Ys: Oath in Felghana is an action RPG made by Falcom. It’s a remake of the third game, “Ys Wanderers of Ys.”
You follow Adol to Dogi’s hometown and basically monsters have infiltrated the town and Adol wants to figure out what is going on and how to stop it.
If you’ve played Origins of Ys, the look and play style of the game sort of mirrors that. You can swing your sword to attack and thoughout the game you get magic abilities that get stronger as you open chests and find gems to upgrade it. It’s a fast paced action RPG, add to it the amazing soundtrack and you’re in for a great time.
The game demands you to spend time leveling up in order to move on. It’s challenging and confusing to navigate sometimes. I found myself getting lost more times than I could count (I spent a lot of time complaining about that). I had to get help fighting the final boss because it was just that difficult for me and I was ready for the game to be over.
When the game was over and done with, I felt a sort of sadness (customary when I finish an Ys game). The story was really good and I had become attached to Adol’s adventure.
I’d definitely recommend you pick up this game if you’re looking for something to play. All of the games in the Ys franchise are great. Read my other 2 Ys reviews if you get a chance!
Ys Oath in Felghana is available for the PSP and PC. You can also play it on your Vita.
Since I started writing these game posts, I have covered two of the 3 main franchises that come from Nihon Falcom. Today it is finally time to tackle at least a portion of the last franchise, The Legend of Heroes.
Though the Trails of Cold Steel games, hereto referred as ToCS, are their own franchise, they are but a tiny part of the larger mythos that Falcom has built with the Legen of Heroes franchise. Stick around the series long enough, and you can see where the games tie into the overarching story that being told. Falcom has built a truly original world through the Legend of Heroes series, and the stories within are ones of military might, and political intrigue.
Inside of this larger narrative lies ToCS, following the most recent events in the timeline, but more specifically following the path of Rean Schwarzer, as he transfers himself from ordinary high school boy, to a full blown war hero.
Like any good anime protagonist, Rean has a few special qualities that help him get ahead of his peer. These special qualities are better left for the player to explore however, so I won’t be divulging Rean’s talents here.
Story wise, ToCS is broken into 4 different games, with ToCS 1 and 2 already being released in the west, currently no announcement has been made about a western release of 3 or 4, though both are out in Japan. Game 1 follows Rean as he gets to know the fellow members of his military class Class VII. throughout the game Rean and his companions are sent to many different cities throughout the eastern half of the country of Erobonia, one of the main countries of the series’ lore. during the course of these visits, Rean and subsequently the player can learn about customs of a city, what purpose it serves to the overall country, and take on side quests to help better the lives of the people in the cities. Overtime though, the story ramps up and quickly barrels towards the beginnings of a civil war between the Nobility, and the Military. The second game sees the continuations and conclusion of this civil war, as seen through the eyes of Rean and his companions.
ToCS and I imagine many of the games in the series, is a turn based RPG, but the way it handles it’s battle mechanics can often make you forget that. for starters, there are many character from which to draw your main party, though the way the way the first game plays out, you may be forced to use members that you might not otherwise use. Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses, but thanks to the games extensive customization options, you can build however you want. This is done through the quartz system. Quartz has a myriad of uses, not the least of which is serving as the magic system of the series. on top of that Quartz can also provide buffs, or passive debuffs on enemies, as well as being used to inflict a number of different status ailments.
In addition to Quartz, each character comes with their own special skills, which in this case are known as crafts, which is the counterpart of the magics known as arts. Finally, each character has a special skill which can cause a lot of damage when used well, known as S-Breaks.
Their are three gauges to be concerned with: HP, EP, and CP. As you might imagine, HP is pretty self explanatory. EP is used to cast arts, and CP is used in crafts, and S-Breaks. strategic management of these gauges is the key to swift victory.
In addition to these mechanics is a link system, which allows for characters to support one another in battle, different links have different effects. One person might heal you on damage taken, another might restore some EP after the use of an art.
