awaits above.

It’s not a terrible premise, even if the concept of a legendary tree (Yggdrasil or otherwise) has been done to death before. In fact, barring some predictable events and filler sequences, what’s presented is actually quite good. Some of the cutscenes contain well choreographed combat between major characters that never fail to impress and still others showcase highly emotional moments. What’s frustrating though is the plot’s insistence on needing to cut the tension using tired anime tropes. Sometimes it works (the bit about the one-eyed monster in particular I still find amusing), while others wind up feeling forced and get in the say of some of the more serious writing.

The cast runs into some of the same issues. Many of them wind up being very endearing the longer the adventure goes on, but lean on way too many clichés. Rex in particular is the biggest offender, being your typical upbeat, goody two shoes, shonen anime hero. And Mythra might as well carry a sign that says tsundere everywhere she goes. The Nopon character that gets introduced very early on may get under the skin of some folks with his verbal tics. But honestly, as a unit, each member of your party complements each other well and most of them get pulled away from their more one dimensional traits very quickly.

I suppose what I’m getting at is the writing is not nearly as impressive as the original game’s, though it’s leaps and bounds above XCX and most other JRPG’s, so there’s that.

The combat too is a bit of a downgrade from its predecessors and suffers from being needlessly complicated and poorly explained. The first thing you need to understand about how battles work is that all of your playable party members are known as Drivers and are aided in battle by beings referred to as Blades. You can have three Drivers on the field at once, and each one has at least one Blade equipped, though the role of the Blades is far more passive. They provide an elemental affinity as well as determine which skills are accessible in combat. You are able to swap them out after a cooldown period has passed, which becomes a sort of necessity later on depending on the elemental needs of the fight you’re in.

Rather than having a whole lineup of skills as before, party members are limited to three base arts. Early on, the arts cannot be used until you’ve successfully landed a certain number of auto-attacks and since characters do not attack while moving, you’re expected to just sort of sit there while characters hack away. Eventually, you can unlock the ability to have certain arts ready at the start of a fight, but the early fights are very dry.

Now, performing enough arts will then lead to enabling specials, which often require an active time response on the part of the player. Other party members can then perform their own attacks, which is referred to as a Blade Combo. Depending on the order and element of the attacks, a colored orb will surround the enemy and if your party gauge is full, a chain attack can be initiated, which is the bread and butter of your damage. These chain attacks cycle through your Blades and by destroying those floating orbs, you can string together a series of blows that have the potential of dealing hundreds of thousands of damage to your opponent. In fact, the game expects you to understand this system in order to succeed, though it does a poor job of explaining it and the tutorial messages you see that go over it seemingly cannot be accessed again (but you can buy tips with in-game money, woohoo!) That said, when it does finally click and you are able to crush foes with damage totals in the six figures, it’s incredibly satisfying.

And that is just the start of the more frustrating aspects of the game. Enemies have a ton of HP as a result of the combat system that seemingly expects you to build up to a chain attack for every fight (which by the way is not a quick process). High level enemies populate lower level areas on a much more frequent basis and while there is no penalty for death save for getting sent back to prior landmark, the frequency of these high level foes borderline on the unreasonable. Navigation is a chore too (though improved after a patch), as the compass that points you towards your next goal is practically useless and the minimap could stand to see some improvement. At least there’s a fast travel function.

The way XC2 handles Blades is really what drags it down from a classic game to simply a great one. New Blades are obtained from opening cores found from fallen enemies, treasure chests, you name it. But the Blade you acquire is entirely random, utilizing a gacha/loot box type setup based solely on your luck with RNG to determine your reward. Sure, there are Rare and Legendary cores that increase your odds in getting a rare Blade, but neither of these guarantee success. And if there’s a specific one you’re gunning for (say KOS-MOS from the Xenosaga games, for example), there is not a whole lot you can do to up your odds. Which is a shame, since some Blades have their own quest chains and cutscenes that shed more light on their background and personality. Sure, there are sidequests that will allow you to earn specific rare blades too, but it’s baffling that the bulk of them have to be earned via lottery with no other recourse. And if that isn’t bad enough, you’re subject to unskippable animation every single time you open one.

That’s not the only time Blades sour the experience. Many obstacles on your quest have to be overcome using field skills. They can consist of anything from lockpicking to fire mastery, but you will run into roadblocks that require some form of passive skill to overcome. It’s wholly unnecessary and seems to serve no purpose other than to force the player to roll the dice on obtaining a Blade that may or may not have what’s needed to move on. And if you do have what’s needed, you also have to make sure that particular Blade is equipped to a Driver (because being in your inventory is not good enough) and then you have to watch an animation for each of the passive skills that get activated.

Really, if you’re looking for an RPG that respects your time as a player, this is not it. And it’s not just the unskippable core opening animations and field skill activations either. When you progress far enough to send Blades our on mercenary missions, you have to listen to dialogue each time they return and when they get sent out. Unlock some sort of passive Blade skill? It’s not actually unlocked until you view their tree and listen to some more unskippable dialogue (which it sounds like may be getting patched out, but still). Honestly, this 70+ hour adventure could’ve been cut down significantly if it wasn’t for all of the bloat and forced animations.

If it were just one or two things, they could be easily overlooked. But the little nuisances pile up, and many of them are things that didn’t exist in the prior games, begging the question “why?” Why, for instance, is the player only allowed to have one save game per account? Or why does a character that you are forced to use for a bulk of the early game have their strength tied to a simplistic minigame? Here’s another: why when defeating an enemy do I have to worry about money or items falling off of a cliff rather than have it just given to me? Why do healing skills just launch health potions all over the battlefield and force me to go retrieve them? Why do so many side quests only reward you with another sidequest with no tangible benefit of their own? Why, why, why?

I can already tell you’re wondering “your review sounds mostly negative, is it really that great of a game?” Despite all of the annoying crap that Xenoblade Chronicles 2 throws at you, yes, it is absolutely worth playing. My criticisms come from a viewpoint of frustration, as I know the experience could’ve been so much better than it was. The characters and the plot border on the cliché at times, but are very well done, and the combat gets really enjoyable once more options open up to you and it finally clicks how everything works. And let’s not forget about one of the strongest soundtracks in a video game this year if not all time. It does not surpass the original game, which was a tall order to begin with, but I at least got more out of it than I did the Wii U spinoff. Monolith Soft seems to be listening to feedback, as evidenced by the map changes, so my hope is that they’ll continue to make improvements. If they can succeed in trimming the fat and change the way rare Blades are obtained to a more reliable method, it would elevate the game from something great to something every JRPG fan should check out.

Short Attention Span Summary
Nintendo and Monolith Soft deliver on their promise for a new Xenoblade Chronicles game in the first year of the Switch, and while it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the original, it’s certainly more faithful than the Wii U spinoff. Taking place in an expansive world filled with Titans that have entire ecosystems on their backs, players try to guide protagonist Rex and his newfound Blade, Pyra, to the top of the world tree to see what awaits them. The writing is fairly strong, though it does dip its toes into trope territory a little too frequently. The combat is also pretty solid, even if it takes a long time to get acclimated and have its most enjoyable features unlocked. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that the game plays host to one of the best video game soundtracks in recent history. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 isn’t without its issues, namely the baffling decision to utilize a loot box system with its core Blade mechanic and the fact that it’s far too eager to waste the player’s time with unskippable sequences and dialogue. Had some of this been addressed, I’ve no doubt it’d go down in history as a far more memorable experience than it currently is.

The past several years have been kind to Falcom fans. We’ve seen localizations of multiple games in the Ys and The Legend of Heroes franchises, as well as less recent titles like Xanadu Next and Zwei II. Which is good; for all of the extremely niche Japanese titles that make their way west, the fact that a lot of these nearly slipped through the cracks is criminal. Well, before you had the chance to close the book on everything 2017 had to offer, Aksys manages to sneak one more into the release calendar. And while it doesn’t stand out from the pack quite enough to win any awards, it’s still an enjoyable time in its own right and a great way to cap off the year.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ is an enhanced release of the vanilla Tokyo Xanadu that launched earlier this year for the PlayStation Vita that includes all of the DLC of the original, plus some added side stories that weren’t present in the original. Now, if the name Xanadu sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a part of the same franchise as Faxanadu that was released on the NES, which itself is spun from the Dragon Slayer series that The Legend of Heroes splintered off from. Confused yet?

However, Tokyo Xanadu opts for a more modern approach as compared to its more fantasy styled brethren. It takes place in a fictional region of Tokyo (which is based on a real area) and centers around Kou, an indifferent teenager that works long hours at a new part time job everyday, much to the dismay of his family and friends. Though he has a good reason; a catastrophic earthquake occurred a decade prior that devastated Tokyo and left him with some very serious trauma. One night, after the conclusion of a late shift, Kou happens upon his classmate, Asuka, being harassed by some local thugs. But before he can step in, Asuka and her assailants are whisked away into an alternate dimension and Kou along with them.

