The Gaming Gamma

JRPG and Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons fans rejoice! The upcoming crossover game between Story of Seasons and Popolocrois finally has a western release date and its soon! The game will hit shelves at a retailer near you on March 1! Stick around to The Gaming Gamma for more coverage of this game including a full review!

Platform: Nintendo 3DS

Developer: Com2uS

Publisher: Aksys Games

Rated: E

Release Date: January 14, 2016

A copy has been provided by Aksys Games

Images taken from the Nintendo Eshop

Slice It is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a game with a simple objective: slice the shape given to you in as many pieces as required in the amount of cuts required. The puzzles are very fun, especially when the shapes become more complicated.
In Slice It, you’re given a shape and that shape must be cut perfectly even with the exact amount of cuts they give you. So let’s say they give you a triangle with four cuts and tell you it has to come out in four pieces. That’s all you have to do. Nothing more, nothing less. If you cut it into four pieces, and all sides are completely equal, then you get a perfect. Otherwise, the rank goes between failed and three stars.

The games’ presentation is nice and clean. All of the puzzles are set on graph paper so that you make as accurate lines as possible which is great because when you’re finished cutting, it shows how large they are in comparison to the original piece. For example, like the triangle I was talking about in the last paragraph, it could show that one piece is 25.9%, 30.6%, 31%, and 12.5%. Or, if you’re going for a perfect, it would show 25%, 25%, 25%, and 25%.

When compared to the mobile version, it’s exactly the same and nothing is left out in terms of content. The differences come up in the amount of puzzles you get right off the bat. In the mobile version you must go through one puzzle before unlocking the next. There is also the fact that it’s much harder to get hints in the 3DS version than the mobile version. Lastly, from what I noticed, to make up for the fact that you can use two fingers in the mobile version, you can use the circle pad for directional purposes.
Overall, with over 200 puzzles and a time attack mode, you might be glued to this game quite a bit because there are so many bite-sized brainteasers.

7.5

+ A well packaged time waster

– The circle pad works but isn’t good enough to replace a second finger

Harvest Moon Seeds of Memories stealthily releases onto apple devices everywhere. You can pick up the game for $9.99. According to the games page it released yesterday with little to no fanfare from the games developer and publisher Natsume. This is Natsume’s second attempt at a full fledged standalone Harvest Moon title after Harvest Moon The Lost Valley, which opened up to less than favorable reviews from critics, however this game truly seems to be returning to the original series roots, as it looks as it’s trying to embody Friends of Mineral Town and the SNES game.

Harvest Moon Seeds of Memories will also be launching onto Android devices, PC and Wii U sometime later in the year. We will of course be covering this game more when it launches onto other platforms.

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This year marks the 20th anniversary for the Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon, and what better way to celebrate it by having a new entry in the series! Checkout some of the latest screenshots of Story of Seasons Good Friends of Three Villages brought to us by the latest issue of Famitsu.

Story of Seasons Good Friends of Three Villages will be launching in Japan in the next few months. No word from XSEED yet on when we can expect to see the game in the states, but hopefully the good sales of the most recent Story of Seasons game will encourage priority of this game!

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Disclaimer: Story of Seasons is the life/farming simulator known as Bokujō Monogatari in Japan, the series was rebranded from Harvest Moon to Story of Seasons in 2014 when Marvelous AQL acquired XSEED Games and shifted localization from Natsume to XSEED.

The latest entry in the Bokujō Monogatari series has been revealed today in the latest issue of Famitsu.

The game is pretty far in development, and it seems to be looking to expand on a lot of the mechanics introduced in Harvest Moon A New Beginning when it comes to the ability to build your own town. It also seems like there will be a plentiful amount of places to visit this time around. Its nice to see Marvelous going all out with the customization route in this series now. Odds are this game will hit shelves in Japan sometime this year, however no word from XSEED on when we can expect to see this game in the west. However we shall keep you all posted as news develop!

For those of you wanting to scratch that Story of Seasons itch, never fear as XSEED also has you covered as the crossover Return To Popolocrois A Story of Seasons Fairy Tale will be hitting the States in the coming months. No word on when it will be out in Europe.

