Recent reviews by Jonoridge

Originally posted by Square Enix:

Comfortable controls
Whether you play with a gamepad or a keyboard, the controls have been updated for a more pleasant gameplay experience.

No. Just no. This is an unbelievably poor port to PC. In the settings menu, half of the screen is showing gamepad controls, the other half is providing me with the keyboard keys to press. It's a total mess. No wonder it was a 'surprise' release because had this gone to the press, it would have been ripped to shreads.

Whether Square Enix internally ported it or outsourced it to an external developer, they've done a terrible job. I simply can't recommend this. To do so would encourage this kind of practice and it's quite frankly disgraceful.

I'm going to wait to a couple of days to see if Square Enix has any response and if not I'll be requesting a refund. Beyond disappointed. Chrono Trigger is one of my favourite games of all time and one of the games that inspired me to pursue a career in this industry. Come on Square... Sort it out. You're better than this...

I don't understand a word of Chinese but the gameplay is great.

Music is good, the pole is completely black when I play, whereas it's multiple colours in the trailer so I don't know whether I'm doing something wrong. I'm finding it hard to see what is coming up next and mostly it's a bit of guess work especially when you're upside down.

Meh, cost me £0.47 on sale, it's scratching that kind of itch that Super Hexagon does if you fancy a simple game whilst you're just chilling. Music is really nice, I'll give it that.

“How do you know Father, Uncle?”

Sorry I had to start the review with a quote from the game much like another review I saw. I picked up the game on sale for £0.47, so I’ll be writing the review with the price I paid in mind.

I’ll start by addressing the elephant in the room, the localisation. It’s just hilarious bad. It’s so bad in fact, I enjoy it. It reminds me of playing Shenmue on the Dreamcast for the first time and hearing that voice acting, you can’t help but find it funny. Damn near every line I read in this game has some error in it. Despite that, I actually think it adds a lot of charm to the game, if the game were as straight as I think the story is trying to be, I don’t know if it would have maintained my interest. However, because of the hilarious localisation I’m actually enjoying going around and talking to people just to hear what butchered English line they’ll come up with next.

The gameplay is pretty standard turn-based RPG stuff, I do however think the game is poorly balanced. It’s no real challenge at all. I just don’t understand the ‘Special’ command which allows you to do a ridiculous amount of attacks back to back and there’s absolutely no trade off. I can just repeatedly do it. Normally there would be a cost like TP or MP but nope. So I just destroy everything I’ve encountered (in the first 3 hours of the game) in one turn. I think if they want the game to provide a bit of a challenge then they need to revisit this, even if they remove the pressing ‘Q’ button to stack your moves allowing me to do multiple ‘Triple Attacks’.

Another weird thing that stuck out to me was to do with the characters that join you, they all join at level 1 (well the 3 I’ve gotten so far) and for some reason they’re stronger than your main character in HP and some other stats. I think it would be better if the characters joined at a level that matched their stats, so if they’re joining the party and are intended to be strong than the main character then my main character could be level 10 but the new character that joins level 14 opposed to level 1, like what it currently is.

I’d just like to make a comment about the movement as well, it’s so nice to play an RPG Maker game where I don’t feel as though I’m moving on a bloody grid. The movement actually feels a lot more fluid, which is good.

There are also some minigames featured, I’ve only played a chicken collecting one where they give you 2 minutes to click on all the chickens. It’s certainly nothing special.

The world map looks pretty nice and reminds me a bit of an old RPG from the PS1 era called Shadow Madness. My only criticism would be that you have to walk into the pointing fingers to navigate opposed to just walk to the edge of the map.

Onto the art. I don’t know if the art assets in the game are stock assets or not but they don’t look familiar. I actually quite like the art style and presentation. I enjoy seeing some of the environments in the foreground like trees blowing in the wind. It certainly doesn’t look like your standard RPG Maker game, which for me sets it apart straight away.

In regards to music I’ve only heard a bit of it, the tribal stuff sounds unique but I know some stock RPG Maker music is used throughout the game as well. I’ve mostly played the game whilst listening to something else though so can’t really comment too much.

All in all, I’d like to recommend this game, why? Well it cost me £0.47 and I’ve gotten 3 hours out of it but most importantly I’ve actually enjoyed playing it. I don’t think the story so far is anything to write home about and the combat is un-balanced but I’m actually having fun playing it. The localisation for me is worth anyone giving it a go, it’s SO funny! If you’re a turn-based RPG fan who is just in the mood for something a bit silly, due to the localisation I would definitely pick this game up and just give it a go.

