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.

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (PS4) - Respecting One's Roots

The last game in this series that I reviewed actually wasn't a proper installment of the series. I reminisced a bit about my favorite one of the franchise which was the last proper one I really played. Sure, I played its remake on the DS, but I never really got around to playing a newer installment of these. Blue Dragon maybe, but it's not exactly a game in this series. 

But for those who know this game's history, you know that when a new one comes out it is pretty much a holiday. So much so that the game actually releases on a Friday in Japan so people don't skip work to play it. This game hasn't had an actual non-handheld console release since the PS2 era, so the fact that it got a shiny new PS4 edition meant this might not be one I want to miss. I speak, of course, of....

DRAGON QUEST XI:
ECHOES OF AN ELUSIVE AGE(PS4)

The tale begins in the Kingdom of Dundrasil. The King and Queen have had a child, and all the kings from the around the world of Erdrea have to come give their blessings and see the prince. But more so, the kings meet for a summit to discuss the mark that appears on the child's hand. This child is the Luminary, destined to fight the coming darkness that will threaten the world.

But this does not ease everyone who is present, the king of Heliodor has some concerns that the birth of the child will bring back the darkness that will destroy the world. During a heated discussion about the child, a horde of monsters descends on kingdom and begins to lay waste to it. The queen and the Princess of Heliodor escape with the child, fearing for his life. Monsters give pursuit, but the Queen literally sends the child downriver in a basket in the hopes that he will be spared.

He is found by a kindly old man from a simple village of Cobblestone. When we next see the child his has grown to maturity and is about to complete his ritual to adulthood by climbing a mountain oversee with his childhood friend Gemma. After defending her along the way up and reaching the summit, the sign on his hand glows with light. His adoptive mother tells him it's time to learn who he really is.  So with one final home cooked meal and the blessing of the village, the child leaves to see the King of Helidor, who might have some answers about who he is.

via Gfycat

I could really complain about the story a little bit here, but if I am going to be totally honest this is completely in step with Dragon Quest's usual wheelhouse. I don't think I can actually think of an example that I played in this franchise that didn't have some variant of the Hero of Light vs the Lord of Darkness. They did it in Dragon Quest 1-4, and in DQ Warriors. It's kinda samey and cliche, but that's what they do so it didn't bother me as much as it would if it came from another franchise.

And this is a long ass game, let me tell you. So even if I thought I knew how the story was going to unfold (and was sometimes right) there is no way I could possibly get all of the points right because there is just too much content to cover for it to be totally 100% cliche. You are in for quite the tale, so saddle up because we are going to be here for a minute.

So one of the first things that I noticed when I really started to sink my teeth into this game is the developers as Square Enix really did go to great lengths to show appreciation to the source material of its lineage. Right from the moment you start the game, as the cinematic starts to run you hear the first few notes of a boisterous trumpeted theme and you know EXACTLY what song is about to hit, and I can't lie from that moment I had started smirking.

As the beginning unfolded everything fit into the classic fantasy setting that I knew, none of this Final Fantasy bullshit where "oooh, we're a fantasy game, but were also totally cyber punk and we swords that are guns, and computers, but people still ride giant birds".  Nope. We are straight up fantasy classic JRPG and I love it.

Everything down the menus goes to recreate everything you remember about the series in an updated style. Same quest select song, same arbitrary save mechanic. Simple text box system with simple white font. Character design, familiar monster design, pretty much every little nuance the game should have that can reference the old entries of the series, it does.

via Gfycat

Likewise, when I say classic JRPG that too is a hard truth. Traditional turn based combat. Fight, Magic, Item, Defend. They do spice it up in a couple of different ways though. First is what I have been calling a "diorama mode" where you can move characters around the field on their turn and spin the camera around to change the perspective of the battle. Outside of looks, this does literally nothing to outcome of the combat. It is 100% completely vestigial.