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Disclaimer: Story of Seasons is the life/farming simulator known as Bokujō Monogatari in Japan, the series was rebranded from Harvest Moon to Story of Seasons in 2014 when Marvelous AQL acquired XSEED Games and shifted localization from Natsume to XSEED.

Platform: Playstation 3/Vita

Developer: Falcom

Publisher: XSEED Games

Rated: T

Release Date: December 22, 2015

A Review Copy Was Not Provided By XSEED

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel is a fantastic JRPG brought to us by Falcom and localized by XSEED Games. While, yes, there are previous entries in this series (Trails in the Sky: First Chapter/Second Chapter/Third Chapter, Trails to Zero/Azure) none of them are necessarily required to be played to enjoy this game. The Trails in the Sky trilogy isn’t referenced a lot as it was a passed event. Meanwhile, Trails to Zero/Azure are connected to Trails of Cold Steel in that both games are happening at the same time as this one.

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Moco Moco Friends

System: Nintendo 3DS

ESRB Rating E

Thank You Aksys for Providing a Review Copy

Moco Moco Friends is a very interesting game. It comes off as a cutesy Pokémon-styled game where you are taking the role of Moco to go on a grand quest to become the Plushkin master.

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Love At First Sight

ESRB Rating: N/A

Platform:PC

Steam Store Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/353330

A review copy was not provided by Sekai Project

Love at First Sight is a very interesting visual novel. Most Visual Novels I play allow me become immersed into the role of the character I am playing as because I get to make choices based on how I think the character would respond to a situation. The story normally becomes your own story as well as the main character’s. However, Love at First Sight takes a much different approach. You are more or less just in for the ride in this story, you have no real input on how the characters react to a situation. You are just there, a bystander if you will, and you know what? The game pulls it off in such a way that even though I was just a mere bystander to the events unfolding, it still managed to get me emotionally involved in what was going on. The games story managed to hook me in and made me wonder how I would react in the situation provided to me.  However, let me get more into this game’s overall presentation first.

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A late Merry Christmas to you all! We here at the Gaming Gamma hope you had a wonderful holiday! As we look to tackle 2016 we decided it would be best to introduce two new faces to the Gaming Gamma! That would be the twin girls Ariel and Clover. They will be helping us with our reviews in the future, adding their own flare to the reviews.

Name: Ariel

Age: 16

Likes: Video games, reading manga, watching anime, knitting

Favorite Anime Genre: Slice of life, mystery, romance

Favorite Video Game Genre: JRPG, Visual Novels, Action-Adventure, Adventure

Favorite Video Games: Splatoon, Persona 4 Golden, Little King’s Story, Pikmin, Animal Crossing

Dislikes: Call of Duty

Of the two twins Ariel is easily the sweeter of the two. Her sister Clover sees her as a goody-goody two shoes, however despite her sweet and innocent appearance, she can be a bit of a cynic at times. She is very hard to trick as well, taking outlandish thoughts and ideas with a grain of salt. She loves her brother but thinks he can be a bit too goofy at times. She has a love for more laid back video games compared to her sister. She will often spend her nights playing Animal Crossing or Story of Seasons when she wants to unwind. That being said don’t let her sweet demeanor fool you,  she can be a bit of a troublemaker like her sister at times.

Name: Clover

Age: 16

Likes: Anime, manga, video games, sleeping

Favorite Anime Genre: A fan of all genres.

Favorite Video Game Genre: A fan of all genres

Favorite Video Games: The Trails series, Stiens;Gate, Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors,Ys

Dislikes: Your favorite anime/game

While Clover is a fan of all things anime and video games she’s certainly not as friendly as her sister Ariel is. You want to talk about her them? Sure, go ahead you’ll have a nice in­depth discussion on them. You want to discuss favorites? Well, you’re entering a very hot topic as she’ll grill you as to why you like what you like and why something else isn’t your favorite instead. As for her favorites, there are only really two requirements, it must be niche, and it has to be a good game. The moment something is deemed her favorite she’ll promote it too no end even going as far as annoying others about it. No matter how outlandish or prude and stuck up she may seem, she really just wants more people to enjoy what she likes considering her love for the not well known.

I hope everyone has an awesome New Year, we look forward to see what 2016 has in store for us!