Author Archives: mankoto
Atelier Shallie Plus: Alchemists and the Dusk Sea Review – One Shallie Plus Another
Developer: Gust
Publisher: Koei-Temco
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Release Date: Jan 17, 2017
ESRB Rating: T
Thank You Koei-Temco for Providing a Review Copy of this Game
Atelier Shallie Plus: Alchemists and the Dusk Sea is a game of dual protagonists where both main protagonists are, ironically, nicknamed Shallie. This game is the third and final game in the Dusk series. Of course, each entry in Atelier is represented as it’s own story that has previous characters from the concurrent series in it. So if you don’t want to go out and play previous entries in Dusk, that’s fine.
Hatsune Miku Project Diva Future Tone Review – Producing Perfection
Developer: SEGA
Publisher: SEGA
Platform: PlayStation 4
Release Date: Jan 10, 2017
MSRP: Colorful Tone pack – $29.99, Future Sound pack – $29.99, both as a bundle: $53.99
ESRB Rating: T
Thank You SEGA for Providing a Review Copy of this Game.
Hatsune Miku Project Diva: Future Tone for the PS4 is actually made of two packs when you go to purchase it off of PSN. One is called Future Sound, with the other called Colorful Tone, hence the game’s title Future Tone. Each can be bought and played separately, but once both are owned it becomes a giant playlist of over 200 songs. That’s right. Not two, not twenty, but two-hundred. If you’ve played the Project Diva games before, you’ll recognize some of the songs listed in Future Sound as that’s where they’ve derived from. Colorful Tone uses music from the Project Mirai series as well as the actual arcade game itself.
Shantae: Half-Genie Hero Review: Don’t Call It A Pooptoot
For full disclosure, I personally put $15 into the game’s kickstarter which was the amount needed to get the game.
Developer: Wayforward
Publisher: Wayforward
ESRB Rating:T
Release Date: December 20th, 2016
Platforms: PC, PS4, *PSV, X1, & Wii U
*Version played
Kickstarter is an interesting place. You’re essentially giving money to funds someone else’s idea. Shantae, however, isn’t a new idea at all. She has been around since 2002, with her second game releasing in 2010. In between 2012 and 2013, Wayforward even announced the third and fourth entry in the franchise. One of which was a kickstarter that received about double its initial funding goal. It’s been three years since that kickstarter, but Shantae: Half-Genie Hero is finally out. This fourth entry serves as a sequel, as well as a small reboot for the franchise. As the title suggests, the game is about a half-genie named Shantae. Shantae lives and watches over Scuttle Town as its guardian. The story here is that the genie world is in trouble, and it’s up to Shantae to save it from its impending doom- all while helping her uncle build his newest invention: the Dynamo; a machine that will keep all monsters and pirates at bay. As usual in Shantae, the plot more or less takes a back seat, and the game is filled with witty dialogue, and a few jokes that break the fourth wall.
Valkyrie Drive -Bhikkhuni review: The Power of Lesbians
Developer: Meteorise
Publisher:PQube
ESRB Rating:M
Release Date: October 11th, 2016
The Righteous Boobage Producer – Kenichiro Takaki strikes again but this time, with a new series. The girls in this series aren’t ninjas, they’re just normal girls that so happened to come down with a terrible and mysterious condition.
If you’ve heard of or seen the anime for “Valkyrie Drive” or the mobile game, the premise is more or less the same as they take on three different islands right next to each other. If you haven’t heard, to make a long story short: the world has contracted a weird disease where young girls have the ability to turn into weapons. This danger has led to the world to come together and essentially isolate anyone that’s contracted the virus on one of potentially five islands. Said virus comes in three different forms: the V-Virus variant (where you gain the ability to become a weapon,) the A-Virus variant (that allows you to wield said weapon,) with the last is being able to do both – the VR Virus variant. In the case of Valkyrie Drive: Bhikkhuni, all of the playable girls are able to do both.
The leads of Bhikkhuni are the sweet and ever loving Rinka and her almost polar opposite twin sister Ranka, as well as the people they meet along the way. It’s said that anyone that has come to the island has a high chance of being cured. The supposed secret is about learning self control, so fighting is permitted at all times outside of some safe spaces like the cafeteria. That said, the story is more than just fighting to control their virus, as not everyone living on the island care about going back home, since they have their own agendas to attend to.
Bhikkhuni is a pretty interesting evolution of Senran Kagura’s Versus series in terms of combat. At the start of every mission you choose two characters: a Liberator and an Extar witch (the term of the V-Virus holder and the A-Virus holder respectively). This is where most of the game’s replay value comes in, as all of the characters in the game come with two different level up systems. The game’s combat is a very combo heavy beat ’em up. While there is no dedicated run button, there are a dedicated dash button, dodge button and three attack buttons – one normal, one unique, and one that launches the enemy in the air. This doesn’t sound like much, sure, but you won’t be mashing buttons, as all of these provide extremely fast-based combat. The game has a ton of ways to combine all of these attacks, especially dodging, the dash, and the launcher technique. The entire game is based around combining the dash with these techniques, as when successfully done, your attack raises for the extent of the combo. Once enough damage is done, your synchro gauge will fill up; once filled, your health will refill and you will become stronger because your partner became your weapon. Depending on the level of the Extar, this can happen a few more times, or you can spend the gauge on doing a special attack. To be honest, when there are just generic enemies towards you, the gameplay is great. But when it comes to other actual characters the gameplay doesn’t live up because once the mission is over, you get your ranking and a pool of experience points to share between your Liberator and Extar. This is where the “two separate levels” bit comes into play, as the girls have separate Liberator and Extar levels. So you actually have to max out the girl’s levels twice with Extar, requiring much more experience to level up. Also, keep in mind the rank you receive at the end of your mission is pretty important, seeing as how well you do in some missions will affect the storyline.