ToCS 2 adds a couple more mechanics to the mix. The overdrive mechanic allows for two linked characters to relentlessly attack an enemy for 3 consecutive turns. In addition to this, all arts can be cast on the same turn, where they would be otherwise delayed, and a significant chunk of health and CP is recovered at the start of overdrive usage. Also added into the mix are Mech battles, which are special boss fights fought in a kind of Rock, Paper, Scissors manner but maybe not how you would think. the trick to the mech battles is to find the right part of the opponents body to attack given whatever stance they may be in.
ToCS 2 also adds a fair bit to mobility, where in the first game you traveled from town to town by train, here, that is done by airship. Overworld mobility is also changed though, story events that take place lead to Rean having a motorcycle at his disposal, and later down the line, horses as well.
The story and characters of ToCS is what drives the series. Even though I found myself wishing for a reprieve by the time I finished my 85 hour playthrough of ToCS 2, when it was all said and done, I was sad to see it end.
An argument can be made that the games are a little over-ambitious for the PSVita, loading times and slowdown are rampant throughout both games, but they never really bothered me. What does bother me though, is that occasionally the Voice work for the game seems unfinished. Not that it’s bad, but in the default game sometimes characters would have voiced dialogue and then other characters in the same seen wouldn’t. it’s inconsistent. I hear the PC versions added a lot to the Voice track though, so perhaps this has already been fixed.
Long story short, I love this series. This was my first entry in any game series done by Falcom, and I plan to continue supporting them as a company. as far as RPG’s go this series is only behind Persona in terms of my personal enjoyment. I would encourage anyone to go out and find a copy of Trails of Cold Steel, I really love it that much.
The series is available on PsVita, PS3, Steam, and will be available on PS4 early 2019 in the west. Hopefully Trails of Cold Steel 3 and 4 are coming west soon.
As soon as these are made available for to play and finish, I will be sure to cover them here.
Update: since the initial writing of this review, Xseed has released the PS4 port of Trails of Cold Steel 1. This version brings the games up to a whole new standard. The game runs faster than it ever could on the Vita. A Turbo mode was added. New voice lines were recorded. overall it is a much better experience. Trails of Cold Steel 2 is set to release on May 28th on PS4 as well.
I have said this 1000 times and I’ll say it once more, Overcooked/Overcooked 2 are the best co-op games you could ever play with your friends.
Overcooked is a game that forces you to communicate under a timed, high stress environment. If you want three stars on your levels (and who wouldn’t) you have to work together to achieve it. One person cannot do all or even most of the work if you want to get that perfect 3 star score. There are levels my friends and I had to play at least 10 times, over and over again, in order to get 3 stars.
That all sounds really technical, but making mistakes is where most of the fun comes from. Accidentally falling off the level your in, setting your whole kitchen on fire and not knowing where the extinguisher is, accidentally throwing away plates of food, etc. I’ve gotten so many laughs out of playing this game.
The gameplay for both games is pretty simple, you press Square to chop and X to do pretty much everything else (picking up food, serving, placing ingredients).
Overcooked 2 is more or less the same game but with different chefs, cooking methods, and meals than the first. For instance, in the DLC for this game you have to use a straight up water gun in order to wash your dishes. It also introduced the ability to play online with your long distance buddies. It is impossible not to have a hell of a good time while playing this game. If you’re looking for a game to play with your friends you should definitely support Ghost Town Games and check this game out. It will not disappoint you at all.
Overcooked/Overcooked 2 is available for PC, PS4, XBOX One, and Nintendo Switch.
The backstory to this game is nothing new. You chase Bowser Jr. all throughout 8 different worlds in order to save Princess Peach.
The gameplay for this game, I wouldn’t say it’s horrible, but it’s not very good. The jumps feel a little laggy and Mario plays very slippery. If you’re running full speed or even just normally, and you try to jump he’ll slide for like half a second before jumping. I’m already bad at platforming so playing in the snow world was absolute hell.
