June 2021
No, you defeated me. Which means you now command me. Pillage my shelves as you please - Bloodstained Ritual of the Night
Your eyes are not a sin || You know…when I was young. I…I hated my eyes. And now that I’m older, I hate what my body has become. But there’s something else there now. Something like…pride - Nier Replicant
So… apparently June was just a really rough month overall. My living situation at the time was extremely stressful and fed up, I needed to figure out where my next move was going to be (among other stressors), and I just generally had a frustrating gaming experience for most of the games I beaten. Writing this now and all of the reviews, I am simply glad that all of that is past and over… for now. In addition, I’m almost caught up with my updates! \o/ Well, no time like the present.
Top Games this month:
Mushroom 11 - Unsuspectingly great Indie game.
The Henry Stickmin Collection - Really great for needing something to just sit back and laugh.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - A beautiful and fun metroidvania.
KOF 98: Ultimate Final Match Edition - Superb fighting game with smooth graphics.
Fond memories of this on release with late nights and spookiness afoot. Unfortunately, the nostalgia could not last as things were clearly not as I remembered. Specifically, the shotgun. I remember the shotgun being much better back on Xbox. Even though I could not find proof, it seems like the BFG version increased the spread and reduced the damage like crazy. My run was also ruined by an unrealized visual issue in the settings. This may or may not have caused other visual/buggy issues such as flashlights having visual cones, weird inaccurate laser pointers instead of reticles, and floating weapons/t-posing enemies. That being that all the computer screens that you could interact with were fuzz (until an occasional restart would temporarily fix the issue) until I realized some quad visual effect was left on. With that being said, the fact that the BFG edition finally allowed a futuristic Mars military person some duct tape to put a flashlight on their gun instead of having to swap between either while demons hunt you in the dark.
Just a quick synopsis, you are a Doom Marine (different than original DOOM guy, I think) sent to the outpost on Mars when things go haywire and demons invade. This isn’t like your father’s Doom as it isn’t fast paced action nearly as much as it is a horror filled with closet zombies and jump-scares. Figure out the mystery and maybe get off of Mars. BFG also includes two DLCs that I never had a chance of playing until now. Other than the lack of decent firepower, the game plays pretty decently with spooky atmosphere.
Onto the DLC, honestly it was pretty underwhelming. Both tried their best to incorporate popular mechanics and replace current mechanics. Resurrection of Evil, brought on the Double-Barreled Shotgun which is a much needed replacement to the regular shotgun but still not nearly as effective, The artifact which gives the player the slow-mo ability from FEAR, and the Grabber Gun which is just the gravity gun from Half-Life 2. So, now that we are past ID/Bethesda ripping off other popular game’s mechanics, we do get to slightly better parts of the DLC. Lost Souls are now skinned like classic Lost Souls, and the bosses are a bit more gimmick based instead of a Bullet Sponge. So, although not the greatest, still a nice change of pace.
Lost Missions was pretty mediocre as it reuses content, weapons, and enemies from both RoE and Doom 3. Until the last level, I was pretty psyched to just get the game over with.
Lewd? Nope
Recommend? For the most part, yes. It may not be the fast paced game most DOOM players (old and new) love, but the change to a more horror was still enjoyable.
This was a little bit of a hidden gem amongst the sea of games (more importantly indie games) I have amassed. You control a mass of cells in what appears to be a most apocalyptic world. Using your MS Paint god eraser, you destroy some of the mass so that it regenerates in a way that you can move around using the weight, grow around objects for grip, attack/consume enemies, or split your mass in half to conquer more complex puzzles. The majority of this game is traversal and puzzles all the while making sure you don’t completely lose all your mass. So long as you have even one cell remaining on the ground, you can regenerate your mass back almost instantly back to the base mass.
The physics of this game is very well done and the puzzles (for the most part) are challenging without being obtuse with the exception of the damned key puzzle. Once you conquer the fairly simple concept of destruction and regeneration you are fairly set to go through the rest of the game with that same skill level and only needing to learn to apply it as you go. There are some enemies that can burn your cells away, and hazards such as acid that can cause you to melt away. Bosses are fairly enjoyable, and you will always know when to expect them. Narratively, it’s a bit vague as there is no text/voice to relay the story, but instead you must look at your surroundings and the ending to surmise how the world came to be and what role you play.
