Vindictus is set in a fantasy town, and is the precursor to Mabinogi. However, while Mabinogi is somewhat light and happy in tone, Vindictus throws most of that away for a happy exterior covering a shell of weird horror and creepy revelations.

As this is an MMO, I’ll start off with the character classes. Each has some text description in the selection screen, which saved the developers from having to characterize several characters through gameplay and interaction with friendly non-player characters. It’s acceptable in this situation, as characterization through gameplay and NPC interactions is essentially an insurmountable task. However, interaction with the NPCs does reveal a lot about them as a character and the world you are playing in. It also turns most of the NPCs into interesting characters in their own right.

Classes: Each class is gender locked, as is typical of overseas MMO games. Each class also has a name instead of a class label. There are currently four player characters released, with a fifth planned.

Evie is the mage type character. She uses a staff, but can later use a scythe. She can also use powerful spells like reverse gravity, and she can summon golems from the landscape. She is the weakest character in terms of health, but her mana shield can save her, and her powerful attacks means a staff Evie is pretty much THE best character to solo run any mission. However, that assumes you have the skill to use her that well. She is easy for beginners to grasp, but can be harder to master, which can be a problem in larger battles if the Evie can’t support the rest of the team. While she is the best to solo run missions, she is best for solo runs of missions below her level, as missions at her level will find her against enemies that can kill her pretty easily, or pretty much instantly kill her. Her abilities will also usually not be high enough in rank to take on the big boss, and the recharge on her abilities can make it even harder.

Fiona is a more tank-type character. She uses a sword and shield, although later she gains a hammer, and even later, she gains the ability to use large shields. She has lots of armor, and lots of defensive skills that allow her to be good at soloing missions as well as a really useful addition to any team. Her counterattacks also allow her to stun bosses, and her blocking skill can even stop the charges of some of the strongest bosses.

Lann is best described as the rogue. He carries two swords, or later, two spears. He can cause massive amounts of damage every second, and has reasonably high health. He is a class best suited for a really experienced player, as anyone short of that will find themselves dieing over and over. He is not good at solo missions, as he dies pretty effectively. He can also be annoying paired with another character, as they will often find themselves having to revive the Lann on their team.

Karok is pretty much a giant. He is some monstrous character that uses a pillar as his weapon. Basically, the first one is a tree, and later ones are things like monument gravestones and stone columns. His other weapon the he eventually learns to use is the Cestus, which is basically big metal or stone or whatever gloves that he bare-handed fights things to death with. Honestly, I don’t have a Karok of high enough level to have them, and I don’t play Karok often enough to get to that level, and they were released just recently.

The final character is Kai, who seems to be an archer. He is not yet released.

Well, the backbone of any MMO game is the combat. Sadly, the combat in Vindictus, while fun at first, gets pretty repetitive. Combo building is simple and intuitive, and abilities like dodging, combat rolling, or teleporting allow you to jump into and out of the range of bosses and attack quickly. And that is how pretty much every battle will play out Some bigger bosses can make it much harder, but pretty much every boss has a pretty easy to see attack pattern, so it merely becomes an execution challenge to defeat the boss. It becomes especially annoying when you need to gain an item which is gained by hitting a certain spot on the boss with a spear. Like the gem on the arm of one boss. Sometimes, you need those items for a quest, which is especially annoying.

It dangles abilities and weapons in front of you as the carrot to get you to move along. At level 24, you gain your alternate weapon, and access to the abilities that come with the alternate weapon. For example, Evie can use mana amber to dodge attacks, which surrounds her in a giant crystal that can be knocked around without her receiving much or any damage (based on the strength of the boss.) When she gets the scythe, her Mana Amber is replaced with a teleport ability. And instead of being able to sue a heal spell, she can now use a very easy combo to steal health from an attacked enemy.

All classes gain their alternate weapon at level 24.

At level 40, there is a special title you get for making it that far. Which isn’t really worth it, given how few quests there are around level 37-40, so getting that far required grinding a battle over and over to get enough xp. Either it is a clever system to find only the most dedicated players, or just they couldn’t think of anything else to put there and put a title as acknowledgement that yes, there is not a lot to do, so here is a small thing you get for getting past the few quest section of the game.

Like any MMO, there is a basic story to set up a reason why you should travel to various dungeons and kill x number of monster z. In this one, it is because the Fomors 9which seems to be an alliance of various monsters seen in every fantasy game) have attacked the people and you must defeat them. Actually, they are vicious and do attack human settlements, but you actually fight against them to fulfill the prophecy that when all the evil Fomors are dead, the humans as a whole will move onto the heaven place where the Goddess is. The greatest supporter of this is the pretty cute NPC Tieve, who is also the oracle. Just to recap: the cutest character in the game is also the biggest advocate of the mass genocide you will commit.

Really, that ends up being Fridge Horror, as you probably won’t notice it all at first until you go get a snack and stop to think about the latest development in the story.

Other characters include a Ice Queen, who you melt somewhat, a military commander and a hero who rides around on a dragon. And one of the later quests is to show the townspeople how useful and needed the dragon is so they will not be as angry with the dragon droppings it leaves around the town.

There are some minor inconsistencies, but pretty much all of them have to do with limitations in the game itself and the game world. Spoiler alert: One later battle is called Colhen in Flames, and the starting town has been attack and is being burned down, and you must defeat the boss monster. And then yo go back to Colhen, which is still there. It would be unreasonably hard to have the starting town destroyed for some people, but there for others, which is why things like that are only done in persistent world games, where player(s) advance the plot, and actions are permanent. Games like that will either be single player, or they will have people start out learning the beginner stuff from a specific person in an area that can’t be reached before being dropped into the game world.

Oh, and speaking of other tidbits, at level 42 you can start the quest chain to learn with Dark Knight or Paladin abilities. Dark Knight is a transformation that gives you immense attack power, while Paladin gives a defense boost, and other things that best help your team. Actually, each ability is best paired with a specific character, so there isn’t really much choice. DK is best for Evie, as she can kill a boss in a VERY short amount of time, while still being able to heal and assist her teammates, and Paladin does not give her a heal boost or other team assist abilities, so DK allows you to help your team by becoming the main attack force. Paladin is good for Fiona, as she an boost her teams’ defense, while boosting her own defense and allowing her to save her team from the boss. Fionas usually spend a lot of time blocking and counterattacking, not directly attacking a boss, and they and their team benefits best from Fiona being a paladin. Lann benefits from DK best, as it boosts his attacks and allows him to cause much more damage before dieing, while Paladin boosts his defense, which isn’t to useful for a class that is purely offense. Karok is pretty good for a Paladin, as while he is an attacking character, he also has abilities that allow him to grapple larger bosses, and some bosses, he can simply grab and start punching. Paladin best allows him to grapple a bigger boss and helps his team to best defeat it.