Much like the Persona games before it, Tokyo Xanadu‘s alternate world ties directly into human emotion; opening a portal unleashing mysterious creatures called Greed that abduct those in the vicinity of these gateways. The thing is, average folks can’t see these pathways or the Greed that come from them, so these instances are written off as mere missing person cases. However, some people (such as, you guessed it, the game’s protagonist) are sensitive to this alternate reality and can materialize weapons out of the air to fight off the Greed.

It’s an interesting premise, and certainly a great platform in which to debut a new series of games that link up with one another. Unfortunately for Tokyo Xanadu though, it tries a bit too hard to mimic Persona with its narrative. Nearly every character on the roster can be directly tied to the cast of the most recent Persona games to the extent that if you’ve played those titles before, you’ll feel as if you’ve seen what there is to see with these characters before even getting to know them. Falcom’s Trails titles aren’t innocent of utilizing common anime tropes, but they’re not executed nearly as well here.

This isn’t to say the story is bad. Far from it, in fact. However, it is held back by being very predictable and slower paced, particularly in the beginning. And I did find an alarming number of grammar issues and typos for a game that already existed in another form for six months (and this is even after a day one patch set to address some of these). The cast did grow on me after a time though and some of the late game plot twists were legitimately surprising and made the build up worth it.

The side stories that were added do a good job of fleshing out some of the characters that otherwise wouldn’t have gotten as much screentime and building upon relationships. Even without playing the Vita version I can see the value in this. That said, adding dungeons to them that cannot be skipped feels like a way to pad the experience further when I just want to get on with the story (and yes, I do know it ties into the post-game After Story, but very loosely). This added content is something of a double edged sword as it were, so if you are looking for more of an abridged version of the plot, you’re better off with the Vita release.

Folks jumping into this after playing the excellent Trails of Cold Steel will feel instantly familiar with the presentation considering Tokyo Xanadu was developed in the same engine. The bad news is, this also means that it’s not particularly impressive looking in comparison to other titles on the PS4. It looks very much like a Vita game running on the PS4, though it at least runs really well and there are hardly any load times. There is no English dub this time around though, which is unfortunate since the Trails cast was so good. But then again, it does take place in Tokyo, so it’s at least consistent. The soundtrack is pretty great too.

Gameplay-wise, there’s more in common here with Ys than there is Trails, though some aspects of the latter’s customization are present. Each character is outfitted with a master core that determines the elemental affinity of their attacks, which can be changed as the situation calls for it. But in addition, they connect up with slots that house performance enhancing gems and the more you spend materials unlocking and upgrading them, the more you can tailor a character to your needs. It’s not nearly as in-depth as Trails, but then, this particular sub-genre doesn’t really require it to be that deep either.

Rather than being turn-based, players are in direct control of their characters, hacking and slashing the Greed in real time. All characters have distinct move sets, but they all have the ability to do basic melee, ranged attacks and jump abilities. There’s even an assortment of gauges that fill up that allow special maneuvers, chainable finishing moves, and calling in teammates for a limited period of tag-team action. In addition, up to three party members can be alternated on the fly in order to take advantage of any elemental vulnerabilities. It’s not handled quite as smooth as the Ys games (I’d take Lacrimosa of Dana over this any day), but pretty decent and I had a lot of fun with it.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ made the wise choice of supplying multiple difficulties to match pretty much any skill level, some of which were added for the PS4 release. The ones on the easier end are incredibly simple to the extent that you can ignore many of the customization mechanics and still perform alright. On the opposite end of the scale, there are modes so punishing that they give Ys a run for their money, making for a nice spread for potential players.

Despite all of the dungeons operating rather similarly, I didn’t experience design fatigue with it at all. You pick your party, navigate your way through the corridors tackling a puzzle or two along the way, and then face a boss. Many of these dungeons (or eclipses as they’re called) are hidden away and contain rare items and must be found with the use of an in-game radar. This is in addition to the myriad number of sidequests that has Kou doing everything from tracking down items for people, answering trivia questions and dressing up as a mascot. These side activities contribute to raising raising Kou’s wisdom, courage, and virtue, which while useful for gaining rewards from his grandfather, is also necessary in acquiring the true ending. And if that isn’t enough, as I alluded to earlier, an After Story unlocks that adds even more content and hints at a possible followup.

When you’re not questing in the eclipse, the game’s social elements come into play. You’re given a limited number of Bonding Fragments per chapter and opting to spend time with a character will expend one of those fragments. You can usually get one or two more by doing other side activities, but generally there is not enough to bond with every comrade each time. But the time doing these is well spent, as each of the character arcs is legitimately interesting and has a satisfying conclusion in the final chapters.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ is not going to redefine the way you think of action RPG’s nor show you much that you haven’t seen before. But there are enough good ideas here that I believe can form the basis for a new series for Falcom and I would like to see more of it. I just hope that next time they come up with something a little less derivative.

Short Attention Span Summary
Tokyo Xanadu eX+ is an enhanced port of a Vita title that released earlier this year that supplies new side stories, more post-game content, and much better performance overall. It plays like a sort of love child of Ys and Persona with a few touches of the Trails games here and there. But these nods to other titles act as a detriment, as the game is neither as mechanically sound as Ys nor is it as well written as Persona. Heck, I felt like I was playing with a reskinned Persona cast on more than one occasion (just lacking a mascot character!) But even judged on its own merits, it’s still a very fun game and one I would recommend checking out, especially for Falcom fans.

Evansville Esports has released their December 2017 calendar of events.

The daily door fee is $5, plus $2 per bracket if entering into weekly tournaments. Up to three brackets may be entered for Friday Night Fights. Lock in Saturday is $15 and players must be 17 years or older and preregistered to stay past 12am. Pricing varies for special Saturday events like monthlies and tournaments. See their event page for more details on specific events.

With the success of Hyrule Warriors on the Wii U and its subsequent 3DS incarnation, it makes sense that Nintendo would go back to that well with some of its other franchises. The only question was, which one would be next to get the Musou treatment? Would it be Pokemon with its hundreds of potential candidates to build a roster from? Perhaps Mario would be next, seeing as how this is one of the few game types he has yet to be involved in? As it turns out, the big N went to one of their rising stars, Fire Emblem, and as a result we now have Fire Emblem Warriors on the Nintendo Switch and New Nintendo 3DS.

If you were to have asked anyone five years ago if they thought Fire Emblem had a shot at getting the Musou treatment, they would’ve laughed in your face. The series has always had quality entries, sure, but they never really caught fire worldwide until Awakening came out in 2013. Since then, it has enjoyed a major uptick in popularity with additional 3DS releases and a mobile phone game to boot. And the massive character roster is the perfect opportunity to build a Dynasty Warriors style game from.

Of course, those expecting a strong narrative with loads of character interaction like the titles it is based upon will be disappointed. Fire Emblem Warriors follows the same formula as most other spinoff titles: two siblings encounter a dire situation that requires the help of heroes from completely different worlds in order to resolve. Said heroes join forces to form one massive mega team and expel the evil force so that everyone may return home. There are other variables at play of course, but veterans of the Dragon Quest Heroes titles be all too familiar with the proceedings.

Which isn’t to say that it’s poorly executed. On the contrary, the developers have the formula down to an art form at this point, with character introductions that are plentiful, but appropriate, as well as a conclusion that is two parts predictable and one part satisfying. But there is little to no character interaction amongst the party between missions, which is what gives Fire Emblem games their identity. Even though you can build bonds between characters, each one gives the same canned responses during rank ups and the only perceived benefit to bothering with the system is to obtain items for upgrades. Also, the fact that the story focuses on characters belonging to only three games in the whole series (Shadow Dragon, Awakening, and Fates) is rather disappointing if you’ve never played or don’t care for those ones in particular.

The combat and missions themselves also have an air of familiarity and refinement. If you’ve played a Dynasty Warriors or similarly styled game in the last decade, you’ll know what to expect. Both your team and your opposition will have bases under their control that continuously spawn soldiers. The goal is to capture these bases and/or defeat the opposing commander. Unlike in the FE games proper though, your party members are capable of eliminating swaths of soldiers at one time by mixing up light and heavy attacks as well as flashy special moves that leave you invulnerable as you mow down entire armies. Teaming up with a party member is also possible, which comes with its own set of special attacks, not to mention having your teammate step in to take a blow for you.

