CrossCode (PC): The MMO I always wanted.

Despite what people a number of people feel about them as a gaming news site, I read a fair bit of Kotaku in my day to day life. Mainly because of a few select writers who I enjoy the work of and have some pretty similar interests as far as games go. One of those writers is Mike Fahey, and in his write up at the end of last year he listed his top ten games of 2018.

One of them, I had never heard of before. Wasn't even remotely on my radar. Had nice looking pixel graphics, and boasted itself as an MMO that's really not. Strange, I thought, but ultimately clicked away. But then I started to see the title popping up in some other sites top 10 lists. Now that had my attention. How can a game that appears on so many people's best of lists get by me? Well, that merited a deeper look.

CROSSCODE (STEAM)

CrossCode opens with us in control of a dark haired woman racing through a dark foresty area. She is on the hunt for her brother, and shadowy voice implores her to stop. She vehemently denies, saying that she is trying to stop her brother from working to death. The voice spawns monsters to stop her which the girl quickly dispatches. After tearing through the enemies put before her, she does find her brother just to see him collapse from exhaustion.

We are woken up in a different location. Our hair and outfit are slightly different. An operator tells us that our name is Lea, and we are actually logged into an avatar of the futuristic MMO called CrossWorlds. In the vein of Sword Art Online, Crossworlds is a game where the players are actually implanted in the game to a heavy degree of the 5 senses. Unfortunately, we are told there has been an accident and that we are in a coma in the real world, and we are being placed into the game to try to find out what happened.

To make matters worse though, our speech unit is damaged. We can understand fine, and give minor visual responses but we are told that in order to solve this issue and hopefully find some answers, we need to play the game just as if we were any other player in the game. Lea remembers the basics of how to use her Spheromancer class in the game and after running into a friendly Pentafist named Emilie in the rookie island, she and her new friend jump into the game of Crossworlds to hopefully learn what's happened to her.

Loaded for bear

CrossCode is going to be an interesting game to try to review because the mechanics of this game borrow from so many different various elements that it doesn't really fall into just one genre of game. For example like I explained that the Lea is logged into an MMO, but you would incorrect to assume that's what this game actually is. The MMO aspect of the game is used as a framework for the story and the world.

What I mean be that is, yeah there is some questing that is done in the style of an MMO. You need to go talk to NPCs who give you quests to do, and you'll go into the world and fight mobs to collect items or kill a certain amount of enemies. As you wander around the world you'll see other players just running around, fighting their own things, or just hanging out. All of these are computer controlled. This is a fully single player experience, but it does a very good job of presenting the illusion that this is a living world with other players doing their own thing. 

When I describe the game, I describe along the lines of a 16-bit Zelda game such as A Link to the Past.  It's stylized in a way that it would look at home on the Super Nintendo with a top down view of the world, primarily a 2d play, but there is some degree of verticality to the maps which allows for some platforming and parkour when wandering around the world.

The combat is going to be the real meat and potatoes of this game. It's core is a hack and slasher with bit of Souls to it. You can run around and slash with a couple of swings with a single button press, you have a block that pulls up a shield and can parry if timed correctly, and you have a dodge move that has some invulnerability frames that lets Lea gracefully spin from harms way, which she can do up to the three times. 

But it she wouldn't be a Spheromancer without some spheres, and that's where her ranged attacks come in. When using the right analog (or I assume mouse on PC) the combat becomes almost a twin stick shooter. Holding a direction will bring a pair of lines for Lea's aim together, and once lined up you can unload a continue stream of projectiles at an enemy, which is handy for fast or flying foes. You can also charge up your first shot to ricochet off walls or break enemy guards.

As you play through the game and unlock your circuit board, you open your skill tree which allows you to learn multiple techniques for special moves for your Melee, Ranged, Dash and Shield. What is nice about this is as when you commit to an ability path, once you fill out the 3 spaces for it you can actually flip between your options so if you don't care for how one ability plays you can try the other option to see what works for you better. Even further in the game you start unlocking elemental grids which provide you with even more options to fight with, so you do have a bit of freedom to design your character.

Having familiarity with your Techs will let you set up the right attacks for them

Now while I've gone into the specifics of the combat and referred to it as the meat and potatoes of the game, it would actually be pretty foolish to assume the game is just battling. That's what I did and I was promptly set up for some gameplay whiplash. As you play through the "story" for Crossworlds you come onto these "instanced" dungeons where you have to go without your party. And while these do contain a significant number of fights usually capped off with a spectacular boss fight, you learn that CrossCode is in fact a serious puzzle game as well.

Actually, when thinking about it, this game might actually be more of a platform puzzler than it is an action adventure because depending on the size of your giant space brain, the puzzles can be a major stumbling block. I am more than man enough to admit that there were a number of that I had to look up a solution for because I just was not seeing it on my own.

I love Emilie. She is just the right level of earnestness and naivety to make her impossible to hate.
Might be one of my favorite iterations of the best friend character. 

Sometimes the puzzles are just a matter of following the right path, and parkouring off the right environment pieces to get you from A to B. Sometimes the solution will require you moving around bits of your environment so that you can fire a projectile in the proper path to hit all the necessary points before coming on a final switch. Sometimes you will have to use the temples element for an environmental variant to the puzzles.

All I can say is some these will TEST you. Which can be frustrating because the story frames solving these dungeons like races against your friends. Like I said, I got stuck a lot. It wasn't until a friendly fan of the game in my Twitch chat told me to use visual cues on the floors of the puzzles to get a better idea of how to solve some these. It really did help a bit, but sometimes you can forget early mechanics that if you didn't use, would make the puzzle unsolvable, like remembering you can hop on fences.

So close, yet so far away

Outside from the puzzles, the actual combat can be very challenging as well. A lot of the enemies that you come across have their own unique weaknesses and patterns, so very rarely is just running and slashing away going to be the best way to dispatch something. It can work, but not always well. Then you have to bear in mind unless you use limited items to recover health, it doesn't restore until you finish fighting your combo chain. The more you beat enemies, the more valuable drops they give you, so its beneficial to beat a long string of baddies, but you have to be careful to mind your health.

To the CrossCode's credit, the options provide a very significant amount of customization to the overall game. Right from the onset, you are warned by the developers that this game meant to be a challenge, but if it's proving so difficult that you are not having any fun, you have options to bring down the battle and puzzle difficulties. It's a nice gesture and it gives the "git gud" scrubs less of an opportunity to be so insufferably smug when someone is struggling.

In addition to learning attack patterns and elements, you have to be mindful of ledges too.

CrossCode was a very weird game for me, because it was a game that I kept putting down. It's not because of a lack of interest of will, it is just a game that constantly got caught up in a retail release schedule as I played my games through the year. But there is something so inherently charming about it's whole presentation that always kept it in my mind. When I was playing something major like Red Dead Redemption 2, I always kept thinking "Soon as I finish this, I can get back to CrossCode".

It's story is interesting because it deals with a lot of fronts. First we have Lea's primary story, which is about her trying to figure out what happened to her. This is expounded to her by a character who is developer to the game, basically speaking to her directly. Then we have the Crossworld's "story mode" which is what we learn as Lea plays through the game with the friends she meets, and her interactions with those characters. Then we also have the front of what Crossworld's actually is, which we had a glimpse of at the start of the game and is told in flashback sequences. There is a lot to take in, but it does eventually tie together, (mostly. I'll get into that).

The game also has a sense of humor about itself. Lea, despite being a generally mute character is a very expressive character. She responds with overblown physical comedy and it really goes a long way to accentuate her personality depending on the scene. It also works for scenes when Lea was visibly emotionally shaken. Radicalfish games did an excellent job of finding a way to make you empathize with a silent protagonist.

