Recent reviews by Aquaserge

I'll preface this review by saying this game isn't my first dive into learning Japanese. I took several classes in college, and did well in them. It has been years since then, and the thing about learning a new language is the importance of repetition and usage every day to maintain and excel. I didn't do this, so a lot of what I learned has dropped off in time. For me, this game was more of a refresher.

RPG Battle System

As far as RPG elements go, this game is extremely basic. Standard attacking is all there is, and there is little to no difficulty at all to the game from a battle standpoint. I stayed a level or two ahead of whatever content I was zoned into, and at that level the mobs die in one hit, sometimes two, and when they damage you they often times deal zero damage. There are a few cure, antidote, awaken, etc spells, but they are rarely / never used. One major frustrating part is that for the majority of the game Eric and Leon are out of sync with the rest of the group in attack order. Until later in the game when you get a single item that can increase Eric's agility (speed), the attack order will always be Claire, Misaki, Leon, then Eric, despite Eric coming before Leon in the line up. This can get frustrating when lining up attacks, especially when you are doing a lot of one hit kills. All in all, just a bare bones battle system, but that's not what this game is about.

Pros:

• Simple battle system that doesn't take away from the learning experience.
  
• Extremely low difficulty to allow you to focus on the lessons and memorization.
  
• Leveling is quick, easy to out level a zone with just a few extra minutes of grinding, which is good for memorization anyway.

Cons:

• Battle system is a little bit too easy and can leave an experienced RPG player, or someone that has a minor level of background with Japanese already, wanting just a little bit more.
  
• The UI for selecting the right answers gets quite encumbered. In the early stages of the game it isn't too much of a big deal, but later on when you have 30+ answers to shift through per person it can become very tedious. A sub level system would have worked much better.
  
• If you've played any of the older Final Fantasy games, then you'll be familiar with the random battle encounter system. That in and of itself is a whole different level of discussion, but I personally put it in the con section.

Teaching System

The big ticket item for this game is, of course, teaching you Hiragana. It does so in a fairly ingenuitive way. Each enemy represents a letter of hiragana, and it is your job to attack it with the romanji equivalence to deal damage. If you don't have it written down or previous teachings, this is a great way to beat it into your head. Each zone focuses on a particular set of hiragana that you were just taught, with a few previous ones sprinkled in. You can easily review past lessons outside of battle. The lessons themselves are fine and do their job accordingly, but the difference in font used for the enemies and lesson presentations vs what they teach you to write can be annoying to first timers. The best English equivalent I can think of is the font used by computers and text for lowercase a vs how we are taught to write it using pen and paper. The vocal recording of each letter is almost robotic and often unintelligible, but the vocabulary words are just fine.

Speaking of vocabulary words, this game teaches you basic vocabulary (some of which is typically written in katakana, but written in hiragana for the purpose of the game) that you'd often find in an intro to Japanese text book. Unfortunately the game fails to utilize any of these teachings outside of the standard alphabet until the final zone, where they suddenly decide to test your vocabulary skills as well. There are two sections in the game where they flip the battle process and make you select the correct hiragana symbol to attack romanji characters. This is a brilliant system, but sadly it is under utilized. With a few simple UI corrections they could have integrated the two in order to make a much more robust teaching system.

An additional flaw is the repetition. Yes, repetition is part of learning a second language, but what I'm talking about is at the programming level. The way it is currently programmed to work is that there are battle sets, and when you encounter a battle you have a random chance of each set. An example of a set would be the following three enemies: "ka", "ku", and "o". It is possible to get this exact match up several times in a row. Add on the fact that the battle system remembers what the last answer you selected for each character was, it can make a grind very easy without much need to pay attention. After a while in each zone, you'll figure out exactly what each battle set is. The way it should have been programmed, would be to have two sets of possibilities in each fight. First, a percentage chance for the entire roster to contain only new hiragana characters, and a chance to contain one or two previous characters as well. From there, each set is completely randomized with the parameters set for the possible outcome for each zone.

As you progress through the game, you run into the case where you will start to see less and less (if not none at all) of previous hiragana letters. Since the game isn't utilizing vocabulary to maximize the learning, or at least comprehension, of the letters you have to rely on memory and lists when the final zone comes around. In a traditional class / book setting, your exposure to previously learned letters would continue as you used your vocabulary.

Pros:

• Good job at repetition to help drive the letters into memory.
  
• Simplistic system teaching system that is easy to revise to refresh any forgotten previously earned lessons.

Cons:

• Repetitious (in programming) battle system allows you to naturally make use of pattern recognition and system design flaws to negate the teaching and memorization process.
  
• Under utilized vocabulary section that would have put this game on a whole different level. Even if you ignored the actual meaning of the vocabulary, using them as a reading and letter comprehension tool would have done wonders.
  
