Media Videogame thread

I'm excited to buy the remastered Bioshock collection for PS4. I've always known about Bioshock, but never once seriously considered getting into it. Now, I think I can say that I seriously regret that decision. I've been watching one of my favorite youtubers play the game and I have to say that it has caught my interests. Bioshock's art-deco style is probably the thing I appreciate about it the most paired with its gritty, fickle enemies and environments. This game is so dark, but also hilarious at the same time-I love both those things. Anyone who appreciates an FPS with a good story and interesting gameplay mechanics will love Bioshock.

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Tera Melos

Banned deucer.
Xbox Gamers are complaining about how PUBG doesn't work

Sony Gamers are like "HAHAH YOUR CONSOLE CANT HANDLE THE GAME YOU BEGGED FOR!!! HAHAHAHA"

PC Players are like "Nah the game just Doesn't work, lmao"

The Xbox bugs are the same game breaking bugs people have been begging BlueHole to fix for almost a year now...mainly BUILDINGS NOT SPAWNING IN A GAME WHERE BUILDINGS NEED TO SPAWN.

I can't believe people BEGGED for them to port an early access garbage fire.
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
RE: Thoughts on Xenoblade Chronicles 2 -

Preface: The game has not disappointed me so far. While there were some quirks that I had trouble with, such as some of the locations for objectives being difficult to ascertain or there being a lack of in-game tutorial menu (mind you there isn't even an instructional manual for the game on the console or in the game packaging) made for a very steep learning curve.

Combat: It took me roughly halfway through the game to fully understand what the combat system was, particularly how to pull off a blade combo->driver combo->fusion combo->chain attack stack. However, as time progressed, mobs became easier to understand and deal with and bosses became satisfyingly fun to fight against. There's this feeling in games that you have, especially in RPGs where a boss is about to pull off a super move and you know you only have so much time to finish them off. While this means that the final boss can be a cakewalk, even if you are underleveled, there still remains a level of depth, complexity, and difficulty that prevents you from entirely abusing the combat system. Nevertheless, being able to cut a bosses health pool in half can be so satisfying, especially when it is in the heat of the moment and you know that if they were given a split second more, your entire party would be wiped. While I haven't really played XCX, I have a good feeling the combat in this game is better than it, and I have played XC1, and this system walks all over the system XC1 has.

Story: The story in this game is rather interesting, taking elements from XC1 and Tales games and utilizing a wide cast of characters (the fact that they decided to use more than just British voice acting for this one really made each character feel so much more unique) that are very interesting in each of their own respects. While many people might be a bit put off by Rex, and many also compare him to Shulk because muh main character, Rex still pulls his own weight in the game and really has a lot of things that makes him relatable. I won't go into spoiling the story too much, but I was expecting a huge twist surrounding Rex's background, but it turns out he's just another dude that had great power bestowed upon him. This makes him just that much more of a great character. Unlike in Shulk, there is no latent power residing within Rex, despite there being parallels in their ideology. Nevertheless, when Shulk has a deck stacked against him and everything is removed from him, he still attempts to win. Rex, on the other hand has moments where he just plain gives up. When the deck is stacked against him, the writers aren't afraid to literally make him lose everything to the point of pity. I would argue that this is why Rex is a much stronger character, but once again I'm mostly talking generally since I don't want to spoil plot-specific details. The supporting cast is fantastic as well, Nia being my favorite character due to how well her character develops over the course of the game. While the main cast of XC2 might pale in some regards to XC1 (barring Sharla, because honestly Sharla is the blandest character in that game), the villains in XC2 are just so much better than in XC1. There are so many instances where you don't know whether or not the villains are on your side or if you truly are enemies, which makes fighting them that much more emotional. Spoilers: I especially like the fact that they tied in elements of XC1, like the monado that Malos uses or Klaus who was the scientist that triggered the birth of the universe of XC1 and becomes Zanza that Shulk & co. fight.

Music: The music in this game is fantastic. It parallels XC1 in many regards, with quite a few of the early tunes harkening back to famous locations in XC1, such as Gormott (Day) being similar to Gaur Plain (Day), but the battle music is where the game really shines. The normal combat music, boss music, mini-boss music, and even certain locations straight up blow XC1's soundtrack out of the water. The Kingdom of Tantal's music, for example, is haunting but fitting for a desolate and frozen wasteland, while the Kingdom of Uraya's music is magical, giving the pink flora a sort of Disney-esque magic that is otherwise difficult to capture. The music honestly captures emotions on so many levels that I think it's really easy to just stand at an overlook and just stare into the open space beyond your characters while the music plays in the background.

Other stuff:
  • This game has a lot of things that it really reminded me of. Art style is similar to that of a Tales Game, with characters having the "anime-look" and certain amounts of cel-shading.
  • The combat is like previous XC games, but if you want a good mainstream comparison, just look at games like Warcraft or Dragon Age, where there's a pallet of spells/abilities that you use while your character auto-attacks. While this may seem like it detracts from combat, trust me, auto-attacking combined with AA-canceling, positioning, and so many factors come into play that really would overwhelm you if you actually controlled your characters attacks like in Tales games. Plus, the sheer size of some enemies would make it difficult to control attacks, combos, and most importantly - the camera, so in many ways it is fitting.
  • The Blade-summoning system really reminds me of the Shin Megami Tensei series, with blades being almost like Jojo stands. Some people might find some blades obnoxiously sexualized, but honestly that is not unusual for JRPGs, and if you look at one of the most recent popular JRPG, Persona 5, this kind of stuff shouldn't really blow you out of the water at all.
  • Some people might look at videos like Videogamedunkey's on this game, and find the concept of early game high-level monsters off-putting. This is not unusual to a Xenoblade game, and is meant to be there for the specific reason of giving you something to look forward to beating lategame.
  • You don't have to have played XC1 to be able to enjoy XC2. 97% of the game is fresh and has no relation to XC1 story-wise, while a couple of endgame story elements tie into XC1 and its ending. Honestly it's such a great standalone game, that you could probably play this first, and then play XC1 and enjoy playing in that order just as much.

Overall: While I have already finished the main storyline, there is still sooooo much room for growth, exploration and story that I haven't touched yet. There are a plethora of side-quests, like in XC1, and each rare Blade that you unlock has their own flavorful side-quests to unlock as well. There are also Heart-to-Hearts, mini-bosses, and whatnot. DLC is still coming out and New Game +, which means there's still going to be much to do with this game in the coming year. If this game has been flying under your radar, and you are a Switch owner, I highly recommend you pick the game up, as it's looking to be the third in Nintendo's most powerful releases on the Switch to date.

tl-dr: Nia is best girl.
 
If anyone here played the short indie game To The Moon, the sequel Finding Paradise came out two weeks ago. It's good.

The gameplay still has some issues like the first game - you can't skip dialogue, walking speed is slow and clunky... sometimes it isn't clear what you can walk over and what you can interact with, and the memento minigames are vague, but I can say that there's an improvement - the game will sometimes tell you if you've missed something, and some of the items in the overworld will glitter so you know you can interact with them.

I felt like the humor got a lot better. I laughed out loud a few times, and I don't remember doing that in the first game. There's some really amazing, amusing stuff in the sprite work in there.

The plot is less about the patient's personal story and instead goes for a more general message, which I'm okay with. The sequel had to do things a little differently and I feel like it was executed well enough. You could identify a lot of stuff that "makes a return" from the first game, all the way to how certain scenes show up, but, yeah, it was a tough challenge for a sequel but I feel like it succeeded.

Good stuff.
 

Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
I'm still struggling to finish Genius of Sappheiros, although this week I did manage to make it through to the end with only the final boss and bonus dungeon remaining. I spent way too much time farming materials for ultimate gear. Hopefully with my moving to a new job, I'll have a little more time to play those Wii games I picked up soon™. I thought about posting my progress here as a sort of textual Let's Play for Sakura Wars V, since I figure it's kind of an obscure game that people would be interested in hearing about more in-depth... and it would help myself remember what the hell I was doing back when I thought I'd only be playing it over weekends.
I am sure people care a lot, but hooray I have finally finished GoS. The expansion final boss was rather anticlimactic compared to the main game final boss. That is to say it was much easier because Phase 3 doesn't push your shit in the instant all your defensive skills are on cooldown and it's basically a tank-and-spank (with Alice) with one party wipe move that is 100% predictable so you can easily block it. Party management is easier since the expansion gives you enough extra characters for three full parties (minus one commander), one for each phase, compared to the OG where you only have two parties and have to figure out how much work you need the first party to put into weakening Phase 2. The beginning of the expansion also sucked because having to recover all your old party members was dumb padding, but at least the middle was interesting as some of the stage bosses had new gimmicks that weren't previously used in the main game.

I started Sakura Wars V and realized trying to do a LP of it would be a pain in the ass and really boring without pictures, and I'm not going to figure out running it on Dolphin to play it on my PC where I can actually screenshot stuff. So it's either potato phone pics or sheer laziness and not doing it, probably the latter although I might as least see what I can do. Nonetheless, I have gone through introductions and completed Chapter 1, the least I can do is give the basics if I'm not going to narrate a playthrough.



So this mug is the protagonist, Shinjiro Taiga. Unlike Shinji, he wants to get in the fucking robot. So he just graduated from whatever military academy in 1920's Tokyo and his uncle, the commander of Tokyo's super secret special forces (and apparently the protagonist of the previous games never localized), has recruited him to his division. HQ is hidden within an ornate theater because the masses need to be placated by banal entertainment or whatever, and our boy gets dragged there by Shampoo from Ranma 1/2. Well, turns out uncle is actually sending us to be the commander of the newest super secret special forces branch in New York City. Here's your ticket, good luck!

Once we arrive, we're picked up by this ratchet ho. What I mean is that her name is literally Ratchet.



She's the captain of the the New York Combat Revue, the name for the super secret special forces here. Pretty generic nice girl personality and stuff. Wait, Captain? Oh, yeah, your uncle lied to you, you're just a flunky LUL. She takes you to meet the commander, this weird-ass motherfucker named Mr. Sunnyside who tries to be hip and cool but really isn't. I do appreciate the effort though. He explains the basics of what the fuck all is going on. For some reason, alien steam-powered robots keep attacking major cities across the world and every super secret special force is hidden within a theater. Don't ask me.



After that, you're basically sent off on your own to find your new apartment with a slip of paper noting the address and told to come back later to finish your introductions. On the way there, you bump into this energetic cutie:



Gemini, for some reason pronounced like Jiminy instead of the constellation, is a country bumpkin from Texas who also just moved to New York and has no damn clue where she is. Of course, it turns out she's trying to find the same general location you are, The Village where your apartment is located, and so tags along. She really likes you because she has this weird obsession with samurai and you're Japanese, so obvious connection right. Oh, look at that, you're actually neighbors too!

