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PlayStation TV Game Compatibility List (North America/Japan)

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This is a Multi-Year Collection of Game Compatibility Readings for the PlayStation TV / PS Vita TV for the North America and Japan Regions.

Do note that game compatibility depends on the region of the GAME being played.  Not the region of the System.  A Japanese PSTV Unit can run NA games the same as an NA region one.  When you have games where games work in one region and not another, it’s due to that Non-Working Game’s Region, rather than the hardware of the console.

Also note that I don’t update this nearly as much as I used to.  I do try to think about it and do some testing each week, but that doesn’t always happen, so updates for this list may be longer than they used to be, but do note that I do still own my Vita TV units and Deka Vita 7 and do try to do testing on a semi-regular basis.  (But that doesn’t always mean when I test, I update here.  If the stuff I test doesn’t work, then there’s no need to update this list).

Last Update: August 19, 2018

Recently Added

  • August 19, 2018 – Fernz Gate
  • August 09, 2018 – Rainbow Skies
  • August 09, 2018 – Sweet Pool (Japan)
  • August 09, 2018 – Zanki Zero: Last Beginning (Japan)
PS Vita Apps PS Vita PSP PS1 Classics PS Minis
3D Twist & Match
Crackle `& ‘- To Bloom in the Next Empty 101-in-1 Megamix 2Xtreme 4×4 Jam
Crunchyroll 1001 Spikes 2010 FIFA World Cup: South Africa Aces of the Air 5 in 1 Arcade Hits
DramaFever 10 Second Ninja X 3rd Birthday, The Alundra 5 in 1 Solitaire
Facebook 12-JI No Kane to Cinderella (Japan) Ace Combat: Joint Assault Arc the Lad A Space Shooter for 2 Bucks!
Hulu Plus 2013: Infected Wars Activision Hits Remixed Arc the Lad III Ace Armstrong Vs. The Alien Scumbags!
LiveTweet 5 Nin No Prince (Japan) Adventures To Go! Armored Core Actual Crimes: Jack The Ripper
Live From PlayStation 7’scarlet Aedis Eclipse: Generation of Chaos Art Camion Sugorokuden Aero Racer
MLB.TV 99Vidas The Game Alpha Mission II Backstreet Billiards Alien Zombie Death
NBA Game Time A Duel Hand Disaster: Trackher Ape Escape: On The Loose Battle Hunter Alpha Mission
PlayStation Now Abunai Koi No Soushitsu: Eternal Happiness Ape Quest Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (PS3 Transfer Required) Ancient Game Treasures: Mill
Qello HD Concerts Accel World vs Sword Art Online Army of Two: The 40th Day Bowling Angus Hates Aliens
Snag Films Active Soccer 2 DX Art of Fighting Boxing Apache Overkill
Twitch Adventure Story of the Good Ole Days (Japan) Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines Breath of Fire IV Arcade Air Hockey & Bowling
Adventure Time: Secret of the Nameless Kingdom Astro Boy: The Video Game Bust-A-Move 4 Arcade Darts
Adventures of Mana Baseball Stars 2 Castlevania Chronicles Arcade Essentials
A Boy and His Blob Baseball Stars Professional Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Arcade Essentials Evolution
Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault Beaterator Centipede Arcade Pool
Aenai Heroine No Sodatekata: Blessing Flowers (Japan) beats Championship Bass Archibald’s Adventures
Aeterno Blade Ben 10: Alien Force Chess Arctic Adventures
Air (Japan) Ben 10: Alien Force – Vilgax Attacks Chrono Cross Athena
Air Race Speed Ben 10: Protector of Earth Chrono Trigger Babel: The King of the Blocks
Airship Q (Japan) Ben 10: Ultimate Alien Cosmic Destruction Command & Conquer Bashi Blocks
Aiyoku no Eustia: Angel’s Blessing (Japan) Black Rock Shooter: The Game Command & Conquer: Red Alert Bermuda Triangle
Akasuna (Japan) Blade Dancer Lineage of Light Command & Conquer: Red Alert: Retaliation Blast Off
Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed BlazBlue Portable: Calamity Trigger Cool Boarders Blimp: The Flying Adventures
Alia’s Carnival! Sacramanet (Japan) BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II Cool Boarders 2 Block Cascade Fusion
Alien Breed Blazing Souls Accelate Cool Boarders 3 Boom Beats
Alone with You Brandish: The Dark Revenant Cyber Sled BreakQuest
Amazing Spider-Man, The Breath of Fire III Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness BreakQuest: Extra Evolution
Amatsumi Sora Ni (Japan) Burnout: Dominator Darkstalkers Canabalt
Amenity’s Life (Japan) Burnout: Legends Darkstalkers 3 Car Jack Streets
Amnesia: Lost Memories Buzz! Master Quiz Dead in the Water Card Shark
Amnesia World Buzz! Quiz World Deception: Invitation to Darkness Carnivores: Ice Age
A-Men Cabela’s African Safari Destrega Chopper I
Angelique Retour Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts: Ultimate Challenge Destruction Derby Circles
Angry Birds Star Wars Cabela’s North American Adventures Dino Crisis Coconut Dodge
Angry Birds Trilogy Call of Duty: Roads to Victory Dino Crisis 2 Cohort Chess
Antiquia Lost Capcom Classics Collection: Reloaded Dirt Jockey Core Blaster
Aqua Kitty DX – Milk Mine Defender Capcom Classics Collection: Remixed Disney Pixar Bug’s Life, A Cubixx
Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm Capcom Puzzle World Disney Pixar Monsters, Inc.: Scream Team D-Cube Planet
Ar No Surge Plus: Ode to an Unborn Star Carnage Heart EXA Disney Pixar Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue! Defenders of the Mystic Garden
Arcana Familga Cars 2: The Video Game Disney Pixar Toy Story Racer Deflector
Arcana Heart 3 LOVE MAX!!!!! Chameleon Disney’s Emperor’s New Groove, The Doodle Fit
Asdivine Hearts Cho Aniki Zero Disney’s Hercules Drums Challenge
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles Cladun: This is an RPG! Disney’s Lilo & Stitch Duael Invaders
Asterisk War: Phoenix Festa Class of Heroes Disney’s Little Mermaid II Ducati Challenge
Asterisk War: The Academy City on the Water (Japan) Class of Heroes 2 Disney’s Peter Pan: Return to Never Land Echoes
Astral Air no Shiroki Towa White Eternity (Japan) Class of Heroes 3 Double Dragon Edge
Atelier Ayesha Plus Con, The Dragon Beat Legend of Pinball Enchanted Cavern
Atelier Escha + Logy Plus Corpse Party Echo Night Enigmo
Atelier Firis: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Journey Corpse Party: Book of Shadows Evergreen Avenue Family Games
Atelier Meruru Plus: The Apprentice of Arland Crimson Gem Saga Extreme Pinball Farm Frenzy
Atelier Rorona Plus: The Alchemist of Arland Crystal Defenders Favorite Dear ~Enkan no Monogatari~ Farm Frenzy 2
Atelier Shallie Plus: The Alchemists of the Dusk Sea CUBE Favorite Dear ~Jyunpaku no Yogensha~ Farm Frenzy 3
Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Boo Dante’s Inferno Fighting Force Farm Frenzy: Pizza Party
Atelier Totori Plus: The Adventurer of Arland Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower Final Fantasy IX Fighting Fantasy: Talisman of Death
Atomic Ninjas Daxter Final Fantasy Origins
Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
Attack on Titan Dead Head Fred Final Fantasy Tactics Fish Tank
Attack on Titan 2 (Japan) Dead or Alive Paradise Final Fantasy V Flick Fishing
Attractio Despicable Me: The Game Final Fantasy VI Fly Fu
Axiom Verge Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days Final Fantasy VII Fortix
Ayakashi Gohan Oomori (Japan) Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness Final Fantasy VIII Galcon Labs
Azkend 2 Disgaea: Infinite Finger Flashing Gamocracy One: Legend of Robot
Back to Bed Dissidia 012 [Duodecim] Prologus: Final Fantasy First Queen IV Gang Wars
Backgammon Blitz Dissidia 012 [Duodecim]: Final Fantasy Front Mission 3 Gold Medalist
Bad Apple Wars Dissidia: Final Fantasy Future Cop L.A.P.D. Golf Mania
Badland DJ Max Portable 3 Gex Guerrilla War
Bakumatsu Rock Ultra Soul (Japan) Dragon’s Lair Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko Hal 21
Bara Ni Kakusareshi Verite (Japan) Dragoneer’s Aria Gex: Enter the Gecko Hello Flowerz
Bard’s Gold Driver ’76 Grandia Hero of Sparta
Baseball Riot Dungeon Maker Hunting Ground Harvest Moon: Back to Nature HISTORY: Egypt Engineering an Empire
Bastion Dynasty Warriors Herc’s Adventures Hotel Mogul
Batman Arkham Origins Blackgate Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 Heroine Dream Hungry Giraffe
Beast and Princess (Japan) Dynasty Warriors: Strike Force Heroine Dream 2 Hysteria Project
Believer! echochrome Hot Shots Golf 2 Hysteria Project 2
Ben 10: Galactic Racing echoshift Hyper Crazy Climber I Must Run!
Benibana (Japan) Elminage Original Jet Moto Ikari III: The Rescue
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk End of Serenity Jet Moto 2 Ikari Warriors
Berserk Musou (Japan) Everyday Shooter Jigsaw Madness Impossible Game, The
Best of Arcade Games Eye of Judgment Legends, The Jumping Flash! Jane’s Hotel
Best of Board Games F1 2009 Jumping Flash! 2 Jelly Car 2
Binary Star (Japan) Fading Shadows Kickboxing Jelly Pops
Binding of Isaac Rebirth Fatal Fury Klonoa: Door to Phantomile Jetpack Joyride
Bit Dungeon Plus Fate/Extra Legend of Dragoon Jewel Keepers: Easter Islands
BIT.TRIP Presents… Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien Fate/Unlimited codes (PS3 Transfer Required. No longer for sale on PSN) Legend of Mana Kaleidoscope
Black Wolves Saga Weib Und Schwarz Field Commander Lucifer Ring Knight Fortix 2
Blast ‘Em Bunnies FIFA 14 Lup Salad M.O.Z.O.X. Space Salvager
BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Final Fantasy III Magic Carpet Marvin’s Maze
BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Extend Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection Mahjong Uranai Fortuna-Tsuki no Megami Tachi Me Monstar: Hear Me Roar!
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extended Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions Majong Youchien Tamago-gumi Mighty Flip Champs DX
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon flow Makeruna Makendo 2 MiniSquadron
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Gangs of London Medal of Honor Monochrome Racing
Blue Reflection (Japan) Generation of Chaos: Pandora’s Reflection Medal of Honor: Underground Monopoly
Bodycheck Geronimo Stilton in the Kingdom of Fantasy: The Videogame Medievil Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess
Borderlands 2 Geronimo Stilton: Return to the Kingdom of Fantasy: The Videogame Mega Man Next Space, The
Breach & Clear Gladiator Begins Mega Man 2 Normal Tanks
BreakQuest: Extra Evolution Go! Puzzle Mega Man 3 OMG-Z
Bridge, The God of War: Chains of Olympus Mega Man 4 One Epic Game
Broken Age God of War: Ghost of Sparta Mega Man 8 Orbit
Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse Gods Eater Burst Mega Man X4 Ozma Wars
Brothers Conflict Precious Baby (Japan) Gran Turismo Mega Man X5 P.O.W. – Prisoners of War
Bullet Girls (Japan Cartridge) Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Mega Man Legends Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder
Bullet Girls 2 (Japan) Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories Mega Man Legends 2 Pipe Madness
Caligula (Japan) Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories Metal Gear Solid (PS3 Transfer Required) Pix’N Love Rush
Caligula Effect Gravity Crash Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions Prehistoric Isle
Captain Earth: Mind Labyrinth (Japan) Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time Metal Slug X Psycho Soldier
CastleStorm Gungnir Missile Command Robin Hood: The Return of Richard
Cel Damage HD Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure Mobile Light Force Route 66
Chaos;Child (Japan) Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom Monster Bass! Rumble Trucks
Chaos;Head Dual (Japan Cartridge) Hakuoki: Warriors of the Shinsengumi Motto Trump Shiyouyo! SAR – Search and Rescue
Chaos Rings III: Prequel Trilogy (Japan) Half-Minute Hero Mr. Driller Sky Force
Chelsea and the 7 Devils (Japan) Harvest Moon: Boy and Girl Myst Snowy: The Bear’s Adventures
Child of Light Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley N20 Nitrous Oxide Spaceball: Revolution
Chou No Doku Hana No Kusari (Japan) Hexyz Force Namco Museum Volume 1 Speedball 2: Evolution
Chronovolt Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee Namco Museum Volume 2 Spot the Differences!
Chusingura 46+1 V (Japan) Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2 Namco Museum Volume 3 Star Hammer Tactics
Citizens of Earth Hot Shots Shorties: Blue Pack Namco Museum Volume 4 Stellar Attack
Cladun Returns: This is Sengoku! Hot Shots Shorties: Green Pack Namco Museum Volume 5 Stick Man Rescue
Claire: Extended Cut Hot Shots Shorties: Red Pack Neo Planet Street Smart
Clannad Hot Shots Shorties: Yellow Pack Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus T.N.K. III
Classic Dungeon Sengoku (Japan) Hot Shots Tennis: Get a Grip Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee Tehra Dark Warrior
Clock Zero (Japan) Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings One Telegraph Crosswords
Coconut Dodge Revitalised Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon Oz no Mahoutsukai ~Another World~ RungRung Telegraph Sudoku & Kakuro
Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier Pac-Man World (20th Anniversary) Tetris (No longer for sale on PSN)
Collar x Malice Jeanne D’Arc Parasite Eve
The Adventures of Rotating Octopus Character
Color Guardians Jikandia: The Timeless Land Parasite Eve II Time Soldiers
Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble Perfect Weapon Touchdown Fever
Corpse Party: Blood Drive Killzone: Liberation Persona 2: Eternal Punishment Treasures of Montezuma, The
Corridor Z King of Fighters ’94, The Populous: The Beginning Twin Blades: The Reaping Vanguard
CounterSpy King of Fighters ’95, The Puzzle: Star Sweep Urbanix
Criminal Girls: Invite Only King of Fighters ’96, The R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 Vanguard
Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors King of Fighters, The: The Orochi Saga Racing Vanguard II
Crimson Empire (Japan) King of Pool Rally Cross Velocity
Croixleur Sigma Kingdom of Paradise Rayman Vibes
Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu No Rondo TR (Japan) Knights in the Nightmare Rayman 2: The Great Escape Victory Road
Cross Channel: For All People (Japan) League Bowling Reel Fishing VT Tennis
Crypt of the Necrodancer Legend of Heroes, The: Ao no Kiseki (Japan) Reel Fishing II Wizorb
Curses N’ Chaos Legend of Heroes, The: Trails in the Sky Resident Evil 2 Young Thor
Cyber Threat Legend of Heroes, The: Trails in the Sky SC Resident Evil 3: Nemesis Yummy Yummy Cooking Jam
Daisenryaku Daitouakouboushi 3 (Japan) Lego Batman: The Videogame Resident Evil: Director’s Cut Zenonia
Daiseryaku Exceed II (Japan) Lego Harry Potter Years 1 – 4 Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV
Daisenryaku Perfect (Japan) LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 Saiyuki: Journey West
Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai: Library Party (Japan) LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures Sarara’s Little Shop
Damascus Gear: Operation Tokyo LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean Sentimental Graffiti
Dance with Devils (Japan) LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars Shadow Tower
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Lemmings Silent Hill (PS3 Transfer Required)
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc LittleBigPlanet Sim City 2000
Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls LocoRoco Sim Theme Park
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony Locoroco 2 Sorcerer’s Maze
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony Demo LocoRoco Midnight Carnival Spec Ops: Airborne Commando
Darkest Dungeon Lord of the Rings, The: Aragorn’s Quest Spec Ops: Covert Assault
Darius Burst: Chronicle Saviors Lunar: Silver Star Harmony Spec Ops: Ranger Elite
Date a Live Twin Edition: Rio Reincarnation (Japan Cartridge) Magician Lord Spec Ops: Stealth Patrol
Day of the Tentacle Remastered Mana Khemia: Student Alliance Street Fighter Alpha
Dead Nation Manhunt 2 Street Fighter Alpha 2
Dead or Alive 5 Plus Me and My Katamari Street Fighter Alpha 3
Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 Medal of Honor: Heroes Suikoden
Death Under the Labyrinth (Japan) Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 Suikoden II
Deception IV: Blood Ties MediEvil Resurrection Syphon Filter
Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X Syphon Filter 2
Del Segno (Japan) Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Syphon Filter 3
Demetrios Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus Tekken
Demon Gaze Metal Slug Tekken 2
Demon Gaze II Metal Slug 2 Ten Pin Alley
Desert Ashes Metal Slug Anthology The Firemen 2: Pete and Danny
Desire: Remaster Version (Japan) Metal Slug XX The King of Fighters ’99
Diabolik Lovers: Dark Fate (Japan) Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition The Misadventures of Tron Bonne
Diabolik Lovers: Lost Eden (Japan) Midnight Club: Los Angeles Remix Theme Hospital
Diabolik Lovers: More Blood Limited V Edition (Japan) Military History: Commander: Europe at War Threads of Fate
Diabolik Lovers: Vandead Carnival Mimana Iyar Chronicle TNN Motorsports Harcore 4×4
Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Monster Hunter Freedom Unite Tokyo 23-Ku Seifuku Wars
Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth ~ Hacker’s Memory Mystic Chronicles Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six
Digimon World: Next Order (Japan) NBA 2K10 Tomb Raider
Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention NBA 2K11 Tomb Raider 2
Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited NBA 2K12 Tomb Raider III
Disney Infinity NBA 2K13 Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation
Divekick Need For Speed: ProStreet (PS3 Transfer Needed) Tomba!
Doki-Doki Universe Neo Geo Heroes: Ultimate Shooting Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return
Don’t Die Mr Robot NeoPets PetPet Adventures: The Wand of Wishing Trump Shiyouyo! Fukkoku-ban
Don’t Starve: Giant Edition No Heroes Allowed! Turnabout
Downwell Numblast Twisted Metal
Dragon Fantasy Book I Parappa the Rapper Twisted Metal 2
Dragon Fantasy Book II Patapon Um Jammer Lammy
Dragon Fin Soup Patapon 2 Vagrant Story
Dragon Sinker Patapon 3 Vanguard Bandits
Dragon Quest Heroes II (Japan) Patchwork Heroes Vehicle Cavalier
Dragon’s Crown Petz Dogz Family Virtual Pool 3
Dramatical Murder Re:Code (Japan) Petz Hamsterz Bunch Warhawk
Drive Girls (Europe) Petz Saddle Club Wild Arms
Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition Petz Saddle Club Demo Wild Arms 2
Dungeon Punks Phantom Brave: The Hermuda Triangle Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom
Dungeon Travelers 2: The Royal Library and Monster Seal Phineas and Ferb Across the 2nd Dimension Wipeout
Dungeon Travelers 2: The Royal Library and Monster Seal Demo Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection Wolf Fang
Dungeon Travelers 2-2 (Japan) Pinball Heroes Xenogears
Durarara!! 3-Way Standoff: Alley V (Japan) PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe Xevious 3D/G+
Durarara!! Relay (Japan) Piyotama XS Airboat Racing
Dustforce Pool Hall Pro XS Junior League Dodgeball
Dynamic Chord (Japan) Power Stone Collection XS Junior League Football
Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires PQ: Practical Intelligence Quotient XS Junior League Soccer
Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires Free Alliances PQ2: Practical Intelligence Quotient 2 XS Moto
Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends Complete Edition Prince of Persia: Revelations ZanacxZanac
Dynasty Warriors: Eiketsuden (Japan) Prince of Persia: Rival Swords Zero Kara no Mahjong ~Mahjong Tamago-gumi 2~
Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Zero Kara no Shogi ~Shogi Youchien Ayumi-gumi~
Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood!
Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders from Planet Space Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?
East Aoikami Luck V (Japan) Pursuit Force
Ebikore + Amagami (Japan) Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice
Eikoku Tantei Mysteria The Crown Puzzle Challenge: Crosswords and More!
Emerald Shores Puzzle Guzzle
End of the World and Happy Birthday (Japan) Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
End Sleep (Japan) Ragnarok Tactics
Entwined Rapala Pro Bass Fishing
Ephemeral: Fantasy of Dark Rapala Trophies
EscapeVektor Ratchet And Clank: Size Matters
Ethan Meteor Hunter Reel Fishing: The Great Outdoors
Eve Burst Error R (Japan) Resistance: Retribution
Exile’s End Ridge Racer
Exile Election (Japan) Riviera: The Promised Land
Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky
Exstetra (Japan) Samurai Shodown
Factotum 90 Samurai Showdown Anthology
Fallen Legion: Flames of Rebellion Samurai Warriors: State of War
Fantasy Hero: Unsigned Legacy Savage Moon: The Hera Campaign
Farming Simulator 14 Secret Agent Clank
Farming Simulator 16 Secret Saturdays, The: Beasts of the 5th Sun
Fat City Shin Megami Tensei: Persona
Fate/Extella Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2: Innocent Sin
Fate/Stay Night (Japan Cartridge) Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable
Fate/Hollow Ataraxia (Japan Cartridge) Shock Troopers
Fernz Gate Sims 2, The
Fez Sims 2, The: Castaway
FIFA 14 Sims 2, The: Pets
FIFA 14 Spanish SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1
Final Fantasy X HD Remaster SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Fireteam Bravo
Final Fantasy X-2 HD Remaster SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Fireteam Bravo 2
Final Horizon SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Fireteam Bravo 3
Flame Over SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Tactical Strike
Floating Cloud God: Saves The Pilgrims in HD Sonic Rivals
Flowers Natsu Hen (Japan) Sonic Rivals 2
Flyhunter Origins Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny
Foosball 2012 Split/Second
Forma.8 Star Wars Battlefront II
Foul Play Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron
Freedom Wars Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron
Friend to Lover (Japan) Star Wars: The Clone Wars Republic Heroes
Frozen Synapse Prime Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Funk of Titans Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
Furmins Strikers 1945 Plus Portable
Fushigi No Dungeon Fuurai No Shiren 5 Plus (Japan) Summon Night 5
Futuridium Super Monkey Ball Adventure
Gakuen Heaven 2 Double Scramble (Japan) Super Pocket Tennis
Gakuen Heaven Boy’s Love Scramble (Japan) Super Sidekicks
Galtia: V Edition (Japan) Super Stardust Portable
Garou: Mark of the Wolves Sweet Fuse: At Your Side
Gekuen K Wonderful School Days V Edition (Japan) Syphon Filter: Combat Ops
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow
Germinator Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
Geten no Hana with Yume Akari Aizouban (Japan) Tekken 6
Getsuei no Kusari: Sakuran Paranoia (Japan) Thrillville: Off the Rails
Ginsei Igo Next Generation (Japan) Tokobot
Girls & Panzer: Senshado Kiwamemasu (Japan) Tom Clancy’s EndWar
God Eater: Off Shot (Japan) Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2
God Eater: Resurrection Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Predator
God Eater 2: Rage Burst Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas
God of War Collection Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cells Essentials
God Wars: Future Past Tron: Evolution: The Video Game
Goes! Ultimate Ghost’s ‘N Goblins
Grand Kingdom Unchained Blades
Grand Kingdom LiteDEMO Undead Knights
Gravity Crash Ultra Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade
Grim Fandango Remastered Untold Legends: The Warrior’s Code
Grisaia no Kajitsu (Japan Cartridge) Valhalla Knights
Grisai no Kajitsu Spinout?! (Japan) Valhalla Knights 2
Grisaia no Meikyuu (Japan Cartridge) Valkyria Chronicles 2
Grisaia no Rakuen (Japan Cartridge) Vertigo
Guacamalee Warriors of the Lost Empire
Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R Warriors Orochi
Gun Gun Pixies (Japan) Warriors Orochi 2
Gundam Breaker (Japan) Warriors, The
Gundam Breaker 3 (Japan/Asia) What Did I do to Deserve This My Lord?
Gundam Breaker 2 (Japan) What Did I do to Deserve This My Lord? 2
Gundam Extreme Vs Force Wild Arms XF
Gundam Seed Battle Destiny (Japan Cartridge) WipeOut Pulse
Gunslugs World Heroes
Haitaka no Psyhedelica (Japan) WTF: Work Time Fun
Haiyore! Nyaruko-San: Nafushigatai Game no You na Mono Yggdra Union
Hakuisei Aijou Izonshou (Japan) Ys I & II Chronicles
Hakuoki SSL: Sweet School Life (Japan) Ys Seven
Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms Ys: The Oath in Felghana
Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds Z. H. P.: Unlosing Ranger Vs. Darkdeath Evilman
Hakuoki: Kyouka Roku (Japan)
Hakuouki: Reimeiroku (Japan)
Hakuoki: Zuisouroku Omokage Hana (Japan)
Hana Oboro: Sengoku Denranki (Japan)
Hanasaki Work Spring (Japan)
Hanasaku Manimani (Japan)
Hanayamata Kana (Japan)
Hanayamata Yosakoi Live (Japan)
Harukanaru Toki No Nake De 3 Ultimate (Japan)
Harukanaru Toki no Naka De 6 (Japan)
Harukanaru Toki no Naka De 6: Gentou Rondo (Japan)
Harvest Overlay
Hatoful Boyfriend
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva f 2nd
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X
Hatsuru Koto Naki Mirai Yori
Hatsuyuki Sakura (Japan)
HD Adventures of Rotating Octopus Character, The
Heart no Kuni no Alice (Japan)
Helldivers
Hello Lady: Superior Dynamis
Heroes of Loot
Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Sui (Japan)
Himawari: Pebble in the Sky (Japan)
Himuoto (Japan)
History: Legends of War: Patton
Hit Me (Japan)
Hitman GO
Hitotsutobashi Renai V (Japan)
Hohokum
Home – A Unique Horror Adventure
Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai Converted Edition (Japan)
Hotline Miami
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number
The House in Fata Morgana: Collected Edition (Japan)
htoL#NiQ – The Firefly Diary
Hungry Horde
Hyakka Hyakurour: Sengoku Ninpoujou
Hyakka Ryouran Elixir: Record of Torenia Revival (Japan)
Hyakka Yakou (Japan)
Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;birth 2: Sisters Generation
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 3: V Generation
Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed
I Doll U (Japan)
IA/VT Colorful
Iconoclasts
ID: Rebirth Session (Japan)
Idol Death Game TV (Japan)
Ikenie to Yuki no Setsuna
Imaginstruments
Infinite Stratos: Love and Purge (Japan Cartridge)
Infinite Stratos 2: Ignition Hearts (Japan)
Irotoridori no Sekai: World’s End Rebirth (Japan)
Island (Japan)
J-Stars Victory Vs +
Jet Car Stunts
Jet Set Radio
Jetpack Joyride
Jetpack Joyride Deluxe
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball Championship 2017 (Japan)
Joe Danger
Joe Danger 2: The Movie
Justy x Nasty: Maou Hajimemashita (Japan)
Juusanshi Engi: Engetsu Sangokuden 1-2 (Japan)
Kaeru Batake De Tsukamaete (Japan)
Kaihou Shoujo Sin (Japan)
Kamen Rider Battride War Sousei (Japan)
Kamigami no Asobi: Ludere Deorum Infinite
Kamisama To Koi Gokoro (Japan)
Kengakimi for V (Japan)
Kick and Fennick
Killzone: Mercenary
Kimi o Aogi Otome wa Hima ni (Japan)
King Oddball
Klap! Kind Love and Punish (Japan)
Knytt Underground
Kokujo no Psychedelica (Japan)
Kono Oozora Ni Tsubasa Wo Hirogete Cruise Sign
Konojo*Step (Japan)
Kosyoku Meikyu Rinbukyoku: La Role De Fortune (Japan)
Kud Wafter: Converted Edition (Japan)
Kujiragami no Tearstilla / Tear of the Whale God (Japan)
Kung Fu Rabbit
Kurogane Kaikitan: Senya Ichiya (Japan)
Kyoukai no Shirayuki (Japan)
La Corda d’Oro 4 (Japan)
La-Mulana EX
Lara Croft Go
Last Blade 2, The
Last Wings
Legend of Dark Witch
Legend of Doodle
Legend of Heroes: Ao no Kiseki Evolution (Japan)
Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC Evolution (Japan Cartridge)
Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC Evolution (Japan Cartridge)
Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky The 3rd Evolution (Japan)
Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel
Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
Legend of Heroes: Zero no Kiseki Evolution (Japan)
LEGO Batman 2 DC Super Heroes
LEGO Batman 2 DC Super Heroes (French)
LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5 – 7
LEGO Jurassic World
LEGO Movie Videogame, The
LEGO Ninjago Nindroids
LEGO Ninjago Shadow of Ronin
LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens
LEGO: The Avengers
Lego The Hobbit
LEGO The Lord of the Rings
Let’s Fish: Hooked On
Level 22
Lichtspeer
Limbo
Little Busters! Converted Edition (Japan Cartridge)
Lone Survivor: Director’s Cut
Longest Five Minutes
Lord of Apocalypse (Japan)
Lost Dimension
Love:Quiz Koi Suru Otome no Final Answer (Japan)
Love of Love Emperor of Love (Japan)
Love Revenge (Japan)
Lovely x Cation 1 & 2 (Japan)
Luftrausers
Lumines: Electronic Symphony
Luminous Arc: Infinity (Japan)
Lumo
M3: Sono Kuroki Hagane (Japan)
Machinarium
Madden NFL 13
Madoka Magicka: The Battle Pentagram (Japan)
Mahou Tsukai to Goushujin-Sama (Japan)
Mahouka Koukou No Rettousei: Out of Order (Japan)
Magic Kyun! Renaissance (Japan)
Magical Beat
Majo Koi Nikki Dragon x Caravan (Japan)
Malicious Rebirth
Marginal #4 Idol of Supernova (Japan)
Marginal #4 Road to Galaxy (Japan)
Mary Skelter: Nightmares
Meikyuu Cross Blood: Infinite Ultimate (Japan)
MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death
MegaTagMension Neptune + Blanc vs Zombies
Meltymoment (Japan)
Mercenary Kings Reloaded
Metal Slug 3
Metropolis Defenders (Japan)
Mind Zero
Minecraft
Minutes
Miracle Girls Festival (Japan Cartridge)
MLB 13: The Show
MLB 14: The Show
MLB 15: The Show
Monobeno Pure Smile (Japan)
Monochrono
Monster Hunter Frontier G (Japan Cartridge)
Monster Hunter Frontier G6 (Japan Cartridge)
Monster Hunter Frontier G8 (Japan)
Monster Hunter Frontier G9 (Japan)
Monster Monpiece
MOP: Operation Cleanup
Moshi Kono Sekai Ni Kami-Sama Ga Iru To Suru Naraba (Japan)
Motorstorm RC
Moujuutsukai to Oujisama Flower & Snow (Japan)
MouseCraft
Ms. Germinator
Muramasa Rebirth
Murasaki Mist: Akara’s Journey
Musou Stars (Japan)
Mutant Mudds Deluxe
Muv-Luv
Muv-Luv Alternative
Mystery Chronicle: One Way Heroics (Japan)
Nadeshiko Revolution
Nanairo Reincarnation (Japan)
Natsumego: Precious Last Summer Party (Japan)
Natural Doctrine
Need For Speed Most Wanted
Nekketsu Inou Bukatsu Tan Trigger Kiss (Japan)
Nekoburo – Cats Block
Neon Chrome
Nep-Nep Connect: Chaos Chanpuru (Japan)
Net High (Japan)
Neverending Nightmares
New Danganronpa V3
New Game! The Challenge Stage (Japan)
New Interpretation Stranger of Sword City (Japan)
Nidhogg
Nihon Pro Mahjong Renmei Kounin (Japan)
NINKI SEIYUU NO TSUKURIKATA (Japan)
Nil Admirari no Tenbin Teito Genwakukitan (Japan)
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus
Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus
Ninja Senki DX
Nisekoi Yomeiri!? (Japan)
Nobunaga No Yabou: Souzou Sengoku Risshiden (Japan)
Norn9: Act Tune (Japan)
Norn9: Norn + Nonette Last Era (Japan)
Norn9: Vars Commons (Japan)
Nova-111
Nuclear Throne
Nurse Love Addiction
Oceanhorn
Octodad: Dadliest Catch
Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir
Okashi Na Shima No Peter Pan: Sweet Never Land (Japan)
OlliOlli
OlliOlli 2
Omega Labyrinth (Japan Cartridge)
Omega Labyrinth Z (Japan)
Omerta Code: Tycoon Kai
OMG HD Zombies!
One Piece: Burning Blood
One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3
One Piece: Unlimited World Red
Oodeo Blacksmith (Japan Cartridge)
Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy (June 2015)
Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines
Oretachi ni Tusbasa Wa Nai: Under the Innocent Sky (Japan)
Orfreres: Boquet Du Bonheur (Japan)
Organ Trail: Complete Edition
Orgarhythm
Otoko Yuukaku (Japan)
Oumagatoki Kakuriyo No Fuchi (Japan)
Owari No Seraph Unmei No Hajimari (Japan)
Ozmafia!! Vivace (Japan)
Parfait (Japan)
Period: Cube – Shackles of Amadeus
Persona 4 Dancing All Night
Persona 4 Golden
Phantasy Star Nova (Japan Cart)
Phantom Breaker: Battlegrounds
Pinball Arcade
Pinball Heroes: Complete
Pix the Cat
Pixel Hunter
PixelJunk Monsters: Ultimate HD
PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate
Plague Road
Plants vs Zombies (No longer for sale on PSN)
Plastic Memories (Japan)
Pocket God vs Desert Ashes
Pocket RPG
Poltergeist – A Pixelated Horror
Possession Magenta (Japan)
PriministAr (Japan)
Prince of Stride (Japan)
Princess is Money-Hungry (Japan)
Pro Yakyuu Spirits 2014 (Japan)
Pro Yakyuu Spirits 2015 (Japan)
Proteus
Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk
Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly
Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness
Punch Line (Japan)
Puramai Wars V (Japan)
Pure Chess
Puyo Puyo Tetris (Japan Cartridge)
Q*Bert Rebooted
Quell Memento
Quiet Collection, The
Race the Sun
Raishi (Japan)
Ragnarok Odyssey
Ragnarok Odyssey ACE
Rainbow Moon
Rainbow Skies
Rally Copters
Ray Gigant
Re:Vice [D] (Japan)
Realm: Walk of Soul
Rear Pheles Red of Another (Japan)
Reel Fishing: Master’s Challenge
Refrain no Chika Meikyuu To Majo No Ryodan (Japan)
Reine des Fleurs (Japan)
Renai 0 Kilometre V (Japan)
Rep Kiss (Japan)
Resident Evil Revelations 2
Resogun
Retro City Rampage
Revenant Saga
Reverie
Rewrite (Japan Cartridge)
Ring Run Circus
Risk of Rain
Ro-Kyu-Bu (Japan)
Robotics;Notes Elite (Japan Cartridge)
Rock Boshers DX
Rocketbirds 2
Rogue Aces
Rogue Legacy
Rogue Raiders Online
Romeo vs Jliet All Chapter Pack (Japan)
Rollers of the Realm
Root Infinity Rexx (Japan)
Root Letter
Rose and the Old Castle of Twilight (Japan)
Rozen Maiden (Japan)
Ryuuyoku No Melodia (Japan)
SA7: Silent Ability Seven (Japan)
Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata: Blessing Flowers (Japan)
Saki Zenkoku Hen (Japan)
Salt & Sanctuary
Samurai Warriors 4
Samurai Warriors 4-II
Samurai Warriors 4: Empires
Samurai Warriors Chronicles 3
Samurai Warriors: Sanada Maru
Sangoku Koi Senki: Omoide Gaeshi CS Edition
Saturday Morning RPG
Sayaka Buccaneers (Japan)
Sayonara Umihara Kawase +
School Wars (Japan)
Scram Kitty DX
SD Gundam G Generation Genesis (Japan)
SemiSpheres
Sengoku Hime 5 (Japan)
Senjou No Enbukuoku (Japan)
Senran Kagura Bon Appetit
Senran Kagura Estival Versus
Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus
Seraph of the End (Japan)
Seraphim
Shakedown Hawaii
Shantae: 1/2 Genie Hero
Shiin (Japan)
Shin Gundam Musou (Japan)
Shin Hyarigami (Japan)
Shinobi Koi Utsutsu Yukitsuki Hanakoi Emaki (Japan)
Shiren the Wanderer
Shirogane x Spirits (Japan)
Shovel Knight
Shutshimi
Silverio Vendetta: Verse of Orpheus (Japan)
Sketchcross
Skullgirls 2nd Encore
Sky Force Anniversary
Sly Cooper – Thieves in Time
Soft Body
Soldner X2: Final Prototype
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God
Soul Sacrifice Delta
Sound Shapes
Sora Yume (Japan)
Sparkle
Sparkle Unleashed
Sparkle 2
Spellspire
Spelunky
Spheroids
Spongebob Hero Pants
Spy Chameleon: RBG Agent
Squareboy vs Bullies: Arena Edition
Star Wars Pinball
Starry Skies: Spring Stories (Japan)
Starry Skies: Summer Stories (Japan)
Stealth Inc.: A Clone In The Dark
Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones
SteamWorld Dig
Steamworld Dig 2
Steins;Gate
Steins;Gate 0
Stick It To The Man
Storm Lover V (Japan)
Storm Lover 2nd V (Japan)
Stranger of Sword City
Strawberry Nauts
Strike Solitaire 2
Summon Night 6: Lost Borders (Japan)
Super Blackout
Super Blast Deluxe
Super Exploding Zoo
Super Hero Generation (Japan)
Super Meat Boy
Super Robot Taisen: OG Saga Masoukishin 3: Pride of Justice (Japan)
Super Robot Taisen Z jigoku-Hen (Japan)
Super Robot Taisen Z Tengoku-Hen (Japan)
Super Star Wars
Super Time Force Ultra
Superbeat: Xonic
Superdimension Neptune vs Sega Hard Girls
Superfrog HD
Suran Digit (Japan)
Swapper, The
Sweet Clown Gozen Sai-Ji No Okashi Na Doukeshi (Japan)
Sweet Pool (Japan)
Swindle, The
Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment
Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization (Japan)
Sword Art Online: Lost Song
Table Top Racing
Taisho Mobius Line Vital (Japan)
Tales of Hearts R
Tales of Innocence R (Japan Cartridge)
Talisman: Digital Edition
Teikoku Kaigun Koi Bojou Meiji Yokosuka Koushinkyoku (Japan)
Tennis in the Face
The Promise in This Blue Sky (Japan)
The Swapper
The Unfinished Swan
Thomas was Alone
Timepiece Ensemble (Japan)
Titan Attacks!
Titan Souls
To Heart 2: Dungeon Travelers (Japan)
To Love Ru Trouble Darkness: True Princess (Japan Cartridge)
Tokeijikake no Ley Line (Japan)
Tokyo Ghoul Jail (Japan)
Tokyo Onmyouki (Japan)
Tokyo Shinseiroku: Operation Babel (Japan)
Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters
Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters Daybreak: Special Gigs
Tokyo Xanadu
Torikago no Marriage ~Hatsukoi no Tsubasa~
Toro’s Friend Network
TorqueL
Touhou: Genso Wanderer
Touhou: Genso Wanderer RELOADED (Japan)
Touhou Kobuto V: Burst Battle
Toukiden: Kiwami (Demo)
Toukiden: Kiwami
Toukiden The Age of Demons
Toukiden 2
Toukiden 2 Carryover Demo
TowerFall Ascension
Traveling Stars (Japan)
Treasures of Montezuma Arena
Trillion: God of Destruction
Tsuihou Senkyo
Tumblestone
Tumukui Sen No Noroi, Sen No Inori For V (Japan)
TxK
Ukiyo No Roushi (Japan)
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Ultratron
Undertale
Uppers
Uta no Prince-Sama: Repeat Love (Japan)
Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth
Utawarerumono: Futari no Hakuoro (Japan)
Utawarerumono: Itsuwari no Kamen (Japan)
VA-11 HALL-A
Valkyria Revolution
Valkyrie Drive: Bhikkhuni
Valhalla Knights 3
Vamwolf Cross (Japan)
Velocibox
Velocity®2X
Velocity®Ultra
Vitaminx Destination (Japan)
Volgarr
Volume
VVVVVV
Walking Dead: The Complete First Season, The
Walking Dead: Season Two (Digital Download)
Walpurgis No Uta (Japan)
Wand of Fortune II (Japan)
Wand of Fortune R (Japan)
Wand of Fortune R2 (Japan)
Wanderjahr
Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate
We Are Doomed
When the Butler Chooses a Princess (Japan)
When Vikings Attack!
Whispering Willows
White Album 2 (Japan)
White Robe Love Addiction (Japan)
Whoa Dave!
Will: A Wonderful World
Wing Kings
Winning Post 8 (Japan)
Wonderland Chronicle (Japan)
World Trigger: Borderless Mission (Japan)
World’s Longest 5 Minutes (Japan)
Worms Revolution Extreme
WRC 4
WRC 5
XBlaze Code: Embryo
Xblaze: Lost Memories
Xenoraid
Yomawari: Night Alone
Yorunonaikuni (Japan)
Yunohana Spring (Japan)
Yuusha Shisu – Brave Mortal (Japan)
Yuuki Yuuna Wa Yuusha De Aru: Jukai No Kioku (Japan)
Yuukyuu no Tierblade: Lost Chronicle (Japan)
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana
Zanki Zero: Last Beginning
Zen Pinball 2
Zero Escape: The Nonary Games
Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward
Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma
Zettai Geigeki Wars (Japan)
Zombie Tycoon II: Brainhov’s Revenge
Z-Run