But it’s not all mindless hack and slash. In order to make the game “feel” like a proper Fire Emblem entry, Omega Force implemented the infamous weapon triangle system, which dictates what weapon types are effective against what. And to an extent, it does offer clear advantages to whomever is utilizing the proper weapon in any given engagement. Players are able to choose up to four characters to alternate between in battle in order to offset potential disadvantages, and several more can be chosen to aid in the fight. Rather than forcing the player to manually control everyone, the map allows commands to be issued to the A.I. in order to act in your stead. So if I want, say, Robin to engage a particular unit and Chrom stay back and guard the base, I have that freedom. Plus, if you really want to divide up the workload, a second player can jump in and take control. It’s a shame that any combatants not under your direct control are hopeless when it comes to carrying out the objectives you give them, as the strategy element was one of the few things helping manage all of the chaos.

Beyond the main story, there’s a mode not unlike the one featured in Hyrule Warriors called History mode. It drops you on a 2D map with low res sprites and has you engaging with the enemies on the map to complete whatever goal that particular map has in mind. Each one is modeled after a different game or scenario, with some featuring games outside of the normal scope of those introduced in the main story. There are a couple characters as well as high end weaponry that require playing this mode to unlock, which wouldn’t be a bad thing at all if not for the uneven challenge. Battles go from laughably easy to frustratingly difficult in a heartbeat, with the more masochistic clashes being credited to those with summoned shadows that assault your leader and base and act as damage sponges (regardless of your difficulty setting). And for those wondering if permadeath is a thing, it is (sorta), though it can be turned off.

Aside from your standard level ups, characters are upgradeable by expending items to add new combo attacks, item capacity, and damage resistance. These items are earned by downing units in battle or by improving the relationship between your party members, and obtaining a master seal will allow you to class change them altogether. New weapons are obtainable for everyone on your team, though you’ll find that characters with a specialized weapon (such as Chrom and his Falchion) end up better off with that weapon anyway. Most weapons come with slots that when fused with other weapons, imbue them with passive abilities, so there’s also that.

Fire Emblem Warriors has one of the larger rosters for a Musou spinoff entry, with 20+ playable characters. In addition, the game touts a season pass that will unlock more characters and maps for the History mode. While not surprising, I do find it a bit tasteless that some of the characters that are going to be DLC are technically in the game, just not playable (sort of like how Hyrule Warriors had boss characters that couldn’t be played as until “unlocked” at a later time). Amiibo support is a bit disappointing as well, with the accompanying Chrom and Tiki merely unlocking weapons for those two characters that are less than impressive.

The Switch hardware seems to perform well under pressure in both the handheld and docked modes from what I could tell. Having the console docked does allow you to prioritize resolution or frame rate, which is something I don’t often see from a Nintendo game. The soundtrack is top notch as well, offering up mix of the old and new. The game out of the box only includes the English dub, but you can download the Japanese audio from the eShop for free if that is more your thing. Good thing too, since the quality of the English cast is a mixed bag (though to be fair the ones that do their character justice, do it extremely well).

This is going to be one of those first party titles that will be extremely easy to figure out where you stand. Did you like Hyrule Warriors or Musou games in general and happen to like Fire Emblem? This is a no brainer. Like Musou games, but not FE necessarily? Probably still an easy purchase. If you like Fire Emblem and don’t like Dynasty Warriors or any of their brethren, then this will be a tough sell. There is very little elevating this particular entry above the others aside from the fact that it’s well polished and contains some FE franchise mainstays, such as weapon triangles and the ability to direct and team up units. The narrative and level of character interactions are disappointing, and of course, there’s always the repetition that comes with playing a game like this. It’s one of the best Musou games that has come out of Omega Force yet, but if you’re not already a fan, it’s a moot point.

Short Attention Span Summary
Fire Emblem Warriors aims to follow in the footsteps of Hyrule Warriors by combining one of Nintendo’s popular franchises with the chaotic Dynasty Warriors formula. And to that end it’s successful, as it is not only one of the most polished Musou entries to date, but manages to integrate some Fire Emblem mainstays such as its infamous weapon triangle and permadeath. The game performs well too, even when piling a ton of enemies on screen at once, both while docked and in handheld mode. The difficulty is uneven at times, with some battles seeming insurmountable even while overleveled, and most being insultingly easy. Also, despite the large character roster, having a season pass in place for DLC featuring characters that are already in the game is a bit shameful. Still, it’s a title that sets out to do a specific thing (create a Fire Emblem Musou) and does it really well. And if that’s a thing you’re in the market for, it’s absolutely worth a buy.

Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds was a surprising release for me. I’d played Demon of the Fleeting Blossom (reviewed by Alex Lucard here on DieHard GameFAN), as well as Memories of the Shinsengumi (also reviewed by us by Aileen Coe), and well, I just didn’t think this storyline was going to get released yet another time. I would recommend reading those two reviews if you aren’t familiar with the series, as I would rather spend this space focusing on the new material for those who are wondering if they should pick this game up after having played one or both of the older versions of this game.

To give the most basic of plot summaries, you play as Chizuru (or whatever you decide to name her), a young woman looking for her father, who is a doctor. Chizuru goes to the city to find him and runs into the Shinsegumi, a band of warriors with a questionable reputation. She ends up staying with them while she searches for her father and navigates the political turmoil threatening to tear Japan apart. Since this is an otome (a romance game geared toward women), has the chance to fall in love, should she find a man that is to her liking. And my, there are many men to choose from.

The game is beautiful both visually and aurally, as it always is, and balances serious exposition with the kind of humor you can expect in a story where a woman is staying with a bunch of men, many of whom have some of their own growing up to do. The romances vary in intensity and style, with some being more lighthearted, others more serious, and some leaving you wondering if the man understands love at all. There weren’t any romanceable men that I didn’t like on some level, though clearly we will all have preferences for one man (or several) over another.

So, what makes this version different than the other versions of the Hakuoki storyline? For one, I feel like they do a better job expanding on some of the topics and storylines that weren’t necessarily well-explained in other versions of the game. (It is important to note that this game is only half of the storyline. I’m assuming we’ll get the other half in another installation.) In addition, you have three new men to romance:

Hachiro Iba, a man who claims to have known Chizuru from a long time ago. He prefers to find a compromise than to use his sword, though he is a skilled swordsman. As his romance moves forward, you begin to remember who he is, and what he knows about you. (His storyline was easily my favorite of the newer men.)

Kazue Souma, a young man who decides, almost on a whim, to join the Shinsengumi while you’re there. He becomes Kondou’s page and clearly has a lot to learn about the Shinsengumi and what it means to truly be a man. As your romance with him blossoms, he struggles to develop into the person he wants to be. (To me, this was the weakest addition, but even then it’s not a bad one.)

Ryouma Sakamoto, a former Ronin claiming to be working with Shinsengumi Enemy Number One: The Imperial Nationalist Party. Interestingly, Ryouma prefers a gun to a sword. He is the source of a lot of stress as you try to balance being of use to the Shinsengumi and helping Ryouma do what he needs to do. There is no end to his attempts to fluster and frustrate you.

Much of the game is passive, with you reading a bunch of information and occassionally making decisions that will affect the storyline and your progress toward the various romances. To highlight just how much text there is, I played the game on fast forward after the first go around (you can skip over previously-seen text) and it still took me something like 26 hours to completely clear the game. This is partially because so many choices lead to so many new routes, so you end up skipping a lot of text for some storylines where the characters share a lot of space in their routes, but then in another route you won’t skip much text at all because it takes you to a completely different area or change the outcome of a story-related event. This isn’t a game to binge, by any means. If you’re going to play it, I recommend playing it one romance storyline at a time. Rushing it will take away from the experience.

There are likely going to be a lot of terms you don’t recognize if you’re not familiar with the era or the games themselves, but there is a helpful encyclopedia you can use to learn about the context Chizuru inhabits. In previous games, there were often errors with encyclopedia entries, but I didn’t run into any issues with them. I did note a few minor grammatical errors in the game, and there were two times where there were some serious graphical errors, but otherwise, the game runs pretty smoothly.

I like the Hakuoki franchise. I don’t have a lot of experience with otomes, but it feels like a lot of media that’s geared toward women are overly dramatic. Hakuoki differs from that in that, yes, the storylines are dramatic, but not every character has this terrible background and is a wounded man who needs your love, and so on and so forth. I find that as I’ve aged my tastes in these digital men have changed as well. As a teen/young adult, I was fond of Souji, almost entirely for his looks as his personality is not great (though you can understand a little why he is the way he is). It’s been a while since I played the games, though, and I noticed this time around that I much preferred men like Hachiro and Toshizo, who on top of being attractive, aren’t creeps. (Sorry, Souji.) There are reasons to love each romanceable character, and I appreciate that.

At the end of the day, though, I’m kind of tired of going through this particular storyline, in the same way I’m tired of superhero movies giving us certain characters’ origin stories over and over again. I hope that this game (and the next) are successful and that the developers finally feel like they’ve told this story the way they want to so that we can see Chizuru and others go on different adventures. There are other stories to be told here, I think, and I’d like to see them, rather than rehashing the same storyline, or in this case, only the first half!