BTW, Gemini is also part of the NYCR, or well she's trying to be accepted but they kinda just recruited her as a cleaning lady for the theater while she tries to prove her worth. So she decides to help you get your bearings straight after the trip over, taking you into your new apartment to show you around. But it's not empty, no, it's already occupied.



Looks like you'll be living with Cherry, the blonde, and Anri, the loli. They run the bar and gift shop, respectively, at the Little Lip Theater where your super secret HQ is located. We'll later find out that while they are noncombatants, they play the role of combat scout for the NYCR. Cherry's the stereotypical Miss Kitty and Anri's a skittish babby.



You and Gemini cut out after introducing Shinjiro to the ladies, then get to run around the city for a little bit before heading back to the theater (HQ) to finish meeting the rest of the team. Gameplay consists of running around the city haphazardly in an adventure game-style fashion, visiting people and places of interest and making some choices here and there like a visual novel. Choices are often timed, such that not saying or doing something is also a valid choice and affects the dialogue or story in some fashion, and you've a limited amount of free time to do stuff which I suppose will implore me to replay the game multiple times to see different events (and date different chicks). Being the start of the game, I don't get to do much yet though so meh, but the taste of what I got is kinda interesting. Back to HQ to meet the last two members of our team.



On the left is Cheiron, pronounced Karen, the team's legal muscle in addition to a fully fledged actor-combatant for the NYCR. She's a hardnosed bitch obsessed with THE LAW. On the right is Subaru, an ambiguously gendered (presumed female) fellow Japanese member of the troupe. She's intentionally short with you to maintain the air of mystery surrounding her and presents as a a cold, calculating emotionless assassin type. She's also a bitch. Cheiron isn't very happy with what is going on, apparently you're not who she was expecting to show up in the first place, and drags you to Sunnyside's office to chew him out.

It turns out you're even less than a flunky. The team was actually expecting your uncle to show up in the first place, not his greenhorn nephew, and nobody's happy about it (except Gemini) which is why everyone was so tense around you. Congratulations, you get to be the fucking usher to Gemini's janitor. You don't get to do SHIT until you prove yourself worthy. So we watch the night's show and go back home pretty dejected. First, Gemini invites us into her place (obaby) and... introduces us to her roommate, Larry (FUCK).



... Yep, that's a horse.

In the morning, we head to Sunnyside's house in Central Park to talk to him about the misunderstanding, unsure of whether we're getting sent home or gonna try to prove ourselves and get in good graces with the NYCR members. Obviously, cuz I ain't no little bitch, they have a plane ticket ready for us but I'm like nah we're gonna be the best god damn usher a theater has ever seen and prove my worth.

On our way back, we bump into this crippled hottie in the park.



Diana's just chillin' in her wheelchair feeding the birds, sorta the super-nice good girl archetype who loves animals. We have a bit of a chat, my boy Shinjiro musters up a renewed vigor for proving his worth like I already did after a brief pep talk, and we're off to the theater to report to HQ. But before we get there, OH SHIT! ALERT CITIZENS, BLOOBERS ARE ATTACK!!!!!!! And so we see some robots flying over our heads and hear explosions in the distance as we rush to the theater. We talk to Ratchet about what's going on as the battle rages, we wanna join in the fun we've gone through training and all dude, but nah we're just gonna clean the theater with Gemini. Shit needs cleaned up from last night so everyone can perform again tonight on stage.

So we fuckin' cleaned. We cleaned well and I apparently made some good dialogue choices that got everyone on my good side a little bit finally. After the performance on Day 2, well shit BLOOBERS ARE ATTACK AGAIN!!!!!! Some loli witch summoned Walpurgisnacht from Madoka and a bunch of robots to bust up the Statue of Liberty, and Sunnyside says we get to go this time! Ratchet's on board with this and willing to help train you through your first mission, she seems to have a bit of a thing for our protag albeit not as much as Gemini, but Cheiron and Subaru are pretty pissed about it. Also we met the team mechanic and Sunnyside's secretary, a weird and very stereotypical in appearance chinaman. The theater rises above the ground as the streets turn into a sort of runway or launching pad and the mouth of the theater that is its logo spits us out like a crossbow as we fly over to Ellis Island to bust up some bad guys.

The new gameplay is like a free roaming Turn-Based Strategy RPG where everyone's in giant robots. It's a bit of a drag, due to clunky controls and slow animations, but overall it seems like a solid combat system. I'm not sure how customizable each character's gears and skills will be over time, but each character has their own unique attributes nonetheless. Movement and actions are both mapped to the same mechanic, so you have to balance positioning with attack/defense output. There's super moves you can periodically unleash for increased damage (the biggest part of the slowness because you can't skip Super animations, at least I couldn't find out how if you can), and a sort of link attack system that lets you buddy up with nearby partners, their effectiveness determined by how well y'all buddy up socially outside of combat (during the adventure/VN gameplay parts). I like that because it again emphasizes the importance of positioning in combat, in addition to organically tying together the two gameplay styles. Just as in real life, it pays to develop chemistry with your teammates.

Ratchet is apparently very distracted lately for some reason (probably boy troubles), almost gets herself killed by Walpurgisnacht but we save her ass and GUESS WHO GETS TO LEAD THE TROOPS WITH HER OUT? Spoilers, it's ya boi Guzma Shinjiro! Looks like our gung-ho attitude about ripping tickets and cleaning toilets impressed Ratchet and Sunnyside enough to let us fucking do it, although Cheiron's pissed we got out of our mech in the middle of combat to strike a heroic pose of us carrying Ratchet in our arms like we were dragging a wounded soldier to safety. [If I could find an image of it on the web, without uploading it myself, I would insert it here.] I mean, we kinda were, but really we were just calling Sunnyside in to pick her up rather than the other way around (us taking her there).

Then I wonnered the fight, barely actually, and onto Chapter 2! Maybe I'll see if there's any early bad endings in this game by, say, accepting the plane ride home or not saving Ratchet's ass in the first battle. At any rate, since I probably won't continue to narrate the remainder of my playthrough(s), apparently there's one more major character I've yet to meet, a gun-happy Mexican chick named Rosarita.



So yeah. Initial impressions are mostly positive. The choice system definitely has shown me quite a few interesting mechanics so far during the adventure parts, and combat's kinda clunky but has shown glimpses of enough depth to keep me awaiting more. For better or worse, it's also anime as fuck and has stereotypical bad early 2000's voice acting (released in 2005 despite not being localized until 2010), Shinjiro voiced by none other than JOHNNY YONG BOSCH yo. Now let's see how long it takes me to actually finish, and I better find myself banging either Gemini or Diana at the end.
 
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Pilo

uses walther
is a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnus
Anyone down for posting Steam sale hauls? I got a lot more than I normally do this time around despite none of the deals being exceedingly amazing. Some games I bought weren't even on sale, so in a actuality I was more using the sale as a chance to buy some games I'd been meaning to pick up for a while. Here's what I got:
 
Anyone down for posting Steam sale hauls? I got a lot more than I normally do this time around despite none of the deals being exceedingly amazing. Some games I bought weren't even on sale, so in a actuality I was more using the sale as a chance to buy some games I'd been meaning to pick up for a while. Here's what I got:
Went pretty light this time around, just grabbed 2 indies that were cheap, though I still might pick up a lil puzzler or something before it's over. The first was Skylar and Plux, just a standard-looking 3D platformer, cuz I've been in the mood for those again lately.

The other was a surprisingly cathartic gem called Catlateral Damage that was only 3 bucks, which I've been really digging so far. Basically, you play as a cat and knock things onto the ground, and that's it. Just make as big of a mess as you can in the allotted time. It looks a lot like Katamari, but feels almost like the antithesis (instead of picking stuff up, you just shove it all on the floor.) Levels like the supermarket and museum just make your eyes glisten with the wanton mayhem you'll soon unleash :3

New Vegas is a steal at that price, btw. It's easily one of my all-time favorites. Picked it up for the Dino and Frankie jams, and over a hundred hours later, that game world still has plenty of wonder and chaotic joy to offer~
 

earl

(EVIOLITE COMPATIBLE)
is a Community Contributor
I picked up Va11-Halla and Hollow Knight so far, but refunded Hollow Knight cuz my computer’s a potato and I’ll just get it on switch whenever I get one of those. Va11-Halla was a blast of a visual novel, got the “bad” ending an I’ll probably tackle the other endings in a few days. Interesting world and characters, worth the 10 bucks
 

Mizuhime

Did I mistake you for a sign from God?
is a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
If you've ever liked mafia you should try picking up throne of lines on steam, it's a class based mafia style game where you have to figure out who's bad and who's good, it's only like $10 on steam and it's extremely addictive if you enjoy those type of games, it's similar to town of salem if you recognize that but better imo
 
I tried playing part of Dragon Quest VII again. It should be renamed "Find That Event Flag", because you have to look everywhere to trigger the next cutscene. If nothing else, it reminds me why I like to play RPGs with less story emphasis (e.g. Bravely series, Etrian Odyssey, Final Fantasy V, etc.) Dragon Quest VII has slower pacing than Mary Worth comics.
 

Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
My backlog is too long as it is so all I grabbed was the last Rabi-Ribi DLC (which I'm too eager to play I'll probably do it after the two Wii games) cuz erverything will be on sale multiple times again by the time I get aroudn to buying/playing any of 'em. exciting shit right
 
recent game thoughts

20XX: It's roguelite Megaman X and it does that pretty well. Definitely replicates the old Megaman X feel better than some other recent games like Gunvolt or probably MN9. It is surprisingly easy once you get the game down (outside of the rare occasions where it gives you a ridiculously difficult platforming segment and you don't have a movement upgrade), but that's not too bad of a problem to have.

Rabi Ribi DLC: On one hand, this DLC exacerbates the worst part of the original game (obnoxious obstacle course/jumping challenges) and it's pretty pricey for the amount of content, but on the other hand the boss fights are really fantastic and well worth it.

Ao no Kiseki: Best game I've played in the Trails series for sure. It still falls into some of the issues that the rest of the series has, namely poor pacing, but the characters, plot, gameplay, etc are all excellent for the most part, probably a top 10 JRPG. And while it doesn't feel incomplete by any means (in fact, the way that the Zero/Ao duology games feel like complete stories that tie into each other is something I really like about them) it does leave me very interested in the rest of the series. Alternately I made a much longer post about this (with spoilers in tags) on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Falcom/comments/7j17wj
Furi: Pretty fun little boss rush game. Reminds me of Touhou except with a much better progression model, ie you can only get knocked back to the beginning of the current fight at worst, not the beginning of the game.