And man, CrossCode LOVES pop culture references. I basically freaked out when in the very beginning the game when one of the first npc quests parted me by saying Aziz Ansari's big line from the "Steak Night" episode of Scrubs. You find an "Umbrella corp." in one of the cities and you can't enter because of an outbreak they are having. For the Halloween event, you have to collect "Jack's flames" for a character that is CLEARLY Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas. I can see from the coming update that there are more character references to be made soon.

Soundtrack is pretty good and it was very fitting for it's overall theme. Described by it's composer of Deniz Akbulut, the CrossCode OST is heavily inspired by Japanese game music of the late 90s using electronic beats, melodic tunes and epic JRPG Scores. This is a fair way to explain it, because the best description I had for it was "Video Gamey" which again, is perfect for it in this case because of the visual styling, story delivery, and accompanying gameplay. There are handful of decent tracks, but I wouldn't consider too many of the 60 to be overly memorable.

Oh Look. Its Doogie Noogie from A Bad Dream Before Kwanzaa. 

There really isn't a lot I have to complain about on this one that isn't in some way addressed. Like for example, when I complain about this game, I would often comment that these puzzles really do make me feel dumb as hell. It was very rare occurrence that I ever jumped into a room, saw the puzzle, and figured it out at a pretty quick clip. Now you can argue that having a solution guide embedded into the floor design is technically good game design, but there was very little indicating that's what they were doing. There was too little visual cue because I pretty much never noticed it until it was pointed out to me.

I could complain about the combat challenge, but I can only think of one real instance where I actually had to turn the difficulty down on a mob fight just so I could actually complete the quest. there was a pretty significant amount of frustration and trial & error, but outside of the one instance there was no fight that I wasn't eventually able to overcome under my own skill level.

Because the game is framed like an MMO, I could complain that some of the questing is the same MMO grind that bores me when I try to play a game like that, but it didn't bother me in this one. This is probably because the game is not an MMO. There is a story at play here with a defined ending, and because I'm not just killing mobs to open the next mission, I am motivated to continue because I want to see how things unfold.

I loved lightning techs, I used them almost exclusively because I love rapid fire damage.

And without spoiling anything? The ending feels unfinished. I get that this was a kickstarter game and they were probably trying to make a deadline to appease their backers, but it was a mild let down. In my first playthough I got a bad, pretty unsatisfying ending. I come to find out that you have to find a very out of the way NPC to trigger a small quest line which slightly changes the ending, but allows you to open the path to good ending.

Thankfully I could reload my save, so I did so. The ending changed by a few lines and actions, and just as I got ready to proceed further and see where it was going?  Nothing. I was able to go back into my game and do missed quests, but the option to go "to the future" was locked off, because that content isn't there yet. Or at least, it's heavily implied that the content will be added later. So I don't get to see how the story actually ends, and the dangling plot threads are left untied. Ironically, the NPC players are suffering from the same fate, because when you get to Crossworld's final dungeon, they players are all lamenting that it hasn't been included in the game yet. Misery loves company I guess.

Smug Lea is best Lea.

But my biggest problem is the confusing and somewhat annoying equipment system. See, you an buy equipment in towns, and that is usually enough to keep your gear leveled with you and the area, and that's fine. But you are told that getting item drops to trade for equipment is usually better. This is where the fight combo chain thing I mentioned earlier comes in. But even if you get your combo chain to S-rank and hold it for a long while, it still takes quite a bit of time to get the drops you need for some items. Almost 90% of the time by the time I got the drops I needed for an item it was already outclassed by the new stuff I bought,.

Or, more frustratingly, when it wasn't? It didn't seem like the equipment is actually better. This is a game that has a friggen ton of various bonus effects to each item, so its incredibly hard to outfit your character. It feels like its giving you a lot of room for customization with items, but its so convoluted and confusing I never know if I'm making the right move. Like say I have a weapon that gives me decent stats, but has no effects. Then I find a "better" weapon, it has a brawler stat, and has a status effect, but then it gives me a massive ding to my HP and attack. I'm being told that this is the better weapon, but it never feels like it because they are unbalanced by what is taken away. It was frustrating because it made trying to grind for items feel like an arduous chore that wasn't worth the effort.

I can only wonder how much faster I could have beaten
 this game if I understood what most of this shit meant.

But its hard for me to complain that much because no matter how many times I put it down, it was a game I kept coming back to no matter what made me put it aside in the first place. Once I really started to understand how the puzzle mechanics work and story really got rolling, I found myself incredibly immersed in this one. I am looking froward to some DLC updates because I really do hope this story continues, because its the only dimmer on this overall solid experience, and even then it was a mild disappointment at best.

CrossCode came out to little fanfare, but its certainly starting to catch the right set of eyes. And now this once PC only experience is about to come to the Switch and the PS4, and that is only a good thing to help this game really get out there. More people should play this game. It's an incredibly solid experience that blends a lot of familiar game elements to make it feel truly unique. It's got a sense of humor about it that keeps it from taking itself too seriously, but also does a good job delivering it's emotional punches of the story. The puzzles are well thought out and clever, the combat is fun and challenging. Its only 20 bucks and is at least a 50-60 hour experience with updates on the way. I can't ask for an better entertainment dollar and give CrossCode a strong recommendation. 

Also, with a code, Lea will idle and do Caramelldansen.
Fucking. Sold. 

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (PS4) - New Setlist, Same Symphony.

One of my initial downfalls of getting suckered into Kickstarters was when Castlevania luminary Koji Igarashi made a particularly bonkers teaser basically calling out Konami for giving up on what brought them to the dance, and just giving up on their most popular video game franchises. After being told "people don't want that kind of game anymore", he took the crowd sourcing platform to prove that wasn't true. 65,000 thousand people and 5.5 million dollars later I think he's successfully made his point.

But then development happened. Almost 5 years of it. The problem is, when you promise the moon and people pay you exorbitant amounts of money for these promises, you are going to be expected to deliver on them. So to say that this new game had a rough development cycle would be a massive understatement, but I'm getting ahead of myself. First? Let's at least see if they delivered on the game portion of it.

BLOODSTAINED: RITUAL OF THE NIGHT(PS4)

Bloodstained begins in 18th century England. The industrial revolution barreling forward and the Alchemy guild is worried about losing their influence of the nation's wealthy patrons. To maintain control, they intend to sacrifice people infused with demon shards to summon demons to the world, basically to scare people into believing in the guild's necessity. From the experiments, two shardbinders were successfully prepared to be sacrificed: Gebel, who barely survived the procedure, and Miriam, who fell into unnatural sleep just before they were to sacrificed. 

Miriam awakens a decade later to learn that Gebel has survived, and has now aligned with the demons. He has apparently summoned demons to the world and has taken refuge in a demonic castle to take vengeance on the guild. As a shardbinder, Miriam has the ability to fight back, and so she travels with some of her remaining guild compatriots to try to stop the demons, help the people, and hopefully save Gebel.

So ok, admittedly that's not a whole a lot of framing, but its enough for what we came here for. We want to wander a big castle, fight monsters, get more abilities, and cover a massive map. So let's get the major comparison out of the way because it is going to come up a lot: is Bloodstained a Castlevania game? Yes, in everything but its title. If anything, you can you see it as the culmination of all of Iga's previous Castlevania experiences and best ideas. It's going to be difficult to discuss everything becuase this game has a LOT of mechanics.

The obvious comparison is going to be Symphony of the Night which will draw the strongest comparison because it is more or les s the quintessential definition of the term "Metroidvania" as a genre because of the franchises departure from level based gameplay. Like SotN, Bloodstained starts us off with a brief tutorial area to teach us the basic controls of the game before letting us loose in an incredibly large and sprawling castle. We are free to explore until we find dead ends until we come across the necessary item or boss that allows to change how we travel or open new paths.