A lot of people are reviewing episode 1 and mentioning Fallout and TellTale games and I think that is a fair assessment. I, personally get strong vibes of Stanley Kubricks 2001: A Space Odyssey. It also reminds me of Zero Escape, a puzzle visual novel on 3DS and Vita. Anyways, on to the review.

Length
Episode 1 is relatively short and introductory, it took me 50-55 minutes to complete, I felt I was relatively observant, I looked around each room, examined everything I thought I could before progressing so expect about that playtime for you, give or take 10 minutes.

Intro
You play as two characters, one from the past who is tasked with making sure that the survivors who were cryogenically frozen are all okay. These people are called janitors, they themselves get frozen as well and only wake up if there are issues. The other character you play is in the present, their job is to wake up all these sleeping survivors who for reasons unbeknownst to them, haven't woken up yet despite the surface being safe to live in again.

Controls & Gameplay
The controls are super easy, you click on where you want to move to and what you want to interact with. The only keyboard control I remember inputting was the 'E' button for certain basic QTE's. There are some relative basic puzzles featured but nothing that will have you scratching your head or maybe I've just been playing The Witness too much! Also at certain points you can choose what your character has to say, I'm not entirely sure how much influence these have on your playthrough yet but you see the typical "character x will remember that" text during certain decisions so I'm assuming we'll see the outcomes as we progress into later episodes. If you enjoy the gameplay approach of the TellTale games and Life is Strange then you'll also enjoy the game very much.

Story
The story for me is where it shines, alongside the atmosphere. Even though it's very much an introduction, there are very subtle hints as to what is going on. For the first episode, it does all the right things, presents you with loads of questions as to what is going wrong and leaves you wanting for more. It's hard for me to talk too much about story without giving spoilers, especially as the first episode is relatively short, so I'll just say if you're familiar with and enjoyed the premise of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Fallout or Zero Escape then the story of this game will interest you.

Constructive Criticism
If I were to criticise it for anything, I guess it would be the length of the first episode. It is a tad short, I'm hoping future episodes will be a bit longer. I think there were a few minor camera angle issues as well, but nothing that negatively affected the experience.

Verdict
All in all, I'd recommend giving the game a try at the current price. It's hard to say how much your decisions influence the game at this point, but if the 'premise' at least has you interested. I find it very hard to believe after playing episode 1 you won't want to, no, need to play more. I hope these episodes arrive rather quickly!

I love casual games that involve puzzles, gentle story nothing to overbearing and especially hidden object games.

This game however just really frustrated me. One 'puzzle' involved me putting out a fire and having to find a bucket, fill it up with water and actually repeat this process a couple of times for it to work. What irritated me to no end was the fact that I was passing through loads of rooms with bloody fire extinguishers in them. Why am I getting a bucket and dipping it in the sea when I can use those? There's actually more than one too!

The hidden object games are frustrating as well. The 'art' of them is not having them completely hidden but cleverly blending them in the with the background. SEASON OF MYSTERY: The Cherry Blossom Murders does this brilliantly, Night Mysteries: The Amphora Prisoner, imo doesn't.

I will say however it is a nice touch offering the puzzles and hidden object games on the main menu, I just felt some of the stuff in the actual game was so frustrating.

Every so often a game comes out which doesn't follow the typical trend, it strives for innovation. Whether that be with art style, mechanics or just the overall concept. When you stumble upon one of these games you know you're in for something special.

'how do you Do it?' is one of these games.

Few games that aren't Japanese have mastered the art of including children and sexual education. This game takes you on a journey to your past, being 11 years old and teaching yourself using your toys what you think sex is. I remember those days when my Pink Power Ranger was never safe from my nude Action Man. This game taps into that nostalgia on a unique level of which very few games can claim to.

To those reading, enjoy this game. You won't see another quite like it for a while.

One of the best games I've ever played when people play it the way it should be. One of the worst when you play with a handful of trolls.

I definitely recommend this game due to how much fun it is when you're in a match with some good people. Although I had to laugh at a game I had the other night. There was one troll and unfortunately for us it was the guy who committed the murder. He was going around saying he "killed the captain, end the game" yadayadada. Everyone just blew him off and decided to thoroughly investigate the evidence. We 'roleplayed' that the trolls character was suffering from sort of mental disability and we all reversed him by telling him we'll catch the 'real' killer. It was very entertaining.

Definitely check this game out (especially now that it's available for free) and you'll be surprised at how much fun you have improvising and roleplaying with some good people. :)

Jonoridge