The other, more practical way, is with a "pep-up" system. As you take turns, do actions, and take damage your character essentially charges pep. When they Pep-Up they glow with blue energy (thankfully without going super saiyan). While pepped you get an increase to all of your stats, as well as being able to expend your pep to do a powerful attack or skill. If multiple characters are also pepped you can do combo attacks in pairs, trios, or the whole party.

A good deal of inspiration from Dragon Quest IV is in this one too, because when your party wipes, they are immediately swapped out with your reserve party, and you can switch between them on the fly if necessary. It also borrows from the strategic auto-fight system so for going through the regular rank and file baddies you will tear through in the bulk of your journey so you can limit MP use, have someone stick to heal, or just mow through people without much input required.

via Gfycat

Although, compared to the old ones (and I don't know if this was the case in newer ones) Dragon Quest XI has a pretty vast and forgiving skill tree. Some characters have a couple of different branches they can follow, and you can replace sections of your skill slots for a nominal charge so you have some freedom to play around with it. A lot of them are somewhat based on what weapon focus you want, some trees will let you complete multiple while others will focus you down one. Like it said, it's not expensive to clear a block of it and re-allocate. So talk to people, research, and play around with it.

There is also a modest crafting mechanic which will allow you to get some rare equipment, and a lot of the character costumes if you get the right things. But more importantly than that you can use the crafting to improve on your equipment to boost them to +1, +2 , or +3. But you have to be careful you have the available points and skill to do it. Any reasonably finished equipment can be redone, but if you botch the job you keep the item, but don't get attempt any more improvements on it. If you do this on something you would only get one of, and that's it. You've blown your chance to fix it. The auto save is smart enough to not let you get away with closing to the game before you totally cock it up.

via Gfycat

Like I said at the top of the review and will probably continue to reference throughout it is Dragon Quest XI's appreciate to its source material. This is most primarily noted in its visual design. One of the first things you will notice is that despite the 3D world and rendered models the game uses, when a fight starts in the monsters introduction animations, their resting stands are crafted and positioned to be identical to how they looked back on the original NES.

Similarly, there are lots of little nuances to character designs of the NPCs and characters that you will be able to pick out through the Dragon Quest lineage that will ring familiar. Little wings on soldiers helmets, iconic tiara's on some characters, priests having similar color schemes and hats from the save points of old. Even the text and menus are designed in such a way that they resemble the old NES versions of the game. They did this in Dragon Quest Heroes as well.  The game is literally tripping over itself with self reference. And for the most part, this is a great thing. It's giving what people who play Dragon Quest want without just retreading old.

via Gfycat

Similarly, its sound design is also cultured to hearken back to the old ones. While the game's vast score features a multitude of new songs, there is a significant amount of old music that comes back as well, remastered in such a way that they sound new, without escaping the feeling of how they did before. For example, the opening save slot song when you first fire up the game is done with short string plucks, which modernize but emulate the chiptune sound it used to have. Playing through the game, in some iconic moments some of the famous battle and overworld themes from Dragon Quest III and IV would kick in, and hit me with nostalgia waves. It's expertly done.

Another audio thing that they did that I really liked, and again something they did in Dragon Quest Heroes is that when you travel around the world map to other countries, when you visits that area's towns, the people inside of them will have their text written in a slang or dialect for that region. There is a town that is very Japanese culture, and another that is frozen Nordic. When these characters have actual speaking lines, they speak in the accent indicative to that area. It makes the world feel more realistic, as opposed to the entire planet speaking common English. It's a little attention to detail that I really loved.

via Gfycat

There are a handful of things that I didn't like though. Some of them are backhands to things I gushed about. First and foremost is the character design. Yes, I know. I literally just gushed about it. But Akira Toriyama? I get it, you made Dragon Ball, I fucking get it. But Jesus Christ not everything you do has to callback to that, you friggen hack. The character models are beautifully designed and animated but every time I catch a whiff of DBZ I cringe.

There is one specific point late game where you meet a new race of people, and son of a bitch these things are literally Buu character meshed with Mr. Popo from Dragon Ball. It took me so out of things I almost stopped playing I was so mad. Thankfully, someone must have reeled him in a bit with the pep-ups, because thankfully there is no Super Saiyan hair to be seen in the game, although I'm sure he wanted to.