My initial complaint was slow movement speed, but ultimately it was never too much bother.
You do eventually get speed boosting items. 

It's combat system can be broken down to multiple parts spanning from pretty much every Castlevania from 1997 on. Miriam can equip what feels like hundreds of weapons that can drastically change how you approach your fights. Do you want a slow but heavily damaging axe to wail on baddies with singular precision strikes? Or do you want to put on some boots for weaker but quick damaging kicks to deal lots of damage very quickly.  You have a TON of options.

Sub items and abilities make their return from classic Castlevania and Aria of Sorrow soul stealing in the form of shard collecting (hence Miriam being a shardbinder). As you fight through throngs of baddies they will occasionally drop shards which allow Miriam to use in different ways as you have a number of them you can equip at once. For example, one is mapped to a single button to use like an old Castelvania game like a dagger or axe. One is tied to the right shoulder, typically one that has an ongoing effect (such as the dash). You can turn the right analog to aim Miriam's arm, and used the trigger for a targeted shot, and you can also have a passive and familiar equipped as well. By end game, Miriam will be loaded for bear.

.

Thanks to the myriad of collectibles and book cases scattered throughout the castle you will find a number of books that give the weapons techniques too. So on top of their normal abilities you have more technical moves you can pull off as well. For example with some weapons you can do your standard "hadouken" quarter circle forward on the controller with an attack, and it will cause you to fire a projectile, or use a jump move, or heavy slash. They change with the weapons so there is a lot of freedom to play around.

From Order of Ecclesia NPC side questing returns. While you explore the castle you will often make trips to back to your home base location to buy new gear, upgrade your shards, fuse new equipment and so on. At your base there are a handful of NPCs there who give minor quests. One old lady wants food, one very angry lady wants you find monsters and KILL THOSE MURDERERS DEAD. You have a farmer who will plant seeds for you, and a woman who wants to bury nickknacks and old equipment.

Dis is Chompy and Snaps. They need to calm down.

Most of these provide varied rewards, and some of them are trickier to complete than you might think. Hunting the monsters is easy enough, but finding the correct drops for you to cook the right food dishes or craft the right gear for you to bury is going to take some patience and elbow grease to do. I am on a New Game+ run decked out with an high luck stat set of gear to try to increase the drop rate and even then it feels like the regularity of what drops is sparse at best. Typically the rewards for doing so outweigh the cost to create the item, but you will probably find yourself hitting a wall on the equipment one. "Oh I need leather shoes, oh I need a beret, oh I need Excalibur." Whoa, whoa, whoa lady. A bit of a jump there.

Bloodstained took a bit of a beating in the early kickstater because of its look. I got hooked by the concept art but when the E3 beta came out for backers, its 3d modeling was rough at best. They since polished it up to a nicer looking cel-shaded style of models, but there were a lot of little mistakes with eyes, eyelashes, mouth animations. They quickly patched some of these design problems out, but for a game that had a 5 year development it sure felt awfully unpolished. Ultimately, the gameplay animation and character design is good looking and satisfying, but I do wonder if 3d render was the way to go.

This mechanic annoyed me, because it only appears like 2 or 3 times in the game.

So you have plenty of time forget it existed before you will need it again.

The game has a pretty exceptional score, although probably pretty similar Castlevania fanfare if I am being completely objective. But it does have some, pretty notable tracks to it that will dig into your ear and set up shop. Some truly great tracks are Exorschism, Voyage of Promise, and Gears of Fortune. I really liked this soundtrack a lot and feel Michiru Yamane did an excellent job.

The voice acting however, I am a bit less charitable to. I wouldn't go out of the way to say that it's bad because the lines are delivered competently enough, but because of how the dialog is written it never feels smooth or natural. From what I understand, the English delivery of the dialog feels flat and uninspired in comparison to the Japanese language. Some of the conversation feels like it excruciatingly repeats things we have already learned. This is really unfortunate because a look at the voice actors in this one? They really assembled a pretty great cast who have done lots of voices from games I loved.

Play on, sister.

As I kind of eluded to, I felt the story was fine. There were some twists in the game that were almost painfully predictable, and there is one really big one that kind of buries the lead to ending sequence of the game, but ultimately I don't feel it really impeded my enjoyment on that front. Most people don't play metroidvania style games because they are super invested in the rich plotline. And if I am being totally honest here, having some what hokey story with some cheese to voice acting really kinda falls in step with what a lot of us loved about Symphony of the Night. Maybe that was the intention? If it was, that's brilliant.

There's also a shit ton of easter eggs in the game and hidden bosses to find. A lot of nods to Iga's previous work. Breakable walls which I know is a big thing for some Castlevania fans. there a bunch of items that change Miriam's appearance, and there is a room where you change her hair and appearance as well, which is was an unnecessary but fun little distraction that I enjoyed.

Sometimes you just need to summon a chair and take a break.

I am not sure how I want to approach my usual "What I didn't like" section of this review, because a number of the problems that I have/had don't necessarily come from the game itself. Some of  these problems stem from being a kickstarter backer of this project. For example, had I not kickstarter backed this game, would I have right to complain about the development time? Nobody likes when a game is delayed, and this one got delayed a lot. But when you back you get this feeling of entitlement I guess. So when you slate it for two years, and it takes you five? You better expect some backlash.

Granted, due to the ridiculous amount of money they got, they made a whole lot of promises. So many that arguably, the game isn't even fucking completed yet. They are going to release all the content over time to the tune of THIRTEEN DLC updates. Holy eff'n hell. Now I don't know shit about shit when it comes to game development, but it sure seems like something is wrong when a game like Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice which graphically is stunning, was able to pump out their in just under 3 years. While this game which would have fit at home on the ps2 took almost 5.

Some abilities are specifically just for movement, or function as keys that have no actual attack potential.

Then you have the colossal fuck ups of 505 Games involvement. First you decide to make the backer exclusive content "premium DLC" which basically means its not flippin' exclusive to backers at all, now is it? Then you don't even get it out a month after the game actually releases (I still don't have my codes for it). But then we have the fucking mindnumbing charging backers 60 dollars for an exclusive physical edition, THEN put the physical edition out in the store for 40. Big ole fuck you, right there.

But that isn't even the worst part, the Best Buy edition of the game comes with an exclusive steelbook variant of the games cover, which looks incredibly nice. But for the 60 dollar backers like me? I got a shitty cardboard slipcase. Many of which got damaged in shipping because they didn't have the courtesy of a padded envelope. But if that wasn't enough of a kick in the dick, they only made 500 extra of the steelbook and had the nerve to charge backers and additional 25 dollars for them. Making it now 85 to get what people at Best buy could get for 40.

Gotta find the weapon that works for you.

Now, they tried to spin it that the backers got access to content that balances things out, and I will admit that I thought the low res 8-bit Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon was excellent. But to say that getting this 10 dollar bonus, a cardboard case, beta access, and cheap DLC somehow balances things out is decidedly wrong, and even with weeks of damage control people are still furious. Rightly so, from where I stand.

And like I said above, for a game that had some a long development time, the lack of polish on this one is almost insulting. I couldn't believe how many graphical glitches I came across in my initial play though of the game. Thankfully they got on top of those quickly. But the game was full of technically glitches as well. These kind of bugs will be worked out, I know. But when the game breaks it really can go out of the way to mar my opinion of a game. If you look at my reviews for Death's Gambit and the Secret of Mana remake, game crashing is becoming a cardinal sin for me.

Some techs are easier to pull off than others, and depending on level and gear it can make or break a fight for you.