Recommend? Yes, very much so. This game was such an enjoyable surprise and could see myself picking it up again.
This was my first Nier game (despite owning Automata for several years) and I was a little underwhelmed. I knew it was a hack-and-slash w/ bullet hell quality but I expected the combat to be a bit more… interesting. Something closer to Devil May Cry. Instead, it was very plain and limited such as Dynasty Warrior, but with some bullet hell sprinkled in. You eventually get 4 weapon types. Each of which will have varied stats and weights. Despite the weight, most moves seemed to swing at the same speed and all weapons within the weapon types have the same move sets. You will also get magic abilities that your floating talking book help you cast that you can equip two at a time, though they use the same mana bar, which can be charged for additional damage/effects. Though I would argue only a select few are usable in most scenarios.
Each weapon can be upgraded by collecting items and bringing them to a shop. This not only buffs the stats, but also gives another entry in that weapons stories as well as gets you closer to unlocking the true ending.
In addition to all of this, enemies will randomly drop words that you can equip to your magic/weapons/defend/dodge. They don’t give you more abilities, but rather can buff your attacks, drop rates, etc. at varying percentages. It’s very important to know that these will drop randomly and in any order (I’ve had a 30% magic attack drop well before I ever got the 10% magic drop). Enemies themselves are not very interesting. They are known as shades and appear as dark silhouettes with a random gold shine that moves across their body. Most are human shaped, but there are others that take the form of animals. Now, they are not the only enemies, you have your robots and various wild animals, but these are the most prolific. In addition, RANDOM shade bosses can appear which are either for quests or better chance at drops. I put an emphasis on random because even side quests that list the boss can be exceptionally random (I’ll dive more into this later).
The story takes places several something thousand years after one of the Drakengard games and serves as a spin off. You play as a doting older brother who looks after his sick, but sweet younger sister. Your quest is to take on odd jobs to get by and look for the uncurable disease of the black verse that your younger sister is sick with. This eventually leads you to your talking cohort Weiss, the grimoire which you must unlock verses to hopefully cure your sister. You encounter and gain a weird entourage as you venture outside your village into different areas. This being a Yoko Taro game, this means the first time you beat the game is not the true ending, but in fact 1 of 5(?) endings each requiring meticulous grinding and specific requirements to get to the next ending. This means you will end up replaying the game several times over (new game plus rules).
The good: This game is actually a remake of Nier/Nier Gestalt and it looks absolutely great. The scenery, models, effects, everything looks beautiful. Not only that, but all of the new voices sound help create believable characters and dialogue. The idle dialogue (dialogue between/during/after missions) is generally enjoyable as each character interacts with each other. On the other hand you get fairly repetitive interactions. It’s not the same exact wording, but perhaps overkill on the relationships. (Weiss calling Kaine a hussy, and her retorting how she will destroy Weiss happens a little too much.) The story is fairly decent, though nothing amazing. Though I haven’t completed every ending as of yet, so who knows I guess. You can kind of figure out the secret of the game early on and is almost frustrating that the characters don’t realize it sooner.
The bad: The combat is fairly lackluster as it is both repetitive and limited. Most bosses give little to no excitement. Only a few bosses were generally enjoyable. The amount of RNG in this game is almost criminal. Almost everything in the game is a random drop with ridiculously low percentages WHICH INCLUDE TUTORIALS. I don’t think I ever received fishing tutorial 2 until I almost finished the game. These RNG situations include enemies and bosses which are related to side quests. For example, there is a shade that only appears in a certain area when it is cloudy and even then it is only a CHANCE! So, you have to keep running in and out of the area looking for cloudy skies. Then once cloudy, you have to hope HOPE that the enemy spawns. If not, you keep doing the process. It took like half an hour at least to do this quest.