PlayStation TV Non-Compatible Games List (North America/Japan)

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Like my list of PSTV-Compatible Games, this list contains Games and Apps that are NOT compatible with the PlayStation TV / PS Vita TV.

If you’re curious about the reasoning, it is quite simple.  Developers/Publishers have the ability to enable PSTV Support.  There are a few ways of doing this.

  1. They can hit a Checkbox on the Dev Kit for PS Vita TV functionality
  2. They can edit the actual programming code that tells the Vita TV to let the software launch

So, if a game does not launch, it means that the dev either opted out of allowing for PSTV Support, or the game came out before the PSTV did and they never updated their software to work with it.

 

Last Update: August 09, 2018

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Big Fest The Red Star
Bit.Trip Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Bloxiq Tomb Raider: Legend
Bombing Busters
Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified
Castle Invasion: Throne Out
A Certain Magical Virtual-On (Japan)
Ciel Nosurge: Ushinawareta Hoshi e Sasagu Shi (Japan)
Cosmic Star Heroine
Cosmophony
Crimsonland
Dark Quest V
Deadman’s Cross
Delta Strike: First Assault
Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax
DJ Max: Technika Tune
Doodle Kingdom
Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z
Dragon Quest Builders
Dream Club Zero Portable (Japan)
Dreii
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Fat Princess: Piece of Cake
Fifa 15
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Flying Hamster HD
Gem Legends
Get Off My Lawn
Gravity Badgers
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Hatsune Miku: Project Diva f
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HTR+ Slot Car Simulation
Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1
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LEGO Marvel Super Heroes: Universe in Peril
Letter Quest Remastered
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Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz
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Vertical Drop Heroes HD
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XCOM: Enemy Unknown Plus
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Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy (Nintendo Switch) Review

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crash 1 - title

Game Title: Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Company: Activision
Availability: Retail | Digital
Battery Life: 2.5 – 3.5 hours
Download: 5.2 GB

Remastering games became quite the fad this generation. A lot of developers got a reason to remaster their PS3/360 or even PS2/Xbox games onto current-generation hardware. Games like The Last of Us, Final Fantasy X, and even the Dragon Ball Z Budokai games got remastered and made available for current-gen gamers.

Some devs decided to take that one step further and remastered games from the original PlayStation for current-gen systems. Last summer, the original Crash Bandicoot games spun onto the PlayStation 4 as an exclusive title. Although many handheld fans were sore about it being console-only, they only needed to wait.

Alas, this summer, the Remasters came to other platforms, from the Xbox One to the Nintendo Switch. Now that the remakes are handheld, let’s discuss them. Here is my review of the Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

crash 2 - story

The story of these games centers around Crash Bandicoot, a test subject that’s being experimented on by Dr. Neo Cortex in his plan to create an army of Mutant Animals to take over the world. After escaping from his holding cell, he fights back against the doctor to stop him and rescue another test subject he’s taken a fancy for.

The plot of the series basically goes in a “Mega Man”-esque fashion. Crash fights Cortex, wins, Cortex makes another scheme in the next game, process repeats. He’s a very Dr Wily/Eggman-type of villain. As such, story isn’t too heavy in these games.

Gameplay

crash 4 - levels

Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy is a collection of the original 3 Crash Bandicoot games that came out on the original PlayStation: Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, and Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped. All of them retain their original content with the additions of Time Trials and a few DLC levels exclusive to the remakes.

The real beauty of this remake is how faithful it was to these three games. There was no level redesigning or control-changing going on here. Every level looks and feels just like it did on the PlayStation, but with a graphical facelift and a few enemies giving more warning for their attacks to lower the absurd difficulty these games had a couple decades back.

As such, players of the originals will feel right at home, feeling like they’re playing the same games, but with a visual and audio facelift. It’s the way a lot of fans want their remakes, and with that mentality comes perfect nostalgia for older gamers and frustratingly-faithful incarnations for gamers new to the Crash Bandicoot series.

crash 3 - you died

And that lies to the actual games. These are 3D action platformers that functioned almost just as much as puzzle games as they are platformers. This is particularly-strong in Crash Bandicoot 1, but all of these games were from an age where platformers were still very difficult and had a pretty steep learning curve.

As such, expect these platforming sections to be very specific and based on precision. Crash 1 is really bad about this, giving you only one or two hits per life and its levels are filled to the brim with precision jump pits where your timing is very critical and crucial just for getting from Point A to Point B. Remember Super Meat Boy? Imagine that, but 3D and with less spike traps and more bottomless pits and fire traps.

That’s where this collection really gets frustrating. Crash 1 was a very difficult and very picky platformer that gave you death from even the most simple of puzzles and jumps. Most jumps barely had enough room to be pulled off correctly and, outside of experts, will leave players with dozens of deaths in each level, even back in the first areas of the game. 2 and 3 fix this ten-fold with faster pacing, more fluid jumping, and better level design. But, you will definitely get frustrated while playing through the first game. Being faithful is great, but just as long as you know that being faithful to a brutally difficult game leads to the remake being equally brutal and difficult.

crash 6 - run

That’s not to say it isn’t fun. As I said, Crash 2 and 3 refined the formula and made it a lot more fun, offering much faster pacing, better level design, and all around more for you to do. Whether you’re fighting off bosses, or going through a side-scrolling level section, you’ve got a lot of really good platforming here.

Now, let’s get into time. This trilogy have more than 80 levels, so you’ve got a fair bit to go through. Knowing this, though, each level isn’t really that long. As I trekked through Crash 1, I managed to only clear a few levels every hour and, when all was said and done, had put in well over 15 hours into the trilogy. So, its not like you’re getting overloaded with content, but there’s plenty of platforming to be had.

Controls

Controlling the game is simple, but input delay is a thing here. Players of the PS4 version will quickly realize that the Switch has a slight amount of input delay between hitting a button and Crash doing what you want him to do. This is an especially-important thing when it comes to specific timing. Imagine Super Meat Boy with input delay. It makes playing these games quite a bit harder if you’re coming from the PS4. It’s not a massive issue if you’re new to the trilogy on the Switch, but still something that can be troublesome.

As for the actual controls go, things aren’t too difficult. You move around with the Left Analog Stick or Arrow Buttons / D-Pad. Not all of the triggers are used. ZL is used for saving during the hub areas and R can be used in later games for crouching and sliding. The action buttons are the most used. B is used for Jumping and Y for spinning/attacking. Finally, the A button is used for crouching and sliding, just like R.

THere’s something else about controls, though. If you’re one of those people that likes to switch between Docked and Handheld play, do note that this game does not recognize controller changes. If you’ve got it docked and pull it out, you have to completely close the game and restart it for it to recognize handheld mode as a valid controller. This is in effect for all 3 games of the trilogy and is quite annoying when you go from TV Play to Handheld mid-stage.

Presentation

crash 5 = pres

Graphically, the visual upgrade the PS4 got is definitely still here, but with a catch. When this game is docked, it looks great, but in handheld mode, it looks a good bit blurry. We aren’t talking Wolfenstein 2 Blurry, but enough that it’s a bit strange to look at and get used to.

Performance is great, though. It’s a solid 30 fps and doesn’t have any drops, dips, or any of that. They really optimized these games well for performance. Just not completely for looks.

Battery Life

Battery Life isn’t wonderfully great here, but it is a visually-high game. Perhaps that was to be expected. But, anyways, here are my times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 41 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 49 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 08 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 15 minutes

So, it’s not great, but not terrible either. Enough to get some nice bit of platforming frustration in on the go.

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In conclusion, Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy makes the jump to handheld fans optimized mostly well and gives handheld fans a shot at a trilogy that is oddly incompatible with the current PS Vita models in both new and old forms. While there are some issues with controller issues and one of the games being brutally harder than the rest, it’s still a lot of fun to dive into the Switch with Crash Bandicoot in a game outside of Skylanders.

Final Score: 7/10

Dragon Ball FighterZ Open Beta (Switch) Mini-Review

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beta 1 - title

Game Title: Dragon Ball FighterZ (Open Beta)
Company: Bandai Namco
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Download: 3.1 GB

As a huge Dragon Ball fan, the Dragon Ball FIGHTERZ Open Beta for Nintendo Switch gave me a huge reason to make some more Dragon Ball-themed content. More than that, though, it also gave me a reason to stream on the YouTube Channel again. I got a little past that, though, and thought to do even more.

Enjoying the beta so much, I decided to make something of a “Mini Review” sort of thing for the Beta, itself. It’s something I’ve not done before, but hey, whatever.

After much time inside it, here is my “Mini Review” of the Dragon Ball FighterZ Open Beta for the Nintendo Switch!

Connectivity

beta 2 - rip connection

This is a section I thought I would make to address a big issue that a lot of people had with the Beta from the get-go. A lot of folks couldn’t connect to the Beta at all, including myself, due to constant messages stating that they couldn’t create an initial connection to the server.

Many just thought it’d be a simple fix, not realizing that for many people, it wasn’t something that needed to be fixed from the developer’s side. What I did to fix this was delete my Wi-Fi Hotspot from my Switch’s Internet Settings and set it back up from within the Beta and everything worked smoothly and perfect.

Though it is worth noting that this is something that was a huge hassle in early 2018 with the beta they did for the other versions of FighterZ, so it’s curious why it happened here again if it’s something they’ve already had to fix in the past.

Another little issue is that the game tends to crash when you’re running around the lobby.  This wasn’t terribly often, but it happened to me once every few hours or so.

Gameplay

beta 3 - hubs

Being a Beta and not the full game, there are a lot of features and game modes not featured in this beta. What you have available to you on the Hub World is Player/Character Customization, Tutorials, Arena Battles / PvP Multiplayer, and the Replay Theater that’s used for watching your old matches after they’re already over.

With customization, the game gives you Player Avatars for each of the 23 playable characters as well as Team Customization, which lets you create preset teams with characters and character colors already put in motion so you don’t need to re-edit after every match or game session.

As far as content goes, there’s not a whole lot here if you’re looking for a huge time-sink outside of PvP fighters, but the Tutorial is pretty length, in and of itself. There are 12 different tutorials on different parts of combat and are well-versed in getting a beginner player ready for PvP right off the bat. I was new to DBFZ and did a couple tutorials and did okay in PvP. I learned as I went, getting some victories out among losses.

beta 5 - cell wave

Then there’s Arena Battles, which are lobbies that players can make and set up spectator and 1v1 PvP matches. This is where the meat of the Beta is, doing PvP with others from around the globe. The great thing about this beta is that all 23 of the initial playable characters are available in the Beta, so you aren’t forced to choose from only a few select characters. You can try out anyone, from Android 18 to the Super Saiyan Blue variants of Goku and Vegeta.

That brings us to combat. The combat in FighterZ is 2D like Guilty Gear or BlazBlue, but far more fast-paced and contains a lot of features that not only helps beginners grasp the game, but also showcases itself as a spectacle. The Super Dash lets you initiate easy air combos and the control scheme is set up so that you can perform different combos with button-mashing or more intricate button configurations. This makes it very easy to pick up and play, be it from a fighting veteran’s standpoint or a newcomer’s standpoint.

The plethora of anime-inspired super moves also brings the combat into a light of being a visual spectacle, like you’re watching a fight from the anime with a lot of cinematic moves that recreate some of the best scenes from Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super. I had just as much fun spectating fights as I did playing them.

Controls

Controlling the game is pretty simple. It also has a customizeable control scheme, so you can set whatever you want wherever you want.

Moving is done with the Left Analog Stick / Arrow Buttons. The L and ZL buttons are used for Assist attacks while the R and ZR buttons are used for rush and Super Dash attacks to initiate those easy air combos. The face buttons are used for different kinds of attacks, while those buttons and R can be combined with Arrow Button combinations for Super Attacks.

Presentation

beta 4 - presy

Visually, the game looks gorgeous. When the original version came out on PS4 and Xbox One, it looked like an anime, except a game. It’s even worth noting that a lot of Dragon Ball YouTubers have compared some of the top-quality animations from the new Dragon Ball Super Movie Trailer directly with how FighterZ is animated.

It’s not as perfect as the other versions with little jaggies here and there, but they’re very hard to see and looks just as beautiful in handheld mode. For all intents and purposes, it looks really, really pretty.

Performance is mostly good, but does have its drawbacks that I hope will be fixed in the main game. When I played the tutorial battles, the game ran at a perfect 60 fps, but when I did Online Battles, I saw a lot of drops, whether I was playing or spectating. None of these drops really hurt my flow of battle, but they were very noticeable.

In conclusion, Dragon Ball FighterZ is looking to take the Switch fanbase by storm with this Beta. Although it’s got some things to polish and improve on the connectivity side, the beautiful visuals and action-packed combat system is set to take other Switch fighting games by storm.

Okami HD (Nintendo Switch) Review

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Game Title: Okami HD
Company: Capcom
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Digital (Retail available in Japan)
Battery Life: 3.5 – 4.5 hours
Download: 9.1 GB

There are a few games I’ve played that I would consider to be visual masterpieces in the way they are designed and presented. One of those games is Child of Light, the mystical RPG made by Ubisoft. The other is the Okami series, an old Japanese Folklore-style adventure game published by Capcom.

As far as handhelds go, Okami has been limited. It’s sequel, Okamiden, is available on the Nintendo DS, but until recently, the original game wasn’t available to play on the go. With the Switch, though, it now is.

So, here is my review of the spectacle that is Okami HD for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

okami 2 - story

The story of Okami takes place in the land of Nippon, once-cursed by an evil entity known as Orochi. Long ago, Orochi was slain and sealed away by a legendary hero and white wolf. 100 years later, the sword that sealed him was removed and the White Wolf Goddess, Amaterasu is summoned back to Nippon to restore the now-cursed land and rid the world of Orochi for good.

The plot of Okami is interesting in its style. It looks like a tale taken straight out of Japanese folklore and is even presented like the retelling of a fairy tale. As you play out this fairy tale, you see a lot of interesting themes of old, particularly being the Goddess assisting mortals in the feats they attempt while restoring the land from evil.

Gameplay

okami 4 - gameplay

Okami HD is an action-adventure game like the Legend of Zelda franchise. As you play through the game, you’ll be exploring lots of areas and dungeons, getting new abilities to solve puzzles, and fighting off tons of enemies and bosses in your quest to restore Nippon to its peaceful glory.

Okami HD is an HD Remaster of Okami, which originally released on the PS2 and was later remastered and released on the Wii, PS3, PS4, and Xbox One. This isn’t a “new features added” remaster, but rather just an upscale and smoothing, outside of the original game not being able to display in widescreen. The Switch release is based on the HD Remaster, bringing the enhanced experience to handheld gamers.

Okami is like a Zelda title in that you start in a small hub town with most areas locked away from you and, as you play and progress, you gain new abilities that help you open up those new areas and slowly get to the rest of the huge world that is Nippon.

okami 6 - paint

Those abilities are what makes playing Okami such a unique experience. In this game, you use a “Celestial Brush”, a painting tool that lets you paint the world around you and affect it in various ways. At first, it’s just to attack enemies and activate constellations, but soon expands into bringing dead trees back into bloom, creating lily pads to cross water, and more. It’s similar to Zelda tools helping you reach new areas.