There are star coins hidden away on each level and you can spend 5 coins on special toad houses, which will give you extra lives or a power up depending on which color house you go into, or on alternate routes in each world map. You can also just skip trying to find these coins and progress the story in a much faster way and I wouldn’t even blame you if you wanted to go that route.
The boss battles with Bowser Jr. are all pretty easy, sometimes he’ll bring in one of his friends to do the battle for him. Id even go as far as to say that the actual platforming is harder than the boss battles and that’s mainly to do with the shitty mechanics of actually playing each level.
Also! This game has a 2 player setting that I’m sure works over remote play. So if you really want to have a horrible time, you can grab a friend and play co-op platforming!
This slippery ass game is available exclusively for the Nintendo DS
Little Dragons Cafe follows the story of two siblings who have to run a cafe after their mom gets sick. A strange wizard looking guy pops into the cafe and tells them that they have to raise a dragon in order to wake their mom up (a plot that makes no sense to me but ok.) So you have this dragon and you’re now running a cafe, as you progress the story you meet wacky characters that will come and help you.
The game can be overwhelming at times because the “open world” is actually kind of big! I felt myself feeling rushed or lost when I was trying to comb through the world to find new recipies and ingredients but also at the same time trying to make it back to the cafe during rush hours so I can help out and improve my cafe’s reputation.
The cooking element in this game is rhythm based, how well the dish tastes depends on your timing with the music. Also certain dishes have colors associated with them so you can feed them to your dragon to change its colors!
The game still feels like it needs to be fleshed out. I’m playing on the Switch and sometimes it lags or chugs along when I’m running in the open world, other times it’s hard to manuever my character certain ways when I’m trying to serve a dish or clean up after a customer. The art style (also the story and the music) is what keeps me coming back for more. I’ve never seen anything like it, it’s so cute, it looks like someone colored it in with pencil.
This game is akin to Harvest Moon in the sense that it leaning more towards the simulation side of things but it also has a story that you need to progress.
Overall, I’m enjoying this game a lot. It’s nice to kick back once in a while and play a simple game with loveable characters and great music.
Little Dragons Cafe is available on the Nintendo Switch and the PS4.
Danganronpa is a series, and that’s really all I feel comfortable saying about it’s continuity. Danganronpa came west on the PlayStation Vita, but started it’s life in the east on the PlayStation Portable (PSP). This series is one that I got into completely on accident. It started with “hey let’s watch this anime based on this game” and ended somewhere with a loud cry because I HAD TO WATCH MY FAVORITE CHARACTER DIE TWICE!!!.
I should make it clear that I really want to talk about Danganronpa Trigger Happy Havoc through the Danganronpa 3 anime. Simply put, Danganronpa V3 is too far out of the way to really mention here. Further, it would be best not to talk to much about the story, because even though this game is relatively old now, it’s story is really all it has going for it.
The Danganronpa series is a visual novel whodunnit series, where the characters involved are trapped against their will and forced to play a game that involves killing each other in whatever cruel or unusual, and sometimes ironic way they can think of. The catch being that should the person who did the killing be found out, they would be killed themselves.
Though Danganronpa could rightfully be called out for being a clone of the already existing Ace Attorney series, it does things in a way that are altogether different than that of its predecessor. Where Danganronpa shines is its trial segments. the bits where the entire group must come together and figure out who among them is the culprit, and should they fail, the culprit lives, and the rest die. The trials take place through a series of minigames speckled with logic puzzles. Coming to the proper conclusion is only the start of the problem, actually being able to reach it becomes another mater entirely. The player will be asked to do things like shoot evidence at other people’s statements, surf through a tube and try to get the correct answers to various questions, or perform a rhythm game. Truly there is never a dull moment in the course of these trials.
During the bits where people aren’t murdering each other, the series takes a more Persona tone. Players are allowed to explore the spaces they are in, and talk to other characters to learn more about them, and become attached to them right before the game KILLS THEM. There are some serious issues to work through here.