One of the biggest problems Vindictus has is player retention. The ability system works by giving you some points every so often for free, so you can just not play for a week and have enough points to rank up an ability. Plus, at around level 50, it becomes hard to find people to join in on battles you need. At level 60, it becomes even harder. If they patch it to give new battles and a max level of 80, then the high level players will come back and rang up to the max, before disappearing again. Some high level players remain around a lot, but they are usually assisting lower level teams in massive raid battles. The problem there s that with how hard it can be to find someone to run a battle with you, most players disappear at the higher levels simply because running a battle becomes such an infrequent task, they may as well wait and use the gained ability points (which they get much more often at the higher levels) to give hem free ranks in their abilities and allow them to be much more powerful when they do manage to get into a battle.

Obviously, you can choose whatever you want, but I am just laying down the suggestions for what works best for what class.

Score: 4/5 good

Pros: interesting story, interesting character, fun to play. Big bosses, interesting battles, fun challenges.

Cons: spends a a bit too much time at times being not fun at all. finding people to assist in battles above level 60 is like pulling teeth from a herd of cats.

Suggestion: buy it. Just kidding, Nexon games are free to play. You should at least try it out, it is pretty worthwhile. You may not want to stay with it, but that is okay. While Nexon games are free to play, and not even pay to win, they do sell purely aesthetic items such as inner armor (underwear) and dye containers that allow you to color your armor, as well as some other things that do not affect gameplay, life fishing poles for if you want to fish (or you can spend some gold instead of real dollars on the harpoons.) However, they do allow you to complete a bunch of free offers, trials, and other things for the NX points (to buy stuff) so you don’t need to spend your hard-earned cash.

You can get the game here: Vindictus.nexon.net

That sentence right there may be the single most interesting part of this rather generic feeling shoot ‘em up game with surprisingly poor controls.

So, the plot. Well, the advertisement says it is a combination of orthodox magical girl characters and story. When I got the game (the free version, not the donate version, as I assumed the free was a demo of the donate version.) I was unable to actually see if that claim was true, due to any bits being in Japanese. In fact, I sucked at easy mode at that point, as the instructions were also in Japanese. However, a recent update to the game switched most of the Japanese out for very badly translated English.

Back to the plot. Thanks to the update, I can say it is basically a magical girl series (pick any) crossed with a game. you fight other magical girls of increasing difficulty, eventually reaching the final magical girl boss. And I guess defeating her…turns her back into who she used to be? The power of beating someone to death makes them recall they were once your ally? Well, ignoring such gaping holes that reek of handwavium, the game has some stuff going for it.

First off, the gameplay isn’t entirely awful. The controls are slow and laggy. I would say it is due to the touchscreen control, but Danmaku on iPod touch/iPhone/iPad has absolutely amazing controls for a shooter-responsive and easy. It even scales-move quickly for quick motions that cover larger areas quickly, and slower for smaller slower movements. Magical Cannon Girls doesn’t get that, although a future update may bring it.

Secondly, I do believe the donate and free versions are exactly the same. You can get it for free, and I would suggest that route if it was a demo. Yes, despite me having said positive things about scans (I’ll save my thoughts on that for a future article) as you can get the same game in english, just like the free one, for a small amount of money, buy the donate version. As you have the original item in your language (if you are reading this without the use of a translator, it is in your native language because you quite obviously speak english) you may as well support the people who made it. Whoever they are.

Given the poor controls, you will get quite used to seeing this screen, or some other variation of ‘game over.’

Even better, when I managed to beat the game, entering my name into the thing completely glitched out, forcing me to try to close 10,000 windows that opened in the background. Actually, they then locked up my device, forcing me to reboot. So it does have its flaws even when you make it past all the other issues.

So, you are probably wondering how can this be recommended? Well, I can’t recommend it as a bullet hell shooter for a touchscreen device. Danmaku does a much better job and is much prettier and is, in a word, cooler, for lack of a better phrase to describe it. For fans of bullet hell, Danmaku will also be more fun for a portable game. Forget putting this on a regular computer or console-every defect would be multiplied tenfold, and computers and consoles have good games like Ikaruga, Touhou, DoDonPachi, and any other thing that shows up when you google bullet hell games.

But, this game doesn’t feel like a bullet hell, most likely because it really isn’t. It’s a regular old arcade style shooter, but with a little twist on the health mechanic and trance mechanic. In short, it works. If you are totally used to pure arcade style shooters, there will be a little adjustment. Plus, Magical Cannon Girls is one of the better 15 minutes of nothing games. Let me rephrase that-it is a very good game for very little money when you have 15 minutes of nothing better to do.

Score: 3/5 not a good example of shoot ‘em ups, and has a lot of room for improvement

Pros: It is fun, simple, and entertaining/amusing. Provided you can deal with the poor controls, you will get your money’s worth out of it (you did pay for it, right?) Plus, if you have a few minutes to spare, like waiting for a bus or a friend, it is perfect for those times. The game doesn’t take a lot of time to get through on the easier modes, nor does it take a long time to get the hang of it, so you can probably beat it in 30 minutes while waiting for something.

Cons: The controls are abysmal. Slow and unresponsive guarantee that until you learn the boss attacks and move a bit before you need to, you will die often. If you beat this game through on your first try, you must be able to predict the future given how slow the controls are.

Fortunately enough, copies of Mega Man Legends aren’t horribly expensive on eBay. Well, not for the first one at least. I’ve yet to see a decently priced copy of Mega Man Legends 2, and have resigned myself to the fact that I’ll have to emulate that one and will never actually own a copy of it. But I have the first one at least, so that’s a small victory.

Mega Man Legends mesmerized me as a kid. It presented a massive world open to exploration, and there were characters and narrative and (pretty bad) voice acting. It was an entirely new creature, unlike anything I had played at the time. There were other adventure games, with the obvious example being Ocarina of Time, but Mega Man Legends was the first time I encountered a game with one sprawling dungeon that you could freely explore. It was a whole new experience for me and something I remembered fondly, so I was eager to go back and see what I thought of the game today.

It’s an understatement to say that Mega Man Legends hasn’t exactly aged well. The core gameplay itself is fine, you run around and shoot at stuff. It’s a pretty basic concept that hasn’t changed much over the years. What really makes Mega Man Legends show its age is certain control aspects. Simply put, the game doesn’t support analog sticks. “Big deal,” you may be thinking, “back in my day all we had were D-Pads and we liked our games just fine.” This is true, and the D-Pad works just fine for moving Mega Man around. Unfortunately, without analog sticks there just isn’t an easy way to move the camera around. You can move it left and right using the shoulder buttons, but if you want to look up you have to stop moving completely and hold down the R2 button to move the camera around freely. This creates a problem when dealing with flying enemies because you can’t always see them, and it’s generally not safe to stop moving for extended periods of time in the middle of a fight. Of course, this leads into the next problem.

The game has no lock-on system. Okay, that’s not really true. The lock-on system is just completely worthless. Locking-on is done by holding down the R2 button, which you’ve probably noticed is the same button that lets you move the camera around freely. There are a couple problems with this. Like when moving the camera around, you’re stuck in one spot when locking-on. Locking-on can also interfere when you just want to look around because it will automatically lock-on to an enemy if they get close to you. It’s lucky that you never actually need to use this function because it’s not helpful at all. You’re better off just running in circles around your target, turning the camera towards them, and letting the auto-aim function take care of actually hitting targets.