While I just said two paragraphs ago that I really liked Curse of the Moon its almost to Ritual of the Night's detriment. If there is any one gameplay thing that I could complain about its these two things: The difficulty curve and the boss fights. First off, After a pretty stable start it throws you up against a wall with a fight against another character. But if you get past it, its basically a gentle downhill slope to the final areas before the difficulty starts to ramp back up again. I did not find this to be a very challenging game after that fight and honestly that can be a problem of metroidvania's as a whole. Seriously, between Bunnymorphosis and the Portrait Shield shards? Anything that didn't cause curse was fucking laughable.

But with the boss fights specifically? There didn't feel like there was any real variance to how I needed to take care of them. Curse of the Moon's level based system made it a battle of attrition to reach the boss, and then needed to learn the enemy attack patterns and tricks to take them down quickly and safely. Ritual of the Night I basically could save before a boss, wait for them to make an attack and then unload with a fast attacking weapon until they dropped. I dealt with almost every boss this way. It just fed into the lack of challenge and feels like a disappointing step back.

This is one of the last hidden bosses you find. You might find his attack patterns strikingly..... Familiar...

On top of that, since I played Curse of the Moon first, at some point I started realize that I was going to be fighting all the same bosses from that game as well. There were no new ones, no extra ones. Some of them even used the same attacks. This actually diminished some of the surprise I had going into some of the fights because I already knew what to expect. If anything, I've already fought more challenging versions of it.

Let me just spoil something for everyone right now: There will be a part of the game where you need to swim. You need a shard from a specific enemy to do it. In the opening part of this game you fight these human teeth tentacle things. Once you open up an area with an underground lake, there is one more of those things in a different color palette in one specific area. You need the shard THAT ONE drops to get the water jet that lets you go under water. There, I just saved you like 4 hours of pointless wandering for an item that doesn't exist.

Literally almost everyone I know got stuck here. Finding that one specific enemy that gives water jet is key to progress.

I'm sure I can keep ranting on this one, but honestly that feels like I'm arguing two different things. So the ultimate question is, was Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night good? Honestly it feels like that's 100% dependent on if you were a backer or not. If like me, you backed the game, you probably feel short changed by a number of things, perhaps let down by what you didn't get, or what you don't have yet. I know some of the lack of polish bothered me.

But if you were to just judge the game by its own merits as if you just bought it digitally, leaving all the kickstarter stuff out of the equation? I would say that Bloodstained is an incredibly rock solid experience. For fans of Symphony of the Night it's going to feel like slipping into a comfortable pair of shoes. Every complaint I possibly had is basically diminished by the fact that I picked the game up and basically didn't stop until I finished it. I think I wrangled up like 20 something hours inside of 2 or 3 sittings. And, because of the way the DLC is scaled, that means like Shantae and Shovel Knight I am going to keep coming back to it to play the new content. That's good for replayability.

So to the everyman? I would Bloodstained is a good game, if not great. If you are looking for something to scratch that Castlevania itch, Iga is going to satisfy that it in all the right ways with this one, and for only 40 bucks that is incredibly reasonable for a game with this much playability. For the backers? Maybe they will come up with some extra bonus concessions for those who felt short changed. But ultimately? I am just happy that the game finally came out and it ended up being pretty good. Solid recommendation for this one.

"Arise myself and my shadow!"

Is forever burned into my brain.

Kingdom Hearts 3 (PS4): Too Little Too Late

Anticipation is a dangerous concept. In a small or short dose, it can lead to excitement. Say for example the new Avengers: EndGame coming out. I only started noticing trailers for it when it was about a month from release. It's not a long wait and it's leaving me excited for what is to come.  But when you anticipate something too long, you start to have expectations. Expectations can be difficult to meet. Sometimes it grows to the point where you expect too much, see for example the ill fated Duke Nukem Forever. Almost a decade went by without its release, and by the time we got it was so utterly pedestrian it was doomed to flop.

So that's kind of where we find ourselves here. Sure, this franchise has had a number of spin off installments with canon storyline throughout the years, but the second numbered installment of this game came out in 2005, which makes it OVER 10 years since we finally got our next numbered edition of this game. It's a long time to wait, and naturally people are expecting a lot. It's a whole lot of weight and pressure to deliver now. Is it even possible? I speak of course, of......

KINGDOM HEARTS III (PS4)

Look, I am not equipped with the necessary 4 doctorates to give you the full rundown the of the Kingdom Hearts lore because it's so impossibly convoluted. If you want a good rundown, watch Barry Kramer's 30 minute "Good Enough Summary of Kingdom Hearts." It's hilarious and pretty much covers what you need to know going into this one. 

We start off picking up from the events of Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance. A battle with Organization XIII is on the horizon and the forces of light need to gather their 7 warriors. Sora is depowered so he is on Olympus with Donald and Goofy to gain his strength back and visit more Disney worlds to regain "the power of waking" which is key to becoming a true keyblade master.

Riku and Micky are off searching the realm of darkness to try to find Aqua, the keyblade master trapped and lost there after the events of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Kairi and Lea are off training to learn how to use their new keyblades so they can help in the coming battles. All of these stories look to converge in one final battle between light and darkness for the control of the χ-blade and Kingdom Hearts.

That is about as succinct as I can possibly make of the Kingdom Hearts storyline going into this game. Like I said, its story is incredibly convoluted and complex for no reason. Half of the reason is because literally all of the villains in this game talk in riddles instead of just providing answers. I am probably going to be pretty spoiler heavy in this review so I apologize in advance, but I am getting ahead of myself here. 

So Kingdom Hearts III is a curiously mixed hack-n-slash action adventure with RPG elements and flight sim rail shooting. There are a mutlitude of different game features that appear in the game, but I'm going to try to stick to the core ones. It uses the same action oriented menu system you might remember from the older titles, specifically Kingdom Hearts I & II (or maybe you don't remember, it's been a decade). You have a core set of abilities to use, mainly Attack, Magic, Item, and Link with the occasionally prompting for situational abilities. 

The menu requires a bit of practice to do fluidly, but they do provide the ability to quickly turn the face buttons into a hotkeys for specific abilities, so I couldn't add my heal to that X button fast enough. The rest selected were core elements that specific enemies would be weak to. The Link system is more or less your ability to summon various helpers to remove Donald and Goofy from the fray to bring in more merchandising opportunities (characters).

To the game's credit: when the combat starts to click for you it's a dream to fly around and lay waste to enemies

The core thing to remember about this combat system is three things: One, know where the attack and jump buttons are. Two, you are able to lock on to enemies. And three, Press triangle when it tells you to. There is a bit more nuance to the games system than this, but if you are able to do these three things then ultimately the game should be a breeze to play.

It's actually somewhat hard to really describe all the mechanics that take place in this game, because it uses a lot of elements from the various game engines that are used throughout this franchises history. Almost to a pretty clever design really, because it actually plays into the lore. These certain characters trained to fight a certain way, so they have their specific mechanics to use when you use those characters. I do appreciate that blending of mechanics and lore. That being said, to a new player? This will probably feel very overwhelming.

I will say that the various number of keyblades you get do offer a bit of freedom of combat style.

Now, up until about a half a year before its release I had only played Kingdom Hearts I & II and maybe a few hours of Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 days. I knew if I just tried to dive into 3 was going to feel left behind, so I powered through the entirety of both PS4 collections prior to the release. Honestly I think this impaired my review because by the time I was ready to play 3 I was pretty KH'd out. I had a play a few other games to wash the palette.

It sticks to the pretty core Kingdom Hearts formula: Soda, Dobald, and Goomby drop into a new Disney world where they meet the primary character of that franchise, the Heartless/ Unversed/Hollows show up and you fight them off, wander the world, listen to a bad guy speak in riddles to an idiot who barely understands what is happening, fight a boss, and unlock/restore that world, move to next world to repeat. This is pretty much exactly how every world in this game plays out.

I honestly didn't even know Ariel was in the game. You have so many attacks to use.