Lisa the Joyful: Compared to the main game (which was a bit like The Last of Us if it were Earthbound) this has less of the black humor and wacky characters and more of the story which is a step down to me, but it's still fun and I like how simultaneously catchy and shitpost-y the soundtrack is
 

Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
fooshn sittin here playing games in moonrune language wtf dood

Part I (Intro/Chapter 1): http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/videogame-thread.3530599/post-7626953

Sakura Wars Chapter 2 and 3 are in the books. What I've learned about the game: Each chapter seems to focus on a different character, helping them through a personal problem of sorts and giving them a rather large boost in whatever wacky visual novel-style point system lurks in the background so y'all become besties. Battles are still too easy and limited to 1-2 a chapter for important breaks between dialogue and as an endcap. There is also way too little free time in this game to actually run around the city of New York and do random fun shit, our boy Shinjiro busy af. Still, I am enjoying the cast and their interactions with one another.

What I've learned within the game: Chapter 2 was Cheiron's (Karen) chapter. We visited and opened up Harlem on the map, full of racist caricatures. We learned why our girl Cheiron took up law, cuz she believed it was the only way to free her friend who was wrongfully imprisoned back in her youngin' days of leading a well-meaning gang. Well, she lost that case many years later and became jaded and power-hungry for it. She accepts a contract to work with [heartless corporation], they start knocking down buildings and trying to gentrify the place, and now it's our boy Shinjiro's job to get Cheiron to see the error of her ways and reunite with the old gang.

We pull a Phoenix Wright and have to "fight" her in a mock trial to convince the citizens of Harlem that she made a mistake in siding with [heartless corporation]. We finally get some free time of sorts, but we're too busy running around the city trying to gather evidence to, say, see the sights or go hang out with some chicks to earn relationship points. After convincing Cheiron to stop defending [heartless corporation], and Sunnyside buys up all the land to stop them from redeveloping the place anyway, blonde Queen Beryl attacks! In combat, we're introduced to fighting battles on multiple fronts or areas and I actually came real close to losing a member this time. I assume they just have to retreat and don't actually die or anything, but I don't want to find out on purpose.

Cheiron ain't half bad looking with her hair down either, though this is the best image I could find (lurking in the bottom-right corner of the image).



We also learned that Subaru likes jazz and may or may not actually be a dude? Probably not, but she went all Mulan on the rest of the group when they (minus our boy, of course...) had a communal bath in the hot springs after the mission. Cherry and Anri enjoy some blatant lesbian overtones. Also, apparently the reason cities like New York and Tokyo are big and important is because they have some super special aura or energy attached to the place that subconsciously attracts people to them... both good and evil, of course. The energy manifests itself as special powers in certain individuals, including all members of our New York Combat Revue.

In Chapter 3 we meet Rosarita, Rosita for short. She is, in fact, a child. With gunplay Francisco Scaramanga would be proud of, she dual wields a gold and a silver revolver, and a pet ferret. I didn't think about it before, but it seems kinda weird they put two cowgirls in the main cast? Whatever, at least this one actually uses guns. And boy is she a rowdy, raucous bundle of concentrated energy. We opened the Bay Area up on the city map, where Rosita lives. Not in a house, no, she stowed away here one day and chills in a dark corner of a shipping warehouse, stealing food from the crates or nearby Chinatown to get by on her lonesome. Now I'm not saying that isn't heartbreaking as fuck, but it doesn't pull on the heart strings quite like if we had actually known this girl for more than five seconds beforehand. I dunno if I'm ready to start donating 40 cents a day to her cause.

So where the hell are her parents? That's where our boy comes in. Rosita never knew her mother, as she died shortly after birth, and dad got swept away by a flooded river one dark and stormy night trying to protect her from falling in herself. How she managed to survive on her own and make her way to New York from Mexico alone I'll never know, but her resourcefulness is impressive. Spoilers: this chapter is all about us playing Nala to her Simba (minus the romantic undertones). The crew decides to have a sleepover at the theatre to help Rosita integrate and generally bring everyone closer together, during which Shinjiro suffers extensive misandry so we don't actually get to do much during it. Everyone gets weirded out though when Rosita evidently came to our room to sleep with us though, instead of with the rest of the girls. Not the kind of "daddy" I was looking to be in this game, but dang if she isn't cute and precious I suppose. Sunnyside invited everyone over to his mansion in the morning for breakfast.

We learn the team mechanic, the painfully stereotypical chinaman Mr. Wong, runs an alternative medicine shop in Chinatown. We played some baseball with Gemini and the kid in Central Park, which involved some very frantic QTEs, and later tried to hit on Gemini in the evening as she gushed over the fireflies during some actual, true blue free time period finally. Don't let her know I was hoping to find Diana there. *AHEM*

So then Wall Street gets attacked by robot Summoned Skull, whose "superpower" is putting on a bigger, more heavily armed suit of armor overtop his basic suit. At any rate, we can't scratch the guy during the initial fight and our boy Shinjiro nearly gets himself killed trying to protect Rosita as the group was preparing to retreat and figure out an exploitable weakness. This triggers her PTSD and she goes into hiding after the battle for a while, though of course everything eventually works out in the end. The refight adds some stage hazards to the combat mechanics list. It was pitifully easy, due to a combination of Subaru having OP AoE attacks and Rosita just hitting like a Mack truck, although the big bad did knock our boy off the fucking rooftop with his massive hammer (dunno if the game treats that like a KO) when we breached his combat area.

Enter Chapter 4, which I haven't started yet but introduces itself as being Diana's chapter, the katawa shoujo.
 
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Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
Part I (Intro/Chapter 1): http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/videogame-thread.3530599/post-7626953
Part II (Ch 2-3): http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/videogame-thread.3530599/post-7631157

Sakura Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope

Well, that's basically what it is anyway. Chapter 4 starts with introducing us to the bad guy, Hsein-Ko, chatting to the ol' loli witch (the monsters of the week seem to retreat after being defeated rather than being destroyed). The ultimate mastermind is still unknown. Cut to our boy Shinjiro training in the park one morning and meeting up with Diana. Blah blah blah Sunnyside later introduces her as his niece, she has a terminal illness and lost her will to live, and it's our job to change her method of thinking about it. We're apparently going to accomplish this by nursing an injured bird back to health, who Diana refused to help because she foresaw its fate of death and believes that trying to help it is cruel, as it's eventually going to die anyway and helping only instills it with false hope.

The team's onboard with the bird thing, and Sunnyside reveals more about Diana to us: She's got a shitload of that super secret energy, Pneuma, within herself. This apparently makes her an incredibly powerful psychic with limited future sight, which is why she's a fatalistic babby about everything's eventual death, and healing powers, which is why she became a doctor. She's ill because she lacks the mental fortitude to control her massive power and it's become unstable as a result. The next day, we escort her around the city for some sightseeing and take her back to the theater to watch a show at the end. Everything's going great until Hamlet (played by Subaru) delivers his famous soliloquy; great choice guys, show the borderline suicidal chick a depressing tragedy.

OSHIT it's Birdemic! Hsein-Ko has chosen a very, umm, creative method of attack on the city: infusing all the birds in New York with evil energy and sending them to attack the citizenry. Diana, of course, has a rather special relationship with birds and would make for a perfect new addition to the crew to combat this dastardly opponent! But she's too busy sulking to help. And so we go to the park to, uhh, stop the police from literally shooting down every bird in existence because that's clearly the best way to handle this situation, guys.

While we wait for Diana to come around over the next few days, we get some reasonable amount of free time to do shit around the city. We watched Gemini get kicked out of a snotty boutique on 5th Avenue for not being hoity-toity enough, we got into shenanigans with Rosita that involved some QTEs in a mobster shootout, and we caught Cherry out on a date. One morning, THE BIRBS ARE SUMMONED to Central Park to launch a massive collective attack on the city. The birdy we had been nursing also proves it's fully healthy, by flying off like all the other birbs to its doom. :( What a waste of time that was after all.



Well, there really ain't shit we can do about it without Diana because we don't know the source of the evil power controlling the birds. So we go to beg her ass for help one more time and find her WHEN INSECTS ATTACK! And who comes to save her? No, you fool, it isn't us, it's the bird. Which helps Diana realize that maybe we aren't so helpless after all to change fate and gives her a renewed appreciation for life, hooray! Also she's apparently not crippled, that was just a schtick she came up with during her emo phase... Srsly. So we head to the park, where police are currently preparing to literally genocide the birds of New York, and Diana creates some sort of massive psychic explosion to heal all the birds of their supernatural illness and all the popo of their dumb.

The boss fight doesn't involve any new mechanics, though it's a slightly different take on the fighting two fronts thing. Diana's mech carries twin chemical grenade launchers, which have a very small-range AoE and some range, and her Super isn't an attack but an AoE heal. Subaru continues to be OP because of her natural AoE and Rosita continues to pump out ridiculous ranged damage, due to massive stat boosts courtesy of my high social link with her. After the fight, Diana joins the crew on a full-time basis and the main subject of Chapter 5 is revealed, Subaru. Onward!

Chapter 5 begins with Subaru reverting to her original state of being a megabitch. She eyes a certain article in the newspaper about some statue and runs off after a morning meeting, without staying to eat breakfast with the crew. Ratchet cues us into her past personality a bit more, having a history with Subaru prior to the creation of the New York Combat Revue, and tasks us with getting her to open her shell and learn to trust others. We go around the city with some of our crew members, trying a friendship frontal assault of sorts, and are outwitted by Subaru every step of the way with amusing results. I fucked up with Diana a couple times, so RIP her ending I think at this point (ugh) but hopefully Gemini is still attainable.

This chapter's henchman is finally revealed: male Medusa. Shinjiro doesn't realize it upon first meeting the guy, as he responds to a woman crying for help only to find a suspicious dude in a back alley with a statue in tow. :smogthink: The next day, we head to the theater for our morning meeting only to find Sabura talking mad shit about our boy, and so Cheiron... challenges her to a duel to defend my honor. We're fighting because it's our honor on the line, of course. Thanks, asshole. That night, we head to a construction site outside Rosita's place in the Bay Area for, yes, a literal duel: our samurai sword versus Subaru's fan. Subaru apologizes if we win, we perform her role on stage if we lose. It's predestined we lose, of course, though apparently I put up a good enough fight to earn mad rep with her. Despite Subaru not wanting to hold us to our promise, as she believes my amateur dancing will damage the Revue's reputation, everyone else insists on it, for honor.