The uniqueness is that you draw the shapes and patterns, yourself. The game stops time and lets you manually draw over the screen. This is one of the only games that lets you do this, and is enhanced further with touchscreen and motion/gyro support on the Switch.

This is used not only for puzzles but also for combat. When you fight enemies, you spawn in an arena and fight in real-time hack n slash fights. However, all enemies can be stunned and finished off with Brush Techniques, like using a Slash to slice them in half, or a Bomb to do a small AoE attack. These fights are very reminiscent of RPG fights, especially during the “Results” screen, which also gives a bit of a unique feel as this game isn’t an RPG.

okami 5 - upgrades

There are RPG elements, though. As you do story progress, win battles, and finish quests, you gain Praise, which lets you upgrade your stats, such as how much Ink is available for Brush Techniques or how many health units you have at any given time. There’s also customization in different weapons you can find throughout the game, giving unique effects depending on whether they’re set as Main or Sub weapons.

Using Brush Techniques is a big part of the charm of this game. Solving puzzles is one thing, but seeing brush techniques restore the Earth around you or allowing you to grapple around huge bosses is very unique and very fun to view as you do it. It’s the thing that really sets Okami apart from other Adventure games of this type.

The amount of time you’ll be spending makes this adventure even more fun. For Capcom only charging $19.99 for the game, you’ll be spending at least 30-35 hours on this journey. It’s an incredible deal of Time vs Money Spent.

Controls

Controlling the game isn’t too hard, but it’s worth noting that this version has 2 unique ways of control. The Joy-Con controllers can be detached and used to paint with the Brush with Motion Controls. You can also use the touchscreen for brushing.

Though the latter is a bit of an awkward experience. To enable brushing, you have to hold down the L or R trigger, which works fine when brushing with the Analog Stick or motion, but holding a trigger down with one hand and removing your hand from the handheld to use touch controls is a bit of an awkward experience.

Now, the controls. The Left Analog is used for moving and the Right Analog is used for moving the camera. The L and R triggers are used for resetting the camera and enabling brush control. ZR is used for dodging and the – and + buttons are used for opening up Settings and the Customization Menus.

The face buttons: Y is used for physical attacks and X for your sub-weapon. B is used for jumping and A for talking with NPCs or interacting with certain puzzles and locations.

Presentation

okami 3 - pres

Graphically, Okami HD looks just as beautiful on the Switch as it does on the other HD platforms. All of the cel-shaded environments and characters are smoothed and pristine that vastly improved upon the original PS2 game.

The only downer about presentation is Motion Blur. Since this game is meant to be told as a story, they added various artistic effects to the style. The biggest part is adding a noticeable blur effect to Amaterasu as you control her. This is there while she is moving, but still there when she is still. This isn’t a bad effect, but the way it’s shown is hard on the eyes. When I started playing the game again, I had a fair amount of adjustment to seeing it that agitated my eyes for the first couple hours of play.

Performance is great, for the most part. It runs at a solid 30 fps and never has any drops. It works wonders both docked and handheld.  However, I should mention that the game tends to crash when it is transitioning from the Save/Load screen to gameplay.  I had the game crash several times on me when saving or loading games.  Thankfully, this was always after the saving/loading process was done so I never lost any progress, but it happened often and always when saving or loading data.

Battery Life

I was pleasantly surprised with Battery Life. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 30 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 45 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 19 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 31 minutes

I was really surprised, as I expected Okami to be another 2-3 hour game, but we get much more than that.

In conclusion, Okami HD is a beautiful adventure and is now available on the go for the first time. Although the motion blur takes some eye adjustment and save-crashing is a bit annoying, it’s still a wonderful and must-have adventure for any fan of Japanese folklore and adventure games.

Final Score: 8.5/10

 

Cosmic Star Heroine (Nintendo Switch) Review

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Game Title: Cosmic Star Heroine
Company: Zeboyd Games
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Digital | Retail (via Limited Run Games)
Battery Life: 4.5 – 6 hours
Download: 1.9 GB

It seems to be RPG month for me. I just got done with Okami HD which, like The Legend of Zelda, is arguably filled with enough RPG elements and features to be considered an RPG, and now I’m starting a wave of new RPG reviews more on the retro side.

To start things off, there’s an RPG that was really popular in the PS Vita community for a long time. A sci-fi adventure that has nods to almost every popular SNES-era RPG in existence and one that I didn’t end up reviewing on the Vita for the sole reason that the devs didn’t make the game compatible with the PSTV.

Now that it’s on the Switch, it’s not an issue anymore. So, let’s dive right in and see if the long development wait, and the wait for the Switch version’s release was worth it. Here is my review of Cosmic Star Heroine for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

cosmic 2 - story

Cosmic Star Heroine puts you into the shoes of Alyssa L’Salle, an agent for the Agency of Peace and Intelligence in a futuristic world. However, as soon as an important operation finishes, she is forced to go rogue and embarks on a galactic quest to save the day from a terrifying power and corrupted officials that wish to use that power against the mass populous.

The plot of Cosmic Star Heroine isn’t a bad one and is filled with enough comedy to keep me laughing and dozens upon dozens of comedic references to pop culture and other games, from Star Wars to A Nightmare on Elm Street.

However, the pacing of the story is very unbalanced in both its opening few hours and ending few hours. Things rush around and the way things escalate feel very unnatural and far too rapid. The middle hours of the game pace things very well, but it doesn’t last as the very quickly-paced ending missions are brought about all too soon.

It’s a nice story with a lot of comedy, but rough pacing.

Gameplay

cosmic 4 - gameplay

Cosmic Star Heroine is a Retro RPG that borrows elements from a lot of different games, but is easy to classify as a Chrono Trigger and Suikoden mashup. It’s a 2D, turn-based RPG with a boatload of recruitment features thrown into the mix.

It’s also a giant reference library, host to dozens of reference to pop culture and other video games. From monster descriptions and environment easter eggs to actual dialogue, there is a plethora of references to any and all things science fiction, gaming, and horror within the confines of this game.

The Switch version of CSH doesn’t include any new or extra features, but is currently the only version that can be played at home on the TV and on the go at the same time, considering the Vita version did not receive Vita TV/PSTV Support.

cosmic 3 - exploring

Progress works in this game like it does in a lot of RPGs. You have a pretty linear path of going from one dungeon to the next, fighting enemies and bosses along the way that pushes the story forward as well as giving you experience and leveling you up, giving you more abilities and skills to use. After a few hours, though, you’ll get a hub/base of sorts that opens things up quite a bit, letting you explore new planets and revisit old ones, making the game’s abundance of side-quests must easier to handle.

The core exploration mechanics aside, though, the real beauty of the game lies in its character roster and combat mechanics. The game has 11 playable party members, along with dozens of support characters that you can encounter and recruit on the various planets you visit across the game. These characters can be swapped out at any time, unless the story requires only certain playable characters be in the party.

Although the multitude of Support Characters cannot be put in the Battle Party, each of them has a specific effect that can help you, be it a stat boost or enhanced money or experience gained from combat. They also server as side-quests as the majority of them have to be found on the planets and have their own mini-quests completed before they agree to follow you and are added to your roster of characters.

cosmic 6 - mech

This is enhanced through combat as well. When you go into combat, enemies are already on-screen and your characters run to their battle positions, just like in Chrono Trigger. In fact, the combat system plays almost exactly like the Chrono Trigger battle system did, offering a huge nostalgia trip for fans of those sorts of games.

This game switches things up with its skill and stat system. You don’t have MP for skills, but rather you can use any skill you have equipped at your liesure. However, using up a skill or item makes the skill unusable again unless you spend a turn Defending to recharge your used skills. This also has a fair amount of depth to it, as even the Defend skills can be unlocked and versatile in what extra effects they can give, like buffing or healing the party.

This is an interesting system, but the characters are what really make this system a lot of fun. Each of the 11 playable characters are geared around different sorts of mechanics and setups. While Alyssa is geared mainly towards unleashing powerful attacks of various kind, you also have oddity characters like Clarke, who sets up skills to kill himself off and buff the party while in the act of being knocked out or Orson, who comes with a large amount of elemental attacks and is geared towards exposing and manipulating enemy weaknesses.

cosmic 5 - combat

Each character has a different strategy to them and the story forcing different characters into your party gives you an idea of just how many different combat styles you can use in the game, along with how Alyssa can interact and group up with different characters in different ways.

In terms of time and post-game, though, do note that CSH is not a long game. Depending on your difficulty setting (I cleared it under the “Normal” setting of Agent), you should be able to reach the Final Dungeon of the game in around 9-10 hours, plus an extra hour or two for the various side-quests and superbosses hidden around the different environments.

All in all, though, I wouldn’t expect to spend much more than 12-15 hours in the game, at the most. There’s also the fact that there is no New Game Plus, so if you want to replay the game, you’ll have to do it from scratch.

Controls

Controlling the game is not hard. You don’t use all of the Switch’s buttons.

Moving around is done with either the Left Analog Stick or D-Pad/Arrow Buttons. The L and R triggers are used for swapping character screens in the menu, but not really anything else. ZL and ZR are not used.

A is used for confirming and selecting options or NPCs and B is used for canceling out of options. X pulls up the Customization Menu, and the + button will bring up the menu to take you back to the Title Screen.

It’s a rather simple control scheme to work with.

Presentation

cosmic 7 - pres

Graphically, the game looks like a Retro RPG from the SNES era. They made the initial graphics engine look like the engines used for Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, and that look is pulled off very well. They also included retro CGI cutscenes that mimick those found on the Sega CD platform.

When I played through this game on the Switch, I began to understand why they blocked PSTV Support with the Vita version. In handheld mode, you can see the intentional jagged edges in the artwork, but the game still looked very good and fairly crisp. In Docked Mode, there are a lot more jagged edges to be seen here and the game doesn’t look quite as good, even on my smaller 21″ TV on my desk.

Performance is very good in terms of frame-rate, though a few of the bugs that plagued this game’s launch still linger around here. In particular, I encountered a bug in an office room, where Alyssa got stuck between two chairs and I spent about 20 minutes moving the controls around to try to free her, to no avail. The Abilities Menu glitch is also still here, which makes the Abilities Menu appear incorrectly unless a restart is done.

Though, the nice thing here is that the Switch version has significantly shorter load times than the Vita version and never crashed, like the Vita version is known to do from time to time. It’s certainly better than the alternative versions, but still has a few minor bugs that linger around.

Battery Life

Battery is one of the things I knew from the start would be great. Here are my Battery Times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 34 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 46 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 5 hours, 52 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 6 hours, 11 minutes

These are great readings, and enough to get well over half of the game done in a single charge.

In conclusion, Cosmic Star Heroine is a Retro-inspired RPG that is fun and is optimized the best on the Switch. Altough the game’s story pacing is a bit unbalanced and there are still a few lingering bugs, RPG fans will love the abundance of easter eggs and versatility of the game’s cast.

Final Score: 8/10

 

Megaton Rainfall (Nintendo Switch) Review

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Game Title: Megaton Rainfall
Company: Pentadimensional Games
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Digital Download
Battery Life: 3 – 3.5 hours
Download: 694 MB

Have you ever wanted to play a game where you fly around like Superman? No, I’m not talking about Superman 64, but it does relate to today’s review. Some people obviously have wanted a good flying Superman game since 64 didn’t do the hero any favors.

One of the newer Nintendo Switch titles does just that. Originally a VR title, it puts players in the shoes of a super-hero who is the offspring of a non-human entity, can fly around the world at record speed, shoot heat beams, and protect the world from invaders. Sounds a lot like Superman, right?

Get your Hero Suit ready, because this is my review of Megaton Rainfall for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

mega 2 - story

Megaton Rainfall puts you in the shoes of an entity that was once human, but has since been made into a supernatural being and hero to humanity. In Earth’s time of crisis upon being attacked by alien invaders, you’re tasked with defending humanity along with searching the cosmos for the special objects that grant the invaders their power.

The story is pretty light in the game, but what is there is very intriguing. There’s a lot of “Why are we here?” content along with some philosophical things to ponder. Having those alongside an incredibly-shocking final chapter and ending, I was interested and intrigued by the game from start to finish.

Gameplay

mega 3 - pew pew

Megaton is a first-person Superman Simulator. You spend the game flying at supersonic speeds as you travel through a huge open world environment and shoot down alien spaceships that threaten the Earth.

Progress in this game is through 9 missions you play through, each of which has you flying around a city, protecting the citizens of Earth from alien invaders and rewards you with new powers. You’ll be flying your way all across the earth as they attack cities and fighting them off with a variety of superhero abilities you collect across the game, like Heat Beams, Energy Blasts, and the ability to stop time.

This makes the game feel like a huge power-trip because you’re indestructible and the aliens are not. No matter what you do, the aliens cannot hurt you, even if you jump right into a massive death laser. Instead, the difficulty of the game comes from humanity, whom are just as fragile as they are in any other sci-fi work of media.

mega 3 - destruction

As such, you can’t let Megaton Rainfall become Megaton Man of Steel. Your health bar in this game is on Human Casualties and that can be caused by aliens as well as by you. Miss a shot with your heat beam and you just melted a skyscraper full of office workers. The game even has an extensive environment-destruction system so you see dramatic explosions and buildings crumbling whenever a hit gets through.

And as much fun as it may be to “accidentally” miss firing a nuke-tier blast that ends up leveling a city, there’s a ton of strategy in minimizing collateral damage to avoid resets. When you get further into the game, you’ll be overwhelmed at some points so any time you miss and hit a building, it costs you a lot of health.

And the funny thing about the strategy is how you defeat enemies. Almost every enemy has a weak spot on it that must be struck for a one-hit kill. Of course, many of them require you to aim down at them to do this, meaning that any miss will be instant collateral damage. There’s a trick to all enemies, but the game definitely makes you be very careful.

When you’re between missions, though, you can explore and there is A LOT to explore. Unlocking the last key item in the final mission requires you to search the cosmos for objects that give the aliens power and when it says you explore the Cosmos, it is meant quite literally. Fly out of Earth’s atmosphere and you’re in space and you can quickly pass by the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto, and before you know it, you’ve left the galaxy with dozens upon dozens of other galaxies around you that you can explore just like the Milky Way.

mega 4 - explore

The scale of this universe’s size is staggering. Although only about 7 of those galaxies will have the objects you’re looking for (and twinkling light to lead you right there), exploring these big galaxies only to suddenly zoom in and explore a planet surrounded by 3 suns is a real visual treat to behold.

As fun as it is to fly around like an unstoppable super-hero and explore these huge galaxies, you won’t get much time to do it. I managed to finish the 9 missions of the game is a little over a single hour, and the side-quest for the Cosmos-Searching took about an hour more than that, which puts the entire experience at a measly 2 hours.

When you beat the game, you do unlock Hard Mode, Free Mode, and Time Attack Mode to redo the 9 missions, but there’s not a whole lot to the game past those initial 2 hours and the story coming to a close.

Controls

Controlling the game is relatively simple, since you’re constantly flying. Though the controls feel a bit too slippery at times. When you’re transitioning between speeds, it’s easy to gently move the Analog Stick and move clear past your target. It’s not too consistent even with itself.

The Left Analog Stick is used to move and the Right Stick is used to move the camera/line of sight. The L and R triggers are used to ascend and descend while flying, while the ZL and ZR triggers are mostly used for abilities. A, X, and clicking the Analogs are also used for different abilities.

Overall, it’s pretty simple.

Presentation

mega 5 - pres

This is where things take a turn downhill. Graphically, Megaton Rainfall doesn’t look very good. The game is constantly blurry and has really degraded visual integrity. If you remember how Wolfenstein 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 look in handheld mode, Megaton is like that in both Handheld and Docked Mode. Note that this is specifically while around cities on Earth. Flying through space looks good, but when you’ve got cities and enemies, it doesn’t.

This is further pushed with performance. For the first half of the game, the frame-rate is really stable and keeps itself together very well, even having a lot of points where it stays at 60 fps for awhile. But the further you progress, the worse it gets. The frame-rate doesn’t really change, but you will have more and more stuttering, freezing, and, occasionally, crashing. With the downed visuals, the game handles a few enemies on screen, but can’t take the end-game too well.

Battery Life

With how downgraded the visuals were, I was thinking Battery Life might be a little higher than normal. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 45 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 52 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 13 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 20 minutes

This is definitely a bit more than average, so in terms of Battery, it seems the downgrade was a little worth it.

In conclusion, Megaton Rainfall is a huge power fantasy with a massive scale that handhelds rarely ever have a chance to see. However, there are a lot of technical problems with this version along with slippery controls and a small 2-hour campaign. It’s a whole lot of fun, but unless you’re okay with extremely low-quality visuals and regular freezing and crashing, you’d be better off grabbing it on PS4 and PSVR.

Final Score: 5/10

Fernz Gate (Nintendo Switch) Review

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Game Title: Fernz Gate
Company: EXE Create, KEMCO
Platform: Nintendo Switch (Also available on PS Vita/PSTV)
Availability: Digital Download
Battery Life: 5 – 7 hours
Download: 132 MB

EXE Create and KEMCO have been putting RPGs out for handhelds for a good amount of time now. I enjoyed them on the Vita and now with the Switch, they are still a-going. After Asdivine Hearts and Antiquia Lost, I’m ready for them to put more of their games on Nintendo’s new handheld.

And that, they have. Not too long ago, another of their games popped up on the eShop and I inquired about it right away. Having played through yet another RPG this month, here is my review of Fernz Gate for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

gate 2 - story

The plot of this game revolves around Fernland, a “nexus” world where many people from different worlds wander into and become lost in, unable to return to their homes without the help of the local deity, known as the Goddess.

This world is thrown into chaos when a wanderer known as “The Overlord” comes to Fernz Gate and steals the Mana and Power of the Goddess for himself. With no one left to defend the people, he takes over Fernz Gate and plans to conquer it and absorb more Mana and Power from everyone to make himself even stronger.

You play as Alex, a wanderer from a world like modern-day Earth who finds himself in a world full of fantasy and monsters and fighting in the rebellion to reclaim The Goddess and find a way back home, to his own world.

I liked the story because of how serious and relatable it was. I don’t see many JRPGs with MCs that are from modern-day like us players are. On top of that are some big twists on the game’s plot towards the end that really shocked and surprised me. This is an RPG with a much different kind of tone than most of its type.

Gameplay

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Fernz Gate is a turn-based retro RPG like all of the other Switch games from EXE Create and KEMCO I’ve reviewed. In this game, you’ll be traveling through towns and dungeons and fighting off monsters and bosses as you progress through this game’s plot, gaining experience and levels as you fight.

Like other KEMCO RPGs, there’s not much of a difference here between the Switch and other versions of the game. Because the PS Vita version is compatible with the PSTV, it’s not an exclusive version for TV and handheld play.