In the original Kingdom Hearts this was interesting because with each world you went to, you met various Disney and Final Fantasy characters, but they were dressing to the world Kingdom Hearts was creating. They were part of the story, and reacted accordingly to the events happening around them. This is how good crossover is done (See: Dragon Quest: Heroes). In Kingdom Hearts II however, despite having more lore to work with the borrowed characters became less integral to the story and basically recanted what famous scenes were popular in the movie they came from. This I didn't like so much because I've already seen these movies. I wanted them to be involved in Kingdom Hearts story, not watch the movie I already watched again with them occasionally mentioning something KH related.. 

Well, Kingdom Hearts III continues that tradition to an even worse degree. Now don't get me wrong, none of the actual Disney properties have any actual bearing on the core plot and haven't even in the first one, but at least they tried to make it feel like everyone was included. III is probably the worst example of literally just watching some scenes from the respective movies, and occasionally mention the heartless or kingdom hearts. However, I feel that this is noticeable to the degree you've seen the source material.

There was a chance for interesting story here. It was almost immediately forgotten.

I'll give you an example: I have never seen Tangled. I know loosely what it's based on, but know virtually nothing outside of that. These characters were new to me, and I really didn't know how the story shook out, so as I went through the respective scenes with no frame of reference I found it to be enjoyable, engaging and interesting. It might have been my favorite chapter in the game.

But then we have the Pirates of the Caribbean chapter. Literally the entirety of this story is just fragments of Pirates: At Worlds End. It basically jumps around major scenes of the film with them reacting that they met Sora before in the second game, and you recreate the big whirlpool scene for the last boss segment. It was fun as hell to play, but probably the 2nd weakest chapter of the game. 

The worst chapter of the game goes to Frozen which quite literally is scenes from the movie with the Kingdom Hearts cast literally standing off to the side not engaging with the cast. There is an exposition dump over one scene from the movie, and they go through the entirety of "Let it Go" with the occasional reaction shot from the cast. It was completely pointless. MatPat has a theory that the original idea for this chapter was severely cut down, which would explain a lot. 

In researching this, I found that yes, Tangled was essentially a recreation as well.
 But it felt like it had more freedom than Frozen did to play around with the story. 

That being said, when the game actually focuses on its own story and characters, that's when Kingdom Hearts III is at its most interesting. There were a lot of loose threads in this series that this game needed to tie up after a near decade of spinoffs, but I have to say that does an admirable job of doing so in a reasonably satisfying manner. This is probably something I wouldn't have been able to appreciate if I haven't powered through the whole series to have context for everything that is happening.

Credit to where it's due on this front, but its soundtrack is exceptional from its original tracks to arrangements to the assorted Disney sources. Yoko Shimomura has composed all of the major installments and contributed to many of the spin-offs and rightfully so. Her work and the vocal tracks from singer-songwriter Hikaru Utada are a major reason these games feel so magical as you play through them. I have always appreciated a solid classical score to my games, and Utada's vocal tracks always give me chills. "Sanctuary" is one of my favorites. The music of this game carries a lot of emotional weight in my opinion.

I appreciate that the character design has been slightly modernized for the current console generation and this works for the storytelling of the games as well. It's been almost a decade since we played Kingdom Hearts II so it seems only right that our cast has aged somewhat accordingly. But I will say that is sort of loses a little bit of its cartoonish charm in doing so. With everyone having a cartoony and anime appearance, having a realistic model included doesn't make people blend in together as well as previous games I thought.

While I can't say if the game has a lot of replay value, I will say that depending on your level of dedication to completion you will certainly get a significant amount of time out of this one. If you were just to power though the main story missions and keep your side questing to a minimal degree, that alone will still take up roughly 30 hours of time to get through. Not bad for a non-RPG. But if you throw in collectibles, hidden fights, the secret boss, and mini game completion this amount of time doubles at least. Take on trying to play it on a harder difficulty (which I should have) and you could invest a serious amount of time to this one.

I did find it incredibly frustrating that so many bosses could fly. It made for too much waiting during segments.

If the rest of this review wasn't an indication, I obviously have a handful of complaints on this one. First thing I really noticed is that this one felt too easy. I played it on normal but a coworker of mine recommended that I don't. He was correct. Thanks to the inclusion of all the mechanics of the previous games, combat is snap because the game is literally throwing special attacks at you, many of which you are complete invulnerable during.  With the exception of some early bosses that literally just fly out of range and make you wait for them come down, practically every fight in the game is trivial if you are using you specials.

Many of these moves are also one of the biggest detriments to the game's visual and sound design. Outside of the returning special moves, the team also has a series of abilities where you basically summon out famous Disney rides like the Teacups, Splash Mountain, the Carousel, etc. The attraction attacks are covered with blinking lights are constantly splashing particle effects and waves of light out. It has its own theme and each attack has their own sound effects and character reactions. It's almost a total sensory overload. By late game I wasn't even using it because I was having more fun comboing with my keyblade, and only used them when I wanted clear out groups quickly.

Sadly THIS is actually one of the spectacle-lite ones.

All of the Final Fantasy characters have been removed in this one. There was an incredibly strong focus on the Pixar sect of Disney represented in this game, the only animated film represented here was Hercules and that's a rehash from another game. So ONCE AGAIN, Robin Hood gets the snub and doesn't appear in Kingdom Hearts. Come on! He actually fights with a bow, and I don't think any of the the Jungle Book characters are represented in any of the series and they were in three different franchises. No TailSpin chapter? You know who I would have liked to team up with? Darkwing Duck. THAT should have been a chapter in this game. SHIT, WHAT ABOUT THE GARGOYLES??? Oh my god, I have to get off this train of thought.

Out of all my complaints about the story, I would have to say that my biggest one is probably that we have to control Sora. Having gone through the whole series now, practically every character to come out of this franchise (with maybe the exception of Kairi) has more depth and is more interesting to follow. Sora is just kind of a dummy who pretty much just relies on his feelings for motivation, but he rarely understands what is happening around him. Aqua is more interesting, Roxas is more interesting, Axel is more interesting. For making this seem like an ensemble piece, they did very little to let you use all the other characters which is a shame and a missed opportunity.

While I'm at it, there was literally no point to having Axel and Kairi in the game for as little as they contribute to it. You get two cutscenes of the two of them in between training sessions of them talking to each other, to kind of bridge a number of the loose ends. But spoiler, by game end they provide pretty much no assistance in the final battle and one of them gets captured immediately. If the presence of one of them wasn't required to tie up a loose end, they could have not been a part of the game and it probably wouldn't have been impacted in any meaningful way.

Oops. I've just spoiled about 90% of what these two characters do in this game. 

Now, you would think with the psychotic ranting I've gone on in this review that I'd be ready to slap a big old "do not recommend" on this one. But I can't say that's necessarily true. For all that I complained about at its core the game is solidly built and if I had played it on a more challenging difficulty I would have absolutely enjoyed it more. With the two left shoulder buttons providing hotkeys, combat was fast paced, fluid, and fun to do. Which is impressive for a technically menu based game.

Boss characters were large and interesting, once you get your appropriate skills up it's fun to fly around the battle field and take them down, and it does leave a satisfied feeling of completion when you do so. Considering this stigma boss fights have become in modern gaming, I applaud any game that chooses to include them.

I really do recommend upping the difficulty. You get so many super attacks the game gets insanely easy by the end.

I have to appreciate some of the self aware commentary that Kingdom Hearts III provided. They have some in-jokes poking fun of the ridiculous number of spin-offs and stupid naming convention this series uses. There is a stupidly over the top CG battle sequence that turns out to be a fake game trailer that basically pokes fun at SquareEnix's whole marketing strategy for game releases. Honestly it was pretty awesome to watch, really. Axel specifically indirectly breaks the 4th wall a few times about how fucking complicated this story is and that there are too many characters. Makes me wish he had a bigger role.