The series story is full of twists so outrageous that even the characters in game can’t believe that it is the reality they are living in. Honestly though the story is best enjoyed with no prior knowledge of the plot, so I guess this synopsis is over.
Real quick I would like to mention the Danganronpa 3 anime. I still don’t quite understand why the conclusion to the series was handled this way, but alas, closure comes in a different form of media. The anime takes place in two arcs that are meant to be watched simultaneously. This led to some pretty stupid revelations involving the release of the sets on home video. How am I meant to watch these, do I need to set up two Blu-Ray players and just switch between them? this was dumb. Anyway, the two arcs are the Despair arc and the Future arc. The former shows events that take place prior to the events of the first game, and honestly led to some stomach churning moments when I was watching it, because I knew what was coming next. The Latter, takes places after the events of the second game, and brings the continuity to a close.
That’s all there is to say really. I mean I guess there’s Ultra Despair Girls, but would you look at that, I’m out of time.
for those interested:
Danganronpa Trigger Happy Havoc is available on PSP, PSVita, PS4, Mobile devices, and Steam
Danganronpa Ultra Despair Girls is not worth playing
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is available on PSP, PSVita, PS4, and Steam
Danganronpa 3 was licensed by Funimation and is available on their website, or through their streaming service FunimationNow
Lets talk about Spider-Man for the PS4. (Spoilers ahead.)
Last night I finished my play through of Spider-Man by Insomniac and boy was I SAD. This game is amazing, spectacular even!
A short synopsis: The game opens up with Spider-Man tracking and eventually fighting Fisk and putting him into jail opens up an entire worldwind of adventure. We meet Aunt May and Li running a sort of food bank/shelter type thing. Eventually we find out that Li is Mr. Negative and he’s running this whole side operation trying to steal a biological serum from Osborn. The Sinister Six breaks out of prison, you’ll end up fighting them as well as Mr. Negative, and the mastermind of this entire operation, Doc Oc himself. All in the middle of that there are stealth story pieces in which you play as MJ or Miles.
The story for this game is short but there’s tons of side story stuff to do as well as secret side bosses (Taskmaster, Tombstone, Shocker). You also have to fight Silver Sable’s minions as they terrorize New Yorkers for no reason. There’s also Fisk’s bases that you can complete, normal crimes from thugs, as well as Demon bases which are Li’s minions.
The gameplay for this game is stunning. Spidey is QUICK something you should expect for such a nimble character and the banter that he throws at the enemies is hilarious once again, something you should expect from his character. His spidey sense goes off and that tells you when to doge, something that’s incredibly helpful. There are also stealth challenges that I really didn’t mind! I normally hate stealth portions of games because that’s just not how I tend to play but stealth as spidey is incredibly fun. I loved perching above my targets and seeing different ways I could swoop up an enemy with my web. Traveling through the city is almost as fun as the playing the game itself. I found myself swinging through Manhattan just for no reason. The city looks great and when you hold down R2 it gives you a continuous flow of running and web swinging, all of that meaning that you never really run into a wall, like your flow of motion is never stopped for any reason which I LOVED. Anyone can enjoy this game, the boss battles are too terribly difficult either.
There were multiple points during my play through where I was just walking around on the streets and there’s tons of stuff to look at from store fronts to look at but there’s individually designed graffiti on the walls! Not only did the city look great but everyone looked great as well! I loved the designs for every character and every Spidey suit. You can literally see pores on people’s faces as well as water dripping down someone’s body when it rains. The cinematics of the cutscenes are dramatic and powerful. This truly is a great looking game.
After finishing this game yesterday I found myself sitting at the edge of my bed in complete awe. Just wow. This was a great game and I cannot wait for future installments.
Spider-Man is available exclusively for the PS4 and I highly recommend you get a copy if you haven’t already.
Ever since I was young, I have played and adored the Harvest Moon series. My first game was the N64 title, which I did not know at the time was a watered down version of the PlayStation game Harvest Moon: Back to Nature.