I’m irritated they split the game up into two parts, especially since the second half of this story is where things actually gets interesting. Given the game’s length I suppose I can sort of understand, but I also don’t much see this appealing to people who don’t want to pay twice for one story, especially when that story has already been mostly told. In addition, there’s supposed to be a PS4 version of this game coming out that has the entire story, which makes this plan make all the less sense. True, the new characters do add to the game in meaningful ways and feel like they should have been there all along, so perhaps that will be enough of a pull for people who have played the game before. I just want them to do something else after the second half of this storyline comes out again. Of course, if you’re new to the franchise, this won’t be a problem at all.

Regardless if you’re new to the franchise, I recommend picking the game up (either on PC, if you’re impatient, or on PS4, where it’s likely to be cheaper and has the whole game), if only because you will likely want to see the end of the other three’s storylines. Hopefully, if this version is successful enough, it will encourage Idea Factory to do literally anything else with these characters.

Short Attention Span Summary

Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds is a wonderful retelling of a story that didn’t really need another retelling. The new characters add to the storyline in a meaningful way and without knowing they’re new additions, you wouldn’t be any the wiser. As always, the art and music are well done, and the storyline is engaging though there were a few minor issues here and there. This is the best rendition of the first half of this storyline, but I hope that after they release the second half, they do something else with these characters. I want them to go on many adventures, not just this one. If you’re wanting to get the best version of this game, however, I’d recommend going with this iteration, but if you have a PS4 and are willing to wait a while, maybe get the version that has the whole game.

Not content with merely occupying the beat-em-up genre anymore, Tamsoft has taken the Senran Kagura franchise into the third-person shooter multiplayer territory with a video game equivalent to a wet t-shirt contest (with no shirts). Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash has players blasting their favorite kunoichi with water guns until their bathing suits come off in a number of team based modes that seems like it wants to capture the adult audience of folks who enjoyed Splatoon. And while it doesn’t quite reach those heights, it’s honestly a really good effort.

Unfortunately, Tamsoft’s latest outing is locked to the PlayStation 4 this time around, and while it is an understandable move (the added performance and bolstered online presence of the console), those who previously shied away from revealing their gameplay habits from their loved ones will not so easily be able to retreat to their Vita. Sure, there is remote play, but hardly an ideal solution for a multiplayer environment, much less as a replacement for using a PS4 controller. Look forward to explaining to everyone in your household why you are splashing water on crying underage girls using a rubber duck.

The plot in this game (yes, that exists) kicks off innocently enough. The various ninja schools are invited to participate in a televised tournament to see who can most easily adapt to using a squirt gun instead of a kunai to best their opponents. What follows is a series of arcs focusing on each school’s melodrama, while simultaneously revealing the true intent of the tournament. Which, if you played Estival Versus, you should know very well what to expect. It’s simultaneously light-hearted and hollow and while this limited drama doesn’t require much franchise knowledge from potential newcomers, it also means there are a ton of characters to keep track of and little development to flesh them all out if you didn’t know their backstory beforehand.

But that’s not really why you’re here, is it?

Peach Beach Splash (or PBS as I’m going to abbreviate it from now on) is way more mechanically sound than it has any right to be. Each character has a particular weapon that they start out with (that can be changed if needed) that ranges from water pistols, to water sniper rifles and water bazookas. Basically, anything that you’ve become accustomed to seeing in a normal shooting game, there is a water based version of here, including grenades. Players can also equip cards that offer temporary benefits, such as summoning a pet or increasing stats for a limited period of time. After choosing characters and a loadout, a five on five match ensues which has you shooting at your opponents until their health runs out as which point you can initiate a minigame that involves blasting the breasts and butt of your opponent until that article of clothing goes shooting off. This doesn’t seem to serve much of a purpose to earning victory and seems more intended to humiliate your opponent.

Since you’re dealing with water, there is no ammunition in the strictest sense. Rather, running dry forces you to pump the gun repeatedly until your tanks fill up again. I don’t know how this makes sense within the logic of the Senran Kagura universe, but when you consider that some characters can sprout massive guns from their privates, you just kind of roll with it. The girls each have water tanks fastened to their waste which can double as jetpacks or you can coast around the arena like Vanquish, which I thought was an awesome feature, though it burns through your water reserves in a hurry.

The main story mode goes by rather quick, though it does contain some memorable boss encounters (including giant machines intended to… uh… grope and lick people). Fortunately, there are other modes to take part in. Paradise Episodes offer alternate scenarios for the girls to get involved in, beyond the main plot of the Peach Beach Splash tournament. There’s also V-Road Challenges that allows you to put together a roster of your choosing and challenge an increasingly more difficult set of battles until you win trophies and prizes. And let’s not forget the multiplayer, which should be the bread and butter of this type of game. Sadly, my early attempts to join matches in the few weeks following release proved to be a disappointment as the online was practically a ghost town. If you do get matched up with someone, there are standard and ranked matches to look forward to with such standard affair as team deathmatch and capture the flag variants. Some of these modes don’t exist to play solo offline, likely due to the fact that your computer controlled teammates are horrendous at completing objectives. There’s also a Co-op Survival mode, which is essentially the PBS take on horde mode.

Visually, PBS is not going to put your PS4 Pro through its paces by any means, but it certainly does benefit by not being held back by a Vita version. Characters all animate well, the… uh… physics are all there, and there’s a good variety of landscapes and enemy targets to soak up. There are even a few anime sequences peppered throughout. For those looking for a more intimate experience with the cast, the Dressing Room feature allows you to mix and match outfits and accessories, or just squirt water on everyone. Or make grabby hands. Because that’s a thing. On the audio end of it, there is only a Japanese dub, which has become commonplace by this point. The music is pretty decent, if not particularly memorable, but does the job well enough.

If day one DLC is a thing that bothers you, the PlayStation Store is loaded with various hairstyles and swimsuits for the characters in this game. While I do advocate for a minimal amount of this sort of thing at launch, it is worth noting that there is a good amount of customization content that is unlockable within the game and everything that is on sale from what I can tell is purely cosmetic. There is a handful of it that was free at launch too, so there is that.

At the end of the day, the Senran Kagura franchise proves once again that there is more to it than gimmicks and a reputation that is only surface deep. It’s not going to give Splatoon or Gears of War a run for their money, but as far as third-person shooter mechanics go, Peach Beach Splash does a very good job at being a very sound team-based experience. The shooting confrontations feel great, the waterpacks add a great deal of mobility, and there is a huge variety of cards and weaponry to customize your team. If the story mode wasn’t so shallow and the servers weren’t so dead (which may have improved with the last update, I haven’t checked), I would encourage more people to check out a less kid friendly PBS.

Short Attention Span Summary
Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash arrives exclusively on the PlayStation 4 console, which means the only way you’ll be huddling up with this game privately is through remote play. Instead of a beat-em-up style game, SK went for the third-person shooter route with the latest spinoff, encouraging you and four other teammates to splash water on the opposition until their bathing suits come off. But while most games that run with this kind of gimmicky premise end up shallow as a result, the shooting mechanics are not only functional, but quite exceptional. And being able to use water packs to jetpack around the arena or skid around at high speeds offer the kind of mobility that other games of the genre outside of Splatoon can only dream about. That said, finding a match online can be difficult, and there is no offline multiplayer to make up for it. In addition, the story mode is rather bland outside of a few key boss battles and playing against the A.I. isn’t interesting enough to justify a single player purchase. If server traffic picks up though, you’re looking at a solidly built multiplayer game that can give some of the AAA efforts a run for their money. Just… be sure to have an explanation at the ready when someone inevitably questions why you’re playing such a perverse game.

With all of the ports and remakes of various games in the series, it’s nice to finally have a proper Ys sequel grace us once again; a first since Ys Seven hit the PSP seven years ago. Not only that, but it makes its way to multiple platforms this time, making it much easier to keep up with Adol’s latest adventure. But while the option for a Vita, PS4 and PC version adds a great deal of accessibility, the localization unfortunately feels a bit rushed.

Despite being the most recent release numerically, Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana is actually more of a prequel (or an interquel as it were) that takes place prior to the events of Ark of Napishtim and Seven. It sees Adol and Dogi getting shipwrecked at sea and washing up on the mysterious island of Seiren, a place long rumored to spell doom for anyone who dared go near it. Now they must round up the other castaways and try to construct a way to escape like a sort of anime Gilligan’s Island.

The quest to escape an island that otherwise doesn’t want you to leave feels like a call back to The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening on the GameBoy, especially since the narrative dedicates a lot of time to Adol’s dreams. The difference though, is that instead of questioning reality, Adol dreams of a past version of the island where the exploits of a woman named Dana are chronicled. The importance of these sequences isn’t really fleshed out until the latter half of the adventure, which makes the earlier segments seem like a slog. The rest of the early game dialogue isn’t much better, as it serves to introduce characters in the most trope-filled way possible while getting in the way of the main draw of exploring the island for survivors. I remember groaning when thinking that Laxia was just going to be another tsundere character, though first impressions of the main cast quickly evolve.