Back to tutorials. This game explains just about nothing. Not how gardening works, which by the way uses real time to garden (i.e. flowers take a full real day from planting to bloom, and then another full day to produce seeds. This gets ridiculous when you try to crossbreed flowers (again happens for a side quest and achievements) when you have to wait two full days to see if the crossbreed was effective. If not, replant and potentially spend literal weeks to do botany). This includes other things the game doesn’t’ tell you (literally anywhere) anything (where to catch certain fish, what expensive bait is required for said fish, even if the right bait is used it is only a chance you will get it so good luck with no knowledge and trial/error), including that there are true endings and how to get said endings (all of which can only be gotten once you do your first playthrough).
Despite being a remake, they did almost no quality of life improvements. Planting is far more manual than it needs to be, getting to certain areas can be a pain, almost no ways to track materials needed for upgrades or what enemies drop them, every quest must be found where the quest giver stands. Even though you can get a notification that a quest exists somewhere from your village tavern, you can only pick one of these up at a time. This can also cause other quests to temporarily disappear. Grinding is insane as drop rates are incredibly low for simple upgrades and enemies do not always spawn nor in the numbers to make a worthy grind run. Side quests give you 0 xp for completing them. Instead they give you money, which (unless you wanted to do the ridiculous grind) you probably spent trying to buy the materials (if able at all) because the enemies would just not drop them after an hour or more of gameplay. The game has difficulties which you can change at any time. It largely affects health and damage on both ends while Hard also increases drop rates. I also wish to mention I was on Hard mode the entire game and still rarely got the drops I needed for even the most basic quests.
Lewd? See Kaine. Other than that, not really.
Recommend? This is difficult. Though I did generally enjoy the game (I’m a glutton for punishment), there are a lot of negatives to this game. Largely the grind (I enjoy MMOs and still this grind was too much), the lack of knowledge the game tells you, and the generally lackluster combat all make this a miss. So… maybe… maybe at a discount and you care more for the story than anything else. This game is a completion nightmare, that is for sure. (but I crossbreed flowers to get that %1 flower, and fished all the fishies, so eventually I will return to get the final few endings.)
Oh look, another disappointing game. I’ve probably had the Painkiller series in my library for quite some time. Every time I would cross it I would think, “This looks interesting like another badass Doom type game with demons and action.” Though that was somewhat true, the execution was terrible. For a moment, I kind of appreciated the awkwardness of the game with the weird visual designs, the debris that would get in your way in mass, and the ragdoll enemies that would block your shots. Yet, it only got worse. Level designs grew atrocious, and worst of all… the bosses were too gimmicky. Before we get there, let me explain the game more. You are stuck in limbo trying to get into heaven with the help of an angel. You fight Satan’s generals as your mission to redemption. This game plays similar to Doom, Quake, and Serious Sam though closer to SS as you deal with hordes of enemies in single areas rather than as you explore. You build your arsenal with some unique weapons that all have a secondary fire. Visual designs are kind of goofy looking, particularly with the enemies. This is all generally all well and good, now onto the bad.
The bad. The game features a lot of destructible environments. The debris from said environment stays, and can get in your way. FREQUENTLY! So much so that I would get trapped in said debris during crucial moments. The map designs were insanely subpar to terrible. Finally, the worst part of the game, the bosses. Though it is fine to have some gimmicks for bosses in an FPS (you gotta do more than just shoot an enemy to death), but these enemies were pure gimmick. Some gimmicks of which are extremely stupid. For instance, there is a boss fight where you HAVE to take fall damage. Repeatedly, forced damage. Each fall can be reduced slightly if you land on the right way, which you won’t have anyway of knowing without doing the mission a bunch. The last fall is three times as high as the other three and can kill you instantly if you don’t figure out the secret way to live with like… 2 health. It’s so incredibly dumb and unenjoyable. There’s also a boss in the DLC that you have to get hit in order to activate the damage gimmick. On top of that along with a bunch of glitches and bugs makes this such a great let down for an arena shooter.
Lewd? Nope.
Recommend? Nooooooooope. Absolutely not. Repetitive forced damage for bosses is incredibly stupid and I cannot wait to be done with the series.