The next couple days we practice our dancing to get Shinjiro up to snuff for the next performance. (He usually doesn't take part, that's the ladies' jobs.) Cherry and Anri come over before the performance to help us change and oh my god wryyyyyyyyyyyy



... Actually, he's pretty cute NO HOMO but why do you do this to me, game? So anyway, thanks to the girls making me change at home instead of at the theater immediately before the performance, we get some free time to roam the city as Peppermint. More hilarity ensues and when we're done, the performance is a rousing success (pending satisfactory QTE completion). The midpoint of the chapter is marked by Cherry and Anri heading out early after the show, having been invited on some prestigious cruise along with a bunch of other high-class broads to attend some fancy dinner. It's being hosted by none other than Medu(de)sa and he steals everyone's Pneuma, which doubles as life essence apparently, turning them to stone. Regular people don't have very much of it, but when you're collecting en masse I suppose it doesn't matter.

Subaru runs off on her own during the strategy meeting because she has her own brilliant plan to rescue Cherry and Anri before we can prepare to actually defeat the bad guy (which will release his spell and save the randoms), although it's just the same plan everyone else had: dress up and head onto the cruise ships ourselves. Entering a trap, as a trap! We rescue our crew members by Subaru finding the power of friendship and being willing to accept help, as she begins to channel some of her own Pneuma into Cherry and Anri but realizes she isn't strong enough to afford giving enough away to save them alone. Medudesa finds us and is too strong to fight at a disadvantage, but Ratchet and Sunnyside arrive with our airship to bail us out.

After regrouping, we proceed with a two-part boss fight. Part 1 I actually had to replay a few times. We have to rush into the dining hall and keep enemies from physically running off with the statues of frozen ladies, pushing them back across the room to the deck for an airlift out and boy is the timing tight. The first turn has to be spent clearing out guards, because they physically body block you otherwise (except Subaru, because did I mention her mech also has stealth? yeah), and if your slower members aren't spending their first three turns making a mad dash to the far back after your faster members spend their Turn 1 clearing a path, game over man. Oh, and friendly bodyblocking is a thing too so don't stand in the middle of the aisles when you end turn. :fukyu: Part 2 was a standard aerial battle and was ridiculously easy, boss didn't survive the first round of attacks. Well, more like Part 2-1 was Subaru and Shinjiro alone having to save everyone else's ass from Medudesa's spell, with the revelation that Subaru did indeed know absolutely fucking everything the whole time, and then Part 2-2 was the full party followup, but both were extremely easy (though only the former was on purpose).

Chapter 6 belongs to Gemini. I assume she'll finally join the NYCR and be our final combat member, and hopefully I can finally shake Rosita being my numero uno because I want a romance ending, not a daddy ending. :pikuh:
 
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I picked up Va11-Halla and Hollow Knight so far, but refunded Hollow Knight cuz my computer’s a potato and I’ll just get it on switch whenever I get one of those. Va11-Halla was a blast of a visual novel, got the “bad” ending an I’ll probably tackle the other endings in a few days. Interesting world and characters, worth the 10 bucks
I picked it up as well after your mention and enjoyed it. It has a very mature style of writing and not because of all the sex talk, but because of the way it throws you into conversations and you gotta learn the context along with the main character. Despite the dystopian setting it was going for, the game tells some really relatable life stories.
 

Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
^ I for one relate to the talking dog with sunglasses the most :afrostar:

Shoulda did my writeup for this before the weekend now that I should get through the rest of my first playthrough anyway and end up double or triple-posting but whatevs. I finished Chapter 6 in Sakura Wars.

Part I (Intro/Chapter 1): http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/videogame-thread.3530599/post-7626953
Part II (Ch 2-3): http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/videogame-thread.3530599/post-7631157
Part III (Ch 4-5): http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/videogame-thread.3530599/post-7632144

The title card preroll shows the first Monster of the Week, our favorite loli clown witch, squaring off with a masked crusader who is Definitely Not Gemini at the same construction site we dueled Subaru. Something about having stole the BOOK OF FIVE RINGS from DNG's master, or half of it anyway, the importance of which is revealed later. "DNG" has shown up a handful of times so far in the story, which I haven't mentioned before because she doesn't do anything important except hunt down random robbers on the daily, but of course she'll probably be important in this chapter. And apparently we're recycling bosses now, for shame.

As we begin, the crew is just finishing up another performance on stage. As everyone cleans up backstage, they discuss how much trouble the masked woman is causing lately as a vigilante who ultimately does good but presents dangers of her own, as if she is the Batman to the crew's Harvey Dent. Everyone heads home and of course our boy Shinjiro bumps into the masked woman on the way, while witnessing yet another robbery in the mean streets of New York. Hellbent on revenge, we have an impromptu duel and the masked cowgirl with a samurai obsession is obviously no match for a real swordsman, so she backs down eventually.

The next morning, we talk to Sunnyside and Ratchet about our encounter and they lay on the exposition about the Five-Ring Warriors, the subject of the aforementioned book. All identifiable by a special mark or seal on their bodies, which just looks like a small filled circle surrounded by five larger circles, they exist to strike down some great Demon Lord whenever it happens to surface in our world. Of course, the four current ladies of our crew -- Subaru, Rosita, Diana, Cheiron -- are four of the five. I WONDER WHO THE FIFTH COULD BE. So, like, we get tasked to find out more about the masked woman since Shinjiro has ran into her the most times. Being a dude, and this being anime, she might stop trying to kill us in lieu of trying to get the D and allow us to get info out of her.

So we just wander around New York randomly for a while to gather information and engage in various shenanigans. Surprise surprise, we eventually run into the masked woman once more in front of some apartments. She's fleeing from the popo, so we help her hide long enough to escape but she drops a scroll in her haste. THE SEAL is printed on it, over some indecipherable text. We take it back to Sunnyside and Ratchet, who are convinced the masked woman must be the fifth member we've been searching for. In the follow-up conversation with the rest of crew, Gemini reveals she has a sister. Heh. Gemini, twins. Good one, guys. Anyway, Gemini's feeling pretty down about just being the cleaning lady and everyone decides to take a day off to hang out with and cheer her up.



But then BLOOBERS ARE ATTACK!!!!!! And we're quite vulnerable being out in the streets not in our big-ass mechs and shit. Luckily, the masked woman shows up and everyone is saved! After slicing some robots in half, she gets into a tussle with our crew realizing Shinjiro is there and being sick of seeing his mug. Rosita shoots her mask off and it's TOTALLY GEMINI WOW WHO KNEW? She flees quick enough that only Shinjiro got a good look at her face, but... Oh, Gemini is still with our group? Okay shit, maybe it is a mysterious twin sister we hardly knew existed before.

Gemini gets bummed out about the whole thing, so she shoves off early but then everyone visits her apartment at the end of the night anyway because they're assholes who can't leave people alone. Gemini reveals more to us about her sister and after everyone else leaves, her backstory to Shinjiro alone. Turns out loli clown witch is the one that killed her Master and is what prompted her to come to New York in the first place. Gemini came to live in peace but her sister is hellbent on revenge, apparently. Also, loli shota clown witch is actually a dude. We pull an all-nighter with our girl and, uhh, catch the masked woman leaving the apartment in the middle of the night and get into a brief tiff with her after trailing her for a while. Gemini's not in her apartment anymore, so she's clearly the masked woman after all and just totally psychotic.

Nonetheless, Gemini takes our boy Shinjiro to Central Park in the morning to train, where we kick her ass and discover her Master was a total perv. We get some free time afterward to explore, the most notable thing I do being help Diana build a dollhouse, and then head back to the theater late. Cherry needs us to deliver a message to Gemini, who is currently in the bath (hot springs up on the rooftop)... Anime occurs, we glimpse the Five Warriors mark on her ass and after waking up, we talk to her about it and she's stoked to finally become the last member of the DK crew.



She immediately rushes us to Sunnyside's office to start the proceedings and after she runs off, our boy and Sunnyside + Ratchet have a little chat. Of course they already knew, or at least had strong suspicions which is why they kept her around the theater as cleaning lady the whole time. Apparently she has a split personality, rather some complicated medical condition of which multiple personalities is a symptom anyway, and so our latest task is to quell her inner demon. Then BLOOBERS ARE ATTACK AGAIN!!!!!! and we have to deal with both things at once, fuck.

Shinjiro goes after "Geminine," Gemini's so-called "sister" and split personality, while the rest of the crew goes to defend against the bad guys. After easily fending off her subpar swordfighting for a while we eventually use our words to defuse Geminine's bloodlust, reconcile her differences with Gemini and head back to join everyone else on city defense. I make my pre-battle save and WHY THE FUCK IS THIS CLINGY CHILD ROSITA STILL MY TOP SOCIAL LINK DSJHFKSFKJFSDASL:FHKJ.



The fight introduces no new mechanics, but everyone else has been captured by loli Shota Witch and so the mission begins with Shinjiro and Gemini two-manning their way through downtown New York to rescue everyone. The good news is that after perusing a walkthrough, in preparation for my future playthroughs as I plan to go ahead and 100% the game, I discovered how to fully use my old mechanics. Apparently the Protect and Help commands, in addition to their combat uses (reduce damage and teleport an ally to Shinjiro, respectively), also slightly boost their social link and additionally, if you stand near the ally in combat whose chapter it currently is you get extra conversations and even more social boosts. So we get Gemini to massage her own breasts (don't ask), we eventually blow up Shota Witch's flying robot again, recover the other half of THE BOOK he stole a long time ago and yay happy end.

The crew throws a party for Gemini after the battle. Gemini has somewhat learned to control when her "Geminine" personality surfaces, who leaves us some words of wisdom and asks us to take care of her "sister" in her absence. Cut to Shota Witch eyeing a Japanese Demon Blade at the Met vowing to exact revenge on our crew and the game ain't over yet!

I don't know what Chapter 7 is gonna be about other than eventually finding and defeating the Big Bad probably, but it involves Christmas so I expect sexytimes as per Japanese standard. Thankfully, after the social boosts in combat Gemini is finally my main girl instead of Rosita... Wish me luck, guys. I'm about to stick my dick in crazy.
 
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Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
Ah, well, weekend was way too busy to finish the damn game what with Sunday Premier League among other things. :/ But honestly, there is not all that much to talk about regarding Chapter 7 Sakura Wars. (I say as I likely spend as long talking about it as I did the others.) The eyecatch for this chapter's scene transitions is Ratchet, though the chapter is not really about her.