Not that the auto-aim is without its own flaws. For enemies with multiple places to hit, such as many bosses, the auto-aim won’t always shoot at what you actually want it to, which is problematic to say the least. It can also cause problems if there are two or more enemies directly in front of you, since you can’t tell which one you’re going to end up shooting at. The central issue here is the lack of an aiming reticle, or any indication of any kind to tell you what the hell you’re aiming at. Most of the time you’re left shooting blind and hoping that you and the game agree on which enemy to shoot.

Despite a few quibbles with the gameplay, I still really like the game. The best part is still the ruins underneath the island the game takes place on. It’s a vast network of tunnels, all connected to one another. It’s like Metroid but with a slightly less intense feeling of isolation. It’s a game that encourages exploration, with the rewards of exploring the area being some hilariously overpowered weapons, or just boatloads of money. There’s a real feeling of uneasiness when exploring because you never have a chance to save once you’re down there. If you want to you’ll need to find an exist, which isn’t always an easy task. Given Mega Man Legends age, it doesn’t exactly have a forgiving game over system. When you die you don’t get to hit retry and go back to the entrance of the room. You get kicked back to the title screen. Any progress you made while exploring, any items you picked up, all of it is gone.

Luckily, dying isn’t something you’ll be doing very often, assuming you’re at least competent at playing games. I’m sure this game was hard when I was 10 and didn’t have good reflexes or Internet access, but now it’s pretty easy. In my entire playthrough I died once. I was in a near death state and ended up going into a boss fight because I didn’t know it was going to happen. That was it. Eventually I got the Shining Laser, the best sub-weapon in the game and something I wouldn’t have been able to get back when I was a kid, and it’s a game breaker once it’s fully upgraded. The final boss would be a legitimate challenge normally, but with the fully upgraded Shining Laser I beat his second form in about 30 seconds. First form was a little harder because it wasn’t as easy to hit with the Shining Laser. But yeah, whatever challenge existed in this game when I was 10 is pretty much gone now, which is a little disappointing.

One thing that really mesmerized my 10 year old mind was the story. Not that it’s a particular deep or amazing story, but I didn’t know at the time that games could actually tell stories, so it was a new idea to me. Although Mega Man Legends doesn’t  really tell much of a story. For the most part it’s just “Go here and get this, then go here and get this, then fight this boss,” over and over until the last area of the game. During the end there’s a giant info-dump about who Mega Man really is, hinting at some grander story that might be lurking in the background, but the first game never really gets to that part of the story. All it has are those few hints, and Data, one of Mega Man’s companions, literally saying he’ll tell you everything some time in the future.

Mega Man Legends may have been lacking in storytelling, but it made up for this with atmosphere. I’ve spoken about the exploration aspect of the game before, and the isolation one feels when down there. This is compounded upon when you include things like the quiet eerie background music, the distant sound effects of reaverbots moving around, and sudden attacks from enemies you can’t see. Other really creepy areas are the sub-cities. These are old, abandoned residential areas that are sealed underneath the island. The look of them, and the fact that they’re crawling with strong reaverbots, creates a genuinely creepy setting. Especially when the music stops and you’re entirely alone in the area, just wandering around a bunch of abandoned buildings in a place completely devoid of life.

While Mega Man Legends certainly shows its age, both visually and through gameplay, it’s still a fun adventure game. It may not leave me quite as mesmerized now as it did when I was a kid, but if you can put up with the somewhat frustrating controls it’s still a good game. It has great atmosphere and a great deal of exploration that easily eat up hours of your time without you even realizing it. It’s definitely worth getting your hands on a copy, through whatever means it may take.

Chantelise comes from the Japanese indie developer EasyGameStation, who you may know as the group that created Carpe Fulgur’s previous release Recettear. Chantelise actually pre-dates Recettear, being EasyGameStation’s first game to feature their own characters and story instead of being based on an existing property. Though you shouldn’t go into this expecting a premise and experience as unique as Recettear; Chantelise is just a simple 3D action adventure game.

Players take control of Elise, a young swordswoman who travels with her sister Chante, who happens to be a fairy. Combat is pretty straightforward: Elise can perform a short combo with her sword, jump, and dash out of the way of attacks, and Chante participates in combat by casting magic, which can only be done when the player picks up magic stones that enemies drop. The magic easily adds the most variety to the combat, allowing you to use multiple magic stones at the same time to perform different kinds of spells. There’s a spell list in the menu, though for some reason it only appears to list spells for using multiples of the same element, and doesn’t include any of spells for using a mix of elements. That defeats the purpose of the spell list since it’s easy to remember to use two fire stones to cast a stronger fire spell whereas other combinations and their results aren’t as straightforward, and it seems like an oversight on the developer’s part.

Chantelise forgoes a traditional level-up system, instead requiring you to buy HP upgrades and other stat boosting equipment at the town store. This is where the game can get cruel. Whenever you buy something the price goes up, and every time you sell a treasure its value goes down. If you play the game long enough HP upgrades can start costing you well over 100,000 Pix, while most pieces of treasure you have to sell will net you a couple hundred, maybe a thousand if you’re lucky.  The real kicker is buying hints for the various hidden treasures in dungeons lowers your max HP instead of costing money, so if you want to go after the treasure it’s going to cost you significantly to get your HP back up. I can only assume this is some form of karmic punishment for every time I price-gouged customers when there was a food shortage in Recettear. Needless to say if you’re aiming to boost your stats a great deal you’re in for a lot of grinding.

Dungeon exploration in Chantelise isn’t a complicated affair. You simply go floor to floor, killing every enemy in the area to advance. There isn’t actually that much “exploration” involved. There is a hidden treasure located in every floor in the entire game, but that doesn’t really require exploration so much as fulfilling some strange vague criteria to make the treasure chest appear. Another problem with the dungeon exploration is the lack of variety of enemies. There are only a handful of different types of monsters, with latter dungeons mostly being filled with palate swapped versions of things you’ve fought before. If you’ve played Recettear you’ll also notice that almost every enemy from Chantelise was also in that game (this also extends to sound effects, items, and other things as well). Although that’s actually a flaw with Recettear since, again, Chantelise was made before it. Going through the dungeons  and killing monsters would easily get repetitive and tedious after a while, but luckily there are only six dungeons in the game and they’re not too long.

The real challenge in the dungeon exploration comes from the bosses. Simply put, if you run in to the first boss battle thinking it’s a simple matter of hitting them a few times and dodging, you’re going to die. A lot. The first boss is probably one of the most challenging, simply because you have no idea what to expect. Unlike normal enemies, bosses have a large variety of attacks and if you don’t properly learn how to avoid them, which isn’t as simple as just pressing the dodge button, you won’t get very far. This isn’t something you can just brute force your way through. You can’t just go grind money to buy some HP boosts and hope to hold out. This is a real challenge that you need to learn to overcome, and it’s one of the best parts of the game.