The way this game progresses is a little different than previous games, though. Unlike most retro RPGs of this style, there is no Overworld for you to explore to be similar to the SNES Final Fantasy games. Instead, you have a point-to-point map so you just select the destination you wish to visit and it loads you right at the entrance of that dungeon or town.

gate 4 - buddy

That’s not all this game changes to the formula used in past console EXE/KEMCO games. It also uses a “Buddy” system, letting you acquire monsters and NPCs as recruits that can be either used in the Battle Party or kept behind to give you extra battle effects. This also ties into the ract that each slot in the battle party is taken up by 2 characters instead of just one, giving you combined HP totals and more overall turns to dish out damage to the enemy.

The Shop and Seeds systems also return from Antiquia Lost, letting you use Gems and Tickets you obtain from battle (or IAPs) to obtain powerful weapons from an RNG game as well as getting special QoL key items like the ability to double experience gained in battle. Unlike Antiquia Lost, high-tier weapons are kept for the late-game areas, so the difficulty cannot be broken and this feature is far more balanced. Gems/Premium Currency also is extremely common to obtain from random battles, making the In-App Purchases unnecessary.

The thing I really enjoyed that they added, though, was the ability to manipulate random encounters in dungeons. In strategic locations in each dungeon are objects that allow you to manipulate battles, such as doing 3 straight battles if you want to grind for levels as well as increasing/decreasing the random encounter rate of that dungeon, depending on how much fighting you want to do. It’s extremely convenient when you revisit dungeons and don’t want to fight outside of the boss.

gate 5 - manipulate

This definitely gives you plenty to do, but we should talk about the time you’ll be spending here. You’ll get more time out of this than Antiquia Lost, but not as much as Asdivine Hearts. On the Normal Difficulty, it took me around 13 hours to get the Normal Ending, plus another couple hours to go the True Ending route once it unlocks with Clear Data.

Do note that there are many optional areas you can explore and some side-quests, which I did about half of on my file. If you want to go for a 100% run, you could probably add a few more hours onto those numbers, but for most people, it’ll be a 12-15 hour journey.

Controls

Controlling the game isn’t too hard. There is no touchscreen use, so everything is on the buttons.

Moving around is done with the Left Analog Stick or the Arrow Buttons / D-Pad. ZL and ZR are not used, but the R trigger is used for pulling up Encounter Manipulation once you buy the feature from the Shop.

Then the face buttons. A is used for interacting with NPCs and selecting items in the menu and B lets you cancel menu options. X is used for pulling up the menu and Y is used for using the Escape feature in dungeons.

Presentation

gate 6 - pres

Graphically, the game looks pretty crisp when you’re wandering around dungeons. When you’re in battle, though, things look a little strange. I never noticed this in Docked Mode, but in Handheld Mode, the moving character sprites have a strange “grain” effect on them. If you recall the strange grass flickering in Ys VIII, it’s similar to that.

Performance, though, is wonderful. While the game does have a bit of a lengthy sequence going to the title screen, it runs at an extremely smooth frame-rate in combat. While frame-rate isn’t really a huge factor in turn-based RPGs, the animations run buttery-smoothn that looks to be at 60 fps.

Battery Life

Just like my last RPG Review, this game gets lots of Battery Life. Here are my readings:

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 5 hours, 04 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 5 hours, 28 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 6 hours, 24 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 6 hours, 50 minutes

As expected of these devs, but it’s still great to see games go up near the 7 hour range.

In conclusion, Fernz Gate is an RPG that retains a lot of its genre’s qualities, but has a story with a surprisingly-serious tone. Though the game is held back a bit by its strangely-grainy battle sprites and odd booting sequence, it should certainly be on the list for people who enjoy Retro RPGs. This is a good one.

Final Score: 9/10


Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 (Nintendo Switch) Extra Pack 3 DLC Review

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Game Title: Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
DLC Title:
 Extra Pack 3
DLC Type: Playable Characters, Missions
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Price: $7.99 (USD)

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 just refuses to die. Once FighterZ came out, many figured that all the future content would be within that game, but Dimps had other plans. Even a full year after the Switch release, we’re still getting new characters, new skills, and new features. That means I have a new reason to make more Dragon Ball content!

With the release of Extra Pack 3, we get Dragon Ball GT and Dragon Ball Super characters along with a bunch of other content. So, let’s dive right in and see if it’s worth the asking price.

Here is my review of the DLC pack, Extra Pack 3 for Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 on the Nintendo Switch!

Story

Given that this DLC Pack doesn’t include any new story scenarios, this section shall remain blank.

Content/Gameplay

ep2 - reverse final flash

With this pack comes 2 new playable characters, along with a few other things. However, this is also a case where players have gotten both free content as well as DLC / Paid Content. So, let’s go over what you get for free and what you get with the DLC.

Free Update

– You can now select your other custom characters from Character Select for Quests and Battles
– Towa’s Bikini + 4 costumes will be added to the TP Medal Shop
– New Figures, NPC Battles, and Story Missions have been added to the Hero Colosseum
– Fixes and Balances to 131 skills (Some of the broken skills on the Switch like Super Black Kamehameha have been fixed to work properly)

 

Paid Content / Extra Pack 3

– Super Baby 2 Playable Character
– Kefla Playable Character
– 5 new Parallel Quests
– 8 Skills
– 4 Costumes
– 2 Super Souls

So, looking at this, what you pay for is 2 characters, 5 PQs, and the various skills, costumes, and accessories tied to those PQs. This is far less than previous reviews I’ve done, mostly because this is a single DLC pack that’s not in a Season Pass. It was announced as its own thing, and it being tied to a bundle is something that may or may not happen in the future, assuming the recent Gogeta/Broly datamine is factual and they continue to make more DLC.

ep4 - Kefla Candy Cane Beam

As far as the additions to the roster, Kefla and Super Baby 2 both bring uniqueness because of their abilities and how they play.  While most of Baby’s are variations of Vegeta’s moves, they are different enough that they don’t feel very similar and they play off of their other moves to create combos outside of just button input.

To give an example of this, Kefla’s moves chain off of one another, with her landing one attack and being able to follow up with an energy ball attack that can be extended with button presses.  Then you have Baby’s versions of Vegeta’s moves, like his Final Flash being a normal-tier Super instead of an Ultimate, and Revenge Death Ball being an Ultimate that can be charged up to become larger and stronger, giving players some new assets for PvE Expert Missions, especially now that Big Bang Kamehameha lost its teleport.

So, there isn’t a whole lot to do in regards to the amount of stuff you can go into and play through. With no new story campaign, you’ve mostly just got the PQs to play through and the two characters to play around with. There are only 5 PQs this time around, which should take you no more than an hour or so to clear. Depending on the RNG chance of skills and equipment dropping, you may be grinding them for much longer, but clearing them shouldn’t take more than an hour.

ep3 - UI Zell

In this regard, I feel like the fact that Xenoverse 2 is giving out so much free content is hurting the quality of its DLC. Apart from the netcode and balances, one of the biggest things people wanted in the game, the ability to choose other Custom Characters for Quests, was given to us for free, along with new gift items, and a significant amount of new Hero Colosseum content.

And this is where I feel conflicted on this. What little content is here is good in quality: the characters, the skills, and the costume pieces.  It’s even priced better than the DLC Rate for FighterZ.  But when it sits next to arguably just as much content the same day that was free, including a feature fans have been asking for for a long time, it just doesn’t feel very substantial.  If they’d opted to put the CaC Character Select feature into the DLC, I think it would feel more worth chucking out the 8 bucks.

In conclusion, Extra Pack 3 gives a lot of love for fans of Baby, Kefla, and the unique moves they bring to Xenoverse 2. However, with no new story additions, barely an hour of new content, and arguably more desired content given to us for free the same day, it feels like this DLC is being devalued by its own game. The new Supers will definitely make life easier for PvE players after the nerfs the recent update brought with it, but it doesn’t feel like there’s much to this DLC compared to the previous packs.

Final Score: 7/10

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (Nintendo Switch) Review

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Game Title: Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate
Company: Capcom
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Retail | Digital
Battery Life: 3.5 – 5.5 hours
Download: 11.3 GB

Monster Hunter has been my gaming project, my hurdle, my task. 8 years ago, I bought Monster Hunter Freedom Unite because of how popular it was in the PSP community. I’d had a dip into hunters at that point, with Gods Eater Burst and Lord of Arcana, so I figured I’d try out the big dog of the pack.

Thus began a long cycle of me loving hunting games but just never really “getting” Monster Hunter. Every time I would try Freedom Unite, I’d play a quest or two, not be able to stand the gameplay and lack of a story, and I’d put it down. Couple years later, I’d try it again, and it would repeat.

After not even playing a full tutorial mission of Monster Hunter World, I finally cracked down to learn the series and see if it truly is something that is just not for me, or I just needed to put forth the effort to giving the series a try and actually learning the basics of things.

And here we are. With possibly the largest and most content-rich hunting game ever made, this is my review of Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

mhgu 2 - story

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate doesn’t have much of a story, but rather a setup. You play as a Hunter that travels to a Wycademy, a corporation that studies the monsters that exist in the world. As a liason between the academy and the Hunter’s Guild, you’re sent around the world to observe monsters, collect materials for village residents, and eliminate monsters that stand in the way of the academy’s research.

But, with Monster Hunter, story is pretty much non-existent. I’ve heard that World does have a good amount of story, but this game goes from having a decent amount of academy involvement between quests to an almost non-existent story as the game quickly turns from story-introducing-you-to-the-setting to just doing quest after quest after quest.

If you’re looking for a Hunter with a story, you’d be better off heading over to the PlayStation world for games like Freedom Wars and God Eater. Monster Hunter is focused much more heavily on gameplay and content.

Gameplay

mhgu 6 - pokke town

Like pretty much the entire genre, MHGU is a third-person Hunting RPG or Hunting Action Game. Across the entirety of the game, you’ll be going on quests, harvesting materials, and fighting giant monsters with rightfully-giant weapons. It’s the same song and dance as any other hunting game, but with a large number of its own quirks.

First off, this is an expanded release of Monster Hunter Generations from the Nintendo 3DS. Being an expanded release, it has the same base content as Generations, but with a lot more added to its campaign and post-game, from G-Rank to new bosses to fight.

Monster Hunter is a hunter, so progression is pretty simple. You have a Network of Hub Villages brought in from various games of the franchise with unique requests along with shops, where you can buy items and use materials to synthesize new weapons and armor. And you’ve got Quests, where you go out into the world and hunt yourself some monsters.

mhgu 5 - quests

And with quests, you’ve got a set amount to do during each chapter of the campaign with the goal of preparing you for a boss to clear and unlock the next chapter. And there’s a lot of emphasis on the preparation part. You start with Training Missions to teach you the ways of the game, slowly work your way towards the bigger and more difficult hunts. They handle this in a smart way in that the campaign will teach newcomers the basics and work them up while also offering the multiplayer quests from the get-go for veteran players.

Now, let’s talk repetition. When I first got this game, I was expecting the entire game to be nothing but 20-40-minute hunting quests. Thankfully, I was wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed the first few chapters of single player, which had a mix of harvesting, slaying, and hunting/boss missions. I achieved things quickly while also having those longer missions for the end of each chapter.

However, the further I got, the less variety there was. By the time I got to Chapters 3 and 4, all the Key Quests geared towards unlocking the next chapter were nothing but Hunting/Boss missions. I went from spending short bursts to medium bursts to nothing but long bursts. And, when I was doing nothing but boss fights, things started to feel more and more repetitive, especially when the further I got, the longer the missions took.

mhgu 4 - gameplay

Not because of the bosses, though. Unlike other hunters, you rarely ever repeat a single boss over the course of the campaign. MHGU has 93 monsters you fight, so every key mission was a new boss with a unique combat style to learn to fight. But, when you’re doing nothing but 20-30-minute bosses, my long sessions started turning into 1-quest sessions when it started feeling too repetitive. And that’s where the focus of Monster Hunter is. You gotta love combat because the biggest challenge and charm comes from those Boss missions.

Thankfully, combat is done very well. You move around a multi-area map like in Toukiden, wandering and gathering materials until you find your target. And that’s when you really see why Monster Hunter is the king of hunting games. It’s the only hunter I’ve played where I truly felt powerless against all of these giant monsters. They’re fast, somewhat unpredictable, and hit like a truck. Learn their patterns and how to fight them or you’ll be quickly sent back to the village in shame.

This is part of what I didn’t like about MHFU. The combat felt slow, clunky, and had a severe lack of variety. In MHGU, it’s a bit more fresh, with different combat styles for each weapon and charge-able super skills you can use to showcase flashy and very-powerful attacks to damage enemies and buff your party at the same time. To fans, it may feel a bit enhanced, but to me, it feels like a completely different game.

mhgu 7 - boss

Now, let’s talk time. I’m used to every other hunter that has quests and a lot of story to take around 20 hours or so before post-game happens. Despite having a light story, Monster Hunter is big and involved, through and through. This game is packed with so much content, not even veterans will know what to do with it all. To put this into perspective with just how massive this game is compared to other games of the series:

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate – 400+ Quests
Monster Hunter Generations – 600+ Quests
Monster Hunter World – 140+ Quests
Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate – 1,100+ Quests

So, if any of you were worried that a game ported up from the 3DS wouldn’t have enough content to justify the higher price, just think of it like this. It’s got almost twice as much content as the original Generations did. For time, you should gauge the campaign to be around 40-60 hours and doing everything there is to do at around 200 hours with minimal grinding for materials and repeating almost nothing.

Controls

Controlling the game isn’t too hard, though I will say that no matter what you do to the controls, there will be a little awkwardness involved. The hunter arts are always mapped in a way that is awkward, be it on the D-Pad to bring back a slight claw-hand configuration for using skills or the R trigger and multiple action buttons instead of just a single button press.

By default, you move with the Left Analog Stick and move the camera with the Right Analog Stick. The L and R triggers are used for lock-ons and various features of certain weapons, like aiming with the bow. ZL is also used in the lock-on system while ZR is used for one slot for the Hunter Arts.

The action buttons are used for a lot. X is used for melee attacks and pulling out your weapon. A is used for melee attacks with the bow, and special attacks with other weapons. B is used for dodging. Finally, Y is used for putting your weapon away when you need to evade an incoming attack or use items.

All in all, I won’t say it’s terrible. It plays much better than the PSP and 3DS games do, but the hunter arts configuration never seems quite right.

Presentation

mhgu 3 - sushi

Graphically, the game looks good, but it’s clear that this started as a 3DS game. A lot of the textures don’t have much detail to them, even down to some characters’ hair being flat colors instead of being textured. Granted, all of the renders look very polished and smooth. It looks great in handheld mode, but in Docked/TV Mode, it’s pretty clear that these are upscaled 3DS assets.

Performance I can’t complain about. The game has a locked 30 frames per second, which never dropped for me and continues to be flawless. I haven’t had any errors or crashes, either, so the optimization was done quite well. It even allows for downloading in the background, which I expected it to not allow, like other 3D games don’t.

Battery Life

With these being upgraded 3DS assets, I expected pretty good Battery Life. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 36 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 52 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 46 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 5 hours, 20 minutes

That’s quite the range. The game may be using upscaled 3DS assets, but the Battery Life definitely benefits from it.

In conclusion, Monster Hunter hits the Switch with an absurd amount of content to keep any hunter happy for hundreds of hours on end. Although the game is brought down by some control hiccups, if you can get into Monster Hunter’s combat, it’s 1,100+ quests are more than worth the selling price.

Final Score: 9.5/10

Lifeless Planet (Nintendo Switch) Review

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Game Title: Lifeless Planet – Premiere Edition
Company: Serenity Forge
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Digital (Releases September 06, 2018)
Battery Life: 2.75 – 3.5 hours
Download: 909 MB

Science Fiction is one of my favorite settings in media, and I always get hooked into a game when it has to do with Sci-Fi. Some of the only FPS games I like are science fiction shooters, and I love a good adventure game when it comes to traveling beyond the confines of Planet Earth. It’s one of the reasons I enjoyed Megaton Rainfall, the super-hero sim that I reviewed last month.

It’s also what got me interested in Lifeless Planet, a 2014 adventure game that takes place on a faraway planet and starts an astronaut. Just seeing images and videos of the astronaut walking around a foreign landscape got me wanting to play and cover it.

So, thanks to the kind folks at Serenity Forge for providing me with a review key, I’m ret-2-go! Here is my review of Lifeless Planet: Premiere Edition for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

Lifeless Planet - Not Alone

In the near future, a team of astronauts is sent to a planet filled with life 15 light years from Earth. You are one of those astronauts as you crash-land and find the planet is actually a barren wasteland. Upon searching for your missing crew, you find a Russian-made town and lab on the planet. Your mission then quickly turns from exploration to figuring out how the Russians got there, and what happened to them.

The story aspect of LP is something that interested me, because it is a big what-if scenario about humans stumbling upon a distant planet and a story about the planet, itself. Although I’ll admit the lack of character growth of the main cast is disappointing. The game sets up some really interesting backgrounds for one of the main characters, but doesn’t do a lot with it by the time the game tells you. In one way, it seems like a different way of doing it, but also feels like a missed opportunity with it being revealed so close to the game’s climax.

However, I found the large amount of background information on the planet and the Russians to be intriguing. The lack of development of the main cast made me that much more interested in the lore and finding out what happened on the planet before the astronauts’ arrival.

Gameplay

Lifeless Planet - Shuttle

Lifeless Planet is a third-person adventure game with a large emphasis on platforming. Each of the game’s chapters has you going through large environments and platforming around in your space suit to find more information about what’s going on as well as to open a way towards the next area and next chapter.

Progression is pretty simple. In each area, you have a fairly-linear path to follow with logs for backstory and hints about the area shining in the environment, itself. The task at hand isn’t hard to find, as most of the areas that you need to navigate to look a little different from other areas and, while the areas are large, they have boundaries that make it simple to get a gist of where you can and can’t go so you don’t miss your target and objective.

The way you move around and platform is with your space suit and its jet-pack. You are able to use the jet-pack for double-jumps that let you jump further and even have a moonwalk-like float at times. There are many suit-related features for the game, included areas where you have to rush across the area to refill your oxygen supply without passing out or getting a temporary boost in your jetpack fuel to allow you to reach much greater distances when platforming across large gaps and cliffs.

Lifeless Planet - Robot Arm

The game also has some light puzzle elements with pushing objects around to open new terrain and using an extendable robot arm to open doors, though the majority is exploration and platforming. The platforming, itself, is pretty basic, but it has its rewarding moments. Every time I came across a canister of jetpack fuel to greatly extend my jetpack distance, it brought a smile to my face as I jumped over cliffs and jetpacked my way across huge distances.

There’s also how empty the world feels, which is a huge contradiction and conflict in my mind. A lot of these areas seems very empty. With no combat to speak of and the “enemy” of the game only showing itself as anything more than stationary terrain for a few of the game’s levels, it leaves the game feeling very empty, both in environments and in what you do.

Lifeless Planet - Oxygen

But there’s conflict because it makes perfect sense for the game to be set up like that. The plot is about you exploring an almost completely-dead planet. Despite how much I feel most areas are barren and empty, it feels in tune with the game’s setting, so I’ve been in conflict about that from a review standpoint ever since I got through the game’s first couple hours.