Part I (Intro/Chapter 1): http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/videogame-thread.3530599/post-7626953
Part II (Ch 2-3): http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/videogame-thread.3530599/post-7631157
Part III (Ch 4-5): http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/videogame-thread.3530599/post-7632144
Part IV (Ch 6): http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/videogame-thread.3530599/post-7637560

After the defeat of Ranmaru, the Shota Witch, and our subsequent celebration, Sunnyside officially promotes our boy Shinjiro to Captain while Ratchet steps into a pure support role. Once everyone heads home, Shinjiro goes to bed and has a dream about a mysterious shadowy figure. Since it's the end of the year, 1928, the crew decides to put on a big show for Christmas in Central Park. Lots of initial stage setup is done at the location, everyone rehearses for the production, and Ratchet gives everyone the day before off so we get time to run around the city doing stuff. In game time, we only get 60 minutes. Bleh... Though, at Sunnyside's encouragement, that's because we're also going to ask our girl out on a date and spend the day with her instead!

Cue free time and hilarity ensues everywhere. We go with Gemini to 5th Avenue to buy her a fancy dress, and later stop by her apartment to suit up Larry in a reindeer costume and ask her out. We meet Rosita at Kayama's shop -- Kayama's a bit character who's a friend of your uncle Ogami (if you don't recall he's the commander of Tokyo's special forces, the guy who sent our boy Shinjiro over to "command" the New York forces at the start of the game, and the protagonist of the previous Sakura Wars games) and runs a thrift shop in Midtown -- and help her clean out the place to aid in the production. We scope out Diana in the Library and later meet her in Battery Park, Central Park's lesser cousin in the Bay Area, with her first patient as a real doctor, some dude in a wheelchair. Subaru's hanging out at the jazz club in Harlem and Cheiron is delivering textbooks to the youngsters. Also, we have to pick up a gift for the afterparty, of which the best is some super-expensive keychain bought on 5th Avenue.

So, next day is date time. Gemini greets us by walking into our apartment and ripping the sheets off sleepy Shinjiro's bed. He's not dressed, anime ensues, blushing Gemini a cute. We go back to her place and she cooks us up brekky. Our boy has the opportunity to peer her diary while she's busy and while we don't take it per se, he nonetheless catches a glimpse of the currently open page: Gemini's romantic plans for the day. The morning goes as planned, largely off-screen, and the couple heads to Central Park to chill out after a boat ride and lunch.



We're "assaulted" by Carlos, Cheiron's right-hand man from her old well-meaning gang mentioned in passing previously, who is putting on a puppet show for some kids in the park and needs people to replace a couple of the gang members who are sick and can't perform. Of course, we gotta interrupt our date 4 Dem Kidz and help. Things get a little steamy behind the curtain at the end of the story, as the prince valiantly saves the princess and they live happily ever after, and so ends our date as we have to get ready for the night's performance.

We're treated to half a dozen CGs of everyone doing their thing, no FMV sadly, and it's a big success of course. Sunnyside hosts the afterparty at his place and, as both anime and video game stereotypes go, the gift exchange is ostensibly random but our girl Gemini both receives our gift and we get hers: a horse plushie that looks suspiciously like Larry. Once everyone heads home to get some shut-eye, our boy Shinjiro has another dream about the mysterious shadowy figure. Cut to Ranmaru standing on top of the tallest building in New York (the Empire State Building wasn't constructed until 1930 so it's not that!) muttering some summoning ritual, slices the demon blade he stole from the museum in half with his scythe, and summons the actual Big Bad finally.



Looks like Akinator forgot his turban but it's Oda Nobunaga, indeed the historical figure who randomly shows up in a lot of Japanese games, and we gotta bust up his castle in the sky like we're raiding Kaneshiro's palace. Sunnyside gives us some information, of most importance the mention of a sealing ritual used by the Five-Ring Warriors used to seal Nobunaga away years ago in Tokyo the first time around, and we're off! We can't assault Nobunaga's castle directly for now though, as Ranmaru is protecting it.

And so our third rematch with Shota Witch has him sitting in the middle of a circular arena, halfway sticking out of Nobunaga's extradimensional summoning portal, and surrounded by a moat of raw Pneuma. We can't attack him directly, all we can do is traverse the area and knock out all the anchors holding him up so he plunges into the "lava." Well, I died on turn 1 the first attempt. It's my fault, the game does in fact tell you to stay away from the middle because Ranmaru sucks in the mud on his turns and pulls nearby units into the "lava," which is an instant kill. The second go got a little dicey, Gemini saved Rosita's ass from biting the dust, but I pulled through. And so the crew heads for the castle to assault Nobunaga directly.

Villain talks shit, blah blah power of friendship, we perform the Five-Ring Mandala, the sealing ritual Sunnyside told us about. GG.











Just kidding. The sealing ritual doesn't work. Why? We'll figure that out later, but for now everyone has to retreat. Shinjiro is the last one to leave to ensure everyone else's safety, but before he can shove off himself Ranmaru slices his mech open and gives our boy a big ol' hug to prevent him from operating the controls. Nobunaga pulls out a ginormous longbow and fires a couple magic arrows at them, killing Shota Witch once and for all and piercing Shinjiro's chest. He's alive because plot armor, but nonetheless put out of commission indefinitely.

So as Shinjiro lays on the operating table, New York continues to be attacked by Nobunaga. Our boy has some vision of the original encounter with Nobunaga, while comatose, where the original Five-Ring Warriors sealed him away. Of note is the character that looks suspiciously like Shinjiro and and a young cloaked woman of which no real information is known about her other than she had to sacrifice her life as part of the Mandala ritual. Ah, so that's why it failed before. The FRW actually consisted of six members... it was the five survivors that came to be known as the FRW by history, with the sacrifice of the sixth member long forgotten. At any rate, the rest of the crew is having a lot of trouble holding the fort without Shinjiro's help, but our plot armor activates and we wake up to the sight of Gemini at our side.

After Gemini leaves, Sunnyside comes into our room to talk with us and Shinjiro tells him what he figured out, shows us the FRW mark that appeared on his chest where Nobunaga pierced him. Shinjiro implores Sunnyside to not blab his mouth to everyone else because he wants to figure out a way to save everyone and not have anyone sacrifice themselves. Before preparing for battle again we get an untimed free period to run the city, see everything in ruins and have a little personal chat with each of our crew members and many side characters. We head back to the command room to prepare.

Sunnyside's on board with Shinjiro's plan and implores us to choose a partner for some two-pronged attack strategy. Looks like we get the choice of our top three ladies: Rosita, Subaru, and Gemini in my case. Obviously I'm picking Gemini. She spouts off some nonsense about being glad to give up her own life to save New York, revealing the SHOCKING REVELATION that she's basically a reincarnation of the mysterious cloaked woman who sacrificed her life to perform the original Mandela (and Shinjiro likewise to his lookalike, which is why he had the vision), and... What the hell, Sunnyside? Shinjiro and everyone else gets pissed, our boy socks Sunnyside in the mouth, and everyone leaves to cool their heads. We have a little heart-to-heart with Gemini, everyone heads back to the command room to tell Sunnyside off and he's all like LUL IT'S JUST A PRANK GUYS GRATS ON PASSING UR CAPTAIN'S EXAM SHINJI (now get in the robot)!!! ...Okay then. Still fuck you but fine, we got a demon lord to reseal.

First thing's first, defend the theater from a direct assault. A shitload of enemy robots carrying bombs sit out in Times Square, the same map as the fight we had to rescue our party members in Gemini's chapter, and we have to destroy four robot generators in the far corners. The bomb robots explode on contact, causing major damage or losing the battle if they reach the theater entrance, but the fight is completable on Turn 1 by just bumrushing the corners of the map and destroying the generators with Super Moves. Yawn.

With our base of operations secure, we cut to Nobunaga distraught at the realization Shinjiro's got it all figured out and preparing for the final battle. Chapter 8 is presumably the last chapter where we actually defeat the Big Bad and live happily ever after with our girl Gemini.
 
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Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
Sakura Wars Chapter 8: Fin.

Honestly not much to write home about, it's a long series of battles interspersed with talks about friendship conquering all.

Nobunaga's trying to meld New York and his extradimensional space together, we have to stop him! Part I: Fly our airship up to Nobunaga's castle so we can get in the joint. So begins a battle versus lots of bombs trying to blow up our airship's engines, and lots of robots trying to blow up our mechs so we can't blow up the bombs. The battle takes place over three areas across the ship -- port, starboard, and the deck along with the hangar that our units can spend a turn in to heal up -- and we just have to survive long enough for our ship to ascend to 7000 feet. Probably the hardest fight of the entire final battle series, and yet still not very difficult once I realized I could use the hangar to free heal everyone at the end of the turn (just gotta save 1 movement point to enter). You can't access the hangar from the deck, but enemies that spawn on the deck attack the door to enter your ship rather than your units.

Once the airship ascends, Sunnyside and all the other side characters tell the POTUS off and transform the Statue of Liberty into a missile silo (okay then), clearing out enough air space for us to ram our ship straight into Nobunaga's castle. Despite crash landing and completely flipping the thing, everyone is totally okay. Part II commences with us entering the castle proper. Our objective: Enter the door on the far side of the map. It's only directly blocked by some really large crossbow thing, which takes two turns to destroy simply because it's too far away on Turn 1 for everyone to reach.

Nobunaga meets us there with an entourage. Shinjiro and Nobunaga talk back and forth, Big N takes all our friends away and our boy falls into despair. Part III commences as we cut to everyone else's POV: Some dark alternate dimension where everyone has to fight their shadow selves to escape, a manifestation of their old fears. It's really easy, as everyone can slaughter their clones in one turn except Diana, who takes two turns because her Super isn't an attack.

Part IV begins as everyone else comes to and reappears in the castle inner sanctum. Shinjiro's will has fallen and Nobunaga has taken control of him, creating Dark Shinjiro. He's much tougher than the Dark clones of the other characters, but the fight itself is no tougher due to it being 5v1. After spending one turn knocking some sense into Shinjiro, he breaks Nobunaga's control to separate from his Dark self and starting the fight anew. Again, Dark Shinjiro only lasts one full round of focus fire: One Joint Attack, one Super Move (except Diana), and a full five-hit volley of regular attacks + whatever leftovers.