If you can get through the opening chapters, the rest of the plot is a treat. Each survivor, playable or no, has an interesting back story that gets fleshed out via both side quests and plot related tragedies, and there’s far more suspense than one might expect from a group of people whose sole motivation is keeping predators away long enough to fashion a new boat. I was a little disappointed that the end game follows a very common JRPG path, though it’s not entirely unexpected.

The game’s text is also in desperate need for an editor. During my playthrough, I noticed an alarming number of spelling and grammar mistakes, words that needed spaces between them, and translations that struck me as odd (Archeozoic Big Hole? Really?) I’m glad that NIS managed to cobble together a talented set of English voice actors, as they were able to sell me on some of the more awkward phrases. The publisher has since apologized for the quality and promised to issue a patch correcting many of the mistakes, but it’s not a good look when XSEED has had publishing rights for the series for years without these sorts of mishaps.

This is by no means a quick play either. Many Ys games can be knocked out in an afternoon for those determined, but you’re looking at a minimum of 30-40 hours for Ys VIII and that’s not counting the various diversions that await you, included side quests, map exploration, and minigames. This is all before you consider things like adjustable difficulty settings and New Game Plus. Completing tasks for the various survivors and giving them gifts will raise Adol’s affection with that character, and getting friendly with everyone can lead to a better ending.

Occasionally during exploration, the village will be attacked by monsters (otherwise known as Ancient Species) and your party will be forced to defend the front gate. Other survivors will fight their own battles as well, and good performance on their part will yield positive bonuses for Adol and company. Investing materials into strengthening your front gate or building barriers helps manage the chaos, which is good since things can go to Hell quickly if you’re not paying attention.

If you played the recent remake of Ys: Memories of Celceta, you will be instantly familiar with the latest offering’s mechanics. The combat is entirely action based, with success based primarily on how well you can manage your party’s skill sets and how easily you can master dodging and blocking. As before, each character can inflict slash, pierce, or striking damage and exploiting a weakness will “break” an enemy, opening up to full damage from everyone. Since your party members can be swapped on the fly, it’s very convenient to alternate between the various elements as needed. Each character learns a selection of skills that burn up SP to utilize as well, which mixes up the hack and slash combat. And continued attacks will fill up an EXTRA meter that fires off an ultimate skill of sorts while invulnerable. I always have a bit of trouble getting it to activate though, as hitting the L and R buttons simultaneously is not always responsive.

One would think the Vita version would get left behind in terms of visual fidelity, but Ys VIII really shines on the console. The frame rate is consistent, the animation smooth, and the massive Seiren Island is sufficiently detailed. Even the most hectic battles have not caused any sort of slowdown during my playthrough, though the game did crash on me one time and then never again. And let’s not forget about the rocking soundtrack, which is pretty much a given for Ys games. Do note that there is some added content for the PS4 and PC versions that doesn’t exist on the Vita, so keep that in mind if you’re thinking about sacrificing that for the portability.

I was initially taken aback by the scope of Ys VIII, as I am when most titles tout a massive land to explore. But not once did I feel overwhelmed by the size of Seiren Island, and the fact that many waypoints exist for warping purposes means it is not a pain to get back to camp if you need to upgrade your gear. And speaking of camp, chasing down castaways has many of the same benefits for your home base as it did for the Suikoden series, which I thoroughly enjoyed. As many of them are blacksmiths, merchants, tailors and the like, each new face expands the scope of the camp in addition to opening up new quests.

An expanded base camp isn’t the only benefit to finding survivors. Many areas of Seiren Island are blocked off until you have enough people at your camp to move whatever debris is obstructing your path. You’ll also find equipment that grants the ability to do things such as climbing vines or breathing underwater, making the game into a sort of Metroidvania setup where your findings encourage you to return to old places to see if new things open up.

Not once did I doubt that I was going to enjoy playing Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana. Falcom has been fairly consistent with this franchise, so my only concern was the change in publisher and the localization inconsistencies that that entails (which sadly turned out worse than I feared). That being said, the fast paced combat is probably the best it has ever been, the game certainly looks sharp, and I loved the new island castaway concept. If NIS America holds to their promise to fix the errors, then you’re looking at one of the best entries in the series.

Short Attention Span Summary
Adol’s adventures continue in Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, a title that sees him and his pal Dogi in a shipwreck and subsequently stranded on a mysterious island that no one has visited and lived to tell about it. Finding castaways and utilizing their individual skill sets in your camp is one of the best new features of the game, and the combat remains as top notch as ever. It doesn’t hurt that the game performs well, even on the Vita console, and there is no shortage of places to explore on the island. The localization suffers from a myriad amount of spelling and grammatical issues, and many of the translation choices were baffling. That said, a patch is said to be released in the near future to address these issues, but even without it you’re still left with one of the best action RPG’s to release this year.

Idea Factory continues to be a constant source of content for the Vita, even though the platform has been mostly abandoned at this point. It still serves as a great home to a number of niche Japanese titles, and it doesn’t get more niche or Japanese than something Mary Skelter. This is a dungeon crawler feature half naked anime girls and involves licking blood, using the touch screen to rub the “corruption” out of said anime girls, and even throws in some minor dating sim elements. If this is enough to turn you off of the game, it would be understandable. Those who stick with it though, can actually find a flawed, but mostly well executed JRPG.

You’ll play as Jack, the prototypical vanilla lead male, as he traverses through “Jail”, a living prison that long ago enveloped an unnamed city. Jack and his friend Alice join up with a organization dedicated to escaping Jail. They plan to do this by utilizing “Blood Maidens”. Blood Maidens are young girls with the power to utilize powerful weapons and magic that is powered by the blood of the monsters that roam throughout Jail. Up until Jack joins, said girls were in danger of becoming corrupted by the monster blood to the point of going insane. Jack, the first of his kind discovered, is able to heal that corruption by splashing his own blood on the Blood Maidens. With this new power at their disposal, Dawn, the aforementioned organization begins their plan to escape Jail in earnest.

As the plot goes on, you’ll learn quite a bit more about the setting and the characters. Each of the girls is named after a classic fairy tale heroine, and there’s a reason for that. It’s actually explained. You can also befriend the girls by giving them gifts, and this will unlock bonus scenes and open up the ability to get a specific romantic partner at the game’s end. While some of the characters get a lot more screen time than others, and some of them are a bit bland, there’s more than enough here for a fan of the genre.

Problems arise when you reach the ending. You see, if you didn’t scour the earlier dungeons for specific items and trigger the associated events, you will be unable to get the good ending. It doesn’t matter what choices you make at the end, or who you tried to romance. You need those items. If you happen to have missed them by the time you reach the final chapter, you will be unable to trigger the needed events and be stuck once again. This kind of tactic was acceptable back when games took twenty to thirty minutes to get through, but for an RPG designed to soak up dozens of hours, it feels incredibly cheap. Be warned, and use a guide if you need to. Also, many of the game’s big twists come out of a exposition dump at the end, and the reasons given are completely out there. On top of that, the game even admits the twist was crazy, and flat out tells you trying to explain it would be too much work. You’re just supposed to roll with it. That’s just lazy. However, if you can avoid the bad ending, there’s not too much to complain about in terms of the story. It’s a bit typical apart from the crazy setting, but decent enough.

In terms of visuals, this game is strictly middle of the road. The characters are portrayed through portraits that remain mostly static apart from some minor animation. They have a couple of different poses and change attire based on the job assigned to them. That’s it. Little is done to express the story through images. For example, one story bit involves a character losing her earring. However, both of her earrings are still on her portrait, which kind of mitigates the crisis. For dungeons and battles, you get the usual first-person view. There are a couple dozen different enemy types and about three different colored versions of each. These bad boys are in 3D and actually have a couple of different animations they go through. The dungeons themselves are the real star though. While they do occasionally feel like copy/pasted nightmares, they’re usually filled to the brim with nice touches. Splashes of blood, searching eyes, and other decorative touches make each dungeon feel distinct and more alive than the usual fare. It’s a passable looking game, so long as you don’t mind half naked anime girls.

For audio, you have the choice of English or Japanese voice tracks. Either will work, although there appears to be less English voice acting than Japanese. It’s pretty decent stuff apart from an awful battle scream that Jack does. The music is pretty stand out, as there are a number of memorable tunes and the various battle themes can easily get stuck in your head. The effects are fairly standard. It’s a more than acceptable package overall.