As I said above, the ending of this game was incredibly satisfying. That's always been Square Enix's bread and butter, making great cinematics that feel good to watch. I hated the majority of Final Fantasy 13 but I'll be damned if I didn't love that ending. Seeing that ending cinematic made it feel like the slog through all the entries of this series was worth it.

And while I was disappointed this isn't going to be the final installment of this series, I will say that the end game teasers absolutely have me excited for 2 reasons. One, it looks like it's going to include a property that was used in Dream Drop Distance and one of my favorite DS games ever, AND it looks like we might be having a hard disconnect from Disney as much of that story finally got closed out. I've always said that if this series could have been fine if didn't have any Disney and Final Fantasy crossover, and it looks like it might actually be going that route if we get a KH4.

It looks like a game I'd rather be playing now, honestly...

It's hard to say if I give this game a recommendation or not. Kingdom Hearts 3 is an offering to the patient fan base who have been waiting a decade for it. People who are fans of this series have already bought and played it long before this review came out. People new to the series are going to feel incredibly lost and put out because they are essentially 13 games behind the curve. It is a game that is not for them.

So I guess my bottom line is this: Is the game functional and playable? Yeah, very well done on that front. Did I enjoy my time with it? Sure, I might be a bit KH'd out at this point but I am glad to finally put a cap on this one. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely not. The prematurely announced the game, and then took an excessive number of years to actually get the product up. People built up too many expectations to the point of them being unable to be met. There was no way it could possibly deliver to peoples hopes at this point.

It's not a world beater, its not innovative, it just does just enough to be a palatable experience, but after 10 years of waiting that just doesn't feel like enough. Kingdom Hearts 3, in my eyes, is average at best. If they are going to follow this one up (and they are), then they gotta get it out within the next 4-5 years at most. Buy with caution.

Seriously, Robin Hood is the best.
I can't believe he's never been in these.

Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon (PS4): Baby Steps Forward

I wanna say at some point in 2016, I saw a trailer for a game that was being produced by Gust. If you don't know who Gust is, that would me you probably don't play the Atelier franchise with almost the heroine like addiction that I seem to. While they are known for item creation RPGs, the trailer depicted a much more faster paced action game with hack n' slash combat, over the top super movies, and what seemed to be good soundtrack. Gust is a competent studio, so I gave this a purchase with little thought.

It was not a very good game.

So I didn't immediately rush to pick up the sequel when it came out, but during the summer months I had a relative dead spell where I didn't have any immediate new releases to get to, and I saw that gamestop of all places had it ridiculously marked down (not a good sign). But as poor as the previous was, I was able to see it through to the end, and felt with nothing else to do and only 20 to spend, why not give the sequel a try....

NIGHTS OF AZURE 2:
BRIDE OF THE NEW MOON(PS4)

Nights of Azure 2 picks up in the distant future from the previous iteration of the game. After the last battle with the Nightlord banished away eternal night, the world was not as saved as people hoped as during the night monsters called fiends surface and terrorize humans, leaving the sun as their only defense and forcing the world to never truly know restful sleep.

A holy order known as the Curia task of their best agents, a woman named Aluche, to take her friend and now-priestess Liliana to be a sacrifice to one called the Moon Queen and to become the fated Bride of Time. An upset and distraught Aluche proceeds with her mission to accompany Liliana where the ceremony is supposed to take place, but they carriage never makes it. They are attacked by fiends and in Aluche's efforts to protect her friend, she is slain in battle.

Sometime after, Aluche awakens to find herself under the care of a Curia researcher called Camilla Alucard (yeah, that's not fucking on the nose). Using sciences shunned by religious practices, Aluche now lives again as an artificial half demon with purple blood, like the last holy knight to fight the Nightlord. Leliana is missing and leads point to a nearby ruined city and with no other course of action, Aluche pursues to try to find and save her friend. 

Okay before I even get started with the actual review: Carmilla Alucard? Really? You named a fucking character Carmilla Alucard? Come the fuck on. I mean she's not a vampire so it's kind of misdirection I guess, but she does deal with blood transfusions for the half demon character. You could have named her Elvyria D. Edgelord and that would have been about as a subtle. Sheesh. 

So Nights of Azure 2 plays pretty similarly to the previous iteration of the game with some subtle differences, so while I never gave the first version of the game a proper review, there is going to be some significant carry over here so you could see this somewhat as a double review.

At its core, Nights of Azure 2 is a mission based hack and slash spectacle fighter with some RPG elements and splash of Pokemon monster collecting to go with it.  Functionally how it works is you start by accepting missions at your base of operations (the same hotel from the first game) and then go out into the surrounding map to try to complete your objective, be it slay a certain monster, number of them, find specific items, etc.

The rub is that even though Aluche's new half demon status grants her significantly more strength, it does require regular blood transfusion and digestion to maintain, essentially forcing her into a state of vampirism to stay alive. So when you leave the hotel, you only get a short amount of time to complete your goal. So with a clock constantly ticking, you have to quickly navigate the map as efficiently as possible, while simultaneously battling monsters to increase your experience and gain blood so you can level your character and thus allow you to fight for longer stretches. 

If the time expires during the mission, you only get the experience for the monsters that you defeated none of the rewards for completing the quest. This forces you to try it again the next time you go out, the problem is with each chapter you only have a limited number of nights to get your main story quests done, while side questing along the way. If you fail to get everything done by the time the moon goes dark, you get a game over.  I've heard people complain about the time mechanic in this one but honestly outside of the first chapter or 2, I never really felt pressured by it. I've completed story missions with plenty of moon phases to spare, and then ultimately those carry over. You could do more side questing later.

Like the last game, on top of using a combat system with light, heavy, and special attacks to combo and chain, you can still summon demons that you collect called Servan to fight alongside you. Some of these can be used for support and some of them have attack properties. But a handful of them also have some situational map purposes such as burning down an impeded path or using one's flight to jump to a higher level and open a new route. So while it is good get some some strong one's leveled up, you will need to occasionally rotate some out from mission to mission.

How it differs from the first Nights of Azure game is now this time you have a number of support characters who can fight with you as well. It wouldn't be a Gust game if it literally wasn't barfing cute anime girls at you with every given opportunity but it did add an interesting new ripple to the game. If you are going to give me all these characters, at least they are letting me get some use out of them.

Because of the breadth of characters to choose from, the game now also features an affinity mechanic that plays a factor on character specific side quests, cut scenes, and possible ending outcomes. So if you want to unlock more of the content, you are going to want to jump around from character to character. To its credit, some of them have some pretty unique moves that make them all pretty interest to use. But as it is with games like this, you will find one or two characters you will want to stick with be it for their moves or story.

Once you are back at your hotel base, you can speak to your supporting party members to finish up any specific side quests you did for them to watch new interaction scenes with them, and then head to the lab to level up. In the lab you basically have two forms of experience. Your regular XP you use to level up your skill tree for stats, weapon abilities, and other passives. You also have a blood XP that is used to level up your Servans. Once they level up to a point your "evolve" them which basically makes a stronger version of the one before, and sends it back to one.

Now before I get into the complaints with the game, I would like to stress that I do generally enjoy games that Gust puts out  (most of them are Atelier, but shut up). So the real crux of the review is did they learn from their mistakes from the previous title to make Nights of Azure 2 a better than the first one? Nights of Azure was functional and did had some bits that I liked, but there was a lot of room for improvement.

Well, there are some story bits that are still pretty cringe worthy. First of all leveling your character. Much like the last Nights of Azure,  Azure 2 had to contrive a reason for when you are leveling your character, the process requires Aluche to be clad in a scantily white set of bridal lingerie. They did this in the first Azure as well. Whenever she successfully raises a leave she has this pleasured moan animation that she does to complete it. It's super awkward.