One big problem with the game is the lack of extra content. Once you’ve finished the story, which will only take you about 10 hours, there’s next to nothing left for you to do. There is an extra dungeon that opens up if you’ve found all the hidden treasure, but it’s a short dungeon that you can clear pretty quickly. The other major thing is a 60 floor  survival mode dungeon, made up of re-used floors from other dungeons, where the goal is to keep killing monsters until you reach the end. It’s certainly lengthy, but not something I ever really see myself bothering with. Aside from those two things, there’s also a fishing minigame, which plays like a golf minigame for some reason. The fishing doesn’t figure into things in any significant way (though you can catch some… questionable things), and it’s entirely possible to go through the entire game without even realizing there’s a finishing minigame at all.

Chantelise‘s gameplay may be a little bland, but where it really shines is the dialogue. Carpe Fulgur once again produced a superb localization, with every bit of dialogue filled with personality and bit of humour thrown in for good measure. The majority of funny dialogue comes out of Chante’s mouth, Chante being a hyperactive little fairy who’s quick to anger and has a penchant for kicking in people’s shins. Other characters have their moments as well, with another highlight being the fortune-teller Elma, though most of her funny moments are centered around her interactions with Chante. The dialogue features jabs at some aspects of the game itself, jokes about old over-localization habits, and a host of other things that are sure to get a laugh or two while you’re hacking and slashing your way through dungeons. Of course, even the dialogue that’s not focused on being funny is handled well, so much so that it’s hard to tell that the game used to be in another language. Carpe Fulgur did an excellent job with this game, easily on par with their Recettear localization.

Chantelise may not have an epic, sweeping story, but what story there is has a certain charm to it. It’s a simple story of two sisters seeking a way to break a curse and getting caught up in a bigger adventure along the way. The best part of the story comes from the two sisters who are willing to do anything to help one another. Either one is ready and willing to risk their life if it means helping her sister, and it results in a nice heartwarming little story. Whether or not the story really matters depends on how much emphasis you put on the plot of an action adventure game, and chances are it’s not very much. Even so, EasyGameStation’s first outing into original characters and story was a good one, with a simple but charming plot and a great cast of characters, easily rivaling the efforts of professional developers in this genre.

In the end, Chantelise is a pretty good action adventure game that’s worth checking out. The gameplay is fun, if a little shallow and repetitive, but this is easily made up for by the humour present in the dialogue. It has a nice little charming story and a lovable cast of characters. It may be lacking in content, only offering about 10-15 hours of playtime, but it’s ultimately a fun experience that’s easily worth the $10 price tag.

Score: 4/5

Pros: Great localization, lots of humour, charming story, challenging boss fights

Cons: Lacking extra content, combat can be a little shallow, not a very long game

Chantelise is available on Steam and GamersGate

The recent news that Atlus USA will be bringing the PSP port of Persona 2 to North America has made me particularly happy. Of any SMT games I’ve played, the Persona series has been my favourite. Since I started with Persona 3, I didn’t really have a chance to play the first two games, but with these PSP ports I can. With this latest announcement, it seems like a good enough time to detail my journey through this franchise.

There will probably be massive spoilers for some of these games.

Things started out with Persona 3: FES, which I bought on a whim while visiting family because stores where I live rarely carry Persona games. The game tells the story of a group of high school students who are members of a special group called SEES. These students are able to maintain their normal human forms during a secret hour that occurs at midnight known as The Dark Hour, during which most humans are transmogrified into coffins. The Dark Hour has a strange affect on the school, causing it transform into a maze-like tower named Tartarus. The members of SEES are responsible for exploring this tower, and trying to discover the cause of The Dark Hour.

One of the things I really liked about Persona 3 was the characters. They all felt kind of real, with each one having their own flaws, relationships, and personalities. They react to most things like you would expect, and they largely behave like normal 17 year olds. Granted, some of this gets a little messed up in the extra part of FES, The Anwer. Yukari, for example, goes from being kind of moody and exasperated with all this Dark Hour nonsense, to becoming a complete psycho bitch. They also shoehorn in a romance subplot between her and the main character for that part of the game, despite the fact that it never appears in the main story. It was nice to see how the characters dealt with the things that happened at the end of the main story, but The Answer handled the characters pretty poorly for the most part.

I also liked the gameplay, at the time at least. I was never fond of the fact that you couldn’t control your teammates, and had no control over what skills they learned as they levelled up. The knock-down system was the best thing ever, or the worst thing ever, depending on whether you were on the receiving or giving end of the knock-downs. There’s nothing quite like sitting back and watching as your character gets repeatedly knocked down, missing at least one turn every time, while your team mates ineffectually cast magic until you finally die and throw your controller at the screen in frustration.

Another minor annoyance was the difficulty in changing your party members’ equipment. You could only do it by talking to them in the dungeon. When buying new equipment you couldn’t see what they currently had equipped so you didn’t know if what you were buying was better, worse, or exactly the same. But most of these problems weren’t noticeable at the time, and only started getting on my nerves after I played another game.

The game that made all the problems with Persona 3 standout was Persona 4. This one takes place in a small town where strange murders start taking place. A teenager who recently moved to the town to live with his Uncle for a year finds himself with the mysterious ability to enter another world through TV screens. When he and his friends find out that the murder victims had been thrown inside that world before turning up dead, they realize they’re the only ones who can prevent more people from dying and finding the murderer.

I like Persona 4 for much the same reason I like Persona 3. It had a great cast of characters, just like the previous. However, Persona 4 put a bit more emphasis on the actual story than Persona 3. The story in Persona 3 was doled out in chunks whenever the game felt like doing it, which wasn’t often. Several times you’d defeat the latest story-line boss only to have the characters say something along the lines of, “Well, we still don’t understand shit, so might as well climb that tower some more.” Most of the story is never really told until the very last stretch of the game, where you’re simply drowned with information.

Persona 4 moved its story along at a much better pace. Since the characters were trying to solve a mystery information is slowly given out over time until the characters finally solve it. Every time you saved someone who had been thrown in the TV the characters would discuss what they knew about the killer so far, try to understand his motive, and see if they could prevent any more people from being thrown in. It was handled at a decent pace, and there was more going on than just climbing a tower over and over. Which leads us to another things Persona 4 did better than Persona 3.

One of the major flaws of Persona 3 that anyone will point out is that the dungeon crawling aspect of the game is repetitive as hell. It’s 200-some odd floors of running around randomly generated mazes and fighting the same enemies over and over. The design rarely changes, with the only thing ever changing being the colour of the walls and floors, and the music is almost exactly the same the entire time. It’s infuriatingly repetitive.

Persona 4 actually had some variety in the dungeon design. There were things like a castle, a bathhouse, a strip club, an 8-bit video game, and more. The game also wasn’t just a bunch of randomly generated floors. Every dungeon had a few floors with some sort of gimmick, like warping you if try to go past a door in the wrong direction, kicking you out of the dungeon if you get in a battle, or switching the camera angle quickly to confuse you. Every dungeon was also given its own matching song, as opposed to using the same one for the entire game like Persona 3.

Persona 4‘s Social Links were also better than Persona 3‘s. They focused more on the characters coming to accept who they were, which was a major theme of the game, instead of the ones in Persona 3 which were all about how the character was dying, knew someone who was dying, knew someone who died, or some other horrible thing. The game also let you decide what skills your party member’s would learn, control them in battle, and made buying and changing their equipment much easier. Essentially, Persona 4 took everything wrong with Persona 3, which was already a really good game, and fixed it. Which is why it’s easily my favourite game. I’ve played through the thing at least four times, and not one of those playthroughs took less than 40 hours. I love it and will continue to play it until the day I die.