Like other Compile Heart games, Mary Skelter has a lot of little mechanics and tricks to give it its own identity. For starters, there’s the blood meter. As characters land critical strikes or use elemental weaknesses on monsters, they get blood splattered on them. When this blood meter reaches its highest level, the character will enter “massacre” state. This gives them new abilities and ups their various stats until the effect wears off or battle ends. However, they will start earning corruption as they take damage, and if the blood meter is corrupted when it reaches max, they could enter “blood skelter” mode. This increases their strength dramatically, but robs control away from the player. More worrisome is the fact that they can and will target your team as well as foes. The only way to cure skelter mode is to end the battle or use one of Jack’s blood abilities.

Speaking of Jack, he’s a rather unique character for a game like this. He is unable to attack or do damage in any normal way. He’s a support character in truth. He can use items, guard one of the girls, create blood, or use a blood ability. At the start, the only blood abilities you have are curing corruption or curing skelter mode. Using these empties his blood meter, and he can stun himself if the blood is too low. So you might need to take a turn off to create blood. Later additions to his skill set allow him to become even more invaluable.

Dungeons in the game are interesting in that you move through them square by square like normal, but the game keeps going in real time. That means that you have to keep moving at a quick pace to avoid traps. More importantly, there are large boss characters called “nightmares” that will occasionally show up to hunt you down. Instead of memorizing their patterns, you simply need to run far enough away. The catch is that you can’t use the map during these chase sequences.

Dungeons in the game are fairly large, with each floor often taking up to an hour to get through. Each location is full of dead ends, traps, and puzzle sections where you need to manipulate the environment in some way. Thankfully, the developers avoided some of the annoying tropes of the genre, such as warp pads that send you back to the start of the dungeon. You can also use the map to have the game automatically move you to a spot you’ve been before. It saves on commute time, and lets you take a breather every once in a while.

The battle system is fairly typical for a game like this. Characters act based on their speed, and have a handful of basic options. They can use basic physical attacks, utilize their learned skills, guard, or use items. Unique to this game is the “lick” mechanic. When a girl has at least three blood splashes on her, another girl can lick that blood off to get a bonus of some sort. For example, licking Alice restores some health, but licking Sleeping Beauty gives every a chance to critical hit on the next attack. This removes all the blood from that character, which can be useful for avoiding skelter if Jack is stunned or busy elsewhere.

Outside of battle, you have a number of nifty ways to customize your team. Each girl has five different jobs they can assume, each with unique skills that can be learned and carried over to another job. The catch is that you have to earn job points to switch jobs, which you get every certain number of levels. You also need blood crystals, which are dropped from enemies. It’s generally not that difficult to get them, however. You can also use those blood crystals to expand you skill slots, upgrade your gear, and de-level one of your girls. De-leveling allows you to set them back to certain milestone levels, but keep their skill points. It’s a nifty, but unnecessary feature. Speaking of those skill points, you’re free to level up or learn whatever skills you want from whatever jobs you have unlocked. You can truly set each character how you want her.

The game is fairly tough until you get the hang of it, and enemies will pile on the damage if you aren’t careful. You’ll find that area-of-effect attacks are invaluable, as is using Jack to heal instead of one the girls when you can avoid it. Restorative items are plenty, and money is easy to amass. The key with the game is remembering to power up your teams between excursions, and to upgrade their equipment whenever you can. Worst comes to worst, you can lower the difficulty from the menu.

The game can last you a few dozen hours at least, and balloon up a bit if you want to see it all. The various endings can easily be seen from a late game save (as long as you’ve got the gun upgrades I mentioned before). It’s not an overly impressive length for an RPG, but it won’t sell you short either.

Short Attention Span Summary

Mary Skelter is high on the kind of fanservice that might turn some people off, but it offers a solid RPG experience for those willing to work through it. The only major flaw is that you can wind up unable to see the good ending because you didn’t pick up random objects that the game doesn’t even warn you about. If you go in with that knowledge intact, and play carefully, this can definitely be worth your time.

August was apparently the month of anime remasters, as hot on the heels of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Legacy comes a game based on another hot Shonen Jump franchise. One Piece: Unlimited World Red – Deluxe Edition is based on a title that started life as a 3DS game that had since been ported to every console under the sun. It now makes its way to the PlayStation 4 and Switch with all of its DLC included as well as some visual and performance enhancements. And like before, I found myself enjoying it more the second time around.

One Piece is another franchise that has a vast assortment of games with wildly varying quality. I’ve tried most of the ones that released after the 4Kids era of the dub had long ended (those were dark times) and didn’t find many I enjoyed outside of the One Piece: Pirate Warriors trilogy. Romance Dawn got repetitive, Burning Blood was frustrating and imbalanced, and Unlimited Adventure left a lot to be desired. Unlimited World Red, while not perfect, manages to scratch the anime itch in such a way that those other titles could not.

It doesn’t hurt that the plot is unique to this game (though you do encounter familiar areas and adversaries). Luffy and crew encounter a mysterious raccoon, Pato, that has the power to bring things to life that are drawn on a leaf. He leads them to a mysterious island where a pirate simply known as The Red Count has taken up residence. It isn’t long before Luffy’s crew is suddenly abducted, forcing him to explore the island and rescue them, as well as unravel the reason they were brought to the island in the first place.

The narrative holds its own about as well as can be expected. All of the familiar plot beats that fans are accustomed to (never giving up, believe in your friends, etc) are touched upon, and it is nice to have an excuse to revisit locales pulled from various story arcs, such as Fishman Island and Enies Lobby. The final chapter in particular brings everything together while simultaneously fleshing out the main antagonist, which I appreciated. While I would be hard pressed to recommend the game to someone based on the plot, it’s still a pretty good effort.

Visually, Unlimited World Red has the anime look down pat. Cutscenes are well done for what few there are, the locations appear authentic to their respective arcs, and characters animate well during their attacks and special moves. The whole thing seems to operate at a rather consistent frame rate too, which helps. Once again, the English dub cast was not included in the release, but considering the lack of a physical release for its most recent incarnation, I’d be very surprised if it was.

Each of the game’s areas are divided neatly into chapters. Upon completion of a chapter, Luffy is dumped back to a town that acts as a sort of hub for his adventure. Using his stretchy arms, he can rocket back and forth across the town fairly quickly, which is good on account of how spread out much of it is. Using resources collected in battle, the town can be built on so that new shops with added inventory open up, along with minigames. This aspect alone gives it a sort of Dark Cloud vibe, which I thoroughly enjoyed and became one of my favorite features of the game.

As progress is made in the story, new quests open up around town that will often send the Straw Hat crew back to areas they’ve already been in order to collect specific items or defeat particular foes. These quests don’t really offer much beyond the added experience and materials they provide, but if you’re looking for things to do beyond the main plot, they certainly pad out the clock. The minigames, as I mentioned earlier, will eventually open up too, consisting mostly of memory and reflex games. And if you still need more to do, an entirely separate Battle Coliseum mode exists for giving players an opportunity to unlock characters not already present in the story and allowing them to throw down in tournament style battles.

With all of these features at play, it’s a shame that the combat wasn’t up to the task a little better than it is. You do get strong and weak attacks that can be mixed together to form an assortment of combos based on your character selection, plus the ability to jump and dodge out of the way. Certain attacks against you will even display an obvious prompt on when to hit the button in order to warp away or perform some other context sensitive action, making it especially easy to avoid trouble. If you do get roughed up, enhancement items are there to save the day.

Performing a sequence of combos will send your character into a rush mode, which seems to marginally improve the damage output of your team. Taking and receiving damage will fill up a bar that allows your entire three person team do a sort of crew attack that inflicts damage on all on screen enemies. If you need to mix it up, swapping teammates is as easy as hitting a button and a second player can take control of one of them, which is a fantastic addition I wish more modern games had.

Strong words are another important part of progression, as many stages will gate off progress until you have the right ones. It’s not as if each area is particularly long anyway, but I did find it annoying that a strong word might require you to do something that isn’t triggered until you actually reach the barrier, forcing you to backtrack to an area you may have been. Beyond unlocking paths, strong words can be equipped to boost your crew’s stats and others are used as items, so they’re useful to seek out when you can.

Compared to the Pirate Warriors games, the attacks of the Straw Hat crew just feel… slow. And without much oomph behind how they connect with the enemy, battles just aren’t as satisfying as they otherwise could be. Granted, the original game is several years old by now, but with so many other titles out there that do it better, I was a little underwhelmed. At least the characters feel varied enough to help make up for it, and the computer controlled allies are competent enough to at least not seem like a hindrance.

But despite its drawbacks, I still had fun with One Piece: Unlimited World Red and would qualify it as one of the better games based on the franchise. The story is as decent as non-canon material can be, building new shops is satisfying, and I loved that there was a couch co-op option. Much of the side content is repetitive and you’re in for a lot of grinding if you intend to earn the platinum trophy. I also felt that the $39.99 price was a bit high considering how cheap it is to obtain on other platforms. In terms of anime based games as a whole, I would call this one a win, but only if you’re familiar with the source material.