And speaking of hours, let’s talk about the longevity of this experience. On average, you should be able to clear the game your first try in around 5 hours or so, depending on how many times you get stuck and whether or not you refer to walkthroughs to help you find the right path to navigate. After you beat the game, you’re free to replay the game from any chapter, but there’s no extra reward or feature in repeating the game. When you see the ending, you’ve seen all you can outside of finding lore files you missed.

Controls

Controlling the game isn’t difficult to do, though it is worth noting that the game has some input lag, depending on the controller being used to play the game. Whenever I would move the camera on the Pro Controller, there would be input lag every time I tried to move it. If I switched to the Joy-Cons, it would be fine, so this confused me quite a bit. This input lag was not present in handheld mode, either. It only happens to me when I use the Pro Controller.

The actual control scheme is pretty easy. You move with the Left Analog Stick and move the camera with the Right Analog Stick. The R trigger is used to turn on your flashlight and the other trigger buttons are used during puzzles.

The action buttons are pretty simple. B is used for jumping and using the jet-pack and Y is used for interacting with objects. X starts up the robot arm puzzles, and A is used for canceling out of options. Interestingly-enough, the game has the PlayStation/Xbox-style of select and cancel buttons, with B being select in the Main menu instead of A.

Presentation

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Graphically, the game’s visuals certainly fit its barren design. There’s not a huge amount of detail to be had, but it fits the barren wasteland setting of the game. The Switch version does have some slight blurring on the space suit model, but nothing too drastic.

Performance I have no issues with. The framerate remains steady throughout the entire game and it doesn’t have any problems running.

One thing I will criticize is the game’s lack of music. I do like the music that’s in the game, but it feels like it’s in too few places to be something to praise the game for. Every time a big event or some high-tension scene is about to play, you get some great, suspenseful music. But the majority of the game has exploring with nothing to listen to but the distant sound of the wind and, sometimes, nothing at all.

Battery Life

As I’ve said in other reviews, games with graphical styles that aren’t made to be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen typically will benefit the handheld Switch audiences in terms of Battery Life. Here are my Battery Times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 46 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 57 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 06 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 20 minutes

While not on the scale of games like Monster Hunter, you can easily get through most of this game in a single charge, which is very convenient for on-the-go gamers.

In conclusion, Lifeless Planet is an intriguing game for anyone who loves science fiction and what-if scenarios regarding humanity’s journey into the stars. Although the game is brought down aspects like a lack of character depth and music, plus a short campaign for the asking price, it’s still worth a look if you’re a sci-fi fan who wants some space-suit platforming on the go.

Final Score: 7/10

Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders (Nintendo Switch) Review

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Game Title: Sky Gamblers Storm Raiders
Company: Atypical Games
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Digital Download
Battery Life: 3 – 4 hours
Download: 617 MB

Flying games on the Switch haven’t gotten to a great start for me. In my search for a good airplane sim-sort of game, I found Vertical Strike. Despite having a nice feel and look to its planes and combat, it felt like it was little more than a technical demo of something that should come far later down the road.

Now, we have a new game to fly into, called Sky Gamblers. It started as a mobile title and had some pretty good reviews, both on mobile and on PC. It looked good and boasted a lot of interesting features, so I figured I’d give it a try.

After playing it, I’d say my purchase and attempt was worth it. So, here is my review of Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

The 3 campaigns of this game take you through a few major battles from World War II, though you don’t get a continuing storyline outside of mission descriptions for each campaign. Nonetheless, it is more than having no story at all.

Gameplay

sky 5 - cockpit

Sky Gamblers is an arcade-style 3D flight simulator with heavy combat elements thrown into the mix. In every mission and game session, you’ll be flying WW2-era planes through large environments with the goal of shooting down other planes, ships, AA guns, and more.

The great thing about this game is that there’s a lot to do and unlock. You’ve got 3 Story Campaigns and 13 Dogfighting Missions that can be completed to unlock new planes, and a plethora of other game modes you can dive into, both offline and online. Just from looking at the main menu, you can tell the game’s got a lot to offer.

The Story Mode is divided into three 6-mission campaigns, each centered around a certain geographical area and its battles, such as Pearl Harbor with the United States and The Battle of Britain for the UK. All of these campaigns will have increased difficulty, but also give you various sides of the war, so you’re not just playing as the United States or Britain, giving you some mission perspectives from both sides of World War II.

sky 4 - flying train

The missions, themselves, are normally similar in task. You fly with your squadron and take out enemy forces, whether they are planes, ships, AA guns, or bases. However, each mission also has multiple things for you to do. Each mission has stages that you go between as you complete each task, and many of the bigger missions will give you alternate things to do outside of fighting, like landing on an aircraft carrier out on the ocean to swap out weapons for a new objective, flying low in a canyon to avoid enemy detection, or flying through a tunnel to take out a supply bridge.

I really love that aspect of the game, because it throws so much variety into its missions in the way that the Ace Combat PSP games did. But it creates uniqueness in more ways than that. The game has formation commands to have your AI partners stay with you, or break formation to attack other enemy forces, and some pretty impressive destruction physics, with small pieces flying off your plane as you take damage and even entire wings flying off depending on where you start taking damage from enemy fire.

The game also is a bit of a strategic flying game, too, in that you can’t just fly at top speed and fly and turn around like it’s nobody’s business. This isn’t Ace Combat. These older planes weren’t made to constantly turn, flip, and barrel roll at top speed. If you fly too high in the sky or make constant turns while flying too fast, your instruments will start to mess up and, sometimes, your engine will overheat and completely shut down on you. This gives you some realism, but also gives you strategy in being careful what you’re doing and where you’re doing it.

But the game also gives you a helping hand. Because most of these old planes only had Machineguns attached to them, there’s an Aim Assist feature to help you lock onto and shoot down targets. As long as a target is within a certain range of your cross-hairs, you can fire away and still hit and destroy them. You can turn this off as well, if you want a greater challenge.

sky 2 - game modes

Now, outside of the Story Missions and Dogfights, there’s a heavy Multiplayer emphasis on the game. When you’re done with your campaigns to unlock your new planes, you have 5 different game modes you can jump into: Free for All, Free Flight, Last Man Standing, Capture the Flag, Base Defense, Team Deathmatch, and Survival. Outside of the more casual Free Flight Mode, all of these can be done in both Single Player against AI enemies or in Online Multiplayer against real opponents. This gives the game a pretty robust Multiplayer experience on top of the Single Player one.

What about length? Vertical Strike had almost nothing to do, but this game surely does. Across its 3 campaigns and the Dogfighting Missions, you should be spending at least 5 or 6 hours in this game. Even more if you get into doing the Multiplayer aspects of it. But, for its price, there’s plenty of content to go around.

Controls

Controlling this game isn’t too hard, though the default control scheme is a bit odd.

You move your plane around by using the Right Analog Stick for pretty much all movement outside of using the the Left Analog Stick for strafing left and right. This was very strange to me, and it took me some time to adjust to it. The ZL and ZR triggers are used for your primary and secondary weapons, and the Y button can be used to swap which weapon is your primary and which is your secondary.

Finally, the arrow buttons / D-Pad can be used for issuing commands to your allies, and the A button is used for activating the cinematic auto-pilot, which can be used for the visual spectacle or just letting the AI spin your plane around while you shoot down a group of enemies from around you.

Overall, it’s not that hard to use, but it took me a long time to adjust to the Right Analog Stick being used for basically all movement. But I will say that I did have the Auto-Pilot get stuck in Auto Mode a few times where the game wouldn’t allow me to go out of the mode with the A button and I had to close the game to fly normally again.

Presentation

sky 3 - pew pew

Graphically, things look good, but some things aren’t as polished, either. The amount of detail in plane damage is very impressive, though a lot of the environments you’re flying over don’t have much detail at all. The cities don’t look bad, but next to them, you see a lot of flat, blurred terrain that doesn’t look that great with the detailed planes flying over them.

Performance is good and I have no complaints there. The fps is nice and smooth, and I saw no stability issues.

Battery Life

This is another game that’ll net you a good amount of time in handheld mode. Here are my Battery Times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 19 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 28 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 48 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 01 minutes

Not low, not especially high. Still, it’s a good amount of flying time when each mission should only take you around 7-10 minutes a piece.

In conclusion, Sky Gamblers is, without a doubt, the best offering on the Switch in terms of flight simulation and air combat. Although it is brought down a bit by its low-res environments and strange control scheme, anyone not turned away from this game originally being released on Mobile will find a flyer that’s got a lot of unique and fun physics elements and tons to do, both alone and with friends.

Final Score: 8.5/10

Touhou: Azure Reflections (Nintendo Switch) Review

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Game Title: Azure Reflections
Company: Unties / Sony Music Entertainment Japan
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Digital Download
Battery Life: 2.5 – 3.5 hours
Download: 3.3 GB

The Touhou Project is a massive selection of games in Windows PC, and has slowly been getting new releases on consoles and handhelds in the past few years. I reviewed a few Touhou games on the PS Vita, and one on the Nintendo Switch. With greater awareness brings in more fans to this franchise that started on Windows and is backed by an expansive lore behind its characters and world.

Yet, many console gamers don’t know what Touhou truly is or what it originated from. Games like Genso Wanderer and Double Focus are more geared as RPGs and 2D Platformers, when the franchise originated as Bullet Hell shooting games.

Last month, handheld fans got a taste of Touhou’s roots, in the form of not another RPG, Platformer, of Fighting Game, but a Horizontal Bullet Hell shooter. Here is my review of Touhou: Azure Reflections (listed on the eShop just as Azure Reflections) for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

azure 2 - story

This game takes place around Reimu, the shrine maiden that is a centerpoint in a lot of Touhou games, whom becomes involved when the “Scarlet Mist Incident” begins to reappear and repeat itself. Trapped with other Gensokyo residents, she travels back to the Scarlet Mansion to resolve the Mist Incident for the second time.

The problem with this game’s story is too little explanation and background. In essence, Azure Reflections is a direct sequel to Touhou 6: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, and does a decent job in its intro of describing the events of that game and what leads up to the incident repeating here. But the problem lies in character interactions that are long-winded and rely on knowing character quirks without explanation. As much as the intro summarizes Touhou 6, it does nothing to describe anything about the characters involved.

This is a problem with console-released Touhou games in general. Double Focus, Burst Battle, and this game throw you in, expecting you to know the backgrounds of all of these characters and the series, itself. While Genso Wanderer babies you too much, giving you incredibly-long-winded conversations every time you talk to virtually any NPC. The franchise has yet to find a good balance in terms of story when a new game comes out.

Gameplay

azure 4 - accessories

Azure Reflections is a Bullet Hell shooter, where you move your character around a 2D plane and shoot down incoming enemies, bosses, and do your best to avoid massive barrages of magical bullets flying your way. Although it is worth noting that, unlike Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, this is a Horizontal Bullet Hell Shooter, rather than a Vertical one.

The game has a few game modes to offer here. You have Start to access the Story Mode levels, Tutorial to learn the basics of the game, Accessory to buy and equip cosmetic accessories for the playable characters, along with a Database to access character information, player information, and other informative parts of the game.

Story Mode is where the meat of the game is, though. When you go into the game, you choose a difficulty, a playable character, and bullet style. These can be altered for different experiences as you clear the game and unlock playable characters and switch up your bullet style for different ways of playing.

azure 3 - pew

The idea here is that you’re thrown into 2D planes and must fly around and shoot down enemies as they show up until you reach a Boss, and then defeat that boss to move onto the next stage. This is pretty simple, but there is a bit more to it than that. Instead of having a long level and a short boss fight, the emphasis is more on boss battles than the levels, themselves.

Bosses have several phases to them, where they are firing off bullets and when they use Spell Cards to switch up their attack patterns. This is important, because each Spell Card has a time limit and your goal is to wear down their health while avoiding bullets quickly enough to rush them and capture the Spell Card before it’s used up. This is a key factor towards access the True Ending path for each run.

The thing about this shooter is all about managing your hitbox and using Rush attacks. Navigating around bullets isn’t too hard, considering only around the character’s heart registers as a hit on your health to stagger you and knock you out of your current position. The game has a focus ability to move slower and show that hitbox so you can carefully navigate around bullets while still firing on your opponent to multi-task your way into being careful and also finishing battles more quickly.

azure 5 - charge

Rush attacks is the other offensive capability you have that the entire game is basically built around. Called a Danmaku Rush (which is japanese for Bullet Hell Rush), it is a recharging skill where you can rush through bullets and absorb them into damage that can then be inflicted upon any enemy you fly into. THe goal behind this feature is to shoot at bosses until their HP is low enough for you to charge through their own bullets and use that power to knock them out and either push them into their next phase or capture the Spell Card they’re using against you.

Now, let’s get to the difficulty of the game. Bullet Hell games are known for the Hell portion of their name. You will have massive barrages and patterns of bullets flying at you that cover the entire screen, creating a difficult multi-tasking game of firing on your opponent while also watching those bullet patterns and finding safe paths to navigate around. This is very difficult, even on the Easy Difficulty, and the higher the difficulty, the harder patterns the bullets are thrown your way.

But, the game does give you ways around it. You can sacrifice some firepower to make a barrier around you to dissipate or freeze bullets, or you can use your own Spellcards for massive damage to any bullet and enemy around you, just so long as the enemy isn’t also using a Spellcard or you’ll automatically fail the capture and risk being pushed out of the True Ending. So, even if you aren’t good at these sorts of games, it is still doable with these features along with the lower difficulty settings.

azure 6 - card

Now, once you clear the game, you’re only partially there. There is the main story, plus the “Extra” stage that can only be unlocked by clearing the game’s True End path with all 3 playable characters. This is right in tune with the original Touhou shooters, and as such, the Extra Stage is incredibly difficult, even on Easy.

That brings us to time. Although you do several runs of the game across unlocking everything, and even more for grinding for currency for all the Accessories, it’s not very long. Jumping between Easy and Normal difficulties, I’d beaten the game with all 3 characters as well as the Extra Stage’s Secret Boss in less than 4 hours of play time. Granted, I still have a lot of accessories to unlock and buy, along with doing Hard Mode and the unlockable difficulty setting beyond it, this isn’t a very long game.

Controls

Controlling the game is pretty easy. The tutorial shows you everything you can do, and you won’t be using all of the Switch’s buttons across the game, especially considering it has Single Joy-Con play enabled.

Moving around is done with the Left Analog Stick or the Arrow Buttons. You shoot right with the A button and shoot left with the Y button. You can use the B button to use a Spell Card and the X for the Danmaku Rush attack.

Finally, all of the triggers are used, but 3 of them share the same ability. The R button uses the Barrier skill while L, ZL, and ZR are all options for activating Focus Mode to move more slowly and do more precise movements.

Presentation

azure 7 - pres

Graphically, this game looks really nice and definitely has some high production values attached to them. While the graphics look pretty smooth and basic when you’re shooting, every time you get close-up views of the 3D models shows just how detailed the game is. There are very few jagged edges, and they look like high-tier anime-style renders, and keep that quality with any cosmetics you equip to them.

The inclusion of many well-done remixes of Touhou music is welcome here, too. I was not a fan of some of the remixes done in Burst Battle, but they did a really good job raising the intenseness of a lot of music here, especially the remix of U.N. Owen Was Her.

Performance is the same. It runs nice and smooth, from start to finish.

Battery Life

I was hoping for high battery times for this game. While this is above the average for 3D games, it’s not as much as we got for Burst Battle. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 39 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 48 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 09 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 22 minutes

As I said above, it’s not as good as the previous Touhou Switch title, but it’s still plenty of time to get most of the game done in one charge.

In conclusion, Touhou Azure Reflections is handheld fans’ first exposure to the roots of the Touhou series. Although these games still haven’t found a true balance in story and it’s a bit of a short experience for the asking price, anyone who’s a fan of Touhou and Bullet Hell games will find a beautiful and intense shooter starring everyone’s favorite Shrine Maiden.

Final Score: 8.5/10

Dust: An Elysian Tail (Nintendo Switch) Review

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Game Title: Dust An Elysian Tail
Company: Dean Dodrill, Humble Hearts
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Retail (LRG), Digital Download
Battery Life: 3.5 – 4.5 hours
Download: 996 MB

In today’s world, there are many games out there in the indie world that you hear about being made by a one, two, or three-person team. Among all of the one-person games, you do see a few gems here and there, but not many of those gems also have a high production value. As great as Stardew Valley is, it is still inspired and made like retro games from way back when.

One of those one-man games that did have a very high production value and amount of charm that I’ve wanted handheld for a long time is Dust from Dean Dodrill. I actually reached out to him years back about bringing it to the PS Vita, but it wasn’t on his to-do list.

Thankfully, once the Switch happened, he came to the handheld world (outside of the Mobile port, that is). Now that I’ve not only had the opportunity to play it on the go, but play it early thanks to a review code from the dev, himself, here is my review of Dust: An Elysian Tail for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

dust 2 - story

Dust is centered around a young warrior named Dust, who awakens in the middle of the forest with no memory of who he is or where he’s from. Upon meeting a magical sword and its guardian, Fidget, the three of them set out on a journey to discover who Dust is and where their destiny lies.

The story of this game is very charming and RPG-like, showcasing a journey as Dust and Fidget go around the world, discovering what’s going on in said world along with slowly discovering who Dust is and what his journey is leading him towards.

What I like the most about this game, outside of the fact that it has full voice-acting, is the amount of references and comedy in the dialogue. In almost every scene, you have lots of serious stuff going on, with Fidget always being able to put comedy and various media and video game references. Her dialogue always had me laughing in nearly every scene.

Gameplay

dust 3 - gameplay

Dust is a 2D Metroidvania with lots of combat and RPG elements thrown into the mix. As you play through the game, you’ll be navigating 2D areas, fighting enemies, and doing a bunch of exploration.

Progression is fairly linear, but the RPG elements help keep this more open. In each chapter, you have new dungeons and areas open up, but every hub town you find for that chapter contain a bunch of NPCs with side-quests both in the main dungeons and extra dungeons that are reserved for side quests and optional areas, giving you a bunch of different stuff to do each chapter in different locations, from side-quests to using keys to open special treasure chests.

When you’re trekking through the game’s areas, your task is labeled on your map. To get there, you’ll have to travel from room to room, platforming around to find paths to the surrounding rooms and fighting off monsters that attack you to open up those paths. There’s also a certain puzzle element with blocked paths and bombs you can lead around obstacles to clear up the blocked area.

dust 4 - combat

Considering nearly every room with enemies blocks exits, you’ll be doing a lot of combat as you travel through this world. The game is like a hack n slash game with sword attacks, but you have several different combo attacks you can do with Y and X for variety and with how you attack different enemies. You also have a parry system, where you can block enemy attacks to stun them and counterattack, which is needed for many larger characters, like bosses.