A game so bad that it is no longer on the Steam store. This rogue-lite does something interesting.. interestingly dumb. So, it more acts like a side scrolling platformer w/ room similar to Binding of Isaac. The only issue is that most enemies float or fly. This means you have to jump to do most of your attacks… which you can only jump like… once and most characters only have melee… plus you don’t get that great of abilities…. So yeah. Again, any spoils of war are generally unrewarding, you receive almost no gold to do shops, and the bosses are so incredibly generic and simple that there is no worth to this game.
Lewd? Nope
Recommend? Even if you could get this game, I do not recommend in the slightest. The design choice to make this a platform side scroller with a mostly melee cast makes no sense.
This game is originally an arcade game based of the Dragon Ball Heroes show which is kind of a bad fanfic of Dragonball that you can’t stop watching. The plus is that everything from all movies and most games is now canon in this universe. It allows for fights between characters that would never happen, further power level increases and transformations, and new OC characters.
Now onto the actual game. It takes Dragon Ball Heroes and turns it into a card game that your main character plays. Until that is… distortions in your world happen and you can transfer between worlds like Digimon (more Digimon Frontier as you transform into an OC class of your choosing). This game is gacha based so you collect multiple versions of the same, but very diverse characters to get different rarities, stats, and skills. Create a team of characters that synergize and battle them against the enemy.
The actual gameplay is overly simple. Set how much energy each character will use and then do a quick time event (it’s a power bar that raises and falls at a fast rate, landing on a number when you press the button) for each attack and defend to land a greater number than your opponent. The real thrill of the game is being able to land Super attacks, Special abilities, Ultimates, etc. which are very flashy, have their own little mini game to activate and are just generally enjoyable to experience. As you win battles, you gain items and tickets to roll more gacha to get more characters and create/improve teams. At no point can you pay actual money to buy characters/tickets.
Despite having a huge cast of characters and abilities, late game you will see the enemy have a lot of the same abilities over and over which makes an already repetitive game even more so. There is also a lot of it. Somewhere around 5 main chapters all with their own sub chapters and a gameboard filled with fights for each one. This isn’t even mentioning the side stories you can do (some of which require you to have certain characters before unlocking).
Lewd? No?
Recommend? I would say only to hardcore fans of DragonBall series as a whole and don’t mind repetitiveness. Otherwise seeing iconic characters fight each other using crazy combos and moves, dealing ever higher numbers is exciting… in moderation.
One of the few fighters I have somehow missed, I decided to pick up the KOF series. This game has an incredibly large roster that makes sense for a game that pushes team battles as it’s main format. Overall, this is a fairly typical 2D pixel fighter as most abilities will rely on quarter circles, dragon punches, etc. Considering it’s format the game both looks and plays quite well. That being said, some of the moves were a little hard to pull off and can only imagine newer players having even more difficulty especially with how difficult the AI generally was. This is especially true with the final boss who just absolutely destroyed me until I found an exploit.
Lewd? Some characters can be a little… reveal (looking at you Mai), but otherwise no.
Favorite Character: Benimaru Nikaido
Recommend? Especially to any fan of fighters this game does not disappoint. I’m very looking forward to checking out more in the series if they play and look just as well as this.
I had always assumed this was similar to the salt mixture of %100 Orange Juice but was somewhat pleasantly surprised this was actually a turn based RPG. The cast of character of original OJ are all here and you can collect them in card form. Use them to fight each opponent to unlock the mystery of the world singularity and collect more people from across the worlds.
The game uses a bit of a rock paper scissors system with the abilities and cards as there are three types and each following one is the others weakness. This creates a necessity to collect a variety of cards along with leveling up and getting the best rarity for each situation. There is also a great deal of story in this and might be the better way to getting to know the lore of OJ instead of losing a dice roll against a seagull during the OJ episodes. Though the lore in this is skewed, so much so that several walls including the 4th are broken but creates a pretty accurate depiction of what each character present is like.
Lewd? Nope
Recommend? Generally, yes. There is some grinding, but not terribly. That being said, the final fights can be ridiculous and not only require a premium team but focused strategy and some luck.
Ah, returning to one of my top game genres, Metroidvanias. This, truly a love letter to Symphony of the Night, is a well done entry to the genre. You play as a fashionable French woman that is a Shardbinder who takes demon shards into her body in order to use their abilities (wether it is active, passive, buff, or summon). After being in a coma for so long you wake to find an imminent threat looming over the world as a once allied Shardbinder turns his back to the world and tries to summon a great evil (promise it is not Dracula). Each enemy you defeat has a chance to drop a shard which you can absorb to gain new abilities or improve already owned shards.