There are some useful skills on each tree, but stick to one weapon or the game becomes a grind.

Then you have a number of "pool" scenes. Since they highlight that this hotel has a pool, they basically have a significant number of character interactions take place at the pool to justify the characters getting into swimwear. And holy crap, if the level up bridal lingerie was racy, then the swimsuits are a step over that. I don't think even girls with perfect bodies would have the courage to wear some of the suits the characters in this wear. I love me some fan service as much as the next guy does, but these are so over the top it borders on comical.

They do this, I feel, to really hammer the point that Aluche is gay. The first Azure game also had gay protagonists. That's fine, I get that it's a consistent theme since the first game and as I played through I started to piece together that the affections between the main characters were clearly more than friendship. But at least to that sense, it felt more natural as the story progressed on. Azure 2 would have been about as subtle if they just said: "Aluche got a massive girl boner because Carmilla wore her bathing suit". It feels like it had to be crammed in because the last story did.

Speaking of cramming things in, this game expects you to do an awful lot with very little time. I did a fairly significant number of side quests and used a decent amount of my allotted time to explore the maps to try to find better paths or where certain monsters or treasures were. And when I would get back to the base, I would be awarded with affinity from the character I used. Each character has about 6 hearts to fill, but after playing through the entire story, I don't know if it's even possible to to max out every character's possible affinity rank. I feel you must be able to to get the good ending, but I don't see how.

This is something I bring up a lot of games of this nature, but the combat still kind of has that weightless floaty feeling the first one did. It is better this time around but the recoil from enemies taking damage still jerky and unnatural, and it ruins the entire feel of the combat. It also really doesn't motivate me to learn how to properly combo since stun locking enemies into the longest slew of attacks I can muster basically traps them into place. It also negatively impacted my Servan usage since I basically didn't need them. I would wait for my special counter to finish and then mow groups down with it. It just didn't have that visceral recoil that I get when I play Bayonetta.

The skill tree branches on a few different paths, and it's mainly to beef up the various weapon types as you play through the game, but honestly I just stuck to the route of the base sword and it really didn't seem to affect my experience in any tangible way. The first Azure title was not very difficult to get through, and this one really isn't either. So long as you occasionally remember to spend your points at base, you should pretty easily clear the game.

It's visual design is.... fine. I guess. It's an anime game so I don't know how much I can say about it. It's pretty consistent with the games they tend to put out, but it looks like it would be just as at home on the PS3 than a PS4. But I have to figure if they aren't going full bore on the details of the characters or environments (which admittedly can feel samey), you would figure to get a must smoother and consistent frame rate.  Perhaps I am remembering wrong but Azure 1 had a pretty solid 60fps all game. I don't think Azure 2 is that smooth at any point.

I generally like the soundtrack in Gust games, and Azure 2 is no exception. Much like the boss battles of the Atelier series, this series is known for blending synthesized fantasy classical blended with contemporary rock and metal. For lack of a better expression, it very much is "video game music" but it's not bad. It didn't shake me like Persona, Doom, or Undertale did, but it's definitely a credit to the games favor. And for certain story moments, you might recognize updated arrangements from the previous Azure title, and I appreciate consistency like that.

But the sound design overall in this one is not great. There are inconsistencies throughout the game. There will be points where the voices will just cut out during scene (Japanese language). During combat voice lines will sometimes surge up and sound effects of attacks will mute during special moves. Some song volume levels are much higher than others. It's strange and feels very unpolished, which honestly wouldn't surprise me with how fast this company pumps games out.

It's story is still somewhat nonsensical. They do not have a lot of build up to who exactly the final boss can be. I think in both games they make an early appearance and then never again until the actual last boss battle. It makes it a little hard to get motivated when I don't really know what it is I am fighting. I actually finished the first game not realizing that was the final boss. It adds characters and gives you new locations, and it does constantly warn you of the impending doom, but yet as I play it it never feels like the stakes are getting raised. The tension level remains consistent from the first to last stage.

But Gust does do some story things right. They are very consistent in their lore. In Atelier games, in sequels major characters in one title will be minor characters in another, showing a change in the timeline and growth. Azure 2 does this as well as one familiar support character references and tells of the events of the previous game, which culminates with a major character returning to join the party. I won't lie, despite my lukewarm feelings to the first one I got happy to see them again, and was even more happy when I got to use them too. So the story must have done enough to leave some kind of lasting impression.

I find myself somewhat mixed on Nights of Azure 2. I affectionately refer to it as "anime trash" because that is absolutely what it is. But for a game that I didn't think was that good to get a sequel, and for that sequel to be good enough to see the story through does say something. I definitely can say that they did make improvements so it certainly is a better game. But at the same time it just so decidedly average.

Azure 2 is an ultimately unoffensive title. It pushes no boundaries and doesn't really shake up any established game mechanics. It's visual design is pretty anime and it has a relatively decent soundtrack. It's not a horrible game, but depending on what it is you are looking for you can find so many better options in that same vein. It's vanilla ice cream. It's perfectly fine as it is but it feels like it's begging for so much more. Tighter story, more weight to the combat, better implementation of its mechanics, better sound design.

I want to say that I paid close to 20 or 30 bucks for this game. That's probably a fair price because despite showing improvement, there is still quite a bit wrong with this game. That said, the ARE showing signs of improving, so I am not totally ready to write this one off. I wouldn't tell anyone to take a chance on this one, and it is a game that can be very easily forgotten after you've played it. Roll the dice on it if something about it speaks to you, but otherwise I wouldn't give a recommendation.

Carmilla Alucard.
I'm still mad about that.

Secret of Mana: Remake (PS4): Revisiting a familiar path.

When explaining to idiots who think I hate the Legend of Zelda franchise, I usually have to explain that I love the best Zelda game: A Link to the Past, (Yes, best. Ocarina is average at best. Fight me) But while this icon title is pretty much a masterpiece on the SNES, it wasn't the first of this top-down exploration adventure game I actually played on this console.

When they announced a remake for this one, I was pretty amped. And despite Jason Schreier of Kotaku's attempts to suck the joy out of everything in his reviews (he seriously hates every remake), I was pretty excited to play it again. I haven't played through this game in a long time, but it's always been one of my favorites as a kid so it will be interesting to see how the game has changed, and what is the same in.....

SECRET OF MANA(PS4)

Secret of Mana opens with a brief prologue about the world of this game. Human civilization prospered and advanced by utilizing magic and energy powered by Mana. They used this power to make a massive floating super weapon called the Mana fortress. In order to stop potential destruction, the world unleashed a Mana Beast to destroy the fortress.  As they clashed, a man wielding the Sword of Mana appeared riding a white dragon and defeated the beast and fortress. The world was safe, but as mana started to fade.

We flash to now, where Randi is exploring the falls with two other village children looking for a sparkling treasure they had seen below.  Randi slips on a wet passage and falls to the bottom, where he finds a Rusty sword embedded in stone. After hearing his name and yanking the blade free, he catches a glimpse of a ghost for a moment before heading back to the village.

On the trip home he notices that monsters are a lot more violent and active. Upon reaching the village he learns that he actually has pulled the legendary mana sword and it was what was protecting the village from monsters.  The Village is attacked by a larger monster called a Mantis ant, and Randi manages to fend it off. However, due to the monsters attraction to the sword the village exiles him from home. With nowhere else to go, Randi takes the advice of a knight named Jema to take the sword to the shrines to reactivate the power of Mana.

Jesus Christ. It's actually shorter to play through that sequence than it was for me to describe it. This remake is a modernization of the 1993 release. It is actually a pretty faithful rebuilding of the game from a map perspective and from a mechanics perspective. While the game is functionally exactly the same as it was before, they did make a number of quality of life improvements to the game overall.