As mentioned before, the free moving battle camera is stupid. It does nothing to contribute to the combat. When I play long RPGs, I want to be able to dispatch baddies as quick as possible. So adding extra vestigial steps that don't really do anything don't help me with that. I couldn't turn that feature off fast enough.

But the other problem, and this is a big one, is with the auto commands. This worked in Dragon Quest IV very well because you had such a large cast and you still controlled your hero. It still works here, but now you can also set auto commands to your hero as well. And admittedly, this is pretty much what I did for the entirety of the game. I only really turned it off for boss fights, and 90% of the time I just let the auto fight run itself. This isn't like Final Fantasy XII where I still have control over the gambits and can make changes, the game is just auto playing. So I a lot of instances between auto walk and auto fight, I didn't even need to actually play long stretches of the game.

And really, the front half of the game feels almost insultingly easy. Using the auto battle I really hadn't hit very many significant snags in my progress, and to a point I didn't even waste my time getting new equipment either because it didn't appear to be slowing down my progress in any way. It wasn't until late into the first act or so where I started to come up on some boss fights that forced me to play a little more strategically.

via Gfycat

It's a pretty long game too. It's a JRPG so that makes sense, but apparently if you have played Dragon Quest VIII then you know that the game is not going to end when you think it does, and there is a significant amount of post game content to do as well as a multitude of side quests for you to do along the adventure as well. You are certainly going to get your money's worth of time out of this one.

Many of these complaints are nitpicks really. I could have easily turned off the auto battle, and length of the game is rarely a complaint as you'll want to stretch your dollar. Complaining about an artists  literally iconic and definitive style is really just of a quirk of mine. I didn't use the diorama camera so it basically was a non-issue. Take all that away and I basically was left with a long and satisfying JRPG that was built with the fans of the series in mind.

I played this during 2018 and while it certainly wasn't going to win my game of the year, it IS certainly an excellent addition of the series. Was it better than my favorite entry Dragon Quest IV? Probably not, but it is up there. It's certainly one of the better JRPGs I've played in recent memory because it knows exactly what it is and who it is catering to. If you come in expecting Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age to change up the genre's formula you might be left underwhelmed. But of the rest of you (and probably more accurately MOST of you) this one is going to scratch all the right itches. Highly recommended.

Ok, yes, fine. I didn't upgrade my armor so I could keep Jade in her bunny suit.
Shut up. Don't judge me.

Battle Chef Brigade (PC): Part of a balanced meal

So every so often, in between streaming planned games on my rinky dink little channel, I will toss out a poll or ask for random suggestions for stuff to play.  Sometimes I get good ideas, other times I get random stuff out of the blue. This one was suggested to me by a friend and while the title rung a bell, I knew it was a game I had never played before.

But I knew that Amazon Prime had been giving away a bunch of games to Twitch Prime users, so after getting the suggestion I took a look and lo-and-behold I actually had a copy of the game. Never downloaded once and never played. So I figured why the hell not?

BATTLE CHEF BRIGADE (PC)

Taking place in a fantasy setting, the story of Battle Chef Brigade takes place in the nation of Victusia. A world where the fantasy races were once overrun by monsters, a group of people discovered that not only could monster meat be edible, but can also be deliciously prepared.  This group eventually became an elite brigade of individuals who would be known as Battle Chefs.

For the past 100 years, people from all over the land would meet in the capital city to compete for their right to join their ranks. This is done so in a tournament when aspiring chefs are given a time limit to hunt for and prepare a specific monster type, while also catering to the individual tastes of their judges. Those who progress would earn their right to join the Battle Chef Brigade.

In the Windy City off the main continent, A young girl named Mina lives a happy but unfulfilling life working at her family's restaurant. She is a very good cook, but she longs to be more creative and experimental with her cooking. She dreams of one day leaving home and joining the Brigade, and practises her cooking and magic daily to do so. And when the tournament finally comes around, she swindles the money she needs to take her chance at entering the tournament.