You also have options with an energy gauge and projectile attacks. There is a Dust Storm attack you can perform both on the ground and in the air to combine with projectiles from Fidget to create massive AoE Magic Attacks, like Fire Pillars or webs of Lightning Bolts. This uses an energy gauge, which does massive damage to enemies but has to be recharged by doing normal attack combos.

dust rpg

Upon defeating enemies, you gain experience, materials, and money. The RPG elements start to show up here, as you level up from gaining experience and have stats that you can increase with points gained from leveling. The materials are used later for synthesizing new equipment to increase your stats further and add effects, like health regen.

Although the game even mocks itself for being a button-masher, there’s a lot of strategy thrown into a lot of the enemies. Towards the end, you can’t just button-mash as many enemies have guard abilities and you have to be careful about what you’re doing and when to exploit their weaknesses without taking massive amounts of damage, yourself. It brings it out of just another button-masher to a game that’s got some thinking involved, even if you pop down to the Casual Diffficulty.

As far as time is concerned, Dust will eat up a fair chunk of your time. Depending on how many side-quests you do, the game should last you around 8-10 hours, at least. The game has in-game Achievements/Trophies, so you could probably add at least another 5 hours on top of that if you’re a completionist.

Controls

The way you control this game is pretty easy. First of all, the game does not use touch controls, having a basis closer to the console versions of Dust than the Mobile version of the game.

You move around with either the Left Analog Stick and the Arrow Buttons / D-Pad. The L and R triggers are used for using healing items and swapping between Fidget’s projectile attacks. ZL and ZR are used for dodging left and right, which can also be done with the Right Analog Stick.

The face buttons are more interaction-based. B is used for jumping and A is used the rest are used for attacks. X and Y are used for melee attacks and A is used for projectile attacks.

Presentation

dust 6 - pres

Graphically, the game’s hand-drawn art style looks beautiful and reminds me of games like Odin Sphere and Muramasa from Vanillaware. In docked and handheld, the characters, effects, and environments look beautiful, colorful, and flawlessly rendered.

The character renders during story scenes are a fair bit blurry and fuzzy, though. This has been known to happen in other versions of the game, but definitely gives a slight imperfection to an otherwise-beautiful graphical presentation.

In terms of audio, there is a bit of an audio imbalance in the game. The introduction doesn’t have voice-acting when it should and there are some areas where the voice volume levels are dramatically lower than they should be. However, there is already a patch in certification to fix this, so it should be fixed very soon.

I did have one issue in terms of performance, though. The fps is stable, but I encountered a crashing issue upon a specific story scene being played early in the game. When I encountered it, it crashed every time without fail until I reverted back to an earlier save and caught back up to that point of the game. Once I did that, everything went through fine, so it’s currently unknown if this is a widespread issue or a secluded one.

Battery Life

In terms of Battery, you get quite a bit of time per charge here. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 24 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 50 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 31 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 42 minutes

I was pleasantly surprised with these readings.

In conclusion, Dust: An Elysian Tail is a beautiful platformer that’s hard to tell it wasn’t made by a large gaming company. Although there are some hiccups in the Switch version with the audio imbalancing and blurry cutscene renders, anyone who likes 2D platformers and comedy in their games can’t go wrong with Dust.

Final Score: 8/10

Senran Kagura: Reflexions (Nintendo Switch) Review

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Game Title: Senran Kagura Reflexions
Company: Marvelous, XSEED Games
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Digital Download
Battery Life: 2.75 – 3.75 hours
Download: 7.3 GB (without the Yumi DLC)

I’ve played lots of games that have had lewd touching mini-games thrown into them. Valkyrie Drive, Criminal Girls, Neptunia, Gun Gun Pixies, and the list goes on. It’s become something that’s very common in a certain niche part of the Japanese gaming market.

However, a game centered around these sort of lewd mini-games is something I haven’t seen before, yet it’s here and it’s exclusive to the Nintendo Switch. Who would’ve thought? In any case, I decided to dive back into the Senran franchise with this new game built around the new handheld’s unique take on motion controls.

So, here is my review of the newest lewd-heavy game for the Nintendo Switch, Senran Kagura: Reflexions!

Story

senran 2 - story

The plot of Reflexions centers around you and your classmate, Asuka. After being asked to meet her after class for some alone time with you, she reaches her hands out and asks you to hold them for her. Once you do, you become enraveled in shared daydreams that Asuka has involving the two of you in provocative and lewd role-playing scenarios.

The story I wouldn’t call bad or terrible, but more confusing. By the time you get to the end of the game, the purpose of the plot is revealed to you, and you get some very subtle hints towards it about halfway-through, but until you get to that point, it feels like there’s virtually no point to the plot outside of Asuka wanting to have fantasies about sexual role-playing with you.

Gameplay

senran 4 - customize

Reflexions is hard to label. It’s like an assortment of mini-games with some character customization thrown into the mix. Unlike the “Versus” games, you’re not going to be fighting enemies in 3D arenas, but rather you’re going to be taking part in petting and interactive mini-games involving massaging Asuka in various areas of her body and with various items and toys.

First of all, because I’m sure some of you will want to ask, this game has not been censored between releasing in Japan and the West. As far as I can tell from seeing videos of the Japanese version, everything here is the same as it was in Japan. Even the Vibrator Mini-game is still here and functional as you progress.

Now, progression. From the Main Menu, you have 4 game modes: Reflexology, Dress-Up, Mini-Reflexology, and Diorama. Reflexology is this game’s version of a Story Mode, where you go through the Mini-games in a gauntlet, along with Asuka talking to you in each story scene as you explore your daydreams together and she grows closer to you and becomes more fond of you.

senran 3 - hands

Mini-Reflexology is basically just the first mini-game you go through, where you massage and squeeze various parts of her body before going into the more interactive and angled mini-game. Dress-Up and Diorama are more customization and posing modes, where you can dress up Asuka and customize her with hairstyles, outfits, and accessories and place and pose her in the various environments of the game, which is great for setting up screenshots. In essence, it’s like the “Dressing Room” game modes for games like the Versus games or Valkyrie Drive on the Vita.

Now, let’s talk about Reflexology. In this game mode, you will go from holding Asuka’s hand to the daydream sequences where you role-play and massage Asuka in various roles of her fantasies. When you start out, you have to massage different parts of her hands to basically stimulate her and make her start to blush and fantasize about the two of you together. This has a little of a trick to it, as the parts that spark the daydreams will change each time you do them and they will be able to spark different day-dream scenarios.

This is pretty simple. You start off with Asuka talking to you in the scenario/setting, and then you have to give her a massage by squeezing and caressing various parts of her body. Each body part changes in color in accordance to how you are interacting with it and different colors represent different emotions. If you keep massaging her in the “red” area, she will grow increasingly-passionate towards you, while doing more the Blue or Violet areas that are more lewd body parts, she will become increasingly-upset with you.

senran 5 - brush

Eventually, her emotions will rise to the point where she wants to take the massage to the next level, where you will become very close to her and have to massage her in various ways, like rubbing her thighs with your hands, or running a hairbrush down her arm. This is where the game gets a bit more intense as you have motion controls and very specific actions you must perform to keep her in a good mood level to raise a heat gauge. If you can raise her body heat within the time limit, you will succeed and exit the day-dream.

And that’s basically what you do for the entire game. Touch her hand, spark a daydream, massage her during role-play, and repeat the process. The goal is to succeed in every attempt to fill up a bottle of emotions and unlock a piece of her heart by the time the game ends. Once you have one color, you go back and play Reflexions again to go for the other colors, requiring a total of 5 plays to unlock her complete heart and unlock the “True Ending” for the game.

This does make the game a bit grindy, but you do constantly unlock content while you’re doing this. Just as her heart has 5 color-coded completion possibilities, so do all of the different scenarios and role-plays you are pulled into. With each color completion come unlocked hairstyles, accessories, background music, and costumes for you to use in Dress-Up and toggle to use in the other game modes.

senran 6 - better customize

Of course, that doesn’t mean there’s a ton of replayability, either. In terms of time, I achieved the True Ending in about 5 runs, and another 3 runs to complete every color for every scenario to get 100% completion. That puts me at around a little under 2 hours for the True Ending and a little under 3 hours for 100% completion. Even for the lower price of $9.99, that’s not very much content.

While you can extend your replayability with the Yumi Scenario DLC that essentially doubles the Reflexology content, that doesn’t change the content vs price. It just changed 2-3 hours for $9.99 to 5-6 hours for $19.99.

Controls

This big thing about Reflexions on the Switch is that it heavily relies on the Joy-Cons’ ability to use Motion and Gyro Controls for all of the game’s mini-games. While all of these can use button controls, you can also tilt, shake, and lower the joy-cons with motion controls individually for all of the activities in Reflexology.

There’s only one problem with this. As interesting and fun as these motion controls are, they don’t always work. The “Roller” mini-game doesn’t always activate when you do the motion. This is strange, as the Vibrator mini-game uses the same motion and it works fine.

As far as button controls go, the two analog sticks move cursors during the Hand and Pre-Massage parts of the game. In the activities, you can also use the ZR button in combination with the Analog Sticks to utilize those activities, if you’re using handheld mode or just don’t want to use the motion controls.

Presentation

senran 7 - presy

Graphically, this game looks very good. The 3D renders for Asuka look incredibly-polished, as do all of the different outfits and accessories that you can equip to her.

The game also plays very well. I never saw dropping frames, and the loading times are practically non-existent.

Battery Life

Despite the graphical presentation, I was expecting Battery Life to be pretty decent. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 43 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 16 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 20 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 47 minutes

About what I expected. You can get most of the game, if not all of it done on one charge.

In conclusion, Senran Kagura: Relexions is a game that is made out of something that would normally be a mini-game in this franchise. Although the story is a bit confusing to take in, the game gets pretty repetitive, and the controls don’t always work, it’s not a bad pick for people who enjoy those sorts of mini-games and have ten bucks to spare. Bonus points if you’re someone who enjoys uncensored handheld games.

Final Score: 7.5


Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition HD (Nintendo Switch) Review

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Game Title: Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition HD
Company: Square Enix
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Digital Download
Battery Life: 2.8 hours – 3.5 hours
Download: 5.3 GB

It’s been ages since I’ve been able to dive into Final Fantasy, my favorite gaming franchise of all time, and that makes me quite sad. Square Enix was a huge supporter of the PSP, but wasn’t nearly as supportive of the PS Vita. In fact, I’ve never been able to do a Video Review for a Final Fantasy title with them having blocked World of Final Fantasy from playing on the Vita TV.

That all changes now. With Square coming out and announcing 8 Final Fantasy titles to be released in 2018 and 2019 on the Nintendo Switch, this Final Fantasy fan is very happy. The first of which came straight out of recent events in the form of Final Fantasy XV’s Chibi-fied version that originally released on Mobile and PC.

Without further delay, here is my review of Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition HD for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

ffxv 2 - story

Firstly, let’s talk about story in terms of Pocket Edition. The Main Questline and Main Story of FFXV is the same story in FFXV Pocket Edition, so all of the events of the story are shown both here and in the original release of FFXV. There are additional character scenarios thrown in from time to time, but all of XV’s main story is here in Pocket Edition.

FFXV takes place around two countries that are constantly at war. You play as Noctis, the prince of the kingdom of Lucis who is sent to take part in an arranged marriage with the opposing country of Niflheim, in the hopes of bringing peace and an end to the war. Not even halfway there, the kingdom is invaded, leading to Noctis becoming the new king and quickly being sent on a quest to acquire the sacred power of his ancestors to help him end the war for good.

The plot of XV I found to be a good mix of new and old Final Fantasy as it takes a lot of elements of “modern” Final Fantasy, or Modern Gaming in general and ties it in with a lot of plot points and elements that have been a part of Final Fantasy’s core lore since 1987. And despite this game looking the way it is, the story still remains a very emotional one. While the visual style does take a bit away from the more emotional moments, they still remain very emotional, thanks to the voice-acting.

Gameplay

ffxv 3 - gameplay

Like its original version, FFXV: Pocket Edition HD is an Action-RPG. Across the game, you’ll be navigating areas and dungeons, doing side-quests for NPCs, and fighting monsters in real-time battles.

The big question for many people is this: What’s the difference between FFXV and Pocket Edition? Here’s how I would describe it: Pocket Edition is like Dragon Ball Z Kai. A more focused version of FFXV with all of the filler quests and open world segments removed for a more simplified way to experience the story. There is no open world, each map is relatively condensed, and there are only occasional side-quests, most of which are exclusive to Pocket Edition.

Progression is pretty simple. In each chapter, you spawn in an area and have a destination to advance the story, normally with shops and a few side-quests here and there to keep you busy. The maps aren’t always small, but the game’s isometric camera angle makes navigating around and looking for items much easier.

ffxv 5 - arache

Combat is the biggest thing that has changed a little bit, but not as much as many would think. You participate in real-time battles where you hack and slash your way through enemies with Noctis’ assortment of Swords, Great-Swords, and Spears. The Warp Attack feature is still here, allowing you to interact a bit more through teleporting to faraway enemies along with having QTEs for Ally Abilities, Magic, and activating Glaives to power yourself up.

WHen you look at it, a lot of things look the same, but from a different camera angle. Comparing the Arache Boss from PE to FFXV, I saw that boss reactions and attack patterns are very similar between the two. One change I did like was the Magic System. Instead of crafting magic, you “Absorb” it from stones around the dungeons, an obvious nod to the Draw system from Final Fantasy VIII. Instead of magic then being a spammable attack like anything else, it is viewed as a much more powerful force, something many Final Fantasy games try to portray in story, but never really feels it in combat.

Once you end a battle, your party earns experience. One way this works differently is that you earn EXP through battle and quests but don’t earn those points until you get to the end of each section of a chapter, letting you see your EXP build up and decide whether or not you want to go back and do that Cactuar Hunt for the extra points towards leveling up.

ffxv 6 - ap

You also get AP during these segments, which is how you upgrade your abilities. You have a skill tree with skills you can unlock with AP. It looks like a much more simplified version of Final Fantasy X’s Sphere Grid and contains abilities for all characters, rather than one for each character in your party.

This goes for 10 chapters and it lasts longer than I expected it to. When this came out on consoles, I was under the impression that it was only around 9 or 10 hours long. Much to my surprise, even with skipping some of the longer side-quests, I didn’t finish this game until I’d been playing for around 16 hours. A pretty fair deal for both the sale price and full price.

As far as post-game is concerned, the game doesn’t really have any. You can replay previous chapters from the World Map, but there’s nothing extra to do once you beat the Final Boss outside of enjoying the ending.

Controls

Funny enough, this game doesn’t have any touch controls. Everything is done with the button controls.

You can use the Left Analog Stick or the Arrow Buttons / D-Pad to move around and the L and R triggers to help activate some skills in battle. The ZL/ZR triggers and the Right Analog Stick are not used in this game.

The face buttons are, though. A is used for talking with NPCs and B is used for Dodging. X is used for Warping and Y is used for physical attacks.

It’s a pretty simple scheme, but it works.

Presentation

ffxv 4 - pres

Visually, this game is designed in “Chibi” style, much like the DS Remakes of Final Fantasy 3 and 4, or World of Final Fantasy. In this regard, it pulls off the style and optimizes it pretty well. There are no jagged edges and everything looks crisp and smooth. Although it is a bit odd that mouths don’t move in cutscenes, it still retains the cute Chibi style that Square’s been portraying since they brought FF3 to the West.

The only real problems with the game are some performance hiccups here and there. This mostly comes down to small frame drops every so often when loading scenes or in combat, and small little glitches I noticed as I played through the game.

The glitches are a bit more important than combat, as they may require you to go back to an auto-save. The first I encountered was a misplaced camera during a scene, but the other two affected gameplay. The 2nd glitch I saw made Noctis get stuck around an enemy, completely unable to dodge or attack. The 3rd was a glitch where the isometric camera got too close to the characters, making a lot of map markers and enemy health bars impossible to see until the next cinematic story scene reset it.

None of these are huge and game-breaking with how often the game auto-saves, but they are annoying, all the same.

Battery Life

With its Chibi style, this game has a nice amount of time in handheld mode. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 49 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 58 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 22 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 31 minutes

It’s not the best out there, but it’s still pretty decent.

In conclusion, Pocket Edition HD brings Final Fantasy XV to the Switch in a cute and simplified way. Although the game has some glitches about and the style doesn’t quite fit some of the story’s events, I found it to be a fun little ARPG for someone who wants Final Fantasy on their Switch, or just wants to re-experience FFXV in a more focused and cute way.

Final Score: 8/10

Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae (Nintendo Switch) Review`

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Game Title: Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae
Company: Zenith Blue
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Digital Download
Battery Life: 4-5 hours
Download: 119 MB

It feels like every time I look at the eShop, there are a bunch of new Japanese-themed games heading to the Switch. I’m kinda glad, as it gives me that much more Japanese content to do for Reviews 2 Go. This week was no different, as I saw an interesting-looking action game that is very, very Japanese.

Dubbed by its previous releases as something like a Devil May Cry lite, here is my review of Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

m 2 - story

The plot revolves around two students of the Blade Templars, a group responsible for protecting the world from demonic invaders. When one of the students, Suzuka, strikes down their teacher under the influence of a demon sword, Misa is sent after her to put an end to the sword and Suzuka both.

The plot sets things up well enough, but it’s nothing all that special. You get an intro like what I said above and a couple little dialogue lines across the story about sword skills and duty, but there’s no real character development here. You are just placed in the shoes of Misa and never really get any depth outside of her and Suzuka interacting a few times, Misa being taunted for her sword skills. We get next to nothing about Suzuka outside of “student is influenced by evil sword and must now die”

Gameplay

m 3 - gameplay

MKH is a 3D action game that heavily relies on moving around in an arena and stringing combos together against waves of enemies. Think of it as a sort of cross between Croixleur Sigma and DMC.

When you go into the game, you really only have two game modes to choose from: New Game and Tutorial. There’s also Option, Credit, and Achievement, but those are more menu-based with no actual gameplay thrown into them.

The Tutorial is a basic run-down of how everything works in the game, from the Bleed System to how attack combos work. It does a pretty decent job of explaining everything (since the Story Mode/Campaign doesn’t) as well as the buttons responsible for each action you can perform.

m 6 - bossy

Story Mode is the meat of this game, though. Whenever you do a run through the campaign, you’ll be going through 5 arena stages as you fight off bodyguards and demonic entities in your quest to find and stop Suzuka. When you start, you also have difficulty settings to set how much damage you do to enemies and how much you take from them.

This is where the game gets interesting. You can freely move around this arena and attack with a few different attack types. You can do melee attacks with your fists and legs as well as slashing attacks with your sword. Once you do enough damage to an enemy, you can get them into “Bleeding” Status, where you can do a special sword skill to do critical damage to them and heal yourself in the process. It’s also a critical part of boss fights, as most bosses can parry most attacks until they get into Bleed Status and their defense tanks for a short while.