As you venture you will have to platform, fight bosses/enemies, learn new abilities to help traversal, and even help a few characters along the way (and maybe even enjoy some new food). You can customize the main character to some degree (hair, accessories, sometimes the suit) as well as change between a variety of weapons all of which have their own move sets and unlockable moves depending on the weapons name. There is a lot of just generally cool enemies, abilities, levels, and secrets in this game. This also includes call backs to the Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon game including characters, enemies, and bosses.
The 2.5 D art is a little weird at times, but overall is stunning. Progressing the story can be confusing at times, not just in a sense of the metroidvania issue of figuring out where to go, but sometimes some progression is not as it seems (to avoid potential spoilers). You can craft food to increase stats upon first time consumption and gain health in the place for potions. Getting some drops for material/ingredients/shards can be a little much, but not nearly as bad as most games could be.
Lewd? No?
Recommend? Very much yes. Absolutely enjoyable to the very end, the main character is cute and fairly likeable, and just has generally great level/enemy design.
DOOM 64
Despite having never played this game before and rarely seeing any other shooter like this on the N64 (at best I saw a small amount of Turok) I felt really nostalgic diving into this. Something about a 3D arena shooter on the N64 just feels homely. Well, this game takes a well received series and gives it the ol’ 3D polygon touch. Suddenly hallways feel more hallway-y and demons actually seem a little more frightful. The general gameplay is still the same, rip and tear/shoot through a demonic horde as you make your way through various levels. This is a sequel to DOOM II and thus has all the same enemies and weapons with the exception of an additional unholy weapon that we also see a variation of in Eternal. All of the redesigns of the weapons and enemies look great. Each having additional sprite effects. My only issue with some of the redesigns were more audio based where it sounded like Imps had the Lost Souls sound clip from Doom II (or something like this) and thus caused me inaccurate assumptions about what was attacking me. Sounds past that sound great. Level designs could be confusing at times, but for the most part seemed unique from one another and decently created. The final boss was kind of a bit much to fight, but at least was not another variation of the Icon of Sin in Doom II (and the other Doom II expansions).
Lewd? Nope
Recommend? Yes, very enjoyable and very DOOM. I was quite pleased I was able to receive this for free for getting Doom Eternal on release.
A quick little spin off of the SS series. Instead of the usual arena shooter, it is a turn based RPG that requires strategy in using the right weapon for the mass horde job. You’ll gain allies and have to aim the weapons as once you complete your turn, a timed action will happen where your character will shoot in the specific direction for a time in hopes that you are able to destroy the horde that chases after you. The game is incredibly short, but has the heart of SS in there.
Lewd? Nope
Recommend? Meh, it’s mostly just okay, but a decent little game none the less.
So… this month was a bit rough. A lot of the games I was playing were not helping as they were putting some strain on me. Thus, I broke my no buy games rule to buy a game that I had a pretty good idea could make me laugh… and I was so right. The Henry Stickmin Collections is several episodes anthology that remasters of flash games released on Newgrounds, originally. Each episode focuses on Henry as he tries to complete an objective that is usually quite self-profitable. As the episode progress, Henry will have to decide to use one of many gadgets or decisions to progress. Now this game is far more about failing than winning. Each failure to pick the right tool for the job often ends up in a humorous situation, reference to a popular media, and/or failure text. Even after watching a little bit of a let’s play of this game I was still able to laugh at some of the ridiculous outcomes. Add in some secrets and this game really is just a lot more than one would think. The best part is that the final episode actually allows you to combine previous endings for a last hurrah and pretty diverse multi-path story.
Lewd? Use Diversion, Call Charles, Dance Battle, Teleportation Remote (no not lewd)
Recommend? Absolutely, since this game doesn’t rely on crazy gameplay it really can be for anyone who wants to just experience and laugh. Getting all of the endings, secrets, and failures gives this game a lot of replay ability and gameplay in general and so is worth every penny.