Nobunaga's getting tired of our shit and summons his giant mech, which is like some combination of Orphan from FF13 and your choice of multi-armed Hindu diety, and so Part V is our air battle of this series. The upper and lower areas contain limbs which shield his weak point, his face, in the middle area. The middle area contains his attacking arms and two more shields. At least one or two shields must be destroyed to target his face at all; destroying more progressively weakens him. At any rate, the only tricky part is that one of his attacks is to summon a ring of electric balls around his body and if you don't destroy enough of them before he detonates the lot, they'll totally own you.

Once defeated, the true final battle begins as Nobunaga sucks everyone into his extradimensional space and transforms into a sleek three-winged angel sort of deal. The fight commences on a big floating meteor, of which he can destroy terrain by summoning meteors between turns which do a lot of damage (but don't instant kill apparently). While he deals enough damage in his turn to potentially instant kill people, Rosita died for me and I lost some unknown amount of social link points for it, even his 4000 HP only lasts through two rounds of focus fire.

Nobunaga won't die though, and so through the power of friendship we can now perform the Five-Ring Mandala without sacrificing anyone to put an end to the story. Apparently, this involves Shinjiro entering Nobunaga's subconscious and just talking some sense into the guy. The world is saved! And we get an untimed free segment to actually end the game, where we can go around and visit every landmark in the city and eventually talk to I think literally every side character we've ever seen in the game (plus a couple new ones), before attending the grand ol' victory party. As Gemini's date, of course. We're not even treated to a kiss though, it's left implied as the camera cuts away to show us the New Years' fireworks. And then again, as we get a video later of Shinjiro and Gemini walking through the park in fancy clothes. Larry going wild throws the couple on the ground in each other's embrace and all they do is stare and blush at each other. Argh.

After the credits roll, we unlock the SKIP function like a true visual novel, which will make it easier for me to go back and 100% the game. Social progress can also be saved and Ratchet's romance/ending should be unlocked as well. Gemini's sprite is placed on our main menu, to signify we got her ending I guess, and we've unlocked the full potential of the Free and Easy Day in N.Y. play mode. FEDNY is mostly just a gallery mode though that lets us review every special bromide/photo, CG, and video in the game that we've collected/seen before (including pages of password-only stuff). Strictly for fun, there's a trivia game and a photo mode, which lets you roam the city to take pictures of your girl of choice in different locales.

And then onto The Last Story I will go, I suppose.
 

Mr. Uncompetitive

Ugh Cough! Cough! Splutter!
is a Contributor Alumnus
During the winter break, I once again took some time to go through some games on my backlog, largely retro stuff. Had fun writing up my thoughts on the games I played in the summer, so I decided to do that again, but a bit more structured this time (also I didn't proofread this much so sorry if you're weirded out by me being on GP while also being bad at writing):

Background info: An old run and gun for the Genesis made by Treasure, developers of Gunstar Heroes, Mischief Makers, Ikaruga, Wario World, and the Sin and Punishment games. A heavy emphasis on boss fights with short stages in between, similar to Cuphead, which I haven't played, but I did play this game in response to Cuphead coming out and my younger brother not shutting up about Alien Soldier being the superior game. Apparently holds the record for most bosses in a Run n' Gun, with 25 (technically 29), one being fought at the end of each of the game's 25 Stages.

Thoughts: Damn this game was really cool, but there is a bit of learning curve to it. The controls are a lot more complicated than you'd think for a game that uses 3 buttons and a d-pad. There's a bunch of mechanics that are more important than they seem that you need to get comfortable with, such as dashing, phoenix force, weapon ammo management, and countering, though the game always starts with a controller test screen to help you warm up or refresh your memory if you haven't played it for a while. There's also a weapon select every time you start the game or get a game over, where you can choose any permutation of 4 weapons out of a pool of six (so you can have multiples of the same weapon), so consulting a FAQ or experimenting a bunch is recommended (hint, Flame and ESPECIALLY Lancer are much better than they appear on the weapon select screen, and Type 2 Window is easily the best). Luckily, the early stages of the game are actually pretty easy once you know what you're doing (and rather difficult otherwise), mainly serving as a way to get you settled with how to play the game; I like to think that the game doesn't really start proper until Stage 09, which features the first of this game's "major" boss fights (the others are in 17, 20, and 25...though I guess 12 and 16 arguably count).

Once you get past that Stage 9 though, the game really starts to get going, with increasingly more interesting boss fights and settings, and I think it's the brilliant pacing that really makes the game work. Stage 10 and 11 are noticeably harder than the previous stages, though Stage 12 features a new set-piece in a boat ride as well as a tense boss fight that serves as the first real wall of difficulty (once you figure out the best strategy he's really easy though). Then it subdues itself immediately with the new look of Stage 13 and a simple boss fight, with increasingly more complex boss fights for the later stages, reaching another high point with the boss in Stage 16. And just after that tense experience, there is a very short autoscroller followed by one of the game's two best boss fights (in my opinion) in Stage 17. The game relaxes a bit after this with Stage 18 and 19, but then hits extremely hard afterwards with the incredible boss fight in Stage 20; it took me dozens of tries to get through it and was a bit frustrating, but it certainly felt satisfying.

Unfortunately, one of my only real gripes with the game comes to fruition here, as I feel like Treasure put themselves into a corner, given how insane Stage 20 was and how much effort would be required to top it. If you read up on the game's development, you'll find that Alien Soldier, while not considered incomplete, was originally intended to be far more ambitious in terms of how many bosses there were going to be, and I feel like it kinda shows with the last 5 stages. After spending so long on Stage 20, these last few stages just kinda come and go and don't leave enough of an impact. They are very solid stages, don't get me wrong, and the last 3 stages feature some memorable boss fights, but they don't build up to the unfathomably awesome climax one would hope. While the final boss is great, perhaps even my 3rd favorite in the game, it's definitely behind Stage 17 and 20, the real high points of the game, when Treasure should've made the game go out on the largest bang possible. Perhaps a much more complex final battle or even a few more stages to build up to it would've helped.

Graphically, the game definitely holds up, with detailed and pretty well-animated sprites, though the coloring is a bit too drab for my taste. There's nothing absolutely mind-blowing on a graphical standpoint, but it's certainly awesome that the game is able to keep a very steady frame rate regardless. In terms of music, there's some great stuff here. There's of course Runner AD2025, an action-packed song in the game's first 7 stages which excellently sets the game's tone, and the major bosses have some great battle themes (Blacksheep, Perfect Thing, 7th Force, and Alone Z). One song that's really grown on me to the point of definitely being my favorite in the game is Galaxy Desert, playing in the game's last few stages and featuring an incredible hook and a solid beat to drive the rest of the song. I do kinda wish there were a few more songs for the soundtrack, especially boss themes, but what's here is great. Oh right, and this game also features some spoken English and voices! Just some simple phrases, but the sound quality aint too bad and it lends to the game's spectacle (READY? FIGHT!).

One last thing I want to mention is the game's difficulty. This aint an easy game, as you only have one life until game over, but aside from that initial learning curve it's a very doable game. The game actually features two difficulty settings, "SuperEasy" and "SuperHard"; there actually isn't much different between them, the only particularly huge change being that SuperEasy has infinite continues and password saves, while SuperHard has no passwords, and finite continues, although this does make SuperHard substantially more daunting to finish. Each of the game's stages are very short, aside from the boss fights, and each password or continue used puts you right at the start of any given stage (even letting you change weapons and test your controls if you're in SuperEasy mode), making it very easy and quick to save your progress and get back to where you died. If you play this game on an emulator, however, I suggest using save states to keep track of your progress instead, as the game will keep track of your number of deaths and time spent beating each stage as long as you don't quit out, and it'd be nice to get these statistics at the end of a playthrough.

Recommendation: Highly recommended to fans of Cuphead looking for more games like it, as well as general fans of Run n' Guns and Boss Rushes. Also recommended to anyone interested in getting into retro games or general 2D action fans, but want something that, while challenging and having a learning curve, isn't particularly punishing; just make sure to adjust the difficulty to SuperEasy.

Background info: Another entry in the long-running Mega Man X series, and it seems to be the only entry besides X1 that's universally considered to be great by fans, with some people going as far to say it's better than X1. I had my doubts, but as a Mega Man fan I still really wanted to check this out. Outside of Mega Man fans, the game is perhaps most famous for this.

Thoughts: First off, I only played through the game as Zero, I'll play as X another time. The only other X game I've played through at this point was X1, which I really loved, and will by main comparison point (with hints of the Zero and ZX games considering they're kinda similar).

A very fun Mega Man title, definitely one of the better ones I've played. I remembered the controls being kinda stiff, but they're thankfully a lot better than I remember. Not perfect, mind you, since I'm playing this game on my 13 year old PS2 controller and I faced a lot of dropped inputs when wall jumping, but still solid enough. One thing that did bother me was the way special moves were handled; it's really cool that Zero is able to learn a new technique with every boss he beats, but most of these are dedicated to their Special Weapon button, making them a little trickier to integrate into normal combat.

The game makes use of some nice sprites, but the way they're drawn makes them feel kinda like they're 2.5D...but not really? It's hard to explain, but they're definitely not especially eye-catching, but everything is solidly laid out overall, there's still a good sense of detail with the environments and the color choices are smart. Music is good overall, but it kinda feels...different from most Mega Man games. The soundtrack is very electronic/synth-based, but I guess the best explanation I can give on why I'm not a huge fan is that the instruments feel limited and don't support the rocking vibe this game gives off, and the music either doesn't experiment enough with this instrument set (see Mega Man 8 and its electronic jams) or has melodies that just don't feel strong enough. Yes, the intro stage themes for Zero and especially X are still excellent and absolutely the standouts here, but while Cyber Peacock, Split Mushroom, and Magma Dragoon are also pretty solid I guess, they and the rest of the OST are missing that Je Ne Sais Pas Quoi quality that elevates them to something masterful. I mean the melodies are still surprisingly memorable, but I dunno if the majority of the soundtrack is worth listening to on its own...

On a quick aside, the story isn't actually all that bad lol, with its interesting concepts of a tragic misunderstanding and rights to freedom. Shame that its brevity and voice acting ruin it, but the voice acting is also a "so bad it's good" product of its time, and turns the cutscenes from dramatic to hysterical. Luckily, the voice acting within the actual gameplay is fine and isn't particularly annoying, unlike ZX Advent and, apparently, X7.