The next one I played is one I’ve never actually finished. Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Radio Kuzunoha vs King Abbadon, is about a young man who is the latest in a long line of devil summoners charged with protecting the capital of Japan. Raidou, along with his mentor Gato, who is a talking cat for some reason, do detective work as a cover up for their battles against demons. Their latest case begins when a young woman hires Raidou to investigate a man named Dahn. One of the reasons I ended up buying this game, aside from it being an SMT game, was that it came with a plushie. The plushie was a Jack Frost, dressed up in Raidou’s clothes, though from what I understand this Jack Frost is actually a character in the game. I actually liked the game, but ended up not finishing it because I got distracted by another game.

The game that distracted me from Devil Summoner 2 was the next SMT game I played Devil Survivor. Devil Survivor is about a group of teenagers who, along with hundreds of other people, are stuck in an SDF enforced enclosure. No one is allowed in or out, and no one has any idea what’s going on. When demons start appearing in the area, the protagonist and his friends realize their COMPs (handheld computer thingies) can now summon demons of their own to fight for them. They can also now see death clocks above people’s heads, counting down the days until they die. Once they notice that they’re own death clocks will reach zero in a few days, they decide to use their new power to survive and find out what’s going on.

I’m not really into strategy games, either turn based or real time, and the only other I can remember playing is Final Fantasy Tactics. This probably explains why I found Devil Survivor irritatingly difficult, and it didn’t help that level grinding was pretty much impossible. The only reason I even managed to finish the game is because I cheated. I’m kind of glad I did that instead of just quitting entirely, since I really liked the story in Devil Survivor. Well, more specifically, I liked one of the endings.

The game has 6 different possible endings, depending on certain decisions you make throughout the game. They range from, “Well, guess the world is fucked,” to, “Well, guess the world is only kind of fucked,” and even, “Well, guess I’m going to go kill God.” That last one is the one I was interested in. For that particular ending, the main character, who turns out to be a reincarnation of Abel (the guy from the bible), and his cousin Naoya, who is actually Kain (also from the bible) decide to team up and kill God because they just don’t like him. Speaking as someone who grew up in a staunchly Christian house, the idea of killing God, and they are referring to the Judeo-Christian God, is an idea I can get behind.

Not that killing a god is a new concept for video games. It happens all the time really. There’s an entire franchise dedicated to killing the Greek gods. But it seems rare, in my experience at least, that you have something where the plan is to kill this particular god. Though we don’t ever see this god so we don’t know if it’s actually God, but given all the biblical references present in the game it seems like a safe assumption. The 3DS port of the game, Devil Survivor: Overclocked, will be coming out here later this year, and it has an extra day added to the game. Maybe we’ll actually get to fight against God.

Next up was the PSP port of the very first Persona game. The game begins with a group of high school students playing a ritual like children’s game called Persona. Initially nothing results from them doing this, but shortly afterwards all of them are knocked unconscious. While unconscious they encounter a being named Philemon, who gives them the power to summon personas. This new power comes in handy when strange events start occurring, like buildings warping and demons appearing in the streets. The students set out to uncover what is behind these strange events.

This is another one I ended up not finishing. This was mainly due to the fact that much of the game was just tedious, and seemed like it hadn’t been updated at all from the ’90s. I didn’t like the first person view while exploring dungeons, fights ranged from too easy to tedious with no real middle-ground, and getting new personas was absurdly time consuming. The method of getting new personas was what really put the final nail in the coffin for this one.

I wanted to test to see how time consuming it really was. After an hour or two of trying to figure out how the hell the demon conversation system worked to get the cards for fusing, all I had to show for it was two personas that were too high level for any of my characters to use. There’s just no way I could ever see myself constantly doing this to get enough personas for every one of my party members for the rest of the game. The least they could have done was implement that flippy card game you play to get new personas in 3 and 4. Then I probably would have stuck around. I really wanted to like this game, but there’s just no way I’ll ever bother finishing it. I imagine the same thing will happen with the port of Persona 2, but whatever, I’ll still buy it.

Next up is Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey. I can’t really sum up the plot of this one. I only played it for maybe an hour. I should probably go back and finish it some time. Moving on.

The PSP port of Persona 3 was the next one I played. This is probably the best of the three releases Persona 3 has gotten. It’s like someone at Atlus said, “Hey. We should take all that stuff we fixed in Persona 4 and do the same with Persona 3.” Every single issue with the gameplay I had with the original was fixed in this version. You could control your team mates, you picked what skills they learned when they levelled up, and the knock-down system was fixed. The menus were more streamlined, you could compare equipment when buying new stuff and change it through the normal equipment menu. It was perfect.

Some people complained about the fact that town exploration was reduced to moving a cursor around a screen and clicking on things or people, but that didn’t bother me. Town exploration was never much fun anyway, and this just sped things up. It is too bad that cutscenes no longer had on-screen character models moving around, and that The Answer wasn’t included in the game. These are legitimate problems, but I could finally play Persona 3 while controlling my team mates so I don’t fucking care.

Another substantial change was the choice to play as a female character instead of the gloomy emo looking male character. This had the benefit of allowing you access to a whole new set of Social Links, many of which were less depressing than the male’s, as well as fulfilling a fantasy for guys who lay in bed late at night wishing they were a pretty high school girl. More importantly the female protagonist meant you could finally have an all female party, put maid costumes on them, and save the world with your team of battle maids. Just saying.

The next, and last, entry on this list is actually two games, the Digital Devil Saga games. The story takes place in an area known as the Junkyard, a vast desolate wasteland. In this wasteland, various tribes battle for supremacy and a chance to gain entrance to Nirvana. When a strange pod-like structure appears in the Junkyard the various tribes suspect each other of placing it there as a trap. When it opens a strange light pierces everyone, causing them to transform into monsters and devour one another. All that remains of the pod afterwards is a glowing crater with a naked girl inside. Serph, leader of the Embryon tribe, decides that his tribe will take the girl and try to figure out what has happened to them.

The first Digital Devil Saga was a game that kept me playing because I really wanted to know what was up with the Junkyard and that whole world. Throughout the game your repeatedly shown hints that things aren’t exactly as simple as they seem. There are buildings which are clearly from modern times, at one point you find a beached cruise ship, and characters talked about remembering things that aren’t in that world. My initial belief was that the Junkyard was Earth after some kind of apocalypse, an apocalypse probably caused by some god being a dick, and the tribes were the left over humans who were charged with re-building the world. It made sense since there was a being going by the name Angel telling the people how they could reach Nirvana.

That turned out to be wrong though. I was kinda disappointed when it turned out that the first game took place entirely in a computer program. I probably should have realized that sooner considering the word “digital” is right there in the title, but whatever. It did get into some god stuff later on, and he was in fact destroying the world because he is a dick, and got really interesting with all the reincarnation business that goes down. I still find the ending a little confusing (seriously, what the hell was that black cat supposed to be?), but have more or less gotten a grasp on what went down.