• Most alphabet letters fade out after one or two zones. You never / hardly see them again (such as the base vowel section, "k", "t", and "s" rows are a good example, meaning it makes them easy to forget.

Conclusion

All in all this is a good game to use in tandem if you are learning Japanese through other professional means, or just trying to brush up stuff that you already knew but forgotten to time (such as my case). It's cheap enough when on sale, but for sub $10 at base price it's still a good deal. I haven't said anything about the story line because, well it's an educational game designed to teach you the alphabet... If you're here for the story, well then there is no hope for you from the start. All in all, despite some of the design issues it still does a decent job of getting the user familiar with hiragana and that's really all we're here for.

TL;DR: If you already knew hiragana in the past, or even just want to learn from scratch, the game is worth it at its cheap price point. This goes double when it's on sale.

Over 60 hours into the game when I write this review.

This is a wonderful game, especially if you are a fan of similar titles like Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, Stardew Valley, Rune Factory, etc. The art style is very endearing and can be absolutely gorgeous. It seems to take a direction similar to a pastel painting with its colors and environment design. The game is open world, and not 3/4 perspective, so it allows you to get a full view of the sweeping landscapes, distant ruins in the background, wide open fields, and to be down and personal with the town. The visuals alone, at least in this sub-genre, make the game worth it.

For me, when it comes to these types of games the characters are key to making the world feel wonderfully alive or extremely fake. In this case, the characters feel like they would actually exist in this town together, and that the environment they live in could actually produce people with their personalities. This game doesn't do anything too groundbreaking when it comes to NPC interactions and relationship building. Typical stuff like talking to them and giving them presents each day to raise their affection towards you. Although it does add sparring and a rock-paper-scissor mini game that can net you a few additional points per day, at the cost of stamina. The RPS is mostly RNG luck, and the sparring matches will become trivial in difficulty for the majority of the town's NPCs within an in-game year of decent gameplay. I was over level 40 by time I hit Spring of Year 2, and there are only two or three townsfolk with a level that high or higher.

Farming does not take center stage in this game. It's more about being a fabricator/machinist as you help your town improve and grow. You CAN farm, raise livestock, etc, but that is not the primary focus of the game. You will be working with ore, forges, grinder, and the workstations a lot more than dirt and seeds. I went through the entire first in-game year without ever doing any actual farming. So get ready to spend a lot of time in the mines, dungeons, cutting down trees, and breaking up boulders, as those are your primary sources for materials. It's a nice change, and it plays very well. This was the big thing that drew me to purchasing this game, as I was looking for a different take on the sub-genre.


Now for the cons:

Music wise is meh, nothing catchy or memorable, no night theme transitioning, predictable and typical battle music, and after a while you just tune it out. I'd love to replace it with some older Harvest Moon music, but that's more of a job for a mod than anything. Luckily there are sound settings that allows you to turn off just the music, if you so choose. By default the music is so loud it drowns out everything else, so some adjustment will be needed either way.

The growth of your homestead is quickly inhibited by a money barrier. Getting a level two home or a level two assembly station will make your property feel cramped very, VERY quickly. Especially when you consider all the cutters, grinders, and furnaces that you will need to add as well. The amount of additional space you get each time you purchase land is extremely small, and the cost starts to get steep, fast. The size of the farm after you buy your first 100,000 gol parcel feels like what it should be around the 50,000 gol range. It just feels way too gated and micro'd out. You have to make several very expensive purchases before you feel any sense of accomplishment, in regards to farm growth.

Be warned though, as of the time of this posting the game is slam full of bugs and issues. Despite it being `fully released` as well as having ports to consoles as well, the game runs more like a finished game is still a few months out. The vast majority of the game is voice acted, but there are plenty of holes where there obviously should be audio dialog. The dialog text is also way off script. Overall the same message is what comes across when comparing audio to text, but the differences can vary from a few words to entire sentences. I don't think a single day in-game has gone by without some misalignment of text and audio.

Controls seem to function about as well as any other title in this sub-genre of game play. Flying around in the mines is probably the only issue in this regard, but it's still manageable. Putting together some of the items on the Assembly Table can be difficult, either due to its size or getting the camera to just the right angle to highlight the certain piece you wish to install. Aside from that, all seems well.