I’ll admit that this starts out feeling pretty basic and restrictive. You don’t have a lot of different attacks and maneuvers when you start your run, but once you gain points from defeating enemies and use the Upgrade system to unlock and power up different attacks, it’s a very different story. You go from doing simple 3-4 hit combos to large dashing attacks, followed up by extensive combinations of fist and sword fighting that can end in almost-endless combos as you fight through increasingly-larger and more difficult mobs of enemies.

m 5 - upgrades

Now, the looks of this definitely has a musou feel to it, which made me think it would be a bit repetitive, but the game is smart in that each stage introduces new enemy types that require different strategies to get around and fight. You easily go from just mashing buttons to fight off human enemies to having to carefully combo and parry or dodge to keep from taking large damage from new enemies that can block your incoming attacks and perform devastating counterattacks.

But, that’s not to say everything is good and fun. The combat is a load of fun once you start upgrading, but the camera makes it harder than it needs to be. There is no lock-on function and the camera will often hide enemies that are sneaking up behind you. Beyond that, some of the attacks don’t follow your commands when you want to lock onto certain enemies. I will direct my character to one enemy and two-hit dash attack will start with that enemy and quickly move to someone else, making some fights a bit frustrating.

To add onto the negative side of things, this game isn’t very long. A single run through the campaign should take you around 1.5-2 hours, depending on which difficulty setting you choose. As far as post-game goes, the game has built-in achievements for trophy hunters and each difficulty setting has a special costume you unlock upon completion. More cosmetic than anything, but that’s about as far as post-game goes.

Controls

Controlling the game isn’t too hard. It’s all with button controls. No motion or touch controls for this game.

You move around with the Left Analog Stick or Arrow Buttons and move the camera with the Right Analog Stick. The L trigger isn’t really used, while the R, ZL, and ZR triggers are used for special moves, Guarding, and the Bleeding Finisher move, respectively.

The rest is on the action buttons. A can be held for a special Holy Art attack. B is used for jumping. The X and Y buttons are responsible for most attacks with the Y button being used for hand-to-hand combat and X for your swordplay. You can also upgrade special attacks later on that combine X and Y with analog directions.

Presentation

m 4 - presy

Graphically, the game doesn’t look bad. The character models look quite detailed, especially when you see them in event scenes. The problem with presentation is more Audio Quality than anything else. Some of the sound effects sound like they are much lower quality than others. Specifically, the hand-to-hand combat sound very strange and LQ when compared to the sound of sword slashes.

Performance I have no problem with. Load times are short and the fps stays perfect for the entire game.

Battery Life

This game is another pleasant surprise for handheld gamers. Here are my Battery Times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 54 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 09 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 58 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 5 hours, 03 minutes

This is quite a bit of time, especially for a 2-hour game. You’re going to get lots of playtime in handheld mode.

In conclusion, MKH is a Japanese action game with a fun and in-depth combat system, brought down by a multitude of issues with its story, camera, and presentation. There’s some fun to be had, but that fun doesn’t come without frustration and low-quality audio.

Final Score: 6.5/10

NES – Nintendo Switch Online (Nintendo Switch) Review

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Game Title: Nintendo Entertainment System – Nintendo Switch Online
Company: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Digital (Exclusive to the Nintendo Switch Online Subscription)
Battery Life: 4.5 – 6 hours
Download: 58 MB

When the NES part of the Nintendo Switch Online service was announced, I was contemplating how to go about covering it. I imagined 20 installable NES games coming out and me doing separate Battery Tests for all 20 games and reviews for all 20 games and that intimidated me a bit. Thankfully, that’s not how they did it and I got a much better idea and grasp on it when the service launched.

Since the NES Games launched as a sort of Emulator Collection, I dove in and saw that even the Battery Life for all of the games was the same across all of the titles. So, instead of doing 20 reviews on 20 NES games, I decided to do one review on the application, itself.

So, here is my review of Nintendo Entertainment System – Nintendo Switch Online!

Design / Features

NES 2 - games

Essentially, this is an emulator that currently features 20 NES games and more to come each month, from The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. 3 to more multiplayer-oriented games like Baseball and Tecmo Bowl, heavily encouraging the new online multiplayer feature added to these retro games.

This application does a lot of things right and some things not-so-right. When you boot up the app, the UI is pretty simple. On the left side-bar, there are options for 1 Player, 2 Player, and Online 2-Player gameplay for pretty much any of the games within the collection. It works very quickly and simply to switch between the three game modes, letting you connection separate controllers and joy-cons for doing 2-player play, be it local or online with friends.

There is also an option here for display types, from a 4:3 ratio, a smaller “Pixel Perfect” ratio, and a CRT Filter. This is also where one of the app’s issues comes into play. First of all, there are no options for full-screen play. The largest is 4:3 which raises the game as tall as the TV screen, but maintains a 4:3 ratio throughout. This lack of options in that regard is a bit of a downer.

NES 3 - mario

What I like more is how the games are set up. They are on a customizable grid and can change size dependent on how many titles are in each row. You can take any title and move it around where you want, which is a highly-requested feature for the Nintendo Switch UI, itself. This is a small convenience and organization option that is much-appreciated as the games don’t seem to be organized in a particular format from the get-go.

When you get into a game, things are a tad different. The game loads with borders on the sides with your profile and the controls for the game, specifically the Start and Select Buttons and the triggers that open up the Emulator Options, like Creating Save States and going back to the Game Selection screen.

NES 4 - save states

All in all, it’s set up in a pretty simple manner. Although you don’t receive the controls for each game, it’s not too hard to figure out, as it follows the original controls of the NES with, Mario as an example, A for jumping and B for running.

That’s one design feature I don’t agree with, though. This is, essentially, an emulator. As an emulator, the controls are locked in place. There is no way to customize the different button controls and that’s pretty easy to throw people off, especially with newer Mario games no longer using the A to Jump, B to Dash format. It’s certainly playable and enjoyable, but would be nice to have that little QoL feature that most emulated games have.

Performance

NES 5 - zelda

Now let’s get into performance and presentation. Visually, the games look exactly as they did back during the NES days, for better or worse. On the bright side, the pixels do look smooth without any blurring from being blown up, but they also come with graphical and audio glitches from back then.

To be more specific, the screen-tearing and music-cutting from the old Mario games are still here. So, anytime you grab a coin, its sound effect will cut out music for a minute or so. It is just straight emulation, with only the online play being added. Nothing was really balanced for fixed in these versions of these games.

The other thing about the visuals is that there is a temporary burn-in effect on the Switch’s handheld screen when using the emulator’s CRT filter. It doesn’t take very long to start to set in and it disappears after around 5-10 minutes, but it is a bit concerning when you play Super Mario Bros. 3 for awhile and can still see the blocks on your screen for awhile after.

Battery Life

Here’s where things get really nice. All games share the same Battery Life. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 29 minutes
Max Brightness + Low Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 51 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 6 hours, 03 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 6 hours, 28 minutes

It’s a little expected, but over 6 hours is great.

In conclusion, the NES app is a pretty spiffy-looking collection of games with added multiplayer along with some pretty neat organizational features. It definitely has some improving to do, though, from he lack of standardized emulation button and fullscreen options to the temporary burn-in for the CRT filter. Still, despite the flaws, it’s fun to have Super Mario Bros. 3 on the Switch.

Final Score: 7/10

Gaokao Love 100 Days (Nintendo Switch) Review

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Game Title: Gaokao Love 100 Days
Company: Navila Software Japan
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Digital
Battery Life: 4.5-6 hours
Download: 1.5 GB

I’m starting to wonder if Angels of Death having its console (and handheld) debut on the Switch is inspiring and encouraging other PC VN-like developers to bring PC-only games over to the Switch. While I’m not sure I’d call AoD a pure VN, it fits with this trend I’m starting to see here. It came over. Nekopara Volume 1 came over with a still-delayed PS4 releases.

Then we have what I’m going to about today: A Chinese Visual Novel with bunches of branching paths and romance elements involved. This game is something I’d never heard of until I saw it on the eShop and found out not only is it only on PC, otherwise, but there’s not a whole lot about it on the net as a whole.

Let’s try to fix that. Here is my review of Gaokao Love 100 Days for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

gao 2 - story

GKL is about a student at a Chinese school and his friends, as they head towards and prepare for the “GaoKao” exam, which is China’s notoriously-difficult graduation exam that determines what sort of college or university they will be able to attend, if any at all.

The plot revolves around the protagonist, Lee, getting a girlfriend 3 months before the exam takes place and his struggles in keeping his relationship low-key and dealing with all of the heavy stress involved in preparing for this exam, not to mention how all of this is affecting their close friends, with or without knowledge of the relationship.

Although this game is a Dating Sim and has some pretty big arcs around its paths and endings, I found my secondary runs to be more on the dating side and the first run of GKL to be more of an eye-opening experience into how strict and cruel the Chinese Education system is. The overwhelming pressure of the GaoKao exam is pushed hard in this game, from the way Lee’s parents treat him all the way into separate branching paths that show what some students are pushed into from stress overload.

gao 3 - story 2

This leads into a very interesting narrative, but one that is hindered by a not-so-interesting translation. The English translation isn’t very good. There are misspelled words all over the place and the way sentences are structured just don’t make grammatical sense. It’s not hard to read, but takes a lot of getting used to with how poor the grammar organization is and how often problems pop up.

Gameplay

gao 5 - dialogue

GKL is a visual novel with dating sim and time/stat management elements thrown into the mix. You’ll be doing your usual visual novel fair of reading through a storyline, but you’ll be doing a lot of little tasks at menus to manage your stats as well as the time you have left before the GaoKao Exam at the end of the game.

The way this works is pretty simple. When you’re going through story scenes, you’ll eventually get to points where the story stops and you either make different dialogue choices or you choose what you wish to do on that day, be it study, take a way, sleep, etc. The choices you make in each situation will gear you in certain directions in terms of what ending sets you move towards as the game progresses towards Practice Tests as well as the Real Test, and the story can drastically change at the end of any of these events.

And this is all on the stat system. Every choice you make affects your stats in some way. You have stats for your relationship with Muxin, the default girlfriend as well as stats for all of your core subjects in school and your health and stress levels. Doing one thing may help one stat, or it may hurt another stat. Studying Hard will increase your academics but will also lower your health level and raise your stress level.

gao 3 - management

That’s where management comes in and shows itself as a pretty in-depth system. Unlike other games, you can’t just study hard all the time, as you will not perform well on a test at low health and high stress, even if you had absurdly-high academic scores. It’s all a game of managing it, and accounting for unpredictable life events, as some parts of the store will raise and lower your stats at will. Plan ahead, so when a crisis happens, you can recover and still manage a good score by the end of the game.

Thankfully, the Item system is here as well to give you a helping hand. As you explore areas and do things, you’ll get items you can equip. These can help you manage stats much easier, such as the Amulet lowering how much stress you accumulate through tasks and even items that guarantee you a Good, Normal, or Bad Ending, no matter what your grades are when you finish the game.

This is also part of the Branching Paths and Endings. GKL isn’t a game where you just go through the game and have one ending for each possible relationship or friendship partner. The game changes a lot in accordance to choices as well as your test results on practice tests. A bad grade could be the difference between a having a break-up and being shipped off to a military training school. The game has 61 endings over a ton of different path types that really shows a lot of different paths you can take when under the pressure of school and where those paths can lead you, be it love by friends or desertion by everyone but your own parents.

gao 4 - cokkie

There are two little problems I have with this, though. First, not all of the scenes accurately represent grades you get on your tests. Getting a passing score on the first practice test, for example, will often lead to both Lee and his parents reacting as if he completely failed the test and has to work harder or he will never get into a college at all. From what I’ve gathered, this is also a bug in the PC version of the game.

Second, a lot of the endings have repeated scenes and sequences. In one of Xiaohan’s paths, you have a situation where Lee visits his parents at the hospital to talk about his studies and another path, you have a situation where he’s alone for completely different reasons, yet the dialogue is exactly the same between the two paths and doesn’t make as much sense in one of the two it appears in.

In terms of time and length, the internet misled me, once again. Websites like HLTB and such had logs that this game lasts around 5-6 hours on a single run. I read dialogue pretty quickly, myself, and it was over twice that before I got my first ending. Unless you skip most dialogue, you’ll likely be spending at least 12-15 hours on your first run of the game, and all of that all over again to replay the game to get all of the other endings you want, even with skipping everything you’ve already seen.

Controls

Controlling the game isn’t too difficult. You can play the game wither with button controls or motion controls, which is nice for handheld players.

The basics are using A and B to cycle through dialogue, the ZL and ZR triggers to skip dialogue, the – button to set it to auto-advance, and various other face buttons to change the HUD, like making the text options disappear when you want to take screenshots. It’s not too hard to learn.

Presentation

gao 6 - presy

Visually, there’s usually not much to say with visual novel games. The artwork and character renders look nice and crisp. They aren’t animated like some other VNs, but they work.

No problems with performance.

Battery Life

As expected, you’ll get a lot of Battery Life out of GKL. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 31 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 4 hours 43 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 6 hours, 01 minute
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 6 hours, 16 minutes

Lots of Battery Time, indeed. You’ll get through a good chunk of the game on this.

In conclusion, GaoKao Love 100 Days is a very different sort of dating sim, giving players a more informative look at Chinese Culture and starting the Dating Sim off with you already dating someone. On the downside, the translation for the game isn’t very good, and it’s got some strange bugs and repeated scenes across multiple story paths. If you can get past the translation, though, it’s got a ton to do and is a very eye-opening experience into what Chinese students face when they prepare for college.

Final Score: 7.5/10

Revenant Dogma (PS Vita) Review

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Game Title: Revenant Dogma
Company: EXE Create, KEMCO
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Digital
Download: 248 MB
PSTV Support: Yes

I really enjoy when EXE Create and KEMCO RPGs come over to console, as I don’t typically experience them on mobile. That, and the fact that the games that do come to console are typically the games of theirs that are the most polished and enjoyable. Games like Asdivine Hearts and even Antiquia Lost I can really get into and enjoy.

Revenant Saga was also one that I thought was unique because of how it melded 2D exploration with 3D battles. Like Asdivine Hearts, it got a sequel of sorts and that sequel has come to PlayStation platforms, both for console and handheld play.

My first Vita review in a long time, here is my review of Revenant Dogma for the PS Vita and PSTV!

Story

dogma 2 - story

In the world of Revenant Dogma, there are two races that exist in the world, Humans and Therians, each separated by continents and each with their own set of deities. However, when one of these races receives blessings and power from the Gods and the other one doesn’t, a savior appears that creates miracles, granting special abilities to humans whom are then dubbed “Revenants”.

You play as Caine, an orphan sent to look for magical therian relics and ends up stumbling into a Revenant Research Lab. For tresspassing and saving the person being experimented on, he is branded a traitor and hunted into Therian territory, where he is captured and given the truth about what’s really going on in the world.

This game’s story I wouldn’t call amazing, but it works for showing a world-ending threat. It connects to Revenant Saga in a way that players of Saga will see some fun Easter Eggs but newcomers can still play Dogma with no prior knowledge. The only downisde is that many of the characters’ dialogue in scenes will often be out in left field and it has a fair number of translation/grammar mistakes thrown into not only dialogue but some menus.

Gameplay

dogma 3 - gameplay

Like their other games, Revenant Dogma is a turn-based retro-style RPG. You travel around on a world map, visit towns and dungeons, and take place in turn-based battles. Like Saga before it, it also incorporates the uniqueness of being both a 2D and 3D RPG, with exploration being 2D like SNES-style RPGs and battles being more 3D in nature like PSX and newer RPGs.

The progression in the game isn’t out of typical RPG fashion. You travel around on the world map, constantly pointed towards new areas from the story and you go to these areas to advance the story by talking to NPCs, navigating dungeons, and fighting through boss fights. Not really a lot to really stand out here.

Combat is where the uniqueness comes in. As I said before, this game retains Revenant Saga’s look of having 3D battles instead of 2D battles. More importantly is that the Transform system returns from Saga. As you play through the game, you obtain new transformations which are basically classes that you can go into. Certain skills are exclusive to certain classes, so you’ll be constantly switching between different transformations through battles to be able to use debuffs, magic attack skills, or just to get certain stat boosts that only certain forms grant you. It’s like having a class-based system, but your characters can freely swap classes in mid-battle.

dogma 4 - 3d battles

The rest of the combat system is similar to other Retro RPGs. You obtain new abilities when you level up, and each character has specific skills that are exclusive to them, be it buffs and debuffs, healing spells, or just different ways to attack enemies. In this way, it’s not all that different from the 2D RPGs they make.

As with others, the game does have some special “cheat” items that are exclusive to IAPs/Microtransactions. Unlike previous games, though, these items are exclusive to IAPs and aren’t available to buy with the premium currency you can use for other items from the Shop.

dogma 5 - fast travel

There are two things I do like about this game, though: Fast Travel on the World Map and weapon drops from random encounters. You can fast travel to any previously-found locations on the Map, which significantly lowers the amount of backtracking you have to do later on in the story. And random encounters drop weapons almost constantly, which means you don’t have to buy weapons from shops as just doing a few battles in a dungeon will net you a bunch of new weapons that are normally just as good as the shop’s inventory.

Now, let’s talk length. The game does have occasional side-missions in each town, but don’t expect a long game. Revenant Saga took me around 20 hours to complete, whereas Revenant Dogma only took me around 12 (which translates to more around 10-11 because of something I’ll mention in the presentation section). It’s still a nice time allocation for the price, but don’t expect this to be one of KEMCO’s longer journeys.

Controls

Controls are pretty typical here. No touch controls. No motion controls. The game is compatible with the PlayStation TV, like previous KEMCO RPGs, so you have a nice TV and Handheld experience here.

Moving around is done with the Left Analog Stick and D-Pad and the Right Analog Stick doesn’t really go anything. The L trigger is used for healing the party’s HP while exploring (L2 on the PSTV) and the R trigger is used in combat.

Then, the face buttons. X lets you confirm and interact with NPCs and Circle lets you cancel options. Square opens the World Map and Triangle opens the menu. Pretty standard controls here, and they’re all controlled well. Just don’t skip the tutorials or you may find Fast Travel much later on.

Presentation

dogma 6 - presy

Graphically, I’m not sure what to say. The 2D environments look pretty polished as these games normally look, but the 2D character renders look significantly blurry when compared to the environments. Once you’re in battle, though, there’s no blurring effect. The only issue there is that the 3D graphics are more or less PSP level and actually look a little less-detailed than in Revenant Saga. I saw a lot more jaggies in Dogma than when I looked back on my Vita review of Saga.

Performance, though. Here’s where this version really suffers. Revenant Dogma on the Vita seems to struggle to run. It has a significant amount of lag that gives it a very choppy slowdown-like effect that lasts for the entire game. I really like that KEMCO’s RPGs have a good, fast pacing when it comes to moving and Dogma seems to run that way on every platform I’ve tried except for the Vita version. It really hinders the experience.

In conclusion, Revenant Dogma is a retro RPG that has uniquness in its 2D and 3D systems and different take on class-based character development. On the downside, there are some minor issues in the game’s story and some very jarring performing issues that hold it back. It’s worth playing for retro RPG or KEMCO fans, but you may be better off playing on the PS4 or Switch.

Final Score: 6.5/10

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