I also liked the battle system, since it was fast paced but still easy to learn and use. The Mantra skill system also fulfilled my base desire to do stuff. Filling in that grid, despite most of the skills being kind of useless to me, was something I could just sit down and do for an hour or two. There’s nothing quite like grinding for a few hours to learn the skill that nullifies all but one type of damage, allowing you to blow through areas like some higher being killing everything in sight while taking no damage. I was a little disappointed with the final boss, who basically just switches between casting each kind of elemental magic. It’s just a really easy fight if you do the simplest amount of preparation before hand, and if you do enough preparation there’s no challenge at all. Still, they were two great games, and two of my favourites from the series.

That’s all of the SMT games I’ve played so far. I liked most of them, though I haven’t finished a few, with only one game that I was really disappointed with. It’s a great series of games with interesting stories and characters, great gameplay (most of the time), and challenging, if a little unforgiving, difficulty. I’m currently working my way through Nocturne, which managed to grab my interest pretty much instantly since it begins with the world ending (coincidentally I started playing it on Rapture day), and has the same battle system as Digital Devil Saga, so I’m pretty impressed with it. This series is one of the few reasons I even still play video games at this point, and all of these games are definitely worth tracking down and playing.

If you’ve been following me on Twitter during the last month or so you’ve most likely seen my tweets swearing talking about Sengoku Basara. It’s really all I’ve been doing for the last month. In a desperate attempt to get something out of all the time I spent playing it (which is like 200 hours), I figured I might as well review it.

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes is actually the third instalment of Capcom’s Sengoku Basara series, but the first one to be released in North America under the name Sengoku Basara. The first Sengoku Basara game received an overly localized release here under the name Devil Kings, and the second one was never released here at all. Apparently Capcom thinks just dropping the third game into a market with no real exposure to the series is a formula for success. But I digress. I’m not here to talk about what a terrible idea it may have been to release the game here, I’m here to talk about the game itself.

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes focuses on the Battle of Sekigahara, when Ieyasu Tokugawa lead the Eastern Army to fight against the Western Army, which in this version of the story is lead by Mitsunari Ishida. Ieyasu wants to unify the country and bring peace to Japan, while Mitsunari wants to get revenge on Ieyasu for killing their former master. There are about fourteen other characters, each with their own storylines, but the game basically boils down to the battle between Ieyasu and Mitsunari.

One of the foremost problems with the story and characters is that for people unfamiliar with the series and the characters, which would be most of the people playing it, the whole thing can be a little confusing. There are character relationships and events from previous games referenced frequently, with next to no background information given in this one. Newcomers aren’t going to really understand the ongoing rivalry between Yukimura and Masamune, which was established in the first game. They just seem like two dudes who like fighting each other for no established reason. There’s also the character Tenkai, who is actually a character from the earlier games in disguise. Again, this would be lost on newcomers. There’s a host of story and character references to earlier games that are lost on anyone unfamiliar with them, and some of these references are important to some of the different storylines. There’s a clear barrier caused by the first two games never being released here, but considering that the actual story is fairly basic and serves only to get you from one huge fight to the next, it’s hardly that much of a problem.

If you’re familiar with the gameplay of either Dynasty Warriors or Samurai Warriors, then you pretty much already know how Sengoku Basara plays. For those of you not familiar with either of those, you play as a character who single-handedly mows through hundreds of enemy troops, meeting next to no resistance until you come across a boss, all while your own troops run around accomplishing exactly nothing. In Sengoku Basara specifically, your goal in each stage revolves around capturing enemy camps. The more camps you take from your enemy the weaker the stage’s boss will be. There are a wide variety of stages, some with gimmicks like flooding an enemy’s base, or an enemy that moves around the stage hiding in the sand, or a layer of fog preventing you from using your map. The problem is that no matter what particular gimmick a stage has, it basically boils down to capturing your enemy’s camps. That’s it. Want to flood the enemy’s base? Capture the the designated camps. For the enemy constantly hiding in the sand you just capture the camps to force him out, and for the fog you just capture all the camps to make it go away. It all boils down to capturing camps.

The actual combat is actually really fun. There are sixteen playable characters, each with completely different move sets and styles. The moves are stylish and it’s fun to mow through those countless enemy troops. Problem is, it gets really repetitive really fast. Despite each character having a unique move set, all the button combinations are the same across all characters. So while there is variety among attacks, there’s no variety among how you execute them. If your goal is to just play through every character’s story it isn’t that bad. You may end up playing the same stage a couple times, but since the story mode is short you’ll be finished with a character before you get tired of them. But if you’re insane and decide to go for the platinum trophy (like I did) you’ll have to play through the story as each character a minimum of four times, then get each one to the max level, and then find all the weapons for each one. So if there’s one or two or eight characters that you don’t like playing as it stops being fun very quickly.

There really isn’t much to be said about the graphics. They’re nothing spectacular, but they’re still good enough for a PS3 game. It certainly looks better than its Wii counterpart, which isn’t really a hard thing to do. There are points where things kind of go downhill though. For some of the stage bosses that aren’t playable characters, they really didn’t put much effort into their character models. During whatever scenes may pop up during the stage, they’ll look kind of blocky and flat without any detail. It’s even more noticeable when the characters talk, because they couldn’t even be bothered to animate mouths for some of them. Most of the characters do look good, but they kind of dropped the ball for a few of them.

There isn’t much to say about the soundtrack either. There is one particular scenario where it stands out, which is the final battle in either Ieyasu’s or Mitsunari’s storyline. Each one obviously ends with the two going one on one, and during this fight the game’s theme song, Naked Arms by T.M. Revolution, plays in the background. When you have the two going at it one on one, with Ieyasu shouting his cliched lines about peace and unification, and Mitsunari shouting his cliched lines about revenge, and that song playing in the background it creates this really climactic feeling that’s easily one the best moments of the game. But this is really the only time the music stands out, and for the most part it’s kind of mediocre and forgettable.

A lot of people were annoyed that the Japanese voice acting was left out of the English release of the game, so the English dub kind of had high expectations to live up to. Fortunately, it’s a very good dub overall. The most noteworthy performance would be Troy Baker as Mitsunari. He does an amazing job of capturing the character’s pure rage and hatred, and does a great job with the many angry shouting lines, managing to pull them off without sounding cheesy. Liam O’Brian gives a good performance as Ieyasu, and John Fitzgerald’s voice is an amazing fit for Nobunaga Oda. Johnny Yong Bosch doesn’t quite fit as Yukimura Sanada though. He just doesn’t quite capture the hot-blooded side of the character. There are also a few instances where what the voice over is saying and what’s written in the text boses don’t exactly match up. There are a few poor casting choices, but it’s an excellent dub overall.

Sengoku Basara is a pretty decent game overall. It can get a little repetitive, and there isn’t much story to speak of, but it’s undeniably fun. There are a few problems caused by the previous games not being released here, but it’s hardly enough to make the game confusing or unplayable. It’s cheaper than most new PS3 games, and if you have a high tolerance for repetition or plan to go for the platinum you’ll easily get your moneys worth out of it.