If that sounded to you like I was describing a fantasy version of Top Chef on Bravo, then you would be absolutely correct. That is almost exactly what this game is. It's a bit of a mish-mash of gameplay elements but when put together it certainly comes out interesting. I would say that it breaks down into 3 major elements to its palate: Story, Cooking, and Hunting. 

Typically, between the chapters and during the town segments of the game is where much of the characters and plot get fleshed out. Everything operates on the 2D plane if you compared it to the town segments of Dragons Crown you would be in the correct ballpark. I don't want to say it does the visual novel approach because It doesn't use that specific style. It would say that it's a more comic book style of delivery the way it's presented, but with the anime inspired characters I would say that visual novel isn't a stretch either. 

When in town, you can talk to and challenge other chefs and people to cooking battles, work side jobs to earn some extra money, and use the shop to buy new recipe books a cooking equipment. There are three major tasks you can do, two of them for cooking and one for hunting.

The cooking mechanic in this game is done via a puzzle mechanic, although the rules of this change depending on what cooking task you are doing between battling, research, and making money. Typically you add you ingredients which have a set of colored circles representing elements of wind, fire, and water. To make a quality dish, by spinning them in squares of 4 you line up 3 of the same element together, causing them to merge into one LV2 core of that element. Those LV2s can then be done again to become a LV3. You want to squeeze in as many as you can while using the ingredient given in the battle rules, while having more of the judge's preferred element.

As you play through the game, it throws in other pieces that can affect your dish like poisoned pieces that explode if jostled too much, cracked pieces that can break after three moves, bones that can be turned into wild card pieces, and so on. Some of these can be maneuvered or changed on their own, but sometimes you might need to use an additional cooking tool to remove them. Some tools have very specific uses, others will provide better bonuses while you cook.

But the ingredients are not just provided to you, oh no, you have to go and hunt for you ingredients. So if you leave your Kitchen just to the left, suddenly you are in a 2D hack n' slash game in the vein of Muramasa: The Demon Blade or probably more appropriately Dust: an Elysian Tail.  You run and jump along multi tiered levels hacking, slashing, and casting spells at monsters and why they die they drop a series of ingredients to bring back. You can only hold so much but you can make multiple trips at the start to have a cache ready to go.

Because of the radical and jarring switch, it can lead to a hilarious moment for someone who might not be paying attention. I had a friend watching me stream, she looked away for a second and I had gone from cooking with a pan, to jumping around throwing whirlwinds at a dragon. It's both sweet and savory as it was ridiculous and fucking awesome.

Combat is kept relatively simple with one button for physical attacks and one for magical that have different effects depending on what direction you are pressing, which allows for just enough nuance for you to really sink your teeth into combos to find something you like to do. In my case I love to combo followed by a sweep that causes knock up, then jumping after them for a air combo. I am all over combat like this like butter on a baked potato.

Now if these were the only two elements in the game this would probably be enough to carry the game, but I mentioned before that they spice up the cooking mechanic with the different jobs you can do. Basically it changes the rules. When doing cooking research, you are given a set score and set ingredient and you need to figure out how to match that score using only what you are provided with. You can do it as many times as you like, but you need to strategically move things to get the best possible outcome without wasting any of your pieces.

The other is basically working as a short order cook, and here the woman who runs the restaurant is not looking for haute cuisine. These are people who know what they want and know what they like. So you are given puzzle, and they just want you to match the pieces as the customer asked for it. Some of them are pretty easy to do, some get more involved, and you want to get them all out as fast as you can so you can earn more tips over the course of your shift.

There is also a hunting task to do, but it ultimately doesn't change the core combat mechanic. You usually are just provided a goal of how many to hunt, or what specifically to hunt. But it does push the story further with a specific character, so it's a nice little side dish on top of making some money with it. 

As I write this review, I learned that there is apparently a whole number of game modes I didn't even notice when I started playing. The game also features a split screen multiplayer mode, online leader boards, a free play mode, survival mode, restaurant rush, and "break the dishes" mode. That is actually a pretty meaty amount of content outside of the main story. 