Now in terms of the actual gameplay, it was...pretty fun yeah, but not especially memorable. To be fair, the fact that I played as Zero reduced the need to experiment with level orders for boss weaknesses and revisits to get more upgrades. Still, while I suppose X1 might not have been as amazing as I remember it in hindsight, X4's levels feel pretty bland, with little in the way of interesting designs, gimmicks, or setpieces. The first part of Cyber Peacock's stage, while a tad annoying (though still very enjoyable) if you wanted to grab the collectables, was by far the most challenging stretch of platforming I can remember, and the second part is an interesting gimmick that isn't explored much. Magma Dragoon and Frost Walrus have some tight platforming and neat mechanics with Fire/Ice but nothing amazing. Slash Beast is just a simple enemy gauntlet with minimal platforming. Jet Stingray was a gimmicky bike level that had some cheap deaths, but was actually pretty enjoyable in hindsight. Every other stage is pretty standard fare for a 2D Action/Platformer, though I guess they have their memorable moments (the laser cannons in Storm Eagle and the speedrunning in Cyber Peacock)

Most egregious by far, however, were the final three stages, which while having some great bosses, were very disappointing in terms of the actual levels. The first of these was a short and unevently jaunt through enemies before fighting Colonel. The Final Weapon stage featured a bit more content with branching pathways and fairly challenging platforming during its second half, but it still was very short given that it had 2 boss fights and a far cry from, say, the daunting but very satisfying Sigma Stage 1 in back in X1. After that, it's just the teleporter room with 8 mavericks, Sigma, and that's it. And people bitch about the Zero/ZX games having awful level design.


To clarify, the level designs aren't bad by any means, but they aren't particularly interesting either. That being said, much like the Zero and ZX games (which for whatever reason get complaints for bad level design), the moment-to-moment gameplay is still very fun. The sword gameplay is always great, while not as viscerally satisfying as the Zero and ZX games imo. Boss fights are mostly cool (the short health bars are incredibly deceptive since your sword barely makes a dent into it), as is getting new weapons and abilities for Zero to use. Yeah...but I don't really have much else I can say for this game. It's a very good game, no doubt, but absolutely not on the same level as X1 in my book.

Recommendation: Solid choice for 2D action fans. Specifically recommended to fans of Mega Man, especially X, Zero, and ZX fans, who somehow haven't played this (given its generally high praise). X1 is the superior game in my opinion, so you should probably play that first if you haven't.

Background info: Contrary to popular belief, despite Super Mario Bros Lost Levels not being localized here and Mega Man 2 getting its difficulty adjusted, for many older games, particularly action games, that were released in both Japan and internationally, the Japanese version was actually noticeably easier than the Western version. Some more well-known examples include Resident Evil, Contra Hard Corps, Battletoads, Castlevania III, and, of course, Ninja Gaiden III. The international version removes the game's password saving, limits the number of continues (whereas I and II had infinite!), add more enemies, and makes enemies deal more damage.

In any case, Ninja Gaiden III is generally considered by many to be good, but easily the worst of the original NES trilogy. The most likely issue seems to be the artificial difficulty mentioned above, but the weaker level design, mechanics changes made for the worse, and weaker soundtracks are also cited as issues.

Thoughts: This game is SO much fun! Movement is very good, with responsive horizontal and vertical movement. One point of contention for some is the fact that jumping was made (slightly) floatier in comparison to the previous two games. For what it's worth, the first two games, based on what I've tried, had a very "sharp" jump (best way I can describe it, kinda comparable to Fox's short hop in Melee?), almost uncomfortably so. This third game's floatiness feels a little odd at first, especially after dabbling with the first two games, but I very quickly adjusted to it and completely forgot about it after about 5 minutes; it was still very much able to lend itself to quick vertical movement. I'm guessing most people reading this do not have much experience with the first two Ninja Gaiden games, so this potential discrepancy won't apply, though I can understand why those who do fault the game for it. On a more positive note, I've noticed that the recoil taken from getting hit is nowhere near as bad as it was in the previous two games, so no more gravitating to bottomless pits. In addition, the wall jumping and climbing from the previous games is now supplemented with the ability to hang off certain surfaces, which is always a ton of fun, if (for better or worse) a bit nerve-wracking over bottomless pits.

The sword is a lot of fun to use, especially in tandem with the powerup to extend your range. I heard some complaints about it resulting in the removal of the body double power-up from Ninja Gaiden II, but I didn't find that power-up particularly helpful from what little I played (I'm sure there's nuances to it I didn't understand). There's a range of subweapons to use, and all of them (besides the default shuriken) are great in various situations, and it's nice that the destroyable balls that give items show you what item you'll get from breaking it, allowing you to more easily plan out what items you can ignore and not accidentally get a bad weapon. One small complaint I do have with the combat, however, is that while you have plenty of control over your jump, even while in the air, you cannot change the direction you're facing midjump and, by extension, the direction in which you attack. To continue the Smash analogies, you don't have a back-air to work with to cover enemies coming from behind you; if your subweapons can't cover you and you don't reach the ground soon enough, you'll get hit and possibly fall into a bottomless pit. Thankfully, this isn't a problem that shows up much in the game (well, with one major exception at the very end...).

The aspects of clean movement and combat all lend itself for some exciting gameplay. Ninja Gaiden III features a good variety of locations to explore for both graphical variety and mild stage gimmicks. Rising lava, swamps, flowing water underground, ice areas, a really good "biological" area ala Life Force, etc. The platforming is this weird mixture of being complicated, while simple. Like, yeah, you'll be doing all kinds of wall jumping, ceiling clinging, and timing of jumps with precise slashes, but it all feels really natural and you'll get into the rhythm of one things work quickly enough, giving you the exhilaration of a "hard" game with a little less of the frustration. And of course the level design is pretty good across the board.

In addition, as the background info may suggest, Ninja Gaiden III's difficulty is overall a lot lower than previous installments, though it's difficulty curve is still handled very well; Act 1 is very easy and gets you comfortable with the controls, Act 2 is a jump in difficulty but still isn't particularly hard, with a steady incline for the next few acts. Act 6 is when the game starts to get noticably hard, and Act 7 is quite a tough level, but (mostly) fair and VERY satisfying. The only other gameplay thing I should mention are the bosses, which were pretty disappointing; like Castlevania, most of Ninja Gaiden III's bosses come down to "mash the attack button until you win" with some occasional dodging. With the exception of the third boss's silly gimmick, only the final boss gauntlet is particularly challenging and, by extension, interesting.

Graphically the game looks really nice: solid spritework, a very nice variety of locations to work with, and the occasional detailed background with some more advanced scrolling effects. Music is pretty solid across the board, though for the most part isn't spectacular. The standout tracks for me are the moody but still driving song that plays in 4-1 and 7-1 and the AWESOMELY climactic 4-2 and 7-3 stage theme (I never got sick of hearing this song despite spending so much time in 7-3), continuing the Ninja Gaiden tradition of 4-2 featuring that game's best song as well as honestly being one of my favorite NES tracks...even if the first game's iconic 4-2 is quite possibly my absolute favorite.

In any case, while I have tried a decent number of NES games, JP Ninja Gaiden III, Mega Man 2, and Mega Man 3 were the only ones I had the drive to see through to the end, and Ninja Gaiden III might just be my favorite of the bunch. I guess a problem I have with lots of NES games, like many others, is that they're too "simple", but Ninja Gaiden III moves at such a brisk pace, and the combat and platforming, while surprisingly simple and intuitive, are also very exhilarating. Definitely one of my favorite NES/Famicom games thus far.

Recommendation: Recommended to any noobs like me who are looking to try an old-school action game but want something of a more reasonable difficulty. Recommended to 2D action fans in general, but if you can deal with their higher difficulty, the first two Ninja Gaiden are probably more worth your time. This recommendation only applies to the Japanese version.

Background info: It's a Mario game. Much like Mario Land 1, it stands out by making the level settings a little more weird than the standard Mario fare, but Mario Land 2 is more based on Super Mario World, unlike Mario Land 1 which is more similar to the original Super Mario Bros. Wario's first appearance! Also this.

Thoughts: It's a Mario game alright. I've already dabbled with this game numerous times over the past few years, but I never actually beat it (I did come close). Having played it again, it's still pretty fun. I definitely appreciate that, much like Mario Land 1, it tries to stand out from its home console peers by just being a weirder game, featuring some rather interesting level designs (Mario Zone especially comes to mind, and it tries to mix up the standard grass and water levels with levels taking place in trees and in a submarine). The game has a bit of an overworld you can explore and you can play the game's main 6 areas in whatever order you wish. As a neat bonus, there's also some secret levels to find.

The game's graphics are crisp and clear and all, but the Gameboy's limited color palette certainly didn't make it pleasing to look at (though maybe this could remedy that?). Kazumi Totaka's music was catchy and upbeat but felt like standard Mario stuff and isn't something I go out of my way to listen to, though I guess people seem to really like the Star Maze theme? It's probably the game's best song but I still don't think it and the rest of the music holds a candle to some of the more "nostalgic" tunes of Mario Land 1, which also had stronger melodies. Not to mention that despite the huge variety of level location, levels don't have much in terms of memorable designs or set-pieces to make them worth going back to. They're just...kinda boring?

One more thing I'd like to note is the game's difficulty, which is actually very easy for the most part. You can visit each of the six main areas in whatever order you like, not unlike Mega Man, so each area has been made roughly the same difficulty as a result, that being somewhat easy. However, the game sharply increases in difficulty with the final level, Wario's Castle, where the game ditches the concept of reasonably-sized levels with a halfway checkpoint and instead delivers a surprisingly difficult platforming and boss gauntlet with no checkpoints to be found. The risk of potentially losing the 6 Gold Coins I had collected on getting a Game Over (forcing me to replay each of the 6 boss stages) certainly didn't help matters, so I ended up grinding for lives in earlier stages to make up for it. Speaking of which, there are bosses in the game, and they're all pretty boring and (save for Wario and ignoring how weird it is to jump on some of them) quite easy, just wait for the them to be at a point where you can jump on them, and then do so. Shame there's not much strategy or dodging involved. Anyways, Mario Land 2 is a game a lot of people consider underrated. I don't; this game kinda went in one ear and out the other. I think it's fun and only just that, but to be fair Mario has never been my cup of tea, (my love for Kirby and Mega Man may have ruined that) so maybe there's something in it that I don't get.

Recommendation: Recommended if you need a simple and fairly easy/forgiving platformer to kill time with.

Background info: A well-regarded "traditional" (as opposed to the MetroidVania style of later games) entry in the Castlevania series. Considered good in general, though some particularly love its rather balanced difficulty and versatile control, while others are disappointed in its lack of multiple characters and branching paths, compared to Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse and Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. Fans almost always point to one of these three, especially IV and Rondo, as their favorite "traditional" Castlevania game.