Obviously and most notably this game got a complete graphical overhaul. Now this isn't an upgrade to make it super new and modernized like a lifelike rendering like Final Fantasy 7 is currently getting. They basically upgraded this game from the SNES graphics to a more polished version of say a gamecube era Zelda game. It manages to keep the art style from the original promotional and concept art from the original game so the overhaul doesn't feel like it's departing from its original aesthetics.

The game is now full of voice acted dialog as well, which was a surprising addition to the remake. This has been a big point of contention to the remake as a whole because whenever they announce something new or good that people want, it immediately turns into complaining about not being the same. Now admittedly it's not exactly the greatest bit of voice acting by any stretch, and it's pretty much reduced to major characters and scenes (and the innkeep for some reason) but ultimately I was not that put off by it. I played Star Ocean: A New Hope. That game is the eff'n gold standard for bad voice acting.

So functionally, the game operates pretty much exactly the same as the previous SNES iteration of the game did. Secret of Mana is a top down hack and slash adventure game with RPG elements in the vein of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and can be played up to 3 players. It still operates with the endurance mechanic so when you swing your weapon you have to wait for a quick 0-100% counter to fill up before you can take another swing at full strength.

You still can charge up your 8 weapons depending on their level for special attacks that deal increased damage. Your support characters Primm and Popoi still can use the various types of magic they learn during the course of the game. And this is still done by the ring menu system which can be just as slow and cumbersome as it always has been. It is certainly original and unique to the series but when you are trying to level up your magic it never flows as smoothly as you would like it to, even if you have it memorized.

This is somewhat abated by the addition of a pair of hot keys that you can now program. For a veteran player like I am to this series, this is very handy to have Undine's healing spell mapped to one and whatever spell I was leveling or using for dungeon or boss to the other. This cuts down a significant amount of delay having to navigate the menu every time I want to cast a spell, which makes this a very welcome addition to the game.

This clip show's the significant difference from casting with the ring system, to the hot keys.

They have also included a little mini-map in the upper right corner of the screen, which was a nice little add-on. You can turn it off as well, which I did since I know this game like the back of my hand. But a cute little visual thing that they used for the mini map is that it uses the original SNES sprite graphics for it, which is a nice little nod to the original. When using it though, it did feel like it quickened the pace of the game because you could see a lot more of the map.

As I mentioned previously, There is additional voice acting to the game and it's usually kept to primary scenes. But they added a bit of story flavor for when you go use inns. Inns in this game were originally required to save, so when you to use it you are treated to a scene of the main characters interacting with each other about some of the previous experiences of the game. All of these are completely new and original. Some of them are cute, some are funny, some drag on much too long. To the game's credit these can be skipped, but I don't know why you would since this is new content. I will say that if you don't keep up with them, the team will talk about events you did hours ago.

The music in this game has completely remastered as well to make use of PS4s expanded memory and quality. I found the modernized orchestral iterations to be very good, but again, this is something I have seen a significant number of reviews and comments to complain about. It seems like Square-Enix was concerned about this too so the game does have option to set it back to the original SNES version of the soundtrack, which still actually holds up pretty damn well, really.

I would say that the biggest annoyance I had with the remake was the change to the AI control system. In the old version of Secret of Mana, you had a 4x4 grid based on how close to monsters you wanted your team to get, and how aggressive they were in attacking. It was pretty stellar, because I could have weaker character hang back, but still attack like crazy if something got too close.

It's now a more simplified AI control menu and I don't feel it's for the better. Because by simplifying to "attack the same", "attack another", "do not attack" or whatever they are called, I feel now attacks are wasted by hitting an enemy I've already gotten well in hand, or making some map travel frustrating because I can't get the team to keep up with me because they are chasing another monster or refusing to run past. It's happened a number of times and admittedly a minor frustration. But minor frustration that you notice a lot, becomes a major one.

This simple gird allowed for a lot of character nuance in combat.
I do not understand why they got rid of it.

I will say that in the defense of the menus, they did simply down the list of meaningless statistics that don't actually play a factor into the gameplay. It was just additional information for the sake of having it. Now it's just down to simple, easy to understand terminology with much clearer indicators of progress while you are leveling. So while I miss my grid, it's not really all bad as far as menu changes go.

The voice acting is.... acceptable, I suppose. I am always kinda taken aback when I play a game that has some bad voice acting because at this point it feels like with how many actors are in the VO scene this shouldn't happen anymore. But after some initial cringe at some lines, I am sure you would be like me and eventually the voices will sort of just fade into the noise and not bother you. I will say that some of the Inn cutscenes can be phenomenally bad. It's always usually one that runs too long.

With the rework of the menu, there is now a much more significant indication
of progression of skills, or benefits to items used. 

They also made the strange decision to not animate the mouths in this game other than a few exceptions. It gives it more of a puppet show feel if that makes any sense. Major scenes will fully animated and drop to a 30fps frame rate to give it a more cinematic feel to it, but while characters are talking and moving, the mouth is shut, or open and not moving. It's strange and feels out of place. This is also the norm for any other non-animated cutscene. It basically shifts from pose to pose rather jerkily. This feels like it would not have been much work to fix.

A lot of the old game annoyances are back too. The could have really tweaked up the combat system so that the percentage for attack could have greater influenced the damage dealt. Instead it still feels like you either get full damage, or next to no damage. If I have 40% stamina when I take a swing, wouldn't 40% damage make sense? Another combat annoyance is the "miss" rate is still ridiculous. Even at full stamina your likelihood to miss an attack is why higher than it should be, leading to combat where you are constantly taking a swing at a baddie to kill them and just constantly whiffing for no reason. This is even more frustrating when you wasted time charging up an attack.

To be fair, you far less likely to miss on a charged attack. But it still happens too frequently.

Leveling magic is still a chore. Like the weapons, you level up their efficiency by using them. That makes sense, rotate your higher weapons around so everyone is good at everything. But even with the addition of the hot keys, magic still takes an arduous amount of time. Pick your spell, wait for the cast animation, wait for the spell animation, wait for the damage to drop so you can recast it again. MP is pretty sparse in this game so you need to carry MP recovery items if you are going to grind spells for any reason.

They did add a feature that you could increase the amount of items you could carry. Typically you could only carry up to 4 of every specific item and I personally felt that somewhat added to the challenge of the game. When you learn magic it really doesn't become the inconvenience it feels it should be, but none the less you can increase that amount so it helps for grinding spells without having to constantly go back to the Inn to recover your MP.

But the flat out biggest problem of the game is the exact same one that I bitched about in my Death's Gambit review and that is that this game crashed a fucking lot. It would crash mid battle seemingly for no reason, during boss fights, during screen transitions. It was patched multiple times and I still found myself with the game constantly crashing on me. It really was souring my entire experience of the remake as whole.

Unlike Death's Gambit though, Secret of Mana has also added a very generous autosave that basically saves every time you enter a new room.  So even if the game does crash on you, you really aren't inconvenienced any more than just needing to reload the game back up and bam, you are right back where you left off just a room away, or at the start of a boss fight. It really is something that should have been taken care of immediately but honestly I don't even know if that ever got addressed.

So that leaves us with the final question: is the Secret of Mana remake better or worse? From where I stand, it comes to a matter of preference. The original holds a special place in my heart and I can always go back and play it. But it's not available to everyone now, so if you have never played Secret of Mana before I would give this a recommendation even with the problems I've cited.

Sure, a number of things could have been done better or improved upon, but it still captures a lot of the old magic that made me love the game before, and quality of life adjustments added do make for a more streamlined experience. It's only 40 bucks and it's a reminder that classic, simple mechanics can still hold up.

I am still saying "One night is 50 GP"
in old man voice