Short Attention Span Summary
One Piece: Unlimited World Red – Deluxe Edition graces the PlayStation 4 platform with all of its DLC in tow. The game runs really well, and the presentation really does the One Piece franchise justice. The combat left a lot to be desired, as flashy as many of the attacks have the tendency to be, though it still gets the job done. The core story mode is fairly short, clocking in at around 8-10 hours if you rush it, though there is plenty of side quests and diversions to do outside of the main missions. And it doesn’t hurt that the plot is decently written for what amounts to your average filler arc. The ability to turn in materials to construct shops was a neat addition, and the ability to play two player couch co-op is a feature that I will always approve of. It’s by no means a must play, but for die hard One Piece fans, it’s certainly one of the better games based on the franchise that you can buy, though I’d recommend getting it on sale.

I’m a sucker for a good anime adapted video game. Naruto in particular has a ton to choose from that vary wildly in quality from the poorly done Dragon Blade Chronicles to my personal favorite Ubisoft releases on the Xbox 360. The Ultimate Ninja Storm series has always hovered in that awkward middle ground for me, never really impressing me all that much, but not such a poor effort that I stop coming back to them.

Stepping back into them by way of a current generation compilation may have been just what I needed to renew my interest and appreciate them for what they are.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Legacy is not a new game in the strictest sense, but rather a four game re-release bundled together in one package. You get Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm (which was not previously seen on an Xbox console) as well as Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, 3, & 4. The associated DLC of each game is included in the package, as is the Road to Boruto expansion content for the fourth game. Really, the only thing missing is some pre-order DLC and the offshoots Generations and Revolution, but the package is rather robust and packed with content as it is.

If you’re a Naruto fan and you’ve never indulged in the Ultimate Ninja Storm games, they all play basically the same way. They’re a 3D fighting game series that casts players in the role of their favorite ninja team to do battle in sprawling landscapes that can take place over water or even on walls. Attacks are handled mostly by one button, though charging up and mixing in chakra will queue up chakra based attacks, plus characters can throw projectiles or leap around the landscape. Teammates are summonable in a moment’s notice to help in a fight temporarily and substitutions are there for quickly escaping danger. It’s pretty basic as far as fighting games go and one of the reasons I didn’t initially get into it as much, but it’s easy to learn and once you get used to the combat, you end up enjoying it a whole lot more.

While each game connects together in such a way as to tell the whole of the Naruto story, each one has a number of quirks that separates it from its brethren.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm – This title chronicles the entirety of the original Naruto series (minus filler arcs). Even for a game that is seven years old, it holds up remarkably well visually. As mentioned previously, this is the title’s first foray onto the Xbox platform and as such, achievements can be earned for it. It’s also the one game in the package that lacks an online mode, so fans of vanilla Naruto will be left in the cold if you were looking forward to battling with your friends online (though local is still an option). While it is cool that the Hidden Leaf Village is open for your exploration pleasure, the village is much too big with too little to fill it. Shops and quests are spread so far apart that it’s a nuisance navigating from one NPC to the next and I wasn’t a fan of collecting scrolls between missions to unlock new skills. Oh, and let’s not forget all of the side quests needed to unlock the next main mission that feels like filler. In that regard, it’s actually pretty accurate to the anime.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 – The second entry starts at the beginning of the Naruto Shippuden sequel series and stops around the battle with Pain. It introduces online play and completely changes the exploration aspect from a sprawling village, to smaller segments with fixed camera angles, while allowing the player to venture outside of the village. There didn’t seem to be as many filler missions in this game (though there were some), but this was made up by way of some impressive boss encounters. Online play is available too.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 – The game flashes back to the Nine Tails’ assault on the Hidden Leaf Village before picking back up at the Five Kage Summit and taking the story right up to the Fourth Great Ninja War. Storm 3 continues the trend of smaller, fixed locations to explore and epic boss encounters with active time event actions. Mob battles are also a thing, making certain stages into a pseudo Dynasty Warriors as you blast away waves of weak enemies.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 – This iteration completely axes the exploration element for the main story, instead allowing players to access various points in the timeline and watch lengthy cutscenes separated by a battle here and there. It finishes up the remaining Naruto Shippuden storyline, and has a massive characters roster (over a hundred playable characters). The closing chapters of the story aren’t nearly as interesting in video game form, as you end up fighting the same characters multiple times, but different transformations. However, I did appreciate the no nonsense approach of being able to coast from one story mission to the next. An optional Adventure mode as well as the Road to Boruto expansion puts players back in the Hidden Leaf Village to complete missions like in previous games. You also have the ability to swap characters on the fly during battle, which makes the fights a bit more dynamic too.

Played from start to finish, it’s almost like one epic adventure that slowly evolves as you invest more time into it. It certainly helps that the presentation is rather consistent throughout, with cel-shaded visuals that often looked better and much flashier than the show it is based on. The audio can be cycled between the English and Japanese dubs, though I must admit that I am partial to the English cast as obnoxious as a few of the characters can be at times.

If you missed out on the first run of the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm games for one reason or another, this is a great way to get properly acquainted. You get the entire storyline from both Naruto and Naruto Shippuden (filler free!) and can participate in its most memorable battles, while also getting to pit its cast against each other with friends both locally and (in some cases) online. Having all of the DLC and expansion content is a nice bonus too. That being said, if you’ve already played all of these games, there’s not much reason to come back to it as the only thing that has really changed is some marginal visual upgrades (that I honestly couldn’t pick out unless you put them side by side with each other). Especially since it’s around $70 for the digital version and $80 if you want it physical. At under $20 a game, it’s still reasonable for current generation re-releases, though if you still have your old consoles laying around, it wouldn’t be a challenge to find them all much cheaper if you didn’t own them already. But for a newcomer who is also a fan of the source material looking for the convenience of an all-in-one package? This one is a no brainer.

Short Attention Span Summary
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Legacy combines four games and their associated DLC and expansions into one convenient package. This particular release marks the first time Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm graces an Xbox console as well as the first time its two sequels appear on the current generation of systems. That being said, they are more or less straight ports with very little differences from its original release, so there isn’t much reason to double dip if you’ve already played them. For newcomers though, playing these games back to back covers the entirety of the Naruto storyline, and the simplistic combat is easy enough for anyone to pick up and play, though difficult to master and fully appreciate without putting some time into it. I didn’t give these games a second thought during their initial release, but playing them back to back is like involving yourself in a long, epic adventure. It’s a good thing too, since the $69.99 digital ($79.99 physical) price tag might scare off the less committed. Upon revisiting them though, they’re absolutely worth the buy in for Naruto fans.

Aksys has brought over a bevy of otome games in the past few years. They include the PSP, 3DS, and PS3 version of Hakuoki, Sweet Fuse, Code:Realize, and Norn9. Just this year, they’ve released Period Cube and will be releasing Bad Apple Wars in October. For 2018 they’ve announced 7’scarlet and the Psychedelica games, as well as the Code:Realize fandisk (along with the PS4 port of the original game and fandisk). Their most recent otome game release, Collar x Malice, intrigued me with its combination of murder mysteries, gorgeous art, and a police officer for a protagonist. I tend to eat up anything with mysteries and pretty boys, so this seemed like a winning combination.

Collar x Malice takes place in the city of Shinjuku, whose citizens have been living in fear thanks to a series of murders (known as the X-Day Incidents) carried out by the organization Adonis, who claims everything they do is for the sake of justice and resurrecting Japan. Due to the proliferation of these crimes, the ban on weapons has been lifted and every citizen armed with a gun for self-defense. You play as police officer Hoshino (first name can be changed, but the default is Ichika) who has a poisoned collar placed on her by a mysterious assailant. The voice behind the collar identifies her as a potential Adonis sympathizer and tasks her with discovering the truth behind the X-Day Incidents. However, the collar transmits everything back to the collar’s creator and can be triggered remotely (and she is warned not to let the police find out about it), so she needs to tread carefully. She’s rescued by a group of (mostly) former cops who are investigating the X-Day Incidents.

The game is plot heavy like Code: Realize and Hakuoki, though it does have its fair share of romance that picks up steam faster than in than the latter. Like Code: Realize there’s one route that’s locked until you complete the other ones (Yanagi). In addition, there’s also one that requires you to finish the game once before you can start it (Shiraishi). A major overarching theme throughout the game is the concept of justice and what that means to different people and different circumstances. Each route focuses on different cases. The culprits are given believable motives and enough development to make them seem human. They serve as good foils for the love interest you’re pursuing, which in turn provides character development for that guy. That being said, while the reveal of the mastermind was a bit of a gut punch (I had my suspicions but was in denial right up to the reveal), his motives and ultimate goals could’ve been defined better. The culprits and their motivations provide a solid setup for the mastermind’s goals through the underlying common thread they all shared, but said setup could’ve been capitalized on a bit better. Still, I really enjoyed the journey wanted to keep playing so that I could get closer to finding out the mystery behind the mastermind and Adonis. The game also succeeded in establishing an antagonist with a morally grey purpose where even if you don’t agree with their methods you can see some merit in their viewpoints.