There are actual game play bugs that can have major effects. There are some quests that require the use of the camera, and doing so is infuriating. There was one quest that took me two in game seasons to figure out how to get around (taking a picture of the Mayor) as it kept bugging out and not giving me credit for the photos. Occasionally more materials will be used than should be when giving gifts or handing in quest items if you have more than one of these in your inventory. Giving two items as a gift instead of one and only receiving reputation gains for one item is an example. Courting Ginger will test your level of masochism. Some of that is on purpose, such as her low reputation gains for gifts, shut-in lifestyle, and slow movement speed. The other problems wouldn't be much of a problem, but tied in with her natural settings makes them infuriating. Her walking speed means she is almost NEVER where she should be when starting a date, and if she isn't there it's considered your fault. Better go find her, fast! Certain things, such as dining, don't seem to work with her when on dates as well. This makes things even tougher when courting her, as dining and dates are the best source of relationship points for her. These are just a few off the top of my head. Nothing game breaking, but it certainly stands out on many occasions.

The developers have already stated they have plans to put in more quests and character development for certain NPCs that may have been neglected so far. Personally, I count this as a plus.

Feedback and bug reporting feels about as lackluster here as anywhere else, I suppose. Each of my issues were never acknowledged or any help or solutions suggested, but your mileage may vary. As I said before, this doesn't feel like a release level build of the game, and is more akin to what Bethesda or EA ships out on release. Here's hoping they polish it up soon, at the very least it should be done before any DLC is released.


Conclusion:

All in all, this game is great. Even with its bugs, which will hopefully get patched out in time, the game plays well. The characters are engaging, the world is gorgeous, and the game play is a nice new take on an old idea. I think with the right amount of polish, and certain care given to specific areas of the game, this could easily stand up to giants like Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley. If you catch this on sale, great. If not, it's totally worth the price tag (as of this review, it's $40 USD).

Edit:

I have nominated this game for Innovative Game Play Award for the reasons stated above.

Absolutly hated this game. Granted I am not much of a "punish yourself till you cry" type of gamer, but the controls and Metroid-esque jumping style just kills it for me. The story made little to no sense, but then again I couldn't finish the game. After viewing some gameplay videos of this game I couldn't have beaten Chelsea with Bunny anyway because I didn't collect enough power-ups, and I'll be damned if I go back and try and find them.

If "I Want to Be the Guy" or "Kazai Mario" is your type of game, you'll probably love this. If bullet hell is your style of game, you might like this. If punish games + bullet hell sounds like heaven, then you just hit jackpot. If not, stay away. Far, far away.

I only got this game based off of a short trailer featuring the unique gameplay aspects of this game, and I must say everything else about it, to my delight, took me by surprise. The French 1920's noir setting with mystery and hints to the lasting effects of the World's Fair really make this a world of its own. Along with very unique story telling that show things as you might imagine through the eyes of a child, and how all of the other adults are shown only in shadow, you can easily begin to feel the world live on it's own.

The game can be seen as short, but in my personal opinion the length is perfect. They tell the story they wanted to tell, it isn't drawn out, and it doesn't overly complicate things.

While the gameplay itself feels a bit like the bracelt mechanic in LoZ: A Link Between Worlds, the platforming and world manipulation aspects really put this in its own category. It works off the Unreal engine, which is known for having issues with lower budget productions. Surprisingly Contrast doesn't show many signs of that. There are a few times where walls that aren't completely flat can throw you out of shadow, and if you get one interactable object too close to another you can't choose between which one you wish to interact with, but aside from that I didn't experience many other issues.

All in all, if you are looking for something simple and sweet, I highly suggest you try this out. If you already have it, get on it.

This was quite an interesting little gem. If I remember correctly I first noticed it through a Steam sale or something along the lines, knowing only what the games store page previewed for me. I keep the firm belief that a great game needs a great story, and while this one is almost generic they pull it off very well. Where this game really pulls me in is in the gameplay itself. While it is quite simple and repetitive, somehow it manages to stay fresh throughout the game and performs very fluidly. The art style and voice acting need work, but even with all its faults it manages to pull them all together to make something unique and extremely fun to play. I get the feeling that if just one of these things had been off it would have caused it to crash and burn, so it goes without saying just how much of a surprise this game is!

If you are looking for a game that is as revolutionary to the Batman franchise as Batman: Arkham Asylum was, then move on. In terms of gameplay, Arkham Origins doesn't really bring anything new to the table. Instead it refines a few of the issues that were present in Asylum and City (such as fighting "brute" enemies where you defeat them by piggyback. There is hardly any, if any at all, of that here), and brings to light an origin story that can can almost rival Frank Miller's Batman: Year One.

Paralleling Miller's epic remastery of the Dark Knight's origins, Batman has his work cut out for him as not only does he have to fight the super villians and crime lords that have plagued Gotham for decades, but he also has to fight an overly corrupt Gotham City Police Department. James Gordon is only a Captain, and the way Commissioner Loeb runs things ol' Jimmy doesn't really know who he can trust. With a trigger happy SWAT Leader Branden to contest with, doing his job isn't easy either.