For those unfamiliar with Harvest Moon as a series, it comes to us from Japanese game developer Marvelous AQL under the title Bokujou Monogatari, which apparently translates roughly to “Farm Story”. The series was localized in the west by Natsume for many years, up until around the early 2010′s, under the name Harvest Moon. Its history however dates all the way back to the original Gameboy.
For reasons best left unsaid here, Natsume and Marvelous AQL no longer work together, and the two most recent games in the series have been localized under the title Story of Seasons. While Natsume holds the rights to the title Harvest Moon, the games that they have been publishing under that tittle are decidedly not those of the original series.
Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons is a simple game. In each game a set of circumstances, usually involving the passing of a relative, leads the player character to owning and maintaining a rundown farm. Over the course of the game, they must work to rebuild the farm, and make it prosper. That is not all they do however, there is fishing, mining, socializing, various festivals to attend, and in most cases but not all, the player is free to pursue a romantic interest with eligible candidates in each game.
This is the way the series lived for many years, rarely deviating from its formula. Sometimes games will have different mechanics to mess with, but it generally does not impact the overall Bokujou Monogatari formula.
It’s important to explain what Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons/Bokujou Monogatari is because much of what makes Rune Factory what it is is derived from that formula. The very first title in the series on the DS was titled Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon.
What sets Rune Factory apart, and what helped make it its own series is a set of RPG elements that were added to the games. While Harvest Moon has always had a story, it was never the main focus of the game. It was more like something that happened in the background while the game was playing. Rune Factory on the other hand sets clear goals in the path for the player to work toward. Though the player can choose to ignore these goals, they won’t make any significant progress unless they eventually meet them. The series also adds stats which level up as certain actions happen. The stats can get a little ridiculous in some games, like there’s a stat for bathing.
The series uses simplistic Action RPG elements mixed with dungeon crawling. For pretty much anything that you need, you can craft with the right amount of materials and stats. Weapons, food, tools, clothes, and accessories are all things that must be crafted
One of the big drawbacks to the games is the stamina meter. Every action taken takes away from the stamina meter, be it watering crops, fishing, or fighting. In the earlier games this was a huge problem, because there was no way to expand the stamina bar. Later games fix this by attaching the stamina bar to stat changes. Pretty much any stat change added to the stamina meter in addition to enhancing whatever attribute the stats had.
My first Rune Factory game was Tides of Destiny, known as Rune Factory Oceans in other regions.
I wouldn’t recommend this game to newcomers simply because Marvelous streamlined the more Harvest Moon like elements in order to showcase the RPG side of the games. While there is nothing wrong with that, it does make the game unlike any other game in the series.
As of the time of writing this, the last game in the series was Rune Factory 4.
Rune Factory 4 is perhaps the most successful game in the series, and my personal favorite not only in the series, but also my favorite 3DS game. It holds a place in my Top Ten games of all time, which is maybe something I will write about in the future. It is unfortunate that the company behind the series closed its doors some time ago. While many of its people got absorbed back into Marvelous, there hasn’t been an announcement about a possible new game in the Rune Factory series in years. I will remain optimistic though. I also can’t recommend this series enough both for people who like RPG’s, or chill farm social sims, Rune Factory is a series that is close to my heart.
Rune Factory 1 is available on the Nintendo DS
Rune Factory 2 is also available on the Nintendo DS
Rune Factory 3 is available on the Nintendo DS
Rune Factory Frontier is available on the Nintendo Wii
Rune Factory Tides of Destiny/Oceans is available on Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3
Rune Factory 4 is available on the Nintendo 3DS
If you have or still have any of these systems, go check out the series
If you haven’t heard already, Sony is stopping the Playstation 2 repair service after 18 long and wonderful years. I’ll leave a link at the end of this post if anyone wants to check it out.