I seriously had no idea these existed till I started writing this. 

I really don't have very much to complain about on this one, really. Just a handful of minor complaints. To the game's credit it does have a very unique and well designed set of characters. Everyone who has any kind of major speaking line is very much distinguishable in their appearance so there is little room to confuse characters. That being said? There is a sore lack of actual animation of this. 

Picture a series of hand drawn anime cels, and then give those characters a series of different poses and facial reactions. It really does go back to the visual novel appearance without the tight zoom in over the text box. Characters just jump from pose to pose, which again fits with the comic aesthetic it appear to be going for.  But when you jump into the combat portions of the game you will notice that while there are definitely more frames for animation for some of the actions, it definitely does have a 8 or 16 bit RPG animation style. The run action might be just 3 or 4 frame cycled through. The plus is they move fast enough and fluidly enough with the controls that while it's noticeable, it's not jarring of off putting. 

The music really isn't anything to write home about. This is really a big kneecapping of the fantasy genre as a whole. Unless you have a truly unique melody that catches the ear and keeps in fresh in your head, the all fantasy themed game music is really just going to sound bland. Everything feels fitting about it, but none of it is remarkable. 

The voice acting a strange mixed bag. I don't know how to explain it. The voice acting is well done. It's competently delivered with out feeling to cheesy or hokey. But there is a roughness to it that makes it feel unpolished. I don't know if I can describe it, it feels like the audio is not mixed properly. Lines are delivered with the gusto, but perhaps without an understanding of what it is they are actually reading the lines for.  Sometimes dialog feels too abruptly cut, sometimes it feels like voice lines are too loud for the scene.  There's just an...... off-ness about it. You'd have to hear it to get what I mean. 

I would very much like a clearer understanding of what catering to a judges taste actually means during the actual cooking battle portions. One person will tell me to cook with wind, so I will prepare a dish that is filled with LV3 wind pieces, and then in my judging she'll fucking complain about it. Bitch, have you tried to instill dragon's flavor in the air? It hasn't really affected my ability to progress in the game, but I don't know if I actually understand what I am being scored on. 

Now, from where we stand you are probably thinking sounds pretty stupid. And I'm not going to lie to you I was right there with you. As I was streaming through the first few chapters of the game, I certainly was having fun with it, but it was always prefaced with a laugh about how dumb this game was. But at the end of chapter 2, I got slapped with a story line twist I did not see coming. I closed my stream short after that, but after maybe about 30 minutes I couldn't help but want to see what was going to happen next.

The game pretty much had me at that point. I had to go back for seconds because after that first taste I was hungry for more. I gave up the premise of making it the next weekly stream because I couldn't wait to get back to it. It was genuinely fun to play by not taking itself too seriously, yet earnestly delivering its tale it was impossible to not fall in love with it or its characters. 

At the time of writing I haven't finished this one because I have so many other games on my plate, but I absolutely intend to finish this one. Like I have alluded to at the start of this review it borrows a some tried and true game elements and doesn't really reinvent the wheel, but the obscure combination hack n' slash and puzzle with a fantasy cooking theme that they put together some how managed to fit together beautifully. 

It's campy, has fun characters, fluid combat, an engaging puzzle mechanic, and a surprisingly deep and interesting storyline. It's because of all these that I'm willing to give Battle Chef Brigade a recommendation. Is this a world beater that will be showered with accolades? Of course not, but it currently sells for 19.99 on Steam, PS4, and Nintendo Switch and you will definitely get more than 20 bucks worth of entertainment out of this one.

I give this game 5 star review on Whelp!.... Get it? Cuz it's fantasy? And Whelps are baby dragons? Ehh? EH??.... Ok... I'll stop now.

"You need to prepare a dish with fire, wyvern blood, pixie wing and your mystery ingredient..... CHICKEN!"
"FAAAACK. What the fuck is chicken?! How am I supposed to work with that?!"

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