GAMEPLAY

Can get repetitive, but still stylish and fun to play

3/5

AESTHETICS

Graphics and music are merely okay, but voice acting is very well done

3/5

OVERALL

Great for fans of this genre, or anyone looking for a fun way to kill some time

3/5

Japanese shoot-em-up (“shmup”) games are often notorious for being insanely difficult. In a world where shmups such as Ikaruga and Castle of Shikigami challenge the player to an extreme level of frustration, it’s refreshing to see Deathsmiles. While Deathsmiles is certainly no pushover, it offers hours of fun gameplay across various degrees of difficulty so that players of all skill levels can enjoy it.

Deathsmiles takes place in the fictional world of Gilverado. A group of young girls have been trapped inside this magical land for several years. Jitterbug, one of the girls’ father, is obsessed with finding a way back to the real world, and in doing so, he’s accidentally opened the gates of hell! Demons are pouring into Gilverado, and it’s up to the girls to stop them.

Of course, if you’re playing this game, there’s a good chance you don’t really care about the story; you simply just want to blow stuff up. So let’s move onto the gameplay…

Deathsmiles allows you to choose from up to 5 characters, each of which have their own distinct bullet patterns, movement properties, and familiars. Your familiar is a small creature that follows you where you go and provides some extra firepower to help you out. All the characters seem fairly balanced, and they are all very playable, even for beginners.

When you select your character, you’re given the option of viewing the tutorial, which briefly and helpfully explains how to play. Your character can shoot in two directions: left and right. Tapping the A button shoots left and tapping the B button shoots right. Naturally, you will find that enemies often come from both directions, so learning to quickly switch the direction in which you’re shooting is something you should master early on. Holding down the A or B button (instead of tapping) activates your Strong Shot, which deals extra damage. While it may seem to make sense to use the Strong Shot all the time, pros trying to master the game will find that a balanced use of both fire types is essential in obtaining a high score.

Holding both A and B at the same time will create a circle around your character (or your familiar, depending on which character you are using) and any enemies that enter that circle will take damage. Using this ability uses up your Item Points, however, so if you’re shooting for a high score, keep your use of this to a minimum. Of course, no shmup is complete without bombs, so if you find yourself in a sticky situation with no way out, press the Y button to unleash your bomb ability, granting you temporary invincibility while clearing the screen of most enemies.

When you defeat an enemy, it will drop items which you can collect for Item Points. When you collect 1,000 Item Points, enemies will begin to drop even more valuable items and allow you to really rack up your score. At this point, pressing A and B at the same time will power up your shots for a limited time and make you invulnerable to contact with most enemies (but not enemy bullets). This is especially useful for boss battles, which can be quite taxing on your skills, especially on the higher difficulty levels.

Blasting a giant cow: oh, so satisfying

Deathsmiles allows you to choose your own path; the stages can be played in whatever order you wish, and with varying levels of difficulty. Once all the mandatory stages have been played, you can opt to go straight to the final stage or play the Extra Stage for an even greater challenge.

This game offers several different game modes. Those looking for a port of the arcade version can play the Arcade mode, which emulates the settings and resolution of the arcade version. The “Xbox 360″ game mode is the default mode, which offers enhanced graphics and gameplay specifically designed for the Xbox 360. There’s also the “Mega Black Label” mode which unlocks an extra character, an extra stage, and another level of difficulty. Finally, the “Ver 1.1″ game mode adds a whole new array of gameplay mechanics into the mix. Once you’re tired of playing by yourself, you can call a friend and play 2-player co-op mode either locally or via Xbox LIVE. With all of these options, Deathsmiles promises to deliver hours upon hours of entertainment that doesn’t get stale, even after several playthroughs.

While Deathsmiles‘ graphics don’t stand anywhere near the standards set by games of today, it’s still a very pretty game with lots of huge explosions and cool effects. The game’s sound is extraordinary, and with a soundtrack full of upbeat tunes accompanied by classic shmup sound effects, your ears are in for a treat.

This spectacular game has also received a spectacular release. The Limited Edition includes a bonus CD with the game’s incredible soundtrack and also a faceplate to spruce up your normally bland-looking Xbox 360 console.

With great gameplay that players of all skill levels will enjoy, combined with excellent graphics & sound, plenty of game modes, and cool extras, Deathsmiles is one hell of an awesome game. Whether you’re the casual type who just wants to have some fun or the hardcore type who shoots for the high score, you’re almost certain to have an amazing time with this game.

GAMEPLAY
Tons of game modes, brilliant mechanics and varying difficulty make the game feel close to perfect

AESTHETICS
Fun graphics and amazing sound, with explosions that will shake the room

OVERALL
A well balanced shoot-em-up that players of all kinds can enjoy

3D Dot Game Heroes is one of Japan’s gems recently brought over by none other than the lovable Atlus. The game pays homage to many classic favorites, but mostly to the classic 2D Zelda games — in fact, the gameplay is almost identical. You control a hero with a sword on a quest to vanquish an evil sorcerer who wants to reign supreme over the world. You traverse through a rectangular-shaped world broken into separate “screens.” You’re on a quest to explore various dungeons full of monsters, puzzles, mazes, and traps. You can access a menu screen and select from various items to use. You have a hookshot. A boomerang. A candle. Bombs. A bow & arrows — see the resemblance yet?

This game doesn’t even try to hide the fact that it’s copying Zelda. When I say “copying” I mean that in the most positive way possible, because a game that feels like a Zelda game is a damn good thing if you ask me. Having grown up on classics like the original The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, and Link’s Awakening, playing 3D Dot Game Heroes brought back the fond memories I have of playing those games.

Despite this game’s near-identical gameplay style to that of classic Zelda games, there are various differences that are enough to make the game feel like its own kind. As you collect money in the world of Dotnia, (where the game takes place) you can purchase upgrades for your sword. You can make it longer, wider, or stronger, among various other abilities. These upgrades only go into effect when you have full health. After getting hit once, your sword reverts to its normal, non-upgraded form, thus causing the game to become considerably more difficult. Keeping full health and an ample supply of potions in the game is important because of this, since one slip-up can greatly amplify the game’s difficulty.

A convenient map screen is kept automatically updated for you as you traverse the world and its various dungeons. As you explore the dungeons, you’ll run into various obstacles including dark rooms which require you to use a candle to aid your sight, locked doors that require a key, holes in the floor that drop down to other levels, and many other things. Figuring out these puzzles is not too challenging, and if you’re a veteran Zelda fan, you shouldn’t have too many problems figuring them out.

For the areas outside of the dungeons, I would strongly recommend using a walkthrough. 3D Dot Game Heroes contains a large amount of sidequests, many of which are time-sensitive. Using a walkthrough is the only way to know about these events before it’s too late, and the rewards you’ll reap from doing so are great. However, when you’re inside dungeons, it’s best to put your brain power to the test and try to figure out the puzzles yourself.

3D Dot Game Heroes also pays homage in a visual sense by copying the pixelated graphics style seen in classic games of the NES era. Except this time, the pixels are in 3D. It’s a fairly original and eye-pleasing graphics style that really looks great on the TV screen. Although these graphics are far from pushing the limits of the PS3, they still look great.