Outside of the main storyline there’s a survival mode, a challenge mode, and three online modes. Sadly, none of these modes offer experience points and the online is more or less dead. So unless you have a friend, have fun fighting CPUs. That said, the melee mode is kind of fun. Instead of the usual 3D arena battle ground, it becomes a 2D fighter with the objective is to get your opponent off the stage. Granted, this mode is a lot more frantic because the stage is much, much smaller than the arena and generally there are 4 characters on the screen so everything just feels a little claustrophobic. Lastly, there’s the dressing room where you can dress up and play with the girls. There’s even a mini-game segment on it if you play with them enough.
In the end, despite its anime counterpart taking perversion to the next level yet stopping just before being considered pornagraphy, this game is actually one of Takaki’s tamer games of the giant breast hyper battle “genre”. Sure, it still contains the usual mechanic of clothing being ripped off and the small cinematic that comes with it is still the same as the changing dressing room mechanics. But despite all of the sexual appeal, there’s a good gameplay mechanic underneath that just can’t seemingly take off the way the game wants, which is sort of disappointing.
6/10
+Melee Mode
+Funny characters
-Game isn’t necessarily fun
Persona 5 has Been Delayed in the West till April 4th, 2017
Unfortunately Persona 5 has been delayed in the west to a new date of April 4th. Here’s what they had to say about it:
[T]he Japanese release of Persona 5 smashed all our expectations, and as a company, we decided that we owed our fans the very best effort to make Persona 5 our gold standard in localization. Practically, this means redoubling our QA and localization efforts, even returning to the studio to record previously unvoiced lines. We don’t want to rush this game[.]
-PR
Of course, it’s not exactly compensation, but the game will feature Dual Audio, meaning the original Japanese voice acting is in the game as well in the form of free DLC.
Also for today only, you can get the Ryuji Sakamoto Avatar and Theme Set in the US.
Lastly, the Take Your Heart Edition has updated art
The Legend of Heros: Trails of Cold Steel II review – Class Reunion
Platform: Playstation 3, Playstation Vita (version played)
Developer: Falcom
Publisher: XSEED Games
ESRB Rating: T
Thank You XSEED for providing a review copy of this game.
A few years ago, Studio Falcom asked Sony if they were to ever produce game carts that would hold more data than the usual 4GB carts for the Vita. Sony in response told them to use two 4GB carts in response. In theory, that’s what led to how Trails of Cold Steel and Trails of Cold Steel II came to be. In Trails of Cold Steel, the game abruptly cuts to where everything that could potentially goes wrong, well, went wrong. Trails of Cold Steel II is a direct continuation of the original game as it picks up right where the first game left off. It is absolutely imperative that you play the original game to start playing this game. The game gives the player a pretty competent backstory that the player can view at any time, but it would be beneficial to play the first game.
Yomawari: Night Alone Review – You Are (Not) Alone
Developer:Nippon Ichi Software
Publisher:NISA
Platform: PS Vita/PC
ESRB Rating:T
Thank You NISA for Providing a Review Copy
It’s October meaning it’s time for the Halloween craze to begin again. As such, it would be appropriate to look into the horror genre which brings us to Yomawari: Night Alone. You play as a little girl who takes her dog, Poro out for a walk. On the way back home, Poro unfortunately gets away from you. Leave it to your big sister of course to go out and look for Poro for you. Hours pass by and for some reason neither Poro nor your sister has returned home… Did something happen to them? Are they okay? With these thoughts in mind, you yourself decide to out and look for them.
XSEED Announces Story of Seasons and Rune Factory 4 Sales and Trio of Towns Update
Today XSEED has announced that Story of Seasons has surpassed 150,000 copies in North America. Similarly, Rune Factory 4 has surpassed the 200,000 landmark in North America. As a way to commemorate the event, both titles have been lowered in price to $29.99
Along with this announcement XSEED, has revealed the pre-order bonus for Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns. A capybara plushie that’s about 3.5 inches tall.
“We feel incredibly fortunate to have such an amazing fan base for these games,” said Ken Berry, Executive Vice President of Marvelous USA. “The sales figures speak volumes as to how much fan support can affect what games we can bring to North America. We hope the long-awaited price drops will introduce the games to a new audience, gearing them up for the release of STORY OF SEASONS: Trio of Towns in early 2017.”
Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse Review – Another One
ESRB Rating: M
Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse is in a sense a sequel to the original Shin Megami Tensei IV. It’s in a sense because it’s an alternative take on the neutral path in IV where Flynn decides to take on both Lucifer and Merkabah only for a third faction to come into play – the Divine Powers. They declare that everything will destroyed by the next full moon for the sake of humanities salvation. The difference doesn’t stop there either, in this game you don’t play as humanities Liberator Flynn. Instead you play as a hunter apprentice named Nanashi. On the road to becoming a real hunter, you die only to be revived by a demon by the name of Dagda. In exchange foryour life, Dagda wants you to become his Godslayer since Angels and Demons can only seal each other away.
MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death Review: Boredem Does In Fact Kill
ESRB Rating: T
It’s September, meaning the holiday season has begun. In terms of what’s to come to the Vita, one of the first games on the chopping block is a game known as MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death. This game is the second game produced in the Makai Ichiban Kan series with the first being Trillion:God of Destruction. These games share nothing in common outside of key members of the development team. Unlike Trillion, which was a mix between life-simulator and rouge-like, MeiQ is a Dungeon Role Playing Game through and through.
The Gaming Gamma 