I'm a big fan of SRPGs/TRPGs. There's just something about seeing my team of characters grow in strength through the game, combined with the tactical gameplay. Be it Fire Emblem or Jagged Alliance, this is just a type of game that really appeals to me.

Sadly Children of Zodiarcs does not quite live up to its potential. It's close to being great, but it misses the landing. In Children of Zodiarcs you've got a small band of heroes who need to fight their way through a hostile city. They level up, get more powerful and as they do so, they get access to more abilities. And this is a rather interesting part of the game. Each ability is represented by a card, and you're allowed to make a deck of cards that you bring with you into battle, and then you randomly draw abilities from this deck. You also roll dice, and you get to assign dice between battles, with different dice having different numbers of each symbol on them, so the trick is to find dice that are likely to roll the number of symbols that work well with the cards you bring. Some symbols only trigger effects on cards, so getting 5 stars would be a waste if a card only needs 2 to trigger its effect, and some deal direct damage, so rolling more of them is always better. The dice rolling also "feels" really good. It's hard to describe, but it has a very nice almost tactile feel to it.

Sadly where the game falters are on the levels themselves. Basically they don't feel very varied, and you're not given a lot of interesting tactical options. I think a large part of this can be attributed to the fact that you've only got 3 characters. I think having 5 would have opened up more interesting tactical options. And because of this, Children of Zodiarcs is a mild disappointment. It's so close to being something I would highly recommend, but it's not.

Falcom is a Japanese developer responsible for the Ys series. For a long time I thought I was a fan of Falcom's games, but it's becoming more and more apparent that it's not Falcom that I like, it's just Ys.

Gurumin feels like a Ys-light game, and sadly not in a good way. You're playing a small girl with a drill, who battles enemies in order to save her monster friends. Combat do remind me of the PSP-era Ys games, but it feels a bit slower, and clunkier, and on top of that, this is a game where you can get stun-locked (or rather juggled) by enemies. It's the game that prompted me to make a post about it. The games biggest drawback though is the levels. You know how in Elder Scrolls games the dungeons are made up out of pre-made pieces just stitched together in different ways? (This is at its most obvious in Oblivion). This game does that as well, each region has a few levels made out of repeating peaces like this. When I was plying the second real level, after the tutorial was over, I did for a moment think that I was playing the first level, but in reverse, it's just that obvious. So this is not really a great game.

The Ys series is a long-running franchise, that's getting really convoluted. Which game is what in the numbered series? Why are there more than one game with the same number? Why are some games not numbered? Why are they released out of order? Yes, it's a mess.

Ys is an action/RPG series with really fast-paced combat. The first 2 had this weird "bump" combat that some people hate (I don't, but it does take some getting used to), and the games can have small grind walls at times (this is in large due to how damage is calculated. It's simple, Attackers attack - Defenders defense = damage. But if your attack is 11 and the enemy has a defense of 11 you'll deal 0 damage, if you go up 1 attack you'll deal 1 damage, 2 attack and you'll deal 2 damage (so doubling the damage!). This means that just rushing through the games can result in you hitting a brick wall, where you just can't damage the enemies enough for it to be realistic for you to take them down.

And this was what happened to me in 2017, when I started this. I hit a small grind wall, and then told myself that I'll beat the game once I'm in the mood for taking on this. Fast forward to 2019 and I finally got around to doing it!
Apart from the small grind walls, this game is really fun to play. I do enjoy the very fast paced combat and the interesting boss battles. This game was a little bit weaker than Ys: The Oath in Felghana (which is a remake of Ys 3), but still fun. Fans of action RPGs should check it out.

Don't know if they actually say Form Voltron in the TV series, it's not one I watched… But it seems like something they would say!

Supercharged Robot VULKAISER is basically a love-letter to children's mech anime of the 70's & 80's. I'm sure there's a name for that, but I've never really been into anime, nor mechs, so I don't honestly know. But what I can say is that this game is quite fun!

Supercharged Robot VULKAISER is a simple SHMUP where you fly as a giant robot, shooting down different enemies, that sometimes are rather silly looking. And it works really well.
This is a relatively crude indie title. It lacks the polish of a Braid or Dust, but it feels like the developers who made it really loved what they were doing, and this shines through. Despite the games rough edges, I had a lot of fun with it. It's a short playthrough, and for a SHMUP it's also kind of easy, but if you like these kinds of games, I suspect that you'll like this one as well.

I did not get far into this game. It was full of long repeated voice clips, and it was driving me nuts. Hard pass on this one.

You know how some young boys dream about getting surrounded by girls who want to sleep with them, and they have no real idea of how any of those things work, because they have no first hand experience to draw from? That's basically this game. You're playing as a main character who I suspect is mean to appeal to 13-15 year old boys, who's surrounded by girls who fight over him. And you get awkwardly written scene like girl wears a dress and comments on how a light wind might make the main character see her panties (which she wants, but at the same time is too shy to fully admit, but it's made clear that yes, she does indeed want that), and the motherly figure who's taking care of her (and the main character) encourages her to wear it so that she can impress the main character. And then more girls are introduced and they all really want to be with the main character, and have similarly cringe-worthy moments. Yes, it's that kind of story, with those kinds of characters. I'm not a 13-15 year old boy anymore, and this kind of writing does not appeal to me at all.