If you’ve been playing games since the NES era like I have and are a big fan of the Zelda series, then 3D Dot Game Heroes is an absolute must. If you’re not one of those people, then I suggest you get out from under that rock you’ve been living under and first play some Zelda games, and then check out this game. Overall, 3D Dot Game Heroes makes for an exciting experience that fans of classic games will greatly enjoy. By paying homage to many hits from the ’80s era of gaming, this game will bring back the feelings of enjoyment that such gamers experienced long ago.

GAMEPLAY
Classic Zelda-style gameplay that fans of the series will grasp instantly

AESTHETICS
A refreshing throwback to the pixelated graphics of way back when

OVERALL
Perfect for adventure/action-RPG fans with a craving for enemy-whacking and puzzle-solving

Fragile is a very immersive RPG experience from the get go. With no backstory provided, you’re immediately taken into a world that has been mostly destroyed. You play as Seto, a young boy who has been living most of his life with an old man. Time takes its toll on the old man, and he dies an unfortunate death. His dying wish is for Seto to explore the outside and find any others who may have survived from whatever catastrophe destroyed the world.

Seto steps outside into the world and runs into a girl singing a mysterious tune. After a brief encounter, the girl quickly takes her leave. Who is the mysterious girl? Is she human, or even alive? What destroyed the world? Is Seto really alone? These are the questions you will constantly be asking as you explore the world of Fragile. As the story progresses, more and more gets revealed, and at a fair pace. In the end, while the story isn’t spectacular, it’s definitely what motivated me to devote more than 40 hours of my time into this game.

As I mentioned earlier, playing this game is a very immersive experience. The majority of the game is spent in near complete darkness, and all you have is a flashlight to aid your sight. The flashlight is controlled by pointing the Wii Remote in the direction you want the light to shine. This, along with the many spectacular sights and sounds of the game, creates the feeling like you’re actually inside the game, exploring the devastated world, feeling alone and lost. It’s depressing, but this is what makes Fragile such a great game — because you can actually feel what Seto feels.

Fragile is a horror RPG, and not recommended for the weak-willed. There’s no graphic violence or blood & gore, but ghosts and creatures will pop up in front of you without notice. The game’s ability to “take you in,” as I described in the previous paragraph, also adds to the horror factor. It’s not the scariest thing I’ve experienced, but I did get startled a few times while playing.

The gameplay is fairly basic, and very similar to that of many action RPGs. Battles all take place in the field; there is no separate “battle screen.” There are no menus or gauges; just press a button, and swing your weapon. The classic HP and experience points system are present, though the difficulty is paced well enough that there is never a need for level grinding. As you progress through the game, you’ll obtain various items and weapons. Weapons will break after a certain time, so it’s important to always have a backup weapon in your inventory.

The inventory system is similar to that of Diablo, for those familiar. You have a limited amount of “on-hand” space, which is where you keep the items you’ll need immediate access to (such as your weapon, flashlight, and some healing items). Items can vary in how much space they take up, and some of them take up a large amount of space. This can be a bit of an annoyance at first, but you do eventually get more “on-hand” space later on in the game. At save points, you’re free to switch items in and out of your “briefcase,” which has unlimited space.

In addition to switching our your inventory items and saving your progress, there are a few other things you can do at save points, which are represented by bonfires in this game. When you go to rest at a bonfire, a mysterious shopkeeper may show up, giving you an opportunity to purchase healing items and replace broken weapons by buying new ones. As you explore the world, you will come across rare materials that can be sold for a sum of yen, which you use to purchase these items. Some items you find will be a special memento, and when you bring it to a bonfire, you can listen to a memory pertaining to that object. These memories don’t have any direct relevance to the main story of the game, but they are good stories nonetheless; some are even deeply emotional.

Although it is a very simple game in terms of gameplay, Fragile shines with its great story and its excellent ability to immerse you into its world. It’s not too long either, which makes it totally worth the time you’d put into it. If you’re looking for a suspenseful, thought-provoking, and sometimes tear-jerking game to spend your weekend with, Fragile is a gem you do not want to miss out on.

GAMEPLAY
Its basic and simple gameplay makes Fragile easy to get into

AESTHETICS
Breathtaking — The Wii’s graphic capabilities are far from perfect, but this game does a great job despite that

OVERALL
A very entertaining experience, well worth one’s time and money

The Ace Attorney series has been a very successful and simplistic adventure game series. While it has overtones of classic adventure titles, all the games have displayed characters in a format more reminiscent of a visual novel, displaying the characters as animated portraits with text boxes on the bottom. While this format has worked very well for the series, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth marks the first time the player can control the characters inside of an environment.

Running in an Ace Attorney Game?! Blasphemy!

The game still follows the classic Ace Attorney format: Someone is murdered, a suspect is wrongly accused, the main character gathers evidence and reveals the killer through various testimonies. However, this game does have some differences.

Miles Edgeworth goes through cycles of story, investigation, and argument. The story is told through text dialogs and various animations, utilizing the animated portraits of the previous Ace Attorney games and the new full body sprites and environments. The argument phase is almost exactly like the previous games. You find contradictions in a suspect’s arguments with evidence and by asking for further testimony by “pressing” the subject.

Get used to a lot of scrolling text!

The true differences in this game show in the investigation phase. You are able to control the characters within the environment and you can have them walk over to areas of the crime scene and have them investigate. The character will either make a comment about suspicious areas or look closer. By looking closer, the player can then further examine the crime scene, gathering evidence or finding contradictions with the evidence using the “deduce” option. There is also the new “logic” function which allows Edgeworth to connect ideas in his head to further elaborate on evidence or to otherwise advance the plot.

Pictured here: LOGIC!

These new options change the gameplay a little bit. The inclusion of the full sprites and environments enhance the game, making it feel more fleshed out, and more reminiscent of an old-school adventure game. The full environment scenes have animations that better tell the story than the portrait style of the old games. Since the characters are not confined to a courtroom, you will go between investigation and interrogation quicker than the previous titles. This breaks up the game more and makes interrogations drag less than they did.

Despite the new gameplay mechanics, the problems with the old Ace Attorney games still show up. Often the player will find themselves knowing exactly what happened too far ahead of time and get impatient while the characters figure it out. This can also lead to presenting some evidence too early and losing life. Players may also encounter the opposite problem, in having no idea what is going on. As a result, the player may use blunt force and bombard the game at random with evidence until they get it right. This also plagues the new “deduction” and “logic” mechanics introduced in the game.

Despite these flaws, Miles Edgeworth is worth playing to fans of the series. The story in this game is one of the best yet. Each case plays in to an overall story, and the situations surrounding each individual crime will have you scratching your head or feeling clever in figuring them out. The game also draws upon many of the characters and aspects of the world created by the franchise. While this will satisfy long time fans, it could certainly confuse players inexperienced with the other games.

The new girl is super moe though ^_^

GAMEPLAY
The new mechanics add a little variety, but this boils down to the same game as the others in the franchise

AESTHETICS
The new sprites and environments work well, and the characters art is memorable

OVERALL
Despite being essentially the same game as the others, the story and new mechanics still make the game enjoyable