Also as an fyi, I did rewatch the AVGN's passionate take on this game during my playthrough, and it may or may not have rubbed off on me a bit? So apologies if there are recurring thoughts/biases (though I still encourage you all to give it a watch along with the other Castlevania videos if you haven't). Also also, this game has 11 stages (called "blocks"), but because hexadecimal, Block 10 is called Block A and Block 11 is B.

Thoughts: Wasn't sure how I felt about Castlevania games to be honest. Haven't played much of the MetroidVanias, and the old school ones I've felt mixed about. They're definitely fun games with well-designed levels and AWESOME music, but the controls and movement were always really iffy. The stiff jump and the way the whip handles are definitely the biggest points of contention, and top that with unrelenting difficulty, movement that can't be sped up with running or dashing, and terrible knockback from enemies, and you have a particularly worrisome gaming experience, especially with Castlevania I and III (Rondo of Blood seemed to fix this issue, at least until I reached the obscenely fast 2nd boss).

Thankfully, Super Castlevania IV addresses these concerns right off the bat with a large upgrade to Simon's control. The jumping has been made far more controllable as compared to the NES games, albeit still a bit stiff (compared to, say, Super Mario World and Mega Man X). You still have the whip as your main weapon, which is a bit cumbersome in a pinch, but can be used in 8 directions ala Contra, letting you strategize a lot more. At the very least, the sound effects that accompany the maximum upgraded whip are wonderful, making your attacks feel all that more impactful. You can also hold the attack button to flail your whip around, which I didn't really use it much due to it being weak and tricky to use in a pinch.

A new gimmick the game introduces is the ability to grapple onto hooks with your whip. I initially was worried due to bad experiences with a similar gimmick in Mega Man Zero 2, but thankfully the hitbox for latching your whip onto the hook isn't too bad and you have plenty of control of your swing once you do get on. The game also employs plenty of interesting levels based around this mechanic, with 4-2's rotating room and A-2's belts being particularly memorable to work with. Unfortunately, the stairs make their return from previous installments, and while they were apparently a lot worse in the NES games, they're still very annoying here, largely due to how hard it is to get onto them, especially when you need to do in a pinch like in B-2. Other smaller things that bugged me were the fact that, in levels where you climb upwards, falling down was considered to be like falling into a bottomless pit (which I guess makes sense for the challenge factor but was still kinda annoying), as well as the fact that you had to deal with a time limit, though that was practically a non-issue (I admittedly died to loss of time, but only once...maybe twice?)

While the main structure of the game may seem a bit iffy, the game really starts to shine through with its overall styling. It makes this game a very nice companion piece to its rival Mega Man X; while I prefer Mega Man X and think it's largely a flawless game, Castlevania IV decides to take more risks than Mega Man X in terms of style, and they often pay off. There are plenty of memorable setpieces throughout, namely the rotating rooms in Block 4-2 and 4-3, featuring some great use of Mode 7. The levels also take on some more interesting themes, my personal favorite were I also really loved the Stage A's clock tower motif with plenty of moving gears and the aforementioned belts (probably my favorite stage in the game, ignoring its silly boss). Other highlights include Block 7 being a library with floating books, Block 8 being the bloody dungeon/torture room, and Block 9 being the gold-filled Treasury (one detail I really loved about this stage was that most of the candles dropped bags of money). Creature design, sprite work, and environment details are also great across the board. This does come at a cost, however, as the game's framerate can chug at times of intense sprite usage and, even worse, movement; I only mention this because it can get to the point where impedes the gameplay, namely in 4-3 and A-1. And, given that this game is like Mega Man X's counterpart, the better level design comes at the cost of weaker bosses, pretty much all of them come down to attacking till you maybe win, with minimal dodging (often you'll have enough health that just soaking up the boss's hits can be a viable strategy)

The game's music style was a bit different than I had expected, but it's a great kind of different; lots of gothic/classic tunes that, while melodic, have more focus on setting a spooky or otherwise moody tone than giving off a catchy melody like previous Castlevania games. There are melodic songs here though, by far the most famous being the song for the intro stage, Simon's Theme (really love the use of organ here and the build-up to its final organ chords). And then there's of course the renditions of several previous Castlevania songs for Blocks A and B, by far the best being Bloody Tears, playing for (incidentally enough) the entirety of Block A. Block 4-3 and 4-4's great theme probably also counts in this regard. But that's about it for the really catchy stuff.

I was a bit iffy with the idea of moody music at first, but the incredible organ and creepy ambience in Block 4-1 and 4-2's theme really sold me on it. Another little touch I really like is for the map themes: the first one is mysterious and a bit whimsical, but the second one (used in Blocks 6 through 9) is used once you actually enter Dracula's castle and is fittingly far more suspenseful. One last pair of songs I want to mention are the ones in Block 6, itself, the entrance to Dracula's castle. When you first enter the main hall, you're greeting with a beautiful but unsettling organ piece as you get bum-rushed with mooks. However, as soon as you move on to the next screen, you are greeting with humongous, swinging chandeliers with a bottomless pit down below. Not only do I love the setpiece itself, but the music changes to be far more intense and perfectly encompasses that dreadful feeling of "oh my god I have to get across on THOSE things???" The chandeliers themselves even creak as they swing, and there's a moment of pause before the song actually kicks in to further the "holy shit" factor. While the rest of the soundtrack is great, it's not particularly memorable and I'm not sure how much I'll listen to it outside of the game itself. However, the music works wonderfully in-game, and it's definitely worth a listen if this stuff sounds appealing to you.

Finally, there is one particular segment of the game that I really want to talk about, but it is unfortunately the very end of the game, so...

After the pure frustration of B-2 comes B-3, the "Room of Close Associates", which is effectively the game's final boss gauntlet. Thankfully, the game decides to take pity on you by giving you a permanent checkpoint before each boss, so dying at this point is punishment-free.

First up is some weird spear lizard dude, apparently named Slogra, who can stab you but, most importantly, jumps up every time he gets hit and descends into your area, with the timing for avoiding him being very strict. Once I got the hang of how tight it was, it was actually a pretty alright boss. Next up was the gargoyle Gaibon, who was definitely the best boss in the game up to that point, throwing out plenty of projectiles but could be realistically dodged for block, and aiming for him was tricky thanks to him flying. And finally there was of course the (other) Castlevania staple, Death. I've heard some complaints about this fight not being so great and rather easy, but I personally really liked it and found it to actually be kinda tough. Dodging his scythes was really tough due to how fast they move, though I got the hang of quickly aiming at them with the whip and winning through playing patient. Satisfying to beat, of course, and usurped Gaibon as my favorite boss.

Of course at this point, I should also mention the music that plays throughout this gauntlet, featuring some climactic and tense harpsichord building to that short but incredible organ bit. And of course, all of these bosses are actually quite good, especially Gaibon and Death, which is contrary to the others in the game as I've mentioned. However, the real reason this section was so memorable was what happens after you beat Death. Suddenly, the music stops, unlike with the previous two fights, and blocks drop down and let you enter a dark hallway, still with no music. Then you walk on in the hallway...

And dimly-lit candles start to ignite. Simultaneously, the music kicks in.

And before you know it, you're at B-4, and all stands between you and Dracula is a stair climb with a short hallway after it. And the music continues into the stage and for most of the fight against Dracula. It's actually a rendition of the game's intro theme, giving the game one of my favorite tropes in "ending the game musically the same way it began." On paper, it may be a bit strange to use a song like this for the finale, but it works so well in creating that unsettling and frightening mood needed for the final boss, as well as giving enough of a climactic and dramatic feel thanks to its lead (can't figure out if they're strings or synth)

Dracula himself is easily the best boss in the game (funny how I've said that three times now). His attacks are mostly pretty slow but require some thoughts in order to avoid getting hit, such as hitting his projectiles at just the right time while in just the right position. He does have some fast attacks, but once you manage to deal with them you can get some much needed health items. But then, right into his last third of health, the music fades out, lightning starts to fill the area, and Simon's Theme kicks in for the remainder of the fight. This last phase isn't particularly tough, but considering how many hits Dracula takes, how nerve-wracking it is to be at the very end of the game, and how easy it is to screw up dodging the lightning, it can still be very intense (and led to me dying a few times <_>).

But man is finally taking down Dracula and watching him fade away into the light ever so amazing. Of course, the usual orb from beating the level boss falls from the sky after this, and the game's ending commences. Accompanied by a somewhat melancholy but gorgeous song.

If it wasn't clear already, I love this game. Super Castlevania IV is a classic that definitely lives up to the hype. If you're ever interested in playing old-school 2D action platformers, absolutely make some time for it.

Recommendation: Highly recommended to fans of 2D action games and a must for retro gamers and Castlevania fans (that means you Arikado). This is a tough game, but it rarely feels discouragingly so.

I also played OFF, which was really good (I'd mostly recommend it for the surreal adventuring, the J-RPG gameplay is fun but really really easy and mindless) but I wasn't able to really form a full review for it, and the less you know about it, the better your experience will be anyways. If you're interested in the game, you can get it here.

Also let me know if you liked this cause I might do these more often idk.
 
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Tera Melos

Banned deucer.
decided to finally give Fallout 4 a try, since I own it and I believe all of the expansion content

holy fuck this game feels empty and everything feels incredible unrewarding.

Wow I was let down.
 

Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
Last day on this "Anime Yuri Bundle" at https://www.indiegala.com/indiegala-anime-yuri-steam-bundle

$8.99 for Moekuri, a fantastic SRPG I've talked about a few times in this topic previously, and a handful of tame yuri visual novels if you're into that stuff too: Kindred Spirits is pretty well-received and a number of comments I've seen around the web are basically considering this a great sale on that + some other stuff thrown in.

Edit: $9.99 now for another 19 days. Still a deal on Kindred Spirits, or Moekuri if you're even remotely interested in looking at the other titles.
 
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If you're the kind of guy that likes playing Tetris on PC and was enraged by Tetris Ultimate... Puyo Puyo Tetris is coming to Steam on February 27th.

If you're the kind of guy that wanted to get Puyo Puyo Tetris on PS4 or Switch but thought it was too expensive... it's much cheaper here. At least in Argentina, it costs the equivalent of US$ 15 (not counting the 10% off due to pre-purchase). Almost half the price it is on other platforms, and it includes the option of playing with the japanese voice actors.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/546050/Puyo_PuyoTetris/

(I already have it on Switch and I've already pre-purchased it in Steam. And I'd do the same for PS4 if I had one. Everything for Puyo)
 
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