Furthermore, we also get to see the Joker fall even farther into depravity as he questions what really is maximum fun. Before it was just the mob, politicians, and a whole lotta money, but with the Batman in the mix there is just no telling what life has in store for him!

Even so, with cameos from 'B' grade and 'A' grade villians, there aren't as many easter eggs in this Batman, particularly because they really don't exist yet. Still, it leaves Gotham feeling a little empty. In particular I would liked to have seen Harvey Dent in the mix somewhere. He and Bruce/Batman were good friends before he became TwoFace, and having that ally in his origins (such as with Miller's adaptation) could have made for some interesting story development.

All in all, as I said if you are looking for something revolutionary in terms of gameplay you should probably move on. But if you are looking for a damn good origin story, this is a great place to start.

Bioshock Infinite has earned a place in my heart as one of my all time favorite games. As someone who tends to value narrative and story over gameplay and graphics (within reason), I enjoyed every minute of this game as you fight your way through the floating metropolis of Columbia. The art style feels perfect for the setting, and it's easy to form a deep love or hate relationship with the characters of the game. Elizabeth opened a tear in my heart. It changes things up a little from the other BioShock games in terms of gameplay, particularly with the SkyHook by adding a bit of altitude into your tactical performances. Plasmids are now Vigors, and now have trap mechanics that allow you to set up bottlenecks and other manuvers that take out loads of enemies at a time. Additionally, you can only have 2 weapons at a time, so choose wisely!

All in all the story is rock solid, even when messing with time travel and the multiverse. One thing that I still wonder about the ending though. By taking Booker back to the the pivital choice moment in his life to prevent Comstock from being born, doesn't this in turn create a new variable in which he doesn't let Elizabeth drown him? I can't wait to check out the DLC. This game is a must buy, and in my opinion should be ranked amongst the top 50 games ever made, if not 25.

Delightfully pleasant game! Very simplistic in design, but the story makes it all the richer. The musical composition is A+, I could listen to it all day long. Only regret is the game is too short! While I understand they can only go so far with a story, some bonus levels that can be completed without a story to further the difficulty of puzzles would be fantastic.

All in all the game plays somewhat similar to Blizzard's "The Lost Viking", in the idea that you have to maneuver several characters around a level and work them in tandem to reach the same goal. Wonderful game design, but once you start having 4+ characters on each screen the simple tab-through system becomes extremely clunky and messes with the flow of the game. Also started to lose focus on which block the narrator was talking about once there were a larger number of characters, since they were just block it became difficult for me to keep track of each one and their name.

Switching out on various levels and not forcing you to use each block on every level was also a nice design and allows for varying levels of difficulty. That being said, due to the games length or lack thereof there was a lot of missed potential. All in all I'd give it a 4/5! Definite must buy if you get the chance and just want to relax for a little while!

This game is quite a little gem. For the first game that came out by the Greenheart Games developer, they did spot on. Going through the years and seeing the game industry change from a developer standpoint (all be it their off brand versions. i.e. Vonny = Sony) and even getting to develop your own console at some point is massive fun. It's can be very challenging trying to figure out their interpretation of various genres and play styles, and getting that 10/10 on a game feels very rewarding. They even go so far as to incorporate MMO's, sequels, and expansion packs, all with roughly accurate feelings of how their development and distribution is perceived.

Very eager to see if they come out with a sequel, as there are a ton of features I would like to see implemented and current ones that I would love to see expanded. For instance, basic and advanced accounting statistics, expanded skills and point values, and a feedback system for your games, just to name a few.

Awesome game, played the hell out of it and would recommend it to anyone who wants a game to just chillax a bit.

Damn good game, 9/10. Didn't change much up from SR3, used the same graphics and engine even. This time around, it's more like Saints Row meets Prototype, not with the mutant people killing virus and what not, but instead you gain awesome super powers such as fireballs, superjump, telekenisis, etc. The story is pretty good, but if you look at it in a whole 1/2 of it is filler, as in all you do is rescue 7 of your friends from the simulation. All of which are in different scenarios (their worst nightmare, litterally), but the thought process is the same. So yeah, without the filler this game could potentially be just DLC for SR3, but the change in gameplay via superpowers makes it worth it. Very rarely will you ever use a man made gun, or even drive a vehicle for that matter. Tons of collectibles, the usuall side quests, and challanges to boot to give you tons of gameplay time so long as you don't just skip everything and just do main story missions only. As usual per the series the game is full of "wtf awesome!" moments that have you sitting back and applauding the writers for thinking of this ♥♥♥♥!

***Side Note***

The "Saints Save Christmas DLC" is a MUST get. I am normally against most DLC, but Tim Burton would give two thumbs up for this. The North Pole level alone has got to be the most demented, off beat, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up Santa land you have ever seen!