The Playstation 2 debuted in 2000 and it was the beginning of a weird and beautiful era. It pulled in over 250 Million the first day and was able to play DVDs, something that was mind blowing. We saw great games like Soul Calibur 2, Kingdom Hearts 2, Katamari Damacy, Jak and Daxter, Final Fantasy X, Ratchet and Clank, God of War 2, and the list can go, and does go, on and on. Everyone wanted to make games for it, we saw games based off of tv shows like Friends to games based off of historical events like the Civil War. That is W.I.L.D. Anyone could literally find a game to play on that console no matter the gaming experience, no matter what type of game you liked.
My experience with the PS2 is very limited even so, I can still say, personally, it is probably one of the most memorable and best consoles to date.
The game I played the most growing up was Gitaroo Man and Marvel vs Capcom 2, two games that I absolutely love and cherish to this date, and to be honest, I can’t even begin to tell you why. It’s probably because the Playstation 2 gave me some of the best memories, sitting on the floor of the living room playing MvC2 with my brother into the wee hours of the night. It was truly a family console in my house. The type of relationship I have with my brother today, I owe it to that console.
Let me know what your favorite game for the PS2 is, I’d love to hear it!
Ni No Kuni 2, unlike the title, is not a follow up from the first game, thankfully, because I have never played the first game.
The story is about the president, Roland, of a world that you and I would be more familiar with being transported to a wonderful, vibrant, fantastical world where animals can talk and magic exists. He ends up in a kingdom called Ding Dong Dell which is in the midst of a mouse-like revolution! Mouse-folk want to overthrow the cat-like inhabitants because they feel like they aren’t being treated fairly. Roland meets a small boy, Evan, who is to be crowned king of Ding Dong Dell because his father has passed away. In order to become a ruler of a kingdom you basically have to have a ‘Kingsmaker’. Evan’s kingmaker was stolen and that’s how he was overthrown, thats the short of it anyways. He escapes with the help of Roland and that is where our adventure starts.
We travel all over the place, meeting sky pirates, fish folk, dog folk, you name it! Evan decides that he wants to form his own kingdom and rid the world of war and bring prosperity across each and every land, ambitious for a little boy, I know. So, he goes through a series of tests so that he can get a new kingsmaker. He gets his new kingsmaker and it’s this tiny little gumdrop boi but boy does he get better as the story progresses. Evan forms his kingdom called Evermore. Since he wants to unite all of the surrounding lands, we travel with Evan and we get to experience different kingdoms and learn about their culture. We also run into our main antagonist of the story who is trying to steal the kingsmakers from every leader so that he can bring back his mysterious land that was lost long ago. (I won’t go much into detail here for spoiler’s sake.)
Ni No Kuni II plays as an action RPG and there are many things to do in terms of strengthening your character. The main thing that I didn’t really care for is the ‘mobile game’ part of the game. What I mean when I say that is there’s a part of the game where you have to literally build Evermore, if you’ve ever seen those mobile games on the App Store where you have a city or a like barren land and you have to get people and certain elements to build your buildings and shops and stuff, yeah that. I didn’t really care for that and the game pretty much forces you to take part in it. I also didn’t really like the chibi-like design of the battles that you had to do in order to protect your kingdom from being attacked. This game looks so amazing and I felt like that made the game look ugly.
The gameplay is really nice, smooth even. You can have 4 party members and they each do their own special thing. You can also get help from little creatures called Higgledies. They can assist you in battle with healing you or helping you do damage to the bosses or enemies. You can also switch main party members while you’re in battle at the drop of a hat which is really nice if you’re trying to get out of a tight spot. I know I mentioned it before but I really have to say it again, this game looks damn good. It’s an homage to a Ghibli art style, it’s just really nice to look at. During my playthrough I found that the game was a little short, and I even did pretty much all of the quests (though I didn’t really take the time to level up my kingdom like that, just did the bare minimum.) I clocked in at around 40 hours and that’s pretty much thanks to level grinding. Don’t be surprised if you finish it in a mere 35 hours.
Overcast Games 