While the translation reads fine and characters have distinct voices, I did notice a number of typographical errors. There were typos (e.g. “You’re are quite interesting”, “grabbing a bit to eat”) and repeated words in sentences continuing tot he next line (e.g. “After taking your words words to heart”). There was one in particular that makes things a bit confusing in context: “Well as a fellow I was just curious” (in this context Ichika, who’s clearly not a guy, is speaking and cop/officer should go between “fellow” and “I”). There was also more than one sentence ending with “.)” (with no opening parenthesis at the beginning of the sentence) and instances like “Did that turn out okay:?”, though these occurred less frequently. There were also misattribution errors – for example, the text saying “Shiraishi’s partner” when Shiraishi is the one talking and the voiceover clearly says “Enomoto” in that line. Sometimes lines said by Hoshino (and not voiced) were attributed to another character, or lines said by another character (and voiced by that character) attributed to Hoshino. I also spotted a couple of instances of this. At times there was a change from a dialogue box to a narration box (and vice versa) mid-line, which was jarring. I know some typos can get by when editing something with a ton of text, but the misattribution errors were the most confusing (I was able to sort them out by looking at context, but I still had to do a double take).

The art in this game was done by the same artist who did Amnesia: Memories (Hamamura Mai). The color palette is more subdued here than it was in Amnesia: Memories, but it suits the darker tone of the plot well. It was a joy to gaze at the character art throughout my playthroughs, and I always looked forwards to the CGs. When changing to another character’s perspective, there’s a transition screen that show a character (or just the setting depending on the character) then transition right to a scene with them, which was a nice extra touch. The soundtrack was fitting for the situations they played in, though no one track stood out as something I’d listen to outside of the game. In that sense, they served their purpose well as background music.

As you might expect, Collar x Malice is primarily a straight visual novel with relationship parameters, first a trust meter, then an affection meter after trust is maxed. There’s also inspection sections where you click on different parts of a scene to gather clues. It was a fitting addition, especially given you’re playing as a cop inspecting crimes, though a little more could’ve been done with it (like perhaps at some points gather clues and confront someone with them? Or maybe be able to inspect them and put them together). At certain points in the game, there are shooting sections where you have to press a button when a circle enters the crosshairs. This caught me off guard when I encountered them for the first time because I thought it was a cutscene rather than me needing to push anything (fortunately it was during a training session). This was another neat feature that added tension to the scenes they appeared in.

After completing a route you can start at any chapter and set trust (in earlier chapters) or affection (in later chapters) levels at high or low, which is rather helpful for unlocking every ending. Even after all the routes in the main game is complete, there’s more content unlocked. Each love interest gets a short story, little scenes where you go through a day with them, and extra voice clips. There’s another prologue chapter that sheds a bit more light on the culprits and their motivations. If you’re looking to get the platinum trophy for this game, know that there’s a trophy for viewing every single bad ending. There’s no in-game list of endings, so unlocking them as you play through each route is probably the best way to make sure you see them all. This guide is a good one, though don’t look at Yanagi’s guide before you’re on his route because one of the choices is a spoiler (also be careful with trophy lists for this game because they also contain spoilers). I’m very glad that this game received a localization, and I really enjoyed my time with it.

Short Attention Span Summary:
Collar x Malice does a good job of blending a murder mystery thriller with romancing pretty boys. The overall visual presentation is a treat for the eyes and makes the experience feel that much more polished. The only tarnishes are some typographical and misattribution errors, which don’t affect the readability of the text but are still noticeable. The interactive sections are neat and fitting additions, but a little more could’ve been done with them. There’s a lot of content to go through, and each route is pretty meaty (especially the final one), so you’ll get a good bang for your buck. I’d heartily recommend it if you’re a fan of murder mysteries, wooing pretty boys, or both.

NIS America is happy to announce a new Demon Gaze II trailer entitled “Welcome to Asteria.” Here, players are able to view some of the monsters you’ll encounter in the dungeons! Stay tuned for more trailers!

Demon Gaze II arrives to the PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®Vita in North America on November 14, 2017 and in Europe on November 17, 2017.

The daily door fee is $5, plus $2 per bracket if entering into weekly tournaments. Up to three brackets may be entered for Friday Night Fights. Lock in Saturday is $15 and players must be 17 years or older and preregistered to stay past 12am. Pricing varies for special Saturday events like monthlies and tournaments. See their event page for more details on specific events.

For series newcomers, Resident Evil Revelations game director, Kōshi Nakanishi, also directed this year’s acclaimed Resident Evil 7 biohazard game, making this a great way to be further immersed into the world of survival horror! This release marks the best-looking version of the game to date with HD visuals and an improved framerate. All previously released downloadable content is also included in the game as unlockable rewards.

The highly replayable online co-op Raid Mode returns in this release with a newly remixed, challenging stage called The Ghost Ship: Chaos, offering a fresh take on the popular map with more powerful weapons and ways for players to upgrade their arsenal.

A Nintendo Switch release of both Resident Evil Revelations and its follow up Resident Evil Revelations 2 will also be available in late 2017.

Puzzle Fighter features an outstanding roster of legendary characters and stages from popular Capcom franchises. Fan-favorites such as Ryu, Ken or Chun-Li (Street Fighter), X (Mega Man), Morrigan (Darkstalkers), Frank West (Dead Rising) and more come to life with VO and cinematic special moves. Players pick one main character each with their own strengths and benefits, to face-off in explosive gem-crushing action. In addition, two assist characters can be chosen to further enhance the abilities of the main character. Simple to learn but deep in strategy, this highly addictive puzzle game has players strategically building up gems and destroying them to unleash epic combos that can knock out their opponent. Thrilling real-time versus battles, rewarding single player options and an array of content to unlock await in this ultimate puzzle fight!

We’ll have much more information to share in the coming months, so please stay tuned to the official website www.puzzlefighter.com.

Fans in North America attending PAX West 2017 in Seattle are invited to stop by Capcom booth #2309, which will feature the first hands-on demo for the game.

The Walking Dead 

With stunning, handcrafted visuals based on the look of the comics, The Walking Dead: March To War immerses players in a world that is unlike anything seen in other mobile games. Players will navigate a massive, shared map of Washington, D.C. that includes real-world landmarks like the White House, and iconic locations from The Walking Dead universe such as Sanctuary and Hilltop – all locations that players will compete to control.

“Based on Disruptor Beam’s previous success creating immersive game experiences around iconic brands like Game of Thrones and Star Trek, Skybound entrusted us with bringing the world of The Walking Dead to mobile,” said Jon Radoff, Founder and CEO of Disruptor Beam. “Through the development of March To War, we’ve invented new ways to bring a level of graphic fidelity normally only seen in console games to mobile devices. The Walking Dead: March To War is not just great-looking, it truly raises the bar on what’s possible with visual storytelling in these types of games.”

“Disruptor Beam has an impressive track-record of bringing beloved franchises to mobile in a way that both respects and expands universes like The Walking Dead,” said Dan Murray, President of Skybound Interactive. “It’s obvious the team has genuine love for these properties and seeks to capture the essence of the IPs with which they work, just one of the reasons we wanted to work with Disruptor Beam. They’ve delivered an authentic representation of the comics on mobile devices with The Walking Dead: March To War. We’re thrilled that this new game will feel very familiar to fans of The Walking Dead.”

“No one is safe in March To War, least of all those who think they are,” said Joey Lapegna, Creative Director at Disruptor Beam. “Our goal, above all else, was to make March To War not just play like a Walking Dead game, but to feel like one too – an approach we take with all of Disruptor Beam’s games. Players will live and die by the alliances they keep, the enemies they create and the uncertainties that lay between, forced to choose carefully between aiding or destroying other players in their struggle to survive. Brace yourselves: It’s about to get bloody.”

To survive in The Walking Dead: March To War, players must:

• Fight to survive by fending off walkers and other players, building and managing your base and defenses, and scavenging for vital resources.
• Form alliances with other players – knowing that your greatest friend today could become your greatest enemy tomorrow.
• Lead your community by training your loyal survivors, recruiting iconic Walking Dead characters such as Negan and Rick to be powerful council members, and by making critical decisions that directly affect the game.

The Walking Dead: March To War is available now for free on the Apple App Store and Google Play in four languages (DE, EN, ES, FR), with additional languages coming soon. Fans can register to receive game updates at www.MarchToWar.com and can also follow The Walking Dead: March To War on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.